Trial by the Media: Screw Up All Men

[Editor: Yes, this seems to be the new jargon of Indian Journalism. The journalists of all hues are involved in the active implementation of this theme, whether it is in the case of a person running an "Ashram" or it relates to the "Sexual Behavior" of one of their own men. The Cacophony is same everywhere: "Screw-up all men" just in slight pretext.  The words are thrown, with such precision, that blood boils of young and old. Trial by the media is telling and those who are playing with fire could one day become victims-- the writing on the wall is, India has anti-men jurisprudence. Thanks to a group of women perverts who ENJOY SEX and then denies to save the required public face, when the things come up in public. Thanks to a group of sycophants of some political outfits who are more concerned to toe the party line rather than, seeing the truth. The Journalists who delivers judgement, blinded by emotions and gender prejudice, are a curse for the world!! It is better that Indian intelligentsia, takes them with a grain of salt, unless any court conviction comes up. But when Indian media is so violent and assertive, it raises genuine questions regarding the neutrality of any court (or Judiciary) of India; and that follows any judgement. The moral of the story is that when vengeance takes precedence over, facts, then everyone knows where a society is going to land. The above points seems to be oozing out from the  diatribe of one Ms.Shefali Vaidya in her Facebook Page, titled 'Why are you so outraged over this Tehelka scandal', they ask me.against a high profile but controversial media-man. However, some of the points mentioned by the lady can provoke anyone to question, the stand of the media-personality (in the context) on issues related to women. The write-up has been copied from her Facebook page and delivered for  your kind perusal. When people loses all sense of civility and goes on the path of direct acquisition without any fact and figure, we call it INSANITY. The rest is for you to decide] 

'Why are you so outraged over this Tehelka scandal', they ask me.

Photo, Courtesy: Satish Acharya

I am outraged because I was a 22 year old journalist once. I am outraged because someday, my daughter will be 22 and start work.

I am outraged because 50 year old perverts are so drunk on power and political clout that they think nothing of forcing themselves upon women half their age, not once, but twice, and then send them shameless texts about 'fingertips'.

I am outraged because a vile scumbag took advantage of his position to sexually assault a vulnerable girl who trusted him as a father figure, a girl who was his friend's daughter and his daughter's friend both.

I am outraged because when she resisted, the jerk tried to intimidate her by hinting that 'the best way to hold her job is to give in'.

I am outraged because this was the same man, who made a career out of being a presstitute, whose pen was on hire for the highest bidder, and yet, lectured others on probity and high morals from every pulpit he could find.

I am outraged because this over-the-hill hack who couldn't keep his pants zipped up, had the gall to 'recuse' himself to a six month old paid vacation as a 'lacerating penance'.

I am outraged because a noted poet thought this was enough 'repentance' and lauded the creep on his 'impeccable values'.

I am outraged because many in the fraternity first described the assault as an 'incident', like all Tejpal did was to pass gas in polite company! Now THAT would have been an 'incident'. THIS, my dear holier than thou, sanctimonious swish journos, is RAPE! 

And finally, I am outraged because, his sidekick, a sanctimonious woman who claimed she is outraged by rape, condoned the rape by her boss and continues to whitewash his actions by churning out creative excuses that are as ridiculous as they are puke-inducing.

I am outraged because, not only the emperor, but the whole kangaroo court is caught without any clothes on, and they are still trying to sell us the idea that nudity is a state of mind!

Note: The writing has been copied form the Facebook Page of Ms.Shefali Vaidya (which was open for all public to view--no restrictions imposed. She is not in my friend list but still I could view her take on the matter), without her consent and hence I will apologize in case I have violated any legal code of conduct. 

Woman, four others held for husband's murder in Maduravoyal

The main entrance of the station
Photo: http://en.wikipedia.org

CHENNAI: The Chennai city police arrested a woman and four men in connection with the murder of her husband in Maduravoyal on Thursday.

The murder of Raj Kumar, 29, a resident of Astalakshmi Nagar in Maduravoyal, came to light when a police team was checking vehicles on the Chennai-Bangalore national highway at 4am on Thursday.

The team, lead by sub-inspectors Sebastian and Ezhumalai of the Maduravoyal police station, stopped four men as they were returning to Kancheepuram on two bikes after the murder. The police got suspicious when they noticed blood stains on the shirt of one of the accused men.

During questioning, the man claimed that he was injured on Thursday night. However, he failed to show the wound to the police personnel.

The police took the suspects into custody. During questioning, they confessed to have killed Raj Kumar at his home as directed by their boss, Cheyyar Durai.

Police personnel went to Raj's house and found his dead body in the hall. His wife Vidya, 25, and her five-year-old daughter Deepika were sleeping in the bedroom. They took Vidya into custody for questioning. Preliminary inquiries revealed that Vidya and her boyfriend Manikandan were behind the murder of her husband.

Vidya had fallen in love with Raj Kumar eight years ago when they were working at a private export garment company in Porur. They got married and lived in a house in Maduravoyal. After a while, Vidya allegedly developed an extra marital affair with Manikandan, who was her colleague. Raj Kumar asked his wife to snap her friendship with Manikandan. However, she refused to do so.

Raj Kumar said to have harassed his wife over this issue. Manikandan allegedly devised a plan to eliminate Raj Kumar when Vidya told him about the torture she suffered at her husband's hands. He engaged Cheyyar Durai of Kancheepuram to eliminate Raj Kumar. Durai arranged four hooligans -- Perumal, Giridharan, Saravanan and Senthil - to execute the plan.

The four men came to Maduravoyal from Kancheepuram on two bikes to kill Raj Kumar. They called Vidya on her mobile after reaching her house. Vidya opened the door and allowed them to enter the house while Raj Kumar was sleeping in the hall. She held her husband's legs tightly and the men killed him by cutting his throat with knives. As they were escaping on two bikes after the murder, police caught them.

Leaving the door unlocked, Vidya went to sleep in the bedroom with a dream of cooking up a story about her husband's murder. But her dream was shattered when the police nabbed the murderers.

Police have launched a manhunt to nab Manikandan and Durai.

Chennai city police commissioner S George commended the police personnel for apprehending the suspects.

"We will reward the police personnel appreciating their effective work," Anna Nagar deputy commissioner of police S Xavier Dhanraj told TOI.

Raj Kumar's dead body was sent to the Kilpauk Medical College Hospital for postmortem.

Courtesy: The Times of India

Chinese man in Canada extradited to Japan over 1995 murder

He Liang (C), surrounded by Japanese policemen
arrives at the Narita international
airport in Narita, suburb

Tokyo, November 15, 2013: A 43-year-old Chinese man was extradited to Japan from Canada Friday on a passport violation charge as police in Tokyo hoping he could shed light on a triple murder there nearly twenty years ago.

He Liang arrived at Tokyo's Narita airport Friday afternoon, accompanied by Tokyo police who arrested him in Toronto on Thursday when he was handed over to them from Canadian police at a detention centre there, media reports said.

"He was arrested in Canada on suspicion of violating the passport control law [in Japan] on Thursday," a spokeswoman for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department said.

His arrival at the airport was witnessed by a horde of Japanese reporters and photographers before he was taken to a police station in the Tokyo suburb of Hachioji for questioning.

It was in Hachioji in July 1995 that three female workers were shot dead at point-blank range in the head in a supermarket office.

The killer escaped without stealing money or jewellery from the victims or from a locked safe in the office, a fact which has puzzled police and given rise to speculation that the shooting was motivated by a personal grudge.

He, who had settled in Canada since 2006 when he landed there as a refugee, lived in Japan in 1995 and is believed to know the killer.

One of his Japanese acquaintances, a mobster executed in China in 2010 for drug trafficking, told Japanese police in 2009 that He "may know something about the culprit" as he knew about the murders in great detail, media reports said.

The victims -- a 47-year-old woman and two high school girls, aged 16 and 17 -- were all part-time workers.

The case shocked Japan where possession of firearms is tightly controlled despite sporadic gangland shooting incidents.

After tracking down the Chinese man, a native of Fujian province, Tokyo police demanded in 2010 that Canadian authorities extradite him for the relatively minor offence of leaving Japan for Hong Kong in April 2002 on a passport bearing a false identity, an MPD official said.

He later obtained permanent residency in Canada.

In September last year, a lower court in Canada approved his extradition to Japan and an appeal court upheld the decision in September this year.

"I don't know because it has been a long time," He was quoted as telling investigators about the passport law violation, according to media reports.

The MPD is set to question him about the murders as well, the reports said.

Courtesy: Yahoo.com

Canada to extradite Chinese man to Japan in 1995 triple murder probe

TOKYO, NOV. 03, 2013: The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department said Sunday that a Chinese man, who lives in Canada, will be extradited to Japan to be questioned about a triple murder in Tokyo’s Hachioji in 1995.

The 43-year-old man is wanted in Japan for using a forged passport to leave the country in 2002. He obtained Canadian citizenship in 2006.

A police spokesman said that a Canadian appeals court had finalized the extradition request that was approved in September this year, upholding a lower court decision, Fuji TV reported. The police will send investigators to Canada this month to escort the suspect back to Japan.

Japan’s National Police Agency first filed an extradition request with Canadian authorities in 2010 with the Ontario High Court. However, the suspect filed an appeal, claiming that he should not be extradited over a passport violation if the objective is to question him about a murder case. 

The NPA has offered a 3 million yen reward for information leading to the arrest of the person or persons responsible for the murders of three women workers at a supermarket in Hachioji on July 30, 1995.

The three women, two of whom were 17-year-old students working part-time, were shot to death during a robbery at the supermarket. The killer got away without stealing money and jewellery from the victims or the locked safe in the office, a fact which has puzzled police and given rise to speculation that the shooting was motivated by a personal grudge.

Police were unable to achieve a breakthrough in the case until 2009, when a Japanese man on death row in China for drug trafficking made a statement to Japanese police that a Chinese man in Canada was involved in the murder.

The Japanese man, who was executed in 2010, told Japanese investigators that the suspect in Canada was part of a gang of Japanese and Chinese who carried out a series of robberies in Japan in the 1990s. 

Courtesy: Japan Today

Philippines urged to save OFW in Saudi death row

Photo: http://konsehalbelenluisaga.blogspot.in

MANILA, Nov, 4, 2013 – The Filipino migrants rights group Migrante-Middle East and North Africa urged President Benigno Aquino to exert all efforts to save the life of Filipino worker Joselito Zapanta who is facing the death penalty in Saudi Arabia.

A Saudi court meted death to Zapanta in 2010 after he killed his Sudanese landlord in 2009 over house rental quarrel. Zapanta said he only defended himself from attack by his landlord. His victim’s family is asking Saudi riyal 4 million in blood money in exchange for forgiveness and the ultimatum had already lapsed. 

“President Aquino should have sent Vice President Jejomar Binay in his capacity as the presidential adviser on OFWs concerns last month or months before the November 3 ultimatum set by the Saudi court as manifested by the aggrieved family if his administration is really sincere in its effort to save OFW Zapanta and others who are still on death row in Saudi Arabia,” M-MENA coordinator John Leonard Monterona said in a statement sent to the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.

Monterona said Aquino’s appeal letter to the Saudis is not enough to save Zapanta’s life, adding the P6 million in blood money raised in the Philippines should be handed over to the family of the Sudanese through the Saudi Reconciliation Committee , a quasi-government agency active in dealing negotiations between the aggrieved and offending parties involving death row cases.

“If it is true that His Highness Saudi King Abdullah shouldered the Saudi riyal 2.3 million out of the total four million riyals plus the contributions from the Pampanga provincial government, from OFWs and OFW groups, and other contributors, then there is a big chance that the Sudanese family will accept the initial amount of blood money to get a conditional waiver on Zapanta’s execution until the blood money will be completed,” Monterona explained.

“Aquino could even share fund from its special purpose funds and presidential funds to complete the blood money to save the OFWs on death row like Zapanta, but this would not happen because of Aquino’s No blood money policy.”

Monterona also lambasted the Department of Foreign Affairs for its failure to provide a Saudi lawyer to Zapanta during court hearings. “Only an interpreter was provided during case hearings. The DFA only provided legal assistance after the Saudi court meted death to Zapanta when the Zapanta family decided to file an appeal on May 2010,” he said.

Courtesy: Mindanao Examiner

World Chess Championship: Anand loses again, Carlsen a draw away from world title

CHENNAI, Nov 21, 2013: Challenger Magnus Carlsen closed in on the crown after defeating defending champion Viswanathan Anand in the ninth game of the World Chess Championship match on Thursday.

On what turned out be a dramatic affair, Anand missed out on his chances in white pieces and suffered a painful defeat that almost sealed the fate of the match.

Carlsen now leads 6-3 and needs just half a point from the remaining three games to become the new world champion.

It was a Nimzo Indian defense that Carlsen chose as black and Anand, realizing well that this was his last chance for a strike, went for the Saemisch variation.

Anand had used this system before, in World Championship match against Kramnik and later in a gem of a match against Wang Hao of China.

Carlsen showed some signs of nervousness in the early stages of the middle game after he went for a line that is not favoured in top level chess.

Anand got his chances by way of a King-side attack while Carlsen pushed harder on the other flank. The position in the middle game looked very dangerous for Carlsen but with precise calculations, he kept himself in the game.

Even till the end of the game, Carlsen's queen and one Bishop remained on the initial squares as mere spectators to the proceedings, while he defended his position with all available resources.

On the 22nd move, Anand had about 25 minutes more than Carlsen and optically dominating position, but the Norwegian world number one had calculated that his King was guarded against any checkmate threats.

On the 23rd move, Anand spent nearly 40 minutes and decided to continue the attack instead of equalizing once again. This was more to do with match situation as Anand had things under control but another drawn result would not have improved the match situation.

Carlsen found the best possible moves from this point and Anand simply blundered on his 28th move by moving his knight to a check coming from a new promoted queen. Another move would have helped continue the game but this was certainly not Anand's day.

With just a draw needed, Carlsen should be able to take home the title in the 10th game itself when he gets white pieces.

"We got a very sharp position from the opening, basically I missed something with the pawn rollers, it was really a very tough game," Carlsen said after the game.

The Norwegian added that he was trying to calculate as best as possible.

"I was trying my best and I could not find a forced win for white," he said.

Anand said he had not seen the blunder. "I just got a little excited and played this knight move. I realized immediately what I had done," the Indian said.

Moves:
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. f3 d5 5. a3 Bxc3+ 6. bxc3 c5 7. cxd5 exd5 8. e3 c4 9. Ne2 Nc6 10. g4 O-O 11. Bg2 Na5 12. O-O Nb3 13. Ra2 b5 14. Ng3 a5 15. g5 Ne8 16. e4 Nxc1 17. Qxc1 Ra6 18. e5 Nc7 19. f4 b4 20. axb4 axb4 21. Rxa6 Nxa6 22. f5 b3 23. Qf4 Nc7 24. f6 g6 25. Qh4 Ne8 26. Qh6 b2 27. Rf4 b1=Q+ 28. Nf1 Qe1
Evaluation Line:
-7.09	29. Rh4 Qxh4 30. Qxh4 Qa5 31. Qe1 Nc7 32. Ng3 Bd7 33. Qe3 Rb8 34. Ne2 Rb2 35. e6 Bxe6 36. h3 Qa2 37. Nf4 Qb1+ 38. Kh2 Qe4 39. Qg3 Bf5 40. Kg1 Qc2 41. Bf1 Be4 42. Ne2 Ne6

Courtesy: The Times of India

Does doing yoga make you a Hindu?

~By William Kremer, BBC World Service

21 November, 2013: For many people, the main concern in a yoga class is whether they are breathing correctly or their legs are aligned. But for others, there are lingering doubts about whether they should be there at all, or whether they are betraying their religion.

Farida Hamza, a Muslim woman living in the US (pictured on the right), had been doing yoga for two or three years when she decided she wanted to teach it.

"When I told my family and a few friends, they did not react positively," she recalls. "They were very confused as to why I wanted to do it - that it might be going against Islam."

Their suspicions about yoga are shared by many Muslims, Christians and Jews around the world and relate to yoga's history as an ancient spiritual practice with connections to Hinduism and Buddhism.

If I was to kneel down does that mean I'm praying - or am I just kneeling?”

Last year, a yoga class was banned from a church hall in the UK. "Yoga is a Hindu spiritual exercise," said the priest, Father John Chandler. "Being a Catholic church we have to promote the gospel, and that's what we use our premises for." Anglican churches in the UK have taken similar decisions at one time or another. In the US, prominent pastors have called yoga "demonic".

One answer to the question of whether yoga really is a religious activity will soon be given by the Supreme Court in the country of its birth, India.

Last month, a pro-yoga group petitioned the court to make it a compulsory part of the school syllabus on health grounds - but state schools in India are avowedly secular. The court said it was uncomfortable with the idea, and will gather the views of minority groups in the coming weeks.

So is yoga fundamentally a religious activity?

"Yoga is such a broad term - that's what causes a difficulty," says Rebecca Ffrench, the co-founder YogaLondon - a yoga teacher academy - and the philosophy tutor at the school.

There are different forms of yoga, she says, some of which are more overtly religious than others. Hare Krishna monks, for example, are adherents of bhakti yoga, the yoga of devotion. What most people in the West think of as yoga is properly known as hatha yoga - a path towards enlightenment that focuses on building physical and mental strength.

But what "enlightenment" means also depends on tradition. For some Hindus it is liberation from the cycle of reincarnation, but for many yoga practitioners it is a point where you achieve stillness in your mind, or understand the true nature of the world and your place in it.

Whether that is compatible with Christianity, Islam and other religions is debatable.

To those in the know, for example, the yogic asanas, or positions, retain elements of their earlier spiritual meanings - the Surya namaskar is a series of positions designed to greet Surya, the Hindu Sun God.

Courtesy: BBC

Doctors aided US torture at military prisons, report says

Doctors aided US torture at military prisons, report says

4 November, 2013: Doctors and nurses working under US military orders have been complicit in the abuse of terrorism suspects, a new independent US report says.

The study says medical professionals helped design, enable and participated in "torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment" of detainees.

The report was compiled by an independent panel of military, health, ethics and legal experts.

Both the CIA and the Pentagon have rejected the report's findings.

The two-year study was carried out by the Institute on Medicine as a Profession and the George Soros-funded Open Society Foundations.

The report says the collusion began at US prisons in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and at CIA secret detention sites after the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US.

Co-author Leonard Rubenstein told the BBC's Newsday programme that the report revealed "the legacy of torture and detainee abuse at Guantanamo and elsewhere on the medical community".

"What we found was that the department of defence and the CIA actually changed core ethical standards to facilitate participation by health professionals in the abuse of detainees. And those distortions still exist," he said.

'Force-feeding'

The report says that while some practices such as waterboarding have now been banned, medical professionals are still being required to force-feed detainees, including those at Guantanamo Bay.

"One [example] is the use of physicians to force-feed detainees and using very coercive restraint chairs in a way that violates the ethical standards of the World Medical Association and American medical groups," said Mr Rubenstein, Senior Scholar at the Center for Human Rights and Public Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

"Another is participation in interrogations where health professionals search for vulnerabilities which interrogators can exploit."

The report calls on the US Senate Intelligence Committee to fully investigate medical practices at the detention sites.

However, the CIA and the Pentagon rejected the report's findings.

CIA public affairs chief Dean Boyd said the report "contains serious inaccuracies and erroneous conclusions".

"It's important to underscore that the CIA does not have any detainees in its custody and President [Barack] Obama terminated the Rendition, Detention and Interrogation Program by executive order in 2009," he said.

Pentagon spokesman Todd Breasseale said that none of the critics of prisoner care had access to the detainees, their medical records, or the procedures at Guantanamo.

He described the doctors and nurses working at Guantanamo as "consummate professionals".

Mr Breasseale said they routinely provided "not only better medical care than any of these detainees have ever known, but care on par with the very best of the global medical profession".

Courtesy: BBC

Tehelka Tarun Tejpal in Sexual Harassment case, Shazia Ilmi vows to take action

[Editor: This is simply a joke that every women journalist is treated with contempt in any organization. Shazia Ilmi should apologize for speaking such a blatant lie to the media. These kinds of women who manufacture stories out of nothing, are themselves threats to any society and bring a bad name for the country. However, few cases of harassment of either sex, based on gender cannot be ruled out]

Thursday, 21 November 2013: Former journalist and now Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Shazia Ilmi said on Thursday that she was not all surprised about the news of Tehelka editor Tarun Tejpal being involved in a sexual harassment case, as almost every one knows how women journalists, or for that matter female employees, are treated by their male colleagues, especially those in positions of authority.

In an interview given to ANI, Ilmi said: "I have been a female journalist for years. Everyone knows how women are treated in offices, and it is very difficult to raise one's voice."

"I think, it is very important that every woman be judged upon her work and talent, rather than her willingness to hang out with her boss," she added.

"It is a good thing that Tarun Tejpalji has apologized, has accepted his fault, and is stepping down. But, action should be taken according to the satisfaction of the girl and media fraternity," Ilmi said.

"It depends on the girl (woman), whether she wants to proceed with the charges. There should be a committee even in private bodies," she further said when asked about safety measures should be taken for women at the work place.

"We need to address whether the girl is satisfied with it (Tejpal stepping aside for six months), or there is more to it. This kind of discrimination, based on gender, should not be there. It is important to know what the girl feels, and what steps have been taken by Tehelka apart from Tarun Tejpalji stepping down. Everyone should come clean on this," Ilmi said.

If you look at media organizations, a lot of women go through this kind of harassment," the AAP leader said.

Ilmi's response came a day after Tejpal sent a letter to Tehelka Managing Editor Shoma Chaudhary, saying that he was stepping aside from his job fro six months and was squarely to be blamed for the sexual misconduct incident.

Tejpal further said that it was a bad lapse of judgment on his part, and that he had completely misread the situation.

He said that he has apologised unconditionally to the concerned journalist, but felt that he needed to atone for his misconduct further.

Tejpal, who is a founder member of the Tehelka magazine, said that he was stepping aside as an act of penance.

Chaudhary has sent a mail to Tehelka staffers apprising them of the development. 

Courtesy: Siasat Daily

GROW UP, DO

- The insanity over Tendulkar in India

First Person Singular

I have hesitated a while before venturing on this piece. Persons are around who can write, with competence and much greater authority, on the matter I have in mind. Unfortunately, none of them has done so, at least to my knowledge, till now. So here I go: I am bound to raise the fury of a very large number.

Sachin Tendulkar is, no question, a great cricketer. He is principally responsible for Indian cricket reaching the status — and popularity — it has reached at present. He has innumerable achievements to his credit and has broken record after record in the course of over two decades in international cricket. Near unanimity prevails over the proposition that he is next to Donald Bradman, the most iconic figure in the history of cricket; some Indian zealots would of course go even further and rate him above Bradman. Whatever that be, a grateful nation has showered him with all possible honours. These include his recent nomination, as a most distinguished citizen who has made significant contributions to the cause of the country, to the Rajya Sabha, the superior House of the national legislature.

We, as a people, though, suffer from a collective deficiency: we lack a sense of proportion. Mere admiration is not enough, it swiftly turns into adoration, which shades into adulation, and adulation in no time is rendered into idolatry. That is what has happened in the case of Tendulkar too. He is no longer a cricketer of extraordinary genius, he is, to the people of India, a god, no less. The attainment of divinity, however, creates problems. The gods are eternal and indestructible, they go on for ever, they never retire. Tendulkar, too, it was apparently taken for granted, would go on for ever and never retire. This, by itself, poses quite a problem; the problem gets multiplied when the godly character himself lends credence to the popular notion.

Tendulkar is forty. The age was showing. He was getting out early in the innings much too frequently, either clean bowled or judged leg-before-wicket; sometimes he was missing the line of the ball, some other times he was unable to cope with the pace at which the ball was coming. A man with his vast experience should have realized much more than any outsider what was happening and straightaway announced his decision to retire, especially from international cricket. He could have taken the cue from the great Don Bradman’s example.

International cricket was on hold from 1939 to 1945 because of World War II. These years were therefore lost to Bradman. It was such a pity. He nonetheless knew his mind. When he led the Australian team to England in the 1948 Test series, he had already informed the authorities of cricket in Australia that he would retire from international cricket following the final Test match at the Oval. He was at the top of his form during that season in England and scoring double centuries one after another. Had he scored just four in the only innings he played at the Oval Test, he would have achieved the unbelievable Test average of 100. He was out for a duck. In spite of all the pressures mounted on him, Bradman did not waver, he stuck to his earlier decision. As a result he has emerged as an even greater and nobler legendary figure.

Tendulkar is, however, no Bradman. He had been adjudged to be god, and gods do not care for Test averages, which kept going down as he continued to play despite woefully below-par performance. He told his friends and perhaps even others that he would retire from cricket only when his inner voice told him to do so. This was a perfectly justifiable attitude on the part of an individual. Of course, he was extraordinarily passionate about cricket, which spelled his life and living, and he had the prerogative to decide when to terminate this love affair, no outsider has any business to butt in. The snag, though, was that after an interval, Tendulkar proceeded to inform the world that he would retire from international Test cricket after the West Indies series. He would play his 199th Test at Calcutta’s Eden Gardens, then play the 200th Test at the Wankhede stadium in Mumbai and, having reached that milestone, finally retire. Pardon me, but was this not highly presumptuous on his part? How could he assume that he would be selected for those two Test matches? He was simply taking the selectors for granted. He could do so because he was god, an others-abide-the-question-thou-art-free phenomenon, the selectors would not have the guts to drop him from the team notwithstanding the steep decline in his form and performance.

The gods select themselves; they also go into retirement — or hibernation — only at their own sweet will. The media — and the millions across the country — hastily endorse divine dispensations of all genres. Few pause to think that another point of view is possible, for the inclusion of Tendulkar in the India team in the West Indies series involved what orthodox economists used to describe as opportunity cost. Because Tendulkar had to be in, this or that promising youngster, who perhaps had been knocking at the door and deserved to be given an opportunity, had to stay out. For instance, if conceivably Rohit Sharma had not hit that magnificent unbeaten double century against Australia in the final One Day International, the selectors might have felt no compunction to keep him out of the Test series against the West Indies. However, because Rohit Sharma was accommodated, another youngster, Ajinkya Rahane, had to be disappointed. Or, had not a slot been pre-empted by Tendulkar, Suresh Raina could have finally made it to the Test team. One might even have the cheek to pose the query whether Yuvraj Singh’s overall performance since his return to the game following recovery from cancer was not superior to that of Tendulkar’s recent record?

It is, admittedly, pointless to condemn the selectors for their cowardice or to offer one or two sly comments on Tendulkar’s narcissism. Both are products of the nation’s fatal weakness: that we are bereft of a sense of proportion and unable to grow up.

The same waywardness was glaringly revealed at the almost obscene hoopla that took place at Calcutta’s Eden Gardens during the three days the Test match against the West Indies endured. Rohit Sharma’s great innings on debut failed to receive the accolade it so richly deserved. Yet another Test century by Ashwin, and scored in difficult circumstances, confirmed his position as currently the world’s leading all rounder; this achievement on his part was hardly noticed. And Mohammed Shami’s sensational arrival could have been much more warmly acknowledged had the insanity over Tendulkar been less strident: one can hardly remember any other Indian pacer of any generation with the ability to swing the ball both ways at such speed as Shami has demonstrated.

But the far worse shame is the contrived controversy over Umpire N. Llong’s decision to allow the leg-before-wicket appeal against Tendulkar. A god being a god, he could not be out leg-before-wicket, how dare the umpire do so, period. The Indian commentators, both in the print and the electronic media, went berserk. Convoluted and voluminous words were spent to convey their firm belief that the ball had brushed Tendulkar’s bat before reaching the wicket keeper’s gloves. Alternatively, that ball had sailed six inches above the wicket. Tendulkar apparently had muttered this opinion, and of course his opinion was what mattered, not that of the beastly umpire. And the final desperate theory was that the bowler — Shillingford or whatever his name — was a chucker.

Is it not high time for some rude plainspeaking? Indians cannot have it both ways. For years on end, the Indian cricket authorities have refused to accept the DRS — the decision referral system — which has been accepted by other countries. India has thereby abjured technological evidence to confirm or nullify the field umpire’s decisions on border-line cases, for instance a leg-before-wicket appeal. India has been doggedly insisting on going by the verdict of the field umpire. That being the reality, nobody over here has any right to take pot-shots at the umpire. If they have any ire, it is the Board of Control for Cricket in India that should be targeted.

A sad story, a depressing story. One feels like posting an entreaty echoing the agony-ridden refrain of the ancient Beatles song: grow up, do.

Courtesy: The Telegraph

‘Men are gradually becoming vocal about sufferings at hands of women’ 

Photo, Courtesy: Men's Right Association

Pune, Wed, Nov 20 2013: Men's Rights Association, a Pune-based NGO, has seen more than 500 registrations in the three years since its formation, with activists terming the response as a sign of "imbalance in society under the guise of women empowerment".

Alleged misuse of Section 498 A of the Indian Penal Code (anti-dowry law), harassment at workplace and pro-women legal provisions when it comes to giving maintenance to wives after divorce are some of the major reasons for the hardships faced by men, they claimed.

"Our association was formed three years ago to help men in distress and take up at different governmental levels the issues faced by them. Our membership crossed the 500-mark in such a short span. On an average, we receive two to three calls daily from men in distress. We help victims of gender imbalance caused due to flip side of women empowerment," said activist Deepak Joshi.

On International Men's Day on Tuesday, the association organised a public awareness campaign through posters and a signature campaign at Balgandharva Square in the city among other areas.

"In the past, many powerful patriarchal men considered it unmanly to celebrate the International Men's Day. Such mentality meant men who hit back at abusive women are 'real' men and who take the abuse without reacting are not. But the situation is changing now and men are becoming vocal about their sufferings at the hands of women," Joshi said.

The Men's Rights Association offers personal and legal counselling to affected individuals (mensrightsassociation.org). "We arrange a meet every Sunday at 4 pm where motivational speeches are arranged. These sessions help a lot to affected men," said another activist.

The association has not only helped men fight "false" legal cases filed by their wives, but also advocated the cause of changing the "anti-male" legal system, he said.

"We believe in gender neutral laws unlike a section of feminists who take pride in blaming a section of society for women's problems. We are striving hard to bring a legal system that would do justice to men and ensure gender equality," said an activist.

Courtesy: The Indian Express

Jihadi Mural in Toronto Is Ground-Zero Mosque Redux
~Tarek Fatah, Columnist, The Toronto SUN

10/28/2013: In 2010, many liberal and secular Muslims in the U.S. and Canada joined hands to fight the so-called Ground-Zero Mosque in New York City, which we felt was equivalent to showing a middle finger to the victims of those who died on 9/11.

Of course, we were opposed by the might of America's powerful mosque establishment and their Muslim Brotherhood affiliates. If the Islamists were not enough, we also faced opposition from such teary-eyed, bleeding-heart White liberals as New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and much of the media.

We understood that these well-meaning people were acting in good faith, but also recognized that unfortunately these liberals were blind to the Islamist agenda in North America. In the end, better sense prevailed and the Ground-Zero Mosque never happened.

Toronto

Photo: 

A similar battle has now broken out in Toronto, Canada. A two-storeyed mural in graffiti art displaying a jihadi battle prayer today adorns the entrance of a Toronto area mosque, talking of "imminent victory" of Muslims, one that is guaranteed by Allah.

What is worse, the mural was paid for by the City of Toronto. In essence the taxpayers of Toronto, most of them non-Muslim, paid for a mural that prays for their defeat at the hands of Muslims!

To understand the jihadi significance of the words on this mural, its best to go to places where jihadi terrorists are fighting Islamic wars -- Syria and Pakistan.

Syria

On October 10, in the capital city of Daraa province in southern Syria, the jihadi terrorists from the al-Qaida-affiliate in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra defeated the Syrian army and captured the town.

As masked bearded men flashing AK-47s chanted "Allah O Akbar" behind him, Abu Abd al-Malik the local commander of the jihadi group boasted to cameras that it was Allah himself that had in the Quran guaranteed al-Qaeda's victory, as he recited the same verse that is inscribed on Toronto's jihadi mural.

Reciting verse 13 from the Quranic chapter titled "The Battle Array," Nasrum Min'Allah Fathun Qareeb [Help from Allah and an imminent victory], al-Malik said, Allah has guaranteed success to Muslims in their fight against the infidel.

And if the words of an al-Qaeda commander invoking the same verse the City of Toronto commissioned at the entrance of a Toronto-area mosque were not sufficient evidence that these words are associated with military victory of Muslims over non-Muslims, a senior leader of the Taliban uttered them in Pakistan.

Pakistan

Adnan Rasheed is better known as the Taliban commander who sent Malala Yusufzai a letter explaining to her why she deserved to be shot dead. This former Pakistan Air force officer was convicted for an attempted assassination of former president Musharraf of Pakistan, but was rescued from prison in a daring raid by the Taliban.

Addressing fellow jihadi terrorists imprisoned around the world, Adnan Rasheed had this to say:

"So you should not grieve over the fact that you are spending the blossoming part of your life in detention. Rather you should be happy. Because even your sleeping is worship. Your living in jail is worship. Finally I want to say this that the "Help of Allah is on its way. The help from Allah is near. Our victory is near. Nasrum Min'Allah wa Fathun Qareeb, [the exact words painted on the mural]."

The Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC) launched a petition, asking the Mayor and Toronto City officials to take down the jihadi battle prayer that they said was masquerading as "graffiti art."

The MCC petition was rejected by city staff without giving the petitioner Salim Ahmad any chance to argue his objection to the city funding a jihadi mural on a street.

Supporters of the jihadi mural, both working as Toronto City managerial staff and one Anver Emon, a Sharia-supporting Islamic academic at the University of Toronto, quickly declared that what was demonstrably a jihadi battle prayer for the last 1,400 years of Islamic wars, was in fact an innocent prayer that is used by ordinary Muslims when facing difficulty in life.

Really?

To suggest that a chapter that has the title "The Battle Array" is not about battle, but about peaceful endeavour, is embarrassing. This line of argument demonstrates the intellectual dishonesty many Islamists employ in the detestable, yet permitted practise that allows Muslims to utter misstatements in defending Islam, better known as "Taqiyya," a form of religious dissimulation.

In addition, the argument that "The Battle Array" verse also means a prayer for personal accomplishment, does not withstand scrutiny if we turn to the many authoritative commentators of the Quran, from medieval times to the 20th century.

Islamic Scholars

According to Ibn Katheer the 14th century Islamic scholar, the words, "Help from Allah [is near] and a speedy victory [is assured]" in the chapter titled "The Battle Array," Muslims are told that if they are willing to sacrifice their lives and possessions in the service of Allah, then, not only will they find Paradise after death, but the conquest they desire over their enemy will be theirs very soon after they confront the enemy.

And a more contemporary Islamic scholar, Mufti Muhammad Shafi in his nine-volume "Comprehensive commentary on Holy Quran," had this to say about the "Battle Array" verse painted on the Toronto mural:

"There is one blessing that will be granted [by Allah] in this world. Which is the Divine help and imminent victory, that is, conquests of enemy territories. If the word Qareeb (near) is the opposite of Hereafter, it would include all later Islamic conquests of Arab and non-Arab territories."

Who is this enemy that the Toronto mural wants Muslims to fight against? Where is this non-Arab territory that this mural wishes us Muslims to conquer and be victorious over? Could it be Canada?

Besides the speeches by an al-Qaeda commander and a Taliban leader, other evidence submitted to Toronto City by me was a poster of the Pakistan Army showing the exact same words. Even the Facebook page of the Pakistan Army shows the "Battle Array" verse on a flag.

In addition, a picture of a medieval sword from an Islamic army with the verse inscribed on the sword handle was presented to City officials and City councillors, but all this evidence was dismissed by the City Manager who ruled he had consulted with two Islamists and they had convinced him the MCC objection to the jihadi prayer was without foundation.

Obviously the Toronto City Manger Joe Pennachetti and his staff did not understand what is meant by the words "to the annihilation of the enemies of the religion [Islam] after Allah bestowed us the victory and the clear conquest."

So here is the correct translation of the words of the al-Qaeda commander and the transcript:

"Allah, Glorified and Exalted be He, says, 'And [you will obtain] another [favour] that you love - victory from Allah and an imminent conquest" (وَأُخْرَىٰ تُحِبُّونَهَا نَصْرٌ مِنَ اللَّهِ وَفَتْحٌ قَرِيبٌ). This statement is an expression of joy and happiness for the victory of Allah Almighty by the hands of his servants the believers in Jumruk, in Harat al-Badu and in the Hajana Battalion after Allah, Glorified and Exalted be He, assured our brothers the mujahideen in this night their conquests [the three aforementioned places in the area of Daraa] and the defeat of the infidel army Thanks to God Almighty. This is an expression of love, sign to believers in black [Qaeda' black uniform], message to the forces of the mujahideen and [testament] to the annihilation of the enemies of the religion [Islam] after Allah bestowed us the victory and the clear conquest."

And if either the Taliban or al-Qaeda using the "Battle Array" chapter of the Quran to mobilize for jihadi war is not convincing, perhaps City Manager, City Councillors and their staff should listen to this war song, using the same Battle Array verse to whip up Muslim anti-Semitism as well fan the flames of Muslim victimhood.

I have asked apologists of Toronto's jihadi mural to produce evidence where this verse was placed outside a hospital, orphanage, school, charity or even a mosque, from anywhere in the Islamic World, but they have nothing to show for their claim.

In two Islamic countries where I spent my youth -- Pakistan and Saudi Arabia -- the only use of this verse was in context of war, battle or victory over infidels, never as a symbol of welcome, happiness, family, spirituality or piety. War, battle and victory over the enemy was the only context in which the Battle Array verse Nasrum Min'Allah wa Fathun Qareeb has been used.

Raheel Raza, head of the group 'Muslims Facing Tomorrow' co-authored an op-ed with me on August 7, 2010 in the Ottawa Citizen that exposed the real agenda of the people behind the Ground-Zero mosque.

What is happening in Toronto four years later is the same game that was played out in New York City in 2010. Its part of the soft-jihad waged by Islamists and their left-wing allies, one that uses Islam and multiculturalism to whip up an anti-West sentiment among Muslim youth and create symbols that can be seen as a middle finger to the "Great Satan."

Our Ottawa Citizen op-ed on the NYC Ground-Zero Mosque was aptly titled "Mischief in Manhattan." The jihadi mural in TO will be known as "Taqiyya in Toronto."

Courtesy: The Huffington Post Canada

Jihadi clouds over Bangladesh
~Tarek Fatah

Tuesday, November 05: A clash of civilizations is unfolding in Muslim Bangladesh, where the forces of radical jihadi Islamism are trying to topple a liberal democracy, and no one in the West seems interested.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her ruling Awami League have accomplished something of which no other Muslim leader in any Islamic country could dream.

She fought a courageous battle against jihadi Islamism by strengthening secular democracy in the country’s constitution and barring religious parties from using Islam as a political tool.

While other leaders in Islamic countries with quasi democracies such as Malaysia, Pakistan, Turkey and Indonesia have surrendered to the bullying tactics of the Islamists and bent over backward to accommodate medieval mullahs, Bangladesh’s PM has not blinked, despite threats and strikes that are disrupting the country’s economy.

With a national election looming, the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its religious partners, the jihadis of the Jamaat-e-Islami, have resorted to a dangerous tactic that brings back memories of the 1971 genocide, when the country’s Hindu population was virtually wiped out by Pakistan’s occupation army and its Islamist collaborators.

On Monday, at least 15 people, including six women, were injured when opposition BNP men stormed a Hindu village and vandalized and looted houses.

The villagers complained they came under attack after they refused to participate in a nation-wide strike called against the government.

Traumatized by the violent attack, Hindu women and children of 125 families had to flee the village as opposition goons ransacked about 40 houses and looted valuables, said witnesses.

The Muslim on Hindu attacks in Bangladesh come in the shadow of a war crimes tribunal sentencing two prominent leaders of Bangladesh’s Islamist movements to death for their role in the 1971 genocide committed by the Pakistan Army.

Both convicted Islamists happen to be residents of the U.K. and the U.S. and were found guilty on 11 charges relating to the abduction and killing of 18 pro-independence activists, including academics and journalists, in the final days of the 1971 war.

Stung by these verdicts, the opposition Islamist parties are threatening to bring the country to its knees if Hasina does not resign before the elections in the New Year.

The opposition BNP says, unless Hasina relinquishes power, its supporters will whip up nationwide strikes. It is also threatening to boycott the elections.

Last week, Hasina offered the formation of an all-party government to see through the elections, but the BNP is going ahead with a rally in Dhaka on Friday, with one party leader asking supporters to come “prepared with arms”.

To counter the Islamist threat, the ruling Awami League has also announced plans for a competing rally on the same day, raising the risk of more bloodshed.

So far this year at least 150 people have died in opposition protests and more than 2,000 have been injured during strikes and protests.

If the Awami League of Hasina is either pushed out of office by mass protests or in an election, be prepared to see another Pakistan emerge on India’s eastern flanks, with hard-core allies of the Muslim Brotherhood turning back the clock on one more Islamic country.

The U.S. and the West must keep a watchful eye on the developments inside Bangladesh and help Dhaka fight the jihadi onslaught. 

Courtesy: Toronto Sun

Middle class's tailor-made morals can collapse against bulldozers

If Campa Cola had created so much buzz when it was a soft drink manufacturer, it would probably still be in business, selling aerated water to the consumer market. Alas, that was not to be the case. Campa Cola, for those born post the liberalization era, was one of the largest soft drink manufacturers in India. It made its mark at the time when Coca Cola departed India in the late 1970s. It was also one of the first victims of Pepsi and Coke re-entering India. The land allotted to Campa Cola was acquired by builders who constructed upscale apartments. The builders had permission to build apartment blocks of six floors each. Many of the buildings are much taller. The tallest one is 17 floors high. All this happened a long time ago, and like much else in India there was a ‘nod-nod, wink-wink among all concerned’.  Banks give loans, owners buy properties, electricity connections are given, tankers supply water, and it all proceeds as though everything is normal and legal. 

The modus operandi is as follows: File a plan, get municipality approvals based on the plan, begin construction, violate all that is in the plan, and then pay a small fine to regularise the construction. It happens all the time. There are posh localities in the suburbs of Mumbai that still get water via tankers, five years after residents have moved in, because the entire complex is yet to get an OC (Occupation Certificate) from the BMC. And more often than not things like this gets regularised — someone knows someone, who knows someone, and for a little compensation (for greasing palms and getting through the bureaucratic labyrinth) everything gets fixed. Except that in the case of Campa Cola houses it did not. The current fracas is over 35 floors that were constructed without permission, occupied without an Occupation Certificate, and which was ordered to be demolished by the BMC.

Naturally, the residents were shocked. They refused to move out. Upper middle class agony, expressed in fluent English and anglicized Hindi makes for great news television. It makes audiences identify with those portrayed. And, more importantly, it makes news anchors outrage in an even shriller manner. Suddenly, the residents of the Campa Cola Compound were no longer the educated, well-heeled, well-connected individuals who had access to lawyers and could check contracts and building paper work, but innocents who were duped by a corrupt system. And once the media got into the fray, so did the politicians. To give him his due, Maharashtra CM Prithviraj Chavan refused to pass an ordinance that would halt the demolition. But, the rest got onto the bandwagon, including his own party members. Suddenly, a bunch of people who should have known better while they were busy breaking the law, were portrayed as babes in the wood. The very same people who would otherwise rant when illegal slums and pavement dwellers began using the same analogies to defend their illegal constructions. ‘we have always lived here’ ‘our children grew up here’ ‘where will we go’ ‘our entire community is here’.

Any house owner in Mumbai (possibly elsewhere too) will tell you that buying a flat is fraught with tension. The chain of ownership is often vague, and very often there are situations where buildings have neither Occupation Certificates, nor No-Objection certificates. Most of us are not used to reading technical documents in archaic technical language, and most just glance at the requisite paperwork to see if it is complete before buying. But, ignorance is not a defence against breaking the law.  And when you strip the Campa Cola Compound case of all the emotion, the tears and the angst, all you are left with is one thing: The law was broken, and those who broke the law may get away with it, with the media whipping up outrage to dissuade the law from taking its course. At the time of writing this column, the Supreme Court — reacting to media reports — has stayed the demolition.

In April this year, the residents of Golibar, a slum in Mumbai, were protesting for the same reason.Their homes were being demolished to make way for buildings. They had occupied the land since the mid-1960s. Television news did not care. Demolitions are proceeding as per plan. In June this year, slums at Ejipura in Bengaluru were demolished after residents were evicted in an area they had lived in for decades. Media coverage was nowhere near as sympathetic.  

It seems that the middle class likes the idea of the rule of law when it is applied to others. It is quite comfortable breaking the law, and sheds copious tears when it is caught. The sentiment is simple — the rich get away with it because they have influence with those in power. The lower middle class and poor get away with breaking the law because they are the mass, and political parties need mass votes. Given that the middle class have neither the political influence nor the numbers, it does the next best thing — use the media, made up of people like them, to amplify issues. And it has worked.  While in the occasional case like a Jessica Lal when the media got it right, the fact remains that this sort of coverage of raw emotions has repercussions in terms of the rule of law. Think back to the hijacking of IC 814 and ask if the media had not constantly broadcast and amplified the heart-rending anguish of impacted families would the Government of India have been placed in such a ridiculous position?

Two sections of India that most often talk about declining morality and increased lawlessness have in the last week gotten together to do both: The middle class and the media. It is pointless to point fingers elsewhere. If you want the rule of law, you start by following it, not by breaking it, because others do just that.

Harini Calamur: Her bio reads 'media entrepreneur, film maker, columnist, writer, blogger, teacher and the main slave to an imperious hound(ess)'. Her handle is @calamur. If you are looking for deep insight on daily news, she's your go to person. 

Courtesy: DNA India

We never thought of Magnus as a prodigy: Henrik Carlsen

The father of the top ranked chess player on why it is best for parents to let children follow their passion

Wednesday, November 13, 2013: Geniuses are not necessarily good at multiple disciplines. Or so you would think if you spoke to Henrik Carlsen, 51, father of Magnus Carlsen—the young chess player widely regarded as the strongest ever. Magnus, who turns 23 at the end of this month, didn’t as a child appear to be any different from his three sisters and despite smashing record after record in the most complex cerebral sport known to mankind, wasn’t ever considered a prodigy at home.

Henrik and his wife Sigrun, both engineers by profession, didn’t realize their son had anything special in him until at the age of 8, when Magnus started focusing on chess, distancing himself from almost everything else in the world. That was three years after his father, also an internationally rated chess player, taught him the game.

The father of the World No.1 chess player says he isn’t sure if his son could have been good at anything else. Edited excerpts from an interview with Henrik, who is currently camping in Chennai for his son’s world title match with Viswanathan Anand:

How was Magnus as a child different from his three sisters?

He wasn’t different at all as child. He was pretty much the same as his sisters. We didn’t notice anything unusual at all. For instance, I am good with numbers. So was Magnus till he turned 5, but after that, he didn’t take interest in numbers at all.

Honestly, it took us a long time to figure out that Magnus could be good at chess or be different from his sisters in any way at all. So the way we brought him up wasn’t different at all from the way we raised our other children.

But it was you who introduced Magnus to chess, isn’t it?

Henrik Carlsen. Photo: SaiSen/Mint

Yes, I taught him the game when he was 5, but initially he didn’t take much interest in it. It was like that for many years, and I didn’t care. He suddenly started taking interest in chess when he was about to turn 8. And he developed that interest completely on his own. At that time, he was also interested in football, and till about 12, he played a lot of football as well.

At what point did you realize that he was a gifted chess player?

When he started taking interest in chess, he could really focus on it. He wasn’t interested in anything else at all. It was only then that we realized that Magnus could focus on only one thing, unlike other children who would be interested in several things. For Magnus, it was chess and chess alone.

That was the time when we realized that he was somewhat different from other children of his age. He must have been 8 or 9 at that time.

By the time, he turned 9 or nine-and-a-half, he started beating me at chess. So, looking at his drive from within, we thought maybe Magnus wants to play chess seriously. My wife, though, wasn’t much interested in chess initially.

He quit studies quite early in his life. Was it his decision? Did you agree with him when he did that?

He must have been 16 by the time he decided to quit studies.

Initially, we always encouraged him to pay attention to his studies as well. There were times when we would have to ask him to stop playing chess, skip tournaments and so on, so that he could finish his homework and cope with studies. But never the other way round.

When he eventually decided to quit studies—and that was completely his own decision—we didn’t object to it because by that time it was clear to everyone that he definitely had a future in chess. Chess always came first, so we would never have to push him to train in chess.

Also, being a Norwegian helped. Because of the high standards of social security in Norway and other Scandinavian countries, children there are able to explore special things.

For somebody of Magnus’ IQ, he would have been good at many other things, not just chess. What do you think he could have become had he not taken a liking for chess?

No, no, no… I don’t know about his IQ.

I don’t know what he could have become had he not played chess. You should ask him what he wishes to be when he quits playing. So far, he has only played chess and has always focused on it.

Having brought up a prodigy, what is your advice to young parents?

Honestly, we never thought of Magnus as a prodigy and bringing him up wasn’t in any manner different from bringing up my other children. We treated him in the same way as the others in the family because, as I said, he never appeared to be different in any manner.

It was only when he started focusing on chess and we could see that he could switch himself off from everything else, did we realize that he turned out to be somewhat different from his sisters, or other children for that matter. Since then, he has only been doing what he loves to do: play chess. And we didn’t stop him from following his passion.

My advice to young parents is that they shouldn’t pressure their children into doing anything. They should allow the children to decide for themselves what they like. This can take time but if eventually a child can focus on something—like Magnus could focus on chess—allow him to pursue a career in what he enjoys doing.

Courtesy: Live Mint