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September Month Articles

September Month Articles


      India has announced a financial assistance of US$ 100 million for Afghanistan. Of this assistance, US$ 31.5 m has been operationalised (details below) in the Current Financial Year and the balance, US$ 68.5 m will be utilised in project related assistance to Afghanistan during 2003-04 (US $ 38.5 m) and 2004-05 (US$ 30m). India has also decided to contribute US $ 200,000 to the World Bank managed Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund. .....
     

      A radical London-based Islamic sect that described the September 11 hijackers as the "magnificent 19" is warning all Muslims, particularly those in Iraq, not to offer support to either the British or American troops in the region. .....
     

      Few days after a similar threat by his French counterpart, Italian Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu warned Saturday, September 27, that "either mosques respect the law or they close." .....
     

      An influential British MP says the continuing insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir "could not have happened without Pakistan at the very least turning blind eye to what's going on". .....
     

      A prominent American Muslim leader in Washington was arrested yesterday after arriving from a trip to the Middle East in which he allegedly tried to transport $340,000 from a group tied to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. .....
     

      A strict Muslim who slit his daughter's throat because he believed she had become too Westernised pleaded with a judge yesterday to sentence him to death. .....
     

      Season's first snowfall on 16,000 ft high altitude ridges has splashed smiles on the faces of regular Army soldiers for a different reason this year: It coincided with killing of 15 Pakistani infiltrators and, simultaneously, the visit of the military attaches and defence diplomats of 24 countries. More opportune time to establish Pakistan's hand behind 13-year-long Kashmir insurgency and the current drive of infiltration was never possible. .....
     

      The Americans have concluded that General Pervez Musharraf is a "good man" - a pet expression of President George W. Bush - but that he is incapable of implementing the US agenda in Pakistan, Afghanistan, or for that matter, on relations with India. .....
     

      It was a bloody Independence Day in Tripura this year with the outlawed All Tripura Tigers Force (ATTF) attacking two villages in West Tripura District, killing 30 people and injuring several others. In both villages, Borolunga and Daspara, each about 50 km from Agartala, the attacks were launched on the night of August 14 with sophisticated firearms and the victims were all Bengalis. .....
     

      Al Qaida has recruited hundreds of Islamic agents from such countries as Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Syria to fight the U.S. in Iraq by offering young men far more than they could earn at home. .....
     

      In spite of 500 years of  powerful suppression by three foreign powers, Buddhism still could not be destroyed due to the reverence paid to the Buddha chivara, the presence of Buddhist temples and monks and the love of poetry, observed Deshamanya Dr. P. R. Anthonis in his address at the second E. A. Wijesooriya Memorial Oration organised by the Mahinda College O.B.A (Colombo Branch) at the SLFI auditorium on Tuesday. .....
     

      More than elation, there was a sense of quiet satisfaction at home with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's powerful rejoinder to General Pervez Musharraf's outburst at the UN General Assembly. Pakistan's president needed to be told a few home truths about his brazen duplicity and his penchant for blackmail. .....
     

      This Weekend, An Unusual encounter is taking place at MIT: The Dalai Lama meets the human brain. Along with the Dalai Lama, prominent Tibetan and western Buddhists are joining neuroscientists, psychologists, and other academics in a conference called "Investigating the Mind," where topics ranging from consciousness to the emotions are being brought under the group's collective microscope. .....
     

      In a new audiotape released by Al Qaeda, the group has appealed to Pakistani soldiers to 'topple' President Pervez Musharraf before he 'hands them over' to the Hindus. .....
     

      In a palatial room, about 100 mostly Indian-born business leaders discussed long-term strategies for uplifting India's masses this weekend. About two miles away, those masses spiraled around a stadium, waiting for a short-term uplift - a hug, and a few whispered words of reassurance - from a small and, some say, divine woman in white. .....
     

      The news last week that two Muslim military personnel, James Yee and Ahmad al-Halabi, had been arrested on suspicion of aiding Al-Qaeda prisoners at Guantánamo Bay (with another three Muslim servicemen under watch) seemed to prompt much surprise. It should not have. .....
     

      Instrumental in turning the tide of militancy in Jammu and Kashmir in mid-1990s, surrendered ultras in the state are a "demoralised" force today, with many of them going underground fearing elimination at the hands of ISI-backed Jehadi outfits after slaying of top counter-insurgent leader Kuka Parray early this month. .....
     

      The parents of slain American journalist Daniel Pearl were angered yesterday by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's suggestion that their son died because he was getting too close to Islamic extremists. .....
     

      For a number of Indians, including those born in Bangladesh and Pakistan, the lure of Russia proved fatal. They were drawn to Bolshevism by Lenin and his famous thesis on the National and Colonial Question at the Second Congress of the Comintern 1920. They met their end at the hands of Jossef Stalin. .....
     

      As someone who dislikes military dictators in general and Pervez Musharraf in particular let me begin by conceding that the man has one quality that makes him quite unique. He must be the only military dictator in history who has spent so much time lecturing the world on democracy. .....
     

      The Supreme Court has adjourned its hearing on a writ petition seeking the scrapping of Article 370 of the Constitution, giving special status to Jammu and Kashmir, on the ground that it was contrary to the basic structure of the Constitution. .....
     

      The Indian text books written by secular historians, have often highlighted the fact that the Hindu armies crumbled like fresh cookies against the armies of the Moslems, and the Moslems more or less easily occupied India. What they fail to tell us is the valor of the Hindus in their spirited struggle against the Moslems. We need to repeatedly remember these great unsung heroes of the Hindu struggle. .....
     

      A Christian group in Fiji called today  for a month-long boycott of the biggest national daily newspaper,  The Fiji Times, over its coverage of a faith healer and alleged  discrepancies in church accounts. .....
     

      The farmers of Maharashtra didn't need Chandrababu Naidu to tell them Israel was the Promised Land. Long before the Government task force decided to tap the country's knowhow, thousands from the state have been making the trip to Israel to learn about its ''superior agricultural practices''. .....
     

      "'The attitude of looking towards Muslims in this country should be humanitarian and not of appeasing them' is the opinion of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh", said Shri Indresh ji All-India Sahaprachar Pramukh of RSS and there was a thunderous applause by the prominent Imams and Maulvis gathered in the Sunhari Baug Masjid as their reaction. .....
     

      Mention the words "evangelical missionary," and many Americans conjure up an image of redneck zealots' forcing starving children to be baptized before they get a few crusts of bread. .....
     

      A gang of youths attacked a 13-year-old girl as she played with a toddler on swings in a Keighley park. .....
     

      Congress has always demoralised the Indian soldiers and always tried to break the confidence and conviction of our security forces who have sacrificed their lives for the country", said Union Defence Minister George Fernandes in Karnal on Thursday. .....
     

      Dashera is one of the most widely observed festivals in India and around the world, for its history, mythology, individual perception, and geographical community philosophy. It is a season full of communal festivities. This festival marks the victory of good over evil and brings glowing happiness and a touch of sparkle all around by upholding the true values of life and acknowledging that ultimately good prevails over evil. .....
     

      It would be unfortunate if Mrs Sonia Gandhi's reported request to President K. R. Narayanan to spare the life of Nalini, who along with three others has been sentenced to death for killing Rajiv Gandhi, is dubbed as a political gimmick by her detractors. .....
     

      The Nigerian Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence for Amina Lawal, condemned for the crime of adultery on August 19th 2002, to be buried up to her neck and stoned to death. Her death was postponed so that she could continue to nurse her baby. .....
     

      Mediapersons need to retain their objectivity and exercise responsibility to avoid damaging the national interest, visiting chief editor of the Pioneer newspaper Chandan Mitra told journalists in London. .....
     

      On Monday February 26, 2001, Afghanistan's Taliban militia supreme leader Mulla Mohammad Omar, an Islamic scholar himself, issued a decree: "Based on the verdict of the clergymen and the decision of the supreme court of the Islamic Emirate (Taliban) all the statues around Afghanistan must be destroyed."(1) .....
     

      Close on the heels of a "gold and land'' scheme launched by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Kerala to collect donations, yet another fund raise of the party has come under public scrutiny. .....
     

      Search of 'Path' for peaceful coexistence in society has all along been the endeavour of human beings. They have however differed in identification of such path, which often turned into civilisational confrontation among them. .....
     

      The arrest of two Muslim-American servicemen based at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, (a developing story originally broken by this newspaper), raises some complex questions about the conflicting loyalties of Muslim-American soldiers in the war against radical Islamic terror. .....
     

      I remember laughing out loud, in what was admittedly a mirthless fashion, when Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, one of Osama Bin Laden's most heavy- duty deputies, was arrested in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Straining to think of an apt comparison, I fail badly. But what if, say, the Unabomber had been found hiding out in the environs of West Point or Fort Bragg? .....
     

      Dear Soniaji - Recently you asked the Government a series of questions, using the instrument of the no-confidence motion. You seemed to have expected the Prime Minister alone to give you the answers, exactly as you wanted them. Your complaint is that the treasury benches gave you no answers. Subsequently, from a platform in Rajasthan, you also derisively accused the Government of being afraid of you. .....
     

      Today, Canada has the distinction of welcoming the leader of what, by any fair reading of mounting evidence, is a state supporting terrorism. That is disturbing to say the least. But Canadians may soon be among the victims of this terrorism. .....
     

      Ahead of his tour of the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir on Friday, the visiting British Chief of Defence Staff General Michael Walker today agreed with India's assessment that infiltration into Jammu and Kashmir was continuing unabated. .....
     

      In yet another clash between militant groups, two Hizbul Mujahideen militants were shot dead by Lashkar-e-Taiba militants in the border district of Poonch in Jammu and Kashmir, official sources said on Thursday. .....
     

      Notwithstanding its self-professed role as a frontline state in the war on terrorism, Pakistan finds itself cornered on the issue. The US, India and Afghanistan have come together to warn Pakistan's military government not to mess around in its neighbourhood. .....
     

      Journalist, film-maker, writer and human rights activist Shahriar Kabir was in India recently to mobilise support for the South Asian Coalition Against Communalism and Fundamentalism. In and out of jail, Kabir spoke to Amitabh Shukla on the conditions prevailing in his country and need for a platform to fight fundamentalism. .....
     

      The Malaysia Hindu Sangam is outraged over the sale of imported statues of the Lord Ganesha which were altered and had additional accessories. .....
     

      The Israeli government has vowed to expel Yasser Arafat, calling him an "obstacle" to peace. But the 72-year-old Palestinian leader is much more than that; he is a career terrorist, trained, armed and bankrolled by the Soviet Union and its satellites for decades. .....
     

      That was my first reaction when I came across the article in Embassy Row, the Washington Times column. .....
     

      "You will sooner or later pay for your pack of lies," read one threatening message last week to the author of The Trouble with Islam: A Wake-up Call for Honesty and Change. .....
     

      I'm Glad to find more and more organisations holding regular heritage lectures and the latest I caught up with was the monthly series being arranged by the Tamil Nadu Department of Archaeology. Its most recent lecture, a fascinating narration of a court case in London that let to the return of a bronze to Tamil Nadu, was by perhaps the Department's best-known Director in recent times, Dr. R. Nagaswamy, whom the London Court had described as being "an unequalled expert in Chola bronzes". .....
     

      Exploring the roots and reason of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists attacks, two television specials, "Searching for the Roots of 9/11," hosted by The New York Times' Tom Friedman on the Discovery Channel, and "Why U.S.?" on the Discovery Times Channel, aired on Sept. 10 and Sept. 11, respectively. .....
     

      The recent arrest order issued against controversial Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) member of parliament Md. Shahabuddin triggered oft battle between the MP and DP Ojha, Director General of Police, Bihar.  While the DGP wanted the MP to surrender in an old arrest warrant, the MP declared the move as Ojha's personal grudge against him since he had opposed his elevation to the DGP post. .....
     

      The Vivekananda Kendra Institute of Culture (VKIC) was established as envisaged by Eknathji to study the traditions and customs of various communities in the Northeast from the Indian point of view, and also to discover and focus on commonalities among all communities. .....
     

      The State Government had taken measures to counteract saffronisation of history and social sciences textbooks in schools long before Congress President Sonia Gandhi's recent fiat to the 14 Congress chief ministers in the country to carry out such an exercise. .....
     

      In the programme entitled 'Cry Freedom' (aired on the news channel NDTV 24x7 on Sun 21 Sept. 2003 at 2230 hrs IST) it was shown that there is great unrest and opposition to pakistan's occupation of POJK. .....
     

      Brutally assaulted Khasis women suffer in stoic silence. Hollywood and Bollywood crime thrillers will drift aside before the most inhuman and barbaric sexual exploits of three Khasi women by a notorious criminal identified as Mona Mia and his associate. .....
     

      In a revolutionary step, Muslim women religious scholars in Hyderabad have started issuing fatwas or religious decrees on the legal, personal and marital problems of the Muslim women. .....
     

      Dozens of opposition lawmakers staged a demonstration Tuesday against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, saying an "unelected, unconstitutional" man has no right to speak at the U.N. .....
     

      Of late there has been strident criticism in the media and by some former IPS officers that the Mumbai police have no clue to the chain of bomb blasts that have hit the city and that there is massive intelligence failure in the force. I strongly disagree with this perception. .....
     

      An islamic militant leader, arrested along with more than a dozen others of an extremist group aiming to wage an armed religious struggle in Bangladesh, has confessed that he received arms training in Pakistan. .....
     

      The war against the fury of the Ganga in Malda has to be fought on two fronts. One, it is an annual scourge calling for preventive action well before swirling waters overrun hundreds of villages leaving thousands homeless every year. The fact that floods have been particularly severe this year is no excuse for lack of preparedness. .....
     

      That was my first reaction when I came across the article inEmbassy Row, the Washington Times column. .....
     

      A witness on Friday alleged before the two-member Gujarat riot probe panel that his son was whisked away by a mob of armed people of the minority community and killed. .....
     

      'You will sooner or later pay for your pack of lies," read one threatening message last week. It went to the author of "The Trouble with Islam: A Wake-up Call for Honesty and Change." .....
     

      In a surprising development, radical women's organisation, Dukhtaran-i-Millat (daughters of nation) today came down heavily on the veteran separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani for heading the breakaway group of Hurriyat Conference. .....
     

      In the gunbattle that occurred during the night intervening Friday and Saturday at Harmain village in Shopian, security forces have achieved what they are still unaware of: South Kashmir's most wanted Lashkar-e-Toiba commanders, Abu Zubair and Abu Ma'az, are both among the six militants killed. .....
     

      Infamy, clout and money power notwithstanding, Karachi-based underworld don Dawood Ibrahim is no better than a golden goose in Pakistan, officers in Mumbai feel. .....
     

      Hezbollah is on the Bush administration's official list of terrorist organizations. But when the group invited me to speak to a conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict here last week, I accepted -- on the theory that it was a chance to learn about the group and that more information, even about alleged terrorists, is better than less. .....
     

      Intercepted phone calls show Taliban commanders have been orchestrating deadly attacks here and in other parts of Afghanistan from a safe haven across the border in Pakistan, a senior Afghan intelligence official told The Associated Press. .....
     

      There has been "a quantum jump" in infiltration across the Line of Control (Loc) as well as terrorist violence in the hinterland in Jammu and Kashmir in the last three month-Army officers claim Pakistan is desperate to push in as many heavily armed militants as possible before snow blocks the mountain passes and traditional infiltration routes along the 740-km-long LoC. .....
     

      Zahid Patni (26), who has reportedly been detained in Dubai in connection with the August 25 twin blasts, will be made a key witness in the case once he is deported to India in the next few days, police officials on Wednesday. .....
     

      Conservative scholar-warrior David Horowitz has the left in apoplexy  over his ingenious proposal for an Academic Bill of Rights that would  forbid university faculty from hiring, firing, and granting or  denying promotion or tenure on the basis of political beliefs. .....
     

      In the struggle between Israelis and Palestinians, Thuraya Eshbear wields a powerful weapon. .....
     

      Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, has told American interrogators that he first discussed the plot with Osama bin Laden in 1996 and that the original plan called for hijacking five commercial jets on each U.S. coast before it was modified several times, according to interrogation reports reviewed by The Associated Press. .....
     

      In an unique project, 101 militancy-affected children - children whose parents have been slain by terrorists and also children of terrorists - will study together in an Army school. .....
     

      Long after he kept his silence and retired, former commissioner of police R H Mendonca, has spoken up, powerfully. "It is time to set the record straight." .....
     

      Is Islam incompatible with multicultural democracy? Many people point to the fact that few Muslim societies are democratic and conclude that Islam must be inherently undemocratic. They point to Muslim rhetoric suffused with hatred of the West, and deduce that Muslims cannot be good citizens of Western democracies. .....
     

      Ahead of President Pervez Musharraf's US visit, an influential American daily today said Pakistan continues to provide Kashmiri terrorists with sanctuary and access to areas bordering India and considers violence a "legitimate toll" to achieve its goal of wresting control of Jammu and Kashmir. .....
     

      Loyalist Labour MPs and ministers who backed the war in Iraq face a backlash from Muslim voters, say community leaders. .....
     

      Years after India claimed that underworld don Dawood Ibrahim was based in Karachi, a senior Pakistani minister has for the first time admitted his presence in the country and that he had acquired "substantial interests" there, according to media reports. .....
     

      In the the dust raised over the red carpet to Ariel Sharon, in the noisy buzz of the war on terror, drowned was this little story. It's an Indo-Israeli cooperation story but it has almost nothing to do with New Delhi. It began in Manipur in the North- East and now plays out every day in the West Bank. .....
     

      Family of Army chief Gen Nirmal Chander Vij has been shifted to Army Cantonment from his ancestral house in Naraniyan Mohalla near Kachi Chawni, close to the BJP headquarters in heart of the City following a sensational disclosure made by a militant, recently arrested by the security forces in Mendhar, that the house was on "hit list" of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) militants. .....
     

      Drugs are being introduced into the deadly cocktail of arms, ammunition and indoctrination handed out to jihadis in Kashmir by their Pakistani backers. .....
     

      A French convert to Islam was sentenced to life in prison on charges of trying to organize an uprising in the North African kingdom. .....
     

      Continuing with the efforts to rebuild bridges with Muslims in Uttar Pradesh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has now decided to enlist the services of the influential Deobandi clergy. Ms Gandhi has been invited by the Jamiat-ul-ulama-e-Hind, an organisation of Deobandi clerics who have considerable influence in UP, Bihar and Assam, to address a gathering in Lucknow on Sunday. .....
     

      Pakistani security officials detained 15 Southeast Asian Islamic students in Karachi on Saturday, saying they had ties with Muslim militants and were involved in activities damaging to Pakistan's interests. .....
     

      Taking an "adverse view of unsatisfactory and vague" reply furnished by the Jammu and Kashmir Government regarding enforced or involuntary disappearances of people in the State, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has asked the State to furnish all details in regard to such cases. .....
     

      While the Best Bakery in Vadodara undergoes renovation, a relative of one of the key witnesses has added another twist to the case. Yasmin Sheikh, who has taken up the renovation of the bakery, is Zaheera's sister in law. .....
     

      Osama bin Laden is directly financing over 400 madaris in Bangladesh which are training more than 25,000 people to become part of suicide squads, says former Lok Sabha Speaker P.A. Sangma. .....
     

      A French convert to Islam was sentenced to life in prison on charges  of trying to organize an uprising in the North African kingdom. .....
     

      An Army Islamic chaplain, who counseled al Qaeda prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, naval base, has been charged with espionage, aiding the enemy and spying, The Washington Times has learned. .....
     

      Atlanta - The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta has filed a lawsuit accusing a network of Spanish-speaking churches of falsely claiming to be Catholic - with priests who conduct Mass, hear confessions and offer Communion to immigrants who mistakenly think the churches are tied to the Vatican. .....
     

      Deposing before the two-man riot probe panel, a majority community witness from the sensitive Amraiwadi area today alleged that "Muslims had unfurled the national flag of Pakistan on a public tank and raised pro-Pakistani slogans ten days after Godhra riots" and added that till date, the Hindus are being tormented by them in the area. .....
     

      'Over 400 madrassas in neighbouring Bangladesh are being directly funded by Bin Laden, the most hounded terrorist on the globe. In those madrassas about 25,000 youths are being trained to become members of a suicide squad. It is an ominous development as far as North East is concerned,' said P A Sangma, the founder of the North East People's Forum (NEPF). .....
     

      Cancun is a beautiful seaside resort, with all the major international hotel chains registering their presence there. It also gets very, very hot if you are under the sun and very, very cold inside the air- conditioned conference and hotel rooms! .....
     

      The Archaeological Survey of India, by submitting a self-contained report within five months of excavation, has set a precedent that is commendable by any standard. This is particularly so when one considers the pressure of a judicial mandate to complete the excavation by a specific date, and continued hostile remarks about its competence to carry out its work by historians like Professor Irfan Habib and archaeologists like Mr Suraj Bhan. .....
     

      The jacket of "Who Killed Daniel Pearl?" describes the author, Bernard-Henri Lévy, as "France's leading philosopher." This may well be true, but such a claim could have the effect, among non-French readers, of prompting more doubt than trust. And yet I commend this book. .....
     

      On the 25th anniversary of the signing of a peace treaty framework between Israel and Egypt at Camp David, a lesson in leadership that you won't soon forget. .....
     

      Though Kolkata Police's attempts to trace the owner of the truck that carried a cache of ammunition to Kolkata has drawn a blank, Intelligence agencies have intensified their operations along the Indo-Bangla border to track down terrorist outfits operating here. .....
     

      I first met the Dalai Lama almost 20 years ago when I was a teenager studying at a college run by Roman Catholic monks. He had come to see a Christian monastery in action. Although the Dalai Lama was not a globally famous figure at that time, I was captivated immediately by his charisma, and by the tragic plight of the Tibetan people. .....
     

      The Army says it has photographic evidence of functioning of terrorist training camps in Pakistan despite the Pakistan President, Pervez Mushharaf's claim about curbs on all terrorist activity directed against India. The Army also maintains infiltration attempts have continued unabated this year. .....
     

      Mahant Avaidyanath, the former Bharatiya Janata Party MP from Gorakhpur, now heads the Vishwa Hindu Parishad's committee for the proposed construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. .....
     

      That cold statistics cannot provide a true picture of crime rates in different states is confirmed by the latest findings released by the National Crime Records Bureau. The organisation has to go by recorded crimes making it impossible to take into account elements of fear, harassment, incompetence, corruption and ignorance that have a telling impact on record books and lead to some distorted impressions. .....
     

      Fearing a backlash from radical Muslims, the author of a book called "The Trouble with Islam" is staying in close contact with police ahead of the title's scheduled release tomorrow. .....
     

      SHAMALA Sathiyaseelan, 30, got married in November 1998 in a Hindu ceremony. Four years later, her husband left her to marry a Muslim woman. .....
     

      Describing international terrorism as a 'global monster', Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Tuesday flayed the 'selective approach' and differing standards of some countries in combating the menace. .....
     

      Cat Stevens has urged American Muslims to start religious schools in their communities. The former pop star, who now uses the name Yusuf Islam, said he got the idea to establish school soon after converting to Islam in the 1970s when the prayer leader at his mosque asked him for a donation. .....
     

      Indian police today arrested two men and two women - including a married couple and their daughter - and charged them with three Bombay bombings to avenge the deaths of Muslims in religious riots. .....
     

      Coming from India, I lack the Indianess that most of the people from India expect; denounce Pakistan as an enemy state or support the Indian team in a match against Pakistan or support India on the Kashmir issue. For reasons beyond description, I could do none of that. .....
     

      Various political parties on Wednesday marked the 55th Liberation Day of erstwhile Hyderabad State but the ruling Telugu Desam Party kept away from the celebrations. .....
     

      A woman on Tuesday alleged before the two-member Nanavati Commission that an armed mob of Muslims, led by a Congress councillor, attacked Hindus in Bapunagar area in Ahmedabad during the post-Godhra riots. .....
     

      "We are emotionally tied up with God. We have devotion unto Him. Those who do not have devotion to God, their sins will not be washed away even if they bathe in Ganga Maiyya." .....
     

      It was meant to showcase Athens as a modern, multi-ethnic city in the year that it stages the Olympic Games. Instead, a plan to erect the first mosque serving the capital since the end of Ottoman rule has unleashed a row pitting the reform-minded government against the Greek Orthodox Church. .....
     

      It is the certitude of all the Dharmacharyas of the High-power Committee of the Sri Rama Janma Bhumi Temple Construction Movement that "Sri Rama Janma Bhumi is at the very spot where Sri Ram Lala sits today". It is one of our articles of Dharmic belief, faith and devotion. Now all the irrefutable evidences excavated by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) under the orders of the Lucknow Bench of Allahabad High Court have put their signatures on this article of faith of 850 million Hindus. .....
     

      On September 1, 2003, the Uttar Pradesh Government refused Dr Pravin Togadia the permission to enter Ghaziabad. Earlier, he as well as Acharya Giriraj Kishore were sent back from Patna airport by the Bihar Government. A few days even prior, the Government of Andhra Pradesh expressed apprehensions if Mr Narendra Modi inaugurated a Ganesh Chaturthi programme at Hyderabad. .....
     

      Two events took place this week which must be carefully studied. The first was General Pervez Musharraf's appearance on a Q&A programme on the BBC (shown on PTV Tuesday) in which he made some interesting remarks. The second was a lecture in Islamabad by an ex-ambassador to Pakistan and current president of the US-based and influential Asia Society, Mr Nicholas Platt. .....
     

      I had to attend a wedding at Patna and managed a side trip to Nalanda. As I walked into the ruins, a huge dark sadness descended on me. Nalanda, the greatest ever Buddhist university, with its hundreds of monks and thousands of books, was destroyed by Bakhtiyar Khalji's Turki troops around 1200 AD. .....
     

      Archaeology forms part of the discipline of History but it is also very much different from it.  There is a reason for it.  Historians deal primarily with the written records found in the form of books, manuscripts and inscriptions, etc, which they get in libraries and museums, but not archaeologists who necessarily have to go for field-work, explore ancient sites and excavate them slowly and gradually, uncovering every layer and the material remains associated with them. .....
     

      The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), in its final excavation report submitted to the Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court, has substantiated the fact that Hindus have been claiming for so long.  The ASI informed the Court that a temple-like massive structure existed beneath the disputed site before the construction of the so-called Babri mosque in Ayodhya and that there are sufficient evidence of continuity in structural activities for over 3300 years. .....
     

      When Kolkata Police seized 25,000 rounds of 7.62 ammunition from a commercial truck, Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee instantly commended them. However, the fact is that they bungled the investigation because of their delayed and clumsy response to intelligence received from Delhi. .....
     

      Trouble could be brewing between long-time strategic allies China and Pakistan. Recent statements by a senior Chinese official that separatist forces in the country's restive Xinjian Autonomous Region have had training in several camps in Pakistan have led to speculation on the ties between the two nations, according to Strategic Forecasting (Stratfor). .....
     

      More than 50 percent of Americans recognize Islam  is not a peaceful religion (as described in our children's textbooks,) according to an ABC News Poll. .....
     

      The lure of instant publicity and stardom is turning out to be dangerously infectious. The virus now appears to have spread to the judiciary. There has been an alarming increase in the frequency with which various courts of law are making pronouncements on politicians and the political system. .....
     

      We shall wage a "jihad" for the cause of Islam, not only in Pakistan but anywhere in the world, if required. If Muslim blood has been mercilessly shed in India, you cannot just wring your hands. .....
     

      This is a close up view of what the Pakistani Mohammedans (actually, all Mohammedans) deem as legitimate war and a valid reason to wage it. As we go on, we will see radical departure from the Geneva Convention of today when comparing Pakistani codes of war. If the Pakistanis had not used the 'Quranic concept of war' in their wars in the past, that was because the Pakistanis were not capable of giving shape to their intentions. .....
     

      The situation in Jammu & Kashmir, which was showing definitive signs of normalisation since the coming into office of a new coalition Government headed by Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed in October last year, is again giving cause for concern, with a deterioration in the ground situation. .....
     

      The Mumbai blasts are yet another display of hate-in-action. Intelligence agencies feel more such attacks could take place in other metros soon and there is little they can do about it. .....
     

      On Saturday, 6.30 pm (US time) India's claim that Pakistan had a role to play in masterminding twin car bombing in Mumbai will get American support from some independent quarters. Pakistan's role in terrorist activities in Indonesia and Saudi Arabia is also expected to be exposed. .....
     

      Four residents of Pak-occupied-Kashmir have petitioned the Supreme Court seeking release from a jail in Uttar Pradesh, saying they could not be detained under the Foreigners' Act as they were residents of PoK, which was an integral part of Jammu and Kashmir and India. .....
     

      Border Security Force (BSF) personnel apprehended two Kashmiri youths who entered Roranwala from Pakistani village of Wagah after fleeing from the arms training camp running at Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK), informed Darbara Singh, Officiating DIG, BSF while talking to media on Sunday. .....
     

      A meeting of Muslim intellectuals and Ulemas with deputy chief minister Chhagan Bhujbal on Sunday to promote communal harmony in the city ended in a fiasco. .....
     

      Maulana Fazlur Rahman's visit to India has brought a breath of fresh air into Pakistan's politics of religious fanaticism. It may not have changed much the rhetoric of it, but what the Maulana said in India has indeed dealt a blow to the rigid view deeply embedded in the minds of the common people that jihad means no more than fighting to kill and, in turn, get martyred. .....
     

      Top government officials paid them, so did the police, businessmen, contractors and ordinary citizens. Even mighty groups like the Tatas couldn't escape them. For the last three decades, militant groups in the Northeast have been brazenly running a parallel government, and collecting 'taxes'. With militancy so well-entrenched, the people had virtually reconciled to living with the militants. Until now. .....
     

      Lush forests are not the only bounty that Uttaranchal got in its kitty after it became a state in November 2000. It also got close to 45,000 NGOs- mind-boggling for a state so tiny, with a population of only 84.7 lakh. Records from the offices of the chief commissioner of income tax and the registrar of societies confirm this huge NGO presence. .....
     

      Give a woman an inch and she takes a mile. Or in the case of Chhattisgarh's Rajnandgaon district, a milestone. The illiterate, impoverished and politically untutored women of this remote backwater have emerged as thekedars (contractors) in their own right, supplying the PWD with milestones and road-building materials. They are, in fact, the first women's collective to be registered as contractors with the PWD. .....
     

      Who is British? What is Britishness? These are questions that have been plaguing the Home Office and it is trying hard to set down some rules for wannabe British citizens. A new proposal by a government advisory group-Life in the United Kingdom Advisory Panel chaired by scholar Bernard Crick-has proposed that immigrants should pass a new "Britishness test" in which they have to master English and history. .....
     

      The inquiry ordered by National Women's Commission Chairperson Poornima Advani into the affidavit filed by a Madhya Pradesh schoolteacher accusing five IAS officers of exploiting her sexually for seven years is embarrassing for Chief Minister Digvijay Singh. The five officials in the dock are considered close to him. .....
     

      Omar Abdullah president J&K National Conference said the killing of Javed Shah and Kukka Parray is a great set back to the process of return of peace in Kashmir. Addressing a public gathering here, he said the killing of the duo is a great blot on the security apparatus of the State and is likely to discourage those militants who are willing to shun the gun and join the national mainstream. .....
     

      Attributing the recent spurt in terrorist violence in Jammu and Kashmir to turmoil in the militant ranks caused by killing of Jaish top commander Gazi Baba, the Army today said this loss of confidence was making the ultras to come overground leading to killing of over 60 militants in the last fortnight. .....
     

      Where Is The Battlefield in America's war on terrorism? In this solemn anniversary week, there are many possible answers. .....
     

      We are really touched by the apex court's concern for the victims of Vadodara's Best Bakery case. We salute it for having spoken so very eloquently for them. After all, those guilty of burning alive fellow human beings needs must be administered the stiffest punishment prescribed under the law. .....
     

      On a perfect morning in Srinagar last week as I sat on the roof of a houseboat on the Dal Lake listening to happy, hopeful tales of the Valley's first real tourist season in a decade, news came of the explosion in Sabzi Mandi. Six people were killed and a Brigadier was among those injured. .....
     

      In 1939, the late Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman launched the Daily Jang from Delhi. Last month, his son was in town seeking partners to distribute his one-year-old Geo TV channel, a private news and entertainment channel that uplinks from Dubai. Mir Shakil-ur- Rahman is chief executive and editor-in-chief of the Jang Group, Pakistan's largest media house. .....
     

      On September 12, 2003, the Supreme Court commented that it does not have 'faith' in the Government of Gujarat that the guilty of the post-Godhra riots of 2002 will be prosecuted.  This was made in context of the acquittal of the accused in the Best Bakery case. .....
     

      She wears her right-wing credentials on her sleeve and believes that there is no room for compromise with fundamentalism. Israel's culture and education minister Limor Livnat, recently in Delhi as part of prime minister Ariel Sharon's entourage, spoke to Lalita Panicker about how India and Israel can cooperate to deal with the common terrorist challenge facing the two countries .....
     

      ''We had specific information that the terrorists will attack certain installations. We enhanced security but apparently the terrorists changed their plan.'' .....
     

      How reliable are opinion polls? How much trust can you put in them? A year ago, prior to the Assembly elections in Gujarat, there were half a dozen polls on who will win and except for one, the others were wide off the mark. Outlook even predicted that Congress could win. And what happened later does not have to be stressed. .....
     

      In the spring of 1992, out of the blue, the fax machine in Richard Davidson's office at the department of psychology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison spit out a letter from Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama. Davidson, a Harvard-trained neuroscientist, was making a name for himself studying the nature of positive emotion, and word of his accomplishments had made it to northern India. .....
     

      The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has extended his support to madrassas and said they were "nothing to apologise for". .....
     

      Brainwashing the young minds and motivating them to jump  into Jehad on the pretext of securing freedom for their Muslim  Kashmiri brethren's in India, appears to be still the 'ace card'  strategy for Pakistan's notorious intelligence agency, Inter  Services Intelligence (ISI), in furthering its incessant anti-India  campaign. .....
     

      Since the editor is filling this page with its former occupants, I naturally responded to his invitation by looking back to the days 20 years ago when I filled this hole. In most respects, the subject matter was the same - why doesn't the health service work, how to make peace in Northern Ireland, how the government is ignoring Parliament, why can't children read and write, the problems of tax, crime, roads, housing, defence and, of course, Europe. .....
     

      Britons are abandoning churches in droves, replacing traditional religion with activities that focus on themselves. .....
     

      The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has been making earnest efforts to defuse the growing international tensions between Christians and Muslims following the September 11 attacks on the US in 2001. He has been the first to fully extend his support to madrassas that some others regard as teaching obscurantism and making the young unfit for the British society. .....
     

      I had just joined the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor as a doctoral student. I was given accommodation in the International Student Housing on campus in what was called an ``efficiency,'' a one-room, furnished facility that doubled as living room as well as bedroom, with a small kitchen and a large walk-in closet. .....
     

      A Muslim air force reservist told a military tribunal Friday that he refused to serve in Iraq, fearing that he would be consigned to hell. .....
     

      It is not often that a bold foreign policy initiative brings domestic faultlines to the fore. The truncated visit of the feisty Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, did just that. On the one hand was the silent applause of a self- confident India - not least in the diaspora - impatient with the inherited baggage of the Cold War and anxious to strike new alliances on the strength of shared values and common interests. .....
     

      Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani today said that the world should realize that Pakistan's ISI was promoting terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda and Taliban and should stop helping any such country which aids and abets terrorism. .....
     

      Ignoring strong protests from China, US President George W Bush met Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama at the White House on Thursday. .....
     

      In this tormented city, responding to terror attacks has become a grim medical specialty, and Dr. David Applebaum was known as "the first man on the scene." .....
     

      An 11-year-old girl who has become a singing sensation in India is using the money she makes from her performances to help children who are desperately ill. .....
     

      Is national defence in safe hands? Not an inappropriate question to ask on the eve of what, through a process of some self- bluffing, we choose to call the Defence of Pakistan Day. .....
     

      What did the terrorists expect to get out of their wanton bomb attacks at Zaveri Bazaar and the Gateway of India? An end to peace efforts between India and Pakistan? A recurrence of Hindu- Muslim riots such as occurred in 1993? .....
     

      Peace means Kataragama, Sri Lanka's six-headed God of War, is busier than ever. Drawn by Kataragama's supposed unending power to grant wishes , the devoted walked on burning embers and bathed in a holy river in a centuries-old religious festival that drew throngs of pilgrims to this small town in southern Sri Lanka. .....
     

      India has the reputation of being a thinking nation. Indian minds are great minds. But what about our mindsets? That is a matter of concern. We are perennially in a state of self-doubt. .....
     

      Americans' suspicion of Islam has more than doubled over the last year and fewer than half now call it a peaceful religion, a poll says. .....
     

      There have been reports recently in the American press concerning the probability that the government of Pakistan has traded nuclear secrets and maybe even technology with Iran. Such disclosures were welcomed by those of us here in France who consider ourselves part of the "anti-anti-American society" and who have long wondered why the United States doesn't seem more concerned with the character of its major ally in the war against terrorism. .....
     

      The Border Security Force on Friday said a Harkat-ul-Ansar terrorist killed recently in south Kashmir was a cousin of Pakistani cricketer Shahid Afridi. .....
     

      Violence-extolling Islamists target the US, Israel and India as their principal enemies. Yet, these three democracies are no more secure against terrorism today than before President George W. Bush launched his war on terror. In fact, the US, despite shared goals, has left India in the lurch against Pakistan-directed terrorism. .....
     

      TTD marketing officer G. Surendra Babu told TNN that human hair had been classified into five varieties depending on its quality. The first quality called 'Remi', popularly known as 'Black Gold', is over 16 inches and costs about Rs 7,000 a kg. .....
     

      Some months ago when the 31st volume of Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Second Series, was published, the country learnt for the first time of a remarkably revealing feature of the epoch-making maiden visit to India of the Soviet leaders, Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev, way back in 1955. .....
     

      It is difficult to understand why a controversy on Ahmad Shah Abdali's role during his Indian campaigns is being raised these days and the Afghan king being presented as a hero by some and an invader and a marauder by others. .....
     

      The aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, led Aasma Khan to Pakistan, where the onetime corporate lawyer studied Arabic so she could read the Koran without the barrier of a translation. .....
     

      Prominent Saudi clerics and academics warned Wednesday against calls for equality and increased rights for women, saying such efforts aim to make Muslim women more like "infidel" Western types. .....
     

      New Jersey State Prison does not have to provide its Muslim inmates with meals containing meat prepared according to Islamic dietary law, a federal appeals court has ruled. .....
     

      Separatists in China's Muslim northwest are  getting help from international terrorists - including instruction  in "several training camps in Pakistan,'' the region's Communist  Party secretary said Thursday on the second anniversary of the Sept.  11 attacks. .....
     

      The five Pakistani militant outfits, including Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, which were banned last year by President Pervez Musharraf following mounting international pressure, are back in business with changed identities, a media report said on Wednesday. .....
     

      Some two month ago after my third visit to the valley in a year, I had had occasion to speak of the remarkable change of mood I had noticed during extended trips to Pahalgam, Gulmarg, Srinagar and some other parts of southern Kashmir.  The streets were fuller than they have every been these past thirteen years. .....
     

      Americans are a good people, and it is not in their nature to believe that a religious group like Islam can be an enemy to our country and our way of life. But Paul Weyrich notes that Islam has opposed Christianity and Judaism for centuries.  This article appeared on the website of the Free Congress Foundation. .....
     

      How do you reconcile between Bhakthi and Reason? Can spirituality be  sustained on empty stomachs? And what is the role of religion? These are profound questions baffling humankind. These are questions that only a man who has a deep understanding of traditions and culture and also a vision for future can tackle with authority. .....
     

      It is a truism that sometimes it is more important how we are looked upon than how we really look. And despite India being the most open and free country in terms of religious practices, it is still being projected as a place where there is religious discrimination. .....
     

      Ayodhya. For those who skim the surface, it may be a communal issue. But it is not. It is about India and Indianness. In how we are going to resolve it may lie the pointer where the country is headed to. .....
     

      A religious teacher of supreme wisdom, Swami Dayananda Saraswati is also extremely articulate, a combination that is very rare, given the stereotype of a Hindu protagonist that often raises the hackles of the 'intellectuals'. .....
     

      In a major success, Kathua police have arrested the district's "most wanted" militant, Mohd Shabir, a 'supreme commander' of Hizbul Mujahideen outfit from a Guest House in Srinagar where he was recuperating from a bullet injury. A Sarpanch of Marmat, a domestic servant of a VIP and seven other persons, who were part of the militant outfit's network, have also been arrested by the police. .....
     

      The extremist Islamic group al-Muhajiroun is organising four rallies across Britain this week to commemorate what it calls "The Magnificent 19" hijackers who carried out the September 11 atrocities. .....
     

      The five-party coalition government led by Mufti Mohammed Sayeed has fired a bombshell that could hurt the credibility of civil libertarians in Kashmir. .....
     

      The BJP hit out at the anti-Sharon propaganda sponsored by the Left parties and Muslim outfits saying that "the position of these groups, as usual, are out of sync with national interests." .....
     

      Pakistan has decided not to grant most favoured nation (MFN) status to India for the time being, leaving businessmen fuming. "This has become an emotional issue for Pakistanis and we don't want to take any hasty decisions that hurt our people," a commerce ministry official said on condition of anonymity. .....
     

      Fighting between rival Sunnite and Shiite Muslim villagers in Western Mali over the construction of a new mosque recently left 13 people dead and about 20 wounded, police and court sources said. .....
     

      Premature ageing and premature death, unnatural death, high incidence of serious and potentially fatal diseases, affliction with multiple disease syndromes, poor medical aid, economic bankruptcy and lack of desire to live, are some of the factors that have contributed to an already high death rate among them. .....
     

      The boss of the D-Company, Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar's sprawling illegal businesses in the city continue to give him leverage within the city's law enforcement community. .....
     

      Ten years ago when the King of Lalbaug wove through a tense Muslim thicket of Duncan Road, a modest group in skull caps had waited by the ringside, with garlands for Mumbai's favourite Ganesha. .....
     

      Just after she swaggers through the thumping disco anthem 'Song for the Lonely' and right before she makes a dramatic en­trance atop a giant, gaily painted mechani­cal elephant, chart-topping diva Cher gets spiritual -to the calming tones of the Gaya­tri Mantra. .....
     

      Home Secretary David Blunkett was welcomed with a garland of flowers in a traditional Hindu ceremony today when he visited one of the UK's oldest temples. .....
     

      It is a good idea now and then to lift our eyes from the minutiae of the present and look at the big picture further ahead. .....
     

      The long arm of the US "war on terrorism" employs remarkably tender gloves when it comes to Pakistan, the original backer of the Taleban movement that offered Osama bin Laden sanctuary as he plotted the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and the only state in the Muslim world certainly known to possess weapons of mass destruction. .....
     

      "An outrageous Israeli, Martin Kramer, uses his website to attack  everybody who says anything he doesn't like." That's Edward Said  speaking, in an interview in a new collection entitled (predictably)  Culture and Resistance. I would take it as a compliment, if I didn't  already know how easily Professor Said is outraged. But it's a  valuable testimonial nonetheless, and one worth quoting as Sandstorm  marks its first anniversary. .....
     

      The Hindu-hating media and the grandstanding National Human Rights Commission have gone overboard on the Best Bakery verdict holding 21 Hindus as not guilty of torching Muslims. The verdict and Zahira Sheikh's emergence on the front page soon after have so inflamed the NHRC and an NGO that they have belligerently gone to the Supreme Court. .....
     

      No two events in recent times have saddened me so much as the media response to the Archaeological Survey of India's report on Ayodhya and Saturday's car bomb in Srinagar which killed six persons, including a senior army officer, and injured twenty-nine others. Even though the pro-Pakistan Hizbul Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the attack, some major newspapers in the capital did not consider the event worthy of front-page coverage. .....
     

      Digvijay Singh has alleged that he has evidence of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh training its cadre on how to make and plant bombs. .....
     

      Scientists report they have found evidence of the oldest human habitation in India, dating to 2 million years, on the banks of the Subarnarekha River. .....
     

      After the Mumbai blasts of August 25, the chattering classes of India have subjected the rest of the country to unending bouts of gratuitous sermonising. .....
     

      Padma Shova Chakma stared vacantly at her burnt-out house, holding a charcoal of a betel nut tree. Piles of coal of what constituted her property a few days ago were strewn all over. .....
     

      The police and security officials here are closely  monitoring the developments surrounding the controversial British  Muslim conference dedicated to "The Magnificent Nineteen" - the  hijackers who killed more than 3,000 people in the US on September 11  two years ago. .....
     

      With the CBI still not getting access to Taliban leaders or receiving copies of documents recovered by US troops in Kandahar, New Delhi has told Washington that it's still waiting for the promised help on the IC-814 hijack investigation. .....
     

      It is not the merciful God who disposes of what the people of Kashmir propose; to ensure durable peace. On the contrary, it is Pakistan's military dictatorship which is backing Islamic fundamentalism and scores of jehadi outfits, opposed to restoration of normalcy in Jammu and Kashmir. .....
     

      Two Florida papers revisit their refusal to call Hamas and Islamic Jihad "terrorists"; from one only, a policy change. .....
     

      Recent reports about the emergence of educated terrorists have got both instant sociologists and newspaper pundits in a tizzy. They haven't stopped spewing half-baked theories and rationalisations for the alleged involvement in terrorist acts, such as the recent bomb blasts in Mumbai, of the young educated Muslims with university degrees. .....
     

      Having established more than thrity five camps in chittagong hill-tracts and all subdivisions bordering Tripura and posh living spaces in Dhaka and Chittaong town , banned NLFT rebels have now set up a hospital in Khagaracherri town in the chittagong hill-tracts of Bangladesh for treatment of sick and injured members of the outfit. .....
     

      The CPM and the BJP-led Centre today locked horns again over the Saraswati vandana with Bengal higher education minister Satyasadhan Chakaraborty boycotting the opening of a book fair by Murli Manohar Joshi. .....
     

      For days, Pakistanis watched in a state of suspended disbelief as the government and cable operators locked horns over the ban on Indian channels. Even as the two sides wrangled bitterly, their one-upmanship was couched in calculated appeals to nationalist sentiments. .....
     

      The prime accused in the Akshardham terror attack, Chand Khan, has  reportedly told his interrogators that the two slain terrorists of  the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba who struck at the historic temple before being  gunned down by commandos a year ago had set out on their mission from  the politician's private residence in south Kashmir. .....
     

      Last Monday, police commissioner R S Sharma had barely finished narrating how his team had cracked open the August 25 blasts case before the chatter began that the tip-off that nailed the accused had come from none other than Dawood Ibrahim. .....
     

      The ASI findings have cast new light - or should it be new dark? - on an enigma even more abiding than that of the mandir. Namely, who or what exactly is secularism? A separation of state and religion? Fine. But what else? .....
     

      Viewed against the report that Moin Khan, a Bangladeshi national, had made the twin bombs that caused death and devastation in Mumbai on 25 August, the seizure in Kolkata, of 25,000 rounds of AK-47 ammunition bound for Kashmir has underlined the gravity of the threat to our national security from the proliferating Islamic terrorist networks in Bangladesh. .....
     

      Afghan forces in the southern province of Zabul (search) captured five fugitive Taliban (search) militants, including an insurgent leader, after a battle that killed scores of rebels, a regional Afghan commander said Saturday. .....
     

      In the al Mukmin Islamic school in the Javanese city of Solo a slogan  above one classroom reads, "Death in the way of Allah is our highest  aspiration." .....
     

      As part of their coverage of India and Pakistan's independence, BBC Four ran a programme "India and Pakistan - Partners or Rivals". To give it a semblance of authority, they invited dignitaries on the panel. .....
     

      A Muslim group in Denmark announced a few days ago that a $30,000 bounty would be paid for the murder of several prominent Danish Jews, a threat that garnered wide international notice. Less well known is that this is just one problem associated with Denmark's approximately 200,000 Muslim immigrants. The key issue is that many of them show little desire to fit into their adopted country. .....
     

      After the August 25 blasts in Mumbai, attention shifted quickly to the role of the police in preventing such atrocities. Was this an intelligence failure? Could the police have done any better? These questions kept cropping up in the media and in the people's minds. .....
     

      It was a form of protest quite unique to Pakistan. When thousands of television screens blanked out last Sunday (August 24), it was the Cable Operators Association's way of telling the Pakistani establishment that it had gone too far in guiding citizens on what they could watch or what constitutes "clean and healthy entertainment" on TV. .....
     

      Gunmen killed a Muslim cleric who was facing a trial for allegedly insulting Islam's prophet, Muhammad, police said on Sunday. .....
     

      Security forces in eastern region have formulated strategies to jointly combat narco-terrorism as well as mercenaries allegedly operating out of Bangladesh and Nepal. .....
     

      When the Opposition went after Mayawati in the assembly last March, her staunchest defenders were BSP MLAs Amarmani Tripathi and Mukhtar Ansari. Guess where they are today, six months after? .....
     

      A 5-member team of the Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) of Gujarat Police, headed by Deputy Commissioner Police, Crime Branch, Ahmedabad Mr Banjara reached here today to interrogate one Chand Khan of Bareilly. .....
     

      Several months ago, while visiting Washington, Indian National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra addressed members of the American Jewish Committee and recommended that free societies join hands to combat terrorism. .....
     

      Notwithstanding the pressure of a judiciary-set deadline and continued hostility from eminent historians like Irfan Habib and archaeologists like Suraj Bhan, the Archaeological Survey of India's report on the disputed area in Ayodhya is both self-contained and conclusive. .....
     

      Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was the most variously gifted Indian of his generation and the sheer range and diversity of his achievements make it difficult to hold the totality of him in the mind. .....
     

      No media vehicle has proven more potent for the spread of radical teachings of "Islamic Holy War" than the Internet. .....
     

      In my mail every week, I receive a document called the South Asia  Intelligence Review. It comes from the South Asia Terrorism Portal  which is doing what the Home Ministry should be doing and does not  appear to be: monitoring terrorism. .....
     

      Two recent developments - the celebration of Independence Day with massive public involvement in the north Gujarat town of Patan and return of the ashes of the great patriot, Shyamji Krishna Verma, 73 years after his death from Geneva - have provided new fodder to secularists with which to attack Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi. But, in the process, the secularists have revealed how out of sync they are with the national mood. .....
     

      Charity is big business, from the look of things. According to the latest figures from the ministry of home affairs, voluntary organisations in India received Rs 4,535.2 crore by way of contributions from abroad during '00-01, the latest time period for which this data is available. This indicates a 15.6% increase from '99-00, when NGOs received Rs 3924.6 crore by way of foreign contributions. .....
     

      Solving the twin blasts was no cakewalk for the cops. The Crime Branch team comprising about 20 cops investigating the blasts hasn't gone home for six days. They arrested four accused but the chase for other accused continues. The cops may be exhausted, but they're all charged up. "The team from Crime Branch Units 9 and 11 hasn't gone home since Friday," says ACP Suresh Walishetty. .....
     

      A meeting of the Christian members of Parliament was held at the CBCI centre on October 18, 2003. Archbishop Vincent Concessaso, the Vice-President (I) of the CBCI; Bishop Percival Fernandez, the Secretary General, CBCI; Bishop Anil Cuto, the Auxiliary of the Archdiocese of Delhi, along with Executive Secretaries of various Commissions of CBCI met with members of Parliament. .....
     

      "There are 193 countries in the world, and the U.S. cannot pay special attention to all the countries." Such was the response of Dennis Kux, former ambassador to Pakistan and a leading scholar in international relations, to a question raised during a panel discussion at the National Press Club on April 26 on why India, being such a big democracy, is ignored by the world's oldest and most powerful democracy. .....
     

      It may have been her first visit to US, but it did not make the dimunitive disciple of Mahatma Gandhi and peace activist Nirmala Deshpande pull her punches. Deshpande, 74, pointed to the lack of a strong reaction from US Govt to the sectarian carnage in Gujarat last year, which she said was state sponsored. She lamented the victims had not seen justice either through the police or judicial systems. .....
     

      Private television networks are turning to religion to tap a massive Hindu viewership, but say the religious channels are neither a platform to grab votes nor an attempt to peddle faith. .....
     

      Muslims in the city are upset over the police "intimidating" them to remove the "cone" speakers atop their mosques for calling out to the faithful to attend Namaz. .....
     

      Village Defence Guards are putting up a brave fight along with the security forces in the on-going gunbattle in Ghati village of Kathua district. .....
     

      The arrest of twenty men in Toronto recently may represent the break  up of the largest terrorist cell in North America since 9/11. All the  detained men come from Pakistan except one, an Indian national; and  the police are still searching for another ten members of the group  in an operation they call 'Project Thread'. .....
     

      A huge cache of ammunition headed for Jammu and Kashmir was seized in the Kolkata port area by the detective department of the city police on Wednesday afternoon. .....
     

      The Communists are always on the simmer against "injustice to people" but so can they be against justice if the decision is not in their favour. This was vindicated recently in Kerala when the Thalassery Additional District and Sessions Court (Fast Track) awarded capital punishment to five CPM workers who had brutally hacked to death K T Jayakrishnan, State vice president of the Bharatiya Yuva Morcha, on December 1, 1999. .....
     

      The moderate strand of Islam that absorbed touches of Buddhism and Hinduism, and some mysticism, along its journey over the centuries here, is being eroded, some fear at a rapid pace. .....
     

      The first Muslim high school in mainland France opened its doors on Tuesday with several female teachers and pupils wearing headscarves usually banned from public schools in this majority Catholic country. .....
     

      Excavation at the disputed site of Ram Janmabhumi - Babri Masjid - was carried out by the Archeological Survey of India from 12 March 2003 to 7 August 2003. During this period, as per directions of the Hon'ble High Court, Lucknow, 82 trenches were excavated to verify the anomalies mentioned in the report of the Ground Penetrating Radar Survey which was conducted at the site prior to taking up the excavations. .....
     

      Leaders of the U.S. Muslim community intend to deliver a bloc vote in next year's presidential elections, one that will go against the candidate they endorsed last time - President George W. Bush. .....
     

      Electrician Sayed Mohammed Hanif, key accused for Black Monday, is just the latest in the list of suspects-arrested after the six Mumbai bombings since December 2002-recruited and indoctrinated in the emirate. Sayyed Khwaja Yunus. .....
     

      Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray's a History of Hindu Chemistry defies all summary. The father of modern chemistry in India had explored an unknown world of science hundreds of years ago. The tome bears testimony to the fact that knowledge of chemistry reached a high level of perfection in ancient India. .....
     

      The changing social ethos has cast its influence on religion, and this is reflected in the Ganesha festivities being observed in the city. .....
     

      In March 2002, the Lashkar-e-Taiba's website welcomed visitors with a picture of Qutubuddin Ansari, the Ahmedabad riot victim, photographed begging for his life as his home burned and his neighbours were butchered. "Don't you think," the caption read, "he should have a gun instead?" .....
     

      Two bomb blasts rip through the heart of Mumbai on a placid afternoon, and 50 innocents die. Instant accusations are always motivated, even when justified. Silence is one way out: why name the guilty when the guilt is yet to be proven. But silence can become fertile territory for speculation, or for mischief. .....
     

      The Archaeological Survey of India was established in 1862, under Sir Alexander Cunningham. The ASI and Indian archaeology in general were nurtured by world- renowned men like Sir John Marshall, Sir Mortimer Wheeler, A Ghosh, BK Thapar and BB Lal. Archaeologists excavate ancient sites slowly, uncovering every layer and the material remains associated with it. .....
     

      The Pakistani government released 19-year-old Ranjit Kumar on Saturday and handed him over to Border Security Force officials at the Wagah border. Ranjit had inadvertently crossed over to Pakistan from his village Karyali Brahmana in Jam-mu district in June 1999. .....
     

      The BDR personnel of Satkhira sector on August 25 detained 27 members of the minority community at Bakol check post on their way to Bhomra border for entrance into India. .....
     

      The Serdang MIC Youth has urged the state government to shelve a decision by the Subang Jaya Municipal Council to demolish seven temples in Serdang pending a meeting with Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Mohamad Khir Toyo. .....
     

      Gray-bearded and almost toothless, Khan Kaka lives in a mud house with a weather- beaten pine door beside a little plot of corn and vegetables. But to his neighbors in this corner of Afghanistan's remote Kunar province, the gangling, tobacco-chewing old man is one of the most respected figures in the Pech River valley. .....
     

      When Abu Bakar Bashir begins serving his four-year prison term for sedition, it will not be his first time in jail. .....
     

      VHP leader Praveen Togadia is not exactly a quiet and unobtrusive model citizen. But there is nothing in the rulebook that says all citizens have to, on pain of punishment, be quiet and unobtrusive. In which case, firebreathing and loud as he is, Mr Togadia is also a citizen of India, with the fundamental right to go to any part of the country so long as he does not violate rules and regulations. .....
     

      Want cheap Kalashnikovs? A shop in Pakistan sells just that, and everything a diehard guerrilla might need: ammunition, sleeping bags and even water bottles. It is located in Pakistan's Mohmand tribal agency, which is officially under the control of Pakistan but tribes there have been semi-autonomous since the days of the British Raj. .....
     

      Police opened fire on a group of Muslim villagers in Andhra Pradesh's Kurnool district on Tuesday, injuring at least three of them. .....
     

      Even as  Mumbai police are looking for one Nissar, the alleged mastermind behind the August 25 twin blasts, sources have said  that Moin Khan, possibly the man who played a big role in assembling the bombs, has fled the country. He has apparently escaped to his Cox Bazaar house in Bangladesh. .....
     

      They don't fit the typical profile of terrorist_a Pak- brainwashed jehadi sneaking in. This website's newspaper went through police records, including confessional statements, and found that ``revenge for the Gujarat riots'' has been cited as their main provocation by most of the 27 suspects arrested this year for the six bombings in Mumbai since December 2002. .....
     

      Just a few miles from the Afghan border in Pakistan's Mohmand tribal agency, Haji Ahmed Khan stocks everything a Taliban or al-Qa'eda fighter might want. .....
     

      The massacre of six million Jews by Hitler and the persecution they suffered all over the world in the last 15 centuries has been meticulously recorded after 1945 and has been enshrined not only in history books, but also in Holocaust museums, the most famous of these being the one in Washington DC. .....
     

      The 15-year-old students rose one-by-one to practice their preaching. Speaking in a mixture of Arabic and Indonesian, they spoke about the importance of upholding strict Islamic law and defending their faith from attacks by infidels. Their classmates responded with exclamations -- "God is great," "Hang the Jews!" and "America -- terrorist!" -- and pounded their wooden desks in delight. .....
     

      Pakistan faces, once again, a barrage of allegations ranging from charges of covert support of terrorists to accusations about illegally exporting components for other nations' nuclear and missile programmes. .....
     

      Startling revelations about connections linking Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Osama bin Laden has been made by a commander of the Al Qaeda, Abu Zubaydah, claims a new book by Gerald Posner. .....
     

      There is no such thing as a fundamental right to convert any person to one's own religion and the government can impose certain restrictions keeping in view public order, the Supreme Court has ruled. .....
     

      The police report says he is a Bangladeshi national, a resident of Bastuhara colony, in the Khashpur police station area of Khulna district, and the kingpin of a gang of robbers. .....
     

      The series of explosions since December last in Mumbai, culminating in the twin blasts of August 25, 2003, which killed over 50 innocent civilians, should be a matter of great concern to our policy-makers and public opinion for three reasons. .....
     

      Islamabad has started investigations into three to four of its army officers suspected of having links with an extremist group as part of a bid to quash any allegations that Pakistan is supporting Muslim militant activities. .....
     

      On Oct. 12, 2000, the day of the devastating terrorist attack on the USS Cole, President Clinton's highest-level national security team met to determine what to do. Counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke wanted to hit Afghanistan, aiming at Osama bin Laden's complex and the terrorist leader himself. But Clarke was all alone. There was no support for a retaliatory strike that, if successful, might have prevented the 9/11 carnage. .....
     

      As a young woman in 1968, I worked briefly with Christian leaders to fight mass starvation inflicted on Biafra's Ibo people. Joan Baez and Bob Dylan also raised money for the afflicted Biafrans. In this, my family and I followed the late Father Aloisius Dempsey, a Jesuit priest who had spent his life tending to sick and impoverished disaster victims worldwide, may he rest in peace. .....
     

      The Border Security Force on Monday played a radio intercept where the Jaish-e-Mohammed admitted that its chief commander in Kashmir, Ghazi Baba, was killed in the encounter in Srinagar on August 30. .....
     

      The Kashmir conflict has been in international limelight since proxy militancy erupted and violence continue to catches the international attention. Two sides have their own interpretation in their defence. India calls it cross-border terrorism and Pakistan calls it Jihad. The Kashmiri's are equally divided over the nature of militancy. .....
     

      Readers of The Occidental Quarterly are probably unfamiliar with the work of Guillaume Faye, but his ideas are increasingly those of Europe's nationalist vanguard. An early associate of Alain de Benoist and one of the architects of the European New Right, the young Faye left politics in the late 1980s to pursue a career in media. In 1998 he returned, instantly re-establishing himself as the intellectual force on the nationalist right. .....
     

      I'm born to a Muslim family. Unfortunately, my sister decided to get married to a non-Muslim. How should we act towards her? Should we reject her? How about her future kids of that marriage? Can theu be considered illegal? .....
     

      In most parts of India candles are given by the Muslims and others in Mosques and Majhars. In some cases they light them as part of some religious rituals. I have worked in Kuwait for 18 years and had been to Hajj and `Umrah. I have not seen this practice there. Sometimes they burn some candles as a social custom but not as a part of any religious ritual. Please let us know if there is any basis for this in Islam? .....
     

      Nine indigenous women, three of a family, were gangraped and some others assaulted during nearly eight-hour mob attacks on at least 10 villages in Mohalchhari upazila of Khagrachhari district on Wednesday, Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samity (PCJSS) leader Polash Khisha alleged yesterday. .....
     

      Americans are a good people, and it is not in their nature to believe that a religious group like Islam can be an enemy to our country and our way of life. But Paul Weyrich notes that Islam has opposed Christianity and Judaism for centuries. This article appeared on the website of the Free Congress Foundation. .....
     

      The West seems to have suddenly woken up to Muslim fundamentalism in South Asia when the Taleban demolished the Bamiyan statues, in spite of frantic appeals from all over the world. But there is a bit of hypocrisy in the outrage triggered by this destruction. .....
     

      And tonight, we're spotlighting Columbia University, where the Middle East Studies Department has been criticized for hiring outspoken opponents of American and Israeli policy. Now, some Israeli supporters are concerned that Columbia has just appointed Rashid Khalidi, a fervent opponent of Israel, to the anonymously endowed Edward Said Chair. .....
     

      The ilaqa Magistrate Seema Singhal today ordered Maheshnagar police to register and investigate into the Avdena abduction case and report. The order further read that the main accused Zakir Hussain, Punjab Wakf Board CEO Shahid Ali, Mohammed Sardar Vani, Zamil Hussain and Maulvi Abdul Qaoom should be booked for conspiring in the abduction of Avedna under different sections of IPC. .....
     

      The row over the boulder-sized version of the so-called "Ten Commandments," and as to whether they should be exhibited in such massive shape on public property, misses the opportunity to consider these top-10 divine ordinances and their relationship to original intent. .....
     

      The absence of many high profile Congress chief ministers will cast a shadow over the two-day meeting of the inter-state council which the Prime Minister will inaugurate in Srinagar tomorrow. .....
     

      Are Bengal Marxists taking the state's politics the Bihar way? The impression is fast gaining ground because of the degenerative trend witnessed. In typically Laloo and Pappu Yadav style, Marxist mandarins have got Dulal Bandopadhyay, the prime accused in Dum Dum twin murder case and well known for his mafia activities, elected general secretary of CITU-controlled West Bengal Railway Hawkers Union. .....
     

      Several residents of majority community dominated parts of city's highly sensitive Dariapur area on Monday told the two-member Nanavati riot inquiry panel that Muslims of their area were trying to drive them away from their home and take away their properties. .....
     

      The television industry is so in thrall to political correctness that soap and drama writers now routinely consult pressure groups for advice on what they consider offensive, the Edinburgh Television Festival heard yesterday. .....
     

      Is it true that India is mentioned in the hadiths? If so, please mention them. Was Adam in India as well? .....
     

      Pakistan's army confirmed yesterday that several officers have been arrested on suspicion of being linked to Islamic extremist groups. .....
       

      The Hindu Yuba-Chatra Parishad, Asom, has condemned the BJP's proposed plan of trishul distribution in Assam on the occasion of Lachit Divas on November 24, while at the same time accusing several Congress ministers in the State for inspiring the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind's agenda in Assam. .....
       

      The United States has offered sale of modern  arms worth $9 billion to Pakistan for its armed forces, it is learnt. Sources said Pakistan has compiled its arms and spares shopping list after the US made this biggest-ever offer to Pakistan. .....
       

      In what Pakistan will see as defence of its position regarding the Mumbai blasts, the US state department has said "it has not yet seen any determination from the Indian government" saying that Pakistan is involved in the bombings. .....
       

      No one can say with any certainty who was behind the bombings at the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad and the Shiite holy place in Najaf, but here is what you can say about them: They are incredibly sick and incredibly smart. .....
       

      By March 2002, the terrorist called Abu Zubaydah was one of the most wanted men on earth. A leading member of Osama bin Laden's brain trust, he is thought to have been in operational control of al-Qaeda's millennium bomb plots as well as the attack on the U.S.S. Cole in October 2000. After the spectacular success of the airliner assaults on the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, he continued to devise terrorist plans. .....
       

      Americans can count on one hand the incidents of large-scale political violence in the last 10 years: the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and on the federal building in Oklahoma City. The most recent major racial disturbance was in Los Angeles in 1992, the last sustained period of broad upheaval in the 60's and early 70's. .....
       

      Almost a year after terrorists stormed Akshardham and one day after the investigation was transferred to another police agency, Commissioner of Police K R Kaushik announced today that the Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) had arrested five people from the Walled City. .....
       

      The Dukhtaran-e-Millat (DeM), an all-woman ''soft-terrorist'' outfit in Jammu and Kashmir, appears to be closely connected with Monday's twin bomb blasts in Mumbai, investigations into the incident have revealed. Security agencies are believed to have identified the two women who boarded the bomb-laden taxi that was left to explode at the Gateway of India. But their identities are being kept under wraps. .....
       

      Muslim extremists in Germany have adopted a new and disturbing tactic  in their crusade to turn Europe into an Islamic state. .....
       

      Randall Royer, David Hicks, Jack Roche, Christian Ganczarski. These  aren't the names one expects to see when reviewing a list of those  charged with participation in international Islamic terrorism.  However, a disturbing number of converts have turned to militancy in  a quest to add direction to their lives. .....
       

      As they struggle to recover from the terror assault on Mumbai, security agencies are having to grapple with the challenge of foiling a plan to land massive arms and ammunition off the Konkan coast. .....
       

      The top leadership of the RSS is expected to meet this weekend to decide on its future course of action in the wake of the Archaelogical Society of India's report on Ayodhya excavations. The Sangh agenda appears to be two-pronged: to talk about a negotiated settlement as well as begin "a massive popular movement" that could be converted into a political programme for the B JP. .....
       

      Bangladesh promotes itself as a "moderate, progressive and  democratic Muslim country," but a leading human rights activist from  the South Asian nation says it is a land of terror for many of its  Hindu, Buddhist and Christian citizens. .....
       

      The Israeli Police and Border Control recently apprehended ten Palestinians residing illegally near the Israeli town of Lod. The ten were living in a scorching-hot caravan, nine feet long by nine feet wide, in impossible living conditions. "I came here to work," one of the Palestinians told a reporter who witnessed the clampdown. .....
       

      Despite a government ban, militant organizations marked last week's independence day with call to arms. .....
       

      Setting at rest the long drawn controversy over inheritance of the property belonging to a Hindu married woman who dies intestate or issueless, the Supreme Court has ruled her husband or father in law would have no claim over it if she had acquired such a estate from her mother side. .....
       

      Officially, the recent string of visits by top US officials to India and Pakistan were to defuse the military stand-off between the two nuclear-armed countries. However, George Bush's regime is seizing on the confrontation to re-establish US imperial influence in the Indian subcontinent. .....
       

      Thorough religiousness - Islam takes all the ideas very seriously. Muslims are called to prayer not just on Sunday, but five times a day. An entire month of every year is devoted to fasting. Focus on the other world, determinism, faith, and sacrifice are not empty phrases but deeply held beliefs, practiced to the point where they are fundamentally indistinguishable from the culture of the Islamic countries. .....




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