[via orangewaves.blogspot.com]

To P. Uthayakumar, M. Manoharan, R. Kenghadharan, V. Ganabathirau, T. Vasanthakumar and your families,

I am sorry that I am part of a majority of Malaysian Indians who have shown our ingratitude to your sacrifices. I am sorry that you have lost almost everything in your struggles for our nandri-katta community. You have lost your freedom. Some of you have lost your health. Your children have lost their beloved fathers. Your wives have lost their husbands. Your parents have lost their sons. Your families have lost their income. Some of you have even lost your homes.

For what I ask you?

I was chatting with my friend yesterday, and we were discussing how the Indian community is overly dependent on the government even for the slightest needs. So her plan was to get all Malaysian Indians living abroad to pool resources and set up a managing committee in Malaysia to distribute the funds as needed.

But just later yesterday, I came across SLC - "The Plan" on Makkez.com's blog. SLC stands for Student Leadership Convention, which was held recently in UM, and is made up entirely of undergraduate students!

Basically "The Plan" refers to:

"The PLAN is a simple system to collect cash from the students to help the Tamil schools. The Idea is to save up 33cents per day and to bank in the money in a account managed by three people.

Note to Hindraf.org readers: This article is from my blog and it contains a lot of useful links, so if you want to read the version which has all the links than you will have to read it from my blog: http://sactyr.blogspot.com

But if you want just the text version then you can read it here:
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Gosh I love this job!!

(And I promise I won't hurt anyone.)

Alright where will I start? Aah lets start from Putera MIC's blog first.

IPOH: The proposed RM300mil annual fund aimed at improving the Indian community will not be handled by the MIC, its president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu said.

Hitting out at critics that the proposal was another scam by the MIC to make money out of the Indian community, Samy Vellu said:

“Not a single sen of the RM300mil yearly allocation sought to raise the equity of Indians will pass through the MIC.”

The party, he said, would have no hand in the decision-making, selection process or the disbursement of funds.

“The money is to be given out in the form of loans by financial institutions as well as development programmes and support schemes by government agencies,” he told reporters Monday before opening the Perak MIC Convention here.

SHAH ALAM: The Selangor government has pledged to help the families of Internal Security Act (ISA) detainees by providing welfare assistance.

Mentri Besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim said several steps could be taken to help the wives and children of these detainees, to help them through difficult times.

The state government could bear the travelling costs for families to visit the detention camp every week, he said.

The children could get scholarships to further their studies, and ways can be found for the wives to become entrepreneurs.

“Life can be difficult for them but they must continue to fight,” he said after receiving a memorandum from Gerakan Mansuhkan ISA (GMI or Abolish ISA Movement) here on Monday.

By : Suganthi Suparmaniam , NST

KUALA LUMPUR: The MIC central working committee meeting yesterday was a stormy affair when party president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu and vice-president Tan Sri K.S. Nijhar were involved in a heated row.

As reporters waited outside the meeting room at the MIC headquarters, the doors flung open and a visibly upset Nijhar stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

He was overheard shouting: "I never knew you to be such a cruel man. How can you simply sack a man?"

Nijhar walked away in a huff, refusing to answer questions from reporters.

At a press conference immediately after the row, Samy Vellu was asked about Nijhar's outburst.

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"I will continue to fight all forms of discrimination and marginalisation against any community and raise public interest for justice and equality but I am sad that I have to serve my voters while in detention," he said ..

[SEE IMAGES BELOW]

Thank You

Damien Thanam

+6012 696 1129

Political Assistant to YB Tuan M. Manoharan

SOURCE: http://www.malaysia-today.net/2008/content/view/7216/84/

(AFP) - Malaysia's ethnic Indian activists Sunday warned the government to provide medical aid to one of its leaders and free those detained under tough internal security laws or face more street rallies.

More than 50 protestors from Indian rights group Hindraf blocked the entrance to a shopping mall at the iconic Petronas twin towers in downtown Kuala Lumpur to demand medical attention for P. Uthayakumar, who is diabetic.

Uthayakumar and four other members of the rights group Hindraf have been detained under the tough Internal Security Act (ISA) since December after holding an anti-discrimination rally.

"This gathering is to send a clear message to the government," Hindraf coordinator S. Jayathas told reporters.

NLFCS was started by the late Tun Sambanthan out of concern for plantation workers working in fragmented plantations that were being sold by the British after Malaysia achieved independence. The idea was to pool capital from plantation workers so that they could buy out these plantations and amalgamate into larger groups. The plantation workers would own shares in the co-operative who would manage these larger holdings and provide benefits (both financial and social) to its members.

If anyone can give a better history of NLFCS please do...

After Tun Sambanthan, the chairman has been Tan Sri Somasundram (can't find dates for this, info on NLFCS is sparse).

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

When the police came to my home last Friday to confiscate my computers, I was not at all shocked or perturbed. I had half-expected that to happen considering the response to my 25 April 2008 article in this same column, Let’s send the Altantuya murderers to hell (read the article here). And the response I am talking about is the public statement by the wife of the Deputy Prime Minister plus the letter from the Deputy Prime Minister’s Press Secretary (read the letter here).

I am sure most of you all if not everyone knows about the RPK incident. At the time of this post, RPK has agreed to post bail and looking to be released today.

Prior to his agreement a candle light vigil is being organised on 8th May (today) at 8pm in Dataran Merdeka. This candle light vigil will still go on despite RPK's release.

RPK himself or the current moderators of Malaysia-Today.net did not urge any of the Hindraf members to be present for the candle light vigil. But as a sign of goodwill and gesture all Hindraf/Makkal Sakthi supporters should be present at Dataran Merdeka tonight.

Posted on April 26, 2008 by galadriel

While some folks enjoyed the Monsoon Cup,

While some ministers chomped to fat cigars in Kuala Lumpur’s best humidors,

While other folks had a cosy party at Seri Perdana to celebrate Malaysia’s 50th anniversary of independence last August,

While Zakaria Md Derus was enjoying life in a 16-room mansion in Klang,

Some people have been subsisting on less than 50 ringgit a month. Folks in Abaco Estate in Selangor (supposed to be the richest state in Malaysia) have no running water and no toilet facilities, hell !

After reading these reports by The Star’s Edward Rajendra and Geetha Krishnan;

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/4/16/nation/20960840&sec...

The MIC called upon the government to explain the reasons for the detention of the 5 Hindraf leaders in a statement published on Friday, 25, April, 2007. (NST pg 8).

It is strange but the MIC seems to want to know the reasons for their arrests only now, after some 4 months of their detentions. This categorically shows the MIC had not taken steps to ascertain the real reasons for the detentions earlier. In light of this, it is also open to question if the MIC had indeed made any attempts to secure the release of the HINDRAF 5 earlier. This revelation also suggests that but for their crushing defeat in the last General Election, the MIC would have done nothing towards examining the legitimacy nor propriety of the said detentions.

"I won't say that because I am not in a position to do so. It is for each respective state authority."

Even as the Malaysian Government is planning to introduce guidelines to govern the construction and demolition of places of worship, the country's Unity, Culture, Arts and Heritage Minister, Shafie Apdal, has stopped short of giving an assurance that there would be no recurrence of the temple demolition incident in Kampung Jawa, Selangor, on the eve of Deepavali last year, which raised the ire of Hindus around the country.

"I won't say that because I am not in a position to do so. It is for each respective state authority," The Star quoted Apdal, as saying.

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Much have been said about Makkal Sakthi in recent times. Why, it has even become a war cry for the non-native speakers such as Raja Petra, Lim Guan Eng and Anwar Ibrahim. Rather than its literal meaning, People Power, I am going to ponder on how this theme or war cry came about and managed to create the tsunami that Election 2008 was.

Raja Petra shouting Makkal Sakthi

Dear Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi,

Re: Concern over detention of five men under the Internal Security Act (ISA) in Malaysia
We are writing on behalf of the International Bar Association Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) to express our concern about the detention of five lawyers under the Internal Security Act (ISA) in Malaysia.
In its role as a dual membership organisation, comprising 30,000 individual lawyers and over 195 Bar Associations and Law Societies, the IBA influences the development of international law reform and shapes the future of the legal profession. Its Member Organisations cover all continents.

As a response to Srivinayagi's post below:

I have created a pdf for the Police Report Template for Mr. Uthaya. I hope everyone can download and print them off and lodge them at your nearest police station.

http://sactyr.googlepages.com/UthayaPoliceReporttemplate.pdf

Shah Kirit Bin Kakulal Govindji Da’wa, or better known as Brother Shah, is an officer at the Islamic Information & Services (IIS) , Malaysia.

About 5 years ago, he gave a talk on Hinduism in Kedah for "specific purpose of missionary work training only, limited to the group in attendance, and definitely NOT for public viewing." Those are his own words from his own website, here http://www.shahkirit.com/

Now I have listed the videos below. I watched them with disgust and rage as Brother Shah here tries to explain Hindusim to the select audience.

Now the videos are defamatory, provocative, and certainly a threat to the already fragile inter-race and inter-religion relations in Malaysian community.

Shah Kirit Bin Kakulal Govindji Da’wa, or better known as Brother Shah, is an officer at the Islamic Information & Services (IIS) , Malaysia.

About 5 years ago, he gave a talk on Hinduism in Kedah for "specific purpose of missionary work training only, limited to the group in attendance, and definitely NOT for public viewing." Those are his own words from his own website, here .

Now I have listed the videos below. I watched them with disgust and rage as Brother Shah here tries to explain Hindusim to the select audience.

Now the videos are defamatory, provocative, and certainly a threat to the already fragile inter-race and inter-religion relations in Malaysian community.

(NST) - Police investigations revealed that the five Hindu Rights Action Force leaders who were detained under the Internal Security Act had acted in a manner prejudicial to national security, Attorney-General Tan Abdul Gani Patail told the Federal Court.
He said the internal security minister issued orders to detain the five only after he was satisfied with the investigations.

"The minister's affidavit states that he issued the detention orders under Section 8 of the ISA because police had conducted a thorough investigation," he said in his submission.

Gani said that the section allowed law enforcement agencies to carry out investigations first against persons who allegedly acted against national interest and then to arrest them.