Many in India offer prayers to
the Sun God at dawn. Others pray facing Mecca. Both sentiments are worthy
of respect. However, what do you say about those who pray to Washington-particularly
since blind worship of the United States affects Indian policy to the detriment
of the nation? New Delhi's conflict is clearly with Pakistan while Washington
seems more concerned with Saddam Hussain. .....
A network of Islamist militants
has been recruiting young Muslim immigrants at mosques in the Netherlands,
urging them to join the ``holy war'' in places like Afghanistan or Kashmir,
the Dutch Internal Security Agency reported this week. .....
The killings in Godhra and Gujarat
are a sharp reminder that riots are not infrequent in our country. Since
1893, there have not been many years that have passed without riots anywhere
in the subcontinent. Earlier, there might have been occurrences without
records being available in English. In that inaugural year, the provocation
was cow slaughter and the places were Mumbai and Azamgarh. .....
As many as 61 percent of the population
of Jammu and Kashmir want to remain Indian citizens because they feel they
would be thus be politically and economically more secure, while only six
percent want to be Pakistani citizens, according to a recent opinion poll.
.....
The Committee to Protect Journalists
condemns the shooting of Zafar Iqbal, a journalist for the Srinagar, Kashmirbased
English-language daily Kashmir Images. .....
Al-Qaeda and Taliban members are
helping organize a terror campaign in Kashmir to foment conflict between
India and Pakistan, US intelligence officials and foreign diplomats say.
.....
The banned People's War Group naxals
appear to be facing tough time in the tribal areas of Adilabad district
with more and more tribals turning against them and refusing to provide
them food and shelter. .....
Over the last few years, Pakistan
has been prosecuting a "low cost, low intensity war" with India, backed
up by threats to use nuclear weapons should India attempt retribution across
the Line of Control. .....
Not much is seen into renaming
of an airport. However, Union Home Minister L K Advani touched an emotional
chord today while renaming the Port Blair Airport here to Veer Savarkar
Airport - after the freedom fighter who, he said, was ignored by the ruling
dynasty. .....
In April, 2002 the highly-respected
Fortune magazine published an article by its correspondent Richard Behar
on how things are in Pakistan after a ten-week journey through the country.
Behar's conclusion was that Pakistan is a "dysfunctional nation" or "Problemistan"
- a country that professes to be an ally of the United States but probably
harbours more terrorists than any other place on earth. As he put it: "It
is the most unstable nuclear power in the world, a land where even the
best intentions are undermined by some of the world's worst economic conditions.
.....
Atal Bihari Vajpayee's speech in
Goa last month was unequivocally slandered by the 'secularists' as 'intemperate
and provocative'. A senior Congress leader even went to the extent of demanding
his arrest under POTA! Was there any transformation in the secularists'
logic that the unity of the NDA is based solely on Vajpayee? Or that the
NDA's disintegration hinged on undoing his image as a 'good man'? The PM's
Goa speech was cooked in the secularist kitchen to produce a desired result.
.....
Of all the international leaders
who spoke to Musharraf on the immediate need to end terrorism, Japan's
Prime Minister has spoken with cold and implementable realism. The Japanese
Premier has told Musharraf that Japan would find it difficult to continue
the promised economic aid unless the Pak leader puts an end to cross-border
terrorism and closes down the terrorist base camps. Needless to add, this
is the language that Islamabad understands. .....
A leading Indian nuclear expert
on Thursday ridiculed Pakistan's assertion that his country would use nuclear
weapons against India even in case of a conventional conflict. .....
Winding streets and a crumbling
old church seem cast from Italy's impoverished past. Street markets overflow
with shiny fresh squid and giant artichokes; the stalls look like 19th-century
still lifes. Old ladies wear black as if in perpetual mourning and wrinkled
men play cards lazily outside of storefronts. Watch out for pickpockets,
by the way. .....
The Standard Comment is familiar.
In an era of globalisation, governing parties have little room for manoeuvre,
so meaningful political choice is close to non-existent. The government
always wins. Broader voter apathy is giving disillusioned voters experimenting
at the margins more influence. All over Europe, in response to crime and
growing immigrant populations, there is are-emergence of fatal DNA in the
European values gene, amurky cocktail of racism, anti-Semitism, nationalism,
anti-immigration and calls for ultra-hard-line criminal justice policies.
.....
Pakistan has been particularly
unfortunate in the choice of its leaders. Since they don't come to the
presidential palace in Islamabad through the democratic process, one could
argue, that ordinary Pakistanis are not to be blamed for their poor leadership.
In the ultimate analysis, however, Pakistani people cannot escape blame
for having allowed their army to play such a dominant role in the affairs
of the nation. .....
World opinion has swung decisively
against Islamabad on the Jammu and Kashmir issue even as Pakistan itself
is cleaved between the country's moderates and liberals on the one hand
and the fundamentalists and militarists on the other. .....
China said on Monday that Pakistan
had handed over a key leader of Chinese Muslim separatists who fought alongside
the Taliban, and another 400 militants had been captured in Afghanistan
or on return to China. .....
The death of Pim Fortuyn, assassinated
on May 6 as he campaigned for prime minister, leaves the Netherlands- in
fact, all of Europe-with many uncomfortable questions. .....
When James Callaghan was home Secretary
he told the Cabinet that Peter Hain's campaign for recial equality was
so extreme it might lay him open to prosecution for conspiracy. Thirty-two-years
later Mr Hain is a Labour Minister and has laid himself open to an entirely
different attack. He is being asked by leading members of the Muslim community
to withdraw remarks about Muslim immigrants who, he said, "can be very
isolationist in their own behavior and their own customs". He should not
bow to the clamour for contrition. .....
Mr Hain a veteran antiapartheid
campaigner, said that problem arising from religious differences could
bemore dangerous than problems of racial difference Simon hughes, the Liberal
Democrat Home affairs spokesman said however, that identifying Muslims
as the group most guilty of separatism was simplistic and dangerous. .....
Peter Hain is right to warn of
the dangers that some British Muslims pose to their own community as well
as to the national interest. His impeccable anti-racist credentials make
his comments about the cultural isolationism of Muslim separatists in our
midst all the more telling. As minister fore Europe he is doubly well placed
to sound the alarm about Islamic asylum seekers who expect Britain's way
of life, sometimes even refusing to learn English. .....
In a major development, the district
police arrested a Congress leader identified as Naziruddin alias
Neta Nazir, a resident of Begumpurva, on charges of aiding Pakistan
army regular Mohd Anwar alias Ikramuddin. .....
Three months after the Godhra carnage
which claimed 59 lives, the investigations are expected to take the State
Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to Mumbai where some of the main
accused, all belonging to Godhra, are said to have taken sanctuary. .....
China said on Monday that Pakistan
had handed over a key leader of Chinese Muslim separatists who fought alongside
the Taliban, and another 400 militants had been captured in Afghanistan
or on return to China. .....
Are we to allow Pakistan to continue
to train new armies for invasion and to allow its territory to be used
as a base for these attacks? The obvious course of action is to strike
at these concentrations and lines of communications in Pakistan territory.
From a military point of view this would be the most effective step. We
have refrained from taking it because of political considerations. We shall
have to reconsider this position because a continuation of the present
situation is intolerable. .....
India on Tuesday termed as "disappointing
and dangerous" Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's address and said it
contained only repetition of some earlier unfulfilled assurances to curtail
cross-border terrorism. .....
Virtually the entire senior leadership
of Al Qaeda and the Taliban have been driven out of eastern Afghanistan
and are now operating with as many as 1,000 non-Afghan fighters in the
anarchic tribal areas of western Pakistan, the commander of American-led
forces in Afghanistan said today. .....
May 28 is the fourth anniversary
of Pakistan's nuclear tests at Chaghai. On Yom-i-takbir, which the government
celebrated in a big way in 1999, it informed the people through boastful
newspaper ads: "We are the seventh nuclear power of the world". .....
Pakistan is currently passing through
a critical juncture. We are faced with a grave situation and we are standing
at the cross road of history. Today's decision will have serious internal
and external effects on our future. .....
If war is too serious a business
to be left to generals, what would Clemenceau (the originator of this timeless
phrase) have said about part-time generals? The situation on our borders
is grim and could well spiral out of control. But more alarming than Indian
intentions is the sense of drift at home. .....
The Opposition seems to have lost
the track. Running a Hate BJP campaign, its only motive remains is the
ouster of the BJP, even if it comes at the cost of rationalizing anti-people
and anti-national acts of elements opposed to India. Such a parochial attitude
is evident ever since the formation of the BJP. With the BJP arriving on
the political scene in the early 80s, there has been an ideological contest
between the Left, the Congress and the party on account of socioeconomic
and cultural thought and programme. .....
Terming India's charge of its involvement
as "baseless", its Foreign Office said such allegations were aimed at deflecting
the Muslim world's attention from communal violence in Gujarat as well
as "domestic difficulties" .....
Secretary of BJP's national unit
B. Padmanabha Acharya on Saturday alleged that the Godhra carnage was a
conspiracy hatched by a section of the Gujarat unit of the Congress to
create communal disturbance in the state as well as in the country. .....
Is peace between India and Pakistan
at all possible in a presently foreseeable time frame? Evidence suggests
that the Pakistan establishment, on balance, has ruled out peace. A strong
conviction pervades in its military that peace enforced through military
means remains the best alternative. Its rejection of the 'no first use'
nuclear doctrine is predicated on this premise. Thrice, in the early 1980s,
1987 and 1990, it seriously examined its nuclear strength for possible
use against India in a tactical mode. .....
While the Government is understandably
furious with Pakistan for the latter's relentless proxy war waged against
this country through cross-border terrorism, it should realise that a war
is what the Musharraf regime has every reason to welcome at this juncture.
This will become clear from a study of the strategic context in which the
present tensions have to be seen. To defeat Pakistan's proxy war, India
has to radically change its response pattern and rethink the basic premises
of its approach towards Islamabad. .....
At a time when there's growing
international concern on money laundering, another scam has been detected
by the RBI following a tipoff from the enforcement directorate involving
Rs 200 crore to Rs 250 crore. .....
For a country that won its political
spurs by renouncing religion as the basis of nationhood, Bangladesh has
come full circle. Nearly. Proudly secular at birth, the Bangla polity,
under Begum Khaleda Zia, is headed inexorably towards a theocracy. Succumbing
to pressures from the Jamaat-e-Islami - a key coalition partner in her
government - Begum Zia has embarked on a dangerous course of 'Islamisation'.
.....
Two former high-ranking Taliban
talk of reorganizing their militant religious movement and describe a recovering
al-Qaida - all while they sit secretly inside Pakistan, Washington's front-line
ally in the war on international terrorism. .....
Intense public reaction to coverage
of the violence of the Middle East conflict has prompted unusually harsh
attacks on several news media outlets and has led to boycotts of The New
York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post. .....
At least half of the 48 Muslim
radicals linked to terrorist plots in the USA since 1993 manipulated or
violated immigration laws to enter this country and then stay here, an
analysis by the US Center for Immigration Studies says. .....
Concerned with the high number
of Hindus not being able to find the right marriage partners, the Malaysia
Hindu Sangam will play Cupid with its matchmaking programme. .....
India today rejected the charge
that it was in a war-like mood or belligerent towards Pakistan in the wake
of the Kaluchak massacre but made it clear that it would do everything
to protect national interests. .....
When a person who is ill goes to
see a doctor, the latter does not put the blame on the patient's body but
seeks to find the source of the illness to prescribe a remedy. In the matter
of the Gujarat riots, the Parliament-in effect the Opposition forces-have
wasted five whole days trying to lay the blame on the Sangh Parivar while
not addressing itself to what ails Gujarat. That is the greater tragedy.
It is pointless to lay the blame on this or that factor. .....
I am a girl 18 years of age. I
am not ignorant of my country's history especially, the recent one, as
Mustafa Qureshi (who wrote an article "Action and reaction" in The New
Indian Express, 16.4.2002) seems to be. I know that India, Pakistan and
Bangladesh are successors to one united India where great Kings like Ashoka
ruled. Unfortunately, Hindus who converted to Islam over a period of 800
years of invasion and conquests asserted (stridently from 1905 to 1947)
that they are not Indians, that they are a different nation and that they
cannot live with Hindus in one nation-state. .....
As a perceptive Indian who has
no amnesia over India's history I am not a little surprised at the totally
distorted view of Hindu-Muslim relations presented (Newsweek, March 18,
2002) by Ashutosh Varshney, especially as he happens to be Director of
the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan. .....
Indian Muslims, who are staying
in this country for their own well-being and happiness should come together
to show their commitment to this country They should not get influenced
by all the rumours, foreign powers and foreign money and also should keep
distance from those few elements which are involved in anti-social and
anti-national activities. .....
Imam Gazali in the 11th century
had said about terrorism that if the Muslims do not give up terrorism,
then terrorism will see their extinction. In fact it is the need of the
day that the Imams and the religious preachers should have widely and loudly
propagated this thought, but exactly reverse is what has happened. .....
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf
thinks India has a short memory. His latest promise made on Wednesday that
"no organisation in Pakistan will be allowed to indulge in terrorism in
the name of Kashmir", seems to be based on this very belief. The same promise
was made, word by word, in his "famous" speech of January 12. .....
US intelligence agencies have concluded
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has reneged three promises he made
to the Bush administration on terrorism in Kashmir. .....
The tense situation prevailing
in Iritty and nearby areas here following the murder of an RSS worker late
last night turned volatile as two persons, including a woman, were killed
today in a powerful bomb attack on a jeep carrying BJP workers returning
after the funeral of the deceased RSS activist. The assailants were suspected
to be CPI(M) workers. .....
I am pleased to meet mediapersons
at the end of my three-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir. I had stated in
Parliament that I would visit J&K after the end of the Budget session.
At the time I didn't know that two incidents would cast a ring of shock,
sorrow and outrage around my visit. .....
Mr Shaukat Aziz, the finance minister,
is perennially optimistic about the country's economic prospects. Indeed,
Mr Aziz has so mastered the art of "positive" thinking demanded by the
good general that not a frown marks his burrow even at the most testing
of times. .....
The May 8 bomb blast in Karachi
which claimed 14 lives and blew a hole into Pakistan's attempts to put
up a brave, new face, also gave terror a new name: the Harkat al-Jahad
al-Islami. Khalied Ahmed, columnist With reputed Pakistani weekly The Friday
Times and among the most authoritative commentators on Pakistan's homegrown
jehadi groups, says this new group, an amalgam of other terrorist groups,
could also be spreading its tenor in the Valley. .....
Abu Qatada, who is suspected of
having turned supergrass for M15, was identified by police as the former
spiritual leader of eight suspected terrorists arrested last week in raids
across Germany. The men were part of a "secret international network on
the brink of attacks in Germany", according to the chief German prosecutor.
Among potential targets was the British embassy in Berlin, source said.
.....
The United Nations is to send a
mission to investigate allegations of Israeli brutality during its violent
occupation of the Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin on the West Bank, which
ended last week. .....
The advent of `sonth' heralds the
season of blooms and colours in the Kashmir valley and we Kashmiri Pandits,
prior to our forced exodus, used to throng almond (badam) orchards along
the foot of the Hariparbat hill, Ramchandrun and even at times to Harwan
on the festival days of Navreh and Zangtri. A decade and half has gone
by, yet the nostalgic memories of the fragrance of `sonth' still lurk in
the subconscious mind and the craving for these places has not died down.
.....
In the train passing through Godhra,
instead of burning the Ramsewaks returning from Ayodhya, suppose there
were Hajees and the Hindus had thrown kerosene dipped burning rags etc
inside the compartments closed from outside? Suppose the BJP govt. in Gujarat
had refused to carry out the mass funeral of those 62 dead bodies which
were totally charred and had refused to burry all those 62 dead bodies?
.....
Unlike the typical Anglo-Saxon
host, whose happiest moment is to see the retreating tail lights of his
guests' cars, this particular Indian will be most sorry to see you go,
Ambassador Qazi (you see, I still cannot reconcile myself to the awful
colonial resonance of High Commissioner, which also takes up seven more
spaces). .....
In the past year, guided by direction
from Prime Minister Vajpayee and President Bush, India and the United States
have charted a new course in their bilateral relationship. This course
reflects appreciation on both sides of the importance of the U.S.-India
relationship in building stability and security in Asia and beyond. This
new course entails rapid growth in cooperation on defense and security
matters. In a matter of months, the U.S. and India defense establishments
have translated the broad vision for the relationship into action. .....
How many more people need to be
killed in Jammu & Kashmir by Pakistan-sponsored jihadists, how many
more times need railway coaches have to be torched and the Indian Parliament
itself brought under attack before the Government of India resports to
meaningful action? The calculated attack on family members of Army personnel
in the Kaluchak Cantonment in Jammu the day US Assistant Secretary of State
Christina Rocca arrived in Delhi was obviously well-planned and intended,
on the part of the jihadists, to show their utter contempt for the United
States. .....
India and Pakistan are three to
four weeks from a foreseeable war that the United States has done too little
to prevent. By misreading Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Bush administration
has contributed to a dangerous confrontation between South Asia's two nuclear-armed
rivals. .....
Our comrades who oppose labour
law reforms in India, purposely don't tell their followers how "anti-labour"
are the labour laws in communist havens like China and North Korea. Just
go through the Beijing government's official publication, Labour Law of
the People's Republic of China. .....
The crisis managers in separatist
All Parties Hurriyat Conference have once again shown tact and finesse
in turning Kashmir's political tables in favour of Pakistan. While Mr Abdul
Gani Lone's promoters in Indian media, bureaucracy and politics were enjoying
replays of son Sajjad Lone's spitting on Pakistan's ISI, Hurriyat chairman
Professor Abdul Gani Bhat today rejuvenated Srinagar's, if not Kashmir's,
pro-Pakistan euphoria. In the morning Sajjad dismissed his own remarks
as "an emotional outburst". .....
It was meant to be a polite good-bye
meeting, but degenerated into a debate on who is to blame for the Indo-Pak
war of nerves. The occasion: departing Pakistani High Commissioner Ashraf
Jehangir Qazi's courtesy call on Indian Foreign Secretary Chokila Iyer
on Wednesday afternoon. .....
The Indus Waters Treaty, signed
in 1960 between Jawaharlal Nehru and Ayub Khan, saw the apportioning of
waters of the Indus basin rivers between India and Pakistan. .....
At least half of the 48 Muslim
radicals linked to terrorist plots in the USA since 1993 manipulated or
violated immigration laws to enter this country and then stay here, an
analysis by the US Center for Immigration Studies says. .....
Justices Jawahar Lal Gupta and
N K Sodhi on Wednesday dismissed a writ petition filed by Lok Sabha MP
Simranjit Singh Mann questioning the validity the Prevention of Terrorist
Act, 2002. .....
"Fool me once, shame on you," runs
an Arab saying, "Fool me twice, shame on me!" In an age when the most recognised
Arab faces belong to Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and Yasser Arafat,
the cadences of Arabic probably grind on an American ear. But that does
not deny the verity of the statement. .....
Pakistan today warned that any
cross-border action by India, including in Pakistan occupied Kashmir, would
provoke retaliation. Military spokesman Major General Rashid Qureshi told
the AFP news agency, ''Any incursions into Pakistani territory or Azad
Kashmir (PoK) will be responded to and met with full force.'' .....
'War is not the option' they say.
'Nor is it the solution', they counsel. 'Be restrained' they pontificate.
Whether it is the peace-loving media or the neutral intellectual in India
or the United Kingdom or Iran or China, they speak in one voice. .....
Those who thought the age of the
fatwa was over were taken aback when Maulana Mufti Abul Irfan of Firangi
Mahal issued one for a ''complete social boycott'' of the Muslim MLAs of
the Bahujan Samaj Party. He has called them ''traitors'' and asked Muslims
not to offer prayers in mosques with them. .....
Through a crack in the drawn curtain
of his third-floor perch, Yigal Kelman uses the magnified scope of his
sniper rifle to study the Palestinian family that has emerged onto a rooftop
terrace some 300 yards away. .....
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee
told Indian soldiers along the tense frontier in Kashmir today to prepare
for a "decisive battle" against terrorism, words powerful enough to rally
his troops, threaten Pakistan and scare much of the world. .....
India today rejected the charge
that it was in a war-like mood or belligerent towards Pakistan in the wake
of the Kaluchak massacre but made it clear that it would do everything
to protect national interests. .....
This week's terrorist attack in
Jammu has once again underlined some inescapable conclusions. A) The US
led-war against terrorism has absolutely no impact on the Pak strategy
of bleeding India through crossborder terrorism. B) Whatever the US may
say, the agenda for global war against terrorism doesn't include Indian
concerns about the ongoing war against India. It may be low cost war or
slow war but war it is. .....
Ever since Godhra happened in Gujarat
our media virtually struck a goldmine for filling their otherwise dull
and empty space with vivid accounts of the incidents in the most sensational
and chilling manner. The channel after channel and newspaper after newspaper
has vied for presenting the incidents in the crudest and most irresponsible
manner. English media in particular has been reporting in a one sided way
thereby presenting a distorted picture to the world. .....
Fiji Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase
has sparked a furious row by claiming a coup two years ago was part of
a plan by God to depose the country's Indian-led government. Critics claimed
his remarks amount to blasphemy. Qarase, who first came to power in the
aftermath of the May 2000 coup led by George Speight, told Parliament his
government was in power because it was the will of God. "The SDL coalition
won because it was God's plan," Qarase said. .....
For all the politicking that President
Pervez Musharraf is indulging in, he cannot remain oblivious to the growing
dissent at home to his regime's indifference to the people of Northern
Areas. Going by accounts in the Pakistani media, there is already a strong
whisper of protest among the populace against the military dictator's continued
neglect of the area. Major Ahsan Wali Khan, writing in The News last month,
aptly summed up the public mood in Gilgit-Baltistan: "The tempers of the
people are now boiling. .....
India tops the table of "significant
terrorist incidents" during 2001. While the September 11 attacks on the
United States constitute the worst ever in terms of death and devastation,
India has had the most number of incidents, major or minor, catalogued
by the State Department. Its report, 'Patterns of Global Terrorism 2001',
carries a chronology of 123 "significant terrorist incidents" across the
world. Of these, as many as 38 pertain to India, followed by Colombia (9),
Burundi (8) and the Philippines (6). .....
To impose their warped interpretation
of the Islamic code, the Taliban used to smash TV sets and hang video cassettes
on trees in the same manner as they 'celebrated' the public hanging of
dissenters or the lynching of women in Kabul's football stadium. In almost
a similar enactment of censorship, Prime Minister Khaleda Zia of Bangladesh
seems to be emulating Mullah Omar. .....
Abdul Gani Lone had been receiving
veiled death threats for some time. "You are tired and old and you should
retire. That's what the anonymous callers keep telling me. But I am not
so tired that I should retire before peace prevails in Kashmir," Lone told
the Hindustan Times in an interview last week. .....
After Sept. 11, India was among
the first countries in the world to offer its unconditional support to
the United States in the fight against terrorism declared by President
Bush. Being a victim of terrorism itself, India knows very well what kind
of pain and suffering, death and destruction the scourge of terrorism can
bring. India has been bleeding from the perpetual specter of terrorism
by Pakistan-based and -supported terrorist groups for several years. .....
Over a week has passed since the
gruesome suicide bombing that left 14 people dead, including 11 French
technicians, but no heads have rolled and, more importantly, no introspection
seems to have taken place. .....
"I stand before you all today with
a heavy heart to tell the tales of the endless raging minority cleansing
campaign," declared Dwijen Bhattacharjya at the International Conference
on Minority Cleansing in Bangladesh, held on April 28 at a cavernous Indian
restaurant in Queens. "From Barisal in the south, to Savar in the center,
to Rajshai in the north, the trails of terror have swept across Bangladesh."
.....
A Muslim fundamentalist who claims
to have fought for Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda terrorist organisation in
Afghanistan has slipped unnoticed back into Britain. .....
In a Gallup poll released last
week, 61 per cent of nearly 10,000 Muslims in nine Islamic countries said
they did not believe Arabs were responsible for the terrorist attacks on
the World Trade Centre last September. The poll did not ask the 61 per
cent who they thought had hijacked the planes. One Gallup poll recently
cited by Andrew Sullivan in The Sunday Times gave a figure of 48 per cent
of Pakistanis believing that Jews flew the planes into the WTC after warning
fellow Jews working there to stay home. .....
Terrorists are sure to eventually
acquire nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, US Defense Secretary
Donald H Rumsfeld warned Congress on Tuesday. .....
Having won accolades for more than
30 years as one of the brightest and best Indian Foreign Service officers,
the legendary Chandrashekhar Dasgupta has once again proved his mettle
by writing a highly original, revelatory and myth-shattering book on the
genesis of the Kashmir imbroglio. No competent historian until now has
been able to portray the undeclared 1947-8 India-Pakistan war over Kashmir
from the standpoint of British strategic and diplomatic calculations. .....
The Cultural Affairs Minister,
G. Karthikeyan, today said that the previous LDF Government had packed
the various cultural institutions with persons who were politically loyal
to the front. .....
Union minister of state for home
Ch Vidyasagar Rao today said around 12,000 Pakistani nationals were staying
illegally in India and they will be apprehended and sent back to their
country. "In India 12,000 Pakistani people are staying illegally. Out of
them 2,200 are missing. We will investigate into all these aspects and
try to apprehend and send these people back," Rao told reporters here.
.....
Christiana Rocca's peace mission
can expect a hard landing here next week. India is preparing a strong message
to the U5 that New Delhi will take a serious view of Islamabad's attempts
to rachet up infiltration across the Line of Control (LOC). India will
also tell the US official that Washington's efforts to 'defuse' the tension
was not particularly constructive, because what is needed is for Pakistan
to be asked to stop infiltration and cross-border terrorism, none of which
has been forthcoming. .....
It is quite normal for women, especially
in rural areas, to have some secret money stashed away, says Chetna Gala
Sinha. "In our Mahila Bank, many of the women have secret accounts. It's
a little like a Swiss bank. After the weekly haat, when they sell vegetables,
eggs or goats, they don't reveal their entire earnings to the family. They
keep some of it with friends or the savkar (moneylender), or more frequently,
in their accounts with us." .....
The disappearance of nearly 500
visitors from Pakistan is worrying the Intelligence Bureau. In a report
submitted to the Union home ministry, the agency said, "They are all not
traceable anywhere." .....
Muzrai temple priests in Karnataka
have to now qualify by passing an examination in aagama shastra (chanting
of mantras and pooja rituals). This is according to the new rules drafted
by the Muzrai officials under the Hindu Religious and Charitable Trust
Act of 1997 which received presidential assent in December. .....
The VHP is recruiting in Kerala.
Low profile reports have appeared in the inside pages of the state's newspapers,
quoting Parishad press releases that announce vacancies for dharma pracharaks
(preachers). .....
The disputed site in Ayodhya is
the Janmabhoomi (birthplace) of Lord Ram, and a temple was destroyed by
Mughal Emperor Babar to build a mosque at the site, archaeologist and historian
Dr Swaraj Prakash Gupta told the Allahabad High Court yesterday. .....
It is difficult to remember when
an Indian Prime Minister last visited even the Jammu region of troubled
Kashmir. Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee's decision to visit the state is therefore
a welcome assertion of personal confidence and national sovereignty. .....
A new Pakistani jehadi group, the
Jamaat-e-Milli, is believed to have supported the Kaluchak terrorist attack
in Jammu. A Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) report says it is one of a
new crop of jehadi groups being used by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf
to strengthen his influence among Islamic militants. .....
Compared to the high-profile efforts
to build an international coalition against terrorism after September 11,
the interest of the international community in terrorist violence, symbolised
by the escalating transnational terrorism in India, seems to be remarkably
subdued. One week after the barbaric killings of women and children, one
has heard little from the US, which is leading the global war against terrorism.
.....
One of the last acts of Parliament
before it ended its Budget session was also its most novel. For in a badly
fragmented polity it was rare to see all sections of the House show a rare
unanimity. What had brought Parliament together to the last member was
the continuing threat of cross-border terrorism. Pakistan's export of barbarism
to this country had shocked the entire nation. .....
Critical of celebrities taking
up advertisement contracts with tainted company Home Trade involved in
the Nagpur Co-operative Bank seam, Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh today
said icons like Sachin Tendulkar and Shah Rukh Khan should not hanker after
money by accepting such a contract. .....
US Ambassador, Robert D Blackwell,
today called on the Union home minister L K Advani, amid clear indications
that the latest terrorist outrage in J&K may have severely undermined
America's leverage with India. .....
We, the citizens of Gujarat, from
different walks of life, are deeply concerned over the unabated violence
in the State. This is no less than a great tragedy. It is clear that the
vested interests are behind the orgy and the culprits have no community.
The forces behind the nefarious game are out to destroy the image of Gujarat
as a progressive and forward-looking state. .....
Hindus are most concentrated in
the Sindh province of southeast Pakistan (GROUPCON = 3). Before partition,
most Hindus in present-day Pakistan were urban, highly educated and economically
advantaged. However, most middle- and upper-class Pakistani Hindus immigrated
to India after the 1947 partition of the sub-continent. Those that remained
tended to be poorer and rural. Lacking the resources to organize politically
(large numbers are bonded labor), Hindus have remained politically and
economically marginalized in Pakistan. .....
Ary Digital TV's host Dr Masood,
while discussing the May 8 killing of 11 French nationals in Karachi, named
one Harkat al-Jahad al-Islami as one of the suspected terrorists involved
in the bombing. When the Americans bombed the Taliban and Mulla Umar fled
from his stronghold in Kandahar, a Pakistani personality also fled with
him. This was Qari Saifullah Akhtar, the leader of Harkat al-Jahad al-Islami,
Pakistan's biggest jehadi militia headquartered in Kandahar. .....
An escalation of the undeclared
war for Kashmir was inevitable after the recent referendum in Pakistan
that "confirmed" Gen. Pervez Musharraf's civilian job. This is not because
the referendum strengthened Musharraf. But because it weakened him. .....
The deadly hand of jihadis appears
finally to have stoked the fires of confrontation to such an extent that
a clash between India and Pakistan is inevitable. .....
"Why is it that when Hindus kill
hundreds of Muslims it elicits an emotionally muted headline in the Arab
media but when Israel kills a dozen Muslims, it inflames the entire Muslim
world?" .....
How dare you compare Veer Savarkar
with Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose?" said Basudeb Acharia of the CPI(M) in
the Lok Sabha. "This is an insult to Netaji." This angry remark may have
come as a shock to the uninitiated. But there is nothing new about Communists
running down our national heroes or causes. No wonder, too often Left protestations
end up as a farce unto themselves. .....
The CPI national council member
and former Pondicherry minister, R Viswanathan, and six partymen were arrested
today in connection with the alleged attack on participants of a Sanskrit
coaching camp in Pondicherry Engineering College here. .....
Bangalore's underworld don, Muthappa
Rai, who has been detained by the Dubai Police along with aides of the
Pakistan-based mafia lord, Dawood Ibrahim, planned serial explosions in
government and commercial hubs in Gujarat. .....
"It is now time to come face to
face with reality, sever diplomatic ties with Pakistan and launch a full-scale
war", the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, said here today. .....
When Omar Abdullah speaks, people
listen. The Lok Sabha listened attentively when the young minister told
the world that India does not need its empty support, that India would
not let the Jammu massacre go unanswered. His father nodded imperceptibly.
.....
Since April 2, an 11-judge bench
of the Supreme Court has been hearing 200 petitions from the beneficiaries
of minority rights, provided for in Articles 29 and 30 of the Indian Constitution.
Almost every senior advocate of the Supreme Court is engaged by this or
that minority group. .....
`Murder most foul' daily mars lovely
Jammu and Kashmir and dastardly terrorism `red in tooth and claw' claims
countless innocent Indian lives with Pakistan militarily and morally getting
away with it, describing these lethal operations as liberation and self-determination.
The Bush doctrine of war-on-terror leaves Pakistan untouched and undeterred.
For several sinister years, this ghastly killer game has been going on
and no prospect of this bloody process is in sight save `words, words,
mere words'. .....
The Hindu Aikyavedi has alleged
that the Adivasi leader, C. K. Janu, had visited Vatican and Germany many
times to be trained as a spokesperson of Christian missionaries. .....
Last week a suicide bomber drove
his car into a bus leaving the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi. Fourteen persons,
including 11 French engineers working in the naval base in Karachi, lost
their lives; many more were injured. The French were working for the Pakistan
Navy to produce an Agosta type of submarine (far superior to the Russian
ones used by the Indian Navy), which is assembled in the Pakistani shipyard
with parts imported from France. .....
The heads of the world's three
main multilateral economic institutions on Thursday joined forces to condemn
rising US protectionism, saying it harmed global growth and set back economic
reform and open markets. .....
Following the recent outbreak of
violence in the Indian state of Gujararat, leading to the loss of more
than 900 lives, MEPs adopted a resolution strongly condemning all sectarian
violence in India which followed the burning to death of 58 Hindus on a
train earlier in the year. There is a call on the Indian government and
the State government of Gujararat to continue investigations into the killings
with a view to bringing those responsible to justice. The Commission and
Council are requested to support the Indian government with relief programmes
to the area. .....
The latest terrorist outrage in
Kashmir has pushed India and Pakistan a little closer to the brink. Could
this spark the first war between nuclear powers? .....
For what may be termed as a historical
event on April 26, a Panel Discussion on Media Coverage of Terrorism in
India and Pakistan, Indian American community packed the First Amendment
Room at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. to listen to the panelists.
While descriptions varied, there was unanimity among panelists that the
media coverage, especially in India and Pakistan, needs improvement. .....
Daniel Pipes states that some 100
to 150 million people worldwide embrace radical Islam, and that some 500
million other Muslims "concur with its rank anti-Americanism," sympathizing
more with Osama bin Laden and the Taliban than with the United States ["Who
Is the Enemy?" January]. .....
I am often asked, Why I left Islam?.
As absurd as it may be, some Muslims cannot even allow themselves to think
that leaving Islam is an option, or even possible. They rather think that
those who leave Islam are paid Jewish agents than accept the fact that
people have freedom to think and some may even think that Islam is not
for them. The following are my reasons. .....
The recent flare-up in west Asia,
the biggest in the region since the Yom Kippur war nearly 30 years ago,
has valuable lessons for India. For the first time in half a century, it
has brought into sharp scrutiny, Israel's hitherto successful handling
of its ties with its biggest and most important supporter in the world:
the United States of America. .....
An aggressive Prime Minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee on Tuesday said, appeasement cannot be pursued in the name
of secularism. BJP is committed to secularism, however, it would not pursue
the policy of appeasement, Mr Vajpayee said while speaking in the BJP parliamentary
party. .....
Israel's actions in Jenin were
"every bit as repellent" as Osama bin Laden's attack on New York
on September 11, wrote Britain's Guardian in its lead editorial of April
17. .....
At one time-all Fernandes's profiles
begin with at one time-he was the rebel's pin-up boy. Today, the poster's
curled at the edges. The man who led the historic 1974 railway men's strike,
a watershed in terms of bringing down Indira Gandhi by 1977, is today lurching
from one scandal-stop to another. The latest, his apparent cosying up to
the Sangh. Although he was the first leader to visit Gujarat after the
riots, and Orissa after the murder of Graham Staines, in both the cases
he defended rather than admonished the Parivar. .....
The advent of `sonth' heralds the
season of blooms and colours in the Kashmir valley and we Kashmiri Pandits,
prior to our forced exodus, used to throng almond (badam) orchards along
the foot of the Hariparbat hill, Ramchandrun and even at times to Harwan
on the festival days of Navreh and Zangtri. A decade and half has gone
by, yet the nostalgic memories of the fragrance of `sonth' still lurk in
the subconscious mind and the craving for these places has not died down.
.....
Malegaon, the powerloom town of
Maharashtra, may soon get Janata Dal (Secular)'s Nihal Ahmed as its first
mayor. He is accused of fanning communal violence in the town last year.
.....
Much has been written and spoken
about the Godhra- Gujarat massacres. But words can never fully convey the
anguish that every Indian must feel at the sight of man killing man, mobs
killing fellow humans and fellow-citizens. .....
Last January Pakistani President
Pervez Musharraf delivered a highly promoted television address in which
he promised to lead his divided and impoverished country in an entirely
new direction. His aim, he said, was to create a modern, prosperous and
democratic "Islamic welfare state"; to do that, he would purge the country
of the Islamic extremism that had infected its politics, its schools and
its armed forces. Terrorism, Mr. Musharraf declared, would no longer be
tolerated, and militant groups that had waged war against India and its
rule of Muslim Kashmir would no longer be supported. .....
The detection of illegal radio
stations and the arrest of a few suspects in the Rajnagar area of Kendrapara
district on Monday has blown the lid off the activities of illegal Bangladeshi
nationals, and the security breaches made in the vicinity of sensitive
defence installations. The main transmission centre of the radio station
was located near Dhamra port, which is close to the missile testing range
at Wheeler Islands, said officer-in-charge of Rajnagar police station Alok
Ranjan Ray. .....
Sonia Gandhi happened to visit
Tirupati during her campaign for the 1999 general election. While in the
famous temple town, she chose to go to the famous Hindu sanctuary in the
Seven Hills. .....
A longtime supporter of Myanmar's
pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, India has welcomed her release from
detention as a concrete step by the Myanmar government toward achieving
lasting peace and tranquility in the country. India has consistently advocated
reconciliation and moves toward restoration of democracy, a spokesperson
from the Indian Ministry of External Affairs said last week. .....
Thank you for those kind words,
Bob. We in Washington know how fortunate we are to have you here as American
Ambassador to India. You are doing a superb job and you personally have
done so much to push this bilateral relationship forward. .....
Rape victim Zafran Bibi was sentenced
to death by stoning by a session court in Kohat under Hudood Laws for alleged
adultery. This tragic case once again exposes the tyranny of Hudood Laws
for women. Ever since its promulgation in 1980, the law has been subject
to gross misinterpretation and misuse due to its inherent flaws and the
misogyny of our judiciary and the society. .....
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. All such amendments were
summarily rejected by Dr Ambedkar. .....
Two Pakistan militants belonging
to the Lashkar-E-Toiba (LeT), including an accused in the Red Fort shootout
case, were killed in an encounter with the Delhi police last evening. .....
Scoops, such as they are, don't
usually fall into the prayerful journalist's computer lap. They are sometimes,
if not more often than one realises, the result of somebody wishing to
damage the reputations of a party or a government. .....
The Secularist Media has virtually
become a mouthpiece of Jamaat-e-Islami and its Pakistani patrons in its
misrepresentation of the Hindu counter-offensive. .....
India needs no lessons in secularism
from the West because secularism is part of the innate message of Bhagwan
Mahavir's philosophy of non-violence and tolerance, Prime Minister Atal
Behari Vajpayee said on Thursday .....
Some days after the election successes
of French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, Britain is fearful that the
far-right British National Party (BNP) might make gains in next month's
local authority elections. .....
What brownie points will someone
who claims to have mastered German by learning English, earn? Well, before
you dismiss that as drivel, listen to his arguments-all but three letters
of the alphabet are the same in the two languages. That is not really ridiculous,
since Hindu pseudo-secularists are practising this, as it were, day-in
and day-out. .....
Terror struck in the posh Patliputra
Colony area last evening after a Coca-Cola bottling plant here was bombed
by a mysterious "swadeshi" outfit, which left behind leaflets claiming
a "bin Laden-Coke pact" to flood India with "foreign consumer items". .....
Myanmar's efforts to stop the influx
of Muslim fundamentalists from Bangladesh along their 273-km-long common
border has suffered a setback following the Khalida Zia government's refusal
to accept the border agreement signed three years ago, diplomats said.
.....
The events in Gujarat recently
have been extremely deplorable. Nobody covered themselves with glory. The
murders in Godhra were an outrage, a crime against humanity. The riots
that followed were also a crime against humanity. The perpetrators should
be found, tried and punished forthwith. And the State failed miserably
in its duty and responsibility of protecting its citizens and of dealing
with the criminals. .....
Reporters Without Borders (Reporters
Sans Frontières - RSF) and the Bangladesh Centre for Development,
Journalism and Communication (BCDJC) protested today against new organised
attacks on the media by government supporters, calling for them to stop
and for those responsible to be punished. "The government¹s press
freedom policy has proved to be totally ineffective to judge by these renewed
attacks on journalists directly involving militant supporters of the ruling
party," said RSF secretary-general Robert Ménard in a joint letter
to Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia. "The government must end the impunity
enjoyed by those, including its own camp, who physically attack journalists,"
said the president of the BCDJC. .....
A leading figure of the Catholic
Church in Pakistan, said that the country is not the bastion of fundamentalism
that Western media would lead one to believe. .....
I must congratulate the Confederation
of Indian Industry (CII) for organising a discussion on Gujarat at its
annual conference recently. I also thank the organisation for inviting
the BJP to participate in it. This purely industrial confederation is taking
a deep interest in the burning political and social issues of the day,
and has made a welcome departure from the problems of business that are
normally discussed at its prestigious annual conference. .....
One question that keeps recurring
on the recent riots is the role of the opposition parties and the indifference,
if not total cowardice, they showed during all those grim incidents. What,
for example, is the nature of the Muslim psyche in Godhra? Since Independence
there have been at least four major communal riots in this town. It has
a centre for Islamic studies, the funding of which remains a mystery. .....
The Hindus in Bangladesh are facing
an organised attack from the supporters of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party
(BNP), Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and some allied religio-political outfits.
Reportedly, the attack is political in nature as the Hindus there are labelled
as supporters of the Awami League (AL). .....
In what is being considered in
legal circles as a case that will have far-reaching ramifications, an 11-member
bench of the Supreme Court is hearing the contentious issue of the rights
of the minorities to run and administer educational institutions in the
country. .....
In a major terrorist attack by
a suicide squad today on an army camp and a civilian bus in Jammu Division,
34 people, most of them armymen and their family members, were killed.
.....
The United States would like Pakistan
to do more to hunt any al-Qaida fighters finding refuge along the country's
lawless border with Afghanistan. But at a time when the United States depends
on Pakistan's president for many things - from countering an internal radical
Islamic threat to averting a nuclear crisis with India - U.S. officials
praise the help they get and are leery of publicly pushing for more. .....
In a significant development, which
should bring relief to the Adilabad police, elders of 18 tribal villages
in Asifabad police station limits have passed a resolution banning the
entry of the outlawed People's War Group naxals into the villages. .....
Fearing legal entry of militants
into Jammu and Kashmir, the Vajpayee government has demanded the abrogation
of the controversial Jammu and Kashmir Resettlement Act. .....
Mild tension prevailed in Kaladera
locality under Chaderghat police station limits on Sunday evening when
a group of youngsters belonging to one community attacked the houses of
the people belonging to another community and inflicted minor injuries
on six persons. .....
Two persons were killed, one in
police firing, and at least 53 injured including a police superintendent,
as communal clashes broke out in tribal dominated Nandurbar in Maharashtra
today compelling authorities to impose curfew in the township. .....
The sheer number of suicide belt-bombers
attacking Israel this spring, and the diversity of their backgrounds, has
increased fear among terrorism experts that the tactic will be exported
to the United States. .....
Some 500 Maoist rebels stormed
a Sanskrit university in west Nepal, set the building on fire and destroyed
office records, an official said on Monday. .....
British Minister for Europe Peter
Hain has warned that Muslim immigration and the backlash against it poses
a greater danger than racism and tensions arising from it. .....
Away from the media-hogging Ram
temple controversy, the holy town of Ayodhya has quietly been nurturing
a legend of a different kind. Like the legend of Ram, this too can be traced
to ancient times. But unlike the temple discord, it sends out a message
of unity and brotherhood. .....
I would like to begin my column
this week with a quotation from a collection of articles of Mahatma Gandhi
from Young India of 1928, named 'to the Hindus and Muslims'. This is to
explain tradition of Hindu-Muslim relations in certain parts of Gujarat
even in those days when there was no RSS presence barring in the city of
Nagpur. The question of VHP, Bajrang Dal, BJP presence etc did not arise.
In fact Godhra with half of its population being Muslim had a long history
anti-Hindu offensive. .....
Raja Ram Mohan Roy, one .JT\of
the great reformers of renaissance India has commanded respect to the point
of veneration and has been acclaimed as a Versatile presence on the Indian
Historical firmament. All his life, he fought to reform the society because
he believed that social and religious reform was the very foundation of
political advancement. A harbinger of the idea of universal humanism, an
apostle of monotheism, the founder of the Brahmo Samaj, an advocate of
the freedom of the press and a champion of women's cause, "Ram Mohan Roy
was indeed, what Gopal Krishna Gokhale called him, 'the maker of modem
India'. .....
'Bush Is Still Winning War There,
but He Begins to Lose Battle Here," said the headline in yesterday's New
York Times. The assumption that the United States is at least winning There
is widespread, and with good reason. US forces brought down the Taliban
regime in Afghanistan with terrific speed. And yet the apparent success
of the military strategy is illusory. That, as American officials and generals
know all too well, is why the conflict will go on for years, and why Winning
There is as far away as ever. .....
Leaders of an allegedly moderate
Muslim organisation with close links to the Prince of Wales and Tony Blair,
the Prime Minister, have distributed literature on behalf of Osama bin
Laden. .....
Time was when Satiricus was happy
being a Hindu. In those good old communal days it was simple. It did not
exercise his grey cells. Alas, not any more. Now Hindu Satiricus has to
grapple with two quite complex questions that have fairly flummoxed him.
They are- even if his claim of being a Hindu was accepted, is he a representative
Hindu, or is he a representing Hindu? That is, which Hindus does he represent?
Conversely, which Hindus represent him? Take the VHP. .....
Inaugurating the delegate session
of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) at Kozhikode in Kerala recently,
the Union Minister of State for Home, Vidyasagar Rao said that madrasas
in Kerala were serving as bases for ISI agents to operate from. .....
One question that keeps haunting
concerning the riots in Ahmedabad in particular and in Gujarat in general
is the role of the Congress and all Opposition parties and the cowardice
that they showed during all those grim hours of wanton killing. Presuming
that the rioters were all people belonging to the RSS and the VHP cadres
and, by definition fascist Hindus, what, for god's sake, were the Hindus
in die Congress and Opposition parties doing when they knew that blood
was being shed in the streets, that Muslim women were being raped, Muslim
children were being burnt and Muslim homes were being torched? .....
Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) international
vice-president Acharya Giriraj Kishore gave a call to Hindus to stand united
in fighting the Islamic fundamentalists. The VHP leader was at Jammu on
a two-day visit to take stock of the situation after the terrorist attack
on the Raghunath Temple. .....
Within hours of Jammu-Kashmir's
Director General of Police boasting of police successes in containing terrorism,
another gory massacre took place in the remote Arnas area of Udhampur district
in Jammu division with the security agencies unable to nab the killer.
.....
BJP's National Executive has unanimously
supported the Gujarat chief Minister Narendra Modi for putting a brave
front to fight Islamic fundamentalism in his State. The National Executive
advised Shri Modi for the dissolution of the Assembly and to seek a fresh
mandate to govern keeping in view the situation in the State. .....
The Pakistani army mobilised its
nuclear arsenal against India in 1999 without the knowledge of its prime
minister, a senior White House adviser at the time has disclosed. .....
Civilized societies live by dialogue,
uncivil ones by the brute force. In earlier time that force was wielded
with clubs and stones. In the modern times it is bombs, bullets and rockets.
But the impatience and intolerance of the others' viewpoint is the same
as it was in the times when the advanced instruments of death were unknown.
Yet the barbarian had one defense; he did not have any other way. The uncivil
by definition does not know, does not have the advantage of a civilized
way of life. He is forced by his circumstances to wield the club and stone.
.....
A rocket has been fired at a vocational
school in Pakistan where US special forces were believed to be staying
as they continue their search for al-Qaeda and Taleban fighters, a local
official said. .....
The continuing communal outrage
in Gujarat is ostensibly an extremism of 12-year-old Pakistan-sponsored
proxy war in India. Let there be no doubt about it. The hydra-headed
(communal) monster is not going ton sleep like a long. The plot has
been well orchestrated to humiliate India in the comity of nations. .....
The United States has made it clear
to Pakistan that it does not want any kind of support to or leniency towards
the militants and terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir. Washington's latest
message, precisely, calls for " prompt and potent" steps by Islamabad in
this regard. .....
In a letter to the editor published
in another daily newspaper, Anand Arnold of Curepe condemned me for statements
I made during a Ramayan Yagna at the El Dorado South Hindu School on February
23. .....
Recently we found in the leading
English papers and weeklies, the writings of the so called enlightened
and eminent thinkers and journalists about the tolerance, secularism and
universalism of the Hindus and vehemently condemning those who violently
reacted to the Godhra carnage. Some have expressed surprise that the people
belonging to Gandhi's land have reacted so violently against the massacre
of some 'Hindu extremists' including some old men, women and children,
who perpetrated the crime of raising a 'fanatic' and 'fundamentalist' slogan
that they will build Ram Temple at Ram's birthplace. .....
Europe's great religious wars ended
in 1648. Three and a half centuries is a long time, too long for us in
the West to truly believe that people still slaughter others to vindicate
the faith. .....
You're always hearing about how
"media-savvy" people are today, and that it's really hard to pull the wool
over everyone's eyes. I wonder: seems to me that, as never before, so long
as you keep on talking the talk, that suspect way in which you stagger
from pillar to post will not be called into question. .....
Abu Salem, accused in the Bombay
serial blasts, may now be fomenting trouble in riot-torn Gujarat. The Intelligence
Bureau (IB) and other investigative agencies are interrogating two of his
associates, Sajjan Soni and Pawan Mittal, arrested in Delhi this week.
.....
The US President, Mr George W Bush,
cannot be faulted for his conclusion at the completion of the first phase
of the coalition military engagement in Afghanistan. The Taliban are gone
and Al-Qaeda has lost its home base for terrorism. And equally significant
was his finding as the Americans entered the second stage of the war on
terrorism. Terrorists feeling Afghanistan will try to regroup. .....
Tolerance and diversity, we are
told, are the two distinguishing features of the Asian identity. Who said
this? Two eminent ladies of Asia - Ms Kumaratunga and Ms Soekarnoputri.
And yet there is no tolerance to be found anywhere in South Asia. .....
Muslim extremists Friday praised
an unknown suicide bomber for his "heroic sacrifice" in killing or wounding
23 French citizens in Karachi, but expressed dismay that there were no
Americans among the casualties. Three Pakistanis were killed and 11 wounded.
.....
Secularism has become a political
slogan with few of its users being clear about what it means. The 16th
century European definition was a separation between the church and the
state; the non-interference of the clergy in the affairs of government.
.....
Sometime this month, the Indian
intelligence service -- known as RAW because of the initials of its more
genteel official name, the Research and Analysis Wing -- will complete
a report on whether Pakistan has complied with an Indian ultimatum that
it halt terrorist infiltration into Kashmir and hand over alleged terrorists.
.....
The sudden spurt in activities
of militants claiming some sort of ideological affinity with Maoism is
being reported from areas as diverse as Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand
and Western Nepal. One factor appears to be common and that relates to
apalling poverty and socio-economic deprivation. Even after mainland China
has made a distinct break with the past dominated by thinking and action
programmes popularised by Mao-zeDong and his hardline comrade Liu Chao-Chi,
the rigours of so-called cultural revolution and 'left-wing Communism',
the new generation of 'Maoists' continue to adhere to what they understand
as Maoism. .....
Twenty-nine Jamatia tribal families,
who earlier embarrassed Christianity has recently reconverted to Hinduism
in West Tripura district. Jamatia Hoda, the apex body of the Jamatia community,
which for the last two years was fighting against the forcible conversion
of the tribals to Christianity by the National Liberation Front of Tripura
(NLFT) militants, has supervised the reconversion. All the family members
were accepted to the Hindu society after they went through some rituals
performed by a local priest. .....
It is not, alas, the English media
alone that has been guilty of fanning communal hatred specifically in Gujarat
and, incidentally, all over India. From available reports, the Gujarati
press must also be made responsible for the same. .....
Faced with a determined bid by
Pakistan to push in terrorists from across the Line of Control (LoC) in
Ladakh, the security forces have sought clear political directions about
the fate of the four-month-old mobilisation in Jammu and Kashmir. .....
Media management of the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh is going to get a fillip with V Ram Madhav, a young blood
from Andhra Pradesh taking over the charge as additional spokesperson of
the organisation. .....
A remote-controlled mine blast
tore through the main street of a Southern Russian town near breakaway
Chechnya on Thursday, killing at least 26 people and injuring about 100,
during celebrations marking the allied victory over the Nazis, the officials
said. .....
Wanted Hindu evangelists. Age,
sex, caste no bar. Last date for applications: May 15. The VHP is recruiting
in Kerala. Low profile reports have appeared in the inside pages of the
state's newspapers, quoting Parishad press releases that announce vacancies
for dharma pracharaks (preachers). .....
While the pogrom in Gujarat continues
to worry people in India and abroad, certain sinister developments in Bangladesh
have made policymakers and analysts wonder if this young nation of 130
million, the third most populous in the Muslim world, is also losing its
way into a fundamentalist quagmire. If a collapsing economy, political
uncertainty and a general state of lawlessness prepare the breeding ground
for religious fanatics and their political sympathizers, the situation
in Bangladesh gives enough cause for concern. .....
In The Hindu (January 22) and Organiser
(February 3), N.S. Rajaram has given an overview of the wrong theories
on ancient Indian history. He has suggested that the Vedic age and the
Indus-Saraswati civilization was in the same areas, they were most probably
closely related. By deciphering the Indus script one can bridge the vast
archeological remains and the considerable literature of the Vedic Aryans.
In a rejoinder, Michael Witzel (The Hindu, January 29) calls Rajaram's
views a "serious misrepresentation". This leaves the reader nonplussed.
Rajaram has not misrepresented Max Mueller, nor has he said that he "derived
his history from the Bible". .....
Let it be said straightaway: the
tussle over the Ramjanmabhoomi in Ayodhya is not something connected with
law or property rights. Plainly it arises out of human emotions, anger,
sorrow, humiliation and pride. It cannot be solved in a court of law. If
that were the case it wouldn't have required ten long years for a decision
to be handed down. Even today it won't require ten minutes for any court
to deliver a verdict. All the arguments for and against, all the evidence
necessary, are there for the asking. The matter has been deliberately postponed
for fear of a backlash. .....
The mushrooming of madrasas and
their turning into hotbeds of extremist elements is creating tension in
the society. The unrecognised madrasas which preach hatred against people
professing other faiths are detrimental to social harmony. The recent reports
from different parts of the country focus on their role in carrying out
antinational activities. The recent attack on the American Center in Kolkata
bears testimony to these facts. It was at this juncture the Chief Minister
of West Bengal Buddhadeb Bhattacharya remarked in an interview to a web
daily that some madrasas in the State had become the base for anti-national
elements. .....
Speaking in the Central Hall of
the Parliament House on the midnight of August 14-15, 1947, on the occasion
of India becoming Independent after a long struggle, Jawaharlal Nehru,
in his "tryst with destiny" speech, began with, "when the whole world sleeps",
India emerged as an independent nation. How wrong he was! For one thing,
from purely a geographical point of view, it was only about 6.30 in the
evening that time in London when it was not even dark, and the United States
and the western hemisphere had just woken up. For another, the British
were certainly not asleep at that moment, at least not even figuratively.
.....
Recent studies hint at possible
links between the ancient civilization of the Indus valley and the Mayans
of central America. B G Siddarth, the director of the B M Birla science
centre in Hyderabad, had pointed out striking similarities between the
two ancient cultures. .....
The immigration debate sweeping
Europe hit Britain on Thursday when a top Minister defended plans to segregate
immigrants children so do not "swamp" the nation's schools. .....
Secularism has become a political
slogan with few of its users being clear about what it means. The 16th
century European definition was a separation between the church and the
state; the non-interference of the clergy in the affairs of government.
.....
Prem Darwaza in Ahmedabad is another
Panwad, though here Hindus are at the receiving end unlike the Vadodara
village. The locality stands out with its burnt houses, and broken bangles,
steel utensils and torn bedsheets scattered across the streets. .....
Locals call Karachi the city of
death. Yesterday's car bomb that killed 15 people, including 12 French
nationals, is only the latest in years of ethnic, sectarian and gang-related
killings. .....
At least 14 people, most of them
French, were killed and more than 20 seriously wounded today when a suicide
car-bomber pulled a red Toyota alongside a shuttle bus in front of the
Sheraton Hotel in downtown Karachi and exploded it. .....
"They are accursed in heaven and
on earth a catastrophe for the human race They are the virus of the generation
they are the plague of the generation and the bacterium of all time Their
history was and always will be stained with treachery, falseness and lying
they are a model of debasement and degradation." .....
In the middle of February, 2002,
Sitaaji Sharma, the convener of New Jersey Raamaayana Mahilaa Samiti, made
a request to Children of Edison Baalagokulam to come up with a few minutes
Raamaayana play to be held during second anniversary celebration of monthly
Raamaayana paat held in New Jersey. After discussing with parents and shikshaks,
we made up our mind to accept her request. The event to take shape was
seen as an opportunity to our children to familiarize with characters in
Raamaayana to be used as a role model, which the Hindu children brought
up in US very much lacked. .....
These are the 1,000-odd riot victims
for whom relief is an eyewash. While some have been driven away from their
houses, others had no choice but to leave their houses badly damaged in
the riots. .....
The famous poet from Kerala, Kamala
Surayya, formerly Madhavikutty - aka Kamala Das - recently celebrated her
70th birthday. Kamala Das's embracing of Islam in December 1999 had kicked
off a string of comments and controversy. Yet nobody questioned her inalienable
right to choose a religion. But let's look at the other face of the picture.
Had Kamala Das been born a Muslim and chosen to convert to Hinduism, how
would have the pseudo-secularists of India reacted? What would have been
the response of her co-religionists? .....
In a few days from now, another
- the last and most decisive - bastion of the Hindu upper castes is set
to fall in Uttar Pradesh. With the graduation of the first batch of curriculum-trained
priests in the state, several Dalit pundits will be ready to offer their
services for the entire range of traditional Hindu rites. .....
This is now the third time I am
writing to you concerning the location of the murderers of United States
citizen Avi Boaz. My two earlier letters of April 10th and May 2nd, did
not receive any response from your office. As I wrote to you previously,
(letters attached hereto) I am seriously concerned that the murderers of
Avi Boaz, who have currently taken refuge in the Church of the Nativity
may not be brought to justice. The pair, Ibrahim Musa Salem Abyat and Ismail
Musa Muhammed Hamdan, killed Boaz on January 15, 2002 in the West Bank
village of Beit Sahour. Boaz, as I noted before, was 72 years old. .....
In a democracy, no organisation
can claim that its ideology is the only means for the nation's salvation.
Ideological pluralism is essentially a sign of vibrant national community.
However, in the Indian democracy, the practice of ideological apartheid
has proved to be the biggest hurdle before evolving a consensus on the
vital issues of nationalism and secularism. Secularists introduced Semitic
politics which eventually created totalitarian mindsets. The RSS has been
discussed, but only to be slandered. .....
As the Sangh Parivar gloats over
its success in communalising tribals in Gujarat, its attempts at doing
the same in other states has worried minorities. In Orissa, the Parivar
is on overdrive to reconvert tribal Christians to Hinduism. .....
Two persons, said to have worked
in an ammunition factory in India, were shot dead by security forces inside
a mosque in Nepal after authorities received a tip-off that explosives
were hidden inside, officials said today. .....
Kuala Lumpur May 6. Muslim nations
took different stances on Monday on suicide bombings in Israel, with Malaysia
urging an end to them and Saudi Arabia calling Palestinian suicide bombers
martyrs. .....
The Supreme Court today directed
the Union Home Ministry to inspect the refugee camps in Jammu and Kashmir
and file a report on the conditions prevailing there. .....
God's very own country soon is
going to be the scene of a channel war in the name of God. While the church
is launching a Malayalam TV channel, the Muslim community will have one
of its own. The church's channel, Jeevan, will be on air in two months
and the Muslim League-supported India Vision is in its final stages. .....
Judging from the news and what
people are writing in the Jerusalem Post letters section, it seems as if
the entire population of Europe has been stricken by a collective amnesia.
.....
The light has gone out of our lives,"
Jawaharlal Nehru said on January 30, 1948. It has gone out of ours too.
He was speaking metaphorically; I am not. The light has gone out. So has
the water. The clean air -- and I am old enough to remember the days when
Bombayites would come to Delhi to fill their lungs -- seems to have joined
the list of vanishing items. And don't even get me started on the economy!
.....
After 58 passengers aboard the
Sabarmati Express died in Godhra on February 27, the entire state of Gujarat
was tense. On March 1, over 2,000 people in Sanjeli, a village of 8,000
in tribal-dominated Dahod district, were attacked by a violent mob. However,
the police managed to pull them out of Sanjeli amidst the raging attack.
District Superintendent of Police A. K. Jadeja himself suffered serious
injuries but he put his revolver to effective use before managing to take
the affected people to the safety of Dahod city. .....
Elie Deeb Ghalib, 30, a Lebanese
Christian was jailed for adultery in the United Arab Emirates after he
married a UAE Muslim woman of Yemeni origin, 25 year-old Mona Juedi in
June 1995. .....
Semu > What is Panun Kashmir all
about?
Ashok Pandit > `Panun' means "Our"
(in Kashmir). After the exodus in 1990 when we were forced to become refugees
in our own country after 50 years of independence, Dr Agni Shekhar a known
poet, came out with this concept of an organsiation called `Panun Kashmir'.
Youngsters joined him. Panun Kashmir for the first time in the history
of Kashmiri pandits gave a political slogan of homeland. We demand a homeland
in Kashmir on the north-east of river Jhelum and invite each and every
citizen of this country who believes in the Indian Constitution to be a
part of this concept of homelan. .....
What was happened in Gujarat has
once again brought into bold relief the two unfortunate characteristics
of India society. Firstly there is the latent but strong anti-Muslim feeling
among Hindus in several parts of this country. It erupts into cruel violence
from time to time in several states. The antipathy towards Muslim is shared
even by other minorities, like Christians and Sikhs. ......
Even as the new Chairman and CEO
of the Coca-cola, Douglas N Daft was addressing shareholders at its AGM
in New York numerous organisations gathered outside the meeting venue to
protest Coke's treatment of its employees. These organisations were demanding
that Coke should negotiate a worldwide pact to protect workers' rights
and safety. Back home at New Delhi, Coca-cola was actually addressing the
concern, though only of the management. ......
Satish Mishra still carries burns
from the journey aboard the ill-fated S-6 coach of the Sabarmati Express
on February 27. But the scars he bears are of the 40 agonising days he's
spent worrying since about his wife, who went missing within minutes of
the carnage. ......
Indians abroad, particularly those
who left the country some generations ago, are going through an interesting
metamorphosis. For the sake of a working definition, I would call it an
intermediate stage of consciousness. This is not wholly satisfactory because
the communities, especially the youth, are bursting with ideas and energy,
and premature definitions tend to confine rather than define the subject
of the thesis. ......
The nation today is clearly divided
into two groups. The electronic and print media, as well as the so-called
secular politician, are clearly siding with the minorities, obviously to
appease them and to secure their votebanks. On the other side of the divide,
the majority community remains as ever the silent sufferer - unable to
raise its voice for fear of being dubbed as Hindu fundamentalists. ......
The Defence Ministry functionaries
cited the report while claiming that there has been no decline in the moral
and material aid that Islamabad and its agencies have been providing to
militants operating in Jammu and Kashmir. ......
Secretary of the banned Students
Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) Noman Badra who was arrested here yesterday
admitted, after a night long grilling, the involvement of SIMI in the Godhra
incident in which six coaches of Sabarmati Express were torched. ......
Why doesn't your conscience cry
for the Hindus of Bangladesh who are subjected to continuous communal atrocities?
Those collecting relief for the victims of the Gujarat carnage in Kolkata
have confronted this question, often laced with anger and sarcasm. ......
The CPM today reacted sharply to
the visit of US officials to the Calcutta Madarsa yesterday, calling it
"an unnecessary act of interfering in our affairs". ......
The Chengai Range DIG, Sangram
Jangid, said Wilhelm (48) set up the Little Home for the Orphans at the
village eight years ago. There were a total of 42 inmates in the age group
10-20. Nineteen among them were girls. While most of the inmates were orphans,
many others were children of those parents who could not afford the upbringing
of their wards. ......
The communal divide in Narendra
Modi's Gujarat is at once a realisation of Jinnah's two-nation theory and
the RSS dream of a Hindu Rashtra. Muslim colonies are derisively nicknamed
after prominent Pakistani cities. Any road dividing the residential quarters
of the two communities is invariably called Indo-Pak border. In the eye
of a storm for his failure to contain the post-Godhra conflagration, Modi
defends himself. ......
Reacting to a report in these columns,
Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh spokesman MG Vaidya says there are misconceptions
about the bans on the organisation. This is the RSS's interpretation of
events in the past half century and more, and finds space in these columns
because The Statesman does not wish to be accused of what the RSS is -
of having tunnel vision. ......
How knowledgeable are most Indians
about Pakistan? Conversely how knowledgeable are most Pakistanis about
India? According to Krishna Kumar, Professor of Education, Delhi University,
knowledge about Pakistan has little worth in India and the case of knowledge
about India in Pakistan is not very different. He attributes the latter
to the stigmatization of India as a Hindu country and a shrinking of academic
curiosity about India in Pakistani academic circles as a whole. ......
"Some anti-national elements are
operating from the madrasas. This must be stopped". Buddhadev Bhattacharya,
the Chief Minister of West Bengal, spoke up his mind with true patriotic,
feelings recently. It was a statement quite unexpected from a Marxist leader
but only to be pressurised by his predecessor Jyoti Basu and his close
confide in the party hierarchy and the Left Front chairman, Bimal Bose,
to apologize before a delegation of Muslim leaders at Writers' Buildings
on February 6 and assure them that his government had no plan to close
down private madrasas funded and controlled by some Arab Islamic countries.
......
The Congress has reasons to be
happy that it captured power in Punjab and Uttaranchal but it is deluding
itself if it thinks it is on the ascendancy and will come to power on its
own strength in the next parliamentary election. These States are not significant
so far as parliamentary election are concerned as they send a very small
number of Members to Parliament. In any case, the Congress did not sweep
the polls in these States. The Akali Dal, that is an ally of the NDA, in
Punjab and the BJP in Uttaranchal are not far behind the Congress. ......
Q.: In spite of all the uproar,
violence is continuing in Gujarat. It was reported that the Ahmedabad police
commissioner came under attack a few days ago. Don't you think this indicates
a colossal failure on the part of the government?
A.: No, that is not true. Out of
more than 18,000 villages in Gujarat, hardly 60 or 70 villages have been
affected. Many of the recent incidents are being done purposefully to discredit
the government. A few such elements tried to disrupt the peace at a few
police stations in Ahmedabad and Vadodara. Some workers from the Congress
also resorted to violence to disturb the students' examinations. ......
Rahul Roy, a Delhi based journalist
visits Bangladesh in October, 2000 to cover elections there. Before returning,
a trip to his ancestral home in Bhola is an eye opener - he sees the atrocities
inflicted on minorities. He files a series of reports which attract international
attention, following which he is forced to leave Bangladesh. ......
The Orissa unit of the Bharatiya
Janata Party has expressed displeasure over the deportation of Bangladeshi
infiltrators by the State Government. Nearly 3,000 infiltrators have been
identified in different districts and a batch of 21 has been deported.
......
In 'Pioneer must oppose BJP' (April
22), Mr N Jamal Ansari wanted editor Chandan Mitra to fall in line with
him and 'oppose the BJP on every front and join in the effort to save India
from becoming another Lebanon or Bosnia'. ......
Union Home Minister L K Advani
today expressed surprise over a TV channel report that the Godhra carnage
in Gujarat was not pre-planned and said he had already spoken to Gujarat
Chief Minister Narendra Modi in this regard. ......
I received 3 emails just today
from Muslims and their supporters with pictures of Palestinians being victimized
by the Israeli soldiers. My answer to all of them and all those who want
to send more pictures is this: ......
"They are accursed in heaven and
on earth. They are accursed from the day the human race was created and
from the day their mothers bore them. They are accursed also because they
murdered the Prophets. They murdered the Prophet John the Baptist and served
up his head on a golden platter to the singer and dancer Salome. Allah
also cursed them with a thousand curses when they argued with and resisted
his words of truth, deceived the Prophet Moses, and worshiped the golden
calf that they created with their own hands!!" ......
Hindu activists in London are outraged
by a London store's decision to sell iced fruit cakes decorated with the
likenesses of Indian gods and a goddess. ......
In a remarkably candid disclosure,
a Pakistani official has implicated the spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence
(ISI) for covertly aiding terrorist suspect Sheikh Omar Saeed during his
incarceration in India on charges of kidnapping western tourists. ......
Just 24 hours before the swearing-in
ceremony of the Mayawati-led coalition government in Uttar Pradesh, Muslim
leaders have appealed for a social boycott of BSP's Muslim MLAs and another
cleric issued a fatwa against them on Thursday afternoon. ......
Undoubtedly, at the vanguard of
India's Independence movement in the late 19th and 20th century, a sizeable
chunk of today's "secular" Hindu Bengalis are passionate about clinging
on to the "glorious past" and a good numbers are oblivious of the lurking
(future) security threat to India. ......
On January 25, 2002, the Malaysian
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad said that he was "concerned about Malaysians
studying Islam in Pakistan", as they could be trained as militants to overthrow
his Government. ......
The atmosphere of the first round
of France's presidential election was captured by candidate Francois Bayrou's
visit to Strasbourg on April 9. Bayrou, who represents Valery Giscard d'Estaing's
center-right Union of French Democracy (UDF), was scheduled to visit a
new mayoral sub-office on Strasbourg's outskirts with the city's elegant,
Berkeley-educated UDF mayor, Fabienne Keller. Bayrou got hung up campaigning
in another city. ......
The recent events in Gujarat have
underscored at least one area where the electronic media has a vital duty
to perform in ensuring that it does not unwittingly fan the flames of discord
rather than doing its mite to defuse tensions. The visual media being what
it is, people tend to remember what happened rather than when something
happened. ......
It is good that the Supreme Court's
11-member Bench has started a process of deciding the rights of minority
communities to establish and administer educational institutions of their
choice. The matter was long pending before the court and no decision was
forthcoming, which resulted in a number of groups that are generally considered
to be part of Hindu society, claiming the status of a minority in a particular
State which would immunise them from the Government laws and restrictions.
......
Thanks to the controversial referendum
in Pakistan giving a five-year term to President Pervez Musharraf, and
the continuing political turmoil in India over the carnage in Gujarat,
media in this country have by and large ignored the growing tension in
the ties between Pakistan and the United States. ......
How come unscrupulous politicians,
wayward bureaucrats and operators manage to thrive? This question was put
to me by a professor friend of mine the other day. My instant reaction
was one of helplessness and disgust but soon I collected myself and gave
him three reasons for this sickening state of affairs. ......
A tree resin used for 2,000 years
as an Indian folk remedy for a variety of ailments works to lower cholesterol
in lab animals, and in a new way that might lead to the development of
improved drugs for people, U.S. researchers report. ......
The minorities have no absolute
right under the Constitution to establish and administer educational institutions
as such a right was subject to "reasonable restrictions'', the Solicitor-General,
Harish Salve, today submitted before a 11-Judge Constitution Bench of the
Supreme Court hearing 11 questions relating to the rights of the minorities.
......
In recent times some voices have
been heard to say that India's unity is fragile and may not stand
up to the assaults made on it by communalists. These voices have
been raised in the context of the events in Godhra and Ahmedabad
and betray a shocking sense of unreality. Much of the mischief has
been wrought by the so- called 'secular' media which has been publicising
the negative aspects of the situation in Gujarat to an extent that
instead of steadying the forces of unity there has been what seems
a deliberate effort to divide the country along communal lines. ......
Uproarious scenes were witnessed
early this morning in the Lok Sabha over some remarks about the army by
Mani Shanker Aiyar (Cong) which annoyed members of the treasury benches
who moved towards the well demanding apology from the member and subsequently
his removal. ......
Even while crying themselves hoarse
over the Sangh parivar's efforts to saffronise history, the Marxists in
West Bengal have launched a fresh move to explain recent developments around
the world from their own perspective. ......
Pakistan has adopted yet another
anti-India scheme of things. It is according to the Union Minister of State
for Home, Mr Vidyasagar Rao to exploit the presence in Pakistan occupied
Kashmir (PoK) of Muslim migrants from some border areas in Jammu and Kashmir.
......
