The Urumqui effect

This is a surprisingly expansive and relatively unbiased article on the current situation in Urumqui,coming from the stables of WSJ.

In some ways,its an eye opener into the fiscal failings and deeply entrenched fault lines within the Chinese society and a stark reminder of the fact that this could well be 'the summer of discontent' for our northern neighbour as it might just find itself embroiled in a crisis of legitimacy in frontier areas that would need more than just 'wishing away' or party high handedness.

The rioting by Uighurs in Xinjiang's capital Urumqi in early July has put the spotlight back on China's handling of its ethnic minority regions. Coming just over a year after a similar outburst in Lhasa, the incident shows that hardline policies designed to suppress dissent have fostered bitter resentment. However, it would be a mistake to interpret this as a sign that China's control over Tibet and Xinjiang are unraveling. Rather the incidents should be put into a broader context of rising tensions within Chinese society.

Certainly Tibet and Xinjiang pose their own unique challenges. The seeds of the current unrest were planted in the mid-1990s, when government strategy toward the restive regions shifted to a more hardline approach. That has shut off avenues for the expression of discontent, bottling up tensions until they explode.

Despite the obvious costs of this policy, Beijing apparently regards them as worth paying to maintain a tight grip on its sensitive border areas, which are regarded as vital national interests. From its perspective, the policies may even be regarded as a success because the migration of Han Chinese into the sparsely populated regions enhances government control over the longer term, regardless of the friction it may create.

However, seen in the context of the wider Chinese society, the upsurge in unrest raises some worrying questions for Beijing. Despite the strictest possible control, the spread of information and rights consciousness has encouraged Uighurs and Tibetans to take to the streets in spontaneous demonstrations, and violent repression has stoked further unrest. This mirrors events taking place elsewhere in China, where potent fault lines within society are bursting into the open, despite the government's best efforts to foster a "harmonious society."

This suggests that China may be entering a period similar to that in the late 1980s, when demonstrations began to break out over a variety of issues. As during that period, the Chinese economy is under stress, with rising expectations running up against the reality of limited opportunities. Add in anger about corruption and abuse of power by local officials and the stage is set for what are euphemistically known as "mass incidents." While the government may be able to manage localized riots, there is a danger of a repeat of 1989, should an event provide the impetus for the formation of a wider national protest movement.

Widespread use of the Internet and mobile phones accelerates the spread of unrest beyond the capacity of the authorities to respond. The proximate cause of the rioting in Urumqi on July 5 happened thousands of miles away in Guangdong province. At a toy factory in Shaoguan, Han Chinese attacked young Uighur workers after rumors spread that they had raped several women. The state media reported that two Uighurs were killed, but graphic pictures and rumors of a higher death toll spread quickly over the Internet to Xinjiang. Complaining that the authorities were not doing enough to protect their compatriots, Uighurs took to the streets of Urumqi in an initially peaceful protest. Although the details are murky and the truth may never be known, the incident turned violent quickly after confrontations with the police.

This contagion effect must give Chinese leaders pause because it presages an era in which national stability is held hostage to the mistakes made by local leaders. When information flows were easier to control, violence in one area had little impact on the rest of the country. Today, by contrast, the Xinjiang violence dominates the consciousness of the whole Chinese population.

In part that's because propaganda authorities are under pressure to be proactive about reporting incidents in order to pre-empt the spread of rumors. Even then, as we saw recently, this coverage itself may not be accurate or effective in reassuring the population. And in any case, the net effect may be to undermine confidence in the government's ability to maintain law and order. It also tends to inflame Han nationalism, which, as with anti-U.S. and anti-Japanese protests in the past, can quickly spin out of control.

Paradoxically, the government's strict control over the official media combined with underground channels for information of dubious origins can prove to be a combustible mixture. Because Chinese netizens do not trust the media, they are more inclined to believe reports passed along the electronic grapevine. In this case, the spread of rumors quickly polarized both Uighur and Han communities.

Moreover, even though the state has extensive mechanisms to censor online communications, it has never been able to develop the "surge capacity" to stop the flow of information during a crisis. This also tends to make the system more unstable, as people discontented over other issues latch on to the issue of the moment.

Economic considerations are also coming into play -- it is significant that the initial rape rumors were spread by a Han Chinese angry that he lost his job in the factory where the Uighurs were working. While the macroeconomic statistics suggest China has been relatively insulated from the global financial crisis by massive government spending and new loans from the state-owned banks, on the ground the picture is more mixed. Privately owned export-oriented factories have closed, the fresh credit has tended to go into speculative investments, and infrastructure spending takes time to ramp up. The net effect may be to actually exacerbate tensions, as the poor struggle to find jobs while the rich and politically well-connected have access to government contracts and easy credit.

Several recent incidents suggest that society is becoming more volatile. Most dramatically, rioters fought a pitched battle with police in Shishou, Hubei, province, in late June after the suspicious death of the chef in a hotel with connections to the mayor. As is often the case in these incidents, the extent of the violence can be attributed largely to mishandling of the initial protest by local officials.

But it is not hard to conceive of circumstances that could lead to a wider protest movement. For instance, the scandal over melamine-contaminated milk powder last year was handled relatively well by the central government, with punishments handed down to those responsible and compensation paid to the victims. But were such an incident to implicate the family of top leaders, or the government fail to resolve it expeditiously, the same mechanism that spread protests from Guangdong to Xinjiang could come into play.

As the government increases its involvement in the economy through stimulus measures, there is an increased risk that corruption will again become a source of public anger. This would parallel to some extent the late 1980s, when a dual pricing system allowed Party officials in state enterprises to profit by buying commodities at state prices and then selling them on the open market. Today the mechanisms are different, such as the "land grabs" in which officials take plots from farmers and urban residents with minimal compensation and sell them on to real estate developers.

Another parallel to the 1980s is the increasing activism of intellectuals after decades of being silenced and coopted by the Party. Over the last five years, a loose grouping of legal professionals and academics haved tried to protect the rights of ordinary citizen against abuses of power by Party officials, a movement known as "Weiquan."

The pressure for political change today differs from the 1980s, however, in its emphasis on bottom-up activism, using a combination of the courts, media and other channels to put pressure on local officialdom. The late Party Secretary General Zhao Ziyang's recently published memoir highlights how the liberal wing of the Party that once pushed for political reform was eliminated after 1989. After that, he noted, the Party elite became increasingly enmeshed in the business world, creating vested interests that seek to preserve the Party's monopoly on power.

How this shift will affect social stability remains to be seen. On the one hand, the leadership split within the Party in 1989 was one of the key contributing factors to the protest movement gaining momentum and the ensuing crackdown. Today the Party elite is relatively united at least on policy issues, and the main intra-Party conflict is between the center and the regions, as local officials seek to cover up their misdeeds at the risk of spreading instability.

In other ways, the current situation could prove more volatile. As the Xinjiang experience shows, when dissatisfaction reaches the point where people no longer feel they have much to lose, even a massive security force cannot deter violence. Tensions may be highest in the minority areas, but the feeling of marginalization and victimization by Party officials is widespread.

Why we dont want a Nuclear free world

'Nuclear weapons are used every day." So says former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, speaking last month at his office in a wooded enclave of Maclean, Va. It's a serene setting for Doomsday talk, and Mr. Schlesinger's matter-of-fact tone belies the enormity of the concepts he's explaining -- concepts that were seemingly ignored in this week's Moscow summit between Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev.

We use nuclear weapons every day, Mr. Schlesinger goes on to explain, "to deter our potential foes and provide reassurance to the allies to whom we offer protection."

Mr. Obama likes to talk about his vision of a nuclear-free world, and in Moscow he and Mr. Medvedev signed an agreement setting targets for sweeping reductions in the world's largest nuclear arsenals. Reflecting on the hour I spent with Mr. Schlesinger, I can't help but think: Do we really want to do this?

For nuclear strategists, Mr. Schlesinger is Yoda, the master of their universe. In addition to being a former defense secretary (Nixon and Ford), he is a former energy secretary (Carter) and former director of central intelligence (Nixon). He has been studying the U.S. nuclear posture since the early 1960s, when he was at the RAND Corporation, a California think tank that often does research for the U.S. government. He's the expert whom Defense Secretary Robert Gates called on last year to lead an investigation into the Air Force's mishandling of nuclear weapons after nuclear-armed cruise missiles were mistakenly flown across the country on a B-52 and nuclear fuses were accidently shipped to Taiwan. Most recently, he's vice chairman of a bipartisan congressional commission that in May issued an urgent warning about the need to maintain a strong U.S. deterrent.

But above all, Mr. Schlesinger is a nuclear realist. Are we heading toward a nuclear-free world anytime soon? He shoots back a one-word answer: "No." I keep silent, hoping he will go on. "We will need a strong deterrent," he finally says, "and that is measured at least in decades -- in my judgment, in fact, more or less in perpetuity. The notion that we can abolish nuclear weapons reflects on a combination of American utopianism and American parochialism. . . . It's like the [1929] Kellogg-Briand Pact renouncing war as an instrument of national policy . . . . It's not based upon an understanding of reality."

In other words: Go ahead and wish for a nuclear-free world, but pray that you don't get what you wish for. A world without nukes would be even more dangerous than a world with them, Mr. Schlesinger argues.

"If, by some miracle, we were able to eliminate nuclear weapons," he says, "what we would have is a number of countries sitting around with breakout capabilities or rumors of breakout capabilities -- for intimidation purposes. . . . and finally, probably, a number of small clandestine stockpiles." This would make the U.S. more vulnerable.

Mr. Schlesinger makes the case for a strong U.S. deterrent. Yes, the Cold War has ended and, yes, while "we worry about Russia's nuclear posture to some degree, it is not just as prominent as it once was." The U.S. still needs to deter Russia, which has the largest nuclear capability of any potential adversary, and the Chinese, who have a modest (and growing) capability. The U.S. nuclear deterrent has no influence on North Korea or Iran, he says, or on nonstate actors. "They're not going to be deterred by the possibility of a nuclear response to actions that they might take," he says.

Mr. Schlesinger refers to the unanimous conclusion of the bipartisan Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, which he co-led with Chairman William Perry. The commission "strongly" recommended that further discussions with the Russians on arms control are "desirable," he says, and that "we should proceed with negotiations on an extension of the START Treaty." That's what Mr. Obama set in motion in Moscow this week. The pact -- whose full name is the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty -- expires in December. But what's the hurry? Mr. Schlesinger warns about rushing to agree on cuts. "The treaty . . . can be extended for five years. And, if need be, I would extend it for five years."

There's another compelling reason for a strong U.S. deterrent: the U.S. nuclear umbrella, which protects more than 30 allies world-wide. "If we were only protecting the North American continent," he says, "we could do so with far fewer weapons than we have at present in the stockpile." But a principal aim of the U.S. nuclear deterrent is "to provide the necessary reassurance to our allies, both in Asia and in Europe." That includes "our new NATO allies such as Poland and the Baltic States," which, he notes dryly, continue to be concerned about their Russian neighbor. "Indeed, they inform us regularly that they understand the Russians far better than do we."

The congressional commission warned of a coming "tipping point" in proliferation, when more nations might decide to go nuclear if they were to lose confidence in the U.S. deterrent, or in Washington's will to use it. If U.S. allies lose confidence in Washington's ability to protect them, they'll kick off a new nuclear arms race.

That's a reason Mr. Schlesinger wants to bring Japan into the nuclear conversation. "One of the recommendations of the commission is that we start to have a dialogue with the Japanese about strategic capabilities in order both to help enlighten them and to provide reassurance that they will be protected by the U.S. nuclear umbrella. In the past, that has not been the case. Japan never was seriously threatened by Soviet capabilities and that the Soviets looked westward largely is a threat against Western Europe. But now that the Chinese forces have been growing into the many hundreds of weapons, we think that it's necessary to talk to the Japanese in the same way that we have talked to the Europeans over the years."

He reminds me of the comment of Japanese political leader Ichiro Ozawa, who said in 2002 that it would be "easy" for Japan to make nuclear warheads and that it had enough plutonium to make several thousand weapons. "When one contemplates a number like that," Mr. Schlesinger says, "one sees that a substantial role in nonproliferation has been the U.S. nuclear umbrella. Without that, some and perhaps a fair number of our allies would feel the necessity of having their own nuclear capabilities."

He worries about "contagion" in the Middle East, whereby countries will decide to go nuclear if Iran does. "We've long talked about Iran as a tipping point," he says, "in that it might induce Turkey, which has long been protected under NATO, Egypt [and] Saudi Arabia to respond in kind . . . There has been talk about extending the nuclear umbrella to the Middle East in the event that the Iranians are successful in developing that capacity."

Mr. Schlesinger expresses concerns, too, about the safety and reliability of U.S. nuclear weapons, all of which are more than 20 years old. "I am worried about the reliability of the weapons . . . as time passes. Not this year, not next year, but as time passes and the stockpile ages." There is a worry, too, about the "intellectual infrastructure," he says, as Americans who know how to make nuclear weapons either retire or die. And he notes that the "physical infrastructure" is now "well over 60 years" old. Some of it "comes out of the Manhattan Project."

The U.S. is the only major nuclear power that is not modernizing its weapons. "The Russians have a shelf life for their weapons of about 10 years so they are continually replacing" them. The British and the French "stay up to date." And the Chinese and the Indians "continue to add to their stockpiles." But in the U.S., Congress won't even so much as fund R&D for the Reliable Replacement Warhead. "The RRW has become a toxic term on Capitol Hill," Mr. Schlesinger says. Give it a new name, he seems to be suggesting, and try again to get Congress to fund it. "We need to be much more vigorous about life-extension programs" for the weapons.

Finally, we chat about Mr. Schlesinger's nearly half-century as a nuclear strategist. Are we living in a world where the use of nuclear weapons is more likely than it was back then? "The likelihood of a nuclear exchange has substantially gone away," he says. That's the good news. "However, the likelihood of a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States" is greater.

During his RAND years, in the 1960s, Mr. Schlesinger recalls that "we were working on mitigating the possible effects [of a nuclear attack] through civil defense, which, may I say parenthetically, we should be working on now with respect, certainly, to the possibility of a terrorist weapon used against the United States. . . . We should have a much more rapid response capability. . . . We're not as well organized as we should be to respond."

Mr. Schlesinger sees another difference between now and when he started in this business: "Public interest in our strategic posture has faded over the decades," he says. "In the Cold War, it was a most prominent subject. Now, much of the public is barely interested in it. And that has been true of the Congress as well," creating what he delicately refers to as "something of a stalemate in expenditures."

He's raising the alarm. Congress, the administration and Americans ignore it at their peril.

Bemoan the BJP

Hindus want to celebrate their strength, not wallow in misplaced victimhood and majoritarianism.

For a party born in April 1980, mid-life crisis and the consequent existential questions have visited the BJP rather early.

You could blame the Acquired Ideological Deficiency Syndrome it inherited from its political avatar known as the Jan Sangh. Or you could blame the presence of too many leaders and the resultant absence of leadership.With 125 seats and half-a-dozen states the party is anything but sunk. But you can't deny that the metaphor is apt. It would have been hard to visualise this disarray when "abki bari or every bari Atal Bihari" had the nation mesmerised not too long back. But then Vajpayee had lived long enough in the opposition ranks to comprehend the essential road to power.

As the bard mused, many in the party wonder "whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles... " To be or not to be is not the question. What to be and what not to be is.

Here are five steps the party must take if it wants to avoid what Shakespeare described as 'devout consummation'.

Be the Change

I am writing this from Pune - the crucible of Tilak's nationalism and 'pure-bred communalism'. Last night three Maharashtrians, all successful, definitely from the BJP catchment, and Brahmins to boot said: "Neither our children or their friends can identify with this Hindutva line. The BJP must dump the communal agenda to be acceptable." Hindus don't identify with misplaced victimhood or majoritarianism. India is secular because Hindus want it to be secular. They want this strength to be celebrated.

Back to Basics

When was the last time the BJP stood up on the street to be counted on issues that impact the common man? Yes, TV debates are good but the perception is that leaders have lost mass connectivity and have mistaken the virtual arena for the real thing. The party must ask itself if it played the role of the opposition between 2004 and 2009.

Politics is a 24x7 show, not an election special. It is not surprising that the BJP trailed in 69 of the 70 Assembly segments in Delhi in the Lok Sabha polls. It's the party which rules the MCD-run 1,072 schools where the poorest send their kids to study in tents, and nobody found it objectionable. Unless you are willing to lead the next morcha for bijli, pani or sadak, you are irrelevant. BiPaSa has the power to make a star of you. Be the opposition.

Be an all-India party

Till such time they find the next Vajpayee with pan-India popularity, BJP leaders must do what mere mortals do: build to expand. With no presence in 10 states, the BJP is a little better than the Jan Sangh was in the 70s. For the next five years, it must focus on acquiring market share. Start with West Bengal and Tamil Nadu which are both ripe for a new alternative and ring-fence Kerala with a growth agenda.

Be the Party with a Difference

Long back the BJP was the party with a difference. Now even the quip 'a party with differences' has become a cliché. The first step would be to fix a retirement age, preferably 60. Senior citizens should become mentors and each should mentor at least two leaders. Fix a three or four-term limit for all posts - be it MP or MLA to give others an opportunity. Whether it is Varun or Judeo, the mantra should be sack instantly. Guilty till proved innocent.

Buy into Valmiki

Forsake communalism and the communal agenda. Despite losing their tallest leader to the agitation, the Congress has apologised for the Sikh riots, Operation Blue Star and the Emergency. What makes the BJP think it can get away with Babri and the Gujarat pogrom? It must follow Valmiki and apologise to seek redemption.

Last night Jaswant Singh, arguably one of the best finance ministers, urged ideological distillation in thinking. Rooted in Jan Sangh ideology the party for long has pretended to be the protector of Hindus. By inference it suggests they are weak. So for starters the party must cease to think of itself as protectors of anybody or anything: lives, religion or culture. New India is not interested in supari politics.

If it is serious about tomorrow, the BJP must forget about yesterday and invest in the concept of what is Right. For civil society functions on the construct of right. Not might.

Star Trek: Rubbish!

In a recent article posted on The Independant,Johann Hari has brought to light another impending disaster.No,this aint about global warming,poverty,world food crisis or even the threat to global security.
Governments around the world have woken up to the challenges that these pose to humanity at large and their native country's competitive advantage on the home front.However,the G-20 has largely overlooked a side effect of its space exploration endeavours that is poised for snowballing into a communications disaster that has more far reaching consequences than the current compendium. Take a look for yourself :

Johann Hari: We're covering our planet with a cloud of space junk

Governments won't even agree to stop adding to the rubbish.

In 1965, the American astronaut Edward White dropped a glove, and it has been orbiting the earth at 17,000 miles per hour ever since. This sounds like a quirky Trivial Pursuit answer – what is the deadliest garment in history? – but it could be about to give us all a galactic slap in the face.

That glove is now joined by so much space trash that scientists are warning it could be poised to take out the satellites we depend on every day – and trap us here on a heating earth.

In just 50 years of exploring space, humans have left 600,000 pieces of rubbish in space, all circling us at super-speed. When it is whirring so fast, a one millimetre fleck of paint hits you as hard as a .22 calibre bullet fired at point-blank range. A hard-boiled pea is as dangerous as a 400lb safe smacking into you at 60mph. And a chunk of metal the size of a tennis ball is as explosive as 25 sticks of dynamite.

We are adding to this junk faster than ever before. There is no international agreement not to leave trash in the skies – and all nations are being reckless. The International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety warns that, at the current rate, the volume of Star Drek will increase fivefold in the next decade. More flights leave more rubbish, and more countries test their fancy new weapons systems by blowing up old satellites – and creating new torrents of trash.

This creates a minor danger, and a major danger. There is a small risk that this rubbish will smack into human beings when minor amounts of it re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. For example, in March 2007, the wreckage of a Soviet spy satellite nearly crashed into a passenger plane over the Pacific. But only one woman has ever been hit by space junk: Lottie Williams from Oklahoma was smacked in the shoulder by a charred piece of space rocket. She was not injured.

But there is a greater danger that an unstoppable chain reaction will begin: the rubbish will crash into other pieces of rubbish, causing it to shatter into smaller chunks that will then crash into each other – and on, and on, until the earth is circled by a haze of impassable metal debris that remains there for millennia. There are (contested) fears that the process began in February this year, when an old Russian satellite crashed into a US satellite high above Siberia.

Dr Marshall Kaplan at John Hopkins University Applied Phyiscs Laboratory says that we face a "coming catastrophic disaster. If we don't clean up this mess in the next 20 years, we're going to lose our access to space". Vladimir Solovyov, Russia's space mission control chief, agrees. He warns: "The clouds of debris pose a serious danger... to earth-tracking and communications satellites."

What would it mean? The super-speed of our globalized world is dependent on satellites. If they are taken out by a barrage of 17,000mph rubbish, you can say goodbye to your mobile phones, GPS, and weather forecasts – and we'll be needing them in this century. We will be trapped here, unable to explore space. Hubble telescope bubble, toil and trouble.

What can we do now? There are some proposals for removing the rubbish, like creating a series of lasers that would sweep the trash back into our atmosphere, where it would mostly burn up. But they are regarded as of dubious scientific plausibility, and a long way off.

The most urgent task is to stop adding to the rubbish – but the 20 governments that have access to space are refusing to do it. They will not agree a deal; they don't want to tell each other where their spy satellites are, or to agree not to blow them up when they feel like it, to test their flashy new weaponry.

This wall of garbage orbiting us all seems like a symbol of the great dilemmas facing humanity in the 21st century. We have become capable of the most stunning technological breakthroughs – but we are sabotaging them by proving ourselves incapable of the most basic forms of self-restraint. At the moment of victory, we regress. The achievements of our frontal lobes are undermined by the backwardness of our adrenal glands.

This story is being played out, with mild variations, again and again, in this century. We have dramatically improved human health – yet now seem poised to cook it under a thick blanket of our own carbon emissions. We have made it possible to fish and farm more efficiently than ever – so we do it till we have taken all the fish and destroyed all the soil.

It doesn't have to be like this. We can restrain ourselves to save our satellites, and our ecosystem. Individuals restrain themselves all the time; why can't we do it collectively? The only alternative is to become a species who heroically reach for the stars – only to smack into a wall of our own trash.

Dial P for Propaganda

Here are the seven common propaganda devices:
1. Name-calling :

This involves the use of words to connect a person or idea to a
negative concept. The aim is to make a person reject something without examining the evidence because of the negative associations attached to it.
Examples of words include ‘Terrorist‘, ‘Nazi‘ and ‘Queer’.
Name Calling is used as a substitute for arguing the merits of an idea, belief, or proposal. It is often employed using sarcasm and ridicule in political cartoons and writing.

2. Glittering Generalities
The opposite of name-calling, this involves the use of highly valued concepts and beliefs which attract general approval and acclaim. These are vague, emotionally attractive words like ‘freedom‘, ‘honor‘ and ‘love‘.
This method works because these concepts/words mean different things to different people, while still having a positive implication.
When someone talks to us about democracy, we immediately think of our own definite ideas about democracy, the ideas we learned at home, at school, and in church.
Our first and natural reaction is to assume that the speaker is using the word in our sense, that he believes as we do on this important subject. This lowers our ’sales resistance’ and makes us far less suspicious..

This is the list of "positive, governing words" that GOP candidates were told to use when speaking about themselves or their policies.
Active(ly)
Activist
Building
Candid(ly)
Care(ing)
Challenge
Change
Children
Choice/choose
Citizen
Commitment
Common sense
Compete
Confident
Conflict
Control
Courage
Crusade
Debate
Dream
Duty
Eliminate good-time in prison
Empower(ment)
Fair
Family
Freedom
Hard work
Help
Humane
Incentive
Initiative
Lead
Learn
Legacy
Liberty
Light
Listen
Mobilize
Moral
Movement
Opportunity
Passionate
Peace
Pioneer
Precious
Premise
Preserve
Principle(d)
Pristine
Pro-(issue) flag, children, environment
Prosperity
Protect
Proud/pride
Provide
Reform
Rights
Share
Strength
Success
Tough
Truth
Unique
Vision
We/us/our
Workfare

3. Transfer
This is a technique used to carry over the authority and approval of something you respect and revere to something the propagandist would have you accept. One does this by projecting the qualities of an entity, person or symbol to another through visual or mental association.
This stimulates the recipient and makes him/her identify with recognized authorities.
In the Transfer device, symbols are constantly used. The cross represents the Christian Church. The flag represents the nation. Cartoons like Uncle Sam represent a consensus of public opinion. Those symbols stir emotions. At their very sight, with the speed of light, is aroused the whole complex of feelings we have with respect to church or nation.

Single hand symbols: 1.Dissenting person, 2.Beetle, 3.Ray, 4.Anger, 5.Excellent, 6.Bangle, 7.Neck, 8.Armlet, 9.Negative

Double hand symbols: 1.Tusk, 2.Seperation, 3.Forlimb, 4.Waist, 5.Vedam, 6.Brother, 7.Pillar, 8.Mortar, 9.Speedy, 10.Devil, 11.Growth

4. Testimonial
The aim of testimonial is to leverage the experience, authority and respect of a person and use it to endorse a product or cause. Testimonials appeal to emotions instead of logic because they generally provide weak justifications for the product or a cause of action.
‘The Times said,’ ‘John L. Lewis said…,’ ‘Herbert Hoover said…’, ‘The President said…’, ‘My doctor said…,’ ‘Our minister said…’ Some of these Testimonials may merely give greater emphasis to a legitimate and accurate idea, a fair use of the device; others, however, may represent the sugar-coating of a distortion, a falsehood, a misunderstood notion, an anti-social suggestion…”

5. Plain Folks
A technique whereby the propagandist positions him or herself as an average person just like the target audience, thereby demonstrating the ability to empathize and understand the concerns/feelings of the masses.
One may perform ordinary actions or use language and mannerisms to reach the audience and cohere with their point of view.
We are all familiar with candidates who campaign as political outsiders, promising to “clean out the barn” and set things straight in Washington. The political landscape is dotted with politicians who challenge a mythical “cultural elite,” presumably aligning themselves with “ordinary Americans.” As baby boomers approach their sixth decade, we are no longer shocked by the sight of politicians in denim who listen to rock n roll.

6. Card Stacking
A way of manipulating audience perceptions by emphasizing one side of an argument which reinforces your position, while repressing/minimizing dissenting opinions. An example of this articles/media events which compare and contrast the best possible scenarios with the worse examples.
Assume a newspaper editor were in favor of the non-enforcement of immigration laws. Should the issue of immigration law enforcement ever be debated among legislators, the editor might publish articles and editorials that ignore all mention of illegal alien criminals, gang members, and prisoners and report only on decent, hard-working foreigners instead. This sort of card stacking could go on for weeks and influence public opinion on the issue.

7. Bandwagon
The basic premise for the bandwagon technique is to suggest that ’since everyone is doing it, you should too’. It’s aim to persuade people to follow a general trend by reinforcing the human need to participate on the winning side. One can suggest to an audience that he or she will lose out by not moving with the rest of the crowd, thus preying on their insecurities and fears.
With the aid of all the other propaganda devices, all of the artifices of flattery are used to harness the fears and hatreds, prejudices and biases, convictions and ideals common to a group. Thus is emotion made to push and pull us as members of a group onto a Band Wagon.

Diversity of opinion-a right to inform,a right to protect

'm not too sure whether 'surprise' is the right word here but it sounds too tragically hillarious to be dispensed with, in the context that i plan to use it henceforth... you will be surprised to know that the reprinting of an article on standing up for the right to criticise religion in one of the leading dailies of India,irked a bunch of Islamic hardliners into staging a 4000 men strong protest which ultimately led to the arrest of the editor and publisher of the paper in question.

Now in the light of the oncoming elections in most states, this incident of the West Bengal state govt.'s buckling to electoral pressures could be viewed as an open and shut case of votebank appeasement.You have a) a power hungry political class at their wits' end to bolster public approval for a re-election, B) a natalist,largely uneducated,unaware mass of mullahs weilding their sticks against abomination of the shariah.One doesnt need to be a rocket scientist to combine the two into C)an oppurtunity to translate vociferous demands for censuring alleged disrespect to religious sentiments into votes.

but get this,in a similar attempt at obfuscating the freedom of speech and expression in another state of India,Karnataka to be precise, the state government summarily dealt with the perpetrators,at the risque of mutiny from within their own ranks and alienating their party's personal right-wing fundamentalist history.
http://www.thehoot.org/web/home/story.php?storyid=3696&mod=1&pg=1&sectionId=19&valid=true

ive been following the follow up of the events in Calcutta and cant help but remark that civil society can only be granted the sanction of being labelled thus, if it chooses to play the part of being 'civil'.For what is most fundamental to the survival of a' public sphere' than the freedom of speech and expression that guarentees diversity of opinion. As a student of journalism, one of the papers i took last semester was called-'Law,Society & Media'.It reqiured us to examine the core concerns of our constitution makers, especially with regards to article 19 1(a) which guarentees the right to freedom of speech and expression.
Heres what we found out-
''in a democracy the deliberative forces shall prevail over the arbitrary so public discussion is a political duty and therefore the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people.''
freedom of speech and expression and consequently freedom of the press thus rests on the assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public.

To me,surprise is therefore THE word that underpins all that has transpired in the past few days.I'm surprised ,pleasantly, at that, to find that as a student of journalism,i need not be cynical about the inability to effect change in the critical political economy theory guided agenda setting media marketplace.Johann Hari's article is an absolute delight to stumble upon.
i'm surprised over the lack of support and the apathy that The Statesman has had to deal with in its struggle against religious bigotry.I'm surprised to the point of being appalled over the fate of Sayed Parvez Kambaksh and the rest of the tribe of unsung heroes.
The noted American journalist,Walter Lippmann, once said ,
"true democracy is a goal that cannot be reached in a complex world''. He argued that people are more likely to beleive the 'pictures in their heads' than come to judgement by critical thinking.In the light of industrialisation,events leading to WWII and the rise of totalitarian states,the man became disillusioned with the idea of an educated electorate taking informed decisions. Lippman argued that distortion of information was inherent in the human mind and hence coined the term "stereotypes" to define the greatly fragmented reality that people choose to live with.

here's the article that helps break a few.--kudos to johann hari for compiling it :--

The UN rapporteur who is supposed to be the global guardian of free speech has had his job rewritten – to put him on the side of the religious censors

The right to criticise religion is being slowly doused in acid. Across the world, the small, incremental gains made by secularism – giving us the space to doubt and question and make up our own minds – are being beaten back by belligerent demands that we “respect” religion. A historic marker has just been passed, showing how far we have been shoved. The UN rapporteur who is supposed to be the global guardian of free speech has had his job rewritten – to put him on the side of the religious censors. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights stated sixty years ago that “a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief is the highest aspiration of the common people.” It was a Magna Carta for mankind – and loathed by every human rights abuser on earth. Today, the Chinese dictatorship calls it “Western”, Robert Mugabe calls it “colonialist”, and Dick Cheney calls it “outdated.” The countries of the world have chronically failed to meet it – but the document has been held up by the United Nations as the ultimate standard against which to check ourselves. Until now. Starting in 1999, a coalition of Islamist tyrants led by Saudi Arabia demanded the rules be rewritten. The demand for everyone to be able to think and speak freely failed to “respect” the “unique sensitivities” of the religious, they said – so they issued an alternative Islamic Declaration of Human Rights. It said you can only speak within “the limits set by the shariah [law]. It is not permitted to spread falsehood or disseminate that which involves encouraging abomination or forsaking the Islamic community.” In other words: you can say anything you like, as long as it precisely what the reactionary mullahs tell you to say. The declaration makes it clear there is no equality for women, gays, non-Muslims, or apostates. It has been backed by the Vatican and a bevy of Christian fundamentalists. Incredibly, they are succeeding. The UN’s Rapporteur on Human Rights has always been tasked with exposing and shaming those who prevent free speech – including the religious. But the Pakistani delegate recently demanded that his job description be changed so he seeks out and condemns “abuses of free expression” including “defamation of religions and prophets”. The council agreed – so the job has been turned on its head. Instead of condemning the people who tried to murder Salman Rushdie, they will be condemning Salman Rushdie himself. Anything which can be deemed “religious” is no longer allowed to be a subject of discussion at the UN – and almost everything is deemed religious. Roy Brown of the International Humanist and Ethical Union has tried to raise topics like the stoning of women accused of adultery or child marriage. The Egyptian delegate stood up to announce discussion of shariah “will not happen” and “Islam will not be crucified in this council” – and Brown was ordered to be silent. Of course, the first victims of locking down free speech about Islam with the imprimatur of the UN are ordinary Muslims. Here is a random smattering of events that have taken place in the past week in countries that demanded this change. In Nigeria, divorced women are routinely thrown out of their homes and left destitute, unable to see their children, so a large group of them wanted to stage a protest – but the Shariah police declared it was “un-Islamic” and the marchers would be beaten and whipped. In Saudi Arabia, the country’s most senior government-approved cleric said it was perfectly acceptable for old men to marry ten year old girls, and those who disagree should be silenced. In Egypt, a 27-year old Muslim blogger Abdel Rahman was seized, jailed and tortured for arguing for a reformed Islam that does not enforce shariah. To the people who demand respect for Muslim culture, I ask: which Muslim culture? Those women’s, those children’s, this blogger’s – or their oppressors’? As the secular campaigner Austin Darcy puts it: “The ultimate aim of this effort is not to protect the feelings of Muslims, but to protect illiberal Islamic states from charges of human rights abuse, and to silence the voices of internal dissidents calling for more secular government and freedom.” Those of us who passionately support the UN should be the most outraged by this. Underpinning these “reforms” is a notion seeping even into democratic societies – that atheism and doubt are akin to racism. Today, whenever a religious belief is criticised, its adherents immediately claim they are the victims of “prejudice” – and their outrage is increasingly being backed by laws. All people deserve respect, but not all ideas do. I don’t respect the idea that a man was born of a virgin, walked on water, and rose from the dead. I don’t respect the idea that we should follow a ‘Prophet’ who at the age of 53 had sex with a nine-year old girl, and ordered the murder of whole villages of Jews because they wouldn’t follow him. I don’t respect the idea that the West Bank was handed to Jews by God and the Palestinians should be bombed or bullied into surrendering it. I don’t respect the idea that we may have lived before as goats, and could live again as woodlice. This is not because of “prejudice” or “ignorance”, but because there is no evidence for these claims. They belong to the childhood of our species, and will in time look as preposterous as believing in Zeus or Thor or Baal. When you demand “respect”, you are demanding we lie to you. I have too much real respect for you as a human being to engage in that charade. But why are religious sensitivities so much more likely to provoke demands for censorship than, say, political sensitivities? The answer lies in the nature of faith. If my views are challenged I can, in the end, check them against reality. If you deregulate markets, will they collapse? If you increase carbon dioxide emissions, does the climate become destabilised? If my views are wrong, I can correct them; if they are right, I am soothed. But when the religious are challenged, there is no evidence for them to consult. By definition, if you have faith, you are choosing to believe in the absence of evidence. Nobody has ‘faith’ that fire hurts, or Australia exists; they know it, based on proof. But it is psychologically painful to be confronted with the fact that your core beliefs are based on thin air, or on the empty shells of revelation or contorted parodies of reason. It’s easier to demand the source of the pesky doubt be silenced. But a free society cannot be structured to soothe the hardcore faithful. It is based on a deal. You have an absolute right to voice your beliefs – but the price is that I too have a right to respond as I wish. Neither of us can set aside the rules and demand to be protected from offence. Yet this idea – at the heart of the Universal Declaration – is being lost. To the right, it thwacks into apologists for religious censorship; to the left, it dissolves in multiculturalism. The hijacking of the UN Special Rapporteur by religious fanatics should jolt us into rescuing the simple, battered idea disintegrating in the middle: the equal, indivisible human right to speak freely.