Government may relax night deadline for eateries

• While bars and other places serving alcohol would still have to stick to the deadline, the Minister said he was in favour of keeping hotels open in the central business district and other areas with a considerable night-time population.| EPS file photo

By Express News Service - BANGALORE

For a city that is widely considered to be a ‘happening’ place, there are almost no options available for people craving a midnight snack or late dinner. This is because the 11.30 pm deadline for hotels and restaurants to shut is usually enforced by 11 pm by reluctant owners, or worse, by lathi-wielding policemen.
However, there may be good news on the horizon for those looking for midnight bites, if Ramalinga Reddy, Bangalore In-charge Minister, has his way. While bars and other places serving alcohol would still have to stick to the deadline, the Minister said he was in favour of keeping hotels open in the central business district and other areas with a considerable night-time population.
Speaking to Express, Reddy said “The City Railway station, bus stand and other areas, where people are present all the time, can be considered for allowing hotels to stay open.” He explained he had made a recommendation on the issue to the government, and it was being examined by the Chief Minister.
Demands to relax the closing hours for hotels have been persistent in the city, which caters to a large population of professionals, who  work during night. Bangalore has earned the ‘Silicon City’ tag with thousands working according to different time-zones. However, when it comes to late-night eateries, the city does not even have a single option for most of these professionals.
‘’I leave office around 1:00 am daily and am forced to eat at a roadside stall. Otherwise, it is the office cafeteria, which serves the same food daily. What is the government’s problem with keeping restaurants open?,” wondered Kaushik, who works in Bagamane Tech Park. Another section of city residents fume that ‘unrealistic’ regulations imposed on bars and pubs have killed Bangalore’s once-thriving nightlife.
“I can understand that police are not able to patrol all night and have imposed deadlines. But, why do they have to barge into a pub and stop us from dancing? You cannot even dance at your table at a nice place: that is how much the police has scared the staff,” said Usha, a resident of Indiranagar.
However, do not expect immediate relief for your late-night hunger pangs as government officials emphasised that there will not be any change to the deadline soon.
The city, once famous for its pub crawling circuit and concerts at Palace Grounds, has seen a ban on live music and pubs/hotels staying open after 11.30 pm.

Indian volunteers form largest group to serve Haj pilgrims

Jeddah: Over 2,000 Indians have provided selfless services to millions of Haj pilgrims from all over the world who have gathered in the holy city of Mecca, forming the largest expatriate volunteer group.
Wearing blue T-shirts and the saffron-coloured jackets, these volunteers from different Indian social, cultural and religious forums were seen in action at the holy sites of Mina and Arafat during the first four days of Haj.
The volunteers belonged to forums such as the Jeddah Haj Welfare Forum, India Fraternity Forum, the Indian Pilgrim Welfare Forum, Haj Cells of the Kerala Muslim Cultural Center, Risala Study Circle and the Indian Dawa Center.
"The credit for fielding the largest number of volunteers goes to India Fraternity Forum, which has been serving the pilgrims since eight years. Tipped as the most organised among the groups, IFF fielded a total of 1,200 volunteers, including 32 women and 24 students," the Saudi Gazette newspaper said.
"These expatriate volunteers, who belong to different states of India, come from various corners of Saudi Arabia after getting the best ever training in field voluntary work.
"Some 72 teams have been assigned for field work while 34 teams served elderly and sick pilgrims in their tents, in addition to 40-member special team deployed at Mashair train stations," the paper said.
"We are getting full support from the Indian Haj Mission... This serves as a big boost to the morale of our dedicated volunteers," said Ahmad Kutty, media coordinator of IFF Haj Service, which began with 30 volunteers in 2005.
Jeddah IFF President Ashraf Morayur said the timely action on the part of one of their volunteers saved one pilgrim who almost got stuck in between a train and its automatic door. KMCC Haj Cell has mobilised more than 1,000 volunteers.
Ahmed Palayatt, President of KMCC Jeddah Central Committee and General Convener of the Haj Cell, said their volunteers distributed rice soup for nearly 1,00,000 pilgrims during the last four days of Haj.
The annual Haj pilgrimage this year was incident-free. 41 Indian pilgrims were reported missing as compared to 300 last year, the Indian Consulate in Jeddah said.
"Five pilgrims died on Tuesday (October 15). One has been buried while four cases are under burial process," it added.
The Haj pilgrimage is one of the five pillars of Islam that should be performed at least once in lifetime by every Muslim who is financially and physically capable. This year, the pilgrimage started on Sunday and ends on Friday (tomorrow). About 1.5 million pilgrims, including over 136,000 Indians, are performing the Haj this year.
Many expatriates from hyderabad karnataka region were part of this Volunteer group 

Love Jihad: From illusory slogan to potent weapon

By Ram Puniyani, (www.Twocircles.net)


The country is yet to recover from the aftermath of Muzaffranagar violence (October 2013). This violence was engineered over a period of time in the areas of Western UP, where Jats and Muslims had thick social interaction, despite belonging to different economic strata. Communal violence has been instigated, engineered earlier on various issues like Cow slaughter, Babri demolition, ‘sexual assault on ‘our women’ amongst others. The primary weapon used to communalize this region was the community honor. ‘Muslim youth teasing and luring Hindu girls’ was made the central part of propaganda. While other factors like role of Sangh Parivar components in uploading the video clip, in mobilizing the Hindus in the name of Bahu-Beti Bachao, have been discussed, one needs also to look at the way this ‘saving our daughters’, Love Jihad, from the Muslims had been operated in the area.
For couple of years the deliberate teasing of the girls was planned in the area in and around Muzaffarnagar. Rumors abounded and the word Love Jihad was propagated. (Evil stalks the land: Anhad Report on Muzaffanagar violence). The falsehood of Muslim boy talking to Hindu girls to lure them to marry and so to convert to Islam was heavily publicized. The major concoction around which the riot was engineered also related to the Hindu girl being teased by Muslim boys.


Anti Love Jihad Front
The word “love Jihad’ which played a major role in mobilizing the Hindu community for violence, has a strange history. As such the two components of this word Love Jihad, who so ever manufactured it, have a very different meaning. Since 9/11 2001 the word Jihad has been employed in the popular media and has also become part of the ‘social common sense’. Contrary to the meaning of the word Jihad in Koran, which means striving, it came be projected as killing of non-Muslims. The word Love Jihad must be a creation of an evil genius and it has come to be used to further demonize the Muslim community. The propaganda has been that some Muslim organizations are funding Muslim youth, to lure the non Muslim girls, to marry them and to increase the Muslim population. These youth are given money to buy motorbike, mobile etc and lure the non Muslim girls.
While doing Google search, if you type, ‘why Hindu Girls are’, the other sentence which pops up on the search engine is ‘are attracted to Muslim boys”! Recently in Maharashtra, a group “Hindu Rakshak Samiti has been claiming to save Hindu religion by breaking up the Hindu Muslim couples, if the girl happens to be a Hindu girl. Not that there are too many such couples, just a suspicion and these self appointed guardians of Hinduism pounce on the boy. A booklet in Marathi on Love Jihad shows a Muslim boy riding the Motor bike, with Hindu girl riding pillion. The word has been so popularized that even a Christian group in Kerala allied with the Sangh progeny, VHP to stop this non existing phenomenon.
In India the word began to be used in coastal Karnataka, Mangalore, and in parts of Kerala. It was Sri Ram Sene founded by RSS trained Swayam Sevak, Pramod Mutalik, which started attack on Hindu girl-Muslim boy couples. The marriages of such combinations started being looked at with suspicion and if parents were opposed to the marriage, Sri Ram Sene would help to take the matter to the court also. The pretext was that the girl has been forced to marry the Muslim boy. Funnily in the case of Sijalraj and Azghar the judge of Karnatak High Court, went on to give the ruling, that the facts (Love Jihad) had “national ramifications… concern security, besides the question of unlawful trafficking of women,”! So it ordered the Director-General and Inspector-General of Police to hold a thorough investigation into to ‘love jihad’. Pending that, the girl was asked to stay with her parents. The case was that of a simple Hindu Muslim marriage and the girl stood to her version and refused to bow to the social pressures. The police investigation showed that the ‘love Jihad’ is a cooked up one with no substance whatsoever.
In a similar case earlier the Kerala High court while hearing the appeal from two parents passed a similar order. Two Hindu girls had eloped and got converted to Islam and planned to get married. Kerala court also ordered the police authorities to investigate this phenomenon. The police investigation again showed that there is no such phenomenon as Love Jihad. The organizational promotion of such marriages is a hoax but has become part of social understanding.
Shri Ram Sene propaganda stated that over 4000 Hindu girls have been lured into conversions. This concoction was aggressively put across through various mechanisms. This laughable, figment of imagination spread like wild fire and frightened the parents. The trajectory of many of these girls who initially state about their love for the boy and voluntary conversion, changes many a times after they are forced to stay with their parents. Under a sort of emotional blackmail, some girls give in and later say that they were brain washed, shown a Jihadi CD and what not.
We have witnessed such acts in the form of propaganda in Gujarat in the wake of carnage, that ‘Muslim boys are luring Adivasi girls’. There Babu Bajarangi, who was also a major participant in carnage and is currently in jail undergoing life imprisonment, formed a goon-gang. This gang attacked couples and forced them to separate if they belonged to different religions. All this is presented as defense of religion! At another level inter-caste, inter-religious marriages are a normal natural part of a plural society. With rise of the communal politics, these inter-religious marriages are being opposed very dangerously. We have the case of Rijwan Ur Rehman married to Priyanka Todi, daughter of an affluent and powerful business magnate of Kolkata. She was forced to turn around under emotional blackmail from parents and relatives. The details were not known, what is known is that later Rijwan Ur Rehman was forced to commit suicide. In all such cases the role of police, state machinery, has been totally against the spirit and provisions of law, the protectors of law acting to support the things totally against the law.
Such campaigns against inter-religion, inter-caste marriages are not only against the spirit of national integration they also aim to control the lives of girls in the patriarchal mode. In addition the bogey against a minority is whipped up to aid the divisive politics. It is a double bonus for divisive politics. Since in patriarchal norms women are regarded as property of man and are made to live under the control structure defined by men, such an issue rouses high emotions. The agenda of communal politics targets minorities, Muslims at one level and promotes patriarchal norms at another.
Over a period of time, from being just a mechanism to control the lives of Hindu girls, a tool to ensure that girls don’t have the right to choose their own life partners, this phrase has been used to instigate violence as witnessed in Muzaffarnagar. Most of the pretexts of communal violence are cooked up, gradually manufactured. This Love Jihad has by now become a dangerous weapon. On one side it demonizes the Muslim youth in the negative light and on the other it has the aim to curb the freedom of women. The politics in the name of religion, the politics of Sangh Parivar here in India or that of Taliban’s in Afghanistan, Islamic fundamentalists, or even Christian fundamentalists all operate on the same wavelength as far as crushing the rights of women is concerned. In line with this starting from Sri Ram Sene, to Babu Bajrangi to those orchestrating violence in Muzzafarnager, they all operate on the premise, that women are the property of men and their lives have to be controlled.
The truth is not the issue here; the myth has been drilled in to the thinking of society. This phrase has double edged nature, which is something we need to register and combat. This phrase has tragically become a powerful concoction in the hands of communal forces.

Cane farmers threaten to disrupt Hampi Utsav

Sugarcane farmers burn tyres in protest, on the roads leading to Hampi — DC

Bellary: Sugarcane farmers from the villages surrounding world heritage site Hampi on Saturday laid siege to road leading to Hampi at Kamalapur town. They want the government to allow them to sell their cane to a sugar factory of their choice.
The farmers protest has caused inconvenience to tourists bound to Hampi till noon as they blocked road burning tyres and parking bullock carts and tractors on the road.
Farmers withdrew pro­test only after assurances from Assistant Com­missioner P Sunil Kumar and Hospet Tahsildar Ramesh Konareddy that their grievances will be conveyed to the higher ups in the government.
Farmer leaders Sami­ullah and Prashanth Sin­gh said the farmers will not allow the conduct of g Hampi Utsav if their demands are not fulfilled.
Farmers alleged the procurement price offered by the I.S.R. Sugar Factory, Hospet is lower than other sugar factories and the minimum support price fixed by the government.
They also alleged that I.S.R factory owes them Rs 9 crore and had not paid till date, even after the Karnataka High Court, Dharwad passed an order favouring farmers.
They alleged that by declaring ISR factory as a ‘sick industry’, the proprietors are availing all the benefits from the government and are continuing to exploit farmers.
Farmers here have been demanding that they be allowed to sell their cane to a sugar factory of their choice, where better price is offered. However, citing the Sugarcane (Control) Order 1966, farmers are compelled to sell cane to a factory which has got a stipulated reserved area of sugarcane farm.