The red sandstone temple of Govindadeva,
constructed in the sixteenth century by Mansimha and standing on a hill
in the midst of Vrindavan, is the largest single-structure temple ever
built. A visitor gets impressed with the strength of its massive exterior
and the flying, vaulted spaces of its interior. .....
Before India shone, it used to
radiate. But it was another sort of light that it shared with others. The
great rishi, Sri Aurobindo, wrote at the start of the 20th century: "This
was an invasion of peace and not of war, for to spread a spiritual civilisation
by force and physical conquest, the vaunt or the excuse of modern imperialism
would have been uncongenial to the ancient cast of her mind and temperament
and the idea underlying her Dharma." .....
A Muslim preacher in eastern Turkey
says he is being boycotted for telling local men to help their wives with
the housework, Turkish media reported. .....
Arabic television channel Al-Jazeera
played a message on Thursday purportedly from Al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman
al-Zawahiri, calling on Pakistanis to overthrow President Pervez Musharraf.
.....
Lord Carey, the former Archbishop
of Canterbury, launched a trenchant attack on Islamic culture last night,
saying it was authoritarian, inflexible and under-achieving. .....
Pakistan is planning to purge schoolbooks
of material fuelling religious hatred and anti-Indian sentiments in an
attempt to make its controversial educational system more secular, writes
Zahid Hussain in The Times of London. .....
Pope Shenouda the Third, Patriarch
of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt, has publicly condemned the kidnapping
and forced conversions of Christian women to Islam. In a speech on March
16 he said, "I have received so many letters about what's happening to
the Christian girls who go to supermarket stores to shop. .....
Members of Silvio Berlusconi's
coalition government have proposed a law to control the building of mosques
in Italy because they can be used to "spread hatred for the West". .....
Mohammed Shahbuddin, the Rashtriya
Janata Dal MP from the Siwan Lok Sabha seat in Bihar, who has been under
detention for the past eight months, does not strictly fit the description
of a political detainee. .....
Ever since 9-11, Islam has been
a topic of debate in many circles. President George Bush announced that
Islam is a "religion of peace." Leftists, though, in particular have convinced
us that to criticize Islam is to be "intolerant." This has created a culture
unwilling to call Islam for what it is. Here is a list of common debate
arguments in defense of Islam, usually given by leftists, and quick rebuttals
to them, proving otherwise. .....
Plans to construct a Hare Krishna
temple in Moscow have sparked off a controversy in Russia where the Orthodox
Church dominates and many regard Krishna followers as dangerous sectarians.
.....
The Pakistan Army is finally using
force in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan to flush out Islamist militants
affiliated with Al Qaeda. Clearing Pakistani territory of terrorists and
militants is the right decision for Pakistan. The foreign militants who
came to fight as volunteers in the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan and stayed
on have pursued their global jehad from Afghan and Pakistani soil for almost
two decades. .....
Kashmiri terrorists belonging to
the Lashkar e-Taiba (Army of the Pure) have reacted to the Israeli assassination
of Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin by threatening to attack. Indians. .....
The quick thinking of paratroopers
at the Hawara checkpoint near Nablus prevented Husam Abdu, 14, who was
wearing a belt of explosives, from blowing himself up on Wednesday. .....
A prominent Hindu religious leader
has accused Christian missioners of working against India and called for
their expulsion from the country. Bishops based in central India have dismissed
Shankaracharya Nishchalanand Saraswati's comments as biased and baseless.
.....
Last week, four British-born Muslims
were released from Guantanamo Bay and arrived in Britain to a hero's welcome.
The BBC's glowing kept Trotskyists, pinkos, Islamists and multiculturalists
all a-flutter. Every detail of their homecoming - from their reunions with
their families to their first meal on British soil - was reported for the
hungry Left in loving detail, as was their ordeal in the allegedly barbaric
Guantanamo Bay facility. .....
In the legend of Moorish Spain,
the last Muslim king of Granada, Boabdil, surrendered the keys to his city
on January 2, 1492, and on one of its hills, paused for a final glance
at his lost dominion. The place would henceforth be known as El Ultimo
Suspiro del Moro -- "the Moor's Last Sigh." Boabdil's mother is said to
have taunted him, and to have told him to "weep like a woman for the land
he could not defend as a man." .....
Why should a 77 year-old man endure
31 days of intense strain and considerable discomfort to travel across
more than 120 parliamentary constituencies to tell people that "India's
time has come"? This is a question that came readily to mind when Deputy
Prime Minister L.K. Advani announced his decision to embark on the Bharat
Uday Yatra. .....
President Pervez Musharraf, in
his 'breakfast meeting' with foreign intellectuals on ARY channel
on 1 March 2004, defended his government's go-slow policy on the taming
of the madrasas in Pakistan, saying Pakistan didn't have the money to do
it. .....
The letter by Mr Ajay Kamalakaran
from Russia on "Healing Gujarat's wounds" made an interesting reading.
I am a Gujarati, living in the coastal town of Jamnagar. Hindus and Muslims
coexist peacefully in Gujarat. Secularism thrives in every part of India
and there are always minor aberrations. .....
In a shocking incident that has
left CPI(M) leaders red-faced, two women-one of them pregnant-were allegedly
raped and three molested by drunk Holi revellers on Saturday at Shaktigarh
village in Burdwan district. Of the eight persons arrested in connection
with the incident, one is reported to he a CPI(M) supporter. .....
A day after scrapping the controversial
government order on closing schools on Fridays to facilitate Muslims to
offer prayers, the UP government today constituted an integral university,
which would reserve upto 50 per cent seats for students belonging to the
minority community. The bill was passed by the Vidhan Sabha by voice vote
despite opposition from BJP members. .....
Avul Pakir Janulabdeen Abdul Kalam
is a Muslim scientist in predominantly Hindu India. Yet the religious and
social divisions that plague the Indian sub-continent did not prevent 72-year-old
Kalam from emerging as one of India's most distinguished scientists. He
was responsible for India's first Satellite Launch Vehicle, the development
and operationalisation of strategic missiles and their weaponisation. .....
It does not need or call for any
debate any more that Pakistan came into being on the basis of Islam. It
was only Islam, which galvanised Muslims and lined them up behind Muslim
League. Other factors, political and economic ones, also played some part
in uniting Muslims to struggle for Pakistan but Islam was the preponderant
factor as it serves as a cementing force for Muslim society and is the
primary link between Muslims the world over. .....
A few years ago, a young Indian
man named Navroze Mody was beaten to death by eleven white racists shouting
'Dot-head!' as he was walking to catch a train in Hoboken, New Jersey.
His crime? He was Indian. .....
The chink and scrape of stonecutters
echo through the gray-domed mosque that rises like a glimmer of misplaced
architecture in a city where the Muslim call to prayer is a widening whisper.
Dusted in marble, workmen scurry in the muted glow of stained glass. .....
Decked out in eagle feathers, amulets
and lucky charms, hundreds of thousands of Mexicans converged on the ancient
pyramids of Teotihuacan, near Mexico City, on Sunday to tap into what they
believe is the site's energy on the spring equinox. .....
After suffering six months of depression
at refugee camp in Sadar North of West Tripura, Mangal Sarkar, an trader
and resident of Simna village, Agartala finally left the country. .....
The congressionally funded United
States Institute of Peace will host an event today in Washington on reforming
Islam, with a guest panelist who has threatened the United States and openly
supported terrorist groups, Insight has learned. .....
On September 17, 2001, six days
after the terrorist strikes in the US, I had written an article, Of Elephants
And Cockroaches. I would urge a reading of the same today. Many of my observations
made then remain as valid today as they were on 9/17. .....
During his interaction with Hurriyat
leaders recently, the Union Home Minister focused on the homeless Displaced
Kashmiris and the inhuman conditions they live in. Politely but eloquently
he told them that for any dialogue on Kashmir to move forward the Pandit
question needs to be addressed with all sincerity. .....
The former Director General of
Police, H.T. Sangliana, said here today that the "Hindutva" promoted by
the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was harmless, and that the term meant
"Indianness". .....
She wasn't a Muslim, but she would
do for now. Last March, at just about the time American troops were massing
outside Baghdad, she shuffled, dressed in a dark burqa, into a cramped
schoolroom in the New York City borough of Queens. .....
In the Spring of 2000, the democratically
elected Fijian government led by Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry was held
hostage by a guerrilla group, headed by George Speight. They were demanding
a segregated state exclusively for the native Fijians, thereby legally
abolishing any rights the Indian inhabitants have now. .....
Hindu scholars have always claimed
that in remotest times, their ancestors visited every part of the globe,
mapping it accurately, and mining gold and copper in such places as Michigan,
Colorado, Arizona, England, Ireland, Peru, and Bolivia. Known to us as
"Indo-Europeans," they lost their grip on the world in about 1500 BC.,
retreating to what are now Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Northern India. .....
I flew in to Gauhati, Assam from
Kolkata, West Bengal. A Bandh/Strike had been declared for Assam, so everything
was very peaceful. I spent a night at the Vivekananda Kendra, on the banks
of the expansive Brahmaputra River. I next journeyed 10 hrs by bus to Bandhardeva,
Arunachal Pradesh, via Tezpur. .....
Their morale boosted by a huge
rally of supporters earlier this month, naxalite groups in the tribal areas
of Chhattisgarh and neighbouring Madhya Pradesh have intensified their
campaign for a boycott of the elections, concentrating efforts on countering
the work of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh and its myriad affiliates.
.....
New York, N.Y.,Indian Muslim Council-USA,
an advocacy group of Indian-Americans dedicated to the preservation of
India's pluralist ethos, denounced Indian cricketer Zaheer Khan's pandering
of Hindutva-fascist leader Bal Thackeray. Zaheer Khan has reportedly implied
to the media that only "subversive" elements of the Indian society consider
Hindu militant leader Bal Thackeray as anti-Muslim. .....
Primitive tribes offer sacrifices
hoping to mollify whatever nonexistent beings they believe in. New York
Times columnist Paul Krugman seems to belong to a very sophisticated tribe
that, according to the recently retired Malaysian Prime Minister, rules
the world by proxy. One would think Mr. Krugman should be above such crude
superstitions. .....
An activist of the banned outfit
Deendar Anjuman was arrested by the west zone task force team from his
house in Udgir of Latur district in Maharashtra on Monday. .....
The northern part of what India
calls Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Pakistan calls its Northern Areas comprises
the remote and backward areas of Gilgit and Baltistan. While what Pakistan
calls Azad Kashmir comprises barely 4,000 square miles, the Northern Areas
cover more than 28,000 square miles, though most of the area is too harsh
for human habitation. Some 2,500 square miles of this region was ceded
to China under a border agreement in 1963. .....
The Yatra is not just about seeking
votes. While asking for a fresh mandate for the Vajpayee Government, Deputy
Prime Minister L K Advani is also propagating BJP's own brand of secularism
- without being apologetic to Hindutva. The message is broad-based to include
the minority community. .....
"We are an Al Qaeda family." So
spoke one of the Khadrs, a Muslim Canadian household whose near single-minded
devotion to Osama bin Laden contains important lessons for the West. .....
Ever since John Kerry virtually
sewed up the nomination as the Democratic candidate for the US presidential
elections, readers have been asking me what I thought of him and George
W Bush from the point of view of India's interests. My answer is that it
doesn't matter. From an Indian point of view, they are Tweedledum and Tweedledee,
give or take a little. It doesn't make any difference which of them comes
to power. .....
Tens of thousands of people turned
Liberty Avenue in Queens and a nearby park into a festival of color and
music Sunday in celebration of a major Hindu holiday. .....
Three Moroccans and two Indians
have been arrested in Spain for the Madrid train bombings on Thursday.
All five are thought to be linked to two militant Islamic groups which
were named as the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group and Salafia Jihadi.
.....
In the name of the law, Dr Mohammad
Younus Sheikh was accused in October 2000 of the crime of blasphemy, under
Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code. In the name of the law, he was
tried in September 2001, found guilty, sentenced to death. In the name
of the law, he lived on death row in Adiala Jail until, in the name of
the law, his sentence was overturned in November 2003 and he was released,
in great secrecy. .....
Riyadh Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
TV1 in Arabic, official television station of the Saudi Government, carries
on February 27, 2004 at 0945 GMT a live sermon from the holy mosque in
Mecca. .....
Six women, including two minor
girls, were raped and 14 villagers injured by insurgents of banned National
Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) at remote Paisyarampara in Dhalai district,
police today said. .....
Tridandi Sriman Narayana Ramanuja
China Jeer has said he will step up his 'Gita Dyoti' campaign to protect
the Hindu dharma and prevent the gullible from falling prey to the "conversion
spree" of the missionaries. He, nonetheless, appreciated the role of the
Church in ensuring the overall well-being of the Christian community. .....
Aarti was a new grad student of
Journalism on Michigan campus. Soon, she found two friends Rundi (Arundhati)
and Manju (Manjari) majoring in Linguistics. They had become such good
friends as they shared a nice apartment close to campus, a short walk to
classes and The Michigan Union. Manju and Rundi had known each other right
from their undergrad years in Jowahari-Marks University (JMU) in New Delhi.
.....
Washington: Pulling no punches,
US Secretary of State Colin Powell has denounced madrassas or schools imparting
religious education in Pakistan and several other countries as breeding
grounds for "fundamentalists and terrorists." .....
In recent years, the Indian police
and press have started to pay attention to certain groups with 'peace,'
'civil liberties' and 'human rights' identities. .....
The Bush administration has placed
a huge bet on Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, relying on him
to help hunt down Osama bin Laden and root out other Islamic terrorists.
.....
The Township Council has sided
with residents who fear a proposed Hindu temple in neighboring South Plainfield
would disrupt their quiet neighborhood. .....
The inventors of the controversy
over the 'communalisation' of Indian history are at it again. Since the
early Seventies, they've been campaigning against historians who disagreed
with the Leftist-Marxist view of India's past, which, thanks to official
patronage, became the dominant school of historiography. .....
India will ask for the return of
ULFA terrorists like Anup Chetia, Paresh Barua and Sanjib Deb Barman when
Foreign Secretary Shashank travels to Bangladesh as part of a familiarisation
tour of the region beginning from Monday. .....
Speaking to Neerja Chowdhury, Arif
Mohammad Khan explained why he chose the BJP over the Congress as the 'credible
instrument' to 'correct' society. .....
The American GI Forum Hall was
packed with hundreds of mourners as members of the huge Sikh community
of the Bay Area gathered for the funeral service of Hari Singh and Satnam
Singh, two of the three people, who were killed by a gunman in a high-profile
attack the previous Sunday. Speaker after speaker came up to address the
grieved for their lost loved ones and prayed for their families. .....
The Left Government in West Bengal
has imposed an all-time high tax on voluntary social organisations (VSOs)
this year for using its land at the Gangasagar Mela ground for distributing
food, offering free shelter and medicine to several lakhs of Hindu pilgrims
who assembled on the auspicious Makar Sankranti day to take a holy dip
at the confluence of the river Ganga and the Bay of Bengal. .....
The world's highest and most spectacular
mountains, the Himalaya of Nepal, India, and Bhutan, are built on the foundations
of a much older mountain system, University of Arizona geoscientists have
discovered. .....
Since late 1989, the Indian State
of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) has been in the grip of a vicious
movement of Islamist extremist terrorism. As many as 36,289 [till December
30, 2003, Source: www.satp.org] lives have been lost in this conflict over
nearly 14 years of a sub-conventional war that has inflicted enormous suffering
on the people of the State .....
For all the bonhomie and backslapping
that seems to have enveloped the early part of India's tour of Pakistan,
one name crops up frequently when conversation inevitably veers around
to politics. Bal Thackeray is regarded here with a mixture of exasperation
and apprehension, and, somehow, representative of Hindu feelings towards
Muslims in India. .....
To prevent a possible shift in
Muslim votes to other parties, the Samajwadi Party has started making a
conscious effort to reinforce its pro-Muslim image among the minorities
in Uttar Pradesh. .....
Pakistan on Monday said that a
launch last week of a nuclear-capable medium range missile would be followed
by more tests in coming months, despite US requests to scale back its weapons
programme. .....
At a meeting organised by Labour
Friends of India on 15th March 2004 at the House of Commons, British Parliamentarians
met with business leaders and trade union figures to discuss the future
of the relationship between India and the UK. .....
Deputy Prime Minister Lal Kishenchand
Advani on Monday said he was confident that a grand Ram temple would be
built at his 'very birth place' with the 'cooperation and support of all'.
.....
"The bombs dropped on Baghdad exploded
in Madrid!" declared one "peace" protester in Spain. Or as Australian Federal
Police Commissioner Mick Keelty put it, somewhat less vividly: "If this
turns out to be Islamic extremists . . . it is more likely to be linked
to the position that Spain and other allies took on issues such as Iraq."
.....
A huge car bomb was defused by
Pakistani police outside the U.S. consulate in Karachi on Monday, just
two days before Secretary of State Colin Powell visits the country. .....
I'm a churchgoer myself. But I
have to concede this: Christianity, in its simplistic (i.e., political)
form, is prone to binary thinking: good/evil, white hat/black hat. .....
It looked like any other package
when a mail truck carried it away from the four- story office park at 35
Congress St., along with packages from other businesses near Pickering
Wharf, like the Palmer's Cove Yacht Club and the Harbor Sweets candy store.
.....
Indian troops stationed in Kashmir
rejoiced Saturday over the country's close-fought cricket win over Pak
but many in the insurgency-torn province were left disappointed after a
match packed with suspense. .....
March 7 was International Women's
Day. In a tragic irony, however, screaming newspaper headlines on the next
day pointed to what amounted to a rape of women's rights in our very own
Jammu and Kashmir. .....
OK, maybe not everyone. But the
ancient discipline, which promises spiritual enlightenment along with long,
lean muscles, has indeed boomed in popularity over the past several years.
.....
Q.: Who was part of the bear cartel?
A.: How can I reveal? I have told
them not to reveal. They realised what they were doing was not right. We
should just look at the result. .....
Recently on the lawns of the Supreme
Court, President A P J Abdul Kalam spoke at a function to honour Nani Palkhivala.
A frail but erect, old gentleman occupied the front row. Some young members
of the Bar inquired who he was. He was none other than Justice H R Khanna.
I resolved that day to share with a wider circle of young lawyers and citizens
the story of his matchless courage. .....
Economic indicators like Gross
National Product (GNP), or Gross Domestic Product (GDP) are generally used
to measure economic progress. But, in Bhutan, under the enlightened leadership
of King Jigme Singye Wangchuk, progress is determined not by levels of
GNP or GDP, but by an index of what is called as 'Gross National Happiness'(GNH).
.....
Karachi: I am a veteran of the
Lahore-Delhi run, the short journey most Pakistanis take when embarking
on the often maddening, sometimes exciting quest of discovering India.
Short by air, that is. And beguilingly short on the map. By train and bus
it is a feat of endurance, not to be attempted by the squeamish traveller.
.....
Arif Mohammad Khan's formal entry
into the BJP is a natural homecoming of sorts. Since 1986, when he opposed
the Rajiv Gandhi government's cock-eyed brand of secularism as played out
in its handling of the Shah Bano case, Khan has been a symbol of protest
for the Muslim masses whose political expression has been quite stunted
by the 'mullah-secularist' combine. .....
There is strong resentment among
women in Jammu and Kashmir over the Legislative Assembly's vote on Friday
to withdraw the Permanent Resident Status (PRS) to women belonging to the
State who marry non-permanent residents. .....
There is a national outcry against
the Permanent Resident (Disqualification) Bill, 2004 passed by the Jammu
and Kashmir Assembly on Friday. The Bill seeks to disqualify women from
their status as permanent residents of the State if they marry a non-resident.
.....
Getting an Indian job visa is a
cakewalk. According to a human resources manager with a BPO in Delhi,
not once has a foreign candidate cleared by his company for recruitment
been rejected by the embassy. "Usually, once we send the offer letter and
other papers to the candidate and he forwa-rds them to the Indian embassy
there, a visa is granted within a week." .....
Not so long ago, we were chasing
jobs around the world. Today as a headhunter, I am witnessing the first
trickles of what I call, for want of a better word, reverse migration.
.....
The first thing on my sports calendar
is to watch a Test match in Mumbai," says Duncan Craig, general manager
of Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai. The 36-year-old New Zealander, who arrived in
the city three weeks ago, is not a stranger to India. "Six years ago, I
worked as a food and beverages manager in Goa," he says. "I thoroughly
enjoyed my stint there; perhaps a reason for landing here again." .....
He feigns ignorance about the IT
boom in India. Says he does not know what BPOs are. But Pierre Cadot's
face lights up when talking about Ahmedabad's centuries-old pols (group
of houses with guard's quarters above them). .....
Ulrich Wallner has a solution for
the homeless. The mechanical engineer from Nurenberg in Germany has devised
a 'joiner' to interlock bamboo shoots to make the frame for a low-cost
house. .....
The wonders of Vienna are unforgettable,
but Alexandra Gindl's heart now beats for Bangalore. Understandable. It's
where the 30-something Austrian loves to work, on a "normal Indian salary",
as she says. It's also given her a homegrown husband. "Now I go to Europe
only as a tourist," she winks. .....
Reforms will have to wait. In the
Communist Party of India (Marxist), that is. After its state committee
threw Dr M.P. Parameswaran out of the party for propounding the 'fourth
world' theory, like-minded party members are now under scrutiny. Only the
necessity of projecting an united front for the Lok Sabha elections is
holding the hardliners back. .....
Montigny-Lès-Cormeilles,
France Head scarves were banned by administrators at the public school
in this Paris suburb long before France began its current round of tortured
debate on the issue. .....
This article is all about the onslaught
of Islamic organizations against the secular nation of America. Since
I am from Bangladesh, I would like to start this essay by citing how Islamism
had spread in my motherland in short three decades. Bangladesh is
no ordinary country by any stretch of imagination. .....
On the surface there would seem
to be little to unite the Aryan racialists of the neo-Nazi movement with
the terrorists of radical Islam. To the neo-Nazis, Muslims are almost all
members of "inferior" races; and to the Islamic terrorists, the neo-Nazis
are almost without exception either atheists or members of fringe quasi-Christian
sects. .....
Congressman Tom Tancredo (CO-06)
along with 13 congressional colleagues today announced their intention
to bring back teaching the benefits of Western Civilization in our public
schools. The project called "Our Heritage ... Our Hope" is a movement to
help curb the spread of radical multiculturalism in America's classrooms.
.....
Three Pakistani gang rapists who
are facing life in jail yesterday begged a judge to be pardoned, citing
cultural differences that led to the brutal attack, immaturity on their
part and hardship within their families if they were imprisoned. .....
After decades of puerile rhetoric
over dialectics, deconstructionism, modernism, post-modernism, multiculturalism,
et al, Europe is finally realising that it cannot live without fidelity
to core values. For even Mammon has social roots, which is why White-dominated
multinationals meant 'free trade' in the post-World War II era, but out-sourcing
to India leads to revival of nationalism. .....
Pakistan's top military official
has offered to share unspecified military assistance and "nuclear power"
with Nigeria's armed forces, the defence ministry said. .....
For long they have said Hindu Gods
were devils and any worship of Them is a heathen practice. Now Christian
zealots have outdone themselves by taking a giant leap of faith and claiming
that the various Vedic Sanskrit slogans were in praise of Jesus and not
Hindu Gods. .....
The open-door policy being followed
by the BJP can well recoil on it. The indiscriminate manner in which the
saffron party is embracing footloose politicians does it no credit, though
it might help it create the impression that the electoral wind is blowing
in its favour. With politics reduced to the simple game of winning and
wielding power, it is quite natural for migratory political birds to flock
to the winning side. .....
A curious search for blankets is
currently taking place in the plains around the Great Lakes in North America.
These are not ordinary blankets. They are actually bison skins that were
smeared with body fluid tainted with smallpox and used, two hundred years
ago, to obliterate American Indians. .....
It was billed as a talk on Pakistan's
nuclear daddy and his propensity to spawn nuclear babies in families Americans
don't approve of. The title clearly said "Pakistan and proliferation" and
the speaker was an insider, someone who had seen the gestation of the problem
as a senior doctor on the job. .....
When 18-year-old Nikhil Neelkantan
of Newark got his driver's license, the first place he drove was the Hindu
Temple in Hockessin for reflection and prayer. Since then, he has gone
to the temple every week, surprising his father, Neel, who emigrated from
India 35 years ago. .....
Taking strong exception to the
US state department report, which has criticised the Indian democracy as
flawed and alleged that the BJP government was not providing proper security
and justice to the minorities, the RSS on Friday asked the Union government
to lodge strong protests with the US for infringing on the country's sovereignty.
.....
Efforts by Christian missionary
groups to make inroads into and converts from among Muslims, in India
as well as elsewhere, have seldom met with any great success. Yet, this
has not deterred evangelical Christians from setting up special bodies
for missionary work targeted specially at Muslims. .....
If there is any community in the
world that appears reluctant to learn from the lessons of the past, it
is the Hindus. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's appeal at the BJP's
Convention for Development of Minorities on February 25, is a perfect example
of this mindset. The BJP's appeal reminds me of the efforts made by Mahatma
Gandhi to bring about Hindu-Muslim unity during the freedom struggle. .....
In Iraq, what ought to be the role
of Islam and its legal system, called the Sharia? In theory, this topic
should be the subject of a soul-searching debate in America and all the
other countries whose forces are occupying Iraq, for how it is answered
will likely influence Iraq's future in profound ways. .....
Terrorists deliberately employ
these protected vehicles for two reasons: to fool those whose job it is
to prevent acts of terrorism and - the more long-range reason - to provoke
the democracies into violating human rights laws by stopping real ambulances
and people in medical need. .....
A Q Khan's confession, the disclosures
of CIA director George Tenet and president George Bush and media reports
have revealed how insincere the five nuclear weapon powers were in their
commitment to their obligations under Article 1 of the Non-proliferation
Treaty (NPT). .....
The Pakistan Government has admitted
for the first time that after the Partition in 1947, several buildings
and shrines belonging to Hindus had remained unattended for a long time
and had suffered colossal damage. .....
The Bush administration's chumminess
with Pervez Musharraf did not start after the September 11, 2001, attacks
in New York and Washington and the imperatives it created for a revived
alliance between the US and Pakistan as generally believed. .....
Rajeev Goswami died unhonoured
and unsung last week. Barring a few cursory references to the act that
had once catapulted him to iconic status, it was a lonely death. .....
In A move that has generated concern
among some quarters, the Government is ready to delegate power to regulate
foreign contributions to state governments. .....
Rob Behler isn't saying Max Cleland's
Senate seat was stolen by rigged electronic voting machines, but he insists
it could have been. Mr. Behler, who helped prepare Georgia's machines for
the 2002 election, says secret computer codes were installed late in the
process. Votes "could have been manipulated," he says, and the election
thrown to the Republican, Saxby Chambliss. .....
We have spent our life in confusion,
as we were neither Hindu nor Muslim. But we don't want our children to
live in such confusion. Today, we have firmly decided to follow the traditions
of our original forefather-Prithviraj Chauhan. .....
I am indeed delighted to participate
in the inauguration of the International Conclave on Buddhism and Spiritual
Tourism. Spiritual tourism is quite different from visiting the places
and seeing various physical dimensions. .....
Some time ago, The Hindustan Times
asked me to review a book by Asghar Ali Engineer, generally considered
to be a Muslim liberal, on Muslims in India.In the book Engineer was somewhat
defensive about Aurangzeb's levying of the juziya on Hindus and issues
like building new temples (Aurangzeb forbade it). .....
Pakistan notoriously famous spy
agency, ISI, has 60 centers in India employing as many as 10,000 spies,
a detailed study by a Mumbai-based think tank has revealed. .....
27th February 2002. The day, 58
Hindu devotees were burned alive by Muslims of Godhra in the coach of Sabarmati
train. The reaction - The blood of Gujarat boiled over and it expressed
itself in unprecedented riot all over the state. Many Muslims were also
burned alive. Their properties, business remises were burnt down. .....
We have spent our life in confusion,
as we were neither Hindu nor Muslim. But we don't want our children to
live in such confusion. Today, we have firmly decided to follow the traditions
of our original forefather-Prithviraj Chauhan. That is why we have come
here along with our children. .....
In an unprecedented development,
a senior politician in Manipur has sought mercy from an underground outfit,
underlining the widespread influence of militants in this border state.
.....
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
has taken strong objection to a report released by Awaaz, a UK-based organisation,
which has claimed that donations made by British citizens for the Gujarat
earthquake and the Orissa cyclone were actually being used to sponsor anti-minority
violence. .....
Forty-eight criminals in a West
Bengal jail have told a police officer that politicians misled them into
committing crimes like murder, rape and arson. .....
Naxalites of the People's War are
alleged to have shot dead Nerella Shankar, a Bharatiya Janata Party leader,
in his native village of Nandi Medaram in Andhra Pradesh, today. .....
Pakistan may have helped North
Korea test a plutonium- based nuclear device in 1998, former and current
US intelligence officials were quoted in a report as saying on Friday.
.....
A seven-member team from North-
East has listed religious conversion, infiltration from Bangladesh and
militancy as the main problems confronting the people there. .....
Although the Bush administration
reacted with surprise to Pakistan's nuclear assistance to Iran, the Islamabad
government warned the United States that such technology transfers might
occur as long as 14 years ago, two former Pentagon officials say. .....
Islamic nation opens to holiday
travelers, but not all Saudi Arabia will begin issuing tourist visas for
the first time, bringing more attention to its restrictive policies, which
include banning Jews. .....
The Sangh picked up from where
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee left it this week at a BJP minorities
meet. Vajpayee's oblique reference was clearly aimed at Iraq-sympathisers
in the largely Muslim gathering. The RSS has been provoked by the US State
Department's annual human rights report, which has described Indian democracy
as "flawed". .....
Sir Vidyadhar S Naipaul, winner
of the Nobel Prize for Literature and husband to our own long-lost Nadira
Khanum Alvi, is at it again. In his "last interview in India", he told
an Indian journalist who asked about India's "fractured past, fissured
present" and future that "fractured past" was too polite a way to describe
India's "calamitous millennium". .....
After 40 years or more of blowing
feckless multi culti soap bubbles, the governments of some European countries
have suddenly become alive to the dangers of being too tolerant towards
Islamism, an ideology that is intolerant and crusading. .....
Of late games of cricket between
Australia and Sri Lanka have been better remembered for unsporting conduct
than for any feats of batting, bowling or fielding. Who can forget Australia's
refusal to play in the island nation during the 1996 World Cup, or Arjuna
Ranatunga leading his team off after Muralitharan was no-balled? .....
Muttahida Jihad Council (MJC),
an alliance of Kashmiri jihadi organizations has been restructured, with
six smaller alliances within it representing various groups that will no
longer use the words jihad, lashkar, jaish or mujahideen with their names
so that they appear more political than militant. .....
Nobel laureate Sir V S Naipaul
Thursday endorsed BJP's campaign about Congress president Sonia Gandhi's
foreign origin issue saying it is an idea worth considering. .....
Christian religious leaders on
Thursday made a fervent appeal to the community members to vote for Christian
candidates with a view to achieving greater development of the community.
.....
The Alliance for Defence of Democracy
(ADD), a voluntary organisation, has alleged that the Special Investigating
Team (SIT) which went to Godhra to nab Salim Paanwala, accused in the Sabarmati
Express carnage case, committed large-scale atrocities on residents of
Saatpul locality on February 18. .....
Following Rajiv Gandhi's acquittal
by the Delhi high court in the Bofors case, a number of senior Congress
leaders, including Mani Shankar Aiyar, have raised questions about my role
in the controversy and demanded an apology. .....
Jammu and Kashmir CM Mufti Mohammad
Sayeed's efforts to get Kashmir Pandits to return to the Valley have hit
a roadblock, with prominent community leaders boycotting a Shivratri milan
hosted by the CM in Delhi last evening. .....
For the benefit of its military
guardians, Pakistan has been running the world's costliest adult literacy
programme. It took the collapse of New York's Twin Towers, followed by
American threats and cajolery, to make Pakistan's military leadership abandon
the Taliban and rethink Afghan policy. To achieve this end, nothing short
of that cataclysm would have sufficed. .....
Azam Sheikh, Second Year Trained,
responsibility: Taluka Bouddhik Pramukh. Azam Chand Sheikh,
a youngster crazy after his objective. He hails from small village Bhure,
Taluka Mulshi, District: Pune. For last two days he was in Delhi.
He lived at Keshavkunj in Zandewala, the office of Rashtriya Swayamsevak
Sangh. .....
International General Secretary
of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Dr Pravin Togadia has claimed that the
VHP would not canvass for any political party in the coming general elections.
"Our job is to educate people as to where the interest of Hindus lies and
that we shall do in this election also", he said making it clear that those
political parties that neglect Hindu interest would be punished by the
Hindu society. .....
Mr. TOWNS. Mr. Speaker, I would
like to call the attention of my colleagues to an article by Steve Forbes
in the March 4 issue of Forbes magazine called ``India , Meet Austria-Hungary.''
In the article, Mr. Forbes compares present-day India to the old Austro-Hungarian
Empire. .....
The debate over religious conversions,
including what are sometimes referred to as "forced conversions," have
come into focus at the 26th biennial general body meeting of the Catholic
Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) that began at the Marymatha Major Seminary
at Mulayam near here today. .....
The details that tumbled out during
the interrogation of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader Ayub Khan
after his arrest recently here in a flesh trade racket have once again
alerted the Bihar-Jharkhand police and Intelligence personnel about the
growing ISI clout in the states and the role of Afghan nationals in carrying
out the ISI agenda in India. .....
