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Journaling can be both educational and therapeutic for kids. It's more than just a way to practice writing; it allows kids to reflect on their emotions, an important process and something they might not ordinarily do.
Getting a kid to start a journal, especially if they aren't crazy about writing, can be a tough sell. Emphasize the open-ended nature of the project. It's their journal and they can fill it with anything they want. If they want to write about things they saw on TV or their favorite videogame, let them. It doesn't have to be full sentences. There can be doodles. No limits or minimums on entry length. The only rule? Date all entries.
When first introducing the idea of journaling to your child, it can help to show them a few inspiring examples. There are many great children's books on the subject of journaling, and even more fiction books, for all reading levels, written in diary format. If you kept a journal as a kid, dig it up and show it off to your child; it might be more inspirational than you think. Also, having a cool journal can be a booster to get started.
Although you should encourage your child to share their journal with you if they want, be sure they know they can also choose to keep it private. Part of growing up is deciding what problems to share with parents and which ones to tackle yourself. A journal is a safe space to grapple with those problems and deliberate over solutions. It's also a space for thoughts they might never say aloud to anybody, not even a parent. If a kid fears their journal may become public, they will not be honest, which defeats the point of journaling.
One of the best things about journaling is that it can become a lifelong project. Some people start keeping a diary in first grade and by the time they graduate college have a thorough record of their lives. Other people return to journaling in times of stress, as it helps them work through difficult times. Even if your child doesn't keep a diary every day for the rest of their lives, you will have taught them an important lesson on recording and organizing their thoughts and emotions.


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An Iraqi traffic police truck tows away a taxi cab after it was... Fotografía de noticias 158835494Agente de policía,Bagdad,Camión,Conflicto,Explotar,Guerra,Horizontal,Irak,Matar,Personas,Taxi,Tráfico,Zona urbanaPhotographer ALI AL-SAADICollection: AFP 2012 AFPAn Iraqi traffic police truck tows away a taxi cab after it was damaged in an explosion in the Karada district of the Iraqi capital Baghdad on December 31, 2012, killing 4 people. A wave of bombings and shootings across Iraq killed 22 people as the country grapples with anti-government rallies and simmering political crises ahead of major Shiite commemoration rituals. AFP PHOTO/ALI-AL-SAADI (Photo credit should read ALI AL-SAADI/AFP/Getty Images)


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Lost & Found: Exploding Banana Mask
WTF? Seriously, WTF?
WTF? Seriously, WTF?
We've seen some pretty epic music fails, but this one ranks among the best.
Blondes have to deal with certain negative stereotypes. What this singer does is not going to reverse that.
Now that the fourth season of HBO's blockbuster series 'Game of Thrones' has come to a dramatic halt, we take our Thrones fixes where we can find them.
Product placement might seem like a good idea to marketers, but there is a limit.
Back in 1985, when canary-yellow trenchcoats were kind of a thing, music legends and Dudes Who Should Have Known Better David Bowie and Mick Jagger teamed up to record a charity single for the Africa famine relief concert Live Aid.
Brian Regan shares a recent trip to the ER. If there is a comedian you enjoy that uses little to no profanity, please let me know at firstname.lastname@example.com
A touching story about love, farming, loss, and a great gift!
It's a short path from bunnies and sausage to castration and global calamity, apparently.
'Wonderwall' became much more than a tale of obsession -- it was also a snapshot of the '60s counterculture.


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Home > News > Nation
Friday May 16, 2014 MYT 12:00:00 AM
Friday May 16, 2014 MYT 9:04:59 AM
PETALING JAYA: Students were seen busy with last-minute shopping a day before Teachers Day.
With budget constraints, the students found outlets like Romantika Home Decor in Amcorp Mall here useful in their array of nice and affordable items for that special teacher.
Dayang Syakirah Ainin and her friends from SMK Assunta were at Romantika yesterday browsing for presents for their favourite teachers.
"I don't come to Romantika often but it's one of the shops that sells Teachers Day stuff. Its products are really cheap and not too bad," she said as she browsed through the varied range that comprised cups, photo frames, aprons, bags and others.
Her school, said the 17-year-old, would be having a big celebration today, with performances and gifts from school clubs and students for their teachers.
"I feel that celebrating the day and giving our teachers gifts is important. It shows our appreciation and sincerity towards our teachers," said Dayang Syakirah.
Romantika's supervisor, who wished to be called Aunty Chiang, said students had been going to her shop every year to get Teachers Day mementos.
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Education, teachers day, romantika, home deco, students, amcorp mall
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March 8, 2014
On Wednesday, March 5, the full U.S. Senate failed on a procedural vote to support the nomination of Debo Adegbile to be the next assistant attorney general for civil rights. According to an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Adegbile's representation of Mumia Abu-Jamal when he headed the NAACP LDF is reason enough to derail his nomination.
February 15, 2014
Today a jury found Michael Dunn guilty of three counts of attempted murder and one count of firing a deadly weapon in a November 2012 shooting which left 17-year-old Jordan Davis dead. The judge declared a mistrial on the charge of first degree murder and a retrial may be scheduled for later this year. Dunn is expected to be sentenced to at least 63 years in prison.
January 8, 2014
Today, for the first time, the United States Departments of Education and Justice jointly released guidance that outlines civil rights obligations regarding school discipline that schools and districts throughout the country must follow affirming that "racial discrimination in school discipline is a real problem." The guidance was included in a resource package with guiding principles and a resource guide from the Department of Education.
August 16, 2013
In this morning's John Gambling radio show, Mayor Michael Bloomberg criticized Davis v. City of New York, a putative class action lawsuit filed by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) and co-counsel the Legal Aid Society on behalf of plaintiffs challenging the NYPD's policy and practice of unlawfully stopping and arresting public housing residents and their guests for trespassing.


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Jefferson Papers Indexes | Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Cumulative Index to vols. 1–20 | A | aloes
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California Strawberry Commission Continues Research Partnership With Department of Pesticide Regulations
WATSONVILLE, Calif., June 19, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The California Strawberry Commission has received a grant from California's Department of Pesticide Regulations (DPR) of $298,472 for a cooperative research project to investigate ways to improve control of soil-borne diseases.
This grant will help strawberry farmers continue the world's leading research on finding fumigant alternatives. California strawberry farmers have invested more funds into researching fumigant alternatives than any other crop and in the world.
Soil-borne diseases harm the quantity and quality of a wide variety of crops in California, including strawberries, which effects farmers as well as consumers who value the abundance of healthy, locally-produced fruits and vegetables. If untreated, studies show that soil-borne diseases could cost Central Coast farm communities more than $1 billion annually in lost revenue.
Soil-borne diseases are controlled with fumigants, which clean the soil before crops are planted to rid the soil of diseases and harmful pests. They are not sprayed nor applied onto crops. Nearly half of the state's crops rely on fumigants to cleanse the soil before planting; but two of the most effective and widely-used fumigants are no longer available to farmers in California because of increased regulations or pressure from activists.
The grant from DPR will investigate how to improve the effectiveness of an alternative soil treatment process, anaerobic soil disinfestation (ASD) which has shown some limited promise in laboratory and field tests in managing soil-borne diseases, but with very inconsistent results. ASD consists of adding a large amount of plant material (such as rice bran at the rate of several tons per acre) to the field, covering the field with plastic, and then saturating the soil with water. The plastic remains in place for three to four weeks, the plant material decomposes and creates anaerobic (without oxygen) conditions under the plastic. As the temperatures increase, the soil pH decreases, and the balance of organic acids and soil microbes shifts. These changes may suppress some soil-borne diseases under some circumstances. This new research project will determine if using a small amount of a soil fumigant in combination with ASD could improve its effectiveness, reliability, consistency and cost.
In addition to the grant to the California Strawberry Commission, DPR awarded grants for research into alternatives to soil fumigation methods currently used by California pistachio and almond growers. Pistachio farmers use soil fumigants to control nematodes (microscopic worms) which reduce crop yields; almond orchards often are fumigated before the trees are planted to prevent damage from nematodes. The University of California Cooperative Extension, Merced County received a grant from DPR for $74,384 for the pistachio research, and $108,433 for the almond research.
"Strawberry farmers appreciate the support of DPR in this critically-important research to try to find ways to better control soil-borne diseases and pests, which are a scourge for California farmers, consumers and the rural communities that depend on us," said Dan Legard, Vice President - Research & Education, California Strawberry Commission. "Strawberry farmers and others have invested millions of dollars in research into soil cleanser alternatives, and we welcome this continued partnership with DPR on this quest."
About the California Strawberry Commission The California Strawberry Commission, www.californiastrawberries.com, is a state government agency representing all of California's strawberry shippers, processors and farmers. With an emphasis on food safety education, Commission activities focus on production and nutrition research, trade relations, public policy, marketing and communications. California produces more than 85 percent of all strawberries grown in the United States.
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"Very disappointed"
I'm not sure where I read about comparisons to Hiaasen...but this sophomoric tale doesn't make it. I realise that the protagonist is supposed to be quite young and, to that extent, the narrator does a good job. But it's all too 'gee whiz' for me. I read (and listen) to a lot of crime fiction and enjoy many different styles including the humourous and offbeat. But I was very disappointed in this book.
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Course Search – Course Description
Ethical Issues Child Welfare
0 credit hours
0.4 ceu hours
Ethical Issues in Child Welfare Examine the ethical considerations in assessing for risk and safety, developing permanency plans and coordinating with other service providers while working with children and families in the welfare system. Identify strategies to assess ethical issues. CEUs awarded. $82 includes $7 fee.
This course is offered: Spring 2014, Fall 2014
Course and section data last updated: 09/02/2014 6:41 AM


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Matthew Birt,
13 August 2014 17:20
Today's announcement that the Circuit of Wales has signed a five-year contract with Dorna to host the British GP from 2015 onwards is not as clear cut as it seems. Not only does the multi-million pound Circuit of Wales near Ebbw Vale not exist, but there is no chance of plans for a state-of-the-art facility to be ready in time ...
Richard Newland,
13 August 2014 17:03
The Circuit of Wales has today announced a five-year deal with the owners of MotoGP – Dorna – to host the British GP, taking the reins from Silverstone. The only problem for the Circuit of Wales is that they don't yet have a circuit built, with the development site located north of Ebbw Vale, close to the Rassau Industrial Estate, ...
Andy Downes,
13 August 2014 16:47
This is a full-production version of the new naked 1000cc bike Suzuki is calling the GSX-S1000 and hopes to be able to take on the performance naked class rivals in 2015. MCN revealed the plans for the new bike in July but these are the first images of the bike; nabbed while a completely production specification machine was out shooting ...
08 August 2014 12:01
Transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin has suggested the penalty for using a mobile phone while driving could be doubled from three points to six, backing up Met Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe's similar call. The increased penalties would also mean any driver convicted twice in three years would get banned from driving as a result of totting up points. The transport ...
07 August 2014 09:20
Two weeks ago Cal Crutchlow was staying with Ducati for the second year of his contract, but now he's announced he'll be moving to the LCR Honda squad in 2015.
Steve Hunt,
04 August 2014 11:25
Indian Motorcycles launched the 2015 version of their iconic Scout at the Sturgis motorcycle rally yesterday. It's the first, all-new Scout for over 70 years. The 1133cc, V-Twin weighs in at 253kg (wet) and according to Indian will provide a healthy 100bhp from the 60 degree, liquid-cooled engine. Steve Menneto, VP of motorcycles for Polaris Industries said at the launch, "Over the course ...
04 August 2014 09:30
Stricter motorcycle licence rules have caused a massive drop in young riders taking their tests. New learner rider rules introduced in January last year stopped under-19s from riding anything bigger than a 125cc bike, even if they pass a motorcycle test where previously they could take a step up to a larger-capacity bike once the test was passed. Recent figures ...
01 August 2014 09:30
The Ace Café in London is under threat of closure if Brent police follow through on the threat to implement the Anti-Social Behaviour Crime and Policing Act 2014. The act gives police new powers to close venues accused of anti-social behaviour without the need to go to court. The issue stems from a minority of scooter, motorcycle and car owners ...
01 August 2014 07:30
If Yamaha's YZF-R1 is getting on a bit, having not had a major facelift since 2009, its supersport R6 brother is now positively ancient. Its last notable tweak was revealed in 2007 when the '08-spec bike was shown, but the basic design dates back to the 2006 model, which was first unveiled to the world in late 2005. So it's ...
Liam Marsden,
29 July 2014 10:30
In this week's new look MCN paper, available in newsagents, on iPad and Android from July 30. - Marquez exclusive interview: "I prefer bikes to girls. Bikes never complain."- Hesketh 24 first ride- Haslam wins Suzuka again- 80 years of Cadwell Park All available in print at your local newsagent, or on iPad and Google editions from July 30. ...
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|Great Point Light
|Part Number
|Item Weight
|2.4 ounces
|Product Dimensions
|6.5 x 4.2 x 1.5 inches
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|Battery Powered
|Best Sellers Rank
|#268,656 in Home Improvement (See top 100)
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|May 5, 2010
I bought this, not for reading, but to concentrate light on my desk top computer keyboard. Works better than any standard lamp. Read morePublished on August 21, 2011 by jedwardterry
How in the heck do you change the battery? Force the top off? Poor light so I am not happy with it anyway. But would love to figure out the battery situation.Published on July 31, 2011 by B. Hudson
This light is nice size and the clip is strong enough to stay in place. Only down side is had to replace the batteries when it arrived. Otherwise, great light for the price. Read morePublished on February 14, 2011 by sr
Batteries Dead on Arrival. Good thing i have spares. I don't wont to wait for a replacement and hope that those batteries work.Published on January 22, 2011 by Mel
This was a disappointment., The light quality is poor, best if used in total darkness only. You get what you pay for., I will look for something else. Read morePublished on January 20, 2011 by Jac
I received this today, the shipping was very quick. The light works great on my Nook and I'm very happy with how bright it is. Read morePublished on January 12, 2011 by Robert M. Marotte


text: http://www.flonnet.com/fl2123/stories/20041119005800400.htm COVER STORY The end of Veerappan RAVI SHARMA in Dharmapuri and Satyamangalam G. SATYAMURTY and V.S. PALANIAPPAN in Coimbatore The Special Task Force of Tamil Nadu guns down the forest brigand and his associates in a meticulously planned intelligence operation bringing to an end two decades of hunt. THE Seventh Day Matriculation School in Padi in Tamil Nadu, around 12 km from Dharmapuri on the road to Papparapatti, was on the night of October 18 witness to the endgame of one of independent India's most wanted criminals - forest brigand Veerappan. On that fateful night, vehicular traffic on the road which links National Highway 7 (Bangalore to Dharmapuri) and the Palakkodu-Pennagaram road, came to a halt at around 10-30 p.m. What followed for the next 25 minutes is already the subject of folklore and conjecture. Travelling on the road towards Dharmapuri in an ambulance, emblazoned with the words `SKS Hospital, Selam' and driven by a policeman in plainclothes, was Veerappan, his long-time lieutenant Sethukuli Govindan, and two others - Chandre Gowda, an outlaw who had been with Veerappan for a number of years, and Sethumani, an extremist belonging to the Tamil Nadu Liberation Army. They had descended from the Pikkili Hills and waited to be picked up from a maize field on the outskirts of Papparapatti (which is a small town, around 20 km west of Dharmapuri). Also sitting in the vehicle next to driver Saravanan was Vellaidurai, a sub-inspector with the Tamil Nadu Police who had been recently recruited into the Tamil Nadu Special Task Force (STF), which had been searching for the Veerappan gang since its establishment in 1990. The ambulance was in fact a police vehicle that had been redone. It was also fitted with a remote surveillance camera, which was supposed to send pictures back to the STF about the movement of the gangsters from the fringes of the forest to the plain; but it malfunctioned. Operation Cocoon, led by the Additional Director-General of Police and Commander of the Tamil Nadu STF, K. Vijay Kumar, was entering its final phase. A sugarcane-laden lorry, giving the impression that it was heading towards the sugar mill at nearby Palakkodu, was parked in the middle of the road, diagonally opposite the school. Known as a `seed box' in military/ambush parlance, the lorry was actually meant to block the path of the oncoming ambulance. A `mobile bunker' (another lorry) replete with sandbags and armed STF commandos, which was to be the main firing zone, was parked, again, diagonally opposite the school, at a 45° angle. Armed STF commandos were also positioned atop the school building. With the 20-foot-wide road well covered - mobile bunker to the north, seed box to the east and the school to the south - the `prey', as it drove in from the west, would be cocooned. A third vehicle was parked elsewhere with reinforcements. Once in `the zone', the ambulance was intercepted. And even as the fugitives were asked over a megaphone to surrender, Saravanan and Vellaidurai melted away into the darkness. When the gang greeted the second call for surrender with gunfire, the STF opened fire on the ambulance. According to the STF, the four outlaws were shot dead in the gun battle that followed. While Veerappan was found dead, the others died on the way to hospital. Found in the ambulance were two AK-47s, a non-ballistic .12 bore Remington pump action gun, a self-loading rifle, two hand grenades and around Rs.3.5 lakhs in cash. How did Veerappan die? Did he actually die in the gun battle? Or did he commit suicide, as some reports claim? Or did he ask his fellow bandits to shoot him, knowing there was no way out? According to one of the doctors who performed the post-mortem on the bodies at the Dharmapuri General Hospital, Veerappan could not have committed suicide, but he could have been shot by his fellow bandits. In the doctor's estimate, the fatal bullet could have been shot from a distance of 10 to 15 feet. Veerappan is said to have suffered two puncture wounds to the head (most probably delivered by an AK-47). While one bullet had exited, the other was embedded. There were also around 10 superficial wounds in the trunk region. Sethukuli Govindan, from whose body seven bullets were recovered, had also suffered around 20 superficial wounds. While two bullets were recovered from the trunk region of Chandre Gowda's body, no bullets were recovered from Sethumani's body. Said the doctor: "All the four were in good physical shape. Veerappan appeared to be aged around 55, while Govindan was in his mid-thirties. Veerappan's left eye had a fully mature cataract. The reason why the left eye region had been forced in by two centimetres was the damage that the frontal region of the skull had suffered when it was hit by the bullet." Death in all the four cases, according to the doctor, was caused by bullet injuries. The doctor also disclosed that the bullets were being sent for analysis at the Forensic Sciences Laboratory in Chennai. "By studying the bullets' fingerprints and comparing them with the guns that were used both by the gang and by the STF, ballistic experts will be able to tell us which bullet was fired from which gun. This could answer the question whether Veerappan was shot by the STF or by one of his own men." Commenting on the precise nature of the bullet in Veerappan's head, Vijay Kumar said that this could have happened because of the fact that the main firing zone was hardly two metres from the ambulance. According to Vijay Kumar, three core teams of 22 commandos armed with .9 mm sub-machine guns (which have a range of 30 metres and are equipped with snub-nosed bullets), AK-47s (which have a rapid rate of fire) and shotguns had taken up positions at Padi. Also present at the shootout, besides Vijay Kumar, were Tamil Nadu STF officers Superintendents of Police N.K. Senthamaraikannan (who is credited with masterminding the intelligence aspects and coordinating the operation), K. Shanmugavelu and P. Chinnasamy, Deputy Superintendents of Police N. Thirunavukkarasu and Hussain, and Inspectors N. Rajarajan and Mohan Nawaz. The STF had blocked five entry points and were prepared to take on the gang even if Veerappan had insisted on taking a route other than the one towards Padi. A question that has been raised is why did so few bullets (hardly a 100) hit the ambulance and the four bandits, despite the fact that 22 men had almost emptied their magazines (around 20 bullets in each) at the target. (One press of an AK-47's trigger spews out two or three bullets.) Explained Senthamaraikannan: "Yes, we fired over 300 bullets, but it was part of our strategy. After our first round of fire, there was a lull. A few of the officers whom we had summoned by mike once we knew that the van (ambulance) was indeed going to Padi joined us just prior to the second round of fire. Then there was a lull, but we were not sure whether Veerappan and his people were dead, or were regrouping to fire again. So in order to make them think that firing was still on, we had groups of our men stationed at different points around the van to fire in the air. While the firing in the air was going on, two officers opened the back door of the ambulance. No movement was found inside the van. During the operation 70 or 80 of our bullets must have hit the target. The rest were fired in the air." Since commandos generally do not fire in the air during ambushes unless they are cocksure that the target has been eliminated, one can only speculate as to what would have happened if the gang had not been down and out and the STF commandos had run out of ammunition by shooting in the air. There is also the question why the STF did not allow the bandits to exhaust their bullets and then tried to capture them alive. Said Vijay Kumar: "I would have liked to capture them alive, but when they opened fire I had to retaliate." Although a number of similar questions have risen on what really happened during the Padi shootout, there is no doubt that the final chapter in the long-running saga of Veerappan, who carried a reward of Rs 5.5 crores on his head, was the culmination of at least 10 months of hectic preparations, including spot-on intelligence and meticulous planning by the Tamil Nadu STF (see box). The chief role of the Karnataka STF appears to have been to ensure that the bandit and his gang did not have a free run through the Karnataka side of the forests. There was also a serious effort to cut out red-tapism and one-upmanship between the two STFs, something that had characterised anti-Veerappan operations in the past. As an informed source pointed out, the Karnataka STF chief Inspector-General of Police Jyoti Prakash Mirji had placed his entire force and its weapons and contacts under the command of his senior STF officer across the State boundary, Vijay Kumar. Although the Karnataka STF was unaware of the final assault, it had provided two groups of commandos who would have come into the picture if Veerappan had insisted on the ambulance taking an alternate route. According to informed sources, in May STF personnel, in a bid to locate the whereabouts of the gang and to `penetrate' Veerappan's inner circle of friends, had paid a series of visits to prisons in Coimbatore, Bangalore, Kollegal (Chamrajnagar), Chennai, Salem and Cuddalore and had questioned a number of inmates, who were known to have contacts with the Veerappan gang. For example, in August officers from the Tamil Nadu STF's intelligence wing questioned a few persons jailed in Bangalore, owing allegiance to the Tamizhar Viduthalai Iyakkam (TVI). Arrested in November 2002 for possessing explosives, these men included Muthukumar, who is alleged to have spent considerable time with Veerappan during the Rajkumar abduction episode. According to Vijay Kumar, the reason why Muthukumar was allowed to stay in the forests with the gang was that another TVI extremist, Maran (who was arrested in 2003 by the Tamil Nadu Police), had given Veerappan Rs.2 lakhs. The STF is also said to have questioned Veerappan's brother Mathaiyan, who is jailed in Coimbatore, and kept a close watch on Veerappan's wife Muthulakshmi, who was detained in a house in Coimbatore. A number of educated, young constables and sub-inspectors were also placed as undercover operatives in jails in Chennai and Coimbatore. Masquerading as petty criminals, these operatives were able to strike a chord with members of Tamil separatist organisations such as the Tamil Nadu Liberation Army and the Tamil Nadu Retrieval Force, and learnt how to make contact with conduits close to the Veerappan gang. Vijay Kumar denied that the STF had used Muslim extremists as conduits. ACCORDING to Vijay Kumar, the key to Operation Cocoon lay in the use of the `cut-out' system of information gathering (where conduits/informers in the chain of intelligence gathering/information dissemination are aware of only the person they are in contact with and no one else in the chain). "Having learnt from Veerappan's school that deception was the best weapon," the STF finally chose to go in for a strategy that "worked flawlessly". Armed with snippets of information, Vijay Kumar and Senthamaraikannan put into place a network of informers, attracting in the process a few of Veerappan's own conduits to their side. These men were crucial to the success of Operation Cocoon. Between 25 and 30 local people and "fringe elements" (some of whom were Tamil extremists) were approached. While some showed an inclination to turn their backs on the brigand, others scoffed at the inducements. Some double-crossed the STF, and others ran away. Finally four or five persons were enlisted. They became the mouth and ears of the STF. They infiltrated the gang and convinced Veerappan that they were `working' for him and had the wherewithal to provide "whatever he wanted". Vijay Kumar, who worked under Walter I. Dawaram during the early stages of the hunt for Veerappan, took over as the chief of the joint command of the Tamil Nadu and Karnataka STFs only in December last, beginning his third stint in the force. His first initiative then was to revive the "half-dormant assets" (informers) as he was certain that precise intelligence alone could help zero in on the gang. Every piece of information was sifted and pursued meticulously. Information that had the probability of less than 100 per cent success was not followed up. It was finally decided to lure the brigand out of the forests by entering his den. The information garnered enabled the STF to `get into' the mind of the brigand, to study everything that he was up to. Said Senthamaraikannan: "Unlike in the past we did not want to fight him (by combing and patrols) where he is strong. We started to think like him. It was a psychological battle. We learnt to flow with his thoughts. Whom did he suspect? When did he suspect them? After learning his method of thinking we were able to make him act according to our script." Once the general location of the gang was identified as being in the vicinity of the Malai Mahadeshwara Hills, the STF decided to push it into the thinner forests towards the east in a task that took all of seven months but was well worth it. "Any hunt in the jungles had only a fraction of a chance and on nine out of 10 occasions it would be possible for the gang to give us the slip. Allowing him to continue in the jungles would definitely frustrate the mission," Vijay Kumar said. The STF fortified its posts at Nallur, Hoogyam and Jallipalaya, right up to the river Cauvery, a distance of around 30 km, making life difficult for the gang. Said Vijay Kumar: "We were now holding his territory. Later we moved our men northwards into the Pennagaram forests right up to Natrampalayam. This once again gave the gang the space to move around." The gang was shepherded towards the Dharmapuri, Pennagaram and Yemanur forests and the fringes of Papparapatti, places that were relatively unfamiliar to it. A few raids and patrols in pockets close to where the gang was hiding were conducted to give the impression that the STF was still not able to pinpoint the gang's location. According to Vijay Kumar, this was the time that the STF learnt through informers of fissures in the gang and of Veerappan's eye ailment. But he was hesitant to come down to the plains for treatment, though the ailment was providing his lieutenant Govindan with a reason to try and take over the leadership of the gang. Said Vijay Kumar: "It was imperative that he have his eye checked if he was to regain control of the gang." There was also a conflict of interest between Veerappan and Chandre Gowda, who was keen to go and be with his aged and ailing parents. The bandit was also worried whether Sethumani would desert the gang after pocketing some of the money. What made Veerappan trust the conduits? Said Senthamaraikannan: "Veerappan was desperate for three things - to get his eye operated upon, to recruit trained manpower and to buy weapons. He wanted to regroup and was planning to kidnap either a prominent religious leader [Kanchi Kamakoti Mutt chief Jayendra Saraswati said in Kozhikode, Kerala, on October 30 that the STF got information that his name had figured in Veerappan's list] or a Karnataka Minister. Our conduits, after being briefed by us, were able to convince him that the eye ailment was a very minor one and that a doctor would treat him in a farmhouse. [STF sources indicated that the farmhouse was on the outskirts of Kollimalai, around 10 km from Papparapatti.] We also offered him other things. But what else we offered is a secret." There have been unsubstantiated rumours that he was heading towards a safehouse or was being offered a safe passage to Sri Lanka - Veerappan had a fascination for the LTTE and its leader V. Prabakaran - but these have been denied by the STF. There has also been speculation that either he was captured or he surrendered and that he was detained for two days at a location near Mallayanor, about 15 km from Papparapatti and close to the Pikkili Hills. Sources in the STF said that one of the reasons why Veerrappan chose to take all his confidants with him was that he was sure that he would get away: "It was Veerappan who persuaded, the others to come for a ride. He was also very suspicious. He thought that if any of them got caught in his absence, his location would be compromised." IN a separate reaction, Vijay Kumar said "the main credit" for the operation went to Senthamaraikannan. "The coordination between Senthamaraikannan and me was excellent and he did a perfect job," he said. The killing of the brigand was "basically an intelligence operation" which was "aided by finding the right people for the job and executing the job with anticipation and contingency plans", he added. Asked whether the STF had used two men of Suba. Ilavarasan's ultra-leftist group, the TVI, to infiltrate the gang and whether they had stayed with Veerappan for several weeks, Vijay Kumar said they were speculative details on which he did not want to comment. Contrary to reports in the media, sources in the STF say Vellaidurai did not infiltrate the Veerappan gang and stay with it in the forests for three weeks. He went inside the forests two or three times in July "to make contact" with Veerappan but did not succeed, the source said. Thereafter, Vellaidurai met Veerappan and his men only on the day they were killed by the STF. Senthamaraikannan said: "Vellaidurai's role was purely to pick up the gang from a predetermined spot. We removed the man who was supposed to drive the vehicle (as per Veerappan's plans) and supplanted Vellaidurai. We chose him because of his build, shaven head... He gave the impression of being a Tamil extremist. Also, since he had newly joined the STF, he would not react emotionally when he saw Veerappan. Vellaidurai was the last point of contact for the mission. Veerappan had also been told that the man who was coming to meet him would be armed, so Vellaidurai faced no difficulties." THERE is little doubt that the political stakes have always been higher in Karnataka than in Tamil Nadu when it came to the Veerappan imbroglio. Whether it was by accident or otherwise, all of Veerappan's high-profile hostages were residents of Karnataka. The biggest catch was film actor Rajkumar, in 2000, and next came former Karnataka Minister H. Nagappa, in 2002. On both occasions, the S.M. Krishna government was rattled by the Opposition and the media. In the words of Krishna, it was "one of the low points of his tenure as Chief Minister". He told Frontline after the brigand's death that Veerappan had given him "so much trouble" and that "the abduction crises were a nightmare". Other governments were also hauled over the coals, most notably that of J.H. Patel, after the brigand kidnapped six persons from the Bandipur National Park in 1997. The kidnapping of Rajkumar and Nagappa and the latter's death are still shrouded in controversies, the first because of the huge ransom (Rs.20 crores) that was allegedly paid, and the second because Nagappa was found dead in the forest. The Karnataka government's joy - despite the fact that its STF, on whom the State had spent Rs.20 crores, had only a marginal role in the denouement - was therefore understandable. It was also always suspected, but never proved that Veerappan had received ample support from `friends' in the political class. Given this and the persistent media probing on the hows and whys of the Veerappan saga, Chief Minister N. Dharam Singh on October 19 ordered an inquiry into the political and financial support that was accorded to the brigand. The government is yet to decide on the nature of the probe. An immensely pleased Dharam Singh also announced that all 900 personnel of the Karnataka STF would get a residential site in their respective hometowns. http://www.flonnet.com/fl2123/stories/20041119006000800.htm COVER STORY A festival in Chennai T.S. SUBRAMANIAN THE Tamil Nadu government organised a big function in Chennai on October 30 to celebrate the killing of Veerappan and his gang. Chief Minister Jayalalithaa honoured the 752 Tamil Nadu Special Task Force personnel for their "wondrous achievement". She presented each of them with a cheque for Rs.3 lakhs. Earlier she had promised each of them a one-step promotion and a house site at the place of their choice. Enhanced cash awards were given to the families of the State Forest Department staff killed by Veerappan. Jayalalithaa presented gold medals to former STF chiefs W.I. Dawaram and R. Natraj (now Chennai Police Commissioner), STF chief and Additional Director-General of Police K. Vijay Kumar, STF Superintendent of Police N.K. Senthamaraikannan, Deputy Inspector-General Sanjay Arora (who was earlier in the STF), Sub-Inspector Vellaidurai, driver Saravanan and other STF personnel. Personnel who were injured in encounters with Veerappan received silver medals. The function went on for nearly three hours, with the Chief Minister personally presenting the awards to all the 752 STF personnel who received them in 10 batches. Fifty-one State Forest Department staff and former STF personnel received medals from top police officers. The medal-giving ceremony was interspersed with dances and skits by the STF personnel. The families of the STF personnel were present at the stadium. People cheered as a commentator praised the Chief Minister's "unshakeable faith in the STF, and the faith that the STF itself had in its `general' [Vijay Kumar]". He ended the commentary by saying, "We salute the Tamil Nadu Police." Jayalalithaa said the news of Veerappan's killing conveyed to her by Vijay Kumar over telephone was the best news she had heard since she assumed office. Lauding the efforts of the STF, she said a 20-year hunt had ended in 20 minutes. She praised Vijay Kumar's efforts as a "tremendous achievement that would forever remain in history". Jayalalithaa said it was she who motivated the STF after she came back to power in 2001. Between 1993 and 1996 (during her earlier tenure), there were 28 encounters between the STF and Veerappan, she claimed. The STF's activities were, however, "bottled up", she alleged, after the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam headed by M. Karunanidhi, returned to power in 1996. She announced that a memorial would be constructed on the premises of the Tamil Nadu Police Academy to honour the STF men who sacrificed their lives. About Rs.50 crores had been spent on the STF right from its inception, she said. In his thanksgiving speech, Vijay Kumar said the encouragement given by the Chief Minister was an important factor that helped in the success of Operation Cocoon. He praised his predecessors Dawaram and Sanjay Arora for their relentless efforts to catch Veerappan; Natraj for "the foundation he laid" that led to this present victory; and Senthamaraikannan, Tamilselvan, Mohan Nawaz, Vellaidurai and others for their contributions. He revealed that the STF men were trained to react fast, that is fire within 60 seconds. ACROSS the political spectrum, party leaders paid tributes to the STF. Karunanidhi appreciated the joint operations of the STFs of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. "If Veerappan had surrendered as he had initially agreed to when the DMK was in power [from 1996 to 2001], he need not have met this end," he said. Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary Vaiko said that although contradictory details were available about how Veerappan was killed, there was a feeling of relief. Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former Union Minister S. Thirunavukkarasar said the Tamil Nadu STF held its head high now. Congress legislator S.R. Balasubramaniam said it was only proper that the brigand met such an end. In separate statements, both R. Nallakannu and N. Varadarajan, secretaries of State units of the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) respectively, congratulated the STFs on ending Veerappan's atrocities. Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy wanted a high-level commission of inquiry to be appointed to probe the wealth accumulated by Veerappan and those who had helped him to dodge the law. Human rights activists from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, after a two-day fact-finding mission, described the killing as "extra-judicial". The killing of Veerappan went against the Constitution, which barred a State from taking the life of an individual without committing him/her to the court of law. Prof. Seshaiah, general secretary, Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee, demanded a high-level judicial inquiry into the killing. http://www.flonnet.com/fl2123/stories/20041119007801000.htm COVER STORY The gains of good intelligence RAVI SHARMA THE one question that rankled people following the Veerappan saga was "why could the police forces of the two States, with all their wherewithal and firepower, not catch a fugitive for almost two decades?" The primary reason had to be the lack of reliable intelligence that could be interpreted and acted upon by a commando team. Military experts with experience in counter-insurgency operations had insisted that the way to breach the domain of the brigand was not with firepower or manpower, but with intelligence inputs on the gang's movement through the forests and with the help of infiltrators. The intelligence could be followed up with firepower. Although efforts were made by the security forces to buy or extract (by methods fair and foul) information from villagers and the Soliga tribal people who frequent the forests that Veerappan roamed, the information was more often than not patchy, came too late, and was rarely acted upon. And, crucially, the information was hardly allowed to remain a secret. Countering this trickle of intelligence was Veerappan's own intelligence network, which was vaster and more prepared to assimilate information and pass it on at lightening speed to the gang or its sympathisers. The gang was, therefore, always in the know of the movements and operations, while the police were perpetually groping in the dark. This situation was not lost on Additional Director-General of Police K. Vijay Kumar when he took over as the Commander of the Tamil Nadu Special Task Force (STF) last December. Putting together his past experience with the anti-Veerappan operations (this is his third stint with the STF) and the experience he gained in the elite Special Protection Group and then in the Border Security Force, and with the help of his deputy, Superintendent of Police N.K. Senthamaraikannan, Vijay Kumar was able to "quietly, with no fanfare", put in place over a 10-month period, a secretive and cellular intelligence network that supplied reliable information without raising the target's suspicion. The STF's intelligence dissemination and collection was based on the `cut-out system', where informers in the intelligence gathering chain were only known to the person they were in direct contact with. This way the location and identity of the person was not compromised, something that Veerappan himself practised with success over the years. Speaking to Frontline, Vijay Kumar explained that extreme secrecy in the selection and dissemination of intelligence was the key to the operation's success: "We formed cells (each one handling bits and pieces of intelligence) and each particular cell's intelligence input was known to just two people. If a third person was also involved then the level of secrecy could not have been maintained. Very rarely did more than two people know about an intelligence input. This cellular way of working on the intelligence that we obtained helped us in tracking down the gang." The various bits and pieces of information was then connected and coordinated by Senthamaraikannan. Vijay Kumar said that the cellular method made a major difference to Operation Cocoon. So closely guarded was most of the intelligence that even the Tamil Nadu STF top brass (leave alone the Karnataka STF) was not aware of all the information that was being garnered. Officers were aware of intelligence inputs purely on a need-to-know basis. The STF also achieved a major breakthrough by infiltrating Veerappan's intelligence gathering network. According to informed sources, the STF was able to `reach' the gang through about 15 informers/conduits, who were all local people trusted by Veerappan. Said an officer from the STF: "Some of these conduits were originally with us but had switched over to Veerappan's side. But, crucially, we were able to reconvert these people. Although they supplied Veerappan with bits of information about our movements, we were able to convert these conduits to our advantage. They worked as double agents. We were prepared to do anything to convert them. We studied their weakness and requirements. And we used not just money (lots of it was handed out) but other inducements, like promises of a job, a house and rehabilitation in a safe place. Much work went into finding out their requirements, then we had to persuade them, that is what took time." In order to maintain the high levels of secrecy, the STF also made sure that the conduits never mingled with each other and so one did not know what information the other was supplying. However, according to Vijay Kumar, it was not just intelligence that clinched Operation Cocoon. He said: "The intelligence was backed with good physical work and knowledge of the Veerappan heartland. We also gave our men adequate training. They may not have known where and when they would be needed, but they were in readiness to operate anywhere and at any time." http://www.flonnet.com/fl2123/stories/20041119008001100.htm COVER STORY After the reign of terror RAVI SHARMA IRONICALLY, it was not the slaying of Veerappan that the residents of villages such as Govindapadi and Chengapadi on the periphery of the forests that the brigand controlled celebrated. For them, it was a moment of joy because the death of Veerappan meant an end to the operations of the Special Task Force (STF) and the "constant harassment" at its hands. "We shall now be left in peace to lead our lives. We can now go into the forests to collect firewood and berries, graze our cattle, or go about our daily lives without the fear of being picked up for questioning or being accused of abetting Veerappan's crimes," was the common refrain in these villages. It is equally ironic that no one shed tears for Veerappan in his native village of Gopinatham at the base of the Malai Mahadeshwara (M.M.) Hills on the Karnataka side of the inter-State border, not even members of the Padayachi Gounder community to which he belonged. They did not want the body to be cremated or buried in the village. They were happy that the cycle of Veerappan's crimes and subsequent police interrogation was finally over. But there were a few voices of remorse in the villages, among the sizable number of onlookers at the Dharmapuri General Hospital where the brigand's body was kept, at Veerappan's widow Muthulakshmi's house and at his grave in Moolakkadu (15 km from Mettur). They mourned the death of a "man who had defied for over two decades the might of two State governments" and lamented that "he died a dog's death". The death of Veerappan, though, did come as a surprise to almost all people (including most STF members and other police personnel) in the areas where the gang was active. Given Veerappan's larger-than-life image, reports about his death in the STF ambush were taken with a pinch of salt. The feeling is that the gang, especially Veerappan, given his suspicious nature, would never have agreed to get into a motor vehicle. Expressing scepticism at the STF's version of the events, many of them said that the gang had "been caught elsewhere, tortured and killed", a view that was echoed by Muthulakshmi. An emotional Muthulakshmi told Frontline that her husband could never have been trapped by the police. "He would have probably committed suicide," she said. Moolakkadu, a stone's throw from the river Cauvery, has been attracting a stream of visitors. While most of them are driven to it by curiosity, others are diehard supporters of the brigand. Said S. Palani from a nearby hamlet: "He may have looted, but then many politicians are doing the same. Only, Veerappan did it openly. To us he was a hero." There are others who thought he was a tyrant from whom there was no escape. Said Ayyan Mahadappan from Govindapadi, 21 km from Mettur: "We had to surrender to him. It is not that we went to him. He accosted us in the forests or came to our villages and took us away. We were then used to load sandalwood on to lorries or to carry the gang's provisions. But the STF used to harass us saying that we were part of the gang." Similar tales were related by tribal people wandering in forests like Nallur, Hoogyam, Jallipalaya, Talakere and Oozhimalai. For the residents of Gopinatham, some of whom even joined the STF personnel when they burst firecrackers and distributed sweets, Veerappan's death would hopefully put an end to the unwanted attention that the village had been receiving for 18 years, ever since the bandit killed Tamil Nadu forest officer Chidambaram. And though Veerappan and his immediate family had long deserted the village - the bandit's disused house is on the verge of collapse - the Karnataka STF had put Gopinatham under 24-hour surveillance. Any crime by the gang, irrespective of where it was committed brought more misery to the village. Nothing could move in and out of the village without being first checked by the STF. Even people carrying provisions from the Public Distribution System outlets were routinely asked questions. The STF was always suspicious that the provisions were intended for the brigand and his gang. Further, there was an unofficial curfew clamped on the village. The continuous police presence and the fact that a number of villagers had been recruited by the STF to serve as police informers had created a rift in the once closed-knit community. Veerappan was no friend of the village. He did not hand out bundles of money to its residents. He did use a few people to buy provisions, clothes and tarpaulins. But his tyranny - he nonchalantly eliminated people whom he suspected of being informers - hardly endeared him to the residents. Gopinatham residents still talk about how he hacked Kotti Naicker, one of them, because he travelled in a police jeep. Caught in the crossfire, villagers, most of whom are small and medium landholders and are dependent on their paddy, cotton or turmeric crop, were not able to sell their produce to people from the surrounding hamlets. Now, with Veerappan gone, they hope that customers will once again return to buy their produce. Further on from Gopinatham, people of hamlets such as Hannur, Ponnachi, Chengadi, Hoogyam, Meenyam and Martahalli hope that the Karnataka government will reopen the granite quarries that lie on the periphery of the forests now that the Veerappan menace is over. The quarries, which were closed 10 years ago in the wake of the Palar bridge blast on the border between the two States in which 22 policemen were killed, provided jobs to over 5,000 workers. http://www.flonnet.com/fl2123/stories/20041119007401200.htm COVER STORY A bloody trail T.S. SUBRAMANIAN RAVI SHARMA Veerappan's life was one of plunder and bloodshed, and he was unremorseful to the end. FOR almost 20 years Koose Munisamy Veerappan was the king of 6,000 of the18,000 square kilometres of dense mixed jungles, ravines, rivers and villages on the fringes of forests, stretching from Denkanikote, Anchetti and Hogenekal in Tamil Nadu's Dharmapuri district through the Malai Mahadeshwara (M.M.) Hills, the Biligiri Ranga (B.R.) Hills and Bandipur in Karnataka, right up to the Niligiri ranges in Tamil Nadu, and abutting slightly into the Palakkad Gap in the Vyalar forests, where a 50 km natural gap in the 960-km-long Western Ghats opens into Kerala. With complete mastery over the terrain, the forest brigand killed man and beast ruthlessly, evaded the law and eluded the dragnet spread by the Special Task Forces of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. It was a life swathed in plunder and bloodshed, to the end. Although no accurate record of the number of persons murdered by Veerappan is available, according to an estimate, he killed 140-odd persons. Forest Department personnel, policemen and STF personnel of both States constitute 44 of them. One victim was a Border Security Force jawan. He poached a few hundred elephants and looted 10,000 tonnes of sandalwood. His strategy was to lure, ambush and shoot, and sometimes play Macbeth by killing his guest. He ruthlessly gunned down anyone he perceived to be an informer. He had a bizarre way of checking the credibility of the suspect. Picking up a handful of pebbles, Veerappan would toss them, two at a time, at the feet of the idol of Mahadeshwara, which he worshipped. If he was left with one pebble the suspect was deemed guilty and beheaded; if he was left with no pebbles, the suspect got the benefit of the doubt. Veerappan was one of the three sons (the others being Mathaiyan and Arjunan) of Munisamy and Punidhayamma. He was born in 1952 at Gopinatham, a small settlement in the midst of a closed forest in Kollegal taluk in Chamrajnagar district of Karnataka, bordering Dharmapuri district. Munisamy belonged to an agricultural family of Thampalli in Salem district of Tamil Nadu. The family relocated to Gopinatham after Thampalli and scores of adjoining villages were submerged by the Mettur dam. Veerappan used to accompany his father whenever he went to hunt deer and wild fowl for meat, and soon became a good marksman. His initial claim to fame was when as a youngster he killed a tiger single-handedly in Gopinatham. By his own admission in one of the video footages shot by P. Sivasubramaniam, a reporter with the Tamil magazine Nakkheeran, at the age of 12 he killed an elephant, sawed off its tusks and sold them to Sevi Gounder, a local ivory trader. (He was arrested by the Karnataka forest guards near M.M. Hills, but he escaped.) A pleased Sevi Gounder gifted him with a firearm made in England. Thus began Veerappan's initiation into poaching. As elephant tusks fetched handsome money, several gangs became active in the forests. These competed with one another to mow down hundreds of tuskers, forcing the Union government to curb the trade in ivory. This reportedly led to the retirement of Sevi Gounder from the trade. In 1970 Veerappan left Gopinatham and the family's eight hectares of dryland to plunder the deciduous forests of the Western Ghats. The money from sandalwood smuggling was all too tempting for poachers who were able to get away because of their links with politicians both in Karnataka and in Tamil Nadu. Veerappan learnt very early in his criminal life that he could achieve anything with the right connections. He started looting sandalwood from the forests of Sathyamangalam, Thalaimalai and Bargur (in Tamil Nadu) and Thithimathi, Gundulpet, Kollegal and Bandipur (in Karnataka), sharing the booty with `friends' in the police and forest departments and among politicians. (In the 1980s he even campaigned for his politician friends during the elections.) Although the usual practice was for the politician-police nexus to annihilate the poacher before he grew too big, Veerappan turned out to be too wily. In 1972, the Tamil Nadu Police arrested him near Mettur, but the intervention of a legislator helped him secure bail. Veerappan's sustained elephant poaching also started around this time. Veerappan was ruthless with his rivals in the trade. He beheaded them and displayed their heads as trophies. One such rival was Thangavelu. On May 5, 1986, a "mediator" arranged a "forgive and forget" dinner for the two groups at Gopinatham. After the dinner, Veerappan shot dead Thangavelu and his brothers. That brought Veerappan under the ken of the law. His supremacy established, he unleashed a reign of terror, and it became impossible for the authorities to ignore him. Sources in the STF, which built a dossier on Veerappan based on surrogate and secondary information, pointed out that between 1990 and1995, Veerappan's killings had no rationale. For instance, he shot dead even a 12-year-old boy at point-blank range even as he was pleading for mercy. He was one of the seven persons killed at Manjugammpatty in November 1993 in a horrible fashion. At Gethesal, apart from shooting dead five informants in one go, he ordered his men to sever their limbs as he "wanted to see blood flow". The anguished villagers closed down the Mariyamman temple as they felt the deity did not come to the rescue of their kin. The temple was reopened last fortnight. Real trouble for Veerappan began when he fell out with the police and forest officials of the two States in sharing the spoils. Veerappan had forged a nexus with local politicians in the smuggling of sandalwood. By the mid-1980s, out of the control of his police and Forest Department minders, Veerappan had formed his own gang. A few politicians were still able to exercise a degree of influence, but even that was to evaporate, with Veerappan acquiring a redoubtable gang of desperadoes and enough arms - self-loading rifles and muzzle guns made by village blacksmiths - and ammunition. Whenever his activities brought him into collision with Forest Department personnel he did not hesitate to murder them. In December 1986 he was arrested in Bangalore and lodged at the Boodipadga government guest house in Chamrajnagar. He escaped and a subsequent government inquiry pointed to the involvement of the District Superintendent of Police in this. But the government of the day did nothing; the officer was promoted. Although Veerappan killed four Karnataka forest guards in 1984 near Nagarhole and Bandipur, his sustained hostage-for-ransom abductions started in 1987. The Tamil Nadu government sat up when he killed V. Chidambaram, a forest officer of the Sathyamangalam range, on July 14, 1987. Not surprisingly, the majority of his hostages were police and forest personnel. Granite quarry owners of Kollegal taluk operating in the periphery of the forests were also kidnapped and made to pay huge ransoms. In December 1987 he picked up M. Duraiswamy, a forest guard, and A. Subramaniam, a watcher from the Forest Department, near the Sathyamangalam forests, and had them killed in a horrific manner - boiling them in a big vessel used for brewing arrack. More forest personnel were killed in the years that followed. In order to catch Veerappan, the Tamil Nadu government set up the STF comprising specially trained police commandos in January 1990. Karnataka followed suit in April 1990. But Veerappan was unstoppable. In 1990, he shot dead four policemen near Hogenekal. His beheading in November 1991 of Deputy Conservator of Forests P. Srinivas, who was drafted into the Karnataka STF, shocked the authorities. Srinivas was lured into a trap by Arjunan. More mayhem was to follow when in August 1992 Veerappan ambushed and shot dead Mysore District Superintendent of Police T. Harikrishna and four others from the police department, including Sub-Inspector Shakeel Ahmed, near Meenyam. By then Veerappan had acquired landmines and explosives. He attacked the Ramapura (Karnataka) police station, killing six policemen. (In 1998 he attacked the Villitirupur (Tamil Nadu) police station and seized guns.) He detonated landmines on April 9, 1993, to blast two buses carrying STF commandos of the two States, forest watchers and police informers near the Palar bridge in Erode district. This attack claimed 22 lives. After this attack, Walter I. Dawaram, then Additional Director-General of Police (Law and Order), Tamil Nadu, who later led the STF, admitted that Veerappan had become the State's "no.1 law and order problem". "This is the first time that he has used landmines. Every time he strikes, his modus operandi is different... He is getting more and more sophisticated and invariably manages to lure people into his trap," he said. On another occasion, Dawaram said: "Veerappan is not just (a mere) bandit. He is able to analyse the psyche of the opponents thoroughly before launching an operation." Sustained efforts by the STFs under Dawaram and Shankar Bidri led to the size of the Veerappan gang, which at one time had swelled to over 100, being reduced to under eight. The pressure forced him to make an offer of surrender in December 1994. Over the years he had made countless such offers, many of them were a ploy to escape while the governments dithered over what terms to offer him. And most of the surrender offers were followed by abduction. Veerappan had realised that abduction was an easy means to keep the cash flowing. With each abduction, he made outrageous demands. The abductions were made so that he could talk to the government from a position of strength. First he wanted to surrender; then he insisted on general amnesty; and finally he sought complete pardon. The demands he made during those occasions included grant of Rs.1,000 crores to rehabilitate the families of members of his gang killed by the STF; withdrawal of all cases against him anywhere in India; the grant of a 100-year lease to quarry in the M.M. Hills; a comfortable place of detention ("I am used to walking 10 miles a day in the forests," he had said); regular meetings with his family members; regular supply of chicken, butter, fruits...; and filming of his life in all Indian languages. In comparison, in the demands he made after the abduction of Kannada film actor Rajkumar in July 2000, he tried to project himself as a person who cared for the interests of Tamil Nadu in the Cauvery river water dispute with Karnataka and as a person who wanted to protect the Tamil language by insisting that Tamil should be the medium of instruction in schools, probably under the influence of ultra-left organisations whose members were holed up with him in the forests then. The surrender idea took a back seat during the Rajkumar abduction. Flush with money he got in exchange for the release of Rajkumar after four months, it is still unclear why he abducted the former Karnataka Minister H. Nagappa in August 2002. Nagappa was found dead in mysterious circumstances in December that year. IT was around 1987 that he got married to Muthulakshmi, and a daughter was born to them in 1989. A second daughter was born in 1993. . A few days after the child was born, Veerappan and his "mobile village" of men and women came under pressure because of the STF's combing operations. Veerappan and his lieutenant Sethukuli Govindan managed to hand over the infant to a trusted friend. Muthulakshmi continued to live with Veerappan in the forests for a couple of months. In another combing operation, the men escaped and the STF secured Muthulakshmi and eight other women of the gang elsewhere. Muthulakshmi met Veerappan again in August 2000 when Rajkumar was abducted. It was then that Veerappan revealed to her where the second child was growing. Contrary to media projection, Veerappan was never a Robin Hood. He was stingy; he parted with his ill-gotten money only when he really had to. He paid the people living on the fringes of the forests handsome wages for identifying mature sandalwood trees and cutting and smuggling them to destinations in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. He also gave food liberally to the people. He provided for his relatives and Muthulakshmi, amply though. Police sources said that Muthulakshmi owns two houses in Mettur and two earthmovers valued at Rs.6 lakhs each (which were being rented out to contractors in Mettur, Salem and Coimbatore). She also lends money on interest. Veerappan truly belonged to the forests. He was a keen observer, though not a friend, of wildlife, and could perfectly imitate the trumpeting of elephants. If an "allkaatti" swallow flew, he knew human beings were moving about in the forest. A religious man, he performed surya namskar (worship of the sun) twice a day. He enjoyed playing on a bamboo flute, which he had made himself, and dancing. He had "godowns" dug in the forest floor, where provisions wrapped in cellophane bags were buried. He had an uncanny knack of identifying these "godowns". He believed in omens. While the tweeting of sparrows and the call of a lizard from a particular direction was a bad omen, chirping of a woodpecker from the west and east were good omens. It was one such omen that made Veerappan act hastily in shifting Nagappa, resulting in his panic killing, STF sources assert. http://www.flonnet.com/fl2123/stories/20041119008201400.htm COVER STORY Relieved families RAVI SHARMA DISBELIEF, relief and satisfaction - that is how the families who had lost their loved ones to the bullets or explosives of Veerappan reacted to his bloody end. Without doubt one of the happiest persons was Abdul Karim, the retired Deputy Superintendent of Police whose son, Sub-Inspector Shakeel Ahmed, was killed by the bandit in August 1992. Calling the killing of Veerappan a "relief for humanity", Karim who in 2000 had successfully petitioned the Supreme Court to stop the Karnataka and Tamil Nadu governments from accepting Veerappan's demand for the release of those detained under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, said that it was "too good to be true". Karim, who had consistently opposed any dilution in the efforts to apprehend Veerappan and his gang, told Frontline that the sacrifice made by his son did not go in vain. Recalling proudly the stealth operations launched in the early 1990s by Shakeel Ahmed and his senior officer, District Superintendent of Police, Mysore, T. Harikrishna against the gang, Abdul Karim said that the duo had become a "two-man army", which established a brilliant intelligence network in the area, ferreted out credible information about Veerappan, and helped paralyse conduits who were supplying arms and ammunition to the gang. They had also gained access to key members of the gang such as Ayyandurai and Veerappan's brother Arjunan. Shakeel Ahmed's brother Jamil Ahmed, a Professor in the Political Science Department of the University of Mysore, added: "It is to the credit of Shakeel (Ahmed) that he met Veerappan incognito in the forests, convinced him (Veerappan) of his credentials as an arms dealer who would supply automatic guns in return for ivory, and enticed the bandit's strategist and arms supplier Gurunathan into a trap. In the series of operations that followed, Gurunathan was flushed out of his hideout by Shakeel and Harikrishna and shot dead in an encounter near Dinahalli. This operation could not have been possible by men of straw." Both Shakeel Ahmed and Harikrishna paid for their bravery with their lives. Along with four other policemen, they were ambushed in a retaliatory strike by Veerappan between Ramapura and the Meenyam forests on August 14, 1992. Said Jamil Ahmed: "Yes, it would have been better if he had been caught alive. Now lots of secrets and untold truths have been carried to the grave." Preetha, the widow of Harikrishna, said she was glad that the police had finally caught up with the brigand. The November 1991 beheading of Pandillapalli Srinivas, an Indian Forest Service officer, was gruesome even by Veerappan's tyrannical standards. Srinivas, both as the Deputy Conservator of Forests and as the head of the operations to catch Veerappan, had undertaken a number of welfare measures in the vicinity of Gopinatham, which endeared him to the villagers. Srinivas hoped to reform Veerappan by requesting local villagers to boycott him. So when Veerappan sent word through his brother Arjunan that he would surrender at a farmhouse in Gopinatham, Srinivas believed him, and met a gruesome death. Speaking to Frontline from Rajahmundry (in Andhra Pradesh), Srinivas' mother P. Jayalakshmi said that her son went to meet Veerappan because he "believed in non-violence and the basic goodness of man. If my son did not believe in ahimsa, Veerappan would have been dead long ago. He deserved the fate he met. He destroyed so many families. Good will always prevail over evil." Terming Veerappan a Narakasura (a demon), she added that now that he was dead, her son's soul would rest in peace. Srinivas' father Anantha Rao said: "We always wished that Veerappan should die. All families bereaved by the mindless violence of the Narakasura would be celebrating as we are." He confessed that the sight of his son's headless torso would always haunt him, as that was how the forest officials had handed it over to him. A highly respected officer, Srinivas was awarded the Kirti Chakra posthumously in 1992. A road has been named in his memory in Rajahmundry and the colony of houses he built for the lower-level forest staff in Chickmagalur (Karnataka) has been named after him. And the day he was killed - November 10 - is observed as Forest Martyrs Day by the Karnataka Forest Department. There was, however, no joy in the Kamagere (Karnataka) residence of the late H. Nagappa, the former Minister who was kidnapped by Veerappan in August 2002. Parimala Nagappa, who was elected from her husband's constituency - Hanur - in 2004, said that the death of Veerappan could never bring back to life any of the victims he had butchered, nor would it lessen the grief suffered by many families. She, however, expressed relief that with the bandit gone, village communities living along the Tamil Nadu-Karnataka border could lead peaceful lives. http://www.flonnet.com/fl2123/stories/20041119008201700.htm COVER STORY The extremist link T.S. SUBRAMANIAN The first clear evidence of Veerappan's links with extremists was available following the abduction of Kannada actor Rajkumar. The brigand needed men to strengthen his gang, and the latter a sanctuary. IN life and in death forest brigand Veerappan and Tamil ultra-leftist groups made a brief common cause. One of the three men killed along with was Sethumani. This established the nexus between Veerappan and the Tamil ultra-leftist group Tamizhar Viduthalai Iyakkam (TVI, or Tamils' Liberation Movement), led by Suba. Ilavarasan. The video footage of the scene at the Dharmapuri District General Hospital, where the bodies were kept, was revealing. Somebody turned over the left arm of Sethumani, on which a "mango" and the letters "P.M.K." were found tattooed. The mango is the symbol of the PMK or the Pattali Makkal Katchi, a political party in Tamil Nadu led by Dr. S. Ramadoss. Sethumani was a member of the PMK before joining the TVI. Ilavarasan had earlier headed one of the factions of another ultra-leftist organisation, the Tamil Nadu Liberation Army (TNLA). The TVI was the third extremist group, after the Tamil National Retrieval Force (TNRF) and the TNLA, to find refuge in the forests in the company of Veerappan. While the TNLA was led by Maran, one of the TNRF's leaders was Amudhan. The Tamil Nadu STF had arrested Ilavarasan and his associate Saha alias Sahadevan, at Kolathur in Salem district on May 26, ending several months of search. The police claimed that they detained them when they were trying to sneak into the forests at a place called Adipalaru to join Veerappan. A pistol, some ammunition, plastic pipe bombs and hand grenades were recovered from them. On October 20, when Ilavarasan was produced in a court at Jayamkondan in Perambalur district in connection with seven cases filed against him, the TVI leader termed as "reprehensible" the killing of Veerappan. Although information was trickling in since 1997 that the TNRF and the TNLA were trying to establish contact with Veerappan, it was the brigand's abduction of Kannada film actor Rajkumar in July 2000 that gave a clear idea of the relationship - the release of seven TNRF men from prison was a condition for the actor's release. The nexus came to light when the Tamil magazine Nakkheeran's editor, R.R. Gopal, went to the forests in the Sathyamangalam-Thalavadi area in Tamil Nadu as the emissary of the Tamil Nadu and Karnataka governments to negotiate the release of Rajkumar and three others. Gopal was accompanied by Nakkheeran reporter P. Sivasubramanian (who was the first reporter to interview Veerappan in the forests, in April 1993) and other colleagues. The video footage brought by Gopal on his return to Chennai from his first trip in August 2000 showed a hooded TNLA cadre in the forest. Gopal had then said: "Veerappan has changed. There are other people with him now - not his old associates." When a reporter asked whether the TNLA was behind Veerappan, his reply was: "He has established himself as the captain. He spoke about Che Guevara. He said he would take a decision only after consulting the joint committee." At one point Veerappan told Gopal: "I am fighting for the six crore people of Tamil Nadu." The reference was to the demands he had made for Rajkumar's release, which included making Tamil the medium of instruction up to ClassX, release of seven TNRF cadre, finding a solution to the labour problem in the Manjolai tea estate, and fixing the minimum wage for tea and coffee estate workers in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu at Rs.150 a day. Referring to Veerappan's demand that the Cauvery waters dispute be referred to the International Court of Justice, the then Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi had said: "Somebody has tutored Veerappan." The brigand's demands were clearly in tune with the ideology of the TNLA and the TNRF (Frontline, September 1, 2000). It was a symbiotic relationship that existed between Veerappan on the one side, and the TNLA and the TNRF on the other. He needed them and they needed him. The TNRF and TNLA men were on the run and needed a sanctuary and Veerappan's guiding hand to survive. The brigand too needed men because his "mobile village" of more than 100 men and women had been reduced to about two or three under the STF onslaught. He needed men who could ensure a fresh supply of arms and ammunition, carry his "luggage", cook food, and carry his messages to government officials. In an interview to the Tamil magazine Junior Vikatan, TNLA leader Maran's father said his son's first feelers to Veerappan were rejected. "`I myself am in a bad situation now, so I cannot protect you'," Singaram quoted Veerappan as having said. "Later, I heard that they had somehow joined hands," Singaram said (Frontline, November 24, 2000). As the Rajkumar abduction drama degenerated into a war of attrition between Veerappan and the two State governments, a motely group of Tamil nationalists materialised as "ambassadors of humanitarianism" to enter the forests and work for the actor's release. Some of them were avowed champions of Tamil nationalism. They included P. Nedumaran, founder of the Tamil Nationalist Movement and an uncompromising supporter of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE); Kolathur "Mani", who once belonged to the Dravidar Kazhagam and organised training camps for LTTE cadre in his village of Kolathur near Mettur, when Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister; A.P. Shanmugasundaram, president of the Karnataka Tamilar Peravai, who, according to the police, had links with the LTTE; Dr. Bhanu and Ramkumar, who had interests in quarrying; P. Kalyani, a sympathiser of the ultra-leftists People's War and organiser of the State unit of the Revolutionary Cultural Movement; and G. Sugumaran, an activist of the People's Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL), Pondicherry. During the final lap of the Rajkumar hostage drama, the TNLA specificially asked that Nedumaran, Kalyani and Sugumaran be sent to negotiate the actor's release. The TNRF was the first to forge links with Veerappan. Unlike the TNLA, the TNRF does not have any Marxist ideology. It is a Tamil nationalist, secessionist organisation wedded to establishing a Tamil State that would span Tamil Nadu and Eelam, which covers the northern and eastern provinces of Sri Lanka. It is a small outfit with about a dozen members, and about three of them were trained in the use of arms by the LTTE in the Tamil areas of Sri Lanka. Under relentless police pressure after the LTTE's assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, the TNRF made overtures to Veerappan to let it pitch a camp with him. In 1998, the TNRF managed to establish contacts with Veerappan. Four of its members first went into the forests and stayed with him. They were Krishnamurthy, Muthukumar, Jayaprakash and Saravanan. After some months they returned to the towns to do "field work". Next, it was the turn of three other TNRF members, Manikandan, Sathiyamurthy and Muthukumar, to join Veerappan. They too returned for "field work". The police arrested all them in 1998 and 2000. (In 1998, the TNRF men attacked a police station at Vellithirupur in Erode district. Veerappan and his key associate, Sethukuli Govindan, also reportedly took part in the attack.) In the meantime, the TNLA wangled themselves into the forests to make common cause with Veerappan. Six men started to live with him. They included the TNLA leader Maran alias Senguttuvan; Govindaraj alias Inian; Elumalai alias Andril; Amirthalingam alias Chezhiyan; Raju alias Selvam; and Ramesh alias Tamizh. These six men were with Veerappan when Gopal met the brigand to negotiate Rajkumar's release. In January 2001, the TNLA parted company with Veerappan, and its men fanned out to various parts of the State. However, by June 2001 except Ramesh the police arrested all the TNLA men who had been with Veerappan. But Alappakkam Murugesan of the TNRF is still absconding. It was then the turn of the TVI cadre to get into the forests. Ilavarasan's men were allegedly involved in Veerappan's abduction of former Karnataka Minister H. Nagappa in 2002. http://www.flonnet.com/fl2123/stories/20041119005001800.htm COVER STORY How he made his pile RAVI SHARMA ALTHOUGH Veerappan was notorious for poaching elephants for ivory and looting forests for sandalwood, actual figures relating to both crimes have, according to experts, been grossly exaggerated. And although his crimes have caused immeasurable ecological damage, he and his gang made more money from extortion and kidnapping. Contrary to media reports, Veerappan did not kill 2,000 elephants. The figure is more representative of the number of tuskers (male elephants) killed in the entire peninsular region over a period of 25 years by various poachers. Neither did he make crores of rupees through sandalwood smuggling. According to Raman Sukumar, one of the world's leading authorities on Asian elephants, it is more likely that the bandit and his gang were directly involved in the killing of a few hundred elephants, maybe 500-odd. However, the tendency in the past two decades when Veerappan became a dreaded name in very household in the trijunction of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu has been to blame the death of every tusker on him. Initiated into the crime by the poacher Sevi Gounder in the late 1960s, Veerappan reached the zenith of poaching during the 1980s, with tusks of elephants in the Erode, Dharmapuri, Satyamangalam, Chamarajanagar and Kollegal forests, and also those on the fringes of the Niligiri coming under his saw. Very rarely did he venture into the Western Ghats to poach. There is little doubt that he did make money from ivory and sandalwood. According to Sukumar, the mean tusk weight during the late 1970s and early 1980s was around 20 kg a tusker (two tusks) and the weight, thanks to intense poaching of adolescent tuskers, had dropped to around 10 kg an elephant by the late 1980s. In 1980, the price of raw ivory in the open market was around Rs.1,300 a kg; in 1989 (when the international ban on ivory finally came into effect), it had crossed Rs.3,000; by 1995 it was Rs.5,000; and by 1996 it was Rs.10,000. (Today it hovers around Rs.12,000.) A conservative estimate would mean an average tusk weight of 15 kg an elephant. The amount of raw ivory that the Veerappan gang would have sawn off if it had poached 500 elephants would be above 7,500 kg. Taking an average price of Rs.3,000 a kg, it would translate into a monetary value of Rs.2.25 crores. And even half that amount - since a good portion of the sale proceeds would have been swallowed by middlemen - would have been a princely sum in the 1980s and early 1990s. (There are indications that the number of elephants killed by the Veerappan gang during the past eight to 10 years is negligible.) Living almost exclusively in the forests, Veerappan's living expenses would have been at the barest minimum. A portion of the ill-gotten wealth would have gone towards buying provisions, tents, guns and ammunition. Where he hid the rest, or who took the money are questions that may never be answered. Police informants told Frontline that Veerappan had used a major part of his money to buy political protection. The bandit also allegedly bankrolled the political campaigns of quite a few politicians. According to people living in the many villages that dot the forest, he had campaigned on behalf of candidates belonging to the Vanniyar community on more than one occasion. Residents of Gopinatham told this correspondent that he had "humbly" wooed voters there with betel leaves and arecanuts for a now deceased Congress politician. Veerappan is said to have sold most of the ivory he poached to traders in Kerala, from where it found its way to carving centres. According to Sukumar, poaching by the Veerappan gang and others gradually picked up in the late 1970s and peaked in 1987, a period when up to 150 tuskers were slaughtered every year. "The international ban on ivory had brought down the number of elephants poached. But the figure again rose to a peak in 1996. Today the number of tuskers poached every year in South India may be 20 to 30." He says, "In a normal elephant population, adult males make up 12 to 15 per cent of the total elephants. The selective removal of tuskers has brought down the numbers drastically. Today there are around 14,000 elephants in South India, but there are hardly 500 adult males. And among these you also have males that do not have tusks." Felling sandalwood stumps was certainly easier and more lucrative than poaching. In the 1970s, sandalwood fetched Rs.100 a kg. Now it is worth Rs.600-800 a kg. According to the tribal people, Veerappan used to sit atop lorries stacked with smuggled sandalwood and lead the way, a gun nestled in his lap. However, the actual amount of sandalwood that was directly smuggled by Veerappan or his gang is unknown. Said A.S. Sadashiviah, a retired Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) from Karnataka, who was the Working Plan Officer of the Mysore Division in 1972: "Even in the 1970s, when we surveyed forests in Chamarajanagar, Kollegal and Nagarhole (all in Karnataka), we could hardly find sandalwood trees of the size or quantum that could have fetched crores and crores of rupees. However, the yield was better in the Satyamangalam (Tamil Nadu) forests. What Veerappan did was to use the Karnataka forests (given their isolation and Veerappan's own intricate knowledge of them) to store and then transport the logs to Kerala." However, K.S.N. Chikkerur, Inspector-General of Police (Forest Cell), Karnataka, disagrees. He cites the seizure of sandalwood worth over Rs.1 crore in 1990 in the Sylvekal forests (close to the Malai Mahadeshwara Hills). Rangers who served in the area also vouched that there was a large quantity of sandalwood in the area. Foresters like S. Subbarayalu, a retired PCCF from Tamil Nadu, are firmly of the view that Veerappan's smuggling activities were not the only reason for the depletion of sandalwood trees in the forests of the two States. According to him, "Sandalwood does not regenerate easily. The seed disposal is poor, and factors such as rainfall and soil conditions have to be favourable for it to regenerate. When we did a survey on the Tamil Nadu side we did not even find [naturally generated] sandalwood saplings or seedlings. This is a stage that no one will cut them, so if they had regenerated we would have found them." Sadashiviah, who was the Conservator of Forests, Mysore, when Veerappan beheaded his fellow forest official P. Srinivas in November 1990, added that it was quarry owners (in Karnataka) who were Veerappan's biggest paymasters. "They had to protect their illegal operations as most of them quarried granite from revenue and forest lands," he said. The Karnataka government banned quarrying in over 55 quarries in the M.M. Hills and Kollegal areas in 1993 after Veerappan and his gang allegedly detonated explosives near the Palar bridge killing 22 policemen. It was hoped that a ban on quarrying would seal off one of the brigand's biggest sources of income, and also prevent explosives from falling into his hands. Veerappan was certainly no friend of wildlife, but had unwittingly played the role of a conservator. He was instrumental in killing leopards, sambar, deer and monitor lizards, all for their meat. But ironically, quite a few forest officials found Veerappan's presence in the forests as a help to keep away other poachers and timber smugglers. There are already indications that a number of fortune hunters have sneaked into some of the forests that were hitherto no-go areas, prompting the Tamil Nadu Forest Department to ban unauthorised entry into the Bargur and Satyamangalam forests. Said an officer: "The fear of Veerappan protected the forests from small-time criminals who would have otherwise degraded it continuously." . While the sandalwood reserves have almost been exhausted in the Sathyamangalam-Bargur-Kollegal forests, timber and medicinal plants could be a major attraction to new adventurers, especially the Kerala timber mafia that has been active in these forests for decades.


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You are in... Forums > Discuss This > MotoGP > Motegi MotoGP: Jorge Lorenzo blasts Valentino Rossi
Matthew Birt says:
Jorge Lorenzo launched a scathing attack on Fiat Yamaha team-mate Valentino Rossi after the Italian defeated him in a captivating conclusion to yesterday's Japanese MotoGP race.
Lorenzo could accept fourth position as he took another giant stride towards lifting his maiden MotoGP crown.
What he found tough to stomach was the manner in which Rossi condemned him to a second successive fourth...
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Mar 08
Posts: 264
stompmyduke says:
Apparently, Lorenzo is going to give Rossi a few digs once the Championship has been won. Oh dear, could our favourite Spaniard end up EATING GRAVEL in Malaysia?
Aug 08
Posts: 24
dowdy .p says:
spot on westkit with what you said it shows your a true race fan
Posts: 763
Minty Fresh says:
Fella, this is a mass debate, not a masturbate so don't be a wanker!!
Chill your boots geezer and put your opinion out there but don't get all abusive when people disagree with it…. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion and shouldn't be started on or abused if it differs from somebody else's stand point….
I must also say I love your come backs and put downs… so funny to read as it reminds me of my school days but I must admit, it is also somewhat embarrassing to read when it is coming from an adult, Again, just my opinion..
you really need to read the full views on whats been said before you make a comment then understand nuff said
Jun 09
Posts: 145
OxonJohn says:
Aug 02
Posts: 315
cthwaites says:
Suggest JLO and Linn Jarvis rent "Faster", slow-mo the elbow incident, watch the subsequent "finger" incident, listen to Schwantz, Scott and Julian and shut the cuss up.
Wining babies.
The can then plan their post Philip Island shenanigans….suggest dressing up as Skippy and complaining that Wallabies are cuter.
Oct 10
Posts: 2
Motobycyclette says:
I, along with the rest of the world, was on the edge of my seat watching JL and VR batle for 3rd place. Both riders wanted that track position; both riders made outstanding overtaking moves; both riders fought for track position; neither rider was going to give way.
The only people who should really have any complaints are the owners of the bikes - as has been stated both riders could have taken the other out (like Vettel and Webber in F1).
Rossi is entertaining to watch. He understands the fans come to the track / watch the racing on tv to see overtaking and riders fighting for their track position. He has recognised this - after all he suggested rider aids, such as traction control, should be removed from MotoGP bikes. MotoGP needs the likes of Rossi if it is to avoid becoming like F1!
There are a number of riders in MotoGP with a similar attitude, e.g., Ben Spies (to name one) - pity there was not more coverage of his fantastic ride.
The public winging does not help the image of the rider or the image of the sport.
I don't recall Kenny Roberts or Barry Sheene complaining about the moves they made on each other.
I have a vivid memory of Sheen diving under Roberts at Cascades (Oulton Park) one Easter Match Race series back in the late 70s. I thought he was going to have both of them of - fantastic exciting racing.
That is what MotoGP needs!
Aug 04
Posts: 38
LilMoney says:
Lorenzo is the new "moaner"!
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TEHRAN – Capitol Hill must have an outsize role to play in Iran no matter the result of ongoing nuclear talks, a bipartisan group of six senators said in a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama released on Sunday by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Politico reported.
Congress will need "to rapidly and dramatically expand sanctions" against Iran if global negotiations to scale back the country's nuclear program fail, the senators said. And if Iran does agree to a permanent deal, the lawmakers said it will be up to them to offer long-term economic relief to Iran.
"We need to work together now to prepare for either eventuality," the senators said. "Iran must clearly understand the consequences of failing to reach an acceptable final agreement. We must signal unequivocally to Iran that rejecting negotiations and continuing its nuclear … program will lead to much more dramatic sanctions, including further limitations on Iran's exports of crude oil and petroleum products."
The letter is being led by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.).
"As these negotiations proceed, we will outline our views about the essential goals of a final agreement with Iran, continue oversight of the interim agreement and the existing sanctions regime, and signal the consequences that will follow if Iran rejects an agreement that brings to an end its nuclear … ambitions," the senators said in the letter.
The missive's backing by Democrats like No. 3 Senate Democrat Schumer and Foreign Relations Chairman Menendez is notable given the fresh partisan divide on Iran. This week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) staved off several GOP attempts to force a vote on new sanctions, which Obama believes would ruin ongoing talks with Iran.
Republicans are hoping this week that AIPAC presses Democrats to endorse a swift vote on sanctions legislation. But there is no sign of any agreement yet.
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From 1997-1999, a team of researchers developed a new environmental module for Guatemala's Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) that analyzed the rapidly changing population-environment dynamics in the Petén frontier region. more
Protecting Regional Seas: Developing Capacity and Fostering Environmental Cooperation in EuropeJul 07, 2011
Conference proceedings from Saving the Seas: Developing Capacity and Fostering Environmental Cooperation in Europe, held 14 May 1999 at the Wilson Center. more
Bridging the Chasm: Helping People and the Environment Across AfricaJul 07, 2011
This commentary is an edited transcript of an address Dr. Goodall gave to a Washington policy audience at the Woodrow Wilson Center on 3 April 2003. more
Forum: Is There a Population ImplosionJul 07, 2011
The Environmental Change and Security Project invited Nicholas Eberstadt and five other population professionals to participate in an on-line forum on the state of demographic trends and population policy. more
ECSP Report 6Jul 07, 2011
The 2000 issue of the ECSP Report features commentaries on commentaries address environment, population, and conflict; and trade and the environment. Complete report. more