This Months Article

Starting: Thu March 1, 2001
Ending: Sat March 31, 2001

Messages: 126

• Under the arc of desecration
• Prafull Goradia, The Pioneer, March 1, 2001
>>> The annual urs at the dargah of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti ended on 8 October. Over the six day celebration several lakh devotees visited Ajmer. Considered the greatest among the Sufi saints, Khwaja saheb came to India in 1161 AD and settled down at Ajmer, where he lies buried. ......
 
• Pak execution of Sunni Muslim sparks sectarian disturbances
• The Navhind Times, March 1, 2001
>>> Pakistan hanged an Islamic activist on Wednesday for killing an lranian official in 1990, sparking sectarian disturbances in which police said one man was killed. ......
 
• Fiji court rules interim govt illegal
• AFP, March 1, 2001
>>> The Court of Appeal on Thursday upheld a High Court ruling declaring Fiji's interim government illegal and the multiracial 1997 constitution still valid despite last year's coup. ......
 
• UK bans Lashkar, LTTE and 19 other groups
• Reuters, The Hindustan Times, March 1, 2001
>>> Twenty-one terrorist outfits including the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba have been banned in the United Kingdom under the New Terrorism Act 2000. Britain labelled these groups on Wednesday as "terrorist" organisations under the new legislation designed to halt funding and support for militant groups. ......
 
• Hindu Education in England
• Krishan Dutt, Hinduism Today, March – April, 2001
>>> Jai Prakash Lakhani, a quiet, unassuming gentleman from Wembley, is pioneering a unique field, the teaching of Hinduism in English schools. A few Hindus have in the past experimented with propagating Hindu dharma as a school subject, but it is Lakhani, popularly known as Dalip, who, with his vision and determination, has been most successful. ......
 
• Rukmani Transformed
• Krishan Dutt, Hinduism Today, March – April, 2001
>>> For, me Hindu Dharma is more of a unique way of life than a religious affiliation, insofar as it provides, through its superior karma-philosophy, a foundation on which to base one’s day-to-day actions,” said Rukmani Devi as she sat cross-legged on the floor in our lounge in London, ......
 
• Peace within First
• Bawa Jain, Hinduism Today, March – April, 2001
>>> On November 10, 2000, Bawa Jain, the Peace Summit’s secretary general, addressed a meeting of 3,000 Buddhist leaders, politicians, monks and scholars at the Buddhamonthon shrine in Bangkok, Thailand. ......
 
• Pythagoras the Mystic
• Hinduism Today, March – April, 2001
>>> Pythagoras is generally accepted to be one of the most significant fountainheads of Western thought. Of particular interest to Hindus is the fact that his teachings were in tune with the thinking of the far East- especially India. ......
 
• Fury over Taleban statue purge
• BBC News, March 2, 2001
>>> The international community has reacted with outrage to the news that Afghanistan's ruling Taleban movement has begun destroying the country's statues. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, Unesco, denounced what it calls acts of vandalism, and called on Muslim nations to try to put an end to the destruction. ......
 
• India outraged by Taliban’s war on Buddhas
• The Indian Express, March 1, 2001
>>> India said Thursday it was outraged by the decision of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia to push ahead with the destruction of ancient Buddhist statues and artifacts, despite a global outcry. ......
 
• What is our strategic thinking?
• Khaled Ahmed, The Friday Times, March 2, 2001
>>> It is at times difficult to say who is formulating Pakistan's strategy. Over the past ten years, the state has become so soft that strategic thinking seems to have become fragmented between the army, the leaders of jehad and the clergy. ......
 
• Politics of Islam in Pakistan
• KPS Gill, The Pioneer, March 2, 2001
>>> In Pakistan, the execution of a Sunni fanatic, Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, a Sipah-e-Sahaba activist who murdered an Iranian (Shia) diplomat, Sadiq Ganji, in March 1990, sparked sectarian violence in Hangu in the North West Frontier Province. Gun battles ensued between Shia and Sunni groups soon after that, and at least eight persons were killed. ......
 
• Kashmir: beyond ceasefire
• www.tehelka.com
>>> The impending end to the J&K ceasefire is giving rise to several anxieties in the minds of the Indian government as well as the people of the Kashmir Valley. If Pakistan’ negative response to the cease-fire is any indication, the peace process may just turn out to be a non- starter, says Maj. Gen. Afsir Karim (Retd.) ......
 
• India Must Behave Like Indians Do
• Wg. Cdr. Sunil Sawant (Retd.), News India Times
>>> In our private lives, we Indians understand justice, friendship and enmity very well. Our religious texts like Mahabharat tell stories of wars fought within a family to secure justice. The Hindu gods and goddesses carry and use weapons to fight evil. ......
 
• On a retributive mission
• Sunil Sawant, www.tehelka.com
>>> A lack of desire to win, a lack of will power to gain from our victories, and a lack of strategic foresight have been responsible for India's early losses to Pakistan and China. It is especially amazing that Pakistan, in particular, has been able to get away with so many terrible offences till the late 1980s, when Pakistan was nuclearised. ......
 
• India diffident about its own strength
• Sunil Sawant, www.tehelka.com
>>> The standard attributes of a nation's power are its economy, military, strategic depth, and mission. The combination of these four fundamental factors decides the position of a nation vis-à-vis its adversaries. ......
 
• Dealing with the extremists
• Kuldip Nayar, Dawn, March 3, 2001
>>> When Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee visited Lahore nearly two years ago, the banquet in his honour was delayed by three hours. The road leading to the historic Qila, venue of the banquet, had been taken over by the extremists. ......
 
• PRESS NOTE BY DR PRAVIN TOGADIYA, GEN SECRETARY, VISHWA HINDU PARISHAD
• Bamiyan Buddha demolition expose the true face of Islam - Dr. Pravin togadiya, March 3, 2001
>>> The demolition of Bamiyan Buddhas has exposed the true face of Islam, put under the Burkha by self serving Muslim Maulvis and the secular Talibans in the Indian media. ......
 
• How The Media Covered the Mela
• Hinduism Today, May/June, 2001
>>> Sooner or later, some conscience-struck journalism student will finally send Hinduism Today a copy of ‘The Journalist’s Guide to Reporting on Hinduism.’ We already know what is in it: ‘If you are a journalist posted to Delhi for a year, ......
 
• Hypocrisy Called Indian Secularism
• S.G.V Mani, www.sulekha.com
>>> The campaigns for most Lok Sabha elections throw up the question of secularism versus communalism as a major platform for discussion. ......
 
• Indian ex-soldiers urge Musharraf to end violence
• UNI & PTI, Sunday Navhind Times, March 4, 2001
>>> A delegation of Indo-Pakistani  soldiers' initiative for peace, comprising retired Indian armed  forces personnel, which came back from Lahore last evening, met  the Pakistan chief executive, General Pervez Musharraf, in  lslamabad and conveyed India's concern on continuing violence in  Jamrnu and Kashmir. ......
 
• Old Muslim Feast Upsets New Istanbul
• Molly Moore, The International Herald Tribune, March 6, 2001
>>> Istanbul - Across this city on Monday - in back yards, alongside streets, at parks and even on apartment balconies - the throats of thousands of sheep were slashed in celebration of the start of the annual Muslim Feast of Sacrifice. ......
 
• Vajpayee's cease-fire is Confusion Inc
• Arvind Lavkare, Rediff on Net, March 6, 2001
>>> It was probably the first time since she entered politics that Sonia Gandhi uttered words of wisdom. That was on February 20 this year when, addressing her Congress MPs, she said, "Utter confusion prevails in the government in dealing with the Jammu and Kashmir affairs." ......
 
• Another secret tunnel on Indo-Pak border found
• The Indian Express, March 6, 2001
>>> The recent discovery two days ago of another secret tunnel on the Indo-Pakistan international border, near Addian post in Dera Baba Nanak sector, has raised a question mark on the security aspect. ......
 
• Nation preparing for conflict with United States over Taiwan
• John Pomfret, The Washington Post, March 6, 2001
>>> Aiming to cope with what it calls ''drastic changes'' in the world's military situation, China has decided to increase defense spending this year by 17.7 percent, its biggest expansion in real terms in the last 20 years, according to Finance Minister Xiang Huaicheng. ......
 
• The Cost of Conversion From Islam Book by Italian Bishops Is Warning
• Zenit.org, March 7, 2001
>>> When Jasmine first arrived in Egypt, the authorities were immediately suspicious about her surname. ......
 
• Look, no policy!
• VK Grover, The Pioneer, March 7, 2001
>>> The ceasefire has been extended in Jammu & Kashmir, which really amounts to an extension of this Government's lack of a Kashmir policy. We love peace, but the Pakistanis and their trained-to-kill jihadis do not. ......
 
• The Buddha will forgive. Should we?
• Chandan Mitra, The Pioneer, March 7, 2001
>>> The desecration and destruction of the magnificent Buddha statues in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, by Taliban marauders is especially painful and humiliating for Indians. For the rest of the world, they are only heritage sites, but for us they are symbols and surviving artifacts of our own history, culture and civilisation. ......
 
• Only 15 pc ‘declared aliens’ can be deported under IM(DT) Act
• R Dutta Choudhury, Assam Tribune, March 7, 2001
>>> Less than 15 per cent of the persons declared as foreigners by the tribunals under the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) [IM(DT)] Act can be deported from Assam as the provisions of the Act are loaded heavily against the police personnel engaged in the job of detecting and deporting foreigners. ......
 
• Babri and Bamiyan
• www.voi.org
>>> We, the concerned Indian Secular Intellectuals (ISI) of the Secular People's Republic of India believe that the destruction of the Babri Masjid was truly a cataclysmic event that has now robbed Hinduism of innocence for all times to come. ......
 
• The Minority Situation in Bngladesh
• www.mayerdak.com, March 2001
>>> The minorities in Bangladesh continue to suffer at the hand of Islamic fanatics in diverse ways.   The latest cases brought to our notice by our representatives from Bangladesh are charted below ......
 
• Moscow Woos its 1 million Muslims may want to avoid Leaders taking a Militant turn
• Zenit.org, March 6, 2001
>>> Mayor Yuriy Luzhkov attended a service Monday at the city's main mosque to mark Eid al-Adha, the Muslim feast of sacrifice, and promised to help provide more facilities for Moscow's million-strong Muslims, the BBC reported. ......
 
• Buddhists protest Christian conversions in Lanka
• Christine Jayasinghe, India Abroad, March 6, 2001
>>> Buddhists in Sri Lanka are up in arms over foreign and local Christian evangelical organizations converting villagers in remote areas using "unethical, coercive and sometimes barbaric methods." ......
 
• Buddha, Taliban and Gen. Musharraf
• B.Raman, www.subcontinent.com, March 7, 2001
>>> While the whole world has reacted with horror and outrage against the action of the Taliban in destroying the statues of the Buddha and historical sites in Afghanistan associated with Buddhism, one man has been strangely muted in his reaction - Gen..   Pervez Musharraf, ......
 
• Taking Sides in Afghanistan
• Reuel Marc Gerecht, The New York Times, March 8, 2001
>>> In Islamic history, the time before the coming of the Prophet Muhammad is the jahiliyya, the Age of Ignorance. For Muslim fundamentalists, like the Taliban of Afghanistan, the jahiliyya didn't end in the seventh century. ......
 
• Prisoners without parole
• Firoz Bakht Ahmed, The Pioneer, March 8, 2001
>>> When her parents asked her to wear a burqa (veil) while attending her university classes, Rubina refused to comply. The result was that she was barred from going to university and sat at home washing dishes. ......
 
• Bamiyan Brouhaha (Letter to Editor)
• M G Vaidya, The Times of India, March 8, 2001
>>> Your editorial `The Buddha Smiles' (March 5) runs on predictable lines. Even before reading the whole piece, it came to my mind that you would certainly compare the Taliban with the sangh parivar. ......
 
• Silently at work for the motherland
• Rakesh Sinha, The Pioneer, March 9, 2001
>>> Any national calamity is a test for a civil society on how people share each other's grief and extend a helping hand. Gujarat is an exemplary case. Thousands of people and dozens of organisations poured into the State to help the earthquake victims. ......
 
• Icon smashing - the precedents
• George Fitzherbert, BBC News, March 10, 2001
>>> The decision by the hardline Islamic government of Afghanistan to destroy all statues in the country has provoked indignation across the world. Even Pakistan, the Taleban's closest ally, has called on the Taleban to show greater tolerance. ......
 
• Violence in Pune, Marathwada towns over desecration rumour
• The Indian Express, March 10, 2001
>>> Violence erupted in Pune, Aurangabad and some other towns of Marathwada on Friday after rumours of the Koran being desecrated did the rounds in certain localities of the cities. ......
 
• Taliban issue to dominate Annan’s talks with India
• The Economic Times, March 10, 2001
>>> Coming to India after four years, the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan has deliberately wiped out all thoughts of Kashmir from his head, though during his sojourn in Islamabad, he will doubtless get an earful on the subject from the Pakistani establishment. ......
 
• Truce takes heavy toll on forces
• The Pioneer, March 11, 2001
>>> The past week of the unilateral ceasefire announced by Prime Minister A B Vajpayee in Jammu and Kashmir has been particularly cruel for our security forces. Thirty-eight of our men, 20 of them policemen and 18 Army soldiers, have been killed in this period. ......
 
• JeM turning to students for new cadres
• PTI, www.dailyexcelsior.com, March 11, 2001
>>> With not many youth coming forward to join militant outfits, Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) leaders have started approaching innocent school students asking them to take up arms training camps during ensuing summer vacations. ......
 
• Hindus protest storming of Sydney temple by labor union
• Paritosh Parasher, India Abroad, March 11, 2001
>>> The Hindu community in Australia's premier harbor city is up in arms after office-bearers of a leading trade union stormed the Sri Venkateswara Temple here, taking eight construction workers with them on the charge they were being underpaid and exploited. ......
 
• Bamiyan Buddhas fall prey to Taleban’s lust for power
• Claude Arpi, Rediff on Net, March 12, 2001
>>> In 1965, André Malraux, the French philosopher, author and minister for culture, told an audience at Benares Hindu University about a conversation he had had with Jawaharlal Nehru. ......
 
• Why the cynicism about Indian gurus?
• Francois Gautier, Rediff on Net, March 12, 2001

>>> Westerners have often a deep suspicion of 'gurus' and are wary of anything which has a 'Hindu' flavor.   It is true that some of the gurus teaching in the West might have brought a bad name to Hinduism; but is this a reason to clamp them all together under the same 'fake' label? ......
 
• Beijing warns Islamabad to stop support to militants
• B L Kak, www.dailyexcelsior.com, March 12, 2001
>>> In a significant turn of events, China has warned Pakistan to stop support to Muslim militancy in the Chinese province of Xinjiang, formerly known as Sinkiang. ......
 
• Reeling Estate
• Uday Mahurkar, India Today, March 12, 2001
>>> The two belong to the same parivar.   But oddly enough, one is at the receiving end while the other is busy lapping up the praise.   Almost three years after the BJP rode to power in Gujarat on the crest of an anti-corruption campaign and one month after the killer earthquake, the state is witnessing a strange phenomenon. ......
 
• Making a Difference
• Sutapa Mukerjee, Outlook, March 12, 2001
>>> Kumbh might be a 41-day festival for most, but for 76-year-old Raja Ram Tewari it’s been a 55-year-old affair, and is still going on.   And it’s an affair that seems a straight lift from a Bombay masala film—involving people getting lost in a mela and then being reunited again. ......
 
• Gujarat handled quake disaster efficiently: UNDP
• S. Balakrishnan, The Times of India, March 12, 2001
>>> As many as 19,727 persons died and 20,717 were seriously injured in the quake which rocked Kutch and other parts of Gujarat on January 26. This was stated by Praveen Pardeshi, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) manager posted in Bhuj. ......
 
• Buddha battered, dharma grounded
• Sandhya Jain, The Pioneer, March 13, 2001
>>> The most distasteful aspect of Taliban’s military offensive against the Bamiyan Buddhas and other pre-Islamic relics in Afghanistan is the ill-disguised glee of our predatory radical secularists who have worked overtime to subvert the significance of this civilizational assault and provide an alibi to its perpetrators. ......
 
• US plans independent intelligence network in J&K
• Josy Joseph, Rediff on Net, March 13, 2001
>>> The Bush administration in the United States plans to set up its own intelligence network in Jammu & Kashmir for independent inputs on the situation in the state. ......
 
• China opposed to Dalai Lama’s visit to Taiwan
• Rediff on Net, March 13, 2001
>>> China Tuesday strongly opposed the proposed visit to Taiwan by the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, saying Beijing will not tolerate the "collusion of separatist forces". ......
 
• Ban on SIMI: Maharashtra govt. in touch with Centre
• Press Trust of India, Herald, March 14, 2001
>>> Maharashtra government is in touch with the Centre in considering ban on the Students' Islamic Movement in India (SIMI) for its role in fanning communal passion in the State, leading to recent riots over rumours of burning of Quran, both Houses of the State legislature were informed today. ......
 
• The great betrayal
• Asghar Ali Engineer, The Indian Express, March 14, 2001
>>> IS Islam undemocratic by the very nature of its teachings? Why is it that no Muslim country has a democratic dispensation? Why is it that almost every Muslim country is governed either by a king, a sheikh, a military dictator or has only a partly-democratic set up? ......
 
• Govt. considering a sterner action against foreign militants
• B L Kak, www.dailyexcelsior.com, March 14, 2001
>>> Grave provocation from the Lashkar-e-Toiba and like-minded terrorist outfits notwithstanding, the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, has no plans to call off the Kashmir cease-fire. ......
 
• German Church Warned About Secularization
• Zenit.org, March 15, 2001
>>> John Paul II has written a letter to the nine German cardinals, warning about the rise of secularization in the German Church. ......
 
• Taliban chief dismisses global outrage as ‘drama’
• Agence France Presse, The Indian Express, March 6, 2001
>>> Taliban chief Mulla Mohammad Omar today termed as “drama” the global outcry over the demolition of Buddha relics in Afghanistan and urged the Muslim world to support his decision and unite behind his vision of Islam. ......
 
• Kanchi Swami visits Gujarat
• The Times of India, March 7, 2001
>>> Shankaracharya of Kanchi Sri Jayendra Saraswati said that the people of Gujarat are unitedly facing the situation created by the January 26 quake irrespective of considerations of caste and creed.   He stated this in a press release issued by his Mumbai office on Tuesday. ......
 
• Losing faith in church schools
• Anthony Grayling, The Sunday Times, March 11, 2001
>>> Education secretary David Blunkett's recent green paper on education envisions a large expansion of state funding for religion-based schools. ......
 
• Desperate plight of Paraguayan Indians
• BBC News, March 11, 2001
>>> Nestor Flores, a Paraguyaan Indian tribal leader, trekked 300 miles to see what was happening about the government's promise to build a school for his village. ......
 
• The Midnapur of Kerala
• Dr. V.A. Gangadharan, Organiser, March 11, 2001
>>> Political intolerance of the CPM to the political activism of the BJP in Kannur had culminated in many killings including the one of a young, energetic and promising BJP youth leader, K. T. Jayakrishnan two years back. ......
 
• The Ugly Arab Press
• Richard Cohen, The Washington Post, March 13, 2001
>>> Colin Powell has the brain of a bird. He has torn himself from his roots as a black man and, on his maiden trip to the Middle East, humiliated himself just to please the Israelis. ......
 
• Global hazards of zealotry
• Leo Panthera, The Island, March 14, 2001
>>> There are two distinct aspects of religiosity (the condition of being religious) that are conflated in popular thinking and which makes a serious study of the natural history of religion difficult. ......
 
• How jaded are we?
• Aaron Lerner, Imra's Weekly, March 15, 2001
>>> So far there seems to be next to no reaction to the news this evening about the Ramallah terror cell responsible for 8 murders that was prevented from blowing up a car bomb inside Jerusalem. ......
 
• To be a Muslim in India
• Taimur Bandey, Friday Times, March 16, 2001
>>> Whenever India talks about its Muslims, Shahrukh Khan, Aamir Khan or Mohammad Azharduddin are mentioned. This despite the fact that they do not represent a typical Indian Muslim. ......
 
• Taliban’s idol-smashing edict had Pakistan’s tacit approval
• The Hindustan Times, March 16, 2001
>>> Two members of the Taliban council that passed the edict calling for the destruction of Buddha statues in Afghanistan's Bamiyan province were Pakistani nationals, say diplomatic sources here. ......
 
• After Attacks on Buddhas, Pakistanis Ask, Are We Next?
• Zenit.org, March 16, 2001
>>> After Islamic fundamentalists ordered the destruction of Buddhist religious statues in Afghanistan, Hindus and Christians in neighboring Pakistan are worried that their statues might be next. ......
 
• ‘It should not be a trial by media’ (Interview with Gen Shankar Roychowdhury)
• Amit Bhattacharya, The Pioneer, March 16, 2001
>>> Q.: Should middlemen be legalised?
A.: 'Middleman' has come to mean the type of people you saw on the Tehelka tapes. There are also the manufacturer's authorised representatives. Several foreign firms do not maintain offices in India, but authorised Indian entities to do business on their behal. ......
 
• ‘The Empire is global and has struck back’
• The Pioneer, March 17, 2001
>>> The two police gypsies and a handful of cops outside George Fernandes' house are no hindrance to visitors. The trademark "gateless" Krishna Menon Marg residence remains as porous as ever with a group of Samata Party supporters squatting on the lawns with gumchhas around their necks. .......
 
• Deep freeze on crucial deals
• Rahul Datta, The Pioneer, March 17, 2001
>>> Operation Tehelka has paralysed the defence establishment. With officials paranoid of landing in a soup, even legitimate arms contracts have been put on hold. .......
 
• In Sudan, “There’s a Genocide Going On”
• Zenit.org, March 17, 2001
>>> With an estimated 2 million deaths, the civil war in Sudan is by far the bloodiest in Africa's recent history. In spite of repeated condemnations by other nations and human rights groups, the Islamic government in Khartoum shows no sign of lessening its brutal conduct. .......
 
• Beware the Ides of March, George Fernandes
• Rajeev Srinivasan, Rediff on Net, March 17, 2001
>>> I started writing this column on March 15, and I wrote 'the long knives are out for George Fernandes... for he is an honorable man'. Alas, events have overtaken me, and as I feared, Fernandes has resigned. If the BJP government is the general target of this scandal, the specific target is George Fernandes. .......
 
• 13 killed as police raid RJD MP’s house in Bihar
• Soroor Ahmed, Rediff on Net, March 18, 2001
>>> Eleven persons, including a sub-inspector, were killed in a gun-battle between police and supporters of Rashtriya Janata Dal Member of Parliament Mohammad Shahabuddin in his native village in Siwan district on Thursday. .......
 
• Taliban kaun? Hum nahin jante
• Sakina Yusuf Khan, The Times of India, March 18, 2001
>>> The Darul Uloom Deoband has never hogged so much media attention as it did last week. Journalists, hot on the Taliban trail, discovered a couple of things about Deoband: that it's not in Bihar, but near Saharanpur, just 170 km from Delhi; that this seminary of Islamic learning, viewed by the Sangh Parivar .......
 
• Reigning uncertainty
• Sudha Ramachandran, Deccan Herald, March 8, 2001
>>> Fiji’s deposed prime minister, Mahendra Chaudhry, must have felt vindicated, even victorious, following the Court of Appeal’s ruling last week. The verdict was clearly in favour of his ousted government. Yet, barely a week after that historic ruling, Mr Chaudhry himself, just might have little to celebrate. .......
 
• Terror online
• Charles Piller, Deccan Herald, March 8, 2001
>>> A car bomb shattered storefronts in Netanya, a seaside resort town in northern Israel, and wounded 60 diners and shoppers on the evening of January 1. There was one fatality – the bomber himself. .......
 
• A book to be read, reread and read to be digested
• M. V. Kamath, The Free Press Journal, March 11, 2001
>>> Who, among the intelligentsia, and even outside that charmed circle, has not heard of M. C. Chagla? Towards the end of his life he became a legend; and even halfway through it, he must have been among the best-loved personalities in the country. .......
 
• Converted Christians criticise church leadership
• The Free Press Journal, March 12, 2001
>>> The Poor Christian Liberation Movement has criticised the reported move of the Church to keeping the converted Christians in the Dalit category. .......
 
• Quran burning report ‘baseless’, says VHP
• The Free Press Journal, March 14, 2001
>>> Senior Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Acharya Giriraj Kishore on Tuesday termed the reports that his organisation’s activists had burnt a copy of Quran during a demonstration here as “baseless”, which has sparked off communal violence in some parts of the country. .......
 
• The tribulations of the minorities
• Anwar Syed, Dawn, March 16, 2001
>>> Not as often as the reports of sectarian violence among Muslims themselves, but often enough, we hear of Muslims committing atrocities against non-Muslim minorities in Pakistan, notably Christians and Hindus. .......
 
• Sophisticated underworld armoury keep police on their toes
• Somit Sen, The Times of India, March 16, 2001
>>> The city police has a new reason to worry these days. The fact that despite recovering over 1,500 firearms from gangsters in the last five years, the underworld is still equipped with several sophisticated firearms is giving the police sleepless nights. .......
 
• Basant in Pakistan: Heritage Lives On
• Sultan Shahin, The Times of India, March 19, 2001
>>> The Basant festival heralds the end of winter and arrival of spring. It is celebrated in the entire sub-continent, and particularly in Pakistan, with flying kites - perhaps because spring generally brings a clear sky and just the right amount of wind. .......
 
• First study on quake calls it ‘deadliest quake’ so far
• Pallava Bagla, The Indian Express, March 19, 2001
>>> A quick and seemingly comprehensive scientific analysis on the recent Bhuj quake concludes that it was the “deadliest intraplate earthquake” in recent times. The first scientific analysis of its kind on the devastating Republic Day quake appears in the latest issue of prestigious American journal Science and calls it a ‘rare’ phenomenon while pleading that a stricter implementation of the existing building codes “could have substantially reduced the damage’. .......
 
• Riots in Kanpur spread, death roll mounts to 14
• The Times of India, March 19, 2001
>>> With three more deaths being reported from the riot-torn areas of Kanpur, the death roll in the communal violence rose to 14 on Sunday. For the third successive day activists of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) continued to right pitched battles with the police and open new fronts. .......
 
• The Taliban’s world
• Khalid Hasan, Dawn, March 19, 2001
>>> The destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas may finally persuade those that recognize the Taliban regime to question its distorted interpretation of the Sharia. Until now, the Islamic world with the exception of Iran (though for its own reasons) had said nothing critical of the Taliban's extremism, or anything about their denial to women of their basic right to education, free movement and work. .......
 
• Greek Orthodox Priests Oppose Papal Visit
• Zenit.org, March 20, 2001
>>> A fight has erupted in Greece's Orthodox Church at the prospect of a historic visit to the country by John Paul II, the Guardian newspaper of England reported. .......
 
• Vatican admits nuns sexually abused by priests in India
• Rediff on Net, March 21, 2001
>>> The Vatican admitted on Tuesday that some priests and missionaries were forcing nuns to have sex with them. The admission follows a report in the la Repubblica daily. .......
 
• Buddha cries in the land of Momin
• Arvind singh
>>> Initially, this column thought not to write on the Taliban’s vandalism, and the reason was very simple that there couldn’t be two opinions about the dastardly act. If a thing or an action is bad it is bad. .......
 
• Race and caste
• Andre Beteille, The Hindu, March 10, 2001
>>> As a student of anthropology in Calcutta in the 1950s, I was recommended a book written by the well-known physical anthropologist, M.F. Ashley Montagu, some of whose other works we also had to study. The book to which I now refer was entitled ``Man's Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race''. .......
 
• Exporting Terror
• The Telegraph, March 11, 2001
>>> Standing on the steps of 10 Downing Street in 1998 after a bomb in Omagh in Northern Ireland had killed 28 people, Tony Blair announced that a new Terrorism Act would be enacted by Parliament, one that would take the fight against international terrorism beyond the shores of the U.K. .......
 
• Taliban & the art of destruction
• Jeremy Seabrook, The Sunday Statesman, March 11, 2001
>>> An affront to civilisation. An outrage against human cultures. An act of gratuitous vandalism. An exhibition of extreme intolerance. By their destruction of the giant Buddha statues in Bamiyan, the Taliban have shown themselves in their true -- and lurid -- colours. .......
 
• Taliban snub Annan on Buddhas
• The Telegraph, March 12, 2001
>>> Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers spurned a direct request by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to stop destroying historic statues and said it would destroy all statues it regards as idols. .......
 
• The eleventh commandment: ‘thou shall not convert’
• Laura Kelly, The Hindu, March 13, 2001
>>> The West Bengal Government has withdrawn orders on conversion. It has withdrawn an order on furnishing details on conversion following strong exception to it from the State Minorities Commission. Why this forced sterilisation of religious statistics? .......
 
• Global hazards of zealotry
• Leo Panthera, The Island, March 14, 2001
>>> There are two distinct aspects of religiosity (the condition of being religious) that are conflated in popular thinking and which makes a serious study of the natural history of religion difficult. .......
 
• Fundamentalism: then and now
• A.B.S Jafri, Dawn, March 15, 2001
>>> Suddenly the government of Pakistan, and the provincial governments, apparently under instructions from Islamabad, have become aware of the existence of fundamentalist extremism in the country, as if there has been a flash of divine revelation. .......
 
• Pakistan allows jihadi outfits to collect funds discreetly
• K.J.M Varma, The Asian Age, March 17, 2001
>>> In a major climbdown from its campaign to crackdown on fund-raising activities of Islamic fundamentalist militant groups, Pakistan government has reached a tacit understanding with militant outfits permitting them to discreetly collect funds and recruit volunteers to fight Indian forces in Kashmir, media reports here said. .......
 
• Iconoclasts’ History
• Atul Rawat, Organizer, March 18, 2001
>>> The Taliban have destroyed the two-thousand-year-old Buddhist statues in Bamiyan and have embarked upon a country-wide campaign to destroy all Hindu and Buddhist idols in Afghanistan. The reports received from Afghanistan indicate that the last few Hindu and Sikh residents are made to wear yellow clothes and are required to paint their rooftops yellow. .......
 
• Finding the Right Solution
• Joginder Singh, Organizer, March 18, 2001
>>> Many times a question has been raised whether Pakistan is a failed state. Certain specific features point out a sorry state of affairs. There is a constitutional provision (Section. 63, IG) for disenfranchising a person from the voting, if he is “propagating any opinion or acting in any manner prejudicial to die ideology of Pakistan” .......
 
• Hijacker Qureshi blasts ISI for calling him Indian agent
• The Indian Express, March 19, 2001
>>> Founding father of the Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Frot (JKLF) and hijacker of Indian Airlines plane in 1971 Hashim Qureshi today criticised Pakistan for calling him an in Indian agent and said the ISI was never reconciled to the fact that Kashmiris could have their own identity. .......
 
• Padayatra to retrace footsteps of Adi Shankara
• The Times of India, March 19, 2001
>>> It is a mission to retrace the hallowed footsteps of Adi Shankara, as part of the spiritual renaissance. Fifty-seven year old Colonel S.S. Rajan on Thursday set on a ``padayatra'' to cover a distance of 16,000 km in order to spread the message of peace, goodwill among the people of this country. .......
 
• Send troops to destroy PoK rebel camps: RSS
• The Asian Age, March 19, 2001
>>> Maintaining its usual hardline approach on Kashmir, the RSS on Sunday asked the Vajpayee government to destroy terrorist training camps in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir even it means war with Pakistan. .......
 
• CIA needs recruits to spy on India’s nuke program
• Aziz Haniffa, The Times of India (web edition), March 20, 2001
>>> The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has created a special cell to "aggressively recruit" agents to penetrate the nuclear weapons establishments of India and Pakistan so that it will not be caught napping as it was when New Delhi carried out the Pokhran nuclear tests in May 1998. .......
 
• BJP ‘fanning communal violence’
• S.N.M. Abdi, South China Morning Post, March 20, 2001
>>> The country's leading Muslim cleric, Syed Ahmad Bukhari, has accused Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of fanning communal violence in Kanpur to divert attention from the arms bribery scandal engulfing the Government. .......
 
• US rejects Taliban explanation on Buddhas
• Vasantha Arora, India Abroad, March 20, 2001
>>> The US has dismissed as "inaccurate and self-serving" the Taliban militia's explanation that it blew up two giant Buddha statues in Afghanistan in a pique after a foreign delegation offered money to help preserve these ancient artifacts. .......
 
• “Dramatic positive shift towards India” under bush administration
• Aziz Haniffa, Yahoo News, March 22, 2001
>>> Representative Benjamin Gilman, who chairs the South Asian subcommittee of the powerful House International Relations Committee, has predicted "a dramatic positive shift towards India" under the new Bush administration. .......
 
• Who will condemn China?
• Editorial, The Economist, March 22, 2001
>>> Those who prefer quiet diplomacy to the megaphone kind often argue that shouting at the Chinese government about the way it treats its people is counter-productive. Far better, they argue, to work with the Chinese, not against them, sending teams to teach them about the rule of law and inspectors to look at their prisons. .......
 
• Govt gifts Basu a fortune
• Subrata Nagchoudhury, The Indian Express, March 23, 2001
>>> Last week his comrades named him chairman of the People's Front, last night the West Bengal government in an apparent gesture of gratitude for his commitment to the working class, awarded Jyoti Basu a retirement package that works out to, hold your breath, over Rs 50 lakh per year! .......
 
• Should they first become conjurers and criminals?
• Arvind Lavakare, Rediff on Net, March 24, 2001
>>> Ex-defence minister Mulayam Singh and ex-prime minister Chandra Shekhar owe pots of money to the defence ministry for using the nation's aircraft for personal purposes. But nobody has asked them to quit the Lok Sabha even though, mind you, neither has seriously contested the offence in the ongoing court case. .......
 
• Address of BJP’s new President to NEC
• Jana Krishanamurthy, BJP.com, March 24, 2001
>>> It is said that life is unpredictable. It is much more so in politics. By a strange twist of circumstances the smooth sailing ship of ours has been visited by a storm and I find myself to be entrusted with the responsibility of captaining the ship out of storm and steer it safely to the port. .......
 
• Operation Oust - Show Vajpayee the door. And then? The Congress has no clue.
• Rediff on Net, March 24, 2001
>>> The tehelka.com tapes, which cost Vajpayee his defence minister, seem to have injected some fresh blood into the Congress president.  .......
 
• Terrified, Kashmir Sikhs debate migration
• Pradeep Dutta, The Indian Express, March 26, 2001
>>> Is the honour, security and safety of the Sikhs in Kashmir secure under the prevailing circumstances?  .......
 
• Another Tehelka casualty, this time from home dept
• The Economic Times, March 27, 2001
>>> The centre today suspended director in the home ministry, Thomas Mathew, for his alleged involvement in the Tehelka expose.  .......
 
• The Emergence of American Hinduism's latest scholar
• A report submitted by one of our well-wishers in the USA.
>>> Dr. Prema Kurien gave a talk on "The Emergence of American Hinduism" on Wednesday, March 21st at Columbia University's South Asian Studies Department. Dr. Prema Kurien, a woman in her 20s, originally hails from Kerala.  .......
 
• U.N. Pleads With Taliban Not to Destroy Buddha Statues
• The New York Times, March 3, 2001
>>> The United Nations led an 11th hour drive to save two towering statues of Buddha today as the Afghan government assembled explosives at the sites to obliterate them, diplomats feared.  .......
 
• Buddhas of Bamiyan: Keys to Asian History
• Holland Cotter, The New York Times, March 3, 2001
>>> The archaeological site of Bamiyan, about 100 miles west of Kabul in Afghanistan, is set in a broad, flat valley flanked by high stone cliffs. It’s a place of open fields and sky, with a long, rich history that scholars are just beginning to understand. .......
 
• All female Hindu priests inducted in South African Indian institution
• Fakir Hassen, India Abroad, March 20, 2001
>>> The Vedic Priests Academy run by a South African Indian institution held its annual induction here of priests and students who are now qualified to conduct basic Hindu rituals and prayers - all of them women. .......
 
• Politics, religion and extremism
• Kunwar Idris, Dawn, March 25, 2001
>>> When Maulana Akram Awan threatened to march on Islamabad to compel the government to enforce the rule of Islam in the country, official emissaries - minister for religions affairs, home secretary and inspector-general of police - went to Chakwal to propitiate him. The Rawalpindi corps commander also rang up, the Maulana claimed, not to warn but to pacify him. .......
 
• Contractors stop working for Army after militants’ threats
• Josy Joseph, Rediff on Net, March 27, 2001
>>> A fresh crisis stares in the face of already perplexed security agencies in Jammu and Kashmir, as hundreds of civilian contractors working for them have been threatened by the Lashkar-e-Tayiba against serving the Indian agencies. .......
 
• Nagaland may face brunt of illegal migration from Bangladesh
• Nitin Gogoi, Rediff on Net, March 27, 2001
>>> After Assam, it may be the turn of Nagaland to face the brunt of illegal migration from Bangladesh, figures compiled in the latest census operation indicate. .......
 
• Re: please confirm this
• Gaurang Desai, March 27, 2001
>>> Does Saudi Arabia check for bibles, Gita, crucifix  and other religious items from visitors entering their nation ? .......
 
• CBI zeroing in on Vincent George
• Narendra Kaushik, Mid-Day, March 27, 2001
>>> The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is tightening the noose around Sonia Gandhi's private secretary Vincent George with the discovery of some properties in the United States of America. These properties are in the name of his close relatives. .......
 
• Orthodox Cypriots Told to Stifle Protests - Government Hopes for Papal Visit
• Zenit.org, March 27, 2001
>>> Anti-Catholic Orthodox clerics were told to tone down their opposition to the government's formal invitation to John Paul II to visit the island, to retrace the Apostle Paul's footsteps, Agence France-Presse reported. .......
 
• LeT’ top commander in Kashmir killed
• Mukhtar Ahmad, Rediff on Net, March 28, 2001
>>> The Jammu and Kashmir police on Wednesday said they had eliminated the chief commander of the Lashkar-e-tayiba Tariq Mehmood alias Salah-ud-din in a chance encounter in central Budgam district. .......
 
• Church sparks Italy row with call for 'Catholic' vote
• Steve Pagani, The Asian Age, March 28, 2001
>>> Roman Catholic Church leaders in Italy have vowed to stay out of the political debate ahead of the May 13 general election but are still urging the faithful only to vote for parties supporting Church teachings. .......
 
• Delhi Sainik comes to bid for Dawood's property
• S. Ahmed Ali, March 28, 2001
>>> Amid tight security inside Hotel Diplomat in Colaba, Income Tax officers waited to auction the properties of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. On January 11 too they had waited but no one turned up to bid. .......
 
• Mission Pakistan
• Inder Malhotra, The Hindustan Times, March 7, 2001
>>> ONE OF the persistent myths about India's partition at the time of independence is that Pakistan's founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, did not really want a separate country. His demand for it, the argument runs, was really a 'bargaining counter' to get the best possible deal for Muslims within a loose Indian confederation. .......
 
• Kashmir as a solution to other problems
• ML Kotru, The Pioneer, March 13, 2001
>>> As the shockwaves in the wake of Tehelka revelations continue to rattle New Delhi the news from the Valley is acquiring disturbing proportions, the depredations of the Islamic jihadis, to use the term now coined by the Hurriyat and Jamaat-e-Islami leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, have become even more brazen than before. .......
 
• Arafat’s Children:
• Editorial, The Times, March 15, 2001
>>> Stone-throwing, flag-waving Palestinian youths ripped through the town of Ramallah yesterday in the first of two "days of rage" declared by Yassir Arafat's Fatah organization. It will have been no trouble to recruit this rent-a-mob; there is rage to spare, after nearly six months of futile battling against Israeli occupation. .......
 
• The Taleban -- modern fanatics or tribal marauders
• G Parthasarathy, Rediff on Net, March 22, 2001
>>> When the passengers of the hijacked IC 814 were released on December 31, 1999, their only desire was to return from their medieval and austere surroundings in Kandahar, to their near and dear ones in Delhi. The hijackers were Pakistanis -- members of the Harkat ul Mujahideen -- a terrorist group supported and provided training and other facilities by the Taleban in Khost and elsewhere in Afghanistan. .......
 
• Two stories for none, yet some
• Sandhya Jain, The Pioneer, March 27, 2001
>>> We need a new grammar of ethics in journalism and governance to understand recent developments in both. When the Tehelka.com expose` broke out, one could not imagine it would hog headlines for so long, or that it would throw up as many questions about journalistic credibility as about the calibre of politicians, bureaucrats and defence personnel. .......
 
• Nagaland may face brunt of illegal migration from Bangladesh
• Nitin Gogoi, Rediff on Net, March 27, 2001
>>> After Assam, it may be the turn of Nagaland to face the brunt of illegal migration from Bangladesh, figures compiled in the latest census operation indicate. .......
 
• India urgently needs a Ghaznavi: Simi chief
• Amita Verma, The Asian Age, March 29, 2001
>>> The controversial Students Islamic Movement of India, on Wednesday, said that the prevailing circumstances in India urgently needed “a character like Mahmud Ghaznavi to end the suppression of minorities and dalits.” .......
 
• Erotic Bible ‘for adults only’
• Richard Owen, Afternoon Despatch & Courier, March 31, 2001
>>> The Bible is an adults only book which is “so full of eroticism" that it should not be given to children, according to a Roman Catholic theologian. .......
 

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