March Month Articles
The brutal lynching of five dalit
Hindus in Duliana, Jhajhar(Haryana) on October 2 and simmering tensions
in Chakwara near Jaipur on use of a village pond had attracted a number
of articles, either lamenting or accusing someone. .....
With the deployment of the Wakf
as a new piece on the temple chess board, the game is likely to take a
new turn. All these years, since the locks of the Ram temple were opened,
the Babri Masjid proponents have made it into a property dispute. .....
Jammu Kashmir Vichar Manch today
accused the State Government for holding the minorities of Nadimarg
village, where 24 Hindus were gunned down by the terrorists recently, hostages,
after not allowing them to leave for Jammu and participate in the Tenth
Day and other religious rites of their slain relatives to be held on Tuesday.
.....
The surrender of arms by nine policemen
deployed at Nadimarg police post on the fateful night when 24 Kashmiri
Pandits were massacred by the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) was a ploy to keep
them away from their complicity in the crime, investigations revealed.
.....
It would not be untrue to say that
there is widespread, silent support in India for the war on Iraq. Not only
have there been fewer anti-war protests than in most other countries but,
since the assault began, it is possible to meet in the Indian street an
unusually large number of people who admit that they admire America for
reacting forcefully to what happened on September 11. .....
Nadimarg may be 300 km away, but
for the Kashmiri Pandit migrants living in the Purkhoo, Muthi and Mishriwala
camps in Jammu, this is their closest brush with fear in years. .....
A Mumbai police team which went
to a Thane village on Thursday to arrest a suspect in the Ghatkopar blast
case was forced to retreat when angry villagers surrounded their vehicle.
.....
The United States diplomats are
virtually playing a game of see-saw. As the Vajpayee government and
its political party BJP threatens to harden its stand against the US attack
on Iraq, the latter has warned Pakistan to stop cross-border terrorism
immediately. .....
Portugal's public prosecutor has
authorised the extradition of Indian gangster Abu Salem, accused of masterminding
bombings in Mumbai that killed nearly 300 people, Lusa news agency quoted
court officials as saying on Saturday. .....
Reacting to Congress President
Sonia Gandhi's call to the people to differentiate between the age-old
concept of Hinduism and Hindutva propagated by the Sangh Parivar, VHP leader
Pravin Togadia on Saturday took a dig at her foreign origin and said the
"daughter of Italy is now trying to teach us Hindutva." .....
They called Kashmir the 'Paradise
on Earth' and compared it with Switzerland. The great Sufi saint Nur-ud-din
refused to enter one of its royal gardens thousands of years ago, saying,
'If I visit this place now I shall not be allowed to visit paradise hereafter.'
Persian poet Firdaus said, 'If there is heaven on earth, it is here, it
is here, and it is here.' .....
The government did not come forward
to rehabilitate the poor, brutalised villagers of Annada Prashad, Bhola,
even one and a half years after incidents of post-election violence. .....
Faith-based groups are poised to
help with humanitarian aid in Iraq once the fierce fighting has subsided,
and in some cases, Christians hope to offer more. .....
1. Where is Jammu and Kashmir on
the world map?
Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) is
the northern most state of India amidst the beautiful Himalayas, sharing
its western border with Pakistan & Afghanistan and its eastern border
with China. The official map of J&K is available online at the website
of Indian Embassy at http://www.indianembassy.org/new/Kargil/J&K_Map.html
.....
With eight bombings or attempting
bombings in three months, France is convulsing over the problems of terrorism,
fundamentalist Islam, and Algeria. During a recent trip to France, spent
in Paris and at the Riviera, this writer had an opportunity to concentrate
on the Middle Eastern dimension of life in that country. What's happening
there will probably come as a surprise to most Americans. .....
Are there terrorists in Kashmir?
Yes. The disputed majority-Muslim
region has its own local terrorist groups, but most of the recent terrorism
there has been conducted by Islamist outsiders who seek to claim Kashmir
for Pakistan. A recent spate of Islamist cross- border attacks into Indian-held
territory and the December 2001 storming of the Indian parliament in New
Delhi have reinforced Kashmir’s standing as the key bone of contention
between India and Pakistan. Both states have nuclear weapons, making Kashmir
one of the world’s most dangerous flashpoints. .....
The Vested Property Act first appeared
in 1965, when Bangladesh was part of Pakistan. It was at that time
called the "Enemy Property Act." In that year, war broke out between India
and Pakistan. The law was directed primarily against the property of the
Hindus who had temporarily fled to India in fear of their lives. The state
was enabled to take their property into custody, with the rationale that
a Hindu who went to India was an enemy. .....
The recent article 'Autonomy Demand:
Kashmir at Crossroads' by Rekha Chowdhary (July 22-28, 2000) rightly emphasises
the real possibility of an upcoming trifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir.
However, the author unfortunately takes a negative view of such developments,
terming them as 'alarming' and 'reactionary'. .....
Earlier this week, Iraqi Foreign
Minister Naji Sabri Ahmad al-Hadithi was quoted as saying that the already
brutalized US POWs captured in southern Iraq would, "be treated according
to the principles of Islam"..Unfortunately, this statement is not reassuring
at all. .....
Terrorists killed three people
and maimed six in Jammu and Kashmir Friday for allegedly assisting the
security forces, polices said. .....
Are the government and the media
friends? No. Can they be friends? They can, but shouldn't be. Are they
adversaries? .....
As the world remains focussed on
the real and propaganda war in Iraq, lower-grade but significant hostilities
have erupted in a different theatre, with India accusing human rights group
Amnesty International of a "mystifying reluctance to condemn (terrorism)
in black and white" and "a curious attempt to obfuscate" the real issues
involved in Sunday’s tragic murder of 24 civilians in Jammu and Kashmir.
.....
Rape allegations continued to dog
the CPM, with a woman in Purulia today accusing a panchayat samiti sabhapati
of the crime. .....
The State of Israel strongly condemns
the heinous act of terrorism that occurred on March 24, 2003, in the village
of Nandimarg, Kashmir. Twenty-four innocent civilians were killed in the
attack, including women and children. .....
"If Kashmir does not concern Bihar,
is Iraq an integral part of Bihar that the state assembly passed a unanimous
resolution condemning America?" asked an agitated BJP legislator in the
House on Tuesday. .....
Sixty-eight years ago, on July
18, 1935, a baby boy was born to Mahadeva Iyer and Saraswathi in Irulneeki,
a small village in Tamil Nadu. .....
They called Kashmir the 'Paradise
on Earth' and compared it with Switzerland. The great Sufi saint Nur-ud-din
refused to enter one of its royal gardens thousands of years ago, saying,
'If I visit this place now I shall not be allowed to visit paradise hereafter.'
Persian poet Firdaus said, 'If there is heaven on earth, it is here, it
is here, and it is here.' .....
Kashmiri Pandits in Shopian are
preparing to leave the valley after the killing of 24 members of their
community on March 23. .....
At a massive rally recently called
by the Jamait-ul-Ulema-i-Hind, a decision was taken that he Muslims should
have a separate political party of their own. It is, to say the least,
a most unwise decision and one hopes that the Jamait will rescind it. The
argument is that Muslims have no friends and that they have to look after
themselves, that their problems remain unsolved and their needs unattended
to. Their approach is one of total despair. .....
Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense
Committee chairman: If the objection is for commercial reasons, it is not
legitimate. .....
Activists of the banned Students
Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), whom the police suspect to be behind
the series of bomb blasts in the city, have formed several splinter cells
and are carrying out “hit-and-run” attacks, police investigators said.
.....
On Sunday night, two SIMI activists
were picked up by the Mumbai police from Thane Central Prison in connection
with the bomb blast on the Karjat-bound train at Mulund station. .....
While the writings and sayings
of American and other Western scholars about our relations with Pakistan
get widespread and prominent coverage in our media, we sadly seem to neglect
the views of our own scholars on such subjects. .....
At its annual debate organised
by The Telegraph in Jamshedpur a couple of years ago, Saugata Roy of the
Trinamool Congress likened the press to the Sacred Bulls of Varanasi. They
are well known in the narrow lanes leading to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple,
flanked on either side by tiny shops selling religious artifacts, handicrafts,
toys and flowers. .....
That's what Bart Womack, a command
sergeant major of the elite 101st Airborne Division, asked himself as a
grenade rolled past him after 1 a.m. on Sunday at an American camp in Kuwait.
.....
A telecom engineer in Kashmir peeked
out of his balcony to see if it was safe to venture out. He saw two men
toting their guns outside, waiting for him to come out. .....
India on Tuesday blamed Pakistan
for the massacre of 24 Kashmiri Pandits in a south Kashmir village and
said violence in the state was continuing because of that country. .....
Gareth Thomas MP, Chair of LFIN,
condemned the indiscriminate killing of 24 Hindus Pandits in Jammu &
Kashmir on 23rd March 2003 where terrorists dressed in army uniforms entered
Nandimarg with the single objective of taking innocent lives. .....
Para 1: Some days ago, the Indian
website Rediff.com published a column, written by a Kashmiri Pandit, Mr.
Lalit Koul, titled "Daddy, why can't we return to Kashmir". The writer,
in a sentimental reply to this question by his six year old daughter, has
described the story of Kashmiri Pandits from 1990 exodus, to the present
day. .....
Ignoring protests by an assortment
of "secular" political parties and organisations, the BJP is going ahead
with a four-pronged rathyatra across Assam from tomorrow to mobilise support
for its campaign against the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals)
Act. .....
The police opened fire after eight
persons, including five policemen were injured in an attack by a mob which
tried to snatch away two persons arrested for burning the national flag
in Hooghly district last night after India's defeat in the World Cup, reports
PTI. .....
A tiny enclave in the largely impoverished
state of Bihar has been raking in millions of rupees by manufacturing and
selling ayurvedic medicines. .....
A religious institution in Chitradurga
district of Karnataka has set up a fund to help the families of farmers
who committed suicide under the strain of financial burdens. .....
At least 24 Kashmiri Pandits were
killed at Nadimarg village near Shopian in Pulwama district around midnight.
.....
One thing can be said in favour
of the US Government without any hesitation. By law it throws open its
official documents to whoever cares to look into them even if that were
to lead to considerable embarrassment to the current administration. And
it was that which a Pakistani writer took full advantage of when he sought
to look into the secret correspondence of the White House and the State
Department with its embassy in Pakistan during the fateful years 1969 to
1974. .....
The Lucknow bench of Allahabad
High Court has directed the Archeological Survey of India to undertake
excavation of Ram Janma Bhumi-Babri structure site on the basis of Radar
Survey findings of Tojo Vikas International. Accordingly, a 14-member team
headed by senior archaeologist B R Mani has started work on March 12, along
with two experts of Tojo Vikas International. .....
No more evidence was needed than
the life of Adi Sankara to prove that India has always been regarded as
one country, the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, said here today. .....
An official bill to prevent religious
conversion by force or by lure was tabled in the Gujarat Assembly here
today. The bill standing in the name of the Parliamentary Affairs Minister,
Ashok Bhatt, is likely to be taken up for discussion on March 26. .....
Evidences, archaeological and literary,
prove that the Babri Masjid was established by destroying a temple on a
site profoundly venerated by Hindus. Annette Beveridge's translation of
Babur Nama (1922) mentions that Babar's destruction of the Ram temple was
an act to assert Islamic might. .....
The Delhi High Court today asked
a public interest litigant to specify in his petition inflammatory speeches
allegedly delivered by the International General Secretary of Vishwa Hindu
Parishad (VHP), Togadia, at a dharam sansad here last month. .....
Please read he true story of Hindu
massacre of Dhantal by the Muslims and the nasty role of Ms Yashodhara
Bagchi (also see The Statesman Feb 19 2003 page 9), the chairperson of
Women Comission, an outfit if CPM. I think, I found Yashodhara's emails
in united minority. Shame on you, Yashodhara. .....
Recent incidents on the India-Bangladesh
border have once again brought into focus the feverish efforts by Pakistan
to up the ante in India's Eastern region, which includes Bengal, Cooch-Behar
and the seven north-eastern states, through Bangladesh, where the ISI has
multiplied its presence ever since the Bangladesh National Party (BNP)
came into power. .....
After the injury, the insult. In
the latest twist to the Dhantola gangrape case, the leader of the dacoits
who waylaid the two buses carrying wedding guests in Nadia last month,
escaped from CID custody though he was handcuffed and bound by a thick
rope. .....
A Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award-winning
composer might seem an unlikely critic of Columbia Univeristy’s Middle
East studies department. But last week, when John Corigliano was honored
as a distinguished Columbia College alumnus, the composer took it upon
himself to criticize the bias in that Columbia department. .....
Below is the letter from
Chairman of Balawaristan National Front Mr.Abdul Hamid to New Hampshire
Legislators who visited to POK. It was released for Press release yesterday
and appreciate if you can circulate to media circles in India. .....
Abdul Majid Dar, who once headed
Kashmir's biggest guerrilla group Hezb-ul Mujahedeen, was shot and killed
Sunday by masked gunmen, police said. .....
Grenades exploded at a 101st Airborne
command center in Kuwait early Sunday, killing one and wounding 13 servicemen,
and a U.S. soldier was detained as a suspect in the attack, the Army said.
.....
Whether it is a Savarkar, Bhojshala
or Ram temple issue, Hindus seem to be at loggerheads with Hindus so severely
that it shames even a communal hate campaign between Muslims and Hindus.
.....
The Indian Government has taken
"much action" against those behind the Gujarat violence but it was not
reflected due to the "agonisingly slow" legal system in the country, US
Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Christina Rocca has said. .....
More than 60 vehicles, including
45 BMTC buses, were damaged when a group of Muslims, who were protesting
against the US attack on Iraq, turned violent in the City Market area this
afternoon. .....
I'm telling you once more that
things cannot go on this way. I have a historic mission, and this mission
I will fulfill because Providence has destined me to do so… I give you
once more, and for the last time, the opportunity to come to terms. Either
we find a solution now or else events will take their course. Think it
over, think it over well.' .....
Recent incidents on the India-Bangladesh
border have once again brought into focus the feverish efforts by Pakistan
to up the ante in India's Eastern region, which includes Bengal, Cooch-Behar
and the seven north-eastern states, through Bangladesh, where the ISI has
multiplied its presence ever since the Bangladesh National Party (BNP)
came into power. .....
The International Secretariat of
the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) would like to bring to your
attention the demolition of houses belongings to members of the Hindu community
of the Chakribakri, Madhukhali, Radhanagar, Bigordana and Parmadhukhali
villages (Khulna district) by the police, as a form of punishment for their
alleged support for so-called terrorist groups. .....
Police teams from Mumbai and Thane
have fanned out across the state to search for Saqib Nachen, an alleged
activist of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), which
is suspected of having organised the recent spate of bomb blasts in the
city. .....
The narrow lane winding through
decrepit, old houses bustles with the life and activity typical of old
Dhaka. The small shops on the ground floors of the buildings do brisk business
as people and cycle rickshaws noisily jostle for space. Sounds of temple
bells mingle into the cacophony of the market. .....
An international school in Jeddah,
which has boys and girls of varying nationalities on its rolls, has banned
an Egyptian Muslim girl for wearing a head scarf. The girl, Lujain, was
banned from Jeddah Prep and Grammar School and was forced to look for another
in order to continue her studies. .....
As the U.S. geared up for military
action in Afghanistan, Army Chaplain Capt. Abd Al- Rasheed Muhammad began
questioning the permissibility of a fight against fellow Muslims. .....
Usually, I agree with your positions,
but if I'm not mistaken , and I could be...so if I am please forgive me,
you recently wrote very positive things about Daniel Pipes and his analysis
of Islam in America. I must tell you that I was more than a little bit
distressed with your opinions. .....
The credit of reaching the Vishwa
Hindu Parishad (VHP) to every nook and corner of Tamil Nadu goes to Shri
S. Vedantam, besides others. Resigning from a lucrative job in a private
organisation, he joined VHP in 1970 as a full time worker. He organised
and is running several service organisations of schools, hospitals, etc.
Village Temple Archak’s Forum, conceived and organised by him, is doing
yeoman service in Tamil Nadu to train village temple poojaris. .....
India has accused Bangladesh of
sheltering terrorists who operate in India’s Northeast and also of having
become the new haven of Islamic extremists, including al Qaida. Similar
accusations against the ruling coalition, led by the Bangladesh Nationalist
Party, have also been levelled by the country’s main opposition party,
the Awami League. .....
A group of 28 Bangladeshis was
arrested at Kamlapur in Nadia’s Chakdah police station area yesterday for
trying to cross over to their country without valid travel documents. .....
A spate of Sikh conversions to
Christianity in Punjab, particularly in the border belt adjoining Pakistan,
has rocked the Sikh community provoking a furore among the religious and
political outfits. The Sikh representative party, the Akali Dal, is now
seeking an Anti Conversion Act in Punjab on the pattern of Tamil Naidu.
.....
The US attack on Iraq flouted international
laws and was tantamount to an assault on Islam, one of India's leading
Muslim clerics said in New Delhi on Thursday. .....
“Hindutva is only Manavata, i.e.,
the characterisation of quality of Hindu in being a perfect human being.
A man cannot exist without the quality of humanity. Similarly, a Hindu
cannot exist without Hindutva. Thus, the connotation and equation of Hindutva
with fundamentalism, terrorism and so on are totally unwarranted. .....
A youthful Maulana Abul Kalam Azad,
writing in his Urdu journal Al Hilal, had advised Muslims in 1913 not to
join any political party—for Islam itself is the party of Allah and its
name is Hizbullah. .....
A cursory look at Pakistani publishers'
catalogues or a visit to Urdu Bazaar in Karachi should take book-lovers
by surprise. Scores of books on ancient India, Hindu mythology, religion,
philosophy, epics and the Bhagti movement are nowadays available in Urdu
- either in translation or original. .....
Forty-eight hours after the suspension
of trade along the Indo-Bangla border in the northeast, life has come to
an absolute halt in these areas. .....
A Pakistani nuclear missile can
now hit Tel Aviv, according to a former Pakistani intelligence chief who
is "strategic adviser" to his country's Islamist politico-religious parties.
.....
The Kerala high court holding as
unconstitutional taking oath in any manner other than in the name of 'God
or a 'solemn pledge' in the legislature has thrown up a challenge to the
Muslim League. .....
America is now experiencing the
fear American Indians have felt for more than 500 years. Our ancestors
never knew what act of violence or terror would befall them from the American
invaders. But death did come. It came in the form of biological warfare
when small pox tainted blankets were distributed to the unsuspecting victims.
.....
Some members of the Pakistani establishment
and especially those agencies, which have assumed the role of determining
what is ‘national interest of Pakistan’, and who is loyal, and who is anti
Pakistan, have perhaps done more damage to Pakistan than known enemies
of Pakistan. .....
“We believe that our country has
been unfairly maligned,” said Saudi spokesman Adel al-Jubeir at a notorious
press conference last December. “We believe that we have been subjected
to criticism that we do not deserve.” .....
A natural and in fact inevitable
consequence of spreading Islam by jihãd is the destruction of non-believers’
places of worship and their idols. It is somewhat remarkable that this
duty has not been enjoined in any Koranic verse as a part of jihãd.
The destruction of idols is often mentioned in the Koran, but nowhere in
connection with jihãd. Such an ordinance derives from the Sunnah
and the Sunnah alone. .....
For a nation that is very casual
about its history but is obsessed with the past, historians have suddenly
acquired celebrity-hood. The Ayodhya conflict is at different levels a
battle over faith, over politics and even over competing principles of
nationhood. Instead, it has been hijacked by a small group into a pedantic
and contrived dispute over history-a course that has prevented a resolution
of the conflict. .....
At a time when we see politicians,
journalists, philosophers, and even spiritualists utter only what is "politically
correct", at a time when nobody really dares to call a spade a spade -
whether it is the Chinese threat to India, the 20 millions Bangladeshis
illegally staying in this country, or the bypassing of India as a democratic
superpower by the West - it is time we went over what the Mother of Pondicherry,
whose 125th birth anniversary falls this year, said on these subjects so
long ago, but all of which is still very pertinent today. .....
Hindus do not pay much attention
to the historical order of things," wrote Al Beruni in 1030 AD. "They are
very careless in relating the chronological succession of things." The
millennium-old censure of the Hindus' lack of historic sense by a medieval
Muslim historian appears to still apply, particularly to the Indian historians
of the present day. It is bizarre that eminent historians like Irfan Habib,
Suraj Bhan and KM Shrimali have opposed the interim direction of the Allahabad
High Court for excavation of the Ayodhya site. .....
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay
Singh had irked our "progressive" intellectuals some time back. Half way
through their campaign against imagined "saffronisation", in November 2001,
he rose above politics to blow his whistle on this group when it was clear
that they had taken their game too far. Mr Singh made it clear that he
was not against universities offering courses in astrology in the UGC's
offering of subjects, which students may choose in study. .....
I was astonished at the March 10th
news of the arrest and harassment of Indian IT professionals by Malaysian
authorities, especially as the news stories talked about how they were
arrested from posh highrise apartments in an upmarket location in Kuala
Lumpur. Clearly those targeted were not illegal migrants who had sneaked
into the country and melted into some ethnic Indian underclass. This is
unprofessional behaviour on the part of the Malaysians. .....
This is something very relevant
on the eve of Holi. Believe it or not, people everywhere are getting splashed
with colours and various shades of Hindutva. By now we have Soft Hindutva,
Togadia brand of Hindutva, Thackeray's Hindutva, Vajpayee and Advani varieties
of Hindutva, Vaghela 's kind and the Digvijay brand of Hindutva. But a
new variety came to the fore in Kolkata during a panel discussion organised
by The Telegraph group of journals. .....
Four {BNP) men terrorised a helpless
(Hindu) garment factory worker in Chittaganj and took their turns in raping
her. The police declined to file a charge because this (Mafia like) gang
of four took shelter in the offices of the BNP (Bangladesh Nationalist
Party} center. .....
My personal compliments to FPJ
for speaking out the truth about Veer Savarkar in the news report title
"Savarkar portrait witness opposition boycott" (FPJ Feb.27). The main storm
came from the communists, accusing Veer Savarkar of filing a petition on
August 15, 1943 demanding implementation of M. A. Jinnah's "Two Nation"
Theory. It is like tea-pot calling the kettle black. .....
The Kerala high court holding as
unconstitutional taking oath in any manner other than in the name of 'God
or a 'solemn pledge' in the legislature has thrown up a challenge to the
Muslim League. .....
Pakistan has been moving its nuclear
arsenal frequently in recent times. It cold lead to a danger of these weapons
falling into the hands of terrorists, a leading US nuclear expert said
today. Ever since the September 11 terror attacks in US, Pakistan President
Pervez Musharraf has been moving his nuclear weapons frequently for fear
of US or Indian strikes, visiting US expert Scot D Sagan said. .....
Having secured West Bengal government's
active support for the Centre's drive against illegal immigration from
Bangladesh, deputy Prime Minister LK Advani sought to strengthen this cooperation
by asking chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to tighten implementation
of existing state laws to check the unprecedented growth of madrasas in
border districts of the state. .....
Deputy Prime Minister L.K Advani
on Tuesday assured West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya of
all possible central help to deal with illegal immigration from Bangladesh.
.....
February 5 was observed as "Kashmir
Solidarity Day" by Pakistan and Azad Kashmir, the section of Kashmir administered
by Pakistan. .....
There are two divergent views on
the historicity of both the Ramayana and the Mahabharat. There are some
who say everything about the epics is absolutely true to the letter. Even
that Lord Ram flew back to Ayodhya on Pushpak Viman from Lanka. The other
view is that everything about them is absolutely baseless and is a figment
of imagination. Between these two views possibly lies the truth. .....
As the war against terrorism that
the US and its allies started in Afghanistan threatens to take a Westerly
direction that does not have the same level of world support, N.S. Rajaram
traces the history of Jihad that has come to roost in Pakistan .....
I've heard a lot of rumors lately
about the Muslim Student Association – the national organization of Muslim
college students that boasts chapters in over a thousand colleges across
America and Canada, and is one of the most influential religious organizations
around. They've been accused of promoting Islamic fundamentalism and inviting
speakers who spew violent anti-American rhetoric. I thought I'd check things
out for myself. .....
Recently Congressmen John Conyers
Jr. (D-MI), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Senator Russell D. Feingold (D-WI)
wrote to Attorney General John Ashcroft: "We ask you to immediately terminate
the Justice Department's new policy directing the fifty-six FBI field offices
to count the number of mosques and Muslims, as well as other community
groups and religious organizations, in their areas." .....
Even before the snow has fully
melted in the border heights in Kashmir, armed-to-the-teeth Pakistan marauders
have started to descend on outposts in Jammu and murder policemen and civilians
at will. The attack on a police outpost on Saturday night in the Gool area
of Udhampur district, killing nine policemen and three civilians, including
a woman, points to a new strategy. Since the Special Operations Group has
been disbanded, it is easy for these Pak murderers to find soft targets
in Jammu. .....
Souleiman Ghali, the president
of the Islamic Society of San Francisco, got the message loud and clear
after meeting with seven special agents from the FBI. .....
Zhu Rongji, who retired as China's
premier on Saturday, is usually a very frank man. A few years ago he admitted
the Chinese system was flawed by two plagues: incorrect figures sent by
regional leaders about the development in their respective regions and
the rampant corruption gangrening the Communist Party and the nation. .....
Union minister and general secretary
of the Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal) Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa today said the
state government should bring a Bill to impose a complete ban on religious
conversion in the current session of Assembly. .....
On the issue of Shri Rama Janmabhoomi,
the behaviour of the secular intellectuals is always intriguing.
Having confidently stating that the Hindu claim for the site is without
any historical justification, they should be welcoming the order of the
Lucknow High Court for excavation, instead of opposing it. .....
48 hours have elapsed since the
horrifying incident actually occured. There have been not many developments
which would satisfy the answer-seeking souls. However, a few things that
appeared in the local papers do deserve a mention here. .....
Americans tend to think of lawless
nations in Africa and Eastern Europe when the discussion turns to mass
murder and crimes against humanity. But a commission created by the Oklahoma
Legislature spent the late 1990's searching for mass graves in and around
Tulsa. The missing dead - who could number as many as 300 - were shot,
burned, lynched or tied to cars and dragged to death during the Tulsa Race
Riot of 1921. .....
The mention of presence of Bangladeshi
illegal immigrants in India and the accompanying security connotations
in the President’s address to Parliament reflects BJP-led NDA Government’s
concern on the issue. Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani has
come out with his tough stand on the issue of deporting Bangladeshi immigrants
staying in the country illegally while addressing the Delhi Police’s Raising
Day celebrations on February 16. .....
Christian missionaries first rode
to the remote town of Jashpur on horseback 150 years ago, educating the
poor and converting them in their thousands. .....
The real India is waking up to
a new, historical reality. This awakening is a result of the unfolding
of a mighty creative genius of millions of unknown Indians whose names
are not known and whose lives are nothing special to remember otherwise.
It is they who can metaphorically be descried as the "Real Bharat". .....
Belief in religion is and should
remain a private and personal affair. When it crosses the four walls of
the house or place of worship, and becomes a public issue, it will be the
singlemost important rootcause for all violence, terrorism and strife,
said Justice K.P. Sivasubramaniam of the Madras High Court. .....
G. Madhusudan (BJP) today criticised
the Minister of State for Primary and Secondary Education, B.K. Chandrashekar,
in the Legislative Council for his "misplaced secularism" and objection
to words such as `prakritidevi' for nature, and the description of the
ancient Nalanda University as "excellent" in high school textbooks. .....
About a dozen Islamic terrorist
groups are operating in Bangladesh, with some of them training youths in
armed combat, news reports said on Friday. .....
The state government has asked
the Centre to amend the Foreign Registration Act to make it easier to detect
and deport illegal foreign nationals, chief minister Sushil kumar Shinde
said on Tuesday. .....
The brother-in-law of alleged terrorist
co-conspirator Sami al-Arian attended engineering classes at the same college
and time as the suspected mastermind behind the Sept. 11 terror plot, records
at the North Carolina college show. .....
A Muslim militant group named Jesh
Ahle-i-Alqiblat Al Jihadi Alsari Al Alami based at Peshawar, the capital
city of NWFP, a border province to Afghanistan, distributed a pamphlet
on January 10, 2003 to call on Christians in Pakistan for conversion to
Islam and those who refuse may be killed. .....
Born on September 11, 1950, at
Sangli in Maharashtra, Bhagwat belongs to an old RSS family that
originally hailed from Chandrapur village near Nagpur. A graduate in veterinary
sciences, he became an RSS pracharak in 1974. He has rapidly risen through
the RSS ranks, having been all India sharirik pramukh (head of physical
training) and all India pracharak pramukh (head of all RSS fulltimers)
in the nineties, before assuming the post of sarkaryavaha in March 2000.
.....
Q.: The RSS has infused young blood
in its executive. What’s behind it?
A.: This is not a new thing. Right
from Hedgewar’s time, the RSS has been grooming young people to handle
future challenges. This time, however, our seniors themselves have opted
out because of age and such factors. Also, the organisation is growing
very fast and a lot of running around is needed. We have reached about
30-40 per cent of the revenue blocks in the country. Our aim is to reach
100 per cent by year 2006, the birth centenary year of Guruji Golwalkar.
That also explains the size of the executive. While the seniors can help
us with their their expertise, the young ones can take up the strenuous
part with agility. .....
Mohan Madhukarrao Bhagwat, re-
elected Sarkaryavaha (general secretary) of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS) at the all India Pratinidhi Sabha of the organisation in Nagpur last
week, bears a ‘‘striking resemblance’’ to ‘‘Doctor Saheb’’, many a RSS
worker gushingly insist. Doctor Saheb, of course, refers to Keshav Baliram
Hedgewar, who founded the organisation in 1925 and became its first sarsanghchalak.
.....
For the past several days I have
been in the spotlight for protesting against Pakistani artistes performing
in India. Instead of supporting a patriot and a nationalist, a section
of the media has accused me of being jealous of the success of my Pakistani
rivals. .....
Saudi Arabia, as the birthplace
of Islam, will not allow churches to be built on its land regardless of
the outcry from "fanatics," according to Defense Minister Prince Sultan.
.....
It was an unusual expose; those
turned in were neither common thieves nor wily dons but members of
the fourth estate. Rishi Paman Chopra, 31, of The Economic Times and Thomas
Josef Priju, 28, of Satyam Infoway were arrested in the lobby of a south
Mumbai five-star hotel on February 17, following a complaint of extortion
filed by a Malegaon-based share broker Punamchand Prithviraj Malu. .....
Prabandha Chintamani, a Jain scripture
records, that the famous Raja Bhoj of Parmaar dynasty got constructed the
Bhojshala temple at Dhaar, Madhya Pradesh, in 1034 AD for worshipping Goddesses
Saraswati. The temple served as a center of Hindu philosophy and Sanskrit
language, and a great residential university. .....
Following the recent drubbing in
Gujarat and the chaos in other states, the Congress is supposed to be advocating
something called ‘soft Hindutva’. An example of it is the recent announcement
by the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh that he fortifies himself
with a daily drink of cow’s urine. .....
Why have the pro-Babri masjid lobbies
not welcomed the expediting of the case? They have opposed the Government
of India's plea to the Supreme Court to hear the case at the earliest.
They have even more vehemently resisted the Allahabad High Court order
that the truth should be discovered through excavation. Why? .....
Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence
(ISI) agency, it seems, is doing a good job of establishing contact with
Indian Army personnel and extracting "sensitive information" from them.
.....
The bomb blast on the suburban
train in Mumbai on March 13, ten years and one day after the 1993 bombings
in Mumbai, has again focussed attention on the shadowy war the two countries
have been fighting for over two decades. .....
As the hunt for Osama bin Laden
expanded to include the rugged northern region near Peshawar, US officials
are 'concerned' that Pakistan's ISI is leaking information to the al- Qaeda
terror network about pending raids on his suspected hideouts, media reported
on Friday. .....
A possible tragedy was averted
in New Delhi on Friday with timely detection of six bombs at the New Delhi
Railway Station, a day after a bomb blast wrecked destruction in a train
in Mumbai. .....
The doctor at Ranaghat hospital
who had said in a medical report that women were “raped” by the dacoits
in Dhantola was found murdered on February 27, the Indian Medical Association’s
Calcutta chapter said today. .....
When terrorists of Osama bin Laden's
Al Qaeda struck the US on 9/11, many counter-terrorism analysts of the
world thought of the New York World Trade Centre explosion of February
1993, and the simultaneous explosions at Mumbai on March 12,1993, in which
nearly 250 innocent civilians were killed. For the sheer audacity of conception,
these three terrorist incidents stood apart. .....
A youthful Maulana Abul Kalam Azad,
writing in his Urdu journal Al Hilal, had advised Muslims in 1913 not to
join any political party-for Islam itself was the party of Allah and its
name Hizbullah. Down the centuries, Muslims instead of joining others'
parties, he observed, had prepared for their own. Ninety years afterwards,
the same spirit manifested itself through the words of the Shahi Imam of
Delhi's Jama Masjid. .....
As if the new low in Indo-Pak relations
was not bad enough, a group of Indian singers and filmmakers have begun
striking discordant notes, questioning why the Government is rolling out
the red carpet for Pakistani singers when Indians are not welcome across
the border. .....
The VHP today asked ruling BJP
and the main opposition. Congress, to clarify their stand on enacting a
legislation for the construction of Ram temple at disputed site in Ayodhya.
.....
Shah Wali Ullahs (1703-1762) was
a great Muslim thinker of eighteenth century. His time was one of the most
emotional chapters of Islamic revivalist movements in Indian subcontinent.
The on going Hindu-Muslim communal controversy in contemporary India is
deeply rooted to his political Islamic theory. .....
The fear of Bhavnagar in Saurashtra
turning into a nursery for radical Islamists grows as the role of madarsas
in the region comes under a scanner. .....
A leading airport-security firm
under fire for hiring foreigners was pressured by the federal government
two-and- a-half years ago to rehire Arab non-citizens. .....
American policymakers often display
a suspicious attitude toward India, but Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
apparently wants to outdo all of his predecessors. None of them managed
to group democratic India with the likes of Iran and North Korea. But Rumsfeld
did, according to the Daily Telegraph. .....
Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid
Mehmood Kasuri's statement that his country could defend itself if it was
the next US target after Iraq is not just a simple reassurance for Pakistanis,
but also a subtle threat to the US, according to a leading US strategic
analysis group. .....
A few years ago, a leading national
daily published the story of how a survey of frequent flyers from Orissa
threw up a real surprise. Most of those who regularly flew in and out of
Bhubaneshwar were not politicians or industrialists but, hold your breath,
NGO officials. And therein lies a tale. .....
The cleansing of pigeons from Trafalgar
Square, despite them being the biggest tourist attraction, was the first
initiative of Mayor Ken Livingston. He was reviled and accused of inhuman
behaviour, and many protests led by peers and MPs were held. .....
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
Sarsanghchalak Shri K. S. Sudarshan’s weeklong visit in West Bengal has
evoked sharp reactions from media in the State. While the State Chief Minister,
Buddhadev Bhattacharya, described the respected Sarsanghchalak as “unwanted
guest”, media warned the Left not to be complacent about the emergence
of a “new force wearing khaki shorts and black caps in the red bastion”.
.....
The Government of Tamil Nadu has
recently promulgated an Ordinance banning conversions by use of “force,
allurement or fraudulent means”. Ever since the Ordinance was promulgated
there has been a lot of commotion and restlessness in the Christian missionary
leadership. A few days ago, Minority Gospel Rights Protection Forum in
Simmakkal, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, has brought out a booklet in Tamil captioned
Approach to Combat Anti-Conversion Law. .....
The Union Government has, at last
long, appears to have woken up to its moral and political responsibility
to remove hurdles in the handing over of “undisputed” land adjoining the
makeshift temple at Ayodhya. The Narasimha Rao Government acquired the
land belonging to the Sri Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas after the demolition of
the disputed structure. The first step in this direction was taken on Centre’s
behalf by the Solicitor General, Kirit Rawal. .....
The problems of security and development
have been with us ever since humans learned to live in organised society.
The two are inseparably inter-related. One cannot think of development
without security, nor security without development. .....
About ten years ago, a Dhaka weekly
newspaper had made a futuristic assessment of the population problem of
Bangladesh stating that the population of Bangladesh would reach 15 crore,
out of which five crore would be encouraged to cross into India and then
the remaining 10 crore would be able to live happily thereafter. .....
The Chief Minister of West Bengal,
Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, “apologised” on January 23, 2003, on behalf of
the Communists, ostensibly to the people of India, for calling names to
Subhas Chandra Bose at the time he was organising the people of Indian
origin in South-East Asia including Indian prisoners of war captured by
the Japanese and setting up the Azad Hind Fauj for liberating India from
the British yoke. .....
I had been an editor of a Marathi
daily for about 17 years and I came across hundreds of letters, criticising
our viewpoint. It was our policy to publish as many letters as possible
with preference to those letters that criticised us. My associates and
I never thought that we were the last prophets and that our words and opinions
were the final truth. We always believed that there could be another point
of view also, possibly of equal validity. .....
Kerala has always acted in the
opposite of national political currents. When the whole nation voted out
Indira Gandhi in 1977, it gave all the 20 Lok Sabha seats to the Congress.
Similarly, when communism has been swept out all over the globe, Kerala
is a State that is maintaining it on life support ventilator. .....
“Vanvasis form an integral part
of the Hindu society. They have the exclusive ownership right over forests
and lands. It is their responsibility to strengthen the cultural heritage
by worshiping nature and protecting the forests,” said the Sarsanghchalak
of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Shri K.S. Sudarshan. He was addressing
a mammoth gathering of Vanvasis assembled at the All Kerala Vanvasi Sangamam
held in the premises of the historic Mananthavadi Valliyoorkavu temple
in Wayanad district of Kerala. .....
Chief Election Commissioner (CEC),
J.M. Lyngdoh, is misusing his constitutional position and crossing all
limits and thus causing damage to the country’s democratic polity. He is
taking decisions that can be legitimately dismissed with a shake of head
as politically motivated, partisan and highly discriminatory and outrageous.
.....
The Congress and the government
run by it appear to be determined not to learn lessons from History. Worse
still, it seems to be itching to commit same blunders it committed in the
past, which have brought it to the present position in national politics.
.....
Following Pope John Paul II’s call
for harvesting souls in Asia, thousands of Evangelist and gospel churches
with armies of pastors have sprung up all over Kerala promising to deliver
the Hindus from the evil grip of Satan to the heavenly kingdom of Jesus
Christ. Armed with crores of dollars from their overseas donors, these
professional cross vendors are marketing Jesus as an elixir for all the
ills of society. .....
Unlike their English-language dailies
that did not bother to investigate the case and were content with spreading
lies handed out by the Church, several Malayalam newspapers did their homework.
These dailies and magazines have brought to light facts that show sex-starved
pastors,operating in tribal areas of Kerala,are no different from their
spiritual brothers manning Churches in the West. .....
Taken from chapter "Social stratification
among Muslims in India" by Zarina Bhatty from the book "Caste --
its twentieth century avatar" by M N Srinivas, Viking, New Delhi, 1996,
pp 249 - 253. .....
Mayerdak (www.mayerdak.com) is
a newspaper brough out by the Hindu reactionaries in West Bengal. Its printed
version (printed in Bangla and English) has a circulation of approximately
20,000 prints and is becoming vastly popular among the semi-urban masses
especially those living in the border regions with Bangladesh. .....
Dr Pravin Togadia comes from the
noble profession of healing and professes to be a believer in the nobler
ideas of Hinduism. Yet, he would not pause for a moment before making uncharitable
remarks against Islam and Muslims. .....
It is a reserve army, tailor-made
for the operations of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) of Pakistan
- an indigent migrant population harbouring little or no loyalty to the
host country. .....
There's something about election
fever -- in Kerala, at least, it affects even the Church, leaving the Marxists-led
ruling Left Democratic Front and the Congress-led opposition, the United
Democratic Front, with no alternative but to sing to the tunes of the Christian
establishment. .....
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? .....
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, whether
one agrees with him or not, is undoubtedly an important and dominating
figure in the history of India; and not only the contemporary but the future
history also. He has molded the minds of several generations of Indians
and founded a dynasty -- a dynasty in a democracy -- and left a legacy
that still haunts India. .....
While the writings and sayings
of American and other Western scholars about our relations with Pakistan
get widespread and prominent coverage in our media, we sadly seem to neglect
the views of our own scholars on such subjects. I was saddened when the
comments made by one of our most distinguished scholars on international
relations, Professor Satish Kumar, on "Reassessing Pakistan as a long-term
strategic threat" on March 3 before a distinguished gathering in New Delhi
was largely ignored by our media. .....
The exodus of Christians from the
Holy Land is prompting more and more Christian women to marry Muslims.
.....
Your distinguished columnist Shafqat
Tanvir Mirza's review of the book Maharaja Porus (Feb 7) notes with regret
that like many others, Porus was not given due recognition for his resistance
to the foreign invader, Alexander. We, in Pakistan, have a tendency to
favour the second-rate and denigrate and ignore the true and the illustrious.
.....
What are the first names that come
to mind when asked to name members of the CPI-M? Jyoti Basu, Harkishen
Singh Surjeet, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, possibly Somnath Chatterjee or E
K Nayanar. Those with long memories may be moved to name names from the
past such as E M S Namboodaripad. .....
“Party first” is a dangerous doctrine
that mocks the rule of law. But Mr Anil Biswas, the secretary of the West
Bengal unit of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), has once again shown
that he firmly believes in the doctrine. His attempt to defend party activists
allegedly involved in a rape in Cooch Behar is not just irresponsible;
the manner in which he has done so makes it particularly revolting. .....
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad today
warned Muslims that it would launch a nationwide agitation for “reclamation”
of the 30,000 temples that were “converted” into mosques if they do not
“reconsider” their statements or “change their mindset” on the Ramjanmabhoomi
issue. .....
In what appeared to be the first
signs of a rift in the ruling Left Front over the Chheramari gangrape,
agriculture minister Kamal Guha today slammed Anil Biswas for casting aspersion
on the victim, saying the CPM state secretary’s remarks would “encourage
the hoodlums”. .....
The Congress and the Left parties
used sheer lung power today to foil a BJP attempt to sneak in a non-official
resolution in the Lok Sabha seeking a legislative ban on cow slaughter
nationwide. .....
A quiet but dramatic transformation
seems to be taking place in the discourse in the Pakistani press and civil
society on Islamabad’s India policy in general, and Kashmir in particular.
Even the right-wing combine of religious parties, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal,
has, in its manifesto, sought a dialogue with India on the basis of the
Shimla Accord. .....
The Minister of State for Primary
Education, B.K.Chandrashekar, today told the Legislative Council that a
committee of experts had been constituted to go into social science textbooks
up to Standard 10, which created confusion in the minds of students about
history. .....
The Jammu and Kashmir High Court
has directed the authorities concerned to grant benefits to refugees from
Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) similar to those being provided to other
displaced persons in the country. .....
From the walls of Shambhunath Jha’s
house, plastered posters vie for attention. But the one that catches the
eye is a conversation chart that goes something like this: ‘‘Welcome. Please
sit down. Would you like some water? Nice to meet you. See you again. Goodbye.’’
.....
In this organised mess of pintsized
hutments, here in Muthi outside Jammu town where some 490 migrant Kashmiri
Pandit families huddle, Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's word --
especially one that promises to take them home -- counts for naught. .....
You are born in a place. You spend
a good part of your life in the lanes and by-lanes of this place. You inherit
a great culture from the people of this place. You identify yourself with
its land, its air, its trees, its rivers, its mountains, its temples, its
shrines, and its way of life. You are planning for the rest of your life
in that place. .....
Dr Pravin Togadia comes from the
noble profession of healing and professes to be a believer in the nobler
ideas of Hinduism. Yet, he would not pause for a moment before making uncharitable
remarks against Islam and Muslims. .....
The usual discordant noises are
coming out of India. Investors are getting nervous about the impact of
high-priced oil on the economy: The Bombay index is off 3% so far this
year. The opposition is assailing the ruling BJP's budget for its attempt
to rein in subsidies. Farmers are praying for a better monsoon. Poor rains
last year kept GDP growth to 4.4%, well below archrival China's 7.8%. .....
The principal aim of the 1948 Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was to create a framework for a universal
code based on mutual consent. The early years of the United Nations were
overshadowed by the division between the Western and Communist conceptions
of human rights, although neither side called into question the concept
of universality. .....
On June 7, 1985, the British Parliament
adjourned its proceedings for an extraordinary reason. MPs paid tributes
to a person once the empire classified as its deadly enemy -Swatantryaveer
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883-1966). They converged at the auditorium
in the Westminster's Annexe where a documentary on Savarkar by Prem Vaidya
(adjudged the best Filmfare documentary for 1983) was scre-ened. .....
What is the real nature of the
Muslim Students' Association of the U.S. and Canada (MSA)? This octopus-like
entity has infiltrated numerous college and university campuses in North
America, and has taken the lead in corralling young Muslims to defend the
fascist dictator Saddam Hussein. .....
One of the clearest signs of the
growing blind hostility to Israel and Jews of so much of the world's media
is the increasing trend to label Palestinians' atrocities, such as the
exploding of the bus full of children in Haifa a few days ago, as "Palestinian
resistance." The PLO and its amen choruses routinely explain away such
mass murders of Jewish children and other civilians as "Palestinian resistance",
but so do the BBC and many other establishment media outfits. .....
This is a tale of two news stories.
They both pertain to Islam and culture clash in the post-9/11 world, but
they take place in parallel universes: the first in a world where hard
facts are prized like battle stars, the second in a milieu where reality's
sharper edges require plenty of padding. .....
A petition challenging the 'Z-plus'
security provided to VHP leader Praveen Togadia was on Monday dismissed
by the Delhi High Court after the government informed the court that it
has been given as per the guidelines. .....
Major communal violence broke out
after miscreants pelted stones yesterday at the victory procession carried
out to mark India’s win over Pakistan at the World Cup in the sensitive
K G Halli and D J Halli areas in the City. .....
Dressed like boy rappers, four
young women scurry toward their apartment tower home, and try not to think
about the 17- year-old girl burned to death in a nearby garbage depot by
a local teenage boy. .....
The investigation into the Godhra
carnage, which took place exactly a year ago, is entering a crucial stage
and the Gujarat police may seek the assistance of the Central Bureau of
Investigation to solve the case. .....
At least 12 policemen and as many
people were injured and several vehicles and shops were damaged in communal
violence that erupted in the sensitive Anepalya and Neelasandra areas in
the City tonight. .....
The sacred Jewish site regarded
as the grave of the biblical patriarch Joseph has been turned into a pile
of rubble by Arab vandals, according to Israeli officials. .....
Claming that surveys ordered by
the Allahabad court have discovered ruins of a temple at the disputed site,
senior Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader, Ashok Singhal threatened that the
two-day dharamsansad starting from Saturday would be taking "unprecedented
and hard decisions" on the Ayodhya issue. .....
The spreading violence in Malwa
region and the fear of an electoral backlash in the coming Assembly poll
compelled Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh on Friday to partially
surrender to the demand of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Hindu Jagran Manch
over the restoration of Hindu rights of worship at the Bhojshala in Dhar
district. .....
I was raised in Tamilnadu in South
India, in the ashram of Sri Ramana Maharishi, of an English father and
a Polish mother. Both were dedicated followers of Sri Ramana Maharishi.
Therefore as a child growing up in the small town of Tiruvannamalai, Tamilnadu,
I was fluent in Tamil and was surrounded by Indians who were proud of their
nationality and heritage, and believed they had a lot to teach us Europeans.
.....
It is not easy to be an Indian
living abroad: Not only one has to retain one's Indian-ness while coping
with the West's positive and less positive aspects which creep into one's
life, but one is also subjected to the humiliation of seeing one's own
countrymen spit on India in mainstream foreign newspapers and television.
Recently, the Gujarat riots and the IDRF episode have been used by a few
Indian academics/scholars/ writers, particularly in the United States,
to demean India and Hindus. .....
A god who was once a king on earth,
a king who is also God, may soon win judicial reprieve and mercifully end
centuries of bloody disputation over His legitimate birthplace. The March
5 order of the Allahabad High Court directing the Archaeological Survey
of India (ASI) to excavate the disputed site at Ayodhya and determine whether
or not a temple could be adjudged to have pre-existed the Babri Masjid
there and submit its report by March 24, is as sudden as it is unexpected.
.....
The so-called human shields who
offered to make themselves targets of U.S. bombs, artillery or rifles
have been described as useful idiots - they are not - they are stupid
idiots. .....
Wednesday morning I called Ibrahim
Hooper of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). Last week Hooper
and I had words on MSNBC's Nachman show about the propriety of the FBI
investigating mosques, and I wanted to get his reaction to new allegations
that the al-Farooq mosque in Brooklyn has been a chief source of funding
for al-Qaeda. .....
As a high-profile American-Arab
conservative activist on the Arizona State campus (many of whose anti-leftist
antics are documented in FrontpageMag archives), I have come to expect
a fair amount of exceptionally cruel personal attacks. Left-wingers opposed
my efforts on behalf of the American flag and the conservative movement.
Almost inevitably members of the various campus leftist groups deride me
as a "race traitor." .....
On Friday night, the 11th Archbishop
of Sydney, Peter Jensen, installed his brother, the Reverend Phillip Jensen,
as the 11th Dean of Sydney. To mark the occasion, the new Jensen in the
cathedral delivered a broadside attack on secularism, religious tolerance,
political correctness and the media in a 40-minute sermon which ended in
spontaneous applause from some quarters of the cathedral. .....
The people and politicians of Jammu
& Kashmir are frantically soliciting the Centre's support in favour
of their age-old demand of abrogating the World Bank- brokered September
19,1960, Indus Water Treaty (IWT), signed between India and Pakistan. They
say that the treaty has only spelt disaster for the State and ruined it
financially. .....
Unidentified men chopped to death
a farmer and raped three members of his family including his wife and sister-in-law
late Saturday night at Korompur village of Jatrapur union in Bagerhat Sadar
thana. .....
Al Farooq Mosque in Brooklyn, a
six-story converted factory trimmed in orange and gold, has been many things
to many people during its life: a mystery, a noisy neighbor, a source of
suspicion, and, for thousands of Muslims who live or work along Atlantic
Avenue, the main street of Arab Brooklyn, a place of worship. .....
The Lucknow Bench of the Uttar
Pradesh High Court has directed the Archaeological Survey of India to excavate
in the disputed site at Ayodhya to determine whether the Babri Masjid was
built after demolishing a temple that was already. This is a welcome development,
for we will soon have a scientific investigation of the claims and counterclaims
in full public view and under official direction. .....
A woman member of the Ganatantrik
Mahila Samiti — the CPI(M)’s women wing — was gangraped recently allegedly
by her own party supporters at Mathabhanga in Coochbehar district of West
Bengal. .....
The Archaeological Survey of India
(ASI) Vadodara circle, has unearthed 160 ancient seals, with the Brahmi
script inscribed on them, from the Hatab excavation site, located some
20 km south of Bhavnagar. The seals are said to be 2000 years old and were
probably used to stamp goods that were to be exported. .....
A year-long campaign by conservative
Christian groups, secularists and Leftists in the US, many of them of Indian
origin, to put India in the dock over last year’s Gujarat riots has flopped.
.....
Was he a true freedom fighter or
did he ask the British for mercy? Was he involved in the assassination
of Mahatma Gandhi? These two questions rocked Parliament as the ruling
National Democratic Alliance unveiled Swantantraveer Vinayak Damodar Savarkar's
portrait near Mahatma Gandhi's portrait in Parliament House. .....
This meeting of the ABPS strongly
condemns the efforts of certain political parties and pseudo-intellectuals
to demean and denigrate the contributions of a great patriot Swatantrya
Veer Vinayak Damodar Savarkar by opposing the unveiling of his portrait
in the Central Hall of the Parliament and issuing statements berating his
struggles and sacrifices. This is not just an affront to that great leader
but also an insult to the entire freedom struggle. .....
The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad
High Court deserves to be congratulated for ordering the Archaeological
Survey of India (ASI) on Wednesday to excavate the disputed site in Ayodhya
to ascertain whether a temple existed underneath the demolished Babri Masjid.
It has adopted a rational approach which seeks archaeololgical evidence,
gathered with the help of sophisticated technology, on which to base its
verdict. .....
Attempt to use your mobile telephone
on a Sydney to Brisbane flight, and the most you could expect to receive
would be a stern dressing down from a Qantas attendant. .....
An FBI counter-terrorism agent
claims he is being silenced by his agency to cover up its mishandling of
a pre-Sept. 11 probe into alleged supporters of Osama bin Laden. .....
Terrorists and their supporters
are doing their best to weave themselves into the political fabric of American
society, say specialists in homeland security. They are operating front
groups and charities to finance their operations, and they are running
influence operations to weaken federal antiterrorism laws under the guise
of protecting civil liberties. .....
I am an aware, Kashmiri Muslim
woman and a responsible member of society. My husband, also a Kashmiri
Muslim, is an army officer and one among the best in our army. Since I
am a commoner, I am sure my comments would be taken as impartial and devoid
of rhetoric. .....
What was the condition of the Hindus
under Muslim rule in India? This is a very natural question, and in the
present situation of the country the inquiry has a significance of the
deepest practical importance. Every tree is judged by its fruit; and the
ideal Muslim Government of India, namely, a theocracy administered for
Allah by His agents, showed its unmistakable practical consequences in
the moral, intellectual and economic condition of the people of this vast
sub-continent when Muslim rule ended and British administration began.
.....
Every year, more than 1,000 children
of U.S. citizens are kidnapped from the United States and taken to foreign
countries by a divorced parent who does not have legal custody and is not
a U.S. citizen. One member of Congress said Friday both the U.S. State
Department and the governments of those foreign countries are blocking
efforts to bring those children home. .....
In a drive launched by the Gurgaon
police under the umbrella of Operation Alert, 78 Bangladeshi migrants have
been arrested and sent to judicial custody in last four days. Most of the
migrants were construction workers and were picked up by the police from
various jhuggi clusters. Majority of the arrested Bangladeshi nationals,
including 21 women, failed to produce any documents proving they were Indian
citizens at the time of raids conducted on March 2 and 5. .....
During the next week the government
of President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan may face an unwelcome moment
of truth on the United Nations Security Council. .....
Despite a court order restraining
on the issuance of fatwa (religious decree) in Bangladesh, lawmakers
of the alliance government of Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia continue
to propagate it, media reports said. .....
If you're a Catholic, you'll want
to get it banned. If you're an atheist, you'll be titillated by it. If
you're a truly objective journalist, you'll be shamed by it. If you're
an academician, you'll want to award it a Ph D. And if you're a self-respecting
Indian, you simply must read it so as to be shocked from stupor into reality.
.....
The beef battle nearly came to
a head today when Uma Bharti "stormed" a gaushala inauguration and challenged
Digvijay Singh to prove his cow credentials. .....
In an online poll last year asking
voters to give their opinions on which would be the first European country
to adopt sharia law, France seemed like a shoo-in. After all, it is within
35 years of having Muslim majority – given the respective birthrates of
Muslims and the indigenous population – and has a problem with both legal
and illegal immigration from Muslim countries. .....
A section of Muslims in Bihar are
up in arms against the more affluent and powerful section of Muslims for
denying them entry into graveyards on the grounds of lower caste status.
.....
There are two giants in Asia -
China and India. And when the two are compared, India always comes out
unfavourably. Look at the statistics: China gets over US $40 billion as
foreign direct investment, while India gets only $2 billion. China had
an export turnover of $322 billion in 2002, while India's will not exceed
$40 billion in 2002-03. China's official defence budget in 2000 was $14.5
billion. In 2001 it was $17.05 billion. .....
Pakistani President General Pervez
Musharraf can go to any lengths to attract headlines. He can lie, deceive
and engineer facts to broadcast his sound byte and popularise his mugshot.
The latest display of his histrionic talents was in full flow at the Non-Aligned
Movement summit in Kuala Lumpur last month. Unprovoked, as always, the
General left all diplomatic niceties behind and held forth on a purely
illusory point of conflict that his country had been nursing against India.
.....
Pakistan has become the new command
centre for Al-Qaeda and poses a greater national security threat to the
US than Iraq, according to a report by a leading American think tank which
said Islamabad should be warned that the US-led war against terror could
spread even to its territory. .....
Not everyone in Nagoke, a small
hamlet on the Indo-Pakistan border of Punjab's Amritsar district, is happy
with the new village church. .....
Just a few days back, the Aurangabad
Bench of Mumbai High Court decreed that a divorcee woman is entitled to
maintenance from her former husband. A section of the community pronounced
the judgement was an attack on Shariat in a grim reminder of the harsh
reality that women, Muslim women in particular, do not belong in the 'global
village' and that they are confined to the traditional ghetto. .....
With two days to go before the
Supreme Court takes up the crucial hearing on the Ayodhya issue, deep cracks
have appeared between Muslim organisations. The Islamic Council of India,
an umbrella body of Muslim clerics, has urged Prime Minister Atal Bihari
Vajpayee to allow Hindus to begin religious activities on the undisputed
land at the Ramjanmabhoomi site in Ayodhya. .....
A West Yorkshire head teacher has
banned books containing stories about pigs from the classroom in case they
offend Muslim children. .....
In a dramatic twist of events,
the American FBI is reported to have arrested a serving Major of Pakistan
Army. According to reports, FBI with the help of Pakistani agencies arrested
on Sunday the uncle of Abdul Quddus – Adil Quddus of 45-Signals Corps from
his residence at Sheikhan Road in Kohat Cantt. .....
Reports of large-scale violence
by ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist cadres against Congress and
Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura supporters has taken the shine
off the Left Front's impressive victory in the just concluded assembly
election in Tripura. .....
After stalling to get a good deal,
Turkey is ready to host over 60,000 American soldiers for the imminent
American war against Iraq. This despite the fact that Islamists dominate
Turkey's government and Parliament, and most Turks are opposed to the war.
So much for morality, international justice, and even populism versus plain,
cold-blooded national interests. .....
A veteran leader of the Forward
Bloc, a constituent of West Bengal's ruling Left Front, on Monday criticised
India's communist and socialist parties for not supporting Netaji Subhas
Chandra Bose in the Freedom Struggle and claimed that if they had, the
country's partition could have been avoided. .....
Ever since the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) headed coalition came to power in Delhi, "rewriting of history"
has been a contentious issue. For over four decades, Marxist historians
have dominated writing of history books. They now assert the BJP is rewriting
history. They accuse the BJP (and the Sangh parivar) of transforming "popular
understandings of Indian history by changing the content and manner of
history teaching at the level of schools and colleges so as to accord with
its own Hindutva version of that history". .....
A group of scholars and other professionals
under the name of Friends of India has released a report rebutting the
charges laid against the India Development and Relief Fund that it is funneling
funds to communal forces in India. .....
India has claimed it at every turn,
the jihadi press has boasted about it and the Americans have said it repeatedly.
Now a former Lieutenant General of Pakistan Army, one of Pakistan's few
"thinking generals", is saying much the same: cross-border infiltration
into Indian-administered Kashmir is continuing, feverish denials of the
government notwithstanding. .....
Tomorrow will mark the first anniversary
of the day the world learned of the murder of my son Daniel Pearl, a reporter
for this newspaper. It is time to step back and reflect on the significance
of this tragedy. .....
In an ideal world our guardians
of law and order would follow the ''Chaminda Vaas Manual on Dealing with
Bangladeshi Pretenders'', namely: Knock 'em over, and send them back! Alas,
for decades it seems they have been anticipating the ''Captain Clueless
Rulebook' (scripted by the erstwhile ''Prince of Kolkata''), to wit: Grab
the endorsements, and go to sleep... .....
Some months after the World Trade
Center attack and the Gujarat massacre, a Muslim friend told me that he
was concerned that many of his Muslim friends had sunk into a state of
resentment and despair. He said they went on endlessly about how the whole
world had turned against Islam, how Muslims were being blamed for every
crime under the sun, and how no one had come to their defence even after
the horrors of Gujarat. .....
The fundamental leftist and anti-American
claim about our ongoing conflict with political Islam is this: whatever
has happened or does happen, it’s our fault. We provoked them into it by
being dirty Yankee imperialists and by unkindly refusing to allow them
to destroy Israel. .....
No party can have a monopoly over
the interpretation of history. No, not even the constantly evolving Indian
Communists. Every word or deed has a certain context in time and space.
And it is important for its true evaluation that it be done with that relevant
context in mind. Therefore those making a great show of their opposition
to the installation of the portrait of the great revolutionary freedom
fighter, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, do themselves a great disservice. .....
It seems to be a case of much ado
about nothing as far as the cow slaughter controversy in Madhya Pradesh
is concerned. The entire issue started out when a Muslim youth was caught
red-handed slaughtering a cow in the obscure town of Ganjbasoda (Vidisha
district) on January 14, 2003. Ganjbasoda falls on the New Delhi-Nagpur-Mumbai
rail track and was never considered communally sensitive. .....
The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad
High Court deserves to be congratulated for ordering the Archaeological
Survey of India (ASI) on Wednesday to excavate the disputed site in Ayodhya
to ascertain whether a temple existed underneath the demolished Babri Masjid.
.....
In a drive launched by the Gurgaon
police under the umbrella of Operation Alert, 78 Bangladeshi migrants have
been arrested and sent to judicial custody in last four days. Most of the
migrants were construction workers and were picked up by the police from
various jhuggi clusters. Majority of the arrested Bangladeshi nationals,
including 21 women, failed to produce any documents proving they were Indian
citizens at the time of raids conducted on March 2 and 5. .....
T.N. Ninan, editor of Business
Standard has noted in a contribution to Hindustan Times (February 19),
"palming off advertising in the guise of news is about the worst sin that
you can commit in a newspaper." Ninan's two articles in Hindustan Times
should be must reading for all students of journalism for they describe
present-day reality in the newspaper world as nothing else does. .....
The Confederation of Indian Industry
(CII), which has had a running battle with the Gujarat Chief Minister,
Narendra Modi, today sought to close the chapter and work as partners for
the progress of the State. .....
If you're a Catholic, you'll want
to get it banned. If you're an atheist, you'll be titillated by it. If
you're a truly objective journalist, you'll be shamed by it. If you're
an academician, you'll want to award it a Ph D. And if you're a self-respecting
Indian, you simply must read it so as to be shocked from stupor into reality.
.....
With reference to Mr Prafull Goradia's
article, 'They dream of zimmi' (Feb 12), the purpose of imposing the zimmi's
status on those who refused to embrace Islam was two-fold. One, to humiliate
them till their resistance was broken. Two, to extract much-needed revenue.
Mr Goradia refers to the practice of spitting in the mouth of those who
paid jizya-this is a supreme example of the perverse tenets of a faith
described as peaceful not only by Muslims but also our political leadership
and the media. Enmity against all non-believers is the bedrock on which
Islam stands. .....
The cow-slaughter controversy got
murkier today as the inevitable happened. Getting offensive after being
at the receiving end over the cow-protection issue, the BJP called upon
Madhya Pradesh Chief, Minister Digvijay Singh to ask his party president
Sonia Gandhi “if she had stopped eating beef now”. .....
Hours after the state BJP welcomed
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh's proposal to the Centre for
a way out of the Bhojshala mess, the Hindu Jagran Manch (HJM) today did
a U-turn to dash hopes of an early settlement. .....
As America makes ready to invade
Iraq, the world is also preparing itself to ' absorb the shock when it
comes. AD the regional states have a strategy of coping with the consequences
of the invasion. They enjoy the sort of control over population needed
to avoid falling apart under pressure from popular passion. .....
We were all Communists at a difficult
time for the Communist Party. This was the period in the party's history
when it opposed the Quit India movement, when it characterised the war
as a people's war, participating in which was the best way for India to
fight for its freedom. .....
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re and
Bishop Cipriano Calderon, president and vice president, respectively, of
the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, highlighted this priority
in a letter sent on the occasion of the Day of Spanish-speaking America.
The event was observed today in the dioceses of Spain. .....
The man believed to be the key
planner of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 -- and several al
Qaeda attacks in the past five years -- was among three terrorism suspects
arrested in a CIA-led operation early Saturday in a house outside the Pakistani
capital. .....
The police and FBI are at a loss
why a fire bomb was thrown at the Hindu temple in St Louis, Missouri, on
the night of February 22. "It seemed to be a crude bomb or Molotov cocktail,
which set fire to the front door of the temple," Krishna Reddy, president
of the temple trustee board, said. .....
Most Americans now recognize that
the great evil facing the world today is the evil of terrorism. In
order to defeat terrorism, we must also fight against the largest supporters
of terrorism, radical Islam. Proponents of radical Islam must be
rejected in their entirety, unless they categorically and unambiguously
reject all forms of terrorism. .....
The government is worried whether
the visit of the European Parliament delegation is aimed to justify the
"unilateral" resolution taken on Bangladesh or to get a true picture of
the events here. .....
Members of the National Commission
for Women, here to investigate the February 6 incident in which passengers
of two buses were looted and the women allegedly raped by miscreants connected
with the local CPM, expressed unhappiness over the role played by police.
.....
Union Minister for Culture and
Tourism Jagmohan has asked Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh
to allow both Hindus and Muslims to visit Bhojshala in Dhar district —
where a temple and a mosque exist side by side — on all days. He conveyed
this in a letter to the CM on February 26. .....
On Saturday, India will play Pakistan
in the cricket World Cup in South Africa -- the first time they have played
each other in three long years, thanks to the Indian government's refusal
(correct, in my view) to permit sporting links with a country that promotes
cross-border terrorism against Indian territory. But that is another story.
.....
During the three-week visit of
the Pakistan foreign minister here, US administration officials “down the
line” minced no words as to how they felt about what they saw as Pakistan’s
lack of commitment to ending cross-border activity in held Kashmir, its
tolerance of home-grown terrorist groups and its links with North Korea.
.....
A seminar on 'Illegal Migration
from Bangladesh' organised recently in Guwahati by the Astha Bharati, a
Delhi-based NGO which focuses on problems of the north-east, brought on
the surface the acute sense of concern and feeling of suppressed anger
which the Assamese have on the issue. .....
The BJP-ruled government in Gujarat
has reiterated its resolve to bring in a legislation to control religious
conversions. Chief Minister Narendra Modi had released the BJP's election
manifesto on December 1 with the promise that a law would be introduced
to check conversions if the party returned to power. The state party chief,
Rajendrasinh Rana, was present. .....
Scots-based supporters of an Islamic
militant on trial for soliciting the murder of Americans attempted to undermine
his Old Bailey trial by offering the judge £50,000 in cash, it emerged
yesterday. .....
Madhya Pradesh BJP today said it
favoured restoring the conditions that prevailed for Hindu's before 1995
at the Bhojshala in Dhar district of the state. .....
Ejaz Pathan (49), the serial blasts
accused who was deported from Dubai on Wednesday, has told the CBI that
Dawood Ibrahim has several moles in the Mumbai police, including an inspector
who has several encounter killings under his belt. .....
Bangladesh Christian Association
today denied its connection with so-called Hindu-Bouddha-Christian Unity
Council (BHBCUC) that has launched a vicious campaign abroad against the
country. .....
Underneath Majida Rizvi's grandmotherly
veneer, is the heart of a revolutionary. Not long ago, the former Pakistani
court justice cast a direct challenge to religious conservatives, saying
they needed to restudy the Holy Koran to find out just what the prophet
Muhammad said about the rights of women. In a society where the small-but-vocal
religious parties are rarely challenged, it was a bold move. .....
The real damage to the struggle
for secularism in India has been caused and is being caused by those who
claim to be secular but have no compunctions in forming alliances with
the very elements that they claim to fight. .....
A Muslim cleric who allegedly toured
Britain for four years urging audiences to observe the teachings of Osama
bin Laden and who prosecutors allege instructed his audiences to kill all
Jews, Hindus and Westerners by any means available, is on trial in London
on five counts of soliciting to commit murder and inciting racial hatred,
a charge he adamantly denies. .....
A veteran leader of the Forward
Bloc, a constituent of West Bengal's ruling Left Front, on Monday criticised
India's communist and socialist parties for not supporting Netaji Subhas
Chandra Bose in the Freedom Struggle and claimed that if they had, the
country's partition could have been avoided. .....
About ten days ago, my colleague
Aditya Sinha had an idea. Anti-war demonstrators were gathering in all
the great cities of the Western world. .....
The BJP has no intention to ‘‘dump’’
the NDA agenda and go back to its own core agenda but if the Congress backs
a ban on cow slaughter and supports a legislation in favour of a uniform
civil code, the BJP would ‘‘persuade’’ its NDA allies to agree, Deputy
Prime Minister L.K. Advani, said here today. .....
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb
Bhattacharjee recently admitted that the communists had been wrong in disparaging
Subhas Chandra Bose. .....
Ever since the Bangladesh Nationalist
Party (BNP) and its coalition partner, the fundamentalist Jamat Islamic
Oikya, wrested power from the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League, border skirmishes
assumed alarming dimensions. These even led to the killing of BSF jawans.
Infiltration increased, since the lengthy border is impossible to seal
fully. It may be recalled a 'free passage' was opened sometime ago, which
proved detrimental to our interests. .....
A nation that does not respect
itself and is negligent of its own interests forfeits others' respect and
becomes the target of its neighbours' depredations. This is India's story
of the last decade and a half. Since Indira Gandhi's demise, every government
in New Delhi has entered office with the proclamation, "We must improve
relations with our neighbours" - as if India were in the dock and its neighbours
have no responsibility in the matter. .....
No party can have a monopoly over
the interpretation of history. No, not even the constantly evolving Indian
Communists. Every word or deed has a certain context in time and space.
And it is important for its true evaluation that it be done with that relevant
context in mind. Therefore those making a great show of their opposition
to the installation of the portrait of the great revolutionary freedom
fighter, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, do themselves a great disservice. .....
It is quite normal for the tabloids
to call leaders of countries rude names, as the spat between France and
the UK over Iraq has shown lately. Arguments about right and wrong go out
of the window, as does the truth. .....
Do textbooks especially text books
on history need constant revision? Some of our Marxist historians would
probably argue that they don’t, on the theory that any textbook on history
based on a strictly Marxist interpretation stands by itself and should
be considered the last word in the matter. Under the circumstances Marxist
rage at any effort to rewrite Indian history, for example, is quite understandable.
.....
Thousands of schools will be set
up along India's borders with Nepal and Bangladesh to counter the reported
mushrooming of 'madrassas', or Islamic seminaries. .....
India did an Agra on Pakistani
President Pervez Musharraf in Kuala Lumpur on Monday, leaving the usually
well-prepared Pakistani side floundering. Stumped by the General's dramatic
breakfast diplomacy with stalwarts of the Indian media in Agra in 2001,
Indian officials lost no time in forging an aggressive counter to Gen Musharraf's
predictable Kashmir talk at the NAM Summit. .....
It would be in order to recall
what Guru Nanak said about Babur: "Babur ... has descended from Kabul and
demandeth by force the bride/ Decency and righteousness have vanished and
falsehood struts abroad./ Gone are the days of qazis and Brahmins / Satan
now conducts the nuptials". All invaders-from Mohammad bin Kasim in AD
712 to Ghazni and Ghori before Babur-perpetrated atrocities. .....
Adding a broader dimension to the
debate on cow slaughter, a prominent Muslim leader has said that the Central
law being considered by the Vajpayee government should "not be limited
only to 'non-use of beef' but should also protect those cows that wander
the streets as 'stray animals' and suffer from the eating of garbage, plastic
and other poisons". .....
Was the Dawood Ibrahim gang involved
in the communal riots in Gujarat, specially Godhra? This is the investigation
being conducted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Mumbai
police, following confessions reportedly made by an alleged narcotics smuggler
Imran Mehendi. .....
The Thane police have arrested
Shahid Ismail Nerekar and his brother Anees Ismail Nerekar for their active
involvement with the banned militant outfit, Students Islamic Movement
of India (SIMI). .....
In a move to hit the Congress in
Maharashtra, the BJP and Shiv Sena were contemplating circulating Mrs Sonia
Gandhi's letter to the President, Mr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, opposing the installation
of Veer Savarkar's portrait in Parliament. .....
This is the manual which police
recovered from Pragma Soft company in Aurangabad, which was run by some
of the Ghatkopar blast suspects. .....
Uncalled for and unnecessary controversy
over the unveiling of Veer Vinayak Damodar Savarkar's portrait in the Central
Hall of Parliament by President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam last week has deeply
hurt all patriotic Indians. It is an ungrateful nation that fails to remember
its heroes. It is not a case of not honouring our freedom fighters but
worse. Opposition parties and a section of the leftist media are denigrating
the great freedom fighter. .....
While European Union officials
praised Yasser Arafat's decision to appoint his first-ever prime minister,
historians of the Holocaust winced at the news that a leading candidate
for the job is the author of a book denying that the Nazis murdered 6 million
Jews. .....
The head of the U.N. human rights
agency said Wednesday he had asked Pakistan to review laws that discriminate
against women, particularly those which make them vulnerable to violent
crimes and murder. .....
A total 117 madrassas and maktabs
in Jammu and Kashmir are receiving foreign aid, the state assembly was
informed today. .....
In the fall of 1950 the Chinese
People's Liberation Army began its invasion and conquest of the Tibet Plateau.
Since that time, outside attention has quite properly focused on the suffering
of the Tibetan people. A million Tibetans, one person in six, died as a
result of the Communist Chinese occupation. Art, medicine, poetry, religious
teachings, music, literature, mathematics, science--the results of two
thousand years of high culture--were all destroyed in mindless waves of
political madness generated by the Chinese Communist Party. .....
A large section of Indian media
has kept quiet on the Bhojashala controversy. Let us take a peep into the
case. Prabandha Chintamani, a Jain scripture, records that the famous Raja
Bhoj of Parmar dynasty got the Bhojashala temple built at Dhaar in 1034
for worshipping Saraswati, the goddess of learning. The temple served as
a centre of Hindu philosophy and Sanskrit language, and a great residential
university. .....
“Propaganda brought us to power;
propaganda has since enabled us to remain in power and propaganda will
give us the means of conquering the world.... The task of the propagandist
is not the scientific education of everyone, but the indication to the
masses of the facts, events, necessities etc. whose significance and morality
enter into the field of interest." Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf. .....
The sunrise of February 8 cast
an unusually deep saffron at least in parts of Tiruchchirapalli. In and
around Chattram, saffron flags fluttered along the roadsides. Young people
wearing saffron T- shirts and saffron headbands walked, rather marched,
towards the National High School Ground, as if they were listening to an
invisible commander. .....
His patience running thin after
three days of hunger and humiliation, Mohammad Kamal picked up his one-year-old
son and threatened to throttle him in front of a team of officials and
journalists from Bangladesh. .....
I am an aware, Muslim Kashmiri
woman and a responsible member of society. My husband, also a Muslim Kashmiri,
is an army officer and one among the best in our army. Since I am a commoner,
I am sure my comments would be taken as impartial and devoid of rhetoric.
.....
Alleged cross-border infiltration
is the issue that refuses to die. As the foreign office churned out its
routine denials, jihadi organisations through their publications seemed
to corroborate American allegations, proudly citing instances of successful
jihadi operations organised by them in Indian-administered Kashmir. The
January issue of Voice of Islam carries the annual report of the outlawed
Lashkar-e-Taiba. .....
The indictment yesterday of the
Islamic Jihad terrorist leadership operating out of the United States since
1984 was unprecedented in scope and magnitude. With 50 counts (166 pages),
it revealed in fascinating detail the internal conversations, discussions,
planning and covert financing of one of the most murderous terrorist enterprises
in the world. It uncovered a world we never get to see: how a terrorist
enterprise was created, maintained, financed, and coordinated from the
safety of the United States. .....
September 11, 2001 was for millions
worldwide a day of sorrow, pain, and profound sadness; a day of solemn
solidarity, self-sacrifice, and prayer. For others it was a day of rejoicing,
a revengeful exultation, a long-awaited triumphalism born from the death
and suffering of thousands of innocent victims. They were saying: That'll
teach them! America deserves it and must repent! And many were asking maliciously:
.....
Binder and Harjit Mahil work with
Sikh converts at a church in Surrey, B.C. Last year, the couple were instrumental
in planting a church in India. That church's pastor, Balhar Singh, was
recently in B.C., after spending the past two months preaching to congregations
in Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary, Kamloops and Vancouver. The three recently
spoke to CC.com about their project. .....
In a snap election, the BJP Alliance
would secure 320 seats in Parliament, according to the India Today-ORG-MARG
Mood of the Nation Poll taken in January 2003. The Poll noticed that the
popular vote for the NDA may touch 42 per cent, giving the ruling coalition
a clear majority of between 310 and 320 seats. And, noted in the Poll,
if the BJP and the BSP strike a poll alliance in Uttar Pradesh, the NDA
tally may even reach 340. .....
