What is Dharma?|What is Secularism?|Watch Shrimad Bhagwad Geeta video|Arun Shourie reveals secrets of CONgress|
Why is 'secular' Government of India controling operations of Hindu temples but not Mosques and Churches?|Skeletons in CONgress's closet

Friday, August 15, 2008

Eye opening articles

Spread The Word












  1. Hajj and Qurbani: Their Impact on Poor Muslim Countries

  2. http://www.newsanalysisindia.com/articles.htm

  3. The media-politician anti-Hindu nexus has to stop immediately, if we really don’t want another 26/11 by Arindam Chaudhuri, Editor-in-Chief, The Sunday Indian on December 7, 2008

  4. Why we must lose sleep over Hindu terror by mrv@mrv.net.in

  5. Secular Protocol deciphered by Tarun Vijay

  6. The case against banning outfits by Tavleen Singh, Indian Express on October 12, 2008

  7. The only thing that worries me is the circumstances under which the demand for banning the Bajrang Dal is being made. The politicians who currently demand the ban do so in the context of our problems with jihadi terrorism. These ‘secular’ gentlemen appear to believe that it is not possible to ban SIMI and other groups spreading Islamist ideology in our idol-worshipping land unless we make some kind of Hindu sacrifice. This not only makes no sense, it is also dangerous.
    May I put on record that I think those who believe that the Jamia Nagar encounter was fake should be ashamed of themselves? They should apologise to the family of Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma for making such a charge.
    If in Pune they have arrested the right men, then we face a problem that both our secular and communal politicians are refusing to address. If young men in their early twenties earning Rs 19 lakh a year are being lured by jihad, we need to start admitting that the battle for India’s values of secularism and religious tolerance is already lost. At least let us admit we have failed to convince Muslims that these are real values.
    If looked at in reverse, we could say that organisations like SIMI and the Darul Uloom in Deoband have been infinitely more successful at making their case than those who are supposed to defend the values of India. We can ban SIMI in one fell swoop and they will only return in some uglier, more insidious guise as long as the ideas that create them are compelling. When SIMI was set up in 1977, the stated idea behind its creation was to ‘liberate’ India by making it an Islamic society. In 1986, SIMI organised a national convention whose slogan was ‘liberation of India through Islam’. This was long before Osama bin Laden began the worldwide jihad against the West and us ‘idol-worshipping infidels’.
    What we need is a police force that is manifestly fair in its behaviour and political leaders who genuinely believe in the values that define India as a nation. Since both are in short supply, what we get from the jackals who constitute the bulk of our political class are howls in the name of secularism and communalism. Meaningless sloganeers all.
    Islamism is the antithesis of the idea of India and must be fought but is banning SIMI and closing down the mother ship, the Darul Uloom, the solution? Personally, I do not think so.

  8. Debating the right to convert by Sudheendra Kulkarni, Indian Express on October 5, 2008

  9. Does my religious freedom also mean that I should have the freedom to belittle or denigrate other faiths, their puja paddhatis and their devi-devatas, as New Life, an evangelical organisation in Karnataka, had been doing? One of New Life’s publications, Satya Darshini, says: “Urvashi, the daughter of Lord Vishnu, is a prostitute. Vashitha is the son of this prostitute. He in turn married his own mother. Such a degraded person is the Guru of the Hindu God Rama. When Krishna himself is wallowing in darkness of hell, how can he enlighten others? When the Trinity of Hinduism (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva) are consumed by lust and anger, how can they liberate others? Their projection as Gods is nothing but a joke.” Isn’t this kind of profanity provocative?

  10. Scrap article 370 in J&K: VHP general secretary Praveen Togadia by Hindustan Times on October 6, 2008

  11. Why do we need a National Commission for Minorities? by Offstumped on October 5, 2008

  12. Offstumped Bottomline: Tax Payer Funded Consicence Keepers reflect our Nation’s lack of faith on our own values and Institutions. By misusing them to further politics of Muslim Appeasement neither helps the average Muslim feel secure enough to discard the Ghetto in favor of mainstream inclusion nor does it help safeguard the Constitution and Secular Values. The case for an Equal Opportunity Commission must be made on secular reasons of discrimination and not to appease Muslims.

  13. Narendra Modi's bureaucrats learn about climate change by IANS, Times of India on September 20, 2008

  14. He is the first Bharatiya Chief Minister to take an initiative on this. Modi ji's innovation and will to do for country is unparalleled today.
  15. Failure to the power of 3 by Shekhar Gupta on September 20, 2008

  16. Even half a success like New Delhi’s Jamia Nagar encounter may win Shivraj Patil, arguably the most disastrous Union home minister in living memory (or, in fairness, next to Mufti Mohammed Sayeed and probably level with P.C. Sethi), a reprieve of sorts. Now, having defended his waffling, covered up for the most lily-livered handling of our internal security in our history and ducked in embarrassment each time he — and his Sancho Panza — opened their mouths after a Terror attack, the leadership of the Congress cannot suddenly say they were wrong all along.
    It’s about high politics as practised by India’s largest and oldest political party and how it has shot itself in the foot three times over, in three key areas. And for none of these will it have an alibi. No Left pressure, no blackmail by allies. The party’s internal balance of power took precedence over the demands of governance and, amazingly, also of re-electability.
    The three areas of self-inflicted failure are internal security, HRD and Power. On each the UPA won’t even be rated one out of ten by even its staunchest supporters.
    Each was manned by one of its own senior leaders, so there are no allies to blame. All three to have been given these key jobs were veterans, in fact the senior-most Congress figures in this cabinet. Then what went wrong?
    Simply, that each one was a man most unsuited for his charge.
    This kind of woolly-headedness from a party which fought terrorism as no other, which gave India the image of being a tough state behind a soft exterior. Under the UPA and Patil, India became a sheep in sheep’s clothing. Nothing will salvage the UPA’s record on internal security now, not the sacrifice of any more brave policemen like Delhi’s Mohan Chand Sharma, not even if its home minister junks his bandhgalas for some crumpled dhoti-kurta.
    As failures began to pile up soon enough, Patil should have been moved some place safer — for him, and for the rest of us. He rode his luck for sure. He was first all dressed up for Rashtrapati Bhavan until the Left vetoed him, expressing doubts on his secularism because of his devotion to Sai Baba. And once they had questioned his secularism, the Congress felt it had no choice but to keep him in the job, or it would sound like it accepted the charge that it had a non-secular Hindu in charge of politically the most sensitive ministry.

  17. Selfish politicians are impeding India's growth by Ashok Jha on September 18, 2008

  18. ‘Can’t counter hi-tech terrror with 19th-century laws’ by Suman K Jha, Indian Express on September 19, 2008

  19. You have taken some measures in Gujarat too in this regard?
    We have plans wherein a dedicated university would train students for five years after their twelfth. This vast pool of human resources then could be used in a number of areas related to internal security. The university is called Raksha Shakti University. Then a forensics science university is on the anvil where the accent would be on technology and its varied applications in fighting terror.

  20. UPA's soft stance: Slow poison for country by Dina Nath Mishra on August 31, 2008

  21. The Government is practically defrauding the nation.

  22. Only iron fist will work by G Parthsarthy on September 4, 2008

  23. For the past four years Mr Manmohan Singh's Government has pampered separatist outfits and leaders in the Kashmir Valley in the mistaken belief that they can be made to see reason by sweet words and magnanimous gestures. The country is today paying the price for such misguided beliefs. One hopes New Delhi now realises that soft words are no substitute for an iron fist in dealing with separatism.
    Mr Vladimir Putin crushed separatism in Chechnya not by plaintive appeals for understanding to Chechen separatists and militants, but by firm, decisive action. Abraham Lincoln acted no differently in safeguarding the unity and territorial integrity of the US, even not hesitating to have the separatist stronghold of Atlanta reduced to ashes as his forces ended separatist challenges.

  24. Fight terror with determination by Joginder Singh on September 8, 2008

  25. Since 2000, there have been 1,120 deaths in 69 jihadi terrorist attacks in our country. In July 2008, 56 persons were killed in terrorist bombings on consecutive days in Bangalore and Ahmedabad. A day after the massive killings, 28 unexploded bombs were defused in Surat. In the last few years, there have been bomb attacks in Mumbai, Coimbatore, Srinagar, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Varanasi, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Jaipur. In some of these places there was more than one attack. The United States' National Institute of Counterterrorism says that between January 2004 and March 2007, the death toll in India from terrorist attacks was 3,674, second only to Iraq during the same period. In most of the major terrorist bombings, the name of one particular organisation, that is SIMI, has surfaced with definite consistency.

  26. PM a k a 'Lucky' Singh? by Chandan Mitra on September 14, 2008

  27. But how much longer will the stars bale out Manmohan Singh? Finally, the triumph or tragedy of politicians is not scripted in South Block but in the heat and dust of electoral politics. Thanks to a largely subservient media, "Lucky" Manmohan is being feted wildly for having bartered away national prestige at Vienna. It speaks of a particularly perverted mindset, which gloats over a single gold medal at the Olympics (as against China's 53) and is overwhelmed by any kind of certification from the West. By his single-minded obsession with the nuclear deal, Manmohan Singh has made it an election issue.
    Regardless of the abjectly fawning writings of so-called right-wing thinkers, I believe the people of India will scrutinise the deal with a fine toothcomb. When it sinks in that after sinking a staggering Rs 80 lakh crores in purchasing reactors from the US, France and Russia, nuclear energy will contribute a mere 7 percent of India's energy requirement by 2020, and the Congress's much touted 'nuclear bijli for aam aadmi' will cost Rs 9 per unit at today's prices, the alleged urban middle class exultation will evaporate.
    Manmohan Singh has been really lucky in the short run. After the election results, the sneering smile on his face is almost certain to evaporate.

  28. Anatomy of servitude by Chandan Mitra on September 8, 2008

  29. Either Manmohan Singh believes Indians are the most gullible people on the face of the Earth or his spin doctors have convinced him that repeating a lie a thousand times over will metamorphose into truth. There can be no other explanations for the orchestrated claim of India having wrested a "historic" deal at Vienna, a waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group that will allegedly end the country's 34-year-long nuclear isolation, permit unrestricted flow of dual-use technology and also enable import of unlimited quantities of uranium to fuel nuclear power plants. If the Congress Party's propagandists are to be believed, all this will happen even as India retains its right to test nuclear devices and develop its strategic weapons programme. Admittedly, the Government has succeeded in propagating this package of lies through servile sections of the media, thereby sowing seeds of doubt even among those who are convinced that India has supinely pawned its nuclear sovereignty at the altar of non-proliferation Ayatollahs. In return for surrendering its claim to being a nuclear weapons state, all the country has been granted are a few paltry tonnes of uranium, which can be used only under strict international supervision.
    The nuclear deal has become a saga of deceit and perjury. The world must be wondering what drove the UPA regime to such abject desperation. Even before the murky deal becomes law, India's national prestige has been irreparably compromised. We believed the 21st Century would be India's Century. Having throttled this dream of a billion people and a resurgent nation, the Government is making a mockery of whatever is left of India's honour by claiming the deal marks a "new dawn". Can the forces of deceit and darkness ever herald the dawn, any kind of dawn?

  30. Response to HT article "Who's the real Hindu?" by Dr. Arindam Bandyopadhyay

  31. संप्रग सरकार पर जमकर बरसी भाजपा - जागरण द्वारा सितम्बर १३, २००८ को

  32. Political power has eluded Hindus for centuriesManifesto for saving Hindu India by Dr Gautam Sen on September 7, 2008

  33. The bogus secularism adopted by the political and intellectual elites essentially amounted to pandering to sectarian Islam and has ended with a total surrender to minority sectarianism, accompanied by vicious State-sponsored assaults on Hindus. The imperative and painstaking task of nation building was sacrificed to Deoband and Wahabi sentiment that sullenly asserted its rejection of India in favour of the Ummah.

  34. Britain dumps its garbage on Indian soil by Times News Network & Agencies, Times Of India on September 9, 2008

  35. What lies beyond the Deal by Swapan Dasgupta, Times Of India on September 7, 2008

  36. The Totalitarians by Tarun Vijay, Times Of India on September 7, 2008

  37. So what if you expose and warn about the grave fallout of continuing with the special status to Kashmir, that strengthens feelings of separation, we will go ahead with it.
    So what if Mahatma Gandhi and Vivekananda had opposed vehemently the proselytization campaigns of the Christian aggressive 'harvesters', we will support them.
    So what if the RSS guys were amongst the first to rush to help Bihar flood victims; we shall continue to paint them as barbaric goons busy burning down faith places, who had no time to help the poor, deluged fellow citizens.
    So what if a Hindu monk and three others, including a woman monk, were killed brutally by Christian assailants using AK47, we shall put the victims in the category of unmentionables and keep on repeating, 'Hindus attack churches.'
    So what if a Google search on Vatican's scandals produces 1.5 million results in less than 0.37 seconds and that includes how a Pope turned his palace into a whorehouse and how their bank swindled millions and the papal authority helped the disintegration of the Soviet Union, not to say apologies on gay scandals.
    We shall continue to reward those Vatican's protégés who use derogatory terms against Hindu monks and testify against their country in a foreign senate.
    The icons of hate and barbarism look good and acceptable if made of saffron headbands and tridents. It looks photogenic. Have you ever, even in the passing, saw an icon of hate created out of green flag Jihadis who kill five- year-old girls in the thick of night (Wandhama and Doda) or the Christian rifle wielders who kill an 84-year-old monk and an ochre-robed lady celebrating Krishna's birthday? Have you ever heard or read the agony and pains of those who just want to remain what they are religiously and get killed for that alone?

  38. For Christ's sake by Chandan Mitra on September 7, 2008

  39. A parent told me about the following exchange with his school-going daughter: "Why is your school closed tomorrow?" he had asked. Pat came the reply, "Because Hindus are killing innocent Christians in Orissa." When he persisted and queried why Hindus are supposedly doing that, his daughter looked nonplussed and confessed she had no idea, but after some thought added, "They did that to Muslims in Gujarat also, No?" The brainwashing of children, especially in urban India, has acquired a new dimension.

  40. Circumscribing nuclear sovereignty by Sudheendra Kulkarni, Indian Express on September 7, 2008

  41. Congress led UPA lies to the Nation

  42. Can we have our Obama, please? by Tavleen Singh on August 31, 2008

  43. Hindus in US fight for defamation case filed by Sonia supporters by Lalit K Jha on June 27, 2008

  44. India interrupted: Who is to blame for infiltration? by P R Ramesh, ET Bureau, Times of India on August 26, 2008
    In the mid-90's, PV Narasimha Rao chose of all places Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso to reiterate that the "sky is the limit" as far as autonomy to Kashmir was concerned. No single statement has done as much damage for the Valley and those four words became the benchmark for negotiations with secessionist mobs for successive Central governments.
    We would have expected politicians to learn a lesson or two from Rao's folly. But perhaps encouraged by the Wagah border candle light brigade and other bleeding heart liberals, Manmohan Singh actually has gone a step further. He recently decreed that borders have become irrelevant.
    If that indeed were the case, the prime minister needs to tell us why so many of our young men are getting killed every day while defending our borders? Some months ago, newspapers breathlessly reported that the prime minister was moved to tears after watching the visuals of a distraught mother of a Bangalore boy allegedly involved in a UK terror plot.
    It would of course be foolhardy to expect him to shed tears at the sight of the grieving young wife and and daughter of Colonel JJ Joseph, commanding officer of the 45 Rastriya Rifles, who died on last Friday defending our borders. If anything, Singh's statement is like fodder for the cross -border activists.
    The result of this approach is magnanimous approach towards illegal over-stayers, porous borders and a non-existent deportation system. The BSF chief AK Mitra sized up the problem on Monday: he said there was no data on the exact number of illegal migrants from Bangladesh.
    Through last year, the BSF had intercepted 807 Bangladeshis trying to illegally cross over to our side (the actual infiltration is roughly estimated to be double the numbers intercepted), the BSF chief said the figure was almost 10000-12000 till a few years back. In other words, what he could be saying is at least 24,000 Bangladeshis have been infiltrating every year.
    Even more shocking is the number of Bangladeshis who entered on valid papers but disappeared subsequently. The cumulative figure of Bangladeshi arrivals since 1972 -most come never to go back, is a whopping 12 lakh.


  45. Monumental folly by Swapan Dasgupta, Times of India on August 24, 2008
    The past few weeks have seen the most vile assaults on Indian nationhood. In the Kashmir Valley, emboldened separatists have desecrated the Indian tricolour with glee. The hitherto ambivalent slogan of azadi has become a defiant, full-throated acceptance of Pakistan. "We are Pakistanis and Pakistan is us because we are tied with the country through Islam," the Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani told a mass rally in Srinagar on August 18, adding, "Hum Pakistani hain, Pakistan hamara hai." Simultaneously, the assumptions on which Indian democracy rests have been challenged by a Taliban-like advocacy of Nizam-e-Mustafa (state based on divine law).
    Made up of educated, lower-middle class Muslims, these ideologically-driven fanatics have made it their life's mission to wage a bloody jihad against non-believers. They too, have openly debunked the principles on which the Indian political order rests. According to the boastful email the IM sent minutes before the Ahmedabad blasts on July 26, "The terms democracy, secularism, equality, integrity, peace, freedom, voting, elections are yet another fraud with us." The group has also directed its ire at the "faithless infidels and their hypocrite allies from amongst the so-called Muslims...who have bartered their faith in return of just one seat in the Parliament."
    A striking feature of these threats is the resulting disarray in the liberal establishment. While the more weak-kneed and cosmopolitan intellectuals have advocated total surrender, others have fallen back on denial. The ruling Congress Party, for example, has equated demonstrators waving the national tricolour with those flaunting the Pakistan flag. Cabinet ministers have defended the terrorist SIMI and new-found allies of the UPA have rushed to console the family of the man the police believes was responsible for the murder of some 150 innocent Indians. Most important, homilies apart, there has been no meaningful intervention by those who felt that the Nehruvian ideal was the last word in India's political evolution.

  46. Oranges won't work anymore by Joginder Singh on August 25, 2008
    The CRPF Inspector-General was transferred from Srinagar on August 13 after an uproar in the Kashmir Valley, led by terrorists and their supporters, who alleged excesses by the Central paramilitary force. He was also denied the President's police medal for fear of controversy and wider protests. There is nothing new in this kind of approach as the decision-makers are far removed from reality. Meanwhile, it is the police and the security forces that continue to face life-and-death situations, standing between chaos and order.


  47. The right view: Son of Devaki by Tarun Vijay, Times of India on August 23, 2008
    I am filing this column from Jammu where people are showing the Indian way of patriotism to the valley. Every street and road is empty unless there is a demonstration. Traders have shuttered down their shops continuously for more than a month. Small entrepreneurs, auto rickshaw drivers, labourers are all off the work. Schools have not opened since last three months as immediately at the fag end of summer vacations the Amarnath Movement began. Banks are closed, sms's are prohibited, no public transport is available, it’s an unimaginable nightmare during any emergency. But who cares?
    To feed the citizens city is having free meals (langars) organized at more than fifty points where at an average one lakh people take meals twice a day costing ten lakh rupees per day. Every house hold is giving donations to run such langars without complaint.
    But strangely enough, the divide we see between valley and Jammu is reflected between media of Jammu and Delhi too. What Jammu's mainline papers are reporting doesn't get reflected in Delhi's papers and channels who have become self appointed guardians of secularism and peace of their own variety and think if they suppress the factual position on Jammu, peace will be restored soon and communalism will not spread. So when the patriots agitate, its communalism and needs to be suppressed. But when Pakistani flags are hoisted atop Lal Chowk and tricolor burnt amidst chants of Allah O Akbar and Pakistan Paindabad, it has to be reported 'objectively' and with full focus so that the sentiments of separatists are not hurt or suppressed! Strange media ethics these seculars follow.
    What son of Devaki won't have tolerated is being allowed by his followers. Isn't it the time to revive his spirit of Geeta and win a war of righteousness? The body alone perishes; the spirit remains immortal, so why fear O Arjuna?


  48. Better Mush than traitors by Chandan Mitra on August 24, 2008
    Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Jamaat leader, is reported to have openly declared his loyalty to Pakistan. Even Omar Abdullah, toasted by the secularist Indian media for his fraudulent double-speak in Parliament during the Trust vote last month, has begun talking of the Azadi option.
    And why not? Reinforcing the well-known fact that many Hindus have no stomach for a fight and would rather live in subjugation than valiantly defend their honour, celebrity writers and publicity-seeking showgirls have been harping on the Kashmiris' right to Azadi. Last weekend two prominent newspaper columnists wrote about the need to think out-of-the-box (a Musharraf copyright in this context) urging us to seriously consider if it is morally right to hold "unwilling" Kashmiris back in this country. I agree with them. As a matter of policy, the Government must encourage all those who have no loyalty to this country to leave, migrating across the Line of Control to the country of their dreams.
    Once they step over the de facto border, possessions they leave behind should be declared Enemy Property, reviving the provisions that existed on the statute books at least till after the 1965 Indo-Pak war. But under no circumstances can Indian citizens be allowed to promote secession. Advocating the right of Kashmiris to secede, as a professional female agitator (who believes the Vajpayee Government staged the December 13, 2001 attack on Parliament) reportedly did in Srinagar, is tantamount to treason and must invite provisions contained in the law relating to waging war against the State. Personally, I feel that even publicising such treasonable views, leave alone using dedicated columns to indulge in secessionist propaganda, should invite the charge of promoting terrorism and anti-national activity.
    No true Indian can forget the way 300,000 Kashmiri Pandits were turfed out of the Valley by secessionists in a horrific instance of ethnic cleansing.

    The secularists bay for Radovan Milosevic's blood, but not a word is uttered against the butchers who masterminded the elimination of Pandits and the systematic targeting of thousands of patriotic security personnel who laid down their lives so that the tricolour could continue to flutter atop Government buildings in Srinagar. Traitors are cowards by choice. Like all cowards, they will die many times before their death. But the average Indian -- people like you and me -- will die but once, defending the nation's integrity and honour. Jai Hind!


  49. If only Arundhati would quit India by Kanchan Gupta on August 24, 2008
    There can be nothing more pathetic than a middle-aged 'radical' preaching treason and penning seditious pamphlets. I read about Arundhati Roy's seditious comments after attending a rally organised by Muslim separatists of the Kashmir Valley on August 19. She was clearly impressed by the turnout, as were Mohammed Ali Jinnah and his cohorts when they saw the first train carrying future Pakistanis trundling into what was supposed to be the 'land of the pure' but has turned out to be a sinful Jihadistan. Jinnah, the 'sole spokesman', and his Muslim League were equally delighted by the bloodletting on Direct Action Day, August 16, 1946, and held it up as evidence of the impossibility of Muslims cohabiting with Hindus in Hindustan. Six decades later, more Muslims live peacefully with Hindus in Hindustan than Muslims live with Muslims in Pakistan. But we digress.
    There is understandable anger over her remarks, although the Congress need not have tried to distance itself from Arundhati Roy's new age sedition: It's the appalling denigration of nationalism and faith in the nation, which the Congress unabashedly indulges in to proclaim its 'secular' credentials, that encourages Arundhati Roy and her tribe to ridicule India, repudiate our national identity and revile our democracy. Curiously, it's rather strange that having declared some years ago that she was "seceding from India", Arundhati Roy continues to foul this land for which she has nothing but contempt. Or else she would not have used her invitation to a book-reading session in the US to declare that "there is no democracy in India".
    A pity. If only we were not democratic to a fault with a quisling for Prime Minister and a dissolute Congress in power, Arundhati Roy would have been hauled up under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act of 1967, amended in 2004-05.

  50. J&K divide: diplomacy versus democracy by Tavleen Singh, Indian Express on August 24, 2008

    Ten years ago I wrote a book that blamed the Government of India squarely for denying Kashmiris their democratic rights, thereby driving them towards armed insurgency. I believe this gives me the right to say that this time the Kashmiris have no cause. No country could have dealt with a secessionist movement more gently than India has after those initial mistakes in the early nineties. The movement for azadi turned into Islamist terrorism and India did nothing. Kashmiri Hindus were ethnically cleansed from the Valley and India did nothing. Jihadis came across our borders and turned Kashmiri Islam into a Saudi facsimile and India did nothing.
    This is why when something as absurd as the Amarnath land row should have brought thousands of Kashmiris into the streets carrying Pakistani flags and shouting jihadi slogans the reaction from Indians has been: get out. Enough is enough. In Delhi’s liberal drawing rooms they put it diplomatically. We should have a referendum, they say, and if the Kashmiris want to go to Pakistan then it’s time to let them go because, poor dears, they have suffered so much for their azadi.
    As a reporter who prefers to listen to what ordinary people say let me tell you what I hear when I put my ear to the ground. I hear people say that anyone who wants to go to Pakistan must be allowed to leave and never allowed back into Kashmir. I hear people say that they are not prepared to surrender another inch of Indian territory. If Kashmiri Muslims have a problem living with us let them emigrate to that Islamic country across the border. Whoever wants to go must be helped to go. But, there will be no more changing of India’s borders. The more belligerent say let the Kashmir Valley go to Pakistan but then there will be no room in India for Muslims.
    What I also hear is huge support for the movement in Jammu. So when our political leaders and politically correct TV anchors equate the two agitations they make a serious mistake. The way ordinary Indians see it is that we have one set of protesters who carry Indian flags and are ready to die for Bharat Mata and they cannot be equated with those who openly state their allegiance to Pakistan.


  51. Haridwar ashram receives SIMI threat to blow up religious places by by PTI, Times of India on August 25, 2008

  52. J&K: Tricolour at 8am, flags of separatists at 4pm by Avijit Ghosh, TNN, Times of India
    At exactly 8am, CRPF hoisted the Indian Tricolour at Lal Chowk in the heart of Srinagar on Independence Day. At 3.45pm, Lal Chowk wore a totally different look. Hundreds of slogan-shouting protesters swarmed the area and at 4pm and planted the flags of Jamaat-e-Islami (which looks like the Pakistani flag) and the terrorist outfit, Hizb-ul Mujahideen, on top of the same tower where the Indian flag had been hoisted. One of the slogans of the protesters drove the message home - Jiyo, jiyo Pakistan, hum hain Pakistani. Other slogans included Islam Zindabad, Lad ke lenge azadi and Allah-u-Akbar. Around 1pm in the Safa Kadal area, loudspeakers blared out from mosques, humko chahiye azadi. A procession on Maulana Azad Road around 3.30pm had at least 5,000 people. Around 2.45pm, before the namaz at Jamia Masjid in old Srinagar town was over, a bunch of 15 women in burqas burned the Tricolour.

    These people deserve democracy? You call this civility by civil society? You call this intolerance epitomized by showing Bharatiyata (Indianess)? You call this secularism? You call this nationalist movement? You call this Bhaichara (Brotherhood)?
  53. Suspect SIMI? Of course by Javed Anand
  54. Sports minister to Bindra: Visit Sonia, not Advani by TNN, Times of India
    Good job Abhinav Bindra for defying the diktat of a dictator and not following chamcha of Antonia Maino alias Antonio Maino alias Sonia blindly. This shows how much hatred congress is carrying for the democratically elected opposition and possibly next Indian prime minister Advani ji. Refrences:- 1, 2

  55. Amarnath and Congress legacy in J&K by Sudheendra Kulkarni
    Gen (retd) S K Sinha, who until recently served as the Governor of Jammu & Kashmir, is being blamed for the controversy surrounding the Amarnath Yatra. The charge is false and malicious. If anybody deserves the blame, it is the leadership of the Congress party and the UPA Government.
    That was then. Now, 61 years later, we have a situation in which separatist forces have the audacity to take out a pro-Pakistan march to Muzaffarabad by raising the bogey of a non-existent economic blockade by the people of Jammu. On Independence Day, they pulled down the tricolour at Srinagar’s Lal Chowk and hoisted their own green-coloured flag.
    The best time to resolve the issue of Jammu & Kashmir once and for all was in 1947 itself, at the time of India’s partition. Sadly, Jawarharlal Nehru’s lack of firmness and farsightedness at the time is extracting a heavy price from India even today. What a stark contrast there was between Nehru’s messing up of J&K’s integration with India and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s clean success in integrating all the remaining 562 princely states!


  56. Seven sutras: the PM’s biggest failures by Tavleen Singh
    As always I woke early on Independence Day to hear the Prime Minister speak. I listened carefully as he reiterated that the priorities of his government in the past four years, its ‘seven sutras’, had been agriculture, water, education, healthcare, employment, urban renewal and infrastructure. I wondered if he noticed that this could be a list of his biggest failures.


  57. Demagoguery apart by Shazia Ilmi
    Amidst Lalu’s stinging banter, Mohammed Salim’s moral rhetoric, and Rahul Gandhi’s Kalawati, Omar Abdullah’s speech was hailed as the high point of the political debate, the “stirring speech” that had the public and the media in raptures.
    Carpe diem - that Latin phrase means ‘seize the day’. Omar, like a sharp politician did just that. He seized his last national opportunity to reach out to his political constituency at the time when elections loom large and when the hangover of clashes over Amarnath ceases to abate. The short speech managed to press the right hot buttons -- Muslim identity, Gujarat riots and Amarnath shrine land transfer debacle. Bingo — the speech was sharp and smart just like the much-focussed politics of Omar Abdullah and National Conference (NC). Nothing noble or lofty about it, as some would have us believe.
    "We are not against the yatra but against the land transfer" is Omar's clever stand. The yatra has been going on for hundreds of years and Omar need not take an undertaking to keep it going. His remark in Parliament sounds patronising - almost a favour he and his Muslim brethren dole out to the ‘Hindu others’. It’s a clever political posture aimed at reaching out to his constituency.
    In the days of quicksilver equations, instant heroes and easy-fix solutions, let’s not blur the boundaries of spoken words and actions taken and let the smallness of politics engulf the larger purpose. Dalit woman, Muslim man - our contemporary political debate is being reduced to a charade of nomenclature, the packaging more important than the product, the identity superseding the cause. Or do we in our lethargy, do away with sifting and sieving, and stick to slick sound bites alone to salvage our politics?


  58. Modi versus chalta hai by Swapan Dasgupta

  59. Modi bashing any which way by Swapan Dasgupta

  60. Secularist assault on idea of India by Swapan Dasgupta
    The most intriguing feature of the ongoing turmoil in Maharashtra provoked by Raj Thackeray's posturing against North Indian migrants was the silence of those professing to be the watchdogs of amity. In the face of a calculated assault by an interloper on the traditional vote base of the country's most enduring saffron alliance, both the BJP and Shiv Sena reacted with exemplary patriotic maturity. Less exemplary was the conduct of those who go around shrieking "merchants of death" and pontificating about a Holocaust that never happened.


  61. People love emotive appeal by Swapan Dasgupta

  62. Masters of doublespeak by Swapan Dasgupta
    There is, however, another earthy side to separatism which is manifested when its leadership talks to fellow activists. The more extreme Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani was an unlikely picture of obsequiousness to the Art of Living mediator. But read his unexpurgated version of the Amarnath Yatra to the 'faithful': "Indian Government... flooded Kashmir with yatris and tourists, purpose of this artificial pilgrimage tourism was to strengthen occupation and lay same type of claim to Kashmir as is made by Jews to the territory of Palestine. They also wanted to establish settlements within the occupied territory of Kashmir. For this purpose Amarnath Shrine Board was constituted. Kashmiris never had a problem with Yatra but once Yatra became a tool of strengthening occupation, Kashmiris got alarmed."
    Imagine if some ridiculous Togadia-like figure were to say that the Haj pilgrimage had become an instrument of terrorist indoctrination and must be stopped. Imagine if someone was to say that our congested airports could not cope with the traffic of Hajis any longer; and that building special Haj terminals would alter Indian identity. Or if some ecological wizard was to claim that excessive pilgrimage traffic to Saudi Arabia results in too much carbon emission and increases global warming? Let's say that these people wouldn't have been given the time of day by People Like Us.
    The agitation in the Kashmir Valley isn't really about Kashmiri identity or Geelani's quest for an elusive Kashmiriyat. It is a plain and simple secessionist movement based on the belief that a Muslim-majority region must have a separate Islamic State.

  63. Jammu stands up to Kashmir by Sandhya Jain
    Jammu continues to burn as Hindu nationalists struggle alone but undaunted against sabre-toothed partisans of Allah who seek to efface all vestiges of civilisational heritage from the land of Rishi Kashyap. Backed by a de-nationalised media and a shameless political dispensation at the Centre, the events in Jammu & Kashmir must be seen in the context of a perverse drama enacted in Parliament on 21-22 July 2008, when the UPA won a tainted trust vote to pursue a subordinate alliance with Washington.
    This set the tone for the unwholesome projection that the Muslim community alone could legitimately endorse or oppose Government policy. Ms Mehbooba Mufti's shrill ranting about the Babri Masjid and Gujarat riots, and demand that Jammu & Kashmir be treated with extra sensitivity, augmented the view that the UPA needed to pamper Muslim leaders alone.
    But it was Mr Omar Abdullah -- much celebrated since by the anti-Hindu media as the 'star' of the trust vote -- who took the cake, raging against the aggrieved Amarnath pilgrims and claiming to speak as a "Muslim and an Indian". Now, the first thing a bona fide Indian would know is that Hindustan has a hoary Hindu ancestry, and that it is impossible to be truly Indian without having some kind of 'Hindu face'. Interestingly, Mr Farooq Abdullah takes care to make nominal obeisance to Bharat Mata, Sri Ram, and often visits Tirupati Balaji.


  64. Amar Singh was napping during discussions: Shri Amarnathji Sangarsh Samiti by PTI, The Hindu

  65. Jammu has suffered more loss than Kashmir: Amarnath Samiti by PTI, NDTV
    "Jammu suffered a loss of at least Rs 1,500 crore due to the curfew clamped for last 50 days. Our agricultural produce is completely destroyed," Rajendra Mishra, one of the members of the Samiti said. "People from Kashmir have used the issue of economic blockade to mislead and blackmail the Government," he said. Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil had announced an aid of Rs 200 crore for Kashmiri apple growers as they claimed that their tonnes of fruits were rotten due to the blockade. "But this is not apple season," Mishra said adding, people of Jammu have not received any help from the government.


  66. Terrorism Watch

  67. Bharat's Hall of SHAME / Corruption Watch

  68. India's addled version of Secularism



Views expressed are personal of the writers of the articles.

No comments: