Theos-Talk Archives (June 2011 Message tt00018)

In a very unusual development, a Guru in India is shaking up the Indian
Government. Only in India, something like this can happen. Here is a news
report.

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New Delhi: Yoga guru Baba Ramdev, who has threatened to field candidates in
every Lok Sabha constituency in 2014, has stopped the Union government in
its tracks with a set of demands, ranging from the serious to the bizarre.

The demands of the jetsetting Baba â whose acolytes recently bought him a
little Scottish island to open an ashram â include:

â Tough Lokpal Bill, with a provision for death sentence for the corrupt,
especially corrupt officials

â Immediate return of all black money stashed away in tax havens abroad to
the country

â Declaring all wealth in foreign countries being held illegally by Indians
as national property and charging those with such accounts under the
sedition laws

â Abolishing Rs.1,000 and Rs.500 currency notes

â Disabling the operations of any bank which belongs to a country that is a
tax haven

â Replacing the British-inherited system of governance, administration,
taxation, education, law and order with a swadeshi alternative

â Reforming the electoral system to ensure that the Prime Minister is
directly elected by people

â Ensuring that all citizens declare annually their incomes

â Bringing income-tax details under the Right to Information Act

â Increasing substantially the Minimum Support Price of grains

â Making wages of different categories of labourers uniform across the
country

â Revoking the Land Acquisition Act, as farmers should not be deprived of
their land for industry

â Promoting Hindi at the expense of English.


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