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[1] From: "C.K. Vishwanath" <ck_vishwanath2000@yahoo.com Date: Tue Oct 11, 2005 Subject: corporate social responsibility and Dalits c Indian corporate houses are not intersted to implement reservation policy. India's peculiar Nehruvian period of yesteryears produced a business class. They must have a resposibility and social committment toward Dalits. The economic jijacking of indian corporate houses must be seriously questioned. The rapid privatisation process plus neo-liberalism is cushing the very survival chances of dalits. The so called safety net has no meaning to Dalits. New social and economic constraints are imposing on Dalits. Indian corporate house's anti-reservation policy is a part of a neo-liberal social darwinist agenda in which Dalits are at the receiving end. Dalits must be so vocal against any social darwinist polical pogrom. ------------------------- [2] From: yogi sikand <ysikand@yahoo.com Date: Tue Oct 11, 2005 Subject: Kashmiri Family Divided by Religion and Borders United in Earthquake Tragedy Kashmiri Family Divided by Religion and Borders United in Earthquake Tragedy Ashima Kaul [ashimakb@...] WHEN COUNTRIES DIVIDE PEOPLE AND NATURE TEACHES TO RISE ABOVE BOUNDARIES. On hearing that a family from Bakshi Nagar in Jammu had been struck by the recent earthquake, I could not stop myself from going to meet them. It was not difficult to locate the house as score of people-strangers, family and friends had gathered in the by lanes to show solidarity and ???do something?? to help the Tandon Family, waiting anxiously for some news about the welfare of their three members who had taken the Srinagar- Muzzafarbad bus on 6th October 2005 to meet their relatives across the border. Jagdish Lal Tandon and Basti Lal Tandon, two Indian Hindu brothers along with Subhash Tandon, Jagdish??s son had left for Muzaffarabad to meet their brothers Tariq and Maqbool in Hatiya Dupata, a small village near Muzaffarabad, in Pakistani-administered Kashmir. Tariq and Maqbool had stayed back in Muzaffarabad in 1947 and converted to Islam. However, religion did not stop the two families from keeping in touch with each other and when the bus started between the two parts of Kashmir, the brothers on India side decided to visit their relatives on Pakistan side. ???On Friday 7th October 2005 they had called and informed us that they had reached and were very happy to meet their brothers and their families???, said Dr. S. D. Tandon, the brother-in-law. But as Jyoti, Subhash??s wife kept on saying, she had an intuition that ???something is going to go wrong??, if they leave for Pakistan. On Saturday 8th October 2005, Jyoti??s worst fears came true. The Earthquake, which struck South Asia, destroyed Hatiya Dupata. With no communication links between the two sides of Kashmir, the Tandon family in Jammu had no way of knowing the welfare of their loved ones on the other side. The anxious family tried all ways to get some information but they failed. Finally, they called one of their relatives in United States of America who was able to establish contact with a local friend who trekked to the village. After two days on 10th October 2005, the Tandon??s got a phone call from a PCO in Garhi Dupata informing that while Basti Lal Tandon had died, the two members of the family from Jammu were seriously injured with no medical facilities, food and water. They were lying on the roadside waiting for help. Both father and son had walked from Hatiya Dupata, crossed a small river and somehow reached Garhi Dupata. The family in Bakshi Nagar appealed to the Indian authorities and the State Government to air lift their family members and bring them back to India as soon as possible. But it was not so easy. Frantic phone calls and appeals perhaps are not enough to melt the hearts of nation states. While the media did their job and left, I, along with Pradeep Dutta a journalist and a member of Yakjah Reconciliation and Development Network, called up Syed Shahnawaz, a Yakjah member in Srinagar, to urgently contact the Chief Minister. The Chief Secretary has been informed and he is following it up with the Central Government. Meanwhile, Pradeep also contacted Surinder Singh Oberoi of the International Committee of Red Cross in New Delhi. Oberoi is making a personal intervention and making all efforts to work out a solution. The pain and sorrow of the divided family, who, inspite of the bus service, continue to be ???divided?? should urge the two countries to rise above politics and redeem the anguish of those who are suffering. We, the people of Pakistan and India, have to show to our countries that we are united and stand together in this grave tragedy. We request our Pakistani friends to appeal their Government to take up the case of Tandon family on an urgent basis. The PCO number at GARHI DUPATA IS ?? 05885042474. ----------------------------------- [3] * PERSONAL DISCRETION ADVICED. OUR EGROUP HAS NOT VERFIED THE CREDENTIALS OF THE ORGANIZATIONS MENTIONED. WE HAVE NO LINKS TO ANY CHARITY ORGANIZATIONS. WE DO NOT SOLICIT ANY FUND. the. Moderator India Thinkers Net From: yogi sikand <ysikand@yahoo.com Date: Tue Oct 11, 2005 Subject: Earthquake Relief in Indian Kashmir: Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society www. Jkccs. Org ATHROT Relief Action Programme for the Earthquake Victims We need your donations in cash and kind to support the relief programme for: - 1. Relief and Rehabilitation of Uri victims 2. Emergency relief programme for Tangdar victims 3. Blood Donation for Azad Kashmir victims ??? Donations in Cash may be deposited at Jammu and Kashmir Bank, Polo view Branch, on account of JKYF account number SB 1169 ??? Clothes, blankets, tents, food items and other donations in kind may be handed over to our volunteers at ATHROT collection counter at Lal Chowk, Srinagar ??? Donations will also be directly accepted at our camps at Salamabad, Uri and Tangdar ??? BLOOD DONATION CAMP for Azad Kashmir victims will be held on Sunday 16th of October 2005. ATHROT is a collective initiative supported by Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, Jammu and Kashmir Yateem Foundation, Help Poor Voluntary Trust, Friends of Humanity, Student??s Helpline, Kashmiri Women??s Initiative for Peace and Disarmament, Apna Ghar, Youth for Humanity, Bar Association Budgam and students from Kashmir University and different Colleges and members from Business community. In this hour of despair and tragedy we appeal to people of Jammu & Kashmir on both sides of control line to rise up to the occasion to help their calamity-struck brethren by all means necessary. ATHROT programme solicits support and cooperation from all concerned organisations and individuals to put up a united, organised, concerted and sustained resistance to the present calamity. Please feel free to contact us for further details on the following numbers: 91-194- 2482820 9419013553 2310145 9419046026 9419009950 Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society C/O Mr. Parvez Imroz The Bund, Amira Kadal, Srinagar Jammu and Kashmir, 190001 India -------------------------- [4] From: Sukla Sen <suklasen@yahoo.com Date: Tue Oct 11, 2005 Subject: Achin Vanaik Comments on India's Vote in the IAEA on Sept. 24 The Telegraph October 11, 2005 ACTIVE CONSENT - India's decision to vote against Iran is in response to the US by Achin Vanaik (The author is professor of international relations and global politics, Delhi University) Whether one is for or against the Indian decision to vote against Iran at the recent International Atomic Energy Agency meet, let us not pretend that this is anything else but a response to a situation created by the United States of America. Left to itself, India would never have sought to precipitate such a showdown and would have preferred to maintain wider options by not having to choose between upsetting the US or Iran. To understand the whole story properly, one has to start not from evaluating what is in India's 'national interest' but from assessing what the most powerful player - the US - has been up to and why. And how does the NPT-IAEA come into the picture? The non-proliferation treaty was a bargain in which non-nuclear member states signed up, agreeing to renounce acquisition of nuclear weapons in return for two carrots. The first was Article VI, whereby the three nuclear weapons states, the United Kingdom, Russia, the US (later joined by China and France), promised to take steps to ultimately disarm themselves. This carrot has long been thrown out the window. The second carrot was Article IV, wherein the non-nuclear signatories would be helped to build up their own civilian nuclear energy establishments, albeit under IAEA monitored safeguards. Here, there has always been a basic contradiction inherent in the inescapably dual-use nature of civilian nuclear energy development. The NPT denies countries nuclear weapons, yet the same treaty helps them develop some of the wherewithal to become nuclear if they choose to at some future time. For decades this contradiction was never attacked by the nuclear weapons states or by India, which confined its criticism to the 'discriminatory' aspect of the NPT. The only sustained criticism of this contradiction in the NPT came from the ranks of those who not only opposed nuclear weapons but also nuclear energy development. In more recent times, the Western nuclear weapons states did become uneasy about how the NPT might be helping certain signatory countries like North Korea and Libya to develop their potential on the nuclear weapons front. But it is only after September 11, 2001 that the US dramatically changed its approach to the NPT. In the NPT 2000 review conference, the US, along with other nuclear weapons states, went along with the 'thirteen points' that were supposed to encourage the prospects of global disarmament. It agreed to give some face-savers to Article VI in order to reassure critics and enable that conference to be considered a 'success'. In the 2005 NPT review conference, the US insisted that the issue must shift from disarmament to non-proliferation and therefore from Article VI to Article IV, dealing with the provision of dual-use help for civilian energy purposes. This is the inauguration by the US of a new and much more determined process than ever before of suborning and manipulating the NPT and the IAEA to prevent (selectively of course) even the potential development of a nuclear weapons programme by its perceived enemies. In short, it is not the detection of 'cheating' or 'duplicity' by Iran that is the dramatic and most important new development, but the duplicitous new course that the US has taken. So what are the principal aims of the US orchestration of this IAEA governing body resolution and vote? One, to hamper, if not prevent, select enemies, most importantly Iran, from developing even the potential - inherent though it is in any civilian nuclear energy programme - to have a nuclear weapons system in the future. Two, to promote and spread the falsehood that Iran is "non-compliant" and "cheating". Many Indian observers in the media have swallowed this canard. Iran has clearly wanted to keep the nuclear weapons option open, even though it is far from actually having nuclear weapons or even from deciding that it must have them in the future. It has had a programme of building dual-use uranium enrichment facilities on this unstated policy basis for many years. But this was in no way cheating or non-compliance since Iran has never violated any of the clearly stipulated conditions of the IAEA with regard to such construction and equipping activity, which only eventually comes under formal IAEA inspection. Indeed, by voluntarily signing the additional protocol allowing much freer and frequent IAEA inspections, Iran has signalled that is in fact moving in the direction of narrowing the option to make nuclear weapons in the future. That the E-3, the US and the IAEA have nonetheless moved towards a resolution tabling "non-compliance" and laying the ground for referral of the case to the United Nations security council is an expression not of Iranian duplicity but of E-3 and US dishonesty and IAEA suborning. Three, that Russia, China and 10 others decided to abstain and not vote against this disgraceful resolution, which was obviously better than voting for it, is nevertheless a concession given to the US that also advances its overall project, and which the latter can now try and further build upon. The US can now more confidently hope that it can, through further abstentions at the IAEA November meet, get a majority to refer the case on Iran to the security council, and indeed avoid a veto from either Russia or China if the security council goes in for a sanctions resolution. Four, to pave the way internationally for legitimizing a future US or Israeli military attack on Iran in the name of preventing a 'cheating' and 'irresponsible' Iran for going in for weapons of mass destruction. It must be understood that west Asia is the geopolitical pivot of the US project to successfully establish an informal global empire. And here the greatest strategic defeat that the US has ever suffered since 1945 was not the emergence of Iraq under Saddam Hussein but the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979, a defeat that must be reversed. Five, no empire can be achieved or stabilized on the basis of force alone. It must achieve legitimacy as widely as possible - among client regimes and allies and their populations, among neutrals, amongst the populations of actual or potential rivals, amongst the populations whose governments are targeted. This requires covering up one's imperial project through ideological disguises. For west Asia, there are four important ideological banners behind which the US hides - the war on global terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, humanitarian intervention, regime change to promote democracy. These banners either singly or in combination need to be repeatedly unfurled and endorsed by an 'expanding audience'. In short, the building of Empire needs consent and this can be active, passive or bought. The best is active consent - the absorption of the belief that what is good for the US government is good for the world. Passive consent- the belief that one cannot really take on the US though one dislikes or hates what it is doing - will do, since resistance is abandoned. Bought consent is what governments and their circle of supporting strategists call 'intelligent diplomacy', namely acceptance of US dollops in return for endorsement of US foreign policies which are then sold to the receiving country's population as the exercise of 'national interest'. The US is delighted that in India, consent to its imperial project is not merely being easily purchased, but a pro-US elite in India is also in a myriad ways declaring that its acceptance is an active one. No matter whether we have a Congress-led or BJP-led coalition government at the Centre, the US is now assured(despite some dissidence) that the alliance of the two country's elites will be stable and enduring. -------------------- [5] From: yogi sikand <ysikand@yahoo.com> Date: Wed Oct 12, 2005 Subject: Review: Girls' Madrasas in Hyderabad, India Review Asma Arif Ali, "Hyderabad Ke Dini Madaris Mai Sunni Ladkiyon Ki Talim-o-Tarbiyat" (???The Education and Training of Sunni Muslim Girls in Hyderabad??s Religious Schools??), unpublished manuscript, Henry Martyn Institute, Hyderabad, 2002. Reviewed by: Yoginder Sikand This study documents the history of girls?? madrasas in Hyderabad city. It begins with a brief overview of girls?? religious education in Hyderabad city under the Nizams, showing how the Muslim nobility patronized religious schools located in mosques, Sufi lodges and madrasas. It points out that the institution of girls?? religious schools in Hyderabad is a novel one, the first such school, the Madrasa Aisha ul-Niswan, having been established as recently as 1986. In the pre-1947 period, religious education for girls, generally from economically better-off families, was provided in Sufi lodges and the homes of the nobles, generally by female teachers or ustanis. This sort of education was informal and was largely restricted to basic religious instruction, and did not aim, as is the case today, to train ???alimas and fazilas, women with an expertise in religious disciplines. Although from the early twentieth century onwards the Nizam and members of Hyderabad??s nobility began establishing some girls?? schools wherein secular as well as religious subjects were taught, they were not, strictly speaking, religious madrasas. Rather, they focused particularly on secular subjects, although Islam was taught as a subject as well. In Hyderabad today, Ali writes, there are almost 50 girls?? madrasas, some of them being residential. Most of them have been established in the last 20-25 years and are, broadly, of three types. Firstly, those that conform to the traditional dars-i nizami curriculum without any changes. Secondly, those that follow the dars-i nizami but with minor modifications. Thirdly, madrasas that have developed a new curriculum, incorporating English, computers and arts and crafts, in addition to standard religious subjects. A common feature of all these madrasas is the stress on moral training, character building and appropriate Islamic etiquette. Strict pardah is enjoined for all students. Students are also encouraged to participate in some extra-curricular activities, including debates, writing for their madrasa??s magazines, reciting the Qur??an and poems in praise of the Prophet and delivering lectures on religious and social issues. In contrast to other schools, these madrasas, Ali says, do not ???encourage aggressive competition among the students??. Rather, she contends, they train them to ???cooperate with and help each other??. As Ali sees it, they madrasas serve a crucial role in protecting and strengthening Muslim identity from the threats of Westernisation, materialism and consumerism. Ali writes that today in Hyderabad there is a rapidly growing demand for such girls?? madrasas, especially those that also teach some ???modern?? subjects. Some of these madrasas have adjusted their syllabus in such a way as to enable their students to join regular schools after the tenth grade. Several girls who have graduated from these madrasas have gone on to take admission in regular schools and perform well. Because religious instruction is their primary focus, many Muslims see them as providing an appropriate sort of education for their girls. Yet, Ali says, there is considerable room for improvement. The level of English in madrasas that teach the subject is quite low. None of the madrasas that Ali surveyed teaches Hindi or the state language, Telugu. Ali suggests that the teaching of English be improved, that basic Hindi and Telugu be introduced in the curriculum and that madrasas explore the possibility of working together with open universities to enable their students and teachers to take various other courses as well. |
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