Digvijay for cell against Hindu terror outfits: India Today - Latest Breaking News from India, World, Business, Cricket, Sports, Bollywood.

• Digvijay for cell against Hindu terror outfits: India Today - Latest Breaking News from India, World, Business, Cricket, Sports, Bollywood.

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  • Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh has urged Home Minister P. Chidambaram to set up a separate cell to deal with Hindu militancy.

    He reportedly cited the increasing evidence of involvement of hardline saffron outfits in terror activities to demand such a cell.

    Singh, a former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, suspects bureaucratic and police patronage to some of these outfits. He is also concerned over the systematic RSS infiltration into the bureaucracy and the army.

    Party sources said Singh expressed concern at some RSS affiliated organisations training IAS aspirants with a view to saffronise the administration.

    He also pointed out that a number of NGOs backed by the RSS had penetrated the social sector.

  • Singh also urged the home minister to expedite the cases involving innocent Muslim youths from Azamgarh.

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Organiser - Instead of fighting terrorism, UPA is busy inventing Hindu terror

• Organiser - Content

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  • Togadia Speak
  • Instead of fighting terrorism, UPA is busy inventing Hindu terror
  • By Dr Pravin Togadia

  • • We must control population which is a deterrent in the nation’s development. (Umpteen number of government people have said it time and again. But Hindus do not get ration for the third child and those who produce unlimited children and refuse to control population are further given reservations and even financial help with the money paid by those Hindus who do family control for nation’s development!)

    • Indian Constitution must be respected. (But we would make constitutional changes for giving Muslim reservations!). Human rights must not be violated (only of Kashmiri Muslims! Hindus, army and police in Kashmir have no human rights?).

  • Bharat has a unique peculiarity. Bharat waits much longer than any other country for good things to happen. People in Bharat have intrinsic faith not just in Bhagwan but also in goodness within human beings. Therefore, instead of concluding anyone’s remarks as untrue or dishonest, Bharat waits and gives time to all those to make those good things happen. In 1947 when Bharat became independent from the British Raj, the then ruling party promised good governance. Bharat waited much longer. That party ruled for almost 30 years. Bharat waited for Hindu progress because the worse affected during British Raj and even before in Muslim Raj was Hindu! From work to trade and from temples to various laws-everything that was Hindu, was demolished. Few Hindus were doing well due to local reasons, but as a whole, Hindu was in a total bad shape. Shadow of Partition wounds was there (is still there on Hindus in Bharat and in Pak!), but Bharat waited. After 30 years, Bharat woke up to the fact that there was no point in only helplessly watching churches grow at the cost of Hindus, Muslims get more and more concessions that too at the cost of Hindu pockets, Hindu monuments and temples being called disputed lands_ Bharat woke up. Bharat realised that poverty eradication, green revolution etc were slogans. Few people’s poverty was eradicated, but that flow did not reach the common man.
  • Bharat is watching! Such sacrificing people make Bharat. Only hanging Kasab is not enough. He should not even get a chance of appeal or mercy because as per our Constitution these are rights only for Indian citizens. He and Afzal Guru must be hanged immediately. Perhaps government would do so promptly with Kasab, but without attacking Pak (another diplomatic and vote greed double game!) but at the same time government would slap more and more cases on Hindus and Hindu organisations! Political balancing for votes is more important these days than safety of Bharat. But Bharat is watching all the double games!

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Forward or backward? - India - The Times of India

• Forward or backward? - India - The Times of India

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  • Subodh Ghildiyal
  • There is certainly a new vigour for mapping the OBC share in the country’s burgeoning population, which would turn the clock back on India that last saw a caste headcount in 1931. This time, there seems to be no stigma attached to a step like this which was earlier considered to be socially divisive.
    
    The political mood indicates its inevitability. Parliament saw national parties like the Congress and BJP back the call of OBC outfits, with even those not associated with backward politics like Akali Dal lending their voice to the rising pitch for OBC headcount. The biggest leap of faith came from the Left which made a proforma submission of “believing in class and not caste” before bowing to mounting political compulsions in the name of social welfare. Not one party called it a “retrograde move” that will set the country back, a stock argument till now.
  • The question, however, is: why this out-of-theblue demand for an OBC census? Especially when politics appears to be settled and backward quota is a reality that the upper castes have long reconciled to.
  • The demand will be for “proportional representation” in quotas. Else, there seems little justification in demanding the exact determination of OBC population.
  • “There are signs of a revival of backward politics, like during the Mandal days,” a leader said. Mulayam Singh and Lalu Prasad, who are fighting for survival on their home turf, seem to be working towards consolidating backwards under a political umbrella, as they had done during their heydays. But not all OBC leaders are sure as they feel caste politics comes in layers just as caste itself falls in the labyrinthine logic of “Mishraon me Mishra” . A well-heeled backward leader from Tamil Nadu fears the move, which while giving political heft to outfits like RJD, SP, DMK, JD(U), may be a doubleedged sword. The concern is shared by another leader who feels a nationwide investigation on backward numbers may just reveal more than what is good for these parties. A caste survey, while intended to bring about a fresh backward consolidation, can actually sow seeds of fragmentation.
    
    “What if it is found that Yadavs or Kurmis have grabbed a much larger share of the reservation cake than their share in OBC population? Empirical revelations to this effect can trigger demands for subquotas from marginalised backwards ,” a leader said.
  • Caste census was done away after Independence because there was a desire to look beyond social divisions which made the leadership struggle in its attempt to forge a united challenge to the Raj. The advent of caste census in 1911 itself was a result of competing claims of divergent Muslim-Hindu interests as their population size would determine their representation in proposed bicameral legislatures.
    
    In 1901, the Aga Khan wrote to Lord Minto that the census enumerating religions gave inflated figures of Hindus because of inclusion of “animists and tribals” and “certain other communities which are classified as Hindus but were not” . This led to the division of Hindus in three parts — Hindus, animists/tribals and depressed classes/untouchables — from the 1911 census onwards.
    
    Now more than six decades later, there are political gains to be had in reviving the practice.

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Auditing India: What, why, who are we?

• Auditing India: What, why, who are we?

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  • Nilanjana S Roy
  • But with that, he joins a grand tradition of arguing over India. Historian Irfan Habib has pointed out that it wasn’t until the late 14th century that the Hindus began calling India ‘Hindustan’ — Ind or Sindh-stan was a chiefly Greek and Persian construct before this time. Much before that, though, Alberuni (973-1078 CE) and other travellers would comfortably refer to the inhabitants as Hindus: “The Hindus believe that there is no country but theirs, no nation like theirs, no kings like theirs, no religion like theirs, no science like theirs.” And many centuries later, Veer Savarkar would take this to an extreme, demanding that India must be a Hindu land, “reserved for the Hindus”. “India is such a huge concept, like Europe,” observes the historian and writer William Dalrymple, “It’s something you encounter only when actually thinking about it.”
  • TEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT THE IDEA OF INDIA

    THE MAHABHARATA
    THE INDICA: Alberuni
    THE IDEA OF INDIA: Sunil Khilnani
    THE ARGUMENTATIVE INDIAN: Amartya Sen
    INDIA AFTER GANDHI: Ramachandra Guha
    THE STORY OF MY EXPERIMENTS WITH TRUTH: M K Gandhi
    INDIA: A WOUNDED CIVILISATION, INDIA: A MILLION MUTINIES NOW: V S Naipaul
    HINDUTVA: Veer Savarkar
    INDIAN STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF AN IDEA: Edited by Irfan Habib
    THE DISCOVERY OF INDIA: J Nehru

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Living it up lately

• Living it up lately

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  • By NEETA LAL

  • A “matrimonial meet’’ hosted by non-profit organisation Vina Mulye Amulya Seva (VMAS) saw the attendance of over 300 single, divorced and widowed people from across the country.

    However, this was no ordinary meet. All the attendees were senior citizens well into their 60s and 70s with a few even pushing 80! Kitted out in their Sunday best, the seniors — a few with walking sticks — were accompanied by their friends, children, even grandchildren!

    “My mother passed away three months ago and it was a shock for all of us,” admitted Ketki Dave, 38, a school teacher who was accompanying her 68-year-old father. “My dad retreated into a depression. So I convinced him to come along to this fair. Let’s hope we’re able to finalise a proposal for him.”

    Meanwhile in Vadodara, a “blind date” was organised by VMAS for over 400 elderly men and women last month. The participation rules were simple. The attendees paid a nominal registration fee which entitled them to an hour-long interaction with other interested parties and helped them zero in on their choice. A complimentary lunch allowed further bonding between people. A Hindu priest was also present to match horoscopes, if required. Just in case the couples decided to tie the knot at the venue itself, VMAS facilitated that, too.

    Encouraged by the ebullient response to their meets, VMAS is now fanning out its operations to Mumbai, Bangalore and Kota.

    “Rather than head for old-age homes, we encourage senior citizens to get married and spend the last few years of their lives happily with a companion,” says Natu Patel, an organiser with VMAS, who has helped hundreds of elderly Indian couples find suitable mates over the last five years.

  • To encourage more women to attend marriage fairs, the organisation has an added incentive — a beautiful sari is presented to each participant along with reimbursement for train fare and local transport.
  • Clearly, life begins at 60!

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