Not to be confused with Meheri tribes

Mehri or Mahri is a Modern South Arabian language, a branch of the greater Semitic language family, and is spoken by minority populations in isolated areas of the eastern part of Yemen and western Oman. It is a remnant of the ancient indigenous language group spoken in the southern Arabian Peninsula before the spread of Arabic along with the Muslim religion in the 7th century CE. It is also spoken today in Kuwait by guest workers originally from these areas.

Given the dominance of the Arabic language in the region over the past 1,400 years and the high bilingualism with Arabic among Mehri speakers, Mehri is at some risk of extinction. It is primarily a spoken language with little existing in print and almost no literacy in the written form among native speakers.

Mehri had 71,000 speakers in Yemen, 51,000 in Oman and 14,400 in Kuwait reported in 2000.^[1] Mehri speakers are known in the region as the Mahra tribe.

See also[link]

• Soqotri language

Notes[link]

References[link]

Rubin, Aaron. 2010. The Mehri Language of Oman. Leiden: Brill.

External links[link]

• Examples of Mehri poetry from Hadramut forum

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Abdelhamid Mehri (April 1926 – 30 January 2012) was an Algerian resistance fighter, soldier and politician.^[1][2]

Born into a destitute family in Constantine, Algeria, Abdelhamid Mehri joined the Algerian People's Party (PPA) at an early age. He studied in Tunisia, and developed contacts with the nationalist Neo Destour party. In Algeria, he became a prominent member of the PPA's successor organization Mouvement pour le Triomphe des Libertés Démocratiques (MTLD), and continued into the Front de libération nationale (FLN), a guerrilla movement fighting for independence from French colonial rule. He was elected member of the GPRA, the FLN's exile government, as minister for Maghreb affairs in 1958; in 1961, he became minister of social and cultural affairs. After Algeria's independence in 1962, he briefly left politics, but gradually gained influence after the 1965 military coup d'état by col. Houari Boumédiène. In 1979, soon after Boumédiène's death, he was made member of the FLN's central committee and slowly rose in the ranks under president Chadli Bendjedid. After the 1988 October riots in Algeria, he succeeded hardliner Mohamed Cherif Messaâdia as FLN secretary-general.

After the subsequent change to a multiparty system, and the 1992 military coup, he brought the FLN into the opposition, and supported the Sant'Egidio platform urging national reconciliation with the Islamist current and the FIS as a solution for the Algerian Civil War, in a clear challenge to the éradicateur military elite that influenced Algerian politics behind the scenes. Soon after, he was gradually ousted from the party's central committee, which thereafter returned to supporting the security establishment. He died, aged 85, in Algiers.

References[link]

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Andimuthu Raja (born May 10, 1963, Perambalur, Tamil Nadu, India) is an Indian politician from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam(DMK) political party. He was a member of the 15th Lok Sabha representing the Nilgiris constituency of Tamil Nadu.

In 2011, TIME magazine listed the 2G spectrum scam, in which Raja was allegedly involved, as number two on their “Top 10 Abuses of Power” list.^[1][2]

Political career[link]

Resignation[link]

On October 17, 2008 he submitted his post-dated resignation to the DMK party chief, M. Karunanidhi, in protest of the killings of Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka.^[3] His resignation was a part of the mass resignation of all the DMK ministers forming a parts of the coalition UPA^{[clarification needed]} central government.

2G Spectrum scandal[link]

The 2G spectrum financial scandal involved the alleged corrupt sale in 2008 of telecommunications bandwidth to selected organisations at prices that understated the real market value of the asset. The sale is claimed to have occurred during the period when Raja headed the Telecommunications and IT Ministry and it has been considered the largest political corruption case in modern Indian history, amounting to around 176,645 crore (US$35.24 billion)^{[4] [5]} of lost income for the Government of India. It is alleged that the sale should have been put under a transparent auction system.

A First information report filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) claims that the allocation was not done as per market prices.^[6] The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) holds Raja personally responsible for the sale of 2G spectrum at 2001 rates in 2008.^[7] In August, 2010, evidence was submitted by the CAG showing that Raja had personally signed and approved the majority of the questionable allocations.^[8] Although the political opposition was demanding his resignation over the 2G spectrum scam, Raja initially refused to resign stating his innocence, and this view was backed by his party president M.Karunanidhi.^[9] He eventually resigned on November 14, 2010.^[10] There will be further criminal investigation and action on Raja with reports being filed by the CAG and the CBI.

In 2011, the results of an investigation by retired judge Shivraj Patil, who was appointed by current telecom minister Kapil Sibal, has also found Raja to have been directly responsible for "procedural lapses" regarding the sale.^[11] The CBI and Enforcement Directorate estimate that Raja could have made as much as Rs 3000 crore from the alleged bribes.^[12]

In January and February 2011, Raja's homes and offices were raided by the CBI. who seized computers as potential evidence.^[13] Raja and two former associates were arrested on February 2, 2011. The three were questioned and thereafter Raja was placed for a period in judicial custody at Tihar Jail.^[14][15][16]

Subsequent to his arrest, the DMK supported him on the basis that he was innocent until proven guilty.^[17]

Arrest and chargesheet[link]

On February 2, 2011, the CBI arrested Raja along with his aide, R. K. Chandolia, and Siddharth Behura, the former Telecom Secretary.^[18][19] Both Raja and R.K. Chandolia are heard in conversation with Niira Radia in the released Radia tapes.^[20][21] On 15 May 2012, he was granted bail by the Supreme court, however under a condition that he would not visit Department of Telecommunications, neither his home state Tamil Nadu.^[22][23][24] He stayed in Tihar jail for fifteen months.^[25]

See also[link]

• List of scandals in India
• List of politicians in India charged with corruption
• Sadiq Batcha
• Suresh Kalmadi
• Justice A.K. Ganguly

References[link]

External links[link]

• "Fifteenth Lok Sabha Members Bioprofile: Raja, Shri Andimuthu". Parliament of India. Archived from the original on 2011-03-10. http://www.webcitation.org/5x5JwiiCm. 

Munna Bhai is a series of Bollywood films directed by Rajkumar Hirani and produced by Vinod Chopra Productions. The first film is Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. (2003), the second is Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006). A third film, Munnabhai Chale America is still under development.^[1]

Overview[link]

Murli Prasad Sharma (Munna Bhai) is portrayed by Sanjay Dutt. He is a "Bhai" - a leader in the Mumbai underworld. His nickname, Munna Bhai has a double meaning. It could refer to the form of "Bhai" as an honorific, as the word traditionally translates as "brother"; however, within the context of Mumbai slang, "Bhai" has also come to refer to a hoodlum.^[2] His sidekick is Circuit (portrayed by Arshad Warsi). They both speak in Bambaiya Hindi, a dialect specific to Mumbai, India.

Munna Bhai was first introduced in the 2003 film Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. which involves his adventures as a faux-medical student, who finally tells the truth about himself and learns to help people along the way.

In the second movie, Lage Raho Munna Bhai, Munna Bhai becomes a faux-professor. He begins, thereafter to see the image of Mahatma Gandhi who persuades him to stop pretending he is a professor and who teaches him to help other people solve their problems through Gandhism, which Munna Bhai terms Gandhigiri.

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Murliprasad 'Munna Bhai' Sharma at Internet Movie Database