Voice of India Features Newsletter - 05 September 2010

sep 10th, 2010

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: VOI Features <voi.features@vhs-net.com>
Date: Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 10:01 PM
Subject: Voice of India Features Newsletter - 05 September 2010
To:

Editorial: Naxal-Maoists Strike Again in Bihar The Editorial Team Though the eight day hostage drama has ended in Bihar no one can deny the increasing clout of Naxal-Maoist outfits in the country. Three of the four cops taken hostages by Naxal-Maoist militants have returned home safely but the family of one of the hostages Lucas Tete is still grieving his merciless killing by the militants. The Maoists had on August 29 abducted four policemen after an encounter in which seven policemen were killed in Lakhisarai's Kajra hills. As reinforcements surrounded the Maoists, the desperate rebels killed one captive, BMP havildar Lucas Tete, on Friday morning. Read more... Counter-threaten to Kill Whose Release is Demanded Amba Charan Vashisht It is a hard fact that our governments give bullets to law-abiding citizens and bouquets to hard core criminals. It is a travesty of the present day politics. If people exercise their democratic right of protest against any government decision, against any injustice or hold a demonstration to press for the acceptance of their demands, our civilized society frowns upon it as a nuisance and inconvenience to it. The government of the day does everything to thwart the peoples' march. It takes it as an affront to its authority. The demonstrators are treated with water canons. Teargas shells are burst on them. Lathis are showed on them and, at times, bullets are fired injuring and even killing some of the demonstrators. Many a times, ultimately, governments see reason, accept some demands, release the people detained and withdraw criminal cases filed against them for participating in the agitation Read more... Temples Desecrated, Markets Looted At Deganga From VOIF Correspondent Deganga is a small market town in the district of North 24-Parganas in West Bengal, situated on the highway between the district HQ of Barasat and the subdivisional town of Basirhat, some 50 kilometres from Kolkata. On 6th September evening after Iftar, Muslims assembled in the Deganga Mosque (Basirhat Subdivision, North 24 Parganas) and proceeded to a number of Hindu areas, looted and ransacked many Hindu shops and Hindu temples, severely beat up many Hindus, torched 4 public buses. The life of the whole stretch from Berachapa to Kadamgachi has been frozen. Shani Temple of Kartickpur and Kali Temple of Deganga Biplabi Colony desecrated and ransacked by the rioting Muslims. Arup Ghosh, Officer in Charge of Deganga police station is seriously injured by the rampaging Muslims. His head and hand have been fractured. Several other policemen also injured. Police had to fire to control the Muslim mob, but with no effect Read more... Split Morals of Muslims Lt. Col. (Retd.) Mahendra Mathur Someone once asked the Prophet of Islam what deed would lead a man to paradise, and he answered: "Piety and good conduct."  Sadly, both these deeds are almost absent from Muslims of today - especially Pakistanis. Surah Al Kafiroon makes it clear, "To you be your Way, and to me mine." "Let there be no compulsion in religion." (Surah Al Baqarah, verse 256). Yet, Muslims act completely contrary to this verse.  Courageous Nazim - who was in a crowd of thousands at Maldives - told Dr Zakir Naik: I am a Maldivian. I am still struggling to believe in religion. That is why I just came to the front of this row. I was born a Maldivian. My parents taught me the religion of Islam. They are good practitioners, actually. I read a lot of books. I have read the translation of Quran. Yet, I still do not believe in a religion. So what do you say, [about] my verdict in Islam? Read more... Vanishing Minorities Dr. Saradindu Mukherji Study of forced migration or refugees has been deliberately neglected by Indian social scientists primarily because of India's 'secular' politics and 'progressive' social science research! This negationism is also due to the diktat of their international patrons whose policy is to prop up Pakistan and Bangladesh as normal state systems. Muslim separatist tendencies were the basic factors behind Partition. Pakistan was created on the specific demands made by the Muslim League, and it was duly supported by its permanent collaborators - the Indian Communists. The existing accounts on Partition usually "balance" the guilt and sufferings of both the communities in equal measure, and then, blame everything on the British. On the subsequent persecution, discrimination, dispossession and ethno-religious cleansing of Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, etc, the literature is scanty. Herein lies the importance of the book, Empire's Last Casualty, by Sachi Ghosh Dastidar, a senior academic in the State University of New York and a refugee from East Pakistan Read more...