 |  |  |  Tricolour at Lal Chowk a Must
 Meenakshi Rao
Sometimes, being wise may not be appropriate. One glaring example of that is J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah's decision to not hoist the Tricolour at Lal Chowk in Srinagar on R-Day, and the Central Government's silent agreement to this move. True, the young Chief Minister of this sensitive State was guided by fears of spoiling the peace and apparently said that such symbolic gestures like an R-day flag hoisting can be given a go-by in the larger interest of non-violence. Read more... Avatar Glistens with a Cosmic Connection  Aneeta Chakrabarty
Beyond the soaring majesty of distant constellations, the stunning breathtaking visuals, and the 3-D trailblazing special effects, there is something else in James Cameron's epic masterpiece, "Avatar." Something as grand and great as life that pulsates with the rhythms of the sacred earth, and talks to the ancients in their own tongue - "All is one and all is interconnected." Simply put, it is a marvelous tribute to Pantheism.Set in a sci-fi universe, it is the story of a white man going native as in Kevin Costner's "Dances with Wolves." Instead of the remote Western frontier, there is a distant moon Pandora, populated by nimble, blue colored, 10 feet tall, agile, cat like, bird riding, arrow shooting, eco-friendly aliens called the Na'vi. To the Na'vi's, the land is sacred, all life is sacred. They worship Eywa, "the Mother," an impersonal, mystic force that connects all nature. Into this land of noble and tranquil people arrives a former marine who is sent to mine and exploit precious minerals in exchange for his lost legs. To survive in Pandora and breathe its air, he is transformed into an "Avatar" with a Na'vi body and a human mind. However, he falls in love with a Na'vi beauty and Na'vi spirituality and successfully fights the marines who come to plunder the peaceful land Read more... Hating Hindus as a Fun Activity  Vishal Agarwal
The book under review combines cartoons with text - an attractive and light-hearted style for introducing Hinduism to beginners. Unfortunately, the author succeeds in perpetuating negative stereotypes about the third largest religion of the world, and presents a non-insightful and a biased view of the faith. In the past, Lal has written apologias for Palestinian suicide bombers and for the Taliban when they destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas. He has also apparently suggested that the United States brought 9/11 terror attacks upon itself. He has penned reams of intolerant rant against the USA, Israel, India in several radical left websites and publications. In the book's acknowledgments section, he dedicates the book to Professor I K Shukla, whom Lal himself describes as a 'committed Marxist'.This background about Lal is important for understanding the subtle and not-so-subtle biases against Hinduism that the present reviewer found in the book Read more... Medieval Prophet To Ancient Emperor
 Lt. Col. (Retd.) Mahendra Mathur
Jamia Islamia Rehmania, a sprawling five-acre complex on the eastern outskirts of Dera Ghazi Khan city of Pakistan comprises a five-storey madrassa, a beautiful mosque with a tall minaret, grand arches and opaque glass doors, playgrounds, residential buildings and a high boundary wall topped with razor-wire. Jamia is a favourite haunt for every VIP on a visit to the city including foreigners and it is the brainchild of Maulana Sattar Rehmani, a prominent local Deobandi activist. It provides Islamic learning to about 400 students, most of them living in hostels. Despite its modern architecture and approach, Jamia is still traditional in many respects. Its students are not allowed to shave beards, wear western clothes or sit on a table to have their meals. Their non-religious curriculum also makes only a small part of their study programme. 'Giving prominence to non-religious education can happen only at the cost of the religious education,' says Habibur Rehman, a teacher at Jamia. Read more... From The Pages of History Vinod Kumar
When we talk of the earth going around the sun as it has always done, its globular shape, the different seasons, different lengths of day and night, mind goes back to Galileo and Copernicus, scared to death, holding the truth back lest the fury of the church falls upon them for letting the world know the reality of nature. When one thinks of gravity one thinks of Newton sitting under an apple tree watching an apple fall to the ground and Newton proclaiming "Lo! there is gravity." If I were to say Hindu philosophers talked and wrote about gravity and the globular shape of the earth centuries before Newton and Galileo and Copernicus, and quoted Hindu sources, I would not only be dismissed as a "fanatical Hindu communalist" by our 'all-knowing-secular intellectuals' but also incur their wrath. And who wants that? In order to state the truth and make it acceptable to our 'all-knowing-secular intellectuals' let me seek the help of a Muslim scholar from Central Asia. Who around 1030 AD wrote a very comprehensive book "Indica" about India -- its literature, its philosophy, its religion, its culture, its languages, its history, its geography, its customs, its sciences including astronomy. I am talking about Abu-Raihan Muhammad Ibn Ahmad Alberuni -- a scholar and a devout genuine Muslim by all standards MORE | |  | |
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1 comment:
“Tricolour at Lal Chowk a Must” , says Meenakshi Rao, who decries ”Omar Abdullah's decision to not hoist the Tricolour at Lal Chowk in Srinagar on R-Day, and the Central Government's silent agreement to this move.”
Does the practice of hoisting the Flag still exist in our country? I thought unfurling it has supplanted it. This Republic Day, for example, I saw the “unfurling” of the Flag, which appeared to excrete what were presumably flower petals but could have been mistaken for something else. I know, of course, that the same spectacle is offered at all national functions, and usually I avoid watching them on TV, but this Jan 26th it was an accident for me. I also know that the presumably learned and cultured people who authored the Flag Code have included a provision allowing not only the “unfurling”, but also using the Flag for wrapping flower petals before “unfurling” it, instead of HOISTING it in the normal dignified, decorous fashion. In my opinion, we could do without such obnoxious gimmicks which do not exist anywhere else in the world.
In the circumstances, it was probably good fortune that the Flag was not hoisted or rather, “unfurled” at Lal Chowk.
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