[Leica] Faces

[scleroplex at gmail.com (scleroplex)]

greetings!
it is wrong to always assume good faith intentions behind official policies.

not only has photography by civilians in train stations been prohibited by
the current government,
so has photography on any and all beaches in Mumbai.

why?

because having civilians taking photographs may be inconvenient in case an
official story has to be cooked up.
it would not do to have photographic evidence by numerous random people
contradicting the official facts.

the banning of photos along Mumbai's beaches is particularly relevant here
as numerous people along those very beaches
identified numerous people in the days leading up to the 2008 attack on
Mumbai as suspicious and actually had photos of them.
and reported them to the Coast Guard as well as Mumbai police.

this led to numerous questions as to why the relevant authorities had not
taken steps to prevent the Mumbai attacks.

there were at least 10 local people in Mumbai who were photographed by
civilians recce-ing the future landing zones on behalf of the Islamic
terrorists who eventually invaded those same beaches.
these people have not been arrested or brought to trial.
these were identified as henchmen of a notorious Mafia don called Dawood
Ibrahim who is currently in Karachi.

it will come as no surprise to Luggers therefore that the Minister of Home
Affairs, responsible for Mumbai's security in 2008,
is back in that very same post.
his first response to the attacks of 2008 was "in large cities, such small
accidents do happen".

this same Minister was later photographed, yes photographed, conferring with
aides of Dawood Ibrahim,
one of whom was later arrested for a terrorist attack in a different Indian
state.

see
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/rr-patils-underworld-connections/131936-37.html?from=tn


the next time around, there will be no civilians taking inconvenient
photos.

when you have a government that clearly does not care about the citizenry,
such prohibitions are inevitable.

it is important to recognize this obvious lack of care, rather than try
explaining it away as some bureaucratic snafu or stupid paranoia.

this prohibition is not an accident.
it is deliberate deliberate policy.

regards,
bharani





Message: 31
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2011 08:39:15 +0530
From: Jayanand Govindaraj <jayanand at gmail.com>
Subject: [Leica] Faces
To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org>
Message-ID: <BANLkTinP0BSifZC70MpDM=5Z3r0hdz88=w at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

This photo is from March 2010, on the platform of New Delhi railway
station, waiting for a train to take a bunch of us to Ranthambhore. It
helped that there was this bearded foreigner, Howard Cummer, snapping
away near me and therefore being the subject of all the attention! The
pity is that the authorities, as stupid and paranoid as they tend to
be anywhere in the world, have since banned photography at train
stations in India, so this sort of photograph cannot be taken right
now.

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/People/_JGA6064d.jpg.html

Comments and criticism, as ever, welcome.

Cheers
Jayanand