Expressing Serious concern over
the way illegal Bangladeshi migrants are pouring in, the Supreme Court
on Monday said that they are a threat to both the economy and the security
of the country. ......
Robert D. Blackwill, US Ambassador
to India, February 26, 2002
Ambassador Bajpai, Mr. Liberhan,
honored guests, ladies and gentlemen. I want to thank the Delhi Policy
Group for inviting me to this marvelous facility to discuss a dominant
subject: the continuing transformation of US-India relations. ......
In the district of Fatehabad in
Haryana, close to the border with Punjab, lies the village of Kunal. A
dirt track on the outskirts of the village, running through fields of wheat,
leads to a nondescript mound spread over a few acres. Only a fence, a Department
of Archaeology board, and the shards of pottery scattered all over reveal
the presence of this most enigmatic of Harappan sites. ......
Express News Service, The Indian
Express, February 22, 2002
Trust Sir Vidia to do the needful.
It was supposed to be a cosy photo-op. Two days after the ICCR's herd of
participants in its first ever festival of Indian literature were cocooned
in Neemrana's multi-layered splendour, today they were supposed to gather
themselves in a wide-angled frame and be the very picture of literary unity
in diversity. ......
There's one thing that current
pilgrims making the hajj to Mecca won't see when they visit the holy city.
In early January, Saudi Arabian authorities allowed the partial demolition
of a 222-year-old Ottoman fort on the historic Bulbul hill in Mecca, triggering
a howl of protest from authorities in Turkey. (Turkey, led by Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk, arose in its modern Westernized form in 1923 from the former Ottoman
Empire.) Turkey insists that Saudi authorities had pledged not to raze
the monument, built in 1780 by Ottoman rulers. A residential complex for
hajj pilgrims is slated to be built on the site. ......
Ultimately it all boils down to
this: Can we trust General Pervez Musharraf His January 12 televised address
to his own people leaves one very much in doubt. The man is forked tongued.
Howsoever revolutionary he may have sounded to his own people, in the matter
of Jammu and Kashmir his stubbornness shows. True, he has had over 2,000
jihadists arrested, but, according to the Sunday Telegraph, a respected'
British paper, the offices of the Lashkar-e-Toiba were raided only after
its activists had removed all incriminating documents. ......
Twenty-four days after the wily
fox duped the world with false hopes of changing course and distancing
Pakistan from terrorism, General Musharraf is back in his true colours--a
“jehadi” who is committed to wage a proxy war against India. His shrill
address to a joint session of PoK Assembly and Council on February 5 has
proved, if any proof was needed, that Pakistan remains a rogue state and
that anti-Indianism continues to be its state policy-whosoever may be calling
the shots in Islamabad. ......
Conversion of the non-Muslim infidels
of the entire world being a divine mission ordained by Islam, Muslim Tablighi
(Proselytisation) organisations are surreptitiously working all over India
towards that end since independence on an unimaginable scale with Gulf
money, according to reliable sources. Add to this the mushrooming of militant
Madrassa networks in most of our border areas and you have an insurrection
like situation as in West Bengal just now where thousands of skull-caps
have suddenly appeared in a Palestine-like Itifada (rebellion) to oppose
ban on unauthorised jehadi education. ......
It may shock the peacemongers at
home and “restraintwalas” abroad, but the fact is that it was Jawaharlal
Nehru himself who had proposed in December 1947 that India should attack
bases within West Pakistan which provided sustenance to the “tribal raiders”
who were fighting Indian armed forces in Jammu and Kashmir. ......
Fr. Dias, Afternoon Despatch &
Courier, February 15, 2002
Many love stories have found expression
in the college campuses and St. Valentine has found his loyal followers
among young students who make the most of this day not caring whether hue
and cry is made over V-Day celebrations giving rise to debates that it
is against the Indian culture. ......
Dilip Singh, The Indian Express,
February 15, 2002
The CBI will have to seek other
alternatives to trace the origin of the alleged forged letter Cabinet Secretary
T R Prasad wrote to Prime Minister’s Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra
on Air India’s disinvestment. The reason being that the Congress party’s
chief whip Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, who raked up this controversy in the
Lok Sabha, has refused to face interrogation. ......
Aloke Banerjee, The Times of India,
February 9, 2002
Imagine an income of Rs 2.27 crore
every year. Add to this at least six cars. Add a three-storey places at
a locality such as Alimuddin Street where land is priceless. And you begin
to get only a faint idea of the amount of wealth the CPM has. This has
been the amount shown by the West Bengal state committee of the party in
its report to the central committee for the last financial year. ......
The Middle East Media Research Institute,
February 7, 2002
Nearly every year, Egyptian television
broadcasts special series for the month of Ramadan, which enjoy particularly
high ratings. Frequently, these annual series make media waves in the Arab
world. During Ramadan 2000, for example, the character of the Coptic woman
married to a Muslim in one series sparked a heated debate on Christian-
Muslim relations. More recently, the polygamist Hajj Mutawali, in a series
for Ramadan 2001, engendered a storm about polygamy in the Islamic world.
......
Aldous Huxley once defined an intellectual
as someone who had found something in life more important than sex; a witty,
but inadequate definition, since it would make all impotent men and frigid
women intellectuals. A better definition would be a freethinker, not in
the narrow sense of someone who does not accept the dogmas of traditional
religion, but in the wider sense of someone who has the will to find out,
who exhibits rational doubt about prevailing intellectual fashions, and
who is unafraid to apply criicfal thought to any subject. ......
I’m going to focus on Pakistan
today for three reasons. First, because Pakistani support has made the
rise of the Taliban possible, and there is a danger that Pakistan will
continue to play a destabilizing role in Afghanistan now. Second, because
the United States has pressured General Pervez Musharraf into a marriage
of convenience that has emboldened Pakistan to step up its pressure in
Kashmir, which could lead to a new war with India. ......
Q. You are a practising electrical
engineer who holds patents in leading-edge areas such as neural networks.
Yet, you are also an established poet and writer, as well as a Sanskrit
scholar and expert on ancient Indian science. You are a Renaissance man,
in other words. How did all this come about?
A. I was interested in both writing
and sciences in school but when I finished I was leaning toward becoming
a writer. My mother warned me it was no way to make a living and she packed
me off to an engineering college. I am glad for that because before long
I discovered that literary and scientific imaginations are not all that
different. For sure there is much that is tedious and mechanical in science,
but the same is true of literature as well. ......
The Carmel Convent of Chandigarh
punished over 100 Hindu girls studying in the convent for applying Mehendi
on the occasion of Karva Chauth. The students were lined up and made to
stand with their hands up for nearly 15 minutes apart from a fine ranging
from Rs l00 for a higher secondary student to Rs l0 for a nursery kid!
......
Swami Nirliptananda, Bhartiya Pragna,
February 2002
Freedom is an essential characteristic
of Hinduism. Every Hindu has a freedom of choice and freedom to worship.
This is implied by the concept of "Ishta" (chosen deity). No one has the
right to interfere, condemn, or impose his own beliefs on others. That
is the general outlook of the Indogenic religions. That is why there is
hardly any conflict among them. ......
Q. Why do you think Islam has turned
increasingly militant?
A. I think Islam has been militant
from the beginning. Later on, its degree of militancy fluctuated due to
a number of factors, one of them being the power equation with its rivals.
Today, Islam lives in the shadow of Western (and locally in South Asia,
Hindu) economic and cultural supremacy, which gives it an incentive for
militancy to transform its dissatisfaction into action. So we are seeing
a peak in Islamic militancy. ......
Navratna S. Rajaram, Bhartiya Pragna,
February 2002
In December 2001, Sri Sita Ram
Goel, scholar, writer, publisher, and creator and mentor of a vigorous
school of thought rooted in Sanatana Dharma, completed 80 years. It is
not easy to describe this many-sided man, but the phrase 'intellectual
kshatriya' first used to my knowledge by David Frawley appears most appropriate.
......
S Gurumurthy, The New Indian Express,
February 28, 2002
Daniel Pearl was a journalist.
And, more important to Islamic terrorists, he was a Jew and an American.
That was his sin. The terrorists kidnapped him and after weeks finished
him off, his throat slit like a goat's. The terrorists did not intend to
do it secretly. ......
Some 12 unauthorised mosques were
demolished in different sectors of Islamabad on Wednesday. The operation
was jointly carried out by the Capital Development Authority, Islamabad
Capital Territory administration, district auqaf department and the Islamabad
police. Official sources told Dawn that these mosques were razed as part
of its ongoing drive against illegally constructed mosques and madaris
in Islamabad. ......
While broaching this subject, the
first question that naturally poses itself before us is: "Who is a 'Hindu'?"
Many definitions of the word 'Hindu' have been forwarded but none of them
appears to be perfect, since every one of them, however carefully worded,
suffers from the defect of being either 'too little' or 'too much'. But
can we deny the very existence of the Hindu society just because it defies
definition'? ......
Aldous Huxley once defined an intellectual
as someone who had found something in life more important than sex; a witty,
but inadequate definition, since it would make all impotent men and frigid
women intellectuals. A better definition would be a freethinker, not in
the narrow sense of someone who does not accept the dogmas of traditional
religion, but in the wider sense of someone who has the will to find out,
who exhibits rational doubt about prevailing intellectual fashions, and
who is unafraid to apply criicfal thought to any subject. ......
History books need to be rewritten
because they are both obsolete and have material that are inappropriate
for schoolchildren," says Dr. N.S. Rajaram. "Books written 25 or 30 years
ago are using discredited material like the Aryan invasion. In all this
there appears to be a consistent anti-national, colonial bias masquerading
as 'objective,' and even 'Marxist,' as if they have a monopoly on objectivity
and scholarship. ......
In media accounts today, any group
that identifies itself as Hindu or tries to promote any Hindu cause is
immediately and uncritically defined as 'right-winged'. In the leftist
accounts that commonly come from the Indian press, Hindu organizations
are also routinely called militants and fascists. However, if we look at
their actual views, Hindu groups have a very different ideology and practices
than the political right in other countries. ......
In a rebuff to those describing
terrorists as "freedom fighters", the US today said those killing innocent
people for political motives are terrorists and must be called "exactly
that". ......
A sweeping poll of attitudes in
the Islamic world shows that most Muslims don't believe Arabs carried out
the Sept. 11 attacks and disapprove of the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan.
The Gallup Organization poll, released Tuesday, is the most comprehensive
survey of Muslim countries taken since Sept. 11. It confirms anecdotal
evidence of a huge gulf between the West and Muslim nations that existed
before the attacks and remains deep. ......
Mani Bhaumik, The Times of India,
February 27, 2002
The ancient Vedantic concepts that
we all cut our spiritual teeth on are a part of the grand reconciliation
now going on between science and religion. ......
When Arundhati Roy, the Goddess
of small novels, began pontificating on nuclear theology, an agitated Army
Colonel counselled her to stick to fiction. Similarly, it is time to wag
a finger at some retired Admirals, Generals and Ambassadors for either
writing off or picking holes in Operation Parakram-the country's biggest
ever military deployment which has elevated coercive diplomacy to new heights.
......
There is one form of hate which
increasingly dares to parcel out blame. Far from this prejudice being met
with resolute condemnation, action against its most virulent proponents
is nugatory and the intellectual trends which favour it go broadly unchallenged.
Why? Because this form of racism can be worn as a chic accessory to radical
views, a badge of identification with "the oppressed". Anti-Semitism is
the new black. ......
Husain Haqqani, The Indian Express,
February 27, 2002
The barbaric murder of Wall Street
Journal reporter Daniel Pearl confirms my fear Pakistan's transition from
an ally of extremist Islamists to a modern Muslim state will not come about
without a fight. ......
Ajai Shukla, The Indian Express,
February 27, 2002
Over the last fortnight, several
articles have questioned whether any purpose is being served by the continued
deployment of the Indian armed forces along the border with Pakistan. The
show of force, goes the argument, has created the desired impact and since
troops cannot endlessly remain at peak readiness they should now return
to their peacetime cantonments. ......
In October 1994, a gleeful young
kidnapper walked into a house in Saharanpur, near New Delhi, to tell three
British tourists chained to the floor that he had sent authorities an ultimatum:
“Release a group of Islamic militants from Indian jails, or the hostages
will die.” ......
Is the space of Hinduism shrinking
in India? If one looks at the history of India from the ancient and medieval
times up to the present, the answer one would come to would be an emphatic
`no'. When new religions like Buddhism and Jainism took shape and the most
powerful and extensive empire of the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka formed the
major part of the northern India around 250 BC ......
Pradeep Dutta, The Indian Express,
February 18, 2002
''Aj to baad terey bachey nahin
darengey (From today onwards your children will not fear the knock on the
doors),'' militants told Mithu Ram, killing four of his family members,
including two daughters aged eight and 12. These words continue to haunt
him even now. ......
Arvind Singh, Hindu Vivek Kendra,
February 27, 2002
On 18 February, Prime Minister
AB Vajpayee said that even without Muslims voting for his party, it can
form the government in UP. He criticized opposition parties which had appealed
to Muslims not to vote for the BJP. Addressing a rally, he said that his
party had not done anything discriminatory against the minority community.
......
American journalist Daniel Pearl's
carefully planned and ruthlessly executed murder by men who felt no compunctions
about filming the gory episode, is a grim reminder that both the ideology
and ideologues behind the New York tragedy are alive and kicking. In our
part of the world, the same forces pulverized the majestic Bamiyan Buddhas
and persecuted Hindus and Sikhs in Kabul, and continue to sponsor the ethnic
cleansing of Kashmiri Hindus and brutalities towards Hindus in Bangladesh.
......
The next flashpoint in the global
war on terrorism could be the rugged and remote Pankisi Gorge, a lawless
district in the Caucasus nation of Georgia that abuts on rebel Chechnya,
where both American and Russian officials say Al-Qaeda fighters from Afghanistan
- possibly even Osama bin Laden - have taken refuge. ......
Muslim for a millennium, this prostrate
land now looks from far-off pulpits like a God-given opportunity for missionary
work -to save Afghans from "an eternity without Christ," as one American
charity chief put it. But Islam's roots run deep in Afghanistan's deserts
and snowy highlands. Resistance would be formidable. ......
Daniel Pearl is dead. The day before
Bakri Eid, we were informed that Pakistani jihadis cut his throat with
a knife, then laid him on the ground and chopped off his head with a blunt
weapon. It was all videotaped, and just in case the Americans missed the
action or the import, the scene of the beheading was spliced together several
times to form a loop. ......
Henry Chu, The Los Angeles Times,
February 25, 2002
The Chinese government responded
to President Bush's call for religious tolerance Friday by promptly editing
out his remarks on freedom and faith in its transcript of a speech that
Bush delivered on live national television. ......
Indira A.R. Lakshmanan, The Boston
Globe, February 25, 2002
Last Thursday at 11:04 a.m., as
President Bush was welcomed to China in a ceremony at the Great Hall of
the People, police surrounded a home in the outskirts of Beijing and arrested
47 Christians holding a prayer meeting. ......
Press Release, Federation of Hindu
Temples of Canada, February 24, 2002
According to this report on February
8th, 2002, the Gayatri Mandir of Toronto was vandalized. The sacred statues
to which worship is dedicated were disfigured. The right hands on the icons
of Lord Siva, Shri Hanuman, Devi Lakshmi and Devi Parvati were chopped
off. ......
Even as a debate rages in Washington
about General Pervez Musharraf’s ability to steer his country along the
road of further reform, more details — worrying for the Americans — are
emerging about how the Pakistanis went about investigating the Daniel Pearl
kidnapping. ......
Rajni Sharma, an inspector with
the Jammu and Kashmir police, has won commendation from the Indian Army
chief for her role in an army-led operation where two Afghan mercenaries
were tracked and gunned down in the insurgency-battered state. ......
Bharat Jhunjhunwala, The Free Press
Journal, February 22, 2002
"We need to overcome the disdain
of technological excellence. In the tenth Chapter of Bhagwat Gita, Lord
Krishna enumerates that he is Skanda among the commanders, Pipal among
the trees, Airawat among the elephants, king among human beings, vajra
among weapons, etc. It is this striving for material excellence that we
must also take from the Gita." ......
Vidya Naipaul has a considerable
though not vast collection of art. He asks his guests on occasion to share
aspects of the paintings with him. He wants to point certain things out
about a Japanese print he has bought, or about the line and craft of a
miniature he has acquired, framed and mounted in the house. ......
Jim Hoagland, Houston Chronicle,
February 22, 2002
Heartbreaking to his family and
colleagues, the ritualistic slaughter of reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan
is more than a personal tragedy. This is a political murder that exposes
the fractures and violence of a land that has escaped the control and influence
of the Westernized, affluent elite that pretends to govern it. ......
Neeta Sharma, The Hindustan Times,
February 19, 2002
Large Caches of arms and ammunition
have been seized from two madrassas in Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh and
Surat in Gujarat. Sleuths have zeroed in on a third madrassa in UP that
is believed to be storing arms. ......
Tony Carnes, Christianity Today,
February 15, 2002
A Chinese Christian refugee in
New York, working with Christians in China, has compiled an extensive new
archive documenting brutal religious persecution that has caused more than
100 deaths and thousands of injuries. ......
South Asia Human Rights Documentation
Centre, February 12, 2002
The Islamic Republic of Pakistan
remains one of the most glaring examples of religious intolerance in the
world. General Parvez Musharraf's military dictatorship, barely a year
old, has done little to protect the civil and political rights of non-Muslim
minorities. With the continuation of the Blasphemy Laws and the Hudood
Ordinances, it is clear that governmental and legal structures elevate
Sunni Islam over all other religious beliefs while sanctioning discrimination
against non-Muslims and Shiite Muslims. ......
What's a banana republic? A state
without a spine of its own, dependent on foreign capital, subject to foreign
influence and politically unstable. A state where, typically, the predominate
influence is that of the United States. This term originated from the Caribbean
where small island states grew bananas, robbed and oppressed their people
and listened carefully to the American ambassador. ......
An apology is due to Pakistan Foreign
Minister Abdul Sattar for our having been harsh on him on his "discovery"
that Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in Karachi
at India's behest and possibly by Indian agents. Like Mr Sattar, General
Musharraf has made several amazing disclosures about the "Indian hand"
that would send both Sherlock Holmes and Hercules Poirot running for cover.
......
Two of India's leading women writers
were yesterday taught a very tough lesson. You must never, ever bore VS
Naipaul with trifling matters such as colonialism or the enslavement of
your sex. ......
Chidanand Rajghatta, The Times of
India, February 22, 2002
The brutal slaying of Wall Street
Journal reporter Daniel Pearl comes as a major embarrassment to Pakistan's
military leader Pervez Musharraf and has turned the spotlight on Islamabad's
possible back channel links with terrorists. ......
The sant who has been the spearhead
of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and a major Hindutva protagonist has given
a call for arming all Hindus "if India was to be saved from disintegration".
Ramchandra Paramhans, who heads the powerful Digamabar Akhara in Ayodhya,
feels it was high time India discarded the 'Soft State' tag. ......
The Wall Street Journal reported
early this morning that 38-year-old Daniel Pearl, their Mumbai-based reporter
for south Asia, had been killed by his kidnappers in Pakistan. A message
on the New York-based paper’s website said the paper was basing its statement
on reports from the US State Department and the Pakistani police. ......
The long arm of history, as recent
events have shown, is relentless in its pursuit of truth and accuracy.
However far dictators, tyrants and their defendants may seek to run, the
past and its records have a habit of catching up with them. ......
An Asian schoolboy was brutally
beaten to death and his naked body set alight in a north-west London park.
The body of the Asian youngster, thought to be aged between 12 and 14,
was discovered at the foot of a tree a few yards from a playground popular
with children. ......
With elections to the four State
assemblies all but over, the media is working overtime to anticipate the
outcome. The English language press always views an electoral battle in
the Hindi heartland through caste-community-religion prism. So this time
again it has polarised the Assembly elections along Mandir-Mandal lines.
......
Plainly, the sample is small -
605 men and 634 women drawn from seven urban centres in Pakistan. Even
then, a survey conducted by Herald, the Karachi-based monthly, to gauge
the minds of Pakistanis is a revealing document. Most significantly, it
tells us that only 4 per cent considered Kashmir to be the "most pressing
problem facing Pakistan today". ......
The Associated Press, The New York
Times, February 20, 2002
About half of the world's 6,000
languages are under threat of disappearing under pressure from more dominant
tongues or repressive government policies, a new study says. ......
Vijay Dutt, The Hindustan Times,
February 18, 2002
Finsbury Park mosque in north London
was used as a base to impart arms training to British Islamic militants,
intelligence sources were quoted in The Observer. ......
Arun Joshi, The Hindustan Times,
February 18, 2002
The massacre of eight Hindu villagers
at Narala village of Rajouri district has cast a shadow over the February
21 by-poll for the Jammu-Poonch Lok Sabha seat. Fears of a low turnout
in the hilly and thickly wooded areas now threaten to turn into reality.
......
Amulya Ganguli, The Hindustan Times,
February 18, 2002
President K.R. Narayanan's preference
for reservations in the private sector recalls the regressive views of
the first head of State. Rajendra Prasad, too, had chosen to be a stumbling
block on the road to modernisation by opposing the Hindu Code Bill. Indeed,
Prasad had canvassed in favour of a wider scope for his powers beyond the
constitutional framework. ......
In what appears to be a coordinated
move, Imams in mosques right across the city, declared on Friday 8th February
that they preferred Jyoti Basu to Buddhadev Bhattacharya and threatened
that their total support to the Left Front may be in danger. The Imam of
Nakhoda mosque, Maulana Mohammed Sabir added that while during Jyoti Basu's
tenure the two communities lived in amity, the situation changed after
Mr Bhattacharya took over. ......
On 8th August 1994, the West Bengal
Board of Madrasa Education Act (39 of 1994) was passed to regularise what
the CPI(M) government were already doing. It came into force on All Fools
Day 1995; it provides for a Board of 27 members, wholly under government
control. No elections have ever been held, because Government have not
framed Rules. ......
It is a sacred science that helps
one attain mukti." Andrew Foss, president of the British Association of
Astrology, has no doubts the subject should be introduced as a course in
Indian universities. On a lecture tour of India, he told audiences, "We
have already introduced it in four universities in the UK. ......
Just over a year ago, the question
"Do you know who the head of the Pakistan state is?" flummoxed US President
George W. Bush. A presidential candidate for the Republican Party at the
time, Bush hadn't heard of Pervez Musharraf, nor could he have imagined
how important this Pakistani general was to become for America. ......
Rashmee Z. Ahmed, The Times of India,
February 20, 2002
The great sub-continental divide
is alive and well, 7,000 miles away from India and Pakistan as Britain
digests the news that people like 12-year-old ethnic Indian Abhay Patel
and his Pakistani classmate Ahmed Rasul will grow up to be painfully different.
......
Thomas L. Friedman, The New York
Times, February 20, 2002
I could tell that Saudi Arabia
had undergone a big change since I last visited when I checked into the
Sheraton Hotel here and the desk clerk was a Saudi. Five years ago, the
hotel owner would have been a Saudi but the clerks and key hotel personnel
all would have been imported labor from the Philippines, Pakistan or Lebanon.
Not anymore. ......
Douglas Jehl, The New York Times,
February 20, 2002
In a significant signal of its
change in course, Pakistan has begun to disband two major units of its
powerful intelligence service that had close links to Islamic militants
in Afghanistan and Kashmir, senior Pakistani military and intelligence
officials said today. ......
The military regime has rejected
the US demand to repeal the blasphemy law and also to do away with the
constitutional provision that declares Ahmadis (Qadianis) non-Muslim. ......
Ershadul Haq, The Times of India,
February 18, 2002
Tales of torture haunted a crime
convention here, as the audience fell silent with horror on hearing sagas
of rape and pillage allegedly by activists of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist
Party-led government. The convention on "Crimes Against Humanity" has been
organised by the BNP's political rival, the Awami League, and focuses on
post-election atrocities on nearly 20 million Hindu-dominated minorities
in Muslim-majority Bangladesh. ......
Prominent Indian newspapers today
claim prime readership from the 20 to 40 age group, and their contents,
including the luscious Page 3, are designed for that age group. Thus, the
bulk of their readers would not be familiar with events of the '40s. The
Pakistani newspaper report about Advani's alleged involvement in a 1947
plot to murder Jinnah was naturally big news in our newspapers, but not
a single newspaper pointed out that the home minister was not even 20 when
that plot was supposed to have been executed! ......
America's South Asia policy since
September 11 has often left me bewildered. I have attributed this to my
inability to see the bigger picture from Delhi. So it came as something
of a shock when I saw it last week from New York and discovered that if
American foreign policy seems only puzzling from Delhi it seems surreal
when seen from New York. ......
So, how have we done since Op Enduring
Freedom? Let's do a quick recap: As the US was readying to thram the Great
Islamic Warriors, we turned down the advice of our military leadership
to hit the jihadi bases in PoK in early October. In any case, between 9/11
and 9/15, most of the terrorist training camps even in Pakistan's FATA
(Federally Administered Tribal Areas) had been temporarily evacuated --
meaning, such forays should have been undertaken way before the WTC attacks.
......
Elisabeth Rosenthal, The New York
Times, February 16, 2002
No one would dispute that Huang
Shurong is stubborn and outspoken. She is also smart, confident and articulate,
attributes that would seem to leave her poised for success. But not in
rural China. ......
Sajid Shaikh, The Times of India,
February 14, 2002
If you are an Aries, plant 'amla'
(emblica officinalis) and 'garmado' (cassia fistula). For Leos, the choice
is 'peepal' (ficus religiose) and 'asopalav' (polyalthia longifolia) and
for the moody cancerian 'ashoka' (saraca indica) and 'kher' (acacia catechu)
are the most beneficial. ......
Times News Network, The Times of
India, February 4, 2002
Unfazed by the ban imposed on it
by the U.S. and Pakistan governments, Maulana Masood Azhar's Jaish-e-Mohammad,
rechristened as Jamiat-ul-Furkan, threatens to shatter the lull in militant
activities in the Valley. ......
India today expressed concern over
the disappearance of Taliban and al Qaida leaders after the US campaign
in Afghanistan as "a matter of immediate security concern", saying Delhi
would de-escalate troop mobilisation on the border only after getting "concrete
evidence" of decreasing cross-border terrorism. ......
Suman Pradhan, The Times of India,
February 3, 2002
Muslim groups in Nepal have scathingly
attacked the Sher Bahadur Deuba government's decision to regulate madrasas
that dot the southern Terai plains of the world's only Hindu Kingdom. ......
Vivek Deshpande, The Indian Express,
February 1, 2002
A Prominent leader of the Pakistani
Hindu community, Sudham Chand Chawla, who successfully fought a legal battle
to ensure voting rights for Pakistani minorities, was shot dead by unidentified
assailants in the Pakistani city of Jacobabad on Monday. ......
Every book awaits its big moment.
Ahmed Rashid's Taliban began life as a well-researched study on one of
the most obscure and forbidding corners of the world-on a par with, say,
Eritrea, Western Sahara and Myanmar-and was catapulted into the top of
The New York Times bestsellers list by the events of September 11. ......
Pleased at the success of the CBI
in securing Aftab Ansari from Dubai, P.C. Sharma, director of the investigating
agency, spoke to Special Correspondent Sayantan Chakravarty about
the arrest and the work put in by his team. ......
The South Block officials are not
known to get overly excited about anything. But the telephone call at 11.30
a.m. on February 5 virtually set the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA
) on fire. The caller, Indian Ambassador to United Arab Emirates K.C. Singh,
informed Secretary (East) R.M. Abhyankar that the Kolkata shoot-out mastermind
Aftab Ansari alias Farhan Mallick had been detained in Dubai. ......
Many MPs have arrogated to themselves
the right to insist on being treated as a class apart, particularly when
asked to comply with security-related rules. ......
In his long-sought first official
visit to the White House, the beaming Pakistani president won lavish praise
Wednesday from a grateful President Bush, who said Pakistan's help has
been critical to the U.S. war against terrorism. ......
Balbir K Punj, The Indian Express,
February 14, 2002
Electronics to the four state assemblies
including UP are due this month. The media is working overtime to anticipate
the poll outcome. The English language press always viws an electoral battle
in the Hindi heartland through the caste-community-religion prism. This
time too, it has polarised the elections on Mandir-Mandal lines. ......
Our Political Bureau, The Economic
Times, February 13, 2002
In a tactical move that is I guaranteed
to give President Pervez Musharraf good press as he flies into Washington
on Tuesday, the Pakistani authorities suddenly cracked the Daniel Pearl
case, by arresting chief suspect Omar Saeed Sheikh. According to agency
reports from Pakistan, the British-born Sheikh was picked up in Lahore
from where he will be taken to Karachi. ......
A report prepared by the Centre
for Information and Research (CIR) at SZABIST, Karachi, is quite an eye-opener.
Intrigued by the growth of intolerance and violence in a society which
had at one time been home to peace-loving sufis, CIR undertook to investigate
the factors which have spawned the "jihadi" mindset in the people - to
use its director's words. ......
Despite Pakistan President Pervez
Musharraf blaming India for the kidnapping of US journalist Daniel Pearl,
police officials in Karachi have expressed serious doubts over the allegation.
......
K Subrahmanyam, The Times of India,
February 11, 2002
There was a widely-held misperception
that General Musharraf had outsmarted India by joining the alliance against
terrorism in September when, in fact, he had to surrender to a non-negotiable
US ultimatum. There has been a similar sort of misunderstanding of his
speech of January 12, 2002. ......
Ever since my booklet, "The Whole
Truth with Documents, about the Aluminium Caskets Bought by the Defence
Ministry in 1999-2000", landed in the mail boxes of editors and MPs two
weeks ago, many recipients are wondering what George Fernandes is up to.
......
Nov 2001 :Churches under siege
in the high Muslim population of Bradford - A vicar told how
he was chased from his blazing church by a gang of masked Bin Laden thugs
hurling stones and chanting racist abuse. ......
Rakesh Sinha, The Hindustan Times,
February 15, 2002
The ongoing debate on Indian historiography
will have a crucial impact on the definition of Indian nationality. The
‘mainstream’ historians and their apologists in the media easily find fault
with non-Marxist social scientists; the neo-interventionists are called
‘fascist’ and ‘communal’. ......
Afghanistan's minister for aviation
and tourism Abdul Rahman died late Thursday after he was beaten by an angry
mob of pilgrims who had been held up for two days at Kabul airport, sources
in the interim government told AFP. ......
Israel's environment minister Tzachi
Hanegbi, who has been visiting India, is among the young rising stars in
the Israeli Cabinet. But what singles out the 44-year-old former Justice
Minister are his hardline views on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. He's
not just from the same Likud party as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, but
he's also Sharon's ''friend'' and is said to have his ear. ......
There are two versions of Mahant
Ramchandra Paramhans, head of the Ramnandiya Dighamber Akhara and, more
importantly, chief of the Ram Janambhoomi Nyas, the organisation that spearheads
moves to construct a temple at the site where, prior to December 6, 1992,
stood the Babri Mosque. ......
Wall Street Journal correspondent
Daniel Pearl was abducted by terrorists not because he was an American
but because he was a journalist who was determined to dig out hidden links
between a terrorist named Richard Reid (Shoe Bomber) and Pakistan's religious-terror
network, functioning with the active assistance of the notorious intelligence
agency, the ISI. ......
It is never a bridge too long between
Lucknow and Kolkata. So it's not surprising that West Bengal experiences
a rumble when Uttar Pradesh goes to polls. Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya,
the reformist face of the Left Front Government, had to eat crow in the
face of concerted agitation by Islamic fundamentalists within his State.
......
With India and Pakistan having
become nuclear powers after their historic tests in mid-1998, it has become
fashionable for the USA, and therefore the Western world, to talk of the
Jammu & Kashmir imbroglio as being the globe's "nuclear flashpoint"
-- to be avoided at all costs. ......
Seventy Muslim and Protestant Christian
representatives from the Molucca Islands have signed a pact committing
themselves to abandon violence, but an Islamic paramilitary group says
it won't abide by the accord. ......
A judge will investigate a complaint
by women's groups against an imam whose book gives advice to men on how
to beat a woman without leaving any traces. ......
Erik Eckhlom, The New York Times,
February 13, 2002
An international campaign has begun
on behalf of five leaders of a defiant evangelical Christian group who
were given death sentences in December under China's 1999 anti-cult law.
......
Vir Sanghvi, The Hindustan Times,
February 10, 2002
On Tuesday, Ram Jethmalani and
Shanti Bhushan addressed a press conference that Tarun Tejpal described
as ‘historic’. Of course, Tarun is hardly a disinterested observer: the
purpose of the press conference was to defend Shankar Sharma, the head
of First Global and an investor in Tehelka who has been pursued by the
authorities ever since Operation West End was made public. ......
Ever since my booklet, “The Whole
Truth with Documents, about the Aluminium Caskets Bought by the Defence
Ministry in 1999-2000”, landed in the mail boxes of editors and MPs two
weeks ago, many recipients are wondering what George Fernandes is up to.
......
Between the three of them, Najma
Heptullah, Sikandar Bakht and R.L. Bhatia mapped the entire Islamic world
for over a fortnight, seeking to advocate India’s case against terrorism.
Their success has been in getting countries in the region to unequivocally
condemn the December 13 attack. There were, however, other issues too where
the delegations did not create a manifest shift in policy or resolve long-held
misgivings, such as Indo-Israeli relations and the Indo-Pak face-off over
the Kashmir problem. ......
A new India is abroad. A muscular
Hindu republic, overbearing, intransigent. It seeks to impose absolute
domination over its South Asian neighbours and to assert itself as the
big power. A bloodthirsty bellicosity, reflecting the transformation, accompanies
the massive deployment of its forces on Pakistan's borders. And it demands
compliance with its wishes, or else. ......
Pakistan President and military
ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf, has renewed his offer to New Delhi for talks
on a phased withdrawal of troops to defuse the tension. ......
History is witness to the fact
that Indian Muslims have played a very important role in nurturing and
upbringing this country, its beautification, construction ad development.
Muslims gave this country arts and sciences, culture and civilization and
nurtured it with their blood and toil. They have been equal partners along
with other nations in introducing this country on the world map. ......
As Muslim nations, leaders and
intellectuals begin responding to growing international concerns over fundamentalism,
it may be worthwhile for the United Nations and human rights bodies to
consider if the practice of religious-criminal law in several Islamic countries
is consistent with the ethos and values of the modern world. ......
Christina Lamb in Baluchistan,
meets senior members of the regime who escaped the American armed forces
and are now living relatively comfortably across the border in Pakistan.
They tell her of their plans to regain power. ......
A radical Muslim sect with ties
to international terrorism is seeking to create a patchwork of hideouts
in rural southern Virginia for would-be terrorists and other extremists,
law enforcement authorities were quoted on Monday as saying. ......
Daniel Pipes, The New York Post,
February 11, 2002
The book in question is "Across
the Centuries" (Houghton Mifflin, 2nd edition, 1999), a 558-page history
that covers the millennium and a half between the fall of Rome and the
French Revolution. In the multicultural spirit, about half of its eight
sections are devoted to the West, and the other four deal with Islam, Africa,
Asian empires, and pre-Columbian America. ......
ON A cold January morning, the
Union HRD Minister, Murli Manohar Joshi, told a captive audience of restive
high school students from 12 institutions run by Vidya Bharati (the RSS’
education wing) about the changes his Government had made to school syllabuses
and textbooks. Pradeep (not his real name), a class 11 student from GLT
......
“I join my colleagues in thanking
the government and the people of Nepal for the warmth of their welcome
and hospitality. We appreciate the excellent arrangements for this Summit.
......
Home Minister L. K. Advani has
said that he agreed with President George W. Bush that there could not
be good terrorists and bad terrorists. President Musharraf, he said at
a press conference on Dec. 9 in Washington Dec. thought otherwise. ......
Notes with deep concern Pakistan's
role in imparting training to the terrorists in camps located in Pakistan
and Occupied Kashmir, the supply of weapons and funds, assistance in infiltration
of trained militants including foreign mercenaries into Jammu and Kashmir
with the avowed purpose of creating disorder disharmony and subversion
......
Chandan Nandy, The Hindustan Times,
February 11, 2002
Warning bells of a resurgence in
Islamic fundamentalism and the danger it posed to the country's security
had been sounded way back in 1982 by the Intelligence Bureau in an exhaustive
report now dug up by the Hindustan Times. ......
It may go by the handle of India's
most famous nuclear missile. But Agni I tested for the first time last
week bears no resemblance to its cousins and heralds an entirely new genre
of strike rockets for India. Just how different can be garnered from the
fact that ever since the first Agni was successfully launched in 1989 with
a range of 1,200 km the thrust was to build much longer range versions
of it. ......
This week finds me on a journey
westwards to attend what is being called "Davos in New York". The World
Economic Forum's annual meeting this year has shifted from snowy Davos
to sunny (unusually) New York to show solidarity with this city in its
battle to deal with the trauma of September 11. En route I spent a grey
Sunday morning in London and was surprised to find the major newspapers
filled with the Muslim problem. ......
Pullela Gopichand is an unusual
sportsman whose motto could well be—no fuss, no fizz. The Hyderabad-based
reigning All England Badminton champion is refreshingly different from
most other sports superstars who have no qualms about endorsing a product
as long as it brings them a fat cheque. While some players do say no to
liquor and cigarette commercials, few face moral dilemmas when it comes
to aerated drinks. ......
In his State of the Union message,
US President George W. Bush has once again showered extravagant praise
on Gen Pervez Musharraf for having become a born-again foe of terrorism.
To Indians this praise is passing strange, for it is being showered on
him for what he says he will do and not what he is doing. Musharraf and
his canny advisors have seized upon this to try and put India on the diplomatic
defensive once again. ......
Pervez Iqbal Siddiqui, The Times
of India, February 10, 2002
One can call it ISI's dos and don'ts
on assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. Audio cassettes, doing rounds in
pre-dominantly Muslim pockets of the state, carry fiery speeches on jehad
and fate of Muslims in India with bottomline on tactical voting during
the forthcoming assembly elections. What has added an element of surprise
to the propoganda is many cassettes carry speeches by women orators as
well. ......
Statesman News Service, The Statesman,
February 10, 2002
Hindus in Bangladesh, who comprise
about 10 per cent of the population, are now left with three options. They
can embrace Islam, leave the country or commit suicide, Mr Salam Azad,
author and chief executive of Amity for Peace, a human rights organisation,
said here today. ......
T.R. Gopalakrishnan & N. Bhanutej,
The Week, February 10, 2002
In the 70s, Mahesh Yogi was going
around the country popularising his Transcendental Meditation. In Bangalore
was a young man whose name-Pandit Ravi Shankar-made Mahesh Yogi's head
turn. "Join me," said Mahesh Yogi to the young man, who jumped at the offer.
The young man travelled the world as Mahesh Yogi's devotee. ......
In olden times, when there was
no commutation facilities, it was a severe ordeal to travel through the
desert of Arabia and return home. Now this ordeal is over. But another
danger has taken its place. Every year, events like fire to tents, stampedes
etc. have become a common phenomenon. But there are some uncommon events
also. ......
Hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians
have packed the streets of Addis Ababa to welcome home an ancient Ethiopian
relic looted by British troops more than 130 years ago. ......
They employ a whopping 4,000 men
and women, and their multi-million-dollar empire stretches across the globe,
from Hong Kong to North America, matching the dreaded Italian Mafiosi and
Colombian cartels. ......
IRAN has begun funnelling money
and weapons to one of Afghanistan's most unpredictable warlords, a move
that could further destabilise a country where order remains fragile at
best, according to government authorities here. ......
The hunt for Omar Sheikh by Pak
authorities could become a test case for the seriousness with which President
Pervez Musharraf is cracking down on terrorism. For Sheikh's resume, as
jehad's poster boy, flaunts countless references to Pakistan including
the safe passage and sustained support he got there. ......
Pakistan President and military
ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf, has renewed his offer to New Delhi for talks
on a phased withdrawal of troops to defuse the tension. ......
K Subrahmanyam, The Economic Times,
February 8, 2002
Indian economists, policy makers
and media may not recognise it but India will be formulating its defence
budget in a new international security paradigm. ......
The Assam Government has decided
to order an inquiry into the alleged nexus of some ruling Congress MLAs
with the banned ULFA, according to Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi. ......
Express News Service, The Indian
Express, February 7, 2002
Expressing concern over the spurt
in terrorist activity along the Indo-Nepal border, the Union Home Ministry
today conveyed to Nepalese authorities the urgent need to crack the whip
on a large number of illegal madrasas which have sprung up on their side
of the border. ......
Arnaud de Borchgrave, The Washington
Times, February 7, 2002
A book released in France this
week documents, chapter and verse, the "axis of evil," but it's not the
one President Bush had in mind. It is the axis between Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi
clergy and al Qaeda. ......
Sabyasachi Bandopadhyay, The Indian
Express, February 6, 2002
Mamata Banerjee, an ally of the
BJP, is accusing the CPI(M)-the bastion of Muslim support in the state-for
being anti-Muslim. West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya's
campaign against "unregistered" madrassas in his state has opened up a
front his government is now hurriedly trying to close ranks around. ......
As a follow-up of General Musharraf's
call for turning Pakistan into a secular state, requesting his fellow countrymen
to stay committed to the nation rather than the ummah, Dr Rafiq Zakaria's
thesis on who divided India has proved to be ill timed. Some of the references
made in course of his argument are particularly unfortunate, especially
if one remembers that Indian Muslims are likely to face unprecedented pressure
as a corollary of Musharraf's call for secularism in his January 12 television
speech. ......
I need some advice about how to
solve the legal problems in which the Hanuman Temple in Taos, New Mexico
has been mired. This Hanuman Temple is the oldest Hanuman Temple
in North America. It was founded by devotees of Shri Shri Shri 1008
Param Pujaya Sant Neem Karoli Baba Maharaj-ji. ......
The Union Home Minister, Mr LK
Advani, hit the nail right on the head when he said on Wednesday that the
major issue in the forthcoming assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh was
decriminalisation of politics. This is because the opposite of it, criminalisation
of politics, has reached an alarming and unprecedented dimension in the
state where as many as 169 sitting legislators, including ministers, have
criminal records. ......
The Assam Government has decided
to order an inquiry into the alleged nexus of some ruling Congress MLAs
with the banned ULFA, according to Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi. ......
Sanjeev Pargal, The Daily Excelsior,
February 7, 2002
The State Intelligence agencies
have come across a very ‘conclusive evidence’ linking a top leader of All
Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) with a hardcore militant of Lashkar-e-Toiba
(LeT) outfit. ......
Tyler Marshall, The Indian Express,
February 7, 2002
When Daniel Pearl’s search for
the underbelly of international terrorism led him last month to this Arabian
Sea port, the Wall Street Journal reporter found himself in one of Asia’s
most volatile cities, where lawlessness and sectarian warfare have become
part of life. ......
Husain Haqqani, The Indian Express,
February 7, 2002
The kidnapping of The Wall Street
Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and the infighting among Afghan tribal warlords
serve as reminders of the fact that the world's war against terrorism is
far from over. The American journalist was kidnapped from Pakistan's financial
capital, Karachi, defying the purported crackdown on militants by the country's
military regime. ......
Seven Pakistani nationals were
on Thursday arrested in Pretoria on charges of staying in the country illegally
and of being involved in a major fake passport racket. ......
Rajeev Srinivasan, Rediff on Net,
February 6, 2002
As I write this on Republic Day,
January 26, 2002, it is clear that despite the fuss and noise of the last
six weeks, ever since the December 13 attack on Parliament, nothing has
changed. Pakistani terrorists continue to massacre Indians every day. The
Americans continue to advise restraint: this war on terrorism is not theirs,
of course. ......
Sabyasachi Bandopadhyay, The Indian
Express, February 6, 2002
Mamata Banerjee, an ally of the
BJP, is accusing the CPI(M)-the bastion of Muslim support in the state-for
being anti-Muslim. West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya's
campaign against "unregistered" madrassas in his state has opened up a
front his government is now hurriedly trying to close ranks around. ......
Striking a confrontationist posture,
Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday accused Prime Minister Atal
Behari 'Vajpayee of 'brinkmanship' and asked him to accept the offer of
dialogue for peaceful resolution of Kashmir and other issues. ......
Hardly a week passes by without
someone in Pakistan, or its Indian lackeys like the All-Parties Hurriyat
Conference, calling for a solution to the J&K question via the plebiscite
route recommended long ago by the United Nations. Why, even some of our
byline journalists who've not even read the UN resolutions have cavalierly
referred to India's unkept commitment to that plebiscite. ......
Local police and the FBI made at
least five raids on homes today, arresting three people and uncovering
a key piece of evidence — a computer believed to have been used to issue
e-mail demands in exchange for Pearl, the South Asia bureau chief of The
Wall Street Journal. ......
Political Bureau, The Economic Times,
February 5, 2002
It must have been one spectacle
of its kind. Union Home Minister, L K Advani, on Monday hit the election
trail in Uttar Pradesh, approvingly quoting the Marxist chief minister
of West Bengal, Buddhadev Bhattacharya. ......
New Delhi's cops, the good people
who man the city's law enforcement machinery, had better take a last deep
breath. Busy days lie ahead. It's time to go on an FIR-filing spree, and
they had better be prompt and meticulous with the paper work, and ingenious
in working around a few tricky details. Like the fact that Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto has been dead for more than two decades. ......
Narendra Gupta, The Indian Express,
February 4, 2002
Threats to use force are as old
as the arts of warfare and diplomacy themselves. In 400 BC, there were
instances of Athens and Sparta threatening to use power as a means of influence.
Subsequently, there were others by Bismarck, Charlemagne and Richelieu.
Frederick the Great once declared that diplomacy without power was like
an orchestra without a score. ......
Jasjit Singh, The Indian Express,
February 4, 2002
Nealy 11 years ago after the end
of a war fought by the United States to restore Kuwait's independence the
then US president, George Bush, had declared a new international order
that signified the end of the bipolarity in evidence for nearly half a
century. ......
John O’callaghan, The Indian Express,
February 4, 2002
Two young Muslim girls will put
Singapore’s government in a testing position on Monday if they wear headscarves
to primary school as officials weigh the emotive issues of religious sensitivities
and ethnic cohesion. ......
C Uday Bhaskar, The Times of India,
February 6, 2002
General Pervez Musharraf's announcement
in late January that elections would be held in Pakistan as promised in
October 2002 has not elicited the same degree of interest that his more
historic January 12 speech did. Perhaps this is a reflection of the deep
scepticism that attaches itself to the doughty general's statements in
India and the perceived mismatch between word and deed. ......
Sheikh Ahmed Omar Sheikh, now the
prime suspect in the abduction of The Wall Street Journal scribe Daniel
Pearl, is a familiar face to the Indian security and intelligence agencies.
......
Excelsior Correspondent, The Daily
Excelsior, February 6, 2002
After killing the terrorist involved
in the massacre of 11 civilians including eight children at village Behra
Kund in Salwa area of Mendhar tehsil, the ultras last night torched three
houses which belonged to slain terrorist’s father and his two brothers.
......
Awami League President and Leader
of the Opposition Sheikh Hasina yesterday reiterated her accusation that
there were Taliban in the BNP-Jamaat alliance government of Prime Minister
Begum Khaleda Zia. ......
Police in the Pakistani city of
Karachi have taken several significant steps in the search for American
journalist Daniel Pearl, who was abducted almost two weeks ago. ......
In "The Danger Within: Militant
Islam in America" [Commentary, November 2001, available at http://www.danielpipes.org/articles/article.php?id=77],
Daniel Pipes accuses me and others of working to bring an Islamic revolution
to the U.S. and thus of being no better than persons like Sheikh Omar Abdel
Rahman, who is suffering a life sentence for no wrongdoing of his own but
because of the Jewish lobby's prejudices against Islam and Muslims. ......
Pakistani military ruler General
Pervez Musharraf, who has vowed to turn Pakistan into a moderate Islamic
state, invoked a verse from the Koran on Tuesday to claim divine authority
for his rule. ......
Excelsior Correspondent, The Daily
Excelsior, February 5, 2002
Three Special Police Officers (SPOs)
were injured when a group of terrorists attacked their picket in Dundak
temple in Surankot tehsil last night. The historic temple, which was targeted
by the terrorists, didn’t suffer much damage. Its ‘pujari’ also escaped
unhurt. ......
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader
Vijay Kumar Malhotra, who led a Parliamentary delegation to Morocco, Tunisia
and Algeria to present the 'real picture' of Indo-Pak ties, said that OIC
Secretary General Abdelouhed Belkeziz told them that he would urge Pakistan
President Pervez Musharraf to implement the assurances he made in his January
12 televised speech. ......
U.S. Commission on International
Religious Freedom
The U.S. Commission on International
Religious Freedom, an independent federal agency advising the Administration
and Congress, wrote to President Bush January 31 to urge him to raise religious-freedom
issues with Pakistani President Musharraf during the latter's upcoming
visit to Washington. ......
Sami Al-Arian, a tenured professor
at the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa, might lose his job any
day now. Most coverage of his problems portrays the computer scientist
as the victim of a political witch-hunt - and so misses the real story,
which is about his links to terrorism. ......
Sudha Ramachandran, Asia Times Online,
February 2, 2002
Three weeks after Pakistan's President
General Pervez Musharraf made his historic speech distancing himself from
religious extremism and announcing steps to crack down on terrorist groups
in his country, India remains unconvinced that he has taken concrete action
to curb cross-border infiltration of terrorists into Indian-administered
Kashmir. ......
Our Political Bureau, The Economic
Times, February 2, 2002
Unfazed by criticism from the Left
Front constituents in West Bengal, angry protests from Muslim organisations
and madrasa students, and distinct uneasiness in the politburo of his own
CPM, the West Bengal chief minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee today once
again repeated his controversial remarks against madrasas and their curriculum.
......
Our Political Bureau, The Economic
Times, February 2, 2002
From military bases, it is now
curriculum. In what is seen as a marked enlargement of the US role in Pakistan,
Washington has indicated that it will like to remain engaged with the reforms
of the madrasa curriculum in Pakistan. ......
Khaled Ahmed, The Friday Times,
February 1-7, 2002
General Pervez Musharraf has finally
reined in the jehadis. Immediately, the secret of the empowerment of the
clergy through them in Pakistan is no longer a concealed fact. Religious
extremism is engendered by jehad and is related to all religious parties
and state institutions promoting Islam. ......
Shri Lal Krishan Advani, Home Minister
The overseas community of Kashmiri
Pandits (Hindus) has been keenly watching the situation as it has been
unfolding in India after the recent terrorist attacks and is particularly
interested in the situation in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. We are very
much shocked and outraged at these terrorist attack......
HRCBM and Hotline Human Rights Visits,
February 1, 2002
February 1, 2002 Human Rights Congress
for Bangladeshi Minorities (HRCBM) and Hotline Human Rights Coordinator
Rosaline Costa visited Bhola, Bangladesh. During an extensive visit of
several regions within Bhola district of Bangladesh On January 23-25, 2002,
HRCBM interviewed many minority victims of Islamic Fundamentalist assault
after the October 1, 2001 General Elections of Bangladesh. ......
For the last two decades Ashok
Singhal, the international working President of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad,
has led a movement for the "restoration" of the birthplace of Lord Rama
at Ayodhya. Instrumental in propelling the BJP into political power, the
Ramjanambhoomi Mukti Movement has once again become a flashpoint in the
approaching assembly election in Uttar Pradesh. ......
HT Correspondent, The Hindustan
Times, February 1, 2002
That Osama bin Laden is in Pakistan-occupied
Kashmir (PoK) is now well known to the US. Bin Laden has been hiding in
Astore in the Northern Areas after fleeing Afghanistan, according to intelligence
intercepts made by US forces based in Pakistan. ......
Notwithstanding claims by Pakistan
of Indian links to the kidnapping of US journalist Daniel Pearl, a key
suspect in the case has said he had provided 'invaluable services' to Pakistan's
security service agency in the past. ......
Press Trust of India, www.expressindia.com,
February 1, 2002
Pakistan officials carried out
a major operation to search old court records "implicating" Home Minister
L.K. Advani and 40 other RSS activists in a criminal case to assassinate
Pakistan founder leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah and others, The News daily
reported on Friday, a day after India ridiculed the report as "juvenile
posturing". ......
Press Trust of India, www.expressindia.com,
February 1, 2002
The murder of a prominent Hindu
minority leader and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) activist, Sadham Chand
Chawla, who had successfully fought a legal battle to ensure voting rights
for minorities, paralysed life for three days in Pakistan's southern town
of Jacobabad. ......
Press Trust of India, www.expressindia.com,
February 1, 2002
Taking note of the cross-border
terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, the Supreme Court on Friday stayed implementation
of a controversial Act passed by the state providing for resettlement of
people migrated to Pakistan after Partition and threatening those who had
been allotted their properties. ......
Express News Service, www.expressindia.com,
February 1, 2002
Militants struck early on Friday
morning at Neeram Top in Mahore tehsil, Udhampur, killing two shepherds.
Identified as Malik Shah alias Dilloo and Ghulam Hussain, both resident
of Sui Batholi in Mahore, their throats were slit by the attackers. ......
T.V. Parasuram, www.expressindia.com,
February 1, 2002
The Kargil crisis was a watershed
in Indo-Pak relations, prompting India to reconsider engaging Pakistan
on the Kashmir issue diplomatically and leaving an "ugly stability" as
the best thing the two sides could hope for, says a US think-tank. ......
Excelsior Correspondent, The Daily
Excelsior, February 1, 2002
For the first time during over
a month long border skirmishes, the Pakistan army this evening targeted
Poonch town by firing airburst, artillery and mortar shells. About half
a dozen bunkers were damaged on the Indian side while two army jawans were
killed and four others were seriously injured and some casualties were
also feared. Till tonight, four army soldiers had been hospitalised in
the critical condition. ......
The fate of kidnapped Wall Street
Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was unclear Friday as news organizations
received word that he had been killed while Pakistani police said they
received a demand for money for his release. ......
Sunando Sarkar and Alamgir Hossain,
The Telegraph, February 1, 2002
It is the largest madarsa in Beldanga,
the madarsa belt of Bengal’s madarsa district, Murshidabad. It has around
250 residential students, none of whom needs to pay any monthly or annual
fee. It maintains, besides the students, a large three-storeyed, L-shaped
building in an area where three-storeyed buildings are talked about, not
built. ......
