Rickshaw Run 2009: The Shaw Must Go On
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aziz
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thabet
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arif
MF Husain surrenders his Indian passport.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Husain-surrenders-passport/588546
I would read this highly intellectual interview (dated). Lots of critical points to ponder.
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main37.asp?filename=Ne020208in_hindu_culture.asp
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thabet
Pakistan-India meeting a ‘total sell out’.
(Hockey, rather than this.)
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aziz
The bombing in Pune, India yesterday was horrific. The role of David Headley is clear as mud.
It reminds me in many ways of the Sbarro bombing in Jerusalem.
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johnpi
‘My Name is Khan’: India police detain 1,100 over film protest.
Hindu nationalist mobs rampaged through India’s cultural center Wednesday, tearing up movie posters and stoning a theater in protest of Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan’s comments in support of Pakistani cricketers.
….The Shiv Sena, a Mumbai-centered political party known for regional chauvinism and Hindu fundamentalism, has branded Khan a traitor for expressing regret that no cricketers from Pakistan – India’s archrival – were chosen to participate in next month’s Indian Premier League Twenty20 tournament.
Khan, who is Muslim, has refused to apologize for the comments.
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johnpi
Australian politicians have been sharpening the points on top of their heads.
Australia says attacks on Indians harm Indian ties.
The government is committed to preventing attacks against Indian students studying in Australia, which are harming relations with India and damaging the nation’s reputation, a minister said Tuesday while conceding that some assaults appeared racially motivated.
No kidding? Whoda thunk it…
At least they’re finally doing something about it:
Smith said police in four states had recently made arrests for violent crimes against Indians, including 45 arrested in Victoria.
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johnpi
Militant supporters urge Pakistan government not to create hurdles for Kashmir jihad.
“As long as Jammu and Kashmir is under Indian subjugation, jihad must continue… Pakistan should continue political, diplomatic and moral support for the Kashmiris seeking freedom.
If Pakistani rulers cannot help Kashmiris, they should let the field open for the Kashmiri militants, instead of creating any obstacles in their way,” said a declaration adopted at the “Solidarity with Kashmir” conference.
Problem here is that the Kashmir liberation movement is only tangentially about Kashmir anymore since it’s been assimilated into the global-caliphate-seeking borg. For example, Lashkar-e-Taiba’s “director of transnational operations” running terrorist operations in Australia, Denmark and elsewhere to address concerns that have zero relation to Kashmir.
And a separate but related point: the Indians have no reason to come to the negotiating table and sue for peace since elements of the militant movement have made it abundantly clear that they won’t rest until all 150 million Muslims in India are ‘liberated,’ and other extremists go still further and speak of the glory days when large parts of the subcontinent and its vast non-Muslim populations were under Muslim rule…in short, the Kashmir separatists can’t deliver a peace dividend, so why should India bother with them?
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johnpi
Indian police target Valentine ‘obscenity.’
Limit displays of affection as you celebrate Valentine’s Day or face prosecution, authorities in western India are warning the public.
Police have banned what they call shows of obscenity, noisy celebrations, and the use of liquor and colored powders from Wednesday till February 15 in the city of Pune, in Maharashtra state.
….Maharashtra has been the scene of violent protests on past Valentine’s Days, by Hindu nationalist activists who say the event corrupts Indian culture. Maharashtra is home to the country’s financial hub, Mumbai.
The police ban, which applies to public and private locations, also restricts gatherings of people.
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johnpi
Books: I’ve just started ‘Husband of a Fanatic” written by Vassar academic Amitava Kumar, who married a Pakistani Muslim woman in 1999. So far as I’ve read, it’s a nonfiction account of his attempt to explore Hindu fanaticism, but in later chapters he goes to visit his wife’s relations in Pakistan so there might be some exploration of the other side.
Kumar, who grew up in India, wrote some articles about his marriage and later found his name and address had been posted on an Internet hit list of Hindu ‘traitors.’ (a topic that resonates since we’ve been discussing Internet death threats so much recently (here, here and here).
The book starts with him sitting down to interview the man who likely put him on that list, a retired office worker living in Jackson Heights.
Like Mr. Barotia, I was born in the provinces and grew up in small towns. For me, the move to the city meant that I learned English and embraced secular, universal rationality and liberalism. Mr. Barotia remained truer to his roots and retained his religion as well as a narrower form of nationalism that went with it. His revenge on the city was that he also became a fanatic. I do not envy him his changes, but I can’t think of those changes without a small degree of tenderness.
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johnpi
A compendium of Pakistani conspiracy theories and their rebuttals.
For example:
The picture above has been bandied about by Ahmed Qureshi and the rest of the clown posse as proof that the Indian government is secretly supplying weapons to the Pakistani Taliban in order to destabilize the Pakistani government. The conspiracy theorists have misidentified it as a manufactured-only-in-India weapon. It is actually from Russia:
PK Machine gun is one of the most common weapons in Afghanistan which is not only used by the Afghan Taliban but used also by the Afghan police and their national army. These guns are available in large supply in Afghanistan mainly because the Russian army left behind large caches of Russian made weapons in after the war in 1980s. Another reason is the drug trade between the Russian gangs and Taliban where the gangs buy cheaper drugs from Afghanistan and pay for it with guns instead of money.
(via)
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johnpi
Lashkar-e-Taiba has an airforce.
First came the warning from the Home Ministry that terrorists may try to hijack an Air India plane. Hours later followed another alert.
That intelligence inputs suggest that the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) has purchased para-gliders and its members are training for suicide attacks. Fifty para-gliders have reportedly been bought from Europe.
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johnpi
Muslim convert (from atheism) AR Rahman is up for another Oscar.
Indian composer AR Rahman has been shortlisted for an Oscar nomination for his Tamil song NaNa from the Hollywood film, Couples Retreat.
….The composer is often called the Mozart of India.
Hear it here. He previously received two Oscars for his work on Slumdog Millionaire.
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johnpi
Another Indian has been attacked by a mob in Australia, this time in Sydney.
The latest victim is a 28-year-old man who was at Coogee beach in Sydney when he was reportedly attacked by a group of Australian-born boys and girls. Other people at the beach allegedly did not help him. The victim said he believed it was racial attack.
He called the police, who took 40 minutes to reach him.
In India, the Hindu extremist group Shiv Sena threatened Australia’s cricket team over the year-long surge of violence against Indians in Australia.
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johnpi
Another cartoon controversy. This time it’s the Australians who are offended at a cartoon that appeared in an Indian newspaper.
Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard has reacted angrily to a cartoon published in India that depicts a police officer in a Ku Klux Klan outfit.
The Delhi Mail Today newspaper published the cartoon in response to the murder of Indian student Nitin Garg in Melbourne last weekend.
The head of the Victoria police association put on a conspicuous display of his investigative acumen to develop a theory for the existence of the cartoon:
It’s based on nothing but obviously a slow news day in Delhi.
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johnpi
The partially burnt corpse of another murdered Indian national has been discovered on a rural Australian road, prompting the government of India to issue a travel advisory to its citizens about visiting Australia.
In the advisory, India’s government said: “The ministry of external affairs cautions Indian students who are planning to study in Australia that there have been several incidents of robbery and assault on Indians in Australia, particularly in Melbourne, which has seen an increase in violence on its streets in recent years, with the offenders suspected to be mainly young people in their teens and early 20s.”
Australia’s response: Hey, everybody’s doing it.
Australia’s acting foreign minister, Simon Crean, said he hoped “wiser heads” would prevail, insisting Australia, and in particular Melbourne, was a safe place for foreign students as the city had one of the lowest homicide rates in the world.
“[Melbourne] is not the only place that deaths happen,” he said. “They happen in India. They happen in Mumbai. They happen in Delhi.”
Here’s another Youtube video of an assault in Australia, this one in September on a Sri Lankan man waiting for a train.
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johnpi
Relations between India and Australia have hit a new low after the murder of a young Indian man named Nitin Garg on his way to work in Melbourne last weekend. The murder caps a long series of violent attacks targeting Indians in Australia.
Police are reluctant to draw a racial link to the murder, even though Mr Garg was not robbed and his belongings were left scattered the park where he was murdered.
A representative of the Federation of Indian Students said there are ‘on average 5 attacks a day’ on Indians in Melbourne. The Indian Foreign Minister says it will “be forced to take action” if there are more attacks.
Attackers have been reported as being white, Asian, South Asian, Middle Eastern, aboriginal and Pacific islander. One assault was even captured on subway video. Police have speculated that Indian students often work late at night, live in low-income areas, and are perceived to be “easy” targets of violence.
Police have no witnesses and no suspects in the Garg murder.
There were so many attacks on Indians in 2009 that the topic has its own Wikipedia page.
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abunoor
Abdul Malik Mujahid, founder and president of Sound Vision), former Chairman of Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago, long known for his work with the interfaith and peace communities here in Chicago, creator of Radio Islam, and as johnpi mentioned earlier, about to be Chairman of Parliament of the World’s Religions, graduate of a Pakistani madrasah himself…has a cover article in the current Islamic Horizons magazine titled “Mad About Madrasahs” about the differences between the mythic madrasah in the minds of those who read western media and the reality of madrasahs.
Unfortunately I don’t believe it is available online.
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aziz
Has anyone read the novel by Ian MacDonald, Cyberabad Days
? Saw an ad for it in the airport at Mumbai and was thinking about giving it a shot.
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aziz
We didn’t discuss the China-India axis at Copenhagen around here. I found their argument of being the champions of the developing nations rather disingenuous.
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johnpi
Americans warned against travelling to India.
The United States published an alert on Tuesday for Americans travelling to India, saying Washington continues receiving reports that militant groups may be plotting attacks in that country.
….“The US government continues to receive information that terrorist groups may be planning attacks in India,” the statement said.
“Terrorists and their sympathizers have demonstrated their willingness and capability to attack targets where Americans or Westerners are known to congregate or visit,” it said, referring to hotels and other public places.
and
“There is also the possibility of violence in the south-central Indian state of Andhra Pradesh as civil unrest continues over the contentious issue of statehood for the Telangana region,” it said.
It recommended “US citizens defer all non-essential travel to Telangana and certain parts of Hyderabad.”
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aziz
In Gujarat state, democracy is now compulsory. This is uniquely hypocritical for Gujarat, but that aside, how does this square with the idea of liberty?
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johnpi
300-year-old gold-leaf Quran to be displayed at museum.
A 300-year-old ancestral ‘Sunheri Quran’ (Golden Quran), with its pages in the shape of golden leaves, the most prized possession of an Uttar Pradesh Muslim family, may soon become the centre of attraction at a museum.
….The main attraction of the Quran is its pages that are in the form of golden leaves. The holy scripture’s cover and back cover are also made of gold and the intricate designs embossed on them are one of the major attractions of the book.
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aziz
India, pithily described in a few paragraphs. NOT!
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johnpi
All India Muslim Board approves of Liberhan report, which was the official inquiry into the destruction of the Babri Mosque in 1992, and when communal riots led to the deaths by mob violence of many Muslims.
The Muslim Board, however, opposes the Prevention of Communal Violence Act. The proposed law “would only end up leaving Muslims at the receiving end, as it bestows unbridled powers on the local administration and the police who were generally biased towards Muslims,” said the board’s secretary general, Abdul Rahim Quraishi. He added:
What was quite surprising was that the draft bill has no provision for action against those who instigate violence, as also against those involved in conspiring violence and it tends to rope in only those who were found to be indulging in actually violence, thereby allowing the masterminds to have a free run.
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aziz
hey all – I am doing great in Mumbai, which explains the lack of blogging ) I have been taking some photos, though!
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johnpi
India pulls out 30,000 troops from Kashmir.
The army said it was in response to a fall in militant attacks in the Himalayan region bordering Pakistan.
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johnpi
Indians say Headley was a rogue US agent who flipped his allegiance to Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Despite being firmly on the radar of the US intelligence agencies, he was allowed to return to India as recently as March. Indian officials are furious that their American counterparts did not share details of that visit at the time. The Indian media has raised the possibility that Mr Headley was being protected by his American handlers — a theory that experts say is credible.
….Indian officials suspect that US agencies declined to share intelligence to avoid compromising other secret operations and to to be able to deny any link with Mr Headley.
Also in this article a list of other potential targets Headley was surveilling for LeT.
As well as helping to co-ordinate the Mumbai atrocity, Mr Headley is accused of planning attacks on Mumbai’s Bollywood film industry, the Shiv Sena, a Hindu extremist group also based in Mumbai, a major Hindu temple, and a Danish newspaper that had published cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
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aziz
I am flying to Mumbai this evening to attend Ashara sermons by Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin TUS. Will be back monday after next…
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johnpi
What if Tiger Woods had crashed in India – an excerpt:
Some of India’s top celebrities who love to appear on TV for any occasion – and many of whom have reportedly also had numerous affairs or have several wives – would come out in public to support Woods. They could include the likes of film stars Aamir Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Vinod Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan, Kabir Bedi, Shekhar Kapur, Boney Kapoor, Mahesh Bhatt, or cricketers such as Mohammed Azharuddin, Saurav Ganguly and Yuvraj Singh.
Woods’ wife would by now be extremely sorry for what has happened to her husband and hold herself responsible for all the problems to her family, because under Indian traditions the husband is a god and can do no wrong. She would undertake a grueling fast and visit temples all over the country to cleanse her sins.
Woods’ mistresses would disappear from the scene. For the unmarried ones who presumably had a good time (in bed and otherwise), there would be no question of exposure to the media, since they would need to keep the honor of their families intact. They would have been be taught by their mothers to keep intact the virginity tag, the ultimate gift on the ultimate night of their marriage and valued most by the Indian husband gods. The married mistresses would keep quiet for obvious reasons.
Back at the scene of the accident, the laborers and construction workers who survived the crash [because there would have invariably been people sleeping on the sidewalk who were struck] would wake up from their unconscious states to discover that one of their kidneys had disappeared. They would be told that they were lucky to survive and be sent packing by the hospital authorities and the police.
Woods would go back to playing the professional circuit, wife and mistresses in tow – if he happened to be an Indian, that is.
