The Lalit Blog

  Lalit Shastri   Before the General Elections to the Lok Sabha were announced in 1999, the Gujarat police had recovered a huge cache of arms, including AK-47 and AK-56 riffles, bullets, and hand grenades from a well near the residence of Sohrabuddin Sheikh in village Jhiranya near Mahidpur on the Ujjain-Nagda Road in Ujjain district of Madhya Pradesh. Launching the 1999 election campaign in Madhya Pradesh, where the Congress party was in power and Digvijay Singh was the Chief Minister, the then national President of the BJP, Kushabhau Thakre, had said at a press conference at the State BJP headquarters in Bhopal that Madhya Pradesh had become a haven for arms smuggling. He had even stated categorically that arms were being supplied to the terrorists in Kashmir from this State. A couple of days after the BJP President had addressed media-persons in the State capital, the then Home Minister L K Advani had addressed another press conference at the VIP Rest House at Lalghati in B...

Lalit Shastri Contrary to what Shashi Tharoor has said in this video, Nehru did not create ISRO....it was Vikram Sarabhai who should get the credit for giving us the concept or the notional framework of ISRO or the Indian Space Research Organisation. Actually, the mother organisation and front runner of India's space programme is Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, which was set up by the Sarabhai Trust. Much of the original recruitment was done under it. There is strangely no government of India order to create ISRO. Also till date, there is neither any government order for the appointment of anyone as Chairman ISRO nor any rule or notification stating that the Secretary Department of Space will be ex-officio Chairman of ISRO. There is only a Space Comission and a Department of Space. In fact, till now there is no organisation created by the Central Government called ISRO. After watching this video, I strongly felt the need to call the bluff as such leaders are adept in adopt...

  Lalit Shastri   The Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) stands as a law against financial malfeasance, yet its provisions, notably the definitions under Section 2 (u), Section 2 (y), Section 3 relating to Scheduled Offence like misuse of funds attracting Section 447 of the Companies Act, 2013 and Section 45 of PMLA , have stirred a maelstrom of debate regarding the delicate balance between justice and security.  Section 447, which even provides for a seven year jail term, can be imposed and prosecution proceedings initiated against someone who may not even be guilty merely on the subjective, biased or vindictive Inspection Report prepared by the Inspecting Officer of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.  The matter could be worst confounded if the proceedings under the Companies Act, 2013 are vitiated at the behest of vested interests to distort the findings and conclusion in the Inspection Report. Once a court takes cognizance of prosecution co...

  👆This video shows joint action by Madhya Pradesh Government authorities to close illegal stone mines in Raisen district adjoining the State capital. Big action was initiated a day after a dy/asst Ranger was attacked by the mining mafia. Question arises was the illegal mining an overnight or recent phenomenon. If not...what (the hell) the district collector was doing all along...was he waiting for the attack on the forest officer to jump into action...I need answer for my query. When will we fix responsibility at right levels...when will the buck stop at the top - I mean the head of the district administration. Hypothetically, if the present district Collector's predecessor is to be held accountable, the head of the district administration should have the powers to haul him up after due inquiry, irrespective of seniority. I am wondering what has happened to the system of checks and balances, inspections and confidential reports, whether or not this system still exists and if it d...

Why does anybody, even if someone has the false notion of being an intellectual, have to dig out and flash a useless quote from a former High Commissioner of Australia, who obviously knew nothing about India even when he was posted in New Delhi in mid-60s of the last Century A tweet by Swathi Bellam, rightly exposes the shallowness of Ramchandra Guha and it says it all. One couldn’t agree more and hence it is being reproduced here. It’s a mystry, who had recommended and approved the appointment of Guha to a science chair at the IISc, Bangalore a few years ago.  Check also

Imambara, Lucknow aka Asfi Imambara, the imambara built by Asaf. Imam_bara refers to the ‘House of the Imam’. Imam: literally, the head of the ummah, the Muslim community. The Imambara at Lucknow was commissioned by Asaf ud daula, the Nawab of Awadh at a time when Awadh was facing  famine conditions. When another imambara was constructed in the neighbourhood a few years later, the Asfi Imambara came to be called the ‘Bada’ Imambara. Bada referring to ‘big’. The other building came to be known as the ‘chhota’ imambara, chhota referring to ‘smaller’.  Building this grand structure created much needed employment for a people who were facing difficulty because their crops had failed. Paid labour ensured some money in their hands which could be used to buy food and other essentials. Construction started in 1784 and the building was finally put into use in 1791.  The Bada Imambara  is a marvel of civil engineering. Built on very deep foundations, it is a building that uses...

Courtesy India History page on fb Nehruvian socialism was known for emasculating all entrepreneurship in India. As a result, the handful of monied families of India at the time of independence continued to dominate the economy for the next five decades.  No new entrepreneurship was allowed. No new schools or colleges were allowed on the excuse of allowing only the best. Indians were even disallowed contact with the outside world. An Indian travelling abroad could only take $20. Anything more, it was argued, would deplete the treasury of Nehruvian India.  India, which had the largest manufacturing base in all of Asia and Africa, quickly became a basket case. Its huge agricultural classes were reduced to penury, unable to feed even themselves.  Those decades were the lost decades. All the gains instituted by India’s  contact with Britain  were lost, as also all the spirit that Indians possessed. Instead, Indians began to spend an inordinate amount of energy in br...