Quick notes: SEZs in higher edu, Barak-8...

• Interesting idea: Need for SEZs in higher edu



• Skills test: Tier 2 students beat Tier 1 peers in employability



• First-of-its-kind: Israel tests Barak-8 missile co-developed with India



• Child sexual abuse in Madarassa: Kerala woman journalist threatened, FB account blocked



• Dangerous refugees: German official says some migrants IS radicals



• Risk of terrorism: Why Wealthy Muslim Countries Have Taken ZERO Syrian Refugees



• Sorry state: Five research charts show how Bengaluru is gradually becoming an unliveable city 



• Pressure on Rupee: Foreign e-tailers to rake in Rs 54,700 cr from local shoppers



• Another refugee:



"Muhammad was once a REFUGEE taken in by the Jewish City of Medina. Within 5 yrs, he had driven out, executed, or enslaved every jew there!"

— Amy Mek (@AmyMek) November 14, 2015

Quick notes: High-speed rail, Shia slaughter...

• Made-in-China: First high-speed line in U.S built by Chinese -- from LA to Las Vegas.



• Suicide bomber kills 22 Shia marchers: A day after 10 people were killed at a mosque in Balochistan province by another suicide bomber..
  
  As Rajeev Malhotra says, there is no need for Hindus to take sides. The sub-continent's ungrateful Shias are always a threat to Hindus.
  
  Another issue: the Sunni shade of the Baloch movement presents a dilemma for India's support to the Baloch liberation movement.



• SP Jain School of Global Management: ranked among the world’s top 100 MBA institutions.



• BJP's foolishness:

In war you cut supply lines of enemy. Here BJP provides oxygen cylinders to enemy on retreat. #RavishankarPrasad

— iMac_too (@iMac_too) October 22, 2015




• Genuflecting before the Chinese:

  I like this image of Britain as a nautch girl desperately gyrating her skinny hips, hoping the great man will notice https://t.co/DRBmluwap9

  — राजीवः श्रीनिवासः (@RajeevSrinivasa) October 23, 2015

Quick notes: Arab "friends", Yazidi braveheart...

• Arabs won't help them, so Palestinians shelter among fleeing Kurds in Erbil camp



• We refused to convert to Islam: “It is our own neighbors who did this to us. Why? We never attacked them, never insulted them, never done nothing wrong to them. They betrayed us.”



• A Yazidi Woman's Ordeal: For two long days, they received no water. It was extremely hot and their captors had given them a single glass of tea. They passed around the glass -- two tiny sips for each woman. If you convert to Islam, the men said, you'll be given as much fresh water as you want. "We remained steadfast," says Nadia.



• Iraqi Yazidi girl tells of captivity: The Saudi militant took her to a house where he lived with other fighters. "He told me, 'You'll become Muslim, then I will marry you'. But I refused to become a Muslim and that's why I fled."



• Raghupati Raaghav at White House: Dr Paul Erhard on Double Bass and Robbie Erhard on Cello

Quick notes: Ungrateful Shias, Stolen idols...

• RoP ingratitude: For weeks, Kurdish fighters had joined an unusual alliance to free Amerli, a dusty highway town besieged by IS. Shiite militias, Iranian trainers and U.S. military pilots had all contributed, finally wresting the city from Sunni extremists and saving the 15,000 residents from starvation or brutal slayings.  But on Friday, as the Kurdish pesh merga fighters approached the city to greet the residents they helped save, they were treated less like liberators and more like intruders. “Pesh merga forces are not allowed to enter this city!” yelled a Shiite militiaman with Kataib Hezbollah, an Iraqi group. He waved his rifle at them and the pesh merga retreated.  “We fought for three months here, and now we have to fight these bastards,” said one of the pesh merga, who regard this area as part of their territory. “If this continues, we’ll have another war.”  “They are just like animals,” said a second pesh merga fighter. “They are mules.”



• Australia to return stolen Hindu idols to India... Dealer Subhash Kapoor is accused of looting statues and other antiquities worth millions.



• Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, the "father of modern yoga", demonstrating the practices of yoga in 1938 at the age of 50... Hanuman Chalisa by Bhagavan Das in the background.

Quick notes: Save the Yezidis, Caught on camera...

• Yazidis stranded on isolated mountaintop begin to die of thirst



• Please sign the petition: Stop the killings, pain, and suffering of Yezidis in Iraq.



• Extremely graphic video of Teesta's friends killing random motorists for pleasure.



• Air Force prefers Akaash weapon system. Not keen on Rs. 30,000 Cr Indo-French missile deal



• Modi reunites Nepalese youth with parents after 16-years 



• Indian TV crew shows rare video of rocket launch from Gaza:

• 1951:: Martand Temple, Kashmir:

1951:: Martand Temple, Kashmir (ph-Howard Sochurek) pic.twitter.com/uqDLnkLEof
— villagehistorypics (@villagehistory) July 27, 2014

Yezidis stare at genocide..

The 300,000 Yezidis of Kurdistan, one of the world’s oldest religious communities, are facing a humanitarian disaster as a result of the advance of the ISIS into their homeland.

The Yezidi community fears extermination at the hands of Islamic militants if their region falls to ISIS. Their ancient religion, which is related to Zoroastrianism, predates Christianity and Islam but many traditional and radical Muslims dismiss the Yezidis as devil-worshippers. In Mosul, Yezidi workers have been kidnapped and beheaded.... Barrack Hussein is unmoved

Rudaw.net: Yezidis: Living in the Shadow of the Islamic State 

A Babri a day

At least four shrines to Sunni Arab or Sufi figures have been destroyed by the bulldozers. The structures had been built around graves of Muslim saints. Six Shiite mosques have also been destroyed using explosives (and many more in recent days).

RT: ISIS jihadists demolish mosques, shrines in northern Iraq

India should step forward, bring reconciliation between warring Sunnis and Shias and rejoin the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, opines Kuldip Nayar, a Nobel Laureate for pSecularism.

Quick notes: 14 year-old cracks IIT-JEE, Fire Phone...

• 14-year-old boy cracks IIT entrance exam: The boy had learnt by heart the Gita and other Hindu scriptures at the age of seven. His discourses were well attended.



• Send Azam Khan to Iraq: Despite appeals from the U.S to bring more Sunnis into the military, the Iraqi govt has instead been weeding them out. 



• Joe Biden was right: Muslims cannot live together peacefully.



• Electric motorcycles: Clean, quiet, efficient, fun, low maintenance



• Amazon launches a shopping machine, calls it a smartphone: Research shows that when people pay with plastic they can spend 20 to 30 percent more than when they use cash. Casinos use chips to also remove the regulating "pain of paying". "Developments like Amazon’s image-recognition tool are “great for capitalism. But capitalism and health have never been related in a positive way.”



• Jaitely's argument: 'UPA lacked the courage to implement its own decision’. UPA factored in fare hike in interim Railway Budget, but did not say so in Parliament.

Quick notes: Gas wars, Temple gold...

• Ambani ki Dukaan? Sucheta Dalal on policies dictated by oligarchs.



• Temple wealth in Psecularistan: Is Padmanabhaswamy temple gold getting pilfered?



• Sunni Republic of Pakistan: Militants threaten Shias to vacate Peshawar neighbourhood



• Olive oil cultivation in India shows promise.



• Indian smartphone makers don’t make smartphones: They stick their logo.



• Finding your center of mass with Bakasana:

Slaughter of the 'Rejectionists'

“This is your end, you dogs,” a man off camera said as he panned across what he said were the corpses of “pug-nosed” Shiites. “Here are the jihadists celebrating their storming of the rejectionists’ houses! The Shiite rejectionists!,” the fighter added.

Some extremist Sunnis refer to Shiites as rejectionists because the sect arose from a group that rejected the early successors of the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century. 

NYT: Dozens of Shiites Reported Killed in Raid by Syria Rebels

Shia, Ahmadi, Hindu?

What happened to Hindus and Christians is unsurprising. But it is the Shias and Ahmadis who are shocked. Shias, about 20 per cent of the population, have been picked out-Gestapo style. Last year, men in army uniforms stopped four buses bound from Rawalpindi to Gilgit, demanding that all 117 persons on board alight and show their national identification cards. Those with typical Shia names, like Abbas and Jafri, were separated. Minutes later 46 corpses lay on the ground.
But while Shias are numerous enough to put up at least the pretense of a defence, Ahmadis are not. Forbidden from calling themselves Muslims, Ahmadi children are expelled from school once their religion is discovered. Just a hint may be enough to destroy a career.

Pervez Hoodbhoy: Shia, Ahmadi, Hindu? Then Run for Your Life

Sunni death squads that hunt Shias

Hussain was headed for Australia, where thousands of his fellow ethnic Hazara Shias have sought refuge. He is part of a growing exodus of young Hazara men who are fleeing Pakistan as it has become apparent that their government and military cannot, or will not, protect them from violent extremists.

NYT: Fleeing Pakistan Violence, Hazaras Brave Uncertain Journey

502 Pak Shias Killed in Targeted Attacks in 2012

As per details, 136 were killed in Karachi alone, 119 in Quetta, 55 in Gilgit, 44 in Parachinar, 25 in Rawalpindi, 21 in Khanpur, 16 in Dera Ismail Khan, 12 in Orakzai Agency, 29 in Mastung, seven each in Lahore and Mach....

Daily Times: 502 Shias killed last year, says MWM report

Sunnification of Pakistan

A recent Pew Research Centre study showed that 50 per cent of Pakistanis do not accept Shias as Muslims. Pakistan’s Shias are so regularly killed in targeted attacks that counting the numbers who were thus killed in 2012 is an uphill task.

The Hindu: At the receiving end of fanaticism

Saudis Fearful of Shia Encirclement

The wave of pro-democracy protests in the Middle East, spilling beyond Tunisia and Egypt over into Sheikhdoms like Sunni minority-ruled Bahrain are making the Saudi govt nervous. Restlessness by Bahrain's Shia majority could well become the tipping point for a change in the balance of power between Shias and Sunnis in the Gulf.