by The Pioneer
There is near revolt against Sheikh Hasina Wajed within the Awami League
and the 14-party alliance she heads over her signing a deal with Bangladesh
Khelafat Majlish, an extremist Islamist organisation, over the weekend.
.....
by Deccan Chronicle
A new Mahabharat circuit is being planned, in the wake of the runaway
success of the Buddhist circuit in the country. The Mahabharat circuit
runs through Uttar Pradesh and Haryana and has the potential to attract
not only domestic but even foreign tourists. Union tourism minister Ambika
Soni has agreed to grant Rs 5 crores for the development of the new Mahabharat
circuit. .....
by Susantha Goonatilake
As the Cold War ended there was a conscious policy shift in Western countries
- and, as a consequence, among international agencies - which was directed
at supporting non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the developing
world. .....
by Cithara Paul
BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh, one of the "traditionally backward states",
has surprised everyone with the way it has gone about implementing Centre-sponsored
rural development schemes intended for the uplift of the poor, including
the UPA's flagship National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (NREGP)
and Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY). The "surprising performance"
is being attributed to the progress Madhya Pradesh has made in terms of
decentralisation and local governance. .....
by Yogesh Joshi
They usually don't get three meals a day, or a shelter at night. But six
youngsters from slums on Pune's Sinhagad Road still managed to do India
proud at an international event. .....
by Dean Godson
For the United Nations 2006 was "The International Year of Deserts
and Desertification". For the Chinese it was "Year of the Dog".
And for the British opinion-forming classes - well, how about the "Year
of Conventional Wisdom"? .....
by Hindu Voice UK
A Sikh campaign group recently stormed two temples to remove the Guru
Granth Sahib from the premises, on the pretext that the Sikh holy book
should not be present at premises where 'non-Sikh worship' takes place.
.....
by Crusadewatch.org
BJP condemns Christian preaching at Tirumala United News of India Hyderabad,
April 10, 2006 Andhra Pradesh unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
on Monday condemned the alleged preaching by Christian missionaries at
Tirumala. In a statement, the party general secretary K Lakshman claimed
the government ignored BJP's complaints that the missionaries were trying
to build a church at Tirumala. .....
by News Today
Reports, which were thick in the air for a long time, that a vested group
of Christian zealots were operating at the sacred Hills of Tirumala, has
proved to be true and is snowballing into a major political controvery
with the BJP launching an agitation over it after four youths involved
in conversion activities were caught yesterday. .....
by Eenadu
The game for the coveted post of TTD Chairman (Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam)
took an unexpected turn today due to Indian President A PJ Kalam rejecting
Office-of-profit bill. Due to 'over competition' Chief Minister Mr. YS
Rajasekhar Reddy, an evangelical Chrisitian himself didn't appoint the
new board. As President Kalam rejected the Office-of-Profit bill, the
incumbent Chairman TS Subbarami Reddy's fate hangs in balance since he
happens to be an MP and member of Union Cabinet. Another strong contender
for the coveted post Rayapati Sambasive Rao is also effected as he happens
to be MP of Guntur. .....
by Lalit K Jha
Opposing the construction of a church at the sacred`Tirumala Hills, as
many as 23 Indo-American organizations based in Houston has urged the
Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, to ask the Andhra Pradesh Government to
maintain the sanctity of the religious place, which is a holy shrine for
the Hindus world over. .....
by Sandhya Jain
Evangelists are targetting the sacred most site of Tirumala and in a direct
affront to the Hindu community, which has for centuries regarded all seven
hills as holy. They have started gathering on the slopes in groups for
public prayers. Even though an officer of the State-controlled Tirumala
Tirupati Devasathanam (TTD) which manages the world famous Venkateshwara
temple has denied that a missionary society has submitted a proposal to
build a church on the hills, there is widespread disbelief on account
of the known biases of Chief Minister, Y. Samuel Rajasekhar Reddy. .....
by S V Badri
Christian poachers always start from a corner, the borders and outskirts
of any important Hindu pilgrim town. And then slowly infiltrate cancerously
into the core. Tirupati is no exception. Christianisation started at Tirupati
West, while Tirupati East remained predominently Hindu. Not any longer.
The cancer has spread virulently from West to East. Like the aggressive
religion itself. .....
by Crsadewatch.org
The recent events that took place in Tirumala Tirupathi are disheartening
to every Hindu. It is stunning to find that nearly 50 Christian families
are settled on Tirumala hill and no less than 20 persons of Christianity
are employed in TT devastanam. .....
by Crsadewatch.org
Bus No. AP11 Z 1130 belonging to RTC left Tirumala at 5.30 P.M. on Sunday
9.4.06 for Tirupathi. One Balaraju boarded the bus along with three others.
They carried a handbag full of Christian Literature and started distributing
the same to the passengers. The passengers objected to the distribution
of Christian Pamphlets. Among those who objected was one Mr. Aravind a
resident of Parimala Apartments of Kothapet, Hyderabad. .....
by The New Indian Express
The Tirumala Tirupati Samrakshana Samithi (TTSS) on Saturday demanded
a law declaring Tirumala as comprising all the Seven Hills covering 250
sq km before August 9 coinciding with the Sravana Poornima festival, to
safeguard the sanctity and serenity of Tirumala-Tirupati. .....
by Mysore Online
If Hindus do not come out of complacency, days are not far off before
Tirupathi is converted into another Vatican, alleged leaders of Confederation
of Pro-Hindu organisations. .....
by V Sundaram
With Hinduism under siege from various quarters, it was time for a show
of unity and purpose. And that is what was witnessed at the historic meeting
of Tirumala Tirupati Samrakshana Samiti (TTSS) at Tirupati Saturday last.
.....
by The New Indian Express
The State Cabinet on Thursday decided to approach the Centre urging it
to transfer the reserve forest around Tirumala Hills to Tirumala Tirupati
Devasthanams (TTD). .....
by Deccan Chronicle
The State government has decided to hand over the case related to holy
cross symbols found on some walls and trees in Tirumala to the CB-CID.
Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy himself is said to have taken the
decision to entrust the probe to the CID. .....
by Andhra Jyothy.com
Hyderabad, Aug 2 Andhra Pradesh BJP today demanded an inquiry into the
alleged conversions and Christian proselytising on the Tiruamala Hills,
claiming it hurt the religious sentiments of the majority community. .....
by Hindu Jagruti
A huge protest march was taken out by Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS) and
Sanatan Sanstha jointly at Karkal, Dist. Udipi in the State of Karnataka
against the conversions of Hindus at Tirupati, Andhra Pardesh. Five thousand
staunch Hindus participated in the march. HJS and other Hindu Organizations
have formed 'Tirupati Andolan Committee (TAC)' to fight against the conversions
taking place in and around Tirupati, a place of pilgrimage in the State
of A.P. After the march, Shri Shri Shri Ish Vitthalds Swamiji of Kemru
Mutt inaugurated the meeting by lighting a lamp. .....
by Great Andhra.com
The newly-appointed trust board chairman of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams
Bhuman Karunakar Reddy is likely to trigger controversy in the coming
days. .....
by Rediff.com
Passport agents and tour operators have told the police that many of the
accused in the July 11 serial train blasts case had obtained "pilgrimage
visas" for Iran, ostensibly for visting Shia religious sites in that
country. .....
by Prajnalankar Bhikkhu
Bangladesh is populated by 141 million people. 88% of them are Muslims.
It is one of the poorest countries in the world. It was ranked the most
"corrupt state" in the world for five consecutive years (2001-05)
by Transparency International, a German- based independent international
organization that studies corruption in various countries. .....
by Prafull Goradia and KR Phanda
The central message of Bruce Bawer's book, While Europe Slept, is: Europe
in the not-too-distant future will become a colony of Muslims if it continues
to behave as it has done in the recent past. This is the unanimous view
of noted Western scholars of Islam. .....
by Claude Arpi
I am not usually a great defender of United States policies, but I have
to admit that in the field of right to information, the US is far ahead
of the Indian babus who obstinately block access to Indian archives under
the lame pretext that this could 'endanger national security'. .....
by Rajeev Ranjan Roy
BJP Lucknow Meet Concludes Former Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of
Opposition in the Lok Sabha LK Advani on Sunday hit out at the Congress-led
UPA Government for surreptitiously "planning a surrender" on
Jammu and Kashmir and demanded that the Government should take Parliament
in confidence before moving further on the issue with Pakistan."The
proposal for a joint administration amounts to renouncing India's sovereignty
over Jammu and Kashmir. .....
by Javed Akhtar
"Art is all about entertainment, but there's a fine difference between
art and circus," began Javed Akhtar at the fifth Subhas Ghosal Foundation
lecture held in Mumbai. The well known lyricist, writer, and social activist
had been allotted the topic, 'The Role of Secularism in Hindi Cinema'.
Akhtar said that cinema, although exaggerated, is relevant to the common
man, and one can actually learn a lot about real society from Hindi movies.
.....
by V Sundaram
The Chairman of the Co-ordination Committee of the utterly puerile UPA,
uniformly perverse UPA, unitedly preposterous UPA and unconscionably pernicious
UPA Dr Sonia Maino Gandhi has authorised her petticoat non-government
to make it clear that JMM Chief Shibu Soren would not be divested of his
Lok Sabha membership despite the fact that he has been sentenced to life
imprisonment by Delhi court in the kidnapping and murder of his secretary
Shashinath Jha. .....
by Michelle Malkin
It began with the Danish cartoons. It ended with the flying imams. Two
thousand six was a banner year for the Religion of Perpetual Outrage.
Twelve turbulent months of fist-waving, embassy-burning, fatwa-issuing
mayhem, intimidation, and murder resounded with the ululations of the
aggrieved. All this in the name of defending Islam from "insult."
Let's review. .....
by V Sundaram
The secular mafia of mass media in India under the deathly stranglehold
of the UPA Government in New Delhi has completely blacked out the lethal
crime relating to the cold blooded and brutal murder of 30 year old Sukhanand
Shetty, BJP Taluk President, in the city of Mangalore on 1 December, 2006
by a criminal gang of 12 Muslims. Sukhanand Shetty was an up and coming
Hindu leader noted for his outstanding qualities of leadership and radical
views relating to the advancement of the sacred cause of Sanathana Dharma
and Hindutva. .....
by Dr Shabir Choudhry
Baroness Emma Nicholson is under fire. A few weeks back not many Pakistanis
and Kashmiris were even aware of her name; and now she is the talking
point in all Pakistani and Kashmiri political circles around the world.
.....
by Saleem Pandit
In a startling discovery, police in north Kashmir have stumbled on a full-fledged
recruitment cell of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in a 'madrassa'in Sopore.
.....
by Daily Excelsior
Two more families of ultra, consisting of 13 members, and eight other
trained militants, surrendered before the army in Kupwara district after
their return from Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK). .....
by Prabal Kr Das
The study of Sanskrit literature could lead to a life of serene happiness.
Such a statement might appear irrational when made by a layperson. But
what if a scholar of repute nods in accord, and even cites some compelling
reasons? .....
by Arif Mohammed Khan
I saw Jinnah smiling. I saw him smiling all day on November 24 when the
Sachar Committee report was laid on the table of Parliament. He is happy
that something has happened that can offset the setback his ideological
legacy had received in 1971 after creation of Bangladesh. The country
he founded could not keep the myth of "Muslims being one nation"
intact, but at least in India a Committee appointed by the government
has restarted the process of looking at the religious communities as socially
cohesive groups. .....
by K. N. Pandita
"You will be brought down to your knees if Pakistan does not cooperate
with you. Remember my words if Pakistan and ISI are not with you, you
will lose in Afghanistan", thundered General Pervez Musharraf in
his September 30, 2006 interview with the BBC. Evidently, he had two-week
(September 4 - 17) 'Operation Mudesa' in Panjwai district of Kandahar
in mind in which NATO forces were reported to have killed 1100 Taliban.
.....
by B. Raman
How do Islamic analysts view China? Till now, there has been a reluctance
on their part to say or write negatively of China because of its contribution
to building up the nuclear capability of Pakistan, its assistance to Pakistan
and Iran in the field of missiles and other military equipment and its
reported military supply relationship with other Muslim countries such
as Saudi Arabia, Sudan etc. .....
by Shailesh Dhuri
This morning, when I read the news on rediff.com of an Army Major killed
in Kashmir, my attention was more on the headline news of the death of
a most wanted militant, than on the fate of the army major. However, within
minutes, the news became personal, as my mother called on my handphone.
She sounded worried, and I feared for her health. However, the news that
she told was shocking. She said Manish was no more. .....
by Times Now
In Murshidabad's Kanupur village, no music has been played and no television
sets switched on in the past nine months. This village, with a population
of six thousand, has been deprived after a diktat ordering the local Nabajagaran
Club to impose a complete ban on music and television. .....
by Aqeel Hussein in Mosul and Colin
Freeman
The snow has already settled on the mountains further north, but the Christians
of the Iraqi city of Mosul are scared to put festive decorations outside
their homes this year. Their ancestors settled here in the 1st century
AD, yet as teacher Jamal Fadi has discovered, some of their Muslim neighbours
want this Christmas to be their last. .....
by Jonathan Wynne-Jones
Muslim women should be banned from wearing the veil, to improve security
and cohesion in Britain, the Church of England's only Asian bishop has
said. .....
by HPI
An issue came up at the Hindu Mission of Canada in Quebec regarding the
chanting of the famed Gayatri Mantra by the ordinary devotees. Some brahmins
held the position that the mantra should chanted by everyone only when
a priest is leading the chant. The chairman of the mission, Dharam Pal
Verman, asked Hinduism Today to research the issue. .....
by Nicola Woolcock and Lucy Bannerman
Vandana Poria's only regret is that she didn't leave Britain sooner. The
ambitious businesswoman is just one of a generation of British Indians
who, in a reversal of the economic migration of their parents, are deserting
Britain for new opportunities on the booming subcontinent. .....
by Susantha Goonatilake
As the Cold War ended, there was a conscious policy change in the Western
countries and through them in international agencies to sponsor non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) in the developing world. The argument was that developing
countries were not democratic, their leaders were prone to thievery, they
were not transparent and indulged in gross violations of human rights.
Some of these characteristics were partly true, especially in areas like
Africa and Latin America where the Cold War had raged. .....
by Anjali Joseph
A great trading city teeming with different communities that existed together
and enjoyed civic infrastructure like a water supply and drains; a manufacturing
centre where textiles that were exported around the world were made. It's
not a description of 19th century Mumbai, but of cities like Harappa and
Mohenjo Daro in the Indus valley as early as 4th millennium BC, said Jonathan
Mark Kenoyer, associate professor in anthropology at the University of
Wisconsin, Madison, at a lecture in the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vaastu
Sangrahalaya on Tuesday. .....
by The Indian Express
A Planter in the 7/11 serial train blasts case, Kamal Ansari, has stated
in his confession that he sent one of his relatives to Pakistan to receive
arms training because of the handsome amount he was paid for the job.
.....
by Shyam Khosla
An assortment of "liberals" and the Allopathic lobby are targeting
Swami Ramdev for obvious yet unacceptable reasons. Swami's first "sin"
is that he has popularized yoga as no one else did in recent times. Secondly,
he has given a boost to Ayurveda-the Indian system of medicine that has
been grossly neglected by the State since Independence-and has succeeded
in convincing the people to a great extent that Ayurveda is a better system
of curative medicine. .....
by Sandhya Jain
In the midst of stray but disturbing reports that insurgent groups in
many parts of the country routinely attract female recruits for purposes
of sexual exploitation and virtual bonded labour, it is high time the
ruling UPA collated all police information from the States regarding such
offences. .....
by Sify.com
L.K. Advani on Sunday accused India's government of trying to settle the
decades-old dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir by compromising New Delhi's
long-held position that the Himalayan region is an integral part territory.
.....
by Mount Madonna School
The Ramayana is an annual all-school event in which the entire student
body takes part. This magical theatrical production of drama, dance and
song has been entertaining audiences for over 20 years. In the preschool
years students may begin by taking part in the ever-popular forest animal
scene. .....
by Stavan Desai / Menaka Rao
Hours before the September 8 Malegaon serial blasts case was handed over
to the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Anti-Terrorist Squad of the
Maharashtra Police today filed the chargesheet in the case, claiming that
its investigations were complete. .....
by Manjula Ramakrishnan
He is a senior scientist working in CSIR, Trivandrum and Honorary Director
for Indian Institute of Scientific Heritage. He has amassed a host of
academic qualifications that ranges from Masters in pharmaceutical chemistry,
industrial sociology and journalism, to a D. Lit. in Sanskrit. He has
earned these accolades for studying Indian scientific heritage, for this
is his area of passion. .....
by Ram Gopal
The job is now being done by Rajendra Sachar and Arjun Singh like Hindus.
Thus, every Hindu, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist or Parsi, who cries for removal
of Muslim poverty and backwardness through special financial grants and
job reservations is knowingly or unknowingly working for converting India
into an Islamic state. .....
by Dr. Indulata Das
Crime and punishment have been matters of grave concern in the country.
It causes concern when criminals, whom hundreds have witnessed committing
severe crime like murder, are acquitted in the court of law. It causes
concern when leaders in a house pass unanimous resolution for freeing
a person accused of heinous crime like bomb blasts in public places in
which several people die. .....
by Mustafa Haji Abdinur
Somalia's Ethiopia-backed forces and Islamic fighters have clashed near
the seat of government in Baidoa for a second day with both sides claiming
inflicting massive casualities. .....
by Breitbart.com
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has predicted that Britian, Israel
and the United States would eventually disappear from the world like the
Egyptian pharaonic kings. .....
by Duncan Gardham, Philip Johnston
and Thomas Harding
A military aide to the commander of British forces in Afghanistan appeared
in court yesterday accused of spying. Cpl Daniel James, 44, is charged
under the 1911 Official Secrets Act with "prejudicing the safety
of the state" by passing information "calculated to be directly
or indirectly useful to the enemy". .....
by Mumbai Mirror
Three Manipuri youths suspected to be members of Lashker-e-Taiba were
arrested on Tuesday near the busy Red Fort area here -- the first instance
of the Pakistan-based terror group recruiting cadres from a north-eastern
state. .....
by Arif Mohammed Khan
Jinnah must be smiling. The country he founded could not keep the myth
of 'Muslims being one nation' intact, but at least in India government
has restarted the process of looking at religious communities as socially
cohesive groups. .....
by Prayaag Akbar
Once young people from the West saw India as a destination for those on
a spiritual trip-goras who had lost their way, hippies weary of the capitalist
rat race. But now, a very different type of young foreigner is heading
our way-and for very different reasons. .....
by Khajuria S. Kant
Besides feeling humiliated in Pak-occupied Kashmir (PoK), where Kashmiris
are not considered humans to lead a peaceful and honourable life, 18 terrorists
trained in different camps across the border over the years surrendered
before the troops after their return from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK)
at a special surrender function organised by the Army on November 25.
.....
by Sandhya Jain
Two interesting developments took place last month, giving a fresh twist
to the raging controversy over conversions and the extension of caste-based
reservations to converts. First, the Chennai High Court ruled against
providing Christian Dalits the benefits of constitutional reservations
in jobs, but provided them for those who returned to the Hindu fold, in
consonance with the spirit of the Indian Constitution. Second, the shooting
of a Christian convert from Islam in a remote Srinagar village exposed
the myth that missionaries avoid poor Muslims out of fear of Islamic fundamentalism.
.....
by Shyam Khosla
Although the Sachar Committee was a product of a perverse mindset of the
Congress-led UPA government, its findings are a wake-up call for the Muslims
and the "secular" brigade that has been harping on issues like
Shariat, Urdu and the disputed structure at Ayodhya to appease the community
without empowering it socially and economically. .....
by Afternoon Despatch & Courier
Thirty-Five years old Saurabh Alias Abhimanyu Yashwant Altekar, resident
of Vileparle (East) has been living with a blot against his name as an
accused of bomb blast case since last 16 years. However, on Saturday he
received justice as the Sewree Sessions Court acquitted him in the bomb
blast case that happened in the house of former Loksatta Editor Madhav
Gadkari. .....
by Chetana Belagere
"This man, the so-called principal of our school should be paraded
naked in our area," grieved 15-year-old Deepa (name changed), one
of the 18 girls who were allegedly molested by Father Mathew (40), the
principal of St Claret High School in Jalahalli. "I am God, so don't
hesitate to kiss me," he used to tell his victims. .....
by The Times of India
My father, Mohammed Vakil Ansari, used to work at the Kanpur ordnance
factory. After retirement, he used to only get a monthly pension of Rs
100, and so my mother was forced to work as a beedi maker, while my father
made umbrellas. .....
by Mohammed Wajihuddin
Using the findings of the Sachar Committee, which studied Muslims' social,
educational and economic status and submitted its report to the prime
minister last month, community leaders have mounted pressure on the Centre
and the state government for redressal of their grievances. .....
by Hindustan Times
A Pakistani man living in New York was found guilty on Wednesday of wiring
money and trying to send a foot soldier to a Sikh militant separatist
group opposed to the Indian government. .....
by Sandipani Dash
Year 2006 saw a consolidation of the trend, discernible since 2002, of
decreasing militancy-related violence in Meghalaya. Till December 7, twenty-five
persons were killed, including eight civilians and 17 militants. Previous
fatalities were 29 in 2005, 35 in 2004, 58 in 2003, and 64 in 2002. .....
by Free Press Journal
The Special CBI Court has cleared the Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav
and his wife, Rabri Devi, in the disproportionate assets case. Judge Muni
Lal Paswan in a one-line order on Monday in Patna said that "the
court acquits Lalu Prasad Yadav and Rabri Devi of all the charges in the
case." That is all that the RJD boss was impatiently waiting to hear.
.....
by Andrew Norfolk
A man who was being hunted for the murder of a policewoman is understood
to have escaped from Britain by disguising himself as a veiled Muslim
woman. .....
by Maura Moynihan
In 1973 I moved to India with my family. I plunged into the study of Vedic
civilisation, and all roads led to yoga. In Delhi I attended
Hindi High, otherwise known as the, American International School, where
my Indian Studies class took me to Rishikesh, to the Shivananda ashram.
Here I was initiated into ashram life and the study of classical
yoga. Then, I started visiting a yoga ashram in Delhi in the morning before
school. When I returned to the US in 1975 I searched with little success
for a yoga ashram. .....
by Kim Barker
Once they were friends, the chiefs of neighboring Buddhist and Muslim
villages, separated by less than a mile of rice paddies and rubber-tree
plantations. .....
by V Sundaram
The Chairman of the Co-ordination Committee of the utterly puerile UPA,
uniformly perverse UPA, unitedly preposterous UPA and unconscionably pernicious
UPA Dr Sonia Maino Gandhi has authorised her petticoat non-government
to make it clear that JMM Chief Shibu Soren would not be divested of his
Lok Sabha membership despite the fact that he has been sentenced to life
imprisonment by Delhi court in the kidnapping and murder of his secretary
Shashinath Jha. .....
by Michael Freund
A Muslim journalist facing charges of sedition for advocating ties with
Israel was recently attacked and beaten by a crowd in Bangladesh that
allegedly included leading officials of the country's ruling party, The
Jerusalem Post has learned. .....
by Manini Chatterjee
As BJP members stalled both Houses of Parliament today protesting against
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's remark that minorities, particularly Muslims,
should have first claim on resources in welfare and other government schemes,
Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Jaswant Singh told The Indian Express
that the situation could have been averted if only the PM had explained
his "error" to Opposition leaders before Parliament met. .....
by Rediff.com
A Hindu Munnani leader was hacked to death by unidentified persons at
Tenkasi in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu, triggering tension in the
communally sensitive town, police said on Monday. .....
by MC Joshi
In protest of the delay in the implementation of death sentence awarded
by the Supreme Court to the mastermind of Parliament attack, Mohammed
Afzal Guru, relatives of the security personnel killed five years ago
returned the medals awarded to them to the President on December 13. .....
by Arun Shourie
The depths to which society had pushed sections of its own induced the
latter to convert to Islam, for them the conversion was a liberation,
and the people who even today do not see this are "lunatics",
says Swami Vivekananda (The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Volume
III, page 294-5 and page 298. In all subsequent references to these books,
the number of the volume is given first followed by the page number).
.....
by Arun Shourie
This is the first of a two part article by Sri Arun Shourie (former editor
of the Indian Express, Magsaysay award winner and presently Minister for
Disinvestment) published in the Sunday on 31st Jan 1993. .....
by Monobina Gupta
Poorer parents are willing to pay more to get their children into private
schools rather than send them to a free but substandard government school,
a survey in Delhi shows. .....
by NewKerala.com
Support appeared to be trickling in for Delhi doctors who have gone on
an indefinite hunger strike against legislation to reserve more seats
in educational institutions as five more doctors joined the strike Sunday.
.....
by Tarun Kapoor
A hundred years ago, the Muslim League was established in December 1906
at Dacca by a group of Muslim notables including Nawab Salimullah of Dacca,
Raja of Mahmudabad, and Nawab Viquar-ul-Mulk of Aligarh who were keen
to display Muslim loyalty to the British raj and extract concessions for
themselves. .....
by TellTheChildrenTheTruth.com
Haj Amin al-Husseini, the most influential leader of Palestinian Arabs,
lived in Germany during the Second World War. He met Hitler, Ribbentrop
and other Nazi leaders on various occasions and attempted to coordinate
Nazi and Arab policies in the Middle East. .....
by Sify.com
Security has been tightened in four villages of Dangs district of Gujarat
after statues of local deities of tribals were allegedly found vandalised,
police said in Ahmedabad on Saturday. .....
by Hindustan Times
Saukat Ahmed Charkha, one of the key accused in the infamous Godhra train
carnage, was issued a red-corner notice for by the Interpol, police said
in Vadodara. .....
by Newsinsight.net
Prime minister Manmohan Singh was kept out of King Gyanendra's sudden
decision to restore democracy, since defence minister Pranab Mukherjee
was managing this and directly informing Sonia Gandhi and CPI-M leader
Sitaram Yechury. Mukherjee, in turn, was assisted by the special envoy,
Karan Singh. But the defence minister took control of the developments
in Nepal on an hour to hour basis, after he was given charge by the Union
cabinet to keep a close watch and formulate policies accordingly. .....
by Newsinsight.net
There are two contradictions that finally got exposed yesterday in a less
than wholesome manner. Arunachal Pradesh has been made a state of the
Indian Union. Elections are being regularly held there. MPs have been
returned to Parliament. How can we be then negotiating Arunachal's status
with the Chinese who lay claims on it? Turn to Jammu and Kashmir. .....
by Kanchan Gupta
Memory can play tricks on you, as it did with me when I was trying hard
to recall how and when I came to know of George Harrison's The Concert
for Bangladesh at New York's Madison Square Garden on August 1, 1971.
Growing up in small town Jamshedpur in an era when the only source of
information was The Statesman unless you also tuned into BBC World Service
every night, it was not easy to keep pace with events beyond India's shores.
.....
by News From Bangladesh
The government of Bangladesh has changed its strategy to kill the indigenous
people due to the new human rights regime in place world-wide. The new
strategy adopted by the government for this purpose is explosion of Bengali
Muslim population in the CHT and systematic and gradual integration of
the indigenous people and their territory and resources with Bangladesh.
.....
by Rajesh Koul
"Roots In Kashmir" - is an initiative launched by the Kashmiri
Pandit youths to highlight the atrocities inflicted upon the Kashmiri
Pandit minority community in the valley of Kashmir, organized a protest
rally to highlight the human-rights violations against Kashmiri Pandits.
.....
by Alamgir Hussain
During the recent visit to Malaysia, the Australian Prime Minister (PM)
John Howard told the press that Malaysia was "a great example of
a moderate, constructive and competitive Islamic country" and "had
a very important role to play in promoting better understanding on Islam
and its values" [Bernama, 03 Nov 2006]. This notion is nothing new.
In the World Economic Forum in New York in 2004, the former PM Dr Mahathir
Muhammad also told the delegates that 'Malaysia was a modern secular state,
not despite but because of Islam'. .....
by Alex Alexiev
Every fall, over a million almost identically dressed, bearded Muslim
men from around the world descend on the small Pakistani town of Raiwind
for a three-day celebration of faith. Similar gatherings take place annually
outside of Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Bhopal, India. These pilgrims are no
ordinary Muslims, though; they belong to a movement called Tablighi Jamaat
("Proselytizing Group"). .....
by P. S. Suryanarayana
Australia plans to grant citizenship to new immigrants only on the basis
of a mandatory test. The "computer-based citizenship test" will
be programmed to screen the applicants on two counts - English language
skill and their "understanding" of the "core Australian
values." .....
by Virendra Kapoor
The Government is well and truly in the throes of a mid-term crisis. The
Prime Minister's own image for financial honesty has receded in the background
what with him most unabashedly providing shelter to all the crooks and
criminals in the government. Indeed, there is a growing realisation in
the ruling party circles that Manmohan Singh's reputation for financial
integrity might have become counter-productive for the Congress Party
since he is widely seen to be harboring under his wings, as it were, some
of the worst criminals and corrupt elements in Indian politics. .....
by Neeraj Chauhan/Faizan Haidar
Parvez Ahmed Radoo, Imran Ahmad Kirmani, Tariq Ahmed Dar and Firoz Abdul
Latif Ghaswala. You certainly have heard these names for the reason that
they are all terrorists arrested by the special cell of Delhi Police.
.....
by Jonathan Dowd-Gailey
The northern Virginia-based Muslim Students' Association (MSA) might easily
be taken for a benign student religious group. It promotes itself as a
benevolent, non-political entity devoted to the simple virtue of celebrating
Islam and providing college students a healthy venue to develop their
faith and engage in philanthropy. .....
by Kartikeya
Pakistan's complicity in the 7/11 terror strikes, a matter of huge public
debate, is bared in the confessional statements of the 11 men who are
suspected of having carried out the attacks. .....
by Diana West
Funny thing about the recent op-ed by Nawaf Obaid in The Washington Post
outlining likely Saudi actions if the United States withdraws from Iraq:
namely, that Saudis would both support Sunnis in Iraq (versus Shi'ites
supported by Iran) and manipulate the oil market to "strangle"
the Iranian economy. .....
by Ananthakrishnan G
As the committee under retired judge Rajender Sachar was busy culling
out figures of Muslim deprivation, a more generic exercise was being carried
out in Kerala by an influential socio-scientific organisation, and with
dramatically different results. .....
by Swami Vivekananda
I am not a Buddhist, as you have heard, and yet I am. If China, or Japan,
or Ceylon follow the teachings of the Great Master, India worships him
as God incarnate on earth. You have just now heard that I am going to
criticize Buddhism, but by that I wish you to understand only this. Far
be it from me to criticize him whom I worship as God incarnate on earth.
But our views about Buddha are that he was not understood properly by
his disciples. .....
by The Pioneer
The UPA Government on Wednesday made it clear that there is little chance
of Parliament terror attack mastermind Mohammed Afzal Guru being hanged
during its remaining term. .....
by Deccan Herald
Bangladesh has emerged as the worst violator of human rights in South
Asia because of the systematic attacks on the opposition and the maximum
number of peace time extrajudicial killings, according to human rights
report by an NGO. .....
by CNN-IBN
Gunshots in the nerve centre of the world's most populous democracy. The
death toll could have been muchhigher, it may have surpassed a hundred,
but for the sacrifice of eightsecurity guards. .....
by Hindustan Times
Demanding Mohd Afzal's execution, families of the securitymen who died
in the 2001 Parliament terror attack on Wednesday returned the gallantry
medals they had received in honour of the slain personnel to the Rashtrapati
Bhavan as a mark of protest over the delay in carrying out the sentence.
.....
by Expressindia.com
Even as Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath
Chatterjee and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday offered floral
tributes to the portraits of the martyrs at Parliament House, families
of the eight Parliament attack victims return their medals to President.
.....
by V Sundaram
In India everything is topsy-turvy today. Even the rule of law and its
enforcement varies from caste to caste, community to community, religion
to religion, zone to zone, region to region and state to state. All the
three crumbling pillars of the State the Legislature, the Executive and
the Judiciary seem to be more concerned about the petty politics of law
rather than the loftier shrine of the jurisprudence of law. .....
by V Sundaram
A detailed study of Karl Marx is called Marxiana. A detailed study of
Gandhi is called Gandhiana. A detailed study of Churchill is called Churchilliana.
A detailed study of Periyar is called Periyarana. .....
by The Pioneer
The Prime Minister has triggered an entirely avoidable controversy by
asserting that "minorities, particularly the Muslim minority... must
have the first claim on resources". That he should have said this
during the National Development Council meeting while explaining his Government's
assessment of the 10th Plan's implementation and listing priority areas
suggests that it was neither an accidental choice of words nor unintended
to send out a message about the UPA's political agenda. .....
by Sandhya Jain
Fourteen years after the removal of the offending Babri structure at his
sacred birthplace, Lord Rama returned on December 6, 2006, to face his
greatest modern iconoclast, the late EV Ramasamy Naicker. EVR or Periyar,
as he was popularly called, was the most avid native votary of the colonial
myth of the Aryan Invasion of north India and its supposed expulsion of
the 'original' Dravidian inhabitants to the south. .....
by Rungrawee C. Pinyorat
Thailand's Muslim insurgency has prompted hundreds of Buddhists to flee
their homes in the restive south, creating refugee-like communities of
Thais in their own country. .....
by Jason Straziuso
The Taliban gunmen who murdered two teachers in eastern Afghanistan early
Saturday were only following their rules: Teachers receive a warning,
then a beating, and if they continue to teach must be killed. .....
by Art Moore
It's a citation used frequently by critics to argue the highly influential
Council on American-Islamic Relations is an extremist organization - founder
Omar Ahmad's alleged 1998 assertion that Islam must one day dominate the
U.S. - but now Muslim leaders have confronted Ahmad, expressing concern
that someone from their community could voice such radical sentiments.
.....
by Prashant Rupera
After serving as president of California-based Cal-tronics Company for
nearly two decades, Prashant Amin is back to his hometown Anand as director
of Anand-based engineering major Elecon Group of Companies. .....
by Husain Haqqani
Pakistan government spokespersons have made it clear that General Pervez
Musharraf was not making a unilateral offer when he told NDTV that Pakistan
would give up its claim on Kashmir if India, too, agreed to self-governance
in the region. .....
by Rediff.com
He's used to taking on religion and profiting from the experience. Sam
Harris, the author of one of the most controversial bestsellers in recent
years, Letter to a Christian Nation, had also written another bombshell
book, The End of Faith. .....
by Peter Brookes
Pakistan's getting worse on the terrorism front - or maybe the problem
has just grown more obvious. Either way, we've got a major terrorism threat
on our hands. .....
by The Pioneer
Anguished families of Parliament attack victims are all set to make a
fervent plea for justice to the President of India on the fifth anniversary
of the ghastly incident. .....
by Santanu Banerjee
Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Aluwhalia on Monday defended
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's "Muslim first" statement, deepening
the confusion about the stand of the Government on the controversial issue.
.....
by Hasan Suroor
In a blistering attack on Britain's radical Muslims, Prime Minister Tony
Blair has bluntly told them to "conform'' to British values or go
home. .....
by Sean O'Neill
The architect's vision is of a 21st-century Alhambra, a place for prayer,
education, debate and the celebration of Islamic culture. .....
by Michael Theodoulou
Dozens of Iranian students burnt pictures of President Ahmadinejad and
chanted "Death to the dictator" as he gave a speech at a university
in Tehran yesterday. .....
by Mohammed Safi Shamsi
Here's good news for a few out of thousands of minority community families
in the city's slums: around 200 minority families, mostly Muslims, will
have well-furnished flats in an exclusive multi-storey complex in Rajarhat
New Town. .....
by Sunil Jain
The Sachar Committee on the status of Muslims, you're told, is not asking
for quotas but is asking for more education -- one of the report's annexure
tables shows there were 147 representations to it that asked for more
education versus 57 for reservations. .....
by Prafull Goradia
The committee headed by Justice Rajinder Sachar has suggested the creation
of a National Waqf Development Corporation (NWDC) with a revolving corpus
fund of Rs 500 crore. The reason given is that there are some five lakh
acres that comprise wakf's property across the country whose current market
value is estimated to be well over one lakh crore of rupees. .....
by Ashok Das
They could not believe their stroke of fortune. Hyderabad-based Sameena
Begum 23, and Nazia Begum 20, thought that their "young and wealthy"
Arab husbands would open up the world for them. .....
by Ramananda Sengupta
"Thirty five years have passed since that fateful night, and it seems
as if time has moved, and yet stood still. The navy has been my home away
from home. It has always been there for me. To me, the defence services
are the finest examples of brotherhood, family spirit and nation building.
Thank you for making me a part of this great defence family." .....
by Rusty Shackleford
Two days after the Mumbai bombings last week that killed more than 180,
the government of India issued a directive banning 17 websites. These
websites were singled out because, according to the Indian government,
they might incite religious violence. The nine American websites banned
by India are all critical of the Islamist movement. Not a single website
of Islamic extremists justifying and even celebrating the Mumbai bombings
has been banned. .....
by The Times of India
Shooter Jaspal Rana on Monday joined the campaign for the execution of
Mohammad Afzal, who has been sentenced to death for the Parliament attack,
as he honoured families of those who died in the 2001 terror strike. .....
by Radha Rajan
Last week Indian secularism demanded its periodic obeisance from the faithful
and got it. Secular Indian polity rubbed the Hindu nose in the dirt yet
again and installed the statue of the known Hindu-hater EV Ramaswamy Naicker
'Periyar' in front of the majestic Rajagopuram of the hoary Sri Ranganathaswamy
temple in Srirangam, Tiruchy, insulting Hindu bhaktas and making a mockery
of Hindu religious sensibilities. .....
by The Pioneer
If the colour of its flag reflects a party's ideology and politics, then
the CPI(M) should swap its revolutionary red for Islamist green. The lofty
posturing of the CPI(M) and its fellow travellers who never tire of heaping
abuse on the BJP and lecturing the world at large of the need to contain
communalism which adorns the front pages of national newspapers, hogs
prime time on 24x7 television news channels and awes the commentariat
into spineless submission is what we get to see and hear. .....
by Ashok Malik
On Tuesday, December 12, Krishna Kumar, director of the National Council
for Educational Research and Training (NCERT), will make a personal appearance
in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, in the latest twist to the "history
textbooks" saga. .....
by The Hindu American Foundation
The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) strongly condemned the egregious and
bigoted remarks by Texas Governor Rick Perry wherein he said that non-Christians
are doomed and condemned to go to hell. .....
by The Times of India
"Didn't he ask for us before passing away?" This question has
been haunting Malad resident Subhashree Karambelkar since 7/11 when her
husband Parag died due to injuries sustained in a the blast on a train
near Mahim. .....
by Shrikant Modak
Gujarat's glowing. The state's apex power utility has not only staged
a recovery, it's now the only one in India to guarantee three phase 24
hours electricity supply to the rural households and eight hours uninterrupted
supply to agricultural consumers. Gujarat Electricity Board (GEB), which
had been reporting losses until 2004, came to black last year. The board's
financial losses were Rs. 1,900 crore in 2003-04. In 2004-05 these were
down to Rs. 935 crore. .....
by Jaya Narain
A council has sparked a row after it shut a swimming pool to hold Muslim-only
sessions on a Sunday afternoon. The swimming sessions-which are for men
only-are held for two hours every week at a leisure centre in London.
Non-Muslims may swim during this time but only if they follow the strict
dress code of swimming shorts that hide the navel and extend below the
knee. .....
by Bat Yeor
With the passing of time, hidden challenges, which for a long time had
been growing unnoticed and unaddressed, can suddenly emerge into the full-blown
light of current events with a force which seems quite overwhelming. Today
the Western world, or Judeo-Christian civilization, shaken by jihadist
terror, is being rudely awakened to theological realities blurred for
decades. .....
by Mark Manuel
I cannot understand why such a fuss is being made over Mohammed Afzal
Guru. Taking for granted that the man is a terrorist, and that he has
been proved conclusively guilty of the attack on Parliament in December
2001 that killed 14, why should he not be hanged to death? I believe very
simply and honestly that nobody has the right to take somebody else's
life unless he is willing to pay for it with his own. Especially criminal
types. .....
by BibleSociety.org
Morgan Jackson recounts the extraordinary story of how Jesus closed the
eyes of a railway ticket inspector, helping a Hindu man become a Christian.
.....
by IBNLive.com
Television serial Kasauti Zindagi Ki which has the Mizo community hooked
to it since last year, has once again come into controversy. .....
by Janet Levy
A Muslim woman in Dearborn, Mich., lodged a complaint Tuesday against
Fitness USA for an alleged civil rights violation involving a fellow gym
patron. According to Jodi Berry, executive director of Fitness USA, Wardeh
Sultan was praying in front of another member's locker when the member
wanted access to her belongings inside the locker. .....
by Deutsche Welle
Q.: Islamic studies scholar Guido Steinberg spoke to DW-WORLD.DE about
the likelihood of a terrorist attack in Germany and the need to separate
the issue of integration from the fight against terrorism.
A.: Guido Steinberg is an Islamic studies scholar and a researcher at
the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, in Berlin.
.....
by The Telegraph
Gujarat High Court today rapped riot-hit families for trying to "pressure"
it through a "media trial" and refused to transfer a massacre
case to the CBI. .....
by Maneeza Hossain
Located in a hidden corner of South Asia, poised to become either a thriving
democracy or a failed state, Bangladesh has the potential of becoming
a major front in the global confrontation with radical Islamism. If democracy
is preserved and enhanced, Bangladesh can serve as a model of how to counter
radical incursions into Muslim democratic environments; if democracy is
defeated, this will be the first such victory for radical Islamism and
will likely unleash a global wave of radical Islamist activism, similar
to that following the Islamist victory over the Soviet-backed Communist
regime in Afghanistan. .....
by Expressindia.com
The RSS and the BJP flayed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for his remarks
that plans for minorities, Muslims in particular, must have the first
claim on resources. .....
by David R. Usher
A November 11th Washington Times article "Abused wives in India pin
hope on anti-violence law" resulted in a number of letters to the
editor of the Times, claiming that the article is biased. The Times article
blithely repeated an eye-popping claim that "A 2005 U.N. Population
Fund report found that 70 percent of married women in India were victims
of beatings or rape", without even questioning it. .....
by Rediff.com
In a blunt warning to Muslim extremists, Prime Minister Tony Blair has
said religious fanatics would have no place in Britain unless they conformed
to British values, including tolerance and respect for the country. .....
by Fox News
Residents of a southern Somalia town who do not pray five times a day
will be beheaded, an official said Wednesday, adding the edict will be
implemented in three days. .....
by The Economic Times
The CPM, which is in the process of burying a corruption case against
its Kerala unit secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, was on Wednesday the most
vocal formation backing the Supreme Court's order for prosecution of public
servants without prior permission, reports Our Political Bureau. .....
by Free Press Journal
One by one, politicians are losing their special privileges. And it is
about time they did. Having come to constitute a class by themselves,
they were almost immune from the ordinary laws of the land. Power of patronage
was theirs to wield whichever whimsical way they wanted. However in recent
times the focus of an aggressive audio-visual media too had helped to
expose some of their dirty doings. .....
by The New Indian Express
Admitting that Taliban militants were getting 'support' from Pakistani
side, President Prevez Musharraf has said that US-led coalition's strategy
to stabilise Afghanistan was failing. .....
by Krishnakumar
Did the Dalit backlash over the Khairlanji issue in the state have anything
to do with the in-fighting in the NCP? Yes, says the Congress, which has
sent a report to the party high command also blaming Deputy Chief Minister
R R Patil for the turmoil the state saw for two days after the desecration
of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar's statue in Kanpur. .....
by Arif Mohammed Khan
The contents of Sacchar Committee were leaked much before its' formal
submission to the government and became a subject matter of heated public
debate. Lot of concern was expressed over dismal presence of Muslims in
government jobs and demand was made to correct the existing imbalance
by extending the benefit of job reservation to the Muslims as a community
on the line of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. .....
by Abhishek Kapoor
Busy highways, a landscape decorated with busy windmills and Punjabi dhabas
on Gujarati roads. This is the new Kutch, risen from the dust, literally.
.....
by Manoj Prasad
Brandishing bows and arrows, they marched on the streets in Jamshedpur.
In Daltongunj, they held dharnas and demonstrations. In Ranchi, a bandh
was called. There were widespread protests in Dumka, Pakur and Chatra
towns as well. But Nemra, where Shibu Soren was born and brought up, had
nothing to say on his conviction in the murder of his secretary Shashi
Nath Jha. .....
by Debbie Schlussel
Will appeasing terrorists be the new House Republican strategy? Several
respected Republicans must think so, since they've endorsed Rep. Darrell
Issa (R-Calif.) to become the new Republican Policy Committee Chairman.
The other candidate is Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.), and the vote
is tomorrow morning. .....
by Duncan Graham
For those recently heaping praise on Indonesia for its moderate Muslim
and emerging democratic credentials, consider the case of Islamic preacher
Yusman Roy. .....
by Rediff.com
The Tibetan government-in-exile's Prime Minister S Rinpoche today rejected
China's claim on Arunachal Pradesh, saying the state was an "inseparable
part" of India. .....
by The Times of India
The terror infrastructure in Pakistan is alive and kicking. While this
is not new, what is that it comes in the form of an official announcement
from the home ministry which confirms yet again that Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh strayed too far from the assessment of his own government when he,
on the sidelines of the NAM summit, agreed to Pakistan's favourite alibi
about the anti-India jehadi gangs acting independently of the ISI. .....
by Mark Steyn
After September 11, the first reaction of just about every prominent Western
leader was to visit a mosque: President Bush did, so did the Prince of
Wales, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, the prime minister of
Canada and many more. And, when the get-me-to-the-mosque-on-time fever
died away, you couldn't help feeling that this would strike almost any
previous society as, well, bizarre. Pearl Harbor's been attacked? Quick,
order some sushi and get me into a matinee of Madam Butterfly! .....
by Hindunet.org
Within months of its release, the first-ever Chinese version of the Mahabharata
sold out last December. The second edition of the six-volume translation
of the epic is now under print and would be out in a few weeks. .....
by Hindustan Times
"Mummy, do we worship a monkey god?" asked a toddler in Britain.
Such a question can be asked to any NRI mother, anywhere. The query would
be difficult to tackle on the spur of the moment. What NRI children learn
in school about their religion and gods is neither sufficient nor adequate
- and sometimes incorrect! They have to respond to the comments, taunts
and jibes from classmates. .....
by Rupert Shortt
Why is the Muslim sense of victimhood so inflated, given that many Muslim
societies won't put their own houses in order? And why is this double
standard downplayed so much in Britain? .....
by Jay Tokasz
Instead, he took an opposite route and now travels throughout Europe and
North America warning about what he experienced firsthand as a member
of a jihadist group run by Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current second in command
of al-Qaida. .....
by Caroline Glick
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has gone on an appeasement spree and
no one seems to mind. On Friday, Blair gave a marquis interview to Al-Jazeera's
new psychological warfare platform - its English-language channel - to
celebrate its launch. .....
by The Economic Times
Sitaram Yechury, who cut his political teeth in JNU three decades ago
raising slogans such as "Tata Birla ki yeh sarkar, nahin chalegi,
nahin chalegi" (this government that belongs to the Tatas and the
Birlas will not be allowed to function) was on Monday the chief defender
of the Tatas' investment in the Left Front-ruled West Bengal. .....
by Haindava Keralam
The Central Govt's counsel Haris Beeran informed the Supreme Court while
justifying Haj Subsidy to Muslims that "the government of Kerala
gives a subsidy to pilgrims travelling by its Road Transport Corp to Sabarimala
temple". One wonders at the source of this information for the honourable
counsel!! .....
by Dr. Agnishekhar
I take this opportunity to applaud you for your bold initiatives in calling
the RTC and subsequently forming the working groups on Kashmir. I also
want to thank you for reposing confidence in me by inviting me to participate
in the deliberations as a representative of the exiled Kashmiri Pandits,
euphemistically labeled as `migrants'. .....
by The Telegraph
Assam celebrated another victory in the fight against infiltration from
Bangladesh with the Supreme Court today quashing a central notification
that had resurrected a pro-migrant clause in the repealed Illegal Migrants
(Determination by Tribunals) Act. .....
by Joseph Puder
Itamar Marcus, founder and director of Palestinian Media Watch (PMW),
spoke at Philadelphia's Union League last Tuesday, as a guest of the Middle
East Forum/Bob Guzzardi Lecture Series. .....
by The Pioneer
In how many voices does the UPA Government speak on the worsening internal
security situation and how it proposes to deal with the patrons of terrorism?
Till now the Government's response, especially the utterances of the Prime
Minister and his Home Minister, could have been waved away as nothing
more than an effete regime's inability to come to grips with the enormity
of the problem staring the country in the face. .....
by RK Misra
The fire in the S-6 coach of the Sabarmati Express was not accidental
but part of a "pre-planned conspiracy" by the Muslims of Godhra
backed by "Pakistan-based jehadi elements," argued the counsel
of the Gujarat Government and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad before the Nanavati-Shah
Commission here on Monday. .....
by Dr. Younus Shaikh
Before the advent of Islam, the pagan Arab women generally enjoyed a respectable
status in society; many of them including Khadija - the first wife of
the prophet of Islam, had the right to engage in business and choose or
dismiss their husbands in a matrilineal fashion; they took part in most
activities of war and peace including public worship. .....
by Anil Athale
During a war, there are just four possibilities a soldier faces. One,
victorious and safe. Two: wounded. Three: killed in action. And four,
a Prisoner of War. .....
by Priyadarsi Dutta
Daniel Pipes in his article, "US's unilateral concessions" (November
13), has quoted from the "Treaty of Peace and Friendship", signed
at Tripoli (November 4, 1796) and Algiers (January 3, 1797) to demonstrate
how the US had made friendly gestures towards Islamic states from its
earliest days. Pipes's citation is ironic, as these treaties did not secure
any reprieve for the American ships from the pirate states of the Barbary
Coast. .....
by Raymond Ibrahim
In the days before Pope Benedict XVI's visit last Thursday to the Hagia
Sophia complex in Istanbul, Muslims and Turks expressed fear, apprehension
and rage. "The risk," according to Turkey's independent newspaper
Vatan, "is that Benedict will send Turkey's Muslims and much of the
Islamic world into paroxysms of fury if there is any perception that the
pope is trying to re-appropriate a Christian center that fell to Muslims."
.....
by Free Press Journal
The road to hell, they say, is paved with good intentions. The Prime Minister
might have had the welfare of the Indian Muslims in mind when some two
years ago he commissioned the former Delhi High Court Chief Justice, Rajinder
Sachchar, to enumerate the socio-economic status of Muslims. .....
by United News of India
The foreigners' issue returned back to take the center stage of Asom politics
once again after a gap of 10 months as regional camp rejoiced with fire
crackers while Congress and Minority parties went into huddle after the
Supreme Court struck down a controversial amendment of the Foreigners'
act today. .....
by Akshaya Mukul
Parliament's standing committee on HRD, which dealt with the bill on reservation
m aided educational institutions, has recommended that the creamy layer
among OBCs be excluded from quota in admission. .....
by The Times of India
This is no joke: It's a typical day at sunny Main Beach and a dozen people
are wandering around with their hands in the air, laughing hysterically,
squawking like chickens and talking gibberish. .....
by The Times of India
The Shiv Sena and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) have denounced the desecration
of statues of a few Hindu deities and Saibaba in Ulhasnagar, which witnessed
Dalit rioting on Thursday. .....
by N S Venkataraman
I believe that Congress president Sonia Gandhi should have avoided visiting
the world famous Tirupati temple. Because she is Christian by birth and
by faith, her visit to the holy place could be legitimately interpreted
as indulging in vote bank politics. .....
by Meena Iyer
Enter the sanctum sanctorum of Mumbai's Iskcon temple and the last person
you expect to encounter is Mick Jagger's heroine from the 1970 outlaw
adventure Ned Kelly. .....
by Ambarish Mishra
Namdeo Dhasal speaks more out of anguish than anger about the Thursday
mayhem. Age and fame have mellowed Mumbai's original rebel (Dalit Panthers,
captained by him and Raja Dhale, showeased the raw energy of Dalit youths
way back in the 1970s). In an interview with TOI, the well-known poet
and senior Shiv Sena functionary, talks of a broad socio-cultural unity
engaging both Dalits and a large section of the "oppressed caste"
Hindus. .....
by The Times of India
Minister of state for home Sri Prakash Jaiswal may have spoken out of
turn yet again. His "announcement" a week ago that Centre had
decided to offer Rs 7 lakh as compensation to persons affected by the
post-Godhra violence in Gujarat has turned out to be an empty promise
as no such proposal has been framed. .....
by Bisheshwar Mishra
With low Muslim representation in the police and the armed forces being
highlighted by the Sachar committee, national security advisor M K Narayanan
has said that there is no conscious bias at work and that the government
is keen on more members from the community being recruited, even in intelligence
agencies. .....
by Jagmohan
No one in modern India has achieved so much in such a short time as Sardar
Patel did. On his birth anniversary on October 31, it should be both timely
and instructive to recall his many-splendoured contribution in various
arenas of public life, particularly when the country has lost the constructive
impulse for which Patel was justifiably famous. .....
by The Economic Times
The CPM has blamed the colonial legacy for the abysmal status of Muslims
in West Bengal. Blaming the British, Partition and immigration for the
dismal state of Muslims, as found by the Sachar committee, the Left party
admitted new initiatives were needed to change the scenario. .....
by Rediff.com
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday alleged that Bangladeshi Muslims
who had entered Assam in large numbers were currently working as arms
carriers for the ISI and United Liberation Front of Asom. .....
by Hindustan Times
Farming in India started much before than is generally believed. Experts
in the fields of archaeology and history said this while shedding light
on earliest history of India, Indian culture and other aspects at the
annual joint conference of the Indian Archaeological Society, Indian Society
for Prehistoric and Quaternary Studies and the Indian History and Culture
Society, which was organised here at Jiwaji University on Sunday. .....
by Shri Sita Ram Goel
"It was the summer of 1959, I was working as the secretary of an
organization of which the late SHRI JAYAPRAKASH NARAYAN (J.P.) was the
President. One day an RSS leader walked into my office. I had known him
for a number of years. After some small talk, he suggested that I should
request J.P. to visit an RSS camp which was being held in New Delhi at
that time. J.P also happened to be in town. .....
by Kate Holton
Young people in developing nations are at least twice as likely to feel
happy about their lives than their richer counterparts, a survey says.
.....
by WorldNetDaily.com
Hitler should have finished the job and rid the earth of the Jews' "evil
and sin," states a column in Egypt's official newspaper. .....
by Ioannis Gatsiounis
Malaysia's government regularly cautions its constituents that open and
honest dialogue of the "sensitive" subject of race is strictly
off limits. .....
by Hindu Janajagruti Samiti
Members present at the State level All-Sects Hindu Dharma Rakshan session
held at Alandi have strongly opposed and demanded withdrawal of the Anti-Superstition
Act and the Act for the takeover of Temples by the Government that is
to be enacted under the 15th Law Commission. These two Acts are proposed
to be enacted in the forthcoming winter session of the State Legislative
Council. .....
by Haindava Keralam
Hindu students taking vrutham for Sabarimala pilgrimage was barred from
entering a Government school here for wearing Black Dhothi as part of
the austerity one should follow as part of the pilgrimage.This Hindu bashing
was happened in Beypore Govt. High School in Kozhikode. .....
by Elaine Sciolino and Stephen Grey
More than half a ton of ammonium nitrate fertilizer suitable for making
bombs was locked in a rented storage warehouse. A cookie tin of aluminum
powder was hidden behind a garden shed. Young British Muslims underwent
military training at guerrilla camps in remote parts of Pakistan. Suspects,
surreptitiously taped by the police, talked about bombing targets in Britain.
.....
by Toby Sterling
A court convicted four Dutch Muslims on Friday of plotting terrorist attacks
and sentenced them to up to eight years in prison, a victory for prosecutors
who had failed several times before to convict would-be terrorists before
they acted. .....
by Allan Turner
All snout and tail, the pink and brown pigs contentedly rooting in the
wire pen behind Craig Baker's stone shop seem piggishly comic. They're
racing pigs, after all, and that's got to be funny. .....
by Clive Coleman
There is, in a world of uncertainties, at least one comforting and incontrovertible
truth. There's one law for all. isn't there? Well, no there isn't. In
this country some minority and religious groups have their own courts
dispensing justice in commercial cases, neighbour disputes and divorce.
.....
by Kushwant Singh
There are some people against whom you build up malice without knowing
them. Guru Golwalkar had long been on the top of my hate list. What with
the R.S.S. doings in communal riots, the assassination of the Mahatma,
the talk of changing India from a secular to a Hindu state! However as
a journalist I could not resist the chance of meeting him. .....
by Kim Sengupta
The gunmen came at night to drag Mohammed Halim away from his home, in
front of his crying children and his wife begging for mercy. .....
by Khaleej Times
Iraq's Shiite leaders on Thursday said they were angered by a Saudi Arabian
official saying that Riyadh would support the violence-wracked country's
Sunni Arabs in the event of a US pullout. .....
by Stuart Derdeyn
Bharata natyam is arguably the most popular of all the ancient, temple-based
dance arts of the Indian subcontinent. First the domain of female deva-dasis
(servants of the gods), this classical tradition developed in South India,
where it became renowned as a means of conveying the emotional and physical
manifestations of the individual's longing for the divine. The greatest
epics of Hinduism are common sources mined for bharata natyam performances.
.....
by Sandhya Jain
A famous Tamil saying avers: you cannot hide a pumpkin under a grain of
rice. It was precisely such a preposterous attempt-the denial of the very
existence of the mighty river Saraswati by motivated Western and Indian
Marxist scholars-that was powerfully overturned at the recent Saraswati
Colloquium at Kurukshetra, Haryana (November 17 to 20, 2006). .....
by Farzand Ahmed
The more things change, the more they remain the same. That was evident
after last week's "model" Nikahnama (marriage contract), perhaps
the most radical and liberal in its interpretation of Muslim personal
law. The approval of the new Nikahnama by the All India Shia Personal
Law Board (AISPLB) has reopened the debate but little else. The model,
adopted in the presence of a number of Shia clerics and Iraq's supreme
spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani affects an estimated 5 crore
Shia Muslims in India. .....
by Uday Mahurkar
More than 735 shows, 250 artistes, an audience of 80 lakh and one play.
No, it's not a Broadway classic. It is the epic drama, Jaanta Raja (the
wise king), based on the life of the Maratha king Chhatrapati Shivaji,
being staged since 1985. The three-hour-long show has travelled across
India and out of it, including the US, in the past 21 years. It was recently
staged in Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh for six days with over 5,000 people
watching it daily. .....
by The Economic Times
Shibu Soren's story sums up one of the most complex dilemmas for Indian
politics: the need for politicians who represent citizens with less-than-full
access to the mainstream versus the lack of minimally acceptable political
conduct on the part of these politicians. It is no good saying either
that political representation must get more "ordered" - that's
an impossible and unwanted solution in a democracy - or that "subaltern"
politicians deserve a more lenient licence - that's a cop-out, never mind
that it sounds politically correct. .....
by The Economic Times
Countering the Centre's move to endear itself to riot victims of Gujarat
by hiking compensation, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha L K
Advani has called for a similar relief for those who were killed in the
Godhra train attack as well as victims of terrorist attacks on Akshardham
temple and other places. .....
by V Krishna Ananth
JMM leader, Shibu Soren is out of the Union Cabinet once again. And unlike
in the past instance (in July 2004), Soren was sent out of the Cabinet
within hours of his conviction for murder. Recall the earlier instance,
when a sessions court in Jharkhand issued an arrest warrant against him
and the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, was unable to even locate his
Cabinet colleague or even talk to him over the phone. .....
by Husain Haqqani
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has described the state
of press freedom in Pakistan as "rapidly skidding towards lawlessness".
During the last six months, Pakistan has seen four journalists killed.
.....
by Arif Mohammed Khan
The release of the Sachar committee report has prompted many including
the prime minister to express concern over the dismal presence of Muslims
in public services and call for some corrective action. .....
by The Economic Times
The CPM has blamed the colonial legacy for the abysmal status of Muslims
in West Bengal. Blaming the British, Partition and immigration for the
dismal state of Muslims, as found by the Sachar committee, the Left party
admitted new initiatives were needed to change the scenario. .....
by The Economic Times
The tabling of the Rajinder Sachar Commission report, which provides data
on the dismal socio-economic status of Muslims, is sure to let loose a
spate of 'social justice' demands from the members of the extended UPA
family. However, it could be argued that the same facts give the lie to
the promises made by these 'secular' forces over the years. .....
by Saradindu Mukherji
The series of reports in The Indian Express based on the Sachar Committee
Report on the under-representation of Muslims in services and their over-representation
in the jails, are meant to project the overall image of a deprived community.
At the same time there is the implication that the Hindus in post-partition
India have an over-representation in both services and the other sectors.
This assumption is wrong, and the methodology adopted, faulty. .....
by Rajeev PI
In this pastoral rural fringe where the VS Achuthanandan government will
face its first Assembly bypoll next week, the Left is riding the substantial
Muslim right with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein leading the comrades'
charge-and George Bush and Tony Blair are playing cannon fodder. .....
by Janet Daley
Who would have thought it? Half of Europe - the half that was so smug
about having buried God several generations ago - is waiting in real trepidation
for the outcome of a theological argument. When Pope Benedict XVI flies
to Turkey tomorrow, he will embody the most potentially incendiary confrontation
between Islam and the West since the defeat of the Turks at Vienna in
1683 brought an end to Islamic conquest in Europe. .....
by Press Trust of India
The Centre is seriously concerned over Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba
and Jaish-e-Mohammed using territory and elements in Bangladesh and Nepal
for movement of terrorists and finances. .....
by Jamie Doward
One of Britain's most prominent speakers on Muslim issues is today exposed
as a supporter of David Irving, the controversial historian who for years
denied the Holocaust took place. .....
by Sougata Mukhopadhyay
The explosive and contentious Sachar Committee report on the status of
Muslims in India is to be tabled in Lok Sabha on Thursday. .....
by Indrani Kopal
In this special Tamil video feature malaysiakini.tv looks into the controversies
surrounding the demolition of Hindu temples in the country. .....
by IBN Live
Self-styled yoga guru Baba Ramdev has courted the wrath of followers of
the father of the nation, Mahamta Gandhi, for his comment that Gandhi's
non-violence alone did not achieve freedom for the country. .....
by Sandipani Dash
Leading corporate groups in India, including Reliance Industries and the
Tata Group, are keen to invest in Assam following a marked improvement
in the state's overall security situation, according to Assam Chief Minister
Tarun Gogoi. On November 4, 2006, Gogoi said, "Today I am getting
investors from across the country, including big players like the Tata
Group, willing to set up businesses here." .....
by K.P.S. Gill
What the country needs is not 'secularism'; it is simple rule of law.
Secularism is part of the state's legal and constitutional obligation
and would be automatically guaranteed by an even-handed application of
the law. .....
by The New Indian Express
A 100-year-old Hindu temple in Malaysia has been demolished following
a court order. The deities will move to a new site provided by the authorities.
.....
by ZeeNews.com
India is strengthening political and security linkages with countries
in the region to combat "faith-based" terrorism with "external
linkages" that has emerged as one of the biggest challenges globally,
National Security Advisor M K Narayanan said today. .....
by Aaron Klein
The cease-fire to which Israel and major Palestinian factions agreed yesterday
will be used by Palestinian groups to smuggle weapons into Gaza, reinforce
and train "fighter units," and produce rockets for a future
confrontation with the Jewish state, the leaders of the four most significant
Palestinian terror groups in Gaza told WND in a series of exclusive interviews.
.....
by Washington Post
A Moroccan court jailed a German tourist for six months for attempting
to convert Muslims in the southern resort of Agadir, officials said on
Wednesday. .....
by Krishnakumar
A Buddhist monk, a Christian, a Muslim and a Hindu from various parts
of Bangladesh came together in India to highlight the plight of the minorities
in the Islamic country. .....
by David Selbourne
There is a world, increasingly driven by unreason, in which voices in
the wilderness denounce each other as 'traitors', cry out that 'all I
want is no more Islam near me', or allege that Prince Charles is 'waiting
in the wings to declare the UK a Muslim country the minute QEII dies'.
.....
by CNN.com
Were we not faced with the activities of the US administration in this
part of the world and the negative ramifications of those activities on
the daily lives of our peoples, coupled with the many wars and calamities
caused by the US administration as well as the tragic consequences of
US interference in other countries .....
by T V R Shenoy
Some months ago, I recall a North Indian lady talking about the cultural
differences she experienced when in South India. Visiting relatives posted
in Kerala, she made a pilgrimage to the famed Shri Krishna shrine in Guruvayur.
Upon entering the temple she devoutly covered her head -- only to be sternly
reprimanded by a priest who told her that this was against Hindu conventions.
.....
by Debasis Tripathy
The writers of Oh you Hindu Awake, Prof. Hadwa Dom and Dr R.K. Chatterji,
have defamed the Hindu gods, goddesses and leaders in a very abusive tone
in their book. The copies were allegedly distributed among the people
in a missionary programme at G. Udayagiri township under Kandhamal district.
One person has been arrested and placed behind the bar under section 153
(A) (promoting enmity between classes) of the Indian Penal Code. .....
by Haindava Keralam
The Central Govt's counsel Haris Beeran informed the Supreme Court while
justifying Haj Subsidy to Muslims that "the government of Kerala
gives a subsidy to pilgrims travelling by its Road Transport Corp to Sabarimala
temple". One wonders at the source of this information for the honourable
counsel!! .....
