Rattan Mann
Rattan Mann writes to us from Oslo, Norway. Rattan can be reached at
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and
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as well as on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/authorrattan#!/authorrattan. Rattan is also the author of the novel "The Prime Minister" which was was nominated for Brit Writer's Award for Best Novel 2012. Visit Amazon for details http://www.amazon.co.uk/Prime-Minister-Rattan-Mann-ebook/dp/B00GGSX37M/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1390212028&sr=1-1
Noble Cyber Citizens, welcome to my shortest “Alternative Norwegian King´s New Year´s Message” of 2016. This “shortness of breath” is because I have voluntarily gagged myself in protest about utter lack of freedom of speech in this so-called “most free country on earth”.Sometime back a professor in Oslo University wrote a few harmless lines of comment on my article “Norway - the Most Corrupt and Racist Country on Earth?” in which he basically said that he agreed with my article because he also had experienced something similar at Oslo University.
I was very surprised to see this comment, and I assumed that somebody was playing a prank under a false name, because I knew that no official of Oslo University dare show this solidarity with me (or anybody else on such issues) publicly. Two three days later the comment was removed and I was sure I was right. But I got a little curious to know the “backstory”, and so wrote to GFP publisher Trevor Hill as to what actually happened.
Instead of surprising me, Trevor´s answer shocked me: The comment was indeed written by the professor. But within two days he was writing urgent emails to Trevor, begging him to remove the comment immediately, because Oslo University was creating big problems for him. To avoid any possible harm to the professor, Trevor immediately removed the comment, and rightly so.
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Noble Cyber-friends, my "Alternative Norwegian King's New Year's Message 2014" is about a Dickensian tale of two nations, Norway and India, the former still mired in a cultural and intellectual Dark Age, while the latter marching towards a new Renaissance.People like to hear the bad news first, but I, neurotically obsessed with an anti-establishment mentality, begin with the good news.
Since its independence from the British in 1947, India has been making steady progress, no thanks to any government, or politicians or leaders. The only thing politicians have been busy till today is filling their own coffers and making sure that only their children and grand children can succeed them.
The credit for the progress of India goes to the common man (Aam Admi) and only the common man. BBC has called Indians "punishingly hard working", and the Hindi word for their rustic innovative spirit has entered the vocabulary of the west. The word is "jugad" and it symbolises the innovative spirit of the common man who creates new ideas according to his needs without any access to the advice or help of experts.
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Today India stands at a crossroad with very far-reaching implications for its future. Things would have not been so dramatic had not an old rod been poked into a smoothly moving new wheel.Yes, I am referring to the sudden turmoil in the main opposition party of India, the BJP. This turmoil will eventually engulf the whole of India.
Just yesterday BJP appointed the chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi to a key position to pave the way for him to become the next prime minister of India after the 2014 general elections.
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At midnight of 15 August, 1947, the Midnight Children born in independent India were encouraged to dream the following dreams:1) Any Midnight Child could become anything - president, prime minister, a successful film star, or a successful industrialist- just on the basis of his own genius.
2) No Midnight Child would be discriminated on the basis of his caste, creed, or sex.
3) The Maharajas, their empires, and dynasties would be abolished once and forever.
As those Midnight Children turn 65 now, they realize that Mother India had fed them with solid lies even before their own mothers could give them her first milk.
Maharajas, Dynasties, privileges arising from birth, and discrimination arising from caste, creed, and sex which were all thrown out of the door at midnight, returned through the window before dawn.
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Alternative Norwegian King’s New Year’s Message 2013 - Noble Cybercitizens, this year again I will talk on only one topic – Terrorist Attacks by the Weather.One or two cold, wet, and therefore normal, summers in one or two small countries like Norway and Denmark have sent the world leaders back to a warm and cozy winter sleep, sweeping the nasty issue of climate change under the very bed on which they are sleeping so comfortably.
By doing so the world leaders are acting like that stupid guy who was cutting the very branch of the tree on which he was standing. What they have swept under their bed is a new monster called Climate Change who would soon start shaking them the way King Kong shook sky scrapers, because this monster is on his way to conquer the earth.
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One beautiful summer day of August 2012 is supposed to be the Judgement Day for Anders Breivik, the Killer of Oslo. More truly and accurately, it will be the Judgement Day for Norway itself, thanks to the bogy twist the state prosecutors Svein Holden and Inga Enghhad been trying to give the case by introducing a spooky “third factor”.The facts are simple.
Breivik executed 77 people in a “military operation”, took full responsibility of his act, and said in his closing statement that at times it is necessary to do a little evil to prevent a greater evil in the future.
With these facts, every sane man on earth will agree that a sentence of life imprisonment should be just a technicality (The death-penalty is forbidden in Norway).
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