When the Congress demanded Union
IT Minister Pramod Mahajan's resignation in the wake of wild allegations
by Mrs Madhu Sharma (wife of Mr RK Sharma, IPS, fugitive in the Indian
Express correspondent Shivani Bhatnagar's case), my mind went back to a
similar episode in early 1996. .....
I do not know whether these kind
of activities by missionaries can be branded illegal in India. Any activity
which leads to communal disharmony should be forbidden by law. I know that
there will be hue and cry by Christians and dalits (who are main targets)
but I believe knowing how aggressively they are pushing this conversion
amongst Hindus and Buddhists (they do not touch Muslims and probably will
not touch Sikhs in future), our constitution should allow some curbing
of their activities. .....
The Bharatiya Janata Party regards
the statement issued by the Congress President, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, regarding
the Electoral Reforms Ordinance is a text book illustration of political
hypocrisy. Mrs. Sonia Gandhi has said that the Congress Party has always
wanted to support the directions of the Hon'ble Supreme Court with regard
to the public disclosure relating to the criminal antecedents of each candidate
and the assets possessed by them. The consensus of the all Party meeting,
however, was in favour of disclosure of criminal antecedents of candidates
and a further provision requiring of elected candidates to declare their
assets. .....
National Commission on Cattle presided
over by Justice GM Lodha recently submitted its recommendations to the
Union Government. The report, in 4 volumes, calls for stringent laws to
protect cow and its progeny in the interest of India's rural economy. As
is only to be expected of people with Western mindset, a national daily's
correspondent has slammed the report and its recommendations in satirical
terms. .....
The Roman Catholic Church is facing
a Eucharistic famine in England and Wales with a dwindling number of priests
ministering to falling congregations according to a new report published
today. Bishops are to set up a new agency for a evangelisation in an attempt
to halt the decline. One proposal is to adopt the buddleia plant as a symbol
for spreading the Gospel in a neopagan society. .....
Shri.Kamath asks what the Congress
ruled Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation was doing to prevent the riots in
the BJP Modi ruled Gujarat. Yes, they were adding fuel to5 fire. .....
It may warm the cockles of liberal,
secular hearts to dam Gujarat's Chief Minister Narendra Modi, but the plain,
unvarnished fact must be faced: if there was no Godhra there would not
have been the killing of Muslims in Ahmedabad and Baroda and a few other
urban centres in the State. Whether the elections in Gujarat are held in
October or a couple of months later, the evidence shows that Modi's Net
Popularity Rating (NPR) among all the Chief Minister in the country is
second only to that of Uttaranchal's N. D. Tiwari according to an 'India
Today' (26 August) poll. .....
When under fire, change your name.
On the eve of the first anniversary of the September-11 attacks in New
York, which ultimately led to the ban on the Students' Islamic Movement
of India in this country, the intelligence wings of the Centre and states
have something more to chew on: continuing Simi operations in the city
and elsewhere in the state, albeit in the garb of organisations yet to
be banned by either government. .....
It is a normal practice for the
heads of states or the governments to visit friendly nations once in a
while to further their foreign policy objectives whenever they can spare
their precious little time from pressing domestic burdens. Seen from this
angle from New Delhi, there could, perhaps, have been nothing unusual when
General Pervez Musharraf, President as well as the Army Chief of Pakistan
went on a recent scheduled official goodwill tour of two SAARC nations-
Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. .....
Ram Krishna Trivedi, former Chief
Election Commissioner of India says that sentiments overpowered the decision
of the present CEC J.M. Lyngdoh and his two other colleagues in taking
a decision to postpone the Gujarat polls till December. .....
Sitting on the floor of her dishevelled
home, the size of a broom cupboard, in Old Delhi, Bano recounts her precocious
achievements. She was married at the age of 10 and had her first child
when she was 11. Her daughter was 12 when she married and 13 when she had
her own child, making Bano a grandmother at 24. .....
Kashmir may have been grabbing
all the attention with its separatist revolt against Indian rule, but the
remote northern desert region of Ladakh has its own concerns -- it wants
independence from Kashmir. .....
The electoral process in J&K
is moving into high gear while the nine-month old military mobilisation
and deployment on the borders continues. In fact, the last few days have
witnessed reports of renewed fighting on the Line of Control in J&K
with claims and counter-claims. Elections in J&K would mark another
phase since the great confrontation after December 13 last. This requires
looking at two probable scenarios in the more immediate context. .....
Which country poses a serious threat
because of its established links with international terrorism, proven weapons
of mass destruction (WMD) programme, and close ties with other dictatorships
in WMD-related matters? To an Indian, the answer may be obvious: Pakistan,
bristling with dangerous extremists inside and outside its armed forces
and engaged in covert WMD cooperation with the communist regimes in Beijing
and Pyongyang. .....
Q.: Don't you think that as chief
minister of both the Muslims and Hindus of Gujarat, you must first bridge
the distance between the two communities?
A.: I had gone to Vankaner after
the riots. The Muslim society had organised a function to felicitate me.
15,000 Muslims were there. Congress MLA Kadir Pirzada was chairing the
meeting. Look at the level of hatred! He was sacked from the party for
attending my function. Can any society function in this manner? .....
As the Supreme Court begins hearing
the Presidential reference on the Election Commission's controversial order
on the Gujarat assembly election, state Chief Minister Narendra Modi is
once again in the eye of the storm because of his remarks against Chief
Election Commissioner J M Lyngdoh. .....
The Resettlement Bill of a private
National Conference member was passed by the J&K assembly in 1981.
However, the state governor withheld his assent because of some constitutional
deficiencies in it pointed out by the Attorney General of India whom he
had consulted, and instead returned it to the state government for reconsideration.
The J&K assembly passed the bill once again and the state governor
had willy nilly to sign his assent. .....
The Khartoum government has refused
to commute the death sentence imposed by an Islamic court on 88 members
of a tribe in western Sudan for attacking a village and killing members
of a rival clan. .....
On Wednesday, Tarlochan Singh,
vice-chairman of the National Commission for Minorities, wrote to the presidents
of the Catholic Bishops Council of India and the National Council of Churches
in India, citing incidents in Punjab, Bhilai and Jharkhand where "Christian
missionaries fully supported with medical teams have been going around
in many villages alluring poor Sikh families to adopt Christianity." .....
The BJP's Muslim leaders face isolation
and ostracism within their own community and their trauma is similar to
that faced by the Muslim leaders in the Congress in the pre- Independence
days. .....
As argued by James Q. Jacobs, Aryabhata,
an Indian Mathematician (c. 500AD) accurately calculated celestial constants
like earth's rotation per solar orbit, days per solar orbit, days per lunar
orbit. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, no source from prior to the
18th century had more accurate results on the values of these constants!
Click here for details. Aryabhata's 499 AD computation of pi as 3.1416
(real value 3.1415926...) and the length of a solar year as 365.358 days
were also extremely accurate by the standards of the next thousand years.
.....
In the article " The Jungle Of
Christ" I discussed the plans of the television evangelists and their assault
on India. In this article I will deal with this subject in a more detailed
perspective. .....
I have no quarrel with the media,
even though they selectively target the BJP in their 'investigative journalism'.
The good work the NDA government does, gets little projection, but its
failures are magnified. That is understandable. It is the price the party
pays for being in power in a democracy. The problem arises when 'facts'
are invented or twisted. .....
The Bush administration has listed
an obscure Muslim group fighting Chinese rule in the western province of
Xinjiang as a terrorist organization, a visiting senior American official
disclosed here tonight. .....
Till the other day, US policy-makers
were sounding very coy about Pakistan and its terror siblings. One of them
called Pakistan a stalwart ally. Another hugged and patted General Pervez
Musharraf on his back for his support in the war against terrorism-all
within days of a dastardly attack on a church, a missionary school, a civilian
bus and the US Consulate. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused to
believe that his ally was a terrorist harbourer. .....
The 'cat' is out of the 'bag',
at last. The reason for the much publicized conversion of 250 village youths
in a Seventh Day Adventist School in Madurai on August 24 was made out
to be "poverty" and not the usual "untouchability". And thereby hangs a
tale .....
What can one say of Jethmalani's
ambitious foray into Kashmir to bring peace to that troubled state infested
with mediators week after week? That he collected seven honourable men
of action and told them that he could bring them face to face with history
by making the Hurriyat give up its stand on carving out the future of Kashmir
and make Farooq Abdullah bow to the arguments of one of India's best-known
lawyers? But within two and a half days he was back in New Delhi a sadder
and a bitter man. .....
Elections in Gujarat have been
postponed indefinitely. I for one am not surprised, given the recent 'muddy'
remarks of Chief Election Commissioner JM Lyngdoh, and his 'body language'
during a three-day visit to the State. Both had clearly indicated what
was to come. It is as yet difficult to analyse the future implications
of the Election Commission's decision on the communal front. .....
Narendra Modi hurt his own cause
when he abandoned restraint and good sense to attack the Chief Election
Commissioner, J. M. Lyngdoh the other day. For, whatever the provocation,
it does not become anyone to resort to abuse and vilification. By obliquely
suggesting that Lyngdoh's religion had something to do with the three-member
Election Commission's collective decision to put off the Assembly poll
in Gujarat till such time complete normalcy was restored to the satisfaction
of EC, Modi had only shown his peeve and his lack of appreciation of the
functioning of the constitutional body. .....
The UN would probably never accept
it as a yardstick for its human development ratings. But put this away
under mpey name in the appendices of some new book on theories that determine
the state of a nation. The strength of a nation should now also be measured
by the way its immigration police deal with incoming and outgoing travellers.
.....
"I very much regret ever having
been part of this racist organisation and I will be forwarding my complaints
to the Charity Commission" Strong words indeed from Lord Adam Patel, as
reported by the Sunday Mercury's Investigations Editor, Amardeep Bassey
on 11 August. .....
Kapil Sibal does a lawyer's job
in seeking to break through my position on the so-called petrol pump scam
(Do you know something Naik doesn't, Mr Punj?, The Indian Express, August
14). Congressmen did write to the BJP Minister recommending allotments
but, says Mr Sibal, ''no pressure was put on the Minister''. He is not
an innocent newcomer to politics not to know that a letter from worthies
like Manmohan Singh is not to be treated with contempt. .....
The recent uproar in the American
Medias (TV and News papers) regarding your book (Approaching the Quran)
drew my attention. I am a descent American having Muslim background:
yes I understand you have tried to give a fresh look to the Islam by writing
a censored version of the Quran. But was it fair job you did by excluding/hiding
hundreds of hateful coercive Quranic verses? .....
India considers itself "at war"
with Pakistan over Kashmir, although there is no formal declaration of
hostilities, deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani said here. .....
General Pervez Musharraf has finally
settled on 29 arbitrary amendments to Pakistan's constitution that give
him sweeping powers. Almost everyone outside his close circle sees the
amendments as an attempt to perpetuate his rule. General Musharraf, however,
insists that his package of constitutional amendments will lead to restoration
of democracy. .....
General Musharraf has proved himself
an ardent admirer and loyal follower of the last military dictator, General
Zia-ul Haq. With barely six weeks to go before elections to Pakistan's
national and provincial assemblies, he has announced a whole series of
amendments, reshaping the country's constitution on the Zia model. In the
new arrangement, the army will exercise full veto powers over the elected
assembly and the civilian government. .....
French author Thierry Meyssan's
has news for Americans preparing to commemorate the anniversary of September
11: the attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon did not involve
hijacked airlines. .....
It came as a surprise when the
vice-chancellor of Jhansi University told me that there was no summer vacation
in the university. "What?" I asked in disbelief. "What about for festivals
like Diwali and Eid?" He shook his head. "Only last Holi we had a small
celebration." .....
Acting on news reports about the
conversion of some Sikh families to Christianity in Bhilai, National Commission
for Minorities (NCM) vice-chairperson Tarlochan Singh has written to Christian
leaders "to desist from this activity to avoid tension between the two
minority communities". .....
Gen. Pervez Musharraf unilaterally
redrew Pakistan's Constitution today, imposing 29 amendments that expand
his control of the country he took over by coup in 1999 - changes that
undermine coming parliamentary elections meant to return the nation to
democracy. .....
After repeated assertions during
the past few months. General Pervez Musharraf appears to have had no option
but to admit the reality that infiltration across the Line of Control in
J&K is continuing. In fact, he has described it as 'much worse' than
what has been going on across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. .....
The Bharatiya Janata Party leaders
are of the opinion that issues which have no "scandalous dimensions" are
being projected as scams as part of a malicious campaign against the Government.
Some leaders expressed "outrage" at the "systematic" campaign against the
Government, saying if there was anything wrong in allotting land to socio-political
and charitable institutions in the Capital, then the "scam" was going on
since 1950, initiated by the Congress. .....
A boy from a lower caste in Pakistan
is seen walking with a girl from an upper caste, so the tribal council
orders the boy's 18- year-old sister to be gang-raped by four council members.
.....
They make a striking, if incongruous,
pas de deux - a finely boned young white woman, dressed in the ornamental
finery of a Hindu classical dancer, and a kohl-eyed Indian male, as extravagantly
costumed as a Bollywood villain. .....
In Half a Life, V.S. Naipaul narrates
the tale of a rich merchant plagued by domestic woes engendered by the
folly of two marriages. Approaching the hero's father, who runs a sort
of ashram, for help, he seeks to win sympathy by comparing himself with
King Dasrath who had three wives (and therefore more problems) as opposed
to his own twosome. .....
Militants on Sunday night targeted
the family of a police constable killing four persons near Surankote in
Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir late on Sunday, police sources said
on Monday. .....
Daniel Pipes' voice is so soft
it sometimes sounds like a whisper. Yet the words he uses can startle.
America and rest of the Western world, he says, are facing their greatest
challenge since fascism and communism: militant Islam. .....
Father Krzysztof Kempa has a congregation
but no church. As he reads mass for 15 Roman Catholics in a dark, cramped
apartment in the southern Russian city of Belgorod, he struggles to make
himself heard over a curbside car alarm, the hum of an old Soviet refrigerator
and a boiling tea kettle. The altar is a desk adorned with a candle and
wooden cross. A bedroom doubles as a confessional. .....
Battered and bruised, Chhabi Rani
Mondol, 25, languishes in the Khulna Medical College Hospital (KMCH), fighting
for her life since the night of August 21 when she was mercilessly
beaten allegedly by BNP cadres inside Rampal BNP office of Bagerhat.
.....
Britain has stepped up its surveillance
of Pakistani activities in the country following reports that Islamabad
has been secretly buying from here equipment for making nuclear weapons.
.....
Periyasami, Veerannan and Harikrishnan,
all youths in their Twenties, belonging to the southern districts, would
henceforth be called by Christian names. .....
The personal assistant of former
education minister Javed Khan and present employee of MLA Sayyad Ashraf
Suhail of Govandi is trying to prove that he is not a Bangladeshi national
as suspected by the police. .....
Those Gujaratis who didn't know
the Chief Election Commissioner's initials knew them all too well by the
end of Chief Minister Narendra Modi's speech on August 20. Made in Congress
country, at Bodeli 65 kms from Vadodara, Modi's speech started off with
words of praise for ministers and officials who'd ensuring smooth water
supply from the Narmada. He soon got to the point. .....
Muslim organisations are up in
arms against what they describe as "blasphemous writing'' by France's controversial,
award winning author, Michel Houellebecq (pronounced wellbeck) and are
taking him to court in another Rushdie-style drama. .....
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP)
on Thursday "brought back" to Hinduism six Christian and one Muslim family
at a paribartan ceremony in the West Bengal's Malda district. .....
The Election Commission's decision
to delay assembly polls in Gujarat will accentuate the 'communal divide'
in the state, according to K.P.S.Gill, former security advisor to Chief
Minister Narendra Modi, reports UNI. .....
Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed is an
affable man with a benign smile and a penchant for chuckling. He uses his
soft, rather feminine hands to emphasise the eminent reasonableness of
his arguments and, sitting in his office, surrounded by awed supporters,
munching on bags of crisps, he presents a contented, even jovial figure.
.....
Samuel P. Huntington is the famed
Harvard professor and author of The Clash of Civilizations and Remaking
the World Order (1996). He spoke with NPQ editor Nathan Gardels in October.
.....
A few miles outside of Washington
and a stone's throw from Mt. Vernon Plantation - George Washington's home
- the Saudi government is teaching Wahhab Islam to hundreds of Muslim-American
children. The school, called the Islamic Saudi Academy, is one of an estimated
200-600 in the U.S. that indoctrinate 30,000 students in the teachings
of Koran. .....
To hear the more than 50 foreign
prisoners held in the basement of the Afghan intelligence ministry's detention
center in Kabul tell their tales of innocence, the months they have spent
under interrogation for links to the Taliban and Al Qaeda have been a nightmarish
mistake. .....
One would think that as a Marxist
country, China would propagate atheism and not have much knowledge or interest
in religious and spiritual affairs. Wrong! On July 31, Chinese Premier
Zhu Rongji officially received the child recognized by the Communist Party
as the reincarnation of the 10th Panchen Lama in Beijing. .....
As chief executive councillor of
the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Council, Thupstan Chhawang is a prominent proponent
of trifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir. He tells Rashme Sehgal that Ladakh's
strategic importance should be recognised by making it a Union territory
.....
Kashmir is on the international
agenda," remarked Colin Powell on 28 July during his recent visit to India,
" and the US and other countries are going to take an active interest in
encouraging a resolution." About Kashmir poll he observed, " If we have
enough observers there, you can see what is taking place..." .....
Opposition parties and some sections
of the media are experiencing nightmares at the very thought of the State
Assembly elections in Gujarat being held because they are aware that all
the campaign of calumny against the BJP Government and its Chief Minister
Narendra Modi will not deter the people of the State from re-electing the
BJP for another 5-year term. .....
I don't know whether you remember
our brief meeting at Coimbatore where you had come as the Chief Guest at
the Annual Conference of the Bharat Vikas Parishad presided over by Justice
Rama Jois in which I was also present as a speaker. I hope this finds you
in perfect health and spirit. .....
Maharashtra State Minorities Commission
chairman Ameen Khandwani on Thursday said recital of the national song
Vande Mataram should not be made compulsory for Muslims. .....
A Muslim cleric accused of inciting
followers to kill "nonbelievers" was granted bail on Wednesday, after a
judge ruled that prosecutors were too slow in passing along evidence to
the defense. Prosecutors say Abdullah el-Faisal, 38, circulated cassettes
of his sermons in which he called on Muslims to kill Hindus, Jews and non-Muslims.
He was arrested in February and denied bail after a judge ruled there was
a chance he would go into hiding. .....
Ten years ago when I came to America
for the launching of my book The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam,
I was struck by the inscription on the Archives Building in Washington:
"Past is Prologue". I had thought - at least at the beginning of my research
- that my subject related to a remote past, but I realized that contemporary
events were rapidly modernizing this past. .....
Even as the Supreme Court deals
with the potential constitutional crisis caused by the Election Commission's
decision to defer polls in Gujarat, the ghost of a judgement two years
ago may come to haunt Chief Election Commissioner James Martin Lyngdoh.
That judgement of the Punjab and Haryana High Court severely reprimanded
Mr Lyngdoh, but stopped short of ordering his prosecution since the offence
was non-cognisable, Nirvachan Sadan sources revealed to The Pioneer. .....
A mother and daughter duo, filed
false complaints at Sardarnagar police station, claiming that their husbands
and the daughter's 11-year-old son went missing since riots broke out in
the city, to take advantage of the government-declared compensation of
Rs 1 lakh for those who died during the riots. .....
The heads of two Jehovah's Witnesses,
kidnapped in a Muslim extremist group's stronghold, were found dumped in
a public market in the southern Philippines. Four other members of the
sect remained captives, the Associated Press reported. .....
Francis was attending the Sunday
morning service at St. Dominic's Church in Bahawalpur, a small town in
eastern Pakistan, when masked gunmen stormed into the Roman Catholic church.
.....
Fifty-five years after Jawaharlal
Nehru's Tryst with Destiny speech welcoming free India, is there much to
crow about? The answer, despite the pessimists, is a resounding Yes, there
is. And we have to be proud of India's achievements. There is nothing much
to be pleased about population growth which was about 350 million around
1947 and is now over a billion. But life expectancy was around 29 years
at the time of independence but is now closer to 65. .....
The Middle East is a region where
nationalist struggle is a bloody undertaking, and the belief in the necessity
of violence is especially fervid when it comes to the Palestinian cause
which Egyptians, like all Arabs, have adopted as their own. Across the
mud-brick slums of Cairo, imams proclaim the glory of martyrs who kill.
Kiosks and shops stock a brand of potato chips decorated with a cartoon
of native son Yasser Arafat, his eyes wild and mouth agape. .....
Muslims in the United States have
organized another advocacy lobby, only this group will focus on appealing
to Americans to help Muslims abroad defend their rights there. .....
The Supreme Court on Tuesday received
from the President a reference seeking its opinion on the three questions
relating to the legality of the Election Commission's controversial recommendation
that President's Rule be imposed in Gujarat because the Assembly polls
could not be held within the stipulated time frame. .....
GOVERNMENT has definite reports
that Pakistan intends to step up violence in Jammu and Kashmir to disrupt
the assembly polls, defence minister George Fernandes said today, asserting
that armed forced would act decisively to "overpower" all such attempts.
.....
SAARC countries have agreed to
amend domestic legislations and bring them on par with international laws
against terrorism ahead of their foreign ministers meet tomorrow, to discuss
threats posted by the scourge to regional stability and step to enhance
economic co-operation.
.....
In a move that might expedite further
investigations in the Godhra carnage, officials
have detained two persons, who
reportedly stopped the Sarbarmati Express on February 27.
.....
The decision to seek the opinion
of the Supreme Court on some of the points raised by the Election Commission
in regard to the poll in Gujarat is wholly unexceptionable. The presidential
reference under Article 143 should help set at rest the controversy as
to whether the EC as a constitutional authority can advise another constitutional
authority to impose President's rule in a State. .....
The headlines credit the Jewish
lobby for the defeat of lawmaker Cynthia McKinney in the Congressional
primaries on Tuesday. But a neophyte Indian-American activists group, which
co-wrote the script for this unusual Georgia election that attracted nationwide
attention, is happy with just the footnote that recorded their role. They
like to do it quietly. They are not as political or as established as the
Jewish lobby. .....
Last Thursday, in Sydney, the pack
leader of a group of Lebanese Muslim gang- rapists was sentenced to 55
years in jail. I suppose I ought to say "Lebanese- Australian" Muslim gang-
rapists, since the accused were Australian citizens. But, identity-wise,
the rambunctious young lads considered themselves heavy on the Lebanese,
light on the Australian. During their gang rapes, the lucky lady would
be told she was about to be "f---ed Leb style" and that she deserved it
because she was an "Australian pig." .....
When J&K acceded to India on
October 26, 1947, it had a total area of 84,471 sq miles. It got bifurcated
between India and Pakistan on January 1, 1949, when an unilateral ceasefire
ordered by Nehru left about 30,000 sq miles area of the state, including
the whole of Gilgit, Baltistan minus Kargil and Dras, and the Punjabi and
Pahari speaking belt along the Jhelum river, under the de facto control
of Pakistan. .....
A vast cache of videotapes from
Afghanistan provides the clearest evidence yet to corroborate United States
government charges that Al Qaeda developed and tested chemical agents,
according to experts who have seen some of them. .....
An Islamic high court in northern
Nigeria rejected an appeal today from a single mother sentenced to be stoned
to death for having had sex out of wedlock. .....
I have reviewed one of Koenraad
Elst's books for Sulekha, and Koenraad has been mentioned in passing by
many people in response to what I have written. The 43-year-old Belgian
author of more than 15 books on Indian nationalism, history, politics,
religious conflict and such controversial topics, spoke to me of his recent
visit to the United States, where he presented a paper at the WAVES (World
Association for Vedic Studies) conference, and about a wide range of issues
including the Gujarat riots, the Aryan Invasion Theory, and the divide
between "mainstream" scholars and "marginalized" scholars like himself.
.....
Eton Sheikh is a Class VIII student,
he has never travelled beyond his village of Bochadanga. The farthest he
could have gone is Amtala, a market place 5 km away. Last Sunday night,
a huge police contingent stormed into his village and picked him up. Their
charge: Eton was ''conspiring to wage war against the state of Bengal.''
He's in custody. .....
There are only two countries in
the world today, India and China, where old traditions are still living,
unlike other ancient civilisations like Greece, Rome or Mesopotamia, which
have all been wiped out by Christianity or Islam. That is why it was so
easy for the Taliban to bomb the Bamiyan Buddhas - they have no sentiments
attached to them. .....
The National Institute of Ocean
Technology (NIOT), Madras, who discovered the archaeological relics in
the Gulf of Cambay, recently organised a National Workshop on Marine Archaeology
in the Gulf of Cambay (or Khambat), which I was privileged to attend. Privileged
because it was one of the most well- organised and focused workshops I
have attended recently. It was inter-disciplinary, with participation by
scientists, archaeologists, geologists, engineers, epigraphists, historians,
etc. .....
Barely had President and the head
of the ruling military junta General Pervez Musharraf returned to Islamabad
from his well trumpeted tour of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka including tribute
paying whirlwind flying visit to Beijing, the terrorist outfit reared by
his own Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) struck in the Murree. .....
Most Indians perceive Pakistan
as an "enemy" while an attack on terrorist training camps in Pakistan was
the most favoured option of ending "terrorism" in Jammu and Kashmir, an
opinion poll by weekly news magazine India Today reported on Sunday. Of
the 17,776 people surveyed, 68 per cent viewed Pakistan as "an enemy,"
according to the poll commissioned by India Today and conducted by market
research firm ORG-MARG. .....
A minor girl, reportedly missing
from her residence in Gandhinagar area since December last, has been rescued
by police in Mirpara area under Deganga police station of North 24 parganas
district, police said today. .....
At least 10 persons, including
policemen, were injured as communal violence broke out following the alleged
kidnapping of a boy in Keru village in Rajasthan's Jodhpur district on
Thursday, police said here on Friday. .....
May be Indians have forgotten the
date and the year. May be they have lost the art of observing anniversaries
and jubilees. May be, perhaps, they have no more respect for the past.
The mind-set could be and one is only guessing one of questioning the relevance
of certain events that took place years ago. But an older generation, one
hopes, would be forgiven for remembering 7 and 8 August 1942. Great days.
.....
May be Indians have forgotten the
date and the year. May be they have lost the art of observing anniversaries
and jubilees. May be, perhaps, they have no more respect for the past.
The mind-set could be and one is only guessing one of questioning the relevance
of certain events that took place years ago. But an older generation, one
hopes, would be forgiven for remembering 7 and 8 August 1942. Great days.
.....
Sudan, July 15, 2002: During
a recent fact finding trip to Southern Sudan, Freedom Now World News discovered
overwhelming evidence that young black, boy slaves are repeatedly gang-raped
by their Arab masters. While previous reports on slavery have focused
mainly on the gang-rape of female slaves, sociologist and investigative
reporter Maria Sliwa received testimony from numerous boy victims of rape.
.....
Not even the very generous doles
of cash, arms and undeserved praise for joining the war against "terrorism"
seem to give Pakistan a sense of confidence. Under General Parvez Musharraf,
Pakistan is one nation that needs to constantly reassure itself that it
is not totally deprived of friends in the vast comity of nations. .....
There is nothing extraordinary
about Kalpana Dhabhade's resume though her education- B.Com, M.Com, Diploma
in Taxation Law and MBA in Finance-is reasonably impressive. What the resume
does not mention is that this 28-year-old spent over 12 years of her life
in a girls' observation home in K. Dhabhade Pune and financed her own education.
.....
Coming down heavily on chief election
commissioner J M Lyngdoh, the BJP today said he was apparently acting at
the "behest" of the Congress and other Opposition parties which wanted
the Gujarat assembly elections to be delayed. .....
Observing that cross border terrorism
from Pakistan has not ended, external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha on
Monday said there was evidence of stepped up violence by Pakistan-backed
terrorist groups in Jammu and Kashmir in the run-up to assembly elections.
.....
President APJ Abdul Kalam's plans
to visit Gujarat is already taking political overtones with the Jammu unit
of the VHP expressing shock over it and urging him to instead go to the
refugee camps in Jammu and Kashmir to see the 'plight' of Kashmiri Hindus
living there. .....
For several years now there has
been a concerted effort by certain organisations to malign Hindus and Hindu
organisations. These organisations and individuals are at pains to associate
Hindus with fundamentalism and terrorism. This onslaught has intensified
following the recent riots in Gujarat, with pressure being put on the British
Government, and other agencies like Inter-Faith to ban VHP-UK. It is now
common practice to denounce Hindus whenever and wherever possible .....
Laloo Yadav's pranks are unfathomable.
His admirers and critics exist not only India, even in Pakistan also. As
Pakistan has the penchant of competing with India in every respect, it
is not much behind in this respect also. When people in Pakistan cut jokes
or speak humorously, Bihari style is obvious in their talk. These people
are not behind in ridiculing or making a joke of the Government here. .....
Tibetans will become a minority
in their own Capital in the next few years as ethnic Chinese migrants pour
into the city to take part in a new drive to develop Tibet's economy, a
top official said. .....
Three Indian computer scientists
have solved a longstanding mathematics problem by devising a way for a
computer to tell quickly and definitively whether a number is prime - that
is, whether it is evenly divisible only by itself and 1. .....
In the interview entitled "Stop
looking at issues from communal lenses" (DH, Aug 5, 2002), Harsh Mander
says: "I have no regret having quit (the IAS)." Why should he? Mander had
been on leave from the IAS since 1999 when he became country director of
ActionAid India (the Indian operation of the UK-based ActionAid) at a monthly
salary of Rs 2 lakh paid in pound sterling! .....
The party is trying to revive the
old KHAM (Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi, Muslim) alliance. Former Congress
chief minister Mr Madhavsinh Solanki put together this combination in the
1980s. .....
During the recent riot in Gujarat,
Prime Minister Vajpayee made a loaded statement that the ruler of the state
must discharge his Rajdharma, far above any sectarian consideration or
narrow mindset, by implication. What Vajpayee had in mind was undoubtedly
the glorious tradition of over five thousand years when the precept of
Rajdharma was elaborately expounded by Grand Sire Bhisma of Mahabharata
fame to his grandson Yudhisthir after the latter won the battle of Kurukshetra.
.....
When students of the visual arts
department of Rabindra Bharati University were beaten up recently by their
Students Federation of India (SFI) colleagues for being "inappropriately
dressed" on campus (they were allegedly wearing shorts while mixing mud
for sculpting), colleges across West Bengal had discovered a new schoolyard
bully. .....
Members of the Saudi royal family
have been accused in a trillion dollar lawsuit by families of victims of
the September 11 attacks of funding international terrorist mastermind
Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network. .....
During a confidence motion in the
Lok Sabha, a Dravid Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) member said he did not understand
the concept of "one people, one culture". The gentleman is now a cabinet
minister in the Vajpayee government. Earlier, he was a minister in the
Deve Gowda cabinet. .....
I wish Pakistan's unelected autocrat
would make up his mind whether he wishes to be one of the United States'
hounds or to run with the Osamas of the world as they scurry into the nearest
rabbits' hole. .....
In a landmark verdict, the Bombay
High Court has held that restraining a Muslim girl from wearing a head-scarf
in school did not amount to violation of her fundamental rights or religious
tenets. .....
Radical Islamic leaders in Britain
have issued what a British newspaper described as a thinly veiled threat
that the US and Britain may face terrorist attacks similar to those of
September 11 if they go to war against Iraq. .....
It goes to their head, doesn't
it? When career bureaucrats known for their supplicating conduct before
their ministerial masters come to be appointed to constitutional offices
with protected tenures, they suddenly rediscover their spines. The most
well-known example is that of former Chief Election Commissioner T. N.
Seshan. .....
The United States has decided to
fingerprint and photograph tens of thousands of visitors from the Middle
Eastern and Muslim countries entering the country after Sept 11, according
to a Dawn report. .....
Just a few days before he died
in a mysterious air crash General Zia-ul Haq gave his last interview to
a European journalist. The general looked relaxed and pleased with himself
and spoke triumphantly about how the jihad he had supported and sustained
in Afghanistan against Soviet forces was on the verge of succeeding. .....
At least 12 people have been killed
and four wounded when suspected militants in India's remote northeast opened
fire on a truck traveling to a local market, police and other sources said.
.....
For those who marvel at the CPI(M)-led
Left Front completing 25 uninterrupted years in power in West Bengal, the
election last month for the municipality of Haldia could be an eye-opener.
Left candidates swept the poll in the port town 135 km south-west of Kolkata,
winning all the 25 wards and garnering 75 per cent of the polled votes.
.....
An estimated 3,000 to 4,000 British-based
Islamic militants have been trained in Al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorist camps
in Afghanistan and reportedly have links with Pakistan, a media report
said on Sunday. .....
On August 2, the Supreme Court
heard Solicitor General Harish Salve read out a 1992 question paper set
for West Bengal's higher secondary Hindi examination under the auspices
of its Communist government. Students were asked to write an essay on one
of the following: .....
On the subject of mathematics,
there are two kinds of people - the number crunchers and the number
crunchees i.e., those who can crunch numbers with great facility,
and those who get crunched by numbers. .....
Days after the Pakistan chapter
of Hurriyat Conference lashed out at the mismanagement in Pakistan-Occupied
Kashmir (PoK), another senior separatist leader left Islamabad red-faced
when he accused it of using PoK only as a ground to breed terrorism. .....
When I was a child, I learnt quite
a few things from your paper. On returning to India after a stint abroad,
I wanted my children to absorb the same Indian values I had. I was looking
to the TOI for this and had no hesitation in subscribing to it. .....
This fortnight is particularly
rich in issues of national concern, what with the Election Commission and
the President both going to Gujarat, and the continued turmoil in Jammu
& Kashmir. But I'm going to give it all a miss for a matter of more
fundamental concern in a nation that tends to dodge serious issues of development.
.....
US Secretary of State Colin Powell
must have had a boisterous laugh when Pa kistan-backed terrorists, owing
allegiance to Hizbul Mujahideen, made a grenade attack on the Pradesh Congress
Headquarters in Srinagar, as if to 'hail' the Election Commission's announcement
on August 2, fixing dates for holding Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir.
.....
It appears that New Delhi is going
to bungle once again in Kashmir. Even as there is enough evidence vis-à-vis
the depleting influence and clout of the All Party Hurriyat Conference
(APHC) over the majority of peace-hungry Kashmiris, the Vajpayee Government
has allowed wrong signals to go out, one after another, in recent days.
.....
Pakistan has circulated a fresh
list of 150 "religious terrorists" belonging to various Islamic organisations
and announced hefty awards for the capture of nearly 24 of them, media
reports said on Monday. .....
Parliament in India has gone to
sleep. The two Houses come to life every day at the appointed hour like
a new Rip Van Winkle, only to lapse quickly into another 24-hour slumber.
But We, the People, in whose name Parliament was brought into existence,
are awake and watchful though we are seen merely as helpless spectator.
.....
On July 23, the IDF dropped a bomb
on a Gaza apartment building, killing terrorist leader Salah Shehadeh,
commander of the 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas.
.....
Days after the Pakistan chapter
of Hurriyat Conference lashed out at the mismanagement in Pakistan-Occupied
Kashmir (PoK), another senior separatist leader left Islamabad red-faced
when he accused it of using PoK only as a ground to breed terrorism. .....
The Indian Express has lived up
to its reputation as a newspaper of courage in investigating the recent
allotment of petrol pumps, LPG dealerships and kerosene retailing. Since
democracy assumes that no one in authority is above temptation, the press
becomes the guardian of public interests. .....
Immigration minister Beverley Hughes
is seeking to prevent asylum seekers using mosques as places of sanctuary
following a controversial police raid. .....
Saudi Arabia is teetering on the
brink of collapse, fuelling Foreign Office fears of an extremist takeover
of one of the West's key allies in the war on terror. .....
The mother of a London man facing
the death penalty for his alleged involvement in the 11 September atrocities
spoke for the first time last night about how her 'care free, happy' boy
had been turned into a fanatic by British extremists. .....
Madrassas in Pakistan receive more
than 800 million pounds a year - equivalent of the country's income tax
revenue - through charitable donations mainly from wealthy British-based
Muslim businessmen. .....
Kashmir's separatist alliance Saturday
rejected the Indian government's offer of talks and said it would not participate
in the upcoming state elections. .....
The City of Washington in the District
of Columbia is not only the capital of the United States of America it
is also the lobby capital of the world. Every two years some 900 Republicans
and Democrats collectively raise a billion dollars to contest for the 435
seats at the House of Representatives. Every fourth year a Republican and
a Democrat raises a good $150 million each to contest for the White House.
.....
It's not often that the native
talks back. Following US Secretary of State Colin Powell's recent visit
to India, the wry and unruffled Chief Election Commissioner JM Lyngdoh
did just that. Kashmir is the White Man's burden, General Powell seemed
to thunder from a pulpit to a country that has held democratic elections
for 50 years. .....
Innocents are killed in Murree,
Pakistan , at a school that I visited from time to time as a teenager.
Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl loses his life in Karachi, a
town that was once my home. And an Islamabad church is attacked, just a
few miles away from another previous home. In each incident, the name of
Allah is invoked. The question is then asked once again: Is Islam a religion
of peace? .....
Is the United States taking India
for a ride? And who, pray, is colin Powell, US Secretary of State, trying
to fool? And what does he think India is: a banana republic ruled by boot-lickers?
By now he should have known fully well that Gen. Musharraf is an accomplished
liar. For all the big talk of helping the United States stem terrorism
indulged in by the Pakistan leader, it is by now common knowledge that
Osama bin Laden is very much alive and is in hiding in Pakistan, courtesy
of the Islamabad government. .....
No one complained two years ago
when the University of North Carolina required its incoming freshmen to
read a book about the lingering effects of the Civil War, nor last year
when it assigned a book about a Hmong immigrant's struggle with epilepsy
and American medicine. .....
As my mom said, the shadow of Shani
Maharaj is cast over the film industry. If the underworld-filmwallahs nexus
wasn't bad enough, we now have scions of an eminently respectable film
house being convicted for murder. On July 31, Ketan and Vivek Anand, sons
of the late Chetan Anand, were given life imprisonment for their role in
the brutal and premeditated slaying of former actress Priya Rajvansh in
March 2000. .....
The 17th century has been said
to be the darkest century for the Muslim world, since it was during this
century the majority of Muslim kingdoms were conquered by the colonial
powers. The Industrial Revolution and the new scientific inventions gave
the Muslims an inferiority complex. The growth of knowledge and Science
in Europe created a wave which shook Muslim superstition and obscurantism
like so many dead leaves. .....
With Capt. Lakshmi Sehgal filing
the nomination paper for the presidentship of the Republic of India, the
Communists have started eulogizing Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, the freedom
fighter whom they have so far been describing as "traitor" and "quisling".
They had also described the Indian National Army (INA) founded by Netaji
at Singapore in 1943, the women's wing of which was headed by Capt. Lakshmi
Sehgal, as the "hired Bose army of rapists and plunderers". .....
The world-famous rath Yatra (Car
Festival) of Lord Jagannath at Puri is the most spectacular event of the
Jagannathdesh Orissa that attracts pilgrims from far and wide. The festival
is observed on the second day of the bright fortnight of Asadha (June-July)
every year. This year, Rath Yatra is scheduled on 12 July. .....
The biggest impediment to any worthwhile
discussion on Indo- American relations in public fora in India is the simplistic
conviction among much of the country's political class that American policy
in south Asia has to be in a straitjacket: it has to be either pro-India,
as they would like it to be, or pro- Pakistan. .....
Two recent articles stressing autonomy
for the so- called 'Kashmir' betrayed an ignorance that was doubly amazing
and agonizing because they were written by an ex-Prime Minister, I.K. Gujral,
(Aug. 3) and Malani Parthasarathy (Aug. 5). Both dwelt exclusively on 'Kashmir'
though that unimpeachable authority, Karan Singh, has gone on record that
"there is no such thing as 'Kashmir'. It is the State of Jammu and Kashmir...
ruled by my father till he signed the Instrument of Accession. .....
While America has geared up the
entire world to fight against international terrorism (which is in fact
an uprising against the anti- Muslim forces of the world led by the United
States whose national interests are best served thereby), Pakistan continues
to suffer heavily on account of unending sectarian violence. It seems the
two main sects of Islam, Sunnis and Shias, are bent upon eliminating each
other from the soil of this country for reasons best known to those who
have been leading their mutually destructive operations. .....
The United States of America holds
seven of my countrymen captive in a prison on the coast of Cuba in Guantanamo
Bay. They have recently been moved from a place of detention called Camp
X-Ray, an array of cages and sheds open on several of the six sides of
a cuboid, to rain and the wind. The winds may have been a blessing as Camp
X-Ray was at the foot of a still valley in tropical Cuba. .....
Though having no significant support
from the majority of members of the People's Constituent Assembly (MPR),
three Islamic-based political parties remain determined to fight for the
inclusion of Islamic law in article 29 of the revised 1945 constitution.
.....
General Pervez Musharraf's reported
statement that Osama bin Laden could not have masterminded the attack on
the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon last year must come as a major
surprise worldwide. .....
What would you do with some one
who says that India is my country and I firmly believe in the constitution
and do not want to be given special treatment from other citizens? Well
of course, dump them and keep them in refugee camps where conditions are
worse than rat holes. You compensate them with money less than the terrorists
who kill people with impunity. .....
The news came on the phone: "The
Nobel Prize for Literature for 2001 is awarded to the British writer, born
in Trinidad, V. S. Naipaul." When, last October, the call from Stockholm
came to his house in Wiltshire, Sir Vidia Naipaul pretended to be busy
in the garden. In fact, he had taken to his bed. The award was a shock
- he had long assumed his work was unpalatable to the academic world, and
there had been no prior hint of the honour. His immediate reaction, he
tells me, was one of "extreme exhaustion". "One needs time to think about
everything. So I went and lay down." .....
Saying Israel is in the middle
of a war, the Supreme Court today gave the army approval to destroy without
notice the homes of 43 families related to suicide bombers, while fearful
and frustrated Israelis struggled to find a way to end a new wave of Palestinian
attacks. .....
It was just before 10.A.M. and
the first ministers were beginning to arrive at the mukattah compound for
an emergency cabinet meeting to be chaired by Yasser Arafat. The Israeli
tanks, bulldozers and armored personnel carriers, which have been inside
the mukattah for the past few weeks, pulled back a few hundred meters south
of the compound to allow the meeting to take place. .....
Until last week, the American diplomatic
effort to head off a war between India and Pakistan had focused sharply
on stopping Pakistani-sponsored Islamic extremist incursions into Indian-controlled
areas of Kashmir. Now, after his visit to India and Pakistan, Secretary
of State Colin L. Powell has relaxed his pressure on Islamabad, ignoring
continued Pakistani sponsorship of these incursions and efforts to disrupt
the key October elections in the Indian-ruled part of Kashmir. .....
The Army is taking the spurt in
terrorist violence in Jammu & Kashmir in its stride, but has become
apprehensive about the eastern flank where reports have suggested renewed
efforts by Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) to link up with
militant outfits in the region. .....
A former teacher of Pakistani president
Pervez Musharraf says. That Kargil incident was "a disaster of Musharraf's
making" and he had personally rebuked the general for his role. .....
Appearances to the contrary, Israel
is defeating the Palestinians. For one piece of proof, note this reversal
a few weeks ago: Yasser Arafat announced his belated acceptance of a generous
Israeli offer that he had spurned two years earlier. This time, however,
the Israelis responded with disdain. .....
The entire press corps here was
up in arms against the Chhattisgarh Government over the arrest of a senior
journalist, Rajnarain Mishra, for writing a "blasphemous'' article in a
weekly newspaper that "hurt the sentiments of the minority community''.
.....
German authorities on Monday shut
down the Al-Aqsa organisation in the northwestern city of Aachen they said
posed as a charity to collect money for the radical Islamic movement Hamas,
the interior ministry said. .....
I was born into a very staunch
Muslim family in the US. Learning to read the Quran the moment I could
read. I was under the misconception that if I did not do as Allah told
me to do, I would be punished severely. I was also told that if I didn't
wear modest clothes I was being immoral. Right from a little girl I wore
the head scarf. My friends would ask me why, and I would tell them "because
God said so'. .....
The answer may range, in my opinion,
from "No" to "Maybe". Basically, Indonesian madrasah are a place where
students are trained to live according to the commands and prohibitions
of Islam. But in some madrasah students are meticulously prepared to believe
that there is just no human justice possible in a country so heavily influenced
by a Western culture that is dominated by Christians and Jews; and that
in this country justice will be achieved only if the people return to the
pure teachings of Islam and reinstate the practices of governance exemplified
by Prophet Mohammad. .....
Nine Amarnath pilgrims were killed
and 32 wounded when militants on Tuesday morning attacked the heavily guarded
base camp for the pilgrims at Nunwan on the outskirts of Pahalgam, nearly
100 km from Srinagar in the south Kashmir district of Anantnag. .....
Even as Washington lavishes praise
on Pakistan's President for being a steadfast ally in its war in Afghanistan,
General Pervez Musharraf now says he doubts Osama bin Laden had anything
to do with the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US. .....
Muru Manohar Joshi, the HRD and
Science and Technology Minister, has decided to back the recently submitted
report of the National Commission on Cattle. Its not all about "Hindutva",
but pure economics, the minister said. .....
by Human Rights Congress for Bangladesh
Minorities
Since the October 2001 general
election in Bangladesh that brought Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-
Jamat-E-Islam led coalition government of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia to
power for the second time, a new wave of brutality and violence has been
unleashed against the minorities, the Hindus, Budhists, Christians and
tribal people. The violence against minorities has surpassed that of 1992,
when Begum Zia became the Prime Minister for the first time. .....
Shouting "Hail Hail Shiva!" thousands
of Hindu pilgrims crowded two narrow dirt tracks high in the Himalayan
mountains of the disputed territory of Kashmir. .....
For all its attempts to internationalise
the Kashmir issue, Pakistan now faces a situation where world attention
is focused on cross-border terrorism on the Indo-Pak border, senior advocate
and MP Arun Jaitley said on Friday. .....
Making an obvious distinction between
the rights of army personnel and civilians, the National Human Rights Commission
(NHRC) has rejected the demand of an army captain seeking compensation
for the death of his daughter in a militant attack in Jammu and Kashmir.
.....
A reader of Pakistani origin living
in America has recently sent me an e-mail reporting a National Geographic
TV programme which covered cruelty to animals the world over. .....
One day last November I spent a
long sad afternoon prowling around the perimeter of the smoking ruins of
the World Trade Center, trying to take in the horror of what I was seeing,
exchanging numb civilities with equally shell-shocked strangers. I saw
my own bewilderments reflected in the eyes of those who had gathered at
the site - not, I believe, as voyeurs, but out of a graver, more honourable
compulsion to bear witness. .....
Mukul Mangalik in the second part
of his article From the heart of darkness (HT, July 26) was gracious enough
to acknowledge that "the RSS could plunge itself into the lives of Adivasis
and Dalits, OBCs and Brahmins, Patidars and Banias. and get them to come
together as the Hindutva god's army straining to go to war. Only the RSS
could have forged this alliance between the dispossessed and the propertied,
hurling them in a violent offensive against the imagined 'other'." He,
however, forgot to mention the different political parties who also participated
in this "violent alliance". .....
A group of Briton-based Islamic
militants has been linked to two secret training camps in America where
suspected Al Qaida terrorists were taught to poison water supplies and
given weapons training. .....
Heaps of garbage, overflowing drains
and squalor all around was what the Mayor, T. Krishna Reddy, got to see
in the vicinity of the famous Ujjaini Mahankali temple even as the annual
Bonalu festivities commence on Sunday. A peeved Mayor warned the MCH officials
of stringent action if the `mess was not cleared up immediately.' .....
The Godhra burning - communal,
repulsive and criminally punishable - was not the reason why the rest of
Gujarat went up in flames. Nor was it the reason why Muslims, especially
women and children, have been hunted down, humiliated, forced to look on
as family and friends were gangraped, cut up into pieces, blown apart,
with the survivors cast away to fend for themselves, being dared to re-build
their lives, their work. .....
More and more people, young and
old, of different skin colours and cuts of face, believers and non-believers,
speaking as many different languages as this country has to offer, need
to get on to trains heading for Gujarat. .....
The increasingly influential Indian-American
community has scored a recent victory in Washington by blocking a congressional
resolution expressing concern about the violence of Hindu mobs against
Muslims in the Indian state of Gujarat earlier this year. As word of the
pending resolution spread, Indian-American groups inundated Senate offices
with e-mails and phone calls opposing the resolution. .....
Plato once remarked, "Of all forms
of deception, self deception is the worst." Successive governments in our
country have deluded themselves into thinking they can make peace with
Pakistan, and that Pakistan will eschew terrorism and come to the negotiating
table. The present Government, riding on the coattails of the Americans,
actually believed that President Musharraf would come down hard on his
own jihadis and stop infiltration into J&K. .....
Differences between Hizbul Mujahideen's
expelled Kashmir-based militants and its PoK-based leadership took a turn
for worse on Sunday when its deposed chief commander Abdul Majid Dar announced
appointment of a parallel commander for frontier district of Kupwara. .....
After nearly 36 years of repeated
demands, the people of Ladakh were finally granted a special status in
1995. Though the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council fell short
of the Union territory status they had been asking for, it was still the
first time that some degree of autonomy was introduced in the predominantly
Buddhist district. The Ladakhis also discovered democracy for the first
time -- during the first election, in 22 out 26 constituencies, the Congress
candidate was elected unopposed. .....
A Christian Fijian cabinet Minister
is under fire for referring to Indians as weeds who are spreading all over
the globe and taking up space. It was not clear whether the Minister
had in mind that they should be eliminated since they are weeds. .....
The Sabarmati Is No Longer On Fire.
The streets of Ahmedabad are not littered with the human wreckage of communal
hate. Still, Gujarat continues to burn brightly in certain political minds
in Delhi. And the heat was rather severe in Parliament. It was a parade
of the familiar anguish, a rather desperate anguish: what Gujarat
needs at the moment is healing, not voting; if voting is really needed
it has to be under President's rule; Chief Minister Narendra Modi has to
go because it was he who sponsored the riot. .....
Al-Watan is an Arabic-language
"national weekly Arab-American newspaper" published in Washington D.C.,
San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York, whose mission is to provide Arab
and Muslim Americans "with the most current, valuable, reliable, and informative
news on political, economic, social, cultural, and educational issues,
which concern the Arab-American community in their relations with the U.S.
society at large... through maintaining a positive relationship with the
community... coordinating efforts with Arab and Muslim American organizations
to promote the achievements of the community as well as empower them through
active involvement through political, media, social, and educational sectors."
.....
In July 2000, the last edition
of Assirat Al-Mustaqeem, an Arabic-language magazine published in Pittsburgh,
advocated jihad - "holy war" - against the West. .....
Nearly a year after we went to
war against terrorism, leaders in the West appear still unwilling, if not
afraid, to name the actual enemy that we face - much less refocus the war
against that threat. .....
Move over, Arundhati Roy. Anirudh
Bahl is here. The tehelka man claims to have received by way of an initial
advance and royalty for his little known novel, 'Bunker 13', more than
what the controversial Booker prize winner had got when, 'The God of Small
things' was first published. Bahl, a co.-owner of the notorious dotcom
company, earlier had an eminently forgettable work of fiction to his credit,
published back in 1991. .....
Unusually high temperatures in
Kashmir have melted an ice stalagmite considered the image of Lord Shiva,
but this makes little difference to thousands of pilgrims who have braved
potential rebel attacks to reach the Himalayan cave. .....
I disagree with Gaitee Ara Siddiqui's
letter "Fresh start" on Kashmir (TFT July 12-18). The fact is that India
is a bully, and it tends to threaten all its neighbours including China,
Nepal, Burma, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and of course Pakistan. Because of
India's expansionist ideas, all of Southeast Asia remains a
destabilised region. .....
Abu Qatada, the missing hardline
Islamic cleric suspected by intelligence officials of being a key al-Qaeda
operative in the UK, has broken his silence to call on British Muslims
to martyr themselves in a holy war against oppression. .....
Hate, vengeance, violence and now
elections. Gujarat is still smarting from the painful burns it suffered
five months ago when several parts of the state erupted in communal fury.
Without even bothering to put a swab of cotton on the festering wounds,
one man is all set to reap the benefits of the worst ever riots that hit
the Mahatma's land. Caretaker Chief Minister Narendra Modi, considered
by many as the author of the riots which claimed 1,000 lives, wants to
cash in on the polarisation of Hindu votes post-Godhra. Under his leadership,
the BJP is readying itself to fight the Assembly elections in September,
five months ahead of schedule. .....
"Europeans have done something
that no one has ever done before: create a zone of peace where war is ruled
out, absolutely out," Karl Kaiser, the director of something called the
Research Institute of the German Society for Foreign Affairs in Berlin
explained to the Chicago Tribune. "Europeans are convinced that this model
is valid for other parts of the world." Rarely have so many inaccurate
statements been crammed into so few words. .....
The Centre today took on the West
Bengal government in the Supreme Court with an "anti-national" question
paper set for the state's inter-school higher secondary test. .....
Malegaon Municipal Corporation
(MMC) corporators, who had refused to sing Jana Gana Mana and Vande Mataram
on religious grounds, have climbed down. The 34 corporators have told Municipal
Commissioner Harshdeep Kamble in writing they have no problems with the
national anthem but won't sing the national song. .....
When Dr Sindu married Dr J Mohammed
Iqbal after a sweet romantic affair in November 1999, she never thought
a tempest would sweep her blissful life away. After all, both were dentists
and, therefore, knew how to have a sweet tooth without allowing cavity
to come between them. But hardly had she set up a separate home with her
hubby, braving opposition from relatives, when Dr Iqbal started bad-mouthing
her. .....
It's unlikely Bollywood director
Vidhu Vinod Chopra has heard of Vinod Kumar Dhar. But unknowingly, he recreated
the 16- year-old's life when he told the story of Altaf (portrayed by Hrithik
Roshan) in Mission Kashmir. Like the fictional Altaf, Vinod witnessed his
entire family - his parents, two sisters, brother, aunt and uncle - being
killed by four foreign militants. .....
Zakir Hussain Shah, a resident
of Bara Kau locality who had murdered his daughter last month, will be
absolved of the charge as his wife and son in their capacity as legal heirs
of the deceased have agreed to pardon him under the Qisas and Diyat law.
.....
Some time back, Lashkar-e-Taiyaba
issued Taliban style diktats to the people of Kashmir. Among these are
that everyone should abide by Sunnah. This would women should wear a full
bodied veil (Burqa); men should keep beards without mustache (Islamic style);
men should wear 'salwar kameez' (robes similar to that of Taliban so that
foreign terrorists can easily camouflage themselves as locals) and wearing
of trousers is banned; ban on cinema halls; ban on television; ban on internet
and ban on sale and consumption of liquor (but these Pakistan Punjabi terrorists
have been drinking gallons of liquor and raping Kashmiri women). .....
A bizarre procession crept through
the Pakistani village of Abba Khel last Wednesday evening. It was the finale
of a double wedding, but it seemed more like a funeral march. The older
bride, 17-year-old Wazira Khan, was weeping inconsolably. The younger,
her 14-year-old cousin Tasneem Khan, had to be hauled by force from her
parents' house. .....
The Supreme Court did not agree
with the submission of senior counsel, C.S. Vaidyanathan, that moral values
and principles of all religions should not be taught in school. .....
In the editorial, 'In the backwaters
of time', Hindustan Times (July 2) had denounced as "a cold blast from
the past" the reported move of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board
to seek exemption of Muslims from the application of the Child Marriage
Restraint Act 1929 (popularly known as the Sarda Act after its chief architect
Harbilas Sarda, a member of the central legislative council in the Twenties).
.....
The widely read Pakistani Urdu
newspaper Takbeer carried an interesting report on July 22. It reported
that Major Mohammad Amin, a former officer of the Pakistan Army who had
resigned after the 1971 debacle and was now living in London, had said:
"The fact is that two years ago General Musharraf had started using Omar
(Syed Omar Sheikh now sentenced to death for his involvement in the murder
of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl) for uniting all jehadi outfits.
.....
Two small boys made a grisly discovery
in their Jersey City home yesterday - their mom, pregnant aunt and grandmother
savagely stabbed to death in a domestic dispute, according to police, that
was fueled by what kin called a religious feud between the aunt and her
husband. .....
For the first time, Army personnel
fighting militancy in Jammu and Kashmir have filed complaints of human
rights violation, and demanded compensation from the state. .....
For 80 INMATES, ALL LIFERS, AT
the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, four days in June spelt a different
routine. They spent the time closeted with a swarthy man with flowing grey
beard, long hair and a modest head gear going through the basic steps to
learn the spiritual and exercise routine of Sahaja Sthiti Yoga. .....
Rape as an instrument of terror
or punishment and its abiding recurrence across cultures and time is testimony
to how little basic sexual aggressiveness has changed. Worse still is the
cynical reality that this abhorrent practice that leaves many women traumatised
for life is accepted as being part of the normal rhythm of social activity
wherein men will be men. .....
US secretary of state Colin Powell
returns to the subcontinent on Saturday amidst a recurrence of the periodic
testiness that has characterised ties between Washington and New Delhi.
.....
Indians and Pakistanis may not
he sharing much in common these days, but surely there is a common bonding
between the two nations where trains are concerned. Both countries have
a love-hate relationship with trains and while this is not going to be
enough to bring them together, the shared experience - and most often this
is a painful process - has certain fusing elements. .....
Nothing reveals the mindset of
an individual better than his reaction to a given event, whether it is
one of success or failure, death or disaster. Few in India thought that
India would win the NatWest Trophy at Lord's after the cheap dismissal
of Sachin Tendulkar and the score stood at 146 for five. In despair Mohammad
Kaifs family turned off the TV and went out to watch Devdas at the near-by
cinema theatre. .....
A cadre of militant Muslim leaders,
including some linked to Al-Qaida or accused by Washington of supporting
terrorism, held a conference yesterday to condemn the USA in a show of
defiance. .....
For almost two decades, most of
the north-east states groaned under the effects of terrorism, insurgency
and secessionism, but Sikkim, tucked away in a corner of the Himalayas,
remained a Shangri-La. "It is no more a paradise," says a senior bureaucrat
in the Sikkim government. "Our religio- demographic pattern has undergone
such a change in the last decade that Sikkim is no more a land of Hindus
and Buddhists." .....
For almost two decades, most of
the north-east states groaned under the effects of terrorism, insurgency
and secessionism, but Sikkim, tucked away in a corner of the Himalayas,
remained a Shangri-La. "It is no more a paradise," says a senior bureaucrat
in the Sikkim government. "Our religio- demographic pattern has undergone
such a change in the last decade that Sikkim is no more a land of Hindus
and Buddhists." .....
A UN report on Israel's military
attack on a Palestinian refugee camp does not back up claims of a massacre,
but it does criticize both sides for putting civilians in harm's way, Western
diplomats said. .....
India's new Eastern Army commander
has warned that Pakistan plans to create turmoil in the East and the Northeast
and the people must be educated about the looming dangers. .....
By trying to implement the revised
national curriculum framework, the Centre is attempting to `saffronise'
education, which has the effect of impinging on the country's secular character,
argued senior counsel C.S. Vaidyanathan in the Supreme Court hearing a
petition challenging the new curriculum. .....
Just two summers ago, this same
media group (AOL Time Warner) in its AsiaWeek magazine had named Atal Behari
Vajpayee as the best leader of Asia and chose him as the Prime Minister
of a "Dream Team" cabinet composed of Asia's leading political leaders.
.....
While talking to The Indian Express
recently, the newly-appointed National Conference (NC) President Omar Abdullah
made a very significant statement on the autonomy issue (IE, July 19).
He said that ''his party was ready to be flexible on the issue by not being
adamant on a return to the pre-1953 constitutional status'' for J&K.
.....
US Secretary of State Colin Powell's
visit to the subcontinent last weekend seems to have indicated some important
shifts in US positions. His plain speaking actually endorses the Indian
position in the essential areas. .....
The autonomy that father-and-son
Abdullah dream of is the return of J&K to its pre-1953 status with
regard to its constitutional position -- vis-à-vis the rest of India.
That is simple. But what is the sanctity of that cut-off date for them?
.....
It has been 23 years since John
Paul II visited Mexico on his first foreign trip as pope, and now he is
to return for what many here quietly consider a final farewell. .....
US secretary of state Colin Powell
comes to Delhi and talks tough. He goes to Islamabad and massages Musharraf's
ego. It is unthinkable that the US secretary of state is not aware of the
real situation in Pakistan. To a pointed question by a journalist in Delhi,
Powell says that he does not believe that infiltration has completely stopped.
.....
The Al-Qaida, Harkat-ul-Ansar,
Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiyaba could try to strike in North Bengal
any time and the Independence Day could be an occasion. .....
In West Bengal, even thinking about
murdering a CPI-M leader is considered 'murder'. That, at least, is the
conclusion that can be drawn from the arrest of two BJP supporters, Mr
Himadri Panja and Mr Samir Kar, on Monday for allegedly 'planning' to murder
a CPI-M leader, Mr Jagannath Sasmal. .....
General Pervez Musharraf, who until
three years ago was merely a salaried army officer of Islamic Republic
of Pakistan, will soon be arriving in the Capital of the Peoples Republic
of Bangladesh as the Head of State and will be accorded with all the warmth
in accordance with the Protocol. This will be the first opportunity of
this General to set foot on the former colony in official capacity. .....
This small city in the Mohawk River
valley, where industries built in the early 20th century on the hard labor
of immigrants from Italy and Poland crumbled long ago, is in the market
for a new ethnic group. .....
Following India's independence
in 1947, predominantly Muslim Kashmir acceded to the predominantly Hindu
Indian Union. Pakistani incursions had resulted in occupation by the Indian
Army and the establishment of a ceasefire line by the United Nations. The
disputed region's troubles had not, however, diminished its popularity
as a holiday destination. .....
by Western media presents him as
a 'secular' President
The following are excerpts from
the book "The Islamic Declaration" ("Islamska deklaracija"), written by
Mr. Alija Izetbegovic, current President of Bosnia-Herzegovina. .....
