Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Haindava Keralam - 'Indian Army is being deliberately weakened'

  • Haindava Keralam - global community of dedicated Hindu Keralites with a peace mission

    tags: no_tag

    • By Jaibans Singh
    • Interestingly, the divisive ideologies of Islamic Jihad and Maoism that the country has to contend with are direct imports from its two neighbours, China and Pakistan.

      The two countries are well aware that only the Indian Army stands between them and their long standing policy of dividing India into small segments in order to curtail its growing influence.
      Now, by involving the Army more and more in internal security, these countries feel that they may have hit bulls eye.

      The engagement with the Naxals is not possible without diluting vigil on the border as also the edge that the Army enjoys as a conventional force. Quite obviously, the vacuum thus created will be exploited by these two countries, Pakistan will be able to boost its proxy war and China will gain strength in its negotiations for the border dispute.

      The second challenge is emanating from a psychological war that has been launched against the force with the intention of denting the high moral pedestal at which it stands. The people of India see the Indian soldier as the epitome of all that is the best in the country due to his demonstrated qualities of courage, self sacrifice, integrity, strength of character and commitment to the cause of the nation.

      If this image is dented, the psychological fallout may propel the country into a self destruct mode.

      Against this backdrop, a sustained campaign is being orchestrated to malign the image of the soldier in the eyes of his countrymen.

      Terrorists and terrorist linked organisations are keeping the pot boiling in regions like Kashmir and the North East by highlighting baseless human rights violations through the medium of orchestrated public demonstrations and virulent outcry.

      In the remaining parts of the country, especially the national capital, the slightest misdemeanour by an Army man is blown out of proportion through well managed propaganda. The result is that the force and the country are getting enveloped in a feeling of low self esteem and the army is getting involved in a web of legality which is keeping it perpetually on the back foot.
    • The Army is the last bastion of the nation, and a weakened, demoralized force will spell doom for it.

      Isolating the Army from deliberate attempts to reduce its capabilities and from negative propagandist influences is a national responsibility.

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

Haindava Keralam - Mullaperiyar Dam and Sabarimala: The religious roots of the Controversy

  • Haindava Keralam - global community of dedicated Hindu Keralites with a peace mission

    tags: no_tag

    • By Bharat Nair

      Courtesy:http://indianrealist.wordpress.com
    • Mullaperiyar Dam Controversy in the Media

      It is interesting to note that in the news media, Mullaperiyar issues get highlighted only during certain months of the year. This trend looks more or less the same for the last one decade (2000-2009).
    • The significance of this trend will look surprisingly familiar to a Malayali or a person from South India.  It is obvious that news items about the dam controversy appear only in the months that are significant for the Sabarimala pilgrimage of the Hindus. Is this a mere conincidence? Let’s see.
    • The Sabarimala pilgrimage is one of the most ancient pilgrimages of India. The presiding deity of Sabarimala, Lord Ayyappan, is one of the most popular deities in South India. The temple is open for worship only during the days of Mandalapooja (around November 15 to December 26), Makaravilakku (January 15), Vishu (April 14), and the first five days of each Malayalam month.

      Sabarimala pilgrimage finds mention in many historical records of foreign travellers as well as colonial administrators (though this fact is studiously avoided by both Western and Indian scholars).

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visfot.com । विस्फोट.कॉम - प्रधानमंत्री पढ़ते हैं वोमेन्स इरा, गृहशोभा और फेमिना

  • visfot.com । विस्फोट.कॉम - प्रधानमंत्री पढ़ते हैं वोमेन्स इरा, गृहशोभा और फेमिना

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    image

    • हाल में ही प्रधानमंत्री मनमोहन सिंह ने यूपीए सरकार के एक साल पूरा होने के मौके पर दिल्ली में प्रेस कांफ्रेस की थी. प्रेस कांफ्रेस में उनसे किसी ने सवाल पूछा था कि दो महिलाओं (पत्नी गुरुशरण कौर और कांग्रेस अध्यक्षा सोनिया गांधी) के सलाह मशविरे में संतुलन कैसे साधते हैं? उस वक्त प्रधानमंत्री का जो भी जवाब रहा हो, हकीकत अब सामने आ रही है. प्रधानमंत्री जी महिलाओं के लिए निकलनेवाली पत्रिकाओं को पढ़ते हैं.

      प्रधानमंत्री कार्यालय द्वारा जिन अखबारों और पत्रिकाओं को मंगाया जाता है उसकी सूची सूचना के अधिकार के तहत हासिल की गयी है. सूचना के अधिकार पर काम करनेवाले अफरोज अहमद शाहिल ने प्रधानमंत्री कार्यालय से जो सूची हासिल की है उसमें इन पत्रिकाओं का जिक्र है. वोमेन्स इरा, गृहशोभा, फेमिना के अलावा प्रधानमंत्री कार्यालय शैवी पत्रिका भी नियमित रूप से मंगाता है.

      महिलाओं पर केन्द्रित पत्रिकाओं के अलावा प्रधानमंत्री कार्यालय से जो सूची सामने आयी है वह भी बड़ी उटपंटाग है. प्रधानमंत्री कार्यालय का अर्थ है देश की राजनीति का केन्द्र. लेकिन प्रधानमंत्री कार्यालय में राजनीतिक पत्रिकाओं की बजाय महिलाओं और तकनीकि से जुड़ी पत्रिकाओं पर विशेष ध्यान दिया जाता है. प्रधानमंत्री कार्यालय से जो सूची हासिल की गयी है उसमें डाटाक्वेस्ट, एक्सप्रेस कम्प्यूटर, आईटी, डिजिट, पीसी क्वेस्ट जैसी करीब आधा दर्जन कम्प्यूटर पत्रिकाओं को नियमित मंगाया जाता है.

    • अब आप खुद ही अंदाजा लगाइये कि मीडिया के जरिए प्रधानमंत्री कार्यालय देश का कितना सटीक आंकलन रख पाता होगा. देश का मूड भांपने के लिए मीडिया के जरिए सूचनाएं इकट्ठा करना प्रधानमंत्री कार्यालय का महत्वपूर्ण जिम्मा है लेकिन इस बारे में ऐसी लापरवाही प्रधानमंत्री कार्यालय को कटघरे में खड़ा करती है.

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

BAMULAHIJA: कार्टून : कोई मनमोहन सिंह को बताओ फ़टाफ़ट


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BJP prefers Anurag over Varun for youth leadership - HimVani


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Vishwa Hindu Parishad to relaunch Ram Mandir stir - dnaindia.com

  • Vishwa Hindu Parishad to relaunch Ram Mandir stir - dnaindia.com

    tags: no_tag

    • With an aim to make the young generation aware of the Ram temple issue, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) is all set to recreate the atmosphere of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement of the 1990s.

    • The sadhus from all over the country unanimously passed a resolution to relaunch the movement at the recently concluded Maha Kumbh in Haridwar. The VHP has taken up the responsibility to carry out the movement from August 16 all over the India.

      “We will hold sessions in every town to chant Hanuman Chalisa as part of the movement. The aim is to attract the youngsters and make them aware of what happened in the past,” said Prashant Hartalkar, a VHP official.


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CBC News - Canada - You won't want to read this

  • CBC News - Canada - You won't want to read this

    tags: no_tag

    • The ugly story of the Air India bombing inches towards publication
    • Terry Milewski CBC News
    Retired Supreme Court justice John C. Major, commissioner of the Air India inquiry. (Canadian Press)
    • Retired Supreme Court justice John C. Major, commissioner of the Air India inquiry. (Canadian Press)

    • Nobody will blame you if you want to look away when John C. Major's epic report on the Air India bombing arrives — 25 years late! — on June 17.

      Five volumes with 3,200 pages! Four extra volumes of academic reports for an extra 1,200 pages!

    • It was the worst mass murder in Canadian history — 331 innocent civilians were slaughtered in one morning by two bombs made in British Columbia by Sikh extremists fighting India for an independent state. The group was led by an immigrant preacher in B.C. named Talwinder Singh Parmar, a Canadian citizen wanted for the murder of two policemen in India. Canada had refused to extradite him.

      Parmar eventually returned on his own to India, where he was killed by police in 1992. He is revered by his Canadian admirers, even today, as a martyr of the Sikh nation.

    Dr. Padmini Turlapati at the 20th Air India memorial in Ahakista, Ireland, on June 23, 2005. She lost both her sons in the bombing. (CBC)
    • Dr. Padmini Turlapati at the 20th Air India memorial in Ahakista, Ireland, on June 23, 2005. She lost both her sons in the bombing. (CBC)

    • How on earth had the plot succeeded when the police and CSIS were watching and wiretapping? Why were their tapes of Parmar's conversations mysteriously erased after the bombing, when CSIS knew that Parmar was the main suspect? Why were the warnings of an attack ignored?

      Later, as he soldiered on through 200 witnesses and 17,000 classified documents, Major seemed mindful of the families' sense that they'd been cheated twice — first, by Canada's failure to prevent the bombing and, second, by its failure to give them justice or even answers.

    • First, Major will tackle the failure to stop the plotters before the bombing. How could the authorities watch Parmar night and day, and not step in? How could an unaccompanied bag, checked in at Vancouver by a man who paid cash and never took his seat, have been loaded onto his connecting Air India flight in Toronto? The flight was so obviously threatened that the RCMP parked cars around the plane while the orphaned bag rolled up the conveyor belt and into the hold.

    • Then, in the second half of volume two, Major will tackle the "post-bombing phase" — the meandering investigation which failed to bring the bombers to justice. Was it incompetence? Bad luck? Death threats against witnesses? A refusal by CSIS to co-operate with the RCMP?

      All of these are in play. After all, a CSIS officer named Ray Kobzey, who'd been watching Parmar, exclaimed at the moment he learned of the bombing, "Parmar did it!" If they knew so much, why didn't they do something?

      CSIS agents even followed Parmar and his bomb maker, Inderjit Singh Reyat, to a test blast in the woods on Vancouver Island, three weeks before the real thing. But, to this day, Reyat remains the only man ever convicted in the Air India bombing. (He is now charged with perjuring himself at the trial of the two men acquitted in 2005.)

    Publisher Tara Singh Hayer, who denounced the Air India bombers in his newspaper and told the RCMP he overheard one of them confess. Shot once and paralyzed from the waist down in 1988, he was shot fatally in 1998. (B.C. attorney general)
    • Publisher Tara Singh Hayer, who denounced the Air India bombers in his newspaper and told the RCMP he overheard one of them confess. Shot once and paralyzed from the waist down in 1988, he was shot fatally in 1998.

    • Rather, the nation seemed to have disowned the disaster as someone else's problem.

      "Canada and Canadians in general," Major said in his preliminary report, "did not immediately recognize this as a terrorist attack upon Canadians."

      Now, he plans to set that straight, even if it's very late in the day. Some of the bereaved have not lived to see this June 23, the 25th anniversary of the bombing.


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President's half sister speaks on her mixed-race blessing - latimes.com

Maya Soetoro-Ng
    • A 9-year-old Barack Obama, right, with stepfather Lolo Soetoro, mother Ann Dunham and baby half-sister Maya Soetoro, who said her brother was always comfortable with who he was.
    • Growing up in Indonesia, Maya Soetoro-Ng often felt too American. Although she adored her native land's traditional gamelan music and shadow puppets, spiced cuisine and Hindu epics, her manner was too loud, too irreverent — hallmarks, she said, of being raised by a strong American mother.

    • "Wherever I was, I felt somewhat inadequate in terms of the purest expression of culture," said Soetoro-Ng, a Hawaii-based writer, educator and half sister of President Obama. "I wished I completely belonged somewhere."

      Her older brother Barack never seemed to struggle with his cultural or racial identity in the same way she did, Soetoro-Ng said. Son of the same white mother but a Kenyan father, Obama identifies as African American — choosing to check that box exclusively and not also the one for white on his 2010 U.S. Census form.

    • Nationwide, 7.3 million Americans identified as mixed race in 2000, the first year the U.S. Census allowed people to check two or more racial categories. The number is expected to rise in the 2010 census.

      But Fulbeck told the 200 audience members that race is more of a cultural construct than a biological one because all people are descended from a common ancestor in Africa.

      Soetoro-Ng and her husband, Konrad Ng, have two daughters of Malay, Indonesian, Scottish, Irish, Hakka and Cantonese descent. Already, 6-year-old Suhaila has begun to claim multiple identities, both ethnic and religious — embracing both Christ and Buddha with no compulsion to choose, Soetoro-Ng said.


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American Thinker Blog: The Ground Zero Mosque and Conquest

American Thinker Blog: The Ground Zero Mosque and Conquest

  • Vinod Kumar
  • Having worked in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam and the home of its most extreme form, Wahhabism, I was shocked that a New York City neighborhood community board, in its ignorance, recently voted 29 to 1 to support a request to build a mosque and a Muslim center near Ground Zero.Muslims have always built mosques on the sites of their conquests. The Prophet Muhammad himself made the Ka'aba, a pagan pantheon, into a mosque after he captured Mecca in 630 CE. The Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem was deliberately built near the Temple Mount, the holiest places in Judaism. The Ummayad mosque in Damascus was built on the site of the Church of Saint John. Babri mosque in Ayodhya, India was built by demolishing a Hindu temple at the site of Hinduism's Lord Rama's birthplace. They built mosques on the sites of thousands of temples throughout India.The request to build a mosque near the site of the World Trade Center is not accidental. It is astute and deliberate, as is the decision to call the place Cordoba House. Cordoba is city in Spain that resonates mightily in Muslim history. It was the capital of the Islamic empire in Spain. It was the place where Islam established its first caliphate in Europe. The Grand Cordoba Mosque was built where a Visigoth Christian church stood.
  • All devout Muslims are certain that Islam will someday conquer Spain because Islam teaches that once a place has been absorbed into the ummah, the worldwide community of Islam, it must remain Muslim forever. If the infidels retake Cordoba and Spain, for instance, then Muslims are obliged to conquer it again.
  • The author, citizen of US, born in India has worked in India, Middle East, Europe and the US. An engineer by profession, he has studied Islam and Islamic history of India for the past two decades.
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