Fourteen foreign nations who are
here to attend an international symposium on Vedic astrology have embraced
Hinduism. The conversion ceremonies were performed at the office of the
Arya Samajam here in the last two days. Two of them later got married according
to Hindu religious rites at the Azhakodi Devi temple here. .....
Why is it that in this country,
when for decades Saudi Arabia has been funding madarsas which are openly
preaching sedition and are often dens of terrorism, the Indian Press finds
nothing to say? Why is it that when foreign Christian organisations are
pouring billions of dollars to deviously convert innocent Harijans and
tribals, teaching them to hate their own culture and country, the media
here keep quiet? .....
The CIA has traced transfers of
tens of millions of dollars from the Saudis to Al Qaida over the last year,
U.S. officials and congressional sources said. .....
A Catholic archbishop said Wednesday
that Christians were "tired of turning the other cheek" to Muslim attacks
and blamed the government for deadly sectarian riots after a newspaper
article about the Miss World beauty pageant. .....
In a letter dated October 30, 2002,
written to Pakistan's Deputy High Commissioner Jalil Abbas Jilani, Mr Simranjit
Singh Mann, MP, has made insinuations that Sikhs in India were not being
allowed to practise their faith and has sought his help "formally and informally
in speaking to our rulers in allowing us Sikhs to practise our faith."
A copy of the letter was made available to The Tribune by a Pakistani source
here today. .....
Seven Nationalist Congress Party
(NCP) members were arrested by the Padgha rural police in Thane district
on charges of outraging the modesty of Adivasi women on the eve of gram
panchayat elections held two weeks ago. .....
A self-described double agent,
a man with roots in two countries and a passport from a third, a man who
uses a pseudonym and talks from the shadows, he says he has now come out
of the cold. .....
Nigerian Islam's encounter with that
powerhouse of subversion, the Miss World contest, has been unedifying,
to put it mildly. First some of the contestants had the nerve to object
to a Shariah court's sentence that a Nigerian woman convicted of adultery
be stoned to death and threatened to boycott the contest - which forced
the Nigerian authorities to promise that the woman in question would not
be subjected to the lethal hail of rocks. .....
As you approach the end of Ramadan
and we approach our Thanksgiving, I thought it would be a good time for
me to share with you some concerns. Let me be blunt: I am increasingly
worried that we are heading toward a civilizational war. .....
Blame it on land, water or food,
but all this had prompted Indian tribals million years ago to migrate to
Australia. Now, tracing this route is an Indian scientist, Dr Pathmanathan
Raghavan, who claims that a few among these Indians can be found even today
among the numerous aboriginal tribes of Australia. .....
Visas were issued to 105 non-American
men who should have been prevented from entering the United States because
their names appeared on government lists of suspected terrorists, congressional
investigators have found. .....
A murky network of smugglers, politicians
and spies is moving money to Taliban and al-Qaida fugitives, secreting
their operatives out of the region and ferrying others in, according to
intelligence officials and a former Taliban commander. .....
Pakistan-based pan-Islamic terrorist
organisations, which are allied with Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda in his
International Islamic Front(IIF), have been consistent in the pursuit of
their long-term strategy directed against India. They look upon Jammu &
Kashmir (J&K) as the gateway to India and repeatedly underline that
the "liberation" of J&K would be only the first stage of their jihad
against India. .....
The Pakistani high commission in
Dhaka has become the 'nerve centre' of Inter-Services Intelligence activities
in promoting terrorism in India, External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha
said on Wednesday. .....
US Secretary of State Colin Powell
said on Monday he has told Pakistan there would be "consequences" if it
had contacts with North Korea. However, he added, he knew of nothing now
that could trigger sanctions on Pakistan over allegations that it aided
North Korea's nuclear programme. .....
The United States believe that
Jammu and Kashmir is a "disputed territory" and it must be "resolved through
negotiations", between India and Pakistan keeping in view the wishes of
Kashmiri people, despite the "ongoing infiltration by militants" into Indian
territory, a paper on India-US relations released in Washington says. .....
Hu Jintao's appointment as the
new General Secretary of the CCP was no surprise. Though the media reported
that little was known about Mr Hu's past, at least one part of his life
is well documented: The period between 1988 and 1992 when the "core leader
of the Forth Generation" was Tibet's party secretary. A closer look at
the way Mr Hu used his post in Tibet as a stepping stone to reach the top,
is indeed fascinating. .....
If Kuldip Nayar were a Russian,
he would have publicly demanded a prison sentence for Vladimir Putin --
for permitting the use of a nerve gas that choked the human rights and
lives of 60-odd terrorists who recently held some 800 hostages in a Moscow
theatre. And how, pray, would Putin have reacted? By deporting the accuser
to Siberia, complete with paper and typewriter. .....
This past week, Muslims in Nigeria
rioted. The reason for the beatings, and killings of Christians and the
torching of Christian churches; the West's reporting of these riots; and
the official Muslim reactions to the riots explain almost everything you
need to know about the threat non-Muslim civilization faces at this time.
.....
Terming the decision to lift sanctions
on Pakistan as a "mistake", US Congressman Frank Pallone on Monday sought
their re-imposition in the wake of the transfer of nuclear technology by
Islamabad to North Korea. .....
Well, it looks as if we can now
add beauty pageants to nightclubs, mini skirts, ham sandwiches, bikinis
and other people's religions, which are "an insult to Islam". The problem
for the western world is that we have been importing people into our societies
which have this incredible mindset, and everything in the western world
is an "insult to Islam." .....
Human rights appears to have assumed
a one-sided and subjective face and is more often than not addressed by
tackling the symptoms instead of the core disease. Hence some mulling over
would be fruitful. .....
She never broke when she was tortured
with beatings and electrical shocks, and even when she was close to death
she refused to disclose the names of members of her congregation or sign
a statement renouncing her Christian faith. .....
Nigeria's Government will not allow
a death sentence to be carried out on the woman who wrote an article which
Muslims complained insulted the Prophet Mohammed, sparking religious riots
last week. .....
If you are a Southerner reading
this, I want you to know that your politics do not make sense. You and
your Jesus Christ! You and your Amadioha (Spiritualist). You and your Sango
(Animist). You and all the gods of your land. .....
No doubt Mr Vajpayee is a nice
man, no doubt he is well-meaning, no doubt he also embodies some of the
better virtues of tolerance and ahimsa of Hinduism, but lately, he has
all but surrendered Kashmir to Islamic separatism, not only losing elections
there, even amongst his own people, but also saying that "democracy has
won in Kashmir". Democracy has won in Kashmir? .....
Hindutva forces in the US are outraged
over a biting report, which alleged that IDRF - a major social and economic
volunteer organization committed to India's development - is allegedly
funneling money to fan communal hatred. But they are undecided over what
course of action they should take against the authors of the report. .....
As many as 108 Muslim families
embraced Hinduism again at a village in Ajmer district of Rajasthan, a
Vishwa Hindu Parishad spokesman claimed here on Sept 22. .....
The Dharmarth Trust which controls
most temples in Jammu and Kashmir-including the Raghunath Temple-has decided
to provide arms training to priests and supply them licensed weapons to
protect themselves from militant attacks. .....
Hu Jintao's appointment as the
new General Secretary of the CCP was no surprise. Though the media reported
that little was known about Mr Hu's past, at least one part of his life
is well documented: The period between 1988 and 1992 when the "core leader
of the Forth Generation" was Tibet's party secretary. A closer look at
the way Mr Hu used his post in Tibet as a stepping stone to reach the top,
is indeed fascinating. .....
India and the US are getting set
for another round of high-powered discussions in early-mid December with
Principal Secretary and National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra visiting
his counterpart Condoleezza Rice, and the US deputy National Security Advisor
Steve Hadley journeying to New Delhi about the same time. .....
Veteran Marxist Jyoti Basu on Saturday
said terrorist activities were on the rise in West Bengal due to the growing
presence of fundamentalist elements in Bangladesh, even as Chief Minister
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee sought additional Federal forces to combat the
menace. .....
Two journalists working for the
British Channel 4 television network have been arrested by Bangladeshi
security authorities as they attempted to cross into India at the western
Benapole border checkpoint. .....
Notwithstanding the common belief
that human life originated in Africa, a senior anthropologist on Monday
called for researches focussing on the second theory, which holds that
the evolution of man began in Shivalik range of the Himalayas. .....
The hoovers came first, sucking
up the desert sand that had drifted across the red carpets. Then the flunkeys,
wage-slaves from Pakistan, bearing platters of lamb and sheaves of flowers,
then the sniffer dog for explosives, then the Royal Guard, scimitars glinting
in the sun, their white robes gleaming as if in a Daz ad. And, finally,
His Excellency's Bus. .....
Online document: the full text
of Osama bin Laden's "letter to the American people", reported in today's
Observer. The letter first appeared on the internet in Arabic and has since
been translated and circulated by Islamists in Britain. .....
In the last four months, Tatyana
and Sergei Akadanovy have been arrested twice, sent to jail for 10 days
and fined more than $1,000, an unimaginable sum in impoverished Belarus.
.....
The sense of alienation and suffering
of Sindhis, living as a minority in Pakistan, has prompted demands for
their right to self-determination at a day-long conference organized by
the World Sindhi Institute (WSI) on Nov. 9 to discuss 'Sindh, the Water
Crisis and the Future of Pakistan.' .....
Former Law Minister Ram Jethmalani
on Nov. 9 warned Pakistan's military regime of the possibility of the Sindh
province seceding from the country if urgent steps were not taken to redress
the genuine grievances of its people. .....
West Bengal's ruling CPI(M) has
alleged that a section of the Congress in Murshidabad district has close
links with suspected ISI agents who were picked up in Kolkata on Sunday.
.....
No red flags were waved in support
of these women; no flash strikes, rasta rokos or dharnas announced in their
name. For two long years, several women were raped, molested, filmed in
the nude and blackmailed in Sutia village in West Bengal's North 24-Parganas
district by a crime syndicate packed with CPM leaders. .....
The United States may have endangered
India's security, and also that of its Far East allies Japan and South
Korea, not to speak of jeopardising the lives of its own 100,000 troops
in the region, by willfully ignoring nuclear and ballistic missile transactions
between North Korea and Pakistan in an effort to secure the latter's cooperation
in the war on terrorism. .....
Security was stepped up in the
city on Sunday with deployment of additional forces following the killings
of two Lashkar-e-Toiba militants, key suspects in the Sai Baba temple blast,
in police encounters. .....
Last July, American intelligence
agencies tracked a Pakistani cargo aircraft as it landed at a North Korean
airfield and took on a secret payload: ballistic missile parts, the chief
export of North Korea's military. .....
Former director-general of Archaeological
Survey of India (ASI) B.B. Lal on Saturday dubbed the hypothesis of "Aryan
invasion of India" a myth. He alleged that it was still accepted for reasons
other than historical. .....
If I were to take the long view
of history, I would contend that 1962 was a relatively minor skirmish in
the long- term civilizational competition between India and China for the
domination of the Asian ethos. .....
Nine Bangladeshis - all suspected
ISI agents - were rounded up from opposite a movie theatre near New Market,
late on Saturday night, days after deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani charged
Bangladesh with doing very little to contain anti-India activities on its
soil. .....
This happened, I believe, some
30-35 years back. A book, Religious Leaders, by Thomas and Thomas was published
in Europe. And what happened next was Muslim riots that broke out in our
country-in Bombay and elsewhere. As usual, the rioters began attacking
Hindus, torching their shops and destroying public property. .....
Indian Express broke the story,
the Bihar government today admitted for the first time that 32 employees
working in the corporations have died due to non-payment of salary. The
total is estimated at many more. .....
The FBI is investigating whether
the Saudi Arabian government-using the bank account of the wife of a senior
Saudi diplomat- sent tens of thousands of dollars to two Saudi students
in the United States who provided assistance to two of the September 11
hijackers, according to law-enforcement sources. .....
The Opposition members in Lok Sabha
on Friday opposed any move to bring a uniform civil code cautioning that
it could endanger harmony among communities, even as Law Minister Jana
Krishnamurthy said the Constitution makers wanted the country to move towards
such a code. .....
The India Development and Relief
Fund, a Maryland- based charity, has denied allegations that it is duping
non-resident Indians and American corporations of millions of dollars to
fund the Sangh Parivar's "hate campaign" in India. .....
Majestic, fluid, quietly mighty!
In many ways, the waters of the Brahmaputra encapsulate the North-East.
We saw them only late October, after their summer fury had abated yet the
great river's beauty still fills our eyes. Cutting open the Himalayas,
bringing life and fertility to this huge valley, and providing a gateway
to the rest of India, how hard it has worked through the ages. .....
President Vladimir V. Putin of
Russia welcomed President Bush to his hometown today, then raised pointed
questions about the reliability of two important American allies in the
campaign against terrorism, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. .....
A red alert has been sounded here
and neighbouring Ranga Reddy district and a strict vigil is being maintained
at all places of worship in the wake of a bomb blast at a parking lot near
Sai Baba temple on the city outskirts on Thursday night, killing a woman
and injuring 20 others. .....
Bangladesh has expressed dissatisfaction
over the `delay' in informing it about the arrest of two of its criminals
in Kolkata on Saturday and said it was still awaiting a positive response
from India on their return. The Government also expressed frustration at
the reported release of seven other criminals after their arrest by the
Kolkata police. .....
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
today continued its earlier attack on the Chief Election Commissioner,
J.M. Lyngdoh, saying that his description of the Gujarat situation as "nasty"
was a "nasty statement" from him. .....
At least 100 people have been killed
in rioting between Muslims and Christians in the northern Nigerian city
of Kaduna, a Red Cross official told AFP on Friday. .....
To repeat an old adage, those who
do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. The Congress, which
had played a rabid communal card in Punjab in the Eigh-ties with disastrous
results for the country, is busy playing the same game again. However,
in the process, it has dropped the fig leaf of secularism and bared its
communal fangs, with the professional secularists looking the other way.
.....
In response to the notices sent
by the National Human Rights Commission, the special cell of the Delhi
police has submitted a comprehensive report substantiating its claim that
the November 3 Ansal Plaza shoot-out in which two Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists
were killed was a genuine encounter. .....
Tony Blair is to call for heightened
vigilance against the growing threat from international terrorism, while
arguing that governments cannot be expected to guarantee safety from attack.
.....
Indonesian police said yesterday
they believed that about 10 people sought in connection with last month's
Bali bomb attacks were still in the country. .....
Vedas, the texts which encapsulate
the essence of the ancient Indian civilisation, may have found an evangelist
in the nightingale of India, Lata Mangeshkar. .....
Grandma, what a big and fickle
metaphor you can be! For children, the name translates as "the magnificent
one with presents in her suitcase who thinks I'm a genius if I put my shoes
on the right feet, and who stuffs me with cookies the moment my parents'
backs are turned." .....
If you go to the opera you risk
being taken hostage. If you go on holiday you might be blown up. If you
stop for petrol you could be shot by a sniper. Open a letter - does it
contain anthrax? What's going on these days? Where will the next outrage
be? People feel a sense of unease and a loss of innocence. Safer and happier
times, they believe, are now gone for ever. But is life really more dangerous,
or are we becoming wimps? .....
Ayurveda and Yoga can be called
sister sciences of 'self-healing and self-realisation'. Both evolved from
a Vedic background in ancient India, based on the same philosophy, sharing
many practices. Ayurveda, the 'yogic form of healing', is aimed at bringing
us back into harmony with our true Self or Atman. The great Ayurvedic teacher
Charaka defines Ayurveda as the harmony of body, prana, mind and soul.
Patanjali defines yoga as controlling the mind in order to realise the
Purusha. .....
Of course, that's not how his office
bills it. According to the invitation, Mr. Towns will show "solidarity
with the recent anti-government pro-democracy demonstrations in Iran."
That in itself is a worthy goal. Since its Marxist-Islamic revolution in
1979, the country has been an economic and human-rights disgrace, and its
people deserve better. But what troubles us is Mr. Towns' co-sponsor for
the event, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, an alias for the
the Mujahedin-e Kalq. .....
Something extraordinary is quietly
happening in our country and it is proving that both the Left and the Right
are wrong, writes a distinguished economist in a local national newspaper.
Gurcharan Das is not a blind follower of the BJP or an ardent supporter
of the NDA government, but in the end one has to be fair and give credit
where credit is due. And Gurcharan Das apparently has no qualms in doing
so. .....
Based on US intelligence reports,
President Bush believed that al-Qaeda operatives were planning a crude
nuclear attack on Washington last October-November after obtaining radioactive
material from Pakistan, a new book on the war on terrorism has revealed.
.....
It should have been billed a farce
pretold. The puja, the speeches, the exaggerated drama around the arrest
and release of leaders, not one item on the VHP's pad-padshahi roadshow
lived up to the hype that preceded the event. .....
The hatred of Western Civilization,
and the corresponding urge to glorify anything outside it, especially if
it can be depicted as a victim of the West, is a well-known phenomenon
of the contemporary liberal mind. One of the forms it has taken in recent
years is the attempt to artificially inflate the historic achievements
of other civilizations beyond what the facts support. .....
A high-power delegation from South
Korea visited Ayodhya to revive two millennia-old ties with the temple
town. The South Koreans discovered that a Princess of Ayodhya was
married to Korean King Suro in the first century CE. Suro was the
King of Kimhay kingdom or the present Korea. The Princess was married
to the Korean King at the age of 16. .....
Everyone knows la douce France:
the France of wonderful food and wine, beautiful landscapes, splendid châteaux
and cathedrals. More tourists (60 million a year) visit France than any
country in the world by far. Indeed, the Germans have a saying, not altogether
reassuring for the French: "to live as God in France." Half a million Britons
have bought second homes there; many of them bore their friends back home
with how they order these things better in France. .....
Neither Christians nor Jews can
claim that their religion has always been innocuous. What Srdja Trifkovic
argues in The Sword of the Prophet, however, is that the raw stuff from
which Islam is made is particularly dangerous and unpromising, that the
bellicose tradition is worse than admitted by the influential Islamic Studies
lobby, that the present threat from Islam is alarming, and that the future
demands the vigilance of non-Muslims. .....
Numerous parallels are visible
between the totalitarianism of Soviet Communism and that of Wahhabism,
the Saudi-funded movement to seize control of world Islam. Aside from their
ideological similarities and the common elements in the struggle of each
for power, there is the striking matter of their identical tactics in penetration
of the United States. .....
The Taliban have been forced right
back in Afghanistan. These militant Muslims have their roots in a huge
college in northern India founded in the nineteenth century. A novelist
and journalist who lives in New Delhi went inside it. .....
A large group of 'militants' arrived
at the Jammu press club this evening, addressed a press conference announcing
a new alliance to replace the Hurriyat and then disappeared. Later, the
police sounded a red alert in the city, claiming they had no knowledge
of their presence. .....
Notwithstanding the superiority
of the French gun, Sofma, the former Prime Minister, the late Rajiv Gandhi,
"stage-managed the proposal from the Army headquarters in such a way that
they recommended the Bofors gun", the CBI special court has observed while
ordering framing of charges against the three Hinduja brothers. .....
Nine Bangladeshis - all suspected
ISI agents - were rounded up from opposite a movie theatre near New Market,
late on Saturday night, days after deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani charged
Bangladesh with doing very little to contain anti-India activities on its
soil. .....
Within 48 hours of the arrest of
nine Bangladeshis - two of them suspected ISI agents and "subversive elements"
- from the New Market area, police picked up four more from the same region
today. One of them, Sayyed Hussain, is an ISI operative, the police claimed.
.....
Investigations revealed that the
two Bangladeshi militants arrested on Saturday night by the Kolkata Police
belong to the Islamic Aikya Front of Bangladesh. The outfit is a cover
organisation for Al-Qaeda activists operating from that country, intelligence
sources said, adding, the arrested militants had been trained by the Inter
Services Intelligence (ISI). .....
The post-Jajjhar conversion controversy
is showing sure signs of manipulation and political gameplans. Out of the
100-plus Dalits said to have converted to Buddhism, Christianity and Islam
as a fallout to the October 15 massacre, only five confirm that they have
gone over to faiths other than Hinduism. .....
"When a community has succumbed
to a fever, it cannot be calmed with words and proofs. Yet for all who
read the Qor'an and study its contents, the facts are plain (Ali Dashti,
author of 'Twenty Three Years'. Page 148)" .....
I marvel at the ability of this
city to make news and then go cold. While the Capital last week was newswise
pretty inactive, the one before that saw all the newspapers, along with
the television channels, busy grappling with the Ansal's Plaza shootout.
.....
Are you the target of a national
manhunt? Just take a ride down to Bangalore, the city with the fastest
growth rate in Asia. You will find it quite easy to hide yourself amidst
the city's large floating population, which the police estimate to sometimes
be as high as 200,000 per day. .....
Afghanistan's government is growing
increasingly alarmed that the political ascendancy of pro-Taliban Islamic
fundamentalist parties in neighboring Pakistan will significantly increase
the ability of the former Taliban to reorganize and regroup. .....
Lieutenant Colonel (retired) Jayant
Rao Chitale on Thursday clarified he had formed a 'Hindustan suicide squad'
and not a 'Hindu suicide squad' dismissing reports that his outfit has
links with the Shiv Sena. .....
Indian officials say they have
presented the United States with voluminous evidence that Pakistani
support for an insurgency in India's Kashmir Valley continues unabated
five months after Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf pledged to
an American envoy that it would end. .....
Denmark's secular mainstream was
on collision course yesterday with members of the Muslim community after
political leaders demanded action to halt the Islamic practice of female
circumcision. .....
A seemingly innocuous visit by
a US state department official to the office of the West Bengal Human Rights
Commission has embroiled the panel in an unseemly spat initiated by the
government. .....
Nearly a decade of being "nice"
to the Americans as a policy is coming to its logical cul-de-sac in New
Delhi's Raisina Hill. That policy started with stray, isolated gestures
during the days of P.V. Nara- simha Rao's prime ministership, when South
Block was told by 7, Race Course Road, the prime ministerial home, that
the United States of America was the most important foreign policy priority
for India and that the Americans needed to be wooed. .....
The Bush administration has evidence
that suggests Pakistan assisted North Korea's covert nuclear weapons
program as recently as three months ago, much later than previously
disclosed, according to sources in the administration and on Capitol
Hill. .....
Karate may not be a swadeshi martial
art, but it does not really matter. In the Vishwa Hindu Parishad's package
for the Bharatiya nari, it certainly has a place. But not jeans. .....
Beginning Oct. 1, U.S. immigration
inspectors will be allowed to fingerprint, photograph and track visiting
aliens who have traveled to Indonesia or Malaysia and can't credibly explain
their trips there, authorizes a confidential Justice Department memo, a
copy of which was obtained by WorldNetDaily. .....
He's a man in search of his Indian
roots. After his ancestors left Indian shores for Thailand centuries
ago, he is back `home' on a mission. To find a suitable place where
children of Thai Brahmins ("Brahmanas," he corrects) can learn ancient
Vedic texts and scriptures. .....
I am pro-Arab, very pro-Arab. And
perhaps you are, too. But ironically, the supposed support of those in
the West who proclaim themselves most "pro-Arab" does its purported beneficiaries
tremendous harm. .....
The bayonet that erupted on the
wee-hours of Saturday at Shamshernagar-Koikhali area along Indo- Bangladesh
border of North 24 Parganas, leading to a 20-hour exchange of fire between
Border Security Force (BSF) and Bangladesh Rifles, has fallen silent notwithstanding
a palpable tension prevailing in the area with a large exodus of locals
to the neighbouring villages on both sides of the border. .....
The political killings in Kannur
district has started once again with the CPM as usual taking the lead.
On Sunday night, Shaji, a 25-yr-old RSS man, was butchered by the CPM people.
.....
Most of us studied the Alfred Tennyson
poem 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' in school. The Battle of Thermopylae
we read of with goose bumps. We all know about Custer's Last Stand. And
the battle cry 'Remember the Alamo!' resonates with us. .....
There is discrimination against
dalits within the Christian Church itself in Tamil Nadu, says a study conduced
by Fr Antony Raj SJ, a dalit Jesuit and sociologist. .....
The Shankaracharya of Kanchi, Swami
Jayendra Saraswati, broke a critical stalemate in the current controversy
over the merits of the Tamil Nadu ban on conversions by force, fraud or
inducement, by offering worship at a Dalit-run temple in Madurai (The Hindu,
Nov 12). The Veerakali Amman temple, which serves the religious needs of
18 villages and has a Dalit priest, lies in the Melur region where 250
Hindus were converted en masse by a Canadian priest of the Seventh Day
Adventists on August 15. .....
The fundamental leftist and anti-American
claim about our ongoing conflict with political Islam is this: whatever
has happened or does happen, it's our fault. We provoked them into it by
being dirty Yankee imperialists and by unkindly refusing to allow them
to destroy Israel. .....
India's tough line on Bangladesh
may have been prompted by the pressure put by the US and other western
nations on the Khaleda Zia regime in Dhaka over the rise of religious fundamentalists
and the presence of al Qaida activists in the country. .....
The United States of America is
holding seven British citizens in Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay. Feroz Abassi,
Shafiq Rasul, Jamal Udeen, Asif Iqbal, Ruhal Ahmed, Tarek Dergoul and Martin
Mubanga have been held variously for a year without being charged or tried.
The US administration maintains that they are all well trained, hard-boiled
terrorists, combatants captured fighting for Al Qa-eda and the Taliban
in Tora Bora, Mazar-e-Sharif, Kandahar and Kunduz. .....
With fresh evidence that Osama
Bin Laden is still alive and kicking and with his friends and protectors
about to take over the provincial governments of two of Pakistan's four
provinces, as well as a share in the new national coalition that will now
run the country (under the watchful eye of President Pervez Musharraf),
a key question for the U.S. intelligence community remains unanswered:
Why has the CIA ignored for 11 consecutive months the only anti-al Qaida
Pakistani tribal leader who had tracked bin Laden's movements ever since
his escape from Tora Bora last Dec. 9? .....
Drilling a hole in the Bangladesh
Government's recent contention that ISI was not operating from its land,
the West Bengal police on Monday busted a major ISI network by arresting
four of its agents, including a woman, from Jalangi and Domkal police stations
of Murshidabad district. .....
Were the happenings in Gujarat
beginning with Godhra on February 27, 2002, merely rioting? Or do they
signify a coming cataclysm in the country? If it may be a revolution, it
can threaten to overturn the current ethos, the prevalent system of running
not merely the government but also the economy as well as the social structure.
A Hindu revolution would be first a protest and then an assault on the
vested interest built around Nehruvianism that occupies the commanding
heights of the country. .....
Passports with a valid visa, a
return ticket and proper company invitations are of no value according
to the new US immigration policy towards eight countries: Iraq, Iran, Libya,
Syria, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Pakistan. .....
The CBI court here has held that
there was a secret design by the former Prime Minister, the late Rajiv
Gandhi, and the former Defence Secretary, S.K. Bhatnagar (since deceased),
to ensure that the AB Bofors company was awarded the Bofors gun deal by
abusing their official position. .....
The British Foreign Secretary,
Jack Straw, has said that Britain made "serious mistakes'' over Kashmir
and called the festering dispute between India and Pakistan a consequence
of his country's colonial past. .....
An India Today-Aaj Tak commissioned
opinion poll predicts a two-thirds majority for the BJP in the crucial
assembly polls in Gujarat to be held in December. .....
One of America's most prominent
religious leaders Thursday refused to back away from his criticism of Islam,
despite efforts by the Bush administration to separate Islam from the hostility
Americans feel toward Muslim terrorists. .....
Following Syria's vote for the
Security Council's resolution demanding new weapons inspections in Iraq,
the Arab League voted Sunday to urge Iraq to comply with the American-sponsored
resolution. On Tuesday the six Persian Gulf Arab monarchies in the Gulf
Cooperation Council likewise urged Iraq to cooperate. Yesterday Iraq indicated
that it would comply with the resolution. .....
Indians have always been notorious
for their poor sense of history. This is not to say they have a poor memory,
quite the contrary; the oldest known texts (the Vedas) have been carefully
preserved in India through remarkable oral traditions, as have some of
the longest works of man (the Mahabharata and the Ramayana); yet when it
comes to the day-to-day recording and reporting of events and happenings,
there is often no clear and organized system of written documentation.
.....
She makes an unlikely martyr. But
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a 32-year- old Somali-born Muslim immigrant to the Netherlands,
who took cleaning jobs while she studied Dutch, has been forced to flee
her adopted country under threat of death. Now she is becoming known as
a latter-day Salman Rushdie. .....
India will not participate in a
proposed natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan as it would cross Pakistan
over land, providing Islamabad an opportunity to disrupt supplies if tension
between the two escalates. India's non-participation puts a question mark
over the project since the consortium of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and
Pakistan (TAP) had concluded at a meeting on July 9-10 in the Turkmen capital
Ashgabat that ''India could be the principal market for the Turkmenistan's
gas''. .....
On the Islamic internet site www.qoqaz.com
which is hostile towards the Russians, and is probably run by Chechens,
there are a number of unsigned articles which deal with Islam's position
towards prisoners. Drawing upon Islamic religious sources; e.g., the Koran
and its interpretations as well as other traditions about the Prophet's
conduct, the articles advocate a position which permits the killing of
prisoners if their killing benefits the Muslims. .....
The Islamic world is engaged in
a cultural war with the West and the worst is still to come, Italian author
Oriana Fallaci told a receptive Washington audience last night. .....
A political campaign wore the mask
of a mission of harmony as a visiting delegation from Gujarat, led by Gujarat
Congress Party president Shankarsinh Vaghela, addressed over 200 Gujaratis
in Chicago on October 19. .....
The hoarse, breathless voice of
Osama bin Laden knocked the White House back on the defensive yesterday
at a time when it is trying to focus national attention on a looming confrontation
with Iraq. .....
The Islamic cleric Fazl-ur Rahman
is sitting cross-legged on a bed happily outlining his agenda as the aspiring
Prime Minister of Pakistan, one of the world's geo- political hotspots
and a focal point in the American-led war against al-Qa'ida. .....
British intelligence paid large
sums of money to an al-Qaeda cell in Libya in a doomed attempt to assassinate
Colonel Gadaffi in 1996 and thwarted early attempts to bring Osama bin
Laden to justice. .....
She makes an unlikely martyr. But
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a 32-year- old Somali-born Muslim immigrant to the Netherlands,
who took cleaning jobs while she studied Dutch, has been forced to flee
her adopted country under threat of death. Now she is becoming known as
a latter-day Salman Rushdie. .....
The President of Pakistan, General
Pervez Musharraf, faced a chorus of condemnation yesterday after he delayed
the opening of the country's long-awaited new parliament. .....
It is probably the most visceral
question of our times, asked from Chechnya to Kashmir to Armagh and often
answered in blood. But the odd thing is that, no matter how many times
he hears it, no matter how many times he witnesses its consequences, Tony
Blair never quite gets the point. Indeed, he, John Prescott and Robin Cook
still troop around blank-faced, offering the question up on a plate. As
though it were panacea, not potential poison. .....
Nazar Street in the heart of the
ancient Persian city of Isfahan is crackling with sexual energy as Iran's
Saviour Day holiday gets into full swing. .....
Britain and the US have "lost the
right" to lecture New Delhi on how to respond to terrorist provocation
by displaying double standards by tracking down bombers in Pakistan but
letting them operate freely in Kashmir, India's foreign minister said yesterday.
.....
I've not been sleeping well, and
for once the causes aren't domestic. It's not builders, deadlines or bills,
but Bali, Washington, Moscow. Suddenly, world news isn't some distant background
thrum you can tune out, it's big and it's scary and it's coming to get
you. .....
There was a "secret design" by
former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Mr SK Bhatnagar, then defence secretary,
to ensure that AB Bofors bagged the multi-crore gun deal by abusing their
official position, the special CBI judge observed today. Mr Prem Kumar's
order on framing charges in the Bofors case noted that Rajiv Gandhi's post-contract
conduct showed that "a massive cover-up operation was launched". .....
India underestimates its annual
foreign direct investment (FDI) massively by using a narrow and limiting
definition of FDI. A high-level committee of the Reserve Bank of India
(RBI) and the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) has
recommended collection of data in accordance with the international definition
of FDI recommended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). .....
A journalist with an Arab TV station
that broadcast an audiotape of a voice purported to be Osama bin Laden's
said on Wednesday that he received the recording in Pakistan from an agent
of the Al-Qaeda leader. .....
Indian officials say they have
presented the United States with voluminous evidence that Pakistani support
for an insurgency in India's Kashmir Valley continues unabated five months
after Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf pledged to an American envoy
that it would end. .....
Denmark's secular mainstream was
on collision course yesterday with members of the Muslim community after
political leaders demanded action to halt the Islamic practice of female
circumcision. .....
Nothing is more sickening than
for some of our own intellectuals comparing the economic progress made
by China in recent years with that of India, just to show how superior
the Chinese are. And to add insult to injury we have the U.S. Ambassador
to India Robert D. Blackwill joining the chorus. .....
On June 5 1975 Indira Gandhi passed
through Karamsad on her way to Peplad. People rushed to garland her. She
mingled with the crowds. She seemed to have enough time on her hands. Ghanshyam
Patel, then a young man, was watching her. He had left his village early
to catch a glimpse of her. The day is etched in his memory. He has not
been able to accept that Indira Gandhi gave a go-by to the birthplace of
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel: "Mur ke bhi nahin dekha, bas chali gayin." .....
The Bush administration has evidence
that suggests Pakistan assisted North Korea's covert nuclear weapons program
as recently as three months ago, much later than previously disclosed,
according to sources in the administration and on Capitol Hill. .....
Nearly a decade of being "nice"
to the Americans as a policy is coming to its logical cul-de-sac in New
Delhi's Raisina Hill. That policy started with stray, isolated gestures
during the days of P.V. Nara- simha Rao's prime ministership, when South
Block was told by 7, Race Course Road, the prime ministerial home, that
the United States of America was the most important foreign policy priority
for India and that the Americans needed to be wooed. .....
A seemingly innocuous visit by
a US state department official to the office of the West Bengal Human Rights
Commission has embroiled the panel in an unseemly spat initiated by the
government. .....
He's a man in search of his Indian
roots. After his ancestors left Indian shores for Thailand centuries ago,
he is back 'home' on a mission. To find a suitable place where children
of Thai Brahmins ("Brahmanas," he corrects) can learn ancient Vedic texts
and scriptures. .....
The Hindu custom of dowry has long
been blamed for the murder of wives and female infants in India. In this
highly provocative book, Veena Oldenburg argues that these killings are
neither about dowry nor reflective of an Indian culture or caste system
that encourages violence against women. Rather, such killings can be traced
directly to the influences of the British colonial era. .....
Four persons allegedly involved
in robberies reported at the residences of the Excise Collector and a relative
of former Union Minister, Shanti Bhushan, on November 1 and November 5
respectively have been arrested by the Special Staff of the South Delhi
police. .....
Four persons allegedly involved
in robberies reported at the residences of the Excise Collector and a relative
of former Union Minister, Shanti Bhushan, on November 1 and November 5
respectively have been arrested by the Special Staff of the South Delhi
police. .....
The Prime Minister, Atal Behari
Vajpayee, today called upon human rights institutions to recognise the
truth that the single greatest enemy of human rights "is terrorism fuelled
by religious extremism'' and "it strikes at innocent lives.'' .....
Indian intelligence has satellite
pictures of camps located in Bangladesh of militant groups active in the
Northeast and reports suggest Dhaka has already begun a crackdown, rounding
up several activists. .....
"The US lionises President Pervez
Musharraf as one who has curbed fundamentalism in Pakistan, but he is hand
in glove with Islamists in perpetuating military rule," said South Asia
expert Selig Harrison. He agreed with former prime minister Benazir Bhutto's
description of Musharraf and Islamic fundamentalists as "natural allies".
.....
Cautioning the democratic countries
to guard against exploitation of democracies by terrorists, India on Monday
called for a balance between the security interests and right to information
and speech. .....
Indian intelligence has satellite
pictures of camps located in Bangladesh of militant groups active in the
Northeast and reports suggest Dhaka has already begun a crackdown by rounding
up several activists. .....
Hindu priests, heads of various
Hindu bodies and seers will meet at Kottakkal Kerala's Malappuram district
on November 24 to discuss whether doors of temples should be opened to
all, irrespective of religion. In most temples in Kerala, non-Hindus are
not allowed entry. Famous playback singer K.J. Yesudas is an ardent devotee
of Guruvayurappan and Ayyappan, and has sung several songs for the deity.
But he was denied entry in the temple on the ground that he was born a
Christian. .....
In an outpouring of vitriol and
insults, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia today accused rebels in
the breakaway province of Chechnya of being international terrorists who
believe that all non- Muslims deserve to die. .....
Dubai-based don Aftab Ansari, the
main accused in the January 22 American Centre attack, has been charged
with instigating co-prisoners to a scuffle inside the Presidency Jail in
Kolkata. Inspector General (Prison) in West Bengal Anil Kumar told PTI
here on Sunday that the incident took place inside the prison on Saturday
when Ansari resisted body frisking and provoked eight other co-accused
to do so during mandatory frisking before taking them to a city court.
.....
The State Department has said the
scheduled execution of a Pakistani man in Virginia next week "may trigger
retaliatory attacks against American interests overseas," reports AP. .....
If a visitor from a far away galaxy
were to land at an American or Canadian university and peruse some of the
petitions that were circulating around the campus, he would probably come
away with the conclusion that the Earth is a peaceful and fair planet with
only one villainous nation determined to destroy the peace and to violate
human rights. .....
Democrat Phil Bredesen said yesterday
that his Republican foe for governor was engaging in the politics of ''hate
and religious bigotry'' to win the closely contested race. .....
Although current Chinese relations
with Saudi Arabia are largely linked to Beijing's quickly growing appetite
for imported energy resources, China's long-term goal may be to replace
the United States as the Persian Gulf's security guarantor. .....
The army in Kashmir feels that
disbanding the special operations group (SOG) of police' will affect the
anti-militancy operations, Earlier, the BSF had also expressed its reservations
against disbanding the SOG saying it will affect operation of the security
forces against militants. .....
In the second fortnight of August
many articles appeared in mainline dailies of UK protesting over Lord Adam
Patel's accusations against Sewa International. One of those was contributed
by Mr. Nayan Mistry published in Asian Voice, August 24" 2003. Following
is an excerpt from that article: "Being a British Hindu who was born in
the UK, I have little knowledge of religious problems in India. .....
The Kanchi Acharya, Jayendra Saraswathi,
offered worship at Thumbaipatti near Melur in Madurai district last
night. The temple, worshipped by people living in 18 villages, has
a Dalit as the priest. .....
On November 3, a five-foot long
Hellfire missile shot from the CIA's remote-controlled Predator spy-plane
struck a moving car in Yemen. US citizen Ahmed Hijazi, al-Qaeda jihadi
Abu Ali al-Harethi, and four other "suspected al-Qaeda operatives" promptly
flew Jannat-wards for a blissful romp with 72 houris. Al-Harethi, too,
was merely "suspected" of masterminding the October 2000 attack on the
USS Cole, which killed 17 Americans. .....
The Pope has been told that the
al-Qaeda terrorists who masterminded the September 11 attacks in the United
States planned to assassinate him during his tour of the Philippines. .....
In July 2000 I was visiting forward
areas in the Poonch-Rajouri sector. This was when the Kargil war had just
ended and infiltration by Paskistan-backed militants had shifted southward.
The assignment was to cover both the firing from beyond the Line of Control
and from within. Our requirements needed covering both the forward infantry
battalions and also the Rashtriya Rifles (RR) units combing the hinterland.
.....
Rejecting the European demands
for a political dialogue with the Chechen rebels, Russia President Vladimir
Putin has said that Osama bin Laden, Taliban leader Mullah Omar and other
like-minded people are calling the shots in Kashmir, West Asia, Chechnya
and other parts of the world. .....
I can quite visualise this scenario
actually unfolding one of these days: The police have encircled a group
of terrorists attempting to unleash a bloodbath in a public place - could
be the Parliament, a sports stadium, a shrine, a concert at India Gate,
the Supreme Court or even the office of a media organisation, for that
matter. The men in uniform are about to open fire when a beleaguered terrorist
yells out: "Stop. Dont shoot. .....
North Koreas assistance to Pakistan
in the development of its missile capability has been a quid pro quo for
the latters assistance to North Korea in the development of its military
nuclear capability. .....
North Korea's determined covert
pursuit of new nuclear weapons may stretch back five years and may now
be on the verge of success. This much is certain: Pyongyang's recently
uncovered nuclear deceit forces the world's powers to reexamine basic attitudes
toward proliferation and deterrence. .....
While Pakistani political parties
are still fighting as to who would head the civilian government, Selig
Harrison, an American expert on South Asian affairs, has said that the
military rule in Pakistan would continue indefinitely with the generals
putting more and more money in Swiss Bank accounts and buying off civilian
leaders. .....
French police say that the order
for the suicide attack of last April 11 on a synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia,
was given in Karachi. The attack resulted in the death of 21 persons, among
them two French and 14 German tourists. .....
People keep asking me what we learned
from September 11, 2001 and the deaths of 3,000 of our fellow citizens.
I'm tempted to say: Absolutely nothing. (Who was it who remarked that the
lessons of history are the last things we ever learn?) .....
Fifteen people living near Mai
Fatheh Shah Dargah in Shahpur area have prepared an affidavit against Congress
leader from Dariyapur constituency Pankaj Shah, accusing him of leading
mobs which had looted and set their houses ablaze during the post-Godhra
riots on February 28. .....
Former chief of the air staff air
chief marshal A Y Tipnis (retd) today emphasised that India will have to
change the ''Big Brother'' attitude towards Pakistan and make the neighbouring
nation aware of our strength. .....
Indian Navy is erecting a grand
memorial to the great Admiral of Marathas - Kanhoji Angre who reigned supreme
over Arabian sea for two decades by his incomparable valour.The Chairman
of Indian Maritime Heritage Society, Vice Admiral (/Retd.) Manohar Awati
(Paramvishishta Sevapadak, Veerchakra) has taken special interest in this
connection. .....
After reports about North Korea
supplying nuclear weapons technology to Pakistan, a former official of
the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) has said that Saudi Arabia has
been financing Islamabad's nuclear and missile programme purchases from
China. .....
Although the US Administration
hasn't said much about it, according to leading US analyst there is room
to believe that Washington has all along known that nuclear cooperation
between Pakistan and North Korea was in existence. .....
Chess, the game of mind and intellect,
was a gift of India to the world in the late 6th or early 7th century,
a noted historian and respected researcher on the board games said here
Saturday. .....
Ayaan Hirsi Ali had done well in
the 10 years since she arrived in the Netherlands as a young refugee from
Somalia and, until a few months ago, she lived a quiet life in her adopted
land. Never did she intend to create a national commotion. .....
The debate over history in the
curriculum is only likely to get sharper after Friday, with the NCERT
starting a series of lectures to counter "disinformation". .....
Great expectations have been roused
in the Kashmir Valley, with its favourite son Mufti Mohammad Sayeed taking
over as Chief Minister. Though disbanding the Special Operations Group
and the release of some political prisoners were a part of his election
manifesto, one doesnt know how the Congress has reconciled itself to these
prospects in the larger national interest, while allying with the Peoples
Democratic Party on a rotational power-sharing basis. .....
A huge outcry has been generated
in sections of the media, both print and electronic, over the circumstances
in which two persons were shot dead by Delhi Police in an encounter inside
the basement of the Ansal Plaza shopping mall in South Delhi on November
3. .....
Diwali in the national capital
passed off peacefully, thanks mainly to some excellent work done by the
local police. The cops manned the main markets and meeting places and generally
kept a hawk-eye on strangers and strange-looking objects such as bombs
and any other form of incendiary material. .....
Dr Hari Krishna, the man who claimed
to have "witnessed" the two terrorists being "shot in cold blood" by a
Delhi Police team in Ansal Plaza on Sunday, was not even on the premises
when the encounter took place. .....
Under fire from various quarters
on the Ansal Plaza incident, the Delhi Police have found strong support
in the BJP, which has criticised human rights organisations for "discrediting
the security forces without any basis". .....
Illegal immigration into Assam
is unlikely to abate unless both India and Bangladesh agree to do something
about the situation. When former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina
said there was not a single illegal Bangladeshi in India, neither Delhi
nor the Asom Gana Parishad, nor the All Assam Students' Union, questioned
it. .....
The rupee is yet to be made fully
convertible; that is, you can't carry a wad of rupee notes when you travel
abroad and get them exchanged for local currency at any bureau de change.
However, if some people have their way, one billion people (rather 800
million of them) ought to be made fully convertible. Suddenly, religious
conversion is being offered as "the panacea" for all real and imagined
socio-political afflictions. .....
Sita ka Chinala was a pamphlet
written by a Muslim rabble-rouser in Lahore in 1927, alleging that Sita,
wife of Lord Rama, was a woman of loose morals. Hindus countered with Rangilla
Rasul and Risala Vartman. .....
Outspoken Iranian pro-reform writer
and intellectual Hashem Aghajari has been sentenced to death on charges
of insulting Islam, his lawyer told AFP on Thursday. .....
The Delhi High Court has sought
replies from the Centre and Lt Governor of Delhi on a petition alleging
that terrorists and anti-social elements were taking shelter in the Jama
Masjid here and the monument was being used as private property by Shahi
Imam Ahmed Bukhari. .....
If a visitor from a far away galaxy
were to land at an American or Canadian university and peruse some of the
petitions that were circulating around the campus, he would probably come
away with the conclusion that the Earth is a peaceful and fair planet with
only one villainous nation determined to destroy the peace and to violate
human rights. .....
The elections that the United States
dragooned Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf into holding last month
have proved to be a disaster. Democracy was the big loser -- the winners
were Islamic extremist parties who now have their strongest foothold in
power ever in the world's only nuclear Muslim nation. .....
Arab Voice, an Arabic-language
newspaper published weekly since 1993 from Main Street in Paterson, N.J.,
appears to be just another one of America's many ethnic publications.
.....
India handed over a list of specifically
identified 99 training camps of Northeast insurgents in Bangaladesh during
a border coordination meeting in New Delhi last week. .....
Bangladesh war hero field Marshal
S H F J Manekshaw has said India twice lost a chance to resolve the
Kashmir issue during Ayub Khan's regime and allowed the problem
to grow "big". .....
Local and federal law-enforcement
agencies are attempting to infiltrate al Qaeda sleeper cells operating
in the United States and are using disinformation campaigns to expose and
neutralize the terror groups that continue to communicate with one another,
U.S. intelligence officials say. .....
There is also a collective 'Fear
of NRIs,' I think, along with the irrational fear of engineering. The 'secular
progressives' realize that NRIs, and in particular NRI engineers, especially
those who made money in the high tech boom of the 1990s, are not so likely
to swallow their propaganda. .....
Neighbour's envy, owner's pride.
That's how it is going to look like from Dhaka after the Reliance Industries-Niko
Resources consortium's gas find, the latest and the largest in the Krishna-Godavari
basin off the Visakhapatnam coast. .....
The protest march last week in
Punalur of Kerala by Dalit Christians for intra-religious parity brought
to light the simmering discontent among the converts. .....
Those who plan and carry out suicide
bombings that deliberately target civilians are guilty of crimes against
humanity and must be brought to justice, a leading humanitarian watchdog
group said in a report released Friday. .....
In what they hope will be the most
auspicious new political season of them all, hundreds of British Hindus
took agarbattis, diyas, sweets and the spirit of Diwali for the first time
ever into the UK's Victorian houses of Parliament, only to be rebuked by
a leading government minister for political apathy. .....
Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani
yesterday said that the epicenter of terrorism is now shifting to Pakistan.
He added that this was resulting in greater isolation of Islamabad.
.....
Switzerland's top court on Friday
slapped a fresh ban on a controversial book by two French authors about
Osama bin Laden, the Swiss ATS news agency said. .....
Unlike in other states, which celebrate
their 'rajyotsav', the state of Tamil Nadu does not bother to celebrate
its formation day falling during November. All the samepeople witnessed
an unprecedented development, on November 1 overshadowing everything else.
Guess what it is? .....
Question: In Qur'an 9:29 what does
the word "tribute" means?
Answer: Tribute is jizyah. It is
a tax imposed EXCLUSIVELY on NON-Muslims as a "price" for allowing them
the "privilege" of living under Islamic rule without converting to Islam.
.....
Islamic website http://www.everymuslim.com
quoting Sheikh Muhammad Abu Zahra, from his book Concept of War in Islam;
writes "Islam advocates clemency with captives. History has never known
warriors so merciful to their captives as the early Muslims who followed
the teachings of their religion. Numerous religious texts demand clemency
with captives." .....
Government agencies have placed
church institutions in the Kashmir Valley under special security and urged
Christians to restrict their movement after mobs staged protests in the
northern Indian region. The moves came after separatists in the Muslim-dominated
area protested remarks against Prophet Muhammad attributed to an American
Baptist minister Groups of Muslims blocked roads and forced shops and businesses
to close Oct. 7 in Srinagar, capital of Jammu and Kashmir state, after
news reports Oct. 3 quoted Reverend Jerry Falwell as saying Muhammad was
a terrorist. .....
The telephone lines between South
Block and the US State Department have been burning hot ever since India
launched coercive diplomacy against Pakistan in the aftermath of the December
13 terrorist attack on Parliament. So External Affairs Minister Yashwant
Sinha was not surprised when his US counterpart Colin Powell called him
at 9.40 p.m. on October 17. .....
Last Spring, the faculty of Harvard
College selected a graduating senior named Zayed Yasin to deliver a speech
at the university's commencement exercises in June. When the title of the
speech-"My American Jihad"-was announced, it quite naturally aroused questions.
Why, it was asked, should Harvard wish to promote the concept of jihad-or
"holy war"-just months after thousands of Americans had lost their lives
to a jihad carried out by nineteen suicide hijackers acting in the name
of Islam? .....
I have been noticing an interesting
phenomenon for some time, but it reached a crescendo with the ascent of
Abdul Kalam to the post of President of India. The rise of the humble aeronautical
engineer to the nation's highest post coincided with a flurry of articles
and statements in the Indian media that demean and attack scientists and
engineers. I conclude, following in Erica Jong's footsteps, that 'Fear
of Engineering' is the root cause. You remember Jong and the zipless you-know-
what, don't you? .....
The majority of Balinese practice
a form of the Hindu religion which they call Agama Hindu Dharma ("Religion
of the Hindu doctrine"). Also called Agama Tirtha ("Religion of the Holy
Waters"), it represents a unique amalgamation of foreign Hindu and Buddhist
elements that were grafted onto a base of preexisting, indigenous religious
customs. .....
As the United States hunted worldwide
for leaders of Al Qaeda this summer, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a key planner
of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was living quietly in an apartment about
10 miles from the American Consulate here, according to Pakistani law enforcement
officials. .....
Several leading political commentators
and media personalities have hailed the just concluded Assembly elections
in Jammu and Kashmir as the crowning triumph of Indian democracy. I fully
endorse their view and salute the brave people of the State for their ardent
belief in democracy and their urge for mainstream politics. .....
Prominent Muslims in Delhi were
targeted by the Americans for an exhaustive discussion on issues ranging
from US foreign policy to terrorism with the visiting Director of the Policy
Planning Staff in the US State Department, Richard Haass, at the residence
of US ambassador to India Robert D Blackwill. .....
Anomalies, objections and lapses
pointed out by a section of academicians and intellectuals in the Social
Science textbooks meant for Class VI and IX with revised syllabus have
been removed by the National Council of Educational Research and Training
and would be available in the market in next couple of days, the NCERT
Director, J.S. Rajput, said here today. .....
Hindu religion did not subscribe
to untouchability, which was prevalent in some pockets of rural areas,
said the Kanchi Sankaracharya, Jayendra Saraswathi, here today. .....
Should journalism be passionate,
or should it be objective? In recent weeks, there has been a well-orchestrated
campaign against the Tamil Nadu Government's move to curb religious conversions.
Several contributors have argued with great passion that it is improper
and illegal to create impediments against religious conversion.Their arguments
are exhilarating; unfortunately, they are equally risky. .....
(1) Q. There is a countrywide apprehension
that trifurcation of the state amounts to handing over the Kashmir Valley
to Pakistan. Then India's security will be far more endangered.
Ans. This apprehension is entirely
due to total ignorance about the ground reality in the Valley. Firstly,
the Muslims in the valley are dead afraid of joining Pakistan: The blood
curdling memories of 1947 Oct when hordes from N.W.F.P. descended on Kashmir,
killing raping plundering and turning the fair land of Kashmir into a veritable
hell for the Kashmiris. Even National Conference is against merging with
Pakistan. .....
I haven't heard of any Christians
going to Tirupati,' my mother, says about my proposed visit to Balaji.
Can't blame her for her views, after all I am born and bred a 'Catholic'.
If you add to that a dose of Catholic School Jesuit education and the fact
that Mom's eldest brother was a Jesuit priest and Mom's twin sister a Catholic
nun...you get the picture? .....
A local resident's chance discovery
of some pottery from a construction site has pushed the clock back for
Pune and it is now surmised that the city evolved from a village established
around 4th-5th century AD. .....
Amidst an hour-long acrimonious
debate, the Tamil Nadu assembly today passed the Anti-Conversion ordinance,
with 140 members voting in favour and 73 opposing the measure. .....
Even as the Tamil Nadu Prohibition
of Forcible Conversion of Religion Bill was passed in the assembly, the
Shankaracharya of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham Jayandra Saraswathi Swami held
a rally on the sands of the Marina here trying to allay fears that the
law was directed at any particular religion. .....
Mahatma Gandhi said that he was
proud to be a "Sanatani Hindu". That is, an idol worshipping Hindu.
Today, a former chief minister cites an encyclopaedia in Hindi, the language
he always held as imperfect, to say that 'Hindu' means 'a thief'.
Of course, he will not look at the better-known Encyclopaedia of Britannica,
which defines the very word 'Hindu' in glowing terms. This is what
the Mahatma once termed as gutter inspection. That is looking at
the worst, not the best. .....
The Supreme Court's advisory opinion
on the presidential reference has helped clear the air over Gujarat. Notwithstanding
the motivated noises made by a section of the secularist media, the apex
court has not fully upheld the stand of any of the players involved in
the drama leading to the above-mentioned reference to the court. Nor, for
that matter, has the court rejected outright in entirety the stand of any
of the players involved. In its reading of the relevant provisions of the
Constitution, predictably, the court has been even-handed. .....
Q.: What is the controversy on
Italy ni Kutri all about?
A.: It is not a controversy. The
Congress has put those words in Mr Togadia's mouth and given it a political
hue. Mr Togadia had not referred to Mrs Sonia Gandhi at all in his speech.
.....
The United States believes that
it is "`undesirable'' for the India-Pakistan relationship to be as "thin''
as it is and favoured a ``bottom-up approach'' to "strengthen'' the ties.
.....
Q: Why have you taken on the task
of explaining to people what it has been like for Christians and Jews to
live under Muslim rule to the point of coining a word - "dhimmitude" -
for it?
A: When I was growing up in Egypt,
I knew nothing of freedom. I knew there was persecution of minorities,
but we adapted to it. This was the 1950s. Then we were expelled from Egypt
in 1957 under Nasser and we moved to England. It was in England I learned
the word "liberty." I had to learn to be a free person. Dhimmitude is that
state of fear and insecurity. .....
The Kashmir Vale has won yet again.
And Jammu remains jinxed as always. The Congress giving away the J&K
chief ministerial post to Anantnag-based Peoples Democratic Party, despite
being favoured by the arithmetic of the results of the assembly election,
is a baffling decision. It's a decision that is likely to lead to consequences
other than merely intensifying the movement for a separate Jammu state,
which formed part of the RSS demand for J&K's trifurcation in June
this year. .....
Egyptian-born historian Bat Ye'or
and her husband, David Littman, have been making the rounds of several
campuses this month to lecture on "dhimmitude," a word she coined
to describe the status of Christians and Jews under Islamic governments.
.....
Pakistan on Wednesday strongly
criticised remarks by US ambassador to India Robert Blackwill in which
he implicitly blamed Islamabad for "cross-border terrorism" in Jammu and
Kashmir. .....
Will Jews and Christians on American
college campuses have the freedom - and more importantly, the courage
- to speak out against oppression of their people in Islamic nations? Not,
it seems, at Georgetown University, where Jewish student leaders turned
on the leading historian of dhimmitude - the state of formal discrimination
historically imposed on Jews and Christians living under Islamic occupation
- when Muslim students became angry and emotional over her remarks. .....
The recent bombing of a nightclub
in Bali, Indonesia, killing at least 183 and injuring hundreds, fits into
a larger pattern. Militant Islam used to be mostly confined to Middle Easterners,
but in recent years it has spread to Muslims in other parts of the world.
.....
A student-written article in the
Yale Daily News last week, the paper for the elite American university,
was typical fare. It was a piece by a precocious first-year student criticizing
what he regards as the anti-Semitism tolerated at the U.N. The response,
however, was far from typical. He'd touched a nerve. In the comments section,
posted online next to the article, a torrent of anger was unleashed. .....
Several days after the bombs, the
people of Bali, and tourists who have stayed on, are still in profound
shock, still asking, 'Why here? Why us?' This was not an American embassy
or military base, so why Bali? Yet in the twisted minds of the bombers
an entertainment zone packed with alcohol-fuelled Westerners was the perfect
target, and the warning signals that something big was being planned in
south-east Asia had been flashing for months, if not years. .....
