Erasing the Communist link

There has been mention in Sulekha Newshopper that AID India is a charity that uses DYFI for its work. DYFI is the youth wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). To look for this, I scanned the AID India website and there was no mention of DYFI anywhere. So for example if you look at the despatch from Chennai you get to read

After the initial shock and chaos, we are now quite well organized to handle the relief efforts. A number of organizations have started working together to handle the relief work – AID, TNSF, Pondicherry Science Forum, Vidyarambam, Pratham and the PHM Organizations. We have formed a quick informal coalition to coordinate this work. As of now the state level coordination is being done from the AID-India office in Gopalapuram Chennai. [Update from Chennai-III]

But then if you look at the cached page from Google, you see that the word DYFI was taken out from the same paragraph.

After the initial shock and chaos, we are now quite well organized to handle the relief efforts. A number of organizations have started working together to handle the relief work – AID, TNSF, Pondicherry Science Forum, DYFI, Vidyarambam, Pratham and the PHM Organizations. We have formed a quick informal coalition to coordinate this work. As of now the state level coordination is being done from the AID-India office in Gopalapuram Chennai.[ Update from Chennai-III (cached version)]

The same editing is seen in the Update from Chennai and its cached version.
Why is AID India removing this DYFI word from all its documents ? Is it because they are no longer working with them or are they trying to remove the Communist link or are they supressing information ? Can anyone from AID India answer ?
From various reports I have been reading they seem to be doing excellent job on the ground and seem to have very little overhead.
Update:

AID India, an organisation I can

New Year Celebration – Commie style

Left-wing rebels killed at least 17 peasants in northeast Colombia on New Year’s Eve in reprisal for cooperating with far-right paramilitaries, police and local authorities said Saturday.
The massacre, in which police said four children and six women died, took place Friday night in the town of Tame, in the province of Arauca near the Venezuelan border. The oil-rich region is contested by Marxist rebels and their paramilitary foes.
The victims were gathered for a New Year’s Eve celebration when they were attacked, said Tame Mayor Alfredo Guzman.
Police say the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, carried out the crime. Authorities say the group killed nine peasant coca growers in August and 34 in June in the neighboring province of Norte de Santander. [Rebels Kill 17 Peasants in Colombia, Police Say]

FARC was established in 1964 by the Columbian Communist Party to defend Communist controlled areas and is considered the best equipped insurgency of Marxist origin in Latin America. You would think that Communism is a religion meant to defend the rights of peasants and common folk from exploitation. But looking at their activities, the same people are exploited and murdered.

Tsunami side effects

It is said that animals can sense when disaster is going to strike and escape. But what is not often mentioned is that humans become insane during such times. Here are two stories.
Apparently when you are going to provide aid in Indonesia, you have to dress as per Islamic code.

“The Americans have to understand our culture here,” said Hilmy Bakar Almascaty, vice-chairman of the Jakarta-based Islamic Defenders Front, which is mobilising relief efforts of its own.
“If they are not sensitive to local issues then there will be problems. If American women come to Aceh, they must wear dilbab for example. There is Sharia law in Aceh and that is what is dictated.”
USAid’s Bok said it was unlikely US service personnel would adhere to a Muslim dresscode.
“I don’t think the practice of Islam in Aceh is such that it forces all people to wear dilbab,” said Weiss. “This is not Saudi Arabia.” [Indonesian Islamic Group Wants US military aidgivers to wear Islamic dress]

The next one is from Tamil Nadu

People have died, but politics lives on. A strange game of politics in so in Tamil Nadu. J Jayalalitha is the chief minister of the state and controls a TV channel, Jaya TV. M Karunanidhi is her chief rival and controls Sun TV. Sun TV keeps showing news that portrays the government

A short fuse

For Wanzhou, a Yangtze River port city, the script was incendiary. Onlookers spread word that a senior official had abused a helpless porter. By nightfall, tens of thousands of people had swarmed Wanzhou’s central square, where they tipped over government vehicles, pummeled policemen and set fire to city hall.
Minor street quarrel provokes mass riot. The Communist Party, obsessed with enforcing social stability, has few worse fears. Yet the Wanzhou uprising, which occurred on Oct. 18, is one of nearly a dozen such incidents in the past three months, many touched off by government corruption, police abuse and the inequality of the riches accruing to the powerful and well connected.
“People can see how corrupt the government is while they barely have enough to eat,” said Mr. Yu, reflecting on the uprising that made him an instant proletarian hero – and later forced him into seclusion. “Our society has a short fuse, just waiting for a spark.”
Though it is experiencing one of the most spectacular economic expansions in history, China is having more trouble maintaining social order than at any time since the Tiananmen Square democracy movement in 1989. [China’s ‘Haves’ Stir the ‘Have Nots’ to Violence]

Isn’t Communism supposed to produce a classless society where everyone works for the common good ?
As we have noted before, the lofty ideals of Marx are not digested easily by common people and hence violence has to be used.

Different standards

Gen. Musharraf who lies consistently to his own people and the international community has now reneged on his promise to remove the uniform. Washington Bob had already made his comment. But now his boss, Colin Powell has said that it is an internal issue of Pakistan. If so Colin, why are you spreading democracy in Iraq ?
Colin Powell’s boss, the President has made spreading democracy a major action item in his agenda. But even his own Secretary of State does not seem to believe it. Due to the War on Terror, Musharraf is being held to very loose standards. So long as he delivers one Jihadi/month, the United States is closing its eyes to many other atrocities he is committing.

The devil-you-know argument is fine as far as it goes. Its defect is the one that applies to all dictatorships: a policy built on one man is a policy built on sand. Although Mr Musharraf is plainly a man the West can do business with, it is equally plain that he will not be around for ever$(Oev(Ben if he continues to dodge the Islamic extremists’ persistent attempts to assassinate him. Meanwhile, the hope that he would use his presidency to restore and strengthen democratic institutions in Pakistan is waning. Apart from failing to doff his uniform, he has not made his peace with the secular opposition. He has not acted seriously against the madrassas. It is not clear whether he has purged the army and intelligence services of their own religious extremists. Though he has hunted down foreign terrorists who threaten his own life, he has done less to root out Pakistan’s home-grown terrorists, who are increasingly active. And when Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s bomb, was found to have been selling nuclear secrets far and wide, Mr Musharraf let him off for an apology.[Another promise broken (subscription reqd)]

Burrial urns in Greece

Recently many burrial urns were discovered in various parts of Tamil Nadu. While the ones discovered in Palani were about 2000 years old, the ones in Adichanallur date to 800 BC.
The most recent issue of Archaeology Magazine has an article on the Warriors of Paros, a Greek Island in the Aegean Sea. Here too archaeologists found the remains of soldiers in urns.

Soldiers’ bones in urns–evidence of a forgotten battle fought around 730 B.C. Did these men perish on their island home of Paros, at the center of the Aegean Sea, or in some distant land? The loss of so many, at least 120 men, was certainly a catastrophe for the community, but their families and compatriots honored them, putting their cremated remains into large vases, two of which were decorated with scenes of mourning and war. Grief-stricken relatives then carried the urns to the cemetery in Paroikia, the island’s chief city, and placed them in two monumental tombs. [Warriors of Paros]

While the urns in Adichanallur had beautiful decorations of garlands and necklaces, the ones in Greece depicts war scenes. One vase showed a warrior fighting from a chariot with dead combatants lying next to him. It also shows foot soldiers and cavalry in action. A second vase shows war and mourning with women standing with their hands raised and men giving a salute to the dead.

Most hated immigrants

There was a program on NPR few weeks back saying that some British are moving out of the country and living as immigrants in other countries as they are fed up with many things. One of the problems cited by them was the influx of immigrants.
Now a recent Economist poll in which 74% of the people said that too many immigrants are coming to Britain. The most important problem cited was that immigrants put too much pressure on public services.

Most damaging for Britain’s enlightened self-image, the nation has risen to the top of the European xenophobes’ league. A Eurobarometer poll earlier this year found that 41% saw immigration as one of the two biggest problems faced by the nation

Aliens caused tsunamis

I have found Rajeev Srinivasan’s articles usually interesting. Writing about the tsunamis that devastated South East Asia he writes

I pooh-poohed one T John when he claimed that the Gujarat quake was a sign from above, but now I am beginning to wonder.
The devastation by the tsunami in Tamil Nadu, could it be a caveat from Up There about the atrocities being visited on the Kanchi Acharya? About adharma gaining ground?
There are mysterious forces out there that are not fully understood by our oh-so-rational selves. I am reminded of the strange signs and omens that historians recorded before calamities: for instance the rain of frogs in Vietnam preceding the cataclysmic war. Or the odd celestial signs that preceded the death of Julius Caesar.
It is said that the very elements can be affected by the mystical powers of sages who have acquired superhuman powers through meditation and sadhana. I think we should all tread carefully, for now we are treading on things we do not know. [Give so others may live again!]

So two tectonic plates after witnessing the so called atrocities against the Kanchi Acharya decided to knock each other off. Does Rajeev seriously believe that mystical powers of sages contributed to this calamity ? If so why are people in Sri Lanka and Thailand killed ?
There are not many right-wing columnists in India and if the existing ones start producing wierd theories like this no one will take them seriously.

One strong motivator

While violence in Iraq shows no signs of abatement, you would think that civilians would be scared to go there. Today I had gone to notarize a document, when I met this American who wanted someone to sign as witness to his will. He said he was off to Iraq as a civilian contractor and wanted to give the power of attorney to his wife.
He said he was going to give counter-terrorism training to Iraqis. On asked what motivated him to go to such a dangerous place, pat came the reply: Money.

Romans in China

Did the Romans ever reach China ? This is a new theory which has approval by the communist party as well.

The earliest recorded official contact between China and Rome did not occur until 166AD, when, according to a Chinese account, a Roman envoy arrived in China, possibly sent by Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Remarkably, that was the only contact between the two great powers of which a record survives. The Romans referred to the people of the remote east as the Seres