Acid Attacks

The Supreme Court Monday had asked the Indian government to examine the feasibility of having a stringent penal law akin to the one in Bangladesh to deal with cases of women and young girls being attacked with acid. It has also asked the government to examine the feasibility of regulating the sale of acid on the lines of provisions in Bangladesh. India's neighbouring country has an Acid Control Order, which regulates the sale of the material. But in India it is available for sale across the counter and proves to be a lethal weapon in the hands of people with a criminal bent of mind.

This was way back in April, 2008 and as always the government has failed to act with any sort of urgency. The matter is still caught up in bureaucratic red tape and in all probability will not see the light of day anytime soon.

Meanwhile, countless women across the country bear the brunt of these barbaric cowardly attacks most commonly at the hands of shunned "lovers".

What fine people are running this country....

The Indian Hate Sena (Army)

Self proclaimed protectors of what they think is Indian culture have taken it upon themselves to launch various types of protests against Valentine's day celebrations across a few states in India. These Hindu extremists groups often christen themselves after Hindu gods as if to suggest that they are performing God's work. When all these sanity deprived, frustrated attention seeking hooligans really do is terrorize innocent people on the premise of very flimsy grounds. In response to the now infamous Mangalore incident the union minister for women and child development, Renuka Choudhary termed it a Talabanizaiton of India by to put it quite bluntly hordes of sexually frustrated men. And this to me is fact. As one victim of the incident recounted, "we were groped and molested in the name of God."


The names of these groups are not worth a mention right now. All the while its leader, a notorious thug with numerous criminal cases pending against him, claimed and still continues to do so blatanly adamant as ever, that they carried out the act i.e. the assualt on helpless young women, in the interest of protecting Indian culture.

White Collar Crime--India's ENRON

On 7 January 2009, Satyam Computer Services Ltd. Chairman Ramalinga Raju resigned after notifying its board members and the SEBI that he had falsified accounts.

He stated that:

"What started as a marginal gap between actual operating profit and the one reflected in the books of accounts continued to grow over the years. It has attained unmanageable proportions as the size of company operations grew significantly (annualised revenue run rate of Rs 11,276 crore in the September quarter of 2008 and official reserves of Rs 8,392 crore). As the promoters held a small percentage of equity, the concern was that poor performance would result in a takeover, thereby exposing the gap. The aborted Maytas acquisition deal was the last attempt to fill the fictitious assets with real ones. It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten.”

Analysts in India have termed the Satyam scandal as India's own Enron scandal. Immediately following the news, Merrill Lynch (Now with Bank of America) terminated its engagement with the company as Credit Suisse suspended its coverage of Satyam. It was also reported that Satyam's auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers will be scrutinized for complicity in this scandal. Satyam was the 2008 winner of the coveted Golden Peacock Award for Corporate Governance under Risk Management and Compliance Issues, which was stripped from them in the aftermath of the scandal.

The New York Stock Exchange has halted trading in Satyam stock as of 7 January 2009. India's National Stock Exchange has announced that it will remove Satyam from its S&P CNX Nifty 50-share index from January 12. The founder of Satyam has been arrested two days after he admitted falsifying the firm's accounts. Ramalinga Raju is charged with offences including criminal conspiracy,breach of trust and forgery. Satyam's shares fell to 11.50 rupees on 10/01/2009, their lowest level since March 1998. Last year they hit a high of 544 rupees.

Escalating Tensions--India and Pakistan

Tensions continue to soar on both sides of the border amid reports of troop movements. Both countries are apprehensive and wary towards each other. India has taken strides to garner support for its cause--its most recent ally being Saudi Arabia. Pakistan under tremendous international pressure is being pushed to act against the extremist groups operating within the country. The Indians still feel that Pakistan isn't doing quite enough. They have accused Pakistan of promoting War Hysteria in a bid to divert attention. Pakistan, meanwhile has accused India of attacking its sovereignty. Their premiers have made numerous statements to the same declaring how the country stands united against any external aggression.

The apparent boiling tensions simply cannot be disregarded by the international community for quite obvious reasons.

In Memory of Mumbai 26/11

Let those who perished be remembered eternally.

"An American Crime" II

On October 26, 1965, Indianapolis police answered a call saying that a girl had died. The call came from a pay telephone in front of a Shell station in a poor section of the city. The caller was a teenaged boy whose voice had not finished changing into that of an adult man. He sounded very nervous and directed the police to the address, 3850 East New York Street, at which they would find the dead female.

When the cops got to the dingy, rundown, clapboard home to which the anonymous caller had directed them, they found the emaciated dead body of 16-year-old Sylvia Marie Likens. She was covered with bruises and small wounds, later revealed to be cigarette and match burns that numbered over 100. There were also large areas where the outer layer of skin had peeled off. Likens also had a large letter "3" branded on her chest.

However, the most remarkable injuries, by far, were the words in block letters that had been burned directly onto her stomach: "I'M A PROSTITUTE AND PROUD OF IT!"

The Room where Sylvia's body was found.

Thus ended one of the most horrible crimes ever committed against a single victim.

source: trutv.com

"An American Crime" -- The tragic life of Sylvia Marie Likens

Sylvia
R.I.P

Sylvia Marie Likens (January 3, 1949 - October 26, 1965) was an American murder victim from Indiana. She was tortured to death by Gertrude Baniszewski (née Van Fossan), Gertrude's children, and other young people from their neighborhood. Her parents, carnival workers, had left Likens and her sister Jenny in the care of the Baniszewski family three months before her death in exchange for twenty dollars a week. Baniszewski, two of her children, Paula and John, and two neighbor youths, Coy Hubbard and Richard Hobbs, were charged and convicted of the crime. Her torture and murder were described by the prosecutor in Baniszewski's trial as "the most terrible crime ever committed in the state of Indiana."