The Pioneer >> Kathmandu on the boil again

• The Pioneer > Online Edition

  tags: no_tag

  • Balbir K Punj
  • What we are seeing unfold in Nepal is the age old Leninist-Maoist tactic of capturing rural areas and then surrounding the cities. To add another dimension to this tactic, Nepal’s Maoists have let loose their cadre in Kathmandu and other urban centres like Biratnagar to create chaos. Kathmandu Valley has already been declared as an ‘autonomous region’.
  • In the backdrop of this pusillanimity we have reports from the US that a top Chinese naval officer had proposed to his American counterpart to divide the globe into two, with countries west of the Pacific falling under China’s sphere of influence. As far as India’s defence preparedness is concerned, we have a plethora of reports that suggest our armed forces are lagging behind, ammunition is scarce, modern weapon systems have not been inducted and many of the existing weapons are duds for want of spare parts. Are we waiting for a repeat of 1962?

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

India cannot trust China: Former NSA: Rediff.com India News

•  Rediff.com India News

  tags: no_tag

  

  • India should remember that "we had two fronts since 1962", he said.

    "But, importantly, these two fronts were never simultaneously active. In 1962, it was with China, and in 1965, 1971 and 1999 it was with Pakistan. The change that is taking place today in Chinese thinking is that Jammu and Kashmir [ Images ] is 'an issue'.

    "It indicates that it's possible, if not probable, that in next four to five years we may have to defend ourselves from both fronts at the same time."

  • Mishra blamed the country's electoral politics and corruption for the country's weak position. There is a "lack of national security culture amongst politicians," he said.
  • Former army chief General V P Malik, who also attended the event, said the nexus between defence public sector companies, the ordinance boards and the defence ministry has created a "protective mindset", which did not facilitate private sector participation in defence production.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

PM's working group for autonomous J&K: Rediff.com India News

•  Rediff.com India News

  tags: no_tag

  • In a noteworthy progress, a working group of the prime minister has suggested autonomy for Jammu and Kashmir [ Images ], asserting that the Central government may consider an offer made by the ruling National Conference in this regard.

    The group also said a decision needs to be taken as how long would Article 370 of the Constitution granting special status to Jammu and Kashmir should prolong.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

India not in same league as US, China: Analyst: Rediff.com India News

•  Rediff.com India News

  tags: no_tag

  • Bharat Karnad
  • an analyst at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi [ Images ], who is currently a visiting fellow at both Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania's Center for the Advanced Study of India, was leading a discussion on 'Obstacles to India's emergence as a great power' hosted by the Brookings Institution.
  • Karnad, who was introduced by Stephen P Cohen, who heads up the South Asia Program at Brookings as "one of India's best scholars and one of the leading strategists and analysts," asserted that "it's hard power that's the basis for power. You don't get it by selling Bollywood movies and musicals."
  • Karnad said except for nuclear weapons, "Without indigenous production of its own weapons, a great power cannot have security," and said, "The armed services of India is remiss in not promoting and assisting the production of indigenous equipment."
  • He acknowledged that in terms of becoming a major economic power, "India is getting there by sheer momentum," but reiterated that "there is no grand strategic plan by the government -- no concerted plan."

  • Karnad said, "It's being autarchic really," that's key "to be a great power. A great power has a capacity to be an autarchic system. The basic potential to be autarchic basically defines the great power status of a country."

    He said that "for the next 15 years, India will be obsessed with the economic issue -- to acquire prosperity and better ourselves before we start looking at the external world," and projecting any kind of hard power."

  • He said, "The US was first a great military power before they acquired great power status. Look at any great power in the past -- Napoleonic France [ Images ]. So, military power comes first and historical evidence proves that. India has always been doing things from the other side."

  • "Pakistan is integral to India's security," he said. "If there is no Pakistan, we would have had to invent it. We would have been then facing the Islamist threat if there was no Pakistan, which is now facing this existential threat. So, I always argue that we need to do everything to strengthen the sense of Pakistan's security."

    Karnad implied that if not for Pakistan, India could very well have been facing this existential threat from Islamists.

    Thus, he argued that resolving the Kashmir [ Images ] issue was imperative for India, if only to strengthen Pakistan's security. In turn, without the albatross of Pakistan hanging around its neck, India would have the chance to acquire great power status.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Christmas stars light up Hindu temples in Margao - The Times of India

• The Times of India

  tags: no_tag

  • MARGAO
  • Even as church bells rang in the liturgical celebrations to mark Christmas, the sparkling star, signaling the birth of Jesus Christ, lit
  • up a few Hindu temples in the commercial town of Margao. The stars also found a place atop verandas and roofs of apartments and homes of dozens of Hindus in the city.
  • An initiative of Ravindra Bhavan, Margao, dozens of stars were made available to Hindus interested in displaying the same at temples and homes, well ahead of Christmas. Confirming this, Ravindra Bhavan vice president Sridhar Kamat told TOI on Thursday that some Hindu shrines in Margao had shown interest in displaying the star. "They collected stars from us for the purpose. There are more requests coming in from all quarters. This shows the enthusiasm of people from all faiths to showcase goodwill and greetings. After all, Christmas is a celebration of humanity and mankind," said Kamat.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

DAWN.COM | World | Kashmiris come together to celebrate Christmas

• DAWN.COM
  

  tags: no_tag

  
  • In Srinagar, a hotbed of separatist insurgency, several hundred Christians joined mass at the Holy Family Catholic church
  • Indian-administered Kashmir’s tiny Christian community on Friday prayed for the return of peace to the revolt-hit region as Muslims joined them in festivities.
  • GULMARG
  • Indian Kashmir’s Christian community is mostly in Srinagar. Unlike Kashmir’s Sikh and Hindu minorities, Christians have not been targeted in the violence in the region.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

मिश्र आयोग की रिपोर्ट लागू हुई तो बिगड़ेंगे हालात

• मिश्र आयोग की रिपोर्ट लागू हुई तो बिगड़ेंगे हालात

  tags: no_tag

  • संसद में सप्ताहभर पहले 16 दिसंबर को पेश की गई रंगनाथ मिश्र आयोग की रिपोर्ट पर मचा बवाल थम नहीं रहा है। विश्व हिंदू परिषद की तीन दिनी सर्वोच्च कमेटी की बैठक में आखिरी दिन भी यह मुद्दा गरमाया रहा। विहिप ने तय किया है कि सरकार ने रिपोर्ट को अस्वीकार नहीं किया तो वह देशभर के हिंदू छात्रों के साथ सड़क पर उतरकर इसका विरोध करेगी। परिषद ने आशंका जताई कि रिपोर्ट लागू की गई तो देश में वैमनस्यता बढ़ेगा जो गृहयुद्ध की स्थिति तक जा सकता है।
  • इंदौर.
  

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

मजहबी आरक्षण का खतरा

• Jagran - Yahoo! India - Nazariya News

  tags: no_tag

  
  • काग्रेस जिन्ना की मुस्लिम लीग हो गई है। पहले अर्थशास्त्री प्रधानमंत्री ने कहा कि भारत के संसाधनों पर पहला हक मुसलमानों का है। फिर सच्चर कमेटी से कहलवाया कि मुसलमानों की हालत अनुसूचित जातियों से भी बदतर है। सिद्धात यह बनाया कि जहा जहा इस्लाम वहा वहा गरीबी और जहां जहा हिंदू वहां अमीरी।
  • नेहरू और पटेल की काग्रेस ने ही अल्पसंख्यक आरक्षण की समाप्ति का निर्णय लिया था, लेकिन सोनिया की काग्रेस लीग के रास्ते है।
  • पटेल ने संविधान सभा में (25 मई 1949) समिति की रिपोर्ट रखी और कहा कि मुस्लिम प्रतिनिधि ऐसे आरक्षणों के खिलाफ हैं। मुस्लिम आरक्षण राष्ट्र की एकता में बाधक था। यह प्रस्ताव और निर्णय संविधान सभा के मुस्लिम सदस्यों की अगुवाई में ही लिया गया था। आश्चर्य है कि रंगनाथ मिश्र ने संविधान सभा की अल्पसंख्यक परामर्शदात्री समिति और संविधान सभा की कार्यवाही से कोई प्रेरणा नहीं ली।
  • [हृदयनारायण दीक्षित: लेखक उप्र सरकार के पूर्व मंत्री हैं]

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Raping Daughters-in-law: Following Holy Tradition of the Prophet

• Raping Daughters-in-law: Following Holy Tradition of the Prophet

  tags: no_tag

  • Radhasyam Brahmachari
  • An account of how Muslims across India are emulating the holy tradition of prophet Muhammad by raping their daughters-in-law.
  • On December 9, this year, a leading Bengali daily in Kolkata reported that Mukhtar Sheikh of the village of Dangrail in the district of Murshidabad, West Bengal, raped his newly married daughter-in-law Amina (name changed) on November 24, while his son Salam Sheikh was away. Salam, a mason, has to stay away occasionally from home according to demand of his job. On the fateful day, he went to his construction site at Asansol and Mukhtar utilized the opportunity and raped Salam’s wife. When Salam returned home, he advised his wife to hush up the matter. He also locked her in a room so that she might not go outdoor and tell the story to outsiders.
  • The report also said the marriage of Salam and Amina took place only six months ago. So far, Latifur was happy with the marriage of his daughter to Salam, but the rape incident upset him. The investigating police officer told reporters that, in 2005, when the entire nation was tumultuous with the raping of Imrana by her father-in-law in the Charthwala village in Uttar Pradesh (see below), a similar incident happened in the village of Belgharia in the Sagardighi area of Murshidabad district. In 2006, a similar incident took place in the Baliarghati village of the Suti area of Murshidabad. In the Baliarghati incident, the matter was settled by a kangaroo court of local clerics, while the incident in the Beigharia is still to be decided in the court of law. These incidents make it clear that raping daughters-in-law by their fathers-in-law is regular occurrence in Muslim society and that most of these cases are either hushed up or settled by the local clerics. Cases that appear in the media are only the tip of the iceberg. A few such incidents that surfaced in public are narrated below.
  

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

HINDU SAMHATI: Barbaric assault on Hindus in Jangipara village

• HINDU SAMHATI:
  

  tags: no_tag

  • On 15th November, 2009 around 4 PM Trinomool Congress took out a victory procession from the two Muslim dominated villages, namely Sufijangal and Bahana of Jangipara, Hoogly district.

    
    

    It is noteworthy that about eighty percent of the people who joined and led the procession were Muslims, and the remaining ones were Hindus. Raising fiercely the Islamic slogans, i.e., Allah Ho Akbar and Narae Takdir, the belligerent procession made its way through the main road and entered the Hindu villages one after one, namely Borhol, Khurigachi, Nikash, Dilkhash etc and damaged and looted Hindu shops. The tea stall of Sankar Das (Hindu) at 'Borhol Bypass More' was looted and razed to the ground. "All Hindus of the area will be chopped off"-such slogans were aired. The Hindus were beaten up indiscriminately.

  • Prasenjit Bag, a well-known worker of Hindu organisations received serious injuries in the attack. He had to be hospitalized and his left limb is still in critical condition. The assailants who hit him with thick rods are listed below:

    1) Jambur Mallick (father's name: Ismail Mallick)

    2) Sheikh Rojob Ali (father's name: Sheikh Sajjad Ali)

  • They told that when Muslims beat and stabbed them with lethal weapons, they reiterated the slogan, "The signs of Islamic terror are being painted on Hindu bodies now". This incident occurred a day before at the nearby village named 'Sitapur'.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

kama sutra and rasa « Incognito thoughts

• Incognito thoughts

  tags: no_tag

  • The difference is similar to that between a dead body and a living body- the vital living aspect. Howsoever perfect the dead body is, and imperfect the living body may be, the latter has a vitality that makes it engaging which the other lacks.
  • This origin of kama sutra, through intuitive experience in the mind of a realized sage, makes it much more than a manual on sex. It is a tool aiding in living dharmically, while experiencing life, assisting in fostering awareness and intuition, leading up towards realization.
    So are the other texts, sculptures, dance forms and music of bhArat. They have the quality of rasa- that which inspires experience of the vital, by the discerning viewer/listener/reader.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Did Brits take India from Muslims? « Indian Realist

• Indian Realist

  tags: no_tag

  • “Britishers snatched India from Muslims in connivance with Hindu baniyas” — this is the argument very often heard in Pakistan and some Muslim circles in India.

    Well, here is a map of India of 1760. As you can see, most of India is under the control of the Marathas (the area in yellow).

  • Well, here is a map of India of 1760. Most of India is under the control of Marathas (the area in yellow). Bengal by this time was captured by the British through the battles of of Buxar and Plassey.

    The fight for India was between Marathas and the John Company (as East India Company was often called). In fact, Marathas were ruling from the Red Fort in Delhi and the Mughal emperor was recieving a pension from them.

    The battle for Delhi and the tradional seat of Mughal power was fought between Maratha army and British army (led by general Gerard Lake) on the banks of the Yamuna river. It is called the Battle of Patparganj. A memorial to this battle erected by the British government still exists inside the Noida golf course.

  • Combined with Marathas and Sikhs, the Indic faiths were ruling 90 percent of India. So what is this hogwash about Muslism taking India from the British? If Goras had not arrived on the scene, Hindus and Sikhs would have retaken the whole of India in another 30 years, thus winning the civilisational war that was started by the Afghan and Arab Muslims when they invaded Hindus in their own homeland, carrying their “true god / false god” ideology with them. 
  

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Bharatiya Janata Party - The Party with a Difference - Muslims should...

• Bharatiya Janata Party - The Party with a Difference - Muslims should...

  tags: no_tag

  • like always and unlike the secularists, Zakaria doesn't pass on the charge of communalism solely on Hindus and condone Muslims. He has advice for both. According to Zakaria, "Communalism both in its Hindu and Muslim garb is really a product of the British rule; the new rulers, with their colonial outlook, sowed the seed slowly and gradually. The two communities drifted apart; this, in turn, proved beneficial to the rulers…" He further says: "As for the leaders of the Muslims, they raised non-issues, fomenting religious controversies which had little to do with the welfare of their co-religionists, these unfortunately brought them into conflict with the Hindus..."
    
    What Zakaria misses here is that in their ill-conceived pursuit, the "leaders of Muslims" were always inspired and helped by the "secularists." To get an objective view of the Hindu-Muslim problem, one has to take a peep into history. Islam's arrival through navigational trade on the shores of South India was a non-event. Only when it came as an invading force in the medieval ages through the northern borders, it clashed with a non-conflicting Hinduism. The murky history of the medieval ages marked by destruction/conversion of temples, butchery, rape/abduction of Hindu women as recorded by Muslims chroniclers is well publicised.
  • The last of the Mughal emperors were perfectly at home with the Indian ethos. A distinct brand of Indian Islam, which could harmonise with other faiths, was evolving fast. Wajid Ali Shah of Awadh was culturally light years away from Aurangzeb. Over 95 per cent of Muslims in India were converts. I believe, if this interplay had not been disrupted by the British, the Muslims would have been subsumed in the culture of the land of their forefathers while being true to their faith.
  • The last Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, was a pensioner of the Marathas. In the second Anglo-Maratha War (1803-05), the Maratha forces lost to British General Lake in the Battle of Patparganj. A small stone memorial to mark the war still stands at the Noida Golf Course, close to Delhi.
    
    The British had taken much of India not from the Muslims, but the Hindus. In 1857, the first shot was fired by a Brahmin, Mangal Pandey. Most rulers who joined this first war of independence were Hindus. But their purpose was to restore Bahadur Shah "Zafar" II on throne as the emperor of India. The very first order, Bahadur Shah "Zafar" issued, on regaining the throne of Delhi for a short time was to ban cow slaughter and make it a capital punishment.
  • The situation, however, changed when the British in order to safeguard their imperial interests, decided on a policy of "divide and rule" and to reverse the process of interplay of two streams. Ironically, Gandhiji (who died for the cause of Hindu-Muslim unity) ended up extending this policy in his efforts to get Muslims to his side in his struggle against the British. Gandhi's non cooperation movement had its origin in the Khilafat movement and not in the Congress movement for swaraj.
  • Whatever might be the religious injunction what matters is how it is implied. I can dig out most unsavoury passages from the Old and New Testaments prescribing most inclement behaviour towards pagans. But why is that Hindus have nothing to fear physically from Jews or Christians? And why is it that from the learned late Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran to the illiterate Ghanci Muslims of Godhra, from the Yemeni scion Osama bin Laden to the poor Afghans, are all misinterpreting Islam, with disastrous results for the world? If a certain religion is liable to be more misinterpreted than interpreted even in the 21st century there is something to be wary about it.
  • Zakaria mentions the terms Dar-ul-Islam and Dar-ul-Harab only once in the book (p. 117) and dismisses them as erroneous concepts. Is it not a fact that our Islamic neighbour Pakistan has made its territory "physically Hindu-free" and Bangladesh is aiming to do so by 2020? Demographic balance is being altered in border districts of Assam making it an extension of Bangladesh. And it is a truism that "secularists" loathe to admit that wherever Muslim population increases Hindus or other minorities are squeezed out.
    
    Making Muslim-dominated lands Hindu free, expelling Hindus out of Muslim-majority area and increasing their sphere of influence - if this is not a modern version of Dar-ul-Islam then what is it?

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.