by Sidharth Mishra
Paying a heavy price for the
lack lustre Government policy vis-à-vis subversives, a large number
of women and children out shopping for Diwali on the eve of Dhan Teras
fell prey to multiple terror attacks carried out with detailed planning
and precision. .....
by Uday Mahurkar
For decades, Gujarat has waged
an unsuccessful battle against salinity in its coastal areas. But today
it is turning the problem on its head with the novel scheme of building
dams on rivers just before they merge into the sea, thus, preventing seawater
from entering the coastal lands through river channels during high tide.
This scheme will not only check the increasing salinity but also help
in water conservation, besides promoting eco-tourism. .....
by G. Parthasarathy
Vasily Mitrokhin, who died
in 2004, was a KGB operative, who worked in the intelligence agency's
archives from 1956 to 1985. He copied documents and defected to the West
in 1992, just after the Soviet Union disintegrated. The two volumes of
the "Mitrokhin Archives" reflect the realities of Cold War rivalries
in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. .....
by The Times of India
This violence-hit city is no
more a place to live in, said Arvind Kumar Barnwal whose ancestors settled
here about 300 years ago. Although a communally sensitive district, Mau
has not witnessed communal riots of this scale. Its worst riots so far
were in 1984 when three people, including a sub-divisional magistrate,
were killed. .....
by Husain Haqqani
For over two years, Abdul Latif
Hakimi regularly telephoned Pakistani and western reporters and described
himself as the spokesman for Afghanistan's Taliban. He claimed responsibility
on behalf of the Taliban for several terrorist attacks. In June, when
a MH-47 helicopter was shot down during an anti-guerrilla mission in Afghanistan's
Kunar province bordering Pakistan, killing all US 16 troops on board,
Hakimi reported the incident to the media before US or Afghan officials.
.....
by Vijayadashami Mahostav
This year's Vijayadashami day
(The tenth day of the bright lunar month) has a special significance for
the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. It was on the Vijayadashami day that
the R.S.S. started on its arduous mission of consolidating and strengthening
the Hindu society by lifting it above the narrow loyalties of caste, sect,
province and language. This years Vijayadashami will see the R.S.S. completing
80 years of its journey and entering the 81st year. In other words, four
generations have striven and the fifth one is coming up. .....
by Press trust of India
Pakistani Rangers had resorted
to unprovoked firing on Border Security Force (BSF) troops in Samba Sector,
in an incident of violation of ceasefire along the International Border
(IB) near here, officiating Inspector General of BSF, Jammu Range, G S
Virk said today. .....
by Francois Gautier
When we hear that a resolution
is to be tabled in the US Congress next month to address the problem of
'caste discrimination and untouchability' in India, one feels like asking
Americans if they forgot the horrible treatment they meted out to their
Negro slaves! .....
by The Pioneer
The riots that began in Mau,
Uttar Pradesh, last Thursday and have claimed nearly a dozen lives, are
a blot on Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav's Government. He has doubtless suspended
five officers including the Divisional Commissioner, the Deputy Inspector
General of Police, the District Magistrate and the Senior Superintendent
of Police concerned, for failure to control the violence within 48 hours.
.....
by Kanchan Gupta
The devastating earthquake
of October 8, with Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir as its epicentre,
has taken a terrible toll of human lives. Estimates of death across the
Line of Control range from 40,000 to 80,000. It could even be as high
as 100,000. .....
by Ashok K Mehta
October 27 is Infantry Day.
On this day in 1947, soon after independence, Indian soldiers belonging
to 1 Sikh battalion landed in Srinagar to prevent the desecration of Kashmiriyat
and pillage of Jammu & Kashmir by tribal raiders called Kabailis from
Pakistan. The Pakistan Army had called it Operation Gulmarg. The first
war for J&K against Pakistan lasted 14 months but in fact, has never
ceased till today. .....
by M.V. Kamath
Islamic Toleration & Justice:
Non-Muslims under Muslim Rule ; Dr Sheikh Mohd. Iqbal; Adam Publishers
& distributors, New Delhi ; pages 260 Rs 300 .....
by Organiser
The Army Chief J. J. Singh's
words that the Kashmiris will understand "what we mean to them"
from the sacrifices our Army personnel are making and risks they are running
in saving lives in the wake of the killer earthquake reveals the indomitable
optimism of the man in uniform. Indian Army and Air Force have been fighting
a twin battle in the Valley. For years, they have set up schools, rehabilitation
centres, support systems and counseling centres to help the local population.
.....
by Sandhya Jain
The brutal and cold-blooded
murder of ten Hindus in Rajouri district on the midnight of October 9,
2005, is a grim reminder of the ongoing genocide of the native minority
in Jammu & Kashmir. And the disgraceful near-total blackout of this
news by the media is proof, if any were needed, that Kashmiri Hindus will
remain orphaned in their struggle for survival in their own homeland if
they do not change their approach towards their oppressors. .....
by The Indian Express
Tamil Nadu is to explore the
possibility of reserving some percentage of jobs in government services
to Muslims taking note of the Supreme Court's verdict on a case challenging
the validity of a state government act providing 69 per cent reservation
for certain communities, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa said today. .....
by The Indian Express
Emotionally fraught situations
lead to spontaneous reactions. When the "spontaneous" gesture
comes 10 days after the event, it raises eyebrows. General Musharraf's
announcement that Pakistan is willing to allow an open LoC to allow Kashmiris
"to meet relatives and assist with the reconstruction effort"
is just such an example of gimmick diplomacy. If the Pakistani president
had made the offer - conveyed to the Indian government, in Musharraf's
inimitable style, through the media - say 48 hours after the October 8
earthquake, it would have carried weight. .....
by The Indian Express
The Election Commission today
ordered the removal of IG, Bhagalpur zone, N C Dhondiyal from his post
and instituted an inquiry into the release of RJD candidate from Jamui,
Vijay Prakash Yadav, who was arrested yesterday. .....
by The Pioneer
An alert Election Commission
shifted CRPF Inspector General (Bihar) AK Chibber and his deputy, DIG
Alok Raj from poll duty for secretly meeting Lalu Prasad late on Sunday
night at his official residence 1, Anne Marg. .....
by M Chhaya
India's top Communist party,
opposed to economic reforms of the federal coalition it backs, has warned
its comrades against opposing sweeping privatisation in the state where
it is the ruling party. .....
by Dr. Frank Gaetano Morales
The mutual histories of both
Sanatana Dharma (Hinduism) and that of the United States of America have
been intimately intertwined for the last two centuries. Though the two
cultures have been so different from one another in many important ways,
the profound and continuing influence of the world's most ancient spiritual
culture on one of the earth's youngest nations cannot be denied. Hindu
culture, ideas, philosophy, spirituality, and practices have found an
eager audience in America since at least the early 19th century. .....
by Dinker Vashisht
The legend of Maryada Purushottam
Ram is being retold, but both the audience and the ambience have come
a long way. Hence in City Beautiful this year, the Prince of Ayodhya arrived
to marry the Princess of Mithila in a limousine; mock weapons for the
Lankan war were imported from Mauritius and Canada, while Lord Hanuman
had that great flight to fetch sanjivani courtesy state-of-the-art special
effects! .....
by Sandhya Jain
India is in serious danger
of losing ownership and control over her civilizational heritage due to
the machinations of an insidious combine of Left-wing academics, Page
Three authorities on culture and urban development, and an architects
lobby posing as experts on archaeology and conservation. Looming behind
them is UNESCO, a body whose financial scams makes the UN oil-for-food
programme smell of roses, which wishes to commodify Indian civilization
in the name of world heritage and detach it from the life of the Indian
people. Complicit in these shabby manoeuvres is the Left-dependent UPA
regime. .....
by Sify News
Asserting that father of the
Indian Constitution B R Ambedkar supported the RSS ideology, the organisation's
Chief K S Sudarshan on Sunday said Dr Ambedkar opposed such social workers
whose action and deed differed with respect to Dalits. .....
by Sumaa Tekur
It was as if time stood still.
Mirror-worked ghaghras in bright shades of orange, blue and purple twirled
in the air as young girls danced to the tune of Mehndi Tevavi, the traditional
Gujarati garbha number. .....
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Israeli security personnel
revealed that Arab terrorists, including a high ranking PA intelligence
officer, threatened to kill a 14-year-old boy if he did not carry out
a suicide bombing. .....
by Saikat Datta
It finally took an epic tragedy
to bring together two armies divided by generations of mistrust. As the
quake wreaked havoc, Indian army personnel made a quick trip into PoK,
across the Aman Setu, to help their Pakistani counterparts rebuild a bunker.
An official Pakistani denial, though, followed soon after. But there was
considerable goodwill on the ground. .....
by
Three articles, one by an Indian,
two others -- one by a Paki and other by Scott Baldauf. Scott Baldauf
specializes in writing anti-India pieces. Google him and get hold of other
pieces he has written on India. The first piece lauds the Indian Army.
The other two promote the terrorists as providing the most help. Baldauf
probably is in the pay of the US state dept. (i.e., CIA), like many US
journos working the international, esp. "third world" beat.
.....
by Swapan Dasgupta
Till the mid-seventies, it
was routine to encounter a breed of humans who went all gush-gush and
gooey-eyed at the mere mention of either China or the Soviet Union. They
were not all Communists. .....
by Nedra Pickler
President Bush said Wednesday
his advisers were telling conservatives about Supreme Court nominee Harriet
Miers' religious beliefs because they are interested in her background
and "part of Harriet Miers' life is her religion." .....
by Binay Singh
For the first time after the
outbreak of communal riots, Mau appeared to be truly under curfew as a
huge police contingent, led by newly-appointed district magistrate Mukesh
Mishram and superintendent of police Sujit Pandey, marched through the
serpentine lanes of the city on Monday afternoon. .....
by Anand Soondas
The Indian government, effusive
at reports of terrorist camps being destroyed in Muzaffarabad after the
October 8 earthquake, went to town with the news. What it hasn't said
is that there may be close to 400 terrorists lurking around J&K right
now, looking for targets that suddenly seem soft in the aftermath of the
disaster. .....
by The Times of India
The UPA government and the
Congress leadership squirmed with embarrassment on Wednesday as the NDA
launched a blistering attack over the way Union minister Jai Prakash Narain
Yadav allegedly pressurised the Bihar police into releasing his younger
brother, RJD candidate for the Jamui seat, Vijai Prakash Yadav, after
he was nabbed while capturing a booth in his constituency on Tuesday.
.....
by Majid Jahangir
A day after the J&K Government
sidelined a senior official who expressed frustration about ''undue political
interference'' in relief operations, Congress minister Taj Mohideen's
house at Chandanwadi became the virtual headquarters of the entire relief
operation. .....
by The Pioneer
Islamabad's clamourous denial
that soldiers of the Indian Army never stepped across the Line of Control
in Jammu & Kashmir's Uri sector to lend a helping hand to Pakistani
soldiers in the immediate aftermath of last Saturday's devastating earthquake
reflects its cussedness even when faced with a crisis involving human
lives. .....
by Sandhya Jain
The brutal and cold-blooded
murder of ten Hindus in Rajouri district on midnight 9 October 2005 is
a grim reminder of the ongoing genocide of the native minority in Jammu
& Kashmir. And the disgraceful near-total blackout of this news by
the secular media is proof, if any were needed, that Kashmiri Hindus will
remain orphaned in their struggle for survival in their own homeland if
they do not change their approach towards their oppressors. .....
by A. B. Mahapatra
Despite the ascent of the most
dreaded Salafi Islami in Bangladesh which resulted in four hundred explosions
in all but one district of that country last month, Western powers lead
by the US have turned a blind eye to it. In the short term, experts say
this could encourage the Khaleeda Zia government to further her ties with
Islamic terrorist groups as a way of buying peace, and encourage their
attacks on India and Indian interests. But in the long term, at least
the Salafists will overcome the government, and realise Bangladesh in
their vision of a " pure" Islamic state. .....
by The Australian
From the recent suicide bombings
in Bali, to the forcible closing of churches in West Java and persecution
of so-called heretical and liberal Muslims, the march of militant Islam
is leading to a sense of increasing intolerance across Indonesia. .....
by Aamir Ashraf
People of Pakistan Occupied
Kashmir are becoming increasingly angry and alienated over what they see
as a feeble government response to the weekend earthquake, a prominent
PoK politician said today. .....
by Javed Mahmood
To avoid deduction of Zakat,
thousands of bank account holders have withdrawn billions of rupees from
their saving accounts a few days ahead of the deduction of Zakat, it was
learnt on Wednesday. .....
by Zulfiqar Ghuman
A building that is centuries
old, situated in the oldest Saidpur village at the foothills of Margallahs
and a stone's throw from the Prime Minister House, is going to be turned
into a hotel as the Capital Development Authority plans to develop the
village into a tourism spot. Villagers say the building is some four centuries
old and was built by Hindus as a place of worship. The building still
has not lost any of its originality and or beauty. .....
by The Pioneer
The gruesome killing of nine
Hindus in a remote village of Rajouri on Sunday night is a grim reminder
that the ethnic cleansing of Jammu & Kashmir by jihadis continues
unabated. It also proves that all claims of communal harmony in that State,
especially as articulated by the All-Party Hurriyat Conference which of
late has been shedding crocodile tears over the plight of more than 250,000
Kashmiri Pandits who were forced to flee their homes in the Valley 15
years ago and now live wretched lives in refugee camps, is nothing more
than fiction. .....
by Claude Arpi
The remarks made by the Director-General
of the Bangladesh Rifles, Major-General Khan Chowdhury, at the joint press
conference with the Indian Director-General of the Border Security Force
are disturbing to say the least. Maj-Gen Chowdhury told journalists that
India and Bangladesh were both responsible for the August 17 bomb explosions
in Bangladesh. .....
by Anand Soondas
Two days ago, Naik Raghubir
Singh created a miracle. He scooped out 15 civilians who most likely would
have died, trapped under heavy debris. Today, doctors at the Army Hospital
in Srinagar might need another miracle to save this hero's life. .....
by Rashmee Roshan Lall
Britain has officially decreed
that its future generations of Indian-origin schoolchildren may substitute
Christian prayer with morning mantras, aartis and Vedic ritual, and has
announced that it will pay for the country's first, government-sponsored
Hindu school. .....
by Fr. Alphonce Toppo
I am surprised to read a news
item titled "Hotels and shops turn Christians away" published
in your September 11, 2005 issue taken from UCA news agency. I enquired
from at least two persons named in the news and found that it seems to
be fabricated orexaggerated. Fr. Paul Unandanparambil, Parish Priest of
Deogarh Catholic church, who is referred to have taken the matter to the
District Collector said that he knew nothing about the issue. He has never
made a statement. .....
by Sandesh Bharati
In our cover story of the last
issue, we had discussed how successive Indian Governments have continued
to ignore important personalities from the pages of our history. The entire
thrust on medieval India has been on what the Delhi Sultans did, what
the Mughals did. That is how the Muslim rulers from Central Asia occupied
our great country. History in India, especially the medieval period, is
being taught from the viewpoint of the Muslim conqueror. .....
by Anand Soondas & M Saleem Pandit
In village after ravaged village,
people are huddling around the Army and condemning the Mufti Mohd Sayeed
government which remains confused, slothful and directionless. The popularity
of the PDP-Congress has sunk to an all-time low. .....
by Avijit Ghosh
Earlier this month, when violent
tremors convulsed India and Pakistan, the perennially bickering and warring
sub-continental neighbours seemed o be united in human tragedy. In that
moment of grief, some hoped the two countries would convert to build new
bridges. .....
by Anand Soondas
The earth hasn't quite stopped
shaking and the mountains continue to roar, a deep, gutrural sound that
makes men's faces crease in fear. The woman wrap the scarves tighter and
whisper words of courage to their children. .....
by Daily Excelsior
Ten civilians of four families
were massacred by the militants of Hizbul Mujahideen outfit at Dhara and
Gabbar in Budhal area last night. Sangar Pathan alias Sky Fighter, a 'commander'
of Hizbul Mujahideen Pir Panjal Regiment (HMPPR) and Mohd Ayub, a SPO
turned militant reportedly led four militants, who executed the killings.
.....
by Muzamil Jaleel
Two days after he told The
Indian Express that he would not allow politicians to meddle with the
quake relief effort and slammed J&K Congress minister Taj Mohideen
for ''undue interference'' in the distribution process, Uri's relief and
rehabilitation in-charge Ajaz Kakroo has been sidelined. Two new officers
have been sent for the relief work. .....
by Bina Agarwal
The livelihood and empowerment
prospects of millions of women who depend on agriculture for survival
are affected by their legal rights in land. For many these prospects have
been enhanced by the recent Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act 2005(HSAA)
which deleted the gender discriminatory clause on agricultural land. But
this benefits only Hindu women, leaving intact the disabilities facing
non-Hindu women, especially Muslim and tribal women - something that should
concern all of us who work for gender justice. .....
by Virendra Kapoor
Everyone in the Congress party
knows full well that Manmohan Singh holds the office of the prime minister
at the pleasure of the supreme leader, Sonia Gandhi, but that should be
no reason for party leaders to show the PM little or no respect. Consider
the latest slight to the office of the prime minister of India. .....
by www.HindusOfHouston.org
"Hindus of Greater Houston"
would like to caution the Houston Hindu community and the broader community
about a visit this week by Agnivesh, a touring charlatan who passes for
a Swami (Hindu monk) and dresses in saffron robes to hoodwink gullible
people. Far from being a Swami, this imposter is a notorious Hindu-hater
who has been expelled over a decade ago from the Arya Samaj, a world-wide
and well respected Hindu organization. .....
by Webindia123.com
Internationally renowned marine
archaeologist Dr S R Rao today called for preservation of underwater cultural
heritage, particularly the Dwarka city, believed to have been built by
Lord Krishna in Gujarat. .....
by Riyaz Wani
When Congress president Sonia
Gandhi rose to address the quake-hit, the crowd before her was restive
and seemed ready for a rampage. But within seconds, the listeners were
calm. .....
by Hinduism Today
With the onset of the nine-day
festival period of Navaratri, Kabul's ancient Hindu temples are buzzing
with a record number of devotees of all faiths. The focal attraction is
Asamai temple. Hundreds of Afghanistan's Hindus and Sikhs as well as Indians
employed in reconstruction projects pay their obeisance there every day.
The hill is named Asamai after Asha, the Goddess of hope said to be residing
on the hilltop since time immemorial. .....
by Sandhya Jain
The Rajasthan Congress took
one day to expel Manchand Khandela, vice president of its Intellectual
Cell, after his 250-page polemic against the 'dynasty' made it the laughing
stock of Indian politics. Although Mr. Khandela didn't tell us anything
new, he did shine the spotlight on two unsavoury aspects of Gandhi Family
politics, viz., Mom keeps mum and Baba blabs too much. .....
by SP Singh
In a strange but true incident,
health workers, who had gone to vaccinate children against polio in a
Muslim dominated locality of Muradnagar town in Ghaziabad district of
Uttar Pradesh, were roughed up by parents unwilling to protect their children
against this deadly disease. ....
by Rajat Pandit
The Army is upset. Upset with
politicians and others who frequently pop up to suggest changes in its
regimental system, calling for reservations for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
Tribes or raising of new regiments based on a particular criterion. .....
by Geoffrey Clarfield
On Oct. 10, just two days after
an earthquake killed tens of thousands in South Asia, Islamist terrorists
belonging to Hizb ul-Mujahideen and Lashkar e-Tolba killed 10 Hindu civilians
in the Rajouri district of Indian-controlled Kashmir. The attacks were
part of an orchestrated campaign designed to cleanse Kashmir of its indigenous
Hindus and bring the area entirely under Muslim governance -- either through
a union with Pakistan, or as an independent, Sharia-based Islamic state.
Apparently, not even the massive devastation wrought by mother nature
has slowed the terrorists' murderous campaign. .....
by Sgt. Sara Wood
The U.S. is determined to deny
radical groups the support and sanctuary of outlaw regimes like Syria
and Iran, President Bush said here today. .....
by Rituparna Bhuyan
Tangjibhai Samabhai Chaudhari
of Kimdungra village in Mandavi taluka of Surat district was a desperate
man a few years ago. With only 0.1 hectare for cultivation, Tangjibhai
was looking for a job to support wife and three daughters when field workers
of Pune-based Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundation (BAIF) met him and
changed his life. .....
by Dr Abdulruff Colachal
Strained Indo-Pakistan relations
have harmed Indian Muslims badly. At long last India has realized that
targeting and insulting the insecure Muslims in India is quite different
from playing with Pakistan. The Muslims have felt relief at the latest
positive developments in Indo-Pakistan ties. The Indian media now also
tries to show some mercy towards Muslims by sidelining its anti-Muslim
format. This is a good development, if it is real. .....
by Liz Mathew
Concerned over the party's
falling support amongst minorities in Kerala, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi
is planning to send special emissaries to the state to lobby community
leaders ahead of next year's assembly polls. .....
by A. F. Nazareth
Sir, M. F. Husain, it appears
has a penchant for ridiculing religions with his paintings. His latest
hit 'The Last Supper' which fetched a whopping Rs 9 crore at a private
sale, is yet another blasphemy and insult hurled at Christians. Not long
ago, Husain found himself in deep trouble for hi. controversial painting
of goddess Saraswati in the nude. .....
by Rashmee Roshan Lall
Brown-on-black race rioting
has flared in Asian-dominant Birmingham, Britain's second city and the
supposed showpiece of 21st century European multi-cultural harmony. .....
by Wolfgang Bruno
The most important task in
the fight against Islamic Jihad is to reunite the West in the defense
of its own civilization, which can only happen by derailing Europe's path
to Eurabia. Raphael Israeli has suggested an Alliance of Western and Democratic
States, at the center of which will be the US, Canada, Israel, Australia
and Western Europe. This system may sidetrack the chaotic situation in
the UN today, where Islamic countries and dictatorships have too much
influence. .....
by Ananya Dasgupta
Celebrated Italian author Umberto
Eco left many academics and students at Jawaharlal Nehru University squirming
with embarrassed ignorance on Monday. .....
by The Associated Press
Venezuelan authorities collared
a Pakistani national with alleged links to terrorism in eastern Venezuela,
an official from the Attorney General's Office said Thursday. .....
by Rabindra Ghosh
Gopal Chandra Barman (60) -
A Hindu Priest of Noadhia Kali Mandir at Shibpur P.S. of Narsingdi District
of Bangladesh murdered. Dead Body traced in the river three days after
kidnapping on 18th October. The Deity (Murthi) of the Kali Mandir worth
Taka 10 million was stolen as well. ( Reports: The Daily "Ittefaq"
dated 24th October, 2005). .....
by Daily Excelsior
Shaken by the earthquake and
the reverses at the hands of security forces, militants in J&K are
busy trying to regroup and mobilise overground workers for big strikes
next summer. .....
by Sandhya Jain
Successive Indian governments
have failed to protest America's propensity to misuse human rights issues
for politically motivated calumny against nations it seeks to undermine
to serve its foreign policy objectives. Shamefully, large sections of
the Indian elite also betrays unseemly desperation to report against the
nation to US human rights committees, usually as quid pro quo for funds
for their agenda-driven NGOs. .....
by Sandhya Jain
The unexpected outbreak of
organized communal rioting in the Mau district of Uttar Pradesh, leaving
12 dead and several dozen injured in over four days of uncontrolled violence,
despite the organizers of the Bharat Milap procession cancelling the 13
October show in the interest of social harmony, indicates a cultural intolerance
that does not bode well for India. .....
by Rajiv Malik
"Though Hindus are in
a majority, they are being given a step-motherly treatment in India due
to the politics of vote banks and minority appeasement being pursued by
the politicians and the successive governments that have ruled the country
since its independence. The situation is quite serious, as on the one
hand, the government is trying to control Hindu temples and maths (monasteries)
and, on the other hand, a top Hindu saint like the Shankaracharya of Kanchi
Mutt has been treated like an ordinary criminal, and treated as convicted
even before he has been tried. .....
by Nicholas D. Kristof
If Chairman Mao had been truly
prescient, he would have located a little girl in Sichuan Province named
Jung Chang and "mie jiuzu"- killed her and wiped out all her
relatives to the ninth degree. .....
by Rediff on Net
Forced to flee their homeland
by the outbreak of terror, thousands of Kashmiri Pandits residing in the
national capital have also lost what were their homes with the October
8 killer earthquake having razed their ancestral houses in the affected
zones. .....
by South Asia Tribune
Not only the entire civil administration
and the political leadership of Azad Kashmir had evaporated, the military
struggle for liberation of Kashmir has also been buried under the killer
earthquake of October 8, a senior TV journalist said after an extensive
tour of the affected areas. .....
by Marie Woolf
Tony Blair is to reward a clutch
of millionaire Labour Party donors - including the head of the Priory
celebrity rehabilitation clinic - with peerages, The Independent on Sunday
has learnt. .....
by Daily Excelsior
Two Central Reserve Police
Force (CRPF) personnel, including a Sub Inspector, three soldiers and
equal number of militants were killed while two others were wounded in
different militant related incidents in Kashmir valley since last evening.
.....
by Pramod Kumar
There have been long discussions
and massive demonstrations against the growing menace of Bangladeshi infiltrators
in different parts of the country. Deportation exercises too have proved
just an-eyewash. But the 90-minute film, The Bangla Crescent, produced
by TV producer Mayank Jain, with sufficient evidences has presented the
problem with a different outlook. The film claims that the threat of impending
Bangladeshi terrorism is many times greater than the existing magnitude
of cross border terrorism from Pakistan. .....
by BBC News
A man has died after violence
in the Lozells area of Birmingham on Saturday night. Four people were
stabbed and two people shot in the disturbances. .....
by Ravi Raghavan
"IF a poor child cannot
come to school, the school must go to him," said the great Hindu
saint, Swami Vivekananda. Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation (EVF)-"The People's
Movement"-is based on none other than Vivekananda's principles. .....
by The Indian Express
These things have always happened
in Bihar. What is different, now, is the very public fuss they provoke.
Powerful RJD candidates in Bihar, even those with no relative conveniently
perched in the Union cabinet in Delhi, have probably always swaggered
about with arms, ammunition, liquor, cash and bad intentions on polling
day. Vijay Prakash Yadav, RJD candidate from Jamui and brother of Union
minister of State for Water Resources Jai Prakash Narayan Yadav, found
himself on the wrong side of the timeline. .....
by A M Sofi
For the villagers of Dachhi
in North Kashmir, the Border Security Force posted in the area have become
angels of mercy as they rescued them from the rubble and are helping them
rebuild their homes in the aftermath of the devastating quake on October
8. .....
by The Indian Express
It took two months for Uttar
Pradesh police to register an FIR against Minister of State for Science
and Technology Chowdhary Bashir and his accomplices for the murder of
a Harijan in October. .....
by The Times of India
Congress Muslim leaders on
Monday revolted against AICC general secretary and in-charge of Bihar
Digvijay Singh saying the party had failed to field Muslim candidates
in 30 out of the 38 districts of the state. .....
by Raheel Dhattiwala and Prathima
Nandakumar
It may be her first visit to
India, but Tetyana Nikolayeva from Sweden has already got her garba moves
right. "I attended a couple of garba classes on the campus,"
said the exchange student on the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad,
campus, before giving a demonstration to fellow students, Aurore Zanardi
from France, dressed in a churidar-kurta, and Caroline Ingeborn from Sweden.
"One step in front, clap then twirl.....," said Nikolayeva.
.....
by Rati Chaudhary
The age-old popular concept
of religious fasting during navratras is increasingly turning into 'feasting'.
Whether one fasts for just a couple of days or for the entire nine days,
the time for strictly adhering to a fruit diet or consuming just one glass
of milk for the entire day is long gone. Fasting now is a style statement.
.....
by Rinky Kumar
For the Gujarati community,
Navratri might mean donning new outfits, wearing funky jewellery and displaying
one's dancing skills. But these nine nights of revelry are also significant
for Maharashtrians. .....
by Neha Lalchandani & Ira Gaur
Remember your visit to the
local Dusshera mela as a child, the pleadings for toy dhanush-baan and
Ravana masks? Or sitting on your father's shoulder trying to catch a glimpse
of the burning effigies? Or the sheer size of Kumbhkaran? Amidst all this
nostalgia, have you ever, like many a modern parent, felt that the victory
of good over evil for today's child is signified by Harry Potter's encounters
with Voldemort? Don't lose heart. Contrary to popular beliefs, festivals
haven't yet lost their charm. .....
by The Times of India
Contents of the Bhagvad Gita
have been rendered into the Roman script by the scientists of the Indian
Institute of Technology (IIT-Kanpur). Another first by them is the listing
of a complete series on Patanjali's 'Yoga Sutra' on the web. .....
by Organiser
Two RSS activists, Deepak Telu
and Sushil Sondhi, were injured in an attack by the activists of Punjab
Christian Movement (PCM) who were rallying against the visit of RSS Sarsangha-chalak,
Shri K.S. Sudarshan on October 2 in Jalandhar. The incident took place
on September 26. Both the RSS workers sustained severe lashes on their
face and back and were admitted to the ICU of Satyam Hospital. Sarsanghachalak
Shri K.S. Sudarshan visited the hospital, where the injured Sangh workers
were undergoing treatment. .....
by K.S. Sudarshan
RSS Sarsanghachalak Shri K.S.
Sudarshan has appealed to the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee
and Sikh political leaders to take growing conversion activities in Punjab
seriously. He was speaking at a function organised in Jalandhar on October
2. Expressing grave concern over the growing menace of conversion in certain
areas of Punjab and especially among the Majahabi Sikhs, the RSS Sarsanghachalak
alleged that the Sikh leaders were ignoring the menace. .....
by Surya Narain Saxena
Recently startling revelations
have been made about the 'socialist morality' of the communist parties
of various hues-CPI, CPM, Maoists, Naxalites and others-their leaders
and cadres. It is all a tale of sleaze, sex and avarice. It consists of
everything that the comrades have been condemning ever since their political
birth as a result of decadent western-capitalist-bourgeois culture. A
common saying is "power corrupts" but I would now, after having
read about the escapades of the Marxist-Maoist biradari, deduce that "money
or lust for money corrupts more and more deeply". .....
by Ravindra Saini
The Congress Government of
Uttaranchal is planning to bring religious places and institutions of
Hindus under its control. A bill to this effect is likely to come before
the State Assembly soon. The bill, the Uttaranchal Public Religious Institution
(Management and Development) Bill-2005, if passed, will empower the government
to take over the historic akharas, ashrams, trusts and temples like Badrinath,
Kedarnath, Yamunotri and Gangotri and other sacred shrines. Now they are
being managed by autonomous bodies and trusts. .....
by Balbir K. Punj
What the Left thinks of the
Government it supports at the Centre was evident from page three of the
Hindustan Times (September 30) a day after the group preened itself on
the "success" of the all India strike it organised to protest
the so-called anti-worker policies of the same government. .....
by Organiser
Congress has a give and take
policy with the anti-nationals, separatists and terrorists. It gives protection
to them when they are in trouble and takes their help in reaping political
gains. Few months ago in Andhra Pradesh, operations against Naxalites
were called off after its top brass had been cornered in the Nalamalla
forests, on orders from Congress high command. .....
by Hilary De Vries
Like any adoring fan, Ali MacGraw
went to some lengths to meet her idol. Last week, the actress left her
home in Santa Fe, N.M., and flew to Los Angeles, where she dressed in
a flowing white tunic and leggings and painted a tiny gold dot on her
forehead, all in preparation for meeting the man she has admired for more
than a decade: the Indian yogi B. K. S. Iyengar. Mr. Iyengar, 86, the
author of 14 books, including the groundbreaking 1966 manual "Light
on Yoga," is widely regarded as the greatest living yoga teacher.
.....
by Hilary De Vries
Like any adoring fan, Ali MacGraw
went to some lengths to meet her idol. Last week, the actress left her
home in Santa Fe, N.M., and flew to Los Angeles, where she dressed in
a flowing white tunic and leggings and painted a tiny gold dot on her
forehead, all in preparation for meeting the man she has admired for more
than a decade: the Indian yogi B. K. S. Iyengar. Mr. Iyengar, 86, the
author of 14 books, including the groundbreaking 1966 manual "Light
on Yoga," is widely regarded as the greatest living yoga teacher.
.....
by Lavina Melwani
New York teenagers do it. Yoga
teachers do it. Ascetics in the Himalayas do it, as do housewives in New
Delhi. It is the Gayatri Mantra, a chant thousands of years old, spoken
in a dead language, and yet the mantra's tremendous power, according to
those who chant it, gives peace and calm to today's stressed-out multitudes.
.....
by Daily Excelsior
"Kya Aap Mere Gharwalon
Ko Phone Kar Sakte Ho...Mein Aapko Number Deta Hoon (Would you please
call my family members...I will give you my phone number," said a
soldier of the Indian Army, fighting a different battle this time. .....
by The Hindu
Ahead of the visit of Western
diplomats to the migrant camps next week, Kashmiri Pandits on Friday asked
the US and Britain to "exert effective pressure" on Pakistan
to end cross-border terrorism responsible for their 16-year-long miseries.
.....
by Daily Excelsior
A Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) militant
today surrendered before Army after an encounter at village Yardu in Nawapachi
area of Doda district while about 50 people today migrated from Gool to
Sangaldan following threats by the militants. .....
by News Insight
Like all societies, the Pakistani
society must be looked at various levels. There are the poor, as poor
as they are in India, if not worse, and it is a feat if they can live
through the day. Politics means nothing to them, the history of the India-Pakistan
dispute is very far removed, Jammu and Kashmir is a place for the very
poor boys to die violently in return for some small compensation to their
families, which is then propagated as a great jihadi act. .....
by Ian James
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez
ordered a U.S.-based Christian missionary group working with indigenous
tribes to leave the country Wednesday, accusing the organization of "imperialist
infiltration" and links to the CIA. .....
by The Pioneer
If one were not familiar with
the warped thinking of the leaders the All-Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC),
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq's observations about India Inc at Srinagar's Jama
Masjid on Monday would have left one breathless. At a special prayer congregation
held for those killed in last Saturday's earthquake, he lashed out at
India's big industrial houses, which, he said, had rushed to the rescue
of the victims of the Latur and Bhuj (Gujarat) earthquakes on September
30, 1993 and January 26, 2001 respectively, but were doing nothing to
help the stricken in Jammu & Kashmir. .....
by Abhijit Bhattacharyya
Let the facts speak for themselves.
Bangladesh's official name is People's Republic of Bangladesh, with Islam
as its official religion and Bangla as the official language. It has 97.7
per cent Bangla-speaking people, with 86 per cent Muslims and 12.5 per
cent Hindus. (Interestingly, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica, India's
population consists of 74 per cent Hindus and 12 per cent Muslims). But
what is happening in Bangladesh today? Let us see the facts, and let the
readers visualise the scenario inside that country. .....
by The Indian Express
Demands for a judicial inquiry,
a white paper and a debate in Parliament in the wake of revelations in
the The Mitrokhin Archive II haves set the BJP cat among the Congress
and CPI pigeons. These are valid and sound demands because at stake is
not just the honour of the nation, but also the frightening impact of
political corruption. .....
by Jaithirth Rao
I write this from America,
from what is today a troubled country possessed of over-articulate television
anchors, a country bombarded and persecuted by a plethora of inane channels.
.....
by Charti Lal Goel
In a democracy power of ballot
in the hands of a voter is as great as of a bullet in the hands of a soldier
in the battle field. A soldier on the front is required to use his bullet
against the enemy to defend the country and the voter is also supposed
to exercise his ballot in the best governance of the country. .....
by M.V. Kamath
Probably the most important
statement made by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf since he came to
power is the one he made addressing a seminar on 'Global terrorism' organised
by Pakistan's Institute of Regional Studies in collaboration with the
Hanns Siedel Foundation of Germany on August 30. .....
by Khajuria S. Kant
Even as PDP-led coalition government
is making efforts to bring back Kashmiri Pandits to the Kashmir Valley,
who had migrated in the early 90s in the wake of eruption of Pak-sponsored
militancy in the Valley, by carving out a safe zone for them, several
militant groups have put conditions on their return and have asked them
to express their desire to work for their so-called 'azadi'. .....
by The Indian Express
For the Army, this was a day
of grief. Thirty six men, including a major were killed, while 83 soldiers
were seriously wounded. But tragedy was hurriedly put aside as soldiers
trooped out on a major rescue operation, digging through mounds of rubble
to save trapped villagers and set up temporary hospitals. .....
by Monica Mercer
According to the latest Economist
Intelligence Unit's survey, there might be only 11 cities out of 127 that
rank worse in liveability than Mumbai, but the city's expats take the
findings with a dash of salt. .....
by Bashir Pathan
The state archeological department
is tying up with Kyoto University of Japan and the ASI to explore yet
another Harappan site in the Kutch district. The site is in Kanmer village
of Rapar taluka. The othe major Harappan sites already excavated in Kutch
are Surkotda and Dholavira. .....
by KR Phanda / Prafull Goradia
The courage and perseverance
shown by the Christians of Europe for the sake of their holy city as well
as their own soil are a contrast to the submissive, if not also surrendering,
attitude of the Hindus. .....
by JS Rajput
Every change of government
is invariably accompanied by a series of the promises and assurances to
upgrade the quality of life of the poor, the down trodden, the neglected
and the minorities. These are articulated in the most people-friendly
manner. 'Streamlining the system' is the first task that is undertaken
in the concerned ministry by the bureaucracy, 'the gift of the British
for the good governance' that maintains the much needed continuity. .....
by The Pioneer
Uncouth and uncivilised are
the two words which most appropriately describe the way in which the Director-General
of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), Maj-Gen Mohammad Jahangir Alam Khan Chowdhury,
conducted himself at the joint press conference he addressed last Friday
with the Director-General of the Border Security Force (BSF), Mr RS Moosahary.
.....
by Johann Hari
At last, some good news from
Darfur: the genocide in western Sudan is nearly over. There's only one
problem - it's drawing to an end only because there are no black people
left to cleanse or kill. The National Islamic Front government has culled
over 400,000 "Zurga" - a word which translates best as "niggers"
- and driven two million more from their homes in its quest to make western
Sudan "Zurga-free". .....
by G Parthasarathy
PV Narasimha Rao and Mr Atal
Bihari Vajpayee displayed statesmanship, transcending political differences,
to defeat a Pakistani move to get India condemned for alleged human rights
violations in J&K at the United Nations Human Rights Commission, in
1994. Our then Ambassador to UN Offices in Geneva, Mr Satish Chandra,
recalls the role played by Iran in that debate in the UN. .....
by Khalid Hasan
Islamic radicals, President
George Bush said in a hard-hitting speech on Thursday, are trying to "enslave
whole nations and intimidate the world", which was why he was not
going to cut and run in Iraq. .....
by Mid-Day
In a grim warning, two former
security officials today claimed that more than 3,000 Al-Qaeda and ISI
terrorists have entered into India from Bangladesh. .....
by The First Post
Just six weeks before last
Saturday's terrorist atrocity in Bali, in a jail cell in Jakarta, I interviewed
Abu Bakar Bashir, the alleged spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI),
al-Qa'eda's main ally in the region, and the group on which western attention
is focused in the hunt for culprits. .....
by Fayaz Bukhari
The Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus
continues to bring people together from across the Line of Control in
Jammu and Kashmir ever since it started five months ago. .....
by Swapan Dasgupta
There are some myths which
endure for no apparent reason. Heading the list, as far as my personal
experience goes, is the myth of 'objective' journalism. At the height
of the Ram temple movement in the 1990s, it was routine to be accosted
at social gatherings and airports by venerable gentlemen and ladies fulminating
at the 'anti-Hindu' bias of the English language media. ......
by Swapan Dasgupta
Before she sternly took her
errant retainers in the States to task and reportedly reduced the Arunachal
Pradesh Chief Minister to tears, Congress president Sonia Gandhi told
the Chief Ministers' conclave that the party must leave its "distinctive
imprint" on the UPA Government. ......
by V Sundaram
The Supreme Court has covered
itself with (partial) glory by delivering a stinging blow to the UPA Government
by holding the Presidential Notification dated 23 May, 2005, dissolving
the Bihar Assembly, as unconstitutional. ......
by www.channeloklahoma.com
The Pakistani roommate of a
man authorities said died when he detonated an explosive device outside
a crowded football stadium was led in handcuffs from a party shortly after
Saturday's explosion, the head of an Islamic student group said. ......
by The Telegraph
Sonia Gandhi wants all other
Congress-ruled states to follow Andhra Pradesh in providing Muslims with
education and job quotas. ......
by The Hindustan Times
With the onset of the nine-day
Hindu festival period of Navratra, Kabul's ancient Hindu temples, steeped
in fascinating folklore, are buzzing with a record number of devotees
of all faiths. ......
by Webindia123.com
Internationally renowned marine
archaeologist Dr S R Rao today called for preservation of underwater cultural
heritage, particularly the Dwarka city, believed to have been built by
Lord Krishna in Gujarat. ......
by Udayan Namboodiri
Why should a national paper
with five editions - none of them in West Bengal - concern itself with
a by-election held in that state? The answer to that lies in the basic
place of journalism in the democratic order. The Pioneer is the only newspaper
outside Bengal to consistently highlight the fact that something is seriously
wrong with the way elections are held in that state of 80 million people.
......
by Ralph Riegel
A busy road was blocked yesterday
by Muslim refugees and asylum-seekers who claim their religious beliefs
and civil liberties are being ignored. ......
by The Pioneer
In a setback to the UPA Government,
the Supreme Court today struck down the Presidential proclamation dissolving
Bihar Assembly terming it as "unconstitutional" but declined
to revive the House, paving way for the four-phased elections commencing
October 18. ......
by Shaktimarg.com
Shivaji stands out in the long
line of Hindu warriors as one of the greatest. Though his life is an emblem
of courage, virtue and inspiration to fight against oppression and religious
persecution, many Hindus have not even heard of him. ......
by The Hindu
Pending approval by the Centre,
the Uttar Pradesh Government on Wednesday decided to include 16 backward
castes in the list of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes even as the
State Election Commission objected to the move following enforcement of
the model code of conduct due to the ongoing panchayat polls. ......
by Christopher Hitchens
The return of murderous nihilism
to Bali is highly instructive. It shows, first, that the fanatics of Islamism
don't know how to stop. And it also shows that they never learn. How can
Jemaah Islamiyah, which almost ruined Indonesia's economy by its filthy
attack three years ago, possibly have tried to repeat the same crime in
the same place? If we look for answers to this question, we shall find
answers that completely discredit the current half-baked apologies for
terrorism. ......
by L K Sharma
Some day, a visiting Indian
PM may be called upon to address two meetings of NRIs, one for Indian
Hindus and the other for Indian Muslims. ......
by
'Missionaries want to convert
poor and innocent Hindu tribals and destroy our Vaidik Hindu religion,
culture. Missionaries use our money to convert Hindus. Missionaries create
enmity among the people. Through conversion, they want to create a vote
bank and want to make us slaves again. Missionaries talk about secularism
of Hindu religion but they misuse it. ......
by T. Madhavan
Kolus during Navarathri by
custom depict the deities of the Hindu pantheon; but the thematic Kolu
at the Sita Devi Garodia Hindu Vidyalayam Matriculation Higher Secondary
School, East Tambaram is different: it is a celebration of patriotism
and nationalistic feeling. ......
by Robert Spencer
Pigs are disappearing all over
England, but not because of some porcine variant of Mad Cow Disease: rather,
the most implacable foe of the swine is turning out to be multiculturalism.
.......
by Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A.
Lappen
It's time for the United States
to limit financial transactions that involve American companies to governance
by secular laws. The swelling oil revenues of the Gulf states have created
demand from those markets for U.S. investments in banks, real estate and
industrial stocks. .......
by The Nation
The New York Fire Department
is looking for a new Imam after sacking its Muslim spiritual adviser for
saying he did not believe that hijackers from al-Qaeda or any other group
brought down the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001. .......
by Meghan Clyne
The American government is
demanding that Saudi Arabia account for its distribution of hate material
to American mosques, as the State Department pressed Saudi officials for
answers last week and as the Senate later this month plans to investigate
the propagation of radical Wahhabism on American shores. .......
by The Times of India
A Christian organisation representing
Dalits or the socially underprivileged on Saturday questioned the church
leadership for demanding special treatment for them and accused it of
exploiting their economic and social backwardness. .......
by Uzi Mahnaimi
AN Israeli-Arab religious leader
who preaches holy war is attracting support from hundreds of people, fuelling
fears among Israel's security services that Al-Qaeda is poised to establish
a foothold in the country. .......
by Liz Mathew
Bitten by patent rows over
basmati and turmeric, India doesn't want to be caught off guard again
by the West, certainly not when it comes to its ancient healing systems
of yoga, ayurveda, unani and siddha. .......
by The Hindu
Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara
Reddy on Tuesday presented the `silk vastrams' to the famous hill temple
of Lord Venkateswara on behalf of the State Government in connection with
the annual Brahmotsavam that began on a colourful note. .......
by S Gurumurthy
There is no majority in India.
All are minorities amongst Hindus who are divided on caste lines."
This is not the Vishwa Hindu Parishad lamenting about disunity among Hindus.
"The word 'Hindu' conveys the image of diverse groups of communities
living in India." This is not a declaration of the RSS about India's
Hindu character. .......
by Outlook
The Supreme Court was today
taken by surprise over the filing of chargesheet on a holiday in the Sankararaman
murder case in which the two Kanchi Sankaracharyas are facing trial. .......
by Lee Smith
Last week was a mixed one for
the international jihadist movement. Some sources are now reporting that
the March 11 Madrid bombings were the work of a Moroccan group known as
Salafia Jihadia, also responsible for the bombings that killed 33 in Casablanca
last May. However, the day the jihadists enjoyed one of their greatest
successes, they also suffered a major loss, when the Chad military, aided
by U.S. armed forces, killed 43 members of Algeria's Salafist Group for
Preaching and Combat. .......
by BBC News
One of the most controversial
ideas about Hindu history is the Aryan invasion theory. This theory, originally
devised by F. Max Muller in 1848, traces the history of Hinduism to the
invasion of India's indigenous people by lighter skinned Aryans around
1500 BCE. .......
by P N Benjamin
The Dalit Freedom Network (DFN)
is organising a two-day international conference in Washington D C on
October 5 and 6 to globally raise the issue of reservation for Dalits
in the private sector and caste-based discrimination. In this connection,
addressing a press conference in New Delhi on 15 September, the chairman
of the All India Confederation of SC/ST Organisations, Udit Raj, has said:
"In the era of globalisation it is imperative to fight certain causes
globally". .......
by Crystal Hsu
Located southwest of China,
Pakistan has looked on the neighbor as a big brother and backed its claim
of governance over Taiwan. Pakistani Senator Sana ullah Baloch, however,
has voiced sympathy for Taiwan and panned the Islamabad regime as a proxy
for China which he said is scheming to achieve world hegemony. .......
by Sheryl Kay
An intricately sculpted Hindu
temple calls for a really grand entrance, a 70-foot one. It is a tower
that begins deep below the earth and stretches 70 feet into the sky, yet
this time the neighbors don't seem to mind. .......
by The Pioneer
Madarsa students will hopefully
see light on the other side of the tunnel if Union Human Resources Development
(HRD) Ministry has its way. The Ministry is likely to talk to the Association
of Indian Universities (AIU) to recognise degrees awarded by madarsas
in order to admit them to undergraduate and post-graduate courses. .......
by Abraham Thomas
Advising the Centre to be proactive
on the issue of eviction of Bangladeshis, the Division Bench of Justice
Vijender Jain and Justice Rekha Sharma suggested to the Election Commission
of India (ECI) to evolve a methodology in four weeks that ensured they
did not vote in any elections. .......
by Jaya Jaitly
Through the now famous 'formal
interview' that was not, and the events and statements that followed,
the crown prince of the party that leads the ruling coalition and the
weekly paper in question have done a tremendous service to India and the
world. What has been revealed to the public is more valuable than what
could have been produced by any investigation, expose, hidden camera or
deep throat. .......
by Organiser
She was vibrant, full of youthful
energy and enthusiasm; she was only 14 years old. But, Pratima Das' life
was cut short. A student of class VIII, her only crime was that she was
born in a Hindu family and lived with her parents in the Muslim-dominated
Kasba Maheso village near Raiganj town in North Dinaipur district in the
Communist-ruled West Bengal. .......
by The Tribune
The district unit of the BJP
at its meeting held here today strongly condemned members of the Punjab
Christian Movement for their "violent agitation" at Jalandhar
yesterday held in protest against the proposed visit of RSS Chief K. C.
Sudershan at Sain Dass School, Jalandhar, on October 2. .......
by Colin Bower
The discovery that the deities
of ancient Palestine were female ought to be good news for all of humanity,
not just women. Even the increasingly beleaguered monotheistic religions
might find reason to be pleased, for it gives them opportunity to reinvent
a deity that will represent the yin and the yang, the yoni as well as
the lingam, the mother as well as the father, the wife as well as the
husband. .......
by The Asian Age
A British-educated engineer
is said to be the key bomb-maker for the group suspected of carrying out
Saturday's bombings on the Indonesian island resort of Bali, in which
26 people were killed. He is believed to have trained in one of Osama
bin Laden's Afghan training camps.......
by Gary LaMoshi
In anticipation of my annual
October 12 Bali bombing anniversary column, I talked to Gede Wijaya, head
of the Bali Government Tourism Office a couple of weeks ago. July international
arrivals to the island had set an all-time high and the August figures
pushed the total for the year above a million, on pace for a new record.
"We don't think about that bomb anymore," Wijaya said. "All
of us have forgotten it." ......
by Vijay Upadhyay
As many as 1,800 Christians
converts re-embraced Hinduism in Etah on Sunday and 40 churches were handed
over to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad's Dharma Raksha Samiti, which would
transform them into temples of Maharishi Valmiki. These temples would
be open for the untouchable community too. ......
by SP Singh
In a strange but true incident,
health workers, who had gone to vaccinate children against polio in a
Muslim dominated locality of Muradnagar town in Ghaziabad district of
Uttar Pradesh, were roughed up by parents unwilling to protect their children
against this deadly disease. ......
by Sandhya Jain
The Rajasthan Congress took
one day to expel Manchand Khandela, vice president of its Intellectual
Cell, after his 250-page polemic against the 'dynasty' made it the laughing
stock of Indian politics. Although Mr. Khandela didn't tell us anything
new, he did shine the spotlight on two unsavoury aspects of Gandhi Family
politics, viz., Mom keeps mum and Baba blabs too much. ......
by The Times of India
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,
under assault from the Left for India's vote against Iran, took recourse
to the Hindu philosophy of karma on Saturday. The PM quoted the Gita to
suggest that he had been unperturbed by the attack. "Nothing surprises
me, the Gita says one must do one's duty unmindful of the consequences,"
he said. ......
by Chidanand Rajghatta
Estes Park is a pristine resort
in Colorado, wedged between Rocky Mountain National Park and Roosevelt
National Forest. Tourists co-me here for gorgeous mountain scenery, great
trails and teeming wildlife. ......
by Shishir Gupta
The CPM says Manmohan Singh
is ''directly responsible'' for the surrender to the US by voting against
Iran at the IAEA in Vienna. And that this is a betrayal of a friend. Sure,
Iran has backed India's rebuilding efforts in Afghanistan, allowed transit
of goods to Kabul via Bandar Abbas. Both worked together to work against
the Taliban. And after the Babri demolition, it was Iran which said Muslims
were safe here. ......
by Pramod Kumar Singh
In a shocking and unprecedented
display of hostility towards India, Major General Mohammad Jahangir Alam
Chowdhury, chief of Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), while addressing a joint
press conference with his counterpart RS Moosahary, DG BSF, levelled a
series of serious charges against India. ......
by Amir Mir
When Mohammad Qasim stepped
out to participate in the declamation contest held to celebrate Pakistan's
Independence Day, the topic he was to speak on was: 'Why Islam and Pakistan
are integral to each other'. Instead, this Class XI student of Lahore's
Government Central Model School lashed out against the Hindus, giving
vent to inexplicable anger and hatred. This was particularly shocking
because the Hindu community, constituting an infinitesimal percentage
of Pakistan's population, hasn't been an aspect of Qasim's life. ......
by Yahoo News
Eleven British parliamentarians
Saturday visited a camp housing some 2,000 Hindus who have lived here
since fleeing the Kashmir Valley following threats from terrorists. ......
by India Daily
The Congress on Friday went
into a damage control mode over the "castewise" list of candidates
for Bihar assembly polls announced by the party on Wednesday, saying it
was meant for "internal circulation" as the NDA unleashed a
scathing attack accusing it of indulging in casteist politics. ......
by Shujaat Bukhari
The Jammu and Kashmir Assembly
on Friday introduced a Bill seeking to make provisions for the application
of the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) to people of that community in the
State. ......
by The Hindu
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president
Mayawati on Saturday called upon Dalits, minorities and backward sections
to unite under a single nationwide platform well ahead of the next elections.
......
by Pramod Kumar Singh
Close to victory, Army ordered
back to barracks----- The sudden order by the Centre to call off 'Operation
Balwan' just when the Army had managed to corner 200 ULFA cadre on September
28 has once again proved that the Congress has not learnt from its past
mistakes. It has also once again exposed its lack of political will in
tackling insurgency in the Northeast. ......
by Claude Arpi
The first one was the visit
to India of US Assistant Secretary of State Averell Harriman and British
Secretary for Commonwealth Relations Duncan Sandys on November 22, 1962.
......
by Aabshar H Quazi
The times are changing. People
from backward communities, till a few years ago forbidden to enter some
of the temples, are today being trained to become temple priests and are
even performing private pujas. This is happening in Rajasthan's Kota district
at the instance of the Rajasthan Sanskrit Academy and a Kotabased institute
- Sanskritam. ......
by Syed Zarir Hussain
Come elections and minority
Muslims in Assam become the heartthrob of all political parties; this
time too the scene is no different with Assembly polls scheduled for early
next year. ......
by Laurie Goodstein
Sheree Hied, a mother of five
who believes that God created the earth and its creatures, was grateful
when her school board here voted last year to require high school biology
classes to hear about "alternatives" to evolution, including
the theory known as intelligent design. ......
by Pujaa Awastthi
Mehrunisa is not of legally
eligible age to marry. Yet five months ago she was married off rather
hurriedly. Not because she fell in love, but because she was raped. ......
by Zahid Hussain
Despite official claims to
the contrary, experts say Pakistani security forces have been unable to
establish control over the lawless mountain redoubt used by al Qaeda fugitives
along the border with Afghanistan, nearly two years since launching a
bloody offensive against the terrorists and their local tribal supporters.
......
by BP Singhal
It has become fashionable for
the UPA's pseudo-secular leaders and their collaborators in media to equate
the 1984 Sikh massacre with the post-Godhra riots. The comparison is not
only erroneous, but also aimed at misleading the people. The differences
are too glaring to allow them to be equated. ......
by Jeff Jacoby
Massachusetts Governor Mitt
Romney kicked off a rumpus last week when he observed that homeland security
depends not just on protecting assets but on counterterror intelligence
- including keeping tabs on people and places when there is reason to
believe they may be involved in terrorism or its incitement. ......
by Richard S Ehrlich
Suspected Islamist insurgents
avoided capture after torturing to death two Thai marines by beating and
stabbing the bound-and-gagged victims behind a human shield of defiant
Muslim women and children, horrifying the government and plunging southern
Thailand into a fresh security crisis. ......
by Brahma Chellaney
The new foreign-policy subtleness
that China has displayed in recent years is a far cry from the coarse
image its earlier Communist rulers presented, especially when they set
out, in then-Premier Zhou Enlai's words, to "teach India a lesson"
in 1962, or when, to quote strongman Deng Xiaoping, they similarly sought
to "teach a lesson to Vietnam" in 1979. ......
by Sandipan Sharma
Indira Gandhi was engaged in
promoting corruption, Sonia Gandhi is a 'Maharani' who gave up the Prime
Minister's post because of her selfish interests but called it sacrifice
and a company in which 'Rajkumar' Rahul Gandhi has a majority stake is
getting huge contracts from the Government. ......
by Madeleine Coorey
Increasing numbers of Australia's
famously macho men are showing surprising metrosexual tendencies, ditching
competitive exercise for the meditative calm of yoga. ......
by Rohit Parihar
It was an unexpected windfall
for Naina Devi, a handicapped widow. When her husband Govind Ram died
14 years ago, she found herself embroiled in a land dispute with her brother-in-law
Gyarsi Lal. The dispute lingered in courts for years before the Jaipur
Police decided to intervene. With the help of village leaders, a series
of meetings were held between the wrangling relatives and it was decided
that Naina Devi would pay Gyarsi Lal Rs 50,000. ......
