Voice of India Features Newsletter - 28 March 2010

apr 4th, 2010

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From: VOI Features <voi.features@vhs-net.com>
Date: Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 6:43 PM
Subject: Voice of India Features Newsletter - 28 March 2010
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'Secularists' see Poverty on Communal Lines Amba Charan Vashishth The interim order given by the Supreme Court of India to 4 percent reservation in jobs to 'backward classes of Muslims' given by the Andhra Pradesh government has unleashed a wave of jubilation among the self-claimed 'secularists' and a minority section of the people although the matter has finally to be heard by a larger bench for final verdict on its constitutional validity. The Supreme Court is the final arbiter in interpretation of the word and spirit of the Constitution. Whatever will be its ultimate verdict should be respected by one and all.  Read more... Nostradamus Debunked Dr. Koenraad Elst Are Nostradamus' predictions true? Why, they aren't predictions in the first place, and neither were they written by him. Here my discussion of Prof. Cambier's book debunking Nostradamus, originally posted to a Hindu web forum in 2005. Many Hindus with their soft corner for astrology and other forms of  divination believe that there is something to the "predictions" of  Nostradamus (1503-66, hereafter ND), witness e.g. the book "Hindu Destiny in Nostradamus" by G.S. Hiranyappa, ideologically close to the Hindu Mahasabha. Stuff like: "Nostradamus predicts Hindu Rashtra." Mind you, Hindus are no worse than Westerners in this regard. ND is the core of occultist fantasies piled on one another.   Read more... A Prophet in Hell Lt. Col. (Retd.) Mahendra Mathur Mohammed's becoming prophet and some of his early actions have been succinctly narrated by historian Will Durant in his treatise AGE OF FAITH. What follows are the extracts from that narration. The explosion of the Arabian peninsula into the conquest and conversion of half the Mediterranean world is the most extraordinary phenomenon in medieval history. One night in the year 610, as he was alone in the cave, the pivotal experience of all Mohammedan history came to him. According to a tradition reported by his chief biographer, Muhammad ibn Ishaq, Mohammed related the event as follows: 'Whilst I was asleep, with a coverlet of silk brocade whereon was some writing, the angel Gabriel appeared to me and said, "Read!" I said, "I do not read." He pressed me with the coverlets so tightly that I thought 'twas death. Then he let me go, and said, "Read!"... So I read aloud, and he departed from me at last. And I awoke from my sleep, and it was as though these words were written on my heart. I went forth until, when I was midway on the mountain, I heard a voice from heaven saying, "0 Mohammed! Thou art the messenger of Allah, and I am Gabriel." Read more... His Canon Spiked Ajay Bose Kancha Ilaiah's Post-Hindu India should be essential reading for all who get panicky about Mayawati's brand of Dalit politics. Unlike the bsp supremo's bid to empower marginalised groups through the levers of electoral democracy by wooing a wider 'sarvajan samaj', Ilaiah wants to launch an all-out civil war between Dalit Bahujans and Hindu society. This is an angry, provocative book written by a leading Dalit thinker, who is convinced that Hinduism is the root of all evil in the country. Indeed, virtually every sentence here drips with venom against Hindu society, underlining why we need Mayawati's social engineering skills to succeed. Despite the outrageous nature of Ilaiah's onslaught on Hinduism, it would be unfair and inaccurate to describe him as just a poseur. He is no armchair scholar but a self-made 'organic' intellectual who grew up in an impoverished shepherd Kuruma Golla (not Dalit, but poor backward caste) family in the forests of Andhra Pradesh. His mother, who cast a seminal influence on his thinking, was a fierce fighter for his community and was actually killed while battling forest guards. Read more... The Intellectual Dishonesty of Pseudo Secularists Dev Nadkarni India's pseudo secular brigade is at it again. Artist M. F. Husain's decision to accept citizenship from the Middle Eastern state of Qatar and live there has them raving and ranting against the Hindu majority, blaming it squarely for forcing him out of the country. It beggars belief that these left leaning so called liberals can't see the fact that it is the tradition of tolerance that is deeply embedded in Indian culture that gives them the very voice they use to criticise everything innately Indian, such as Hindu culture and social mores, with such impunity that borders on intellectual dishonesty and complete disrespect for the very milieu that has shaped them.Husain is undoubtedly a well-recognised artist whose works command hundreds of thousands of dollars on the international art circuit. As much as his mastery over his craft and technique, he has built his success by regularly resorting to antics to stay in the news to raise his profile Read more...