Political discussion

Dear Colleagues:

I am sharing few articles that are related to Indian Political issues, processes and news. Two of the article links below are specific to the state of Kerala. There are two article links related to President Obama's visit, scheduled for November 2010, to India.

The first one is about the local elections in Kerala. This article provides the information about the number of gram panchayats (Local Councils), 152 block panchayats, 14 district panchayats, 59 Municipalities and five corporations in Kerala. As part of the course involves visiting village/gram panchayat, I thought it is interesting to know the kinds and number of panchayats. The article also talks about the election process and the dates of the election. Link: http://www.jorbit.com/news-daily.php?http://expressbuzz.com/states/kerala/kerala-local-body-polls-on-october-23-25/206763.html


The second article is about President Obama's India visit planned for November 2010. He will be visiting New Delhi and Mumbai. He is visiting Mumbai and is expected to pay tribute to the victims of 11/26/2008 terror attacks. He is also expected to visit Golden Temple http://www.sacredsites.com/asia/india/amritsar.html) in the city of Amritsar. This visit will further strengthen political and economic ties between India and United State of America. President Obama is looking forward to his trip to India and he quoted an eminent European scholar who travelled to India more than a century ago: “Whatever sphere of the human mind you may select for your special study, whether it be language or religion or mythology or philosophy, whether it be law or customs, primitive art, or science, you have to go to India, because," he said, "some of the most valuable and instructive material of the history of man are treasured up in India, and India only". Links: (http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article642873.ece) (http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article446164.ece)

I am also sharing the link of an article about the religious politics in Kerala: http://www.jorbit.com/news-daily.php?http://news.in.msn.com/national/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4378136

Below are some additional websites that have up-to-date news from India:

http://ibnlive.in.com/politics/

http://hindu.com/

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

http://www.rediff.com/

Thanks,

Paris