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[1] From: Kisan <mailbhejna@yahoo.co.in> Date: Thu Jul 27, 2006 Subject: Rationalists dare occultists in UK http://indiamonitor.com/news/readNews.jsp?ni=227 Rationalists dare occultists in UK London, July 27, 2006: A group of rationalists of Indian origin here has renewed its offer of 16,000 pounds to any occult practitioner or spiritual healer who can scientifically prove the ability to cure people of any disease or solve any problem. Newspapers catering to Asian and Afro-Caribbean readerships have several pages of advertisements from such practitioners, promising magical cures and manna to those who believe in spells and occult practices. Lavkesh Prashar, president of the Asian Rationalist Society of Britain (ARSB), said such witch doctors and charlatans were exploiting superstitious and gullible people from these communities and earning thousands of pounds every year. Prasher said: "We challenge them to prove that they have magical powers under scientific conditions. They charge anything up to 300 pounds for a simple chat and claim they can cure anything from serious illness to bad luck." The call was renewed at a recent meeting of the ARSB in Birmingham as part of the society's efforts to educate the people about the "so-called gurus and babas and tantriks who are exploiting the innocent people mentally, financially and sometimes physically as well". Prashar said: "If these babas and gurus have any magical or supernatural power then why not they accept our challenge? Why do they back off when we challenge them?" The main speaker at the meeting was Harinder Lally, an Indian advocate, who is associated with the Taraksheel Society Punjab. Lally recalled with examples how astrologers and palm readers tricked people. The meeting was also addressed by Britain-based brain specialist RS Dyall, who exhorted the people to approach doctors with health problems rather than babas, gurus and other charlatans who claim to have a magical power to cure health and mental problems. (Source : Indo-Asian News Service) ------------- [2] From: Pradip Kumar Datta <pradip200@yahoo.com> Date: Thu Jul 27, 2006 Subject: 'Satanic cult' burns 'Bible', vandalises church in Mizoram 'Satanic cult' burns 'Bible', vandalises church in Mizoram [ 26 Jul, 2006 0035hrs ISTTIMES NEWS NETWORK ] AIZAWL: Miscreants on Sunday night vandalised the Kawnpui Hmarveng Presbyterian Church in Mizoram's Kolasib district, burnt a copy of the New Testament and desecrated the altar. It is rumoured that a satanic cult was behind the incident. The church committee chairman, Upa Zahlira Zote, said a group of high school students in Kawnpui village had confessed to worshipping Satan last year. Zote said nearly 300 people attended the Sunday mass. "Some people returned for the Monday morning prayer and found charred pages of the Bible scattered on the floor. A New Testament was completely burnt and pages from the Bible kept on the pulpit were torn. The miscreants urinated on the chair of the meeting chairman. Drops of blood were also found on the bench reserved for church elders. "Someone from Kolasib town told me that burning the Bible and blood sacrifice are some of the rituals practised by a satanic cult. Whatever happened here is akin to his theory." Zote said. "We ask God to forgive them. We appealed to all churches in Mizoram to pray for us and for those who committed the sin." http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1808778.cms --------------- [3] From: Shiva Shankar <sshankar@cmi.ac.in> Date: Thu Jul 27, 2006 Subject: Roger Waters - memories of Beirut (fwd) When Pink Floyd's Roger Waters was 17, once he was hitchhiking from Beirut to England, a Lebenese family gave him shelter with great kindness & hospitability. So we left Beirut Willa and I He headed East to Baghdad and the rest of it I set out North I walked the five or six miles to the last of the street lamps And hunkered in the curb side dusk Holding out my thumb In no great hope at the ramshackle procession of home bound traffic Success! An ancient Mercedes 'dolmus ' The ubiquitous, Arab, shared taxi drew up I turned out my pockets and shrugged at the driver " J'ai pas de l'argent " " Venez! " A soft voice from the back seat The driver lent wearily across and pushed open the back door I stooped to look inside at the two men there One besuited, bespectacled, moustached, irritated, distant, late The other, the one who had spoken, Frail, fifty five-ish, bald, sallow, in a short sleeved pale blue cotton shirt With one biro in the breast pocket A clerk maybe, slightly sunken in the seat "Venez!" He said again, and smiled "Mais j'ai pas de l'argent" "Oui, Oui, d'accord, Venez!" Are these the people that we should bomb Are we so sure they mean us harm Is this our pleasure, punishment or crime Is this a mountain that we really want to climb The road is hard, hard and long Put down that two by four This man would never turn you from his door Oh George! Oh George! That Texas education must have fucked you up when you were very small He beckoned with a small arthritic motion of his hand Fingers together like a child waving goodbye The driver put my old Hofner guitar in the boot with my rucksack And off we went " Vous etes Francais, monsieur? " " Non, Anglais " " Ah! Anglais " " Est-ce que vous parlais Anglais, Monsieur? " "Non, je regrette" And so on In small talk between strangers, his French alien but correct Mine halting but eager to please A lift, after all, is a lift Late moustache left us brusquely And some miles later the dolmus slowed at a crossroads lit by a single lightbulb Swung through a U-turn and stopped in a cloud of dust I opened the door and got out But my benefactor made no move to follow The driver dumped my guitar and rucksack at my feet And waving away my thanks returned to the boot Only to reappear with a pair of alloy crutches Which he leaned against the rear wing of the Mercedes. He reached into the car and lifted my companion out Only one leg, the second trouser leg neatly pinned beneath a vacant hip " Monsieur, si vous voulez, ca sera un honneur pour nous Si vous venez avec moi a la maison pour manger avec ma femme" When I was 17 my mother, bless her heart, fulfilled my summer dream. She handed me the keys to the car. We motored down to Paris, fuelled with Dexedrine and booze Got bust in Antibes by the cops And fleeced in Naples by the wops But everyone was kind to us, we were the English dudes Our dads had helped them win the war When we all knew what we were fighting for But now an Englishman abroad is just a US stooge The bulldog is a poodle snapping round the scoundrel's last refuge "Ma femme", thank God! Monopod but not queer The taxi drove off leaving us in the dim light of the swinging bulb No building in sight What the hell "Merci monsieur" "Bon, Venez!" His faced creased in pleasure, he set off in front of me Swinging his leg between the crutches with agonising care Up the dusty side road into the darkness After half an hour we'd gone maybe half a mile When on the right I made out the low profile of a building He called out in Arabic to announce our arrival And after some scuffling inside a lamp was lit And the changing angle of light in the wide crack under the door Signalled the approach of someone within The door creaked open and there, holding a biblical looking oil lamp Stood a squat, moustached woman, stooped smiling up at us She stood aside to let us in and as she turned I saw the reason for her stoop She carried on her back a shocking hump I nodded and smiled back at her in greeting, fighting for control The gentleness between the one-legged man and his monstrous wife Almost too much for me Is gentleness too much for us Should gentleness be filed along with empathy We feel for someone else's child Every time a smart bomb does its sums and gets it wrong Someone else's child dies and equities in defence rise America, America, please hear us when we call You got hip-hop, be-bop, hustle and bustle You got Atticus Finch You got Jane Russell You got freedom of speech You got great beaches, wildernesses and malls Don't let the might, the Christian right, fuck it all up For you and the rest of the world They talked excitedly She went to take his crutches in routine of care He chiding, gestured We have a guest She embarrassed by her faux pas Took my things and laid them gently in the corner "Du the?" We sat on meagre cushions in one corner of the single room The floor was earth packed hard and by one wall a raised platform Some six foot by four covered by a simple sheet, the bed The hunchback busied herself with small copper pots over an open hearth And brought us tea, hot and sweet And so to dinner Flat, unleavened bread, + thin Cooked in an iron skillet over the open hearth Then folded and dipped into the soft insides of female sea urchins My hostess did not eat, I ate her dinner She would hear of nothing else, I was their guest And then she retired behind a curtain And left the men to sit drinking thimbles full of Arak Carefully poured from a small bottle with a faded label Soon she reappeared, radiant Carrying in her arms their pride and joy, their child. I'd never seen a squint like that So severe that as one eye looked out the other disappeared behind its nose Not in my name, Tony, you great war leader you Terror is still terror, whosoever gets to frame the rules History's not written by the vanquished or the damned Now we are Genghis Khan, Lucretia Borghia, Son of Sam In 1961 they took this child into their home I wonder what became of them In the cauldron that was Lebanon If I could find them now, could I make amends? How does the story end? And so to bed, me that is, not them Of course they slept on the floor behind a curtain Whilst I lay awake all night on their earthen bed Then came the dawn and then their quiet stirrings Careful not to wake the guest I yawned in great pretence And took the proffered bowl of water heated up and washed And sipped my coffee in its tiny cup And then with much "merci-ing" and bowing and shaking of hands We left the woman to her chores And we men made our way back to the crossroads The painful slowness of our progress accentuated by the brilliant morning light The dolmus duly reappeared My host gave me one crutch and leaning on the other Shook my hand and smiled "Merci, monsieur," I said " De rien " " And merci a votre femme, elle est tres gentille " Giving up his other crutch He allowed himself to be folded into the back seat again "Bon voyage, monsieur," he said And half bowed as the taxi headed south towards the city I turned North, my guitar over my shoulder And the first hot gust of wind Quickly dried the salt tears from my young cheeks. ---------------- [4] From: Sukla Sen <suklasen@yahoo.com> Date: Thu Jul 27, 2006 Subject: Indo-US Nuke 'Deal' and Its Fallout: An Update I. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=ah.Qn2qcD_uU&refer=asia House Endorses Outlines of U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Agreement July 26 (Bloomberg) -- The House voted to endorse the broad outlines of a Bush administration plan to share nuclear power technology and fuel with India to feed its growing demand for energy. II. http://www.wbay.com/Global/story.asp?S=5187119 Report: Pakistan working on big increase in nuclear weapons capability WASHINGTON Pakistan may be looking to up its nuclear weapons capabilities in a big way. --------------- [5] From: Sukla Sen <suklasen@yahoo.com> Date: Thu Jul 27, 2006 Subject: Indo-US Nuke 'Deal': The NSG Must Reject It and We Must Work Towards That! http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2006_07-08/focus.asp Next Stop: The NSG Daryl G. Kimball Within months, the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) will move from the periphery to the center of a year-long debate about whether India should become eligible for full civil nuclear trade even though it does not yet observe the nonproliferation practices expected of other states. The outcome will have a profound impact on the future of the entire nonproliferation system. -------- |
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| << July27, 2006 - [India Thinkers Net]Ram Narayan,Ammu ,Sukla,Parevz,Kashif posts |
July29, 2006 - [India Thinkers Net] 7/11 ,Nepal news ,Madras HC news >> |
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