|
India Thinkers Net Archives Index
|
Subscribe
|
|
| << August24, 2005 - [India Thinkers Net] Pak syllabus,Sharia courts,debate,Sophia Khan |
August26, 2005 - [India Thinkers Net]Sukla,Sanjeev,Parvez and Viji posts >> |
|
[1] From: Vijay K <s_humanist@yahoo.com> Date: Wed Aug 24, 2005 Subject: UN must define terrorism - Sandhya Jain UN must define terrorism Sandhya Jain With Islamic fundamentalists determinedly leaving their signature tune upon hitherto unvisited world capitals, and religio-ethnic violence taking a grim upturn in Jammu & Kashmir with the recent beheading of a woman and slitting of throats of five men, India needs to take a pro-active interest in getting the United Nations General Assembly to define "terrorism" at its forthcoming annual meeting in September. As of now, there are indications that UN officials are keen to take up the issue of defining terrorism. As a nation that has been consistently targetted by terrorism for several decades, and particularly after Western nations refused to name India as a victim- country in the wake of the London blasts, India must ensure that the September summit yields an international consensus on the definition of terrorism and terrorists. This must be followed up by a comprehensive treaty against terrorism. The time has never been more opportune. The growing nervousness in Western capitals over the planting of Al Qaeda or like-minded terrorist 'sleeper' cells in their respective societies; even worse, the possibility that home-grown ideologically motivated West-hating potential suicide bombers may be ticking away silently, has effectively neutralized the specious plea that one nation's terrorists are another country's freedom fighters. Hence this is the time to press for international recognition that targeting and killing civilians cannot be justified or legitimized in any circumstances. New Delhi must also firmly reiterate India's position on Jammu & Kashmir and Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, and Western capitals which support Gen. Musharraf's stand that the murderers of innocents in the valley are 'freedom fighters' may be informed that India can retaliate by supporting claims for division of territory by their respective Islamic citizens. This threat already looms over several European nations, and is hence a rather potent weapon. New Delhi should also avail of the opportunity to highlight the ethnic cleansing of Bangladeshi Hindus by fundamentalist elements in the present regime in Dacca, and to demand that those responsible for this continuing outrage be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The international body must be urged to stop these atrocities forthwith, failing which India would be within her rights to take appropriate measures to protect these unfortunate victims. In this context, it is worth noting that in the wake of the London blasts, Conservative leader and former Prime Minister John Major committed his party to unwavering support for strong governmental measures against those who live in the country and yet "spit hate" against the Anglo-Saxon way of life. Sir John was forthright enough to state that freedom of speech could not be used as a cover to incite people to violence and that the protection of the public was the first duty of the Government. Calling for deportation of all terrorists, Sir John told the BBC Radio 4 that from the time he demitted office in 1997, he was aware of an increasing number of Islamist terror groups in the country and hence it would be wrong to say the Iraq war was responsible for the new wave of Islamist attacks. In fact, he said, terrorism had been growing for the past thirty years and did not threaten only the West. This is strong stuff. It is also a lesson to all political parties in India about how mature and responsible leaders conduct themselves in the face of terrorist attacks upon their nations and peoples. Far from using the London blasts to corner the Blair Government and canvass minority votes for his party for future elections, Mr. Major spoke up uncompromisingly against the politics of terror. Even more impressively, he dared defend the tragic shooting by the London police which resulted in the death of an innocent Brazilian national, saying: "I rather prefer the expression shoot-to-protect rather than shoot-to-kill. I think that is a more accurate description of what happened." Sir John's remark about the local roots of an internationally connected terrorism effectively sums up the nature of the threat facing the world. While it is true that key terrorists in the London blasts had a Pakistani connection, the fact of the matter is also that there has been a home-grown radicalism of Britain's Islamic community, especially after the 2003 Twin Towers tragedy. This is a reality the hitherto indulgent Blair Government will have to admit, a fact Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was quick to point out. So while it is true that the London bombers visited Pakistan prior to the attacks, it is unlikely that they went there for ideological training. As Pakistani scholar Admed Rashid recently told Spiegel Online, it is far more likely that they came to make contacts with militant groups and for training. This is likely because several Pakistani madrassas have been taken over by terrorist groups which are using them as recruiting platforms. And the reason why Gen. Musharraf cannot genuinely shut them down is because they are run by groups whose support he needs for some aspects of his foreign policy, most notably regarding Jammu & Kashmir and Afghanistan. It is therefore unlikely that Pakistan, which is emerging as the global fulcrum of international Islamic terrorism, would be able to close down the military training camps conducted by terrorist-run madrassas or the ISI; hence the world is likely to witness more and more instances of terrorism with the ISI connection. India constitutes the hinterland of ISI-Islamic terrorism, but now the latter has extended its footprint into the front garden of Western nations. There has never been a better moment for an organized campaign to combat terrorism. ------------------------------- [2] From: yogi sikand <ysikand@yahoo.com> Date: Wed Aug 24, 2005 Subject: Deporting Blair: By Yamin Zakaria Deporting Blair by Yamin Zakaria (Monday August 22 2005) http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/18171 "...deport the Muslims from UK, and in return Christian Anglo-Saxons should be expelled from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, America, Caribbean, South Africa, Zimbabwe .etc where they have not integrated, they have refused to learn the language despite living there for years, refused to accept the desirability of the indigenous peoples culture and practises, and have instead used violence and extremism, preached hate for their neighbour, totally destroyed ???their way of life,??? and abused their hosts' hospitality." ----------------------------------------------------------- "I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar or who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values & people of such calibre, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage." -- Lord McCauley in his speech of Feb 2, 1835, British Parliament Mr Blair, before you raise the subject of deportation, you need to look in the mirror, and remember that the entire episode of migration started approximately four hundred years ago; when your ancestors arrived on our shores, without a visa, without invitation and without anything to offer. They (East India Company) arrived claiming to be traders, but constantly plotted and eventually, colonised the entire continent and plundered its resources; proving to be pirates disguised as businessmen. At that time, India was a fairly prosperous nation, as testified by Lord McCauley, by the time your people left in 1947/48 it was one of the poorest. Unlike the Mogul rulers that they replaced, they never settled into the country, but pillaged its abundant raw materials, following the footsteps of their Dutch (Dutch East India Company) rivals in Indonesia. The building of roads and railways in India leading to the ports had one central purpose, transporting India??™s rich raw materials, which gave employment to your populated cities. The goods manufactured in England were sold back into the Indian market. It made everyone wealthy, except the Indian population who owned those resources in the first place. Likewise, in South Africa, all the Gold and Diamond mined has effectively been stolen, this naturally made your ancestors very rich but left the native Africans very poor. Then the missionaries tried to sugar-coat the grand theft by selling them the Bible. Those who resisted British Imperialism physically, like the Zulus were no doubt the ???terrorists??™ of that time, in their own lands, and those who opposed using political means must been the preachers of ???hate??™! Many of the indigenous members who personally benefited from your rule, naturally argued in favour of British Imperialism, there are always profiteers selling their loyalties in every society. The likes of Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham MP) who passionately supports ???your??™ (or the US) foreign policies; he supports the actions of your armies that are helping the larger US armed forces to invade nations that have not attacked or threatened the UK or US, consequently, men, women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan have been murdered in their tens of thousands. The latest reports from Iraq, confirmed by humanitarian organisations, [1] highlight that even children are being imprisoned, raped and tortured at the hands of foreign forces. So now you are ???liberating??™ Iraqi children to deliver them into the clutches of sadists and paedophiles that fill that ranks in your armies, something you can??™t deny, as the world has seen the Abu Ghraib evidence. From Abu-Ghraib to children, surely you have now excelled Saddam Hussein. The self-serving individuals in our midst are like the coolies that served your forefathers in the British Raj. They argue in collusion with some of the Muslim moderates in favour of deportation, desperately trying to preserve their self-interest. How is it that immigrants are now behaving like those on the far right, by using a language that is racist? Too often, I get asked the same question by those so-called ???free??™ thinkers with a coolie mindset - why do you live here if you oppose the policies of the British government. Am I obliged to agree with the government on every issue or leave? I thought all citizens were equal and had right to disagree, the right to speak freely against wrongs, which is also an evidence of a free democratic society? In reality questions of ???what are you doing here then???? are posed in desperation when they are unable to intellectually answer the arguments posed to them. It would be far more accurate to call such people non-thinkers, the neo-coolies of today who believe the only legitimate view, is that of ???their masters.??? Anyway, Mr Blair, you may have left India and most of Africa but it is doubtful you have left the other parts of the Islamic world where you and/or your American cousins continued to rule through proxy (neo-colonialism), by imposing dictatorships that align with your interests and are supported or go off script and then get toppled (Saddam for instance). A further illustration is your early version of ???X-Factor,??? where your foreign policy found such talent amongst those illiterate Bedouins in the deserts, as they herded their goats, that you immediately recognised them as royalty and turned them all into Princes and Kings. After 80 years of ???independence??™ these Arabs are still incapable of extracting and refining oil by themselves, as those hand-picked Arabs have no interest, no desire and no will to become independent, as long their tribes are getting fatter than the camels. It is said that ???if there is a will there is a way??? so the reverse must also be true. In short, styles may have changed, but good old fashioned colonialism of exploiting the resources of other nations, has not! It is definitely unfair to continue to blame your government for all the ills in the Islamic world. However, you do still play a significant role in maintaining Western interests, by keeping the Islamic world divided into small artificial nations, as opposed to the Caliphate you have so strongly rejected. Now why would you not want the Muslims to be united and in control of their own people, resources and lands, I wonder? Maybe it is because you want to continue making lots of money? So you frown at the idea of a unifying Caliphate, and you consider it a crime for the Muslims to unify but not the Europeans or the Anglo-Saxon world. Many thanks for clarifying what you mean by democracy for the Islamic world, as many of the moderates are under the impression that you want the Muslims to decide their own destiny. Your fanaticism against the unification of the Muslims was exposed, when Iraq invaded its own former province of Kuwait (which you had divided some 40 years earlier). It was enough to move you into military action to maintain your puppets and interests. You killed indiscriminately, women, children, the old and the retreating soldiers on the road to Basra (highway of death) without remorse, but none of that is terrorism or genocide. Let us be honest for once, the US General said ???if Kuwait grew carrots we would not give a dam about its fate??? and I suppose your inaction over the real genocide in Rwanda is further proof of the reasons behind your militarism in the region. Iraqis never hurt your people, but you think in your arrogance you have right to do as you please. The continuous destruction of our economies through maintaining these despotic puppet rulers, burdening our nations under crippling loans, strangling domestic industry and craft by dumping your subsidised over productions into our lands and the resulting misery, these are the main reasons why you have so many economic migrants, not counting those displaced by wars fought in your name or interests. Your successive governments have maintained colonialist foreign policies that have made our countries unliveable and ungovernable. Those ugly despotic puppets are not interested in anything beyond their tribal interests, and that suits you as long as your economic interests are met. A recent example of this petty self interest from ruling elites is the Tsunami disaster; the meanest contributors were the richest Islamic countries. Only recently we saw those same miserly regimes donating 20 million pounds to a French Museum that apparently has an ???Islamic??™ section, while the mothers and children in Niger, Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan starve and bleed to death. Now, Mr Blair, you threaten to expel second and third generation Muslims who have lived peacefully in the UK. You push for their assimilation, capitulation and complete subservience to your dictates; at the same time repeating your mantra of upholding multi-cultural identity and ???freedom??™! Being drunk with imperial arrogance you do not see the internal contradictions of your message. Note the distinction; we live in the UK as law abiding citizens that have made substantial contributions towards this society, unlike the example of your colonisers in our lands with stealth bombers and cruise missiles. However, deportation may not be such a bad idea, if it is carried out consistently and we all know inconsistencies are traits of hypocrites and liars, the selective application of UN resolutions naturally comes to mind! So, deport the Muslims from UK, and in return Christian Anglo-Saxons should be expelled from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, America, Caribbean, South Africa, Zimbabwe .etc where they have not integrated, they have refused to learn the language despite living their for years, refused to accept the desirability of the indigenous peoples culture and practises, and have instead used violence and extremism, preached hate for there neighbour, totally destroyed ???their way of life,??? and abused their hosts' hospitality. We welcome your bold and courageous steps, and welcome your applying these rules consistently across all such extremist, violent and racist communities wherever they are. Also don??™t forget to close all the embassies and remove the military bases and the multinational companies from the Islamic world. Who knows, eventually the Celts in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland may also demand the deportation of your tribes. Effectively, then you would be quarantined to a section of your own tiny island. Then you can enjoy the company of Nick Griffin, Richard LittleJohn and all the other like minded little-people and enhance your ???cultural??™ diversity, while the rest of the world can finally live in real peace. Note: [1]. http://www.sundayherald.com/43796 -------------------------------------- [3] From: Sukla Sen <suklasen@yahoo.com Date: Wed Aug 24, 2005 Subject: Ramkrishna Paramhansa and Text Book Controversy http://news.indiainfo.com/2005/08/22/2208rs-turmoil.html RS in turmoil over reference to Ramkrishna Paramhans Monday, August 22 2005 15:25 Hrs (IST) - World Time - New Delhi: Rajya Sabha was thrown into a turmoil during Question Hour today (August 22, 2005) over reference to a text book which described spirtual saint Ramakrishna Paramhans as "mentally deranged". Angry BJP members accused Human Resources Development Minister Arjun Singh of not being sensitive to their sentiments while replying to their queries on the issue. Trouble arose when BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad asked Singh whether some text books had depicted Lord Ram and Lord Krishna as fictional characters and Paramhans as mentally deranged. "I would have definitely shared the member's feelings (regarding references to Ram and Krishna) if it was true. The fact is that no such reference was made. So far as Ramakrishna Paramhans was concerned, unfortunately that kind of description was made in a text book last year. It has since been removed," Singh said. Contending that the minister had not used the right language while replying on such a sensitive matter, some BJP members threatened to move to the Well of the House. The treasury benches denied the charges levelled by BJP members. Rajya Sabha Chairman Bhairon Singh Shekhawat assured the agitated members that if there was any unparliamentary language used by the minister he would get it expunged. Meanwhile, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad asked S. S. Ahluwalia (BJP) and others to state the objectionable portions of the Minister's reply. "We have not heard what the minister has said. What don't you tell us." The ten minute hold up in proceedings finally ended when Shekhawat reiterated that he would check the records of Singh's reply and remove the unparliamentary portions, if any. In reply to the main Question, Singh said no demand has been received from states for shifting of "Education" from the Concurrent list to the State List. He assured members that the government recognised the diverse social cultural ethos of the country. The Minister said, keeping this in view, the draft National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCFSE), 2005, prepared by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) reflects this concern. He said the Central Advisory Board of Education is yet to give its final clearance on the draft NCFSE. In reply to another query, the Minister said provision of free and compulsory education to children of 6-14 years is a constitutional mandate. PTI http://pub39.bravenet.com/forum/3300153605/fetch/431361/ 129 Years In Print Singh offers all help to RKM varsity... and more Statesman News Service KOLKATA, July 20. ??“ The Union human resources development minister, Mr Arjun Singh, today promised to offer all possible assistance for the smooth functioning of the new deemed university of Ramakrishna Mission. The university, which has it??™s headquarters at Belur, will have campuses across the country. Mr Singh, however, said that he would review the functioning of the university before announcing further financial assistance. Mr Singh received a cordial welcome from the monks and the administrative staff at Swami Vivekananda??™s ancestral home at Manicktala, in Kolkata, this evening. The minister who was scheduled to pay a visit to Vivekananda??™s ancestral home here and the Ramkrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute (RMVERI) at Belur Math on July 4, when the institute was formally conferred the status of a deemed university, could not make it because of ill health. The minister, however, had announced a fund of Rs 2 crore, from the University Grants Commission, for the smooth functioning of the university. Mr Singh said: ??? I am glad to be here this evening. The peaceful ambience here is simply splendid. I am happy that RMVERI has been given the status of a deemed university and is offering some unique courses.??? When questioned by the media whether he is aware of the fact that the CBSE text book of class 10 has portrayed Ramkrishna paramhansa in a derogatory language, Mr Singh said: ??? History is a subject which should be written very carefully and after verifying all facts and figures. I have not come across the text book but if such a thing has happened it should be looked into.??? The text book approved by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and penned by Mr Satish Pandey has allegedly referred to Ramkrishna Paramhansa ,the guru of Swami Vivekananda, as ???illiterate and mentally unstable.??? The minister, however, declined comment on the issue of the sacking of the chairman of the Indian Council of Certificate Examinations (ICSE), Mr Francis Fanthom, from the ICSE board today. He said: ??? I am not aware of the matter, and hence in no position to make any remark on it.??? Earlier in the afternoon the minister paid a visit to the RMVERI at Belur and had a discussion with vice- chancellor Swami Atmapriyananda . http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php? clid=6&theme=&usrsess=1&id=83716 |
|
| << August24, 2005 - [India Thinkers Net] Pak syllabus,Sharia courts,debate,Sophia Khan |
August26, 2005 - [India Thinkers Net]Sukla,Sanjeev,Parvez and Viji posts >> |
|
India Thinkers Net Archives Index
|
Subscribe
|
|
|
Archives powered by Zinester's Mailing List Service
Details on India Thinkers Net |
Browse for more newsletters at Zinester's Ezine Directory
Managed by Zinester's Mailing List Management |