Delhi With the Left providing the
crutches for the UPA Government, it is no surprise that the Union Government
is out to please the red brigade. Recently, the fetish to flaunt a red
passport led CPI(M) poster boy Sitaram Yechury to get a diplomatic passport-although
getting one as a non MP and a non diplomat is a rarity, given stringent
mea regulations. .....
Even as Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder
Singh was busy touring the tsunami-hit Andaman and Nicobar Islands last
week, his much-flaunted and now taunted anti-corruption drive back home
was rocked by sensational cash-and-carry charges against his Man Friday
and Chief Parliamentary Secretary Rana Gurmit Singh Sodhi. .....
When National Hydro Power Corporation
(NHPC) jointly bagged the ambitious Rs 19,000-crore rural road construction
project in Bihar under the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojna last year,
its chairman and managing director Yogendra Prasad appeared impatient at
media scepticism about its smooth execution. .....
There seems to be an inextricable
link between politics and crime. Both have become growth industries in
recent years. Neither minimum qualifications nor any bar exists for entry
into these highly lucrative professions. And it is not only in the badlands
of Bihar and UP that criminals become people's representatives in the State
and Central legislatures. .....
The swastika is far older than
Hitler's Germany and means much more. We passed through the exit formalities
at Kathmandu airport, and an official of the Hindu Kingdom of Nepal stamped
our exit cards. I glanced down at mine. Staring back at me, in fresh black
ink, was a swastika. .....
Wonder, why this sloganeering?
Well, why not? We are after all the proud citizens of our great country
and we should once in a while remind ourselves that our country was founded
on the basic principles of secularism. .....
Within a month of the tsunamis
battering 12 countries across South and Southeast Asia, together with East
Africa, India has gained a new political foothold in the Indian Ocean region.
.....
"It is with deep regret that Datuk
A.Vaithilingam, President Malaysia Hindu Sangam, resigns from the Executive
Committee of the Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity,
Hinduism and Sikhism (MCCBCHS). .....
"I didn't like his bull's rush
approach," said Jim "Mattress Mack" McIngvale, Gallery Furniture owner
and local philanthropist. "Everything has to happen in the next 24 hours
and you have to come up with the money." .....
At a time, when the term secular
in India seems largely to be equated with Hindu-baiting, much disquiet
is being generated by some events that appear in the nature of an
assault on the Sanatan Dharma. Whether by design or coincidence,
after the ascent to power of the Congress-led UPA Government at the
Centre, and the party in states like Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka,
there has been an increase in Christian missionary activities in
the south. .....
Bihar, in Indian politics, is a
five letter word. The media talks about the lawless society of the state
or the jungle law, which, in fact, is an insult to the animals of the jungle.
We are now told that kidnapping has become an industry in the state and
was worth Rs 50 crores. The latest sorry episode in Bihar was the kidnapping
of a public school student which aroused the ire of the entire student
community. .....
H S Pholka, a senior lawyer who
contested cases of 1984 riots for around two decades, is outraged. He cannot
believe that the Nanawati Commission is about to exonerate the Congress
for anti-Sikh riots. .....
A lot of fetish is made in India
about secularism. Like socialism in the days of Pandit Nehru, secularism
has become a sacrosanct word but unlike socialism, very few people in India
understand what secularism really means. .....
Media's one-sided approach towards
Shan-karacharya's case has pained Hindu society. Though it is for the courts
to determine whether Kanchi Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati, the 69th
Peethadhipati of Sri Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham, Kanchipuram is guilty or
innocent, and though everyone is presumed to be innocent till found guilty,
a section of the media has already pronounced him guilty. .....
Senior VHP leader Acharya Giriraj
Kishore sees a conspiracy behind the arrest of the two Shankaracharyas
of Kanchi Mutt. He says that Hindus are relieved at the release of Swami
Jayendra Saraswati, but are equally concerned at the arrest of Vijayendra
Saraswati and at sudden interruption of rituals in this ancient Mutt for
the first time. .....
A socio-religious hot spot in Karnataka
is immersed in the quagmire of controversies and is projected to manifest
as a communal cauldron. Located in Bababudangiri Hills (also known as Chandradrona
Parvat), Chikmagalur district of south Karnataka, the shrine is centripetal
to thousands of devotees cutting across religious lines. .....
The Supreme Court's scathing criticism
of the prosecution for its failure to provide even a shred of evidence
to link the Kanchi Shankaracharya, Swami Jayendra Saraswati, with the Shankaraman
murder case has confirmed the popular perception that the Tamil Nadu Chief
Minister, J. Jayalalithaa, committed the cardinal sin of implicating a
highly respected Hindu icon in the murder case. .....
Poojyapada Shankaracharya Swami
Jayendra Saraswati and Swami Vijayendra Saraswati Maharaj, Sashtang Pranam,
Poojyawar Bhagwan Shanker, in order to save mankind from destruction, drank
the poison, which was one of the outcomes of the churning of the ocean.
.....
The suspense is over, finally.
In a garish display of lights and sound to rival any WWF extravaganza,
the miracle worker Benny Hinny (his correct name among several known),
his plump well-oiled face beaming across TV screens in Bangalore,
stepped on the make-shift stage at the Jakkur Airport generously
gifted to him by the Congress led Karnataka Government. The rest,
as they say is history. .....
The Saudi royal family has cleared
plans to construct 4,500 madrasas in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka
at a cost of $ 35 million to promote "modern and liberal education with
Islamic values", and the Saudi embassy in New Delhi is pushing this somewhat
tentatively with the Union HRD ministry and Minorities Commission. .....
It is for more than one reason
that the Banerjee Commission Report on the Godhra incident lacks any credibility.
The constitution of this commission itself was ultra vires. There was already
a commission headed by Justices Nanavati and Shah investigating this case.
.....
A dozen Americans walked into a
relief camp here, showering bereft parents and traumatized children
with gifts, attention and affection. They also quietly offered camp
residents something else: Jesus. .....
Ravi Subramaniam's previous mysterious
appearance in police custody was covered by vikatan. At the end of that
article, we had pointed out in our editorial the bizarre appearance of
2 attorneys claiming to represent Ravi Subramaniam. (See our editorial
after the translation). .....
The State Government seems to be
bending over backwards to ensure that it's smooth sailing for controversial
pastor Benny Hinn's 'Festival of Blessings' at Jakkur Airfield from Friday.
.....
In the post-Cold War world, the
once catchy communist propaganda jargons such as dialectical materialism,
scientific socialism, dictatorship of the proletariat and democratic centralism
have lost their appeal and relevance. But the Indian Marxists desperately
cling to these stale concepts to impress their lesser comrades and to establish
their credentials as the most rational and public-spirited political class
in the country. .....
Sir, Why make such a big fuss about
Benny Hinn's Festival? What will happen if he blesses India? Will the problems
of poverty, corruption, communalism be wiped off from this land? Moreover,
he has made some derogatory remarks on other religions. .....
New York City is the epitome of
the great melting pot of America. In just a five-block radius around my
house, I can find residents from eleven different countries. My neighbors
include Albanian, Palestinian and Pakistani Muslims; Polish, Puerto Rican,
Honduran and Mexican Catholics; Korean Methodists; Hindus from India; and
Buddhists from Sri Lanka. .....
The Congress bounced back to power
in Andhra Pradesh with the assistance of the naxalites and the government
won't do anything to put the peace process in jeopardy, Pradesh Congress
Committee chief K. Keshava Rao said here on Tuesday. .....
A mob killed a youth in Gajipura
locality in neighbouring Kheda district, police said. The youth identified
as Pappu Rana was killed by the mob because his brother Vijay Rana had
married a Muslim girl, Minaz, police said. .....
In my article 'Seekers of truth
and the ultimate lie' (December 7), I made the following two inferences.
First, Ms Jayalalithaa's remark that the seer's arrest was the most painful
decision in her entire political career was pretence. Second, there was
no prima facie evidence to implicate the seer in the murder of Sankaraman.
.....
Ram Vilas Paswan seems to have
dug out the ultimate weapon to woo Muslim voters of Bihar - an Osama bin
Laden look-alike, who is tagging him to election meetings. This bin Laden
clone is one Maulana Meraj Khalid Noor, with whose endorsement Paswan is
hoping to fell the reigning champion of Muslims in Bihar - his bete noire
Lalu Prasad. .....
Faith Healer turns Fake Healer
as 18 agents including 16 from Kanyakumari arrested in Kodagu village.
Chair-bound paralytic patient walks up to journalists and shakes hands!
.....
A sultry pop singer dubbed the
"Muslim Madonna" is facing the wrath of religious fundamentalists after
releasing a sexy video for her first British single. .....
Rage and fury has gripped this
tsunami-hit tiny Hindu village in India's southern Tamil Nadu after a group
of Christian missionaries allegedly refused them aid for not agreeing to
follow their religion. .....
Renowned Kannada litterateur and
Jnanpeeth award winner UR Ananthamurthy on Sunday cautioned Chief Minister
N Dharam Singh against associating himself with the three-day prayer meeting
of American evangelist Benny Hinn in Bangalore from January 21. .....
The father of a murdered New Jersey
family was threatened for making anti-Muslim remarks online - and the gruesome
quadruple slaying may have been the hateful retaliation, sources told The
Post yesterday. .....
After a long gap, a man who claims
to have the power to heal the sick and dying has surfaced on the Indian
shores. The man is none other than a controversial Pastor Benny Hinn. This
51-year-old Arab-Israely who became a Canadian and then an American and
the Founder of World Outreach Centre, Florida in the United States of America.
.....
The mentality of radical Islam
includes several main components, of which one is Muslim supremacism: A
belief that believers alone should rule and otherwise enjoy an exalted
status over non-Muslims. This outlook dominates the Islamist worldview
as much in the streets of Paris as in the caves of Afghanistan. .....
The chief schools inspector, David
Bell, faced an angry backlash from Muslim leaders last night after claiming
many of their schools failed to promote tolerance of other cultures. .....
New Delhi is agog with the probable
political fallout of a possible decision by the Election Commission, nullifying
Sonia Gandhi's election to the Lok Sabha from Rae Bareilly in 2004. In
a move reminiscent of the Allahabad High Court's decision to set aside
the election of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi .....
Srinagar, January 4, 1990. Aftab,
a local Urdu newspaper, publishes a press release issued by Hizb-ul Mujahideen,
set up by the Jamaat-e-Islami in 1989 to wage jihad for Jammu and Kashmir's
secession from India and accession to Pakistan, asking all Hindus to pack
up and leave. Another local paper, Al Safa, repeats this expulsion order.
.....
What is Justice UC Banerjee trying
to suggest? Does he want us to believe that on February 27, 2002, kar sevaks
inside Coaches S-6 and S-7 of Sabarmati Express developed a collective
suicidal urge and immolated themselves? Is Justice Banerjee of the view
that the action of the "self-immolating" kar sevaks of Godhra should be
a subject for anthropological study, similar to the birds of Jatinga in
North Cachar who fly to their deaths every year in one of nature's most
abiding mysteries? .....
A Virginia-based missionary group
said this week that it has airlifted 300 "tsunami orphans" from the Muslim
province of Banda Aceh to Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, where it plans
to raise them in a Christian children's home. .....
While there are many in India,
mostly religious minority leaders championing the cause of their well-defined
"suppressed community" and befuddled Congressmen getting motivated by the
defunct Left ideology every new day .....
"I am happy that you all have come
to see us. Please help us live our lives ... and look after us ... entreats
an elderly woman, whose name is Prya Dasi, a villager let me know. Prya
Dasi has lost her sight and her hearing too has diminished. She pleads
for the "safety" of her people. .....
Was tsunami scared of temples or
did it love them? You cannot brush this aside as a mere coincidence because
of the following phenomenon throughout the coastal line of India and Sri
Lanka. .....
Underworld don Dawood Ibrahim is
back in Karachi and is residing in his palatial residence in the port city
under Pakistan's protection, latest reports say. .....
Today Pakistani President Pervez
Musharraf will break yet another of the promises he has made to his country
and the world since seizing power in a 1999 military coup against an elected
government. .....
Sharp divisions have started emerging
within the All India Muslim Personal Law Board over the issue of population
control among minorities. The Board firmly maintains that any form of family
planning - particularly, those amounting to coercive means - is against
the tenets of Islam which prohibits such practices. .....
It's curtains on 2004. If the Islamabad
Declaration of January 6, 2004 is taken as the baseline for the normalisation
process between India and Pakistan, then the two sides have been talking
for nearly a year. It is appropriate to take stock of what has happened,
or not happened, during this period in order to project into the next year.
.....
Sir, Mr Amulya Ganguli who as a
journalist has switched jobs more often than anyone can remember, has hopefully,
finally found a resting place in the outhouses of 10 Janpath. His crude
attack (Jokers in the Parivar, The Editorial Page, January 3) on the newly
formed Rashtriya Swabhiman Manch and an even more vulgar diatribe against
George Fernandes should assure him of a place there. .....
While piloting the Minority Educational
Institutions Bill in the Rajya Sabha on December 21, the Union Human Resources
Development Minister, Mr Arjun Singh, is reported to have observed that
the NDA Government had been "trampling upon the rights of the minorities"
as enshrined in the Constitution (The Pioneer, December 22). .....
In a rare expression praise, a
right-wing Hindutva group in India today lauded the ''commendable'' work
done by Christian and Muslim missionary organizations in providing relief
to the tsunami-affected people in southern India. .....
The Kerala Latin Catholic Association
(KLCA) has termed the NSS-SNDP joint call or the Hindu unity as an
open challenge to the country's secular fabric. .....
In almost all countries in the
world, a certain segment -ethnic, religious linguistic or ideological would
be in the majority and some others would be in a minority. That is inevitable.
A multi-cultural national like the United States has its majority and minorities
as well, but one seldom talks about them. .....
As many as six Bangladeshi cabinet
ministers are on a Western watchlist for succouring Islamic terrorists
and arms smuggling, and they have established safe houses in the Chittagong
Hill Tracts area. .....
Describing Jammu and Kashmir as
the biggest theatre of sacrifice, Governor Lt. Gen (Retd) S K Sinha today
said that the Nation's collective will has guided the country through most
difficult times since independence. .....
A California woman reveals to ABC
News that she unknowingly married a Muslim extremist who helped set up
what authorities say was one of the first al Qaeda sleeper cells out of
their Orange County apartment complex. .....
Around the Islamic world it is
common currency that Muslims are perpetual victims of Western and Zionist
conspiracies. The bill of particulars includes the handling of prisoners
at Guantánamo Bay, Israel's inequitable treatment of the Palestinians,
and the deaths of thousands of civilians in Iraq - as a result first of
United Nations sanctions after the Persian Gulf war, and more recently
of the American occupation. The most articulate spokesman of such views
is, of course, Osama bin Laden. .....
Christian missionaries hope to
spread the Word of God along with relief supplies in South Asian nations
devastated by the tsunami. But the religious outreach isn't going over
well with some Muslims. .....
As Western humanitarian organizations
unleash an armada of relief supplies and workers into Asia's crisis zone,
some evangelical Christian groups aim to bring the Gospel to the victims,
as well. .....
Leave granted. This appeal, by
special leave, has been preferred against the order dated 8.12.2004 of
Madras High Court, by which the petition for bail filed by the petitioner
under Section 439 Cr.P.C. was rejected. .....
A lot of fetish is made in India
about secularism. Like socialism in the days of Nehru, secularism has become
a sacrosanct word, but unlike socialism few people in India understand
what secularism really means. .....
The conversion game is being played
by Christian missionaries and by Muslim fundamentalists by resorting to
conversion only of Hindus in India. I have never seen any conversions of
Christians to Islam or Muslims to Christians being reported. Why? The oft-quoted
reason given by the protagonists of conversions is some of the ills affecting
the Vedic Hindu society, like caste system, poverty, untouchability, etc.
.....
Bolshevism has elapsed into felony;
nothing
remains of the communists save the tag, secret reports prepared on an army
of influential local leaders say so. Secret because open allegation may
lead to physical annihilation. That is the state of the powerful North
24 Parganas district committee of the ruling CPI-M, led amongst others
by Marxist honcho Subhash Chakroborty, whose name has repeatedly been associated
with sleaze racket accused Avtaar Singh and dreaded contract killer Haath
Kata Dilip. .....
On one of his visits to Islamabad,
Abdul Sattar, at the time Pakistan's envoy to New Delhi, told me about
a talk he had been asked to give at one of the establishments in Islamabad
where the audience either had a more-than-even component of brass or was
perhaps entirely brass. .....
The Chairperson of the National
Commission for Women (NCW), Dr Poornima Advani, today said that the women
living in the international border areas of the State across Bangladesh,
were not safe. The unfenced and unguarded porous border has been making
the life of the Indian women unsafe in those areas, she claimed. She was
also critical of the State Government for its attitude towards many vital
issues concerning the womenfolk of the society. .....
In July 2004, Minister of State
for Home Sriprakash Jaiswal, informed Parliament that there were an estimated
12 million illegal Bangladeshi migrants in India, and that some five million
of these were located in Assam and another 5.7 million in West Bengal.
.....
As Western humanitarian organizations
unleash an armada of relief supplies and workers into Asia's crisis zone,
some evangelical Christian groups aim to bring the Gospel to the victims,
as well. .....
I have just returned from a three-day
travel to the areas in southern India which were devastated by the tsunami
on December 26. It is a disaster without dimensions; its toll is without
precedence in known human history. .....
Marxists, being the Marxists they
are, neither can write nor tolerate factual and objective history. The
Marxist ideologue observes the world through the pipeline of 'ism'. Hence,
he is prone to narrate history in such a way that suits the pursued creed
and political regimentation. History and political science textbooks in
West Bengal suffer from such incorrigible, turbid treatment of the Marxists.
.....
The Leftist-inclined Indian media
has once again shown signs of lacking professionalism by its irresponsible
conduct on the Kanchi issue. By over-emphasising baseless allegations and
refusing to highlight the facts which it finds undesirable, the media has
tried to portray the issue in a manner which suits its ideological interests.
.....
An eleventh commandment is the
need of the hour so far as Christianity as well as other Semitic religions
are concerned. Their God had failed to make such a command in the past.
It has prompted the gods to safeguard their endurance because in an era
of a competition of gods for survival, the existence of a particular God
was being challenged by other gods. .....
