The head of the Israeli Council
of National Security, Uzi Dayan, was very cautious when he came back to
Israel from another Indian tour some time back. "Our developing relations
with India are not against anybody," he said, meaning Pakistan. .....
Both Defence Minister George Fernandes
and his Chief of Staff are now saying that cross-border terrorism is definitely
on the decrease. They should know. But consider this: In a gruesome act,
LeT militants shot dead five members of a family and two children and injured
three others at a village in Udhampur district on June 16. A day earlier
armed militants entered a house in Badar village and killed a man, his
wife and two daughters. On the same day three pilgrims returning from the
holy shrine of Sharda Mata were killed by militants near Lharua village
in Doda district. .....
Q.: US Deputy Secretary of State
Richard Armitage told you that President Musharraf had made certain promises
(to stop the flow of militants from Pakistan-controlled Kashmir into India).
Has Pakistan made a fundamental change?
A.: There has been no change in
Pakistan's policy so far as cross-border infiltration is concerned. Every
day we are getting reports that infiltration continues. .....
Q.: Did you tell US Deputy Secretary
of State Richard Armitage that you would stop cross-border terrorism and
shut down training camps which exist in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and in
Pakistan?
A.: First of all, I don't call
it cross-border terrorism. There is a freedom struggle going on in Kashmir.
What I said is that there is no movement across the Line of Control. There
was no talk of anything else. I have made clear that a response is required
from the Indian side. .....
Pakistan-based militants and remnants
of Al-Qaeda have jointly worked out a plan to launch fresh attacks against
the west and topple the Pakistan Government, media reported today. .....
After years of disregard, India's
apprehensions about Pakistan's state-sponsored terrorism in Kashmir have
finally found a receptive international community, led by the US and the
UK. They now acknowledge the threat as real - and a stumbling block to
a meaningful Indo-Pak dialogue. This attitudinal shift was recently reflected
in a House of Commons' address by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
Mr Straw not only endorsed India's claim that Pakistan's ISI was supporting
numerous terrorist outfits in the Valley, but went further to say something
that should sound music to our Foreign Office. .....
Both were well timed: the arrival
of US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in New Delhi and the lifting of
restrictions on Pakistan flights overflying our airspace and the withdrawal
of naval ships. It looks as if Washington had arranged everything behind
the scenes: President Pervez Musharraf's assurance to stop infiltration
in India and Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh's statement commending Pakistan's
response. But President Musharraf has not said anything beyond what he
had stated in his address to the nation on January 12. .....
Iran wants to cooperate with India
in rooting out extremism from the region and is ready to expand security
cooperation with India, a senior Iranian official said here today. .....
Perhaps, at Kaluchak we defeated
the Pakistan-based terror machine. The killing of some 30 civilians and
soldiers at Kaluchak in Jammu on May 14 filled the Prime Minister with
the resolve to act which he had lacked till then. In a public speech in
Manali where he had a tension-filled holiday two weeks ago, he admitted
that he should have acted after the December 13th terrorist attack on the
Parliament complex but failed to do so because of international pressure.
.....
President Gen Pervez Musharraf
has said Islamabad will not accept the Line of Control dividing Kashmir
between Pakistan and India as the international border. .....
Al-Jazeera's weekly religious program
dedicated a special for the Prophet Muhammad, as a model of a Jihad warrior,
and discussed the modern implications of this image.[1] The guest in the
studio was the head of the Islamic law faculty at Qatar University, Sheik
Yussef Al-Qaradhawi, who is a leading authority in the Muslim world today,
and a spiritual leader of the 'Muslim Brotherhood' movement. .....
The mail brings a letter from a
self-identified African- American prison inmate (several of the same type
have arrived since September 11). He predicts Islam will take over the
world and America's days are numbered. .....
The All India Muslim Personal Board
(AIMPLB) has decided to intervene before the Supreme Court on extension
of the Child Marriage Restraint Act to Muslims. .....
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf
has denied giving an "assurance" to US of permanently ending cross-border
terrorism and said it was linked to India's response to its demand for
"discussion on Kashmir". .....
Those of us who have had the misfortune
to be at the receiving end know -- often thanks to Indian cinema's penchant
for stereotypes -- that the person propagating the lie mostly does it out
of ignorance, and sometimes out of malice. .....
Two groups within the Muslim community,
the Deobandhi and Bariellavi sects, clashed over the issue of management
control of Khan Masjid in Gandhibagh area of the city on Friday. .....
Kashmir is growing in importance
to al Qaeda, which is using training camps in the disputed state to replace
those lost in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda's grand design there is to provoke
a war between India and Pakistan with the front line in Kashmir. That would
only help al Qaeda by distracting the United States with a regional war
and lead to the possible replacement of the Musharraf government with a
fundamentalist Islamic regime. .....
It is a remarkable fact that, while
the Security Council and its various agencies have devoted so much time
to the study of the Kashmir dispute and made various suggestions for its
resolution, none of them has tried to ascertain the views of the Indian
Muslims nor the possible effect of any hasty step in Kashmir, however well-intentioned,
on the interests and well- being of the Indian Muslims. We are convinced
that no lasting solution for the problem can be found unless the position
of Muslims in Indian society is clearly understood. .....
Khaled Muhammad Batrafi, a Saudi
columnist for the London daily Al-Hayat, recently published an article
headlined "Why do we hate the People of the Book?" (namely - Christians
and Jews) in which he tells of a religious argument he had with a friend
regarding the annihilation of Christians and Jews. .....
Defence minister George Fernandes
on Friday ruled out any talks with the All-Parties Hurriyat Conference,
saying that the conglomerate had spurned the Centre's initiative when K.C.
Pant had visited Kashmir. .....
It is now widely acknowledged that
it was Shree Narayana Guru who saved Kerala from total conversion to Christianity,
more than 150 years ago. But for the Guru and his strong stand against
Christianity, a large number of the so-called backward class of Kerala
would have become Christian, as in the North-east. The Sree Narayana Dharma
Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam, started with the inspiration from the Guru has
completed 100 years of its existence. .....
No tears need be shed over the
latest and, hopefully, the last of our great turnarounds: this time over
Kashmir. It was both inescapable and inevitable. The knots of our warrior
school of thought were intertwined, Afghanistan and Kashmir being features
of the same strategy. When we untied the one, we were bound sooner or later
to untie the other. .....
If the large English language papers
in India continue to maintain that the violence against Christian institutions
was unprovoked and was all committed by members of the Sangh Parivar, then
I can understand this behaviour. These journalists want the present Government
to go, and to achieve this goal they use any sort of defamation. .....
In the above report I noted, first
of all, that Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, at least one third of the territory,
was not mentioned, and in Indian-held Kashmir not the Government side 'but
only the opposition had its say. .....
I agree with you in calling Imam
Bukhari an agitator and instigator, and I also agree that the majority
of Indian Muslims is loyal, has a reasonable stand on Kashmir and wants
a secular state. Only by "secular" they mean something different from our
concept of secularism, namely a state of affairs that prevailed in India
from the time of Nehru until recently (see below). .....
Last Monday, barely 48 hours after
US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage left Delhi, India announced
it was lifting all restrictions on overflights of Pakistani aircraft, informed
the Pakistani charge d'affairs that Harsh Kumar Bhasin had been earmarked
for being posted to Pakistan as high commissioner, asked naval ships along
the western seaboard with Pakistan to sail back to their stations. .....
Nobody can remember when Ayub Thakkar
became Ayub Thakur. The aggressive Ayub used to be a constant presence
at press conferences for years until he vanished from the scene. The mission
of Ayub Thakkar in England then was to raise the issue of human rights
in Kashmir and to talk about the UN resolutions on Kashmir. .....
The war clouds over South Asia
seem to have dissipated as rapidly as they had gathered. President Pervez
Musharraf has minimised the possibility of war, all but withdrawn his threat
to use nuclear weapons against India as a first-strike weapon and committed
himself, both in public and in private, to stopping the infiltration of
terrorists across the LoC. .....
Swami Agnivesh is a respected figure
in India, known for having saved countless children from bonded labour.
This book, written in collaboration with Reverend Valson Thampu, is a deserving
attempt at recording in exacting details the plight of Muslims at the hands
of raging Hindus during the Gujarat riots. .....
This is, in every sense of the
phrase, a defining moment in the history of India's decade-old war against
cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. Admittedly, it has come with
considerable help from Washington. Even so, it has the potential to permanently
end infiltration of Pakistan-backed terror groups. Or, in a worst-case
scenario, keep them penned up till the October elections in Jammu and Kashmir
are over, in itself a major victory for Indian diplomacy. .....
The All India Muslim Personal Law
Board began its three-day 16th session on Friday night with a call for
the protection of Shariah [Islamic law]. .....
Taking a cue from Pakistan, India
is planning to issue an ordinance soon to regulate the functioning
of madrasas (Islamic religious schools) in order to weed out those
which are imparting jehadi education to promote militancy among youngsters
at the behest of the ISI of Pakistan, reliable sources said. .....
Heaven knows a lot could have been
said about Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam's elevation to the Rashtrapati Bhavan,
but considering that he is almost our president, deference to the
office dictates that we set aside such observations that he may be
some sort of an Islamic hippie. .....
ON June 11, Muhammad Yusuf, convicted
two years ago of blasphemy by a sessions court, was shot five times in
the chest with a 30 handgun at Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore. .....
In an unusual move, church leaders
have exhorted the members of the Christian community in the State of Jharkhand
to vote against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in a parliamentary
by election May 31. .....
The issue of deletion of select
paragraphs from the history texts published by the National Council for
Educational Research and Training (NCERT) needs to be understood ion the
context of the desperate struggle for self-preservation by a group of scholars.
Historians Romila Thapar, Satish Chandra, R.S. Sharma, Bipan Chandra and
others have enjoyed such political backing from Congress that they are
convinced that they alone possess God's gift of the ability to interpret
India's past, and operated as a cartel, preventing others from expressing
alternative viewpoints and thus crippled the flowering debate. .....
The current dispute over Indian
history and the behaviour of some of its protagonists is little short of
hilarious. The sheer arrogance of the implied claim of India's Stalinist
historians to some absolute moral and legal title over historical truth
is hard to credit. The underlying contention that the raison d'être
of historical writing has been accepted universally as the examination
of variegated class struggles is breathtaking in its impudence, since nothing
could be further from the truth. .....
In recent times Lord Ahmed has
been making wild accusations against India on British television and radio
and in the press. His utterances are full of venom and rhetoric but lack
facts. Let us look at the facts. Over the years, Pakistan has repeatedly
attempted to make Kashmir an international issue and sought mediation by
superpowers under the guise of implementing the UN Resolutions. .....
We have had another infantile outburst
from Lord Ahmed, a Muslim nominated to the House of Lords by the Labour
party. In a programme called 'Hard Talk' screened by BBC TV across Europe
on 28 January, this so called 'British' politician made wild accusations
against the Indian Government and the Indian Army. He unashamedly promoted
the Pakistani propaganda. At times he appeared as if he represented Pakistan
not Britain. British Hindus were furious to hear such rubbish from a British
Lord. .....
Mexico's United Nations mission
put off indefinitely on Thursday a planned private Security Council seminar
on the Kashmir crisis that had angered India and spurred a boycott by its
allies Russia and Mauritius. .....
Before recounting how President
Clinton burned alive dozens of Christians (this feint is known in the column
trade as baiting the right), let me offer a quick historical quiz: What
religion were Muhammad's parents? .....
Pakistanis residing in the United
States have announced complete boycott of the Indian television channels
and blacklist the Pakistani artists performing for the Indian networks.
.....
The terrorist attack on the US
consulate in Karachi leaves no doubt that Pakistan is now a major target
of groups linked to al Qaeda. Officials may well say that the current wave
of terrorism is the price Pakistan is having to pay for supporting the
United States since September 11 last year. But in fact, the price Pakistan
is paying may be for allowing militants from all over the Muslim world
to transit to and from Afghanistan since 1979. .....
Tapping the waters of 'hidden'
river Saraswati might become a reality for Haryana, thanks to the interest
shown by Union culture minister Jagmohan. .....
Who says President-in-waiting Dr
APJ Abdul Kalam is a novice in politics? Kalam may not be an expert in
Constitutional affairs. He may not be a politician in a conventional sense
of the word. But he surely knows the art of politics well. And, he makes
no bones about displaying his political leanings. Kalam, for instance,
virtually regrets being a Muslim. Instead, he publicizes his "Hindu Muslim"
identity. Kalam makes extra efforts to emphasize his vegetarian food habits,
his love for the Bhagvad-Gita and the Upanishads. .....
The unearthing of Rs 2,000-crore
fake stamp paper racket by the Pune police last week, is only the tip of
the iceberg allegedly master-minded by Karim Lala, who is currently in
a Bangalore jail. .....
A day after culture minister Jagmohan
announced excavations to trace the ancient course of the Saraswati, the
lost river of Harappan civilisation, a team of four experts has been named
by him for this task. .....
I'm writing to you to bring to
your notice a set of factual information that would help you understand
the J&K Issue in a completely unbiased manner and be able to appreciate
the genuineness of India's case pertaining to the dispute of the state
of Jammu & Kashmir with Pakistan. This is in reference to the newly
formed "Kashmir Forum In US Congress" of which you are a founding member.
.....
Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, who will
be our next President, is by all accounts a great scientist; his contribution
to India's defence is of the highest order; he is rightly called the Missile
Man; every Indian feels proud of him; he is in every respect a Bharat Ratna.
But because he was born a Muslim and bears a Muslim name, he should not
be put in the same category as the two former Muslim Presidents, Dr Zakir
Husain and Mr Fakruddin Ali Ahmed. .....
Hitting out at the Pervez Musharraf
regime, Pakistan's Muttahida Quami Movement chief Altaf Hussain has warned
that if the army did not give the people their rights, then it could lead
to 'dismemberment' of the country. .....
By all accounts, the elevation
of Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam to the office of President of India originated
in an apparently innocuous manner in the unofficial backroom parleys between
political parties of both the ruling coalition and the opposition alliance.
The emissaries shuffled around the old tired names of tenacious aspirants,
none of whom truly inspired even his own promoters. The stage appeared
set for more sterile wrangling when the gods decided to stage their own
lila. Time aimed an inspirational moment with missile-like precision, and
the rest as they say, is History. .....
The opposition of the Left parties
to the presidential candidature of Dr APJ Abdul Kalam is not simply a protest
against the choice of the NDA. Their logic, that a scientist should not
be the President of India, since he is "unaware" of the constitutional
provisions and bereft of political understanding, betrays their Stalinist
mindset. .....
A leader of the small worldwide
Muslim reform movement warned the West Tuesday against wishful thinking
as the U.S. government promotes an intensive dialogue with Islam. .....
Fearing persecution, about 47 Pakistani
Hindu nationals including children, staying on extended visa at Khanna
near here since 1998, have resolved not to go back to their native place
Kahut in North West Frontier Province (NWFP). They were the last Hindus
to leave the place just before the Kargil conflict. .....
Eight months after 13 persons were
killed in the communal flareup in Malegaon, former MLA and Janata Dal (Secular)
leader Nihal Ahmed Maulavi Mohammad Usman (75), who was then accused of
whipping up communal passions, was today elected the first Mayor of Malegaon.
.....
Musharraf claims Pakistan will
go all out to stop the jehadis from making incursions into Indian territory.
That's a significant step. But the key question is whether such a clampdown
will work. .....
My father and I were sitting in
his office that Tuesday morning. He had just returned from an overseas
tour. I was both pleased and surprised to see him in an extremely pleasant
mood. .....
President General Pervez Musharraf
and his military-government have promulgated the Conduct of General Elections
(Second Amendment) Order 2002 that prohibits listing Ahmedis or Quadianis
on electoral rolls. .....
As Pakistan is caught between the
rock of American political and economic pressure and the hard place of
Indian military threats, policy-makers in Islamabad need to ponder where
their ill-conceived plans have led the nation. .....
An unflattering article on Prime
Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee by Time magazine has come in for severe criticism
with a large number of senior editors and eminent journalists expressing
shock, dismay and surprise over the article. .....
Farooq Abdullah, India's chief
minister of Kashmir, announced June 18 that assembly elections in Indian-controlled
Jammu and Kashmir would be held in October, with the new government taking
power by Oct. 14. From New Delhi's point of view, the election is a crucial
test of the Pakistani government's commitment and ability to control militants
in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. .....
Three persons, including a five-month-old
boy, were killed and 150 shops, houses and vehicles set on fire in communal
violence two groups today at Jamner town in Jalgaon district of Maharashtra.
.....
Indian public opinion is increasingly
going ballistic over the Time magazine article, which has alleged that
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has 'multiple physical incapacities'
and is mentally and physically unfit. .....
The Government has identified 65
centres in nine states in the country where Pakistan's ISI has established
a formidable network and is pumping about Rs 75 lakh per month - a separate
package for the Jammu and Kashmir militants which ranges between Rs 1.25
crore to 1.60 crore per month -to small militant groups and organisations
for their operation in India. .....
Is Pakistan taking Afghanistan's
place as the new fulcrum of transnational terrorism? Intelligence sources
in Washington, London, Paris and Rome agree that al Qaida's underground
network in Pakistan is functioning with the complicity of the clergy and
intelligence services. President Pervez Musharraf's much-publicized crackdown
on Islamist extremists is a dismal failure, according to Western intelligence
appraisals. .....
"Aap ko to maloom hoga, kya PM
sach-much meetings mein so jaate hain," queried the Chairman of a leading
public sector bank last Friday. Unable to figure out the context of his
question, I asked him what prompted it. "Arrey, aap ne Time magazine ka
article nehi padha kya," he elucidated. .....
FBI directors don't make a habit
of breaking bread with organizations their agents may soon be investigating,
perhaps even closing. Robert S. Mueller III, however, is about to make
precisely this blunder: On June 28, he is scheduled to deliver a lunch
talk to the American Muslim Council. .....
The government has identified 65
centres in nine States in the country where the Pakistan's ISI has
established a formidable network and pumping about Rs 75 lakh per month
-- a separate package for the Jammu and Kashmir militants which ranges
between Rs 1.25 crore and 1.60 crore per month - to the small militant
groups and organisations for their operation in India. .....
The Time magazine is under fire
from various quarters. While the Government has reacted sharply to the
unseemly article on the Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's health, terming
it "completely biased" and "baseless," the National Democratic Alliance
is also upset and sees the article as part of a conspiracy by the forces
hostile to India. .....
The majority of Britain's 1.8 million
Muslims, who are of mainly Mirpuri and Pakistani origin, have voted with
their feet on Kashmir, saying it dominates their concerns and they are
fearful of a nuclear war erupting from the dispute. .....
Pakistan has become a new hub for
al-Qaeda operatives with hundreds of them moving freely and forming or
renewing alliances with local extremist networks. Pakistan has replaced
Afghanistan as command-and-control centre for at least some of the battered
remnants of Osama bin Laden's terrorist army have received help from local
extremist groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed in form of safe
houses for communications, training and logistics, Los Angeles times said
quoting US intelligence sources. .....
No, no - not that bomb. This bomb
is hiding in plain sight - in high schools, universities and coffee houses.
It is a bomb that is ticking away under Iranian society, and over the next
decade it will explode in ways that will change the face of this Islamic
Republic. It's called here, for short, "The Third Generation." .....
Ultimately greed proved his undoing.
The Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, detained under POTA last week,
was so impatient for money from his ISI handlers, that he walked into the
trap laid by the Indian intelligence agencies. Following the terrorist
attack on Parliament House on December 13, the authorities had clamped
down on underground channels of funding of militant Kashmiri groups. .....
As Pakistan is caught between the
rock of American political and economic pressure and the hard place of
Indian military threats, policy-makers in Islamabad need to ponder where
their ill-conceived plans have led the nation. .....
A prominent Southern Baptist pastor
caused protests this week with a speech condemning American religious pluralism
and calling the prophet of Islam, Muhammad, a pedophile. .....
The culture of jihad has been seeping
into the Pakistani mind for the past two decades, helped by state propaganda,
the rise of the charismatic warrior priest, and the empowerment of those
involved in it. In the minds of most people it, began to represent Pakistan
in the world outside, not the government or the armed forces of Pakistan.
Will it be possible to live without the daily headlines planted in the
press about the spiritual superiority of the Islamic warrior in contrast
to the evil Hindu empire next-door and the global threat of the assumed"
Western "crusade" against Islam? .....
The approach of US Ambassador Robert
Blackwell triggering off an exodus of foreign national from India was not.
as termed by the MEA. 'ham-handed'. It was definitely by design. This is
corroborated by the fact that although there was a lessening of tension
on the borders, the US staff reissued a warning to its citizens 'strongly
urging' them to leave India. On the same day. Britain did exactly the same.
The advisory to leave India was followed by Israel, the UN and some other
countries. Japan chartered an aircraft to fly out its nationals. .....
Honey, we've shrunk the market
for US wheat. And Uncle Sam is decidedly upset. The traditional strongholds
of US wheat - Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, Sri Lanka,
Vietnam, and the Middle East - have been flooded by 3m tonnes of substantially
cheaper Indian wheat over the last 18 months. And their appetite for Indian
wheat continues to grow. .....
Afghanistan's tiny Hindu and Sikh
communities, forced to the brink of extinction by the Taleban regime, are
hoping to make a social and political re-emergence at this week's Loya
Jirga Assembly. .....
It is said that if there was no
Shakuni, there would have been no Kurukshetra war. Shakuni's power politics
in the royal household eventually led to a devastating war that saw the
end of the Kauravas including Shakuni. .....
A young student studying in England
sends revolvers to India in book parcels, the weapon cleverly concealed
within thick books, the pages cut in order to accommodate the revolver.
On being caught in similar activities animal at winning freedom of India,
the youth is arrested and being sent to India in a ship. When he ship berths
at Marseilles port in France, the intrepid youth jumps into the sea from
the porthole of his cabin in order to escape. He is caught by the French
Police who, unfortunately, hands him over to the British once again. .....
APU, the convenience store owner
in The Simpsons, might just be losing his status as the Indian stereotype
in the US. And though Patel still owns his roadside motel, and Punjabi
cab drivers in Manhattan still give free airport rides to Indians returning
home, and cut-rate 18-hour-slogging software engineers continue to swamp
Silicon Valley, India is now best known in America for an export of a different
kind: one that has made the whole country stand on one leg and salute the
sun- the art and science of yoga. .....
It's a touching irony of international
politics: India has boxed Pakistan in the corner over the issue of infiltration
across the LoC, but is then accused of the same crime on its eastern border-of
pushing Bangla-speaking Indians into Bangladesh. On May 12, acting Bangladesh
foreign secretary Anwar-ul- Alam summoned Indian high commissioner M.L.
Tripathi and handed him a note verbale, protesting against what Dhaka thinks
is gross infiltration. .....
In Kashmir, just as surely as one
man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter, one man's concern is another's
conspiracy. Conspiracy theories have come rushing in, how would they not,
after a MORI (Market and Opinion Research) poll showed that 10 times as
many Kashmiris would rather be with India than with Pakistan. .....
Hindus are no longer safe in the
hills. Militants have renewed their campaign against them in Jammu's forested
hills and are maiming them with the objective of making them to flee to
the plains. This suits their agenda to have liberated zones in the hills
- - the kinds they have already set up in the upper reaches of Surankote
in Poonch and also in Marwah -Dacchan in Doda, the landlocked district
north of Jammu. .....
Mori, a leading UK pollster, conducted
a survey in Jammu and Kashmir in April 2002. Commissioned by the Friends
of Kashmir, a London-based group, the survey covered 850 people in the
state. .....
Bhutanese troops have been put
on maximum alert following reports that a new Indian militant group is
operating from inside the tiny Himalayan kingdom, a report said on Sunday.
.....
The hefty hike in Pakistan's defence
budget reflects strains on the country's financial position, already under
close scrutiny of international lenders, due to prolonged deployment of
forces on the border, according to defence experts. .....
In a major tactical shift, the
sub-continent's most dominant terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Toiba, has made
Kathmandu its new base to monitor terrorist operations in India. Telephonic
conversations between two LeT commanders intercepted by Intelligence agencies
reveal that from recruitments to logistics, everything is being organised
by the outfit from Nepal. .....
The Week/C-Voter poll conducted
in 1996 revealed that the people of Jammu and Kashmir were warming
up to democracy. But the international media was sceptical about the authenticity
of the poll carried out by an Indian agency. Now, the findings of an independent
market research company, MORI International, indicates that the yearning
for democracy has increased during the period: 86 per cent of the people
MORI pollsters met in April felt that free and fair elections would help
end terrorism. .....
The Rumsfeld visit has capped a
month of the most high-profile and intense diplomacy in the history of
the subcontinent. Not even a fraction of such activity was seen during
our past wars. .....
The ordinary Indian is thrilled
at Dr Abdul Kalam becoming the President of India. For, he regards Dr Kalam
as the symbol of India's claim to super power. Of its Agni, Prithvi, Pokharan.
For him Dr Kalam is an ideal choice for the office of the President. .....
Mention 'Special Forces' and the
intrepid Israelis, the gung-ho Americans or the secretive British come
to mind. But, it appears that it is the Indians who are the toughest of
them all. This is what a gruelling contest determined last week. .....
As we stated last week, we believe
that the "war on terror" expression does little to define the enemy of
this country in this battle, And we have asserted the language the "war
against radical Islamists" instead. We believe it is clear. We believe
it defines our enemies. Most of you-and by far the most of you-agree, but
significant numbers do not. .....
''It's so unfair," the Ghanaian
photographer complained to me. "Unlike the writers, I'm not allowed into
the side room at the end. How can I make a living?" After press conferences,
most Ghanaian journalists go to a room to pick up an envelope stuffed with
cash. The organisers, who want favourable publicity, win; the journalists
win; only the Ghanaian public loses. .....
Facing imminent international isolation,
and fearing Pakistan is in danger of squandering its gains accruing from
the war against terror, President Pervez Musharraf is mulling yet another
U-turn on his foreign policy: abandoning the jehadis operating in Kashmir.
Sources in the military establishment say this great leap forward could
have been already taken had it not been for intense opposition from jehadis
and, presumably, those in the Pakistani society who support them. .....
On May 29, two days after Pakistan
President Pervez Musharraf declared in a televised address that "there
is nothing happening across the LoC", British foreign secretary Jack Straw
was closeted with foreign minister Jaswant Singh in Delhi's Hyderabad House,
summarily dismissing Islamabad's claims. "Pakistan in our view (the US
and the UK)," said Straw, "is the cause for the present situation." .....
The crisis between India and Pakistan
is the most dangerous confrontation since Soviet ships steamed towards
the US naval blockade of Cuba in 1962. There are no trustworthy lines of
communication between Delhi and Islamabad. Both the Pakistani president
and Indian prime minister lack face-saving exits from this confrontation.
For the first time ever, nuclear-capable missiles are being readied for
use in 40-plus degree heat. .....
As happened after the massacre
of Sikhs in Chitsinghpura, no militant organisation has taken credit for
the murder of Abdul Ghani Lone, the most highly respected member of the
Hurriyat's executive council, in Srinagar on Tuesday. Precisely who had
him killed is an open secret in Kashmir. The killers were named by none
other than Sajjad Lone, the slain leader's son, who stood before the news
cameras and told the world that Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence
had engineered his father's murder. .....
At one of Robert Blackwill's more
amiable Round Table dinners, the American ambassador to Lutyens' Delhi
spoke with some passion on how India and the United States were like Siamese
twins in their commitment to fight terrorism. "The Bush administration
is the best US government India could hope for. If we fail you in your
fight against terrorism you have good reason to complain, but we will not
fail you," he declared grandly. .....
Once more India and Pakistan are
on the brink of war. Once more only because it is hard for our Government
to sit back and allow Pakistan to get away with infiltrating terrorists
into India. But this time, if we do not manage to pull back from the brink
it will be as much the fault of America as that of Pakistan. America is
no longer a distant observer of events on the subcontinent. It is an active
player without whose financial and moral (amoral?) support, Pervez Musharraf
would not be able to sponsor terrorism. .....
Three years have passed since 27-year-old
Lieutenant Amit Bharadwaj of 4 Jat died in the Kargil conflict. Embarking
from the idyllic Kaksar in search of fellow officer Saurabh Kalia, whose
body was mutilated by the Pakistani Army, Bharadwaj and his patrol were
trapped in enemy fire on May 17. It was then that the Indian Army realised
how deep the enemy had infiltrated. Bharadwaj died while giving covering
fire to ten of his colleagues, who escaped. .....
Tukaram Baban Bhoite always wanted
to be in the army, says his younger sister, Seema Ganesh Kadam. On July
18, 1999, Bhoite died while patrolling the LoC. .....
"They say time heals. But we have
become like the living dead after our son's death. Since then, we have
been suffering from high blood pressure and diabetes. At this age, we cannot
gather courage to recover from such a shock," say the parents of Captain
Manoj Kumar Pandey, an officer of the Gorkha Regiment who lost his life
on July 3, 1999. .....
There's grief, desolation and a
void that can never be filled. But over all, there is a sense of pride
- pride in being the family of Kargil martyr Mukesh Rathod. .....
His house is a landmark for residents
of Lumdemthring, on the outskirts of Shillong. Inside, Lieutenant Keishing
Clifford Non-grum's mother, Sally, spends most of her time dusting the
two shelves on which are displayed photographs and other souvenirs of the
Kargil martyr "Most of these photographs have been printed from the roll
that we found in one of his bags that was sent back with the body," says
Sally. With tears in her eyes, she points at one. "You can see him standing
against a cliff holding a gun." .....
He has become an icon in Pingori
village. And as for his family, they may have improved economically, courtesy
the compensation package given by the Centre and State governments, but
an emptiness grips their hearts. .....
Everytime he sees an army vehicle,
Neiselie Kengeruste remembers the day a similar looking vehicle brought
home the body of his son, Captain Neikezhakuo Kengerutse, wrapped in the
tricolour, about three years back. .....
"How long should we continue to
sacrifice our sons?" asks an emotional Meena Nayyar in response to Prime
Minister Vajpayee's recent call for more sacrifices. Meena lost her 23-year-old
son, Anuj Nayyar, in the Mushkoh valley sub-sector the posthumous Maha
Vir Chakra is little solace for the void left behind. .....
The general made me a promise.
He kept it the next day. On June 3, General Pervez Musharraf strode towards
his car at Hyatt Rahat Palace hotel in Almaty. I called out from the margins
of the Pakistani president's security cordon. Would he speak to an Indian
journalist? The dapper president turned to flash a smile. "Tomorrow," he
said. .....
The Left Front and the Congress
find themselves in troubled waters following their involvement in yesterday's
Jamait-e- Ulema Hind meeting where books, cassettes and pictures of terror
mastermind Osama bin Laden were sold to members of a particular community.
.....
Despite motivated attempts by a
section of the viscerally hostile media to suggest that the NDA Government
was about to reverse the accepted policy of not letting in foreign troops
to monitor the situation on the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir, the
visiting American officials have been categorical in denying that any such
move was afoot. The report in an English daily on the eve of the US Defence
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's visit to the region on these lines was mischievous
to say the least. .....
What India's mobilisation of its
full military power on the borders with accompanying political threats
after December 13 had only partially achieved, Pakistan's nuclear sabre
rattling appears to have completed it. .....
India has ruled out further de-escalatory
steps vis-à-vis Pakistan until general Pervez Musharraf walks the
talk on ending infiltration and terrorism. This was the message US defense
secretary Donald Rumsfeld took to Pakistan after a series of discussions
in India. .....
With Indian and Pakistani military
forces placed as they presently are, it is not surprising that the threat
of nuclear war is being talked about so casually. .....
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
said today that he had "seen indications" that Al Qaeda was operating in
the disputed Kashmir region, but he cautioned that there was no concrete
intelligence on the numbers or nationality of the fighters. .....
Now that the 'Ahmedabad carnage'
has come to an end, people in the country can, at least temporarily, take
a sigh of relief. Recently, there were some communal disturbances
in the Tilak Nagar area of the Bangalore City. It should be noted
that they remained limited to a very small area. Whatever one may
say, people, whether they belong to the majority community or the minorities,
generally wish to co-exist peacefully. .....
With the diplomatic missions of
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld, the United States is playing an increasingly active role in trying
to defuse the dangerous confrontation between India and Pakistan. It is
appropriate for the United States to engage in such diplomacy and encourage
India and Pakistan to step back from the brink of war. An armed conflict
between two states armed with nuclear weapons is obvious cause for alarm.
As they take these diplomatic steps, however, U.S. officials must be careful
that the parties to the dispute do not succeed in manipulating the United
States into advancing their parochial policy agendas. .....
Funds for terrorist groups operating
in Jammu and Kashmir are being openly raised at the Regent Park's gold-domed
mosque in the heart of London. Thousands come there from all over Britain
every Friday. In all, through various mosques, including the central mosque
in Birmingham, over £5 million are being collected annually by the
militant groups Lashkar-e-Tayyeba and Jaish-e-Mohammad. .....
A handful of school principals
have been roped in to discredit NCERT's new National Curriculum Framework
for School Education on the ground that professionals of national standing
were not involved in its preparation. Before tackling this canard, I would
like to show the ideological leanings of those attacking a national institution
like NCERT, which caters to the needs of schoolchildren throughout the
country, and is not a handmaiden of some rich institutions in the capital.
.....
In a joint operation, the Central
Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Border Security Force (BSF) today
recovered a huge quantity of arms and ammunition from a truck in Tharad,
about 100 km from the Indo-Pakistan border in Gujarat. .....
The recent shooting incident of
a newspaper reporter has been seen as yet another attempt by Pakistan's
ISI to 'effectively' silence the vernacular press in the valley, reports
PTI. .....
Who do the western powers - not
to speak of Japan - think they are fooling? Do they really believe there
is going to be a war between Pakistan and India? If the United States which
has stationed some 6,000 of its soldiers on the strategic border between
Pakistan and Afghanistan and has obtained rights to use several of Pakistan's
airfields at will wants to, it can lock up all of Islamabad's nuclear bombs,
if not Musharraf himself, and ask Pakistan to behave itself. Instead of
doing so, the United States has taken to the cheap way of spreading fear
in the world of a nuclear holocaust in south Asia. .....
The Chief Minister, A.K. Antony,
who is also a prominent member of the Congress Working Committee, has backed
the candidature of Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam as the next President of India.
.....
Just as it happened during the
Kargil settlement three years ago, New Delhi's terms for diffusing the
latest India-Pakistan crisis were set out by national security adviser
and principal secretary to the prime minister, Brajesh Mishra. With a clarity
which has been part of Mishra's public persona since his famous enunciation
of the Indian position in the United Nations on the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan 33 years ago as South Block's permanent representative in New
York, Mishra drew the lakshmanrekha on Kashmir during his one-day air-dash
to Moscow from Almaty last week. .....
British Foreign Minister Jack Straw
has said that there are clear links between the Pakistani intelligence
agency, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), and various Pakistan-based
terrorists organisations such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jaish-e- Mohammed.
.....
Spices, gems and other exotic cargo
excavated from an ancient port on Egypt's Red Sea show that the sea trade
2,000 years ago between the Roman Empire and India was more extensive than
previously thought and even rivaled the legendary Silk Road, archaeologists
say. .....
The new head of the Southern Baptist
Convention has rejected calls to repudiate what a Muslim group is calling
"bigoted" and "hate-filled" statements made by one of its pastors. .....
"There is nothing wrong about war,"
once said Sri Aurobindo. And it is true that throughout the ages, war has
been an essential part of man's life on this planet and there have been
very few periods in modern history which have not seen strife. The French
fought three bloody wars against the Germans in the last 125 years, India
has battled five wars in 55 years, four against Pakistan, if you count
Kargil, and one against the Chinese. .....
Back in January, after the horrendous
December 13 attack on the Indian parliament, General Pervez Musharraf gave
a speech that described his vision of Pakistan as a modern, moderate, secular
and democratic state. A state that rejected terrorism and would not be
used as a base for terrorist activity "anywhere in the world". .....
That "Islam is in danger" is the
common refrain of jehadis. Jehad (holy war ) is not only between Islam
and Christianity, but it is considered against all those who do not believe
in Islam. But why is their ( jehadis' ) mindset at variance with other
faiths? Why are they instilled with killer instincts ? The holy war is
against infidels. .....
A fast growing fundamentalist outfit
in Bangladesh is giving sleepless nights to Indian intelligence agencies
over its connections with the Al-Qaeda and certain Pak-based terrorist
organisations. .....
The possibility of war between
India and Pakistan is rising. The future holds the key to what will happen
tomorrow. If war has to happen, it will. No power in the world can stop
it. Under these circumstances, people ask questions that are difficult
to answer. Through letters people ask that their thoughts be put before
the nation. It is our duty to convey their feelings to the masses. .....
The Secretary of State for Foreign
and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Jack Straw): With permission, Mr. Speaker,
I wish to make a statement about the situation in India and Pakistan. .....
On ABC 'Nightline', one of America's
most watched news programmes last Sunday, Pervez Hoodbhoy, the reputed
Pakistani nuclear expert and peace activist, and I, were asked a chilling
question: how come there is so little fear over a nuclear war in the subcontinent?
Are the people of India and Pakistan trapped in self-denial? .....
Why Islam Can't Join the Modern
World, triggered quite a large volume of angry protests from Muslims in
FrontPage's Go Postal forum and in my e-mail inbox. .....
Do not be fooled by the apologists
of terror. These apologists tell us that the root cause of terrorism is
the deprivation of national and civic rights, and that the way to stop
terror is to redress the supposed grievances that arise from this deprivation.
.....
Abdullah al Muhajir, a U.S. citizen
of Puerto Rican descent, had an extensive criminal record, including committing
murder at age 13, long before being arrested as a suspected al Qaeda operative
in an alleged plot to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb," authorities
said. .....
Conventional wisdom suggests that
the 13-year-long Pakistan-backed insurgency in Kashmir has not only taken
the lives of over 30,000 persons, but has, in the process, altered the
social and cultural fabric of the state. What has been lost in this time,
say observers, is Kashmiriyat, the unique culture of the state that defies
the religious divide and celebrates its ethnic and religious diversity.
.....
Banned Kashmiri terrorist groups
whose attacks have been blamed for bringing India and Pakistan to the brink
of a nuclear war are being funded by Muslims in Britain, The Telegraph
can reveal. .....
Pakistan and India today stand
on the brink of nuclear war. The 1962 Cuban missile crisis the world's
previous nuclear showdown was a walk in the park when compared to the danger
emanating from the Indian subcontinent, home to some 20 percent of the
world's population. .....
Anjum alias Mehrul Islam is barely
20 years old. A resident of Kotli in Pakistan, Anjum was caught by the
army on Saturday morning after a night-long encounter at Chhawa village
near here in which three other militants were killed. .....
Gen Pervez Musharraf has directed
his 10th Corps, deployed in northern Pakistan and facing Indian forces
in Kashmir, to stop the infiltration of terrorists and jehadi elements
into India. .....
India has given Pakistan two weeks
to end cross-border terrorism and begin dismantling training camps in Pakistan
and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. After coining close to acting against these
camps last week, India drew back from the brink after obtaining what an
official termed 'ironclad commitments' from the U.S. and the UK that Pakistan
would act on these demands. .....
Do not be fooled by the apologists
of terror. These apologists tell us that the root cause of terrorism is
the deprivation of national and civic rights, and that the way to stop
terror is to redress the supposed grievances that arise from this deprivation.
.....
With Pakistani soldiers blocking
Kashmiri fighters from crossing into the Indian side of the Valley, the
militants maintained that they would defy any such orders and many fundamentalist
parties have sworn to oust President Pervez Musharraf. .....
The Bush administration is developing
a new strategic doctrine that moves away from the Cold War pillars of containment
and deterrence toward a policy that supports preemptive attacks against
terrorists and hostile states with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
.....
Investigators have arrested a US
citizen closely linked to the Al-Qaeda network and suspected of planning
a radioactive dirty bomb attack on the United States, Attorney General
John Ashcroft said on Monday. "We have disrupted an unfolding terrorist
plot to attack the United States by exploding a radioactive dirty bomb,"
Ashcroft told CNN television from Moscow. .....
Over 200 non-resident Indians (NRIs)
held a protest rally today condemning Pakistan's active support of terrorists
and urging the US government to take effective measures to combat terrorism
of any form. .....
The hunt for al-Qa'eda leaders
by American special forces secretly deployed in Pakistan's lawless border
tracts with Afghanistan is faltering, hit by angry opposition from local
tribesmen and last week's withdrawal of key Pakistani military specialists.
.....
It has been, politically and militarily,
a hot summer. The expectation that the political and military stand-off
between India and Pakistan, in the wake of the attack on the Indian Parliament,
could be defused because of India's high military deployment and international
pressure is not fulfilled. .....
It's old news that there are several
Pakistani and Bangladeshi citizens staying in Mumbai. But believe it or
not, more than 20 such people have managed to grab the posts of Special
Executive Officers (SEO) in the city. .....
The riots in Ahmedabad really had
the victims on the run. Families fled their homes and took refuge in relief
camps, where they are staying till today. Many even left Gujarat, especially
those who were migrants from other states. But the fact which many don't
know is that a large group of Muslims of Ahmedabad have even left the country.
.....
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. .....
As Arun Duggar, Rajasthan's intelligence
chief, was on his way to Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's residence for a
routine briefing on a hot May morning, his cell phone rang. All that the
business-like caller told him was that it was "time to go ahead in Bikaner".
The call had come from an officer of a sister agency and Duggar swung into
action. He made a series of calls and by the time he was at Gehlot's residence,
Ashgar Ali, a Pakistani spy, had been arrested. .....
Shortly after US envoy Richard
Armitage's nearly two-hour talks with General Pervez Musharraf yesterday,
Pakistan's President called a meeting of his key aides. .....
US Deputy Secretary of State Richard
Armitage said on Saturday that Indo-Pak tensions were down and New Delhi
was expected to take steps to ease the conflict in the next few days. .....
The US should not be enticed by
Pakistan into becoming a mediator on Kashmir as it would make Washington
an "unwitting pawn" of Islamabad and jeopardise an important long-term
relationship with India, a US-based think-tank has warned. .....
A US House of Representatives subcommittee
on South Asia has asked Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to immediately
dismantle terrorist training camps and permanently halt incursions into
Kashmir. .....
Deputy Secretary of State Richard
L. Armitage began an effort at American shuttle diplomacy here today with
what Pakistani officials said was blunt talk and detailed demands. .....
Mr. Chairman, thank you for calling
today's hearing. Once again the world finds itself on the brink of war
between two nuclear neighbors. And once again we find ourselves here because
of actions, or lack thereof, by the Government of Pakistan. Back in January,
after the horrendous December 13 attack on the Indian parliament, General
Musharraf gave a speech that described his vision of Pakistan as a modern,
moderate, secular and democratic state. .....
Most analysts concur that Asia
holds the key to the future of mankind's eternal quest for peace and progress.
The demographic profiles will themselves ensure that close to half of humanity,
will reside in Asia-Asia will be the cradle for interplay between all major
powers particularly, USA, China, Japan, India and Russia. India's parameters
of security concerns dearly extend beyond the confines of the conventional
geographical definition of South Asia. .....
Notwithstanding travel advisories
slapped by the US and the UK as pan of their psychological (psy) warfare
on New Delhi, confirmed bookings are available for business class on the
same day of travel on all airlines. Economy seats can also be procured
with just a one-day waiting on certain airlines. .....
Coke boss Alex von Behr is travelling.
But is he heeding last week's alarmist advisory issued by the American
embassy to pack up and leave? Far from it. Mr. Behr, currently overseas,
will soon be back to his work table in Gurgaon. So will DuPont boss Pankaj
Shah, an American citizen, currently in the US. .....
Stating that India reserved the
right to use its nuclear arsenal if nuked by Pakistan. minister of state
for external affairs Omar Abdullah on Friday said that it was high time
that Islamabad's "bluff" was called. .....
The Senate approval on Thursday
night of legislation that strengthens President George Bush's hands in
global trade negotiations is small comfort. The storm created by the American
decision to increase domestic farm subsidies by 70 per cent is likely to
destroy much of the likely benefits from any such move. The President evidently
believed that this sop to the farm lobby would be a small price to pay
to get the Trade Promotion Authority that will allow him to negotiate effectively
in the WTO. .....
Fifteen thousand feet high in Kashmir
and armed with a Kalashnikov-that was not how friends thought Jibreel al-Amreekee
would end up. All of 19, the restless kid from Atlanta had grown up in
a wealthy family attending Ebenezer Baptist Church, the home pulpit of
Martin Luther King Jr. A soft-spoken youth with long dreadlocks, al-Amreekee
had a passion for sky diving and reading books on the world's religions.
.....
A young couple was hacked to death
at their residence in Kodihalli on Wednesday night for marrying outside
religion against the wishes of the girl's parents. The deceased have been
identified as Paulraj (32) and Sameena (22), residents of Balappa Lane
in Kodihalli village. .....
The United Christian Forum (UCF)
welcomed a survey result showing the vast majority of Kashmiris prefer
to be part of India rather than of Pakistan, the Catholic agency SAR News
reported. .....
When it comes to U.S. foreign policy,
it's not true that September 11 changed everything. In the case of America's
relationship with its cold war client Pakistan, it actually restored the
status quo. In the months before September 11, relations between Washington
and Islamabad rapidly soured as the Bush team became enthralled with India--a
country that, unlike Pakistan, offered a valuable market, a democracy,
and a potential strategic partner against China. .....
In what could be a major embarrassment
for Islamabad, Kuwait today denied that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has
identified by US intelligence sources as the brain behind the September
11 attacks, was a Kuwaiti and claimed he was a Pakistani national. .....
The suspected ringleader of the
Sept. 11 hijackers, Mohammed Atta, applied for a U.S. government loan to
buy a small airplane more than a year before the attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon (news - web sites), according to a federal employee
who rejected his application. .....
After permitting General Pervez
Musharraf to indulge in a lot of bluff and bluster, the western powers
are slowly beginning to increase their pressure on Islamabad. This is clear
from the firm statements made by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw both
in Pakistan and in India. In Islamabad Straw made it very clear to Musharraf
that he can't pass off terrorists as "freedom fighters" and that "all the
memberstates of the United Nations, including Pakistan, have the responsibility
to bear down effectively and consistently on all forms of terrorism, including
cross-border terrorism". .....
The United Nations University in-hosted
a Conference on South Asia on May 27-28 in Tokyo. Not surprisingly, the
focus of attention was almost exclusively on the escalating tensions between
India and Pakistan. Delegates from South Asian countries, including Afghanistan,
and South Asian specialists from around the world participated in the conference.
.....
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee
briefly lifted hopes this morning for a rapprochement between India and
Pakistan when he said India would consider joint patrols with Pakistani
troops to catch Islamic militants trying to sneak into Indian Kashmir.
.....
After delaying a decision on the
issue of 50 per cent reservation in religious and linguistic minority-run
institutions, the Central Government has finally taken the view that admission/selection
to seats reserved for minority students should be on the basis of merit.
.....
The Christian community has not
lost contact with their ancestral traditions though they have changed their
religion and have fought to retain their nationality, according to well-known
Marathi writer Manohar Hirba Sardessai. .....
While the separatist psyche generated
in Jammu & Kashmir by Article 370 has been pernicious, its constitutional
effects have been perverse -- an aspect which no one, it appears, has detected,
leave alone debated. .....
McDonald's Corp has agreed to donate
$10 million to Hindu and other groups to settle lawsuits filed against
the chain for mislabelling French fries and hash browns as vegetarian.
.....
Diplomats in Islamabad were expecting
General Pervez Musharraf to announce a ceasefire in his speech on May 27.
Government circles close to the general were also giving indications to
the foreign media that a big story was about to break. .....
Pakistani police prevented the
convoy of vehicles of the Indian High Commission carrying injured staffer
Kulwant Singh and his family to Wagah border on Tuesday morning. .....
The Shree Rama Janmabhoomi Punaruddhar
Samiti (SRJPS) floated by the Shankaracharya of Jyotish peeth and Dwarka
Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati, on Monday rubbished the temple-mosque dispute
at Ayodhya and demanded that the spot be officially declared as 'the birthplace
of Lord Rama', reports PTI. .....
Warburg Pincus, India's largest
equity investor, on Monday termed the country as "the best place outside
the United States to invest in the world." .....
And great-grandmothers at 45. They
litter the social landscape of northern Kerala's Malappuram district. Here
mothers and daughters deliver at the same time. Sons are breastfed by the
grandmother and brothers are breastfed by the sister. For they deliver
in the same hospital ward, and share the same room after delivery, taking
turns to feed the babies. So entrenched is the practice that they feel
nothing strange about it. .....
We want to bring to everyone's
attention the heinous crimes committed by General Musharraf of Pakistan
against humanity. We urge all freedom loving people to bring pressure on
Pakistan to put an end to this terrorism. .....
A 16-nation Asian summit including
India and Pakistan adopted on Tuesday in Kazakhstan the Almaty Act which
condemns terrorism and commits its signatories to not support separatist
movements. .....
I wrote the following column a
couple of months ago, but did not publish it because I felt sorry for Dilip
D'Souza; now the story of the reading of Shashi Tharoor's book Riot in
New York, and the egregious grandstanding that accompanied it, compels
me to publish. I know Shashi Tharoor, and he is capable of surpassingly
beautiful prose; and Tunku Varadarajan's columns in the Wall Street Journal
are often a pleasure to read. I shall not say anything about either of
these gentlemen. Then there is Shabana Azmi, my personal bete noire. .....
Over the weekend, the likelihood
of a war between India and Pakistan receded slightly. Secretary of State
Colin Powell has confirmed that orders have been relayed to Pakistani forces
manning border posts to stop infiltration by militants across the Line
of Control dividing Kashmir, as President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan
promised on May 27. As a result, Indian leaders are now willing to give
American diplomacy more time to turn General Musharraf's pledge into a
permanent commitment. .....
India shares a 4,000 km long porous
border with Bangladesh, and the Centre seems to be according much importance
to the job of erecting a barbed wire fence to check the illegal infiltration
of Bangladeshi migrants that has continued to pose a serious threat to
the demography of the north-eastern region. The latest report of the Ministry
of Home Affairs (MHA), for the year 2001-2002, has provided details of
the plan for erection of the fence within the set deadline, 2007. .....
May I, with folded hands, make
a sincere request to my fellow Hindus to give a respite to the use of the
word 'secular' for the next five years? The word stinks to high heavens.
It smells of hypocrisy, cowardice, an attitude of holier-than-thou and
a singular ignorance of history unparalleled in the annals of our sorry
times. There were no secularists around when Ghazni Mohammed invaded India
thirteen times, smashed the lingam in the Somnath Temple and took the pieces
to be scattered in front of a masjid in his home town for his Islamic kinsmen
merrily to trample over. .....
An innocuous advice in the RSS
resolution "Let the Muslims understand that their real safety lies in the
goodwill of the majority" is provocation enough for the secular-liberal
brigade to pounce upon the Sangh. A vicious campaign of calumny is launched
in the media and on the floor of Parliament. Distorting and twisting the
Sangh viewpoint, they go to the town saying the RSS has "warned" the Muslims
"Behave or else....". .....
Indian brands of secularists are
a strange breed. While claiming to represent liberal values, they invariably
end up on the side of the most reactionary groups- like the Babri Masjid
Action Committee and the Muslim Personal Law Board. They also wear blinders
that make it impossible for them to acknowledge elementary truths: a spirit
of compromise on the part of the Muslim leadership would go a long a way
towards resolving the Ayodhya imbroglio and improving the climate for communal
harmony. .....
David Frawley has turned Harvard
professor Samuel P Huntington's much-debated concept of the clash of civilisations
around and come up with an erudite Vedantic perspective. .....
Nationalism is characterised principally
by a feeling of community among a people, based upon common descent, language,
and religion," says the Funk and Wagnalls Encyclopedia. The essence of
nationalism is a sense of shared community, a sense of being one people
with a common heritage. Implicit is a sense of respect for each other as
equals or fellow travellers. .....
Like many Indians, I am bemused
to find that we are still engaged in verbal bombast, notwithstanding the
high rhetoric following the Kaluchak massacre last month. Even reputed
defence analysts seem clueless about what will constitute the proverbial
last straw for the NDA regime. Pakistan meanwhile has offered fresh humiliation
with the abduction and thrashing of an official of our high commission
in Islamabad. .....
With nuclear war an actual possibility,
world leaders are working to ease the tense military standoff in South
Asia between India and Pakistan. Almost a million troops from both sides
have been exchanging fire across the so-called Line of Control, which separates
India- and Pakistan-controlled areas of Kashmir. .....
Saudi Arabia's top Muslim cleric
has called on the Islamic world to unite against a worldwide conspiracy
of Hindus, Christians, Jews and secularists threatening Islamic moral
values. .....
Distance lends perspective. Keeping
that in mind, I'm willing to believe that Indian Navy personnel cruising
the seas, or better yet, ensconced in their armchairs post-retirement,
develop a hard-nosed and detached approach to wars fought on land. I'm
willing to accept that career sailors, be they midshipmen or former admirals,
totally empathise with the steadily bleeding jawans who've been facing
bullets in glacial temperatures day in and... well, year in and year out.
.....
Under a clamp down on funding to
militant organisations, the Government agencies were scrutinising "some
businessmen" of Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi even as efforts were on to
put an "effective check" on hawala transactions from the United Kingdom.
.....
The indigenous people of Tripura
have been totally outnumbered by outsiders and if unabated infiltration
is allowed to continue, Assam will face the same fate in the years to come,
said the leaders of the Tripura Students' Federation (TSF). Talking to
newsmen here today, Sri Prasanta Deb Barma and Sri Subodh Deb Barma, the
president and vice-president respectively of the TSF, said that as per
the last census, Tripuras' population was 37 lakh, out of which only eight
lakh were indigenous people. .....
First yoga and meditation mesmerised
the West, Now it's the turn of Vastu, with stores here showcasing a new
book whose author spent 12 years in India studying Vedic sciences. .....
The Musharraf regime is employing
nuclear blackmail to deter India from attacking terrorist sanctuaries inside
Pakistan, and using diplomatic blackmail against the US by threatening
to divert troops from the Afghan border. .....
Irked over beleaguered Chief Minister
Narendra Modi's reported 'coup' of masterminding a public felicitation
by a minority Congress MLA, Gujarat congress on Saturday asked party high
command to take stringent disciplinary' action against the legislator as
he had even 'defied' the diktats of Sonia Gandhi, reports PTI. .....
Contrary to Pakistan President
Pervez Musharraf's claim, the US has said it has evidence, of continued
cross-border infiltration into Kashmir but expressed hope that the latest
assurance from the General would fructify. .....
The BIG STORY tonight, President
Bush sends Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to India and Pakistan. India
accuses Pakistan of harboring terrorists that have struck Indian outposts
inside the disputed territory of Kashmir. Many fear the conflict could
escalate into nuclear war. Tunku Varadarajan writes for The Wall Street
Journal. Ahmad Kamal is the former Pakistani ambassador to the UN. .....
Pakistan has threatened to use
nuclear weapons even if India were to stick to conventional arms, asserting
that it has never subscribed to a 'no-first-use' of atomic weapons. .....
Even as Prime Minister A. B. Vajpayee
held a high-level meeting on Thursday to review the situation along the
Indo-Pak border, militants intensified their attacks on security installations
in Jammu and Kashmir. The two-hour meeting was attended by home minister
L.K. Advani, defence minister George Fernandes and external affairs minister
Jaswant Singh. The leaders apparently discussed the various options before
the country in dealing with Pakistan. .....
What is the time-span of the word
'temporary?' Is it one week, one month, one year or one decade? Judging
by the indifference of the National Commission to Review the Working of
the Constitution towards 'Temporary, Transitional and Special Provisions'
contained in Part XXI of our Constitution, even half a century would seem
to justify the label of 'temporary.' .....
U.S. intelligence sources are convinced
that Pakistan is trading nuclear secrets with Saudi Arabia in exchange
for cash to maintain and expand its missile programs. .....
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. .....
A caricature of Hindu god Ganesha,
published in the leading financial tabloid Australian Financial Review,
has infuriated Hindu community leaders here. .....
The coming to power, of the Bharatiya
Janata Party has resulted in long-lasting changes in the political perspective
of India. The BJP-led NDA Government is indeed the real non-Congress rule.
Since the death of Lokmanya Tilak the real nationalist current in the Congress
dried up and its place was taken by anti-Hindu minority appeasement and
under the mask of modernism a new anti-Indian heritage ideology was imposed
on the Congress party. .....
Talk to anyone about the ideal
bank, that manages to adhere to strict commercial principles while fulfilling
social objectives by lending to poor farmers, and they'll mention the Grameen
Bank of Bangladesh - a bank that lent to farmers on the basis of guarantees
of the community, whose moral pressure then ensured there are virtually
no defaults. .....
Neglected by their country and
rest of the world, lakhs of Kashmiri Pandits live a life of misery in virtually
inhuman conditions in refugee camps and they are now falling victim to
rising incidence of diseases leading to a higher death rate. .....
At the just-concluded AICC session
in the capital, Arjun Singh beckoned the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi,
to pick up the thread of Congress history and "lead the army which was
once led by Gandhi and Nehru". One thought Mr. Arjun Singh knew Congress
history a little better. The Congress had long ago severed its connection
with Gandhi in absolute terms and, as we shall show, subsequently with
Jawaharlal Nehru too. In fact, from November 1947, Gandhiji repeatedly
urged the Congress to liquidate itself. And, days before his death, in
January 1948, he recorded a testament that his so-called Congress `army'
be disbanded. .....
The surfacing of five ancient Siva
temples partly in sand dunes along the Pennar river in Jyothi village in
Siddhavatam mandal has led to the discovery that as many as 108 Siva temples
have been buried under sand at the place. .....
This one is straight from a thriller.
Digital cameras in the middle of the Shivalik forests in Uttar Pradesh,
poachers 'shooting' themselves while hunting animals and on being caught
revealing that journalists paid them money for the footage. And the twist
in the tale? They name Tarun Tejpal's Tehelka.com as the client. .....
The Pakistani President, Pervez
Musharraf's assertion that no infiltration is taking place across the Line
of Control in Jammu and Kashmir or that Pakistan is doing nothing across
LoC stands contradicted by reports in the newspapers of his own country.
During the week preceding his address to the nation on May 27 - and even
after that - the Pakistani press carried accounts of the continued activities
of jehadi outfits and their support to "freedom struggle'' in Jammu and
Kashmir. .....
The Musharraf regime is employing
nuclear blackmail to deter India from attacking terrorist sanctuaries inside
Pakistan, and using diplomatic blackmail against the US by threatening
to divert troops from the Afghan border. .....
The May 4 massacres of innocent
civilians that included women and children in Jammu has once again raised
the war clouds in India - Pakistan relations. Ironically, India is a victim
of international terrorism promoted by Pakistan while Pakistan is the epicentre
of international terrorism. But both are valued allies of the US in its
war against global terrorism! As Frank Pallone said Pakistan globally fights
terrorism while locally promoting it. .....
India's case against Pakistan received
a boost on Wednesday when visiting British foreign secretary Jack Straw
declared that Gen Pervez Musharraf's assurances on stopping cross-border
terrorism had to be matched by action on the ground. .....
The Ramayana and the Mahabharata
may soon form a part of the curriculum in, IIT, Kharagpur. If Sisir Dube,
the new director has his way, students will have to attend classes on ancient
Indian culture and tradition along with their engineering courses. .....
FBI agents will be allowed to monitor
suspected terrorists in mosques, libraries and on the Internet without
a warrant or evidence of criminal activity, under new guidelines immediately
criticised as a move towards Orwellian policing. .....
More than 750 Congress delegates
will converge here for a three-day national training camp on secularism
starting tomorrow as part of the party's efforts to shake off allegations
of being "anti-Hindu". .....
