Corrupt T R Baalu is delaying highway projects

This shameless Congress led UPA Government will never leave its path of corruption. Like costing Bharat (misnomer: India) its World Bank loan for NHAI was not enough, now even the courts are tired of this decadent corrupt Government and its unethical meddling in to autonomous bodies.

Ministry delaying highways: HC

The Delhi High Court seems to have hit upon the root cause of why crucial highway projects across the country have been moving at a
snail's pace in the past few years. And the discovery has left the court both shocked and angry.

The HC found that the ministry of surface transport and highways was indulging in "day to day interference" into the affairs of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), a statutory body granted functional autonomy by Parliament.

The court was so aghast by the fact that NHAI has seen five chairmen in the past two-and-a-half years that it recommended that a law be enacted to ensure that heads of public enterprises have fixed tenures of 3 to 5 years.

A division bench comprising Justices Mukul Mudgal and Manmohan said the Law Commission and Centre should seriously consider bringing in such a law which "in our opinion will ensure transparency, efficiency and accountability".

The HC's stinging indictment comes close on the heels of widespread criticism of Union surface transport minister T R Baalu's reported role in the recent change of guard in the NHAI, which saw N Gokulram being transferred out. There have also been allegations of repeated interference by the ministry resulting in stalling of key highway projects across India.

"The actions of the Union of India...indicates that not only autonomy granted to NHAI by Parliament through a statute enacted in this regard has been curtailed and eroded, but NHAI is sought to be reduced to a mere department of the ministry of road transport and highways," an anguished HC noted.

The court discovered through evidence tabled before it how the ministry kept forwarding bidders to NHAI, asking the latter to re-evaluate their applications even though NHAI had finalized its bidding process for the Hyderabad project.
So glaring was the government meddling as exposed by circulars sent by the ministry which were placed before HC that one of the judges, Justice Manmohan, decided to record a separate opinion. He deplored the ministry's habit of tinkering with NHAI's bidders list for projects and saw this as a "usurpation of NHAI's jurisdiction".

When it was brought to HC's notice by one of the petitioners, Madhucon Projects, how the NHAI chairmen had been repeatedly replaced, the judges said, "Frequent changes of the chairman of a public authority militates against the concept of an independent authority and makes any chairman vulnerable to pulls and pressures, besides creating administrative chaos and preventing implementation of any long term strategy."

Such was the extent of ministry's meddling that NHAI had admitted in an affidavit that "revaluation of the bids had been done only in accordance with the directions of the ministry."

Shri Ram Sethu, sacred ecology of the Sethusamudram

Source: Rama Sethu, sacred ecology of the Sethusamudram
By: Dr. S Kalyanaraman
letters@newstodaynet.com

In a heartening development catalysed by the Rameshwaram Rama Sethu Protection Movement, a group of scientists gathered in London in November 2008 to declare the imperative of saving and protecting Sethusamudram as the world’s sacred ecological treasure.

Location map of Rama SethuLocation map of Rama Sethu: bathymetry map of Sethusamudram (reproduced from Murty et al., 1994)

http://www.Setusamudram.in/htmdocs

/Articles/cp_rajendran_2.htm

Sethusamudram

The Gulf of Mannar and Palk Straits of the Indian Ocean separated by the causeway Rama Setu called Setusamudram. Setusamudram is a compound term: Sethu + Samudram (Causeway + Ocean). Unlike the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, the Sethu has for millennia served as a causeway linking India and Sri Lanka. This sacred monument is venerated in the cultures of millions of people of many nations along the Indian Ocean Rim – nations that can be called the Indian Ocean Community, analogous to the recently constituted European Community. The Sethusamudram is so sacred that every year hundreds of thousands pilgrims assemble in the oceanfront near Rameshwaram (a jyotirlinga pilgrimage place) to perform samudrasnanam (sacred bath in the ocean) at a place where the Indian Ocean remains placid like a lake. This samudrasnanam is a celebration of and homage to the ancestors of many civilizations, Hindu civilization, in particular. This homage is called pitr-tarpanam reinforcing the identity of a billion people on the globe who revere the story of Rama and the history of Sethubandha (the bund to cross the ocean built by the architect Nala, under the direction of the Avatarapurusha, Sri Rama and by vanara army led by Sri Hanuman. Both Sri Rama and Sri Hanuman are worshipped in many temples across the globe. [vanara is erroneously translated as ‘monkeys’; va-nara literally means people-like speakers, evoking the evolution of man on earth.] The causeway is a physical structure superimposed over a ridge formed by collapsed canyons in geological past in an ocean zone exemplified by Mannar volcanic rocks, heat-flows of geothermal energy potential and plate tectonics (earthquakes caused by plate-movements).

HeatflowS in Rama Sethu 100 to 180 milliwatt per sq. m. comparable to Himalayan hotsprings. Will dredging in the area activate these heat zones?

Corals of Sethusamudram

Sethusamudram is home to corals. The coral conglomerates [* File contains invalid data | In-line.JPG *], which are referred to as floating stones in many versions of the story of Sri Rama, were used to construct the causeway, Sethu (which is explained in Tamil encyclopaedia Abhidana Chintamani as ‘ceyarkarai’ that is, artificial, man-made bund). Sethubandha is celebrated in ancient texts, in the song, dance and sculptural traditions of the Indian Ocean Rim states.

Sethubandha construction shown on a 9th century sculptural panel in Parambanan (Brahmavana) temple in Indonesia.

The devastation warned, affecting over 60 million people should make every public official and scientist pause and consider the sacred ecology that Sethusamudram constitutes. Over the millennia, people have venerated the Indian Ocean as a life-source. Many young, married couples go for the samudrasnanam praying for the birth of children in their families. Millions of marine folk along the long 7,500 km coastline of India live off the marine wealth of the coastline including the wealth of corals. Corals have a particular sacred significance in Hindu civilizational traditions. The shankha or turbinella pyrum is also called the sacred conch. This sacred conch, shankha, adorns the hands of Vishnu and Bhairava, two divinities worshipped in thousands of temples all over the world. The shankha is also venerated as the conch-trumpet called Panchajanya used by Avatara purusha Sri Krishna to call the troops to battle in the Kurukshetra war described in the epic Mahabharata. Sri Rama is also shown blowing the shankha trumpet in an exquisite terracotta sculpture of the 3rd century in a village near Ayodhya.

Terracotta panel of Bhitargaon showing Vishnu blowing the conch, an event depicting Rama as Vishnu Avatara, defeats the Rakshasas led by Malyavan, Mali and Sumali and as narrated in the Uttarkanda of the Ramayana (Cantoes VI-VIII). http://ignca.nic.in/pb0020.htm

Quake-induced uplift of coral families in Sumatra Mentawai islands.Sethusamudram is an Indian Ocean region famous for the coral turbinella pyrum, shankha. At Kizhakkarai, 15 kms from Rameshwaram, West Bengal Development Corporation has an office for acquiring the shankha; the annual turnover is over Rs. 50 million ($1 million). The shankha is used to make bangles. Without shankha bangles, no Bengali or Oriya marriage is complete. So sacred are the shankha bangles.Studies of the type carried out in Mentawai Islands near Sumatra have to be carried out in Sethusamudram to record the upliftment, if any, of the coral reefs, in the region which is earth-quake prone, apart from being the only coastal region with evidence of Mannar volcanic rocks and heat-flows comparable to the heat-flows recorded in the sub-Himalayan hot-springs.

Sethu as tsunami-protection wall

The Sethu has served as a natural tsunami-protection wall in an ocean zone subject to many earthquakes and consequent tsunamis. The nearby region of Sumatra is also home to the world’s most devastating volcano, the Mount Toba that had a super-eruption about 74,000 years ago spewing volcanic ash to a depth of 6 to 12 inches all over South India south of the Vindhya Mountains.

The Bay of Bengal part of the Indian Ocean is a trough subject to recurring, severe cyclonic storms from the area of depression near Taiwan. The storm surges get sucked into the trough of Bangladesh causing enormous damage to lives and properties. The tsunami which occurred on December 26, 2004 was an event triggered by the subduction of the Indian plate under the Burmese plate resulting in the displacement of water which surreptitiously traveled as tsunami resulting in the loss of over 200,000 lives and the virtual disappearance of Aceh island. A tsunami expert, Prof. Tad S. Murthy notes that if any channel is laid across Sethusamudram, the channel will act like a funnel absorbing the energies of the next tsunami and devastate the coastline of South India because of what is known as the ‘quarter-wave resonance amplification’. This is proved by the Alaska tsunami of 1964 which resulted in maximum devastation along the Alberni Canal in Canada and the destruction of the Alberni Port.

The sentiments expressed in the London seminar echoe the judgment of the Supreme Court of India which asked the Union of India to reconsider the Sethusamudram Channel project and noted that a Pachauri Committee will go study the issue. Prof. Rajendra Pachauri heads the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an institution that received the Nobel Prize for Peace. Pachauri Committee should not only recommend the scrapping of the Sethusamudram Channel project, which will be a world calamity if carried through, but also recommend a serious, multi-disciplinary agency to study the impact of another tsunami in the Indian Ocean. Another tsunami in the Indian Ocean is not a theoretical model but a reality. Scientific advances have not been able to predict the exact date of the next tsunami but all scientists are agreed that another tsunami more devastating than the December 26, 2004 tsunami is a possibility.

This nightmare warning, this possibility has been studied by seismologists (researchers of earthquakes) and earth scientists studying corals. In a recent study published in the Science Magazine (December 16, 2008) scientists have observed that many coral colonies in the Mentawai Islands near Sumatra were killed in September 2007 when large earthquakes lifted the reefs 1 meter or more out of the water. Seismology studies show that an earthquake of magnitude greater than 8.8 on Richter scale, could rock the coastal areas of Bengkulu and Padang in the next 30 years (along the Sumatra earthquake belt), triggering a major tsunami which could put over 60 million people of the Indian Ocean, east coast of India, west coast of Burma and south coast of Bangladesh at risk.

Pachauri Committee will also be well advised to review the creation of Marine Economic Zones all along the long 7500 km. coastline of India to create new economic opportunities for the coastal and marine people.

Tsunami-protection wall in Japan

A multi-disciplinary team of experts should be constituted IMMEDIATELY, by the Union of India to study the warnings of another tsunami which will devastate the nation’s coastline and lives and property of coastal people and establish Disaster Management Zones all along the vulnerable coastline with structures like tsunami-protection walls constructed in Japan.

Next tsunami

Sacred traditions help us remember the sacredness of the earth in which we are only trustees of the present and future generations.

We do NOT have the right to destroy this sacred ecology and deny future generations, the privilege of worshipping sacred sites and remembering the ancestors who have given the humanity its very identity.

Indian Ocean Rim states impacted by the tsunami of December 26, 2004

http://nctr.pmel.noaa.gov/propagation-database.html

The next tsunami is likely to impact the same Indian Ocean region – a lesson learnt from history.List and locations of catastrophic tsunamis of Indian Ocean.catastrophic tsunamis of Indian Ocean

What the scientists tell us about earthquakes and tsunamis should make us pause and ponder.The 9.0 Earthquake of December 26, 2004 at 6.58 hours at the epicenter (and in Sri Lanka) led to a sequence of 15 quakes across the Andaman region. While earthquakes could not be predicted in advance, once the earthquake was detected it was possible to give about 3 hours of notice of a potential Tsunami. Such a system of warnings is in place across the Pacific Ocean but is only being put in place in the Indian Ocean; this needs further cooperation among the nations of the Indian Ocean Community.

Nature magazine reports: “Tens of millions of people along the heavily populated coasts of Myanmar, Bangladesh and West Bengal could be living under threat of a tsunami as massive as the one that devastated the Sumatran coast in 2004, according to a report to be released by Nature on Thursday this week. The report claims that while the 2004 disaster took the scientific community by surprise many of the same warning signs currently exist in the Bay of Bengal.”

When the plate boundaries abruptly deform and vertically displace the overlying water, a tsunami occurs. A tsunami travels very fast as ocean waves, about 800 km/h, or 0.2 km/sec for a water depth of 5000 m. Seismic waves are faster and cause enormous upheavals on the earth’s crust and ocean-beds. Oceans are the treasure of humanity and it is our responsibility to harness the treasure in a sustainable manner through well-regulated Marine Economic Zones which have the potential to make the Indian Ocean Community a veritable powerhouse to create wealth of nations, while providing new livelihoos opportunities to over 2 billion people on the globe.

Tsunami impact on land cover of Indian Ocean Community

http://www.unosat.web.cern.ch/unosat/freeproducts

/Tsunami/JRC/Asia_Tsunami_07January_landcover.pdf

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/

fullMaps_Sa.nsf/luFullMap1724ADB850F3F30B85256F8E0055AB65/$FileEUJRC_tsu_cov_sasia070105.pdf?OpenElement Land cover

/ potential land affected by tsunami (26 December, 2004)

Details of scientific papers on “Sacred ecology, sacred ocean, sacred Setusamudram” are provided at http://sites.google.com

/site/kalyan97/setu

(The author is the National President,

Rameshwaram Rama Sethu Protection Movement

and he can be contacted at kalyan97@gmail.com)

http://newstodaynet.com/col.php?section=20&catid=29

Corrupt Congress may cost Bharat its World Bank loan for NHAI

It is not unknown from the world that ever since the corrupt Congress took hold of the government, the basic infrastructure building projects in the country have come to a near stand still. They have played cheap politics at the cost of the exchequer as there have been no progress on the Golden Quadrilateral Highways and North-South East-West corridor, visionary basic infrastructure projects started by great ex-Prime Minister of Bharat Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in past four and half years.

Another consequence of this lackadaisical corrupt government is that Bharat is set to loose its loan from the World Bank because of it is so slow that what was supposed to be completed this month is expected to be completed after 10 years from now. What can you expect, this decadent Government believes in breaking bridges, even if they 15000 years old engineering marvel, and not in building them. Read on the SHAMEFULL details below..

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The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) risks losing $300 million of the $620 million World Bank loan for the $933 million Lucknow-Muzaffarpur National Highway Project (LMNHP), if work on the project is not expedited and safety concerns not addressed within a short period of time.

World Bank acting country director, Rachid Benmessaoud told TOI, "The Bank has a right to use legal remedies available to it, including suspension of the disbursement of funds, if adequate progress is not made in addressing these issues within a short time."

He said, "World Bank concern centres around the poor implementation of five road packages under the Lucknow-Muzaffarpur National Highway Project (LMNHP) which should have been open this month. But at the current rate of progress it will not be ready in 10 years." He added, "Four of these road stretches are in Bihar and one in Uttar Pradesh. The progress of these five packages 5, 9, 10, 11 and 12 has been particularly slow due to poor implementation by the contractors and the consultants supervising the contractors, as well as inadequate contract management on the part of NHAI."

These road stretches comprise almost 40% (in value) of the LMNHP that seeks to transform the 513 km national highway between Lucknow and Muzaffarpur (in Bihar) into a modern, four-lane road and to cut travel time on this important connector by 40%.

"The Bank is also concerned about the inadequate attention being paid to construction safety issues on work sites of the Lucknow-Muzaffarpur National Highway Project (LMNHP). This is putting at risk the lives, health and well-being of road users, construction workers and roadside residents," said the country director.

There are also apprehensions about the large number of variations on work contracts. "Under the loan agreement, we have asked NHAI to share these documents with the World Bank but they are yet to do so", a World Bank spokesperson said.

NHAI authorities on the other hand were not available for comment.

For more, read NHAI may lose $300m loan

श्री राम सेतु / Shri Ram Setu Case

॥जय श्री राम॥

Watch an exemplary talk on Shri Ram Sethu evidence by Dr. Subramanian Swamy who is spearheading the Shri Ram Sethu case in Bharatiya (misnomer: Indian) Supreme Court.



The same exemplary talk is also available on Youtube.

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Part 9/9

A talk with facts and sketches on Shri Ram Setu by Dr. Subramanaiam Swamy chaired by Mr. Rajiv Malhotra at Arsha Bodha Center in New Jersey.

1. The Ram Sethu is our heritage: WE SHALL PROTECT IT by Dr. Subramanian Swamy


2. 'Rama Sethu bridge is man-made only': Swami Dayananda Saraswati comes up with proof by Swami Dayananda Saraswati on April 29, 2007

Refuting the claim of a scientist that there is no-man made structure called Rama Sethu or Adam's bridge between Mandapam at Rameswaram and Thalaimannar in Sri Lanka, Swami Dayananda Saraswati (who is a scholar in such matters) has cited the study of a geologist to reaffirm his position that a bridge had indeed been built by humanity at the present site.

Stating there cannot be a natural, geological formation at the Rama Sethu connecting Indian sub-continent with Lanka, the spiritual leader quoting from the observations of the geologist says the climate and soil conditions in the Bay of Bengal between the two land masses did not allow for an undersea volcanic ridge (a long raised strip) as there was no seismic activity in this area. 'Nor can it be a submarine linear platform or plateau from a linear block of rock mass that rises up between two parallel faults or crustal fractures because such structures are not found in this area,' he reasoned.

Extending the thesis further, the Swamiji said the present formation could not be a coral ridge as coral islands were scattered in the coastal and offshore areas and not in the present site which was running at right angles to the coastline. Also, the undersea land strip could not be a submerged hill or an anticlinal (sloping downward away from a common crest) ridge as the bridge was found in sediments which were not subjected to any folding activity, he explained.

'Thus with no evidence to the contrary, the under-sea bridge could not be a geological formation and remained a man-made structure only,' he said citing the geologist's study.

Referring to the gazette published in 1803 by the British government for the Madras Presidency, Swami Dayananda Saraswati said in the glossary, the first entry was 'Adam's Bridge' which, it noted, was also called Rama's Bridge or Neela's Bridge. The gazette also mentioned the bridge's position in terms of latitude and longitude with its dimension of 30 miles length and 1.25 miles wide. 'The gazette further reports the bridge was used by people to cross between Tamilnadu and Sri Lanka until the middle of 15th Century when there was a breach due to a storm, causing a part of the bridge to be submerged,' he recalled. The copy of the map of the bridge along with its submerged portion in that period was available in the Saraswati Mahal Library in Thanjavur.

'With all these facts, we can safely assume that Rama Sethu is much more than a Hindu sentimental issue. It is an issue of national and human heritage,' the Swamiji said. If UNESCO came to know of this ancient land-strip, it would safeguard Rama Sethu as a 'phenomenal accomplishment of human genius,' he said.



3. More to destructive dredging than what meets the eye? by Cho Ramaswamy


4. Kamraj vs Gandhi Dynasty by Premendra Agrawal


5. Demand for 'Sacred Site' status for Shri Ram Sethu
   
   
   • Demand for 'Sacred Site' status for Sethu
   
   
   • Sacred Site nomination boosts campaign to save Gulf of Mannar
   
   


6. Anti-Hindu Congress is bent on destroying the sacred Shri Ram Setu


7. Shri Ram Sethu is not part of Hinduism says the communal Congress Government of India
   • Ram Sethu not a place of worship: Centre
   
   
   • Ram Setu not part of Hinduism: Congress tells Supreme Court
   
   
What a sick most communal govt. ever! You are questioning how can this be an integral part of Sanatan Dharm (Hinduism)? Who the f**k do they think they are to tell Hindus what to do? These communal jerks don't realize that God Shri Ram is integral part of every Hindu's cell. This Christian run govt. think it can demean and bash Hindus any which way it wants in the name of its phony secularism using such cheap language to hurt us. May be it thinks that the only way to cross a sea is to split it as per Christian Mythology.

8. Ram Sethu: What the apex court said


9. DU to check 'offending references' to Ramayan by CNN-IBN on September 19, 2008

Wow even at University level, filth and derogatory text is taught as history to make a mockery of Hindus. There was mere reference to Bible in the Da Vinci Code, and the govt. banned it. Whatever happened to the Freedom Speech and Expression?! But here we have a University teaching such derogatory text as a part of History course. Doesn't the constitution say even if there is text deemed as offensive to a community religiously, it would be banned. Then why ask the culprit to check if it is doing a mistake?

10. राम नाम की लूट में बुद्धि गई कहीं छूट।


11. जय श्री राम! Jai Shri Ram!


12. Denying Ram is denying India by Tarun Vijay on September 14, 2007

After all, the affidavit was filed quite confidently by the State apparatus because the entire atmosphere of governance has a distinct 'offend the Hindus, get the Muslim votes' hue.

It is this all-pervading air of 'bruising Hindus to get a pat' that the name that appears first on our lips since birth and lasts till the funeral pyre is lit was challenged so coolly by a government which is not run by aliens.

It has tried to delete all that stood for our identity and cultural traits that define us, our nationhood and soul. It shows utter disregard for the majority sentiment and the threads that weave a fabric called India, while distributing gifts of reservations and loans and opportunities for anyone declaring himself to be a non-Hindu. One Diwali our Shankaracharya was arrested and then Muslims were given reservations in jobs and educational institutions. No one ever, not even once, showed any concern for the Kashmiri Hindu refugees; rather illegal alien Muslim infiltrators were facilitated by enacting the Illegal Migrants Detention Act and when the Supreme Court struck it down, again brought it back through the back door.

Mythology. The whole construct is a British anthropological revenge on us. We had a different tradition of recording events and writing history. The British and their cohorts taught that all that was mythology, a myth, and only the Western Christian world's methods are 'scientific'. Hence we adopted their standards, their calendar, their ways to greet the guests, their worldview became ours, and we discarded everything that we cherished, adopted their attire and weird uniforms (see our learned advocates sweating in black but still not complaining) to look modern and progressive.

Hence questioning Ram and Sita, humiliating ochre-robed sanyasins, converting ancient people and ridiculing their faith becomes part of cleansing the 'heathens and pagans' of their dark practices and emancipating them to the 'higher' levels of 'modernity'.

When Kalidas wrote Raghuvamsam, he described the entire dynasty beginning from Brahma. Lord Brahma created 10 prajapatis -- one of whom was Marichi. Kashyapa is the son of Marichi and Kala. Kashyapa is regarded as the father of humanity. Vivasvan or Surya is the son of Kashyapa and Aditi. Manu or Vaivaswatha Manu is the son of Vivasvan. He is regarded as the first ruler belonging to the Ikshvaku dynasty. Ikshvaku is the son of Manu and established his kingdom in Ayodhya. Kukshi is the son of Ikshavaku. Vikukshi is the son of Kukshi. Bana is the son of Vikukshi. Anaranya is the son of Bana. Prithu is the son of Anaranya. Trisanku is the son of Prithu. Dhundhumara is the son of Trisanku. Yuvanaswa is the son of Dhundhumara. Mandhata is the son of Yuvanaswa. Susandhi is the son of Mandhata. Daivasandhi and Presenjit are the sons of Susandhi. Bharatha is the son of Presenjit. Asita is the son of Bharatha. Sagara is the son of Asitha. Asamanja is the son of Sagara. Amsumantha (Ansuman) is the son of Asamanja. Dileepa is the son of Amsumantha. Bhagiratha is the son of Dileepa. Kakustha is the son of Bhagiratha. Raghu is the son of Kakushta.

The clan of Raghuvamsha started with Raghu. Pravardha is the son of Raghu. Sankhana is the son of Pravardha. Sudarsana is the son of Sankhana. Agnivarna is the son of Sudarsana. Seeghraga is the son of Agnivarna. Maru is the son of Seeghraga. Prasusruka is the son of Maru. Ambarisha is the son of Prasusruka. Nahusha is the son of Ambarisha. Yayathi is the son of Nahusha. Nabhaga is the son of Yayathi. Aja is the son of Nabhaga. Dasaratha is the son of Aja. Rama, Lakshmana, Bharatha and Shatrughana are the sons of Dasaratha. Lava and Kusha are the sons of Rama.

Oh my god, these Sanskrit names! Why couldn't they have Roman ones, to be pronounced better?

The entire East Asia reverberates with the tales of Rama and enactment of the Ramayana including the Muslim-majority Malaysia and Indonesia and countries ruled by the Communists. But a Hindu majority country's government, under a non-Hindu dispensation, destroys the great bridge associated with Rama's legacy and files an affidavit that smacks of an alien mindset.

This was a counter-affidavit filed by C Dorjee, director (monuments), Archaeological Survey of India, on behalf of the respondent Union of India through the ministry of culture in reply to Dr Subramanian Swamy's petition that seeks to put a halt on the Sethu destruction. The language of the affidavit and the way it addressed the Adam's Bridge issue smacked of an utter disregard for Hindus. They hate calling it Ram Sethu and feel quite comfortable with Adam's Bridge, a much later coinage. Same firang mindset!

The way the whole issue is being dealt with by the government of India right from the beginning stinks of dishonesty and an aversion to Hindu sensitivities.

13. Sanatana Dharma Foundation Honors Dr Subramanian Swamy and Dr S. Kalyanaraman for their Courageous Effort in Protecting the Historic Rama Sethu

Sanatana Dharma Foundation, Dallas, Texas organized its first Hindu Unity Day, at the DFW Hindu Temple, in Dallas on the 19th and 20th of July, 2008. Symbolizing Hindu Unity, Representatives of Dallas Chapters of several organizations like the Art of living Foundation, Ammachi Satsang, Hare Krishna ISCKON group, Gayatri Parivar, Brahmakumaris, Carribbean Mandir, Chinmaya Mission, Hanuman Temple, Sathya Sai groups, Datta Yoga Peetam and other prominent Hindu personalities from the local Dallas-Fort Worth community in Texas, were present at this unique event. Dr Subramanian Swamy's latest book "Rama Sethu Symbol of National Unity" was released and distributed at the Event, to key members of these organizations and other prominent members of the community.

Dr Subramanian Swamy, PhD, visiting professor of Economics, Harvard University and former Union Law Minister of India, and Dr S. Kalyanaraman, Director, Saraswati River Research Center, and President of Sri Rameshwaram Rama Sethu Raksha Manch, received awards in Dallas, Texas for their courageous effort in protecting the historic Rama Sethu, from being destroyed by the Government of India in the name of a development project.

Rama Sethu is the original Sanskrit name given to a bridge built by the legendary King Rama, who crossed over to Sri Lanka from India to fight the King of Lanka, Ravana, recover his wife Sita, and restore Dharma (Order) in the land of India. While it is difficult to establish the exact historical age of these events, the bridge is thought to be at least 5000 years old, if not much older, making it the oldest causeway built across an ocean channel. The Rama Sethu is referred to in numerous ancient Sanskrit texts and scriptures, as a man made structure, and in recent times, it has been vividly photographed by both NASA and Indian Satellites.

When India fell under Colonial rule, the British renamed this construction as "Adam's Bridge". The Government of India, in recent years, has been trying to establish a Shipping Channel between India and Sri Lanka, by breaking and destroying the continuity of this ancient structure. Hindus in India and around the world have been protesting and fighting this decision of the Government of India, and have demanded that the Rama Sethu be declared a monument of historic importance and a world heritage site. On May 8th, 2008, the Supreme Court of India directed the Government of India to go back to the drawing board to see if it can create an alternate shipping route, and at the same time, study the Rama Sethu as a monument of historic importance. It is yet to be seen if the Government of India will comply with the Court's direction, and thereby uphold due constitutional process, or continue on its path of destroying the Rama Sethu, dis-regarding the Supreme court's direction.

Sanatana Dharma Foundation, (www.sdfglobal.org) a Dallas based Non-Profit organization inspired by the Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha, (www.acharyasabha.org) the apex body of Hindus in India, presented the "Hindu Dharma Rakshaka Kshatriya Award" to Dr Subramanian Swamy & Dr S. Kalyanaraman on the occassion of the Hindu Unity Day organized at the DFW Hindu Temple in Dallas, Texas on July 19, 2008. Speaking on the occasion, the President of Sanatana Dharma Foundation, Kalyan Viswanathan, said that "This award, a first of its kind, has been instituted to honor and celebrate the 'Kshatriya Spirit', specifically the courage shown by Hindus in taking risks and standing up to fight for the protection and preservation of Dharma. The word Kshatriya is a Sanskrit word that refers to the royal and noble class of Hindus who historically defended their nation, and the Dharma of the land."

.......deleted......

14. Dr. Kusum Vyas’ unstinted efforts and global quest secured the nomination for Shri Ram Setu (Gulf of Mannar) as an International Sacred Site.