by Koenraad Elst
I am not a Hindu. And I am certainly not a Muslim. So, when I started
writing my earlier book Ram Janmabhoomi vs Babri Masjid, a Case Study
in Hindu-Muslim Conflict, in the spring of 1990, I was an outsider to
this conflict between Hindus and Muslims. But as I ventured deeper into
the unique configuration of forces now existing in India, I saw that this
was not a conflict between just any two communities. .....
by Richard Owen
Hell is a place where sinners really do burn in an everlasting fire, and
not just a religious symbol designed to galvanise the faithful, the Pope
has said. .....
by IndianMuslims.info
The tribals in Jharkhand are concerned over the 'invasion' of the converted
people who avail of government benefits even as the real community remains
deprived of education and job opportunities. .....
by Shivam Vij
I ran away from home in 2002, when I was 16. I walked to the Dantewada
railway station and took a train to Hyderabad where I got a job with a
company called Krypton Novelties. I supplied gift items to shops and was
happy with my job. My parents would call my employer to check on me, but
they had stopped speaking to me. .....
by Shachi Rairikar
Dravidar Kazhagam (DK) president K Veeramani has alleged that Ramayana,
one of the oldest and well-known epics of the world, besmirched women.
The DK leader also said that the Bhagavad Gita and Manusmriti too denigrated
the women folk. Hence, a demonstration would be held soon and these sacred
scriptures of the Hindus would be burnt to ashes. .....
by Haindava Keralam
For several years Pakistan has been acting as an epicenter of Jihadi terrorism.
Pakistan Jihadis consider India as "unfinished business". .....
by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook
In an open challenge to Palestinian leadership, Dr. Nadir Sa'id of Bir
Zeit University condemned the violence in Palestinian society and placed
the blame on the political and religious leaders. He blamed both Fatah
and Hamas, including the Prime Minister and others ministers, for hundreds
of killings. He condemned some Imams who preach the killing of women and
beating of children. .....
by Expressindia.com
The chief of Pakistan's human rights watchdog has said President Pervez
Musharraf is a "skilful liar", but is losing his touch and sees
ghosts everywhere. .....
by P R Ramesh
Lies often acquire a life of their own and it takes just one incident
for the truth to come out. The CPI(M) is realising this to its utter discomfort.
The Nandigram massacre stripped the CPI(M) of its carefully cultivated
facade of hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness that used to mask its Stalinist
impulses and its spurious faith in democracy. .....
by Manuela Badawy
A new English-language interpretation of the Muslim Holy book the Koran
challenges the use of words that feminists say have been used to justify
the abuse of Islamic women. .....
by Jeemon Jacob
Nandigram is a hot topic in Kerala's political circles. The State Congress
has sent a delegation to the West Bengal village led by Ramesh Chennitala,
the tireless anti-Communist state party chief. But, in the end, it was
mere political opportunism that might have driven khadi-clad State Congressmen
to Nandigram. .....
by Basab Dasgupta
In our early youth, we were drawn to Marxism because there was something
robustly humane about its appeal. Its compassion towards the oppressed,
its fervour to fight against the oppressor and, above all, the dream it
conveyed of a society which is not based on coercion of the State, had
led many of us to join the Communist party. .....
by Udayan Namboodiri
With notable exceptions, the cream of Bengal's intellectual glitteratti
have spoken out against Nandigram. As these were the very ones who were
earlier mocked as Buddhajeevis - cheerleaders for Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee
- the Chief Minister is left a lonely man. His utterly shameless defence
of the police establishment has, however, attracted new friends like Benoy
Konar .....
by Sahal Abdulle
The Somali government said on Thursday that al Qaeda had made a young
militant Islamist commander its leader in Mogadishu as fighting raged
for a second day in the coastal capital. .....
by Fox News
The FBI has issued an "informational bulletin" to state and
local officials saying to watch out for people tied to extremist groups
trying to earn licenses to drive school buses. .....
by Premen Addy
London for me is a city without peer. Paris and Rome may be more pleasing
to the eye but give me London every time for sheer character. It is the
true global village in which homegrown communities live cheek-by-jowl
with humans from every corner of Planet Earth in the everlasting pursuit
of happiness. "He who is tired of London is tired of life,"
exclaimed that archetypal Londoner Samuel Johnson. .....
by Indrani Bagchi
India has rejected a US proposal for joint operation against Lashkar-e-Toiba,
in a move that has baffled many given that LeT is the principal terror
threat to India, and that counter-terrorism has been a high bilateral
priority. .....
by Savie Karnel
Prerana Mehta Shah (26), the daughter-in-law of former Civil Aviation
Minister C M Ibrahim, has sent a complaint to the National Women's Commission
(NWC) alleging that her in-laws are responsible for creating rifts in
her marriage. .....
by S Viswam
The difference between a politician and a statesman, it is said, is that
while a politician always talks without thinking, a statesman never talks
without thinking. Mr Rahul Gandhi, Congress president Sonia Gandhi's son,
is currently being groomed in politics. He seems to be adapting himself
quite well to politics considering that he has begun talking without thinking.
Whether he will ever prove to be a statesman is in the realm of conjecture
and wishful thinking. .....
by Chitra Ramaswamy
An intriguing aspect of the findings relates to the presence of statues
belonging to Vaishnavite, Shaivite, Buddhist and Jain religions at one
place. This is believed to be one of the biggest temple towns of the sixth
and seventh centuries discovered anywhere so far. .....
by Prafulla Marpakwar
Chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and senior NCP leader, energy minister
Dilip Walse-Patil, are on a collision course over the disconnection of
power supply to the politically powerful Mula Pravara Cooperative Electric
Supply Society following its failure to pay Rs 930 crore dues. .....
by Manjari Mishra
The Lucknow bench of the Allhabad high court on Thursday directed the
UP government to report what action it intended to take over the fatwa
issued by the All-India Ibtehad Council (AIIC) against exiled Bangladeshi
author Taslima Nasreen. .....
by Mihika Basu
Roshan Urdu Primary School in Babhalgaon is clean, orderly and provides
its 40 students a good mid-day meal that alternates between dal-chawal,
biryani, kichdi godbhat and biscuits. Ten km from Latur town and within
Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh's constituency, it is a school that receives
government grants and is run by the Sushilabai Deshmukh Education Society.
.....
by Ajanta Chakraborty
How does it feel to be party to a mass-murder masterminded by politicians?
Or - precisely - to be branded as "killers-in-uniform" by just
about everyone, including one's own family? .....
by Bidyut Roy
CPI(M) bosses in Delhi have been lecturing the UPA Government on increasing
funding of sub-plans meant to help the minorities (Muslims), but they
seem to have forgotten to check the performance of the party's own government
in West Bengal. .....
by Tavleen Singh
The Dar-ul-Uloom in Deoband is jihad central. It inspired the barbarous
Taliban to practice a version of Islam in which women could be stoned
to death for learning to read, and its religious ideology inspired Osama
bin Laden to believe that terrorism was some kind of grotesque holy war.
.....
by V.P. Malik
The threat of the People's Democratic Party (PDP) to break up the ruling
alliance, if Jammu and Kashmir is not demilitarised and if the Armed Forces
(Special Powers) Act is not repealed, has again raised the ultra-sensitive
issue of the politicisation of national security. Having experienced similar
situations in the past (and written about it in my book, Kargil - From
Surprise to Victory), it may be useful to make a few observations in this
regard. .....
by P R Ramesh
Lies often acquire a life of their own and it takes just one incident
for the truth to come out. The CPI(M) is realising this to its utter discomfort.
The Nandigram massacre stripped the CPI(M) of its carefully cultivated
facade of hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness that used to mask its Stalinist
impulses and its spurious faith in democracy. .....
by Kumar Chellappan
It seems the Marxists in Bengal and Kerala are vying with one another
to get rid of the last drops of the goodwill they enjoy with the people
in their states. There was a time in Kerala when we were very proud to
proclaim our Marxist leanings. The 1970s and 80s used to be the era when
we shouted the slogan: "There is no Hindu blood among us; There is
no Muslim blood among us and there is no Christian blood among us. It
is human blood which runs in our veins and it is red in colour."
.....
by Indrani Bagchi
A European Parliament's hotly-contested report on Kashmir - largely backing
the Indian stand - finally made it through its foreign affairs committee
(AFET) on Wednesday. .....
by Dr. Babu Suseelan
There is a growing concern that Marxist ministers in Kerala frequently
send offensive messages against Hindus, temple worship and sacred rituals.
We hear and see crude and rude language and offensive remarks from Marxist
ideologues. People are talking about where to draw the line. There is
growing concern that Marxist free speech is becoming too obnoxious and
provocative. Marxist freedom of expression has become a crusade against
Hindus. .....
by T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan
Had someone from my family been prime minister in 1992, said Rahul Gandhi,
who, in all probability, is the next Congress prime minister, the Babri
Masjid would still be standing. Or words to that effect. .....
by The Pioneer
Earlier this week Pakistan tested a 700-km range nuclear-capable missile
that is, roughly, the analogue to India's Brahmos missile. What was most
interesting about the test was the name the Pakistan Government accorded
to its newest showpiece - Babar. Pakistan has now tested or incorporated
missiles named after Mahmud of Ghazni, Mohammed-bin-Ghori, Ahmed Shah
Abdali and Zahiruddin Mohammad Babar. .....
by The Times of India
Come Uttar Pradesh elections and it's the Hindutva plank to the fore again.
The Sangh Parivar is speaking in one voice backing former chief minister
and prodigal son Kalyan Singh and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has provided
them with new ammunition. .....
by Anuradha Mane
This Tuesday, when thousands of students will begin their SSC examination,
it will mark a turning point in their lives. Especially so for sixteen-year-old-twins
Santosh and Surekha Shirke (15) for whom it is not just an academic challenge
but a personal one too. As children of brick kiln workers, education,
among several other must-haves, was a dream. .....
by Bidyut Rot
The Army lost another battle to its political command, with the CPI (M)
mobilising the Union Ministry of Defence to outflank the Eastern Command.
The party got the rights to use the ground on Maidan for a rally against
the wishes of Eastern Command, the custodians of Maidan. .....
by The Economic Times
India on Tuesday handed over to Pakistan a photo of a suspected Pakistani
national believed to be behind the attack on the Attari Special, to drive
home the point that acts of terror are sponsored by elements across the
border. India had said that Pakistan's response to the proof provided
by India will test the efficacy of the Indo-Pakistan joint terror mechanism.
.....
by Sanjay K Singh
The Supreme Court has sought an explanation from the UPA government on
why the original route of the 366-km East-West Corridor of the National
Highway Project, initiated by the NDA government, was changed. .....
by Rashmee Roshan Lall
India is the only one of 12 major countries to have significantly improved
its global stature in the past year, even as Israel, Iran, the US and
North Korea are overwhelmingly negatively identified as the world's new
rogue states by disparate groups of people in 27 countries around the
world, according to a new BBC poll. .....
by Deccan Chronicle
In India, where some 30 per cent of the people live below the poverty
line, around 84 per cent of their elected representatives in the Lok Sabha
are millionaires and multi-millionaires. This newspaper made an extensive
study of the declarations by Lok Sabha MPs to the Election Commission
during the 2004 general election and found that in a House of 532 elected
MPs (out of a House of 545 members - two of whom are nominated, there
are 11 vacancies), at least 145 members have cash, jewellery, bonds, shares
in business undertakings, motor vehicles, agricultural/non-agricultural
land and residential and commercial properties worth more than Rs 1 crore
in their own name or that of their wives and children. .....
by Husain Haqqani
Muslim leaders and intellectuals find it easier to criticize outsiders
- the US, in the case of Iraq - for harm inflicted on fellow Muslims.
But what about the suffering caused by fellow believers? .....
by FrontPageMagazine.com
Many people in today's Democratic party have contempt for religion, but
they still have time for prayer. Last Friday, during the Democratic National
Committee's Annual Winter Meeting in Washington, Husham Al-Husainy, Imam
of the Karbalaa Islamic Education Center, a Shi'ite mosque in Dearborn,
Michigan, offered an invocation. .....
by Jyoti M. Pathania
Its surely is in vogue to talk or write about Indo-Pak peace process.
A new twist or the latest insight to this process was brought forth by
a newspaper report which stated that President Musharraf's four point
formulae had its genesis from Galtung's prescribed solution to the five
decade old Kashmir problem. .....
by Vivek Gumaste
Face to face contact between hostile neighbours is a laudable way to attain
peace. But the nature of such interaction and its consequences must be
carefully weighed before embarking on any such venture. Foolhardiness
cannot be confused with amity; one must guard against gullibility. The
Government's decision to set up a joint anti-terrorism task force with
Pakistan is a case of reckless abandon with no concern for India's security.
.....
by Haindava Keralam
Ever since the Communist's came into power, Kerala the pseudo secular
laboratory of Communist's is experimenting all sorts of Anti Hindu gimmicks
to earn the loyalty of Minorities and there by aiming to destroy the roots
Sanathana Dharma from the soil of Adi Sankara. .....
by Samachar.com
The land of Gandhi, the apostle of peace, is bleeding from fratricidal
violence. Contrary to the self-deluding claim that we are a peace-loving
people, there is evidence galore almost daily of incidents of maniac violence
and gore from all parts of the country. If one day it is the madness of
the police and local administration resulting in the death of a score
or more innocent villagers in Nandigram in West Bengal, the next it is
the senseless killing of 55 security personnel at the hands of Naxalites
in Chhattisgarh. .....
by Los Angeles Times
Suppose that a supreme court justice in an unstable but pro-American country
becomes unwilling to take his cues from the authoritarian government.
He orders its intelligence services to answer charges that they are holding
100 citizens who have disappeared. He is widely believed to oppose a presidential
scheme to get around a constitutional ban on running for reelection. .....
by Kanchan Gupta
Even before West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's critics,
both within and outside the CPI(M) and the Left Front it leads, could
articulate their opposition to the ghastly atrocities that were committed
by the police and Marxist cadre at Nandigram on March 14, one man had
set himself to the task of cranking up criticism with remarkable energy
and alacrity for his age. .....
by Gautam Siddharth
It would be easy to dismiss Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's Truth and Reconciliation
Conference of Dalits and Caste Hindus held in Delhi's Pragati Maidan on
Friday as a fluffy or wooly-headed enterprise of a spiritual teacher,
who naively holds on to certain unlivable or unworkable ideals in the
cynical times that we live in. This would be especially true of people
in the journalistic profession who seem to have irrefutable knowledge
about society and politics and their internal dynamic that plays itself
out every moment. .....
by Jay Weaver
A reputed al Qaeda member told U.S. authorities that the terror network
scrutinized Jose Padilla as a recruit for Islamic extremism in 2000-01,
according to a new document filed in federal court in Miami. .....
by Soumitra Basu
It is a story of that horrific night. The night of 14th of March, 2007.
After the completion of "Operation Nandigram" in broad day light,
CPM called a local 12 hour strike (bandh) in Nandigram. A bandh was called
in the evening hours in such a remote place where people mostly keep themselves
indoor after sunset. Why was that called then? .....
by Richard Kerbaj
A senior Muslim cleric working for the tax office in Canberra is being
investigated over accusations he failed to pay income tax on thousands
of dollars he allegedly received from the Saudi embassy. .....
by Swapan Das Gupta
There is an irresistible temptation to gloat over the CPI(M)'s ignominy
over the cadre-directed police action in Nandigram which left 14 people
dead and forced many hundreds to flee their homes. Always intolerant of
criticism and political opposition, the party transformed a small corner
of East Midnapur into a war zone last Wednesday. .....
by Jeremy Page
Yoga, de rigueur among celebrities and the fashionably rich from Hollywood
to Hong Kong, now looks set to become compulsory in Indian schools despite
objections from Muslim and Christian groups who say that it is a Hindu
practice. .....
by M.V.Kamath
On Sunday, August 13, 2006, the Chennai-based The Hindu known for its
objectivity and fairness carried a full page report on The Hindu-CNNIBN
State of the Nation Survey which tried to answer two important questions.
Where exactly was the UPA Government in Delhi gaining seatand votes? Secondly,
what explains the rise of the UPA? .....
by Sridhar Krishnaswami
The Pakistani national, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, a prime suspect in the
9/11 terror attacks in the US, has allegedly confessed to his role in
the plot along with a slew of other strikes over the last several years.
.....
by Darius Nakhoonwala
The Telegraph pointed out uncharitably that in its 43-year history, the
party never had a Muslim or Dalit in its politburo. .....
by Saugar Sengupta
A day after Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's police 'enforced'
the state's authority over Nandigram block in West Bengal's East Midnapore
district, brutally crushing popular resistance against Marxist thuggery
by killing at least 14 men and women, armed CPI(M) cadre have captured
the "liberated" villages, most noticeably Sonachura and Garchakraberia.
.....
by Organiser
Congress and its allies have not learnt any lesson from the drubbing they
got in Punjab, Uttarakhand and the civic polls across the country in recent
months. They are cynically encouraging the revival of Muslim separatism
and segregation of that community from the national mainstream. .....
by Animitra Chakraborty
What is the status of the Hindus in India itself? In Jammu & Kashmir
not only the non-Muslims were brutally evicted from Kashmir and forced
to live as refugees in their own country, recently Shariat law was about
to be implement in the whole of the state. Does that mean the Government
of India accept that Jammu & Kashmir is not part of India, which is
secular according to its Constitution, and religious laws cannot have
any place? .....
by Ashok Malik
One doesn't have to be an opponent of economic reforms, a partisan of
Mamata Banerjee or a cheerleader of the Jamaat-e-Ulama-e-Hind to recognise
that Wednesday, March 14, was an inflexion point in the current politics
of West Bengal. After the "cold horror" -- to use Governor Gopal
Gandhi's words -- of Nandigram, two sobering realities have hit home.
.....
by Alamgir Hussain
A lot has already been written about the recently held Secular Islam Summit
at St. Petersburg (Florida), yet I did not want to miss out on writing
a few words about the exciting experience of this unprecedented event.
As I am in the middle of writing a book, I was keen to meet up with the
prominent writers and activists in the field, namely Ibn Warraq, Tashbih
Sayyed, Wafa Sultan and Nonie Darwish et al. to seek their comment on
and endorsement of my book. .....
by The Pioneer
West Bengal president of Jamiat-Ulema-i-Hind Siddiqullah Chowdhury, who
led the anti-land acquisition movement in Nandigram, on Monday said Gujarat
Chief Minister Narendra Modi had a better record than Chief Minister Buddhadeb
Bhattacharjee when it came to dealing with the Muslim minority. .....
by Jeevan Vasagar
A young woman spoke from beyond the grave yesterday to accuse her father
and uncle of attempting to murder her in a mobile phone video which was
played to an Old Bailey jury. .....
by Richard Lloyd Parry
Nine people, including four women and two teenage girls, were shot through
the head yesterday in one of the most shocking attacks so far in Thailand's
worsening Islamic insurgency. .....
by Sridhar Krishnaswami
Warning that to look at terrorism through blinkers of any particular religion,
region or any cause like poverty will be a "dangerous delusion,"
India favoured global action to tackle the menace of which it has been
the "world's biggest victim." .....
by Wilson John
Before Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf' is forgotten as another footnote
in history, he would be remembered as a military dictator in south Asia
who promoted terrorist groups with religious pretext, scripted some of
the worst human rights horror stories in the recent past, deepened chasms
between communities not only in his country but in the neighbourhood and
turned the region over to Western powers to play their own strategic games.
.....
by Haindava Keralam
Islamic criminals in India have established series of "set-ups"
to manipulate citizens out of their savings, and confuse police and Income
Tax Officials. It is a criminal process so subtle that victims rarely
realize what is happening until it is too late. .....
by Jamal Hasan
Most of the authoritarian doctrines have one thing in common. That is,
the end justifies the means. Thus, fascism, Nazism, and communism are
the "non-divinely" inspired doctrines where humanistic and moralistic
values are halted to attain the assumed larger objective. In such totalitarian
predicaments, process of extinction of nonconformists may be conducted
with extreme prejudice. .....
by IndianMuslims.info
A delegation of Central Haj Committee and All India Haj Sewa Samiti led
by its chairman Iqbal Ahmed Sardagi called on Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh here Friday and urged him to make the Central Haj Committee a real
independent body. .....
by Benazir Bhutto
Last month President Bush told Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan that
he must be more aggressive in hunting down al-Qaeda and the Taliban along
his country's border with Afghanistan. During his recent visit to Islamabad,
Vice President Cheney echoed the claim that al-Qaeda members were training
in Pakistan's tribal areas and called on Musharraf to shut down their
operations. .....
by Chidanand Rajghatta
The writing seems to be on the wall for Pakistan's military ruler Pervez
Musharraf. Uncle Sam, the General's patron-in-chief, is showing signs
of cashiering his favoured stooge and preparing grounds for his succession.
.....
by NewKerala.com
In one of world's biggest devotional congregations of women, thousands
performed 'Pongala' ritual at the famous Attukal Devi temple here today
turning the whole city into a virtual sea of women. .....
by Chandan Mitra
To use a slang expression, it can only be said that Marxists in Bengalhave
lost their marbles. I shook my head in disbelief and despair onlearning
that Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, toast of India'scapitalist
cocktail circuit, has announced a plan to accord secondlanguage status
to Urdu in West Bengal! .....
by Narain Kataria
Can radical Islam escape the opprobrium that it is using violence, threat,
murder and terrorism to establish Sharia all over the word? .....
by Paul Sperry
Pakistani travelers are the focus of a new temporary watchlist the federal
government has created to identify high-risk passengers entering the United
States, WND has learned. .....
by Bruce Bawer
The approach of the New Year and departure of the old inevitably brings
a flurry of "year's best" lists. This even applies to nations,
which some organizations make it their business annually to rank in order
of wealth, quality of life, and what-have-you. .....
by Toby Harnden and Thomas Coghlan
America is stepping up its hunt for Osama bin Laden by dispatching additional
CIA operatives and paramilitary officers to Pakistan to kill or capture
the al-Qa'eda leader. .....
by Outlook
Q.: What are the compulsions that prompted you to enact the HP Freedom
of Religion Act 2006?
A.: Ours is a peaceful hill state where for ages people have been living
in harmony. Of late, there were complaints from people regarding conversions
and so the bill was brought before the Vidhan Sabha. We do not want any
activity that will jeopardise social harmony. It is, however, unfortunate
that vested interests have been trying to distort the purpose of the Act.
.....
by Rediff.com
Spiritual guru and founder of The Art of Living Foundation Sri Sri Ravi
Shankar has initiated a process to bring about a reconciliation between
the Dalits and caste Hindus. .....
by Jennifer Medina
When Hassan Abujihaad was a sailor on a United States Navy destroyer in
2001, federal prosecutors said, he began exchanging e-mail messages with
a man who ran an Internet site seeking to raise money for terrorist causes.
.....
by Dr. Indulata Das
Now let us come to some comments made on Sanskrit in a Sanskrit University
by none other than the Chancellor of the same University. In the near
past Shri T. V. Rajeswar, the Governor of Uttar Pradesh who is the Chancellor
of the Sampurnananda Sanskrit University on the occasion of convocation
of the University said 'Sanskrit is the language of the bullock cart age.
If you read Sanskrit you will get services in temples as priests. .....
by M.S.N. Menon
Shankara was essentially a unifier of India, not one who sought to divide
our people. He tried to carry with him almost all streams of our civilisation.
.....
by Daily Excelsior
Like any other traditional marriage ceremony in an Orissa village, this
one too was held with much pomp and enthusiasm at Petacheela in Kendrapara
district. The only difference was that villagers had assembled not to
give their blessings to the groom - a Peepul tree - and the bride - a
Banyan tree - but to get blessed by the newly wed couple. .....
by Rajesh Behera
Like any other traditional marriage ceremony in an Orissa village, this
one too was held with much pomp and enthusiasm at Petacheela in Kendrapara
district. The only difference was that villagers had assembled not to
give their blessings to the groom - a Peepul tree - and the bride - a
Banyan tree - but to get blessed by the newly wed couple. .....
by Dr. Babu Suseelan
For hundreds of years, Christian missionaries have been selling fake paradise
in India. Missionaries promised "the eyes of the blind will be opened,
the ears of the deaf unstopped, and the wilderness will burst out in fruitful
beauty." They falsely paraded the prophecy of the wolf with the lamb
and the kid with the leopard and promised Biblical paradise. Missionary
promises were couched in scholastic terms but their goal was political,
social and economic exploitation and to liberate Hindus from their spiritual
tradition and to enslave them with the rigid dogma. .....
by Diana West
Only one faith on Earth may be more messianic than Islam: multiculturalism.
Without it -- without its fanatics who believe all civilizations are the
same -- the engine that projects Islam into the unprotected heart of Western
civilization would stall and fail. It's as simple as that. To live among
the believers -- the multiculturalists -- is to watch the assault, the
jihad, take place un-repulsed by our suicidal societies. .....
by Licia Corbella
In the news business, it's called burying the lead. It means you missed
the most important or interesting part of a story and led with something
less significant. .....
by Dawn
Saudi Arabia wants an apology from a Dutch politician who said Muslims
should "tear out half the Quran" if they wanted to live in his
country and has asked the Dutch government to intervene, a Saudi newspaper
said on Sunday. .....
by The Indian Express
The Law Ministry has turned down CBI's request for sanction to challenge
the lower court's order of acquitting Railway Minister Lalu Prasad and
his wife Rabri Devi in a disproportionate assets case. .....
by Afternoon Despatch & Courier
Maharashtra is about to pass a bill to take over all the temple trusts
and to implement the Black Magic Act in the coming session Maharashtra
is about to pass a bill to take over all the temple trusts and to implement
the Black Magic Act in the coming session. An organisation which works
for the safekeeping of the Hindu religion, Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS)
has been expressing strong opposition to the implementation of these laws.
They have held protests several times in different places. Such a protest
was staged near Parel railway station. .....
by Deepak Yadav
Queries about tiny Khan Ahmadpur village along the Ambala-Yamunanagar
highway are likely to be met with blank stares. Re-pharse the question-'Which
way is Fauji Gaon?'-and pat comes the answer: "Only 40 km down this
road. You can't miss it." .....
by Paul Zacharia
The story goes that Vivekananda got so disgusted with the caste system
in Kerala that he called the place a madhouse. Today caste is no more
a tool of social domination in Kerala. In fact, lower caste status is
shrewdly used as a tool for social bargaining. But Kerala continues to
be a sociological madhouse of unparalleled dimensions. For example, perhaps
this is the only society in India where ideology has got so intertwined
with culture that people have ceased to understand the difference. .....
by Sugata Srinivasaraju
The New Linguistic Survey of India (NLSI), scheduled to take off in April
2007, is, in terms of operational imagination, as big as the census, but
will be far more complex, nuanced and sensitive in content. Nowhere in
the world has a project of this scale been conceived to track a nation's
linguistic diversity. At the end of its 10-year cycle, the truth about
the state of our languages will be out. It will be one of the most significant
statements, in a century, on a prime identity-marker. .....
by Outlook
Q.: What are the compulsions that prompted you to enact the HP Freedom
of Religion Act 2006?
A.: Ours is a peaceful hill state where for ages people have been living
in harmony. Of late, there were complaints from people regarding conversions
and so the bill was brought before the Vidhan Sabha. We do not want any
activity that will jeopardise social harmony. It is, however, unfortunate
that vested interests have been trying to distort the purpose of the Act.
.....
by Chander Suta Dogra
It simply defies logic. Why should a Congress government enact a law banning
conversions when it goes against the party's basic tenet of protecting
minorities? But the Virbhadra Singh government in Himachal Pradesh has
done just that. It has become the first Congress dispensation in the country
to ban conversions. .....
by Debarshi Dasgupta
Some claim the most ostensible change in Mandlana, a village near Narnaul,
Haryana, is the frequent sighting of unveiled women. But behind this lies
a more significant development as women gradually begin to assert their
roles in a society that has for long been, and still is, the fiefdom of
men. Take the example of Pushpa Devi, who put her foot down when her extended
family urged her to terminate her pregnancy since it was a girl child.
.....
by Uday Mahurkar
There is yet another entry in the list of makeovers this season, that
of the small towns of Gujarat. Three years ago, Kadi in the Mehsana district,
was just like an average Indian municipal town-dirty, disorganised and
poorly kept in terms of amenities like roads, water and sewerage facilities.
Home to around 56,000 persons, the town scored poorly on the organisation
and finance fronts. .....
by M.G. Radhakrishnan
Even in a matriarchal society like Kerala's, where men have a festival,
Sabarimala, exclusively for them, could women be far behind? Yes, they
have it too, in the form of Pongala which helped them better the men by
entering the Guinness Book of Records last year for their sheer numbers.
The festival at the Attukal Bhagvathi temple in Thiruvananthapuram is
now officially recognised as the largest congregation of women who throng
from all over the world on the last day of a 10-day ritual which takes
place in March every year. .....
by Ambreesh Mishra
In times of a sharpening man-versus-nature debate, they stand out as the
most unlikely environmentalists. Armed with the humble keria lacca or
lac insects, nearly 21,000 small farmers, mostly tribals, are almost maniacally
saving the Palash tree, a vital cog in the bio-diversity of Vindhyachal
and Satpura ranges of Madhya Pradesh. .....
by Rediff.com
Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen on Monday made an impassioned plea
to her "second home" India to grant her citizenship and blamed
the government of West Bengal, her current residence in exile, for delaying
the process. .....
by Vivek Deshpande
Theirs is a run-of-the-will story. Monica and Rohini Raut, 17-year-old
twin sisters from Nagpur's Siraspeth slum and daughters of a truck driver,
could well be India's new hope in running. The sisters won for the country
its first individual medals in an international cross-country event. .....
by Expressindia.com
Terming the sacking of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikar Muhammad
Chaudhry as a "judicial coup", Pakistan's Opposition parties
and human rights groups fear it could be a move by President Pervez Musharraf
to put off this year's expected general elections and impose Emergency.
.....
by Inder Malhotra
In 1987, while researching in Britain's Public Records Office (PRO) close
to London's Kew Gardens, I was startled by the contents of a slim file.
It was marked 'top secret', before its declassification, and related to
the period when V.K. Krishna Menon - until then, as founder-president
of the India League, a virtual representative in the UK of the country's
freedom movement - had just taken over as independent India's first high
commissioner to the Court of St. James. .....
by Manoj Prasad
On August 9, 2003, when cadres of the Peoples' War Group raided Lango
village, its residents led by Bhado Bandra, battling Naxalites under the
banner of Nagrik Raksha Dal (NRD), fought back and lynched nine PWG men.
The very next day, Sunil Mahato, the former Jharkhand Students' Union
activist who had become JMM general secretary, showed up at Lango, praised
the villagers and distributed sweets. .....
by Thomas Friedman
On Feb. 20, The Associated Press reported from Afghanistan that a suicide
attacker disguised as a health worker blew himself up near "a crowd
of about 150 people who had gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to
open an emergency ward at the main government hospital in the city of
Khost." A few days later, at a Baghdad college, a female Sunni suicide
bomber blew herself up amid students who were ready to sit for exams,
killing 40 people. .....
by Sanjay K Singh
The Supreme Court has sought an explanation from the UPA government on
why the original route of the 366-km East-West Corridor of the National
Highway Project, initiated by the NDA government, was changed. .....
by P R Ramesh
By no stretch of imagination does Sunil Mahato fall into the category
of an exploiter or a class enemy. He did not belong to the landed or the
upper caste sections of Jharkhand who are blamed for the deprivation of
the local tribals. .....
by The Economic Times
India on Tuesday handed over to Pakistan a photo of a suspected Pakistani
national believed to be behind the attack on Samjhauta Express to drive
home its point that acts of terror are sponsored by elements across the
border. India had said that Pakistan's response to the proof provided
by India will test the efficacy of the Indo-Pakistan joint terror mechanism.
.....
by Kishwardesai
For Justice Albie Sachs, one of South Africa's foremost proponents of
human rights, it is an important case that highlights the country's regard
for cultural diversity. When we see him seated amongst a full bench at
South Africa's constitutional court, an impressively designed building
located alongside the Old Fort Prison in Johannesburg evocative of one
of the most grim struggles for freedom and equality, it is a measure of
how seriously the law has taken Sunali's personal battle to retain her
little gold nose ring in school. .....
by Rakshit Sonawane
Till 1994, Kishore was one of those forgotten people who have to struggle
to get the minimum necessities in life, and undergo humiliation and abuse
from the rich and powerful who have everything in life handed to them
on a platter. .....
by Tanvir A Siddiqui
Anybody who's seen Qutbuddin Ansari's picture will never forget his face.
But his fame as the face of the 2002 Gujarat had come at a cost just short
of his life. .....
by Anosh Malekar
All these years, Gangaram Manaji Mulak had no reason to till his rain-fed
farmland of 2.75 acres. "It was as good as fallow, providing only
grass for my cattle," says the 55-year-old marginal farmer from Alandi,
25 km from Pune. .....
by Shubhajit Roy
The UPA government's key constituents, the Congress and the Left, were
the most vocal critics when the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh government, headed
by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, started yoga classes, especially
the 'Surya Namaskar' and 'Pranayam', in schools and colleges across the
state. But the latest report tabled by a Parliamentary Standing Committee
that includes high-profile Congress and Left MPs says the exact opposite.
.....
by The Indian Express
Both President Bush and Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf,
have spoken of the strategic partnership between their two countries.
Since Musharraf took power in a military coup and presides over a regime
that may be described as, at best, a severely compromised democracy, the
primary basis for that strategic affiliation is the fight against Al Qaeda.
So it was a sign that the US-Pakistan partnership is under stress when
Vice President Cheney, accompanied by the deputy director of the CIA,
flew to Islamabad Monday to meet with Musharraf. .....
by Sangeetha G
Inspired by a "discarded" 20-year-old World Health Organisation-funded
study which proved the efficacy of Ayurveda in treatment of rheumatoid
arthritis, the University of Washington has taken up a similar project
in association with the Ayurvedic Trust in Coimbatore. .....
by Husain Haqqani
Developments of the last fortnight can be seen as a sort of balance sheet
reflecting the strengths and weaknesses of the Pakistani state. Pakistan
successfully tested the latest version of its long-range nuclear-capable
missile, Shaheen II. It has the capability to hit major cities in India,
according to Pakistan's military. For those who measure Pakistan's success
in terms of a military balance against India, this addition to Pakistan's
arsenal is a sign of the country's expanding strength. .....
by Riaz Sohail
The kidnap and murder of a Hindu engineer in Pakistan's southern province
of Sindh has increased the insecurity among fellow Hindus. .....
by Chandan Mitra
To use a slang expression, it can only be said that Marxists in Bengalhave
lost their marbles. I shook my head in disbelief and despair onlearning
that Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, toast of India'scapitalist
cocktail circuit, has announced a plan to accord secondlanguage status
to Urdu in West Bengal! .....
by Tariq A. Al-Maeena
Over the Haj holidays, I surprised my kids with an announcement that I
would be taking them to India for a short holiday. My distinct memories
from having visited the country with my parents when I was a child had
left me with impressions of cultures and civilizations that one reads
in history books. And then there was the Taj Mahal, one of the Seven Wonders
of the World. .....
by News.com.au
Pakistani Taliban militants decapitated an Afghan accused of spying for
US forces and scrawled the word "hypocrite" across his forehead,
tribal officials said today. .....
by Bernie O'Donnell
The former Imam of a Rome Muslim congregation has been sentenced to more
than seven and a half years in prison for providing monetary support to
the terrorist organization Hamas. .....
by Chandan Mitra
Years ending with 7 have a mysterious tendency to destabilise governments
in India. In 1967, the Congress lost power across a large number of States
for the first time since elections began in 1952. Indira Gandhi's Government
barely scraped through to retain power in Delhi, but within two years
the party split, she was reduced to a minority and widespread political
instability gripped the country, leading to the dissolution of the Lok
Sabha in 1970. .....
by The Pioneer
By yielding to the Opposition's demand for a full discussion on the sly,
though ham-handed, attempt to suppress news of Mr Ottavio Quattrocchi's
detention in Argentina, where authorities complied with Interpol's Red
Corner notice against the wanted Italian fugitive accused of receiving
bribes in the Bofors field gun deal, the UPA Government has not necessarily
done anybody a favour. .....
by Rediff.com
Hindu and Sikh leaders in the United Kingdom have accused radical Muslims
of blackmailing young women from their communities into changing religion
in groomed conversions on university campuses. .....
by Thomas L. Friedman
The A.P. reported from Afghanistan that a suicide attacker disguised as
a health worker blew himself up near "a crowd of about 150 people
who had gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to open an emergency ward
at the main government hospital in the city of Khost." A few days
later, at a Baghdad college, a female Sunni suicide bomber blew herself
up amid students who were ready to sit for exams, killing 40 people. .....
by Naeem Mohaiemen
Last winter, I was filming a follow-up to an earlier project, Muslims
or Heretics. With the first kuasha of the season had come, like clockwork,
a new program of anti-Ahmadiya rallies. Khatme Nabuwat, now splintered
into two groups, had announced yet another gherao of the Bokshibazaar
mosque. .....
by Kanchan Gupta
As US Senators push for harsher American action against Pakistan for its
failure to curb the neo-Taliban operating from its territory and a beleaguered
Bush Administration begins to show signs of despair with its "stalwart
ally" Gen Pervez Musharraf, alarm bells have begun to ring in Rawalpindi's
Army House and Islamabad's corridors of power. .....
by Dr T Hanuman Chowdary
At the launch of Akhilandra Kamma Samakhya in Hyderabad on 25 December
2006 a number of speakers especially the politically- minded, characterized
the present government of Andhra Pradesh as Reddy -Raj. This is unfortunate
and apparently untrue. The truth is otherwise. .....
by The Hindustan Times
A former Indian ambassador to Sweden says that if Ottavio Quattrocchi
is extradited to India to face trial, his revelations may "create
a storm" as he was brought into the multi billion dollar Bofors gun
deal at the behest of then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. .....
by Moumita Roy
A Higher Secondary political science textbook describes the Bharatiya
Janata Party as a "communal party" which "uses religion
to spread its base." Uccha madhyamik rashtra bigyaner ruprekha (Part
II) by Professor Nimai Pramanik, while explaining the country's party
system on pages 145 and 146, says the BJP and some other parties were
formed on the basis of religion to destroy the nation's communal harmony.
.....
by Marc Sheppard
Rather than solving the problem, many have foolishly allowed Sharia's
gradual unchecked spread in the names of diversity and tolerance. Unfortunately,
as this dark-age jurisprudence is totally incompatible with any democratic
society, those buying into this creeping multicultist folly are doing
so at the peril of their own heritage and freedom. Of course, it comes
as little surprise that anti-American countries like France have all but
surrendered. .....
by Ibn Warraq
Muslims in general have a tendency to disarm any criticisms of Islam and
in particular the Koran by asking if the critic has read the Koran in
the original Arabic, as though all the difficulties of their Sacred Text
will somehow disappear once the reader has mastered the holy language
and has direct experience, aural and visual, of the very words of God,
to which no translation can do justice. .....
by Sify News
Rejecting the opposition charge that Government was going slow on the
Quattrocchi extradition, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday said
CBI has been given "full freedom" to pursue the case and there
will be no interference. .....
by Swami Dayananda Saraswati
The controversy and alarmist rhetoric surrounding the recently passed
Freedom of Religion Act in Himachal Pradesh can be addressed, to a large
extent, simply by reading the Act. As with all other so-called anti-conversion
Acts, there is no prohibition of professing and practicing one's religion
anywhere in it. Yet, such acts have been routinely cited as measures that
infringe upon religious freedom. Even a cursory reading shows that they
ensure a measure of religious freedom. .....
by Alan T. Saracevic
Tucked away on a leafy college campus in this booming city of 7 million
is a fiery, 54-year-old professor who wants to change the way India does
business. .....
by Akshay Kumar Sahoo
A new cult, an offshoot of Hinduism, is growing in popularity in Orissa.
Called the Mahima dharma (or Alekh dharma), the cult has followers in
all sections of society, including the upper castes and the Dalits. .....
by Diana West
I saw something eerie this week. It wasn't an apparition exactly, but
rather a head-spinning blur of headlines about global jihad that, rather
incredibly, began to take on the unmistakable shape of a British old school
tie. .....
by Irfan Husain
I was staying with old Turkish friends in their house on the Aegean sea
when we learned about the lethal blast in a Quetta courtroom. My hostess
was very concerned as she has been to Pakistan many times, and has visited
the Balochistan capital as well. .....
by Syed Saleem Shahzad
The Pakistani establishment has made a deal with the Taliban through a
leading Taliban commander that will extend Islamabad's influence into
southwestern Afghanistan and significantly strengthen the resistance in
its push to capture Kabul. .....
by Economic Times
The Government seems to be deeper in trouble over the detention of Italian
middleman Ottavio Quattrocchi after news that he secured bail from an
Argentine court on February 23. After a newschannel flashed reports about
his release , CBI director Vijay Shanker issued a statement claiming that
the agency received news about the release of the Italian middleman on
Monday evening. .....
by IBNLive.com
Is the Congress party a dictatorial party? That's the question that has
been troubling me lately. For quite some time now, Indian politics has
literally found itself divided along two poles. The so-called secular
brigade led by the Congress and the alleged communal forces led by the
BJP. If the Congress is accused of wooing the minorities, the BJP is charged
of overplaying its hard Hindutva line. .....
by Biswajit Roy
In a note to the Left Front partners, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has pointed
out Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi's ability to attract investments,
never mind his politics, and suggested that Bengal "should not sit
idle". .....
by Yogesh Vajpeyi
In a belated damage control exercise, the Government on Tuesday went on
an overdrive to show that the CBI was "diligently" preparing
for extradition of Bofors case accused Ottavio Quattrocchi, but failed
to explain why it "concealed" information about his detention
in Argentina on February 6 for so long. .....
by Haindava Keralam
Elammaram Kareem, Industrial Minister of Kerala warns the parents of Muslim
youth, to keep an eye on their sons if they are now a days going regularly
to 'Subah' prayer in Mosque every day early morning. .....
by K P S Gill
Five years after the horrific Godhra attack that triggered the riots in
Gujarat, an ominous reminder of that event came in the shape of another
incendiary attack on hapless rail users: The terrorist attack on the Delhi-Attari
special train, packed with passengers to Pakistan. Evidently, efforts
to polarise communities and to provoke communal violence have not ended.
.....
by V Sundaram
One need not go to the streets of Baghdad or Kabul to witness gruesome
deeds of Islamic terrorism. On 17 December, 2006 at Tenkasi town in Tirunelveli
district, a young Hindu Munnani leader Kumar Pandian and his friends Sekar
were walking through a Muslim street in Tenkasi. They were way laid by
two Muslims. .....
