(from http://www.nbcnews.com/business/careers/man-fired-after-skipping-work-24-years-n282931)
A.K. Verma, an executive engineer at the Central Public Works Department in India, was fired after last appearing for work in December 1990. "He went on seeking extension of leave, which was not sanctioned, and defied directions to report to work," the government said in a statement Thursday. Even after an inquiry found him guilty of "willful absence from duty" in 1992, it took another 22 years and the intervention of a cabinet minister to remove him, the government said. India's labor laws, which the World Bank says are the most restrictive anywhere, make it hard to sack staff for any reason other than criminal misconduct.
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(from(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Hazare)
Kisan Baburao "Anna" Hazare is an Indian social activist who led movements to promote rural development, increase government transparency, and investigate and punish official corruption. In addition to organising and encouraging grassroots movements, Hazare frequently conducted hunger strikes to further his causes—a tactic reminiscent, to many, of the work of Mohandas K. Gandhi.
Hazare also contributed to the development and structuring of Ralegan Siddhi, a village in Parner taluka of Ahmednagar district, Maharashtra, India. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan—the third-highest civilian award—by the Government of India in 1992 for his efforts in establishing this village as a model for others.
Anna Hazare started an indefinite hunger strike on 5 April 2011 to exert pressure on the Indian government to enact a stringent anti-corruption law, The Lokpal Bill, 2011 as envisaged in the Jan Lokpal Bill, for the institution of an ombudsman with the power to deal with corruption in public places. The fast led to nation-wide protests in support. The fast ended on 9 April 2011, a day after the government accepted Hazare's demands. The government issued a gazette notification on the formation of a joint committee, consisting of government and civil society representatives, to draft the legislation.
For the year 2011 Foreign Policy magazine named him among top 100 global thinkers. Also in 2011 Anna was ranked as the most influential person in Mumbai by a national daily newspaper. He has faced criticism for his authoritarian views on justice, including death as punishment for corrupt public officials and his alleged support for forced vasectomies as a method of family planning.
In 1991 Hazare launched the Bhrashtachar Virodhi Jan Aandolan (BVJA, People's Movement against Corruption), a popular movement to fight against corruption in Ralegaon Siddhi. In the same year he protested against the collusion between 40 forest officials and timber merchants. This protest resulted in the transfer and suspension of these officials.
. . . intentionally, and masterfully perpetrated-with the assistance of ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR, WSJ, NYTs, USA Today, Washington Post, New York Post (you get the 'picture'). . .
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Al-Qaeda translation: "The Base" and alternatively spelled al-Qaida and sometimes al-Qa'ida) is a global militant Islamist organization founded by Osama bin Laden in Peshawar, Pakistan, at some point between August 1988 and late 1989, with its origins being traceable to the Soviet War in Afghanistan. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad and a strict interpretation of sharia law. It has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United Nations Security Council, NATO, the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, India and various other countries (see below). Al-Qaeda has carried out many attacks on non-Sunni Muslims, non-Muslims, and other targets it considers kafir. . .
(from http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Analysis-Whos-really-calling-the-shots-in-al-Qaida-322309)
. . . the United States killed the second-in-command of affiliate organization al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Abu Sufyan al-Azdi, in a drone strike in Yemen last year. He was reportedly wounded in the October 2012 strike and died a few months afterward. Jihadists recently called for revenge, and the terrorist organization’s affiliates in Iraq and Somalia are expressing their anger over his killing, according to Site, a jihadi monitoring website. There could also be a connection with the recent appointment of a Yemeni AQAP leader, Nasir al-Wuhayshi, as general manager of al-Qaida, effectively making him the No. 2 man in the organization. . .
(from http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/fakealqaeda.php)
"The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the 'devil' only in order to drive the TV watcher to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US . . ." -- Pierre-Henri Bunel
(http://www.rense.com/general68/alq.htm)
Shortly before his untimely death, former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told the House of Commons that "Al Qaeda" is not really a terrorist group but a database of international mujaheddin and arms smugglers used by the CIA and Saudis to funnel guerrillas, arms, and money into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. Courtesy of World Affairs, a journal based in New Delhi, WMR can bring you an important excerpt from an Apr.-Jun. 2004 article by Pierre-Henry Bunel, a former agent for French military intelligence. "I first heard about Al-Qaida while I was attending the Command and Staff course in Jordan. I was a French officer at that time and the French Armed Forces had close contacts and cooperation with Jordan . . .
". . .But let me first be complimentary. Mr. Tendulkar, whom everyone calls
Sachin, is the most revered cricketer in India; in fact, it would be
entirely accurate to describe him as the most revered contemporary
Indian, or even, with only a pinch of hyperbole, the most revered Indian
since Mahatma Gandhi held the nation in thrall. Suspend your disbelief
and think of him as a cross between Babe Ruth and Martin Luther King.
Sachin currently dominates India’s imagination even more than usual:
Today, in his native Mumbai, he will begin playing his 200th test match
(as the five-day version of cricket is called), when India takes on the
West Indies, a once-mighty team now fallen on hard times. It will also
be his last test match, for he will retire from competitive cricket
after the game. As the moment of his departure looms, the country is in
the fevered throes of one last, mammoth celebration, but also on the
un-self-conscious brink of mourning. . . "
(more from Christopher Hitchens circa 1998 http://www.american-buddha.com/material.high.htm)
". . .The Dalai Lama has come out in support of the thermonuclear tests recently conducted by the Indian state, and has done so in the very language of the chauvinist parties who now control that state's affairs. The "developed" countries, he says, must realize that India is a major contender and should not concern themselves with its internal affairs. This is a perfectly realpolitik statement, so crass and banal and opportunist that it would not deserve any comment if it came from another source.
"Think different," says the ungrammatical Apple Computer advertisement that features the serene visage of His Holiness. Among the untested assumptions of this billboard campaign is the widely and lazily held belief that "Oriental" religion is different from other faiths: less dogmatic, more contemplative, more ... transcendental. This blissful, thoughtless exceptionalism has been conveyed to the West through a succession of mediums and narratives, ranging from the pulp novel "Lost Horizon," by James Hilton (creator of Mr. Chips as well as Shangri-La), to the memoir "Seven Years in Tibet," by SS veteran Heinrich Harrer, prettified for the screen by Brad Pitt. China's foul conduct in an occupied land, combined with a Hollywood cult that almost exceeds the power of Scientology, has fused with weightless Maharishi and Bhagwan-type babble to create an image of an idealized Tibet and of a saintly god-king. So perhaps the Apple injunction to think differently is worth heeding.
The greatest triumph that modern PR can offer is the transcendent success of having your words and actions judged by your reputation, rather than the other way about. The "spiritual leader" of Tibet has enjoyed this unassailable status for some time now, becoming a byword and synonym for saintly and ethereal values. Why this doesn't put people on their guard I'll never know. But here are some other facts about the serene leader that, dwarfed as they are by his endorsement of nuclear weapons, are still worth knowing and still generally unknown.
Shoko Asahara, leader of the Supreme Truth cult in Japan and spreader of sarin nerve gas on the Tokyo subway, donated 45 million rupees, or about 170 million yen (about $1.2 million), to the Dalai Lama and was rewarded for his efforts by several high-level meetings with the divine one.
Steven Seagal, the robotic and moronic "actor" who gave us "Hard to Kill" and "Under Siege," has been proclaimed a reincarnated lama and a sacred vessel or "tulku" of Tibetan Buddhism. This decision, ratified by Penor Rinpoche, supreme head of the Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism, was initially received with incredulity by Richard Gere, who had hitherto believed himself to be the superstar most favored. "If someone's a tulku, that's great," he was quoted as saying. "But no one knows if that's true." How insightful, if only accidentally. At a subsequent Los Angeles appearance by the Dalai Lama, Seagal was seated in the front row and Gere two rows back, thus giving the latter's humility and submissiveness a day at the races. Suggestions that Seagal's fortune helped elevate him to the Himalayan status of tulku are not completely discounted even by some adepts and initiates.
Supporters of the Dorge Shugden deity -- a "Dharma protector" and an ancient object of worship and propitiation in Tibet -- have been threatened with violence and ostracism and even death following the Dalai Lama's abrupt prohibition of this once-venerated godhead. A Swiss television documentary graphically intercuts footage of His Holiness, denying all knowledge of menace and intimidation, with scenes of his followers' enthusiastically promulgating "Wanted" posters and other paraphernalia of excommunication and persecution.
While he denies being a Buddhist "Pope," the Dalai Lama is never happier than when brooding in a celibate manner on the sex lives of people he has never met. "Sexual misconduct for men and women consists of oral and anal sex," he has repeatedly said in promoting his book on these matters. "Using one's hand, that is sexual misconduct." But, as ever with religious stipulations, there is a nutty escape clause. "To have sexual relations with a prostitute paid by you and not by a third person does not constitute improper behavior." Not all of this can have been said just to placate Richard Gere, or to attract the royalties from "Pretty Woman."
I have talked to a few Dorge Shugden adherents, who seem sincere enough and who certainly seem frightened enough, but I can't go along with their insistence on the "irony" of all this. Buddhism can be as hysterical and sanguinary as any other system that relies on faith and tribe. Lon Nol's Cambodian army was Buddhist at least in name. Solomon Bandaranaike, first elected leader of independent Sri Lanka, was assassinated by a Buddhist militant. It was Buddhist-led pogroms against the Tamils that opened the long and disastrous communal war that ruins Sri Lanka to this day. The gorgeously named SLORC, the military fascism that runs Burma, does so nominally as a Buddhist junta. I have even heard it whispered that in old Tibet, that pristine and contemplative land, the lamas were the allies of feudalism and unsmilingly inflicted medieval punishments such as blinding and flogging unto death.
Yet the entire Western mass media is uncritically at the service of a mere mortal who, at the very least, proclaims the utter nonsense of reincarnation and who affirms the sinister if not indeed crazy belief that death is but a stage in a grand cycle of what appears to be futility and subjection. What need, then, to worry about nuclear weaponry, or sectarian frenzy, or the sale of indulgences to men of the stamp of Steven Seagal? "Harmony" will doubtless kick in. During his visit to Beijing, our sentimental Baptist hypocrite of a president turned to his dictator host, recommended that he meet with the Dalai Lama and assured him that the two of them would get on well. That might easily turn out to be the case. Both are very much creatures of the material world. . . "
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