by Kim Sengupta
American and Nato forces are following up reports that the Taliban have
received vital components for shoulder-fired Stinger missiles from Pakistani
officials enabling them to be used against helicopters in Afghanistan.
.....
by Pramod Kumar Singh
Raw officer missing since 2004 with secrets ---- Rabindra Singh, the former
joint secretary of the country's external intelligence agency, whose mysterious
disappearance two years ago had created quite a stir, has been traced
along with his family members. .....
by Wilson John
Wednesday's bomb blasts in Varanasi are yet another telling link in the
growing chain of circumstances indicating the rise of a new terrorist
network in India. .....
by Jill Gardiner
Extremist remarks made by the head imam of the city's jail system are
generating alarm about whether inmates are being recruited as Islamic
fundamentalists. .....
by Wendel Broere
A Dutch court has handed down sentences of up to 15 years to a group of
nine Islamist militants it found guilty of belonging to a terrorist organisation,
but acquitted four other suspects. .....
by Adnkronos International
Almost two years to the day since al-Qaeda linked bombers killed 191 passengers
and injured almost 1,000 in devastating train bombings the Spanish capital
on 11 March, 2004, it has emerged that the bombers had planned to carry
out further attacks in Spain, according to disclosures published on Friday
in the Spanish daily, ABC. .....
by The Spain Herald
The children's website Al Fateh, property of the Palestinian terrorist
group Hamas, demands in its most recent issue the return of the Spanish
city of Seville to the "lost paradise" of Al Andalus, as the
Muslim part of Spain was called during its existence between 711 and 1492.
The web magazine, whose name means "conqueror," says it is for
"the young builders of the future." .....
by Seema Mustafa and Sanjay Basak
The colourful personality of Election Commissioner Navin B. Chawla has
stirred the stoic Indian officialdom with the very generous donations
he received from senior Congress leaders for a family trust becoming the
subject of animated discussion within the government. .....
by The Free Press Journalist
Whether the Samajwadi Party is paying for its decision back in 1998 when
it had refused to back Sonia Gandhi's bid for prime ministership remember
her statement in the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhawan that `we have 272
MPs' -, or it is simply a case of political jousting for electoral space
in UP, one will never know. But there is no denying that the Congress
Party and the SP are headed for a head-on collision. .....
by Claudia Deane and Darryl Fears
As the war in Iraq grinds into its fourth year, a growing proportion of
Americans are expressing unfavorable views of Islam, and a majority now
say that Muslims are disproportionately prone to violence, according to
a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. .....
by Balbir Punj
Last Friday, violence erupted in Aminabad and Qaiserbag, two prominent
marketplaces in Lucknow, when an un-notified anti-Bush rally by local
Muslims took a communal turn. Four lives were lost in the violence apart
from injuries to another 10. The rally was un-notified but not unscheduled
since, according to eye witnesses, preparations on a large scale were
being made since morning. .....
by Uday Mahurkar
Legendary Chinese traveller Hieuen Tsang had described his visit to this
ancient town in his travelogue on India. Be it the magnificent Hatkeshwar
temple, the Kirti Toran arch, or the beautiful step-well of Pancham Mehta,
Vadnagar-a town in north Gujarat which has figured virtually in every
period of Indian history over the past 2,000 years-waits to be discovered
in this new heritage era. .....
by Ryan Vogt
What does the Hindi word "chinkara" have in common with German's
"schnell"? Everything, to 47-year-old German expatriate Guido
Bothe. .....
by D Bandyopadhyay
Sunanda Sanyal's "Fake ration cards" (28 February-1 March) is
an eye-opener on the fraud perpetrated on genuine electors in West Bengal.
No one can be sure of the number of false ration cards and of fictitious
voters emerging from these. It is an absurd case of falsehood with one
area reinforcing mendacity in another. .....
by V Sundaram
'Be ye men of valour and be in readiness for the conflict; it is better
to perish in battle than to see the outrage of your altar' says the New
Testament. .....
by Mayuresh Pawar
The Goa police arrested a terrorist carrying ammunition on the Matsyagandha
(Nizam-uddim-Kerala) Express train at Madgaon Railway station yesterday
evening. .....
by T R Jawahar
Muslims have a particular responsibility because these extremists are
part of their community. We do not mind where people come from, as long
as they become Australians. We went through a period in the 1980's and
'90s of sort saying, we can build a federation of cultures in this country.
You can't. You've got to have a dominant culture. Ours is Anglo-Saxon
our language, our literature, our institutions. .....
by B Shantanu
"The two groups specifically held responsible by New Delhi were Lashkar-e-Toiba
and Jaish-e- Mohammed. Pakistan vigorously denied the charges and condemned
the attack. It called for evidence of Lashkar-e-Toiba or Jaish-e-Mohammed`s
involvement to be made public and said that, if such evidence were provided,
it would take action. It also offered to participate in a joint inquiry
with the Indians." .....
by The Times of India
Ghulam Yazdani has been killed but at least another 30 youth from Nalgonda
district are suspected to have been trained by terrorist groups. .....
by Pradeep Thakur
A 'hardline' religious organisation in terror-scarred Varanasi has come
under the security agencies' scanner for possible links with jihadi masterminds
across the border. .....
by Expressindia.com
Poso (Indonesia), March 10: One person was wounded when a homemade bomb
exploded at a Hindu temple at the coastal town of Sulawesi. .....
by Rediff.com
The Delhi High Court has ordered the capital's police to provide all protection
to a 23-year old Jammu Muslim woman who apprehended safety to her life
after she married a Hindu man against the family's wishes. .....
by Vamsee Juluri
Has Hinduism been insulted in California history textbooks? Will the state
be forced to change the six new social studies textbooks' depictions of
this religion? The state Board of Education is scheduled to have the last
word on the matter this week when the full board votes on adopting the
new texts. .....
by Gautam Sen
When do successive acts of mass murder and carnage enter the phase of
ethnic cleansing and civil war? The mass murders in Varanasi, Delhi and
scores of others place are a routine tactic used by militant Islam everywhere,
from Bangladesh and Pakistan to Dafur and numerous locations in West Asia,
cowing and eventually expelling vast numbers of non-Muslims. .....
by Sheela Bhatt
Leader of Opposition and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Lal Kishenchand
Advani while condemning the Varanasi bomb blasts told mediapersons that
he cannot delink the events in the holy city from the anti-Bush protests
and the anti- Prophet cartoon protests, which took place all over India
when President George Bush visited India. .....
by Abdel Rahman al-Rashed
It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally
certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims.
.....
by Balbir K. Punj
At a time the Muslim ummah was up in arms for cartoons on Prophet Mohammed
published Jyellands-Posten in Denmark, Hindus seem to have swallowed a
large quota of evangelical vituperation with minimal protests. Parliament
condemned the cartoons, the editor of Senior India who had published them
was arrested, and Muslim protest rallies were allowed to vent their ire
on Hindu shops in Hyderabad and BJP office in Lucknow. .....
by Anamika Prasad
This has reference to the letter by CPI (ML) general secretary Kanu Sanyal
(March 6). If Comrade Sanyal believes that "the patriotic forces
who came out in large numbers to protest George Bush's visit" were
demonstrating against the nuclear deal and "American imperialism",
he is deluding himself. .....
by The Times of India
The tentacles of terror might be spreading to Mumbai once again. Close
on the heels of the Varanasi strike, a low-intensity crude bomb was recovered
from a public toilet on platform no 2 of Byculla railway station on Saturday
morning. .....
by The Times of India
Interrogation of a terrorist arrested in Goa has revealed that a Pakistan-based
militant outfit was planning to strike at busy tourist places in the state.
.....
by The Times of India
A man from Jammu and Kashmir carrying hand grenades and a substance which
looked like RDX was arrested on Friday on the Matsyagandha Express which
came from Delhi and was headed for Ernakulam. .....
by Pradeep Thakur
A prominent "hardline" religious organisation of Varanasi has
come under the scanner of security agencies for possible links with jehadi
masterminds across the border. .....
by Rakesh Mohan Chaturvedi & Peryez
Iqbal Sidiqqui
Two suspects of the March 7 serial blasts in Varanasi were arrested in
Hardoi on Friday. The duo resembles the sketches released by the police.
.....
by Prabhat Varun
Islamic world is in uproar over the alleged insult of Prophet Muhammad
by his depiction in the Danish daily Jylland Posten and then in several
other European newspapers. In India also Muslims are demonstrating continuously.
Leftists, Secularists and all other ilk of Indian Secular militia are
as usual united in their support to the 'persecuted Muslims' by the 'bully'
West. .....
by Neelam Raaj
Remember Johnny Walker singing the champi's badey, badey gun in Guru Dutt's
Pyaasa? Now, everyone from stressed-out executives to celebs like Geri
Halliwel and Me1 C is heading for this sybaritic pleasure. Champissage--adequately
French-sounding to befit its new, hip status-is a gentler version of what
your typical 'Italian saloon' back home dishes out. .....
by BBC News
Salman Rushdie is among a dozen writers to have put their names to a statement
in a French weekly paper warning against Islamic "totalitarianism".
.....
by The Times of India
The Shiv Sena has denied that it has offered a reward of Rs 10 lakh to
anyone chopping the hands of painter M F Husain for a distorted depiction
of Hindu deities. Senior Sena leader and MLA Subhash Desai said a Sena
leader in Delhi had reportedly made a statement which has resulted in
a controversy "We have asked him to issue a clarification. The Sena
does not approve of such acts," Desai asserted. .....
by The Indian Express
Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray on Saturday said that the
anti-Bush protests in Mumbai and other parts of the country were "actually
a warning to the entire Hindu community." .....
by Bronwen Maddox
President Bush will arrive in Pakistan at the end of the week after a
couple of days in India, no doubt exhilarating, and full of colour and
chatter about the future of technology. .....
by Sunanda Sanyal
On coming to power in 1977, the CPI-M hit a gold mine through Bangladeshi
infiltration. Many of the Hindus that sought refuge in West Bengal during
East Bengal's fight for independence stayed back. The rest, both Hindus
and Muslims, who returned to newly independent Bangladesh, had been coming
back in droves since 1971. They needed to be domiciled first to be able
to apply for ration cards. .....
by Douglas Murray
'Would you write the name you'd like to use here, and your real name there?"
asked the girl at reception. I had just been driven to a hotel in the
Hague. An hour earlier I'd been greeted at Amsterdam airport by a man
holding a sign with a pre-agreed cipher. .....
by Sheela Bhatt
Leader of Opposition and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Lal Kishenchand
Advani while condemning the Varanasi bomb blasts told mediapersons that
he cannot delink the events in the holy city from the anti-Bush protests
and the anti- Prophet cartoon protests, which took place all over India
when President George Bush visited India. .....
by Carol Eisenberg
Istafa Naqvi of Dix Hills was stunned to see the small knot of angry young
men waving placards as he and several thousand fellow Shia Muslims walked
along Park Avenue in midtown last month in their annual religious procession.
.....
by Vinod Sharma
The fire in coach number S-6 of the Sabarmati Express, on February 27,
2002, in Godhra, was 'accidental' and not caused by the use of any inflammable
material. The Justice UC Banerjee Committee, which probed into the incident,
is understood to have concluded this in its final report. .....
by The Pioneer
Probe Banerjee's conduct, demands JD(U) ---- Jessica Lall was denied justice
because the eyewitnesses turned hostile. The 59 passengers who were roasted
alive in the Sabarmati Express fire in Godhra have been denied justice
for just the opposite reason. The man probing the fire has preferred to
close his eyes and ears to the tragic tales of those who escaped the inferno
while seeing their near and dear ones being consumed by the leaping flames.
.....
by Charles A. Radin and Yvonne Abraham
A top Boston Redevelopment Authority official who previously downplayed
his role in the Roxbury mosque project of the Islamic Society of Boston
assisted in the city's reduction of the price the mosque backers paid
for the site from $2 million to $175,000, according to BRA documents that
have surfaced in lawsuits over the controversial project. .....
by Vir Sanghvi
For the last couple of months, I have spent very little time in Delhi
or, for that matter, in Bombay. A succession of conferences, engagements
and the shooting schedule for a new television programme have kept me
on the road. I have visited parts of south India I had not seen for a
decade; have driven through chunks of western India; spent much of the
last week in north Bengal; and travelled through cities and small towns
that have changed dramatically over the last ten or fifteen years. .....
by KPS Gill
The Indian politician, it appears, is entirely uneducable, incapable of
learning from history. Today, virtually all the parties in India are divided
into two broad camps - the 'communal' and the 'secular'. .....
by Sandhya Jain
The apparently acceptable Indo-US nuclear deal may have caused satisfaction
to South Block and the State Department, but America's Hindu community
is feeling psychologically beleaguered as old Hindu-baiters from both
countries gang up to abort a necessary correction of school textbooks
in California. .....
by Chandan Mitra
For decades, we have been extolling the virtues of positive discrimination,
arguing that it is the most effective method of assisting underprivileged
sections of society attain a degree of equality in societies where they
have been historically wronged. Blacks in the US, non-White immigrants
to European countries and even natives of South Africa have benefited
from this policy. .....
by Swapan Dasgupta
In 1949, when Sardar Vallabbhai Patel was asked by someone to react to
the turmoil in Indonesia, he is reported to have retorted: "Ah, Indonesia.
Yes, Indonesia. Just ask Jawaharlal." The story may well be apocryphal
but it does suggest that hard-nosed, pragmatic politicians are only too
aware that barring times of war, foreign policy rarely intrudes into the
domestic discourse of democracies. .....
by Webindia123.com
Assam's main opposition Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) has made a dramatic turnaround
ahead of assembly elections next month by taking a pro-Hindu stand on
the issue of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. .....
by Sudheen Kulkarni
India's relationship with South Africa is special. Gandhiji's transformation
from Mohandas to Mahatma occurred essentially in South Africa. But at
a time when a different kind of Gandhi is dominating Indian politics,
our two countries seem to share something altogether different - corruption
and kickbacks in arms deals. .....
by Prabhat Sharan
For centuries they've been nomads, barely surviving on the edge of mainstream
society, and been hunted by the police and the media as a tribe of criminals.
Now, they're trying to change all that. .....
by The Times of India
The confession made by don Abu Salem, prime accused in the Mumbai serial
blasts case, has caused enormous embarrassment to the city Congress. This
is because Salem had implicated actor Sanjay Dutt, who is the brother
of Congress MP from Mumbai north-west Priya Dutt and had even campaigned
for her during the 2004 polls. .....
by The Indian Express
In a strongly worded editorial ahead of George Bush's Pakistan visit,
a leading US daily today warned him against banking on "unreliable"
President Pervez Musharraf who has "suppressed secular democratic
parties in the country while striking deals with Muslim extremists."
.....
by The Indian Express
India will soon be back in campaign mode. As summer rolls in, states as
far apart and disparate as Assam, Kerala, Pondicherry, West Bengal and
Tamil Nadu will prepare for their tryst with the voting machine. Sweltering
times are pre-ordained, and not entirely because of the weather. .....
by Swapan Dasgupta
That began as an act of not-so-innocent bravado in Denmark last September
has ceased to be a laughing matter - what with sundry ministers in Uttar
Pradesh negotiating terms for contract killers. Yet, amid all the outrage,
indignation and hysteria, people haven't entirely lost their sense of
humour. .....
by The Hindu
The RSS today demanded scrapping of the Justice (Retd) Rajender Sachar
committee forthwith and dubbed the move as "height of appeasement
of Muslims." .....
by Carlin Romano
If the ongoing "Battle of Khartoon" (let's give it some historical
resonance) proves anything, it's that many otherwise well-educated Westerners
remain illiterate about Islam. .....
by Rajeev Ranjan Roy
Why only Akbar, and not Samrat Ashoka be commemorated for the "values"
they stood for is the common refrain from the historians over the Indian
History Congress (IHC)'s proposal to call a special session to mark 400th
anniversary of 16th century great Mughal emperor. .....
by BBC News
Police in the Indian capital, Delhi, have arrested the editor of a little
known magazine for publishing a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad. .....
by Jerry L. Van Marter
The world's churches are "missing in action" while 1,000 children
die each week in squalid camps in northern Uganda, a former foreign minister
of that country said during the global meeting of church leaders in Brazil.
.....
by The Times of India
Two arrests in Dhanirampur, Murshidabad, last month have again confirmed
that West Bengal is becoming a soft target for Pakistan's Inter-Services
Intelligence. .....
by Zenit
Latin America's continued poor economic record was the subject of a report
published Feb. 14 by the World Bank. The study, "Poverty Reduction
and Growth: Virtuous and Vicious Circles," was notable for admitting
the need for greater government involvement in the economy, compared to
the normal insistence on privatization and the private sector. .....
by The Indian Express
Both Houses of Parliament were rocked today with the BJP-led NDA accusing
the Government of "misusing the CBI" after The Indian Express
reported that the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), writing
directly to the CBI Director in August, 2005, had demanded an explanation
on why the agency had not appealed against L K Advani's discharge in the
Babri Masjid demolition case. .....
by The Pioneer
The All-Assam Students Union's threat to launch an agitation against the
UPA Government's move to surreptitiously revive the Illegal Migrants (Determination
by Tribunals) Act by amending the Foreigners (Tribunals) Order, reflects
increasing disquiet among those who believe that Assam will continue to
be the lebensraum for illegal Bangladeshi immigrants because the Congress,
with an eye on the coming Assembly election, is happy to encourage the
influx across the border. .....
by The Statesman
A Trinamul Congress leader was severely beaten up by a group of CPI-M
workers because he had lodged a complaint with the election observer regarding
Bangladeshi voters enlisted in the electoral roll during the summary revision.
.....
by Udayan Namboodiri
This is crossroads time for Indian education. In just a couple of weeks
from now, a bizarre format will be in operation in India's schools, one
that is totally out of sync with the needs and aspirations of this country.
The National Curriculum Format (NCF-2005), was developed in secrecy and
passed with the help of brute force by a Government which owes its survival
to the same elements that once backed India's partition and lobbied for
support for the Chinese invasion of India. .....
by The Times of India
US President George Bush has showered lavish praise on nearly 1.7 million
Indian Americans by calling them the "brain power behind the high
tech boom" that has transformed American society. .....
by K.P.S. Gill
Why does the Muslim world not rise up in rage against these fanatics and
political opportunists who are bringing disgrace and disrepute to their
faith? Why are the voices of criticism against extremist Islam and Islamist
terrorism so muted? .....
by JS Rajput
It's that time of the year when children leave the school system. By the
Indian reality, most will never enter the portals of an educational institution
again. .....
by Tom Heneghan
After backing calls by Muslims for respect for their religion in the Mohammad
cartoons row, the Vatican is now urging Islamic countries to reciprocate
by showing more tolerance toward their Christian minorities. .....
by Waseem Shamsi
Two churches, a school and other public property were ransacked and torched
during violent protests sparked by the alleged desecration of the Holy
Qur'aan by a Christian family in the Freek Hill area here on Sunday. .....
by Rahimullah Yusufzai
One never knows when the uneasy relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan
will take a turn for the worse. Such is the uncertain state of their ties
that points of disagreements crop up suddenly and from the least likely
of sources. That is the only way to interpret the recent complaint coming
from Kabul about the naming of Pakistani ballistic missiles after Afghan
war heroes. .....
by Balbir K Punj
In December 1998, comedian Johnny Lever was sentenced to seven days of
imprisonment by Additional Metropolitan Magistrate of Mumbai under Section
2 of Prevention of Insult's to National Honour Act for caricaturing the
national anthem and the Indian Constitution at a private function in Hyat
Regency Hotel of Dubai in 1990. .....
by Ritesh Jigani
Standing on a packed train on the way home from university, I was feeling
terrible. It had been a hard week, I was annoyed with several colleagues,
the train had been delayed and everybody nearby seemed to be coughing
and sneezing on me! In the rush to get onto the train people were barging
each other and getting into heated arguments. I was feeling erratic, as
if I would hit someone at the slightest provocation. .....
by S. M. Bhasker
At the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the Indian prime minister intoned a Vedic
hymn: "The ocean is your girdle/ Your bosom the mountains/ Goddess
Earth, my obeisance to you/ Forgive me for daring to touch you with my
feet". .....
by Jay Lakhani
The two major challenges faced by all world religions in modern times
are: how to address the issue of strife in the name of religion and how
to respond to the challenge of rationality. Hinduism has an important
contribution to make on both these fronts. .....
by Organiser
The UPA often reminds us of the Muslim League of the pre-Independent India.
And Arjun Singh of the despicable communalist Maulana Mohammad Ali. The
only difference is that the Muslim League then did not enjoy absolute
power. It rather existed on British patronage. .....
by Saugar Sengupta
The amount of 'infiltration' in the electoral rolls of your state is frighteningly
colossal... bewildering too... If let alone, the faking rate could easily
beat the climbing Sensex," one of the 19 Election Commission observers
sent to West Bengal told the press recently. .....
