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Why you people are not doing anything after the last failed pitch,, i think this is the right time, to use the power of internet to take this issue forward, last time there was not much of a blogging culture but this time its quiet good, launch some badges or anything which bloggers can put up at their site, a face book community, twitter followup and other things can be done,,, 

Ultimate irony is that V need a liquor barons riches 2 bring Gandhi's stuff back to India.

Maybe now Gandhi's Gujarat should liftprohibition as a mark of acknolegment.

Call it what you will, but today's TOI's article "Its official, liquor laws relaxed" is a step towards gradual relaxation of prohibition. The article states Amit Shah, Minster of state for Home, saying "Liquor permits would be issued by prohibition officers and authorised officer of the special economic zone, and hotel managers could issue them to tourists from other states and foreigners". Of course, it will create a rush to get fake identity papers to prove we're not Gujarati's - but out of towners who have more rights that the blind residents here, but so be it. Do not expect much in an election year. But given the opposition, this is a step in the right direction under the nose of blind ideology followers.

excerpts from an Article by Ali Mehdi - member of the governance team, Centre for Civil Society. 

That is the question of responsible governance that policy makers should not shirk.

Early this week, a drunk driver in Bangalore ran over and killed 3 employees of the General Post Office in Bangalore who were working on the night shift. So drunk was this media executive that he didn't even know he had run over these people. He reached home and slept. The sorry incident should have brought to focus the legislations for drunk driving, but it unfortunately has not. The only lament heard in the local media was that the presence of a canteen in the GPO premises would have saved the 3 people, who had to go out and use the canteen in the New Indian Express building across the road. Can this one man's behaviour justify imposing prohibition in Bangalore, the pub city of India?

The truth is that nobody (by this I mean people I have talked with or overheard discussing the issue) actually gives a fuck about Prohibition or MaltMarch because, 'Why do I want to rant about Prohibition when I can drink anytime I want to?' (Which is not true at all but look what a silly law that's gone on and on hopelessly forever can do to the sleeping proletariat and bourgeoisie.)

The role of Gandhiji in helping to bring about Indian independence is well documented.  What is also well known is that the idea of non violence and passive resistance in gaining support from the public in Gandhiji's struggle for India's independence.  What is less known is the economic strategy behind Gandhiji's objective in limiting the economic strength of the British Government.  Gandhi's argument that prohibition was patriotic made sense because any diminution in consumption, let alone a complete ban, would hurt imperial finances. In 1930-1931, for example, the excise (on liquor) amounted to 33 percent of total revenues in Bombay province (which then included the current Gujarat and Maharashtra states) and 31 percent in Madras province.  Gandhiji was also against consumption of tea, the sale of which, again added to the imperial government's coffers. 
The well-documented "passive resistance" has lost its original meaning and,
today, people only think of fasting (popularized by Gujarat politicians who jump
at the chance to fast for anything), but prohibition was one of the straws as a
"satyagrahi" move to counter the taxes the imperial power collected to keep
Indians under their control. Not only this, but the call for prohibition placed Indian nationalists in a position of moral superiority over their foreign overlords. Acknowledging the likely loss in revenue, Gandhi cheerfully suggested that the British could offset their losses by reducing military expenditure. Because most Indian drinkers were poor, illiterate, and lacking in political influence, prohibition was a policy with few political disadvantages.  Importantly, it was an issue on which Hindus and Muslims could make common cause against the British*. 

Alcohol and Stroke

In the September 2001 issue of Stroke magazine, Dr Kenneth Mukamal, who had previously reported on alcohol's effects on the heart, found that light to moderate alcohol consumption is associated with fewer brain lesions and so-called silent strokes. Dr. Mukamal wrote that as a blood thinner, alcohol improves blood circulation in the brain and offers protection from silent strokes caused by tiny blood clots.

it's been nice to read about the movement towards a wet state in the media & the net. this path is tread only by the educated urban elite. i think to thrash this archaic law on a harder, faster scale we need to take this case up with the judiciary

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