by M.V. Kamath
Isn't it time, sixty years
after becoming Independent, for India to give up this business of minoritism
and get on with life like one whole nation and one whole people? How long
are we going to treat Muslims, especially, as a minority with special
reservations in government jobs and special provisions for admission to
education institutions? .....
by Newkerala.com
Political parties of the secular
hue, some members of parliament, a Chief Minister, newspapers, dozens
of MLAs across India and many Muslim organisations are helping Pakistan's
Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) spearhead a ''Jehadist thrust'' into
''Hindu'' India, a former Intelligence Bureau official claims in his latest
book. .....
by The Indian Express
Accusing Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh of suffering from 'I-don't-know' syndrome, the Samajwadi Party on
Wednesday demanded his resignation in the wake of the court strictures
against Bihar Governor Buta Singh. .....
by Daily Excelsior
General Officer Commanding-in-Chief
Lt Gen Deepak Kapoor has said that despite October 8 earthquake, new terrorists
training camps have come up in certain areas on that side of the Line
of Control (LoC). .....
by Virendra Kapoor
The Prime Minister was completely
taken by surprise when a newly-launched TV news channel broke the story
about the Government, of which he was but only a notional head, wanting
to defreeze the ill-gotten funds of the Italian fugitive, Ottavio Quattorocchi.
.....
by Dhananjay Mahapatra
On the Centre's plea against
exempting HC judges from airport security checks, the supreme court on
Friday sought to know why Priyanka Gandhi's husband Robert Vadra was being
exempted from such checks. .....
by Warren Hoge
Mukhtar Mai, the Pakistani
woman whose defiant response to being gang-raped by order of a tribal
court brought her worldwide attention, was denied a chance to speak at
the United Nations on Friday after Pakistan protested that it was the
same day country's prime minister was visiting. .....
by Dhananjay Mahapatra
Additional Solicitor General
(ASG) B Datta, who is in the eye of a political storm over defreezing
of Ottavio Quattrocchi's bank accounts, had reversed his own stand in
favour of the accused in the Bofors case. .....
by Mini Kapoor
Way past midnight in this sleepless
city's bustling food street in Gowalmandi, the Nite Kite Shop is running
up brisk business. Visitors take, breaks between handis of brain curry
and glassfuls of salty tea to pickup mementos. There are just a few cities
around the world that have a knack for celebrating themselves. .....
by Washington Post
President Bush famously declared
that other countries must choose between supporting the United States
and supporting terrorism, and that those that harbored al Qaeda would
be treated as the enemy. In the years since, he has refrained from applying
that tough principle in practice -- which is lucky for Pakistan's president,
Gen. Pervez Musharraf. .....
by Arun Joshi
Three of the 32 Pakistanis
visitors who went missing after the Indo-Pak cricket series in India last
year may have been involved in the terror attack at the Indian Institute
of Sciences in Bangalore in December. .....
by Tarannum Manjul
At the primary school in Heerupur
village, Kasmanda block, in Sitapur, the attendance register tells the
story of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, or Education for All programme. For
the past one year, the number of students has been steady. ''I don't skip
school at all. Teacherji achchi hain, aur mujhe khana bhi milta hai (The
teacher is nice, I also get food),'' says Joginder, a student of Class
V. .....
by Pratap Bhanu Mehta
The Supreme Court's landmark
judgment in Rameshwar Prasad will bring some clarity to the norms governors
should abide by before recommending dissolution of assemblies. But whether
it will put all controversies to rest concerning this case, or be a catalyst
for a higher political morality remains to be seen. Predictably, the UPA
government is clutching at every straw in the judgment that will exonerate
it of culpability. .....
by Zofeen Ebrahim
When Pakistani cricketer Yousuf
Youhana, the only Christian in the national team, announced that he had
embraced Islam to become Mohammad Yousuf last September, the conversion
hit the headlines everywhere. .....
by C P Sajit
A small booklet with a few
inspiring words of Swamy Vivekananda was what made an IITian change his
perception on life. When jobs were flooding him from every nook and corner,
vision sparked off from the words of the spiritualist, prompted M Pramod
Kumar to search for the truth and hidden mystery of our past. .....
by Chitrangada Choudhury
Jambhla's villagers live ever
dark cliche of the other India. Deep in the Sahyadri mountains on the
Maharashtra-Dadra Nagar Haveli border, the northern village of Thane's
Kathkari tribe is remote with its unfinished road negotiable only by foot.
.....
by Indian Currents
Forty years after the conclusion
of the Second Vatican Council the message contained in its voluminous
documents has not been properly conveyed to one and all. The significance
of the Council was that it was meant, as Pope John XXIII said in his opening
remarks, to renew "ourselves and the flocks committed to us, so that
there may radiate before all men the lovable features of Jesus Christ".
.....
by Jim Hoagland
Death to America. Oh, wait.
Thank you, America. Love you, big guy. No, hold on. Where's that "Death
to America" banner? What have they done for us lately? .....
by T R Jawahar
In India, it pays to be a foreigner.
Doubters can check with Quattrocchi on that. Now, who's this Quattrocchi?
Well, one can check with Sonia, pardon, Soniaji, on that. Of course, there
is no guarantee of a response, because her voice appears to have been
frozen on this issue, unlike the defreezed money of her Italian compatriot
and close family friend. .....
by Daily Excelsior
Cable operators in Sindh province
blacked out Pakistani channels for the third day today demanding lifting
of a ban on 35 mainly Indian entertainment channels in spite of raids
by police to force them to resume operations and threat of legal action.
.....
by Jeremiah Marquez
The FBI's new regional chief
says the threat of homegrown militants remains a top concern five months
after authorities uncovered an alleged terrorism plot by Americans targeting
synagogues and military recruiting centers around Los Angeles. .....
by Heide B. Malhotra
"I feel a kinship with
the Roma people," said Indira Ghandi on Oct. 29, 1983 during the
second International Romani Festival in Chandigarh, India. .....
by The Pioneer
Lawyers for a small-town parish
priest have been ordered to appear in court next week after the Roman
Catholic cleric was accused of unlawfully asserting what many people take
for granted: that Jesus Christ existed. .....
by S Gurumurthy
"We have never seen the
papers naming him in the deal. They should show the papers establishing
that he is guilty". It was not a lawyer of Quattrocchi - now more
popularly known as 'Q' - defending him on the Bofors scam. This was how
Sonia Gandhi defended her friend and compatriot some six years ago. .....
by Indiainfo.com
In the 'Bhagavad-Gita', Sri
Krishna says, "Chaaturvarnyam mayaa srishTam gunakarma vibhagashaha'
(I have created four different categories of people based on their nature
and way of life). Therefore, these categories refer to people's aptitude
and way of life rather than their birth. .....
by Dr. M.S. Nataraja
Among all the different cultural
associations in America, there are some, which cater to the needs of a
particular caste or religion. There are several associations, which are
formed by particular sects of Brahmins. But, there is one association,
the US Brahmins Association that encompasses all the different sects of
Brahmins. .....
by Rachel Abramowitz
One of the world's greatest
stories, India's "Ramayana," is being retold as a postapocalyptic
comic book, in Ramayana Reborn, with an animated television spin-off for
kids titled "The Seven Sounds." .....
by The Telegraph
The U.C. Banerjee committee,
which had dismissed any conspiracy behind the Godhra train fire, is allegedly
reluctant to hand over documents to the Nanavati-Shah Commission probing
the Sabarmati Express tragedy and the riots that followed, reports our
correspondent. .....
by Charles Marsh
In the past several years,
American evangelicals, and I am one of them, have amassed greater political
power than at any time in our history. But at what cost to our witness
and the integrity of our message? .....
by Navin Upadhyay
Suspected of going slow on
Bofors probe as Rao's Minister---- While the Law Ministry's role has come
under the scanner in defreezing Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi's
bank accounts, sources have told The Pioneer that Law Minister HR Bhardwaj
was himself questioned by the CBI in 1999 for attempting to slow down
the investigations into the Bofors case while he was the Law Minister
in the Narasimha Rao Government .....
by Jonathan Steele
On holiday in Sri Lanka, a
Sinhalese friend lent me a book about Britain's conquest of the island
just under two centuries ago. Neither of us knew that Gordon Brown was
soon to deliver a speech on Britishness, so my reference point at that
stage was George Bush's Iraq. .....
by Radha Rajan
Our 24 hour news channels dished
out some mixed stuff for their viewers on New Year's Eve. Sonia Gandhi
was 'elected' Person of the Year by NDTV. This news channel also carried
an interview with the lady, by who else, but Barkha Dutt, Madame's Lady-in-Waiting.
Picking Sonia Gandhi as Person of the Year was a foregone conclusion and
akin to Jaya TV crowning Jayalalithaa Miss Universe and about as credible
and earth-shaking. .....
by G. Mahadevan
During the eighth century AD
when Sadayan and Ko-Karunandadakkan kings of the Ay dynasty shifted their
capital to what is now Vizhinjam, they built a fort on a seaside cliff.
Later, as Vizhinjam grew in importance as a port of trade and military
importance, the fort changed hands several times - from the Ays to the
Pandyas, then to the Kulasekharas and finally to the Cholas. .....
by Rediff.com
A couple who lost conjugal
rights after the husband allegedly uttered the word talaq thrice before
his wife in an inebriated condition has sought Supreme Court's intervention
for living together in the wake of stiff opposition from the local community.
.....
by Rediff.com
Syed Ali Shah Geelani, a Kashmiri
separatist leader and chairman of the Geelani faction of the All Parties
Hurriyat Conference, is likely to meet the chairman of the Muttahida Jihad
Council Syed Salahuddin in Saudi Arabia on the sidelines of performing
Haj, next week, to discuss the latest situation in the Kashmir Valley.
.....
by Iqbal Khattak
NWFP Governor Khalilur Rehman
has said that education would help 'change the mindset' of people living
in the tribal areas of NWFP. His comments referred to the tribal belt
on the border with Afghanistan where 'jihadi feelings' refuse to die down.
.....
by N Rathi Chithra
Religion cannot be a barricade
to identify one's self with the essence or the spirit of India. This was
yet again proved by a Muslim couple Sheik Mahaboob Subhani and Kaleeshabi
Mahaboob, who dedicated themselves in promoting the art of playing Nadaswaram.
Though traditional Carnatic music in India deals much about Hindu Gods
and mythologies, it never restrained this couple to get into that. .....
by Siddharth Srivastava
In the past few weeks police
across India claim to have arrested or killed several terrorists belonging
to dreaded militant outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), which derives its support
from Pakistan. While this is good news, it also portends that the tentacles
of terror are spreading fast to every part of the country. .....
by S Gurumurthy
Manikanta, abandoned on the
streets, was begging from morning to night in Lalbaugh. Later, he was
taken to Chennai to work in a country liquor shop. The shopkeeper read
a newspaper article about `Nele' and brought the child to its doors. Today,
Nele is Manikanta's home. He is in school, in 4th standard. .....
by Alok Bansal
When Pakistani security forces
moved into Kohlu district on December 18 to start their long awaited operations
in Balochistan, they broke a tenuous peace that had lasted for nine months
since the violent confrontation in Dera Bugti, which had claimed over
60 lives including those of 33 Hindus. .....
by The Indian Express
Following a recent spate of
attacks by Taliban-al Qaeda groups in Afghanistan, a provincial governor
has accused Pakistan of training and equipping Taliban suicide bombers
who have killed at least 33 persons in Kandahar province, reports said
today. .....
by The Pioneer
All those who have expressed
their sense of outrage over the stunning silence of the Prime Minister
and the UPA chairperson on the latest episode of the Bofors scam opera
owe an apology to Mr Manmohan Singh and Ms Sonia Gandhi. The two have
spoken in tandem - as they should - and removed all doubts that there
may have been about their being in the know of the great heist that has
left India's exchequer poorer by more than $4 million. .....
by Suhrid Sankar Chattopadhyay &
Haroon Habib
The growth of fundamentalism
in Bangladesh, with covert blessings from the ruling dispensation, inevitably
has ripple effects in West Bengal and the rest of eastern India. .....
by Navin Upadhyay
Quattrocchi saga ---- With
the disclosure by British Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) that it had
received specific request from the Government of India to defreeze Ottavio
Quattrocchi's two London bank accounts, the latest Bofors controversy
is becoming a tale of lies, lies and more lies. .....
by Michael Scott Moore
As the United States tries
to spread democracy throughout the Muslim world, a rare meeting with Islamic
radicals in Indonesia shows the downside of the country's post-Suharto
representative politics: It has allowed fundmentalists to openly thrive
in a country where they were once suppressed. Are there lessons to be
learned here for Iraq? .....
by The Times of India
No activist or government official
working for children can hope to inspire them like Durga. When she tells
them that education is the only way out, they tend to listen; one look
at her is enough to convince them that she's right. .....
by T V R Shenoy
Are the world's two largest
democracies marching in lock step? On December 16, 2005 The New York Times
broke the story that the US National Security Agency had been tapping
gigantic swathes of the population. .....
by The Statesman
The Cabinet today approved
the promulgation of the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions
(Amendment) Ordinance, 2006 and its replacement by an Act in the Budget
session of Parliament. .....
by Dr. Babu Suseelan
Kerala, the land of Sri Sankaracharya,
Sri Narayana Guru, Swami Chatambi Swamigal, Mata Amritananda Mai, Swami
Chinmayanada, and blessed by Guruvayoorappan, Swami Ayappan, and Sri Padmanabha
Swami, is in an age of continual change and transition. Hindu society
in Kerala has shifted from a culturally stable and orderly state to a
rapid, chaotic change driven world that is unpredictable and turbulent.
.....
by Dan Mcdougall
Story in full DETECTIVES investigating
what is believed to be the biggest fraud in Scottish criminal history
believe it could have been prevented if a unit created to tackle the threat
of Asian gangs had not been disbanded over fears that it could be seen
as persecuting ethnic minorities. .....
by Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld
Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel
Angel Moratinos' efforts earlier this year to remove Hamas from the European
Union's terrorist list, have done little to change this terror outfit's
agenda. It is not only Palestine that children in the West Bank and Gaza
are asked to liberate; now they are asked to liberate Seville. .....
by Shekhar Gupta
I must begin this week's National
Interest with a note of apology. Who, but the most incorrigible party-pooper
would begin an article to be published on new year's eve with a reference
to the Emergency? But it is unavoidable precisely because it is the holiday
season and the well-known nexus of politicians, builders and corrupt civic
officials are trying to take advantage of that to twist the law and where
they cannot, write fresh laws to legitimise their own crimes of the past.
.....
by The Times of India
Giving a virtual thumbs down
to the heady mix of vote-bank politics and reservation, the Supreme Court
on Wednesday stalled the controversial Andhra law ensuring 5% quota for
Muslims in jobs and admission to schools and colleges. .....
by Gen V.P. Malik (Retd)
Pakistan's largest province,
Baluchistan, is again on the boil. Two rocket firing incidents took place
in early December, 2005. The first incident involved firing on a helicopter
carrying the Inspector-General of the Frontier Corps. In the second, a
rocket was fired at a public meeting addressed by Gen Pervez Musharraf
at Kohlu. These incidents appear to have provided an immediate provocation
to launch an operation by the Pakistan Army and the Frontier Corps against
Baloch insurgents. .....
by Balbir K. Punj
After celebrity conversion
of Yusuf Youhana it was the turn of three young and non-descript Hindu
girls in Pakistan to 'embrace' Islam. Three Hindu girls viz. Reena (21),
Usha (19) and Rima (17) went missing from their Punjab colony residence
in Karachi, Pakistan on October 18 last. .....
by Charles Wheelan, Ph.D.
I spent two weeks last month
in India, one of the most fascinating places on the planet. Where else
can you stroll through the gleaming high-tech Bangalore campus of Infosys
only hours after getting stuck in a traffic jam on a major highway caused
by a collision between a tractor and an ox cart? .....
by Anjali Puri
An investigative report by
a respected Pakistani journalist on the abduction, conversion to Islam
and forced marriage of Hindu women in Pakistan to Muslim men, carried
as a cover story by a liberal Indian newsmagazine-i.e. not Organiser but
Outlook! It was bound to create a stir and it did. .....
by John Mary
Amid high-profile media sting
operations targeting politicians, there is a one-man army in a southern
Kerala town of Kollam district by the name of Sathyavan Kottarakkara.
With a still camera slung on his shoulders, he's on the job-exposing civic
rights violations and providing modes of redressal at minimal cost. The
69-year-old citizen activist has brought more relief to Kerala society
than many NGOs put together. .....
by Neeraj Mishra and Priya Sahgal
Bofors is back, with a bang.
Last week's revelations regarding the Indian Government's decision to
defreeze the London bank accounts containing a total of Rs 21 crore belonging
to Ottavio Quattrocchi, the Italian businessman who was one of the prime
accused in the Bofors payoff scandal, have opened a new can of worms,
severely damaged the image and credibility of the UPA Government and,
more importantly, put UPA Chairperson and Congress President Sonia Gandhi
under a cloud. .....
by Rohit Parihar
On a sunny afternoon in Jodhpur,
21-year-old Preeti Dave, all decked up, took a two-hour journey on a mare
to meet her would-be husband Guru Prasad Vora. Behind her walked her family
members in a procession. The sight of the bride-on-the-mare squeezing
through the narrow lanes of Brahmapuri, a Brahmin settlement known as
the blue city of Rajasthan, did not surprise or amuse the locals. It's
an old custom among the Shrimali Brahmins. .....
by The Indian Express
Not old-fashioned investigation,
not a tip-off from a tested informer. It was the chance arrest of a robber
that helped the J&K police uncover the depths of the politician-militant
nexus in the state. .....
by The Indian Express
One counts among the seniormost
politicians in Kashmir, another claimed to have given up the gun. Yet
Abdul Aziz Zargar and Abdul Wahid Dar are only two of the mainstream politicians
being investigated for their terror connections. Our Srinagar bureau profiles
the system's weakest links .....
by Sudheendra Kulkarni
''If Abu Salem had a political
godfather, CBI would have argued he should stay in Lisbon.'' The Indian
Express wrote this in a caustic editorial last Wednesday on how the UPA
Government enabled defreezing of Mr Q's frozen bank account in London
by conveying to the UK's Crown Prosecution Service that the case against
him in the Bofors scam is as good as over. .....
by M.S.N. Menon
No. It is a canard. Alie propagated
by vested interests. What are the facts? Buddhism was a reaction to the
growing permissiveness and distortions of Aryan society. It was, therefore,
puritanical. But by banning drinking, dancing, singing and theatre, Buddhism
sowed the seeds of opposition. .....
by Shyam Khosla
Union Home Minister Shivraj
Patil's visit to Dhubri district in western Assam last week seems to have
woken him up to the stark reality that the Indo-Bangladesh border is so
porous that anyone from across the border can walk into India at will.
The Minister was "surprised" to see the deplorable situation
on the international border. .....
by C P Bhambhri
Parliamentary democracy in
England or Canada or Australia has in reality become a prime ministerial
government and the office of the PM has evolved from the status of primus
inter pares or first among equals to the present position of the leadership
of the Cabinet and elected House of Parliament. .....
by Prafulla Marpakwar
Chief Secretary R M Premkumar
is at loggerheads with the home department over a major reshuffle
among the top police brass on Monday. Premkumar has taken the line that
since he is head of the bureaucracy, the home department should have routed
all files through him. .....
by Mateen Hafeez and Somit Sen
Maulana Ghulam Hussain Yahya
(44), the imam of Haj House mosque who was arrested for his alleged links
with Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), had received Rs 40 to 50 lakh from a big-time
hawala operator with political connections. The money was delivered to
militant groups in Kashmir. .....
by The Times of India
In what is seen to be a spectacular
pirouette, the CBI on Monday claimed ownership of the law ministry's controversial
communication to the UK's Crown Prosecution Service to allow defreezing
of the bank accounts of Bofors fugitive Ottavio Quattrocchi even as the
government and Congress brass seemed to be in a "brazen it out"
mode. .....
by Dhananjay Mahapatra
Stepping up the pressure on
the Manmohan Singh government, already in a bind over defreezing Italian
businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi's bank accounts, the supreme court on
Monday directed the Centre to take steps immediately so that money did
not flow out from those accounts. .....
by Arvind Lavakare
Were it not for the decorum
of international diplomacy, the Indian government would be justified in
saying 'Piss off' to General Musharraf after his recently expounded suggestion
that the solution to the 'Kashmir problem' lay in granting the state 'self-governance
with joint management by India and Pakistan' along with demilitarisation
initially of Srinagar, Baramulla and Kupwara regions. .....
by Somit Sen
In a move which points to the
widening web of terror in India, police have arrested an imam of the prestigious
Haj House Masjid for suspected links with the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group
which has emerged as the biggest threat in southern and western India
following last month's Bangalore attack. .....
by Swagata Sen and Satarupa Bhattacharjya
Fresh from its success in the
Bihar polls, the Election Commission wants to apply the same yardstick
to the impending elections in West Bengal. That is reason enough for the
Left Front to feel jittery. .....
by Jaideep Mazumdar
He's had to fight court cases
and tolerate apathy and indifference to provide a green cover to his decrepit
North Calcutta locality. And yet, twenty-six years of toil hasn't fatigued
this 'green warrior' who has single-handedly planted and nurtured thousands
of trees that now form a green canopy over large parts of Calcutta's concrete
jungle. Especially the arterial Vivekananda Road that now sports large
shade trees. .....
by Johnson T A
A narcoanalysis test conducted
yesterday on the lone suspect arrested in connection with the December
28 terrorist attack at the Indian Institute of Science, 35-year-old Abdul
Rehman alias Raiz-ur-Rehman, has provided the Bangalore police the first
insight into his Lashkar-e-Toiba links but has provided few concrete leads
to the conspiracy or the perpetrator. .....
by Muzamil Jaleel
A week after the arrest of
a National Conference municipal councillor in Mumbai for his alleged Lashkar
links, the J-K Police are looking for two "mainstream politicians"
who they allege have been "running the fidayeen networks in Srinagar
and Ganderbal." .....
by The Indian Express
In course of their investigation
into the terrorist attack at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), the
Bangalore police have stumbled upon a wider conspiracy to spread terror
in the south. They claimed to have unearthed a plot to bomb the Kaiga
Nuclear Plant, Almatti Dam and the Sharavathy power transmission lines
in Karnataka. .....
by Saubhik Chakrabarti
I have the scoop on the Bofors/Bhardwaj
controversy. The inside story of what transpired before a harassed and
hounded Italian's frozen British bank accounts almost melted in the warm
glow of compassionate Congressism .....
by Afternoon Despatch & Courier
The Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS)
of the Mumbai Police is concerned to find out that some big source in
the city has been financing Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) operations. Crores of
rupees have gone from Mumbai to the terrorist organisation's base in Jammu
& Kashmir. Ironically, this same money was pumped by the LeT into
terror operations it intended to launch in Mumbai. .....
by Viji Sundaram
Earlier this month, the arm
of California's Board of Education that decides what will and won't go
into the history textbooks of millions of students was persuaded by followers
of Hinduism and Judaism to correct what the groups felt were historical
inaccuracies pertaining to their religion and culture. .....
by The New Indian Express
In a major step towards promoting
Ayurvedic studies in the US and tapping its $40 billion herbal market,
India has cleared the proposal to send experts to teach Ayurveda in 10
American medical colleges. .....
by Apurv Pandit
Back from the yoga camp in
Nashik, controversial yoga evangelist Swami Ramdev on Wednesday took the
battle to the enemy camp. He singled out CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat for
a vicious attack. The swami accused Brinda Karat of planting party workers
disguised as labourers to engineer labour unrest in his Hardwar-based
ayurveda pharmacy under a 'long term conspiracy'. .....
by Jayati Ghosh
There is much international
interest in China's economy, because of its remarkable growth over the
past quarter century. Recently, attention has also focused on the fact
that this growth has been associated with significant increases in inequality
in both income and wealth distribution, which were relatively low during
the central planning period. .....
by Ranjan Roy
The Bangalore police haven't
yet released a picture of Abdul Rahman, the man suspected to be the mastermind
of the attack at the Indian Institute of Science. .....
by Indpride.com
Secularists in our country
have a strange understanding of social contexts and history. When it comes
to writing on Hinduism, no opportunity is missed to drub, slander and
ridicule the religion. Trever Fishlock's 'India File' quoted extensively
by reviewers in our papers in 1984, can leave one aghast. .....
by Natalie O'Brien
Jemaah Islamiah-linked terrorists
in southern Thailand are believed to be planning to transform their insurgency
from attacks against the Thai state to bombings of Western tourists. .....
by The Economic Times
Not just the Union Cabinet
but the United Progressive Alliance leadership must reject the proposal
of the ministry of social justice and empowerment to allocate plan funds
in proportion to religious community population. .....
by Manoj Damor
A seven-year old newstory archived
on Rediff.com sheds new light on the widespread involvement of Christian
militants in starting anti-Hindu pogroms in the Dangs district of Gujarat
in December 1998. .....
by Zenti.org
The conventional wisdom that
Western success depended on overcoming religious barriers to progress
is "utter nonsense," says the author of a new book. Rodney Stark
defends this thesis in "The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led
to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success" (Random House). .....
by Muzamil Jaleel
A week after the arrest of
a National Conference municipal councillor in Mumbai for his alleged Lashkar
links, the J-K Police are looking for two "mainstream politicians"
who they allege have been "running the fidayeen networks in Srinagar
and Ganderbal." .....
by Surya Narain Saxena
I was startled to read a recent
newspaper headline "India asks Israel to stop Conversion". For
a moment I refused to believe my eyes till I read the full report that
it was really the present brand secular UPA Government and not the predecessor
NDA that has taken courage in both hands to speak against religious conversions.
.....
by Swapan Dasgupta
Some two decades ago, while
setting a question paper for undergraduates, a crusty Oxford don drew
me aside and offered a piece of advice. The purpose of an examination,
he remarked, is to find out what students know, not what they don't know.
.....
by Raju Patel
It was back in 1990 when former
Conservative chairman Lord Tebbit proposed the "Cricket Team Test",
also known as the "Tebbit Test." According to Lord Tebbit, ethnic
minorities should support British teams over those of their country of
origin. If they did not, this would pose a problem to British society.
.....
by Joel Mowbray
Appearing on Fox News recently,
the spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Ibrahim
Hooper, said that in 20 years worth of trips to mosques, "I've never
heard violence preached; I've never heard anti-Semitism or anti-Americanism
preached." .....
by Navin Upadhyay
Path taken could implicate
many ---- The plot to facilitate Ottavio Quattrocchi defreeze his two
London bank accounts holding the alleged Bofors kickbacks was hatched
several months back. As the sequence of events show, both the CBI and
the Law Ministry played a key role in rewarding fugitive Italian businessman
with more than four million dollars of the Indian tax-payers' money. .....
by Vigil
We are all aware of how Harsh
Mander's bloodcurdling account of the post-Godhra Gujarat violence swept
around the USA, the UK and the Dar-ul-Islam as a "pogrom/holocaust/genocide"
(take your pick) of Muslims by Hindus - and then the statutory and independent
Press Council of India indicted him for rumour-mongering (V'mala 30).
.....
by Lawrence Auster
When Pope Benedict's important
statement that Islam cannot reform itself was publicized recently by Fr.
Joseph Fessio, everyone naturally wondered how Daniel Pipes, the leading
Western proponent of Islamic reform, would respond. Today he did so, and
it's basically a recapitulation of his response to my massive critique
of him last year, when he said that "Islam can be whatever Muslims
wish to make of it." .....
by M V Kamath
How perceptions of India change
in the western, especially American, world! In the mid-1950s, an American
journalist Harold Isaacs wrote a very perceptive book analysing what Americans
thought of India. .....
by Ayaz Amir
Restoring the writ of the Government
is one of the oldest and deadliest cliches in the Pakistani dictionary.
Pakistanis have been establishing and restoring this writ since independence.
The results are there for all to see. .....
by Rediff.com
In the latest incident of extremist
outfits arm twisting companies for money, state-owned Oil and Natural
Gas Corporation has received a Rs 500-crore extortion threat from the
outlawed United Liberation Front of Assam. .....
by The Pioneer
Public memory being notoriously
short, few would recall today that it was Congress Prime Minister PV Narasimha
Rao who, after the Government of India was informed by Swiss authorities
that kickbacks from the Bofors deal had been deposited in Mr Ottavio Quattrocchi's
bank accounts, had facilitated the Italian wheeler-dealer's escape literally
in the cover of the night. .....
by Jayati Ghosh
There is much international
interest in China's economy, because of its remarkable growth over the
past quarter century. Recently, attention has also focused on the fact
that this growth has been associated with significant increases in inequality
in both income and wealth distribution, which were relatively low during
the central planning period. .....
by Sudha Ramachandran
A Pakistan-based Sunni extremist
group, the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) or Army of the Companions of
the Prophet, is reportedly attempting to spread its tentacles in Japan.
While little is known of how successful it has been with its mission in
Japan, its record in Pakistan should put authorities in Tokyo on maximum
alert. .....
by Rediff.com
After years of legal wrangling
in various courts in the United Kingdom, the Central Bureau of Investigation
has finally told the British authorities that the agency did not have
any evidence to link the frozen three million Euros and one million Dollars
of Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi in two bank accounts in London
with the Bofors payoff case. .....
by Erick Stakelbeck
Dearborn, Michigan - For many
in Dearborn, Michigan, a heavily Arab and Muslim suburb of Detroit, Imam
Mohammed Ali Elahi is a true American-Muslim success story. .....
by Kanchan Gupta
This question is being asked
in Intelligence circles, counter-terrorism experts and diplomatic staff
at foreign missions in Delhi who monitor Islamist terrorism in India after
the December 28 terror strike on Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore
and subsequent arrests of operatives and members of sleeper cells. .....
by BBC News
Britain should have a day to
celebrate its national identity, Gordon Brown has proposed in a speech
portraying Labour as a modern patriotic party. .....
by The Times of India
An American Hindu couple in
a village near New York is fighting for their religious rights over treatment
of cows on their farm. .....
by Ram Gopal
In a discussion on 'Secularism
in India, its meaning, significance', at the India International Centre,
New Delhi, eminent personalities, like the former Central Minister, Shri
Vasant Sathe, ex-MPs. Syed Shahabuddin and Shri Prafull Goradia, the chief
of Jamiat-ul-Ulema-i-Hind, Maulana Ansari; VHP President, Shri V.H.Dalmia,
and some others, expressed their views. .....
by Vinod Kumar Menon and Prashant
Shankarnarayan
Maulana Ghulam Yahya Ilahi
Baksh (44), the Imam who lead prayers for the past two years at the Masjid
in Haj house was arrested on Friday night at around 9 pm, after he finished
rendering the Isha prayers. He was taken in by the Anti Terrorist Squad
(ATS) for links with the nabbed LeT terrorists. .....
by Robert Tait
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the hardline
President of Iran, launched an angry tirade against the West yesterday,
accusing it of a 'dark ages' mentality and threatening retaliation unless
it recognised his country's nuclear ambitions. .....
by The Deccan Chronicle
The Union home ministry has
credible information that a few places of worship along the India-Bangladesh
border are being used by groups inimical to India's interests. Sources
confirmed that strict vigilance is being maintained by the security agencies
on the activities of religious institutions situated along the border.
.....
by V Sundaram
After nearly 18 long months
of illegal incarceration with out any charge, Shri Guruji was released
unconditionally from Betul Jail on 13 July, 1949. When he arrived at the
Nagpur Railway Station at noon, more than 30,000 people gave him a tumultuous
welcome. Thousands of people shed tears as they saw Guruji's father garlanding
his own son who had come out successfully out of the fiery ordeal. .....
by V Sundaram
Shri Guruji, a man of indomitable
courage and invincible faith, categorically told Nehru and Patel that
he would not be cowed down by their intimidation or threats. Enraged by
the firm stand of Shri Guruji, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel, the
close political followers of Mahatma Gandhi, who fought with the weapons
of non-violence and truth all his life, strangely decided to let loose
the forces of State violence and Congress-orchestrated untruth against
Shri Guruji and the RSS. .....
by V Sundaram
Unshakable faith, the antiseptic
of the soul Shri Guruji was noted for his burning patriotism for Akhand
Bharath and he had spoken strongly against the partition of India right
from 1943. Responsibilities often gravitate to the person who can shoulder
them. .....
by V Sundaram
In May 1945, the II World War
came to an end. The British Government in India realised that their days
in India were coming to an end. The Congress was divided on the question
of partition. Rajaji had resigned from Congress on this issue. Jinnah
was proudly proclaiming the 'Two-Nation Theory' stating that Muslims could
never live in India because he considered Congress a Hindu party. .....
by V Sundaram
'The discipline nurtured in
the Sangh is the spontaneous self-restraint of a cultured people. It is
a discipline wherein each one feels that he has a higher duty to the nation.
He responds to that higher call in a well-ordered, coordinated manner'
- Shri Guruji .....
by V Sundaram
Right from the dawn of history,
Bharath has produced great saints and sages, great beings who made the
supreme discovery that the God they sought for many years was no different
from their own selves. .....
by The Indian Express
India today reminded Pakistan
that its commitment to not let its territory be used for cross border
terrorism against India was ''unconditional'' and could not be linked
with any proposal for demilitarisation in parts of Jammu and Kashmir.
.....
by The Indian Express
It is an immensely reassuring
moment. In taking note of the ongoing investigation by this paper into
the illegal construction by the capital's rich and powerful, and in urging
the government to act on the evidence thus placed in the public domain
within a specified time frame, the Delhi High Court has put down that
a matter of public interest will not be killed off or maimed by deliberate
neglect and/or outright political sabotage. .....
by The Times of India
The Mumbai police on Friday
claimed to have busted a terrorist plot after arresting three suspects
outside a hotel in central Mumbai and seizing a pistol, detonators and
timers that could cause five explosions. .....
by The Times of India
Revenue minister Narayan Rane,
who has strengthened his position in the cabinet after his win in Malwan,
has got principal secretary (revenue) V K Agarwal shunted to the less
important planning department. Though the state government termed the
transfer as a routine administrative matter, bureaucrats said that Rane
did not get along well with Agarwal who went by the rule book. .....
by The Times of India
Gen Pervez Musharraf on Saturday
openly admitted to what India has known all along that he and the Pakistani
military establishment control terrorism in India. .....
by Hindu Voice
The attack on the state head
quarters of the BJP office here on Thursday by some antisocial elements
is part of an attempt to discredit the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and
other Sangh outfits, according to political observers. "No Swayamsevaks
will try to do such a heinous act," said Mr Ramesh, a technocrat
in the city, who is a keen observer of the Sangh activities for the last
quarter of a century. .....
by The Times of India
Giving a virtual thumbs down
to the potent mix of vote-bank politics and reservations, the supreme
court on Wednesday stalled the controversial Andhra Pradesh law providing
a 5% quota for Muslims in jobs and admissions to schools and colleges.
.....
by Baradan Kuppusamy
Islam tops Malaysia's long
list of "sensitive subjects" that are forbidden from being raised
in public. However, it was as if nothing else could be discussed over
the past two weeks. .....
by B Raman
The White House, the Pentagon
and the headquarters of the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence
Agency are reputed to be the best-protected establishments not only in
the United States, but also in the whole world. .....
by The Asian Age
The Congress on Wednesday asked
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav and Samajwadi Party general
secretary Amar Singh why they were not filing an FIR against the private
telephone agency, Reliance Infocomm, with regard to the telephone tapping
while putting three questions to them on this controversy. .....
by Neeraj Chauhan
Other phones were also being
tapped, claim police ---- The conduit between the mastermind and Samajwadi
Party leader Amar Singh's phone-tapping, Bhupendra Kumar, was getting
richer by Rs 5 lakh each week for uploading the conversation of Mr Singh
on a compact disc (CD). .....
by Richard Kerbaj
Self-Appointed Muslim religious
figures would be named and shamed and young followers warned away from
them as part of a push to weed out extremist Islamic teachings in Australia.
.....
by Robert Spencer
New revelations that federal
officials are checking mosques for radiation levels has the Council on
American Islamic Relations in an uproar. CAIR's Ibrahim Hooper fumed:
"This creates the appearance that Muslims are targeted simply for
being Muslims. I don't think this is the message the government wants
to send at this time." .....
by Stephen Graham
Authorities on Wednesday shut
down an Islamic center once attended by a man who accuses the CIA of kidnapping
him and sending him to a secret Afghan prison to be abused and interrogated.
.....
by www.jihadwatch.org
It is forbidden for a Believer
to ally with an Infidel against other Believers. The American government
should ponder that carefully -- especially the armed services, the diplomatic
corps, and the intelligence services. There are people who may be Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only
Muslims. .....
by Bijen Jonchhe
Senator Leahy's statement to
President George Bush was both predictable and unpredictable. Predictable
because it was the take of a first-worlder on "this land of mostly
impoverished tea and rice farmers" in the throes of a political crisis
and on the brink of chaos. .....
by Francois Gautier
Muslims are bullies and Hindus
cowards,' Mahatma Gandhi once said. He was right -- at least about Hindus.
There has been in the past 1,400 years, since the first invasions started,
very few Shivajis and Rajput princes to fight the bloody rule of the Moghuls,
or hardly any Rani of Jhansis to stand against the humiliating colonial
yoke of the British. If a nation's soul is measured by the courage of
its children, then India is definitely doomed. .....
by Reuters
A member of an Islamist extremist
group banned in Pakistan entered Japan two years ago to try to establish
a foothold in the country, a Japanese newspaper said on Friday. .....
by Chris Blackburn
In the present debate over
terrorism threats, Bangladesh is generally not the first country that
comes to mind as a hotspot of al-Qaeda activity. But perhaps it should.
The second largest Muslim democracy, Bangladesh is today the site of al-Qaeda-run
training camps financed by Middle Eastern charities and organisations,
including backing from rogue elements within the Pakistan's Inter-Services
Intelligence. .....
by The Daily Star
The facts could not be any
clearer. Elements within the government have for a long time been sponsoring
and sheltering the outlawed JMB and JMJB militants. This original revelation
was reported in the media long ago and has since been corroborated time
and again through confessional statements made during the interrogations
of suspected militants. .....
by Francois Gautier
I am a Westerner and a born
Christian. I was mainly brought up in Catholic schools, my uncle Father
Guy Gautier a gem of a man, was the parish head of the beautiful Saint
Jean de Montmartre church in Paris. My father Jacques Gautier, a famous
artist in France, and a truly good person if there ever was one, was a
fervent Catholic all his life, went to church nearly every day and lived
by his Christian values. .....
by Rashmee Roshan Lall
Thirty-five years after a fateful
clandestine meeting in Moscow between ISKCON founder Swami Prabhupada
and a young white Russian who was to receive the dangerously secret gift
of a banned Bhagvad Gita, take the name Ananda Shanti Das, and build from
scratch a 100,000-strong community of native Krishna bhakts, the Slavonic
Hindu may be emerging as the 21st century's most potent symbol of too-successfully
spreading the word beyond Indian shores. .....
by Bhupen Patel
Mumbai police are hunting for
a "respectable and well-connected" patron of the Lashkar-e-Taiba
in the city after the three LeT militants arrested from Nagpada revealed
that this mystery man was supposed to give them instructions on carrying
out subversive activities. .....
by Shonar
The drums roll and from inside
the temple comes a short yell; out jumps the body of the Sun, huge and
wide, dancing with flaying arms, eyes blackened and stark, darting here
and there, terrifying. .....
by The Indian Express
The arrest of Mohammed Raiz-ur
Rehman, a native of Miryalguda in Andhra Pradesh's Nalgonda district,
has brought the focus on the backward Telengana districts as the breeding
ground for Islamic fundamentalists. .....
by Joy C.L., Kuriachira
The title may look like an
oxymoron, a strange contradiction like hot ice cream or cool fire. Spirituality
cannot be traded or consumerised, as it does not pertain to the material
world. But too much stress on materialism, clericalism and ritualism by
the organised religions has compelled spirituality to nosedive into the
terrestrial depths shedding its entire celestial luster. .....
by Sandhya Jain
The alacrity with which Russia
has cracked down on non-governmental organisations receiving foreign funds
has valuable lessons for India, where ideologically-driven NGOs use not
only foreign but also Indian public funds to pursue a divisive non-national
agenda. Many of these groups owe their high public profile less to grassroots
activity in India than to their hectic lobbying on Capitol Hill. .....
by Sandhya Jain
The Union Home Secretary's
directive to the Gujarat government to furnish details about the discovery
of a so-called mass grave of post-Godhra victims at Lunavada in the Panchmahals,
district is an unwarranted intrusion in the powers of the state government
and a tacit encouragement to the scandalously adventurist postures of
certain NGO activists. .....
by V K Rastogi
Dr Mosaraf Ali, a London-based
physician, who has nursed film star Shah Rukh Khan and Prince Charles
of the British Royal family, claimed he has information that Brinda Karat
had a meeting with some officers of several multinational companies before
she made wild allegations against Swami Ramdev. .....
by Rajeev Srinivasan
There appears to be a cardinal
rule: Never publish anything that would be in the least bit negative about
Muslims in general and Pakistanis in particular; or about Christians;
or about Marxists in general and the Chinese in particular. .....
by Abdurrahman Wahid
News organizations report that
Osama bin Laden has obtained a religious edict from a misguided Saudi
cleric, justifying the use of nuclear weapons against America and the
infliction of mass casualties. It requires great emotional strength to
confront the potential ramifications of this fact. Yet can anyone doubt
that those who joyfully incinerate the occupants of office buildings,
commuter trains, hotels and nightclubs would leap at the chance to magnify
their damage a thousandfold? .....
by Prof. Bal Ram Singh (UMass Dartmouth)
Sometimes in November 1988,
I suffered from a minor upset stomach problem (I had slight abdominal
discomfort), and visited my physician, Dr. Vastola, in Madison, WI. .....
by Jatindra Dash
A blind man has turned a five-kilometre
stretch of barren land near his home in Orissa into lush greenery during
the last 12 years. Sounds amazing but it's true. .....
by Naziya Alvi
Lalita stood transfixed as
the terrorist aimed the AK-56 at her. A second later, she found herself
pushed to the ground by someone behind - it was her 61-year-old professor.
Most of the 50 rounds that the terrorist fired hit Professor M.C. Puri,
right in his chest. .....
by Haindava Keralam
Gopi of Pullur, father of seventeen
year old Neethu who succumbed to her burns on Dec 13 at the Jubilee Mission
Hospital here, has alleged that his daughter was murdered by Rogy, the
Christian evangelist class teacher at Chalakkudi Sacred Heart Higher Secondary
School. .....
by Pramod Giri
The Chinese are in Bhutan -
its soldiers are building roads and bridges deep inside the country and
setting off alarms in both Thimphu and Delhi. Over 200 Chinese soldiers
crossed into Bhutan in mid-November and since then, the relations between
the two countries have been on the edge. .....
by Omer Farooq
Mujeeb Ahmad, who was arrested
by the Hyderabad Police over charges of links with Kashmir-based terrorist
outfit Hizbul Mujahideen on Tuesday, had visited Kashmir and Delhi as
part of his clandestine activities to form a terrorist group comprising
local youth and to procure weapons. .....
by Hindu Human Rights
"In response to protests
this year from several faith based groups, the California Board of Education
agreed to withdraw materials considered to be giving a distorted view
of Christian and Jewish ideas. But Hindus, as is usual in these cases,
were given short thrift." In this article we examine some of the
background to the Hindu objections to how their history and culture are
taught in the USA and the rest of the world and will focus on some of
the special interest groups campaigning for the status-quo. .....
by PT Bopanna
Suspected LeT men shoot dead
IIT Professor at IISc ---- In a move to spread panic in the IT capital
of India, suspected Lashkar-e-Tayyeba ultras attacked the serene campus
of the Indian Institute of Science on Wednesday evening and opened fire,
killing a professor from Delhi and seriously wounding five attending an
international conference. .....
by The Daily Star
Arrested Jama'atul Mujahideen
Bangladesh (JMB) leader Lutfar Rahman yesterday said some ministers and
the state machinery, including the police and district administration,
patronised JMB chief Abdur Rahman and Bangla Bhai's "anti-outlaw"
operations in Rajshahi region. .....
by Balbir K. Punj
The recent question-scam, in
which some MPs were caught on camera accepting bribes to table questions
in Parliament, has underscored a number of realities of contemporary Indian
public life. The most striking one is that in dispensing justice, the
electronic media has emerged more powerful than even the official investigative
agencies like the CBI and the judiciary. .....
by www.indiacause.com
"The KGB started massive
persecution campaigns against the first followers of ISKCON. For their
belief, around hundred of the first Russian (Hindu) devotees were thrown
into prisons, labor camps and psychiatric hospitals....In the 90's the
Moscow government gave devotees a ruined building unsuitable for inhabitation
and commercial usage on rent. .....
by The Pioneer
Gripped by the fear of losing
their Kashmiri identity after being displaced from their homeland for
the past 16 years, the organisation of Kashmiri Pandits, Panun Kashmir,
has pushed a demand for the creation of a separate "homeland"
by undertaking reorganisation of the State. Representatives of the organisation
said they planned to meet PM Manmohan Singh soon in this regard. .....
by The Pioneer
Amid widespread allegations
that the West Bengal ruling dispensation has perfected the art of poll-rigging,
the Election Commission on Tuesday turned the screws on the poll-bound
State's administration for handing over the Commission's photo identity
cards of a large number of voters to just one person. .....
by Vijaita Singh
Pakistan-backed Inter Services
Intelligence is training terrorists in their camps set up in Bangladesh.
After facing international condemnation over the involvement of their
citizens, Pakistan has taken to recruiting young and economically weak
Bangladeshis as fodder for their terror games. .....
by Brig (Retd) Muhammad Jamil Khan
Pakistan came into existence
on the basis of two-nation theory - Hindus and Muslims. The Muslims of
the Subcontinent under the leadership of Quaid-e-Azam relentlessly struggled
for a separate homeland where they could lead life according to the principles
of Islam. Prolonged rule of the British and the Hindus' suppressive attitude
marred the identity of the Muslims. .....
by Shahzada Zulfiqar
The military operation also
started in Dera Bugti after security forces launched a raid on Farrari
Camp that continued for hours, confirmed a government official on Saturday.
.....
by Vivek Deshpande
Senior Rashtriya Swayamsevak
Sangh (RSS) leader Mohan Bhagwat today distanced the RSS from the
sleaz CD episode involving pracharak Sanjay Joshi. .....
by Shekhar Gupta
So now we know what exactly
it takes for our politicians to make common cause, sinking their differences,
prejudices, competitive instinct, everything. No, it is not cricket (who'd
say that after the Bengali revolt over Sourav Ganguly, anyway?) or war.
It is real estate. In our two biggest cities, Mumbai and Delhi, politicians
of all persuasions are now getting together to confront the judiciary
on the issue of such vital national importance as clearing unauthorised
constructions. .....
by M.V. Kamath
After fifteen years of corrupt
rule, Lalu Prasad Yadav, a political joker if ever there was one, has
been shown the door. The State of Bihar, reeking under crime, corruption
and total lawlessness must breathe a sigh of relief. Hopefully the new
Nitish Kumar government will bring peace and sanity in a land that had
given birth to the Buddha and in recent years was the home of Babu Rajendra
Prasad and Jayaprakash Narayan. .....
by Organiser
A minister of state in the
central cabinet is under the suspicion of state people. This is not the
first time when the minister comes under the fire of the people of Kerala.
The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs in the Central Cabinet, E. Ahmad
is the representative of Indian National Muslim League, which continues
the legacy of Mohammad Ali Jinnah's same party which argued for and attained
India's Partition. .....
by Subhash Kak
The supposedly liberal values
that are the driving force behind politics in India -- especially of the
United Progressive Alliance government -- are shrinking the public space
for autonomy and free association. .....
