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[1] From: yogi sikand <ysikand@yahoo.com> Date: Mon Mar 20, 2006 Subject: Advocating Rights of Muslims in India: Problems and Challenges Advocating Rights of Muslims in India Problems and Challenges Yoginder Sikand http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Mahajanapada/messages ------------------ [2] From: "banga_sss2003" <banga_sss2003@yahoo.co.in> Date: Mon Mar 20, 2006 Subject: paris: same sight, different cry Friends, the incidents in France are eyeopening as the post modern globalisation has deleted every scope for democracy and freedom. Palash Biswas Paris: Same sight, different cry A student lobs stones at police in Paris on Sunday. (AFP) Paris, March 19 (Reuters): The sight of thousands of students marching in Paris recalls the May 1968 revolt, but the image is deceptive. Their worried calls for jobs have nothing in common with the exuberant cries of four decades ago -------------------- [3] From: rkurian@bgl.vsnl.net.in Date: Mon Mar 20, 2006 Subject: Can a bush solve rural energy needs?.. (Pun not intended!) BBC NEWS Can a bush solve rural energy needs? By Mark Gregory BBC World Service international business reporter, Jhansi An ancient tractor dumps a trailer load of plant material next to a battered looking shed. Surprising as it may seem, this unremarkable event may hold the key to ending chronic power shortages in rural India. Inside the shed is a noisy, little, green generator that runs on gas produced from rotting biomass. That is where the pile of plant matter dumped by the tractor comes in. The generator produces 100 kilowatts of electricity, enough to service the modest needs of four or five typical Indian villages. However in this particular case it drives a mini-industrial complex that currently provides 130 jobs in an area where employment is hard to find. The location is a rural site about 15km from the city of Jhansi in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The initiative is called Desi Power (local power). It aims to provide a model for generating low-cost electricity from renewable resources that can easily be copied elsewhere in the vast swathes of rural India that have no connection to the mains grid. "This really is a viable solution for remote India", says Dr Arun Kumar, director of the Development Alternatives NGO, which runs the Jhansi project. He goes on to explain that the generator runs on methane created from a widely available local plant that previously had no economic value. 'Political will' The plant is the ipunia bush, which grows in marshy land not suitable for agriculture. But there is nothing special about ipunia. The generator would work just as well on gas from many other plants. "There is a huge amount of unused land in remote parts of India, which means biomass is either available or could easily be made available", says Dr Kumar. He reckons it would take a network of 100,000 or so Jhansi-style biomass generators to really make a dent in India's rural electricity shortages. "The technology is proven, the main issue is now political will," he insists. The scale of the problem is not in doubt; a third of India's half million or so villages have no connection to the mains grid. In those that do, the power supply is often erratic and unreliable. Dr Kumar believes his project holds part of the solution to two distinct problems. The first is "access" to electricity. It provides a way for people in neglected localities to take matters into their own hands. "No conceivable extension of the mains grid would be comprehensive enough to bring power to all the far flung parts of India that don't already have it," he says. But by setting up biomass generators, he believes, people in rural areas could in a sense create their own power from plant material or even waste that is easily to hand. The second issue is "exclusion". Without electricity, large parts of India have no chance of participating in the economic boom that is bringing prosperity to many people living in cities. Generating employment Dr Kumar reckons biomass generators have a practical role to play in tackling the growing inequalities between the urban elites, who have made India a global force in areas like computer software, and India's rural poor. Many of them do not even have the power needed to turn on a light let alone run a laptop or a factory providing jobs. But the Jhansi project is not just about electricity. It also has wider development aims. "There was nothing here, not even a blade of grass, when we set up the project 10 years ago", explains Dr Kumar. The presence of the generator has been a catalyst for all sorts of income generating opportunities in a poor area. For a start local people make money by collecting ipunia - the biomass used to create electricity - and selling it to the Desi Power project. What for centuries had been regarded locally as a useless weed is now an important source of employment. In addition to that, power from the generator is used to drive industrial processes. The main one is paper-making. A ramshackle complex of buildings near the generator houses vats and presses used to convert recycled cotton rags into high quality paper for diaries, greeting cards, art projects and other uses that command a premium price. An onsite shop sells some of these products to tourists. Dr Kumar claims that over 10 years the project has created something like 10,000 employment opportunities. Many of the jobs have gone to tribal people, who are widely seen as the poorest, most vulnerable section of the community in what is generally a deprived area. 'Ultra mega' power projects Dr Kumar, of course, sees the Jhansi project as providing a widely applicable model for bringing both electricity and economic opportunity to rural areas. But are India's energy planners listening? Could the concept of Desi Power make a significant impact in this vast nation? The answer to these questions seems to be... well, maybe... up to a point. You would not find many in India saying that decentralised provision of power using simple technology is actually a bad thing. This after all is probably the only country in the world that has an entire government ministry devoted to promoting "non-conventional" energy sources. But the dominant strand in India's energy thinking is in the opposite direction - that biggest is best rather than small is beautiful. To cater for an expected sevenfold increase in power consumption over the next 25 years or so, India's policy makers are planning a series of what are described as "ultra mega" power projects. These are huge new power stations located next to mines and energy ports. The electricity they generate will be taken to where it is needed by a network of as yet largely un-built massive transmission cables. The nuclear co-operation deal with the United States agreed in President Bush's recent visit to India is another sign of this approach to energy policy. The focus on building power plants as big as possible and as quickly as possible is hardly surprising. Demand for electricity is expected to rise faster in India than anywhere else in the world, apart from China in coming decades. Power cuts are already a regular feature of life in many Indian cities. Sceptics Dr Kumar of Desi Power does not believe building big power stations is wrong, but he does think it will not be enough. ------------- [4] From: yogi sikand <ysikand@yahoo.com> Date: Tue Mar 21, 2006 Subject: Asghar Ali Engineer: Muslims and Terrorism MUSLIMS AND TERRORISM Asghar Ali Engineer (Secular Perspective March 16-31-2006) The bomb explosion in the Sankatmochan temple and Varanasi railway station on 8th March once again has shaken the country. These criminals against humanity often invoke Islam for their dirty criminal deeds and assume Arabic sounding names and call themselves ???mujahids??™ to pass their misdeeds as an act of jihad. It can deceived no one and least of all Muslims. In fact these terrorists have their own political agenda and to promote this agenda they do not mind disgracing fair name of Islam. If we doubt anything it is their Islam. Either consciously or unconsciously they are promoting the agenda of enemies of Islam. The repeated acts of terrorism on their part have indeed done great damage to image of Islam. No religion promotes violence and any religion, which does, cannot qualify for being a religion. All religions lay great stress on non-violence and peace be it Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Janinism or Sikkhism. And for Islam peace is most central. Allah, whom Muslims worship as the only God, His one of the names is Peace and thus worshipping Allah means worshipping peace. Any Muslim who causes hurt or injury to any other human being without justification should be punished in equal measure. The Qur??™an clearly says in verse 5:32 ?????¦whosoever kills a person unless it be for manslaughter or for mischief in the land, it is as though he had killed entire humanity. And whoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved the entire humanity.??? Such is the sanctity of life in the eyes of Allah. Thus these so called ???mujahidin??™ are openly defying the injunctions of the Qur??™an and slaughtering innocent people in places of worship. Even under the rules of jihad (although the Qur??™an does not use the word jihad for war even once) the holy Prophet required Muslims not to kill any non-combatant or women or children or destroy any property or standing crops in the field. These so called jihadis defy every rule of the shari??™ah. How can then they be described as ???holy warriors??™? They are nothing more than murderers. If they are killing for revenge then that is also not considered a praiseworthy act in Islam. Allah is repeatedly described by the Qur??™an as Ghafoor al-Rahim i.e. the Pardoner and Compassionate. Then how can those who worship a pardoning and compassionate God will kill innocent people as they often do in the name of jihad? All this clearly shows that what these various terrorist organisations do in the name of jihad is far from any religious act. No one can accept indiscriminate acts of violence as integral part of religion. All such acts should be strongly condemned. It is a matter of pride that generally Indian Muslims are not involved in such acts of terrorism nor are they part of Al-Qaeda. However, there may be some exceptions. All such terror organisations breed under authoritarian regime. Indian Islam is no purist nor is obsessed with restoration of early days. It is product of a multi-religious ethos which were nurtured by Sufis whose universal doctrine has been sulh-i-kul i.e. total peace and peace with all. Indian Islam has richly contributed to the composite culture. Apart from Sufis even the traditional ???ulama in India accepted secular democracy and composite culture and did not support separatism. Jami??™at al??™Ulama played glorious role in Indian independence and supported the Congress nationalism without any reservation. Thus Indian Islam never supported extremism of any kind in the name of Islam. It is unfortunate that many people in India do not understand this and after every such incident demand proof of Muslim loyalty and want ???moderate??™ Muslims to condemn it as Muslims. This is not in keeping with secular ethos. Why Indian Muslims should be required to condemn such acts of terror as Muslims and not as Indians. Such an attitude keeps us divided. The underlying assumption is that Muslims are not part of national mainstream. It really irritates when such demand comes even from otherwise secular people. Also the word ???moderate??™ Muslim also conveys certain mindset. The underlying assumption is that all other Muslims are ???extremists??™ and support such acts of terrorism whereas fact is that overwhelming majority of Muslims are peace loving as demonstrated both in Delhi in October and in Benaras when bombs exploded in the Sankatmochan temple. The large number of Muslims and Hindus showed great solidarity and frustrated the designs of communalists to use the opportunity to provoke communal violence. The Mufti of Benaras issued a statement strongly condemning bomb explosion in the Sankatmochan temple and on request from me issued a fatwa against the bomb explosion. Also Muslim women took out a morcha against the explosion and demanded strong punishment against the culprits. Muslims also queued up for donating blood for the injured so much so that the blood bank officials had to plead with Muslims that we cannot take more blood as their capacity was no more. What better example of human solidarity? The Hindu masses also frustrated the political designs of communalists and did not express any support for the yatra announced by the BJP leader Shri Lalkrishna Advani. BJP also demanded in this hour of grave crisis dismissal of Mulayamsingh Yadav Ministry. This also did not go well with the masses and they reacted against such politicising of a grave human problem. Instead of sincerely helping the people affected by the tragedy they were busy playing their politics. Our politicians hardly ever measure up to standards of democracy. They want to exploit every event for their purposes. It is indeed politicising of every such events that creates conflict between Hindus and Muslims. Left to themselves they will never fight. If people were inclined to fight there would have been immediate outburst of communal violence in Benaras. Despite efforts by the communalists people refused to be provoked. People have also learnt from various communal conflicts that how communal politicians play with their religious sentiments and make them fight. The BJP all along played this game sometimes in the name of ???psuedo-secularism??™ and sometimes in the name of ???appeasement of minorities??™. Even Ram temple issue no longer appeals to Hindus. The communal elements are at the end of tether. The coming elections in U.P. after few months, on the other hand, are making them restless and in view of their lowest ever popularity are at their wits??™ end as how to entice the Hindu masses. Even their allies like JD(U) and Trinamul Congress are no more enthusiastic about various BJP??™s plans. Nitish Kumar, Chief Minister of Bihar has not approved of Advani??™s Yatra after the Benaras bomb blasts and he categorically said that he will not support it as and when it passes through Bihar. Nitish Kumar is busy wooing Muslims in Bihar. He has even reopened communal riots cases of Bhagalpur. Even Laluprasad Yadav did not reopen these cases as he did not want to displease his Yadav voters who were mainly involved in Bhagalpur riots. Nitish Kumar, in order to woo Muslims away from Laluprasad is reopening these cases after sixteen years. Thus though still allied to BJP he is clearly cold-shouldering it. TDP has already broke away from NDA after facing defeat in general elections in 2004. TDP lost elections in Andhra Pradesh for aligning with the BJP. Thus it is period of isolation for the BJP. Its communal politics paid dividends for sometime but it is finding it difficult to exploit communal issues. If the BJP does not give up its communal politics, it will find it increasingly difficult to win elections. At one time it exploited backward caste votes in the name of Ram and now backward castes are being wooed by number of other secular parties. Even Mayawati is seeking backward caste and Rajput and even Brahmin votes. The Muslim leaders also have learnt after demolition of Babri Masjid that politics of confrontation would no longer pay and are keeping low profile. It is very much in the interests of Muslim masses. Muslim masses also can no longer be swayed by communal appeals. It is interesting to note that Yaqub Qureshi, the minister from U.P. was isolated when he announced that he would pay Rs. 51 crores to one who kills the Danish cartoonist. The Muslims showed total indifference to him, which he eminently deserved. It was at best a political gimmick. He too had an eye on coming elections in U.P. He wanted to emerge as champion of Muslims and acquire a national stature. He should have been dismissed from the cabinet, as he not only brought disgrace to Islam but also to our country in the eyes of other nations. We are a secular democratic nation and our father of nation is Mahatma Gandhi who was apostle of non-violence and peace. How can a minister from this country announce monetary reward for killing a foreign national, whatever his crime? One should protest against it with dignity and demand from Danish Government to take action as per their law. What he announced was also totally against the principles of Islam, as pointed out above. It is unfortunate that Mulayam Singh kept quiet about such a grave pronouncement by his cabinet minister. He should have at least warned him. But Mulayamsingh is no angle and not above electoral politics. Benaras undoubtedly has acquired a status of a political model for whole country that people could maintain calm in view of gravest threat to peace. Let us hope the country will follow it. ------------------------------------------------- Centre for Study of Society and Secularism Mumbai. Website: www.csss-isla.com |
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