Driving from Cairo to Sharm el-Sheikh,
across the Suez Canal and along the Red Sea coast to the southern tip of
Sinai is an exhilarating experience. It's a passage through history. .....
In an interesting twist to investigations
into the serial terror bombings at Sharm el-Sheikh last Saturday, Egyptian
police said on Monday they are searching for six Pakistani nationals in
connection with the blasts. .....
The Muslim leadership's sincere
condemnation of terrorism in the name of Islam is universally welcomed
and supported, and all communities, agencies and individuals, whether of
faith or secular, need to work together to root this evil out and allow
our plural, civilized society to flourish. .....
In the cyclical battles between
the Devas and the Asuras, there are moments when the latter, ensconced
in an overweening arrogance, appear all-powerful and invincible. The wise
know their fall will be sudden, dramatic, and complete. And so it shall
be with the so-called Revolutionary Leader of Tamil Nadu, who has violated
immutable rules of dharma by subordinating the sacred to State power. .....
During the last few weeks, 'terrorism'
has again made the headlines in the media. In India commentators have even
forgotten the controversy of whether Jinnah was 'secular' or 'communal'
or both, to comment on the events in Ayodhya and London. .....
Ahmed Rashid reports on the link
between Lahore and Leeds that has flourished over two generations but may
now have been hijacked by militant Islamic fundamentalists .....
Recently the Supreme Court of Pakistan
is said to have held (I have not seen any authenticated copy of the order),
according to a newspaper report that the marriage customs in this country
of "barat" or "mehndi" are Hindu customs and must be discarded. .....
The partition of India led to chaos
and hundreds of thousands of people were murdered. After this chaos
divisions would emerge between East Pakistan and West Pakistan and further
bloodshed would occur, with the outcome being the sovereign nations of
Bangladesh and Pakistan. .....
Several prominent speakers in the
national seminar on the "Impact of changes in religious demography with
special reference to tribal areas" held at the Mewar Institute, Ghaziabad
today expressed serious concern on the fast changing "demography" which,
they warned, was a serious threat to "national security." .....
The 39-year old Swede suspected
of involvement in the London bombings has said that Sweden would be "punished"
if he was handed over to a foreign power. .....
On His last visit to relatives
in Pakistan this year, one of the London bombers, Shehzad Tanweer, boasted
of wanting to die in a revenge attack over the way Muslims are treated.
.....
In her first thriller, At Risk,
Stella Rimington, the former head of MI-5, writes about a Pakistani militant
who arrives by ferry boat in Britain to blow up the commander of a US-British
air force base in the Fens. His main helper is an English girl who has
converted to Islam and has been in a training camp in Pakistan, while MI5
misses several signals that an attack is coming. .....
Evangelists are targetting the
sacred site of Tirumala and in a direct affront to the Hindu community,
which has for centuries regarded all seven hills as holy, have starting
gathering on the slopes in groups for public prayers. .....
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf
has said that no one should doubt his Islamic integrity, since Allah has
bestowed him "with the blessings that very few people have been". .....
On the many sensible proposals
put forward by the Government yesterday to tighten up the present
scrappy laws on terrorism, its wish for consensus sends out an important
signal. Terrorism is not an area where parties should seek cheap
advantage. It is a genuine threat and must be confronted as swiftly
as can be with the widest possible agreement .....
Delhi is turning out to be a safe
haven for militants. More than 50 militants from different outfits
who were killed or arrested this year found hideouts in Delhi. .....
After London, terrorists could
be targeting Bangalore's vulnerable spots. Intelligence sleuths have
gathered information that Bangalore could be a possible target of
Laskar-e-Toiba terrorists. The LeT has surveyed India's Silicon City
for a vulnerable target to wreak havoc and strike at its IT economy
in mid-August, sources said. .....
Three car bombs exploded in quick
succession in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik early Saturday, ripping
through a hotel and a cafe packed with European and Egyptian tourists.
The province governor said at least 49 people died in the deadliest attack
in Egypt in nearly a decade. .....
As if in answer to Prime Minister
Tony Blair's call for an international conference on Islamic extremism
Wednesday, another round of bombs have terrorized London. Though few appear
to have been injured, no thanks to the terrorists, we cannot let the severity
of terrorist acts dictate the appropriate response. .....
In March 2004, al Qaeda leaders
gathered at a mud hut in Pakistan's remote tribal regions for a summit
meeting. Among those who attended, according to senior Pakistani intelligence
officials, was a Libyan operative described as Osama bin Laden's top operational
planner. Another attendee, Abu Issa al Hindi, now faces terrorism-related
charges in the U.S. .....
How many crackdowns constitute
a crackdown? Every time the finger of suspicion or blame points at
Pakistan for some act of terrorism, General Musharraf orders a crackdown
on "extremist elements." The police respond by rounding up the usual
suspects. .....
As in the United States after 9/11,
so also in Britain after 7/7, the Sikh community bore the brunt of the
first backlash against the London blasts with a gurdwara in Kent being
set on fire. Prime Minister Tony Blair called a high level meeting to discuss
"community tensions" as 70 incidents against minorities were reported across
the country in as many hours. .....
The Hindu Forum of Britain condemned
the attempted suicide attack on the holy shrine of Lord Rama in Ayodhya
by six militants disguised as Hindu pilgrims on 5th July 2005. .....
On the eve of four attempted bombings
here on Thursday, Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammad, one of Britain's most outspoken
militant clerics, predicted that another terrorist attack would hit London.
.....
Ten days after the sensational
terror attack at the makeshift temple complex in Ayodhya, Police today
said all the five Lashkar-e-Taiba militants invloved had come from Pakistan
and their two accomplices who had provided logistical support have been
arrested in Jammu region. .....
Bengali authorities seem to sense
that their country is drifting towards becoming a failed state and are
making greater efforts to arrest Islamist killers, despite some of them
being part of the ruling coalition. Two radical Islamist groups have also
been banned .....
The announcement of a breakthrough
in the investigations in the Ayodhya attacks, with the arrest of two militants
allegedly belonging to the Lashkar-e-Taiba, is welcome. It will hopefully
yield invaluable information about those who were behind the fortunately
foiled bid to storm the makeshift temple on July 5. .....
During the last few weeks, 'terrorism'
has again made the headlines in the media. In India commentators
have even forgotten the controversy of whether Jinnah was 'secular'
or 'communal' or both, to comment on the events in Ayodhya and London.
.....
Our hearts go out to London - but
not to its mayor. London's leader, Ken Livingstone, eloquently condemned
the recent terrorist bombings. But in the past, he never seemed too concerned
about terrorists murdering Israelis. The tale of Livingstone's ambivalence
is a sordid kind of Greek tragedy. .....
There are reasons why the last
surviving English gentlemen are today only to be found in India. They have
brown skins, they don't speak the Queen's English, but in their hearts
they are deeply appreciative of the legacies of British colonial rule.
They care little for most aspects of contemporary British culture, though.
.....
Firozabad town, located about 50
km from Agra, is known throughout the world for its glass industry, whose
production quality comes next only to the Belgian glass. In all, there
are 257 registered glass units in this town, manufacturing everything from
glass bangles to precious lead-crystal chandeliers, being exported to European
countries, where the Firozabad product is in high demand for being low-cost
compared to the Belgian glass. .....
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's
call for zero-tolerance to terrorism in Washington on July 18 has come
at a time when there is an urgent need for a global consensus on this issue.
The Ayodhya and London attacks have clearly proved the re-emergence of
terrorism with a renewed vigour. .....
Something possibly unprecedented
has occurred in the battle with radical Islam. A leading Islamist organization
has retracted its slurs against me and issued a public apology. This offers
a small but important step in blocking the advance of Islamic extremism.
.....
In the first arrest related to
the terrorist attack on the Ram temple in Ayodhya, the Uttar Pradesh police
today picked up a doctor who used to practise in Delhi and was in regular
touch with the terrorists. .....
The Maharashtra State Road Transport
Corporation (MSRTC) has not recovered dues of Rs 27.15 lakh from a youth
Congress jamboree that took 62 workers to Sabarmati, Gujarat, on January
30, 2000. .....
In 1995, my uncle Mubarak Musalman,
came from London to my house. At that time my family was in a financial
crisis. My father was not working. My brother earned only Rs 300 a month.
We could have only one meal a day. .....
Early reports indicate that
there were no fatalities from four coordinated explosions that again targeted
Londons' transit system yesterday, July 21, 2005, exactly two weeks after
the Islamikaze carnage of July 7, 2005 that killed over 50 persons. .....
Something possibly unprecedented
has occurred in the battle with radical Islam. A leading Islamist
organization has retracted its slurs against me and issued a public
apology. This offers a small but important step in blocking the advance
of Islamic extremism. .....
Just one day after the London bombings
by Islamic terrorists, British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced,
quite inappropriately, the G8's 9 billion dollars 'aid package' to
the Palestinian Authority (PA). For the next three years the infrastructure
of terror will receive extra 3 billion dollars a year from Western
countries. .....
It could be that corner shop selling
beer after hours, or that bakery. It could be a kiosk offering cut-rate
fees for calls to Morocco or Egypt: they could all be al-Qaeda sleeper
cells, only a five-minute walk from Brussels' Gare du Midi - the central
train station. .....
The Muslim leadership's sincere
condemnation of terrorism in the name of Islam is universally welcomed
and supported, and all communities, agencies and individuals, whether
of faith or secular, need to work together to root this evil out
and allow our plural, civilized society to flourish. .....
My aunt is seventy-three years
old. She lives with her family in a small town in Maharashtra near the
Karnataka border. She is a pious woman who makes a padyatra from Pune to
Pandarpur every year covering the distance of over 250 kilometres in 2
weeks. But, when she told me a few days ago that she planned to make the
trip to Amarnath this year, I panicked. .....
IAS officers told the Shah Commission
of Enquiry that Mr Navin Chawla, then secretary to the Lieutenant Governor
of Delhi, wanted them to detain persons under the dreaded MISA without
examining the grounds of detention and to later 'fabricate' the evidence.
The Superintendent of Tihar Jail said that Mr Chawla wanted construction
of cells with asbestos roofs to 'bake' certain persons and to throw some
'troublesome detenus' (read opponents of the Emergency) into the lunatics'
cell. .....
The police beat the woman with
batons in the full glare of the news media, tore her shirt off and, though
they failed to take off her baggy trousers, certainly tried their best.
The ritual public humiliation over, she and others - some bloodied - were
dragged screaming and protesting to police vans and taken away to police
stations. .....
As I watched on the TV an announcement
by the BBC that the British Police have identified Jamaican-born Lindsey
Germaine, who lived in Buckinghamshire, as one of the bombers responsible
for the terrorist strikes in London on July 7,2005, I could not help thinking
of Daniel Pearl, the American journalist working for the "Wall Street Journal"
.....
Pakistani government officials
reported Monday that three of the four men identified as the London bombers
visited this country last year. Two of them arrived together and stayed
for three months. .....
The horrible bombing attacks in
London overshadowed an important conference in Amman, Jordan, where as
many as 170 Muslim scholars from 40 countries came to define ''The Reality
of Islam and its Role in the Contemporary Society." .....
A major tragedy was averted during
the Amarnath pilgrimage in Jammu and Kashmir on Monday with the timely
detection of three explosive devices planted along the highway for the
pilgrims, police said. .....
Is she a new Vineetha Kottayi in
the making? A 68-year-old retired teacher appeared before mediapersons
here on Saturday alleging constant threat to her life from CPM workers
of Narikkuni local committee. .....
A leading Iranian religious leader
and politician charged in a nationally broadcast sermon yesterday that
there was a British hand in last week's deadly London bombings. Ahmad Jannati,
who chairs the powerful Guardians Council, which vets all legislation and
candidates for public office, said the British government benefited from
the bombings and was the key suspect, whether directly or through its "child"
Al-Qaeda. .....
Irrespective of whether you are
dealing with the disaffected youth of Leeds or a brainwashed Jihadi at
a madrassa on the North West Frontier, the inescapable conclusion is that
Pakistan forms the epicentre of Osama bin Laden's unremitting campaign
of terror against the West. .....
The Guardian newspaper is refusing
to sack one of its staff reporters despite confirming that he is
a member of one of Britain's most extreme Islamist groups. .....
Sporting black turbans or skull
caps, the young men squat on a carpet in a crowded classroom and listen
in silence to a lecture given by a thickly bearded, middle-aged cleric.
.....
It has a roughly 50-letter alphabet
and a grammar so complex that some have compared it to computer programming.
Its vocabulary is steeped in subtleties, so much so that after 55 years
of work on a dictionary, scholars still were on the first letter. .....
Two senior US Congressmen, Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen and Gary Ackerman, who are also the co-chairs of the Congressional
Caucus on India and Indian-Americans, have expressed concern over alleged
human rights violation of the minority Hindus in neighbouring Pakistan
and Bangladesh and the State of Jammu and Kashmir as well. .....
I have been maintaining for some
time now that attempts to de-Hinduise the polity is really aimed at de-nationalising
the Indian state. How else can one explain away the fact that wherever
Muslims have usurped and illegally occupied Hindu territory that site acquires
the legal respectability accorded by a de-Hinduised system of being 'disputed'
whether it be J&K or the Ramjanmabhumi. .....
I am going to get it off my chest.
I am going to call a spade a spade. You are all a bunch of morons. Yours
is a nation of barbarians. We will never forget our bloody, terrible colonial
past. You came to our country as traders. You took back our precious spices.
We are a naive, hospitable people. We did not suspect you had any ulterior,
sinister motive. .....
Politicians and much of the media
in Britain are engaged in a familiar Western practice after a terrorist
attack. They think they can explain it using Western standards. .....
Ali Massoud is a father, political
theorist, apostate Muslim, small business owner, college graduate, crack
rifle marksman, a blogger, cat lover, shrewd investor, US Army veteran,
and currently single. He lives in Michigan. .....
Only one faith on earth may be
more messianic than Islam: multiculturalism. Without it - without its fanatics
who believe all civilizations are the same - the engine that projects Islam
into the unprotected heart of Western civilization would stall and fail.
It's as simple as that. To live among the believers - the multiculturalists
- is to watch the assault, the jihad, take place, unrepulsed by our suicidal
societies. .....
A few years ago I was visiting
Bahrain and sitting with friends in a fish restaurant when news appeared
on an overhead TV about Muslim terrorists, men and women, who had taken
hostages in Russia. What struck me, though, was the instinctive reaction
of the Bahraini businessman sitting next to me, who muttered under his
breath, "Why are we in every story?" The "we" in question was Muslims.
.....
Scotland Yard called it Operation
Crevice. In late March 2004, a force of 700 police officers arrested eight
British-born ethnic Pakistanis in two dozen raids in southern Britain.
They also seized 1,300 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, which can
be used in making bombs. .....
A key witness in the Akshardham
temple terrorist attack case on Friday claimed that several religious leaders
and heads of terrorist groups from Hyderabad and Ahmedabad met in Riyadh
in Saudi Arabia in 2002 to conspire and avenge the killing of Muslims during
the post-Godhra communal riots in Gujarat. .....
It may sound callous but had it
not been for the global outcry over the serial blasts in London, the import
of last Tuesday's foiled attack on the Ram temple in Ayodhya would have
been totally lost in the din of partisan politics. .....
Kanchi Sankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati
was on Thursday denied entry into the sanctum sanctorum of the Lord Ramanathaswamy
temple in Rameswaram for performing early morning poojas to the presiding
deity. .....
Worried about the electoral fallout
of the Supreme Court striking down the Illegal Migrants (Determination
by Tribunal) Act 1983, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said in Guwahati
that he would discuss with the Congress high command the possibility
of evolving an alternative law to protect the rights of genuine Indian
citizens. .....
Islamic leaders Friday condemned
the London bombings, though many said the United States and Britain, with
their wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, are ultimately to blame for fueling
militant violence. Increasing voices, however, say the Arab world has to
stop adding ''but'' to its denunciations of terrorism. .....
The Supreme Court held that the
Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act, 1983 and rules "has
created the biggest hurdle and is the main impediment or barrier in the
identification and deportation of illegal migrants." .....
Director of London's Al-Maqreze
Centre for Historical Studies Hani Sibai: There are No "Civilians" in Islamic
Law;The Bombing is a Great Victory for Al-Qa'ida, Which "Rubbed the Noses
of the World's 8 Most Powerful Countries in the Mud" .....
Unearthing another linkage to the
terror plot to attack Delhi's Palam Air Force Station, Delhi Police has
arrested a Hizbul Mujahideen militant and a senior official of the Jammu
and Kashmir Government and recovered a large quantity of arms and ammunition.
.....
It is almost a truism to say that
when a terrorist attack takes place in a Third World country, Western powers
- and the Western media - dismiss it as an example of the internal tensions
that beset that country. But when a similar - or even, a lesser - attack
takes place in a Western country, it becomes an event of global significance.
.....
Europe will observe two minutes'
silence on the stroke of noon today, a gesture of sympathy and solidarity
that recognises that grief and outrage are not confined within British
borders. .....
Unearthing another linkage to the
terror plot to attack Delhi's Palam Air Force Station, Delhi Police has
arrested a Hizbul Mujahideen militant and a senior official of the Jammu
and Kashmir Government and recovered a large quantity of arms and ammunition.
.....
The remains of a Subrahmanya temple
belonging to the Pallava period (circa 8th century A.D.) have been found
on the beach close to the Tiger Cave, a few kilometres off Mamallapuram,
near here. .....
The Archaeological Survey of India
(ASI) has unearthed the ruins of a nearly 1,300-year-old temple, believed
to be of the Pallava period, near the Tiger Cave in Mamallapuram. .....
"Prithviraj Chauhan was a coward
who ran away to save his life during the second battle of Tarain with Mohammad
Ghauri." "Jaichand (generally believed to be a traitor) was, in fact a
'hero' who gave up his life while fighting the forces of Ghauri." This
is the "new" history that students of Class XI will learn under the CBSE
and ICSE courses from this academic session. .....
Thanks to the war in Iraq, much
of the world sees the British government as resolute and tough and the
French one as appeasing and weak. But in another war, the one against terrorism
and radical Islam, the reverse is true: France is the most stalwart nation
in the West, even more so than America, while Britain is the most hapless.
.....
In a confidential report, Young
Muslims and Extremism, prepared jointly by the Home and Foreign offices
in mid-2004 and presented to Prime Minister Tony Blair, we learn something
about the inner thinking of the British government. Leaked to the Sunday
Times of London, the report is now available in four parts in .pdf format
at that newspaper's site. .....
Pakistan's militant training camps
are back in action after a yearlong gap and the old and new recruits are
flocking to them notwithstanding the official ban on various terror outfits
for carrying out strikes in Jammu and Kashmir and Afghanistan, a media
report has claimed. .....
Believe it or not! RSS activists
recently rescued 80 Christian priests trapped in an accident in the dense
forests of Orissa's Sambalpur district and even donated blood to save their
lives. .....
The phenomenon of modern Islamic
terrorism has forged an inchoate strategic alliance between the Israeli
and Indian governments, while heightening the awareness of a common threat-the
institution of jihad-among the civilian populations of these nations. .....
Though many view Canada as an unassuming
neutral nation that has skirted terrorist attacks, it has suffered its
share of aggression, and intelligence officials believe at least 50 terror
groups now have some presence here. .....
Terrorism usually comes like a
bolt from the blue, but not so the four explosions yesterday in London,
killing at least 37. Some British Islamist leaders have been warning for
months that such violence was imminent. .....
With Ayodhya on my mind I sat down
to write a piece on how Islamic terrorism will not be defeated until we
deal with the mullahs and madrasas who breed the suicide bombers and Islamic
fundamentalists. I was still writing it when London exploded. This was
not some distant horror but deeply personal since I have a son who lives
in that city. .....
The Internal Revenue Service is
looking into the operations and finances of televangelist Benny Hinn's
organization, according to a published report. .....
The dastardly attack by terrorists
at Ayodhya aimed at desecrating Lord Rama's birthplace will no doubt be
condemned by all. As an Indian Muslim I feel embarrassed when I hear, see
or read Mohammedan names associated with arson, terrorism and killing.
.....
The Ghatkopar bomb blast case,
which came to an end on June 10, 2005 with the acquittal of all the accused,
by Special Judge A.P. Bhangale, was almost predictable. The three major
reasons given by the POTA court are: dubious confessions, hostile witnesses
and shoddy investigations. .....
A day after she begged to be left
alone, a broken Imrana hid herself at her parents' home at Kukra, refusing
to appear before a Shariat court that took up her case for hearing today.
.....
Even as Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder
Singh and police chief S S Virk have ruled out revival of militancy in
Punjab, the number of terrorists arrested and the recoveries made in June
indicate that militancy could be back if it gets support from people. .....
From a blatant position of Kashmir,
at all cost, Pakistani editors have finally been shoved off their lofty
perch by the hard reality in their society and brought down to earth over
the immense harm that their country has been subjected to over Kashmir.
.....
Taking exception to Jammu and Kashmir
Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed describing Hari Parbat as 'Koh-i-Maran',
the Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday accused the coalition government
of supporting 'talibanisation'. .....
In late April, scores of giant
billboards and thousands of wall posters all over Lagos proclaimed the
first of three days of divine miracles and healing for at least six million
Nigerians - but at the end of the third day, there was more bickering over
money than praise to God for mercy received. .....
Seers and sadhus will join hands
cutting across community lines to spread the message of equality. They
will campaign to allow people from weaker sections to perform pujas in
village temples. As a result, all the 32,000 small temples that are going
to be freed from government control in accordance with chief minister Y.S.
Rajasekhar Reddy's decision, will have nitya pujas performed by local devotees.
.....
With the recent detention of some
Pakistani men in the US, American counter-terrorism officials feel that
Islamabad has failed to dismantle "hundreds" of militant training camps,
a media report said. .....
In the wee hours of June 23, 1953,
Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee, the founder President of Bharatiya Jan Sangh,
passed away in the State Nursing Home of Srinagar (J&K) after being
imprisoned for forty days by Sheikh Abdullah government. Dr. Mookerjee
(July 6, 1901-June 23, 1953) was thus the first civilian martyr who fell
defending the integrity and sovereignty of India. .....
Sonia Gandhi's heart beats only
for the farmers of Rajasthan. Or how else does one explain her rushing
to Tonk to 'console' the families of victims of police firing a fortnight
ago. Thousands of farmers continue to commit suicide in Andhra Pradesh
and Maharashtra, both incidentally ruled by the Congress! They die because
of the flawed farm policies of the UPA. .....
The Ghatkopar bomb blast case,
which came to an end on June 10, 2005 with the acquittal of all the accused,
by Special Judge A.P. Bhangale, was almost predictable. The three major
reasons given by the POTA court are: dubious confessions, hostile witnesses
and shoddy investigations. .....
It is tragic that Kashmir, the
land of Maharishi Kashyap, Lalitaditya, Maharani Kota Rani and Kalhan;
the cradle of Vedic heritage; and the region which was ruled by Hindus
and which defeated Muslim invaders heroically for many centuries, is now
witnessing genocide of Hindus with their forced eviction from Kashmir to
live like refugees in their own country for the past 15 years. .....
A writ petition challenging the
legality of five per cent reservations to the Muslim community has been
admitted by the Andhra Pradesh High Court raising fresh doubts about the
implementation of the quota system immediately. The writ petition filed
by two students, Ms Rachna Reddy and Ms Neeta Reddy, will be heard by a
division bench of the court on Wednesday. .....
Police have arrested a Christian
man in northwestern Pakistan after complaints that he tore pages from the
Quran and set them on fire, an official said Wednesday. .....
Three months before the Partition
of Bengal came into effect, two leaflets began to circulate in the province.
Both appealed to Bengali Muslims to rise alongside Hindus in defence of
the mother country. .....
