May Month Articles
The killing of militants and security
forces has become a routine feature in Jammu and Kashmir. But what is not
routine is the fact that the chief minister of India's most sensitive state
does not bother to attend the funerals of securitymen killed battling militancy.
Instead, he attends the funerals of terrorists slain by the security forces,
undermining the latter's morale. .....
While the media remain fixated
on the plight of Muslim prisoners in Iraq, they have largely ignored the
danger that radicalized Muslim prisoners pose here at home. .....
While the `nativity' as a criterion
for eligibility is not a legally sustainable issue, though an emotional
one on which the electorate can be swayed, other issues merit re-examination
as they appear to be germane to a political and legal debate on the eligibility
and suitability of Sonia Gandhi as Prime Minister. .....
Indians who believe White is right
may be shocked to learn that as the June 17 deadline for finalising the
European Union constitution approaches, the continent stands ruptured over
God. Europe is deeply divided over whether its constitution should include
a reference to its Christian heritage, a major impact on its history and
culture. .....
Thoughts on issues of current interest
[my comments - as an Indian citizen - within square brackets], including
instances of some double standards of our public figures, especially in
the construction of Indian identity (all those Macaulayan myths, and the
hypocrisy that is Nehruvian secularism) .....
India is shining—at least here.
A unique rainwater harvesting programme in this non-descript village launched
three summers ago has achieved what seemed impossible: weeding out the
casteism and untouchability that had been plaguing the village for years.
.....
A website, speaking on behalf of
Al-Qaeda terror network, on Monday claimed that the gunmen who stormed
a luxury apartment in Saudi Arabian city of Al-Khobar killed 10 Indians.
.....
Police in Orissa have arrested
a pastor and his associate for allegedly trying to convert Hindus to Christianity,
officials here said Sunday. .....
When, on April 26, Mehbooba Mufti
lifted the veil of a woman's burkha in an attempt to expose a bogus voter
at a polling booth in the Srinagar parliamentary constituency, the president
of the People's Democratic Party unveiled a few other issues as well, which
have remained largely concealed even from the thinking man. Below is an
enumerated exposition of these issues. .....
It is well known that no Indian
politician ever gets punished for criminal acts. See Sukh Ram. No criminal
gets punished either if he joins politics. See Shahabuddin, lodged in Siwan
jail, but re- elected to Parliament nonetheless. .....
Devi Lal, Haryana stalwart and
former Deputy Prime Minister under V P Singh, had a very earthy wisdom.
Confronted by an abstruse exercise in ideological hair-splitting before
the 1989 poll, he asked: "Who reads manifestos?" .....
Those who have Al-Qaeda connections
or deal in terrorism are relatively easy to classify, once they are found
out. The state has ways to investigate and punish illegal activities. In
September 2003, for example, Taysir Alony, a star reporter for the Al-Jazeera
television network, was arrested in Spain on charges of belonging to Al-Qaeda.
.....
Many Arabs wanting to marry a young
Hyderabadi woman or two for a price slip into the city on the pretext of
seeking medical treatment. That's how 73-year-old Mohammed Jaffer Yakub
Hasan came to be in the old Arab quarter of Barkas, where he married
three young women over a period of a few days. He is now in police custody.
.....
India faces three challenges in
Kashmir. One, to defeat the Pakistani game which seeks secession of Kashmir
on religious principle. Secondly, to defeat the local forces of Muslim
communalism and fundamentalism and lastly, to see that no group feels discriminated
against. The way the Indian state tackles the challenges in Kashmir will
have profound bearing both on Kashmir's future as a secularist society
and also as a part of India. .....
In a society where people of various
faiths live and work side by side, it is only natural that such association
should lead to strong and enduring friendships between members of the complementary
sex belonging to different faiths. .....
In a bid to control education in
Nepal, Maoist rebels are abducting hundreds of teachers from far-flung
rural areas to indoctrinate them, causing many terrorized educationists
to flee their posts. .....
You could have heard a pin drop.
After all, the event was one of awe-inspiring pomp and circumstance in
that blue-chip, Ivy League temple of higher learning--Harvard University.
Manjul Bhargava stepped up to the microphone, clad underneath his graduation
gown in his Indian kurta and pajama. .....
As each day passes, you get fresh
evidence of the arduousness of the task confronting Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh. Sonia Gandhi, who nominated him as PM in the first place, did well
to opt out considering the hazardous nature of the job keeping a coalition
of diverse and enormously ambitious elements going in a semblance of order.
.....
Otherwise a very private individual,
Sonia Gandhi made an uncharacteristic admission in a pre-election TV interview.
Her sense of duty, she said, also stemmed from the silent expectations
of all those past generations of Nehrus and Gandhis whose portraits graced
her home. Their eyes seemed to follow her, prodding her to her duties.
.....
The recent Papal contention that
there is prohibition of religious freedom in India is an allegation to
be taken seriously by the State as well as the Indian people. Addressing
the Bishops of India during their ad limina visit to the Vatican, the Pope
charged that the “free exercise of the natural right to religious freedom”
is prohibited in India. .....
The Amnesty International Report
2004 has pinpointed certain human rights abuses in Bangladesh. That includes
police excesses, attack on Hindus and Ahmadiyyas and violence against women.
.....
Floating stones of Rameshwaram
have a mythological twist to it. According to the Hindu mythological epic
Ramayana, which was supposed to have taken place over 17 million years
ago, Lord Rama and his army of monkeys used stones to build a bridge across
the Palk Strait to link Rameshwaram to Sri Lanka. .....
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on
Thursday defended the tainted Bihar biggies in his ministerial team saying
that “till they are convicted, they would be presumed to be innocent.”
.....
When the world is preparing itself
to protect its civilians from Jihadi Terrorism, Indian Govt is repealing
the Anti Terrorism act (POTA). After 1989, in just one decade, over 10,000
Army & Police jawans & over 40,000 civilians were killed by Jihadi
terrorists in J & K. Thousands of Terrorists were arrested but not
a single one was convicted due to insufficient legal provision to deal
with terrorism. Later on our Parliament was attacked and the Jihadi attackers
were convicted only due to POTA. .....
As if the tainted history-sheets
of the past were not enough, controversial Union Minister of State for
Food and Agriculture Mohammad Taslimuddin could also land in trouble for
making false declarations before the Election Commission. .....
The report is about the shocking
insensitivity of the political class in Jammu & Kashmir and in New
Delhi in failing to express their solidarity with over 30 members of our
Border Security Force and their families, who were killed by Pakistan-sponsored
terrorists through an improvised explosive device on the Jammu-Srinagar
highway on May 23. .....
Morale has plummeted in the Border
Security Force as a result of the political neglect of the victims of Sunday's
Lower Munda bombing. Twelve soldiers and 17 civilians, including six women
and children, were killed in the bombing, which targeted a bus carrying
combat troops returning home on vacation along with their families. Five
survivors are now battling for their lives in the Safdarjang Hospital in
New Delhi. .....
The Left has decided not to sign
the common minimum programme (CMP) but only endorse it if its “viewpoint
is adequately represented.” .....
Are we at that stage in our history
when Hindu-Muslim riots will henceforth become a thing of the past and
both communities will live happily at peace with each other? Cross your
fingers, but it just seems possible. In howsoever a measured way, Muslims
are coming to trust Hindus. And credit, perhaps, should be given to Prime
Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. .....
The chatter was persistent--and
alarming. In the weeks after the deadly March bombings of four commuter
trains in Madrid by al Qaeda operatives, the supersecret U.S. surveillance
network, Echelon, intercepted a number of messages from suspected terrorists
suggesting planning for a massive, multipronged assault on the United States.
.....
Police here have arrested a 73-year-old
Arab for deserting his teenage wife after spending only two days with her
and prevented him from marrying for the sixth time. .....
Key Internet service providers,
including Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited, India's largest ISP with more than
800,000 subscribers, have blocked access to a web site, www.hinduunity.org
.....
Michael Horowitz was named one
of the 10 most influential Christians of the year in 1997 by a Southern
Baptist magazine. The only catch: He's Jewish. .....
Sonia Gandhi employed most charitable
terms to explain her abrupt disengagement from Prime Ministerial race.
Yet, she stopped short of providing any precise or objective reason. She
avowedly never had a fascination for that august office; and now abided
by her ``inner voice'' or ``voice of conscience'' to stand apart. .....
National security and foreign policy
issues attracted little attention during the agonisingly long electoral
process. This was not surprising. Successive governments have adopted policies
that have enjoyed a broad national consensus. .....
President Pervez Musharraf said
yesterday that a top terror suspect responsible for several attacks in
China has been killed by Pakistani security forces in the northwestern
tribal region. .....
Next weekend, the Cincinnati Hindu
Temple will host a weekend of celebrations marking the completion of the
congregation's building. .....
So will the Special Investigating
Team (SIT) probing the Godhra train carnage be able to arrest the 45 accused
still absconding? Not without divine intervention, the team would have
you believe. That's why the SIT says that its failure to arrest the absconding
accused, despite the "best of efforts," because "it's God who ultimately
grants success." .....
The NDA has finally entered Kerala's
political firmament, hitherto dominated by either the Congress-led UDF
or the CPM-led LDF. For the first time in the state's electoral history,
the voter exercised a third political option in the figure of NDA candidate
PC Thomas, Union Minister of State for Law and Justice in the Vajpayee
Cabinet. .....
In an official church document
released Friday, the Vatican discouraged marriage between Catholics and
Muslims, especially Catholic women and Muslim men. .....
"That the PRIME MINISTER'S HOUSE
(of Rajiv Gandhi)had access to funds from abroad,I became aware of in a
very curious way.After Arun Singh was shifted from the PMO to the Ministry
of Defence,the cabinet secretary supervised the Prime Minister's special
security force in a rather loose fashion and I became associated with this.
.....
Elections to the 14th Lok Sabha
are over. The voters have given their verdict. I accept the verdict. This
evening, I submitted my resignation to respected Rashtrapatiji. India is
the worldâ?Ts largest democracy. It is always with the will of the
people that governments have been formed - and changed. .....
Thoughts on issues of current interest
[my comments - as an Indian citizen - within square brackets], including
instances of some double standards of our public figures, especially in
the construction of Indian identity (all those Macaulayan myths, and the
hypocrisy that is Nehruvian secularism) .....
Dispelling one of the most-repeated
myths with hard, cold facts As suicide bombings increase in Iraq, in Saudi
Arabia, and in Israel, more and more people have come to believe that this
tactic is a result of desperation. They see a direct link between oppression,
occupation, poverty, and humiliation on the one hand, and a willingness
to blow oneself up for the cause on the other hand. .....
The 'right' tone was, of course,
set by The New York Times, that doyen of American wisdom, when it editorially
castrated Indians opposing Sonia Gandhi as prime minister for being xenophobic
nationalists, conveniently forgetting that US law prohibits a foreign-born
citizen from becoming president. .....
Militants have carried out their
deadliest ever strike on security forces in Jammu & Kashmir a day after
Dr Manmohan Singh’s Congress-led coalition Government assumed office at
the Centre. In a landmine blast, unprecedented in 16-year-long insurgency,
a BSF vehicle has been blown up near Lower Munda on Srinagar- Jammu highway,
killing as many as 30 soldiers and their family members. .....
Iranian Muslim Amir Taheri says
his faith cannot embrace western liberalism because our notions of equality
are antithetical to the basis of Islam. .....
"Although there seem to be no myths
or folktales in which Ganesa explicitly performs oral sex, his insatiable
appetite for sweets may be interpreted as an effort to satisfy a hunger
that seems inappropriate in an otherwise ascetic disposition, a hunger
having clear erotic overtones." .....
Leading US Congressman Frank Pallone,
founder of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, has
expressed his deep concern over the persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh.
.....
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I rise
this evening to express my deep concern over the persecution of Hindus
in Bangladesh. The coalition government of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party,
BNP, which came to power on October 1, 2001, has initiated a violent campaign.
.....
In1950 the then Maharaja of Indore,
Yashwant Rao Holkar, wanted his son Richard, born of his American wife,
to succeed him as the ruler of Indore. .....
China has threatened to strip Liverpool
of its twin city status with Shanghai if officials from the British city
meet exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama next week, a report said on Sunday.
.....
There is a 'Bakul' tree just
at the entrance of Rashtrapati Bhavan to the right. It is silent
witness of all the events taking place in the closed halls of Rashtrapati
Bhavan. .....
During the counting of votes for
both the 1998 and 1999 general election, I was in the studios of Doordarshan
for two full days helping the presenters with the political and statistical
analysis of the results. Let me assure you there is no better place than
a TV studio to scrutinise both the exhilaration and the despondency of
the main political players. .....
A bomb struck a bus carrying vacationing
soldiers and their families on Sunday, killing 33 people and wounding 10
in Indian- controlled Kashmir (news - web sites), officials said, just
a day after the new Indian prime minister was sworn in. .....
Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief
Laloo Prasad Yadav has rattled the Congress with a sensational demand.
.....
We have to overcome a misunderstanding
asserted by Italian scholars that one has to be born in India to be a Hindu.
Our Sangha also hopes to spread the authentic Hindu culture among Italians
who take yoga as just a sweet gymnastic," stated Swami Yoganandagiri. His
December invitation to Hinduism Today outlined plans for a June international
conference in Milan on the controversial subject of conversion to Hinduism,
among other subjects. .....
The argument that Sikhs are not
distinct from Hindus, or simply they are Hindus will be assessed on teachings
contained in the Shri Guru Granth Sahib, certain characteristics of the
Sikhs, the Sikh Gurus, the beliefs and practices of the Sikh nobility,
and a brief comparison of ritual. The ritual aspects of the Sikh tradition
can be discussed briefly to demonstrate the Hindu origins remaining in
the scriptures. .....
May 22 2004 is Maharana Pratap
Jayanti - Jyeshtha Shuka Tritiya, 2060. Even I did not know about it till
I saw my calendar. We may or may not know about Maharana Pratap outside
of the stories we were told in our childhood, but considering the times
we are in, it is only befitting that we remember this eternal patriot who
is credited as having fought the first war of Independence. .....
The chief of Pakistan's Jamaat-e-Islami
party, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, has been refused entry into Europe as most Jewish
organizations in the region see him as a 'terrorist'. .....
The next time you introduce yourself
as "myself D Patel" to a visa officer at the US consulate, don't be surprised
if he stares at you. He might ask you to read a few paragraphs from an
American novel. Your ordeal may not end there. He will then ask you to
explain what you read, with proper grammatical inflections. .....
Israel does not figure in the Congress
document at all. As already mentioned in Part II of this series, it was
under Indira Gandhi in the late 1960s that channels of communication and
mutual security assistance with Israel were opened. .....
India's army chief said on Friday
that more than 3,000 Muslim militants were ready to slip into Indian Kashmir
from Pakistan. .....
Almost three years after armed
ultras attacked a CRPF camp on the outskirts of the national capital killing
a soldier, a Delhi court on Friday awarded death sentence to a Pakistani
national for his role in the attack. .....
The top British diplomat in Bangladesh
has been wounded in a bomb attack in the north-eastern town of Sylhet,
police have said. .....
In a gruesome incident, militants
beheaded two sons of a retired Army officer in Baramulla district of north
Kashmir Thursday, official sources said. .....
With surveillance grids and fencing
along the border ensuring a "zero infiltration syndrome", militant trainers
at the launch pads in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir are forcing the militant
groups to experiment with new ways to enter into Indian territory. .....
India goes to the polls and the
world notices. Pakistan plunges into another exercise in authoritarian
management and the world notices but through jaundiced eyes. Are we so
dumb that the comparison escapes us? .....
A two-member Bench of Supreme Court
delivered an important ver-dict on April 12 in the widely publicised Best
Bakery case of Vadodara (Gujarat). The 69-page verdict delivered by Justice
Doraiswamy Raju and Justice Arijit Pasayat was written and read out by
the latter. .....
O’Reilly. The subject was comments
Bazian had made at a left-wing rally in San Francisco on April 10, 2004,
calling for an “intifada” in the United States. .....
It is on record that 'at least
twice in the Constituent Assembly efforts were made to make a specific
mention of the principle of secularism in the Constitution. For example,
an amendment had sought to ensure that no law could be made which discriminates
between man and man on the basis of religion, or applies to adherents of
any one religion and leaves others untouched. .....
More than 100 first-generation
Hindus in the city are taking part in a new project to record their memories
of emigrating to Britain. .....
The earlier controversy as to whether
Sonia Gandhi, a naturalised citizen of India, is eligible to become the
Prime Minister of India is now followed by the question whether she can,
under our Constitution and parliamentary statutes, even be the leader of
the Opposition in Parliament, and for that matter, a Member of Parliament.
.....
It is Sonia Gandhi's latest gender
gem: ''The day I became the daughter-in- law of Indira Gandhi's house,
I became an Indian. The rest is all technical.'' By that logic, one Louis
de Raedt can be considered to have had even better credentials to be regarded
as an Indian. .....
For almost half a century, Europe
has depended on imported labor to do the kind of menial jobs its own people
don't want to do -- so much so that, today, the population of France is
almost 10 percent Muslim. .....
A statue in a Spanish cathedral
showing St James slicing the heads off Moorish invaders is to be removed
to avoid causing offence to Muslims. .....
I must admit that the taste of
humble pie eaten cold is particularly bracing to the soul. I was wrong;
no, I was comprehensively wrong about the outcome of Election 2004. Fortunately,
every other member of the chatterati, including the die-hard Old Left windbags
who are now preening, also had accepted as a fait accompli the return of
the NDA to power. But that's cold comfort. .....
It's official: the world's largest-circulated
English daily has been involved in some shady business. Exposing a long-known
trade fact, a leading Mumbai English tabloid, Mid-Day, last week published
the "rates" for purchasing editorial features in the Times of India. The
Times has not issued a denial, and the rogue rate card seems to be the
latest indicator of rotting media ethics and tolerance in India for corruption.
.....
In the last five years, 23-year-old
Prashant Chadha has battled blindness, paralysis and even death. Yet next
month he will walk into the portals of one of the world's top B-schools.
.....
With the exception of the Oklahoma
City bombing of 1995, notes Al-Qaeda authority Rohan Gunaratna, all major
terrorist attacks of the past decade in the West have been carried out
by immigrants. A closer look finds that these were not just any immigrants
but invariably from a specific background .....
Several myths perpetuated by political
strategists and media pundits have been blown apart by the astounding outcome
of the 2004 Lok Sabha polls. For instance, everyone now acknowledges the
hollow basis for glib assertions made in the past about "India Shining"
and the impossibility of a foreign born to gain acceptance as the Prime
Minister of the country. .....
The Commission sent a team to the
province, which observed the Hindus of Kalat, Mastung, Machh and Kolpur
and discovered that the Baloch and Brahui tribes kept them to do jobs (musicians,
carpenters, merchants) considered below their honour by the Muslims. .....
Sushma Swaraj expressed the deep
anguish of thousands of Indians with her threat to resign from the Rajya
Sabha if the Italian-born Sonia Gandhi seizes the country's top executive
post. Ms. Gandhi had pointedly withdrawn from the prime ministerial stakes
in the course of the election campaign in order to facilitate the rise
of a non-BJP grouping at the Centre. .....
A senior bureaucrat, who had served
Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi and is now retired, argued passionately
against Sonia Gandhi's candidature for the prime minister's post. .....
As a surprised India watches Atal
Bihari Vajpayee walk away into likely retirement, the debate over his likely
successor Sonia Gandhi has intensified. While those opposing India's first
foreign- born prime minister have been loudly stating their views, the
Congress president does have her supporters too. .....
The pollsters and political pundits
may be red faced over predictions gone awry, but TNN found that people
on the street were more blase. .....
They speak in an ever changing
code. The word for prison might be hospital. Passport becomes book, or
sometimes djellaba, the simple robe worn by men in North Africa. Explosives
is honey or sneakers. .....
There is a school of romantics
who uphold the view that the Indian electorate is so amazingly canny that
it should get honorary membership of the Mensa club for earthly geniuses.
Its unceasing ability to either quietly reject existing rulers or boisterously
endorse new claimants for governance has won it many admirers. .....
Some days ago during a discussion
on CNBC, Karan Thapar asked me, "Are you suggesting that the BJP has run
a perfect campaign?' This was in the context of my having defended the
party's decision to call an election a few months ahead of schedule. .....
Thoughts on issues of current interest
[my comments - as an Indian citizen - within square brackets], including
instances of some double standards of our public figures, especially in
the construction of Indian identity (all those Macaulayan myths, and the
hypocrisy that is Nehruvian secularism). .....
Vinayak Lohani, 26, always knew
boardroom brainstorms were not his cup of tea. In fact, long before campus
recruitment began at the Indian Institute of Management, Joka, he had found
his true calling-educating and sheltering abandoned street children. .....
The geopolitical triangle to watch
this century: India, China and the United States. The interplay of the
world's two most populous nations and the sole superpower is a strategist's
dream, complete with civilisational competition and shifting interests.
.....
Bomb blasts rocked three Buddhist
temples in Thailand 's restive Muslim-dominated south within an hour late
on Sunday, damaging the buildings but causing no injuries, police said.
.....
Congress was seriously considering
the inclusion of Samajwadi party in the coalition government led by it
at the Centre, party leader Salman Khurshid said on Saturday. .....
Missionaries are working hard to
bring salvation to tribal people in Chiang Rai's highlands. Concerned about
nefarious activities, the Thai government is quietly investigating. About
time too, many would say: missionaries are accused of destroying traditional
cultures and societies, exploiting highlanders' ignorance and spurring
conflict. .....
It is extraordinary that Mr Mulayam
Singh Yadav, who has often been endearingly addressed as Maulana, should
now face the odium of the Muslims. The provocation has been an advertisement
by the Samajwadi Party which compares his sacrifices with those of Imam
al Husayn at Karballa. On behalf of the ulema in UP, Maulana Kalbe Jawwad
has asked the party to apologise for hurting the sentiments of Muslims.
.....
Noted journalists M J Akbar and
Dilip Padgaonkar have resigned from the Ram Jethmalani-led Kashmir Committee
which was appointed by the Government to facilitate talks with seperatist
groups in Kashmir. .....
In this former industrial town
north of London, a small group of young Britons whose parents emigrated
from Pakistan after World War II have turned against their families' new
home. They say they would like to see Prime Minister Tony Blair dead or
deposed and an Islamic flag hanging outside No. 10 Downing Street. .....
India, Seen variously as a country
with massive poverty, an information technology power, and more recently
as an outsourcing destination taking away jobs, is over the next two weeks
staging the dance of democracy. .....
The University of Guyana Hindu
Society (UGHS) is scheduled to hold a symposium on April 29 and 30 on the
theme "The Message of Hinduism: Its Relevance in Conflict Ridden Times."
A release from the society said that prominent Hindu leaders would make
presentations on various sub-themes and social issues of contention at
the symposium which would be held at the Turkeyen Campus lawns. .....
Gate-crashing into a function is
a common phenomenon. But have you heard about the reverse of it: Including
popular persons in the guest list of a function without their consent?
.....
This re-count starts when I was
in Thailand in 1973 to do my post graduate studies in Engineering. The
Institution was AIT and being an international institution for post graduate
study there were students from many parts of the world, though the majority
were from the Asian countries. .....
A video posted Tuesday on an Islamic
militant Website appeared to show a group affiliated with al-Qaida beheading
an American contractor in Iraq, saying the death was revenge for the prisoner-
abuse scandal. .....
One of the last friendly faces
Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl saw before he was kidnapped and
murdered in Pakistan in 2002 was that of Asra Nomani, an American Muslim
who was a close friend and Journal colleague. .....
“Europe becomes more and more a
province of Islam, a colony of Islam.” So declares Oriana Fallaci in her
new book, La Forza della Ragione (The Force of Reason). And the famed Italian
journalist is right: Christianity’s ancient stronghold of Europe is rapidly
giving way to Islam. .....
The death sentence on a liberal
Iranian academic who was charged with blasphemy has been upheld, say agencies.
.....
Outrage at the death of a Catholic
boy forced to convert to Islam at the hands of torturous abductors has
prompted the Pakistan Catholic Bishop’s Commission of Justice and Peace,
to take up the legal case. The Christian youth died of injuries inflicted
by a teacher and students at an Islamic school. .....
Seizure of an enormous quantity
of sophisticated arms at the Chittagong port in Bangladesh is most
sensational and gravely portentous. The cache could be worth around a thousand
crore and a convoy of lorries was lined up to transport it. .....
In public meetings, professional
conferences, in interfaith discussion groups, Muslim fundamentalist leaders
frequently ask the question: "Are you a Muslim? Do you have any Islamic
religious experience? If you don't have any experience with Islam, how
can you tell me about Islamic Jihad, Koranic dictates and Islamic history?"
Everything is Islamic religious "experience so many Muslim leaders would
have us believe. .....
Director Prakash Jha's films highlight
society's underbelly. Whether it is the exploitation of women and their
eventual uprising in Mrityudand, or the realistic Gangajal, they are a
stark contrast to the fluffy kind of movies that most of Bollywood generally
churns out. .....
A Kashmiri Hindu exiled from his
home and roots, Ashok Pandit waited for years to make his first feature
film "Sheen". .....
Israel, the United States, the
European Union, India and parts of Africa, as well as Jews, Christians,
Buddhists, Hindis, Animists and many others all have a common problem.
Actually three common problems: they are all in a state of war with an
organized global entity numbering in the many millions, they refuse to
accept this reality, and they cannot even name the enemy. .....
At 39, Ramesh Ramanathan couldn't
have asked for more. As managing director of Citibank, Europe, he had scaled
the peak of a rewarding career in a short span of time. His wife Swati
was equally accomplished-a trained architect from Pratt Institute, New
York-and together they made for an enviable couple, a point that was often
talked about in the high-profile society dos that they were invariably
invited to. .....
It is indeed surprising how times
change. Once strictly taboo in the corridors of power, the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and things connected with it now have
official sanction. Well, practically so, with the Ministry of Information
and Broadcasting (I&B) of the Government of India actually funding
a 30 minute documentary on Dr Keshav Balirampant Hedgewar, the founder
of the RSS. .....
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee
on Friday evening stated that after the Kargil war, the United States had
pressurised India to give away some land to Pakistan before making peace
moves, "but we stood firm and did not give in to the American pressure".
.....
Heavy deployment of the State Reserve
Police (SRP) has been made at Cheetah Camp where around 23 persons, including
eight policemen, were injured when members belonging to two different communities
clashed for two successive days, yesterday. .....
Kalia in the district of Norail,
Bangladesh is burning from the vengeful terror attacks of ‘Alliance” party
cadres and their supporters. These terrorists stuck at a minimum of four
small villages where minorities live. All night long on Thursday, they
attacked and ravaged more than one hundred homes. .....
The incident occurred when some
members of the minority community protested against the percussion instruments
used during a procession held when it was passing in front of a place of
worship, according to the police. .....
Bharata Natyam and Kathak are among
the South Asian dances that have been introduced as part of the B A undergraduate
dance curriculum at the prestigious London Contemporary Dance School (LCDS).
.....
It is being reported that some
ruling party leaders are involved in misdemeanor with police, they are
excerpting pressure on police to release the criminals those has been arrested.
The corrupted politicians have also warned victims those who are under
police custody at a jossore jail to withdraw the case or they will face
the dire consequences. .....
Most civilized people, rarely apologize
to, or pay allegiance to the flag of, a people that are openly killing
their countrymen in the thousands, but Shilpa Shetty did it. She had to
go that extra mile to prove her loyalty to the terrorist cause. In Lahore,
she showed her allegiance to the Pakistani flag by kissing it and apologized
profusely to the denizens of the terrorist state for "unintentionally hurting
Pakistani sentiments". .....
Except for the inaugural Mumbai
Marathon, February 15, 2004 passed off in the country as usual -- with
controversies about this or that, with corruption cases and with episodes
of rape and riots and robberies. .....
"Kashmir is not just the cause
of extremists," says FRONTLINE/World's Obaid. "It's a deeply felt issue,
embedded in Pakistan's identity." There's even a national holiday, Kashmir
Day, and Obaid sees angry Pakistani nationalists burning an effigy of India's
prime minister." .....
The Gospel for Asia and the All-India
Christian Council issued the following press release today. No other information
has appeared in the press reports monitored by HPI, and there no independent
confirmation of what might simply be wishful thinking from The Gospel for
Asia, a zealous evangelical organization run by an Indian Christian out
of Texas. .....
In a major achievement, Jammu &
Kashmir Police has killed Hizbul Mujahideen’s "chief commander of operations"
Abdur Rasheed Pir alias Gazi Shahab-ud-din in a brief shootout in Maharaj
Ganj area of Srinagar interior today. .....
Buoyed by exit poll results, Left
Front partners are planning an active political career. A meeting in Delhi
on May 15 and 16 will discuss what role they can play in ministry-making.
Regional parties and the Left would have a much greater role to play, they
feel. .....
If straight talk of savagery offends
you, if you believe in ethnic and gender diversity but not diversity of
thought or if you think there is an acceptable gray area between good and
evil, then turn to the funny pages, and take the children, too. .....
The minister said the aim was to
"bring objectivity and truth to our books rather than hate material or
terror tales." .....
The Centre sounded a red alert
in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal and ordered sealing of international
borders in these states following intelligence reports of an ISI plan to
destabilise the country. .....
Thoughts on issues of current interest
[my comments - as an Indian citizen - within square brackets], including
instances of some double standards of our public figures, especially in
the construction of Indian identity (all those Macaulayan myths, and the
hypocrisy that is Nehruvian secularism) .....
Amid the turmoil in Iraq and signs
that Afghanistan still lacks a viable state, it's not surprising that doubts
about the ability of the United States to support democratization are growing
in the Middle East and even in the United States. .....
In an endorsement of HRD Minister
Murli Manohar Joshi's campaign, the Supreme Court today found no fault
with the decision of the University Grants Commission to introduce "Vedic
Astrology" courses in universities and dismissed a petition challenging
it. .....
We write to express dismay and
outrage at the Channel 4 documentary on Kashmir broadcast on the 8th April
2004, which was filmed despite the fact that the GOI had declined permission
to sanction it. The Channel 4 journalist, Sandra Jordan, apparently entered
the country on a tourist visa and proceeded to film, in contravention of
her status as a tourist. .....
The death threats began six months
ago. One morning, Irshad Manji opened her e-mail and read the first of
many pledges to kill her. "It contained some pretty concrete details that
showed a lot of thought had been put into the death-threat," she explains
now, unblinking. She can't say how many she's received - "The police tell
me not to talk about this stuff" - but she admits that "they are becoming
pretty up-close and personal." .....
The Spanish government is considering
censoring the sermons of Muslim imams in an attempt to control the spread
of radical Islamic ideas - a move that has been criticised as a lurch towards
authoritarianism. .....
The answer is no, according to
Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, the president of the Pontifical Council
for Interreligious Dialogue. .....
Before the first round of voting
in the general election, President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam broadcast to the
nation a very simple but heartening message: please vote in large numbers
and vote positively for the candidate or party of your choice. .....
In a crisp blow to its critics,
India's most controversial irrigation project has brought life back to
hundreds of drought-prone villages in Gujarat. .....
Thailand has defended its handling
of violence in the Muslim south and rejected growing international calls
for an investigation into the deaths of more than 100 militants. .....
The focus of debates on Kashmir
at the annual meetings of United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva
(UNCHR) has certainly changed over the past about 10 years. .....
Thousands of Muslim women will
be exempted from having to show their faces on identity cards as the Government
moves to allay fears among British Muslims that the new cards will be used
to target them in the 'war on terror'. .....
Both the Congress and the Left
Front have reportedly begun courting the outlawed Student Islamic Movement
of India (SIMI) in a bid to win over the Muslim votebank. .....
A jury consists of 12 persons chosen
to decide who has the better lawyer. Robert Frost's cynical view of the
law found a dramatic echo in the land of Magna Carta this month. The defendant's
Web site called it "The Ultimate Jihad [Holy War] Experience." Nothing
less than a two-week firearms course in the U.S. Cost: $4,700. .....
A number of resolutions were passed
by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh All India Representative Conference held
at Jaipur. The first one concerned about the Jammu Kashmir Permanent Resident
(Illegal) Act 2004. An excerpt about the 2nd resolution is given below.
.....
As Iraq gets murkier and Uncle
Sam loses credibility in the war on terror, American analysts are waking
up to the extent to which Saudi funds have penetrated the nation's soft
underbelly. .....
The current Lok Sabha election
campaign has not generated much heat on "foreign affairs"; indeed, there
has been more on the foreign origin of one of the candidates. Not having
had the good karma to be born Indian, however, it will not be proper for
me to comment on that. .....
Within a month of his historic
trip to the world’s highest battlefield Siachen, President A P J Abdul
Kalam will tomorrow visit the Line of Control in the Rajouri-Poonch sector
in Jammu and Kashmir. .....
An estimated 80 per cent of women
prisoners in Pakistan are in jail because they failed to prove rape charges,
and found themselves locked up on adultery convictions, according to a
2004 report by the National Commission on the Status of Women. .....
When the Su So village football
team won the local league championship last Sunday, the players were the
pride of the small community in Songkhla's Saba Yoi district. .....
The Indian Jewish community from
Mumbai, commonly referred to as Bene-Israel, celebrated Maharashtra Day
by organizing a series of cultural programmes in Marathi and pledging to
strengthen ties with their country or origin, reports PTI. .....
The answer is no, according to
Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, the president of the Pontifical Council
for Interreligious Dialogue. .....
Despite a drop in number of incidents
and casualties, India has continued to be the worst victim of terrorism
during 2003 as well, according to figures collated by the US's latest report
on global terrorism. .....
In this working-class town surrounded
by Detroit, every street corner is a meeting of nations. Kosinski Hardware
sits across from Aladdin Sweets. Olga and Ania's Beauty Salon is next door
to a Bosnian restaurant, and the local King Video advertises movies in
Albanian, Arabic, Polish, and Hindi. Conversations on the street are as
likely to be in Bengali or Polish as in English. .....
World Muslim scholars meeting in
Cairo urged incorporation of Sharia into the International Law to avoid
eruption of more crises or other forms of injustice. .....
It was disappointing to read Pius
Kamau's comments regarding Hinduism in Thursday's Denver Post, not only
for the lack of knowledge about this religion that he displayed, but also
because he confuses the reader on the whole issue of racial tension between
Asians and Africans in Africa. .....
When the American Islamic Forum
for Democracy organized “A Rally against Terror” on April 25 in Phoenix,
its head, an Arizona physician named Zuhdi Jasser, said his goal was to
give Muslim moderates “an opportunity to speak out publicly.” And Jasser
presented the rally as a robust response to the many criticisms that American
Muslims had not produced a “groundswell of condemnation” against terrorism.
.....
This town's largest mosque is temporarily
leaderless, its chief cleric having been expelled from France last week
for advocating wife beating, stoning and other medieval Islamic views at
odds with the principles of the modern French state. .....
The focus of debates on Kashmir
at the annual meetings of United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva
(UNCHR) has certainly changed over the past about 10 years. .....
Governor Ahmed Sani of Zamfara
State, has ordered the demolition of all churches in the state, as he launched
the second phase of his Sharia project yesterday. .....
"Yoga cures heart problems."
Such assertions have been heard long enough. But when it came to substantiating
these claims one has only been met with silence. .....