From radhikarajen at vsnl.net  Fri Aug  1 15:08:30 2008
From: radhikarajen at vsnl.net (radhikarajen at vsnl.net)
Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:38:30 +0500
Subject: [Reader-list] CJ's visit to Karachi - Day 2 30.07.08
In-Reply-To: <5af37bb0807310202u2670907ej24dc435532b509bd@mail.gmail.com>
References: <5af37bb0807310157p54ea5e74y5837a6ec7bc65523@mail.gmail.com>
	<5af37bb0807310202u2670907ej24dc435532b509bd@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <e221eb641b94.48931fe6@vsnl.net>

Dear Yasir,

    perhaps the words of Winston Churchill were apt when he said that these men of straw do not value their freedom.?

    Just as in Pakistan, judiciary is also failing the system with handpicked men and women filling the chair, to be politically correct, judicially incorrect in most of the judgements like in recently decided case of child abuse in Bombay High court where prosecution was not vehement enough in view of the high profile lawyers for defence of the pheadophiles, judges seem to be easily swayed to overlook the evidence for reasons best known to them, and any comment would easily be hit back with contempt cases.

   A society where moral and ethical standards are touching new low, none can expect judges to be of higher calibre than the individuals in the society in discharge of the duties in the system. Favouritism in postings of positions in posts like Director of CBi for extraneous reasons, CBI being autonomous premier investigation agency, judges elevated to higher court for favourable judgements in political  and sensitive cases without impartial approach has become a point to air concern that afterall, sub  continent has only "men of straw" who can sell their mothers for a right amount of material wealth.!

  Regards.

----- Original Message -----
From: yasir ~يا سر <yasir.media at gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, July 31, 2008 2:33 pm
Subject: [Reader-list] CJ's visit to Karachi - Day 2 30.07.08
To: sarai list <reader-list at sarai.net>

> decimation of judiciary ...
> 
> Deposed judges won't let nation down: Iftikhar
> http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=16329
> 
> Independence of judiciary key to economic progress: Iftikhar
> http://www.dawn.com/2008/07/31/top7.htm
> 
> Naek plan fizzles out as SHC judges stay united
> http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=16337
> 
> Aitzaz links survival of parliament to independent judiciary
> http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=16338
> 
> mention of People's Resistance in Jang 30.07.08 (attached image)
> 
> y
> 



From b_a_r_u_k at yahoo.com  Fri Aug  1 15:20:44 2008
From: b_a_r_u_k at yahoo.com (Baruk S. Jacob)
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 02:50:44 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Reader-list] Of art, morality, etc.
In-Reply-To: <33bc2ee60807302307y1080cac4kdea43cd55dd22ce@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <446266.6655.qm@web54202.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

> The last part of your mail in response to mine is
> where the crux of the matter lies though. I may be old fashioned, but I
> don't think the existence of self-contradictory truths are possible.

~its not about self contradictory truths. its about truths sprining from different worldviews. 

in this case, one view is that what the tata's are doing in singur is WRONG. therefore any association with them (as an artist) is morally indefensible. 

another view, as pranesh has, is that wherever the money comes from, as long as it is being used for good,it is ok.

yet another view is that the farmers' grouse is with the government, and not with the tata's, etc etc. as worldviews change, one's perceptions of truth (in most but the real basic basics) change.

> And what is art without humanity? What validity does my art have, no    > matter what its apparent merit, if I am a mediocrite of the mind,       > if I turn a blind eye to the sources of my funding - where the funds are > coming from and at what cost (ask the family of tapasi malik the answer > to that), functioning in my own little bubble? 

~ while (again) i agree with your position personally, what extent can one take this 'evil by association' thought? do i stop buying tata salt? refuse to sit in a taxi that is an indica? refuse to answer calls from tata phones? all of these are the sources of the funding!

i did not mean to accuse you of imposition, just meant to point out that imposition was a bad thing. :)

~regards,
 baruk
 
http://bottlebroke.blogspot.com



      

From taraprakash at gmail.com  Fri Aug  1 18:44:43 2008
From: taraprakash at gmail.com (TaraPrakash)
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 09:14:43 -0400
Subject: [Reader-list] Ahmedabad blasts: the usual suspects
Message-ID: <038a01c8f3d8$92cc30c0$a7ffbd48@taraprakash>

Ahmedabad blasts: the usual suspects 
 Praveen Swami  Gujarat has been targeted by jihadists half-a-dozen times since 2002 in a little-understood war.  One still afternoon in March 2002, Feroze Abdul Latif Ghaswala watched 40 victims of the anti-Muslim pogrom being buried near his aunt’s home in Ahmedabad.Back home in Mumbai, the automobile mechanic saw a printout of a Lashkar-e-Taiba pamphlet, which purported to show a riot victim begging for his life:“Do you think he should have a gun,” it asked.  In September 2003, Ghaswala volunteered for training in Pakistan with a group led by the 2006 Mumbai serial bombing architect, Rahil Abdul Rehman Sheikh.When the Delhi police caught up with him in the summer of 2006, Ghaswala, along with computer engineer Ali Mohammad Cheepa, had just received a consignmentof military-grade explosives from the Lashkar for a major bombing in Ahmedabad Ever since last week’s bombings in Ahmedabad — one among half-a-dozen major plots targeting Gujarat that the Indian police and intelligence services didnot succeed in interdicting — the media have not tired of informing us that jihadist terrorism has taken a dramatic new turn. Instead of Pakistan-basedterrorists, it is claimed, a new generation of Indian jihadists is spearheading the attacks.  On point of fact, the claim is nonsensical: not one single Islamist urban terror cell since 1993 has not involved a preponderance of Indian nationals. Butthe claim does show how little Islamist terror groups, and the politics that have driven their growth, are understood in India. Politics isn’t welcome at the Lal Masjid seminary in Ahmedabad’s Kaulpur area. Its students learn the six principles of Islam as enunciated by the founderof the Tablighi Jamaat, Mohammad Illyas, and are exhorted to give up frivolities like television and cinema. Maulana Sufiyan Patangia, who ran the seminary,often travelled to Saudi Arabia, seeking support for his students. After the January 26, 2001 Gujarat earthquake, the cleric put these networks to useto raise funds for relief work. It was his first foray into the secular world. The al-Qaeda’s bombing of New York and Washington D.C. gave Patangia a new cause. In the wake of the United States-led war on the Taliban, he declared thatIslam was in danger. He set up a study group, Idara-e-Fadlullah-ul-Muslimeen (Institution of Charity for Muslims), to educate his earthquake volunteers.The IFM members monitored events in Afghanistan on the Internet, and listened to tapes of Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Mohammad Masood Azhar’s speeches.  Patangia used to be jokingly called ‘Mullah Omar,’ after the Taliban leader. His second-in-command Suhail Khan adopted an Osama bin-Laden-style headgear,acquiring the nickname ‘Chhota Osama,’ or Little Osama. In February 2002, when the communal pogrom in Gujarat began, Patangia was in Saudi Arabia on hisannual pilgrimage. He turned to the South Asian Islamist there for help to defend his community — and to exact revenge. Abdul Bari, a one-time Hyderabadresident who is among the Lashkar’s top financiers, put up Rs.3,75,000. Two Saudi-based JeM fundraisers of Hyderabad origin, Farhatullah Ghauri and AbdulRehman, threw in another Rs.5,00,000. Most important, though, Patangia made contact with Rasool Khan ‘Party’ — nicknamed with the Ahmedabad argot for ‘contractor’ because of his work for topGujarat mafioso Abdul Latif Sheikh and his Pakistan-based boss, Dawood Ibrahim Kaksar. In May 2002, Khan and his brother Idris met Patangia in Mumbai todiscuss just how vengeance might be planned.  Late in May 2002, five bombs went off on buses in Ahmedabad, injuring 26 people. It was the first act of violence by Gujarat-based jihadists. In December,Khan arranged for eight of Patangia’s volunteers to travel to Pakistan for training. Along with other groups of young people from Hyderabad, Mumbai andBangalore, the Ahmedabad jihadists flew to Pakistan through Dhaka, Kathmandu, Dubai and Bangkok. Soon, the vengeance they sought was delivered. Gujarat’s Home Minister, Haren Pandya, who had led some of the most murderous mobs in Ahmedabad during thepogrom, was shot just 13 months later, by when he ceased to be Home Minister. Central Bureau of Investigation detectives later determined that he was killedby a hit-team directed by Patangia. Nine of the 12 assassins received life terms last year. Despite the CBI’s successes, plans for large-scale reprisal attacks in Gujarat continued apace. The LeT and the Maharashtra-based Students Islamic Movementof India operatives took the lead — helped by a steady flow of funds.  In June 2004, the LeT despatched two Pakistani nationals from Jammu and Kashmir to execute a fidayeen attack in Gujarat. Jishan Johar of Gujranwala in Pakistanand Amjad Ali Rana, who hailed form Sargodha, were killed in a controversial encounter in Ahmedabad along with SIMI activist Javed Sheikh and his friend,Ishrat Jehan Raza.  The Maharashtra-based SIMI bomb-maker Zulfikar Fayyaz Kagzi built a sophisticated suitcase bomb that was planted on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad Express train inFebruary 2006. An error in the timer circuit resulted in the bomb exploding 12 hours after the scheduled detonation time, by when the cleaning staff haddeposited the suitcase in an empty corner of the Ahmedabad station. And in May 2006, the Intelligence Bureau prevented a potentially catastrophic bombingin Gujarat, penetrating an Aurangabad-based SIMI unit, which was in an advanced stage of preparation for serial bomb strikes.  Intellectual infrastructure  Has the vengeance the jihadists sought been delivered? Not quite. Minutes before the latest bombing, the Indian Mujahideen — a Lashkar-SIMI front organisationwhich also took responsibility for the earlier bombings in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh — sent out a manifesto explaining just what it now seeks. According to the manifesto, the Indian Mujahideen is “raising the illustrious banner of Jihad against the Hindus and all those who fight and resist us,and here we begin our revenge with the help and Permission of Allah — a terrifying revenge of our blood, our lives and our honour that will Insha-Allahterminate your survival on this land.” The manifesto calls on Hindus to “realise that the falsehood of your 33 crore dirty mud idols and the blasphemy of your deaf, dumb mute and naked idolsof ram, krishna and hanuman [sic; capitalisation as in original throughout] are not at all going to save your necks from being slaughtered by our hands.”It demands that Hindus change their attitudes, lest “another Ghauri shakes your foundations, and lest another Ghaznavi massacres you, proving your bloodto be the cheapest of all mankind.” No great effort is needed to locate the intellectual genesis of this body of ideas: it draws heavily on long-standing LeT polemic. Indeed, the manifesto’splea that the LeT not take responsibility for the attacks is something of a giveaway, since the terror group has never owned up to actions targeting civilians.In 2003, for example, the LeT argued on its website that violence against Muslims in India was an outcome of the core character of Hindus, who “have nocompassion in their religion.” It was the duty of Muslims to wage a jihad against “Hindu oppressors,” and it was “the Hindu who is a terrorist.” Lashkar chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed also said, “the Hindu is a mean enemy and the proper way to deal with him is the one adopted by our forefathers [who]crushed them by force.” He made clear — just as the Indian Mujahideen has — that the objective of the jihad was extending Muslim control over what it sawas Muslim land. At a November 1999 rally, he promised that he would “not rest until the whole of India is dissolved into Pakistan.” All those who participatedin this project were promised “huge places in Paradise.” SIMI, like the Indian Mujahideen, also invoked medieval conquerors in its literature. In the wake of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, SIMI called forMuslims to avenge the act by following in the steps of the 11th century conqueror, Mahmud Ghaznavi. SIMI posters appealed to god to send another Ghaznavi,and thus avenge attacks on Muslims and their mosques by attacking temples. Local influences  Local religious influences are also evident. In its manifesto, the Indian Mujahideen describes itself as “terrorist,” an apparently odd usage. However,it suggests that the author followed the neoconservative television evangelist Zakir Naik — just as several past Mumbai-based Lashkar operatives like RahilSheikh and Feroze Deshmukh did.  In a controversial speech on al-Qaeda chief Osama bin-Laden, Naik proclaimed, “If he is fighting the enemies of Islam, I am for him. If he is terrorisingAmerica the terrorist — the biggest terrorist — I am with him.” “Every Muslim should be a terrorist,” Naik concluded. “The thing is, if he is terrorisinga terrorist, he is following Islam.” Most Indian Muslims would dispute the proposition: it is not for nothing, after all, that the Indian Mujahideen manifesto devotes considerable space torailing against clerics who oppose its jihadism. But the fact remains that some numbers of young Muslims — angered by discrimination, enraged by pogroms— see jihadism as the sole option available to them. As the work of scholar Ashutosh Varshney points out, the roots of this tragedy lie in the breakdownof inter-communal institutions: in a creeping religious apartheid that enveloped Gujarat in the second half of the last century, decades before the pogrom. In the weeks to come, the police and intelligence investigators will have to find out the perpetrators of the bombings. Politicians, however, have a farmore important task: to ensure that justice and equity are placed at centre stage of civic life in Gujarat, and India as a whole. No other way exists tobring down the intellectual infrastructure of hate, on which the jihadist campaign rests.

From parthaekka at gmail.com  Fri Aug  1 18:54:58 2008
From: parthaekka at gmail.com (Partha Dasgupta)
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 18:54:58 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Ahmedabad blasts: the usual suspects
In-Reply-To: <038a01c8f3d8$92cc30c0$a7ffbd48@taraprakash>
References: <038a01c8f3d8$92cc30c0$a7ffbd48@taraprakash>
Message-ID: <32144e990808010624x3c8b5895te0fcd0e6ad6e8079@mail.gmail.com>

Hi,

Don't know were you sourced this from, but this large continuous block of
text with punctuation missing is unreadable.

Rgds, Partha
...............................

On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 6:44 PM, TaraPrakash <taraprakash at gmail.com> wrote:

> Ahmedabad blasts: the usual suspects
>  Praveen Swami  Gujarat has been targeted by jihadists half-a-dozen times
> since 2002 in a little-understood war.  One still afternoon in March 2002,
> Feroze Abdul Latif Ghaswala watched 40 victims of the anti-Muslim pogrom
> being buried near his aunt's home in Ahmedabad.Back home in Mumbai, the
> automobile mechanic saw a printout of a Lashkar-e-Taiba pamphlet, which
> purported to show a riot victim begging for his life:"Do you think he should
> have a gun," it asked.  In September 2003, Ghaswala volunteered for training
> in Pakistan with a group led by the 2006 Mumbai serial bombing architect,
> Rahil Abdul Rehman Sheikh.When the Delhi police caught up with him in the
> summer of 2006, Ghaswala, along with computer engineer Ali Mohammad Cheepa,
> had just received a consignmentof military-grade explosives from the Lashkar
> for a major bombing in Ahmedabad Ever since last week's bombings in
> Ahmedabad — one among half-a-dozen major plots targeting Gujarat that the
> Indian police and intelligence services didnot succeed in interdicting — the
> media have not tired of informing us that jihadist terrorism has taken a
> dramatic new turn. Instead of Pakistan-basedterrorists, it is claimed, a new
> generation of Indian jihadists is spearheading the attacks.  On point of
> fact, the claim is nonsensical: not one single Islamist urban terror cell
> since 1993 has not involved a preponderance of Indian nationals. Butthe
> claim does show how little Islamist terror groups, and the politics that
> have driven their growth, are understood in India. Politics isn't welcome at
> the Lal Masjid seminary in Ahmedabad's Kaulpur area. Its students learn the
> six principles of Islam as enunciated by the founderof the Tablighi Jamaat,
> Mohammad Illyas, and are exhorted to give up frivolities like television and
> cinema. Maulana Sufiyan Patangia, who ran the seminary,often travelled to
> Saudi Arabia, seeking support for his students. After the January 26, 2001
> Gujarat earthquake, the cleric put these networks to useto raise funds for
> relief work. It was his first foray into the secular world. The al-Qaeda's
> bombing of New York and Washington D.C. gave Patangia a new cause. In the
> wake of the United States-led war on the Taliban, he declared thatIslam was
> in danger. He set up a study group, Idara-e-Fadlullah-ul-Muslimeen
> (Institution of Charity for Muslims), to educate his earthquake
> volunteers.The IFM members monitored events in Afghanistan on the Internet,
> and listened to tapes of Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Mohammad Masood Azhar's
> speeches.  Patangia used to be jokingly called 'Mullah Omar,' after the
> Taliban leader. His second-in-command Suhail Khan adopted an Osama
> bin-Laden-style headgear,acquiring the nickname 'Chhota Osama,' or Little
> Osama. In February 2002, when the communal pogrom in Gujarat began, Patangia
> was in Saudi Arabia on hisannual pilgrimage. He turned to the South Asian
> Islamist there for help to defend his community — and to exact revenge.
> Abdul Bari, a one-time Hyderabadresident who is among the Lashkar's top
> financiers, put up Rs.3,75,000. Two Saudi-based JeM fundraisers of Hyderabad
> origin, Farhatullah Ghauri and AbdulRehman, threw in another Rs.5,00,000.
> Most important, though, Patangia made contact with Rasool Khan 'Party' —
> nicknamed with the Ahmedabad argot for 'contractor' because of his work for
> topGujarat mafioso Abdul Latif Sheikh and his Pakistan-based boss, Dawood
> Ibrahim Kaksar. In May 2002, Khan and his brother Idris met Patangia in
> Mumbai todiscuss just how vengeance might be planned.  Late in May 2002,
> five bombs went off on buses in Ahmedabad, injuring 26 people. It was the
> first act of violence by Gujarat-based jihadists. In December,Khan arranged
> for eight of Patangia's volunteers to travel to Pakistan for training. Along
> with other groups of young people from Hyderabad, Mumbai andBangalore, the
> Ahmedabad jihadists flew to Pakistan through Dhaka, Kathmandu, Dubai and
> Bangkok. Soon, the vengeance they sought was delivered. Gujarat's Home
> Minister, Haren Pandya, who had led some of the most murderous mobs in
> Ahmedabad during thepogrom, was shot just 13 months later, by when he ceased
> to be Home Minister. Central Bureau of Investigation detectives later
> determined that he was killedby a hit-team directed by Patangia. Nine of the
> 12 assassins received life terms last year. Despite the CBI's successes,
> plans for large-scale reprisal attacks in Gujarat continued apace. The LeT
> and the Maharashtra-based Students Islamic Movementof India operatives took
> the lead — helped by a steady flow of funds.  In June 2004, the LeT
> despatched two Pakistani nationals from Jammu and Kashmir to execute a
> fidayeen attack in Gujarat. Jishan Johar of Gujranwala in Pakistanand Amjad
> Ali Rana, who hailed form Sargodha, were killed in a controversial encounter
> in Ahmedabad along with SIMI activist Javed Sheikh and his friend,Ishrat
> Jehan Raza.  The Maharashtra-based SIMI bomb-maker Zulfikar Fayyaz Kagzi
> built a sophisticated suitcase bomb that was planted on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad
> Express train inFebruary 2006. An error in the timer circuit resulted in the
> bomb exploding 12 hours after the scheduled detonation time, by when the
> cleaning staff haddeposited the suitcase in an empty corner of the Ahmedabad
> station. And in May 2006, the Intelligence Bureau prevented a potentially
> catastrophic bombingin Gujarat, penetrating an Aurangabad-based SIMI unit,
> which was in an advanced stage of preparation for serial bomb strikes.
>  Intellectual infrastructure  Has the vengeance the jihadists sought been
> delivered? Not quite. Minutes before the latest bombing, the Indian
> Mujahideen — a Lashkar-SIMI front organisationwhich also took responsibility
> for the earlier bombings in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh — sent out a
> manifesto explaining just what it now seeks. According to the manifesto, the
> Indian Mujahideen is "raising the illustrious banner of Jihad against the
> Hindus and all those who fight and resist us,and here we begin our revenge
> with the help and Permission of Allah — a terrifying revenge of our blood,
> our lives and our honour that will Insha-Allahterminate your survival on
> this land." The manifesto calls on Hindus to "realise that the falsehood of
> your 33 crore dirty mud idols and the blasphemy of your deaf, dumb mute and
> naked idolsof ram, krishna and hanuman [sic; capitalisation as in original
> throughout] are not at all going to save your necks from being slaughtered
> by our hands."It demands that Hindus change their attitudes, lest "another
> Ghauri shakes your foundations, and lest another Ghaznavi massacres you,
> proving your bloodto be the cheapest of all mankind." No great effort is
> needed to locate the intellectual genesis of this body of ideas: it draws
> heavily on long-standing LeT polemic. Indeed, the manifesto'splea that the
> LeT not take responsibility for the attacks is something of a giveaway,
> since the terror group has never owned up to actions targeting civilians.In
> 2003, for example, the LeT argued on its website that violence against
> Muslims in India was an outcome of the core character of Hindus, who "have
> nocompassion in their religion." It was the duty of Muslims to wage a jihad
> against "Hindu oppressors," and it was "the Hindu who is a terrorist."
> Lashkar chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed also said, "the Hindu is a mean enemy and
> the proper way to deal with him is the one adopted by our forefathers
> [who]crushed them by force." He made clear — just as the Indian Mujahideen
> has — that the objective of the jihad was extending Muslim control over what
> it sawas Muslim land. At a November 1999 rally, he promised that he would
> "not rest until the whole of India is dissolved into Pakistan." All those
> who participatedin this project were promised "huge places in Paradise."
> SIMI, like the Indian Mujahideen, also invoked medieval conquerors in its
> literature. In the wake of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, SIMI called
> forMuslims to avenge the act by following in the steps of the 11th century
> conqueror, Mahmud Ghaznavi. SIMI posters appealed to god to send another
> Ghaznavi,and thus avenge attacks on Muslims and their mosques by attacking
> temples. Local influences  Local religious influences are also evident. In
> its manifesto, the Indian Mujahideen describes itself as "terrorist," an
> apparently odd usage. However,it suggests that the author followed the
> neoconservative television evangelist Zakir Naik — just as several past
> Mumbai-based Lashkar operatives like RahilSheikh and Feroze Deshmukh did.
>  In a controversial speech on al-Qaeda chief Osama bin-Laden, Naik
> proclaimed, "If he is fighting the enemies of Islam, I am for him. If he is
> terrorisingAmerica the terrorist — the biggest terrorist — I am with him."
> "Every Muslim should be a terrorist," Naik concluded. "The thing is, if he
> is terrorisinga terrorist, he is following Islam." Most Indian Muslims would
> dispute the proposition: it is not for nothing, after all, that the Indian
> Mujahideen manifesto devotes considerable space torailing against clerics
> who oppose its jihadism. But the fact remains that some numbers of young
> Muslims — angered by discrimination, enraged by pogroms— see jihadism as the
> sole option available to them. As the work of scholar Ashutosh Varshney
> points out, the roots of this tragedy lie in the breakdownof inter-communal
> institutions: in a creeping religious apartheid that enveloped Gujarat in
> the second half of the last century, decades before the pogrom. In the weeks
> to come, the police and intelligence investigators will have to find out the
> perpetrators of the bombings. Politicians, however, have a farmore important
> task: to ensure that justice and equity are placed at centre stage of civic
> life in Gujarat, and India as a whole. No other way exists tobring down the
> intellectual infrastructure of hate, on which the jihadist campaign rests.
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
> subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>




-- 
Partha Dasgupta
+919811047132

From mail at shivamvij.com  Fri Aug  1 19:00:05 2008
From: mail at shivamvij.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Shivam_Vij?= =?UTF-8?Q?_=E0=A4=B6=E0=A4=BF=E0=A4=B5=E0=A4=AE?=
	=?UTF-8?Q?=E0=A5=8D_=E0=A4=B5=E0=A4=BF=E0=A4=9C=E0=A5=8D?=)
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 19:00:05 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Ahmedabad blasts: the usual suspects
In-Reply-To: <32144e990808010624x3c8b5895te0fcd0e6ad6e8079@mail.gmail.com>
References: <038a01c8f3d8$92cc30c0$a7ffbd48@taraprakash>
	<32144e990808010624x3c8b5895te0fcd0e6ad6e8079@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <9c06aab30808010630m5e726924n18a8e573ce14cdb1@mail.gmail.com>

Yaha sab shanti hai, yeh public hai sab jaanti hai
hah!
http://ia.rediff.com/news/2008/aug/01ahd3.htm



On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 6:54 PM, Partha Dasgupta <parthaekka at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Don't know were you sourced this from, but this large continuous block of
> text with punctuation missing is unreadable.
>
> Rgds, Partha
> ...............................
>
> On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 6:44 PM, TaraPrakash <taraprakash at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Ahmedabad blasts: the usual suspects
> >  Praveen Swami  Gujarat has been targeted by jihadists half-a-dozen times
> > since 2002 in a little-understood war.  One still afternoon in March 2002,
> > Feroze Abdul Latif Ghaswala watched 40 victims of the anti-Muslim pogrom
> > being buried near his aunt's home in Ahmedabad.Back home in Mumbai, the
> > automobile mechanic saw a printout of a Lashkar-e-Taiba pamphlet, which
> > purported to show a riot victim begging for his life:"Do you think he should
> > have a gun," it asked.  In September 2003, Ghaswala volunteered for training
> > in Pakistan with a group led by the 2006 Mumbai serial bombing architect,
> > Rahil Abdul Rehman Sheikh.When the Delhi police caught up with him in the
> > summer of 2006, Ghaswala, along with computer engineer Ali Mohammad Cheepa,
> > had just received a consignmentof military-grade explosives from the Lashkar
> > for a major bombing in Ahmedabad Ever since last week's bombings in
> > Ahmedabad — one among half-a-dozen major plots targeting Gujarat that the
> > Indian police and intelligence services didnot succeed in interdicting — the
> > media have not tired of informing us that jihadist terrorism has taken a
> > dramatic new turn. Instead of Pakistan-basedterrorists, it is claimed, a new
> > generation of Indian jihadists is spearheading the attacks.  On point of
> > fact, the claim is nonsensical: not one single Islamist urban terror cell
> > since 1993 has not involved a preponderance of Indian nationals. Butthe
> > claim does show how little Islamist terror groups, and the politics that
> > have driven their growth, are understood in India. Politics isn't welcome at
> > the Lal Masjid seminary in Ahmedabad's Kaulpur area. Its students learn the
> > six principles of Islam as enunciated by the founderof the Tablighi Jamaat,
> > Mohammad Illyas, and are exhorted to give up frivolities like television and
> > cinema. Maulana Sufiyan Patangia, who ran the seminary,often travelled to
> > Saudi Arabia, seeking support for his students. After the January 26, 2001
> > Gujarat earthquake, the cleric put these networks to useto raise funds for
> > relief work. It was his first foray into the secular world. The al-Qaeda's
> > bombing of New York and Washington D.C. gave Patangia a new cause. In the
> > wake of the United States-led war on the Taliban, he declared thatIslam was
> > in danger. He set up a study group, Idara-e-Fadlullah-ul-Muslimeen
> > (Institution of Charity for Muslims), to educate his earthquake
> > volunteers.The IFM members monitored events in Afghanistan on the Internet,
> > and listened to tapes of Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Mohammad Masood Azhar's
> > speeches.  Patangia used to be jokingly called 'Mullah Omar,' after the
> > Taliban leader. His second-in-command Suhail Khan adopted an Osama
> > bin-Laden-style headgear,acquiring the nickname 'Chhota Osama,' or Little
> > Osama. In February 2002, when the communal pogrom in Gujarat began, Patangia
> > was in Saudi Arabia on hisannual pilgrimage. He turned to the South Asian
> > Islamist there for help to defend his community — and to exact revenge.
> > Abdul Bari, a one-time Hyderabadresident who is among the Lashkar's top
> > financiers, put up Rs.3,75,000. Two Saudi-based JeM fundraisers of Hyderabad
> > origin, Farhatullah Ghauri and AbdulRehman, threw in another Rs.5,00,000.
> > Most important, though, Patangia made contact with Rasool Khan 'Party' —
> > nicknamed with the Ahmedabad argot for 'contractor' because of his work for
> > topGujarat mafioso Abdul Latif Sheikh and his Pakistan-based boss, Dawood
> > Ibrahim Kaksar. In May 2002, Khan and his brother Idris met Patangia in
> > Mumbai todiscuss just how vengeance might be planned.  Late in May 2002,
> > five bombs went off on buses in Ahmedabad, injuring 26 people. It was the
> > first act of violence by Gujarat-based jihadists. In December,Khan arranged
> > for eight of Patangia's volunteers to travel to Pakistan for training. Along
> > with other groups of young people from Hyderabad, Mumbai andBangalore, the
> > Ahmedabad jihadists flew to Pakistan through Dhaka, Kathmandu, Dubai and
> > Bangkok. Soon, the vengeance they sought was delivered. Gujarat's Home
> > Minister, Haren Pandya, who had led some of the most murderous mobs in
> > Ahmedabad during thepogrom, was shot just 13 months later, by when he ceased
> > to be Home Minister. Central Bureau of Investigation detectives later
> > determined that he was killedby a hit-team directed by Patangia. Nine of the
> > 12 assassins received life terms last year. Despite the CBI's successes,
> > plans for large-scale reprisal attacks in Gujarat continued apace. The LeT
> > and the Maharashtra-based Students Islamic Movementof India operatives took
> > the lead — helped by a steady flow of funds.  In June 2004, the LeT
> > despatched two Pakistani nationals from Jammu and Kashmir to execute a
> > fidayeen attack in Gujarat. Jishan Johar of Gujranwala in Pakistanand Amjad
> > Ali Rana, who hailed form Sargodha, were killed in a controversial encounter
> > in Ahmedabad along with SIMI activist Javed Sheikh and his friend,Ishrat
> > Jehan Raza.  The Maharashtra-based SIMI bomb-maker Zulfikar Fayyaz Kagzi
> > built a sophisticated suitcase bomb that was planted on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad
> > Express train inFebruary 2006. An error in the timer circuit resulted in the
> > bomb exploding 12 hours after the scheduled detonation time, by when the
> > cleaning staff haddeposited the suitcase in an empty corner of the Ahmedabad
> > station. And in May 2006, the Intelligence Bureau prevented a potentially
> > catastrophic bombingin Gujarat, penetrating an Aurangabad-based SIMI unit,
> > which was in an advanced stage of preparation for serial bomb strikes.
> >  Intellectual infrastructure  Has the vengeance the jihadists sought been
> > delivered? Not quite. Minutes before the latest bombing, the Indian
> > Mujahideen — a Lashkar-SIMI front organisationwhich also took responsibility
> > for the earlier bombings in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh — sent out a
> > manifesto explaining just what it now seeks. According to the manifesto, the
> > Indian Mujahideen is "raising the illustrious banner of Jihad against the
> > Hindus and all those who fight and resist us,and here we begin our revenge
> > with the help and Permission of Allah — a terrifying revenge of our blood,
> > our lives and our honour that will Insha-Allahterminate your survival on
> > this land." The manifesto calls on Hindus to "realise that the falsehood of
> > your 33 crore dirty mud idols and the blasphemy of your deaf, dumb mute and
> > naked idolsof ram, krishna and hanuman [sic; capitalisation as in original
> > throughout] are not at all going to save your necks from being slaughtered
> > by our hands."It demands that Hindus change their attitudes, lest "another
> > Ghauri shakes your foundations, and lest another Ghaznavi massacres you,
> > proving your bloodto be the cheapest of all mankind." No great effort is
> > needed to locate the intellectual genesis of this body of ideas: it draws
> > heavily on long-standing LeT polemic. Indeed, the manifesto'splea that the
> > LeT not take responsibility for the attacks is something of a giveaway,
> > since the terror group has never owned up to actions targeting civilians.In
> > 2003, for example, the LeT argued on its website that violence against
> > Muslims in India was an outcome of the core character of Hindus, who "have
> > nocompassion in their religion." It was the duty of Muslims to wage a jihad
> > against "Hindu oppressors," and it was "the Hindu who is a terrorist."
> > Lashkar chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed also said, "the Hindu is a mean enemy and
> > the proper way to deal with him is the one adopted by our forefathers
> > [who]crushed them by force." He made clear — just as the Indian Mujahideen
> > has — that the objective of the jihad was extending Muslim control over what
> > it sawas Muslim land. At a November 1999 rally, he promised that he would
> > "not rest until the whole of India is dissolved into Pakistan." All those
> > who participatedin this project were promised "huge places in Paradise."
> > SIMI, like the Indian Mujahideen, also invoked medieval conquerors in its
> > literature. In the wake of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, SIMI called
> > forMuslims to avenge the act by following in the steps of the 11th century
> > conqueror, Mahmud Ghaznavi. SIMI posters appealed to god to send another
> > Ghaznavi,and thus avenge attacks on Muslims and their mosques by attacking
> > temples. Local influences  Local religious influences are also evident. In
> > its manifesto, the Indian Mujahideen describes itself as "terrorist," an
> > apparently odd usage. However,it suggests that the author followed the
> > neoconservative television evangelist Zakir Naik — just as several past
> > Mumbai-based Lashkar operatives like RahilSheikh and Feroze Deshmukh did.
> >  In a controversial speech on al-Qaeda chief Osama bin-Laden, Naik
> > proclaimed, "If he is fighting the enemies of Islam, I am for him. If he is
> > terrorisingAmerica the terrorist — the biggest terrorist — I am with him."
> > "Every Muslim should be a terrorist," Naik concluded. "The thing is, if he
> > is terrorisinga terrorist, he is following Islam." Most Indian Muslims would
> > dispute the proposition: it is not for nothing, after all, that the Indian
> > Mujahideen manifesto devotes considerable space torailing against clerics
> > who oppose its jihadism. But the fact remains that some numbers of young
> > Muslims — angered by discrimination, enraged by pogroms— see jihadism as the
> > sole option available to them. As the work of scholar Ashutosh Varshney
> > points out, the roots of this tragedy lie in the breakdownof inter-communal
> > institutions: in a creeping religious apartheid that enveloped Gujarat in
> > the second half of the last century, decades before the pogrom. In the weeks
> > to come, the police and intelligence investigators will have to find out the
> > perpetrators of the bombings. Politicians, however, have a farmore important
> > task: to ensure that justice and equity are placed at centre stage of civic
> > life in Gujarat, and India as a whole. No other way exists tobring down the
> > intellectual infrastructure of hate, on which the jihadist campaign rests.
> > _________________________________________
> > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> > Critiques & Collaborations
> > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
> > subscribe in the subject header.
> > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> > List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Partha Dasgupta
> +919811047132
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>


--
/National Highway/ http://shivamvij.com/

From pawan.durani at gmail.com  Fri Aug  1 19:12:58 2008
From: pawan.durani at gmail.com (Pawan Durani)
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 19:12:58 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Ahmedabad blasts: the usual suspects
In-Reply-To: <9c06aab30808010630m5e726924n18a8e573ce14cdb1@mail.gmail.com>
References: <038a01c8f3d8$92cc30c0$a7ffbd48@taraprakash>
	<32144e990808010624x3c8b5895te0fcd0e6ad6e8079@mail.gmail.com>
	<9c06aab30808010630m5e726924n18a8e573ce14cdb1@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6b79f1a70808010642n1b688908u8925e47bb5399733@mail.gmail.com>

ignoring facts to satisfy personal addictions.

On 8/1/08, Shivam Vij शिवम् विज् <mail at shivamvij.com> wrote:
>
> Yaha sab shanti hai, yeh public hai sab jaanti hai
> hah!
> http://ia.rediff.com/news/2008/aug/01ahd3.htm
>
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 6:54 PM, Partha Dasgupta <parthaekka at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > Don't know were you sourced this from, but this large continuous block of
> > text with punctuation missing is unreadable.
> >
> > Rgds, Partha
> > ...............................
> >
> > On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 6:44 PM, TaraPrakash <taraprakash at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > > Ahmedabad blasts: the usual suspects
> > >  Praveen Swami  Gujarat has been targeted by jihadists half-a-dozen
> times
> > > since 2002 in a little-understood war.  One still afternoon in March
> 2002,
> > > Feroze Abdul Latif Ghaswala watched 40 victims of the anti-Muslim
> pogrom
> > > being buried near his aunt's home in Ahmedabad.Back home in Mumbai, the
> > > automobile mechanic saw a printout of a Lashkar-e-Taiba pamphlet, which
> > > purported to show a riot victim begging for his life:"Do you think he
> should
> > > have a gun," it asked.  In September 2003, Ghaswala volunteered for
> training
> > > in Pakistan with a group led by the 2006 Mumbai serial bombing
> architect,
> > > Rahil Abdul Rehman Sheikh.When the Delhi police caught up with him in
> the
> > > summer of 2006, Ghaswala, along with computer engineer Ali Mohammad
> Cheepa,
> > > had just received a consignmentof military-grade explosives from the
> Lashkar
> > > for a major bombing in Ahmedabad Ever since last week's bombings in
> > > Ahmedabad — one among half-a-dozen major plots targeting Gujarat that
> the
> > > Indian police and intelligence services didnot succeed in interdicting
> — the
> > > media have not tired of informing us that jihadist terrorism has taken
> a
> > > dramatic new turn. Instead of Pakistan-basedterrorists, it is claimed,
> a new
> > > generation of Indian jihadists is spearheading the attacks.  On point
> of
> > > fact, the claim is nonsensical: not one single Islamist urban terror
> cell
> > > since 1993 has not involved a preponderance of Indian nationals. Butthe
> > > claim does show how little Islamist terror groups, and the politics
> that
> > > have driven their growth, are understood in India. Politics isn't
> welcome at
> > > the Lal Masjid seminary in Ahmedabad's Kaulpur area. Its students learn
> the
> > > six principles of Islam as enunciated by the founderof the Tablighi
> Jamaat,
> > > Mohammad Illyas, and are exhorted to give up frivolities like
> television and
> > > cinema. Maulana Sufiyan Patangia, who ran the seminary,often travelled
> to
> > > Saudi Arabia, seeking support for his students. After the January 26,
> 2001
> > > Gujarat earthquake, the cleric put these networks to useto raise funds
> for
> > > relief work. It was his first foray into the secular world. The
> al-Qaeda's
> > > bombing of New York and Washington D.C. gave Patangia a new cause. In
> the
> > > wake of the United States-led war on the Taliban, he declared thatIslam
> was
> > > in danger. He set up a study group, Idara-e-Fadlullah-ul-Muslimeen
> > > (Institution of Charity for Muslims), to educate his earthquake
> > > volunteers.The IFM members monitored events in Afghanistan on the
> Internet,
> > > and listened to tapes of Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Mohammad Masood Azhar's
> > > speeches.  Patangia used to be jokingly called 'Mullah Omar,' after the
> > > Taliban leader. His second-in-command Suhail Khan adopted an Osama
> > > bin-Laden-style headgear,acquiring the nickname 'Chhota Osama,' or
> Little
> > > Osama. In February 2002, when the communal pogrom in Gujarat began,
> Patangia
> > > was in Saudi Arabia on hisannual pilgrimage. He turned to the South
> Asian
> > > Islamist there for help to defend his community — and to exact revenge.
> > > Abdul Bari, a one-time Hyderabadresident who is among the Lashkar's top
> > > financiers, put up Rs.3,75,000. Two Saudi-based JeM fundraisers of
> Hyderabad
> > > origin, Farhatullah Ghauri and AbdulRehman, threw in another
> Rs.5,00,000.
> > > Most important, though, Patangia made contact with Rasool Khan 'Party'
> —
> > > nicknamed with the Ahmedabad argot for 'contractor' because of his work
> for
> > > topGujarat mafioso Abdul Latif Sheikh and his Pakistan-based boss,
> Dawood
> > > Ibrahim Kaksar. In May 2002, Khan and his brother Idris met Patangia in
> > > Mumbai todiscuss just how vengeance might be planned.  Late in May
> 2002,
> > > five bombs went off on buses in Ahmedabad, injuring 26 people. It was
> the
> > > first act of violence by Gujarat-based jihadists. In December,Khan
> arranged
> > > for eight of Patangia's volunteers to travel to Pakistan for training.
> Along
> > > with other groups of young people from Hyderabad, Mumbai andBangalore,
> the
> > > Ahmedabad jihadists flew to Pakistan through Dhaka, Kathmandu, Dubai
> and
> > > Bangkok. Soon, the vengeance they sought was delivered. Gujarat's Home
> > > Minister, Haren Pandya, who had led some of the most murderous mobs in
> > > Ahmedabad during thepogrom, was shot just 13 months later, by when he
> ceased
> > > to be Home Minister. Central Bureau of Investigation detectives later
> > > determined that he was killedby a hit-team directed by Patangia. Nine
> of the
> > > 12 assassins received life terms last year. Despite the CBI's
> successes,
> > > plans for large-scale reprisal attacks in Gujarat continued apace. The
> LeT
> > > and the Maharashtra-based Students Islamic Movementof India operatives
> took
> > > the lead — helped by a steady flow of funds.  In June 2004, the LeT
> > > despatched two Pakistani nationals from Jammu and Kashmir to execute a
> > > fidayeen attack in Gujarat. Jishan Johar of Gujranwala in Pakistanand
> Amjad
> > > Ali Rana, who hailed form Sargodha, were killed in a controversial
> encounter
> > > in Ahmedabad along with SIMI activist Javed Sheikh and his
> friend,Ishrat
> > > Jehan Raza.  The Maharashtra-based SIMI bomb-maker Zulfikar Fayyaz
> Kagzi
> > > built a sophisticated suitcase bomb that was planted on the
> Mumbai-Ahmedabad
> > > Express train inFebruary 2006. An error in the timer circuit resulted
> in the
> > > bomb exploding 12 hours after the scheduled detonation time, by when
> the
> > > cleaning staff haddeposited the suitcase in an empty corner of the
> Ahmedabad
> > > station. And in May 2006, the Intelligence Bureau prevented a
> potentially
> > > catastrophic bombingin Gujarat, penetrating an Aurangabad-based SIMI
> unit,
> > > which was in an advanced stage of preparation for serial bomb strikes.
> > >  Intellectual infrastructure  Has the vengeance the jihadists sought
> been
> > > delivered? Not quite. Minutes before the latest bombing, the Indian
> > > Mujahideen — a Lashkar-SIMI front organisationwhich also took
> responsibility
> > > for the earlier bombings in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh — sent out a
> > > manifesto explaining just what it now seeks. According to the
> manifesto, the
> > > Indian Mujahideen is "raising the illustrious banner of Jihad against
> the
> > > Hindus and all those who fight and resist us,and here we begin our
> revenge
> > > with the help and Permission of Allah — a terrifying revenge of our
> blood,
> > > our lives and our honour that will Insha-Allahterminate your survival
> on
> > > this land." The manifesto calls on Hindus to "realise that the
> falsehood of
> > > your 33 crore dirty mud idols and the blasphemy of your deaf, dumb mute
> and
> > > naked idolsof ram, krishna and hanuman [sic; capitalisation as in
> original
> > > throughout] are not at all going to save your necks from being
> slaughtered
> > > by our hands."It demands that Hindus change their attitudes, lest
> "another
> > > Ghauri shakes your foundations, and lest another Ghaznavi massacres
> you,
> > > proving your bloodto be the cheapest of all mankind." No great effort
> is
> > > needed to locate the intellectual genesis of this body of ideas: it
> draws
> > > heavily on long-standing LeT polemic. Indeed, the manifesto'splea that
> the
> > > LeT not take responsibility for the attacks is something of a giveaway,
> > > since the terror group has never owned up to actions targeting
> civilians.In
> > > 2003, for example, the LeT argued on its website that violence against
> > > Muslims in India was an outcome of the core character of Hindus, who
> "have
> > > nocompassion in their religion." It was the duty of Muslims to wage a
> jihad
> > > against "Hindu oppressors," and it was "the Hindu who is a terrorist."
> > > Lashkar chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed also said, "the Hindu is a mean
> enemy and
> > > the proper way to deal with him is the one adopted by our forefathers
> > > [who]crushed them by force." He made clear — just as the Indian
> Mujahideen
> > > has — that the objective of the jihad was extending Muslim control over
> what
> > > it sawas Muslim land. At a November 1999 rally, he promised that he
> would
> > > "not rest until the whole of India is dissolved into Pakistan." All
> those
> > > who participatedin this project were promised "huge places in
> Paradise."
> > > SIMI, like the Indian Mujahideen, also invoked medieval conquerors in
> its
> > > literature. In the wake of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, SIMI
> called
> > > forMuslims to avenge the act by following in the steps of the 11th
> century
> > > conqueror, Mahmud Ghaznavi. SIMI posters appealed to god to send
> another
> > > Ghaznavi,and thus avenge attacks on Muslims and their mosques by
> attacking
> > > temples. Local influences  Local religious influences are also evident.
> In
> > > its manifesto, the Indian Mujahideen describes itself as "terrorist,"
> an
> > > apparently odd usage. However,it suggests that the author followed the
> > > neoconservative television evangelist Zakir Naik — just as several past
> > > Mumbai-based Lashkar operatives like RahilSheikh and Feroze Deshmukh
> did.
> > >  In a controversial speech on al-Qaeda chief Osama bin-Laden, Naik
> > > proclaimed, "If he is fighting the enemies of Islam, I am for him. If
> he is
> > > terrorisingAmerica the terrorist — the biggest terrorist — I am with
> him."
> > > "Every Muslim should be a terrorist," Naik concluded. "The thing is, if
> he
> > > is terrorisinga terrorist, he is following Islam." Most Indian Muslims
> would
> > > dispute the proposition: it is not for nothing, after all, that the
> Indian
> > > Mujahideen manifesto devotes considerable space torailing against
> clerics
> > > who oppose its jihadism. But the fact remains that some numbers of
> young
> > > Muslims — angered by discrimination, enraged by pogroms— see jihadism
> as the
> > > sole option available to them. As the work of scholar Ashutosh Varshney
> > > points out, the roots of this tragedy lie in the breakdownof
> inter-communal
> > > institutions: in a creeping religious apartheid that enveloped Gujarat
> in
> > > the second half of the last century, decades before the pogrom. In the
> weeks
> > > to come, the police and intelligence investigators will have to find
> out the
> > > perpetrators of the bombings. Politicians, however, have a farmore
> important
> > > task: to ensure that justice and equity are placed at centre stage of
> civic
> > > life in Gujarat, and India as a whole. No other way exists tobring down
> the
> > > intellectual infrastructure of hate, on which the jihadist campaign
> rests.
> > > _________________________________________
> > > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> > > Critiques & Collaborations
> > > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
> > > subscribe in the subject header.
> > > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> > > List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Partha Dasgupta
> > +919811047132
> > _________________________________________
> > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> > Critiques & Collaborations
> > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
> subscribe in the subject header.
> > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> > List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
>
>
> --
> /National Highway/ http://shivamvij.com/
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
> subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>

From shuddha at sarai.net  Fri Aug  1 19:27:24 2008
From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta)
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 19:27:24 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] 'The Rest of Now' at Manifesta 7
Message-ID: <87AC0B36-E535-40DA-8B6D-4EAC698E8BFD@sarai.net>


Dear All,

(Apologies for cross posting to readers at Nettime, Spectre,  
Fibreculture, Crumb, Kafila and the Sarai Reader List)

This is to share with you news of 'The Rest of Now' an exhibition  
curated by us, the Raqs Media Collective (Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica  
Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta), at the ex-Alumix factory in  
Bolzano / Bozen, for the seventh edition of Manifesta: The European  
Biennale of Contemporary Art, which opened in the Trentino-South  
Tyrol region of Italy on the 19th of July. The exhibition will stay  
open till the 2nd of November, 2008.

Manifesta is an itinerant biennial that changes location every two  
years. The  artistic strategies of Manifesta 7 take the landscape,  
history, industrial heritage and socio-cultural environment of the  
Trentino-South Tyrol region as their points of departure. The five  
different venues: - the fortress in Fortezza / Franzensfeste, the  
Manifattura Tabacchi in Rovereto; the Ex-Peterlini  factory and the  
railway station in Rovereto, the Ex-Alumix factory in Bolzano / Bozen  
and the former Central Post Office in Trento - will all be open to  
the public for the first time in their new incarnations as spaces for  
the exhibition of contemporary art.

The artistic content of each Manifesta is conceived and developed by  
a new team of international curators. This edition of Manifesta is  
curated by Adam Budak (Graz / Krakow), Anselm Franke (Berlin /  
Antwerp) / Hila Peleg (Berlin / Tel Aviv) and Raqs Media Collective  
(New Delhi). Adam Budak curates an exhibition titled 'Principle:  
Hope' in Rovereto,  Anselm Franke & Hila Peleg curate an exhbition  
titled 'The Soul' in Trento and the Raqs Media Collective curate 'The  
Rest of Now' in Bolzano / Bozen. The three curatorial teams  
collaborate to curate 'Scenarios' at Fortezza / Franzensfeste.

The curators of Manifesta 7 have invited more than 180 participants  
from many different parts of the world, with a strong focus on  
today's diverse Europe, to present their work in Trentino-South  
Tyrol. The curators have invited the artists to respond to the key  
curatorial concepts of Manifesta 7, which are inspired by the  
region's intricate web of history, modernity and contemporaneity.

To find out more about Manifesta 7, see - http://www.manifesta7.it/

To find out more about the different exhibitions, locations and  
artists lists,  see - http://www.manifesta7.it/locations/show/

To find out more about the curators, see - http://www.manifesta7.it/ 
pages/657763594

We enclose below, our curatorial essay for The Rest of Now. We look  
forward to responses, to the essay, and for those of you who have  
been, or are planning to travel to Manifesta 7, to the exhibition  
itself. This essay has been published in 'The Index' to Manifesta 7,  
by Silvana Editoriale, Milan, 2008

regards

Shuddhabrata, Monica and Jeebesh

(Raqs Media Collective)



------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
--------------------------------------------------------

The Rest of Now

Raqs Media Collective


1.

A hundred years ago, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, artist, poet and high  
priest of a muscular industrial aesthetic, was seriously injured in  
an automobile accident on the outskirts of Milan.  During his  
convalescence, he wrote a passionate paean to speed, the very force  
that had so recently threatened his life. His words, clad in the  
brash cadence of the first Futurist Manifesto, ring out as a fanfare  
to the velocity of the twentieth century.

  "We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a  
new beauty: the beauty of speed... We are on the extreme promontory  
of the centuries! What is the use of looking behind at the moment  
when we must open the mysterious shutters of the impossible? Time and  
Space died yesterday. We are already living in the absolute, since we  
have already created eternal, omnipresent speed..."
  A hundred years later, standing inside the disused Alumix factory  
in Bolzano/Bozen, which for five decades had been dedicated to the  
production of Marinetti's beloved aluminium, hindsight suggests that  
we consider a different rhythm. Not the speeding regularity of  
architettura razionale, but the soft, syncopation of desuetude.  Let  
us rest for now, between an odd and an even beat, and consider what  
remains from a century devoted to the breathless pursuit of  
tomorrow’s promised riches.
  An empty factory, which once produced aluminium – the substance of  
bombs, aeroplanes and coffee percolators, the metal of speed, death  
and light – is the stage and provocation for us to invoke that which  
is left behind when value is extracted from life, time and labour.   
Aluminium, which as tinfoil and scaffolding is used for the cladding  
of everything from sandwiches to building sites, is also what is  
thrown away the moment the sandwich is eaten and the building  
finished.  Mountains are flattened to mine bauxite, the main  
aluminium ore.  Mountains of aluminium waste may eventually take  
their place.  The Alumix factory, like its counterparts all over the  
world, is a monument to its own residue.
  Turbines, transformers, motors, smelters, furnaces, production  
targets and megawatts of electrical power have long since vacated  
this building.  Marinetti’s “great agitation of work” has departed to  
other continents, making room for dust, fungi, and the anticipation  
of resurrection.  Manifesta 7 enters the building in this moment of  
pause, stealing in between the downtime of industrial abandonment in  
the core of Europe and the overture of global capital’s next move.
  The “rest of now” is the residue that lies at the heart of  
contemporaneity. It is what persists from moments of transformation,  
and what falls through the cracks of time.  It is history’s obstinate  
remainder, haunting each addition and subtraction with arithmetic  
persistence, endlessly carrying over what cannot be accounted for.   
The rest of now is the excess, which pushes us towards respite,  
memory and slowing things down.
  Remembering what has departed, recognizing what is left behind and  
preparing for what is yet to arrive means making sense of the  
relationship between living and having lived.  It means reading the  
things that almost happened, or didn’t quite happen, or that were  
simply desired, against the grain of that which is occurring or has  
taken place.  Residue is a space of open, uncharted, alterity.  The  
residual and the imminent share a paradoxical working solidarity.
  In “Lance,” a short story about time and space travel, Vladimir  
Nabokov wrote, “the future is but the obsolete in reverse,”  
suggesting that even the impulse to hurtle into futurity is always,  
already, shadowed by its own imminent obsolescence.  The Alumix  
factory, like so much of the twentieth century’s heroic and tragic  
dalliance with the future is now a repository of the residual.  What  
better place can there be for the rest of now?
2.

  An exhibition is a design in space.  “The Rest of Now” is also a  
figure in time.  In Bolzano/Bozen, the ex-Alumix factory sits nestled  
between the elevations of the Dolomite mountains, whose every fold is  
a reminder of the fact that industrial time is only a faint ripple on  
the surface of geological time.
To draw a figure in time is to inscribe a mark on a difficult and  
slippery surface.  As time passes, the reasons to remember grow  
stronger, but the ability to recall is weakened.  Memory straddles  
this paradox.  We could say that the ethics of memory have something  
to do with the urgent negotiation between having to remember (which  
sometimes includes the obligation to mourn), and the requirement to  
move on (which sometimes includes the necessity to forget).  Both are  
necessary, and each is notionally contingent on the abdication of the  
other, but life is not led to the easy rhythm of regularly  
alternating episodes of memory and forgetting that cancel each other  
out in a neat equation that resolves to zero.

Residue is the fulcrum on which the delicate negotiation between  
memory and forgetting is undertaken, because it is the unresolved,  
lingering aftertaste of an event that triggers the task of retrieving  
and dealing with  the difficult of its recollection.  The question of  
what is to be done with residue – should it be burned, buried,  
frozen, embalmed, mourned, celebrated, commemorated, carried over,  
forgotten or remembered – haunts us all the time.  It haunts us in  
our personal lives as much as it haunts the larger histories we  
participate in and draw from.  To draw a figure in time is  
necessarily to encounter and reflect on the difficulty of the  
residual.  There are no easy answers to the questions posed by residue.

Images are not always the most reliable allies against forgetfulness;  
words play tricks with memory. Oblivion is easily accomplished,  
especially with the aid of what is usually called restoration, which  
makes it possible to ignore or cosmetically invert the action of time  
on a physical surface.  Monuments, contrary to the stated intentions  
of their construction, abet forgetfulness.  Sometimes the work of art  
can be a matter of ensuring that the time it takes to think and  
recall difficult questions be given its due; that instead of  
purchasing the processed and instant sense of time mined from a  
monument we explore the option of accessing the potential of even a  
modest memento to destabilize the certitude of the present.

  How can images and objects be brought together in a manner that  
helps etch a lingering doubt onto the heart of amnesia?  How can  
concepts and experiences that sustain an attitude of vigilance  
against the impulse of erasure be expressed as tools to think and  
feel with, to work with in the present? How can we remember and  
reconsider the world without getting lost in reverie? How can a  
meditation on history avoid the stupor of nostalgia? What work must  
memory be put to, in order to ensure that we erect, not memorials  
that close the roads to further inquiry, but signposts that ask for  
more journeys to be undertaken?
  “The Rest of Now” is an occasion for the asking of these  
questions.  It offers both the building blocks of an argument and a  
disposition to be alert to the material, cognitive and emotional  
consequences of temporal processes.  Underlying the argument and the  
disposition is a hunch that the after-image of residue may be a  
critique and an antidote to the narrative conceit of progress.  We  
can move on only if we understand that the debts we owe to the past  
are a long way from being settled, and that we are required to carry  
them with us into the future.  We can move on only if we understand  
that the future is constituted by the debts we incur in the present.  
Residue is an unlikely, but effective, engine.
The artists we have invited to “The Rest of Now” have responded in a  
variety of ways to our proposition.  Coded within their responses are  
entire archives of forgotten, retrieved and imagined worlds,  
exemplars of practices of persistence and refusal, instances of play,  
investigation, questioning and speculation.  Looking out with them,  
out of the factory, towards the mountains, this exhibition layers,  
leaches, and addles time.  It arrests and thickens time, sows time’s  
seeds in a garden, bores time’s holes in masonry, scrapes time’s dust  
off a wall, build’s time’s bridge to nowhere, measures time in terms  
of detritus, tells stories about the stubborn persistence of things,  
people and ways of life that refuse to admit that either their time  
is over or that it hasn't yet come.  This exhibition takes time, and  
lays it across a long table, makes it climb a high tower, skip a  
heartbeat in a tap dance, rise like mist and fall like sunlight, run  
like an engine and dance like a worker, sleep like a hill and wake  
like a factory, shine, escape and elude capture like the enigmatic  
memory of a dead grandmother.

3.

[The extraction of value from any material, place, thing or person,  
involves a process of refinement. During this process, the object in  
question will undergo a change in state, separating into at least two  
substances: an extract and a residue. With respect to residue: it may  
be said it is that which never finds its way into the manifest  
narrative of how something (an object, a person, a state, or a state  
of being) is produced, or comes into existence. It is the  
accumulation of all that is left behind, when value is  
extracted...There are no histories of residue, no atlases of  
abandonment, no memoirs of what a person was but could not be.]

																												 “With Respect to Residue,” Raqs Media  
Collective, 2005

  When faced with any apparently “abandoned” situation, it quickly  
becomes clear that a lot remains.  Even the walls of a shut-down  
factory teem with life forms, only some of which are visible to the  
eye.  To recognize this is to encounter the fecundity of residue.
  In 1855, the English botanist Richard Deacon published a botanical  
study of the ruins of the Flavian amphitheatre in Rome, “The Flora of  
the Colosseum.”  His meticulous and monumental account catalogues the  
420 species of vegetation growing in the six acres of the ruined  
edifice.  These included several species so rare in Europe at that  
time that Deacon speculated that they must have been transported as  
seeds in the guts of the animals and slaves imported into Rome from  
Africa and Asia for the staging of gladiatorial spectacles.  Deacon  
speaks of these rare plants with affection and awe, saying that they  
“form a link in the memory, and teach us hopeful and soothing  
lessons, amid the sadness of bygone ages: and cold indeed must be the  
heart that does not respond to their silent appeal; for though  
without speech, they tell us of the regenerating power which animates  
the dust of mouldering greatness.”  By 1870, the Colosseum in Rome  
had experienced the first of several modern attempts at  
“restoration,” and the ancient cosmopolitan exuberance of vegetation  
that had been the botanist’s consolation had begun to give way to  
naked stone.
The vocabulary of contests and gladiatorials has not changed much in  
the last two millennia.  Speed and prowess matter as much as they did  
when prisoners, slaves and beasts fought it out in the Colosseum’s  
arena.  If anything, the Olympic virtues, “citius, altius,  
fortius” (faster, higher, stronger) have become the governing maxims  
of the contemporary world – the pace of life and labour gets faster,  
profits and prices rise higher and armies get stronger.  Our  
societies are Colosseums reborn.  We are spectators, gladiators and  
beasts.
  The late Alexander Langer, autonomist activist, thinker, maverick  
European Green politician, and native of South Tyrol, with his  
interest in the residual and his ecological emphasis on slowness,  
provides us with an interesting late twentieth century counterpoint  
to Marinetti’s cult of speed and the gladiatorial imperative. He  
proposed a challenge to the “citius, altius, fortius” maxim with a  
call to consider an alternative trinity of virtues – “lentius,  
suavius, profundius” (slower, softer, deeper).
For quite some time now, the Olympic virtues have been defended with  
armed police pickets all over the world. It becomes necessary, at  
times like this to consider a few good reasons and methods to slow  
things down, to reclaim the stone with wild seeds.
--------------------

Shuddhabrata Sengupta
The Sarai Programme at CSDS
Raqs Media Collective
shuddha at sarai.net
www.sarai.net
www.raqsmediacollective.net



From taraprakash at gmail.com  Fri Aug  1 19:36:45 2008
From: taraprakash at gmail.com (TaraPrakash)
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 10:06:45 -0400
Subject: [Reader-list] Ahmedabad blasts: the usual suspects
References: <038a01c8f3d8$92cc30c0$a7ffbd48@taraprakash>
	<32144e990808010624x3c8b5895te0fcd0e6ad6e8079@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <093001c8f3df$d598b2f0$a7ffbd48@taraprakash>

Sorry Partha. The source is The Hindu. Let me try it again.

Ahmedabad blasts: the usual suspects 
 
Praveen Swami 
 
Gujarat has been targeted by jihadists half-a-dozen times since 2002 in a little-understood war. 
 
One still afternoon in March 2002, Feroze Abdul Latif Ghaswala watched 40 victims of the anti-Muslim pogrom being buried near his aunt’s home in Ahmedabad.Back home in Mumbai, the automobile mechanic saw a printout of a Lashkar-e-Taiba pamphlet, which purported to show a riot victim begging for his life:“Do you think he should have a gun,” it asked. 
 
In September 2003, Ghaswala volunteered for training in Pakistan with a group led by the 2006 Mumbai serial bombing architect, Rahil Abdul Rehman Sheikh.When the Delhi police caught up with him in the summer of 2006, Ghaswala, along with computer engineer Ali Mohammad Cheepa, had just received a consignmentof military-grade explosives from the Lashkar for a major bombing in Ahmedabad
 
Ever since last week’s bombings in Ahmedabad — one among half-a-dozen major plots targeting Gujarat that the Indian police and intelligence services didnot succeed in interdicting — the media have not tired of informing us that jihadist terrorism has taken a dramatic new turn. Instead of Pakistan-basedterrorists, it is claimed, a new generation of Indian jihadists is spearheading the attacks. 
 
On point of fact, the claim is nonsensical: not one single Islamist urban terror cell since 1993 has not involved a preponderance of Indian nationals. Butthe claim does show how little Islamist terror groups, and the politics that have driven their growth, are understood in India.
 
Politics isn’t welcome at the Lal Masjid seminary in Ahmedabad’s Kaulpur area. Its students learn the six principles of Islam as enunciated by the founderof the Tablighi Jamaat, Mohammad Illyas, and are exhorted to give up frivolities like television and cinema. Maulana Sufiyan Patangia, who ran the seminary,often travelled to Saudi Arabia, seeking support for his students. After the January 26, 2001 Gujarat earthquake, the cleric put these networks to useto raise funds for relief work. It was his first foray into the secular world.
 
The al-Qaeda’s bombing of New York and Washington D.C. gave Patangia a new cause. In the wake of the United States-led war on the Taliban, he declared thatIslam was in danger. He set up a study group, Idara-e-Fadlullah-ul-Muslimeen (Institution of Charity for Muslims), to educate his earthquake volunteers.The IFM members monitored events in Afghanistan on the Internet, and listened to tapes of Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Mohammad Masood Azhar’s speeches. 
 
Patangia used to be jokingly called ‘Mullah Omar,’ after the Taliban leader. His second-in-command Suhail Khan adopted an Osama bin-Laden-style headgear,acquiring the nickname ‘Chhota Osama,’ or Little Osama. In February 2002, when the communal pogrom in Gujarat began, Patangia was in Saudi Arabia on hisannual pilgrimage. He turned to the South Asian Islamist there for help to defend his community — and to exact revenge. Abdul Bari, a one-time Hyderabadresident who is among the Lashkar’s top financiers, put up Rs.3,75,000. Two Saudi-based JeM fundraisers of Hyderabad origin, Farhatullah Ghauri and AbdulRehman, threw in another Rs.5,00,000.
 
Most important, though, Patangia made contact with Rasool Khan ‘Party’ — nicknamed with the Ahmedabad argot for ‘contractor’ because of his work for topGujarat mafioso Abdul Latif Sheikh and his Pakistan-based boss, Dawood Ibrahim Kaksar. In May 2002, Khan and his brother Idris met Patangia in Mumbai todiscuss just how vengeance might be planned. 
 
Late in May 2002, five bombs went off on buses in Ahmedabad, injuring 26 people. It was the first act of violence by Gujarat-based jihadists. In December,Khan arranged for eight of Patangia’s volunteers to travel to Pakistan for training. Along with other groups of young people from Hyderabad, Mumbai andBangalore, the Ahmedabad jihadists flew to Pakistan through Dhaka, Kathmandu, Dubai and Bangkok.
 
Soon, the vengeance they sought was delivered. Gujarat’s Home Minister, Haren Pandya, who had led some of the most murderous mobs in Ahmedabad during thepogrom, was shot just 13 months later, by when he ceased to be Home Minister. Central Bureau of Investigation detectives later determined that he was killedby a hit-team directed by Patangia. Nine of the 12 assassins received life terms last year.
 
Despite the CBI’s successes, plans for large-scale reprisal attacks in Gujarat continued apace. The LeT and the Maharashtra-based Students Islamic Movementof India operatives took the lead — helped by a steady flow of funds. 
 
In June 2004, the LeT despatched two Pakistani nationals from Jammu and Kashmir to execute a fidayeen attack in Gujarat. Jishan Johar of Gujranwala in Pakistanand Amjad Ali Rana, who hailed form Sargodha, were killed in a controversial encounter in Ahmedabad along with SIMI activist Javed Sheikh and his friend,Ishrat Jehan Raza. 
 
The Maharashtra-based SIMI bomb-maker Zulfikar Fayyaz Kagzi built a sophisticated suitcase bomb that was planted on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad Express train inFebruary 2006. An error in the timer circuit resulted in the bomb exploding 12 hours after the scheduled detonation time, by when the cleaning staff haddeposited the suitcase in an empty corner of the Ahmedabad station. And in May 2006, the Intelligence Bureau prevented a potentially catastrophic bombingin Gujarat, penetrating an Aurangabad-based SIMI unit, which was in an advanced stage of preparation for serial bomb strikes. 
 
Intellectual infrastructure 
 
Has the vengeance the jihadists sought been delivered? Not quite. Minutes before the latest bombing, the Indian Mujahideen — a Lashkar-SIMI front organisationwhich also took responsibility for the earlier bombings in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh — sent out a manifesto explaining just what it now seeks.
 
According to the manifesto, the Indian Mujahideen is “raising the illustrious banner of Jihad against the Hindus and all those who fight and resist us,and here we begin our revenge with the help and Permission of Allah — a terrifying revenge of our blood, our lives and our honour that will Insha-Allahterminate your survival on this land.”
 
The manifesto calls on Hindus to “realise that the falsehood of your 33 crore dirty mud idols and the blasphemy of your deaf, dumb mute and naked idolsof ram, krishna and hanuman [sic; capitalisation as in original throughout] are not at all going to save your necks from being slaughtered by our hands.”It demands that Hindus change their attitudes, lest “another Ghauri shakes your foundations, and lest another Ghaznavi massacres you, proving your bloodto be the cheapest of all mankind.”
 
No great effort is needed to locate the intellectual genesis of this body of ideas: it draws heavily on long-standing LeT polemic. Indeed, the manifesto’splea that the LeT not take responsibility for the attacks is something of a giveaway, since the terror group has never owned up to actions targeting civilians.In 2003, for example, the LeT argued on its website that violence against Muslims in India was an outcome of the core character of Hindus, who “have nocompassion in their religion.” It was the duty of Muslims to wage a jihad against “Hindu oppressors,” and it was “the Hindu who is a terrorist.”
 
Lashkar chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed also said, “the Hindu is a mean enemy and the proper way to deal with him is the one adopted by our forefathers [who]crushed them by force.” He made clear — just as the Indian Mujahideen has — that the objective of the jihad was extending Muslim control over what it sawas Muslim land. At a November 1999 rally, he promised that he would “not rest until the whole of India is dissolved into Pakistan.” All those who participatedin this project were promised “huge places in Paradise.”
 
SIMI, like the Indian Mujahideen, also invoked medieval conquerors in its literature. In the wake of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, SIMI called forMuslims to avenge the act by following in the steps of the 11th century conqueror, Mahmud Ghaznavi. SIMI posters appealed to god to send another Ghaznavi,and thus avenge attacks on Muslims and their mosques by attacking temples.
 
Local influences 
 
Local religious influences are also evident. In its manifesto, the Indian Mujahideen describes itself as “terrorist,” an apparently odd usage. However,it suggests that the author followed the neoconservative television evangelist Zakir Naik — just as several past Mumbai-based Lashkar operatives like RahilSheikh and Feroze Deshmukh did. 
 
In a controversial speech on al-Qaeda chief Osama bin-Laden, Naik proclaimed, “If he is fighting the enemies of Islam, I am for him. If he is terrorisingAmerica the terrorist — the biggest terrorist — I am with him.” “Every Muslim should be a terrorist,” Naik concluded. “The thing is, if he is terrorisinga terrorist, he is following Islam.”
 
Most Indian Muslims would dispute the proposition: it is not for nothing, after all, that the Indian Mujahideen manifesto devotes considerable space torailing against clerics who oppose its jihadism. But the fact remains that some numbers of young Muslims — angered by discrimination, enraged by pogroms— see jihadism as the sole option available to them. As the work of scholar Ashutosh Varshney points out, the roots of this tragedy lie in the breakdownof inter-communal institutions: in a creeping religious apartheid that enveloped Gujarat in the second half of the last century, decades before the pogrom.
 
In the weeks to come, the police and intelligence investigators will have to find out the perpetrators of the bombings. Politicians, however, have a farmore important task: to ensure that justice and equity are placed at centre stage of civic life in Gujarat, and India as a whole. No other way exists tobring down the intellectual infrastructure of hate, on which the jihadist campaign rests.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Partha Dasgupta 
  To: TaraPrakash 
  Cc: reader-list at sarai.net 
  Sent: Friday, August 01, 2008 9:24 AM
  Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Ahmedabad blasts: the usual suspects


  Hi,

  Don't know were you sourced this from, but this large continuous block of text with punctuation missing is unreadable.

  Rgds, Partha
  ...............................


  On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 6:44 PM, TaraPrakash <taraprakash at gmail.com> wrote:

    Ahmedabad blasts: the usual suspects
     Praveen Swami  Gujarat has been targeted by jihadists half-a-dozen times since 2002 in a little-understood war.  One still afternoon in March 2002, Feroze Abdul Latif Ghaswala watched 40 victims of the anti-Muslim pogrom being buried near his aunt's home in Ahmedabad.Back home in Mumbai, the automobile mechanic saw a printout of a Lashkar-e-Taiba pamphlet, which purported to show a riot victim begging for his life:"Do you think he should have a gun," it asked.  In September 2003, Ghaswala volunteered for training in Pakistan with a group led by the 2006 Mumbai serial bombing architect, Rahil Abdul Rehman Sheikh.When the Delhi police caught up with him in the summer of 2006, Ghaswala, along with computer engineer Ali Mohammad Cheepa, had just received a consignmentof military-grade explosives from the Lashkar for a major bombing in Ahmedabad Ever since last week's bombings in Ahmedabad — one among half-a-dozen major plots targeting Gujarat that the Indian police and intelligence services didnot succeed in interdicting — the media have not tired of informing us that jihadist terrorism has taken a dramatic new turn. Instead of Pakistan-basedterrorists, it is claimed, a new generation of Indian jihadists is spearheading the attacks.  On point of fact, the claim is nonsensical: not one single Islamist urban terror cell since 1993 has not involved a preponderance of Indian nationals. Butthe claim does show how little Islamist terror groups, and the politics that have driven their growth, are understood in India. Politics isn't welcome at the Lal Masjid seminary in Ahmedabad's Kaulpur area. Its students learn the six principles of Islam as enunciated by the founderof the Tablighi Jamaat, Mohammad Illyas, and are exhorted to give up frivolities like television and cinema. Maulana Sufiyan Patangia, who ran the seminary,often travelled to Saudi Arabia, seeking support for his students. After the January 26, 2001 Gujarat earthquake, the cleric put these networks to useto raise funds for relief work. It was his first foray into the secular world. The al-Qaeda's bombing of New York and Washington D.C. gave Patangia a new cause. In the wake of the United States-led war on the Taliban, he declared thatIslam was in danger. He set up a study group, Idara-e-Fadlullah-ul-Muslimeen (Institution of Charity for Muslims), to educate his earthquake volunteers.The IFM members monitored events in Afghanistan on the Internet, and listened to tapes of Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Mohammad Masood Azhar's speeches.  Patangia used to be jokingly called 'Mullah Omar,' after the Taliban leader. His second-in-command Suhail Khan adopted an Osama bin-Laden-style headgear,acquiring the nickname 'Chhota Osama,' or Little Osama. In February 2002, when the communal pogrom in Gujarat began, Patangia was in Saudi Arabia on hisannual pilgrimage. He turned to the South Asian Islamist there for help to defend his community — and to exact revenge. Abdul Bari, a one-time Hyderabadresident who is among the Lashkar's top financiers, put up Rs.3,75,000. Two Saudi-based JeM fundraisers of Hyderabad origin, Farhatullah Ghauri and AbdulRehman, threw in another Rs.5,00,000. Most important, though, Patangia made contact with Rasool Khan 'Party' — nicknamed with the Ahmedabad argot for 'contractor' because of his work for topGujarat mafioso Abdul Latif Sheikh and his Pakistan-based boss, Dawood Ibrahim Kaksar. In May 2002, Khan and his brother Idris met Patangia in Mumbai todiscuss just how vengeance might be planned.  Late in May 2002, five bombs went off on buses in Ahmedabad, injuring 26 people. It was the first act of violence by Gujarat-based jihadists. In December,Khan arranged for eight of Patangia's volunteers to travel to Pakistan for training. Along with other groups of young people from Hyderabad, Mumbai andBangalore, the Ahmedabad jihadists flew to Pakistan through Dhaka, Kathmandu, Dubai and Bangkok. Soon, the vengeance they sought was delivered. Gujarat's Home Minister, Haren Pandya, who had led some of the most murderous mobs in Ahmedabad during thepogrom, was shot just 13 months later, by when he ceased to be Home Minister. Central Bureau of Investigation detectives later determined that he was killedby a hit-team directed by Patangia. Nine of the 12 assassins received life terms last year. Despite the CBI's successes, plans for large-scale reprisal attacks in Gujarat continued apace. The LeT and the Maharashtra-based Students Islamic Movementof India operatives took the lead — helped by a steady flow of funds.  In June 2004, the LeT despatched two Pakistani nationals from Jammu and Kashmir to execute a fidayeen attack in Gujarat. Jishan Johar of Gujranwala in Pakistanand Amjad Ali Rana, who hailed form Sargodha, were killed in a controversial encounter in Ahmedabad along with SIMI activist Javed Sheikh and his friend,Ishrat Jehan Raza.  The Maharashtra-based SIMI bomb-maker Zulfikar Fayyaz Kagzi built a sophisticated suitcase bomb that was planted on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad Express train inFebruary 2006. An error in the timer circuit resulted in the bomb exploding 12 hours after the scheduled detonation time, by when the cleaning staff haddeposited the suitcase in an empty corner of the Ahmedabad station. And in May 2006, the Intelligence Bureau prevented a potentially catastrophic bombingin Gujarat, penetrating an Aurangabad-based SIMI unit, which was in an advanced stage of preparation for serial bomb strikes.  Intellectual infrastructure  Has the vengeance the jihadists sought been delivered? Not quite. Minutes before the latest bombing, the Indian Mujahideen — a Lashkar-SIMI front organisationwhich also took responsibility for the earlier bombings in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh — sent out a manifesto explaining just what it now seeks. According to the manifesto, the Indian Mujahideen is "raising the illustrious banner of Jihad against the Hindus and all those who fight and resist us,and here we begin our revenge with the help and Permission of Allah — a terrifying revenge of our blood, our lives and our honour that will Insha-Allahterminate your survival on this land." The manifesto calls on Hindus to "realise that the falsehood of your 33 crore dirty mud idols and the blasphemy of your deaf, dumb mute and naked idolsof ram, krishna and hanuman [sic; capitalisation as in original throughout] are not at all going to save your necks from being slaughtered by our hands."It demands that Hindus change their attitudes, lest "another Ghauri shakes your foundations, and lest another Ghaznavi massacres you, proving your bloodto be the cheapest of all mankind." No great effort is needed to locate the intellectual genesis of this body of ideas: it draws heavily on long-standing LeT polemic. Indeed, the manifesto'splea that the LeT not take responsibility for the attacks is something of a giveaway, since the terror group has never owned up to actions targeting civilians.In 2003, for example, the LeT argued on its website that violence against Muslims in India was an outcome of the core character of Hindus, who "have nocompassion in their religion." It was the duty of Muslims to wage a jihad against "Hindu oppressors," and it was "the Hindu who is a terrorist." Lashkar chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed also said, "the Hindu is a mean enemy and the proper way to deal with him is the one adopted by our forefathers [who]crushed them by force." He made clear — just as the Indian Mujahideen has — that the objective of the jihad was extending Muslim control over what it sawas Muslim land. At a November 1999 rally, he promised that he would "not rest until the whole of India is dissolved into Pakistan." All those who participatedin this project were promised "huge places in Paradise." SIMI, like the Indian Mujahideen, also invoked medieval conquerors in its literature. In the wake of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, SIMI called forMuslims to avenge the act by following in the steps of the 11th century conqueror, Mahmud Ghaznavi. SIMI posters appealed to god to send another Ghaznavi,and thus avenge attacks on Muslims and their mosques by attacking temples. Local influences  Local religious influences are also evident. In its manifesto, the Indian Mujahideen describes itself as "terrorist," an apparently odd usage. However,it suggests that the author followed the neoconservative television evangelist Zakir Naik — just as several past Mumbai-based Lashkar operatives like RahilSheikh and Feroze Deshmukh did.  In a controversial speech on al-Qaeda chief Osama bin-Laden, Naik proclaimed, "If he is fighting the enemies of Islam, I am for him. If he is terrorisingAmerica the terrorist — the biggest terrorist — I am with him." "Every Muslim should be a terrorist," Naik concluded. "The thing is, if he is terrorisinga terrorist, he is following Islam." Most Indian Muslims would dispute the proposition: it is not for nothing, after all, that the Indian Mujahideen manifesto devotes considerable space torailing against clerics who oppose its jihadism. But the fact remains that some numbers of young Muslims — angered by discrimination, enraged by pogroms— see jihadism as the sole option available to them. As the work of scholar Ashutosh Varshney points out, the roots of this tragedy lie in the breakdownof inter-communal institutions: in a creeping religious apartheid that enveloped Gujarat in the second half of the last century, decades before the pogrom. In the weeks to come, the police and intelligence investigators will have to find out the perpetrators of the bombings. Politicians, however, have a farmore important task: to ensure that justice and equity are placed at centre stage of civic life in Gujarat, and India as a whole. No other way exists tobring down the intellectual infrastructure of hate, on which the jihadist campaign rests.
    _________________________________________
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  -- 
  Partha Dasgupta
  +919811047132

From brosius at sai.uni-heidelberg.de  Sat Aug  2 02:16:32 2008
From: brosius at sai.uni-heidelberg.de (Christiane Brosius)
Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2008 22:46:32 +0200
Subject: [Reader-list] scholarships phd students heidelberg university
In-Reply-To: <446266.6655.qm@web54202.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <446266.6655.qm@web54202.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <48937628.3020300@sai.uni-heidelberg.de>

This might be of interest to a few subscribers to the list.
best,
christiane  brosius
heidelberg, germany

+++

The Graduate Programme for Transcultural Studies (GPTS) is part of the 
Cluster of Excellence "Asia and Europe in a Global Context: Shifting 
Asymmetries in Cultural Flows" at the University of Heidelberg 
(http://www.vjc.uni-hd.de/). The objective of the Cluster is to examine 
processes of cultural exchange with a strong focus on interdisciplinary 
research. The Cluster challenges the master narrative of asymmetrical 
Western domination along with its historical explanation, its 
methodology and the resulting structures of humanities and social 
science research. For the winter term 2008/2009 the GPTS offers

3 short-term (3 month) scholarships for Asian PhD/Doctoral students

The GPTS is looking for applicants with an excellent academic 
background. Selected students will take part in the regular programme of 
the GPTS and contribute actively to it. The scholarships are awarded for 
3 months. Scholarship holders are expected to be in Heidelberg between 
October 2008 and February 2009. The short-term scholarship includes 
travel expenses to Heidelberg and back home, and a monthly stipend of 
1000,- €. Currently contributors to the Cluster work in the fields of 
Anthropology, Archeology, Art History, South and East Asian Studies, 
Assyriology, Cultural Studies, English Philology, Ethnology, Geography, 
History, Indology, Islamic Studies, Musicology, Philosophy, Political 
Science, Public Health, Religious Studies, Sinology, Sociology and 
others. Reflecting the interdisciplinary approach of the Cluster, the 
GSTS invites Asian doctoral students from these as well as other 
disciplines from the humanities and social sciences to apply.

Candidates submit their applications including a letter of intention 
(400 words maximum), a CV, and a project proposal (1000 words) related 
to the major themes and topics of the Cluster 
(http://www.vjc.uni-hd.de/) to the online application system. Electronic 
submission of the application is mandatory.

Deadline for application is August 31st, 2008.

For further details of the GPTS see http://www.vjc.uni-hd.de/graduate.htm.




From gautam.bhan at gmail.com  Sat Aug  2 14:04:11 2008
From: gautam.bhan at gmail.com (gautam bhan)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 14:04:11 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Welcome to the Nigah QueerFest '08!
In-Reply-To: <1cc7ed890808020131x41a9cfecu2fc9404bab1a1751@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1cc7ed890808020131x41a9cfecu2fc9404bab1a1751@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <a1a8cb4d0808020134y37663e1bnfc4beba2c0039c58@mail.gmail.com>

fyi

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Nigah <contact at nigah.org>
Date: Aug 2, 2008 2:01 PM
Subject: Welcome to the Nigah QueerFest '08!
To: gautam bhan <gautam.bhan at gmail.com>

You've made it happen once again!


Your support, contributions and goodwill have ensured that The Nigah
QueerFest is back in 2008.

We are delighted and proud to invite you to the inauguration of the
festival, and to announce the launch of the full schedule on our website
online.

Inauguration:

Friday, August 8, 2008

7.00 pm

Siddhartha Hall, Max Muller Bhavan, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi

(Nearest Metro: Rajiv Chowk)

Join us as we fashion a new language of queerness through an exhibition of
portraits of queer families, while Sumathi Murthy, a Hindustani classical
vocalist and composer from Bangalore will delight us with a queer rendition
of a classical genre.

Join us as we begin another ten days of queering Delhi!
****Check our complete festival schedule online at:
http://www.thequeerfest.com**** <http://www.thequeerfest.com/>



- -- 
The Nigah QueerFest '08
8th to 17th August 2008 in New Delhi
http://www.thequeerfest.com


- -- 
___________

I write at: www.kafila.org.

From mail at shivamvij.com  Sat Aug  2 15:11:29 2008
From: mail at shivamvij.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Shivam_Vij?= =?UTF-8?Q?_=E0=A4=B6=E0=A4=BF=E0=A4=B5=E0=A4=AE?=
	=?UTF-8?Q?=E0=A5=8D_=E0=A4=B5=E0=A4=BF=E0=A4=9C=E0=A5=8D?=)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 15:11:29 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] KPs and facts
Message-ID: <9c06aab30808020241n4078c7a1pf5fc2ebda46eaff0@mail.gmail.com>

Divided House, Delayed Return

Deep fissures in the Kashmiri Pandit community stand in the way of
government efforts to rehabilitate them, reports PEERZADA ARSHAD HAMID

http://tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne090808divided_house.asp

SANJAY TIKOO, a Kashmiri Pandit living in Barbar Shah, Srinagar,
braved all odds and remained in the valley when thousands of Pandits
left their motherland. It was 1990 and the armed insurgency in Kashmir
had begun, followed by press releases in newspapers ordering Hindus to
leave.
No one home Most of the high-security government flats built
exclusively for returning Pandits have found no takers Photo:Javed Dar

The Tikoo family were defiant and resolute. They would not migrate.
They weathered the pressure and fear and lived on in their ancestral
home. Eighteen years later, those days remain vivid for Sanjay. He
clearly remembers the prolonged strike calls, the curfews and, above
all, the migration of fellow Pandits from the valley.

Sanjay credits his mother for the decision. "I thank the women of my
house and, particularly, my mother, who gave her steadfast support to
our decision. If either she or my sister had shown even the slightest
weakness, we too would have fled, forced to uproot ourselves," muses
Sanjay.

The Tikoos were soon singled out. A threatening letter was nailed to
the entrance of their house. Sanjay clearly remembers that fateful
day.

"It was July 16, 1990. I had gone to the top floor of my house to
smoke a cigarette. While pacing up and down, I saw a group of people
reading something on our gate. I rushed down and brought the message
in," recalls Sanjay.

At about the same time, posters purportedly written by militants
became ubiquitous. Along with threats such as the one Sanjay's family
received, they contained strike calls and reports of militant
activities. Disturbed, Sanjay discussed the letter with his family and
then approached a local Urdu newspaper, which published the letter
along with his family's decision: they would not leave the valley and
were willing to face the consequences. Thereafter, a group of
militants belonging to the Al-Umar Commandos approached the family and
denied having issued the letter. This increased the confidence of the
family and encouraged them to stay back.

The relief department of the state government estimates that 56,148
families, including a few Muslim families — approximately 2.5 lakh
people — migrated from their homes following the armed insurgency
during the period 1989- 92. Of this, 34,690 families went to Jammu and
19,338 to New Delhi. While police records say 209 Pandits were killed
in Kashmir in the past 18 years, Pandit organisations put the figure
at about 1,100. An estimated 20,000 Pandit families, however,
preferred to stay.

These people occupied scattered pockets in urban and rural areas,
detached from each other. This forsaken community faced difficulties
in their social life that were felt acutely during marriages,
religious functions and, most of all, when performing the last rites
for their dead.

"During the initial years, finding brides for our sons was difficult
as few migrants were ready to send their daughters back to the valley.
There were no priests to perform prayers. However, the situation is
now improving and people don't consider marriages to families in the
valley that dangerous," Tikoo says.

Sanjay initiated efforts to unite Pandit families and strengthen their
interaction. He and his friends founded the Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh
Samiti (KPSS), which is undertaking a census of Pandits in the valley.
They advocate the safe return of Pandits and oppose government plans
to give Pandits high-security residential flats.

"The government has constructed separate buildings and has given CRPF
security to them. However, this is an effort to create a Palestine-
Israel type divide in Kashmir," asserts Tikoo.

The KPSS is also critical of hard-line Pandit organisations like Panun
Kashmir and Roots in Kashmir, because of their demand for a separate
homeland in Kashmir, northeast of the Jhelum. The KPSS considers
Kashmir a political problem and a dispute between India and Pakistan.

Panun Kashmir believes that the insurgency was a communal riot
engineered by Islamic fundamentalists to drive the minority Hindus
from the valley. They accuse Muslims of ethnic cleansing. Panun
Kashmir has demanded land along the Jhelum in south Kashmir to be
secured to build colonies for Pandits. The group also wants this zone
to be made a Union Territory.

"Our community has suffered badly. We have been uprooted from our
homeland and unless adequate arrangements are made, we won't go back
and will continue our fight for our rights. Residential flats are not
the solution — that's just moving us from one camp to another. Our
return to our motherland should be final and secure, so that we will
not be forced to leave again," asserts Ajay Chrangoo, Chairman, Panun
Kashmir. Chrangoo has been living in Jammu since his migration and
strongly advocates a separate homeland.

Chrangoo refers to flats constructed at Mattan in South Kashmir and at
Sheikhpora on the outskirts of Srinagar that the state government has
spent crores on, in order to coax Pandits to return. No Jammu Pandits
were ready to return here, and most flats remain locked.

Another voice representing the migrant community is the All India
Kashmiri Samaj. Headed by Ram Krishan Bhat, it works to keep the
Kashmiri sentiment alive among Pandit youth. Though he praises the
Pandits who remained in the valley and calls them "daring", he says
their continued presence in the valley is not enough to convince other
Pandits to return.

Chrangoo disagrees. "There is nothing special in some Pandits staying
back. While some members of the community stay behind in conflict
zones where there is a mass exodus, this can't obscure the bigger
picture — the fact that most Pandits have fled. Moreover, those who
remain, remain in fear," he adds.


THE LARGE numbers of Pandit groups — representing migrants and
non-migrants — claiming to fight for the rights of Pandits have
confused people both in India and abroad. The clamour of voices has
added to the complexity of the issue. While all groups claim to
represent the aspirations of Kashmiri Pandits, all of them differ on
when, where and how Pandits should return. "Pandits are as divided as
the Muslims are," quips Sanjay Tikoo.

Sanjay Saraf, a migrant politician, adds another dimension to the
debate. Saraf plans to contest the coming assembly elections and is
state president of the Lok Jan Shakti Party.

Recently, national and regional parties from outside the state have
started making inroads here. The elections will see candidates from
the SP and the BSP, who have held rallies in Srinagar.

Saraf, however, relies more on Muslim votes than on Pandit ones.
Though he is a migrant, he has been visiting the valley regularly for
the past seven years for party meetings and constituency visits. He is
critical of Panun Kashmir and Roots in Kashmir that are headquartered
outside Kashmir and describes them as stooges of fundamentalist
forces. "They are dancing to the tune of the BJP and the VHP and are
trying to create a communal wedge," Saraf alleges.

The divide among Pandits deepened during the recent crisis over land
for the Amarnath shrine board. While most Pandit organisations based
in Jammu and New Delhi favoured the transfer of land to the board, the
valley-based KPSS stood alone in its demand for the pilgrimage to be
placed under resident Kashmiri Pandit organisations. Saraf supported
this demand from the beginning. "Pandits cannot remain outside the
valley and pay mere lip service to the cause. We have to be here to
say we belong to the land. Raising a hue and cry while staying outside
hardly matters," avers Sanjay Saraf, while acknowledging KPSS'
efforts.

Ideological differences have increased the divide between migrant
Pandits and those who stayed back. Eighteen years after Pandits fled
the valley, various groups continue to pursue their own agendas and a
consensus remains elusive.

WRITER'S E-MAIL
peerzadaarshad at gmail.com
From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 31, Dated Aug 09, 2008

From ravikant at sarai.net  Sat Aug  2 17:43:06 2008
From: ravikant at sarai.net (Ravikant)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 17:43:06 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Talk at Sarai-CSDS
Message-ID: <200808021743.06802.ravikant@sarai.net>

You are all invited to an illustrated talk by Dr. Krishnendu Ray at Sarai-CSDS 
on 8th August, Friday, 3.30 PM. Please read on for details:
---
Making the Edible Legible: American Restaurants in Print, 1830-2006

Cuisine happens when cooking leaves the kitchen, in the first instance when it 
escapes the domestic kitchen, and in the second instance, when it spreads 
onto the print media to give durability to the talk about taste. Based on 
detailed archival work and quantitative data this presentation seeks to 
measure the talk about restaurants in American newspapers from its first 
appearance in 1830 to the present. The restaurant kitchen is trhe space of 
mongrel borderland – an orality of Hispanidad, Bengali, Cantonese, and 
Hakka – and the dining room a pedigreed and printed Anglophone parlor with 
Francophile accents. This work looks at taste and toil as a dynamic, dialogic 
relationship between producers and consumers of commodified cuisine.   



Krishnendu Ray is Assistant Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public 
Health at New York University. He is the author of The Migrants' Table 
(Temple Univ Press, 2004), and has taught for a decade at the Culinary 
Institute of America. 
---

regards
ravikant

From pawan.durani at gmail.com  Sat Aug  2 17:59:36 2008
From: pawan.durani at gmail.com (Pawan Durani)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 17:59:36 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Hindu Communalists ! and Jammu keeps Burning
Message-ID: <6b79f1a70808020529y11a55b3ud27e08d781af6e9a@mail.gmail.com>

*KASHMIR IMAGES, August 2, 2009*

*Good you talked about Hindu communalists of India, why not about Muslim
fundamentalists of Kashmir?*

*By Vimal Sumbly*

Dear Omar,

please accept my heartiest congratulations for an impassionate speech you
delivered in the parliament on July 22.
It would be remembered as one of the best speeches ever delivered in the
parliament. I have always felt proud about your secular and nationalistic
credentials. Unlike most other politicians in Kashmir, you and your
illustrious father Dr Farooq Abdullah have the distinction of never playing
with the secessionist sentiments of people in Kashmir. As you began your
speech in the parliament that you are a Muslim and you are an Indian and
there was no difference between the two, you were speaking straight from
your heart. In fact you never needed to say that, you have always proved it
indeed.
However I beg to differ with the widespread public opinion generated by your
"extempore speech". For the speech was not at all addressed to the
parliament, nor to the billion Indians who were watching you live on the
television. It was aimed at the select "secular Muslims of Kashmir" whom you
are going to ask for their vote very soon. I salute you for the courage to
call a spade a spade. You rightly criticized the Bharitya Janata Party for
its communal agenda. I believe your regret and apologies were obviously
aimed at the Kashmiri Muslims. You rightly criticized the Communists for
being self proclaimed guardians of the Indian secularism, while not minding
to side with the "communal BJP" in toppling the government.

Dear Omar, I know and you know that you paid a heavy price in 2002 assembly
elections in Kashmir for not having resigned on the Gujarat riots. You and
your party were defeated in the elections, mainly because you were blamed
for sharing power with the "communal BJP" at the centre. That ghost might be
still haunting you. But you showed enough moral courage to apologize to the
Kashmiri Muslims. You berated the BJP to the maximum possible extent. That
is for you and the BJP to decide. Your speech was rated among the best by
various television channels. Taking it on the face value everybody would
like it. Because, it was rhetoric at its best. Particularly when you had
chosen the two best targets, the Communists and the BJP, who were obviously
not liked by many across the country for their opportunistic "understanding"
to topple the government for entirely different reasons.

I wish you gathered the same moral courage, which you showed in the
parliament to denounce the Hindu communalists, to condemn the Muslim
communalists in Kashmir. I feel sorry the way you defended the anti Amarnath
land transfer agitation in the parliament. And hats off to you that you
presented it to be a "secular" agitation for the land. Let you tell me and
the whole of nation who was going to take away the land from you. Had LK
Advani been allotted the land to settle down his "communal brigade" there?
It was just a temporary transfer to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board to
facilitate the pilgrimage of lakhs of pilgrims coming from across the
country. And is the Shrine Board an outside agency? Isn't it just a state
agency controlled by the state government itself? The matter of the fact is
that you joined the course of competitive communalism that was initiated by
your rivals, the People's Democratic Party and hijacked by secessionists
like Sayeed Ali Shah Geelani. And how brilliantly you presented it in
"secular colours". What if the Hindus outside Kashmir rebel in the same way
and seek vacation of Haj houses? That has never been done and it will never
be done.
Not everybody across the country knows that the grave of your grandfather,
Sher-i-Kashmir, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah still needs a heavy posse of cops
and mostly drawn from central paramilitary forces to be defended against the
same "secular" Muslims of Kashmir. And we all know Sheikh Sahib was a true
secular leader who opted for secular India against an Islamic Pakistan. Had
it not been for him, Kashmir would not have been with India. So, who is
wrong your grandfather or the "secular" Kashmiri Muslims, whom you defended
with such a strong conviction? Like you apologized to the Kashmiri Muslims
for "sleeping with the communal BJP", you should also apologize to the
people of Jammu whom you accused of being communal. This was too hurting.
Let you not forget that you still feel safer in Jammu than in Kashmir and
there has not been a selective communal killing in Jammu despite so much
provocation in Kashmir valley. You certainly owe an apology to the people of
Jammu also and the current phase of violence was provoked by "the best"
speech you delivered in the parliament.

And please don't mislead the county that no Amarnath pilgrim was ever
attacked. There have been scores of attacks resulting in scores of deaths
during the past two decades on the pilgrims. And also let the record be
straightened that the Amarnath cave was not discovered by a Muslim about 150
years ago. Its mention is in Neelamat Puran as well. Besides, when the
Kashmiri Pandits were subjected to atrocities during the regime of
Aurangzeb, they (the Kashmiri Pandits) had gone to Amaranth to seek divine
intervention. It is here that they decided to approach Guru Tegh Bahadur in
Anandpur Sahib and that is over 300 years ago.

I am sure, you are an honest and a well meaning person. I not only see a
bright future for Kashmir in you, but for the entire country. We need
leaders like you, passionate, forthright, honest, brilliant and daring. To
conclude I tell, rather I request you one small thing. This is too personal.
That I am myself a Kashmiri like you. I am thorough Kashmiri in language, in
culture, in life and in everything. I have been thrown out of my Kashmir 18
years ago. Even remaining away, I have maintained my language, my culture
and my lifestyle as a true Kashmir. You will say that, I was not thrown out
as it was Jagmohan who prompted me to move out. Presuming that I went out at
Jagmohan's behest, but can you help me now to return my piece of land, less
than half an acre, no big deal. It has been occupied by one of my "secular
Muslim" classmates with whom I used to go to school for twelve long years.
He knows I cannot do anything. You said, you will fight for the rights of
your land. Will you help me to return my land, like you pleaded the cause of
other fellow Muslim Kashmiris. I am also your fellow Kashmiri who still
cherishes the memories of his home. Don't disappoint me. Because I think you
are not only brave but bold as well. Have courage to speak for me. Whether I
get my land back or not, would not bother me, but I would feel consoled that
a fellow Kashmiri stood for me, like he stood for other fellow Kashmiris.
I understand that writing to you this way is enough to get me pronounced as
communal and an activist of RSS and Shiv Sena. But let me put it on record
that ours was among a few exceptional Pandit families that always voted for
the National Conference and not the Congress. You can verify it from my same
friend who has grabbed my land. We used to participate together in National
Conference processions. And I still believe that the National Conference is
the best bet for the people of Jammu and Kashmir, particularly under the
dynamic leadership of a young, brilliant, brave and daring leader like you.
 My sincere apologies if I have been harsh to you, I never wanted to cloud
the glory of your speech in parliament, I only wanted to set the record
straight. Because truth must be told howsoever bitter it may be.

From pawan.durani at gmail.com  Sat Aug  2 18:03:17 2008
From: pawan.durani at gmail.com (Pawan Durani)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 18:03:17 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Unannounced curbs on media in Jammu
Message-ID: <6b79f1a70808020533t68c13f36ufe52b34d00db1199@mail.gmail.com>

Let us all condemn this act.
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/uncategorized/unannounced-curbs-on-media-in-jammu_10079039.html

Unannounced curbs on media in Jammu

Jammu, Aug 2 (IANS) "Sorry! Press is not allowed," that is the curt answer
to the pleas of journalists who want to move in Jammu city to cover the
ongoing riots over the Amarnath land row. Any other person with an identity
card or a curfew pass is signaled to move on. But reporters are told: "Hurry
up, turn or you will face the consequences."

A group of reporters and cameramen trying to enter the walled city were
stopped at Bikram Chowk Saturday and told to "go back".

"These are the orders from the higher authorities, we cannot do anything," a
police official on duty at the spot told the scribes.

Journalists at many places like Rehari, Shakti Nagar, Parade, Pacca Danga
and Link Road areas were not allowed to step out of their houses.

There was no official word as to why the curbs were imposed on media.

No official was available for comments and the phone calls went unanswered.

From mail at shivamvij.com  Sat Aug  2 21:04:00 2008
From: mail at shivamvij.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Shivam_Vij?= =?UTF-8?Q?_=E0=A4=B6=E0=A4=BF=E0=A4=B5=E0=A4=AE?=
	=?UTF-8?Q?=E0=A5=8D_=E0=A4=B5=E0=A4=BF=E0=A4=9C=E0=A5=8D?=)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 21:04:00 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Unannounced curbs on media in Jammu
In-Reply-To: <6b79f1a70808020533t68c13f36ufe52b34d00db1199@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6b79f1a70808020533t68c13f36ufe52b34d00db1199@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <9c06aab30808020834m6b1381acg5037010f687e5e2d@mail.gmail.com>

Dear Pawan,

On 7 July I had posted a similar news article about an attack on
journalists in Srinagar. See
http://readerlist.freeflux.net/blog/archive/2008/07/07/reader-list-crpf-attacks-journalists-in-srinagar.html

This one that you post about Jammu claims that journalists have been
threatened ("Hurry up, turn or you will face the consequences"). But
in that case journalists were beaten up. I had in my post even pointed
out that such an attack in any other state capital would have received
attention in the national/Delhi media, over which my friend Aditya Raj
Kaul certainly has more influence than Syed Ali Shah Geelani.

You had replied that post of mine, thus: "Article 370......they live
with it ...they should die with it ...their
prefrence ....they have a separate constitution ,.....let them appeal under
RPC acts......."

Now I would have liked to respond to that, but I didn't because you
had made a grave personal accusation which caused some self-doubt. You
had written, "Your obsession is just too compulsive." I thought,
perhaps Pawan has a point after all - not about the Ranbir Penal Code
but about my being unable to see out of my box because of being
obsessed with it.

But now, you post an article about threats and "unannounced curbs" on
the media in another part of the state, Jammu, which is also governed
by the Ranbir rather than the Indian Penal Code. You not only
*condemn* an attack on journalists in Jammu despite Jammu also being
governed by the RPC, but also you go on to call upon *all* members of
this list in joining you in the act of condemnation of this reported
act of reporters being prevented from doing their job under duress.

Now I think that the Hindi press in Jammu is unabashedly communal, its
front-page headlines are more interested in stoking passions rather
than disseminating news. What else could you expect from papers like
Dainik Jagran, which have a documented record of causing deaths in
communal conflicts and aligning itself with the anti-Muslim RSS (
http://www.thehoot.org/web/home/searchdetail.php?sid=559&bg=1 ).

Now, despite this background, I join you in condemning these
unannounced curbs on the media in Jammu, if the report is true, no
matter what the magnitude of this exercise of conflict-related
censorship is. In other words, I am saying that I condemn this even if
the security personnel were instructed to do so only to prevent the
press from stoking further passions, causing more deaths and 'unrest'.

I condemn the act for the following reasons:

Firstly, I am against censorship unless it is being used to prevent
very imminent, direct violence. In this case I think what is required
is better regulatory mechanism than a toothless Press Council of India
to prevent papers like Dainik Jagran from stoking communal passions.

Secondly, even if I feel relieved that the police is preventing the
journalists with an honourable intention, I can't support the act for
reasons of consistency. For I can then not argue against censorship in
Srinagar by the CRPF, using actual violence to prevent publication of
reports about the protest outside the Hazratbal shrine. The Indian
state can justly claim that it was doing so because the journalists
and protesters were seeking/promoting secession.

To cut a long story short, would you please explain why you want us to
join you in condemning censorship and harassment of journalists in
Jammu even though you refused, on 7 July, to condemn the beating up of
journalists in Srinagar with lathis just because the state does not
follow the Indian Penal Code? I mean, why shouldn't we wait for India
establish "full flow of the Indian constitution" in Jammu *&* Kashmir
before we can condemn the violation of that Constitution - as is your
argument for Srinagar?

Every Kashmir-related post on this list that you find uncomfortable,
you either ignore it or just say, "You don't know the facts." You
don't by extension state what the alleged lie is and what the facts
are. But the least one expects is consistency from you. This
discrepancy amounts to intellectual dishonesty. It forces me to
conclude that you don't care if Muslim journalists are beaten to death
but you have every concern for Hindu journalists. Such blatantly
communal sentiments are not expected from someone who constantly
reminds us of having been on the receiving end of Kashmiri Muslim
communalism.

However, perhaps you have an explanation, and perhaps I am
over-reaction. I look forward to your response.

warmly,
shivam







On Sat, Aug 2, 2008 at 6:03 PM, Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com> wrote:
> Let us all condemn this act.
> http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/uncategorized/unannounced-curbs-on-media-in-jammu_10079039.html
>
> Unannounced curbs on media in Jammu
>
> Jammu, Aug 2 (IANS) "Sorry! Press is not allowed," that is the curt answer
> to the pleas of journalists who want to move in Jammu city to cover the
> ongoing riots over the Amarnath land row. Any other person with an identity
> card or a curfew pass is signaled to move on. But reporters are told: "Hurry
> up, turn or you will face the consequences."
>
> A group of reporters and cameramen trying to enter the walled city were
> stopped at Bikram Chowk Saturday and told to "go back".
>
> "These are the orders from the higher authorities, we cannot do anything," a
> police official on duty at the spot told the scribes.
>
> Journalists at many places like Rehari, Shakti Nagar, Parade, Pacca Danga
> and Link Road areas were not allowed to step out of their houses.
>
> There was no official word as to why the curbs were imposed on media.
>
> No official was available for comments and the phone calls went unanswered.
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>



-- 
/National Highway/ http://shivamvij.com/

From pawan.durani at gmail.com  Sat Aug  2 23:53:08 2008
From: pawan.durani at gmail.com (Pawan Durani)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 23:53:08 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Unannounced curbs on media in Jammu
In-Reply-To: <9c06aab30808020834m6b1381acg5037010f687e5e2d@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6b79f1a70808020533t68c13f36ufe52b34d00db1199@mail.gmail.com>
	<9c06aab30808020834m6b1381acg5037010f687e5e2d@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6b79f1a70808021123x11b13027o215c4a9372903cc0@mail.gmail.com>

Dear Shivam,
I would still say that you are too obsessed with anti Indian and anti
Kashmiri Pandit stand,inspite of you being a friend.

I wanted to reply to your post where you wanted the readers to read the
following story [
http://tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne090808divided_house.asp
] <http://tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne090808divided_house.asp>

I wrote a reply and chose not to post it for i did not want to to give
importance your OBSESSION.

Your problem with Jammu struggle goes deep into your love for anti
establishment . When Kashmiri muslims  were agitating against providing
decent facilities to Amarnath , you want ahead and posted an article with
subject Amarnath row: Azadi sentiment gets a fillip [
http://shivamvij.com/2008/07/09/amarnath-row-azadi-sentiment-gets-a-fillip/]

What has escaped you is almost 3 weeks of curfew in jammu , shoot at sight
orders and atrocities committed on hindu population of Jammu by muslim
police.

Why Shivam ? What are you made of ?

If you recollect the time when you were with tehelka and it's summit I asked
Mehbooba a question about Kashmiri Hindus, she said that Kashmiri hindus
were welcome in Kashmir as visitors and tourists , i wonder why havent that
thing hit you term her as communal .

And neither have you evercalled Geelani , Yasin and Mirwaiz as one ?

As a Jouro, i know where you stand for truth.

Pawan
www.thekashmir.wordpress.com



On Sat, Aug 2, 2008 at 9:04 PM, Shivam Vij शिवम् विज् <mail at shivamvij.com>wrote:

> Dear Pawan,
>
> On 7 July I had posted a similar news article about an attack on
> journalists in Srinagar. See
>
> http://readerlist.freeflux.net/blog/archive/2008/07/07/reader-list-crpf-attacks-journalists-in-srinagar.html
>
> This one that you post about Jammu claims that journalists have been
> threatened ("Hurry up, turn or you will face the consequences"). But
> in that case journalists were beaten up. I had in my post even pointed
> out that such an attack in any other state capital would have received
> attention in the national/Delhi media, over which my friend Aditya Raj
> Kaul certainly has more influence than Syed Ali Shah Geelani.
>
> You had replied that post of mine, thus: "Article 370......they live
> with it ...they should die with it ...their
> prefrence ....they have a separate constitution ,.....let them appeal under
> RPC acts......."
>
> Now I would have liked to respond to that, but I didn't because you
> had made a grave personal accusation which caused some self-doubt. You
> had written, "Your obsession is just too compulsive." I thought,
> perhaps Pawan has a point after all - not about the Ranbir Penal Code
> but about my being unable to see out of my box because of being
> obsessed with it.
>
> But now, you post an article about threats and "unannounced curbs" on
> the media in another part of the state, Jammu, which is also governed
> by the Ranbir rather than the Indian Penal Code. You not only
> *condemn* an attack on journalists in Jammu despite Jammu also being
> governed by the RPC, but also you go on to call upon *all* members of
> this list in joining you in the act of condemnation of this reported
> act of reporters being prevented from doing their job under duress.
>
> Now I think that the Hindi press in Jammu is unabashedly communal, its
> front-page headlines are more interested in stoking passions rather
> than disseminating news. What else could you expect from papers like
> Dainik Jagran, which have a documented record of causing deaths in
> communal conflicts and aligning itself with the anti-Muslim RSS (
> http://www.thehoot.org/web/home/searchdetail.php?sid=559&bg=1 ).
>
> Now, despite this background, I join you in condemning these
> unannounced curbs on the media in Jammu, if the report is true, no
> matter what the magnitude of this exercise of conflict-related
> censorship is. In other words, I am saying that I condemn this even if
> the security personnel were instructed to do so only to prevent the
> press from stoking further passions, causing more deaths and 'unrest'.
>
> I condemn the act for the following reasons:
>
> Firstly, I am against censorship unless it is being used to prevent
> very imminent, direct violence. In this case I think what is required
> is better regulatory mechanism than a toothless Press Council of India
> to prevent papers like Dainik Jagran from stoking communal passions.
>
> Secondly, even if I feel relieved that the police is preventing the
> journalists with an honourable intention, I can't support the act for
> reasons of consistency. For I can then not argue against censorship in
> Srinagar by the CRPF, using actual violence to prevent publication of
> reports about the protest outside the Hazratbal shrine. The Indian
> state can justly claim that it was doing so because the journalists
> and protesters were seeking/promoting secession.
>
> To cut a long story short, would you please explain why you want us to
> join you in condemning censorship and harassment of journalists in
> Jammu even though you refused, on 7 July, to condemn the beating up of
> journalists in Srinagar with lathis just because the state does not
> follow the Indian Penal Code? I mean, why shouldn't we wait for India
> establish "full flow of the Indian constitution" in Jammu *&* Kashmir
> before we can condemn the violation of that Constitution - as is your
> argument for Srinagar?
>
> Every Kashmir-related post on this list that you find uncomfortable,
> you either ignore it or just say, "You don't know the facts." You
> don't by extension state what the alleged lie is and what the facts
> are. But the least one expects is consistency from you. This
> discrepancy amounts to intellectual dishonesty. It forces me to
> conclude that you don't care if Muslim journalists are beaten to death
> but you have every concern for Hindu journalists. Such blatantly
> communal sentiments are not expected from someone who constantly
> reminds us of having been on the receiving end of Kashmiri Muslim
> communalism.
>
> However, perhaps you have an explanation, and perhaps I am
> over-reaction. I look forward to your response.
>
> warmly,
> shivam
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Aug 2, 2008 at 6:03 PM, Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Let us all condemn this act.
> >
> http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/uncategorized/unannounced-curbs-on-media-in-jammu_10079039.html
> >
> > Unannounced curbs on media in Jammu
> >
> > Jammu, Aug 2 (IANS) "Sorry! Press is not allowed," that is the curt
> answer
> > to the pleas of journalists who want to move in Jammu city to cover the
> > ongoing riots over the Amarnath land row. Any other person with an
> identity
> > card or a curfew pass is signaled to move on. But reporters are told:
> "Hurry
> > up, turn or you will face the consequences."
> >
> > A group of reporters and cameramen trying to enter the walled city were
> > stopped at Bikram Chowk Saturday and told to "go back".
> >
> > "These are the orders from the higher authorities, we cannot do
> anything," a
> > police official on duty at the spot told the scribes.
> >
> > Journalists at many places like Rehari, Shakti Nagar, Parade, Pacca Danga
> > and Link Road areas were not allowed to step out of their houses.
> >
> > There was no official word as to why the curbs were imposed on media.
> >
> > No official was available for comments and the phone calls went
> unanswered.
> > _________________________________________
> > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> > Critiques & Collaborations
> > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
> subscribe in the subject header.
> > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> > List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
>
>
>
> --
> /National Highway/ http://shivamvij.com/
>

From kauladityaraj at gmail.com  Sun Aug  3 00:30:33 2008
From: kauladityaraj at gmail.com (Aditya Raj Kaul)
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 00:30:33 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Unannounced curbs on media in Jammu
In-Reply-To: <6b79f1a70808021123x11b13027o215c4a9372903cc0@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6b79f1a70808020533t68c13f36ufe52b34d00db1199@mail.gmail.com>
	<9c06aab30808020834m6b1381acg5037010f687e5e2d@mail.gmail.com>
	<6b79f1a70808021123x11b13027o215c4a9372903cc0@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6353c690808021200w4c5e3960ofe97f449fe774fd1@mail.gmail.com>

Shivamji,

In Kashmir, Protests were organised by Huriyat, JKLF, NC, PDP etc.

In Jammu, Protests are being organised by the common people and just
supported by BJP, VHP, RSS.

Hope you understand the difference.

If you still don't then you better catch the next flight to Jammu and be
there among the people.

*P.S.* - "The Hindu" newspaper which has a history of giving coverage to
almost all sections; today didn't even mention about the 2 deaths in Jammu
or protests.

On the other hand, JKLF Terrorist Yasin Malik organised press conf. in an
Hotel in Kashmir was given wide coverage in Media. He said Pandits are
"FANATICS" and "COMMUNAL". I wonder if he has a mirror at home; or else he
is turning blind on both eyes.

God Bless you Journalist.

Regards
Aditya Raj Kaul


On 8/2/08, Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Dear Shivam,
> I would still say that you are too obsessed with anti Indian and anti
> Kashmiri Pandit stand,inspite of you being a friend.
>
> I wanted to reply to your post where you wanted the readers to read the
> following story [
> http://tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne090808divided_house.asp
> ] <http://tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne090808divided_house.asp>
>
> I wrote a reply and chose not to post it for i did not want to to give
> importance your OBSESSION.
>
> Your problem with Jammu struggle goes deep into your love for anti
> establishment . When Kashmiri muslims  were agitating against providing
> decent facilities to Amarnath , you want ahead and posted an article with
> subject Amarnath row: Azadi sentiment gets a fillip [
> http://shivamvij.com/2008/07/09/amarnath-row-azadi-sentiment-gets-a-fillip/
> ]
>
> What has escaped you is almost 3 weeks of curfew in jammu , shoot at sight
> orders and atrocities committed on hindu population of Jammu by muslim
> police.
>
> Why Shivam ? What are you made of ?
>
> If you recollect the time when you were with tehelka and it's summit I
> asked
> Mehbooba a question about Kashmiri Hindus, she said that Kashmiri hindus
> were welcome in Kashmir as visitors and tourists , i wonder why havent that
> thing hit you term her as communal .
>
> And neither have you evercalled Geelani , Yasin and Mirwaiz as one ?
>
> As a Jouro, i know where you stand for truth.
>
> Pawan
> www.thekashmir.wordpress.com
>
>
>
> On Sat, Aug 2, 2008 at 9:04 PM, Shivam Vij शिवम् विज् <mail at shivamvij.com
> >wrote:
>
> > Dear Pawan,
> >
> > On 7 July I had posted a similar news article about an attack on
> > journalists in Srinagar. See
> >
> >
> http://readerlist.freeflux.net/blog/archive/2008/07/07/reader-list-crpf-attacks-journalists-in-srinagar.html
> >
> > This one that you post about Jammu claims that journalists have been
> > threatened ("Hurry up, turn or you will face the consequences"). But
> > in that case journalists were beaten up. I had in my post even pointed
> > out that such an attack in any other state capital would have received
> > attention in the national/Delhi media, over which my friend Aditya Raj
> > Kaul certainly has more influence than Syed Ali Shah Geelani.
> >
> > You had replied that post of mine, thus: "Article 370......they live
> > with it ...they should die with it ...their
> > prefrence ....they have a separate constitution ,.....let them appeal
> under
> > RPC acts......."
> >
> > Now I would have liked to respond to that, but I didn't because you
> > had made a grave personal accusation which caused some self-doubt. You
> > had written, "Your obsession is just too compulsive." I thought,
> > perhaps Pawan has a point after all - not about the Ranbir Penal Code
> > but about my being unable to see out of my box because of being
> > obsessed with it.
> >
> > But now, you post an article about threats and "unannounced curbs" on
> > the media in another part of the state, Jammu, which is also governed
> > by the Ranbir rather than the Indian Penal Code. You not only
> > *condemn* an attack on journalists in Jammu despite Jammu also being
> > governed by the RPC, but also you go on to call upon *all* members of
> > this list in joining you in the act of condemnation of this reported
> > act of reporters being prevented from doing their job under duress.
> >
> > Now I think that the Hindi press in Jammu is unabashedly communal, its
> > front-page headlines are more interested in stoking passions rather
> > than disseminating news. What else could you expect from papers like
> > Dainik Jagran, which have a documented record of causing deaths in
> > communal conflicts and aligning itself with the anti-Muslim RSS (
> > http://www.thehoot.org/web/home/searchdetail.php?sid=559&bg=1 ).
> >
> > Now, despite this background, I join you in condemning these
> > unannounced curbs on the media in Jammu, if the report is true, no
> > matter what the magnitude of this exercise of conflict-related
> > censorship is. In other words, I am saying that I condemn this even if
> > the security personnel were instructed to do so only to prevent the
> > press from stoking further passions, causing more deaths and 'unrest'.
> >
> > I condemn the act for the following reasons:
> >
> > Firstly, I am against censorship unless it is being used to prevent
> > very imminent, direct violence. In this case I think what is required
> > is better regulatory mechanism than a toothless Press Council of India
> > to prevent papers like Dainik Jagran from stoking communal passions.
> >
> > Secondly, even if I feel relieved that the police is preventing the
> > journalists with an honourable intention, I can't support the act for
> > reasons of consistency. For I can then not argue against censorship in
> > Srinagar by the CRPF, using actual violence to prevent publication of
> > reports about the protest outside the Hazratbal shrine. The Indian
> > state can justly claim that it was doing so because the journalists
> > and protesters were seeking/promoting secession.
> >
> > To cut a long story short, would you please explain why you want us to
> > join you in condemning censorship and harassment of journalists in
> > Jammu even though you refused, on 7 July, to condemn the beating up of
> > journalists in Srinagar with lathis just because the state does not
> > follow the Indian Penal Code? I mean, why shouldn't we wait for India
> > establish "full flow of the Indian constitution" in Jammu *&* Kashmir
> > before we can condemn the violation of that Constitution - as is your
> > argument for Srinagar?
> >
> > Every Kashmir-related post on this list that you find uncomfortable,
> > you either ignore it or just say, "You don't know the facts." You
> > don't by extension state what the alleged lie is and what the facts
> > are. But the least one expects is consistency from you. This
> > discrepancy amounts to intellectual dishonesty. It forces me to
> > conclude that you don't care if Muslim journalists are beaten to death
> > but you have every concern for Hindu journalists. Such blatantly
> > communal sentiments are not expected from someone who constantly
> > reminds us of having been on the receiving end of Kashmiri Muslim
> > communalism.
> >
> > However, perhaps you have an explanation, and perhaps I am
> > over-reaction. I look forward to your response.
> >
> > warmly,
> > shivam
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Aug 2, 2008 at 6:03 PM, Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > Let us all condemn this act.
> > >
> >
> http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/uncategorized/unannounced-curbs-on-media-in-jammu_10079039.html
> > >
> > > Unannounced curbs on media in Jammu
> > >
> > > Jammu, Aug 2 (IANS) "Sorry! Press is not allowed," that is the curt
> > answer
> > > to the pleas of journalists who want to move in Jammu city to cover the
> > > ongoing riots over the Amarnath land row. Any other person with an
> > identity
> > > card or a curfew pass is signaled to move on. But reporters are told:
> > "Hurry
> > > up, turn or you will face the consequences."
> > >
> > > A group of reporters and cameramen trying to enter the walled city were
> > > stopped at Bikram Chowk Saturday and told to "go back".
> > >
> > > "These are the orders from the higher authorities, we cannot do
> > anything," a
> > > police official on duty at the spot told the scribes.
> > >
> > > Journalists at many places like Rehari, Shakti Nagar, Parade, Pacca
> Danga
> > > and Link Road areas were not allowed to step out of their houses.
> > >
> > > There was no official word as to why the curbs were imposed on media.
> > >
> > > No official was available for comments and the phone calls went
> > unanswered.
> > > _________________________________________
> > > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> > > Critiques & Collaborations
> > > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
> > subscribe in the subject header.
> > > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> > > List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > /National Highway/ http://shivamvij.com/
> >
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
> subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>

From pawan.durani at gmail.com  Sun Aug  3 01:27:08 2008
From: pawan.durani at gmail.com (Pawan Durani)
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 01:27:08 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Restrictions on media, shoot at sight in Jammu
Message-ID: <6b79f1a70808021257p182e42ebpe579fbadfb1468ec@mail.gmail.com>

http://india.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=138721
Why this deafning silence from regular writers like Shuddha, Inder Salim ,
Aarti et ell. ????????????

From elkamath at yahoo.com  Sun Aug  3 09:49:27 2008
From: elkamath at yahoo.com (lalitha kamath)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 21:19:27 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: 5th Global Labour University Conference-- Call
	for Papers
Message-ID: <934137.92627.qm@web53610.mail.re2.yahoo.com>


Decent Work
Social Justice
Fair Globalization
_______________________
Call for Papers
5. Global Labour University Conference
Tata Institute for Social Sciences
Mumbai, India, 22-24 February 2009
Financialization of Capital –
Deterioration of Working Conditions
Submission of proposal for papers until 1 November 2008

Papers are invited that:
a. Discuss trade unions’ innovative approaches and best practices of organizing workers in informal
and precarious employment.
b. Assess policies and organizing campaigns of trade unions to improve legal regulations, labour
market institutions and social protection coverage to secure that all workers can effectively
exercise their workplace and social rights.
c. Analyse trade union research, policy, organizing and collective bargaining strategies which
respond to the aggressive business strategies of global companies and financial institutions.

Format
The workshop will bring together an international group of scholars and trade unionists. It will feature
working groups, paper presentations, and panel discussions involving both academics and trade
unionists. Papers will be presented mainly in small interactive working groups to allow for in-depth
discussion and development of ideas for possible future research and cooperation. A selected number
of papers will be published in the 2009 GLU Yearbook
The proposal should be a two to three page abstract that
1) states the name, address and institutional affiliation of the author/s;
2) outlines the main ideas; and
3) indicates what methodology will be used.

Proposals for papers should be sent in electronic format by 1 November 2008 to:
Dr. Sharit K. Bhowmik
Centre for Labour Studies
School of Management and Labour Studies
Tata Institute of Social Sciences
Deonar
Mumbai, India 400 088
e-mail: glu.india at tiss.edu
Internet: www.global-labour-university.org



From pawan.durani at gmail.com  Sun Aug  3 09:53:16 2008
From: pawan.durani at gmail.com (Pawan Durani)
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 09:53:16 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] PK Reply to Mufti
Message-ID: <6b79f1a70808022123m23bc89f3n68419344e3970d9d@mail.gmail.com>

Panun Kashmir calls upon all citizens of India not to take the statement of
PDP patron Mufti Mohd Sayyad at its face value but to thoroughly analyse it
and read what is behind the words and between the lines. Panun Kashmir
outrightly rejects the contention of the PDP patron that the agitation in
Jammu region is motivated by hatred, parochialism and an intention to damage
the amiable ethos in the state.

Panun Kashmir views the agitation in Jammu region as an assertion against
culture of intolerance and mindset of exclusivism which PDP and its ilk in
the state have perpetuated.  The state has reached a stage where even
providing temporary facilities for conduct of a Hindu pilgrimage to Amarnath
shrine is considered as an affront to the sensibilities of people who
identify with political ideology as practiced by PDP. The entire campaign
which was started by PDP to scuttle the yatra and deny the transfer of land
to build facilities for Hindu pilgrims is an expression of hatered and
xenophobia. People of Jammu including  the displaced Hindus from
Kashmirhave risen against this brazen intolerance. They have risen to
raise their
voice against the campaign of religious cleansing which started with the
forced expulsion of  the entire population of Hindus from Kashmir valley ,
destruction of Hindu habitat there which includes hundreds of temples and
shrines and is now seeking to disrupt the  centuries old  pilgrimage  to
Amarnath cave.  The people of Jammu have risen against a mindset that treats
the Province of Jammu as a colony of Kashmiri Muslim hegemony.  The people
of Jammu have risen to call a halt to an era of discrimination, exploittion
and subjugation at all levels and in all spheres of life.

Nobody believes in the subterfuges which PDP patron has put forward to hide
his communal and fundamentalist agenda in the state. Everybody knows now
that PDP has exerted all its energies to suck the people of Kashmir valley
into the whirlpool of competitive communalism and secessionism. PDP is not a
messiah of peace in the state but a vicious force which is relentlessly
wrecking the chances of peace. PDP has day in and day out sought to
legitimize terrorism and subvert the war against terrorism. The Self-Rule
proposal which guides the politics of PDP at present only aims at dividing
Jammu Kashmir into Hindu and Muslim political domains to destroy the secular
fabric and unleash forces of balkanization in rest of India. PDP overtly and
covertly has sought to undermine the historical identity of Kashmir so that
the religion based identity politics in Kashmir integrates easily with
pan-islamist imperatives. PDP policies have sought to give premium to
Islamist terrorism and remove all moral censors against talibinisation of
Kashmir.  To any discerning students of politics and history of the state,
PDP will appear to be the frontline instrument of Jamat-i-Islami.

Panun Kashmir would like all peace loving citizens of India to recognize the
regressive and bigoted ideograph of PDP.  A party which seeks inspiration
from such periods in the history of Kashmir like the Chak rule when the
blood of Kashmiris was spilled both in the name of religion and
sectarianism, can only breed hatred.  The party which advocates development
and progress based on religious identity can never nourish brotherhood
amongst the citizens.  The party which under one pretext or the other seeks
the state to subsidize terrorism will only contribute to the thriving of
terrorism.

The PDP patron is on record to have eulogized organizations like Hamas and
has asked people of Kashmir to emulate it.  The leaders of PDP have
described terrorists as freedom fighters and martyrs.  He mischievously
equates Kashmir with the Palestinian issue.  He forgets that the
Palestinians are the dispossessed people, as are the displaced Hindus of
Kashmir. He gloats over the fact that Kashmir is over-empovered in all
spheres reducing the other regions of the state into subject territories.

The movement which PDP wants the world to recognize as a freedom movement,
is primarily a movement for the destruction of the basic freedoms of the
humankind and its first expression was the genocide of Kashmiri Hindus.
Panun Kashmir condemns the statement of Mufti Mohd Sayad in its entire
content and context.  Panun Kashmir once again reiterates that the agitation
in Jammu is an agitation against the forces of intolerance and communalism
who have transformed J&K State as a prison house for the Hindus of the state
and all other diversities that do not subscribe to the politics of
exclusivism.
__._,_.___

From pawan.durani at gmail.com  Sun Aug  3 09:56:55 2008
From: pawan.durani at gmail.com (Pawan Durani)
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 09:56:55 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Hindu intifada
Message-ID: <6b79f1a70808022126y6882961ep1c5e1256f1b9f2c4@mail.gmail.com>

Images can have a profound impact and make a lasting impression even on the
most cynical among us. They can also act as a force multiplier in a conflict
zone. Recall the photographs and television footage of teenaged Palestinian
boys in Gaza and the West Bank confronting Israeli tanks armed with no more
than shepherd's slings; of young men, their faces half-covered with
handkerchiefs and kafiyeh, racing through billowing clouds of tear gas to
hurl stones at soldiers armed with assault rifles; of middle-aged and old
women violating police pickets and defying curfew. That was the first time
we heard of a little-used Arabic word, intifada, which literally means to
shake off but in recent times has come to mean a rebellion premised on the
Biblical tale of David vanquishing Goliath, a relentless mass protest born
of festering anger, deep-seated grievance and overwhelming, uncontrollable
rage.
We are witnessing a similar intifada in Jammu province where young and old,
men and women, are locked in an unequal battle with the police — and, since
Friday, the Army — demanding the immediate revocation of the Government
order cancelling the transfer of 800 kanals of land to the Sri Amarnath
Shrine Board. The land was meant for creating temporary facilities for
pilgrims who trek to the Amarnath shrine every year, braving inclement
weather and jihadi attacks. This time, it's a Hindu intifada, an outpouring
of pent-up anger which has brought life in Jammu and other towns and
villages in the province to a standstill.

It's been more than a month that the Hindus of Jammu have taken to the
streets, burning tyres, taunting policemen, braving tear gas and real
bullets, violating curfew and blockading the highway to Srinagar. The images
emanating from Jammu are eerily similar to those that emanated from Gaza and
the West Bank during the Palestinian intifada. More tellingly, the tactics
that have been adopted by the protesters are those that have often brought
Kashmir Valley to a standstill. If you look at the photographs of the Hindu
intifada, you will get a sense of how Jammu has decided to give Kashmir a
taste of its own medicine — in this case it is Dum Dum dawai.

Read complete article at

http://kanchangupta.blogspot.com/2008/08/jammu-erupts-in-rage.html

From pawan.durani at gmail.com  Sun Aug  3 12:42:32 2008
From: pawan.durani at gmail.com (Pawan Durani)
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 12:42:32 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Cable TV & SMS services stopped in Jammu
Message-ID: <6b79f1a70808030012i63c1b538n726c6419ca6062d@mail.gmail.com>

http://naknews.co.in/newsdet.aspx?q=15659

From prabhakardelhi at yahoo.com  Sun Aug  3 21:29:06 2008
From: prabhakardelhi at yahoo.com (Prabhakar Singh)
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 08:59:06 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Reader-list] Release of My Book
Message-ID: <227519.9779.qm@web31501.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Dear All,
You will be happy to learn that my book of collection of poems is being relesed at 5.30 pm on 9th August'2008 at Speaker Hall, Constitution Club,Rafi Marg,New Delhi.You are cordially invited to grace the occasion.
With warm regards,
Prabhakar
Cell : +91-9818059776
Phone : +91-11-26112626
Address : K-6-3,M.S.Flats,Sector : 13,
               R.K.Puram,New Delhi - 110066


      Unlimited freedom, unlimited storage. Get it now, on http://help.yahoo.com/l/in/yahoo/mail/yahoomail/tools/tools-08.html/

From yasir.media at gmail.com  Mon Aug  4 00:55:08 2008
From: yasir.media at gmail.com (=?WINDOWS-1256?Q?yasir_~=ED=C7_=D3=D1?=)
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 12:25:08 -0700
Subject: [Reader-list] well...
In-Reply-To: <5af37bb0808031224t36355d03nc6d879b2a5bb2803@mail.gmail.com>
References: <5af37bb0808031202t53bdfe45xfe37d042923e1654@mail.gmail.com>
	<5af37bb0808031224t36355d03nc6d879b2a5bb2803@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <5af37bb0808031225j7ccded47p1a2430bd7fdd04a9@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Aug 3, 2008 at 12:02 PM, yasir ~يا سر <yasir.media at gmail.com> wrote:
> Unusual as this declaration seems at first sight, by the end of this
> book I found myself wondering whether it was not perhaps insisted upon
> by the lawyers, as a kind of indemnity clause. In Defense of Lost
> Causes is mostly concerned with a critical diagnosis of the current
> progressive political climate. According to Žižek, the contemporary
> left is in a bad way, weakened by an enervating cocktail of Western
> Buddhism, jogging, bodybuilding, "hedonist permissivity" and
> multicultural orgies. But this immoral and decadent situation is
> temporary. "The time is coming," he says, "for the Left to
> (re)appropriate discipline and the spirit of sacrifice: there is
> nothing inherently 'fascist' about these values." Not even pausing to
> invent a marching song, Žižek goes on to propose that the left take
> over the Catholic cult of martyrdom and canonize Che Guevara--as if
> the millions of Che posters and postcards plastered all over
> university student dorm rooms (I myself used to own one, before moving
> on to a shelf full of Žižek books) haven't already secured him pop
> sainthood enough. Žižek's search for redemptive change also leads him
> to the Nazi party for inspiration. "There is a lesson," he writes, "to
> be learned from Hermann Goering's reply, in the early 1940s, to a
> fanatical Nazi who asked him why he protected a well-known Jew from
> deportation: 'In this city, I decide who is a Jew!'... In this city,
> it is we who decide what is left." The term 'counter-intuitive' is
> often pinned to Žižek's chest like a medal. In this case I propose
> either a Grand Cross of the Iron Cross, or else a Purple Heart.
> http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080721/miller
>
>
>
>
>  This is the update from Naveena Textile Mills, Thokar Niaz Beg,
> Lahore. Following is a detailed account from Comrade Taimur:
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Taimur Rahman <redpak2000 at yahoo.com>
> Date: Aug 2, 2008 9:11 PM
> Subject: [cmkp] An account of a strike and our arrest
>
> Defense Road which is on the outskirts of Lahore is a massive
> industrial area where thousands of workers are employed. Since it is a
> long way from the city, it is a lawless area where the police and
> local administration is often in collusion with local gangsters,
> capitalists and landlords. Poor people have little or no rights in the
> area. The working class in this area is almost completely
> non-unionized (in fact most don't know what a union is). Most workers
> in the area are first generation workers that have arrived from
> various villages all over the Punjab and live together in small
> cramped quarters. They send money back to their families in villages
> and try to eke out a meagre existence in the cities.
>
> The CMKP has been working in this area for the last 12 years. We have
> seen the area change slowly. We have seen the roads develop. Farm land
> change into estates for the wealthy. Massive schemes that have robbed
> people of land in order to feed the land mafia. A flyover is now being
> constructed over the area. When we started work in the area more than
> a decade ago, it was nearly impossible to form any sort of collective
> action. Workers were illiterate and most believed that there was no
> possibility of standing up to the ruling class, police, or local
> badmash.
>
> We continued our work patiently and with great persistence. Gradually
> our organization began to expand from a handful of individuals to a
> group of workers. We endlessly leafleted the area. Hundreds of
> thousands of left-wing leaflets have been distributed in the area on
> workers problems. We performed plays in the area. We performed musical
> programs in the area. We organized left-wing mushairas (poetry
> recitals) in the area. We lobbied the labour courts on specific
> issues. We distributed left-wing photocopied books in the area. We
> have had an endless number of study circles, corner meetings, hotel
> meetings, quarter meetings, house to house visits, and so on in the
> area. We participated in election campaigns in the area. Gradually we
> became strong enough to even build a worker financed party office.
> Today we are proud to say that we have members and sympathizers in the
> entire area. Our supporters run in thousands and we have built a
> left-wing working class
> constituency.
>
> The comrades of the All Pakistan Trade Union Federation, Working
> Women's Organization, and Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party, who enjoy a
> very close working relationship under the banner of the Mazdoor Action
> Committee, decided to launch a concerted campaign on the issue of the
> provision of minimum wages. The minimum wage of Rs. 6000 is rarely
> paid in the area.
>
> Workers at Naveena textiles (a very large company that exports shirts)
> were being laid off without proper notification. Moreover, minimum
> wages were not being paid to workers at this factory. The workers
> demanded that all their dues, including both wages and gratuity, be
> cleared on the basis of the recently announced minimum wages (i.e. Rs.
> 6000).
>
> As a result on the 28th of July we helped to organize a strike. The
> response by the mill administration was that the local police was
> called out and workers were beaten black and blue. Warning shots were
> fired at the feet of the workers. It was more than obvious that the
> police was totally partial to the mill owners.
>
> We helped organize a second strike on the 31st of July. However, this
> time the police had been called at 6 am in the morning and had
> completely occupied the entire building. The buses of workers were
> moved into the gates and under police supervision inside the factory
> they were made to work. Workers that had been illegally laid off
> assembled outside the premises and were beaten brutally. Four workers
> were taken into custody.
>
> CMKP comrades called the press. My wife and I arrived minutes before
> the press and we were greeted some distance from the factory by
> workers with a roar of approval, handshakes, hugs, smiles, tears,
> followed by militant slogans. After the arrival of the press, we
> decided to go back to the factory gate. The police did not dare attack
> in the presence of the press. We stood at the gate raising slogans,
> clapping, and chanting in rhythm. We could see from the factory gate
> that police men with guns were stationed on the roof top of the
> factory. Police also cordoned the smaller gate (the larger gate was
> shut tight). And police also stood behind us and to our sides. But we
> were not afraid.
>
> Then a new sight gripped our attention. Workers from inside the
> factory, having heard the commotion outside, left work and all came to
> the roof. We shouted out to them, if you are with us raise your hands,
> raise slogans with us. To our utter delight every single one of them
> raised their hands. The entire roof was now full of hundreds of
> workers and hundreds were outside with us. Waving to each other. But
> they could not come down because a heavy police presence was inside
> the factory.
>
> The managers of the factory came out and said "this is all a giant
> misunderstanding". But workers would have none of their sweet talk.
> Workers demanded that their comrades beaten and arrested that morning
> be released before any negotiations. Management tried to talk but they
> were drowned out by slogans. After some time management relented and
> released the workers to the roaring crowd. Management then invited the
> press inside the building. Some CMKP members and later the main labour
> leaders accompanied them to the office. Inside, the press grilled them
> with questions. One manager said that this was all the work of
> sharpasand elements (subversives). Another began to accuse the press
> of being biased (interestingly he is the father of a colleague of mine
> from the university where I am a faculty member (LUMS) -- it was Moin
> Cheema's father). The press demanded a tour of the premises. They
> argued that workers had signed a contract but they had to relent when
> we pointed out that their contract violated the labour laws of the
> country that guaranteed a minimum wage of Rs. 6000. They could not
> concede in front of all those cameras that they were willing to
> violate labour laws. Finally, they stated that they accepted the
> demands of the workers and informed us that they would speak to the
> owners and announce the date of the clearance. We were suspicious but
> decided to allow them time to talk to the owner.
>
> We came back outside and saw that comrades of the All Pakistan Trade
> Union Federation had also arrived. They gave us very sound advice.
> They said that we must immediately register the union and that we must
> request a labour court officer to come immediately to the factory.
> They called the labour court people and we announced this news to the
> workers.
>
> By now we were standing around in small dispersed groups in front of
> the factory gate (no one was even close to the road). Speeches and
> slogans had all come to an end. We were waiting for the factory
> management to announce the date of clearance. The press had gone away.
> We saw the police filing out of the gate. I thought that they were
> going back to the station since the matter had been settled. As a
> precaution I asked our main labour leader Azam Naqvi to come stand
> next to me and to not be alone at any moment. Suddenly and without
> warning the police charged at Azam. I instinctively jumped between him
> and the police and he grabbed onto me from behind for protection.
> Workers had formed a right group behind us to protect Azam and we were
> not letting go of each other. I protested vehemently. A rain of
> lathis, kicks, and slaps came towards me.
>
> Since I was in the front and was extremely vocal, I was getting the
> vast majority of them. The SHO Farooq Awam (a huge fat but strong man)
> let down a lathi squarely on my head. I don't exaggerate when I say
> that it only felt like I had been brushed with a straw. I was so angry
> and incensed at that point that I couldn't feel anything. I let out a
> few explicative and started fighting his subsequent strokes. Ali Jan,
> Rafaqat, and others jumped into the lathis to try and protect us. From
> behind I released that plain clothes police men were inside our group
> trying to separate our group. I grabbed one of them, he punched me in
> the face. Didn't hurt. Just made me even more angry. At one point I
> grabbed a lathi from one end but couldn't hold on to it as I need my
> arms to ward off the other lathis. From behind me I heard a sharp loud
> explosion. It was shots being fired into the ground. From the corner
> of my eye I thought I saw some smoke and workers running helter
> skelter. It took me a few minutes to realize that shots had been fired
> to disperse the crowds.
>
> By now our outnumbered (but unbroken) group was being pushed towards
> the police car (we were still being hit from all sides but it didn't
> hurt). By the time we reached the police car, both the police and our
> group were gasping for air. I thought to myself, I need to pace my
> stamina,  and exhaust these people (funny how one thinks these strange
> things in the middle of such situations). By now we were at back of
> the police van. I looked inside to see Ali Jan had already been
> arrested. I grabbed the railing of the van and resolved to not let go.
> The police pushed and pushed but could not budge us. Then one police
> officer cracked down on my left hand with his lathi. I got so angry I
> held out my hand and said "x,y,z phir mar, ley mera haath phir mar".
> He did not hit me again (in fact later he became quite sympathetic to
> us). Several policemen grabbed my arms and tried to lift us again.
> They forgot my feet. I hooked my feet at the bottom of the van and
> they failed to lift
> us yet again. Finally, they grabbed my legs and arms and lifted me
> clear off the ground. This time we were overpowered (as I think back,
> it must have been that our small linked group must have been broken
> from the back in order for them to be able to do that. My shoe came
> off. As they threw me into the van, I said "give me back my shoe" (as
> I think back I laugh at my own funny reactions and thoughts).
>
> Five of us had now been hauled into the van (Ali Jan, Rafaqat, Azam,
> Bilal, myself). Bilal was bleed from the ear. Azam's jeans were
> totally torn from the back. Ali Jan and myself held their hands and
> said "don't be afraid, we are with you". The van was moving and
> Rafaqat started raising slogans, we all joined him. The super cool Ali
> Jan started an entire speech in the van. He berated the police for
> their class biases. He started an entire CMKP study circle in the dam
> van. An argument broke out between the police and ourselves. We
> appealed to their working class roots and for them to realize that
> they were doing the wrong thing. On the one hand I was participating
> in the debate and on the other I was looking at and massaging my
> swollen left hand index finger thinking "I better get my guitar
> playing hand fixed for Laal, otherwise I won't be able to finish the
> recording" (incredibly stupid I know but such are the joys of being
> arrested, it takes a while to
> come to put things in perspective).
>
> When we got to the station the SHO (the man with whom I was in direct
> confrontation at the factory gate) turned to me and said "tera tay
> main hunain hi chitrol karan ga". My instinctive reaction was to say
> "x,y,z hunay kar" but I realized that would be pretty stupid. So I
> blurted "kis bunyad par konsa qanoon torra hai hum nay". He turned to
> one of the bulky police men and said "chitrol kar ida". He replied
> "nahin sir". "Ki matlab". He didn't explain just repeated "nahin sar"
> again (I assume the implication was that 'these are influential people
> it would not be a wise move'). He turned to Azam and said "jagga nahin
> lain diyan ga main tenu". Ali Jan said "Jagga kon sa ji, qanooni
> haqooq mangay hain". After a short argument they marched us to a small
> room. As I was walking I got a text from my wife "I love you, please
> don't fight them". It made me realize that she was safe and it gave me
> strength.
>
> Very soon comrade Ilyas of the All Pakistan Trade Union Federation
> also joined us. He had been kidnapped by the security guards of the
> factory. Taken inside. Beaten up, slapped around. And then they had
> dropped him to the police in their private car. When he came into the
> cell he said in his characteristically calm tone "at least I came in
> an AC car". We burst out laughing. Other prisoners were amazed that we
> were joking around.
>
> They came to take down our names. I was still so angry that when they
> asked me for my quom (caste) I replied I had none and that I did not
> believe in such things. When they asked me again Ali Jan responded
> "likh dain insaaniyat". Then they came to take our mobile phones. At
> first I resisted but then I realized that it was pointless (I didn't
> have any credit in it anyway and our comrades knew where we were and
> must be working for our release). So I gave in when they came back a
> second time for it.
>
> To boost our morale we started singing songs and reciting poetry. It
> is difficult to remember the words to songs when one is in such
> situations. Even tunes get jumbled up. But they immediately brought a
> calm to our nerves and lifted our spirit. From our small window we
> heard a policemen remark "aye qaidi bathain nay?". We laughed and said
> "aye labour leader bathain nay".
>
> I looked out the window and saw a black car. I said "its 's car"
> (although I wasn't 100% sure). We called out from the window. Maana
> radical saw us. The other prisoners said don't let them know that you
> have communicated, stay quiet. In a little while we saw Farooq Tariq
> walk in. This lifted our spirits even more. We knew that news was out
> and it would be impossible now for them to beat us. M. managed to get
> some GEO and other media people into the cell. By now we were fully
> relaxed. I jokingly remarked "I hope they haven't told my mother, unho
> nain police ko bhi tun daina hai aur humain bhi". We all laughed.
>
> A young policeman came and sat with us and we had a long discussion
> with him on politics and the police. He was defending his actions
> against workers and abusing the rich, defending torture in police
> custody and speaking about his own misfortunes at the hands of
> stronger men, defending the Taliban and the attack on Laal Masjid,
> defending the Saudi monarchy and Musharraf, waving the nationalist
> flag and cursing the country. All contradictory positions that he kept
> in stead to pick and choose from depending on what his superiors
> decided. All these positions were, nonetheless, supporting one or
> another form of authoritarianism. He pointed to one of the four people
> that was in the cell and told us proudly that he had tortured one
> person to confess his crime. Their crimes were having stolen some
> goats two years ago. One boy from Multan had come from work. The hotel
> he worked at said that he had to give Rs 500 security to work. So he
> made an attempt to steal
> something from a factory but failed. The tortured boy submissively
> responded to the policeman's humiliating questions in a self-effacing
> manner that was difficult for me to absorb. But as soon as the
> policeman turned he murmured a punjabi gali under his breadth. His
> spirit was not broken and I could feel his hatred exuding from his
> eyes. We offered them drinks that our comrades had brought for us, Ali
> Jan sat on the floor with them (the rest of us were sitting on a bed
> and some broken chairs). Rafaqat said "agli dafa factory tu chori na
> karo, munazam ho jao, factory hi tuwadi ho jai gi".
>
> Then the door opened and in stepped my mother looking like she could
> eat up any policeman that so much as looked at her. She came and sat
> down and said in a loud voice "han ji kiya tamasha banaya hua hai
> yehan". The policeman responded "madam mujhay tu kuch maloom nahin".
> She said "tu phir mera waqt kyun zaya kar rahay ho, jao us khotay ko
> lay kar aao jis ko maloom hai". They went running and produced the
> second in command Ghumman. He said "ji baji aap kyun ayeen hain
> yehan". She said "yeh main aap ko batao, aap mujhay batai keh main
> kyun aye hun yehan. Kidhar hay SHO?" "Vo ji baji round par gaye hain"
> he very meekly responded. One of the workers said "Naveena factory
> wapis gaye hai". My mother forcefully said "Paisay khain hain tum sab
> logon nay malikon say, ghareeb logon ko haqooq nahin daitay ho, hum
> sab jantay hain, daikhna tum logon ko mun ke khani parrhay gi, hum
> kais karray gay, tum daikhtay raho".
>
> Then she left to meet the investigating officer. We could hear the
> shouts in our cell. Investigating officer ki tu vo ke that even Farooq
> Tariq came to our cell (I assume because he couldn't contain his
> smile). He expressed solidarity and said with a smile "aap ki walda
> bhi larr rahin hain". We laughed and said "han ji, aasarat yehan tak
> puhanch rahay hain". Farooq was on the phone constantly ringing up the
> DSP, the SP and all his contacts (including AMP contacts). Brigadier
> Rao Abid of the HRCP called and took the whole report.
>
> By now they released us from the little room and allowed us roam
> around in the courtyard. Ali and I were limping from a knee and ankle
> sprain but we were happy to be sitting with our comrades U., Maana,
> M.. The other four needed to go to the toilet. The toilet was in the
> hawalat (jail). When they went inside the policemen shut them inside
> (they forced Ilyas into the hawalat). Ali and I discovered after a few
> minutes what had happened and it made us very tense. We knew then that
> the plan of the police was to separate us from the workers and to
> later beat the workers.
>
> In a little while my father, Gulzar Chaudhry of the All Pakistan Trade
> Union Federation, more media people, and the SHO all arrived. Gulzar
> sahib said to me "chalo acha hua Taimur tum pakrray gaiy, is tarrha
> mulakat tu ho gaye. Fiqr na karo, if they don't release you by tonight
> hum pooray union ka zor lagain gay."
>
> Negotiations began. The police said "take one person you consider most
> important, take Taimur, but we cannot go of the rest." My father said
> "you mean you think my son is a bhagorra? Do you think he will go or
> we will ask him to do that? We support him 100%. He has raised the
> voice of the oppressed." When the DSP said the same thing to my mother
> she responded "aap ka khiyal hai main nay chuya pala hai, vo
> principles ki larray larr raha hai, aur yeh na samjhain kay hum us kay
> saath nahin hain, hum bhi us kay saath hain." The SHO said "daikhain
> ji main tu kuch nahin kar sakta main tu aik SHO hun, officer kahin tu
> SHO phook say urrh jata hai". My father responded very calmly (Al
> Pachino style) "phoonk say hi tu bachanay aye hain hum". I swear I
> have never been more proud of my parents in my entire life.
>
> I had another altercation with the SHO when we discussing the
> conditions of the release. He said "Taimur sahib yeh criminal elements
> aap ko shield bana kar use kar rahay hain. Aap putli banay huay hain".
> I responded "SHO sahib, aik baat main aap ko bata dun, chahay aap ko
> achi lagay ya burri, putli main nahin, aap banay huay hain" and I
> walked out of his office. (Qasam say I should sell my dialogue to a
> hindu movie).
>
> Finally, after many phone calls from various government offices
> (including the CM), they decided that they will let us go for the
> night but only on the condition that we come back to the police
> station in the morning and surrender to the magistrate.
>
> They had cut an FIR against us for four charges (one of which it turns
> out has been repealed anyway). These included blocking the road,
> beating up a police officer in a pathrao, burning tyres on the road
> (all lies). They led us to believe that they will drop the case. But
> they were tricking us yet again. They were trying to negotiate the
> pressure from both sides. Obviously they had been taking a lot of
> money from Naveena textiles. Nonetheless, they released us at night
> and we came home to sleep.
>
> In the morning we went back to the station. However, when it came time
> to go to the court they placed us in handcuffs. They said "oh this is
> a formality, we have to follow court procedures". We didn't know that
> the crimes we had been charged with were minor crimes that did not
> require handcuffs. They did this to humiliate us. But at that moment,
> we unaware of their intention and were joking around. Taking pictures
> and in high spirits. In the van, we sang revolutionary songs (we sang
> them completely out of tune but it didn't matter at all, the louder
> the better). At this time the sangli of the handcuff was in our own
> hands. We were buffed in pairs (Ali and myself, Rafakat and Billal,
> Azam and Ilyas).
>
> When we were herded in to the magistrate office, one of the HRCP
> lawyers Asad was outraged. He said "how dare you handcuff these
> people. None of the crimes registered against them are serious
> offenses. This is totally ridiculous. Remove the handcuffs." The
> police refused. It was then that we realized that this was not a
> formality but a deliberate intent to humiliate us (little did they
> know that we wore those handcuffs with pride). DAWN news was present.
> We went to the camera and said "We asked for minimum wage, and this is
> what we got" (we raised our handcuffs). Then we burst out into
> revolutionary slogans, songs, and poetry. The courtyard rang out with
> socialist slogans.
>
> Meanwhile six lawyers argued our case voluntarily. Asad, Azeem
> Daniyal, Rabea Bajwa (and two others whose names I cannot remember).
> Interestingly, the case against us was cut by the police (i.e. the
> police was the complainant). Yet the lawyers that appeared in court
> against us were from Naveena textile. In fact, they were accompanied
> by the factory manager (hence the need for handcuffs on us, to
> humiliate us and show that their money was getting its worth). This
> demonstrates who was behind the entire police violence. It
> demonstrates that the local police has completely sold out to the mill
> owners. Naveena's lawyers argued that we had a lethal weapon in our
> possession during the strike and hence we should not be given bail but
> should be put in jail. The magistrate (Aasha Tariq) did not agree and
> the bail was set at Rs. 40,000 per person. The lawyers said "take our
> high court bar license as zamanat". They got us our bail without any
> difficulty. The court
> had now adjourned for the day. When our lawyers asked the police to
> open the cuffs. They at first delayed. There was a sharp altercation.
> Finally, they opened my cuffs but they would not open Azam's cuff.
> They said that there was yet another FIR against Azam hence he had to
> remain in custody. We were about to lose our cool when Azeem Dainyal
> saved the day. He said "produce the FIR, we will get the bail right
> now". He went inside the chamber and asked the magistrate to come out
> again (Magistrate Aasha Tariq). She immediately issued another bail
> and said to the police "release him at once". We were much relieved.
> The intention of the police was to get rid of the five of us but take
> Azam back to the station in order to beat up. But they failed and we
> are free once again.
>
> The case will go on and the struggle will also go on. Please do not
> think that the worst is over. Support our struggle for minimum wages.
>
> I also want to thank a number of people that had been working day and
> night to get us out. I want to thank as many people as possible by
> name for helping us get out of police custody. I want to thank
>
> The workers of Naveena who went back to the factory gate and continued
> to protest after the police arrested us. And are still struggling.
>
> Our ja nasheen comrades of the All Pakistan Trade Union Federation and
> Working Women's Organization that were not only working for our
> release but were in jail with us every step of the way.
>
> Asma Jehangir, Brig. Rao Abid and the HRCP that kicked into high gear
> and sent a team of lawyers for our defense.
>
> Our superb legal team, including Azeem Daniyal, Asad Jamal, Rabea
> Bajwa, Chaudhry Nawaz and one other whose name has slipped my mind.
> They were as amazing as we were clueless. Were it not for them, Azam
> would have been back in police custody recovering from torture. For
> them and others we raised the slogan "mazdoor wukla ittehad,
> zindabad".
>
> Afzal Khamosh of the Mazdoor Kissan Party, with whom we split in 2003
> and have been at loggerheads since then, held a press conference the
> very next day for our release. This act means a huge thing to us.
>
> Farooq Tariq who was present in the thana as soon as he heard about
> the incident and was with us for nearly the whole day. Furthermore,
> LPP that mobilized for our support in Karachi and other areas.
>
> Dr. Riaz and International Socialists, whom we have berated endlessly
> on our email list, demonstrated the very next day in Karachi.
>
> Somia Sadiq, who is no longer with our party, but was in constant
> contact with us, offering us help, support and solidarity.
>
> Nusrat Jamil, Jeelo Jamil, and Tehmina Durrani who moved the CM and
> the governors office to put pressure on the police from above. Ahmed
> Rashid, Samina Rahman, Zaki Rahman, Women's Action Forum, PILER,
> Anjuman Muzareen Punjab all issued statements or called us in
> solidarity.
>
> Last but not least, my parents who fought with us like Bolshevik
> agitators. Their fearlessness gave me even more courage and I have
> never been more proud of them in my entire life. My wife Mahvash who
> saw the entire episode of violence but refused to be intimidated.
>
> Finally my party comrades (too many to name) from all over Pakistan
> and internationally that rose up to defend us against state
> oppression. Although they would consider it somewhat of an offense if
> we thanked them "leh shuriya kis cheez ka, aren't we party members,
> this is our duty" they have all said to me. Nonetheless, thank you
> comrades. Without your support we could not have fought this struggle.
>
> In solidarity
> Taimur Rahman
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> fwd end///
>

From rashneek at gmail.com  Mon Aug  4 09:35:07 2008
From: rashneek at gmail.com (rashneek kher)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 09:35:07 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] KPs and facts
In-Reply-To: <9c06aab30808020241n4078c7a1pf5fc2ebda46eaff0@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9c06aab30808020241n4078c7a1pf5fc2ebda46eaff0@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <13df7c120808032105u11c7a77fib2818c7606e1e30b@mail.gmail.com>

Just goes on to show that Pandits are not a monolith and thanfully each one
reatins his/her individuality as a thinking being.

On Sat, Aug 2, 2008 at 3:11 PM, Shivam Vij शिवम् विज् <mail at shivamvij.com>wrote:

> Divided House, Delayed Return
>
> Deep fissures in the Kashmiri Pandit community stand in the way of
> government efforts to rehabilitate them, reports PEERZADA ARSHAD HAMID
>
> http://tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne090808divided_house.asp
>
> SANJAY TIKOO, a Kashmiri Pandit living in Barbar Shah, Srinagar,
> braved all odds and remained in the valley when thousands of Pandits
> left their motherland. It was 1990 and the armed insurgency in Kashmir
> had begun, followed by press releases in newspapers ordering Hindus to
> leave.
> No one home Most of the high-security government flats built
> exclusively for returning Pandits have found no takers Photo:Javed Dar
>
> The Tikoo family were defiant and resolute. They would not migrate.
> They weathered the pressure and fear and lived on in their ancestral
> home. Eighteen years later, those days remain vivid for Sanjay. He
> clearly remembers the prolonged strike calls, the curfews and, above
> all, the migration of fellow Pandits from the valley.
>
> Sanjay credits his mother for the decision. "I thank the women of my
> house and, particularly, my mother, who gave her steadfast support to
> our decision. If either she or my sister had shown even the slightest
> weakness, we too would have fled, forced to uproot ourselves," muses
> Sanjay.
>
> The Tikoos were soon singled out. A threatening letter was nailed to
> the entrance of their house. Sanjay clearly remembers that fateful
> day.
>
> "It was July 16, 1990. I had gone to the top floor of my house to
> smoke a cigarette. While pacing up and down, I saw a group of people
> reading something on our gate. I rushed down and brought the message
> in," recalls Sanjay.
>
> At about the same time, posters purportedly written by militants
> became ubiquitous. Along with threats such as the one Sanjay's family
> received, they contained strike calls and reports of militant
> activities. Disturbed, Sanjay discussed the letter with his family and
> then approached a local Urdu newspaper, which published the letter
> along with his family's decision: they would not leave the valley and
> were willing to face the consequences. Thereafter, a group of
> militants belonging to the Al-Umar Commandos approached the family and
> denied having issued the letter. This increased the confidence of the
> family and encouraged them to stay back.
>
> The relief department of the state government estimates that 56,148
> families, including a few Muslim families — approximately 2.5 lakh
> people — migrated from their homes following the armed insurgency
> during the period 1989- 92. Of this, 34,690 families went to Jammu and
> 19,338 to New Delhi. While police records say 209 Pandits were killed
> in Kashmir in the past 18 years, Pandit organisations put the figure
> at about 1,100. An estimated 20,000 Pandit families, however,
> preferred to stay.
>
> These people occupied scattered pockets in urban and rural areas,
> detached from each other. This forsaken community faced difficulties
> in their social life that were felt acutely during marriages,
> religious functions and, most of all, when performing the last rites
> for their dead.
>
> "During the initial years, finding brides for our sons was difficult
> as few migrants were ready to send their daughters back to the valley.
> There were no priests to perform prayers. However, the situation is
> now improving and people don't consider marriages to families in the
> valley that dangerous," Tikoo says.
>
> Sanjay initiated efforts to unite Pandit families and strengthen their
> interaction. He and his friends founded the Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh
> Samiti (KPSS), which is undertaking a census of Pandits in the valley.
> They advocate the safe return of Pandits and oppose government plans
> to give Pandits high-security residential flats.
>
> "The government has constructed separate buildings and has given CRPF
> security to them. However, this is an effort to create a Palestine-
> Israel type divide in Kashmir," asserts Tikoo.
>
> The KPSS is also critical of hard-line Pandit organisations like Panun
> Kashmir and Roots in Kashmir, because of their demand for a separate
> homeland in Kashmir, northeast of the Jhelum. The KPSS considers
> Kashmir a political problem and a dispute between India and Pakistan.
>
> Panun Kashmir believes that the insurgency was a communal riot
> engineered by Islamic fundamentalists to drive the minority Hindus
> from the valley. They accuse Muslims of ethnic cleansing. Panun
> Kashmir has demanded land along the Jhelum in south Kashmir to be
> secured to build colonies for Pandits. The group also wants this zone
> to be made a Union Territory.
>
> "Our community has suffered badly. We have been uprooted from our
> homeland and unless adequate arrangements are made, we won't go back
> and will continue our fight for our rights. Residential flats are not
> the solution — that's just moving us from one camp to another. Our
> return to our motherland should be final and secure, so that we will
> not be forced to leave again," asserts Ajay Chrangoo, Chairman, Panun
> Kashmir. Chrangoo has been living in Jammu since his migration and
> strongly advocates a separate homeland.
>
> Chrangoo refers to flats constructed at Mattan in South Kashmir and at
> Sheikhpora on the outskirts of Srinagar that the state government has
> spent crores on, in order to coax Pandits to return. No Jammu Pandits
> were ready to return here, and most flats remain locked.
>
> Another voice representing the migrant community is the All India
> Kashmiri Samaj. Headed by Ram Krishan Bhat, it works to keep the
> Kashmiri sentiment alive among Pandit youth. Though he praises the
> Pandits who remained in the valley and calls them "daring", he says
> their continued presence in the valley is not enough to convince other
> Pandits to return.
>
> Chrangoo disagrees. "There is nothing special in some Pandits staying
> back. While some members of the community stay behind in conflict
> zones where there is a mass exodus, this can't obscure the bigger
> picture — the fact that most Pandits have fled. Moreover, those who
> remain, remain in fear," he adds.
>
>
> THE LARGE numbers of Pandit groups — representing migrants and
> non-migrants — claiming to fight for the rights of Pandits have
> confused people both in India and abroad. The clamour of voices has
> added to the complexity of the issue. While all groups claim to
> represent the aspirations of Kashmiri Pandits, all of them differ on
> when, where and how Pandits should return. "Pandits are as divided as
> the Muslims are," quips Sanjay Tikoo.
>
> Sanjay Saraf, a migrant politician, adds another dimension to the
> debate. Saraf plans to contest the coming assembly elections and is
> state president of the Lok Jan Shakti Party.
>
> Recently, national and regional parties from outside the state have
> started making inroads here. The elections will see candidates from
> the SP and the BSP, who have held rallies in Srinagar.
>
> Saraf, however, relies more on Muslim votes than on Pandit ones.
> Though he is a migrant, he has been visiting the valley regularly for
> the past seven years for party meetings and constituency visits. He is
> critical of Panun Kashmir and Roots in Kashmir that are headquartered
> outside Kashmir and describes them as stooges of fundamentalist
> forces. "They are dancing to the tune of the BJP and the VHP and are
> trying to create a communal wedge," Saraf alleges.
>
> The divide among Pandits deepened during the recent crisis over land
> for the Amarnath shrine board. While most Pandit organisations based
> in Jammu and New Delhi favoured the transfer of land to the board, the
> valley-based KPSS stood alone in its demand for the pilgrimage to be
> placed under resident Kashmiri Pandit organisations. Saraf supported
> this demand from the beginning. "Pandits cannot remain outside the
> valley and pay mere lip service to the cause. We have to be here to
> say we belong to the land. Raising a hue and cry while staying outside
> hardly matters," avers Sanjay Saraf, while acknowledging KPSS'
> efforts.
>
> Ideological differences have increased the divide between migrant
> Pandits and those who stayed back. Eighteen years after Pandits fled
> the valley, various groups continue to pursue their own agendas and a
> consensus remains elusive.
>
> WRITER'S E-MAIL
> peerzadaarshad at gmail.com
> From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 31, Dated Aug 09, 2008
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
> subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>




-- 
Rashneek Kher
Wandhama Massacre-The Forgotten Human Tragedy
http://www.kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com
http://www.nietzschereborn.blogspot.com

From rashneek at gmail.com  Mon Aug  4 09:44:55 2008
From: rashneek at gmail.com (rashneek kher)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 09:44:55 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Stay Away,Pandits Told-Telegraph
Message-ID: <13df7c120808032114y799401b6o1d276d06e518fec4@mail.gmail.com>

  Stay away, Pandits told
 OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080804/jsp/nation/story_9643825.jsp

*Srinagar, Aug. 3:* Hizb-ul Mujahideen founder Ahsan Dar has announced his
return from Muzaffarabad to join the jihad, with a warning to the exiled
Kashmiri Pandit community not to return home.

A CD containing his statement was distributed among some media agencies in
Kashmir. In it, he has asked the Pandits not to return to the Valley unless
New Delhi solves the Kashmir issue.

"I will advise Kashmiri Pandits not to take a foolish step to return to the
Valley. And those leaders who have sympathy with the Pandits' return, leave
Kashmir and stay with them in Jammu," Dar said.

Dar had founded the Hizb in 1989 but was dislodged a year later by Syed
Salahuddin and forced to set up a new militant group by the name of Muslim
Mujahideen.

He was arrested in the early 1990s and released after spending several years
behind bars.

"In the late 1990s, he left for Pakistan-occupied Kashmir again and, if the
reports about his return are true, then he is back in the Valley after
around a decade," a police official said.

Dar had differences with the Jamat-e-Islami, which had then declared the
Hizb its militant wing. This led to his ouster and replacement by Syed
Salahuddin. A teacher by profession, he belongs to the Pattan area of south
Kashmir.

"The Kashmir issue concerns 1.2 crore Muslims of the state and it does not
revolve around Kashmiri Pandits alone. Nobody talks of Muslim migrants
living in Azad Kashmir and we believe when the issue of 1.2 crore will be
resolved, we can then think about Kashmiri Pandits," Dar said.

This is in marked contrast to the statement of other separatist leaders who
are encouraging Kashmiri Pandits to return.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in April set the stage for the return of
Kashmiri migrant Pandits to their homes and announced a package estimated at
Rs 1,600 crore, which included Rs 7.5 lakh for rebuilding houses,
identifying land and providing the unemployed Pandit youths with jobs.


-- 
Rashneek Kher
Wandhama Massacre-The Forgotten Human Tragedy
http://www.kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com
http://www.nietzschereborn.blogspot.com

From pawan.durani at gmail.com  Sun Aug  3 13:02:24 2008
From: pawan.durani at gmail.com (Pawan Durani)
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 13:02:24 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Internal emergency in Jammu!
In-Reply-To: <20080803072026.18231.qmail@f4mail-235-135.rediffmail.com>
References: <20080803072026.18231.qmail@f4mail-235-135.rediffmail.com>
Message-ID: <6b79f1a70808030032p70fcf001r16233a65ae0ce68e@mail.gmail.com>

Leaders under house arrest . Most of them are likely to be arrested today.
Cable TV services blocked in Jammu. SMS services snapped.
Jammu Under EMERGENCY rule.!


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ashwani Kumar <ashwanipkm at rediffmail.com>
Date: Sun, Aug 3, 2008 at 12:50 PM
Subject: Internal emergency in Jammu!
>


Dear friends,


                   You are requested to float the news across about the
latest developments as on date about Jammu. There is already curfew in
Jammu, hundreds have been injured, some arrests have been made, leaders are
under house arrest, media channels have been taken over by the police,
pressmen have been manhandled and no free movement is allowed. We are
expecting the administration to go to any extent.


-Ashwani,
Jammu
3rd August 2008,  12.45 PM

From blueskyandus at rediffmail.com  Sun Aug  3 15:42:09 2008
From: blueskyandus at rediffmail.com (tangella  madhavi)
Date: 3 Aug 2008 10:12:09 -0000
Subject: [Reader-list] Screening of my documentary film
Message-ID: <20080803101209.7812.qmail@f5mail-236-228.rediffmail.com>

  
Hi!
My film Listen Little Man will be screened on DD News on 9th August at 10.30pm.

Please do watch it and let others know.

Regards
Tangella Madhavi

 

Listen Little Man
28mins, 2007

Listen Little Man explores the tradition of ragging through the experiences of those students have protested against it. What unfolds is a connection between ragging and larger forms of violence in society emerging from following orders without questioning them.


Direction
Location Sound:          Tangella Madhavi
Camera:                  Pankaj Rishi Kumar
Sound Mixing:            Pritam Das
Editing:                 Pankaj Rishi Kumar
Research
Production:              Priyanka Desai
Producer:                PSBT

From elkamath at yahoo.com  Sun Aug  3 09:49:27 2008
From: elkamath at yahoo.com (lalitha kamath)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 21:19:27 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] Fwd: 5th Global Labour University
	Conference-- Call	for Papers
Message-ID: <934137.92627.qm@web53610.mail.re2.yahoo.com>


Decent Work
Social Justice
Fair Globalization
_______________________
Call for Papers
5. Global Labour University Conference
Tata Institute for Social Sciences
Mumbai, India, 22-24 February 2009
Financialization of Capital –
Deterioration of Working Conditions
Submission of proposal for papers until 1 November 2008

Papers are invited that:
a. Discuss trade unions’ innovative approaches and best practices of organizing workers in informal
and precarious employment.
b. Assess policies and organizing campaigns of trade unions to improve legal regulations, labour
market institutions and social protection coverage to secure that all workers can effectively
exercise their workplace and social rights.
c. Analyse trade union research, policy, organizing and collective bargaining strategies which
respond to the aggressive business strategies of global companies and financial institutions.

Format
The workshop will bring together an international group of scholars and trade unionists. It will feature
working groups, paper presentations, and panel discussions involving both academics and trade
unionists. Papers will be presented mainly in small interactive working groups to allow for in-depth
discussion and development of ideas for possible future research and cooperation. A selected number
of papers will be published in the 2009 GLU Yearbook
The proposal should be a two to three page abstract that
1) states the name, address and institutional affiliation of the author/s;
2) outlines the main ideas; and
3) indicates what methodology will be used.

Proposals for papers should be sent in electronic format by 1 November 2008 to:
Dr. Sharit K. Bhowmik
Centre for Labour Studies
School of Management and Labour Studies
Tata Institute of Social Sciences
Deonar
Mumbai, India 400 088
e-mail: glu.india at tiss.edu
Internet: www.global-labour-university.org


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announcements at sarai.net
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From iram at sarai.net  Mon Aug  4 13:12:38 2008
From: iram at sarai.net (Iram Ghufran)
Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:12:38 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: [Announcements]Video Journalism Awards call for
	entries
In-Reply-To: <mailman.0.1217835075.23699.reader-list@sarai.net>
References: <mailman.0.1217835075.23699.reader-list@sarai.net>
Message-ID: <4896B2EE.5040309@sarai.net>


>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject:
> [Announcements]Video Journalism Awards call for entries
> From:
> "Video Journalism Awards" <awards2008 at vjawards.com>
> Date:
> Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:13:03 -0000
> To:
> infosouth at yahoogroups.com
>
> To:
> infosouth at yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
>
> deutscher Text unterhalb
>
> Please forward to people who are interested in video journalism.
> Thank you!
>
> 4th International Video Journalism Awards, Mainz, Germany:
> "Unlimited access"
>
> CALL FOR ENTRIES Deadline 15th of October 2008
> http://www.vjawards.com <http://www.vjawards.com>
>
> Go out - find a story – publish it:
> The „4th International Video Journalism Awards" is calling for entries!
>
> The Video Journalism Awards is looking for non-fiction videos from
> single authors, the so called videojournalists (short VJs). A VJ is
> responsible for the whole creative process starting from research and
> shooting as well as covering the whole process of editing and
> sometimes even the publication of the film.
> A small camcorder and a laptop are the tools of the VJ, which is
> comparable to the pen and paper a newspaper journalist uses.
>
> The final deadline for entering films for the 4th International Video
> Journalism Awards is the 15th of October 2008. The awards are produced
> by vjawards.com , the host is ZDF German Television in Mainz.
>
> The internet is converging all kinds of media, which is reflected by
> this year's theme "unlimited access". The awards try to cover all
> known fields of video journalism: films from TV-stations and
> publishing companies and productions from an independent background
> are awarded with a total of 12.000 € of prize money going to the
> seperated categories "independent and online" and "TV production".
> Recent developements that influence the VJ-scene and future
> perspectives are discussed in the supporting programme of the 4th
> International Video Journalism Awards.
>
> INTERNATIONAL VIDEO JOURNALISM AWARD
>
> a) TV production – broadcast reports (2000 €)
> A journalistic or documentary report with a maximum duration of 15
> minutes, produced by one or more video journalists/video reporters,
> and which has already been broadcast.
>
> b) independent or online video (2000 €)
> A journalistic or documentary report with a maximum duration of 15
> minutes, produced by one or more video journalists/video reporters,
> but which has not necessarily been broadcast.
>
> GERMAN VIDEO JOURNALISM AWARD
>
> a) TV production - broadcast reports (2000 €)
> A journalistic or documentary report with a maximum duration of 15
> minutes, produced by one or more video journalists/video reporters and
> which has been aired by a German-language television channel (please
> indicate the station and broadcast date). All genres.
>
> b) Independent or online video (2000 €)
> A journalistic or documentary report with a maximum duration of 15
> minutes, produced by one or more video journalists/video reporters,
> but which has not necessarily been broadcast.
>
> REPORTAGE AWARD (2500 €)
> A feature report in the German language with a minimum duration of 15
> minutes and a maximum duration of 29 minutes, produced by one or more
> video journalists/video reporters, but which has not necessarily been
> broadcast.
>
> NEWCOMER VIDEO JOURNALISM AWARD (1000 €)
> A journalistic or documentary report with a maximum duration of 15
> minutes, produced by one or more video journalists/video reporters.
> The applicants must be under 30 years of age or currently enrolled in
> an institution of higher education. Those productions will be
> considered for awards whose appeal lies in a unique style of content
> or cinematography and indicate a great potential of the applicant.
>
> Online- audience prize (500 €)
> A specially developed open online voting system will allow the users
> to cast votes for their favorite entries.
>
> Special mentioning of the jury
> The jury nominates a film, that impressed them, and that might expand
> the term video journalism.
>
> Further information is provided on our website:
> http://www.vjawards.com <http://www.vjawards.com>
>
> We look forward to your submissions
>
> Regards from all of us,
> VJAwards.com
>
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
> English version above
>
> Bitte weiterleiten an Personen die Interesse am Videojournalismus
> haben. Danke!
>
> 4th International Video Journalism Awards, Mainz:
> "Unlimited access"
>
> AUSSCHREIBUNG Deadline 15. Oktober 2008
> http://www.vjawards.com <http://www.vjawards.com>
>
> Go out - find a story – publish it:
> Die „4th International Video Journalism Awards" rufen zur Teilnahme auf!
>
> Wir suchen dokumentarische Videos von einzeln arbeitenden
> Autorenfilmern und Videojournalisten (kurz VJ). Idee, Dreh und Schnitt
> liegen in der Verantwortung einer Person. Ein kompakter Camcorder und
> ein Laptop sind für den VJ das, was für den Printjournalisten Stift
> und Block ist.
> Bis zum 15. Oktober können Beiträge zu den 4th International Video
> Journalism Awards eingereicht werden. Ausrichter des Filmfestivals ist
> vjawards.com . Als Gastgeber fungiert dieses Jahr das ZDF in Mainz.
>
> Das Motto dieser Awards lautet „Unlimited access". Der Award zeigt,
> wo VJs zu finden sind: Filme von Fernsehsendern und Verlagen werden
> zusammen mit Videos aus der freien Szene gezeigt und messen sich in
> getrennten Wettbewerben um die attraktiven Geldpreise von insgesamt
> 12000€. Damit findet das stark formatierte Tagesgeschäft der
> Nachrichtensender in dem Wettbewerb ebenso seinen Platz, wie
> Grenzen-überschreitende Beiträge von Journalisten. Diese einzigartige
> Mischung verspricht ein spannendes Publikum und ein kontrastreiches
> Filmprogramm.
> Aktuelle inhaltliche und technische Entwicklungen, die die
> Medienszenze bewegen und den Videojournalismus der Zukunft
> beeinflussen- für diese und andere Diskurse bieten die 4th
> International Video Journalism Awards ein umfassendes Rahmenprogramm.
>
> Die Preise für die eingereichten Filme werden in den Bereichen
> „Independent und Online" und „TV-Produktion" vergeben. Dabei
> bezeichnet „Independent und Online " freie Produktionen und
> Auftragsproduktionen für das Internet. „TV-Produktion" sind Filme, die
> als Auftragsproduktion von Sendeanstalten entstanden sind.
>
> Die Preise werden nach folgenden Gesichtspunkten vergeben:
>
> INTERNATIONAL VIDEO JOURNALISM AWARD
>
> a) TV-Produktion – ausgestrahlte Beiträge (2000 €)
> Journalistischer bzw. dokumentarischer Filmbeitrag von maximal 15
> Minuten Länge, der von einem oder mehreren
> Videojournalisten/Videoreportern produziert worden ist und bereits
> ausgestrahlt wurde.
>
> b) Independent Film und Online (2000 €)
> Journalistischer bzw. dokumentarischer Filmbeitrag von maximal 15
> Minuten Länge, der von einem oder mehreren
> Videojournalisten/Videoreportern produziert worden ist. Beitrag muss
> nicht ausgestrahlt, kann aber für das Internet produziert worden sein.
>
> GERMAN VIDEO JOURNALISM AWARD
>
> a) TV-Produktion – ausgestrahlte Beiträge (2000 €)
> Journalistischer bzw. dokumentarischer Filmbeitrag von maximal 15
> Minuten Länge, der von einem oder mehreren
> Videojournalisten/Videoreportern produziert und von einem
> deutschsprachigen Fernsehsender ausgestrahlt wurde (bitte Sender und
> Ausstrahlungsdatum angeben!). Alle Genres sind zulässig.
>
> b) Independent Film und Online (2000 €)
> Journalistischer bzw. dokumentarischer Filmbeitrag von maximal 15
> Minuten Länge, der von einem oder mehreren
> Videojournalisten/Videoreportern produziert wurde. Beitrag muss nicht
> ausgestrahlt, kann aber für das Internet produziert worden sein.
>
> REPORTAGE AWARD (2500 €)
> Deutschsprachige Reportage von mindestens 15 Minuten, höchstens 29
> Minuten Länge, die von einem oder mehreren Videojournalisten
> produziert wurde. Die Reportage muss nicht ausgestrahlt worden sein.
>
> NEWCOMER VIDEO JOURNALISM AWARD (1000 €)
> Filmbeitrag von maximal 15 Minuten Länge, der von einem oder mehreren
> Videojournalisten/Videoreportern produziert wurde. Die Bewerber müssen
> unter 30 Jahre alt oder an einer Hochschule eingeschrieben sein.
> Prämiert werden Arbeiten, die durch eine eigenständige inhaltliche
> oder filmische Handschrift überzeugen und ein großes Potenzial des
> Bewerbers erkennen lassen.
>
> Online- Zuschauerpreis (500 €)
> Auf der Festivalseite www.vjawards.com können interessierte Zuschauer
> ihren Lieblingsfilm mit einer guten Bewertung belohnen.
>
> Spezialpreis der Jury
> Die Jury vergibt einen Spezialpreis für einen Film, der sie
> beeindruckt, und unter Umständen sehr frei mit der Produktionsart
> Videojournalismus umgeht.
>
> Alle weiteren Informationen finden Sie auf unserer Wettbewerbsseite.
> http://www.vjawards.com <http://www.vjawards.com>
>
> Wir sind schon sehr gespannt auf Ihre VJ-Filme,
>
> Ihr
> Video Journalism Awards Team
>
> _
> __,_._,___
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> announcements mailing list
> announcements at sarai.net
> https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements
>   


From radhikarajen at vsnl.net  Mon Aug  4 13:15:29 2008
From: radhikarajen at vsnl.net (radhikarajen at vsnl.net)
Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:45:29 +0500
Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: [Announcements]Video Journalism Awards call
 forentries
In-Reply-To: <4896B2EE.5040309@sarai.net>
References: <mailman.0.1217835075.23699.reader-list@sarai.net>
	<4896B2EE.5040309@sarai.net>
Message-ID: <e2b4c4f39dff.4896f9e9@vsnl.net>

My nomination would go to that video journalist, who did a sting for CNNIBN about cash for votes, the channel which aimed at discrediting the BJP got stung, developed cold feet and handed over the tapes to Speaker of parliament after doctoring the tapes to save the political secretary Ahmed patel and amar Singh. After the Padmashri awards to Rajdeep the channel seems to be in pay back mode to Congress and using the best parliamentarian award winner Somnathda as a tool who has had no qualm in crossing over as speaker negating the national interest.?

 Regards.

----- Original Message -----
From: Iram Ghufran <iram at sarai.net>
Date: Monday, August 4, 2008 1:07 pm
Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: [Announcements]Video Journalism Awards call forentries
To: reader-list at sarai.net

> 
> >
> > -----------------------------------------------------------------
> -------
> >
> > Subject:
> > [Announcements]Video Journalism Awards call for entries
> > From:
> > "Video Journalism Awards" <awards2008 at vjawards.com>
> > Date:
> > Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:13:03 -0000
> > To:
> > infosouth at yahoogroups.com
> >
> > To:
> > infosouth at yahoogroups.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > deutscher Text unterhalb
> >
> > Please forward to people who are interested in video journalism.
> > Thank you!
> >
> > 4th International Video Journalism Awards, Mainz, Germany:
> > "Unlimited access"
> >
> > CALL FOR ENTRIES Deadline 15th of October 2008
> > http://www.vjawards.com <http://www.vjawards.com>
> >
> > Go out - find a story – publish it:
> > The „4th International Video Journalism Awards" is calling for 
> entries!>
> > The Video Journalism Awards is looking for non-fiction videos from
> > single authors, the so called videojournalists (short VJs). A VJ is
> > responsible for the whole creative process starting from 
> research and
> > shooting as well as covering the whole process of editing and
> > sometimes even the publication of the film.
> > A small camcorder and a laptop are the tools of the VJ, which is
> > comparable to the pen and paper a newspaper journalist uses.
> >
> > The final deadline for entering films for the 4th International 
> Video> Journalism Awards is the 15th of October 2008. The awards 
> are produced
> > by vjawards.com , the host is ZDF German Television in Mainz.
> >
> > The internet is converging all kinds of media, which is 
> reflected by
> > this year's theme "unlimited access". The awards try to cover all
> > known fields of video journalism: films from TV-stations and
> > publishing companies and productions from an independent background
> > are awarded with a total of 12.000 € of prize money going to the
> > seperated categories "independent and online" and "TV production".
> > Recent developements that influence the VJ-scene and future
> > perspectives are discussed in the supporting programme of the 4th
> > International Video Journalism Awards.
> >
> > INTERNATIONAL VIDEO JOURNALISM AWARD
> >
> > a) TV production – broadcast reports (2000 €)
> > A journalistic or documentary report with a maximum duration of 15
> > minutes, produced by one or more video journalists/video reporters,
> > and which has already been broadcast.
> >
> > b) independent or online video (2000 €)
> > A journalistic or documentary report with a maximum duration of 15
> > minutes, produced by one or more video journalists/video reporters,
> > but which has not necessarily been broadcast.
> >
> > GERMAN VIDEO JOURNALISM AWARD
> >
> > a) TV production - broadcast reports (2000 €)
> > A journalistic or documentary report with a maximum duration of 15
> > minutes, produced by one or more video journalists/video 
> reporters and
> > which has been aired by a German-language television channel (please
> > indicate the station and broadcast date). All genres.
> >
> > b) Independent or online video (2000 €)
> > A journalistic or documentary report with a maximum duration of 15
> > minutes, produced by one or more video journalists/video reporters,
> > but which has not necessarily been broadcast.
> >
> > REPORTAGE AWARD (2500 €)
> > A feature report in the German language with a minimum duration 
> of 15
> > minutes and a maximum duration of 29 minutes, produced by one or 
> more> video journalists/video reporters, but which has not 
> necessarily been
> > broadcast.
> >
> > NEWCOMER VIDEO JOURNALISM AWARD (1000 €)
> > A journalistic or documentary report with a maximum duration of 15
> > minutes, produced by one or more video journalists/video reporters.
> > The applicants must be under 30 years of age or currently 
> enrolled in
> > an institution of higher education. Those productions will be
> > considered for awards whose appeal lies in a unique style of content
> > or cinematography and indicate a great potential of the applicant.
> >
> > Online- audience prize (500 €)
> > A specially developed open online voting system will allow the users
> > to cast votes for their favorite entries.
> >
> > Special mentioning of the jury
> > The jury nominates a film, that impressed them, and that might 
> expand> the term video journalism.
> >
> > Further information is provided on our website:
> > http://www.vjawards.com <http://www.vjawards.com>
> >
> > We look forward to your submissions
> >
> > Regards from all of us,
> > VJAwards.com
> >
> > ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> >
> > English version above
> >
> > Bitte weiterleiten an Personen die Interesse am Videojournalismus
> > haben. Danke!
> >
> > 4th International Video Journalism Awards, Mainz:
> > "Unlimited access"
> >
> > AUSSCHREIBUNG Deadline 15. Oktober 2008
> > http://www.vjawards.com <http://www.vjawards.com>
> >
> > Go out - find a story – publish it:
> > Die „4th International Video Journalism Awards" rufen zur 
> Teilnahme auf!
> >
> > Wir suchen dokumentarische Videos von einzeln arbeitenden
> > Autorenfilmern und Videojournalisten (kurz VJ). Idee, Dreh und 
> Schnitt> liegen in der Verantwortung einer Person. Ein kompakter 
> Camcorder und
> > ein Laptop sind für den VJ das, was für den Printjournalisten Stift
> > und Block ist.
> > Bis zum 15. Oktober können Beiträge zu den 4th International Video
> > Journalism Awards eingereicht werden. Ausrichter des 
> Filmfestivals ist
> > vjawards.com . Als Gastgeber fungiert dieses Jahr das ZDF in Mainz.
> >
> > Das Motto dieser Awards lautet „Unlimited access". Der Award zeigt,
> > wo VJs zu finden sind: Filme von Fernsehsendern und Verlagen werden
> > zusammen mit Videos aus der freien Szene gezeigt und messen sich in
> > getrennten Wettbewerben um die attraktiven Geldpreise von insgesamt
> > 12000€. Damit findet das stark formatierte Tagesgeschäft der
> > Nachrichtensender in dem Wettbewerb ebenso seinen Platz, wie
> > Grenzen-überschreitende Beiträge von Journalisten. Diese 
> einzigartige> Mischung verspricht ein spannendes Publikum und ein 
> kontrastreiches> Filmprogramm.
> > Aktuelle inhaltliche und technische Entwicklungen, die die
> > Medienszenze bewegen und den Videojournalismus der Zukunft
> > beeinflussen- für diese und andere Diskurse bieten die 4th
> > International Video Journalism Awards ein umfassendes 
> Rahmenprogramm.>
> > Die Preise für die eingereichten Filme werden in den Bereichen
> > „Independent und Online" und „TV-Produktion" vergeben. Dabei
> > bezeichnet „Independent und Online " freie Produktionen und
> > Auftragsproduktionen für das Internet. „TV-Produktion" sind 
> Filme, die
> > als Auftragsproduktion von Sendeanstalten entstanden sind.
> >
> > Die Preise werden nach folgenden Gesichtspunkten vergeben:
> >
> > INTERNATIONAL VIDEO JOURNALISM AWARD
> >
> > a) TV-Produktion – ausgestrahlte Beiträge (2000 €)
> > Journalistischer bzw. dokumentarischer Filmbeitrag von maximal 15
> > Minuten Länge, der von einem oder mehreren
> > Videojournalisten/Videoreportern produziert worden ist und bereits
> > ausgestrahlt wurde.
> >
> > b) Independent Film und Online (2000 €)
> > Journalistischer bzw. dokumentarischer Filmbeitrag von maximal 15
> > Minuten Länge, der von einem oder mehreren
> > Videojournalisten/Videoreportern produziert worden ist. Beitrag muss
> > nicht ausgestrahlt, kann aber für das Internet produziert worden 
> sein.>
> > GERMAN VIDEO JOURNALISM AWARD
> >
> > a) TV-Produktion – ausgestrahlte Beiträge (2000 €)
> > Journalistischer bzw. dokumentarischer Filmbeitrag von maximal 15
> > Minuten Länge, der von einem oder mehreren
> > Videojournalisten/Videoreportern produziert und von einem
> > deutschsprachigen Fernsehsender ausgestrahlt wurde (bitte Sender und
> > Ausstrahlungsdatum angeben!). Alle Genres sind zulässig.
> >
> > b) Independent Film und Online (2000 €)
> > Journalistischer bzw. dokumentarischer Filmbeitrag von maximal 15
> > Minuten Länge, der von einem oder mehreren
> > Videojournalisten/Videoreportern produziert wurde. Beitrag muss 
> nicht> ausgestrahlt, kann aber für das Internet produziert worden 
> sein.>
> > REPORTAGE AWARD (2500 €)
> > Deutschsprachige Reportage von mindestens 15 Minuten, höchstens 29
> > Minuten Länge, die von einem oder mehreren Videojournalisten
> > produziert wurde. Die Reportage muss nicht ausgestrahlt worden sein.
> >
> > NEWCOMER VIDEO JOURNALISM AWARD (1000 €)
> > Filmbeitrag von maximal 15 Minuten Länge, der von einem oder 
> mehreren> Videojournalisten/Videoreportern produziert wurde. Die 
> Bewerber müssen
> > unter 30 Jahre alt oder an einer Hochschule eingeschrieben sein.
> > Prämiert werden Arbeiten, die durch eine eigenständige inhaltliche
> > oder filmische Handschrift überzeugen und ein großes Potenzial des
> > Bewerbers erkennen lassen.
> >
> > Online- Zuschauerpreis (500 €)
> > Auf der Festivalseite www.vjawards.com können interessierte 
> Zuschauer> ihren Lieblingsfilm mit einer guten Bewertung belohnen.
> >
> > Spezialpreis der Jury
> > Die Jury vergibt einen Spezialpreis für einen Film, der sie
> > beeindruckt, und unter Umständen sehr frei mit der Produktionsart
> > Videojournalismus umgeht.
> >
> > Alle weiteren Informationen finden Sie auf unserer Wettbewerbsseite.
> > http://www.vjawards.com <http://www.vjawards.com>
> >
> > Wir sind schon sehr gespannt auf Ihre VJ-Filme,
> >
> > Ihr
> > Video Journalism Awards Team
> >
> > _
> > __,_._,___
> > -----------------------------------------------------------------
> -------
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > announcements mailing list
> > announcements at sarai.net
> > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements
> >   
> 
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with 
> subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-
> list 
> List archive: <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>

From radhikarajen at vsnl.net  Mon Aug  4 13:18:34 2008
From: radhikarajen at vsnl.net (radhikarajen at vsnl.net)
Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:48:34 +0500
Subject: [Reader-list] Stay Away,Pandits Told-Telegraph
In-Reply-To: <13df7c120808032114y799401b6o1d276d06e518fec4@mail.gmail.com>
References: <13df7c120808032114y799401b6o1d276d06e518fec4@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <e3889600c543.4896faa2@vsnl.net>

And we have a" journalist"  in Shivam who talks of secular India.!

----- Original Message -----
From: rashneek kher <rashneek at gmail.com>
Date: Monday, August 4, 2008 9:45 am
Subject: [Reader-list] Stay Away,Pandits Told-Telegraph
To: sarai list <reader-list at sarai.net>

>  Stay away, Pandits told
> OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
> 
> http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080804/jsp/nation/story_9643825.jsp
> 
> *Srinagar, Aug. 3:* Hizb-ul Mujahideen founder Ahsan Dar has 
> announced his
> return from Muzaffarabad to join the jihad, with a warning to the 
> exiledKashmiri Pandit community not to return home.
> 
> A CD containing his statement was distributed among some media 
> agencies in
> Kashmir. In it, he has asked the Pandits not to return to the 
> Valley unless
> New Delhi solves the Kashmir issue.
> 
> "I will advise Kashmiri Pandits not to take a foolish step to 
> return to the
> Valley. And those leaders who have sympathy with the Pandits' 
> return, leave
> Kashmir and stay with them in Jammu," Dar said.
> 
> Dar had founded the Hizb in 1989 but was dislodged a year later by 
> SyedSalahuddin and forced to set up a new militant group by the 
> name of Muslim
> Mujahideen.
> 
> He was arrested in the early 1990s and released after spending 
> several years
> behind bars.
> 
> "In the late 1990s, he left for Pakistan-occupied Kashmir again 
> and, if the
> reports about his return are true, then he is back in the Valley after
> around a decade," a police official said.
> 
> Dar had differences with the Jamat-e-Islami, which had then 
> declared the
> Hizb its militant wing. This led to his ouster and replacement by Syed
> Salahuddin. A teacher by profession, he belongs to the Pattan area 
> of south
> Kashmir.
> 
> "The Kashmir issue concerns 1.2 crore Muslims of the state and it 
> does not
> revolve around Kashmiri Pandits alone. Nobody talks of Muslim migrants
> living in Azad Kashmir and we believe when the issue of 1.2 crore 
> will be
> resolved, we can then think about Kashmiri Pandits," Dar said.
> 
> This is in marked contrast to the statement of other separatist 
> leaders who
> are encouraging Kashmiri Pandits to return.
> 
> Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in April set the stage for the 
> return of
> Kashmiri migrant Pandits to their homes and announced a package 
> estimated at
> Rs 1,600 crore, which included Rs 7.5 lakh for rebuilding houses,
> identifying land and providing the unemployed Pandit youths with jobs.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Rashneek Kher
> Wandhama Massacre-The Forgotten Human Tragedy
> http://www.kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com
> http://www.nietzschereborn.blogspot.com
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with 
> subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-
> list 
> List archive: <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>

From mail at shivamvij.com  Mon Aug  4 15:05:00 2008
From: mail at shivamvij.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Shivam_Vij?= =?UTF-8?Q?_=E0=A4=B6=E0=A4=BF=E0=A4=B5=E0=A4=AE?=
	=?UTF-8?Q?=E0=A5=8D_=E0=A4=B5=E0=A4=BF=E0=A4=9C=E0=A5=8D?=)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 15:05:00 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Stay Away,Pandits Told-Telegraph
In-Reply-To: <13df7c120808032114y799401b6o1d276d06e518fec4@mail.gmail.com>
References: <13df7c120808032114y799401b6o1d276d06e518fec4@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <9c06aab30808040235q560bdd25pa48f6d36849c9303@mail.gmail.com>

This is clearly a fringe view in the Valley. The Hizb hardly has any
presence left for its warnings to be taken seriously

On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 9:44 AM, rashneek kher <rashneek at gmail.com> wrote:
>  Stay away, Pandits told
>  OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
>
> http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080804/jsp/nation/story_9643825.jsp
>
> *Srinagar, Aug. 3:* Hizb-ul Mujahideen founder Ahsan Dar has announced his
> return from Muzaffarabad to join the jihad, with a warning to the exiled
> Kashmiri Pandit community not to return home.
>
> A CD containing his statement was distributed among some media agencies in
> Kashmir. In it, he has asked the Pandits not to return to the Valley unless
> New Delhi solves the Kashmir issue.
>
> "I will advise Kashmiri Pandits not to take a foolish step to return to the
> Valley. And those leaders who have sympathy with the Pandits' return, leave
> Kashmir and stay with them in Jammu," Dar said.
>
> Dar had founded the Hizb in 1989 but was dislodged a year later by Syed
> Salahuddin and forced to set up a new militant group by the name of Muslim
> Mujahideen.
>
> He was arrested in the early 1990s and released after spending several years
> behind bars.
>
> "In the late 1990s, he left for Pakistan-occupied Kashmir again and, if the
> reports about his return are true, then he is back in the Valley after
> around a decade," a police official said.
>
> Dar had differences with the Jamat-e-Islami, which had then declared the
> Hizb its militant wing. This led to his ouster and replacement by Syed
> Salahuddin. A teacher by profession, he belongs to the Pattan area of south
> Kashmir.
>
> "The Kashmir issue concerns 1.2 crore Muslims of the state and it does not
> revolve around Kashmiri Pandits alone. Nobody talks of Muslim migrants
> living in Azad Kashmir and we believe when the issue of 1.2 crore will be
> resolved, we can then think about Kashmiri Pandits," Dar said.
>
> This is in marked contrast to the statement of other separatist leaders who
> are encouraging Kashmiri Pandits to return.
>
> Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in April set the stage for the return of
> Kashmiri migrant Pandits to their homes and announced a package estimated at
> Rs 1,600 crore, which included Rs 7.5 lakh for rebuilding houses,
> identifying land and providing the unemployed Pandit youths with jobs.
>
>
> --
> Rashneek Kher
> Wandhama Massacre-The Forgotten Human Tragedy
> http://www.kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com
> http://www.nietzschereborn.blogspot.com
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>



-- 
National Highway http://shivamvij.com/

From mail at shivamvij.com  Mon Aug  4 15:07:27 2008
From: mail at shivamvij.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Shivam_Vij?= =?UTF-8?Q?_=E0=A4=B6=E0=A4=BF=E0=A4=B5=E0=A4=AE?=
	=?UTF-8?Q?=E0=A5=8D_=E0=A4=B5=E0=A4=BF=E0=A4=9C=E0=A5=8D?=)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 15:07:27 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Internal emergency in Jammu!
In-Reply-To: <6b79f1a70808030032p70fcf001r16233a65ae0ce68e@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20080803072026.18231.qmail@f4mail-235-135.rediffmail.com>
	<6b79f1a70808030032p70fcf001r16233a65ae0ce68e@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <9c06aab30808040237k10df40dbtfd2c07f380ef2872@mail.gmail.com>

Strike cripples life in Kashmir valley

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/002200808041321.htm

Srinagar (PTI): The strike called by hardline faction of Hurriyat
Conference to express solidarity with Muslims of Jammu region on
Monday crippled life in the Kashmir valley.

All shops, business establishments, schools and higher educational
institutions remained closed due to the strike led by Syed Ali Shah
Geelani, official sources said here.

While public transport remained off roads on all routes of the valley,
some light motor vehicles were plying in the city, they said.

Security forces have been deployed at sensitive areas like Maisuma and
Nowhatta. So far, the strike has been peaceful. There were no reports
of any untoward incident from anywhere in the valley.

o o o

Jammu strife muffles Valley business

Nazir Masoodi
Monday, August 04, 2008, (Baramulla)
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080059965


It seems that the biggest victims of the unrest in Jammu are the small
business owners and daily workers.

One of them are the Valley's fruit growers, who say that their
livelihood has been severely affected by the ongoing strife in Jammu
and desperate attempts are now being made to bring back some profits.

It has been a long wait for Ghulam Mohammad to take his pear-laden
truck to Delhi's Azadpur Mandi.

Supporters of the Amarnath Sangharsh Samiti have imposed an economic
blockade targeting any truck carrying goods into or out of Kashmir.
And fearing a backlash, Police are preventing trucks from moving
forward.

"The police are saying that Kashmiri truckers wouldn't be allowed to
proceed because they are being beaten along the highway. So I had to
return from Lower Monda," said Ghulam Mohammad, driver.

Srinagar-Jammu highway is the only road link that connects Kashmir
with the rest of India but after right wing political parties in Jammu
declared a boycott of Kashmiri goods and began to enforce the economic
blockade. Fruit growers in the Valley are now looking to take the
Srinagar-Muzafarabad road to reach other places in India.

"We are compelled to take this step. But since fruits are perishable
we will take it via Jhelum Valley road," Ghulam Rasool, fruitseller.

As the markets and the rout have succumbed to strife in Jammu, the
Valley's fruit growers say they have been pushed to the wall and
forced to use the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road to reach out to the
market.

On Sun, Aug 3, 2008 at 1:02 PM, Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com> wrote:
> Leaders under house arrest . Most of them are likely to be arrested today.
> Cable TV services blocked in Jammu. SMS services snapped.
> Jammu Under EMERGENCY rule.!
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Ashwani Kumar <ashwanipkm at rediffmail.com>
> Date: Sun, Aug 3, 2008 at 12:50 PM
> Subject: Internal emergency in Jammu!
>>
>
>
> Dear friends,
>
>
>                   You are requested to float the news across about the
> latest developments as on date about Jammu. There is already curfew in
> Jammu, hundreds have been injured, some arrests have been made, leaders are
> under house arrest, media channels have been taken over by the police,
> pressmen have been manhandled and no free movement is allowed. We are
> expecting the administration to go to any extent.
>
>
> -Ashwani,
> Jammu
> 3rd August 2008,  12.45 PM
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>



-- 
National Highway http://shivamvij.com/

From mail at shivamvij.com  Mon Aug  4 15:41:53 2008
From: mail at shivamvij.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Shivam_Vij?= =?UTF-8?Q?_=E0=A4=B6=E0=A4=BF=E0=A4=B5=E0=A4=AE?=
	=?UTF-8?Q?=E0=A5=8D_=E0=A4=B5=E0=A4=BF=E0=A4=9C=E0=A5=8D?=)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 15:41:53 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] KPs and facts
In-Reply-To: <13df7c120808032105u11c7a77fib2818c7606e1e30b@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9c06aab30808020241n4078c7a1pf5fc2ebda46eaff0@mail.gmail.com>
	<13df7c120808032105u11c7a77fib2818c7606e1e30b@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <9c06aab30808040311x4bc5904eye4de26fa7ae9fae8@mail.gmail.com>

Yes, thanksfully indeed. Though I don't know if Kshmendra, Aditya Raj
Kaul and Pawan D agree with you on this, but then, they don't have
to...

On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 9:35 AM, rashneek kher <rashneek at gmail.com> wrote:
> Just goes on to show that Pandits are not a monolith and thanfully each one
> reatins his/her individuality as a thinking being.
>
> On Sat, Aug 2, 2008 at 3:11 PM, Shivam Vij शिवम् विज् <mail at shivamvij.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> Divided House, Delayed Return
>>
>> Deep fissures in the Kashmiri Pandit community stand in the way of
>> government efforts to rehabilitate them, reports PEERZADA ARSHAD HAMID
>>
>> http://tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne090808divided_house.asp
>>
>> SANJAY TIKOO, a Kashmiri Pandit living in Barbar Shah, Srinagar,
>> braved all odds and remained in the valley when thousands of Pandits
>> left their motherland. It was 1990 and the armed insurgency in Kashmir
>> had begun, followed by press releases in newspapers ordering Hindus to
>> leave.
>> No one home Most of the high-security government flats built
>> exclusively for returning Pandits have found no takers Photo:Javed Dar
>>
>> The Tikoo family were defiant and resolute. They would not migrate.
>> They weathered the pressure and fear and lived on in their ancestral
>> home. Eighteen years later, those days remain vivid for Sanjay. He
>> clearly remembers the prolonged strike calls, the curfews and, above
>> all, the migration of fellow Pandits from the valley.
>>
>> Sanjay credits his mother for the decision. "I thank the women of my
>> house and, particularly, my mother, who gave her steadfast support to
>> our decision. If either she or my sister had shown even the slightest
>> weakness, we too would have fled, forced to uproot ourselves," muses
>> Sanjay.
>>
>> The Tikoos were soon singled out. A threatening letter was nailed to
>> the entrance of their house. Sanjay clearly remembers that fateful
>> day.
>>
>> "It was July 16, 1990. I had gone to the top floor of my house to
>> smoke a cigarette. While pacing up and down, I saw a group of people
>> reading something on our gate. I rushed down and brought the message
>> in," recalls Sanjay.
>>
>> At about the same time, posters purportedly written by militants
>> became ubiquitous. Along with threats such as the one Sanjay's family
>> received, they contained strike calls and reports of militant
>> activities. Disturbed, Sanjay discussed the letter with his family and
>> then approached a local Urdu newspaper, which published the letter
>> along with his family's decision: they would not leave the valley and
>> were willing to face the consequences. Thereafter, a group of
>> militants belonging to the Al-Umar Commandos approached the family and
>> denied having issued the letter. This increased the confidence of the
>> family and encouraged them to stay back.
>>
>> The relief department of the state government estimates that 56,148
>> families, including a few Muslim families — approximately 2.5 lakh
>> people — migrated from their homes following the armed insurgency
>> during the period 1989- 92. Of this, 34,690 families went to Jammu and
>> 19,338 to New Delhi. While police records say 209 Pandits were killed
>> in Kashmir in the past 18 years, Pandit organisations put the figure
>> at about 1,100. An estimated 20,000 Pandit families, however,
>> preferred to stay.
>>
>> These people occupied scattered pockets in urban and rural areas,
>> detached from each other. This forsaken community faced difficulties
>> in their social life that were felt acutely during marriages,
>> religious functions and, most of all, when performing the last rites
>> for their dead.
>>
>> "During the initial years, finding brides for our sons was difficult
>> as few migrants were ready to send their daughters back to the valley.
>> There were no priests to perform prayers. However, the situation is
>> now improving and people don't consider marriages to families in the
>> valley that dangerous," Tikoo says.
>>
>> Sanjay initiated efforts to unite Pandit families and strengthen their
>> interaction. He and his friends founded the Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh
>> Samiti (KPSS), which is undertaking a census of Pandits in the valley.
>> They advocate the safe return of Pandits and oppose government plans
>> to give Pandits high-security residential flats.
>>
>> "The government has constructed separate buildings and has given CRPF
>> security to them. However, this is an effort to create a Palestine-
>> Israel type divide in Kashmir," asserts Tikoo.
>>
>> The KPSS is also critical of hard-line Pandit organisations like Panun
>> Kashmir and Roots in Kashmir, because of their demand for a separate
>> homeland in Kashmir, northeast of the Jhelum. The KPSS considers
>> Kashmir a political problem and a dispute between India and Pakistan.
>>
>> Panun Kashmir believes that the insurgency was a communal riot
>> engineered by Islamic fundamentalists to drive the minority Hindus
>> from the valley. They accuse Muslims of ethnic cleansing. Panun
>> Kashmir has demanded land along the Jhelum in south Kashmir to be
>> secured to build colonies for Pandits. The group also wants this zone
>> to be made a Union Territory.
>>
>> "Our community has suffered badly. We have been uprooted from our
>> homeland and unless adequate arrangements are made, we won't go back
>> and will continue our fight for our rights. Residential flats are not
>> the solution — that's just moving us from one camp to another. Our
>> return to our motherland should be final and secure, so that we will
>> not be forced to leave again," asserts Ajay Chrangoo, Chairman, Panun
>> Kashmir. Chrangoo has been living in Jammu since his migration and
>> strongly advocates a separate homeland.
>>
>> Chrangoo refers to flats constructed at Mattan in South Kashmir and at
>> Sheikhpora on the outskirts of Srinagar that the state government has
>> spent crores on, in order to coax Pandits to return. No Jammu Pandits
>> were ready to return here, and most flats remain locked.
>>
>> Another voice representing the migrant community is the All India
>> Kashmiri Samaj. Headed by Ram Krishan Bhat, it works to keep the
>> Kashmiri sentiment alive among Pandit youth. Though he praises the
>> Pandits who remained in the valley and calls them "daring", he says
>> their continued presence in the valley is not enough to convince other
>> Pandits to return.
>>
>> Chrangoo disagrees. "There is nothing special in some Pandits staying
>> back. While some members of the community stay behind in conflict
>> zones where there is a mass exodus, this can't obscure the bigger
>> picture — the fact that most Pandits have fled. Moreover, those who
>> remain, remain in fear," he adds.
>>
>>
>> THE LARGE numbers of Pandit groups — representing migrants and
>> non-migrants — claiming to fight for the rights of Pandits have
>> confused people both in India and abroad. The clamour of voices has
>> added to the complexity of the issue. While all groups claim to
>> represent the aspirations of Kashmiri Pandits, all of them differ on
>> when, where and how Pandits should return. "Pandits are as divided as
>> the Muslims are," quips Sanjay Tikoo.
>>
>> Sanjay Saraf, a migrant politician, adds another dimension to the
>> debate. Saraf plans to contest the coming assembly elections and is
>> state president of the Lok Jan Shakti Party.
>>
>> Recently, national and regional parties from outside the state have
>> started making inroads here. The elections will see candidates from
>> the SP and the BSP, who have held rallies in Srinagar.
>>
>> Saraf, however, relies more on Muslim votes than on Pandit ones.
>> Though he is a migrant, he has been visiting the valley regularly for
>> the past seven years for party meetings and constituency visits. He is
>> critical of Panun Kashmir and Roots in Kashmir that are headquartered
>> outside Kashmir and describes them as stooges of fundamentalist
>> forces. "They are dancing to the tune of the BJP and the VHP and are
>> trying to create a communal wedge," Saraf alleges.
>>
>> The divide among Pandits deepened during the recent crisis over land
>> for the Amarnath shrine board. While most Pandit organisations based
>> in Jammu and New Delhi favoured the transfer of land to the board, the
>> valley-based KPSS stood alone in its demand for the pilgrimage to be
>> placed under resident Kashmiri Pandit organisations. Saraf supported
>> this demand from the beginning. "Pandits cannot remain outside the
>> valley and pay mere lip service to the cause. We have to be here to
>> say we belong to the land. Raising a hue and cry while staying outside
>> hardly matters," avers Sanjay Saraf, while acknowledging KPSS'
>> efforts.
>>
>> Ideological differences have increased the divide between migrant
>> Pandits and those who stayed back. Eighteen years after Pandits fled
>> the valley, various groups continue to pursue their own agendas and a
>> consensus remains elusive.
>>
>> WRITER'S E-MAIL
>> peerzadaarshad at gmail.com
>> From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 31, Dated Aug 09, 2008
>> _________________________________________
>> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
>> Critiques & Collaborations
>> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
>> subscribe in the subject header.
>> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
>> List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
>
>
> --
> Rashneek Kher
> Wandhama Massacre-The Forgotten Human Tragedy
> http://www.kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com
> http://www.nietzschereborn.blogspot.com
>



-- 
National Highway http://shivamvij.com/

From rashneek at gmail.com  Mon Aug  4 16:28:12 2008
From: rashneek at gmail.com (rashneek kher)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 16:28:12 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] KPs and facts
In-Reply-To: <9c06aab30808040311x4bc5904eye4de26fa7ae9fae8@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9c06aab30808020241n4078c7a1pf5fc2ebda46eaff0@mail.gmail.com>
	<13df7c120808032105u11c7a77fib2818c7606e1e30b@mail.gmail.com>
	<9c06aab30808040311x4bc5904eye4de26fa7ae9fae8@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <13df7c120808040358l1eaaebcfi1be043fc9fc95b09@mail.gmail.com>

Yes they dont have to......

On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 3:41 PM, Shivam Vij शिवम् विज् <mail at shivamvij.com>wrote:

> Yes, thanksfully indeed. Though I don't know if Kshmendra, Aditya Raj
> Kaul and Pawan D agree with you on this, but then, they don't have
> to...
>
> On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 9:35 AM, rashneek kher <rashneek at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Just goes on to show that Pandits are not a monolith and thanfully each
> one
> > reatins his/her individuality as a thinking being.
> >
> > On Sat, Aug 2, 2008 at 3:11 PM, Shivam Vij शिवम् विज् <
> mail at shivamvij.com>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> Divided House, Delayed Return
> >>
> >> Deep fissures in the Kashmiri Pandit community stand in the way of
> >> government efforts to rehabilitate them, reports PEERZADA ARSHAD HAMID
> >>
> >> http://tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne090808divided_house.asp
> >>
> >> SANJAY TIKOO, a Kashmiri Pandit living in Barbar Shah, Srinagar,
> >> braved all odds and remained in the valley when thousands of Pandits
> >> left their motherland. It was 1990 and the armed insurgency in Kashmir
> >> had begun, followed by press releases in newspapers ordering Hindus to
> >> leave.
> >> No one home Most of the high-security government flats built
> >> exclusively for returning Pandits have found no takers Photo:Javed Dar
> >>
> >> The Tikoo family were defiant and resolute. They would not migrate.
> >> They weathered the pressure and fear and lived on in their ancestral
> >> home. Eighteen years later, those days remain vivid for Sanjay. He
> >> clearly remembers the prolonged strike calls, the curfews and, above
> >> all, the migration of fellow Pandits from the valley.
> >>
> >> Sanjay credits his mother for the decision. "I thank the women of my
> >> house and, particularly, my mother, who gave her steadfast support to
> >> our decision. If either she or my sister had shown even the slightest
> >> weakness, we too would have fled, forced to uproot ourselves," muses
> >> Sanjay.
> >>
> >> The Tikoos were soon singled out. A threatening letter was nailed to
> >> the entrance of their house. Sanjay clearly remembers that fateful
> >> day.
> >>
> >> "It was July 16, 1990. I had gone to the top floor of my house to
> >> smoke a cigarette. While pacing up and down, I saw a group of people
> >> reading something on our gate. I rushed down and brought the message
> >> in," recalls Sanjay.
> >>
> >> At about the same time, posters purportedly written by militants
> >> became ubiquitous. Along with threats such as the one Sanjay's family
> >> received, they contained strike calls and reports of militant
> >> activities. Disturbed, Sanjay discussed the letter with his family and
> >> then approached a local Urdu newspaper, which published the letter
> >> along with his family's decision: they would not leave the valley and
> >> were willing to face the consequences. Thereafter, a group of
> >> militants belonging to the Al-Umar Commandos approached the family and
> >> denied having issued the letter. This increased the confidence of the
> >> family and encouraged them to stay back.
> >>
> >> The relief department of the state government estimates that 56,148
> >> families, including a few Muslim families — approximately 2.5 lakh
> >> people — migrated from their homes following the armed insurgency
> >> during the period 1989- 92. Of this, 34,690 families went to Jammu and
> >> 19,338 to New Delhi. While police records say 209 Pandits were killed
> >> in Kashmir in the past 18 years, Pandit organisations put the figure
> >> at about 1,100. An estimated 20,000 Pandit families, however,
> >> preferred to stay.
> >>
> >> These people occupied scattered pockets in urban and rural areas,
> >> detached from each other. This forsaken community faced difficulties
> >> in their social life that were felt acutely during marriages,
> >> religious functions and, most of all, when performing the last rites
> >> for their dead.
> >>
> >> "During the initial years, finding brides for our sons was difficult
> >> as few migrants were ready to send their daughters back to the valley.
> >> There were no priests to perform prayers. However, the situation is
> >> now improving and people don't consider marriages to families in the
> >> valley that dangerous," Tikoo says.
> >>
> >> Sanjay initiated efforts to unite Pandit families and strengthen their
> >> interaction. He and his friends founded the Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh
> >> Samiti (KPSS), which is undertaking a census of Pandits in the valley.
> >> They advocate the safe return of Pandits and oppose government plans
> >> to give Pandits high-security residential flats.
> >>
> >> "The government has constructed separate buildings and has given CRPF
> >> security to them. However, this is an effort to create a Palestine-
> >> Israel type divide in Kashmir," asserts Tikoo.
> >>
> >> The KPSS is also critical of hard-line Pandit organisations like Panun
> >> Kashmir and Roots in Kashmir, because of their demand for a separate
> >> homeland in Kashmir, northeast of the Jhelum. The KPSS considers
> >> Kashmir a political problem and a dispute between India and Pakistan.
> >>
> >> Panun Kashmir believes that the insurgency was a communal riot
> >> engineered by Islamic fundamentalists to drive the minority Hindus
> >> from the valley. They accuse Muslims of ethnic cleansing. Panun
> >> Kashmir has demanded land along the Jhelum in south Kashmir to be
> >> secured to build colonies for Pandits. The group also wants this zone
> >> to be made a Union Territory.
> >>
> >> "Our community has suffered badly. We have been uprooted from our
> >> homeland and unless adequate arrangements are made, we won't go back
> >> and will continue our fight for our rights. Residential flats are not
> >> the solution — that's just moving us from one camp to another. Our
> >> return to our motherland should be final and secure, so that we will
> >> not be forced to leave again," asserts Ajay Chrangoo, Chairman, Panun
> >> Kashmir. Chrangoo has been living in Jammu since his migration and
> >> strongly advocates a separate homeland.
> >>
> >> Chrangoo refers to flats constructed at Mattan in South Kashmir and at
> >> Sheikhpora on the outskirts of Srinagar that the state government has
> >> spent crores on, in order to coax Pandits to return. No Jammu Pandits
> >> were ready to return here, and most flats remain locked.
> >>
> >> Another voice representing the migrant community is the All India
> >> Kashmiri Samaj. Headed by Ram Krishan Bhat, it works to keep the
> >> Kashmiri sentiment alive among Pandit youth. Though he praises the
> >> Pandits who remained in the valley and calls them "daring", he says
> >> their continued presence in the valley is not enough to convince other
> >> Pandits to return.
> >>
> >> Chrangoo disagrees. "There is nothing special in some Pandits staying
> >> back. While some members of the community stay behind in conflict
> >> zones where there is a mass exodus, this can't obscure the bigger
> >> picture — the fact that most Pandits have fled. Moreover, those who
> >> remain, remain in fear," he adds.
> >>
> >>
> >> THE LARGE numbers of Pandit groups — representing migrants and
> >> non-migrants — claiming to fight for the rights of Pandits have
> >> confused people both in India and abroad. The clamour of voices has
> >> added to the complexity of the issue. While all groups claim to
> >> represent the aspirations of Kashmiri Pandits, all of them differ on
> >> when, where and how Pandits should return. "Pandits are as divided as
> >> the Muslims are," quips Sanjay Tikoo.
> >>
> >> Sanjay Saraf, a migrant politician, adds another dimension to the
> >> debate. Saraf plans to contest the coming assembly elections and is
> >> state president of the Lok Jan Shakti Party.
> >>
> >> Recently, national and regional parties from outside the state have
> >> started making inroads here. The elections will see candidates from
> >> the SP and the BSP, who have held rallies in Srinagar.
> >>
> >> Saraf, however, relies more on Muslim votes than on Pandit ones.
> >> Though he is a migrant, he has been visiting the valley regularly for
> >> the past seven years for party meetings and constituency visits. He is
> >> critical of Panun Kashmir and Roots in Kashmir that are headquartered
> >> outside Kashmir and describes them as stooges of fundamentalist
> >> forces. "They are dancing to the tune of the BJP and the VHP and are
> >> trying to create a communal wedge," Saraf alleges.
> >>
> >> The divide among Pandits deepened during the recent crisis over land
> >> for the Amarnath shrine board. While most Pandit organisations based
> >> in Jammu and New Delhi favoured the transfer of land to the board, the
> >> valley-based KPSS stood alone in its demand for the pilgrimage to be
> >> placed under resident Kashmiri Pandit organisations. Saraf supported
> >> this demand from the beginning. "Pandits cannot remain outside the
> >> valley and pay mere lip service to the cause. We have to be here to
> >> say we belong to the land. Raising a hue and cry while staying outside
> >> hardly matters," avers Sanjay Saraf, while acknowledging KPSS'
> >> efforts.
> >>
> >> Ideological differences have increased the divide between migrant
> >> Pandits and those who stayed back. Eighteen years after Pandits fled
> >> the valley, various groups continue to pursue their own agendas and a
> >> consensus remains elusive.
> >>
> >> WRITER'S E-MAIL
> >> peerzadaarshad at gmail.com
> >> From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 31, Dated Aug 09, 2008
> >> _________________________________________
> >> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> >> Critiques & Collaborations
> >> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
> >> subscribe in the subject header.
> >> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> >> List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
> >
> >
> > --
> > Rashneek Kher
> > Wandhama Massacre-The Forgotten Human Tragedy
> > http://www.kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com
> > http://www.nietzschereborn.blogspot.com
> >
>
>
>
> --
> National Highway http://shivamvij.com/
>



-- 
Rashneek Kher
Wandhama Massacre-The Forgotten Human Tragedy
http://www.kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com
http://www.nietzschereborn.blogspot.com

From cubbykabi at yahoo.com  Mon Aug  4 18:05:01 2008
From: cubbykabi at yahoo.com (kabi cubby sherman)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 18:05:01 +0530 (IST)
Subject: [Reader-list] Fw: [faowindia] The Queer Azadi March
Message-ID: <463493.28059.qm@web94704.mail.in2.yahoo.com>

come join the march and celebrate

kabi

 

Meter Down - kaali-peeli ki kahaani 
podcast: http://feeds.feedburner.com/meterdown
blog: http://meterdown.wordpress.com





From: cs lists <chayshal at gmail.com>
To: streesangam at googlegroups.com
Cc: faow yahoogroup <faowindia at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, 4 August, 2008 3:57:49 PM
Subject: [faowindia] The Queer Azadi March



 
QUEER 
AZADI 
MUMBAI 
2008
 
 
 
 
16th August
 
 
The march will 
start at 
August Kranti 
Maidan
 and end at 
Girgaum 
Chowpatty
 
 
 
 
Organised 
by:
 
Aanchal 
Trust, Astitva, Dai Welfare Society, 
GayBombay, Humsaaya, 
Humsafar Trust, 
INFOSEM, 
Lesbians and Bisexuals in Action, 
Queer 
Media Collective, Rainbow Pride Connexion,
Sakhi 
Char Chowghi, Salvation Star, Sarathi,
Symphony 
in Pink
 
We will gather at August 
Kranti Maidan 3:30 pm onwards.
 
QUEER 
AZADI MUMBAI 2008
 
Who is ‘queer’?Queer was originally used as a put-down, 
but the word was reclaimed as a positive marker of identity by those of us whom 
society considered odd, strange or abnormal. We use the word to refer to all 
people marginalisedby a society that is narrowly defined by 
hetero-normativity and by the male-female gender binary. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, 
hijra, transgender, kothi, panthi, intersex… all who  identify with words like these have 
gathered here today under the umbrella of the “queer” community. 
 
What’s the slogan “queer azadi” 
about?This country 
achieved Independence on 15th August, 1947, 
but its countless queer citizens are still not free. We have no rights, and no 
place in a society that refuses to accept us for who we are.. And that is why 
we’ve chosen 16th August as Queer Azadi Diwas, so that we may be seen 
and heard, and in order to bring to the notice of both our society and our 
government some issues that concern us:  
 
	* Under Sec. 377 of the Indian  Penal Code our desires and relationships are considered to be criminal acts.  We want this regressive law read down. 
 
	* Every individual is under  tremendous pressure to marry a person of the opposite sex, as marriage is seen  as a must in our society. We are launching a campaign against all such forced  marriages.
 
	* The Constitution must include  provisions to deal with all discrimination on the grounds of sexuality or  gender. 
 
	* We call for an end to  homophobia and transphobia — an end to violence and hate within families, in  educational institutions, at places of work and in public spaces. 
 
Today’s event is not just for the queer 
communities.Many others 
are here to encourage and support us — family members, friends, colleagues; 
NGOs,  women’s groups, human rights 
organizations, and trade unionists; educational institutions and their students. 
 
We invite you to join us on our march as 
well and to raise your voice along with ours.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 __._,_.___ 
Messages in this topic  (1)  Reply  (via web post)  | Start a new topic  
Messages | Files | Photos | Links | Database | Polls | Members | Calendar 
 
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) 
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Visit Your Group  | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use  | Unsubscribe  
Visit Your Group  
Yahoo! News
Odd News
You won't believe
it, but it's true
Search Ads
Get new customers.
List your web site
in Yahoo! Search.
Yahoo! Groups
Everyday Wellness Zone
Check out featured
healthy living groups.
. 
__,_._,___    


      Add more friends to your messenger and enjoy! Go to http://in.messenger.yahoo.com/invite/
DEFANGED.74738>
----- Forwarded Message ----

From mail at shivamvij.com  Mon Aug  4 19:49:50 2008
From: mail at shivamvij.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Shivam_Vij?= =?UTF-8?Q?_=E0=A4=B6=E0=A4=BF=E0=A4=B5=E0=A4=AE?=
	=?UTF-8?Q?=E0=A5=8D_=E0=A4=B5=E0=A4=BF=E0=A4=9C=E0=A5=8D?=)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 19:49:50 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Hindu Communalists ! and Jammu keeps Burning
In-Reply-To: <6b79f1a70808020529y11a55b3ud27e08d781af6e9a@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6b79f1a70808020529y11a55b3ud27e08d781af6e9a@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <9c06aab30808040719v1370c8e5p454a7a7caa5aa16d@mail.gmail.com>

The Economic and Political Weekly
July 26, 2008

STATE CULTIVATION OF THE AMARNATH YATRA

by Gautam Navlakha

The origins of the conflagration in June in
Kashmir on forest  land allocation for
construction of facilities for the Amarnath yatra
lie in open state promotion of the pilgrimage.
The yatra has caused considerable damage to the
economy and ecology of the area.  The high-handed
actions of the  Shri Amarnath Shrine Board only
aggravated the situation.

The Amarnath pilgrimage erupted into a major
controversy last month entirely on account of the
actions of the state. The Act setting up the
Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) was passed by
the National Conference government in 2001. On
January 1, 2008, the SASB informed the
legislature of Jammu and Kashmir, through a
letter to the deputy chief minister, that "(t)he
Governor is  sovereign ex-officio holder of the
power...  who acts on his own personal
satisfaction and not on the aid and advice of the
council of ministers...the member (of the
legislative council) may be explained that he
does not enjoy the powers to question the
decisions of the body" (Greater Kashmir, June 12,
2008).

Disconcertingly, the SASB, when presided over by
S K Sinha when he was governor, has been engaged
in some controversial transactions. The chief
executive officer (CEO) of the SASB is the
principal secretary to the governor. The CEO's
wife, in her capacity as principal secretary of
the forest department, granted permission to the
SASB on May 29, 2005 to use forest land for the
pilgrimage. Because this action was not in
accordance with the provision of the J&K Forest
Conservation Act of 1997, the state government
withdrew the order.  However, a division bench of
the J&K High Court stayed the withdrawal of
permission to occupy forest land. But when in
mid-2008, the state cabinet gave its approval to
"divert" 40 ha of forest land for the yatra the
issue erupted into widescale public protests. The
deputy chief minister, belonging to the
Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) went so far as
to claim that Congress ministers "black- mailed"
them into giving this approval (Indian Express,
June 16, 2008).  The Indian state has often used
the yatra to promote a certain kind of
nationalism.  During the Kargil war, in 1999, the
Press Information Bureau put out a press re-
lease stating: "(the) yearning for moksha
(salvation) can move the devotees to the
challenging heights of Kashmir and will be a
fitting gesture of solidarity with our valiant
soldiers who have been fighting the enemy to
defend our borders" (pib.nic.in/
feature/feo799/f1507992 html).

A Little Known Shrine

Thus, what is otherwise a religious pilgrimage of
the shaivite Hindus has been elevated to
represent a patriotic enterprise. What is
interesting is that the translator of
Rajtarangini, Aurel Stein, found no  reference in
1888 in either the Rajtarangini or the Nilmata
Purana to the Amarnath cave. For Kashmiri Hindus
the holiest site was the Haramukuta (Shiva's
Diadem) and Haramukh-Gangabal pilgrimage (see M
Ashraf, 'Aggression At Its Worst', Greater
Kashmir, June 20, 2008). The cave was in fact
discovered in the 18th century and a Gujjar
family and its descendants who found it were
given the right to a share of the offering as a
consequence. Even until the 1980s, this
pilgrimage was not well known and in 1989, only
12,000  pilgrims visited the cave in a fortnight
of pilgrimage. It is only after 1996 that the
Amarnath cave acquired its prominence when
militancy in Kashmir was at its peak.  The SASB
is headed by the governor (until recently S K
Sinha, a former lt general in the army) and his
principal secretary, from the Indian
Administrative Service, is the CEO of the SASB.
Thus when the SASB pushes for movement of a
larger and larger number of pilgrims and rejects
the right of the legislators to even raise a
question regarding the functioning of the   SASB,
the Indian state is sending a simple message.

Imagine if a Muslim governor of  Rajasthan were
to ask to set up an independent Ajmer Sharief
Dargah development authority, with say, control
over  a large part of Ajmer city. What would  be
the response of Rajasthan's BJP  government or
the right wing Hindutva rabble-rousers?

Ironically, it is the deposed custodian of the
shrine Deependra Giri who has been crying hoarse
over SASB's promotion of pilgrimage as tourism,
flouting the principle of penance inherent in
such pilgrim ages as laid down in the Hindu
scriptures! The point is this promotion

of Amarnath can be faulted on temporal, religious
and secular grounds. In other words it is
downright duplicitous when the Indian state
promotes religious tourism (tourism in any event)
in the guise of the welfare of Hindu pilgrims.
This is an extension and/or part of the process
of  acquisition of a huge mass of land (orchard
and cultivable fields, including the precious
saffron fields of Pampore) by  Indian security
forces and water management and control through
the National Hydro Power Corporation.

Implications

The implications are far-reaching. The SASB runs
a virtually parallel admini- stration and acts as
a "sovereign body" promoting Hindu interests,
increasing the number of pilgrims from 12,000 in
1989 to over 4,00,000 in 2007 and ex- tending the
period of the pilgrimage from 15 days to two and
half months (the first fortnight is meant for
families of service personnel). The SASB has
virtually taken over the functioning of the
Pahalgam De- velopment Authority, laying claims
to forest lands and constructing shelters and
structures even on the Pahalgam Golf Course!

As part of the latest instances of land grab the
SASB received the approval of the state
government on June 3, 2008 to transfer 800 kanals
of forest land. And  it wanted another 3,200
kanals. The  SASB has also staked claims to set
up an "independent" Amarnath Development
Authority between Nunwan, Pahalgam, and Baltal
(ahead of Sonmarg). It is true that the state
government shot down this  proposal and has
publicly claimed that only temporary structures
can be set up in the 800 kanals, but two things
should be kept in mind. Firstly, the brazen
manner in which the SASB has gone about staking
its claims. Secondly, but for public anger it is
doubtful if the state government would have found
the courage to oppose the demands of the SASB. It
has not done anything to prevent or rollback the
annexation of parts of Pahalgam Golf Course in
order to provide security for  pilgrims. If it
were not for the widespread protests in Kashmir
and the PDP's withdrawal from the government, the
new governor of Jammu and Kashmir would not have
been compelled to revoke his predecessor's order.

Environmental Damage

Be that as it may, probably the most damning
evidence against the SASB and its  dangerous
exclusivist policy is the dam- age being caused
to the environment in and around Pahalgam. A
noted environmentalist told Greater Kashmir (June
10, 2008) that "The yatris during their Amarnath
yatra do not only defecate on the banks of the
Lidder river but throw tonnes of non-degradable
items like polythene, plastic items directly into
the river. This has resulted in the deterioration
of its water quality." One expert, M R D
Kundangar, told Greater Kashmir that "(t)he
chemical oxygen demand of the Lidder has been
recorded between 17 and 92 mg/l which is beyond
the permissible level. Such enriched waters with
hazardous chemicals ranges can no way be
recommended for potable purposes.  It has crossed
all permissible limits due to flow of sewage and
open defecation. Lidder has been turned into a
cesspool." It has been estimated that every day
during the pilgrimage 55,000 kg of waste is
generated. Apart from this waste, the degradation
caused by buses and vehicles carrying pilgrims,
trucks carrying provisions and massive deployment
of security forces contributes further to air
pollution.  Another fallout is the threat posed
to local inhabitants from crowding of the
ecologically fragile area where they have to
compete to retain their access and rights to re-
sources, both water and land.  Indeed such was
the arrogance and clout of the previous governor
that he sent an  ordinance to the state
government to establish Shardapeeth University in
Baghat Kanipora in Srinagar. Prominent jurist  A
G Noorani was constrained to point out to Greater
Kashmir (June 9, 2008) that this move of the
governor was "unheard of in parliamentary
democracy". General Sinha would have gotten away
with this had it not been for the fact that state
coalition government did not have enough time to
promulgate this while he was still the governor.
The same governor, who also headed the Shri
Vaishno Devi Shrine Board, had also created a
special facility for rich Hindu pilgrims visiting
Vaishno Devi by paying an additional Rs 200-500.
Had it not been for the strike by residents and
ordinary pilgrims in Katra this decision would
not have been withdrawn.

The special time allocated for the pilgrimage to
the armed forces personnel, the acquisition of
land, introduction of helicopter services (which
causes its own attendant problems), crowding of
the area and slowly pushing out local people from
these locations because of the environmental
degradation or because their livelihood is
adversely affected (for example consider the
protests by the Pahalgam- based tourism industry
for squeezing them out), all pose a huge
challenge.

Limits in Gangotri

Significantly, even the Bharatiya Janata Party in
Uttarakhand on May 1, 2008 limited the number of
pilgrims visiting Gangotri and Goumukh to 150
persons per day so as to protect the fragile
ecology of the area. Yet, in the case of
Amarnath, and despite overwhelming evidence of
environmental degradation posed by the huge
increase in the number of pilgrims and large
number of security forces  deployed for
protection of such pilgrims, there is no one who
dares challenge the SASB's stubborn extension of
the yatra.  Indeed if the CEO of SASB is to be
believed since "the population of India will
increase we will have to consider further
extension of the yatra period".

Arguably, when the yatra was halted between 1991
and 1996 due to the threat by a section of the
militants it played into the hands of the extreme
right wing elements in Indian society who have
since then played an integral role in mobilising
large numbers of pilgrims.

However, it is equally important to note that
earlier, school- children and college youth used
to act as volunteers and provide assistance to
the yatris. Even when this was discontinued after
1996, the main indigenous militant organisation
the Hizbul Mujahideen and Muslim Janbaz Force
always supported the yatra and consistently
demonstrated its opposition towards those who
tried to dis- rupt it. And even today there is no
section of people who opposes the yatra. What
they resent is the horrendously jingoistic turn
that it has taken under the SASB.  Verily the
more things change more they remain the same.

On Sat, Aug 2, 2008 at 5:59 PM, Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com> wrote:
> *KASHMIR IMAGES, August 2, 2009*
>
> *Good you talked about Hindu communalists of India, why not about Muslim
> fundamentalists of Kashmir?*
>
> *By Vimal Sumbly*
>
> Dear Omar,
>
> please accept my heartiest congratulations for an impassionate speech you
> delivered in the parliament on July 22.
> It would be remembered as one of the best speeches ever delivered in the
> parliament. I have always felt proud about your secular and nationalistic
> credentials. Unlike most other politicians in Kashmir, you and your
> illustrious father Dr Farooq Abdullah have the distinction of never playing
> with the secessionist sentiments of people in Kashmir. As you began your
> speech in the parliament that you are a Muslim and you are an Indian and
> there was no difference between the two, you were speaking straight from
> your heart. In fact you never needed to say that, you have always proved it
> indeed.
> However I beg to differ with the widespread public opinion generated by your
> "extempore speech". For the speech was not at all addressed to the
> parliament, nor to the billion Indians who were watching you live on the
> television. It was aimed at the select "secular Muslims of Kashmir" whom you
> are going to ask for their vote very soon. I salute you for the courage to
> call a spade a spade. You rightly criticized the Bharitya Janata Party for
> its communal agenda. I believe your regret and apologies were obviously
> aimed at the Kashmiri Muslims. You rightly criticized the Communists for
> being self proclaimed guardians of the Indian secularism, while not minding
> to side with the "communal BJP" in toppling the government.
>
> Dear Omar, I know and you know that you paid a heavy price in 2002 assembly
> elections in Kashmir for not having resigned on the Gujarat riots. You and
> your party were defeated in the elections, mainly because you were blamed
> for sharing power with the "communal BJP" at the centre. That ghost might be
> still haunting you. But you showed enough moral courage to apologize to the
> Kashmiri Muslims. You berated the BJP to the maximum possible extent. That
> is for you and the BJP to decide. Your speech was rated among the best by
> various television channels. Taking it on the face value everybody would
> like it. Because, it was rhetoric at its best. Particularly when you had
> chosen the two best targets, the Communists and the BJP, who were obviously
> not liked by many across the country for their opportunistic "understanding"
> to topple the government for entirely different reasons.
>
> I wish you gathered the same moral courage, which you showed in the
> parliament to denounce the Hindu communalists, to condemn the Muslim
> communalists in Kashmir. I feel sorry the way you defended the anti Amarnath
> land transfer agitation in the parliament. And hats off to you that you
> presented it to be a "secular" agitation for the land. Let you tell me and
> the whole of nation who was going to take away the land from you. Had LK
> Advani been allotted the land to settle down his "communal brigade" there?
> It was just a temporary transfer to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board to
> facilitate the pilgrimage of lakhs of pilgrims coming from across the
> country. And is the Shrine Board an outside agency? Isn't it just a state
> agency controlled by the state government itself? The matter of the fact is
> that you joined the course of competitive communalism that was initiated by
> your rivals, the People's Democratic Party and hijacked by secessionists
> like Sayeed Ali Shah Geelani. And how brilliantly you presented it in
> "secular colours". What if the Hindus outside Kashmir rebel in the same way
> and seek vacation of Haj houses? That has never been done and it will never
> be done.
> Not everybody across the country knows that the grave of your grandfather,
> Sher-i-Kashmir, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah still needs a heavy posse of cops
> and mostly drawn from central paramilitary forces to be defended against the
> same "secular" Muslims of Kashmir. And we all know Sheikh Sahib was a true
> secular leader who opted for secular India against an Islamic Pakistan. Had
> it not been for him, Kashmir would not have been with India. So, who is
> wrong your grandfather or the "secular" Kashmiri Muslims, whom you defended
> with such a strong conviction? Like you apologized to the Kashmiri Muslims
> for "sleeping with the communal BJP", you should also apologize to the
> people of Jammu whom you accused of being communal. This was too hurting.
> Let you not forget that you still feel safer in Jammu than in Kashmir and
> there has not been a selective communal killing in Jammu despite so much
> provocation in Kashmir valley. You certainly owe an apology to the people of
> Jammu also and the current phase of violence was provoked by "the best"
> speech you delivered in the parliament.
>
> And please don't mislead the county that no Amarnath pilgrim was ever
> attacked. There have been scores of attacks resulting in scores of deaths
> during the past two decades on the pilgrims. And also let the record be
> straightened that the Amarnath cave was not discovered by a Muslim about 150
> years ago. Its mention is in Neelamat Puran as well. Besides, when the
> Kashmiri Pandits were subjected to atrocities during the regime of
> Aurangzeb, they (the Kashmiri Pandits) had gone to Amaranth to seek divine
> intervention. It is here that they decided to approach Guru Tegh Bahadur in
> Anandpur Sahib and that is over 300 years ago.
>
> I am sure, you are an honest and a well meaning person. I not only see a
> bright future for Kashmir in you, but for the entire country. We need
> leaders like you, passionate, forthright, honest, brilliant and daring. To
> conclude I tell, rather I request you one small thing. This is too personal.
> That I am myself a Kashmiri like you. I am thorough Kashmiri in language, in
> culture, in life and in everything. I have been thrown out of my Kashmir 18
> years ago. Even remaining away, I have maintained my language, my culture
> and my lifestyle as a true Kashmir. You will say that, I was not thrown out
> as it was Jagmohan who prompted me to move out. Presuming that I went out at
> Jagmohan's behest, but can you help me now to return my piece of land, less
> than half an acre, no big deal. It has been occupied by one of my "secular
> Muslim" classmates with whom I used to go to school for twelve long years.
> He knows I cannot do anything. You said, you will fight for the rights of
> your land. Will you help me to return my land, like you pleaded the cause of
> other fellow Muslim Kashmiris. I am also your fellow Kashmiri who still
> cherishes the memories of his home. Don't disappoint me. Because I think you
> are not only brave but bold as well. Have courage to speak for me. Whether I
> get my land back or not, would not bother me, but I would feel consoled that
> a fellow Kashmiri stood for me, like he stood for other fellow Kashmiris.
> I understand that writing to you this way is enough to get me pronounced as
> communal and an activist of RSS and Shiv Sena. But let me put it on record
> that ours was among a few exceptional Pandit families that always voted for
> the National Conference and not the Congress. You can verify it from my same
> friend who has grabbed my land. We used to participate together in National
> Conference processions. And I still believe that the National Conference is
> the best bet for the people of Jammu and Kashmir, particularly under the
> dynamic leadership of a young, brilliant, brave and daring leader like you.
>  My sincere apologies if I have been harsh to you, I never wanted to cloud
> the glory of your speech in parliament, I only wanted to set the record
> straight. Because truth must be told howsoever bitter it may be.
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
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-- 
National Highway http://shivamvij.com/

From kauladityaraj at gmail.com  Mon Aug  4 21:57:47 2008
From: kauladityaraj at gmail.com (Aditya Raj Kaul)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 21:57:47 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Stay Away,Pandits Told-Telegraph
In-Reply-To: <9c06aab30808040235q560bdd25pa48f6d36849c9303@mail.gmail.com>
References: <13df7c120808032114y799401b6o1d276d06e518fec4@mail.gmail.com>
	<9c06aab30808040235q560bdd25pa48f6d36849c9303@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6353c690808040927n7b7ea59fi1d6a1829ad3a27c5@mail.gmail.com>

Yeah; because SHIVAM says so.....
On 8/4/08, Shivam Vij शिवम् विज् <mail at shivamvij.com> wrote:

> This is clearly a fringe view in the Valley. The Hizb hardly has any
> presence left for its warnings to be taken seriously
>
> On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 9:44 AM, rashneek kher <rashneek at gmail.com> wrote:
> >  Stay away, Pandits told
> >  OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
> >
> > http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080804/jsp/nation/story_9643825.jsp
> >
> > *Srinagar, Aug. 3:* Hizb-ul Mujahideen founder Ahsan Dar has announced
> his
> > return from Muzaffarabad to join the jihad, with a warning to the exiled
> > Kashmiri Pandit community not to return home.
> >
> > A CD containing his statement was distributed among some media agencies
> in
> > Kashmir. In it, he has asked the Pandits not to return to the Valley
> unless
> > New Delhi solves the Kashmir issue.
> >
> > "I will advise Kashmiri Pandits not to take a foolish step to return to
> the
> > Valley. And those leaders who have sympathy with the Pandits' return,
> leave
> > Kashmir and stay with them in Jammu," Dar said.
> >
> > Dar had founded the Hizb in 1989 but was dislodged a year later by Syed
> > Salahuddin and forced to set up a new militant group by the name of
> Muslim
> > Mujahideen.
> >
> > He was arrested in the early 1990s and released after spending several
> years
> > behind bars.
> >
> > "In the late 1990s, he left for Pakistan-occupied Kashmir again and, if
> the
> > reports about his return are true, then he is back in the Valley after
> > around a decade," a police official said.
> >
> > Dar had differences with the Jamat-e-Islami, which had then declared the
> > Hizb its militant wing. This led to his ouster and replacement by Syed
> > Salahuddin. A teacher by profession, he belongs to the Pattan area of
> south
> > Kashmir.
> >
> > "The Kashmir issue concerns 1.2 crore Muslims of the state and it does
> not
> > revolve around Kashmiri Pandits alone. Nobody talks of Muslim migrants
> > living in Azad Kashmir and we believe when the issue of 1.2 crore will be
> > resolved, we can then think about Kashmiri Pandits," Dar said.
> >
> > This is in marked contrast to the statement of other separatist leaders
> who
> > are encouraging Kashmiri Pandits to return.
> >
> > Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in April set the stage for the return of
> > Kashmiri migrant Pandits to their homes and announced a package estimated
> at
> > Rs 1,600 crore, which included Rs 7.5 lakh for rebuilding houses,
> > identifying land and providing the unemployed Pandit youths with jobs.
> >
> >
> > --
> > Rashneek Kher
> > Wandhama Massacre-The Forgotten Human Tragedy
> > http://www.kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com
> > http://www.nietzschereborn.blogspot.com
> > _________________________________________
> > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> > Critiques & Collaborations
> > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
> subscribe in the subject header.
> > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> > List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
>
>
>
> --
> National Highway http://shivamvij.com/
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
> subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>

From mail at shivamvij.com  Mon Aug  4 22:00:14 2008
From: mail at shivamvij.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Shivam_Vij?= =?UTF-8?Q?_=E0=A4=B6=E0=A4=BF=E0=A4=B5=E0=A4=AE?=
	=?UTF-8?Q?=E0=A5=8D_=E0=A4=B5=E0=A4=BF=E0=A4=9C=E0=A5=8D?=)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 22:00:14 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Stay Away,Pandits Told-Telegraph
In-Reply-To: <6353c690808040927n7b7ea59fi1d6a1829ad3a27c5@mail.gmail.com>
References: <13df7c120808032114y799401b6o1d276d06e518fec4@mail.gmail.com>
	<9c06aab30808040235q560bdd25pa48f6d36849c9303@mail.gmail.com>
	<6353c690808040927n7b7ea59fi1d6a1829ad3a27c5@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <9c06aab30808040930v102ccccbnae7ea9f2e82df720@mail.gmail.com>

My claims certainly pale beyond yours, I humbly submit

On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 9:57 PM, Aditya Raj Kaul <kauladityaraj at gmail.com>wrote:

> Yeah; because SHIVAM says so.....
> On 8/4/08, Shivam Vij शिवम् विज् <mail at shivamvij.com> wrote:
>
> > This is clearly a fringe view in the Valley. The Hizb hardly has any
> > presence left for its warnings to be taken seriously
> >
> > On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 9:44 AM, rashneek kher <rashneek at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > >  Stay away, Pandits told
> > >  OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
> > >
> > > http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080804/jsp/nation/story_9643825.jsp
> > >
> > > *Srinagar, Aug. 3:* Hizb-ul Mujahideen founder Ahsan Dar has announced
> > his
> > > return from Muzaffarabad to join the jihad, with a warning to the
> exiled
> > > Kashmiri Pandit community not to return home.
> > >
> > > A CD containing his statement was distributed among some media agencies
> > in
> > > Kashmir. In it, he has asked the Pandits not to return to the Valley
> > unless
> > > New Delhi solves the Kashmir issue.
> > >
> > > "I will advise Kashmiri Pandits not to take a foolish step to return to
> > the
> > > Valley. And those leaders who have sympathy with the Pandits' return,
> > leave
> > > Kashmir and stay with them in Jammu," Dar said.
> > >
> > > Dar had founded the Hizb in 1989 but was dislodged a year later by Syed
> > > Salahuddin and forced to set up a new militant group by the name of
> > Muslim
> > > Mujahideen.
> > >
> > > He was arrested in the early 1990s and released after spending several
> > years
> > > behind bars.
> > >
> > > "In the late 1990s, he left for Pakistan-occupied Kashmir again and, if
> > the
> > > reports about his return are true, then he is back in the Valley after
> > > around a decade," a police official said.
> > >
> > > Dar had differences with the Jamat-e-Islami, which had then declared
> the
> > > Hizb its militant wing. This led to his ouster and replacement by Syed
> > > Salahuddin. A teacher by profession, he belongs to the Pattan area of
> > south
> > > Kashmir.
> > >
> > > "The Kashmir issue concerns 1.2 crore Muslims of the state and it does
> > not
> > > revolve around Kashmiri Pandits alone. Nobody talks of Muslim migrants
> > > living in Azad Kashmir and we believe when the issue of 1.2 crore will
> be
> > > resolved, we can then think about Kashmiri Pandits," Dar said.
> > >
> > > This is in marked contrast to the statement of other separatist leaders
> > who
> > > are encouraging Kashmiri Pandits to return.
> > >
> > > Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in April set the stage for the return of
> > > Kashmiri migrant Pandits to their homes and announced a package
> estimated
> > at
> > > Rs 1,600 crore, which included Rs 7.5 lakh for rebuilding houses,
> > > identifying land and providing the unemployed Pandit youths with jobs.
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Rashneek Kher
> > > Wandhama Massacre-The Forgotten Human Tragedy
> > > http://www.kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com
> > > http://www.nietzschereborn.blogspot.com
> > > _________________________________________
> > > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> > > Critiques & Collaborations
> > > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
> > subscribe in the subject header.
> > > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> > > List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > National Highway http://shivamvij.com/
> > _________________________________________
> > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> > Critiques & Collaborations
> > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
> > subscribe in the subject header.
> > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> > List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
> subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
>



-- 
Every story has two sides.
You can't take both.
National Highway - http://shivamvij.com/

From kauladityaraj at gmail.com  Mon Aug  4 22:09:25 2008
From: kauladityaraj at gmail.com (Aditya Raj Kaul)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 22:09:25 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Stay Away,Pandits Told-Telegraph
In-Reply-To: <9c06aab30808040930v102ccccbnae7ea9f2e82df720@mail.gmail.com>
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Certainly not beyond the four walls of Sarai.

On 8/4/08, Shivam Vij शिवम् विज् <mail at shivamvij.com> wrote:
>
> My claims certainly pale beyond yours, I humbly submit
>
> On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 9:57 PM, Aditya Raj Kaul <kauladityaraj at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Yeah; because SHIVAM says so.....
>>  On 8/4/08, Shivam Vij शिवम् विज् <mail at shivamvij.com> wrote:
>>
>> > This is clearly a fringe view in the Valley. The Hizb hardly has any
>> > presence left for its warnings to be taken seriously
>> >
>> > On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 9:44 AM, rashneek kher <rashneek at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > >  Stay away, Pandits told
>> > >  OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
>> > >
>> > > http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080804/jsp/nation/story_9643825.jsp
>> > >
>> > > *Srinagar, Aug. 3:* Hizb-ul Mujahideen founder Ahsan Dar has announced
>> > his
>> > > return from Muzaffarabad to join the jihad, with a warning to the
>> exiled
>> > > Kashmiri Pandit community not to return home.
>> > >
>> > > A CD containing his statement was distributed among some media
>> agencies
>> > in
>> > > Kashmir. In it, he has asked the Pandits not to return to the Valley
>> > unless
>> > > New Delhi solves the Kashmir issue.
>> > >
>> > > "I will advise Kashmiri Pandits not to take a foolish step to return
>> to
>> > the
>> > > Valley. And those leaders who have sympathy with the Pandits' return,
>> > leave
>> > > Kashmir and stay with them in Jammu," Dar said.
>> > >
>> > > Dar had founded the Hizb in 1989 but was dislodged a year later by
>> Syed
>> > > Salahuddin and forced to set up a new militant group by the name of
>> > Muslim
>> > > Mujahideen.
>> > >
>> > > He was arrested in the early 1990s and released after spending several
>> > years
>> > > behind bars.
>> > >
>> > > "In the late 1990s, he left for Pakistan-occupied Kashmir again and,
>> if
>> > the
>> > > reports about his return are true, then he is back in the Valley after
>> > > around a decade," a police official said.
>> > >
>> > > Dar had differences with the Jamat-e-Islami, which had then declared
>> the
>> > > Hizb its militant wing. This led to his ouster and replacement by Syed
>> > > Salahuddin. A teacher by profession, he belongs to the Pattan area of
>> > south
>> > > Kashmir.
>> > >
>> > > "The Kashmir issue concerns 1.2 crore Muslims of the state and it does
>> > not
>> > > revolve around Kashmiri Pandits alone. Nobody talks of Muslim migrants
>> > > living in Azad Kashmir and we believe when the issue of 1.2 crore will
>> be
>> > > resolved, we can then think about Kashmiri Pandits," Dar said.
>> > >
>> > > This is in marked contrast to the statement of other separatist
>> leaders
>> > who
>> > > are encouraging Kashmiri Pandits to return.
>> > >
>> > > Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in April set the stage for the return of
>> > > Kashmiri migrant Pandits to their homes and announced a package
>> estimated
>> > at
>> > > Rs 1,600 crore, which included Rs 7.5 lakh for rebuilding houses,
>> > > identifying land and providing the unemployed Pandit youths with jobs.
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > --
>> > > Rashneek Kher
>> > > Wandhama Massacre-The Forgotten Human Tragedy
>> > > http://www.kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com
>> > > http://www.nietzschereborn.blogspot.com
>> > > _________________________________________
>> > > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
>> > > Critiques & Collaborations
>> > > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
>> > subscribe in the subject header.
>> > > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
>> > > List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > National Highway http://shivamvij.com/
>> > _________________________________________
>> > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
>> > Critiques & Collaborations
>> > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
>> > subscribe in the subject header.
>> > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
>> > List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
>> _________________________________________
>> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
>> Critiques & Collaborations
>> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
>> subscribe in the subject header.
>> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> Every story has two sides.
> You can't take both.
> National Highway - http://shivamvij.com/
>

From pawan.durani at gmail.com  Mon Aug  4 22:55:33 2008
From: pawan.durani at gmail.com (Pawan Durani)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 22:55:33 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Hindu Communalists ! and Jammu keeps Burning
In-Reply-To: <9c06aab30808040719v1370c8e5p454a7a7caa5aa16d@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6b79f1a70808020529y11a55b3ud27e08d781af6e9a@mail.gmail.com>
	<9c06aab30808040719v1370c8e5p454a7a7caa5aa16d@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6b79f1a70808041025r2618bcbfqd8da0bb0e4e52f6a@mail.gmail.com>

Amarnath - Fact sheets available for download at
http://thekashmir.wordpress.com/2008/08/04/the-truth-behind-holy-amarnath/


On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 7:49 PM, Shivam Vij शिवम् विज् <mail at shivamvij.com>wrote:

> The Economic and Political Weekly
> July 26, 2008
>
> STATE CULTIVATION OF THE AMARNATH YATRA
>
> by Gautam Navlakha
>
> The origins of the conflagration in June in
> Kashmir on forest  land allocation for
> construction of facilities for the Amarnath yatra
> lie in open state promotion of the pilgrimage.
> The yatra has caused considerable damage to the
> economy and ecology of the area.  The high-handed
> actions of the  Shri Amarnath Shrine Board only
> aggravated the situation.
>
> The Amarnath pilgrimage erupted into a major
> controversy last month entirely on account of the
> actions of the state. The Act setting up the
> Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) was passed by
> the National Conference government in 2001. On
> January 1, 2008, the SASB informed the
> legislature of Jammu and Kashmir, through a
> letter to the deputy chief minister, that "(t)he
> Governor is  sovereign ex-officio holder of the
> power...  who acts on his own personal
> satisfaction and not on the aid and advice of the
> council of ministers...the member (of the
> legislative council) may be explained that he
> does not enjoy the powers to question the
> decisions of the body" (Greater Kashmir, June 12,
> 2008).
>
> Disconcertingly, the SASB, when presided over by
> S K Sinha when he was governor, has been engaged
> in some controversial transactions. The chief
> executive officer (CEO) of the SASB is the
> principal secretary to the governor. The CEO's
> wife, in her capacity as principal secretary of
> the forest department, granted permission to the
> SASB on May 29, 2005 to use forest land for the
> pilgrimage. Because this action was not in
> accordance with the provision of the J&K Forest
> Conservation Act of 1997, the state government
> withdrew the order.  However, a division bench of
> the J&K High Court stayed the withdrawal of
> permission to occupy forest land. But when in
> mid-2008, the state cabinet gave its approval to
> "divert" 40 ha of forest land for the yatra the
> issue erupted into widescale public protests. The
> deputy chief minister, belonging to the
> Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) went so far as
> to claim that Congress ministers "black- mailed"
> them into giving this approval (Indian Express,
> June 16, 2008).  The Indian state has often used
> the yatra to promote a certain kind of
> nationalism.  During the Kargil war, in 1999, the
> Press Information Bureau put out a press re-
> lease stating: "(the) yearning for moksha
> (salvation) can move the devotees to the
> challenging heights of Kashmir and will be a
> fitting gesture of solidarity with our valiant
> soldiers who have been fighting the enemy to
> defend our borders" (pib.nic.in/
> feature/feo799/f1507992 <http://pib.nic.in/feature/feo799/f1507992> html).
>
> A Little Known Shrine
>
> Thus, what is otherwise a religious pilgrimage of
> the shaivite Hindus has been elevated to
> represent a patriotic enterprise. What is
> interesting is that the translator of
> Rajtarangini, Aurel Stein, found no  reference in
> 1888 in either the Rajtarangini or the Nilmata
> Purana to the Amarnath cave. For Kashmiri Hindus
> the holiest site was the Haramukuta (Shiva's
> Diadem) and Haramukh-Gangabal pilgrimage (see M
> Ashraf, 'Aggression At Its Worst', Greater
> Kashmir, June 20, 2008). The cave was in fact
> discovered in the 18th century and a Gujjar
> family and its descendants who found it were
> given the right to a share of the offering as a
> consequence. Even until the 1980s, this
> pilgrimage was not well known and in 1989, only
> 12,000  pilgrims visited the cave in a fortnight
> of pilgrimage. It is only after 1996 that the
> Amarnath cave acquired its prominence when
> militancy in Kashmir was at its peak.  The SASB
> is headed by the governor (until recently S K
> Sinha, a former lt general in the army) and his
> principal secretary, from the Indian
> Administrative Service, is the CEO of the SASB.
> Thus when the SASB pushes for movement of a
> larger and larger number of pilgrims and rejects
> the right of the legislators to even raise a
> question regarding the functioning of the   SASB,
> the Indian state is sending a simple message.
>
> Imagine if a Muslim governor of  Rajasthan were
> to ask to set up an independent Ajmer Sharief
> Dargah development authority, with say, control
> over  a large part of Ajmer city. What would  be
> the response of Rajasthan's BJP  government or
> the right wing Hindutva rabble-rousers?
>
> Ironically, it is the deposed custodian of the
> shrine Deependra Giri who has been crying hoarse
> over SASB's promotion of pilgrimage as tourism,
> flouting the principle of penance inherent in
> such pilgrim ages as laid down in the Hindu
> scriptures! The point is this promotion
>
> of Amarnath can be faulted on temporal, religious
> and secular grounds. In other words it is
> downright duplicitous when the Indian state
> promotes religious tourism (tourism in any event)
> in the guise of the welfare of Hindu pilgrims.
> This is an extension and/or part of the process
> of  acquisition of a huge mass of land (orchard
> and cultivable fields, including the precious
> saffron fields of Pampore) by  Indian security
> forces and water management and control through
> the National Hydro Power Corporation.
>
> Implications
>
> The implications are far-reaching. The SASB runs
> a virtually parallel admini- stration and acts as
> a "sovereign body" promoting Hindu interests,
> increasing the number of pilgrims from 12,000 in
> 1989 to over 4,00,000 in 2007 and ex- tending the
> period of the pilgrimage from 15 days to two and
> half months (the first fortnight is meant for
> families of service personnel). The SASB has
> virtually taken over the functioning of the
> Pahalgam De- velopment Authority, laying claims
> to forest lands and constructing shelters and
> structures even on the Pahalgam Golf Course!
>
> As part of the latest instances of land grab the
> SASB received the approval of the state
> government on June 3, 2008 to transfer 800 kanals
> of forest land. And  it wanted another 3,200
> kanals. The  SASB has also staked claims to set
> up an "independent" Amarnath Development
> Authority between Nunwan, Pahalgam, and Baltal
> (ahead of Sonmarg). It is true that the state
> government shot down this  proposal and has
> publicly claimed that only temporary structures
> can be set up in the 800 kanals, but two things
> should be kept in mind. Firstly, the brazen
> manner in which the SASB has gone about staking
> its claims. Secondly, but for public anger it is
> doubtful if the state government would have found
> the courage to oppose the demands of the SASB. It
> has not done anything to prevent or rollback the
> annexation of parts of Pahalgam Golf Course in
> order to provide security for  pilgrims. If it
> were not for the widespread protests in Kashmir
> and the PDP's withdrawal from the government, the
> new governor of Jammu and Kashmir would not have
> been compelled to revoke his predecessor's order.
>
> Environmental Damage
>
> Be that as it may, probably the most damning
> evidence against the SASB and its  dangerous
> exclusivist policy is the dam- age being caused
> to the environment in and around Pahalgam. A
> noted environmentalist told Greater Kashmir (June
> 10, 2008) that "The yatris during their Amarnath
> yatra do not only defecate on the banks of the
> Lidder river but throw tonnes of non-degradable
> items like polythene, plastic items directly into
> the river. This has resulted in the deterioration
> of its water quality." One expert, M R D
> Kundangar, told Greater Kashmir that "(t)he
> chemical oxygen demand of the Lidder has been
> recorded between 17 and 92 mg/l which is beyond
> the permissible level. Such enriched waters with
> hazardous chemicals ranges can no way be
> recommended for potable purposes.  It has crossed
> all permissible limits due to flow of sewage and
> open defecation. Lidder has been turned into a
> cesspool." It has been estimated that every day
> during the pilgrimage 55,000 kg of waste is
> generated. Apart from this waste, the degradation
> caused by buses and vehicles carrying pilgrims,
> trucks carrying provisions and massive deployment
> of security forces contributes further to air
> pollution.  Another fallout is the threat posed
> to local inhabitants from crowding of the
> ecologically fragile area where they have to
> compete to retain their access and rights to re-
> sources, both water and land.  Indeed such was
> the arrogance and clout of the previous governor
> that he sent an  ordinance to the state
> government to establish Shardapeeth University in
> Baghat Kanipora in Srinagar. Prominent jurist  A
> G Noorani was constrained to point out to Greater
> Kashmir (June 9, 2008) that this move of the
> governor was "unheard of in parliamentary
> democracy". General Sinha would have gotten away
> with this had it not been for the fact that state
> coalition government did not have enough time to
> promulgate this while he was still the governor.
> The same governor, who also headed the Shri
> Vaishno Devi Shrine Board, had also created a
> special facility for rich Hindu pilgrims visiting
> Vaishno Devi by paying an additional Rs 200-500.
> Had it not been for the strike by residents and
> ordinary pilgrims in Katra this decision would
> not have been withdrawn.
>
> The special time allocated for the pilgrimage to
> the armed forces personnel, the acquisition of
> land, introduction of helicopter services (which
> causes its own attendant problems), crowding of
> the area and slowly pushing out local people from
> these locations because of the environmental
> degradation or because their livelihood is
> adversely affected (for example consider the
> protests by the Pahalgam- based tourism industry
> for squeezing them out), all pose a huge
> challenge.
>
> Limits in Gangotri
>
> Significantly, even the Bharatiya Janata Party in
> Uttarakhand on May 1, 2008 limited the number of
> pilgrims visiting Gangotri and Goumukh to 150
> persons per day so as to protect the fragile
> ecology of the area. Yet, in the case of
> Amarnath, and despite overwhelming evidence of
> environmental degradation posed by the huge
> increase in the number of pilgrims and large
> number of security forces  deployed for
> protection of such pilgrims, there is no one who
> dares challenge the SASB's stubborn extension of
> the yatra.  Indeed if the CEO of SASB is to be
> believed since "the population of India will
> increase we will have to consider further
> extension of the yatra period".
>
> Arguably, when the yatra was halted between 1991
> and 1996 due to the threat by a section of the
> militants it played into the hands of the extreme
> right wing elements in Indian society who have
> since then played an integral role in mobilising
> large numbers of pilgrims.
>
> However, it is equally important to note that
> earlier, school- children and college youth used
> to act as volunteers and provide assistance to
> the yatris. Even when this was discontinued after
> 1996, the main indigenous militant organisation
> the Hizbul Mujahideen and Muslim Janbaz Force
> always supported the yatra and consistently
> demonstrated its opposition towards those who
> tried to dis- rupt it. And even today there is no
> section of people who opposes the yatra. What
> they resent is the horrendously jingoistic turn
> that it has taken under the SASB.  Verily the
> more things change more they remain the same.
>
> On Sat, Aug 2, 2008 at 5:59 PM, Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > *KASHMIR IMAGES, August 2, 2009*
> >
> > *Good you talked about Hindu communalists of India, why not about Muslim
> > fundamentalists of Kashmir?*
> >
> > *By Vimal Sumbly*
> >
> > Dear Omar,
> >
> > please accept my heartiest congratulations for an impassionate speech you
> > delivered in the parliament on July 22.
> > It would be remembered as one of the best speeches ever delivered in the
> > parliament. I have always felt proud about your secular and nationalistic
> > credentials. Unlike most other politicians in Kashmir, you and your
> > illustrious father Dr Farooq Abdullah have the distinction of never
> playing
> > with the secessionist sentiments of people in Kashmir. As you began your
> > speech in the parliament that you are a Muslim and you are an Indian and
> > there was no difference between the two, you were speaking straight from
> > your heart. In fact you never needed to say that, you have always proved
> it
> > indeed.
> > However I beg to differ with the widespread public opinion generated by
> your
> > "extempore speech". For the speech was not at all addressed to the
> > parliament, nor to the billion Indians who were watching you live on the
> > television. It was aimed at the select "secular Muslims of Kashmir" whom
> you
> > are going to ask for their vote very soon. I salute you for the courage
> to
> > call a spade a spade. You rightly criticized the Bharitya Janata Party
> for
> > its communal agenda. I believe your regret and apologies were obviously
> > aimed at the Kashmiri Muslims. You rightly criticized the Communists for
> > being self proclaimed guardians of the Indian secularism, while not
> minding
> > to side with the "communal BJP" in toppling the government.
> >
> > Dear Omar, I know and you know that you paid a heavy price in 2002
> assembly
> > elections in Kashmir for not having resigned on the Gujarat riots. You
> and
> > your party were defeated in the elections, mainly because you were blamed
> > for sharing power with the "communal BJP" at the centre. That ghost might
> be
> > still haunting you. But you showed enough moral courage to apologize to
> the
> > Kashmiri Muslims. You berated the BJP to the maximum possible extent.
> That
> > is for you and the BJP to decide. Your speech was rated among the best by
> > various television channels. Taking it on the face value everybody would
> > like it. Because, it was rhetoric at its best. Particularly when you had
> > chosen the two best targets, the Communists and the BJP, who were
> obviously
> > not liked by many across the country for their opportunistic
> "understanding"
> > to topple the government for entirely different reasons.
> >
> > I wish you gathered the same moral courage, which you showed in the
> > parliament to denounce the Hindu communalists, to condemn the Muslim
> > communalists in Kashmir. I feel sorry the way you defended the anti
> Amarnath
> > land transfer agitation in the parliament. And hats off to you that you
> > presented it to be a "secular" agitation for the land. Let you tell me
> and
> > the whole of nation who was going to take away the land from you. Had LK
> > Advani been allotted the land to settle down his "communal brigade"
> there?
> > It was just a temporary transfer to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board to
> > facilitate the pilgrimage of lakhs of pilgrims coming from across the
> > country. And is the Shrine Board an outside agency? Isn't it just a state
> > agency controlled by the state government itself? The matter of the fact
> is
> > that you joined the course of competitive communalism that was initiated
> by
> > your rivals, the People's Democratic Party and hijacked by secessionists
> > like Sayeed Ali Shah Geelani. And how brilliantly you presented it in
> > "secular colours". What if the Hindus outside Kashmir rebel in the same
> way
> > and seek vacation of Haj houses? That has never been done and it will
> never
> > be done.
> > Not everybody across the country knows that the grave of your
> grandfather,
> > Sher-i-Kashmir, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah still needs a heavy posse of
> cops
> > and mostly drawn from central paramilitary forces to be defended against
> the
> > same "secular" Muslims of Kashmir. And we all know Sheikh Sahib was a
> true
> > secular leader who opted for secular India against an Islamic Pakistan.
> Had
> > it not been for him, Kashmir would not have been with India. So, who is
> > wrong your grandfather or the "secular" Kashmiri Muslims, whom you
> defended
> > with such a strong conviction? Like you apologized to the Kashmiri
> Muslims
> > for "sleeping with the communal BJP", you should also apologize to the
> > people of Jammu whom you accused of being communal. This was too hurting.
> > Let you not forget that you still feel safer in Jammu than in Kashmir and
> > there has not been a selective communal killing in Jammu despite so much
> > provocation in Kashmir valley. You certainly owe an apology to the people
> of
> > Jammu also and the current phase of violence was provoked by "the best"
> > speech you delivered in the parliament.
> >
> > And please don't mislead the county that no Amarnath pilgrim was ever
> > attacked. There have been scores of attacks resulting in scores of deaths
> > during the past two decades on the pilgrims. And also let the record be
> > straightened that the Amarnath cave was not discovered by a Muslim about
> 150
> > years ago. Its mention is in Neelamat Puran as well. Besides, when the
> > Kashmiri Pandits were subjected to atrocities during the regime of
> > Aurangzeb, they (the Kashmiri Pandits) had gone to Amaranth to seek
> divine
> > intervention. It is here that they decided to approach Guru Tegh Bahadur
> in
> > Anandpur Sahib and that is over 300 years ago.
> >
> > I am sure, you are an honest and a well meaning person. I not only see a
> > bright future for Kashmir in you, but for the entire country. We need
> > leaders like you, passionate, forthright, honest, brilliant and daring.
> To
> > conclude I tell, rather I request you one small thing. This is too
> personal.
> > That I am myself a Kashmiri like you. I am thorough Kashmiri in language,
> in
> > culture, in life and in everything. I have been thrown out of my Kashmir
> 18
> > years ago. Even remaining away, I have maintained my language, my culture
> > and my lifestyle as a true Kashmir. You will say that, I was not thrown
> out
> > as it was Jagmohan who prompted me to move out. Presuming that I went out
> at
> > Jagmohan's behest, but can you help me now to return my piece of land,
> less
> > than half an acre, no big deal. It has been occupied by one of my
> "secular
> > Muslim" classmates with whom I used to go to school for twelve long
> years.
> > He knows I cannot do anything. You said, you will fight for the rights of
> > your land. Will you help me to return my land, like you pleaded the cause
> of
> > other fellow Muslim Kashmiris. I am also your fellow Kashmiri who still
> > cherishes the memories of his home. Don't disappoint me. Because I think
> you
> > are not only brave but bold as well. Have courage to speak for me.
> Whether I
> > get my land back or not, would not bother me, but I would feel consoled
> that
> > a fellow Kashmiri stood for me, like he stood for other fellow Kashmiris.
> > I understand that writing to you this way is enough to get me pronounced
> as
> > communal and an activist of RSS and Shiv Sena. But let me put it on
> record
> > that ours was among a few exceptional Pandit families that always voted
> for
> > the National Conference and not the Congress. You can verify it from my
> same
> > friend who has grabbed my land. We used to participate together in
> National
> > Conference processions. And I still believe that the National Conference
> is
> > the best bet for the people of Jammu and Kashmir, particularly under the
> > dynamic leadership of a young, brilliant, brave and daring leader like
> you.
> >  My sincere apologies if I have been harsh to you, I never wanted to
> cloud
> > the glory of your speech in parliament, I only wanted to set the record
> > straight. Because truth must be told howsoever bitter it may be.
> > _________________________________________
> > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> > Critiques & Collaborations
> > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
> subscribe in the subject header.
> > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> > List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
>
>
>
> --
> National Highway http://shivamvij.com/
>

From pawan.durani at gmail.com  Mon Aug  4 23:01:22 2008
From: pawan.durani at gmail.com (Pawan Durani)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 23:01:22 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Internal emergency in Jammu!
In-Reply-To: <9c06aab30808040237k10df40dbtfd2c07f380ef2872@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20080803072026.18231.qmail@f4mail-235-135.rediffmail.com>
	<6b79f1a70808030032p70fcf001r16233a65ae0ce68e@mail.gmail.com>
	<9c06aab30808040237k10df40dbtfd2c07f380ef2872@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6b79f1a70808041031t27cfed1an9a1ad311a00e2b99@mail.gmail.com>

33 days, Jammu still burns
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=40e8aa4a-ba98-404c-9bb9-763759f1a609&ParentID=5b69ad64-dbe5-4ad2-99c6-bc44c4f33059&&Headline=33+days%2c+Jammu+still+burns

On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 3:07 PM, Shivam Vij शिवम् विज् <mail at shivamvij.com>wrote:

> Strike cripples life in Kashmir valley
>
> http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/002200808041321.htm
>
> Srinagar (PTI): The strike called by hardline faction of Hurriyat
> Conference to express solidarity with Muslims of Jammu region on
> Monday crippled life in the Kashmir valley.
>
> All shops, business establishments, schools and higher educational
> institutions remained closed due to the strike led by Syed Ali Shah
> Geelani, official sources said here.
>
> While public transport remained off roads on all routes of the valley,
> some light motor vehicles were plying in the city, they said.
>
> Security forces have been deployed at sensitive areas like Maisuma and
> Nowhatta. So far, the strike has been peaceful. There were no reports
> of any untoward incident from anywhere in the valley.
>
> o o o
>
> Jammu strife muffles Valley business
>
> Nazir Masoodi
> Monday, August 04, 2008, (Baramulla)
> http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080059965
>
>
> It seems that the biggest victims of the unrest in Jammu are the small
> business owners and daily workers.
>
> One of them are the Valley's fruit growers, who say that their
> livelihood has been severely affected by the ongoing strife in Jammu
> and desperate attempts are now being made to bring back some profits.
>
> It has been a long wait for Ghulam Mohammad to take his pear-laden
> truck to Delhi's Azadpur Mandi.
>
> Supporters of the Amarnath Sangharsh Samiti have imposed an economic
> blockade targeting any truck carrying goods into or out of Kashmir.
> And fearing a backlash, Police are preventing trucks from moving
> forward.
>
> "The police are saying that Kashmiri truckers wouldn't be allowed to
> proceed because they are being beaten along the highway. So I had to
> return from Lower Monda," said Ghulam Mohammad, driver.
>
> Srinagar-Jammu highway is the only road link that connects Kashmir
> with the rest of India but after right wing political parties in Jammu
> declared a boycott of Kashmiri goods and began to enforce the economic
> blockade. Fruit growers in the Valley are now looking to take the
> Srinagar-Muzafarabad road to reach other places in India.
>
> "We are compelled to take this step. But since fruits are perishable
> we will take it via Jhelum Valley road," Ghulam Rasool, fruitseller.
>
> As the markets and the rout have succumbed to strife in Jammu, the
> Valley's fruit growers say they have been pushed to the wall and
> forced to use the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road to reach out to the
> market.
>
> On Sun, Aug 3, 2008 at 1:02 PM, Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Leaders under house arrest . Most of them are likely to be arrested
> today.
> > Cable TV services blocked in Jammu. SMS services snapped.
> > Jammu Under EMERGENCY rule.!
> >
> >
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: Ashwani Kumar <ashwanipkm at rediffmail.com>
> > Date: Sun, Aug 3, 2008 at 12:50 PM
> > Subject: Internal emergency in Jammu!
> >>
> >
> >
> > Dear friends,
> >
> >
> >                   You are requested to float the news across about the
> > latest developments as on date about Jammu. There is already curfew in
> > Jammu, hundreds have been injured, some arrests have been made, leaders
> are
> > under house arrest, media channels have been taken over by the police,
> > pressmen have been manhandled and no free movement is allowed. We are
> > expecting the administration to go to any extent.
> >
> >
> > -Ashwani,
> > Jammu
> > 3rd August 2008,  12.45 PM
> > _________________________________________
> > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> > Critiques & Collaborations
> > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
> subscribe in the subject header.
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>
>
>
> --
> National Highway http://shivamvij.com/
>

From pawan.durani at gmail.com  Mon Aug  4 23:03:30 2008
From: pawan.durani at gmail.com (Pawan Durani)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 23:03:30 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] KPs and facts
In-Reply-To: <13df7c120808040358l1eaaebcfi1be043fc9fc95b09@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9c06aab30808020241n4078c7a1pf5fc2ebda46eaff0@mail.gmail.com>
	<13df7c120808032105u11c7a77fib2818c7606e1e30b@mail.gmail.com>
	<9c06aab30808040311x4bc5904eye4de26fa7ae9fae8@mail.gmail.com>
	<13df7c120808040358l1eaaebcfi1be043fc9fc95b09@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6b79f1a70808041033m1cd7b55g853d8b8a86d54415@mail.gmail.com>

Shee Vaham ,

You just know everthing . Guni & Gyani

PD



On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 4:28 PM, rashneek kher <rashneek at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yes they dont have to......
>
> On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 3:41 PM, Shivam Vij शिवम् विज् <mail at shivamvij.com
> >wrote:
>
> > Yes, thanksfully indeed. Though I don't know if Kshmendra, Aditya Raj
> > Kaul and Pawan D agree with you on this, but then, they don't have
> > to...
> >
> > On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 9:35 AM, rashneek kher <rashneek at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > > Just goes on to show that Pandits are not a monolith and thanfully each
> > one
> > > reatins his/her individuality as a thinking being.
> > >
> > > On Sat, Aug 2, 2008 at 3:11 PM, Shivam Vij शिवम् विज् <
> > mail at shivamvij.com>
> > > wrote:
> > >>
> > >> Divided House, Delayed Return
> > >>
> > >> Deep fissures in the Kashmiri Pandit community stand in the way of
> > >> government efforts to rehabilitate them, reports PEERZADA ARSHAD HAMID
> > >>
> > >>
> http://tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne090808divided_house.asp
> > >>
> > >> SANJAY TIKOO, a Kashmiri Pandit living in Barbar Shah, Srinagar,
> > >> braved all odds and remained in the valley when thousands of Pandits
> > >> left their motherland. It was 1990 and the armed insurgency in Kashmir
> > >> had begun, followed by press releases in newspapers ordering Hindus to
> > >> leave.
> > >> No one home Most of the high-security government flats built
> > >> exclusively for returning Pandits have found no takers Photo:Javed Dar
> > >>
> > >> The Tikoo family were defiant and resolute. They would not migrate.
> > >> They weathered the pressure and fear and lived on in their ancestral
> > >> home. Eighteen years later, those days remain vivid for Sanjay. He
> > >> clearly remembers the prolonged strike calls, the curfews and, above
> > >> all, the migration of fellow Pandits from the valley.
> > >>
> > >> Sanjay credits his mother for the decision. "I thank the women of my
> > >> house and, particularly, my mother, who gave her steadfast support to
> > >> our decision. If either she or my sister had shown even the slightest
> > >> weakness, we too would have fled, forced to uproot ourselves," muses
> > >> Sanjay.
> > >>
> > >> The Tikoos were soon singled out. A threatening letter was nailed to
> > >> the entrance of their house. Sanjay clearly remembers that fateful
> > >> day.
> > >>
> > >> "It was July 16, 1990. I had gone to the top floor of my house to
> > >> smoke a cigarette. While pacing up and down, I saw a group of people
> > >> reading something on our gate. I rushed down and brought the message
> > >> in," recalls Sanjay.
> > >>
> > >> At about the same time, posters purportedly written by militants
> > >> became ubiquitous. Along with threats such as the one Sanjay's family
> > >> received, they contained strike calls and reports of militant
> > >> activities. Disturbed, Sanjay discussed the letter with his family and
> > >> then approached a local Urdu newspaper, which published the letter
> > >> along with his family's decision: they would not leave the valley and
> > >> were willing to face the consequences. Thereafter, a group of
> > >> militants belonging to the Al-Umar Commandos approached the family and
> > >> denied having issued the letter. This increased the confidence of the
> > >> family and encouraged them to stay back.
> > >>
> > >> The relief department of the state government estimates that 56,148
> > >> families, including a few Muslim families — approximately 2.5 lakh
> > >> people — migrated from their homes following the armed insurgency
> > >> during the period 1989- 92. Of this, 34,690 families went to Jammu and
> > >> 19,338 to New Delhi. While police records say 209 Pandits were killed
> > >> in Kashmir in the past 18 years, Pandit organisations put the figure
> > >> at about 1,100. An estimated 20,000 Pandit families, however,
> > >> preferred to stay.
> > >>
> > >> These people occupied scattered pockets in urban and rural areas,
> > >> detached from each other. This forsaken community faced difficulties
> > >> in their social life that were felt acutely during marriages,
> > >> religious functions and, most of all, when performing the last rites
> > >> for their dead.
> > >>
> > >> "During the initial years, finding brides for our sons was difficult
> > >> as few migrants were ready to send their daughters back to the valley.
> > >> There were no priests to perform prayers. However, the situation is
> > >> now improving and people don't consider marriages to families in the
> > >> valley that dangerous," Tikoo says.
> > >>
> > >> Sanjay initiated efforts to unite Pandit families and strengthen their
> > >> interaction. He and his friends founded the Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh
> > >> Samiti (KPSS), which is undertaking a census of Pandits in the valley.
> > >> They advocate the safe return of Pandits and oppose government plans
> > >> to give Pandits high-security residential flats.
> > >>
> > >> "The government has constructed separate buildings and has given CRPF
> > >> security to them. However, this is an effort to create a Palestine-
> > >> Israel type divide in Kashmir," asserts Tikoo.
> > >>
> > >> The KPSS is also critical of hard-line Pandit organisations like Panun
> > >> Kashmir and Roots in Kashmir, because of their demand for a separate
> > >> homeland in Kashmir, northeast of the Jhelum. The KPSS considers
> > >> Kashmir a political problem and a dispute between India and Pakistan.
> > >>
> > >> Panun Kashmir believes that the insurgency was a communal riot
> > >> engineered by Islamic fundamentalists to drive the minority Hindus
> > >> from the valley. They accuse Muslims of ethnic cleansing. Panun
> > >> Kashmir has demanded land along the Jhelum in south Kashmir to be
> > >> secured to build colonies for Pandits. The group also wants this zone
> > >> to be made a Union Territory.
> > >>
> > >> "Our community has suffered badly. We have been uprooted from our
> > >> homeland and unless adequate arrangements are made, we won't go back
> > >> and will continue our fight for our rights. Residential flats are not
> > >> the solution — that's just moving us from one camp to another. Our
> > >> return to our motherland should be final and secure, so that we will
> > >> not be forced to leave again," asserts Ajay Chrangoo, Chairman, Panun
> > >> Kashmir. Chrangoo has been living in Jammu since his migration and
> > >> strongly advocates a separate homeland.
> > >>
> > >> Chrangoo refers to flats constructed at Mattan in South Kashmir and at
> > >> Sheikhpora on the outskirts of Srinagar that the state government has
> > >> spent crores on, in order to coax Pandits to return. No Jammu Pandits
> > >> were ready to return here, and most flats remain locked.
> > >>
> > >> Another voice representing the migrant community is the All India
> > >> Kashmiri Samaj. Headed by Ram Krishan Bhat, it works to keep the
> > >> Kashmiri sentiment alive among Pandit youth. Though he praises the
> > >> Pandits who remained in the valley and calls them "daring", he says
> > >> their continued presence in the valley is not enough to convince other
> > >> Pandits to return.
> > >>
> > >> Chrangoo disagrees. "There is nothing special in some Pandits staying
> > >> back. While some members of the community stay behind in conflict
> > >> zones where there is a mass exodus, this can't obscure the bigger
> > >> picture — the fact that most Pandits have fled. Moreover, those who
> > >> remain, remain in fear," he adds.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> THE LARGE numbers of Pandit groups — representing migrants and
> > >> non-migrants — claiming to fight for the rights of Pandits have
> > >> confused people both in India and abroad. The clamour of voices has
> > >> added to the complexity of the issue. While all groups claim to
> > >> represent the aspirations of Kashmiri Pandits, all of them differ on
> > >> when, where and how Pandits should return. "Pandits are as divided as
> > >> the Muslims are," quips Sanjay Tikoo.
> > >>
> > >> Sanjay Saraf, a migrant politician, adds another dimension to the
> > >> debate. Saraf plans to contest the coming assembly elections and is
> > >> state president of the Lok Jan Shakti Party.
> > >>
> > >> Recently, national and regional parties from outside the state have
> > >> started making inroads here. The elections will see candidates from
> > >> the SP and the BSP, who have held rallies in Srinagar.
> > >>
> > >> Saraf, however, relies more on Muslim votes than on Pandit ones.
> > >> Though he is a migrant, he has been visiting the valley regularly for
> > >> the past seven years for party meetings and constituency visits. He is
> > >> critical of Panun Kashmir and Roots in Kashmir that are headquartered
> > >> outside Kashmir and describes them as stooges of fundamentalist
> > >> forces. "They are dancing to the tune of the BJP and the VHP and are
> > >> trying to create a communal wedge," Saraf alleges.
> > >>
> > >> The divide among Pandits deepened during the recent crisis over land
> > >> for the Amarnath shrine board. While most Pandit organisations based
> > >> in Jammu and New Delhi favoured the transfer of land to the board, the
> > >> valley-based KPSS stood alone in its demand for the pilgrimage to be
> > >> placed under resident Kashmiri Pandit organisations. Saraf supported
> > >> this demand from the beginning. "Pandits cannot remain outside the
> > >> valley and pay mere lip service to the cause. We have to be here to
> > >> say we belong to the land. Raising a hue and cry while staying outside
> > >> hardly matters," avers Sanjay Saraf, while acknowledging KPSS'
> > >> efforts.
> > >>
> > >> Ideological differences have increased the divide between migrant
> > >> Pandits and those who stayed back. Eighteen years after Pandits fled
> > >> the valley, various groups continue to pursue their own agendas and a
> > >> consensus remains elusive.
> > >>
> > >> WRITER'S E-MAIL
> > >> peerzadaarshad at gmail.com
> > >> From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 31, Dated Aug 09, 2008
> > >> _________________________________________
> > >> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> > >> Critiques & Collaborations
> > >> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
> > >> subscribe in the subject header.
> > >> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> > >> List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Rashneek Kher
> > > Wandhama Massacre-The Forgotten Human Tragedy
> > > http://www.kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com
> > > http://www.nietzschereborn.blogspot.com
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > National Highway http://shivamvij.com/
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Rashneek Kher
> Wandhama Massacre-The Forgotten Human Tragedy
> http://www.kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com
> http://www.nietzschereborn.blogspot.com
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
> subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
>

From rashneek at gmail.com  Tue Aug  5 09:34:25 2008
From: rashneek at gmail.com (rashneek kher)
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 09:34:25 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Hindu Communalists ! and Jammu keeps Burning
In-Reply-To: <9c06aab30808040719v1370c8e5p454a7a7caa5aa16d@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6b79f1a70808020529y11a55b3ud27e08d781af6e9a@mail.gmail.com>
	<9c06aab30808040719v1370c8e5p454a7a7caa5aa16d@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <13df7c120808042104x56b66db9t56edee7f2a9dd82a@mail.gmail.com>

Shivam....

Gautam Navlakha is either unlettered or so blind by his neo-convert status
that he seems to have missed what Rajatarangni and Nilamata write about
Amarnath or Amreshwar as it was called then.Shivam...please send this to
your comrade Gautam Navlakha...
Let him lick it...or tell him to read both texts again.I suggest you too to
inform and educate yourself a little better to carry out any meaningful
deabte on Kashmir.
Neem hakeem khatray jehan suits people like you and Navlakha.You and
Navlakha are more separtist than the separatists becuase while they know
truth and twist it...you ,like blind men simply follow the twist and f**K
the truth.

*There is ample and conclusive historical evidence, on the other hand, to
prove that the holy cave and the ice lingam were known to the people since
very ancient times and have been continuously and regularly visited by
pilgrims not only from Kashmir but also from different parts of India.
While the earliest reference to Amarnath can be seen in the Nilamata Purana
(v.1324), a 6th century Sanskrit text which depicts the religious and
cultural life of early Kashmiris and gives Kashmir's own creation myth, the
pilgrimage to the holy cave has been described with full topographical
details in the Bhringish Samhita and the Amarnatha Mahatmya, both ancient
texts said to have been composed even earlier.
References to Amarnath, known have also been made in historical chronicles
like the Rajatarangini and its sequels and several Western travellers'
accounts also leaving no doubt about the fact that the holy cave has been
known to people for centuries. The original name of the tirtha, as given in
the ancient texts, is of course Amareshwara, Amarnath being a name given
later to it.
Giving the legend of the Naga Sushruvas, who in his fury burnt to ashes the
kingdom of King Nara when he tried to abduct his daughter already married to
a Brahmin youth, and after the carnage took his abode in the lake now known
as Sheshnag (Kashmiri Sushramnag), Kalahana writes:
"The lake of dazzling whiteness [resembling] a sea of milk (Sheshnag), which
he created [for himself as residence] on a far off mountain, is to the
present day seen by the people on the pilgrimage to
Amareshwara."(Rajatarangini, Book I v. 267.Translation: M. A. Stein).
This makes it very clear that pilgrims continued to visit the holy Amarnath
cave in the 12th century, for Kalhana wrote his chronicle in the
years1148-49.
At another place in the Rajatarangini (Book II v. 138), Kalhana says that
King Samdhimat Aryaraja (34 BCE-17CE) used to spend "the most delightful
Kashmir summer" in worshiping a linga formed of snow "in the regions above
the forests". This too appears to be a reference to the ice linga at
Amarnath. There is yet another reference to Amareshwara or Amarnath in the
Rajatarangini (Book VII v.183). According to Kalhana, Queen Suryamati, the
wife of King Ananta (1028-1063), "granted under her husband's name agraharas
at Amareshwara, and arranged for the consecration of trishulas, banalingas
and other [sacred emblems]".
In his Chronicle of Kashmir, a sequel to Kalhana's Rajatarangini, Jonaraja
relates that that Sultan Zainu'l-abidin (1420-1470) paid a visit to the
sacred tirtha of Amarnath while constructing a canal on the left bank of the
river Lidder (vv.1232-1234). The canal is now known as Shah Kol.
In the Fourth Chronicle named Rajavalipataka, which was begun by
Prjayabhatta and completed by Shuka, there is a clear and detailed reference
to the pilgrimage to the sacred site (v.841,vv. 847-849). According to it,
in a reply to Akbar's query about Kashmir Yusuf Khan, the Mughal governor of
Kashmir at that time, described among other things the Amarnath Yatra in
full detail. His description shows that the not only was the pilgrimage in
vogue in Akbar's time - Akbar annexed Kashmir in 1586 - but the phenomenon
of waxing and waning of the ice linga was also well known.
Amareshwar (Amarnath) was a famous pilgrimage place in the time of the
Mughal emperor Shah Jahan also. In his eulogy of Shah Jahan's father-in-law
Asif Khan, titled "Asaf Vilas", the famous Sanskrit scholar and aesthete
Panditraj Jagannath makes clear mention of Amareshwara (Amarnath) while
describing the Mughal garden Nishat laid out by Asif Khan. The King of gods
Indra himself, he says, comes here to pay obeisance to Lord Shiva".
As we well know Francois Bernier, a French physician accompanied Emperor
Aurangzeb during his visit to Kashmir in 1663. In his book "Travels in
Mughal Empire" he writes while giving an account the places he visited in
Kashmir that he was "pursuing journey to a grotto full of wonderful
congelations, two days journey from Sangsafed" when he "received
intelligence that my Nawab felt very impatient and uneasy on account of my
long absence". The "grotto" he refers to is obviously the Amarnath cave as
the editor of the second edition of the English translation of the book,
Vincient A. Smith makes clear in his introduction. He writes: "The grotto
full of wonderful congelations is the Amarnath cave, where blocks of ice,
stalagmites formed by dripping water from the roof are worshipped by many
Hindus who resort here as images of Shiva….."
Another traveler, Vigne, in his book "Travels in Kashmir, Ladakh and
Iskardu" writes about the pilgrimage to the sacred spot in detail, clearly
mentioning that "the ceremony at the cave of Amarnath takes place on the
15th of the Hindoo month of Sawan" and that "not only Hindoos of every rank
and caste can be seen collecting together and traveling up the valley of
Liddar towards the celebrated cave……" Vigne visited Kashmir after his return
from Ladakh in 1840-41 and published his book in 1842. His book makes it
very clear that the Amarnath Yatra drew pilgrims from the whole of India in
his time and was undertaken with great enthusiasm.[image: Justify Full]
Again, the great Sikh Guru Arjan Dev is said to have granted land in
Amritsar for the ceremonial departure of Chari, the holy mace of Lord Shiva
which marks the beginning of the Yatra to the Holy Cave. In 1819, the year
in which the Afghan rule came to an end in Kashmir, Pandit Hardas Tiku
"founded the Chhawni Anmarnath at Ram Bagh in Srinagar where the Sadhus from
the plains assembled and where he gave them free rations for the journey,
both ways from his own private resources", as the noted Kashmiri naturalist
Pandit Samsar Chand Kaul has pointed out in his booklet titled "The
Mysterious cave of Amarnath".
Not only this, Amarnath is deeply enshrined in the Kashmiri folklore also as
stories like that of Soda Wony clearly show. One can, therefore, conclude
without any doubt that the Amaranth Yatra has been going on continuously for
centuries along the traditional route of the Lidder valley and not a century
and a half affair. May be during the Afghan rule when religious persecution
of the Kashmiri Hindus was at its height and they were not allowed to visit
their places of worship the pilgrimage was discontinued for about fifty or
sixty years and during this period the flock of some shepherd may have
strayed into the holy cave, but that in no way makes it of a recent origin
or a show window of so-called Kashmiriat.

*
On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 7:49 PM, Shivam Vij शिवम् विज् <mail at shivamvij.com>wrote:

> The Economic and Political Weekly
> July 26, 2008
>
> STATE CULTIVATION OF THE AMARNATH YATRA
>
> by Gautam Navlakha
>
> The origins of the conflagration in June in
> Kashmir on forest  land allocation for
> construction of facilities for the Amarnath yatra
> lie in open state promotion of the pilgrimage.
> The yatra has caused considerable damage to the
> economy and ecology of the area.  The high-handed
> actions of the  Shri Amarnath Shrine Board only
> aggravated the situation.
>
> The Amarnath pilgrimage erupted into a major
> controversy last month entirely on account of the
> actions of the state. The Act setting up the
> Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) was passed by
> the National Conference government in 2001. On
> January 1, 2008, the SASB informed the
> legislature of Jammu and Kashmir, through a
> letter to the deputy chief minister, that "(t)he
> Governor is  sovereign ex-officio holder of the
> power...  who acts on his own personal
> satisfaction and not on the aid and advice of the
> council of ministers...the member (of the
> legislative council) may be explained that he
> does not enjoy the powers to question the
> decisions of the body" (Greater Kashmir, June 12,
> 2008).
>
> Disconcertingly, the SASB, when presided over by
> S K Sinha when he was governor, has been engaged
> in some controversial transactions. The chief
> executive officer (CEO) of the SASB is the
> principal secretary to the governor. The CEO's
> wife, in her capacity as principal secretary of
> the forest department, granted permission to the
> SASB on May 29, 2005 to use forest land for the
> pilgrimage. Because this action was not in
> accordance with the provision of the J&K Forest
> Conservation Act of 1997, the state government
> withdrew the order.  However, a division bench of
> the J&K High Court stayed the withdrawal of
> permission to occupy forest land. But when in
> mid-2008, the state cabinet gave its approval to
> "divert" 40 ha of forest land for the yatra the
> issue erupted into widescale public protests. The
> deputy chief minister, belonging to the
> Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) went so far as
> to claim that Congress ministers "black- mailed"
> them into giving this approval (Indian Express,
> June 16, 2008).  The Indian state has often used
> the yatra to promote a certain kind of
> nationalism.  During the Kargil war, in 1999, the
> Press Information Bureau put out a press re-
> lease stating: "(the) yearning for moksha
> (salvation) can move the devotees to the
> challenging heights of Kashmir and will be a
> fitting gesture of solidarity with our valiant
> soldiers who have been fighting the enemy to
> defend our borders" (pib.nic.in/
> feature/feo799/f1507992 html).
>
> A Little Known Shrine
>
> Thus, what is otherwise a religious pilgrimage of
> the shaivite Hindus has been elevated to
> represent a patriotic enterprise. What is
> interesting is that the translator of
> Rajtarangini, Aurel Stein, found no  reference in
> 1888 in either the Rajtarangini or the Nilmata
> Purana to the Amarnath cave. For Kashmiri Hindus
> the holiest site was the Haramukuta (Shiva's
> Diadem) and Haramukh-Gangabal pilgrimage (see M
> Ashraf, 'Aggression At Its Worst', Greater
> Kashmir, June 20, 2008). The cave was in fact
> discovered in the 18th century and a Gujjar
> family and its descendants who found it were
> given the right to a share of the offering as a
> consequence. Even until the 1980s, this
> pilgrimage was not well known and in 1989, only
> 12,000  pilgrims visited the cave in a fortnight
> of pilgrimage. It is only after 1996 that the
> Amarnath cave acquired its prominence when
> militancy in Kashmir was at its peak.  The SASB
> is headed by the governor (until recently S K
> Sinha, a former lt general in the army) and his
> principal secretary, from the Indian
> Administrative Service, is the CEO of the SASB.
> Thus when the SASB pushes for movement of a
> larger and larger number of pilgrims and rejects
> the right of the legislators to even raise a
> question regarding the functioning of the   SASB,
> the Indian state is sending a simple message.
>
> Imagine if a Muslim governor of  Rajasthan were
> to ask to set up an independent Ajmer Sharief
> Dargah development authority, with say, control
> over  a large part of Ajmer city. What would  be
> the response of Rajasthan's BJP  government or
> the right wing Hindutva rabble-rousers?
>
> Ironically, it is the deposed custodian of the
> shrine Deependra Giri who has been crying hoarse
> over SASB's promotion of pilgrimage as tourism,
> flouting the principle of penance inherent in
> such pilgrim ages as laid down in the Hindu
> scriptures! The point is this promotion
>
> of Amarnath can be faulted on temporal, religious
> and secular grounds. In other words it is
> downright duplicitous when the Indian state
> promotes religious tourism (tourism in any event)
> in the guise of the welfare of Hindu pilgrims.
> This is an extension and/or part of the process
> of  acquisition of a huge mass of land (orchard
> and cultivable fields, including the precious
> saffron fields of Pampore) by  Indian security
> forces and water management and control through
> the National Hydro Power Corporation.
>
> Implications
>
> The implications are far-reaching. The SASB runs
> a virtually parallel admini- stration and acts as
> a "sovereign body" promoting Hindu interests,
> increasing the number of pilgrims from 12,000 in
> 1989 to over 4,00,000 in 2007 and ex- tending the
> period of the pilgrimage from 15 days to two and
> half months (the first fortnight is meant for
> families of service personnel). The SASB has
> virtually taken over the functioning of the
> Pahalgam De- velopment Authority, laying claims
> to forest lands and constructing shelters and
> structures even on the Pahalgam Golf Course!
>
> As part of the latest instances of land grab the
> SASB received the approval of the state
> government on June 3, 2008 to transfer 800 kanals
> of forest land. And  it wanted another 3,200
> kanals. The  SASB has also staked claims to set
> up an "independent" Amarnath Development
> Authority between Nunwan, Pahalgam, and Baltal
> (ahead of Sonmarg). It is true that the state
> government shot down this  proposal and has
> publicly claimed that only temporary structures
> can be set up in the 800 kanals, but two things
> should be kept in mind. Firstly, the brazen
> manner in which the SASB has gone about staking
> its claims. Secondly, but for public anger it is
> doubtful if the state government would have found
> the courage to oppose the demands of the SASB. It
> has not done anything to prevent or rollback the
> annexation of parts of Pahalgam Golf Course in
> order to provide security for  pilgrims. If it
> were not for the widespread protests in Kashmir
> and the PDP's withdrawal from the government, the
> new governor of Jammu and Kashmir would not have
> been compelled to revoke his predecessor's order.
>
> Environmental Damage
>
> Be that as it may, probably the most damning
> evidence against the SASB and its  dangerous
> exclusivist policy is the dam- age being caused
> to the environment in and around Pahalgam. A
> noted environmentalist told Greater Kashmir (June
> 10, 2008) that "The yatris during their Amarnath
> yatra do not only defecate on the banks of the
> Lidder river but throw tonnes of non-degradable
> items like polythene, plastic items directly into
> the river. This has resulted in the deterioration
> of its water quality." One expert, M R D
> Kundangar, told Greater Kashmir that "(t)he
> chemical oxygen demand of the Lidder has been
> recorded between 17 and 92 mg/l which is beyond
> the permissible level. Such enriched waters with
> hazardous chemicals ranges can no way be
> recommended for potable purposes.  It has crossed
> all permissible limits due to flow of sewage and
> open defecation. Lidder has been turned into a
> cesspool." It has been estimated that every day
> during the pilgrimage 55,000 kg of waste is
> generated. Apart from this waste, the degradation
> caused by buses and vehicles carrying pilgrims,
> trucks carrying provisions and massive deployment
> of security forces contributes further to air
> pollution.  Another fallout is the threat posed
> to local inhabitants from crowding of the
> ecologically fragile area where they have to
> compete to retain their access and rights to re-
> sources, both water and land.  Indeed such was
> the arrogance and clout of the previous governor
> that he sent an  ordinance to the state
> government to establish Shardapeeth University in
> Baghat Kanipora in Srinagar. Prominent jurist  A
> G Noorani was constrained to point out to Greater
> Kashmir (June 9, 2008) that this move of the
> governor was "unheard of in parliamentary
> democracy". General Sinha would have gotten away
> with this had it not been for the fact that state
> coalition government did not have enough time to
> promulgate this while he was still the governor.
> The same governor, who also headed the Shri
> Vaishno Devi Shrine Board, had also created a
> special facility for rich Hindu pilgrims visiting
> Vaishno Devi by paying an additional Rs 200-500.
> Had it not been for the strike by residents and
> ordinary pilgrims in Katra this decision would
> not have been withdrawn.
>
> The special time allocated for the pilgrimage to
> the armed forces personnel, the acquisition of
> land, introduction of helicopter services (which
> causes its own attendant problems), crowding of
> the area and slowly pushing out local people from
> these locations because of the environmental
> degradation or because their livelihood is
> adversely affected (for example consider the
> protests by the Pahalgam- based tourism industry
> for squeezing them out), all pose a huge
> challenge.
>
> Limits in Gangotri
>
> Significantly, even the Bharatiya Janata Party in
> Uttarakhand on May 1, 2008 limited the number of
> pilgrims visiting Gangotri and Goumukh to 150
> persons per day so as to protect the fragile
> ecology of the area. Yet, in the case of
> Amarnath, and despite overwhelming evidence of
> environmental degradation posed by the huge
> increase in the number of pilgrims and large
> number of security forces  deployed for
> protection of such pilgrims, there is no one who
> dares challenge the SASB's stubborn extension of
> the yatra.  Indeed if the CEO of SASB is to be
> believed since "the population of India will
> increase we will have to consider further
> extension of the yatra period".
>
> Arguably, when the yatra was halted between 1991
> and 1996 due to the threat by a section of the
> militants it played into the hands of the extreme
> right wing elements in Indian society who have
> since then played an integral role in mobilising
> large numbers of pilgrims.
>
> However, it is equally important to note that
> earlier, school- children and college youth used
> to act as volunteers and provide assistance to
> the yatris. Even when this was discontinued after
> 1996, the main indigenous militant organisation
> the Hizbul Mujahideen and Muslim Janbaz Force
> always supported the yatra and consistently
> demonstrated its opposition towards those who
> tried to dis- rupt it. And even today there is no
> section of people who opposes the yatra. What
> they resent is the horrendously jingoistic turn
> that it has taken under the SASB.  Verily the
> more things change more they remain the same.
>
> On Sat, Aug 2, 2008 at 5:59 PM, Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > *KASHMIR IMAGES, August 2, 2009*
> >
> > *Good you talked about Hindu communalists of India, why not about Muslim
> > fundamentalists of Kashmir?*
> >
> > *By Vimal Sumbly*
> >
> > Dear Omar,
> >
> > please accept my heartiest congratulations for an impassionate speech you
> > delivered in the parliament on July 22.
> > It would be remembered as one of the best speeches ever delivered in the
> > parliament. I have always felt proud about your secular and nationalistic
> > credentials. Unlike most other politicians in Kashmir, you and your
> > illustrious father Dr Farooq Abdullah have the distinction of never
> playing
> > with the secessionist sentiments of people in Kashmir. As you began your
> > speech in the parliament that you are a Muslim and you are an Indian and
> > there was no difference between the two, you were speaking straight from
> > your heart. In fact you never needed to say that, you have always proved
> it
> > indeed.
> > However I beg to differ with the widespread public opinion generated by
> your
> > "extempore speech". For the speech was not at all addressed to the
> > parliament, nor to the billion Indians who were watching you live on the
> > television. It was aimed at the select "secular Muslims of Kashmir" whom
> you
> > are going to ask for their vote very soon. I salute you for the courage
> to
> > call a spade a spade. You rightly criticized the Bharitya Janata Party
> for
> > its communal agenda. I believe your regret and apologies were obviously
> > aimed at the Kashmiri Muslims. You rightly criticized the Communists for
> > being self proclaimed guardians of the Indian secularism, while not
> minding
> > to side with the "communal BJP" in toppling the government.
> >
> > Dear Omar, I know and you know that you paid a heavy price in 2002
> assembly
> > elections in Kashmir for not having resigned on the Gujarat riots. You
> and
> > your party were defeated in the elections, mainly because you were blamed
> > for sharing power with the "communal BJP" at the centre. That ghost might
> be
> > still haunting you. But you showed enough moral courage to apologize to
> the
> > Kashmiri Muslims. You berated the BJP to the maximum possible extent.
> That
> > is for you and the BJP to decide. Your speech was rated among the best by
> > various television channels. Taking it on the face value everybody would
> > like it. Because, it was rhetoric at its best. Particularly when you had
> > chosen the two best targets, the Communists and the BJP, who were
> obviously
> > not liked by many across the country for their opportunistic
> "understanding"
> > to topple the government for entirely different reasons.
> >
> > I wish you gathered the same moral courage, which you showed in the
> > parliament to denounce the Hindu communalists, to condemn the Muslim
> > communalists in Kashmir. I feel sorry the way you defended the anti
> Amarnath
> > land transfer agitation in the parliament. And hats off to you that you
> > presented it to be a "secular" agitation for the land. Let you tell me
> and
> > the whole of nation who was going to take away the land from you. Had LK
> > Advani been allotted the land to settle down his "communal brigade"
> there?
> > It was just a temporary transfer to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board to
> > facilitate the pilgrimage of lakhs of pilgrims coming from across the
> > country. And is the Shrine Board an outside agency? Isn't it just a state
> > agency controlled by the state government itself? The matter of the fact
> is
> > that you joined the course of competitive communalism that was initiated
> by
> > your rivals, the People's Democratic Party and hijacked by secessionists
> > like Sayeed Ali Shah Geelani. And how brilliantly you presented it in
> > "secular colours". What if the Hindus outside Kashmir rebel in the same
> way
> > and seek vacation of Haj houses? That has never been done and it will
> never
> > be done.
> > Not everybody across the country knows that the grave of your
> grandfather,
> > Sher-i-Kashmir, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah still needs a heavy posse of
> cops
> > and mostly drawn from central paramilitary forces to be defended against
> the
> > same "secular" Muslims of Kashmir. And we all know Sheikh Sahib was a
> true
> > secular leader who opted for secular India against an Islamic Pakistan.
> Had
> > it not been for him, Kashmir would not have been with India. So, who is
> > wrong your grandfather or the "secular" Kashmiri Muslims, whom you
> defended
> > with such a strong conviction? Like you apologized to the Kashmiri
> Muslims
> > for "sleeping with the communal BJP", you should also apologize to the
> > people of Jammu whom you accused of being communal. This was too hurting.
> > Let you not forget that you still feel safer in Jammu than in Kashmir and
> > there has not been a selective communal killing in Jammu despite so much
> > provocation in Kashmir valley. You certainly owe an apology to the people
> of
> > Jammu also and the current phase of violence was provoked by "the best"
> > speech you delivered in the parliament.
> >
> > And please don't mislead the county that no Amarnath pilgrim was ever
> > attacked. There have been scores of attacks resulting in scores of deaths
> > during the past two decades on the pilgrims. And also let the record be
> > straightened that the Amarnath cave was not discovered by a Muslim about
> 150
> > years ago. Its mention is in Neelamat Puran as well. Besides, when the
> > Kashmiri Pandits were subjected to atrocities during the regime of
> > Aurangzeb, they (the Kashmiri Pandits) had gone to Amaranth to seek
> divine
> > intervention. It is here that they decided to approach Guru Tegh Bahadur
> in
> > Anandpur Sahib and that is over 300 years ago.
> >
> > I am sure, you are an honest and a well meaning person. I not only see a
> > bright future for Kashmir in you, but for the entire country. We need
> > leaders like you, passionate, forthright, honest, brilliant and daring.
> To
> > conclude I tell, rather I request you one small thing. This is too
> personal.
> > That I am myself a Kashmiri like you. I am thorough Kashmiri in language,
> in
> > culture, in life and in everything. I have been thrown out of my Kashmir
> 18
> > years ago. Even remaining away, I have maintained my language, my culture
> > and my lifestyle as a true Kashmir. You will say that, I was not thrown
> out
> > as it was Jagmohan who prompted me to move out. Presuming that I went out
> at
> > Jagmohan's behest, but can you help me now to return my piece of land,
> less
> > than half an acre, no big deal. It has been occupied by one of my
> "secular
> > Muslim" classmates with whom I used to go to school for twelve long
> years.
> > He knows I cannot do anything. You said, you will fight for the rights of
> > your land. Will you help me to return my land, like you pleaded the cause
> of
> > other fellow Muslim Kashmiris. I am also your fellow Kashmiri who still
> > cherishes the memories of his home. Don't disappoint me. Because I think
> you
> > are not only brave but bold as well. Have courage to speak for me.
> Whether I
> > get my land back or not, would not bother me, but I would feel consoled
> that
> > a fellow Kashmiri stood for me, like he stood for other fellow Kashmiris.
> > I understand that writing to you this way is enough to get me pronounced
> as
> > communal and an activist of RSS and Shiv Sena. But let me put it on
> record
> > that ours was among a few exceptional Pandit families that always voted
> for
> > the National Conference and not the Congress. You can verify it from my
> same
> > friend who has grabbed my land. We used to participate together in
> National
> > Conference processions. And I still believe that the National Conference
> is
> > the best bet for the people of Jammu and Kashmir, particularly under the
> > dynamic leadership of a young, brilliant, brave and daring leader like
> you.
> >  My sincere apologies if I have been harsh to you, I never wanted to
> cloud
> > the glory of your speech in parliament, I only wanted to set the record
> > straight. Because truth must be told howsoever bitter it may be.
> > _________________________________________
> > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> > Critiques & Collaborations
> > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
> subscribe in the subject header.
> > To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> > List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>
>
>
>
> --
> National Highway http://shivamvij.com/
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with
> subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>




-- 
Rashneek Kher
Wandhama Massacre-The Forgotten Human Tragedy
http://www.kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com
http://www.nietzschereborn.blogspot.com

From rohitism at gmail.com  Tue Aug  5 10:48:03 2008
From: rohitism at gmail.com (Rohit Shetti)
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 10:48:03 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: Hiroshima Peace Day
In-Reply-To: <ac0d5b350808042040qf2df0a9s1805f22a7e61bcb5@mail.gmail.com>
References: <ac0d5b350808042040qf2df0a9s1805f22a7e61bcb5@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <c07fc63e0808042218h152d78edu87e83d379dee2a56@mail.gmail.com>

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: John Devaraj <johndevaraj at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Aug 5, 2008 at 9:10 AM
Subject: Hiroshima Peace Day


Dear friend please come and forward this invitation for Peace
john

*Hiroshima** peace day*

*6th August 2008, 11 am Balbhavan, Cubbon Park Bangalore*



It was on 6th August 1945, that the first atom bomb was dropped on
Hiroshima. Three days later on 9th August, Nagasaki was atom bombed. The two
bombs killed 350 000 people leaving behind today 250 000 traumatized
survivors who recall the pain and tragedy. *Mahatma Gandhi called it an
empty victory, a crime against humanity.*

 The dropping of the atom bomb its impact shocked the world. Nations after
nations, peoples after peoples resolved never to produce or use the bomb,

But today  10 nations of the world USA, UK, France, Israel, Iran, North
Korea, China, Pakistan and India  posses together 30 000 nuclear war heads
capable of destroying the world 350 000 times.

Japan abolished its army and maintains only a self defense force. 24 nations
in the world have no armies. In a nuclear war there are no winners.

We cannot let a third atom bomb to fall on this blessed earth

*The Bornfree Art School* along with Hiroshima peace memorial Museum
proposes to affirm this with the celebration of Hiroshima Day from 6th to 9
th August 2008 in Bangalore.



This event envisages

*A * Dialogue between survivors of Hiroshima and peace lovers of Bangalore
through a video conferencing. at Balbhavan, Cubbon Park, Bangalore on the 6
th August at 11am

*B    Performance of Peace ballet Shiroi Hana {White flowers*} by the
Bornfree Art School, to be watched by the people in Bangalore and Hiroshima.

*C*  An Art exhibition on the issues of War and peace

*D*  *Beating swords into plough shares*. Making of a peace monument from
collected symbols of violence, aggression, like blades, knives, swords to be
set up as a public monument in the contemporary sculpture park in Ravindra
Kalakshetra.. Weapons will be collected at Balbhavan from 10am during the
event and at Ravindra Kalakshetra from the 7th August to 9th August  2008.9am
to 6pm where the sculpture is being made.

*E* Photography exhibition on the impact of an A-bomb on Bangalore,

*F*  Exhibition of Posters and Photographs on the Bombing of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki.

*G*  Presentation of the History of Article 9 by 12 Japanese students from 6
Universities who participate as delegates.



The Bornfree Art School two years ago wrote the *World's Largest Love Letter
* to children of Pakistan which read "Dear Children of Pakistan let us join
our hearts in friendship to create a new world" Over a million Indian and
Pakistani children signed it and was hand carried to Pakistan  We invite
people to participate in this program..

*We invite you to the event and participate in the peace processes.*



Mioi Nakayama   9886011830   www.bornfreeart.org    John Devaraj 9886306366

mioinakayama at gmail.com    bornfreeart at gmail.com    johndevaraj at gmail.com

21~ 2nd cross ~GH layout~ 3rd Block East~ Jayanagar~ Bangalore 560011~ India

- -- 
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
http://artistsunited.blogspot.com/
www.bornfreeart.org.
tel 0091  9886306366

From yashwantdelhi at gmail.com  Mon Aug  4 16:58:58 2008
From: yashwantdelhi at gmail.com (Yashwant Singh)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 16:58:58 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Media ka Baap Kaun???
Message-ID: <81ce8ab00808040428r4f85b5d0t37e9c782c06d28a3@mail.gmail.com>

 Aadarniy
*Dosto / Dushmano / Seniyaro / Juniyaro.....*

Abhee tak jo kuchh samaz me galat hota hai,
wo media batata-dikhata hai.
Par jo media galat karegaa, Media ke andar jo kuchh hoga....
usko kaun batayega-dikhayega-sunayega...?
esi ke liye...
ab aa gaya.....

Media ka Baap......

aur wo hai.....
www.bhadas4media.com
*No.1 Hindi Media News Portal*

Waise aapko hum ek positive approach se media ki jani-mani hastiyon se
mukhatib bhee karwaa rahe hain, har saptaah. Aap sabhi ke sahyog ke bina ye
kaam sambhav nahi hai.
plzz isko safal banane ke liye aage aayen.
Dekhna hum esko kahan pahuchayenge.
if u want to help us......
*Pls forward this mail to ur friends.*
**
*for more detail....pls contact *
Yashwant Singh
CEO & Editor
*Bhadas4Media*
*No.1 Hindi Media News Portal*
09999330099
yashwant at bhadas4media.com

From phadkeshilpa at gmail.com  Tue Aug  5 15:31:19 2008
From: phadkeshilpa at gmail.com (Shilpa Phadke)
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 15:31:19 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: The Queer Azadi March
In-Reply-To: <efcdde1c0808050232u6a26b74bw24a44109b8d128b1@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001f01c8f61c$8c994030$6400a8c0@chayshalhome>
	<efcdde1c0808050232u6a26b74bw24a44109b8d128b1@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <aa02ed8f0808050301r5331dbaes99bae2c39802bd1f@mail.gmail.com>

Pls fwd widely.



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: cs lists <chayshal at gmail.com>
Date: 4 Aug 2008 15:56
Subject: [voicesagainst377] The Queer Azadi March
To: voicesagainst377 at yahoogroups.com

   QUEER AZADI

MUMBAI 2008









16th August





The march will start at

August Kranti Maidan

 and end at

Girgaum Chowpatty









*Organised by:*

* *

Aanchal Trust, Astitva, Dai Welfare Society,

GayBombay, Humsaaya, Humsafar Trust,

INFOSEM, Lesbians and Bisexuals in Action,

Queer Media Collective, Rainbow Pride Connexion,

Sakhi Char Chowghi, Salvation Star, Sarathi,

Symphony in Pink

* *

*We will gather at August Kranti Maidan 3:30 pm onwards.*

QUEER AZADI MUMBAI 2008



*Who is 'queer'?* Queer was originally used as a put-down, but the word was
reclaimed as a positive marker of identity by those of us whom society
considered odd, strange or abnormal. We use the word to refer to all people
marginalised by a society that is narrowly defined by hetero-normativity and
by the male-female gender binary. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, hijra,
transgender, kothi, panthi, intersex… all who  identify with words like
these have gathered here today under the umbrella of the "queer" community.



*What's the slogan "queer azadi" about?* This country achieved Independence
on 15th August, 1947, but its countless queer citizens are still not free.
We have no rights, and no place in a society that refuses to accept us for
who we are. And that is why we've chosen 16th August as Queer Azadi Diwas,
so that we may be seen and heard, and in order to bring to the notice of
both our society and our government some issues that concern us:



   - Under Sec. 377 of the Indian Penal Code our desires and relationships
   are considered to be criminal acts. We want this regressive law read down.



   - Every individual is under tremendous pressure to marry a person of the
   opposite sex, as marriage is seen as a must in our society. We are launching
   a campaign against all such forced marriages.



   - The Constitution must include provisions to deal with all
   discrimination on the grounds of sexuality or gender.



   - We call for an end to homophobia and transphobia — an end to violence
   and hate within families, in educational institutions, at places of work and
   in public spaces.



*Today's event is not just for the queer communities.* Many others are here
to encourage and support us — family members, friends, colleagues;
NGOs,  women's
groups, human rights organizations, and trade unionists; educational
institutions and their students.



*We invite you to join us on our march as well and to raise your voice along
with ours.*















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From radhikarajen at vsnl.net  Tue Aug  5 16:40:32 2008
From: radhikarajen at vsnl.net (radhikarajen at vsnl.net)
Date: Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:10:32 +0500
Subject: [Reader-list] Stay Away,Pandits Told-Telegraph
In-Reply-To: <13df7c120808032114y799401b6o1d276d06e518fec4@mail.gmail.com>
References: <13df7c120808032114y799401b6o1d276d06e518fec4@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <e2ced44594f3.48987b78@vsnl.net>

A miscalculated move by the CM of J & K to appease hindus in India in view of the general elections which are few months away, by "giving" land to Amarnath Shrine Board, then underestimating the ruthless nature of soft face of Hizb, the muftis, Sayeed and his daughter, Mehbooba, a nominated Home minister of centre, Shivraj Patil, a nominated Defence Minister AK Antony and a nominated PM, Manmohan Singh who are far removed from the aspirations of aam admi, all have contributed to this game of divisive politics.

Regards.

----- Original Message -----
From: rashneek kher <rashneek at gmail.com>
Date: Monday, August 4, 2008 9:45 am
Subject: [Reader-list] Stay Away,Pandits Told-Telegraph
To: sarai list <reader-list at sarai.net>

>  Stay away, Pandits told
> OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
> 
> http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080804/jsp/nation/story_9643825.jsp
> 
> *Srinagar, Aug. 3:* Hizb-ul Mujahideen founder Ahsan Dar has 
> announced his
> return from Muzaffarabad to join the jihad, with a warning to the 
> exiledKashmiri Pandit community not to return home.
> 
> A CD containing his statement was distributed among some media 
> agencies in
> Kashmir. In it, he has asked the Pandits not to return to the 
> Valley unless
> New Delhi solves the Kashmir issue.
> 
> "I will advise Kashmiri Pandits not to take a foolish step to 
> return to the
> Valley. And those leaders who have sympathy with the Pandits' 
> return, leave
> Kashmir and stay with them in Jammu," Dar said.
> 
> Dar had founded the Hizb in 1989 but was dislodged a year later by 
> SyedSalahuddin and forced to set up a new militant group by the 
> name of Muslim
> Mujahideen.
> 
> He was arrested in the early 1990s and released after spending 
> several years
> behind bars.
> 
> "In the late 1990s, he left for Pakistan-occupied Kashmir again 
> and, if the
> reports about his return are true, then he is back in the Valley after
> around a decade," a police official said.
> 
> Dar had differences with the Jamat-e-Islami, which had then 
> declared the
> Hizb its militant wing. This led to his ouster and replacement by Syed
> Salahuddin. A teacher by profession, he belongs to the Pattan area 
> of south
> Kashmir.
> 
> "The Kashmir issue concerns 1.2 crore Muslims of the state and it 
> does not
> revolve around Kashmiri Pandits alone. Nobody talks of Muslim migrants
> living in Azad Kashmir and we believe when the issue of 1.2 crore 
> will be
> resolved, we can then think about Kashmiri Pandits," Dar said.
> 
> This is in marked contrast to the statement of other separatist 
> leaders who
> are encouraging Kashmiri Pandits to return.
> 
> Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in April set the stage for the 
> return of
> Kashmiri migrant Pandits to their homes and announced a package 
> estimated at
> Rs 1,600 crore, which included Rs 7.5 lakh for rebuilding houses,
> identifying land and providing the unemployed Pandit youths with jobs.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Rashneek Kher
> Wandhama Massacre-The Forgotten Human Tragedy
> http://www.kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com
> http://www.nietzschereborn.blogspot.com
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with 
> subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-
> list 
> List archive: <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>



From thvishnu_viva at yahoo.com  Tue Aug  5 23:58:03 2008
From: thvishnu_viva at yahoo.com (VISHNU VARDHAN)
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 23:58:03 +0530 (IST)
Subject: [Reader-list] Launch of the Theatre Infrastructure Cell
Message-ID: <485189.3148.qm@web94910.mail.in2.yahoo.com>

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

The
Arts and Culture team of the Sir Ratan Tata Trust and Allied Trusts
invites you to the launch of Theatre Infrastructure Cell funded by the
Lady Navjbai Ratan Tata Trust and set up in collaboration with India
Foundation for the Arts (IFA), Bangalore.  Please find the invite below.



Warmly,
Vishnu


India Foundation for the 
Arts
invites you to the launch of 
the
Theatre Infrastructure Cell 
 
A joint initiative with the Navajbai Ratan Tata 
Trust
 
Venue:   United 
Theological 
College, Miller's Road, Bangalore 





Telephone: 080 
23333438
Date: 
  Friday August 8th, 
2008
Time: 
  5.00 pm
RSVP: Vindya – 
vindya at indiaifa.org
Tele / Fax: 91 80 23414681 / 
82

The launch event, apart from presenting the work and 
objectives of the TIC, will also feature an open-house discussion involving 
performing artists, production designers, and architects. 

Kindly share this invitation with others who may be 
interested in knowing more about this initiative 
 
Background





The Navajbai Ratan Tata Trust (NRTT) and 
India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) have jointly set up the Theatre 
Infrastructure Cell (TIC), which aims to work towards strengthening 
infrastructure in the field of performing arts. The Cell will look at 
infrastructure issues holistically and lend advisory support as well as monetary 
support to projects on a case-by-case basis. An Advisory Panel consisting of 
eminent architects, theatre directors and designers has been set up to guide and 
strengthen TIC's work. The panel consists of Bansi Kaul (Theatre Director), 
Himanshu Burte (Architect), Jagan Shah (Architect), Naveen Kishore (Publisher 
and Lighting Designer), Sunil Shanbag (Theatre Director), and Vivek Patankar 
(Architect and Acoustics Expert). 
 
The  NRTT is an allied trust of the 
Sir Ratan Tata Trust (SRTT) and is one of the leading funding organisations of 
Arts and Culture in India. The Tata Trusts' Arts and 
Culture portfolio is committed to strengthening and developing the field of arts 
through its diverse programmatic interventions of funding art institutions, arts 
initiatives, research in arts, advanced learning in the arts and collaborative 
field interventions.
 





IFA is an independent, nationwide 
philanthropy, professionally managed, and dedicated to strengthening the arts in 
India.  IFA has funded more 
than 225 projects over the last 14 years. It supports research and practice 
leading to films, books, artworks, archives, exhibitions and performances. The 
IFA also helps bring the arts into the classroom while funding the preservation 
and transmission of valuable cultural knowledge. Another area of its work is to 
offer advice, information and expertise related to the Indian 
arts.

Theatre Infrastructure 
Cell
India Foundation for the Arts
Bangalore
(080) 
23414681/23414682
Please visit our website www.indiaifa.org  



T. Vishnu Vardhan

(Ph.D)University of Ulster UK - CSCS Bangalore

Consultant, Arts and Culture Programme,

Sir Ratan Tata Trust.



#466, 9th Cross, I Block

Jayanagar, Bangalore - 11.

Tel: +91 80 26562986

Mobile: +91 9845207308


      Unlimited freedom, unlimited storage. Get it now, on http://help.yahoo.com/l/in/yahoo/mail/yahoomail/tools/tools-08.html/

From rashneek at gmail.com  Wed Aug  6 09:43:04 2008
From: rashneek at gmail.com (rashneek kher)
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2008 09:43:04 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] PDP now opposes the transfer,
	but records show how it said the opposite(The Indian Express)
Message-ID: <13df7c120808052113i203ff9d4k630f6a8db84fd8a1@mail.gmail.com>

*ON THE RECORD-Indian Express
*February 26, 2008: 'The proprietary status of forest land shall remain
unchanged'
*PDP now opposes the transfer, but records show how it said the opposite*
**
*As the PM holds an all-party meeting in Jammu and Kashmir, we reproduce the
key documents around the Amarnath land-transfer
**Memorandum for Submission to the Cabinet *
*Government of Jammu and Kashmir Civil Sectt: Forest Department
Subject:- Use of Forest Land for non-forestry purpose
1. The Forest Department has received requisitions from various
Agencies/Departments for diversion of forest land for non forestry purposes.
The Memorandum deals with the cases which were cleared by the Advisory
Committee constituted under J&K Forest Conservation Act, 1997 in its 39th
Meeting held on July 12, 2007 under the Chairmanship of the Chief Secretary.
These cases were placed before the Cabinet in its meeting on February 26,
2008. The item was "deferred" since some clarifications were necessary about
the wildlife perspective in respect of the proposal of Amarnathji Shrine
Board (discussed as case 4 of this Memorandum). Pursuant to the above, a
Committee of officers was constituted vide Government Order No. 108-Fst of
2008 dated March 17, 2008 to look into that proposal. The report of the
Committee has since been received and is attached as Annexure to this
Memorandum.
Case No.4
12. Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board (SASB) has made a requisition for diversion
of forest land measuring 39.88 hectares falling under Compartment No.
63a/Sindh in Block Kullan, Range Sindh, Sindh Forest Division for
construction/provision of buildings/hutments and other infrastructure for
visiting Yatries of Amarnath Ji Yatra at Baltal and Domail.
13. Regarding the Wildlife aspect of proposal, Pr. CCF has submitted in the
agenda as under:-
(a) Forms part of National Park, Wildlife Sanctuary, Natural Reservoir,
Biosphere Reservoir etc.
Proposed area is adjacent to Thajwas sanctuary. The uncontrolled flow of
yatris will cause pollution...
14. The recorded decision of the Advisory Committee is reproduced as under:-
"The Advisory Committee discussed this case in depth. The Chief Wildlife
Warden apprised the Committee that he has already submitted his report under
No. WLP/Tech/1971/07 dated 11.06.2007 after spot inspection on 27.5.2007,
which is reproduced as under:-
It was noticed that the proposed site for construction of Shri Amarnathji
Shrine Board Complex, falling in the compartment 63(s)/Sindh/Kullan, is
located on the right side of Sindh rivulet. The proposed complex does not
seem to have any significant impact on the ecology of Thajwas Wildlife
Sanctuary. The apprehensions of DFO Sindh and Wildlife Warden,Central that
the said complex may have adverse impact on the Wildlife Sanctuary appear to
be "over cautious" and an environmentally conservative approach. It is also
given to understand that Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board is using
pre-fabricated structures, as such likely pollution due to discharge of muck
and garbage etc should not be significant . It is presumed that Shri
Amarnathji Shrine Board will take necessary environmental safeguards as
applicable for such development projects.
In view of the above report, the Advisory Committee cleared the diversion of
the above Forest land to Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board (SASB), on the
following terms and conditions:-
i) The proprietary status of forest land shall remain unchanged.
ii) The forest land so diverted shall be utilised only for the purpose for
which it has been diverted. It shall not be transferred to any other agency
without approval of the Forest Department.
iii) The forest land so diverted shall not be mortgaged, re-assigned or
sub-leased by user agency in any manner what so ever to any other agency.
(For the rest, see adjacent document)
15. As mentioned above, following the deferment of these cases in the
Cabinet meeting on February 26,2008 a Committee under the Chairmanship of
Chief Wildlife Warden was constituted vide Govt.order No. 108-FST of 2008
dated March 17,2008 to examine the feasibility of diversion of forest land
vis-a-vis Wildlife Perspective for various developmental activities
including construction of roads in Baltal-Ranga-Domail area of Ganderbal
District as requested by Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board. The Committee has
submitted its report vide letter dated May 7, 2008 (Annexure-A). The
relevant extracts of the Committee's report are reproduced as under:-
"That the proposed camping sites of Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board (SASB)
complex comprising 39.88 hectares of forest land (30.88 Ha. At Baltal and
9.00 Ha at Domail) fall in the Forest Compartment No.63/Sindh of Sindh
Forest Division, Forest Department. Theses proposed camping sites do not
involve any area of Thajwas Wildlife Sanctuary, which is located on the left
side of river Sindh...
17. The case for diversion of Forest Land for non-forestry purpose are
required to be submitted to the Cabinet as per the provisions of the Jammu
and Kashmir Forest (Conservation) Act after clearance by the Advisory
Committee. However, Hon'ble Supreme Court of India passed directions in W.P.
(c) No. 202/1995 in the case titled T.N. Godavarman V/S Union of India &
others on 27.04.2007 as under:
"...In the circumstances,we hereby give the following directions, pending
our decision on the larger question indicated herein above:
a) The FAC as it stands today will give priority to Projects which need
immediate clearances. In this regard, it may be stated that fresh cases may
be cleared project-wise by the FAC and thereafter such clearances shall be
placed before this court for approval. We make it clear that pending the
decision of the larger question, all clearances by the FAC of fresh cases
shall be subject to approval by this Court. Before giving approval, we would
like to have responses from the CEC in respect of each clearance. In order
to avoid delay, we direct the concerned Ministry to give a copy of the
clearance to the CEC so that the CEC would give its response expeditiously.
We will examine each clearance and decide whether to grant or not to grant
the approval thereto. Once the approval is granted by this Court, the matter
may be placed before the central government for disposal in accordance with
law..."
18. The above said order was sent to the Law Department for giving its
opinion as to whether the same is applicable to J&K State. The Law
Department has opined as under:
"The order of the Hon'ble Supreme Court dated 27.04.2007 is with regard to
the Forest Conservation (Central)Act, and rules framed thereunder. The said
Act is not applicable to the State as forests continue to be in the state
list. Earlier a similar case was examined and vide UO No. LD(Opn)
2006/77-Fst dated 06.03.2007 the department was advised to move an
application before the Hon'ble Court to the effect that the Forest
Conservation Act, 1990 (Central Act) is not applicable to the State. The
State has its own Forest Act as well as Forest Conservation Act, 1997 and
seeks clarification from the Hon'ble Court. The Department is advised to
pursue the said matter vigorously with the Hon'ble Supreme Cour and awaits
clarification in the matter."
19. In the meanwhile the PCCF vide communication NO. PCCF/FC/Gen./5/106
dated 21.07.2007 approached the Central Empowered Committee constituted by
the Hon'ble Supreme Court... The CEC opined under:
" The non-forest use of the forest land falling within the State of Jammu
and Kashmir is governed by the provisions of the Jammu and Kashmir Forest
(Conservation) Act, 1990 and not by the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980. In
view of the above, the CEC is of the view that the Hon'ble Supreme Court's
order dated 27.04.2007 regarding the functioning of the Forest Advisory
Committee constituted under Section 3 of the Forest (Conservation) Act, is
not applicable in respect of the proposals examined by the State Level
Advisory Committee constituted under the Jammu and Kashmir Forest
(Conservation) Act, 1990 as amended from time time."
20. Advice of the Law Department was sought on the opinion of the CEC and
the Law Department said as under:
"The views of the CEC regarding the applicability of the orders of the
Hon'ble Supreme Court is their opinion. The said opinion confirms the views
of this Department. However, it would be safe, as advised earlier, to bring
the legal position in the notice of the Hon'ble Supreme Court and seek their
clarification as the State has its own Forest Conservation Act of 1990."
21. Subsequently, the matter was referred to the Ld. Advocate General for
advice who said as under:
"The Forests continue to be a subject with respect to which the state
government has the power to make laws and not the Union. The Jammu and
Kashmir Forest (Conservation) Act of 1997 is applicable to the state of J&K
and the Rules have also been framed under the said Act. The J&K State Forest
(Conservation) Rules provide for the constitution of a Forest Advisory
Committee and it is within the jurisdiction of the said Forest Advisory
Committee under the J&K State Forest (Conservation) Act to give clearance of
projects for the purpose of non forestry purpose. So far as the rest of the
States are concerned, the Forest (Conservation) Act 1980 is applicable to
them. Under the aforesaid Forest (Conservation) Act Forest (Conservation)
Rules 1981 had been framed. Under rule 4 of the Forest (Conservation) Rules
of 1981 it is provided that the Forest Advisory Committee has to be
constituted and the said Forest Advisory Committee shall have the
jurisdiction to clear the projects where forest land is required for non
forestry purposes. It appears that the Hon'ble Supreme Court in WP (C)
202/1995 titled T.N. Godavarman versus Union of India had stayed the working
of the Forest Advisory Committee in terms of the Forest (Conservation) Rules
of 1981. Subsequently vide order dated 27.04.2007 the Hon'ble Supreme Court
had modified the order and had directed that the Forest Advisory Committee
constituted under the Forest Conservation Rules of 2003 as it stands will
give clearance of the projects where forest land is required for non
forestry purposes and the project would be sent to a Central Empowered
Committee, which would give its response expeditiously.
I have gone through the order dated 27.04.2007 passed by the Hon'ble Supreme
Court. Since neither the Forest (Conservation) Act of 1980 nor Forest
(Conservation) Rules made there under are applicable to the State of J&K.
The state is governed by the J&K Forest (Conservation) Act 1997 and Forest
(Conservation) Rules, 2000. The Forest Advisory Committee has been
constituted under the aforesaid Forest (Conservation) Rules, therefore, the
order dated 27.04.2007 does not have any applicability with respect to the
State of Jammu and Kashmir in as much as since the Forest (Conservation) Act
of 1980 and the rules made thereunder are not applicable to the State of
J&K. Moreso, a communication issued by the CEC on 27.07.2007 which is on
file had clarified that the order of the Hon'ble Supreme Court dated
27.04.2007 regarding the functioning of the Forest Advisory Committee under
section 3 of the Forest (Conservation) Act is not applicable in respect to
the proposals examined by the State Level Advisory Committee constituted
under the J&K Forest (Conservation) Act 1997. It is as such advised that the
order dated 27.04.2007 does not pertain to the J&K State and proposals in
J&K have to be examined by the Forest Advisory Committee constituted under
the J&K Forest (Conservation) Act of 1997 and rules made thereunder."
22. Thereafter, GAD advised the Department to place the matter before the
Hon'ble Dy. Chief Minister (Minister I/C Law) in view of two different
opinions given by the Law Department and Ld. Advocated General. Accordingly,
the matter was placed before the Hon'ble Dy. Chief Minister (Minister I/C
Law) who opined as under:
" There is no material difference between the opinion of Ld. Advocate
General and that of the Law Department. The Law Department, by way of
abundant caution, seeks to obtain the clarification of the Supreme Court. I
concur with the view of the Central Empowered Committee and the Ld. Advocate
General."
23. In view of the clarification given by the CEC constituted by the Hon'ble
Supreme Court, Ld. Advocate General, Hon'ble Dy. Chief Minister (Minister
I/C Law), the Principal Secretary to the Government Forest Department with
the approval of the Hon'ble Minister for Forests, submits the above
mentioned cases to the cabinet for taking a view and according approval for
the use of forest land for non-forestry purposes, in favour of the above
said organisations, on the terms and conditions recommended by the Advisory
Committee in its 39th meeting, which have been reproduced in this
memorandum, together with the recommendation made at para 16 of the
memorandum in respect of case no. 4.
Madhav Lal Principal Secretary to the Government of J&KDepartment of Forests
*


-- 
Rashneek Kher
Wandhama Massacre-The Forgotten Human Tragedy
http://www.kashmiris-in-exile.blogspot.com
http://www.nietzschereborn.blogspot.com

From iram at sarai.net  Wed Aug  6 10:30:12 2008
From: iram at sarai.net (Iram Ghufran)
Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:30:12 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: August 2008 for you (at Kriti)
Message-ID: <48992FDC.5030003@sarai.net>


=================================

Subject: August 2008 for you!
From:"Kriti Team" <space at krititeam.org>
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 11:42:41 +0530
To: <"Undisclosed-Recipient:;"@artoflinux.org>

=================================

Dear Friends

A month of remembrance and freedom, we mark this August 2008 with the 
following days on our calenders:

6 Hiroshima day

9 Nagasaki/ International Day of the World’s Indigenous People

15 Indian Independence Day

30 International Day for Disappeared Persons



We invite you for a play titled ‘Traitors’ on 8th August, 7.30 pm at the 
India Islamic Cultural Centre, Lodi Road, New Delhi; presented by 
Sangat, produced by Hungry Heart Festival with coordination support by 
the Kriti team. For invitations and tickets please call or write to us.



We also invite you to come watch and discuss documentary films on 9th 
August at an event titled ‘A Deal for Life and Freedom’; organised by 
the Kriti Film Club, in collaboration with Delhi Solidarity Group and 
supported by Sangat.Starts 10 am and continues until 8 pm at the 
WorldWide Fund for Nature (WWF) Auditorium, Lodi Road, New Delhi. Entry 
to this event is free.



Finally, an opportunity for us to share a selected list of books and 
films available for you to access from the Kriti DOCUSHOP. Several other 
titles available for reference and purchase as well. Do visit or write 
to us for details.



Please check http://krititeam.blogspot.com for details! We hope to 
connect with you in August!



In solidarity,

Kriti Team

Books

Voices of Sanity- Reaching out for Peace

By Kamba Bhasin, Smite Kothari, Bindia Thapar/ Lokayan & Rainbow/ New 
Delhi/ 2001 Contribution: Rs.125.00



Defeated Innocence

By Rahul Ramagundam/ Grass Roots India Publications/ New Delhi/ 2001 
Contribution: Rs.299.00



Gift for India

By Sahmat/ New Delhi/ 1997 Contribution: Rs.500.00



Indian People in the Struggle for Freedom

By Sahmat/ New Delhi/ 1998 Contribution: Rs. 70.00



Duniya Sabki (Hindi)

Poems by Safdar Hashmi/ Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust /New Delhi/ 2006 
Contribution: Rs. 50.00



Nationalism without a Nation in

By Aloysius/ Oxford University Press/ New Delhi/ 2008 Contribution: Rs. 
295.00



Symposium on the Unification of NAGA Areas

A report by NPMHR/ New Delhi/ 2005 Contribution: Rs. 30.00





Documentary Films



Ek Khubusarat Jahaz

By Gauhar Raza/ 19 Min/ Eng

Contributions (VCD): Students – Rs. 60.00 Indivs/ Orgns – Rs. 60.00



Living in fear

By K.P. Sasi/ 34 mins/ English

Contribution (VCD): Indivs – Rs.250.00 Orgns – Rs.500.00



Buddha Weeps in Jadugoda

By Shri Prakash/ 55 mins/ English

Contribution (VCD): Rs. 1000.00



Gadia Lohar

By Meenakshi Vinay Rai/ 25 mins/ English

Contribution (VCD): Rs.500.00



The Bitter Drink

By Saratchandran/ 31mins / English

Contribution: VCD – Students: Rs.200.00 Indivs: Rs.300.00 Orgns: Rs.500.00

DVD – Students: Rs.500.00 Indivs: Rs.600.00 Orgns: Rs.1000.00



The Lake of Despair

By Snehasis Das/ 31 mins/ English

Contribution: DVD – Indivs: Rs.500.00 Orgns: Rs.1000.00



Kanavu Malayi Lekha (To the Dream Mountain)

By M S Sasi/ 45 mins/ Local Language with English Subtitles

Contribution: VCD – Students/Indivs: Rs.250.00 Orgns: Rs.250.00

DVD – Students: Rs.500.00 Indivs: Rs.600.00 Orgns: Rs.1000.00



In The Forest Hangs a Bridge

By Sanjay Kak/ 40min 2sec/ English/ 1999

Contribution -: VCD – Indivs: Rs.400.00 Orgns: Rs.700.00

DVD – Indivs: Rs.500.00 Orgns: Rs.750.00



Jashne Azadi

By Sanjay kak/ 138 mins/ Kashmiri, Urdu, English (with English subtitles)

Contribution: DVD - Indivs: Rs. 500.00 Orgns: Rs. 1200.00



Waiting…

By Shabnam Ara and Sushil Kumar / 39.39 mins/ Hindi/ Kashmiri with 
English subtitles

Contribution: VCD – Indivs: Rs. 250.00 Orgns: Rs. 250.0



A Time to Rise

By Anand Patwardhan/ 40 mins/ English

Contribution: DVD - Indivs: Rs. 400.00 Orgns: Rs. 1200.00



Bhopa

By Meenakshi Vinay Rai/ 31mins/ English

Contribution: VCD - Rs. 500.00



Indigenous People Shot Dead for Development

By Sarasi Das, Surya Shankar Dash/ 1 minute/English

Contribution available on request



The Lament of Niyamraja - a dongria kond song

By Surya Shankar Dash/ 13 min

Contribution available on request



Niyamgiri - The Mountain of Law

By Samadrusti TV and Surya Shankar Dash/ 100 min

Contribution available on request



Our Contact Info:

011-26027845/ 26033088

space.kriti(at)gmail.com

http://krititeam.blogspot.com


From ravikant at sarai.net  Wed Aug  6 11:41:08 2008
From: ravikant at sarai.net (Ravikant)
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2008 11:41:08 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: scholarship announcement
Message-ID: <200808061141.08261.ravikant@sarai.net>

Subject: Plz passs this information..
Date: मंगलवार 05 अगस्त 2008 20:50
From: "prabhat kumar" <prabhatkumar250 at gmail.com>
To: 

Hello. If anybody is interested in doing research on Marathi or Gujrati
language satire in Heidelberg University with good scholarship there is
still one seat vacant...Please contact Prof, Hans Harder..
H.Harder at uni-heidelberg.de..

*Scholarship Announcement *

*
*

*Joint Project on Asian Satire in the Heidelberg „Cluster of Excellence"*

* *
The joint project "Gauging Cultural Asymmetries: Asian Satire and the Search
for Identity in the Era of Colonialism and Imperialism" forms part of the
Heidelberg Cluster of Excellence on „Asia and Europe: Shifting Asymmetries
in Cultural Flows". In close cooperation with six disciplines, comprising
Japanese Studies (Arokay), Chinese Studies (Mittler), Modern Indology
(Harder), History of South Asia (Dharampal-Frick), Islamic Studies (Ursinus)
and Arabic Studies (Enderwitz), a group of researchers (primarily PhD
students) will study how various Asian traditions used satire in their
engagement with Europe and Europeans. The project will begin in July 2008.
Scholarships ranging from €1000 to €1400 per month (depending on academic
and family status), will be granted for two years with an option of one
additional year.

Applicants should hold an excellent MA or (South Asian) MPhil degree, be
ready to enrol at Heidelberg University and actively participate in all
curricular activities pertaining to the project.

Applications for the project is to be sent to: Prof. Hans Harder, Deptt. of
Modern Indologie, South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg, Germany.

  H.Harder at uni-heidelberg.de
*
<http://sai.uni-heidelberg.de/>*
* *
For details about the Heidelberg Cluster of Excellence, please consult
www.vjc.uni-hd.de, and a short summary of the satire project can be had by
writing to the e-mail address given above. Along with the usual application
documents, please send a sample of academic work (e.g. 10 pages of an
MA/MPhil thesis) and a short exposé explaining how the dissertation topic
would be tackled (max. 1000 words, with explicit reference to primary and
secondary sources).

-------------------------------------------------------

From mailponni at gmail.com  Wed Aug  6 12:44:19 2008
From: mailponni at gmail.com (ponni arasu)
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2008 12:44:19 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: Keep saturday evening free - come to see a Play
	at JNU
In-Reply-To: <1DA2E9F8-1980-46B5-8A69-032DBBC4E639@gmail.com>
References: <765a15040808010324o2ac21cc5jbd467612b089b3ec@mail.gmail.com>
	<1DA2E9F8-1980-46B5-8A69-032DBBC4E639@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20d6b7240808060014l122cbbf5p72fd904a7e4b802@mail.gmail.com>

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Janaki Abraham <janaki.abraham at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Aug 3, 2008 at 10:09 PM
Subject: Keep saturday evening free - come to see a Play at JNU
To: ponni arasu <mailponni at gmail.com>, Padma Venkataraman <
aramangai at gmail.com>, Geetha V <geethv at gmail.com>





Women's Studies Programme
and
Centre for Historical Studies, JNU


Invites you to a Play

KALAKKANAVU
OR
A DREAM OF TIME

A FEMINIST DOCUDRAMA IN TAMIL WITH TRANSLATION

Written by V. Geetha
and
Directed by Mangai


SATURDAY, 9th AUGUST,
6:30 PM
School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU


Kalakkanavu is a feminist docudrama that maps a women's history of almost a
100 years from the mid 19th to the mid 20th century and is pieced together
from Tamil women's writings, speeches, songs and stage performances.


All are welcome
PLEASE DO COME!






- -- 
Calvin: I wonder if you can refuse to inherit the world...
Hobbes: I think if your born its too late.

From anansi1 at earthlink.net  Wed Aug  6 13:33:35 2008
From: anansi1 at earthlink.net (Paul Miller)
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2008 04:03:35 -0400
Subject: [Reader-list] Art for Obama
References: <732f71-3449-48949d56@web01.moveon.org>
Message-ID: <15A6A191-F986-43B7-84C1-738541EA4DFF@earthlink.net>

Hey you all - I thought some of the people on the list would be into  
this. It's event I'm doing with Shep Fairey (you know "Andre the Giant  
Has a Posse" stickers and the Obama Hope poster etc) - he's an old  
friend from college. We're presenting an art event with moveon.org  
around the theme of hope: the judges for the contest are, me, Ross  
Bleckner, Eric Fischl, Moby, Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth, Cydney  
Payton, Executive Director and Chief Curator Museum of Modern Art,  
Denver, and Nancy Spector - Guggenheim Museum Curator of Contemporary  
Art.

Brief description:
http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/28236/groups-unite-to-bring-pro-obama-art-to-convention/

Details:
> The "Yes We Can" video by will.i.am. The 1000+ positive Obama ads  
> created by MoveOn members. The iconic Obama "HOPE" poster created by  
> artist Shepard Fairey.
>
> Barack Obama's historic candidacy has sparked an unprecedented  
> artistic outpouring. Now, in partnership with Shepard Fairey and his  
> Obey Giant collective, we're offering a new way for artists—anyone  
> with a pen and paper qualifies—to share their talents and help elect  
> Barack Obama at the same time.
>
> It's called Manifest Hope, and it's a new Obama art contest for 2D  
> and 3D art, from painting to photography to sculpture. The winners  
> will be shown at the Manifest Hope Gallery online and in Denver  
> during the Democratic convention alongside works from dozens of  
> established and influential artists.
>
> If you think you might want to enter, or want updates on the  
> contest, please let us know here:
>
> http://pol.moveon.org/mh/signup/?id=13385-7548785-WyC03wx&t=3
>
> If not, can you pass this on to friends of yours who might be  
> interested?
>
> Anyone can enter. You don't have to be Picasso, you just need to be  
> inspired by Barack Obama and willing to donate your creativity and  
> time to the cause.
>
> But you need to get started soon. The final submissions deadline is  
> August 18th at 11:59 a.m. ET. That's not much time to conceive and  
> create a piece of art, so get started today.
>
> All submissions will be judged by a distinguished panel of judges— 
> artists from Obey Giant, contemporary art curators, and multi- 
> talented musicians. Finalists will be asked to auction off their  
> pieces, and donate the proceeds to progressive organizations.
>
> Denver will be buzzing during the convention, but this gallery is  
> going to be one of the coolest places to visit there. Plus, the  
> gallery's going to have an amazing party with live performances by  
> Death Cab For Cutie, Moby, and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.
>
> We're not going to send any more emails to the full MoveOn list  
> before the submission deadline. So if there's any chance you might  
> be interested, you have to sign up for contest updates now:
>
> http://pol.moveon.org/mh/signup/?id=13385-7548785-WyC03wx&t=4
>
> Thanks for all you do.
>
> –Peter, Karin, Laura, Ilyse and the rest of the team
>
> P.S. It's okay to enter a piece of art you've already created, as  
> long as you're willing to offer it up for auction if it becomes a  
> finalist. If you're ready to enter right now, you can upload your  
> entry here:
>
> http://pol.moveon.org/mh/enter/?id=13385-7548785-WyC03wx&t=5
>
> Want to support our work? We're entirely funded by our 3.2 million  
> members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our  
> tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way.

From peter.ksmtf at gmail.com  Wed Aug  6 13:44:04 2008
From: peter.ksmtf at gmail.com (T Peter)
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2008 13:44:04 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] CZM notification: role of NGO flayed
Message-ID: <3457ce860808060114l74a6ec67se23a0aa217a7bf52@mail.gmail.com>

CZM notification: role of NGO flayed
Date:06/08/2008 URL:
http://www.thehindu.com/2008/08/06/stories/2008080650190200.htm
Special Correspondent

Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala Swatantra Matsya Thozhilali Federation
(KSMTF) has expressed concern over the role of a Non-Governmental
Organisation called Centre for Environment and Education (CEE) in the
public consultation on the controversial Coastal Zone Management (CZM)
notification issued by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests
(MoEF).

A pressnote quoting T. Peter, KSMTF president, here on Tuesday feared
that the real sentiments of the people would not be taken into
consideration by the NGO during the consultation. The website of the
NGO states that it was working in tandem with the Ministry to create
awareness on the CZM notification. This, he said, revealed the real
agenda of the NGO.

Mr. Peter said the CZM notification was severely opposed by the
fishing community all over the country right from the time it was
suggested by Dr. M.S. Swaminathan on the grounds that the CZM would
legitimise the establishment of hazardous industries in the coastal
belt, threatening the lives of fishing community and their rights over
the coastal land."

The CEE, Mr. Peter said, was a 'Centre of Excellence' supported by the
Ministry and two members of its governing council were nominees from
the MoEF. The pressnote said the attempt of the Ministry to use an NGO
to generate legitimacy was highly questionable. It added that the
KSMTF would launch an agitation unless the Ministry called off its
efforts to implement the CZM notification.

From kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com  Wed Aug  6 17:34:36 2008
From: kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com (Kshmendra Kaul)
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2008 05:04:36 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Reader-list] "India: Band-Aid for cancer" by M J Akbar
Message-ID: <147173.20174.qm@web57213.mail.re3.yahoo.com>

QUOTE FROM THE ARTICLE
 
The innocents have been killed and maimed by terrorists who have Osama Bin Laden as their inspiration. I could produce a spread of direct and indirect evidence,......................The hate literature spawned by the Indian terrorist groups are full of the anti-Hindu venom that is encouraged by organizations like Lashkar-e-Taiba, with its haven in Pakistan.
 
Common sense would suggest that those Indian politicians who claim to have some sympathy for Indian Muslims would seek, in their speeches, to create a distance between this deadly extreme fringe and the broad mass of the community, not only because this was wise but primarily because this was true. Instead, such of their ilk who are in the present government in Delhi have indulged in a curious, and inexplicable, dichotomy.
 
UNQUOTE
 
 
http://arabnews.com/?page=7&section=0&article=112356&d=3&m=8&y=2008&pix=opinion.jpg&category=Opinion%22
 




India: Band-Aid for cancer
M.J. Akbar 

 


In the general elections of 2004 the irrepressible and sometimes irresponsible Lalu Prasad Yadav used to tow around a maulvi when in campaign mode. Nothing particularly wrong with that. Politicians have this tendency to turn mullahs into best friends at election time. What was the particular competence of this maulvi that attracted Lalu Yadav? Was he a great alim, or scholar, erudite in the finer points of Shariah? Was he a fine economist with specialized knowledge in the intricate problems of rural Bihar?
 
The reason was less subtle. He was a lookalike of Osama Bin Laden. He even handed out autographs signed “Osama”.
 
Lalu Yadav sent out two unmissable signals with his thoughtless pandering. He told non-Muslims that the true role model of all Bihar Muslims, irrespective of what they said in their politically-correct avatar, was a person whose name had become synonymous with terrorism. And he told Muslims, particularly their impressionable young, that Osama was a legitimate role model.
 
Did Sonia Gandhi, an ally of Lalu Yadav, question him or even raise the subject? Not a word. Votes were more important, even if they came in the name of Osama Bin Laden. Did the subject arise when Sonia Gandhi offered Lalu Yadav a prominent place in Manmohan Singh’s Cabinet? No.
To be fair to Lalu, this traveling Osama was not by his side in the assembly elections that soon followed the general elections. He had switched over — or, to be more precise, had been purchased by Ram Vilas Paswan. Did the Congress ask questions this time around? Not a chance. Votes, votes, votes: That was the only morality. It was all dismissed as a joke, and the laughter was doubtless very hearty in the comfortable drawing rooms of Lutyens’ Delhi. The joke has soured on the killing fields of Malegaon, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and a roster of cities that could enter the list of dread. The dead do not laugh even when there is a comedian as rich in range as Lalu Yadav.
 
The innocents have been killed and maimed by terrorists who have Osama Bin Laden as their inspiration. I could produce a spread of direct and indirect evidence, from the manifesto of Indian Mujahedeen to the taped speeches of Mohammad Masood Azhar (released by the BJP during the bargain over the hijacked Indian Airlines) to the honorifics used by “commanders” of the terror groups. Maulana Sufiyan Patanigia, once head of the Lal Masjid seminary in Ahmedabad, and now on a revenge mission after the Gujarat carnage of 2002, is known as the Indian Mullah Omar, while his deputy Suhail Khan delights in the nickname “Chhota Osama”. The hate literature spawned by the Indian terrorist groups are full of the anti-Hindu venom that is encouraged by organizations like Lashkar-e-Taiba, with its haven in Pakistan.
 
Common sense would suggest that those Indian politicians who claim to have some sympathy for Indian Muslims would seek, in their speeches, to create a distance between this deadly extreme fringe and the broad mass of the community, not only because this was wise but primarily because this was true. Instead, such of their ilk who are in the present government in Delhi have indulged in a curious, and inexplicable, dichotomy. On the one side the Lalu Yadavs tout an Osama to fuel the worst kind of sentiment. And, on the other, there is what amounts to a complete denial that is inconsistent with facts. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seems to subsist on comfort food, perhaps because the truth is politically indigestible. The most serious instance of comfort food was the formulation he offered to his good friend George W. Bush during the latter’s official visit to India. He said that no Indian Muslim was involved in terrorism, and offered as evidence that you
 could not find any Indian Muslim in Osama’s Al-Qaeda. President Bush, in his wisdom, picked this up as proof of his theory that democracy was a panacea for all ills. Not only did democracies never go to war against one another, but they also managed to secure Indian Muslims from the temptations of terrorism.
 
Manmohan had clearly not consulted his intelligence agencies when he came to such a conclusion. Even a check with the Mumbai courts might have persuaded him otherwise. Indian nationals have been involved in terrorist conspiracies at least since 1993, after the trauma of the demolition of the Babri Mosque and the Congress government’s startling indifference to both its loss and the communal havoc that ensued. It is possible that Manmohan meant well. But self-delusion is not diagnosis. It is perhaps such a frame of mind that takes the government toward a soft view of the guilt of Afzal Guru. Guru has been convicted for possibly the most outrageous attack on the Indian state. His conviction has been confirmed by the Supreme Court. There are no more legal avenues to traverse.
 
Look at this situation from the point of view of the veteran or the prospective terrorist. To start with, he knows that in India there is a lot of crime and very little punishment. If the guilty do get caught, it is often fortuitously. For lesser crimes, corruption is the sanctioned solution. For unforgivable crimes like terrorism, there is a pattern. An incident occurs, and lights flare in media. Worthy dignitaries visit the site and trot off to hospital. The home minister of India repeats the same inane things he has been saying for four years. And then everyone retreats into the default mode of complacency. What is there to worry about? And when an Afzal Guru is caught and convicted, the state dithers. Perhaps this is why the Indian Mujahedeen had the belligerence to taunt the government, through an e-mail (sent before the timers wreaked their damage) that they were Indians and that there was little use in explaining this away with alibis.
 
The most interesting characteristic about homegrown terrorism is the degree of sophistication it has acquired. The Ahmedabad bombings began with an automobile theft in Navi Mumbai; the cars traveled to Surat and Vadodara to pick up their arsenals before reaching Ahmedabad. The detonators were timed to inflict maximum damage on innocents, with a first, second and third tier of victims. This is a large operation from mastermind to foot soldiers, with a foreign connection but an Indian network. If our police cannot fold in a net, then policing has lost all meaning.
 
The battle is in India. India is being poisoned with a cancer. And all the government has as an answer is Band Aid.



From kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com  Wed Aug  6 18:49:29 2008
From: kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com (Kshmendra Kaul)
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2008 06:19:29 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Reader-list] Stay Away,Pandits Told-Telegraph
In-Reply-To: <9c06aab30808040235q560bdd25pa48f6d36849c9303@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <148810.19675.qm@web57206.mail.re3.yahoo.com>

" This is clearly a fringe view in the Valley. The Hizb hardly has any presence left for its warnings to be taken seriously"
 
This comment could have been made only by someone who:
 
(a.) has very little idea of the realities of Kashmir    OR
 
(b.) acts (knowingly or unknowingly) as a mouthpiece for the separatists in Kashmir and in that role regurgitates from publications like 'Greater Kashmir', promoting thereby the separatist agenda      OR
 
(c.) is a complete idiot
 
Shivam Vij certainly qualifies for (a.) and (b.). No wonder he made that comment.
 
 
Kshmendra  


--- On Mon, 8/4/08, Shivam Vij शिवम् <mail at shivamvij.com> wrote:

From: Shivam Vij शिवम् <mail at shivamvij.com>
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Stay Away,Pandits Told-Telegraph
To: "rashneek kher" <rashneek at gmail.com>
Cc: "sarai list" <reader-list at sarai.net>
Date: Monday, August 4, 2008, 3:05 PM

This is clearly a fringe view in the Valley. The Hizb hardly has any
presence left for its warnings to be taken seriously




      

From kashaffairs at yahoo.co.uk  Wed Aug  6 20:07:22 2008
From: kashaffairs at yahoo.co.uk (Kashmir Affairs)
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2008 14:37:22 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: [Reader-list] Stay Away,Pandits Told-Telegraph
In-Reply-To: <148810.19675.qm@web57206.mail.re3.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <841872.64068.qm@web27805.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>

Well! Ahsan Dar does not belong to Hizb and therefore his is definitely a view from fringe or not even that. Hizbul Mujahideen is still present in Kashmir and the only indigenous Kashmiri resistance. Dar left Hizb in early 1991 and formed his own group known as Muslim Mujahideen that later became second counter insurgent group in Kashmir after Ikhwan.
whatever is the case - Dar's statement should be condemned with full force. I remember meeting Dar sahib umpteen times when he was the most wanted man and even doing his first ever interview for the Indian press in early 1991. As Hizb chief he allegedly issued a press statement that time on behalf of Hizb asking Pandits to leave the Valley which added to the fear among the minority.
Many years later, when he was chief of Muslim Mujahideen and was living freely in Srinagar, I asked him about his role in that press release - he feigned ignorance accusing the indian intelligence for issuing it. Strangely it is widely believed that Muslim Mujahideen was formed by the Indian agencies and Dar was fully being supported by the Indian security - an allegation that can be corroborated with much circumstantial evidence. Muslim Mujahideen was later completely taken over the Indian Army.
But now that Dar Sahib has come back from Pakistan after a long hiatus, one wonders whose side is he on? Loyalties in Kashmir often shift faster than wind.
 
Murtaza
 
----
Murtaza Shibli
www.kashmiraffairs.org

--- On Wed, 6/8/08, Kshmendra Kaul <kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Kshmendra Kaul <kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Stay Away,Pandits Told-Telegraph
To: "sarai list" <>
Date: Wednesday, 6 August, 2008, 2:19 PM

" This is clearly a fringe view in the Valley. The Hizb hardly has any
presence left for its warnings to be taken seriously"
 
This comment could have been made only by someone who:
 
(a.) has very little idea of the realities of Kashmir    OR
 
(b.) acts (knowingly or unknowingly) as a mouthpiece for the separatists in
Kashmir and in that role regurgitates from publications like 'Greater
Kashmir', promoting thereby the separatist agenda      OR
 
(c.) is a complete idiot
 
Shivam Vij certainly qualifies for (a.) and (b.). No wonder he made that
comment.
 
 
Kshmendra  


--- On Mon, 8/4/08, Shivam Vij शिवम् <mail at shivamvij.com>
wrote:

From: Shivam Vij शिवम् <mail at shivamvij.com>
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Stay Away,Pandits Told-Telegraph
To: "rashneek kher" <rashneek at gmail.com>
Cc: "sarai list" <reader-list at sarai.net>
Date: Monday, August 4, 2008, 3:05 PM

This is clearly a fringe view in the Valley. The Hizb hardly has any
presence left for its warnings to be taken seriously




      
_________________________________________
reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
Critiques & Collaborations
To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in
the subject header.
To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list 
List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>


      __________________________________________________________
Not happy with your email address?.
Get the one you really want - millions of new email addresses available now at Yahoo! http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/ymail/new.html

From nc-agricowi at netcologne.de  Wed Aug  6 13:49:59 2008
From: nc-agricowi at netcologne.de (artNET)
Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:19:59 +0200
Subject: [Reader-list] =?iso-8859-1?q?=5BAnnouncements=5D_Call_for_entries?=
	=?iso-8859-1?q?=3A_CologneOFF_IV_-_Here_We_Are!?=
Message-ID: <20080806101959.67F6DBBE.2718C6BB@192.168.0.3>

Call for entries: 
deadline: Monday, 1 September 2008 
--------------------------- 
CologneOFF IV - 
4th edition of Cologne Online Film Festival 
http://coff.newmediafest.org
is planned to be launched in November 2008 
under the festival theme: 

Here We Are! - 
"memory" and "identity" in an experimental context 

---------------------------------------------------- 
Entry 
---------------------------------------------------- 
VideoChannel - video project environments 
http://videochannel.newmediafest.org
invites artists and directors for submitting videos/films, 
i.e. narratives and documentations (max 15 min.) 
experimenting with new concepts of transforming artistic contents into moving images, 
new forms of representing und new technologies 

deadline: 1 September 2008 

All entry details and the submission form can be found on 
netEX - networked experience 
http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=238

---------------------------------------------------- 
About CologneOFF 
---------------------------------------------------- 
CologneOFF - Cologne Online Film Festival 
http://coff.newmediafest.org,
founded in 2006 as a new type of mobile film & video festival 
taking place simultaneously online 
and in physical space in cooperation with partner festivals, 
is directed by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne 

The first 3 festival editions 
CologneOFF I - "Identityscapes" - 2006 
CologneOFF II - "Image vs Music" - 2006 
CologneOFF III - "Toon! Toon! - art cartoons and animates narriatives" - 2007 
were presented between 2006 and 2008 in cooperation with festivals 
in India, The Netherlands, Venezuela, Argentina, France 
Serbia, Spain, Poland, Belgium, Turkey, Greece, Mexico, 
Bosnia-Hercegovia and others 

More info on 
http://coff.newmediafest.org
------------------------------------------- 

This call is released by 
netEX - networked experience 
http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/
 
info (at) nmartproject.net

_______________________________________________
announcements mailing list
announcements at sarai.net
https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements

From logos.theword at gmail.com  Thu Aug  7 12:30:23 2008
From: logos.theword at gmail.com (Logos Theatre)
Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 12:30:23 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] reader-list Digest, Vol 61, Issue 14
In-Reply-To: <33bc2ee60808062341gf219918n4fb3c2bd6ebde0d8@mail.gmail.com>
References: <mailman.44374.1217995995.30634.reader-list@sarai.net>
	<33bc2ee60808062341gf219918n4fb3c2bd6ebde0d8@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <33bc2ee60808070000t7a5e7d56hb562fdda433cdcd1@mail.gmail.com>

Dear Vishnu,

Isn't an 'independent' entity supported by corporate money (especially a
rogue outfit like the Tatas) a bit of an oxymoron?

Ah well, one more step in the corporate (mis) appropriation and
institutioanlization of art.

Then again, I don't expect you to respond to this - obviously you've first
had to firmly plant your head in the sand of apathy in order to get your
monthly dole from Mr. Tata's minions.

I wonder if there are going to be 'artistic' endeavours extolling the great,
new people's car, made possible by the TIA?

Lastly, a plea to all those on this list who still are artists, in the real
sense - if the Tatas and their puppets like the IFA represent 'art' in this
country, let's form an India Foundation for the non-Arts, shall we? Our
theatre, after all, has stayed in the holiness and filth of streets, the
breath of the great unwashed - let's relcaim 'theatre' from the venal
casuistry of these foundations and take it back where it belongs!

Meanwhile, the pyre of Tapashi Malik still burns.

Warm regards,
Arka


On 07/08/2008, Logos Theatre <logos.theword at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 23:58:03 +0530 (IST)
> From: VISHNU VARDHAN <thvishnu_viva at yahoo.com>
> Subject: [Reader-list] Launch of the Theatre Infrastructure Cell
> To: reader-list at sarai.net
> Message-ID: <485189.3148.qm at web94910.mail.in2.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Dear Friends and Colleagues,
>
> The
> Arts and Culture team of the Sir Ratan Tata Trust and Allied Trusts
> invites you to the launch of Theatre Infrastructure Cell funded by the
> Lady Navjbai Ratan Tata Trust and set up in collaboration with India
> Foundation for the Arts (IFA), Bangalore.  Please find the invite below.
>
>
>
> Warmly,
> Vishnu
>
>
> India Foundation for the
> Arts
> invites you to the launch of
> the
> Theatre Infrastructure Cell
>
> A joint initiative with the Navajbai Ratan Tata
> Trust
>
> Venue:   United
> Theological
> College, Miller's Road, Bangalore
>
>
>
>
>
> Telephone: 080
> 23333438
> Date:
>   Friday August 8th,
> 2008
> Time:
>   5.00 pm
> RSVP: Vindya –
> vindya at indiaifa.org
> Tele / Fax: 91 80 23414681 /
> 82
>
> The launch event, apart from presenting the work and
> objectives of the TIC, will also feature an open-house discussion involving
> performing artists, production designers, and architects.
>
> Kindly share this invitation with others who may be
> interested in knowing more about this initiative
>
> Background
>
>
>
>
>
> The Navajbai Ratan Tata Trust (NRTT) and
> India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) have jointly set up the Theatre
> Infrastructure Cell (TIC), which aims to work towards strengthening
> infrastructure in the field of performing arts. The Cell will look at
> infrastructure issues holistically and lend advisory support as well as
> monetary
> support to projects on a case-by-case basis. An Advisory Panel consisting
> of
> eminent architects, theatre directors and designers has been set up to
> guide and
> strengthen TIC's work. The panel consists of Bansi Kaul (Theatre Director),
> Himanshu Burte (Architect), Jagan Shah (Architect), Naveen Kishore
> (Publisher
> and Lighting Designer), Sunil Shanbag (Theatre Director), and Vivek
> Patankar
> (Architect and Acoustics Expert).
>
> The  NRTT is an allied trust of the
> Sir Ratan Tata Trust (SRTT) and is one of the leading funding organisations
> of
> Arts and Culture in India. The Tata Trusts' Arts and
> Culture portfolio is committed to strengthening and developing the field of
> arts
> through its diverse programmatic interventions of funding art institutions,
> arts
> initiatives, research in arts, advanced learning in the arts and
> collaborative
> field interventions.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> IFA is an independent, nationwide
> philanthropy, professionally managed, and dedicated to strengthening the
> arts in
> India.  IFA has funded more
> than 225 projects over the last 14 years. It supports research and practice
> leading to films, books, artworks, archives, exhibitions and performances.
> The
> IFA also helps bring the arts into the classroom while funding the
> preservation
> and transmission of valuable cultural knowledge. Another area of its work
> is to
> offer advice, information and expertise related to the Indian
> arts.
>
> Theatre Infrastructure
> Cell
> India Foundation for the Arts
> Bangalore
> (080)
> 23414681/23414682
> Please visit our website www.indiaifa.org
>
>
>
> T. Vishnu Vardhan
>
> (Ph.D)University of Ulster UK - CSCS Bangalore
>
> Consultant, Arts and Culture Programme,
>
> Sir Ratan Tata Trust.
>
>
>
> #466, 9th Cross, I Block
>
> Jayanagar, Bangalore - 11.
>
> Tel: +91 80 26562986
>
> Mobile: +91 9845207308
>
>
>      Unlimited freedom, unlimited storage. Get it now, on
> http://help.yahoo.com/l/in/yahoo/mail/yahoomail/tools/tools-08.html/
>
> ------------------------------
> --
> Logos Theatre
>           In the beginning was the word
> No. 126,
> 3rd Main Road,
> Jayamahal Extension,
> Bangalore 560046
> --------------------------------------------------------
> If it be now, 'tis not to come;
> if it be not to come, it will be now;
> if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all.
> Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes?
> Let be.




-- 
Logos Theatre
          In the beginning was the word
No. 126,
3rd Main Road,
Jayamahal Extension,
Bangalore 560046
--------------------------------------------------------
If it be now, 'tis not to come;
if it be not to come, it will be now;
if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all.
Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes?
Let be.

From radhikarajen at vsnl.net  Thu Aug  7 13:22:18 2008
From: radhikarajen at vsnl.net (radhikarajen at vsnl.net)
Date: Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:52:18 +0500
Subject: [Reader-list] "India: Band-Aid for cancer" by M J Akbar
In-Reply-To: <147173.20174.qm@web57213.mail.re3.yahoo.com>
References: <147173.20174.qm@web57213.mail.re3.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <e29accddcefb.489af002@vsnl.net>

It is well known fact that the politicians like lalu, Mulayam and Sonia with their psuedo secular facade really do not care or are concerned about welfare of muslims or to that matter any citizens of any community. All these "leaders" aspire is their own safety and comforts in power, at any cost.

   It is to be noted that muslims in general do not want a state of unsafe and terrorised living in the nation. Their leaders have time and again failed them by  use of fear psychosis against BJP and propaganda that "secular" parties are not communal in their vote bank politics and thus put the muslims in ghetto mentality. Laalu and Mulayam can talk about and against BJP only on three issues, -- the demolition of a old dilapidated building known as babri masjid, Bangaru in the sting by tehelka seen taking a lakh of rupee for "the new year party" being given by pimps and prostitutes of tehelka in neo sting operation of journalism, and ofccourse about gujarath riots where both hindus and muslim rioters were shot for the riot acts with these leaders having soft corner for muslim rioters. !

  The very fact that the home ministry and its officials could not put up facts about SIMI and its acts of terror by proper documentation tells citizens a bigger story just as the few channels are on over drive with huge adrevenue about "dreams " of delhi, released to certain channels only at crores of adrevenue to these favourite channels for whatever it takes. A home minister, who is as a speaker supposed to be above party politics, Shivaraj patil, now Home minister talking politics on national security is a national shame, as he has nothing to loose as he has lost credibility with loss in elections , now nominated to rajyasabha, thanks to his Madam. PM who is again, a nominated PM, with defence minister again nominated, madam on sojourn to Beijing, who is interested in national interests and security of citizens. ?

----- Original Message -----
From: Kshmendra Kaul <kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com>
Date: Wednesday, August 6, 2008 5:36 pm
Subject: [Reader-list] "India: Band-Aid for cancer" by M J Akbar
To: sarai list <reader-list at sarai.net>

> QUOTE FROM THE ARTICLE
>  
> The innocents have been killed and maimed by terrorists who have 
> Osama Bin Laden as their inspiration. I could produce a spread of 
> direct and indirect evidence,......................The hate 
> literature spawned by the Indian terrorist groups are full of the 
> anti-Hindu venom that is encouraged by organizations like Lashkar-
> e-Taiba, with its haven in Pakistan.
>  
> Common sense would suggest that those Indian politicians who claim 
> to have some sympathy for Indian Muslims would seek, in their 
> speeches, to create a distance between this deadly extreme fringe 
> and the broad mass of the community, not only because this was 
> wise but primarily because this was true. Instead, such of their 
> ilk who are in the present government in Delhi have indulged in a 
> curious, and inexplicable, dichotomy.
>  
> UNQUOTE
>  
>  
> http://arabnews.com/?page=7&section=0&article=112356&d=3&m=8&y=2008&pix=opinion.jpg&category=Opinion%22
>  
> 
> 
> 
> 
> India: Band-Aid for cancer
> M.J. Akbar 
> 
>  
> 
> 
> In the general elections of 2004 the irrepressible and sometimes 
> irresponsible Lalu Prasad Yadav used to tow around a maulvi when 
> in campaign mode. Nothing particularly wrong with that. 
> Politicians have this tendency to turn mullahs into best friends 
> at election time. What was the particular competence of this 
> maulvi that attracted Lalu Yadav? Was he a great alim, or scholar, 
> erudite in the finer points of Shariah? Was he a fine economist 
> with specialized knowledge in the intricate problems of rural Bihar?
>  
> The reason was less subtle. He was a lookalike of Osama Bin Laden. 
> He even handed out autographs signed “Osama”.
>  
> Lalu Yadav sent out two unmissable signals with his thoughtless 
> pandering. He told non-Muslims that the true role model of all 
> Bihar Muslims, irrespective of what they said in their politically-
> correct avatar, was a person whose name had become synonymous with 
> terrorism. And he told Muslims, particularly their impressionable 
> young, that Osama was a legitimate role model.
>  
> Did Sonia Gandhi, an ally of Lalu Yadav, question him or even 
> raise the subject? Not a word. Votes were more important, even if 
> they came in the name of Osama Bin Laden. Did the subject arise 
> when Sonia Gandhi offered Lalu Yadav a prominent place in Manmohan 
> Singh’s Cabinet? No.
> To be fair to Lalu, this traveling Osama was not by his side in 
> the assembly elections that soon followed the general elections. 
> He had switched over — or, to be more precise, had been purchased 
> by Ram Vilas Paswan. Did the Congress ask questions this time 
> around? Not a chance. Votes, votes, votes: That was the only 
> morality. It was all dismissed as a joke, and the laughter was 
> doubtless very hearty in the comfortable drawing rooms of Lutyens’ 
> Delhi. The joke has soured on the killing fields of Malegaon, 
> Hyderabad, Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and a roster of cities 
> that could enter the list of dread. The dead do not laugh even 
> when there is a comedian as rich in range as Lalu Yadav.
>  
> The innocents have been killed and maimed by terrorists who have 
> Osama Bin Laden as their inspiration. I could produce a spread of 
> direct and indirect evidence, from the manifesto of Indian 
> Mujahedeen to the taped speeches of Mohammad Masood Azhar 
> (released by the BJP during the bargain over the hijacked Indian 
> Airlines) to the honorifics used by “commanders” of the terror 
> groups. Maulana Sufiyan Patanigia, once head of the Lal Masjid 
> seminary in Ahmedabad, and now on a revenge mission after the 
> Gujarat carnage of 2002, is known as the Indian Mullah Omar, while 
> his deputy Suhail Khan delights in the nickname “Chhota Osama”. 
> The hate literature spawned by the Indian terrorist groups are 
> full of the anti-Hindu venom that is encouraged by organizations 
> like Lashkar-e-Taiba, with its haven in Pakistan.
>  
> Common sense would suggest that those Indian politicians who claim 
> to have some sympathy for Indian Muslims would seek, in their 
> speeches, to create a distance between this deadly extreme fringe 
> and the broad mass of the community, not only because this was 
> wise but primarily because this was true. Instead, such of their 
> ilk who are in the present government in Delhi have indulged in a 
> curious, and inexplicable, dichotomy. On the one side the Lalu 
> Yadavs tout an Osama to fuel the worst kind of sentiment. And, on 
> the other, there is what amounts to a complete denial that is 
> inconsistent with facts. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seems to 
> subsist on comfort food, perhaps because the truth is politically 
> indigestible. The most serious instance of comfort food was the 
> formulation he offered to his good friend George W. Bush during 
> the latter’s official visit to India. He said that no Indian 
> Muslim was involved in terrorism, and offered as evidence that you
> could not find any Indian Muslim in Osama’s Al-Qaeda. President 
> Bush, in his wisdom, picked this up as proof of his theory that 
> democracy was a panacea for all ills. Not only did democracies 
> never go to war against one another, but they also managed to 
> secure Indian Muslims from the temptations of terrorism.
>  
> Manmohan had clearly not consulted his intelligence agencies when 
> he came to such a conclusion. Even a check with the Mumbai courts 
> might have persuaded him otherwise. Indian nationals have been 
> involved in terrorist conspiracies at least since 1993, after the 
> trauma of the demolition of the Babri Mosque and the Congress 
> government’s startling indifference to both its loss and the 
> communal havoc that ensued. It is possible that Manmohan meant 
> well. But self-delusion is not diagnosis. It is perhaps such a 
> frame of mind that takes the government toward a soft view of the 
> guilt of Afzal Guru. Guru has been convicted for possibly the most 
> outrageous attack on the Indian state. His conviction has been 
> confirmed by the Supreme Court. There are no more legal avenues to 
> traverse. 
> Look at this situation from the point of view of the veteran or 
> the prospective terrorist. To start with, he knows that in India 
> there is a lot of crime and very little punishment. If the guilty 
> do get caught, it is often fortuitously. For lesser crimes, 
> corruption is the sanctioned solution. For unforgivable crimes 
> like terrorism, there is a pattern. An incident occurs, and lights 
> flare in media. Worthy dignitaries visit the site and trot off to 
> hospital. The home minister of India repeats the same inane things 
> he has been saying for four years. And then everyone retreats into 
> the default mode of complacency. What is there to worry about? And 
> when an Afzal Guru is caught and convicted, the state dithers. 
> Perhaps this is why the Indian Mujahedeen had the belligerence to 
> taunt the government, through an e-mail (sent before the timers 
> wreaked their damage) that they were Indians and that there was 
> little use in explaining this away with alibis.
>  
> The most interesting characteristic about homegrown terrorism is 
> the degree of sophistication it has acquired. The Ahmedabad 
> bombings began with an automobile theft in Navi Mumbai; the cars 
> traveled to Surat and Vadodara to pick up their arsenals before 
> reaching Ahmedabad. The detonators were timed to inflict maximum 
> damage on innocents, with a first, second and third tier of 
> victims. This is a large operation from mastermind to foot 
> soldiers, with a foreign connection but an Indian network. If our 
> police cannot fold in a net, then policing has lost all meaning.
>  
> The battle is in India. India is being poisoned with a cancer. And 
> all the government has as an answer is Band Aid.
> 
> 
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with 
> subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-
> list 
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From mailponni at gmail.com  Thu Aug  7 14:20:00 2008
From: mailponni at gmail.com (ponni arasu)
Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 14:20:00 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: 'Researching Gender: Women and History': A
	Discussion with V Geetha
In-Reply-To: <6ca6ba0f0808061026x60c15fbdn2cf23425423fe583@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6ca6ba0f0808061026x60c15fbdn2cf23425423fe583@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20d6b7240808070150s6cfa764dy3a618fbf4b04a0c5@mail.gmail.com>

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: History Association <thehistoryassociation at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 10:56 PM
Subject: 'Researching Gender: Women and History': A Discussion with V Geetha
To: Yogesh Sharma <yogesher at hotmail.com>, yengkhom at gmail.com,
vishamenon at gmail.com, vijukrishnan at gmail.com, vaidik at yahoo.com,
umesh.kadampanad at gmail.com, toatulonly at gmail.com, tanvy-k at yahoo.com,
tanu9verma at yahoo.co.in, susmita19 at gmail.com, susantajnu at rediffmail.com,
surbhim20 at yahoo.com, Supriya Varma <varma.supriya at gmail.com>,
sumitsarkar_2001 at yahoo.co.in, sukanya.mitra at gmail.com, Sucheta Mahajan <
mahajan_sucheta at yahoo.com>, subir_dey16 at yahoo.com,
srupakheti at history.rutgers.edu, srinivasdusi at yahoo.com,
snigdha_vk at hotmail.com, snajafhaider at yahoo.co.in, siva.kavita at gmail.com,
singhdhrubkumar at rediffmail.com, shynithandasseriyil at yahoo.com,
shubhrachakrabarti at yahoo.com, shreya_c10 at hotmail.com,
shravan_narayan at rediffmail.com, shonaleeka.kaul at yale.edu, shijusam at gmail.com,
shalini64_shah at rediffmail.com, shailka_16 at yahoo.co.in,
sguha at history.rutgers.edu, sarojbangaru at yahoo.co.in,
sanjukta.sunderason at gmail.com, sanahal_169 at yahoo.co.in, samira.jnu at gmail.com,
saher.mahmood at gmail.com, saagartewari at gmail.com, Saagarika Dadu <
saagaryka at gmail.com>, roopalprakash at yahoo.co.in, rochisha_n at yahoo.com,
ritupangoswami at gmail.com, rinkupegu at rediffmail.com,
richasinhblue at yahoo.co.in, resis2imp at yahoo.co.in, Ranabir Chakravarty <
ranabirchsjnu at gmail.com>, ramanb at umich.edu, rajni.du at rediffmail.com,
rajatdatta at mail.jnu.ac.in, rahulishwar at yahoo.com,
radhikagovindrajan at gmail.com, radhika_singha at yahoo.co.in,
r_itupan at yahoo.co.uk, queeny.singh at gmail.com, qajnu at yahoo.com,
psamarendra at hotmail.com, progarbage at yahoo.com, pravat_g at rediffmail.com,
prathamabanerjee at gmail.com, prabodhanpol at rediffmail.com,
prabhuayan at gmail.com, postlipok at rediffmail.com, postbodhi at yahoo.co.in,
pkdatta at cssscal.org, pkbasant at rediffmail.com, persaudk at gmail.com,
paulamigb at rediffmail.com, parthodatta at gmail.com, parth shil <
parthoshil at gmail.com>, ostbodhi at yahoo.co.in, nut_ta_nan at yahoo.com,
noopurhoney at gmail.com, nilendrabardiar at gmail.com, neeladri1 at gmail.com,
narayanigupta at rediffmail.com, Nandita P Sahay <nandita-p-sahai at yahoo.com>,
nandinisundar at yahoo.com, mudit.trivedi at gmail.com, msgunarathne at yahoo.com,
mridulaaditya at gmail.com, mohiyarmoon at gmail.com, milianand5 at rediffmail.com,
mekhola.gomes at gmail.com, Meha Mathur <mehamathur at gmail.com>,
meghna.chowdhuri at gmail.com, megha24shukla at yahoo.com, meetnandi at hotmail.com,
meeravis at gmail.com, medhasaxena at gmail.com, mario.dpenha at gmail.com,
mandakini_devasher at hotmail.com, malekandathil at yahoo.co.in,
mailponni at gmail.com, mahmood.farooqui at gmail.com, Mahalakshmi <
mahaarakesh at gmail.com>, m_sharma13 at hotmail.com, lohiajs at yahoo.com,
lakshmi_arya at mail.com, kumkumr at yahoo.com, kumargagan at yahoo.com,
khannameenakshi at gmail.com, jyoti_kumari123 at yahoo.co.in, Jyoti Atwal <
Jyoti_atwal at mail.jnu.ac.in>, justinjnu at gmail.com, jpachuau at mail.jnu.ac.in,
joy_pachuau at yahoo.com, johntea80 at gmail.com, jaya.mitra6 at gmail.com,
indu at cwds.org, indivar at mail.jnu.ac.in, ikamtekar at yahoo.com,
icarus.sen at googlemail.com, History Association <
thehistoryassociation at gmail.com>, Hiraman Tiwari <htiwari at mail.jnu.ac.in>,
haconference at gmail.com, H P Ray <hpray at mail.jnu.ac.in>,
gayatri.goswami at gmail.com, gaganjnu at yahoo.com, funkytripti at yahoo.com,
flying_ranee at yahoo.co.in, fatima.kakul at gmail.com, dwivedimamta at gmail.com,
dknitenine at hotmail.com, Divya Cherian <divyacherian at gmail.com>,
discoverie at gmail.com, Dilbagh Singh <dilbagh_singh1945 at yahoo.co.in>,
dil1962 at yahoo.com, devikashankar at hotmail.com, Devika Sethi <
devikasethi at hotmail.com>, deepshikha.gr at gmail.com,
deepasribaul at rediffmail.com, dasdebjani at gmail.com, chsjnu at yahoo.com,
chitrajos at gmail.com, chatterjee at history.rutgers.edu, charu876 at hotmail.com,
chadharadhika at gmail.com, burton cleetus <cleetusburton at rediffmail.com>,
bodhisattva.kar at gmail.com, binmenen at gmail.com, bidisha_24 dhar <
bidisha_24 at hotmail.com>, bhochka at googlemail.com, bham17mj at gmail.com, Bhagwan
Josh <bhagwanjosh at hotmail.com>, bev.b66 at gmail.com, benaseer at gmail.com,
bdchattopadhyaya at googlemail.com, bandanirban at gmail.com,
astral.sonam at gmail.com, arvindsinha4 at yahoo.uk, Arvind Sinha <
arvindsinha4 at yahoo.co.uk>, archieprasad at gmail.com,
aparna_balachandran at yahoo.com, anya at bgl.vsnl.net.in, anna_t_257 at yahoo.com,
anish.vanaik at gmail.com, anirbanghoshpresi at gmail.com,
anandaroop_sen at hotmail.com, amiyasen at hotmail.com, aminshahid at gmail.com,
aks850 at hotmail.com, aks_mishy at yahoo.com, ajita2001in at yahoo.co.in,
ahmnash at gmail.com, adityapant at gmail.com, aditya_goenka at hotmail.com,
adipant at yahoo.co.in, addyjam at gmail.com, Abhimanyu_Arha at yahoo.com,
ab1232 at columbia.edu


* *

* *

* *

* *

* *

* *

* *

* *

*THE HISTORY ASSOCIATION*

*CENTRE FOR HISTORICAL STUDIES*

* *





INVITES YOU FOR

A DISCUSSION ON





*RESEARCHING GENDER:*

*WOMEN AND HISTORY*



with



V. Geetha





3.00 pm

8 Aug.'08
Room No. 001
CHS Committee Room

School Of Social Sciences-I

* *

*__________________________*

*V. Geetha* is a writer, translator, social historian, activist and a
freelance editor with a number of small research journals. A leading
intellectual from Tamil Nadu, she has been active in the Indian women's
movement since 1988, organising workshops and conferences. V. Geetha has
written widely, both in Tamil and English, on gender, popular culture,
caste, and politics of Tamil Nadu.

* *



- -- 
Calvin: I wonder if you can refuse to inherit the world...
Hobbes: I think if your born its too late.

From arundhatighosh at indiaifa.org  Thu Aug  7 15:27:53 2008
From: arundhatighosh at indiaifa.org (Arundhati)
Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 15:27:53 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] A suggestion for Arka
Message-ID: <00f701c8f874$123d9660$fa01a8c0@Arundhati>

Arka,

I have been reading some of the stuff that you have been writing on the Sarai list - your opinions about the Tatas and IFA - which is supported in its various programmes by institutions like the Tata Trusts, the Ford Foundation and many other organisations and individuals who find IFA's work worth supporting. 

You have suggested to artists not to accept funds from organisations that are supported with money 'tainted' because of its source ( which makes almost all money tainted if you really look hard and find the 'source' where it originally came from one way or the other). 

I recall that you have received an award of Rs 25,000 (Rupees Twenty five Thousand) from Toto Funds the Arts (TFA), for creative writing in Feb 2008. TFA is an organisation that is mainly funded by individuals like me, Mr Suresh Kumar, and many others who believe that TFA is doing great work supporting young artists. Both Suresh and me work for IFA, an organisation supported by the Tata Trusts thus our source of money that we donate to TFA is tainted as well according to your logic. As a donor to TFA, I would suggest to you to return the award to TFA if you want to really walk your talk. 

While you may find it more convenient to sit in Bangalore and 'email' protest campaigns against the Tatas and not really go down to Singur and Nandigram with hundreds of young people in Kolkata who are really trying to understand and engage with the issues there, the least you can do is practice what you preach.

Arundhati
(works at IFA, supported by the Tata Trusts among many, donates to TFA) 

From southasiannews11 at gmail.com  Thu Aug  7 11:04:56 2008
From: southasiannews11 at gmail.com (Fosaactv )
Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 01:34:56 -0400
Subject: [Reader-list] Circus of SAARC : why it is a total failure
Message-ID: <A59A55DE62804DA2BF02EE9174B3D35E@CT520>


From kj.impulse at gmail.com  Wed Aug  6 19:28:56 2008
From: kj.impulse at gmail.com (Kavita Joshi)
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2008 19:28:56 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] [DFA NewsLetter] Fwd: a deal for life
 & freedom - invite to the film screening and photo exhibition on 9 august
 2008
In-Reply-To: <d03f024f0808060040y64ccb824leac221ed588abdc4@mail.gmail.com>
References: <fc949d480808050219o4515ed83vb6863dfd7afcf3@mail.gmail.com>
	<fc949d480808050223h6aec4d86vc5a2147406faf8e0@mail.gmail.com>
	<d03f024f0808060040y64ccb824leac221ed588abdc4@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <821019d70808060658x3ef4e414u74d2050180b985e4@mail.gmail.com>


Dear friends,

August is a month for remembrance and celebration. 6th marks
Hiroshima; 9th marks Nagasaki and the International Day for World's
Indigenous People; 15th is India's Independence Day; and 30th is the
International Day for World's Disappeared Persons.


We invite you for a day long Kriti Film Club screenings organised in
collaboration with Delhi Solidarity Group (DSG) and Sangat. The
detailed programme is pasted below.

We hope you can make it!
Please circulate this widely.

In solidarity,
Mamata




A Deal for Life and Freedom


- screenings by Kriti Film Club

organised by Kriti team

in collaboration with Delhi Solidarity Group

supported by Sangat

on 9th of August 2008, 10.00 am onwards

at WWF Auditorium, Lodi Estate, New Delhi


 10.00 - 10.30 am: Welcome and Programme for the day

 Films Session 1:

Remembering Hiroshima-Nagasaki

 10.30 - 11.00 am

Ek Khubsurat Jahaz

Gauhar Raza/ 19 Min/ Hindi with Eng sub-titles

 Why Are Nuclear Weapons Important?

Miranda Haley/ 10 mins/ Eng

 America America

K.P. Sasi/ 4 mins/ Music video/English

 11.00 am – 12.45 pm

Hiroshima

Paul Wilmshurst & George Anton/ 1 Hour 32 Minutes/ Eng

Ribbons for Peace

Anand Patwardhan/ 4 mins/ Hindi

12.45 – 1.00 pm: Discussion


1.00 – 2.00 pm: Break

 Films Session 2:

Solidarity with Ajay TG

 2.00 – 2.45 pm: Films and Discussion

New State; Old problems

Ajay TG/ 10mins 43sec / English narration

 Anjam

Ajay TG/ 20 mins 41 sec / English

 The Other Side of the Mirror

Ajay TG/ 7mins 26sec


Films Session 3: Solidarity with the Burmese and Tibetan People

 2.45 – 3.45 pm:

The Face

Amar Kanwar/ 9 mins/ English

 Military Rule, People's Aspirations and Human Rights in Burma

30 mins/ English

 Bullets and Butterflies

Sushmit Ghosh/ 15 mins/ English

 3.45 – 4.00 pm: Discussion




4.00 – 4.15 pm: Break


Films Session 4: Indigenous People's Struggles

 4.15 pm – 4.30 pm:

Shot Dead for Development

Sarasi Das & Surya Shankar Dash/ 1 minute/ Animation

 The Lament of Niyamraja - a dongria kond song

Surya Shankar Dash/ 13 min/ Kui

 4.30 – 6.15 pm:

Niyamgiri-The Mountain of Law

Samadrusti TV and Surya Shankar Dash/ 100 min/ Local language with
English sub-titles

 6.15 – 6.30 pm: Discussion

 6.30 – 7.30 pm:

Chengara: slums to agri-land

Samkutty pattomkary/ 54 mins/ Local language with English sub-titles



7.30 – 8.00 pm: Discussion and Closure

 On the side

¥       Niyamgiri tribals Photo exhibition

¥       Burmese people's struggle exhibition

¥       Stalls of participating groups with materials related to theme


Kriti Film Club is an independent documentary viewing and sharing
initiative of Kriti team, which works as a support group on
development and human rights. Such screenings are organised in
solidarity and support to the issues and movements in question.

Sangat, created in 1998 is a South Asian feminist network of like
minded women working for sustainable livelihoods, gender equality,
human rights, peace, secularism and democracy.

Delhi Solidarity Group is an informal formation of several movement
support groups and individuals based in New Delhi.

Thanks to the Release Ajay TG campaign, the Burmese and Niyamgiri
support groups and other film makers whose films are part of this
programme.




 Contact:

Aanchal Kapur/ Mamata Dash

Phone: +91-11-2602 7845/ 2603 3088/ 9868259836
Email: space.kriti at gmail.com

Web access - http://krititeam.blogspot.com

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From mitoo at sarai.net  Thu Aug  7 12:48:33 2008
From: mitoo at sarai.net (Mitoo Das)
Date: Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:48:33 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] REMINDER- Talk @ Sarai by Krishnendu
	Ray
Message-ID: <489AA1C9.90200@sarai.net>

Hi all,
This is a reminder for the talk we have tomorrow afternoon by Krishnendu 
Ray.
The details for the talk are given below.
Best,
Mitoo.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Making the Edible Legible: American Restaurants in Print, 1830-2006

Talk by: Dr. Krishnendu Ray
Venue: Seminar Room, Sarai-CSDS
Date: 8th August
Time: 3:30 pm

Cuisine happens when cooking leaves the kitchen, in the first instance 
when it escapes the domestic kitchen, and in the second instance, when 
it spreads onto the print media to give durability to the talk about 
taste. Based on detailed archival work and quantitative data this 
presentation seeks to measure the talk about restaurants in American 
newspapers from its first appearance in 1830 to the present. The 
restaurant kitchen is the space of mongrel borderland – an orality of 
Hispanidad, Bengali, Cantonese, and Hakka – and the dining room a 
pedigreed and printed Anglophone parlor with Francophile accents. This 
work looks at taste and toil as a dynamic, dialogic relationship between 
producers and consumers of commodified cuisine.


Krishnendu Ray is Assistant Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies and 
Public Health at New York University. He is the author of The Migrants' 
Table (Temple Univ Press, 2004), and has taught for a decade at the 
Culinary Institute of America.
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https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements

From surabhip at himalmag.com  Thu Aug  7 11:48:22 2008
From: surabhip at himalmag.com (Surabhi)
Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 12:03:22 +0545
Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] HIMAL SOUTHASIAN CARTOON COMPETITION
	- DEADLINE	APPROACHING
Message-ID: <005c01c8f855$70ed7d20$8300a8c0@surabhip>

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

06 August 2008

 

 

HIMAL SOUTHASIAN CARTOON COMPETITION

DEADLINE APPROACHING 



Hurry! The countdown begins. Only twenty-four days remaining. The deadline for the Southasian Cartoon Competition organised by Himal Southasian, the only regional magazine, published from Kathmandu, is approaching. In every country, state, province, city, village and society as well as across Southasia, there is a dramatically growing divide. To explore the various aspects of this gulf, Himal invites cartoonists to submit works on the subject Dramatic Divide: The distance between the powerful and the powerless. Established artists, wannabe cartoonists, new entrants and freelancers are all welcome, as long as the topic is relevant to Southasia. 

 

A cash prize of USD 1000 will be awarded to the winning entrant, with USD 500 for the first runner-up, as well as publication of cartoons in Himal. All short-listed candidates will receive citations. Winning candidates will also be flown to Kathmandu for the Southasian Cartoon Congress in November, where the prize will be announced. The closing date for submission is Monday, 1 September. 

 

Visit www.himalmag.com for full details and regular updates on the competition. Please contact surabhip at himalmag.com for queries.  
 
-------------- next part --------------
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From pratilipi.in at gmail.com  Fri Aug  8 10:21:46 2008
From: pratilipi.in at gmail.com (Pratilipi)
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 10:21:46 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] The August 2008 issue of Pratilipi is now online.
In-Reply-To: <435290ba0808070928t61c4799bqe0d30e94d74eb20b@mail.gmail.com>
References: <5cc6bcd80808070528o7732014h1bb63e7b6cd3373e@mail.gmail.com>
	<5cc6bcd80808070851h403adba1t9011b81d5da9883@mail.gmail.com>
	<435290ba0808070928t61c4799bqe0d30e94d74eb20b@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <435290ba0808072151n4269b5d7p78ede4d569289897@mail.gmail.com>

प्रतिलिपि <http://pratilipi.in> का तीसरा अंक अब ऑनलाइन है.
The third issue of Pratilipi <http://pratilipi.in/> is now online.

http://pratilipi.in

शीर्ष आलेख / LEAD ARTICLE

   - History, Literature, Beliefs: Sudhir Chandra / इतिहास, साहित्य,
   आस्थाएं: सुधीर चंद्र [link <http://pratilipi.in/?p=475>]



फीचर्स / FEATURES

   - Reading Olav Hauge: Rustam (Singh) / हाउगे को पढ़ते हुए: रुस्तम (सिंह)
   [link <http://pratilipi.in/?p=410>]

   - परिवार पुराण: मिथिलेश मुकर्जी / Parivaar Puraan: Mithilesh Mukerjee [
   link <http://pratilipi.in/?p=414>]

   - Gesture Projects: Michael Buckley / जेस्चर और सिनेमा पर माइकल बकले [
   link <http://pratilipi.in/?p=407>]

   - सोनमछरी मेँ सखामण्डल: वागीश शुक्ल / *Sonmachhari mein Sakhamandal*:
   Excerpts from Wagish Shukla's novel. [link <http://pratilipi.in/?p=706>]

   - To be Regardful of the Earth: Rustam (Singh) / रूस्तम (सिंह) का
   दार्शनिक आलेख [link <http://pratilipi.in/?p=326>]

   - Wall Paintings by Meena Women: Madan Meena / मीणा स्त्रियों की
   चित्रकला: मदन मीणा [link <http://pratilipi.in/?p=330>]

कथा / FICTION

   - सुमना रॉय / Sumana Roy [link <http://pratilipi.in/?p=314>]

   - मालचन्द तिवाड़ी / Malchand Tiwari [link <http://pratilipi.in/?p=413>]

   - मीना अरोड़ा नायक / Meena Arora Nayak [link <http://pratilipi.in/?p=468>]

   - पीयूष दईया / Piyush Daiya [link <http://pratilipi.in/?p=408>]

   - कुंवर नारायण / Kunwar Narain [link <http://pratilipi.in/?p=467>]

कथेत्तर / NON-FICTION

   - वार्ताकार की वाणीः हकु शाह और पीयूष दईया / Piyush Daiya in conversation
   with Haku Shah [link <http://pratilipi.in/?p=329>]

   - A Necessary Poem: Teji Grover / अनिवार्य कविता: तेजी ग्रोवर
[link<http://pratilipi.in/?p=322>
   ]

   - An Initiation to Sexuality in Almodovar's Films: Sameer Rawal /
   आल्मोदोवार के सिनेमा पर समीर रावल [link <http://pratilipi.in/?p=328>]

   - '१८५७ - सामान की तलाश' की एक पढ़त: राजेश कुमार शर्मा / A Reading of
   "1857: Saamaan ki Talaash": Rajesh Kumar Sharma
[link<http://pratilipi.in/?p=482>
   ]

   - A Preface to Mourning: Chandra Prakash Deval / किस्सा कोताह यह कि:
   चंद्रप्रकाश देवल [link <http://pratilipi.in/?p=484>]

कविता / *POETRY*

   - शुन्तारो तानीकावा / Shuntaro Tanikawa [link<http://pratilipi.in/?p=317>
   ]

   - नंदकिशोर आचार्य / Nandkishore Acharya [link<http://pratilipi.in/?p=319>
   ]

   - सुकृता पाल कुमार / Sukrita Paul Kumar [link<http://pratilipi.in/?p=324>
   ]

   - अंजुम हसन / Anjum Hasan [link <http://pratilipi.in/?p=321>]

   - मीना कंदसामी / Meena Kandasamy [link <http://pratilipi.in/?p=327>]

   - शैलेन्द्र दुबे / Shailendra Dubey [link <http://pratilipi.in/?p=320>]

   - श्रीदला स्वामी / Sridala Swami [link <http://pratilipi.in/?p=313>]

   - अदिति मचाडो / Aditi Machado [link <http://pratilipi.in/?p=318>]

   - आरुणी कश्यप / Aruni Kashyap [link <http://pratilipi.in/?p=316>]

   - ऊलाव हाउगे / Olav Hauge [link <http://pratilipi.in/?p=409>]

   - असद ज़ैदी / Asad Zaidi [link <http://pratilipi.in/?p=323>]

   - चंद्र प्रकाश देवल / Chandra Prakash Deval [link<http://pratilipi.in/?p=504>
   ]



Regards,

Giriraj Kiradoo and Rahul Soni (Editors)
Shiv Kumar Gandhi (Art Editor)

From blueskyandus at rediffmail.com  Fri Aug  8 10:19:28 2008
From: blueskyandus at rediffmail.com (tangella  madhavi)
Date: 8 Aug 2008 04:49:28 -0000
Subject: [Reader-list] [Announcements] RAGGING film--change in telecast time
Message-ID: <20080808044928.1424.qmail@f5mail-236-230.rediffmail.com>

  
Hi!
Doordarshan has postponed the telecast of
Listen Little Man

It will now be screened on DD News
on 16th August at 10.30pm.

Please do watch it and let others know.
Sorry for the inconvenience.

Regards
Tangella Madhavi 



Listen Little Man explores the tradition of ragging
through the experiences of those students have protested
against it. What unfolds is a connection between ragging
and larger forms of violence in society emerging from
following orders without questioning them.


Listen Little Man  (28mins, 2007)

Direction n Location Sound: Tangella Madhavi
Camera, Editing:            Pankaj Rishi Kumar
Sound Mixing:              Pritam Das
Research n Production:      Priyanka Desai
Producer:                  PSBT
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From logos.theword at gmail.com  Fri Aug  8 12:33:17 2008
From: logos.theword at gmail.com (Logos Theatre)
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 12:33:17 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] A suggestion for Arka
Message-ID: <33bc2ee60808080003q136ae9d4t2694b993b67fcf83@mail.gmail.com>

>
> Dear Arundhati,

           Thank you for your retort, which proves that even the mighty IFA
(in the person of you, its deputy director), needs to bestir itself to quell
voices of dissent that challenge its monopoly as the high priest of high art
in this country. Interesting, how the high and mighty tend to be also
mightily thin - skinned. You also sent me the same mail to my private ID. I
have told you in my reply there that as far as TFA is concerned, you have
brought something intensely personal into a very public space, and I shall
not stoop to the bait of responding to that here. If that gives you a sense
of triumph, so be it. There are other parts of your mail which, however, I
will respond to. So here goes:


*Arka,
>
> I have been reading some of the stuff that you have been writing on the
> Sarai list - your opinions about the Tatas and IFA - which is supported in
> its various programmes by institutions like the Tata Trusts, the Ford
> Foundation and many other organisations and individuals who find IFA's work
> worth supporting.*


             You start off by being an apologist for the Tatas. Good! The
basic message of my tirade is not about the quality of IFA's work and
whether it's worth supporting - as I have said here on an earlier occasion,
that's worth another debate by itself. But while on  that, yes, I do think
IFA on the whole funds ivory tower art that has no locus of significance
outside its incestuous little circle of mutual back-patting. Further, it
renders a disservice to the cause of true artistic enquiry by imposing a
hierarchy of academic elitism, thereby snuffing out the voices of true
practitioners who are not interested in spewing academic gobbledygook. Which
is not to say that it has not funded genuninely invigorating artistic
endeavours - it has. About Ram by Katkatha immediately comes to mind. But
for the most part, it perpetuates dinosaurs and living fossils and turns a
deaf ear to younger, emergent voices, unless such voices have the
appropriate 'brand tags'. So yes, on the whole IFA promotes art that is
spurious and dishonest. And this is not my viewpoint alone, but something
shared by many, many practitioners who are in touch with the grassroots. As
examples of people who by dint of their work should, by any system of logic,
have got artistic funding; Parnab Mukherjee, Pritam Koilpillai and Abhishek
Majumdar spring readily to mind.
                 However, my basic point was that art cannot exist in a
moral vaccum. Art that is created with dirty money is, I'm sorry to say, not
art. If today you turn a blind eye to the Tatas' misdeeds (Ford of course is
no shining exemplar of ethics either), will you turn an equally blind eye to
Dow Chemicals if they offer you a juicy little dole tomorrow? Going by your
stance, I suppose the answer is quite evident. My respect for IFA would have
been immense if, in the wake of Singur, you guys had renounced their money.
But of course, what matter where my money comes from, as long as it does
come, right?

*You have suggested to artists not to accept funds from organisations that
> are supported with money 'tainted' because of its source ( which makes
> almost all money tainted if you really look hard and find the 'source' where
> it originally came from one way or the other).*



Once again, your capacity for deluding yourself is astounding. There are
always degrees of association, and while one might carp on the 'money is the
root of all evil' line, the fact is that a direct line of credit from an
unethical corporate entity is an altogether different matter from money
which, at some level, has passed through tainted hands. Once again, my
appeal was to fellow artists to reject money that directly comes from the
Tatas. And I might as well say, I did not make that appeal with any real
hope that people would respond to it. It was more to expose the abysmal
levels of hypocrisy and apathy the contemporary 'artiste' has sunk to,
content to sit in his/her guilded cage, as long as the grants, residencies
and funding keep coming. Of course, there are other artists, those without
the 'e' at the end, who are not written about, do not perform in glitzy
venues in European cities at sundry bienalles and festivals, but whose art
has not lost the smell of the soil. These do not depend on handouts from
morally bankrupt entities to create their art - their art comes from their
blood.





*I recall that you have received an award of Rs 25,000 (Rupees Twenty five
> Thousand) from Toto Funds the Arts (TFA), for creative writing in Feb 2008.
> TFA is an organisation that is mainly funded by individuals like me, Mr
> Suresh Kumar, and many others who believe that TFA is doing great work
> supporting young artists. Both Suresh and me work for IFA, an organisation
> supported by the Tata Trusts thus our source of money that we donate to TFA
> is tainted as well according to your logic. As a donor to TFA, I would
> suggest to you to return the award to TFA if you want to really walk your
> talk.*



This paragraph, really, is the Kafkaesque pinnacle of your missive. At one
level, I'm sure you know fully well the logical fallacy of comparing what
you do with your money as an individual, and institutional support from the
Tatas. The same applies to Mr Suresh Kumar, whoever that worthy is. This
also is the paragraph where, as I said in the beginning, you have brought
into the public space a very personal relationship that (I thought) I share
with the organization you have mentioned. I have responded to you in private
and will not repeat that here. Let me just say this - if you read through
what you yourself have written, without your IFA blinkers on, you'll
probably realize that it is more Orwellian than anything Orwell himself
could have ever written or said. So, according to you, ( and I will say
according to 'you' because I continue to have the deepest respect for the
person who runs TFA and the reason for its establishment and functioning),
the support of TFA amounts to this - that the young artist will be rewarded
for his work as long as he stays safely in line. The moment he criticizes
the mighty hand that feeds; and speaks uncomfortable truths, he is then one
of the damned and must return the award? So much for artistic freedom, so
much for the conviction of the artist, so much for freedom of speech. I
think the RSS would be queueing up to 'support' the IFA now, given the
apparent tenor of your ideologies. However, I shall not do what you have
commanded - I shall not renounce the award, because that would amount to
insulting the founder of the trust which, as I've said above, I'll never do;
 and more importantly, because then I'll have to return the money. I shall
not return the money. Instead, I am hereby making a very public declaration.
For the next five years, I shall give out Rs. 5,000/- (Rupees Five Thousand)
annually, to any individual or organization that is working to discredit the
Tatas in any way whatsoever, or to rehabilitate their victims, through art
or community work. If indeed the money came from the Tatas, I see no better
way to atone for it than to turn it against them. I know that compared to
the half-a-million grants that the IFA gives out, this amount is laughably
small, but that is about as much as a starving artist (without the 'e') can
do. So I hereby announce the formation of the Rat N. Tatta (please read the
word in Hindi) Foundation for the Promotion of Anarchic Arts and Fighting
Tata Terrorism. I hope other artists who still have a conscience left will
add to the corpus and turn it into something meaningful. Please write to
contact at logostheatreindia.org for more details. So well, I have put my money
where my mouth is - I am not sophisticated enough to walk the talk, as you
call it.


*While you may find it more convenient to sit in Bangalore and 'email'
> protest campaigns against the Tatas *



Well, one can at least do what is within one's abilities. One can take a
principled stand, and that is what I have done. For the record, my services
were recently used by one of the artists in residence at a residency
promoted by your organization in Bangalore recently, and I refused to take
any payment for it, asking her instead to give it to charity or to any cause
opposed to the Tatas. At least, I am not traipsing about Washington DC and
Krakow on Tata money while turning up fashionably attired in protest marches
for Nandigram, am I?

*and not really go down to Singur and Nandigram with hundreds of young
> people in Kolkata *

**
Nor am I appearing on page 3 of Bangalore Times, as you so regularly do. Oh,
and I forgot, you were a "Lead India" contestant - our great beacon of hope!


*are really trying to understand and engage with the issues there,*



Such shining bureaucrat/ academic speak - the chief minister of West Bengal
couldn't have done it better. There is only one issue understand and engage
with there - the Tatas are displacing people for a corporate project that is
entirely unethical, and the WB govt. is killing/ raping in order to remove
obstacles on their way. Again, remember Tapashi Malik and look into the
mirror.

* the least you can do is practice what you preach.*


I try to. At least I don't delude myself.

*Arundhati
> (works at IFA, supported by the Tata Trusts among many, donates to TFA)*


Arka
(work in theatre, is not supported by anyone, and does not publicly declaim
where he donates to)








-- 
> Logos Theatre
>           In the beginning was the word
> No. 126,
> 3rd Main Road,
> Jayamahal Extension,
> Bangalore 560046
> --------------------------------------------------------
> If it be now, 'tis not to come;
> if it be not to come, it will be now;
> if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all.
> Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes?
> Let be.

From radhikarajen at vsnl.net  Fri Aug  8 14:37:09 2008
From: radhikarajen at vsnl.net (radhikarajen at vsnl.net)
Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:07:09 +0500
Subject: [Reader-list] A suggestion for Arka
In-Reply-To: <00f701c8f874$123d9660$fa01a8c0@Arundhati>
References: <00f701c8f874$123d9660$fa01a8c0@Arundhati>
Message-ID: <e1a09aa1cdb9.489c530d@vsnl.net>

Snobbery at its best, ?  Come on, all can not go to Singur or nandigram to protest and make lives of these villagers a life full of misery,  as it is they are suffering enough of rape and ravages.More over it is well known how medha wants her air fare borne by some one if she has to come to bangalore for your type of protests, stop being such a hypocrate.!

   Regards.

----- Original Message -----
From: Arundhati <arundhatighosh at indiaifa.org>
Date: Thursday, August 7, 2008 3:28 pm
Subject: [Reader-list] A suggestion for Arka
To: reader-list at sarai.net

> Arka,
> 
> I have been reading some of the stuff that you have been writing 
> on the Sarai list - your opinions about the Tatas and IFA - which 
> is supported in its various programmes by institutions like the 
> Tata Trusts, the Ford Foundation and many other organisations and 
> individuals who find IFA's work worth supporting. 
> 
> You have suggested to artists not to accept funds from 
> organisations that are supported with money 'tainted' because of 
> its source ( which makes almost all money tainted if you really 
> look hard and find the 'source' where it originally came from one 
> way or the other). 
> 
> I recall that you have received an award of Rs 25,000 (Rupees 
> Twenty five Thousand) from Toto Funds the Arts (TFA), for creative 
> writing in Feb 2008. TFA is an organisation that is mainly funded 
> by individuals like me, Mr Suresh Kumar, and many others who 
> believe that TFA is doing great work supporting young artists. 
> Both Suresh and me work for IFA, an organisation supported by the 
> Tata Trusts thus our source of money that we donate to TFA is 
> tainted as well according to your logic. As a donor to TFA, I 
> would suggest to you to return the award to TFA if you want to 
> really walk your talk. 
> 
> While you may find it more convenient to sit in Bangalore and 
> 'email' protest campaigns against the Tatas and not really go down 
> to Singur and Nandigram with hundreds of young people in Kolkata 
> who are really trying to understand and engage with the issues 
> there, the least you can do is practice what you preach.
> 
> Arundhati
> (works at IFA, supported by the Tata Trusts among many, donates to 
> TFA) 
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with 
> subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-
> list 
> List archive: <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>

From sadiafwahidi at yahoo.co.in  Fri Aug  8 18:52:12 2008
From: sadiafwahidi at yahoo.co.in (S.Fatima)
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 18:52:12 +0530 (IST)
Subject: [Reader-list] Hounding Muslims in the name of fighting terrorism
Message-ID: <912366.64692.qm@web8406.mail.in.yahoo.com>

All The Wrong Men
A cleric’s dubious arrest over the Ahmedabad blasts is just the tip. A three-month investigation by AJIT SAHI exposes the random targeting of Muslims by the police
(Tehelka: http://www.tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne090808coverstory.asp)

AS HE’D done unfailingly every Friday for two decades, Maulana Abdul Haleem cleared his throat and began to speak to the faithful on July 25. It was near 2 pm, and the soft-spoken, revered aalim, or Islamic scholar, had just led scores of Muslims in the hour-long juma namaaz at his packed mosque in one of Ahmedabad’s Muslim localities where the preacher and many in his congregation live. His sermon this afternoon was on a Muslim’s duty towards his neighbours. “You cannot fill your stomach if your neighbour is hungry,” Haleem spoke in his unhurried tone. “You cannot discriminate between your Hindu and Muslim neighbours.”
Thirty hours later, within minutes of the serial blasts that killed 53 people in Ahmedabad on Saturday, policemen stormed Haleem’s house barely a km from the mosque and dragged him away as his stunned neighbours watched. On Monday, as a local magistrate gave the Crime Branch his custody for two weeks, police claimed Haleem is a crucial link in the Saturday blasts and that grilling him would unravel the execution of and the conspiracy behind the terror act.
In a time of tragedy and terror, everybody, justifiably, wants answers, culprits, punishment. The challenge then is not to reach for the quick routes, the easy demonisations. Unfortunately, the Indian State has not quite met that challenge. Over the years, for instance, SIMI has come to be a dread acronym for most Indians — Students’ Islamic Movement of India, a hotbed of terrorism, a lethal and shadowy organisation intent on destroying the nation. Quick on the back of every horrific blast, that name is thrust upon the public mind like a deadly innuendo — stretching outwards to embrace the entire community. But how true are these allegations?
In the struggle for a just and safe society, it is crucial to find real perpetrators and correct answers; crucial to cleave doggedly to the idea of fair play and rule of law; crucial not to fall prey to overblown and false psychoses. In pursuit of this, in an attempt to sift fact from prejudice, TEHELKA conducted an investigation across India over three months and 12 cities. Serialised here, starting this week, the disturbing investigation found that an overwhelming majority of terrorism cases — especially those related to the outlawed SIMI — are based on either non-existent or fraudulent evidence and are an affront to both law and common sense.
The investigation found that entrenched prejudices in the executive and the judiciary, an abject lack of political will against framing scapegoats, and a 24x7 news media that demands instant whodunit answers and unquestioningly copy-pastes every unproven police and intelligence story on terrorist networks has morphed into a tragic persecution of hundreds of people falsely accused of terrorism. Nearly all of these are Muslim; nearly all of these are poor.
“We will rise to the challenge and I am confident we will be able to defeat these forces,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said as he walked about in the debris at Ahmedabad’s civil hospital, where two blasts had inflicted the worst casualties. He urged political parties and police and intelligence agencies to work together against efforts aimed at “destroying our social fabric, undermining communal harmony.” Unfortunately, given their staggering record of false cases against innocent people, it appears that incompetent police and intelligence agencies are doing exactly the opposite.
Maulana Abdul Haleem’s story, chronicled below, is a searing example why.
SINCE SUNDAY, in anonymous plants in the stenographic news media, police have claimed that Haleem is a SIMI member linked with Pakistan- and Bangladeshbased terrorists. Gujarat government’s lawyer told the remand magistrate that Haleem sent Muslim youth from Ahmedabad to Uttar Pradesh to train as terrorists to avenge the 2002 mass killings of Muslims in the state. He said they planned, among others, to assassinate BJP leader LK Advani and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Police have said Haleem was absconding since he was named an accused in this case in 2002.
TEHELKA’s investigation in Ahmedabad following the cleric’s arrest has thrown up strong evidence, documentary and circumstantial, that far from absconding, Haleem has lived at his house — which is less than a km from the local police station — for years and led a public life within his community. The charge against him that he sent Muslims to train as terrorists is highly dubious based as it is on just one letter from Haleem whose contents don’t remotely reflect a link with terrorism. And until Saturday’s bomb blasts, Ahmedabad police had never called Haleem a SIMI member.
If anything, Haleem’s family and followers say police have harassed him for years for his role in helping victims of the 2002 anti-Muslim violence. This year, on May 27, an inspector from the police station sent Haleem a onepage handwritten notice in Gujarati. It said: “An office of Markaz Ahle-Hadis [the Islamic sect to which Haleem and his followers belong] Trust has been opened in Shop no. 4 in the Alishan Shopping Centre. You are its head… Many members have been appointed in it. You are directed to submit a list of their names, addresses and phone numbers.”
Apart from the gross illegality of such a demand on a trust constituted as per law with no criminal charge against it, the letter proves the police knew Haleem’s whereabouts and were in touch with him as late as two months ago. Indeed, the notice mentions Haleem’s home address: 2, Devi Park Society, near Baikunth Dham Temple. Haleem’s family has proof that the police received his reply the next day.
A month later, on June 29, Haleem rushed telegrams to Gujarat’s director-general of police and Ahmedabad’s police commissioner claiming that the police forcibly entered his house that day and harassed his wife and children in his absence. “We are peace-loving and law-abiding citizens and have never been part of any illegal activity,” Haleem wrote the telegram in Hindi. “The police are unlawfully harassing me and my family without appropriate cause. This is aviolation of our civil rights.” Predictably, he didn’t hear from either officer.
In April, when a local outfit called Social Unity & Peace Forum, which has both Muslims and Hindus as its members, organised a socio-religious meeting, it wrote to the police seeking permission to use loudspeakers. That application clearly mentioned that Haleem would be the main speaker at the event. Haleem’s family also offers his driving licence, renewed by the Ahmedabad transport office on December 28, 2006, as proof that he led a normal life all along. Three years ago, in July 2005, the Gujarati newspaper Divya Bhaskar had published Haleem’s picture with a statement he released at a press conference giving his views on a raging controversy over the alleged rape of a woman, Imrana, by her father-in-law in a village in Uttar Pradesh.
“It is crazy that we have to prove Maulana Haleem’s innocence,” says his friend Haneef Shaikh, who has appealed to the Gujarat governor to secure the cleric’s release. Adds Nazir, in whose house Haleem has lived with his family as tenant: “I have known Maulana most closely. He is a man of religion and has never indulged in terrorism.” Says Haleem’s wife Noor Saba: “I swear by my children that my husband is not a terrorist. He is being framed.”
Outrage and disbelief is unmistakable in the cleric’s neighbourhood. “Maulana Haleem has helped hundreds in their daily lives by imparting them the skills of patience and fortitude,” says a shaken Ehsanul Haq, a 27-year-old embroiderer. Haq fishes out his marriage certificate, the nikaahnama the Maulana signed after presiding at his wedding on June 1, to show that Haleem wasn’t any absconder. Haleem had delivered a sermon to the guests at Haq’s wedding over loudspeakers that Haq had installed — with police permission.
Abdul Haleem, who turned 43 on July 13, hails from Uttar Pradesh and has lived in Ahmedabad from 1988. He is a preacher with a puritanical Islamic sect called Ahle Hadis that began on the subcontinent some 180 years ago and has survived a frowning Sunni orthodoxy. The sect lays its store by the Hadis — the oral narrative of Prophet Mohammad’s life — as a guiding principle for Muslims in addition to the Quran. The news media have long parroted the police’s insinuation that Ahle-Hadis is a terrorist outfit linked with Lashkar-e-Tayaba. The police claim its members include many terror accused such as those of the July 2006 Mumbai train blasts. The sect, with a claimed membership of 30 million in India, denies the charge. It points out that Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil was the chief guest at its national symposium two years ago at New Delhi.
In Ahmedabad, Haleem led the 5,000-odd Ahle Hadis followers for 14 years, resigning three years ago to minister a small mosque so he could begin life as a scrap dealer to earn a regular income to feed his wife and seven children, the oldest two of whom study at a madarsa in Delhi.
HALEEM’S TROUBLES had begun soon after the 2002 anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat as he involved himself in relief work at the camps housing hundreds of Muslim refugees. An Ahmedabad native named Shahid Bakshi, who lived in Kuwait and was visiting his home, came to meet Haleem with two other Muslims. One of them was from Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh who also lived in Kuwait. The other was a small-time trader from Moradabad. The three wanted to help 10-year-old Muslim orphans of the 2002 violence by bringing them free education and care, so Haleem took them to four refugee camps. A week later, one camp responded saying it had found 34 children for such care. Haleem phoned the Kuwait expatriate, who was then in Moradabad, and also wrote to him about the offer. But getting no response, the plan died and, importantly, no children were ever sent.
Three months later, in August 2002, Delhi Police arrested Shahid Bakshi and the other expatriate from Kuwait allegedly with 4.5 kg of the explosive material, RDX. The Moradabad trader was also arrested from his hometown. All three were charged under the Prevention of Terrorism Act for conspiring to carry out terrorist acts. Delhi Police found Haleem’s letter (about the camp’s offer of the orphan children) with the expatriate from Kuwait. As both Bakshi and Haleem were from Ahmedabad, police there were informed. Immediately, Ahmedabad police officer DG Vanzara called in Haleem and detained him — illegally — for five days. (Vanzara is now in jail, accused of killing Gujarat businessman Sohrabuddin in cold blood in 2005 and trying to pass him off as a terrorist.) Haleem’s family frantically filed a petition with the Gujarat High Court to secure his release. “The judge ordered the police to bring Haleem to the court in two hours,” recalls the
family’s lawyer, Hashim Qureshi. The police instantly released Haleem who rushed to the court where his statement on his illegal detention was duly recorded and is part of official documents.
Even as Delhi Police created the ‘RDX case’ against the two expatriates visiting from Kuwait and the Moradabad trader, police in Ahmedabad created a parallel case against the same individuals for “luring Muslim youth to train as terrorists in Moradabad”. This is the case the police and the media have referred since Haleem’s arrest for the July 26 bomb blasts to argue that the cleric was involved in “sending Muslim youth to train as terrorists”. The Gujarat government lawyer was openly lying on Monday when he told the magistrate that Haleem had sent “30 youth” to Moradabad for training as terrorists. The charge-sheet in the case clearly admits that the so-called conspiracy had remained on paper and no children ever travelled from Ahmedabad to Moradabad.
While Delhi’s ‘RDX case’ named Haleem a witness, Ahmedabad’s ‘terrorist training case’ named him an accused and said he was absconding. The law says the police have to follow due legal process before declaring an accused as absconding. This includes searches at his house and workplace in view of independent witnesses, and recording statements from neighbours to establish that the accused has not been seen for a long time. The Ahmedabad police did not bother with this exercise.
The entire case against Haleem is based on a letter he wrote to the expatriate from Kuwait, Farhan Ahmad Ali. Dated August 7, 2002, the letter makes no reference to terrorist training or any other unlawful activity. It simply said: “You had come [to Ahmedabad] with an ‘ahem maqsad’ (important goal).” With a giant leap of imagination, the police claim that the words “ahem maqsad” can only mean a conspiracy for terrorist training. Haleem wrote that six of the children were orphans and the rest poor. He concluded the letter saying: “I believe that by god’s grace you will certainly help me in this educational and constructive mission to propagate Islam.” In his deposition before a Delhi court in the ‘RDX case’, Haleem said he was told the children will get “a good education and decent living” in Moradabad, and had no clue if Bakshi and the others aimed to train the children as terrorists.
Last year, the Delhi judge hearing the ‘RDX case’ found Shahid Bakshi and the other expatriate from Kuwait, Farhan Ahmad Ali, guilty and sentenced each to seven years in jail. The court accepted the police version even though the only witnesses to the alleged recovery of RDX were policemen. Ahmad Ali had claimed that he was arrested at the airport as he was to board a flight to Kuwait, and said he had tickets as proof. The judge ignored that.
Both Bakshi and Ahmad Ali appealed at the Delhi High Court against their conviction. Here is an incredible twister: while they got bail from the Delhi High Court despite being convicted by the lower court, they were denied bail by the Gujarat High Court in the ‘terrorist training case’ although no guilt has yet been established in that case and the Gujarat crime branch admits their crime never went beyond hatching the alleged conspiracy. That’s not all.
The Moradabad trader, a frail 56-year-old man named Hafiz Mohammad Tahir, was acquitted in the ‘RDX case’. He proved doubly lucky when the Gujarat High Court granted him bail in the ‘terrorist training case’ in June 2004. In its eye-opening bail order, the judge said: “… All that remains against the present applicant [Tahir] is that he visited Ahmedabad and had visited camps to identify the children so that they can be better looked after. That by itself cannot be considered an offence.”
Since Bakshi and Ahmad Ali are accused of exactly the same crime, the argument should be valid for them, too. Yet, another Gujarat High Court judge denied them bail and both continue to languish in jail. Tahir has, meanwhile, moved to Ahmedabad because the Gujarat High Court’s 2004 bail order said he must report to the Crime Branch office in Ahmedabad every Sunday. On Sunday, July 27, the morning after the blasts, Tahir visited the crime branch office with trepidation. “They grilled me four hours on the blasts,” Tahir told TEHELKA. “I was glad when they let me go.”
The hearing in the ‘terrorist training case’ is nearly over. It is to be seen if a separate trial will be called against Haleem, since he is no more “absconding”. Meanwhile, Haleem’s family is worried stiff over the next meal and the next month’s house rent of Rs 2,500. Haleem’s wife says she has no savings. His lone employee, a daily labourer, is trying to run Haleem’s scrap shop.
SADLY, MAULANA Abdul Haleem’s story is anything but rare. One glaring case concerns a “family of terrorists”. On July 15, a posse of policemen arrested 28-year-old Mohammad Muqeemuddin Yasir as he returned home at night from his father’s workshop in Hyderabad. Ten days later, when serial bomb blasts rocked Bangalore on July 25 killing two people, Hyderabad Police Commissioner Prasanna Rao told the Hindustan Times newspaper that, during interrogation, Yasir had confessed that before his arrest, he had taken terror “operatives” to Karnataka and “arranged safe houses” for them. Of course, Yasir denies the confession. “I haven’t told them anything,” Yasir told his mother, Tasleem Fatima, when she visited him at the jail on July 29. “The police are lying.” Fatima told TEHELKA her son was tortured during what the police commissioner calls “interrogation”. “He was hung upside down and beaten,” she said.
Apart from the fact that a confession made to the police is inadmissible as evidence before a judge (never mind that the news media accept confessions as gospel), Yasir’s alleged confession, if true, should be a slap on the face of the Hyderabad Police. After all, Yasir is an ex-SIMI member whose father and one brother are jailed on charges of terrorism. Yasir’s father, 56-yearold Maulana Mohammad Nasiruddin, is a wellrespected cleric who has now incarcerated in Sabarmati jail in Ahmedabad for nearly four years and has been denied bail all the way up to the Supreme Court. Yasir’s younger brother, Riasuddin Nasir, is jailed in Karnataka’s Belgaum district since he was arrested in January.
With his brother and father suspected as dreaded terrorists, the Hyderabad Police should have kept tabs on Yasir all the time and instantly known if he was aiding terrorists. That the police didn’t catch Yasir “arranging safe houses” for terrorists in Karnataka is because he probably never did any such thing. This reporter interviewed Yasir in Hyderabad a month before his arrest, on his birthday on June 12, at an engineering workshop that his father had set up three decades ago with borrowed money and skills picked up as an assistant to a roadside mechanic. In the din of machines, Yasir was happily engaged in managing customers crowding the small front office. “My father and brother have been framed,” he forcefully told TEHELKA.
A shy man with a Boy Scout smile, Yasir seems a victim of patently bogus cases against him. He was a member of SIMI when it was banned by the Centre on September 27, 2001. (Given the relentless government propaganda against SIMI, the reader might find it hard to believe that no court in India has yet upheld the charge of terrorism against SIMI as an organisation.) Yasir echoed dozens others interviewed by this reporter across India in saying that SIMI was a platform for “deep religious training and self-purification”, and not for acts of terrorism or anti-India conspiracies. “SIMI took up issues of atrocities on Muslims from Chechnya to Kashmir,” Yasir said. “It never gave up the issue of the Babri Masjid, and this attracted many of us.”

ON THE night before SIMI was banned, the police arrested Yasir and booked him with the other two SIMI representatives in Hyderabad under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. A magistrate gave them bail the next day. A day later, the police slapped another case against the three, alleging that one of them was arrested making a speech against the government. The other two, including Yasir, were shown as absconding. They went back to the court and were sent to jail, where Yasir spent 29 days before securing bail. Seven years have gone by. Trial is yet to begin.
Worse is the fate of Yasir’s father, a firebrand cleric who never held his tongue in public speeches against the government, especially on issues such as the Babri Masjid demolition and the 2002 anti-Muslim violence of Gujarat. Embroiled in cooked-up cases, in several of which he was subsequently acquitted, Maulana Nasiruddin was asked by the Hyderabad Police to report at their office regularly.
On one such day in October 2004, when Maulana Nasiruddin reached the police station, he was arrested by a police team from Ahmedabad for his alleged involvement in a terror conspiracy in Gujarat, including the March 2003 murder of former Gujarat Home Minister, Haren Pandya. (The only evidence against Maulana Nasiruddin is his confession, which, in a letter to the court, he has denied making.)
Local Muslims who had gone with the Maulana to the police station began protesting as he was led out. At this, Gujarat police officer Narendra Amin took out his service revolver and shot dead one protestor. All hell broke loose. Nasiruddin’s supporters refused to move the dead protestor’s body unless the police filed an FIR against Amin. Finally, Hyderabad police filed two cases back to back: One, their own, against the protestors for blocking the Maulana’s arrest; and the other, under pressure, against Narendra Amin, for shooting the protestor.
The case against Amin hasn’t moved an inch in four years. The Hyderabad police ought to have seized his revolver and sent it for a forensic examination, along with the bullet recovered from the dead protestor’s body. They should have arrested and produced Amin before a magistrate. This is an open-and-shut case if there ever was one: with the weapon of homicide matching the bullet, and dozens of eyewitnesses. Of course, none of this happened. Amin proceeded to Ahmedabad with Maulana Nasiruddin in his custody. The FIR against him has become a dead letter.
Amin is the same police officer who was subsequently accused of killing Kausar Bi, the wife of Gujarat businessman Sohrabuddin who was killed by police officer Vanzara in 2005 (as mentioned above in Haleem’s story). Like Vanzara, Amin, too, is now in jail.
MEANWHILE, A tragedy has befallen the main complainant against Amin in the Hyderabad shootout case. This is none other than 20-year-old Nasir, Maulana Nasiruddin’s youngest son and Yasir’s youngest brother. On January 11 this year, Nasir was arrested by police in Karnataka with another person and was accused of stealing the motorcycle they were allegedly riding. Claiming a knife was found on the two, the police slapped charges such as ‘waging war against State’ on Nasir and his co-accused.
Amazingly, the police filed seven confessions from the two accused over the next 18 days. Not one showed them saying they were SIMI members. Police then filed their eighth confessions in which they allegedly accepted being SIMI members and the attendant terror charges. Ninety days later, when the police failed to file a charge-sheet, Nasir’s lawyer landed at the magistrate’s house who then had no option but to grant bail as per law. But by this time, the police had implicated Nasir in another case of conspiracy, so he continues in jail. Of course, Nasir has retracted his confessions alleging torture. Yet, he has little hope against biases in the judicial system.
Magistrate B. Jinaralkar, who sent the two accused to police custody, told TEHELKA reporter Sanjana the following in an interview:
“Even as I was signing the necessary papers remanding them to judicial custody, Asadullah [the other accused] stepped forward requesting to speak with me. He told me that the police denied them food and water and subjected them to repeated beatings. He proceeded to show me the bruises on Nasir’s body. The two repeatedly made a reference to human rights violation by the police and demanded medical attention.
“I was very surprised by three things: they were talking of their fundamental rights in an authoritative manner, they spoke English and, further, they readily admitted that they had stolen the bike, something most thieves never do in my experience.”
When a police sub-inspector phoned the magistrate “warning” that the accused shouldn’t be sent to judicial custody, the magistrate asked the evidence to be brought to this house. “The materials produced before me included duplicate identity cards, a fancy dagger, a map of South India with red marks against Udupi and Goa, an American dollar, two pieces of paper with www.com written on one and ‘Jungle King behind back me’ on another.
“When I looked at these materials in their entirety, I felt that these were definitely not just bike thieves. Why would bike thieves carry around duplicate identity cards and a map of South India? The fact that they had an American dollar seemed to suggest they had international links. The paper with www.com indicated to me that they were tech-savvy. The other piece of paper had a message that seemed to be a sort of code that I could not immediately decipher. Also, when I examined the South India map, Udupi had a sort of indication with a red marker against it. Perhaps they were planning to strike at the place during a religious function.
“All these suggested that there were definitely enough grounds in my opinion to grant the police custody of Nasir and Asadullah to facilitate further investigations.” Go figure.
So is there hope for Maulana Haleem, Muqeemuddin Yasir, Maulana Nasiruddin and Riasuddin Nasir? The boys’ mother doesn’t think so. “Why don’t the police put us all together in jail,” she told TEHELKA, her voice shaking with rage. “Then they can shoot all of us dead.” •



      Unlimited freedom, unlimited storage. Get it now, on http://help.yahoo.com/l/in/yahoo/mail/yahoomail/tools/tools-08.html/

From peter.ksmtf at gmail.com  Sat Aug  9 06:20:52 2008
From: peter.ksmtf at gmail.com (T Peter)
Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2008 06:20:52 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] 'CZM norms will affect fishermen'
Message-ID: <3457ce860808081750vcb900a3y2724d7315a58fbc3@mail.gmail.com>

'CZM norms will affect fishermen'
Date:09/08/2008 URL:
http://www.thehindu.com/2008/08/09/stories/2008080954040400.htm
Special Correspondent
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The government would not approve the coastal zone
management norms that go against the interests of traditional
fishermen and do not protect their livelihood, Minister for Fisheries
S. Sarma said here on Friday.

Inaugurating a seminar on 'Coastal zone management norms' organised by
the Centre for Environment Education (CEE), Mr. Sarma said that the
influence of globalisation was quite obvious in the draft CZM norms.
Development should not be at the cost of the life of the fisherfolk.
Those in power may be guided by the Constitution, but the poor are
governed not by rules, but by the problems of life. They will not
accept rules that entail displacement or harm their existence.
Similarly, development and environment should be complementary.
Environmental concerns should be addressed while taking up development
ventures, but it should not be shelved in the name of environmental
protection, he said.

If displaced from the coastal area, the fisherfolk would be deprived
of their livelihood. The draft regulations help unrestricted capital
investment in the coastal areas. The State government will encourage
development of tourism, but it should not be at the expense of the
culture and tradition, he said.

CEE programme coordinator G. Padma presided. George Mercier, MLA,
Vicar-General of Trivandrum diocese Eugene Perieira and others spoke.

From tapasrayx at gmail.com  Sat Aug  9 17:15:46 2008
From: tapasrayx at gmail.com (Tapas Ray)
Date: Sat, 09 Aug 2008 07:45:46 -0400
Subject: [Reader-list] Sad day for India
In-Reply-To: <912366.64692.qm@web8406.mail.in.yahoo.com>
References: <912366.64692.qm@web8406.mail.in.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <489D836A.5090107@gmail.com>

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7548953.stm


India court okays mining projects

India's Supreme Court has said two huge and controversial mining 
projects can proceed in the eastern state of Orissa.

From atreyee.m at gmail.com  Sat Aug  9 17:32:48 2008
From: atreyee.m at gmail.com (atreyee majumder)
Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2008 17:32:48 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] from Trideep Pais about SIMI
In-Reply-To: <397674d10808090421r33215604wb66dbee54c00ee8c@mail.gmail.com>
References: <397674d10808090421r33215604wb66dbee54c00ee8c@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1944bc230808090502p1586d669t77f52f740b7229cf@mail.gmail.com>

On 8/9/08, Vivekananda N <n.vivekananda at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Trideep Pais <trideeppais at gmail.com>
> Date: Sat, Aug 9, 2008 at 4:45 PM
> Subject: SIMI
> To: Vivekananda N <n.vivekananda at gmail.com>
>
>
> It will take a lot of clarifications in the media over a period of time to
> remove the negative bias that SIMI has faced thanks to the sustained
> propaganda against them since 2001 (which I also beleived for the want of
> any alternate point of view until I was hired to fight there case in 2006).
> This is one story where till the recent judgment all (media, bureaucracy,
> police, intelligence, prosecution, counsel for state and judiciary) were
> compromised.  As the reporter of the story in this link will tell you,
> between September 2001 and now very few mainstream news papers and magazines
> and TV channels have bothered to even listen to the point of view of the
> erstwhile SIMI (now banned) let alone publish/ braodcast them.  During the
> 2006 tribunal when I had the occassion to represent this group, I tried very
> hard to reach out to the media to put across the other side of the story
> however no one was willing to listen.  I sent letters and emails to
> mainstream news papers and TV channels about the inaccuracy of their
> reporting nad requested them to issue clarifications and all of it fell to
> deaf ears.  My clients found my efforts hilarious as they had suffered this
> bias for 6 years by then and had got used to it and they knew there was no
> point in it.  BUT,  everyone likes a winner and after the news of the
> judgement of Justice Gita Mittal was out and till the Supreme Court
> stay, for the brief period between the night of the 5th of August 2008 and
> afternoon of the 6th of August 2008 several unknown persons like me received
> calls for a comment or a bite on what 'SIMI' is about or what I thought of
> the judgement etc.  What persons like me told them was completely
> unpalatable to the media.  The NDTV anchor told me "you know you 're
> representing the the wrong guys right? just doing it as a part of your job
> eh?".  I had to remind him that I had sent his organisation an email in feb
> 2008 bringing to thier notice the gross inaccuracies in thier report on
> SIMI.  This just did not interest him. He did not even wait for my answer
> before going on to read the preprepared text that his ticker required him to
> read out.  However for the right reasons SIMI is in the news and I would
> think that the developments of the last week have made at least 2 % of its
> detractors think that there may be something wrong in the Government
> Version.  This is a very well researched story by a journalist who has spent
> 3 months chasing up Jawahar Raja and the tribunal and the victims.  I would
> request you to read it.  I dont want you to agree with him.  Just hear the
> other side of the story.  Just like Justice Mittal's Judgement, such stories
> are also rare.
>
>
> http://www.tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne160808thekafka_project.asp
> http://www.tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne160808ajudge_stirs.asp
>
> http://www.tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne160808thesupremecourt's.asp<http://www.tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne160808thesupremecourt%27s.asp>
>
> http://www.tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne160808terrorhas_twofaces.asp
>
> http://www.tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne160808simihere_simithere.asp
> http://www.tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne160808thehaunt_ofour.asp
> http://www.tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne160808thecry_ofthe.asp
>
> http://www.tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne160808adoubtful_crime.asp
> http://www.tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne160808theyjustwant.asp
>
> http://www.tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne160808insidethe_whale.asp
>
>
> --
> Trideep Pais
> L - 1/16, Hauz Khas Enclave
> New Delhi - 110 016
> Tel: + 91 11 41656033
>        + 91 11 41656034
> Fax  + 91 11 42654952
> Mob  + 91 9810273032
> em at il trideeppais at gmail.com
>
>
> --
> Trideep Pais
> L - 1/16, Hauz Khas Enclave
> New Delhi - 110 016
> Tel: + 91 11 41656033
>        + 91 11 41656034
> Fax  + 91 11 42654952
> Mob  + 91 9810273032
> em at il trideeppais at gmail.com
>
>

From aashu.gupta20 at gmail.com  Sat Aug  9 17:41:34 2008
From: aashu.gupta20 at gmail.com (Aashish Gupta)
Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2008 17:41:34 +0530
Subject: [Reader-list] Sad day for India
In-Reply-To: <489D836A.5090107@gmail.com>
References: <912366.64692.qm@web8406.mail.in.yahoo.com>
	<489D836A.5090107@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <e1f1fd900808090511y30d09450w3d3a2611a537d48a@mail.gmail.com>

That too on the day when Gandhi launched the Quit India Movement.
Aashish

From radhikarajen at vsnl.net  Sat Aug  9 18:25:05 2008
From: radhikarajen at vsnl.net (radhikarajen at vsnl.net)
Date: Sat, 09 Aug 2008 17:55:05 +0500
Subject: [Reader-list] Hounding Muslims in the name of fighting terrorism
In-Reply-To: <912366.64692.qm@web8406.mail.in.yahoo.com>
References: <912366.64692.qm@web8406.mail.in.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <e3b9b17612934.489dd9f9@vsnl.net>

All muslims are not terrorists, but all those terrorists who are caught with acts of terrorism are muslims.

     When the community of muslims forgot their solemn oath to father of the nation, mahatma that they will stay back in India as brothers with their hindu community, many were sceptical, for one, as the population increases the muslim community  along with other segments of sovciety also did not get their due in good governance, thanks to the politics of votebanks, society was further divided in linguistic , caste and faith segments, the national exchequer never reached the grass root level of the populace and citizens in sixty years of freedom kept gasping for good governance without bias , without fear or favour.

   The muslim community in general had lower percentage of educated men and women, who instead of having concern for their community, is seen more in nesting their own homes than the society. The unaccounted cash transactions, unwillingness to be accountable to society, wherever the muslims are majority, trying to impose their rules on society are all the reasons along with political appeasements and false promises and gestures of patronising the mullas for votes left a common muslim wondering where he belonged to. !

   The subsequent generations of muslims, particularly youth started to vent their anger, demanding more say in the governance along with dalits and other suppressed and oppressed castes, thus a fertile ground for breeding of terrorism. the mullas instead of addressing the issues used their friday prayers only to arouse the passions on some danish cartoons and percieved and imagined dangers from "communal  "  parties totally loosing sight of communalism played by so called secular parties.!

   In the entire process, the muslim youth who is found wanting a job is easy prey for those elements in society who do not risk themselves of being seen as terorists, use the youth to terrorise the society. 

 Only solution to terror is handle the elements who organise the youth to terrorise the society, terrorise them and democratic rule of laws should handle the deviant behaviour of the culprits without fear or favour of vote banks.

 regards.

----- Original Message -----
From: "S.Fatima" <sadiafwahidi at yahoo.co.in>
Date: Friday, August 8, 2008 6:54 pm
Subject: [Reader-list] Hounding Muslims in the name of fighting terrorism
To: sarai <reader-list at sarai.net>

> All The Wrong Men
> A cleric’s dubious arrest over the Ahmedabad blasts is just the 
> tip. A three-month investigation by AJIT SAHI exposes the random 
> targeting of Muslims by the police
> (Tehelka: 
> http://www.tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne090808coverstory.asp)
> AS HE’D done unfailingly every Friday for two decades, Maulana 
> Abdul Haleem cleared his throat and began to speak to the faithful 
> on July 25. It was near 2 pm, and the soft-spoken, revered aalim, 
> or Islamic scholar, had just led scores of Muslims in the hour-
> long juma namaaz at his packed mosque in one of Ahmedabad’s Muslim 
> localities where the preacher and many in his congregation live. 
> His sermon this afternoon was on a Muslim’s duty towards his 
> neighbours. “You cannot fill your stomach if your neighbour is 
> hungry,” Haleem spoke in his unhurried tone. “You cannot 
> discriminate between your Hindu and Muslim neighbours.”
> Thirty hours later, within minutes of the serial blasts that 
> killed 53 people in Ahmedabad on Saturday, policemen stormed 
> Haleem’s house barely a km from the mosque and dragged him away as 
> his stunned neighbours watched. On Monday, as a local magistrate 
> gave the Crime Branch his custody for two weeks, police claimed 
> Haleem is a crucial link in the Saturday blasts and that grilling 
> him would unravel the execution of and the conspiracy behind the 
> terror act.
> In a time of tragedy and terror, everybody, justifiably, wants 
> answers, culprits, punishment. The challenge then is not to reach 
> for the quick routes, the easy demonisations. Unfortunately, the 
> Indian State has not quite met that challenge. Over the years, for 
> instance, SIMI has come to be a dread acronym for most Indians — 
> Students’ Islamic Movement of India, a hotbed of terrorism, a 
> lethal and shadowy organisation intent on destroying the nation. 
> Quick on the back of every horrific blast, that name is thrust 
> upon the public mind like a deadly innuendo — stretching outwards 
> to embrace the entire community. But how true are these allegations?
> In the struggle for a just and safe society, it is crucial to find 
> real perpetrators and correct answers; crucial to cleave doggedly 
> to the idea of fair play and rule of law; crucial not to fall prey 
> to overblown and false psychoses. In pursuit of this, in an 
> attempt to sift fact from prejudice, TEHELKA conducted an 
> investigation across India over three months and 12 cities. 
> Serialised here, starting this week, the disturbing investigation 
> found that an overwhelming majority of terrorism cases — 
> especially those related to the outlawed SIMI — are based on 
> either non-existent or fraudulent evidence and are an affront to 
> both law and common sense.
> The investigation found that entrenched prejudices in the 
> executive and the judiciary, an abject lack of political will 
> against framing scapegoats, and a 24x7 news media that demands 
> instant whodunit answers and unquestioningly copy-pastes every 
> unproven police and intelligence story on terrorist networks has 
> morphed into a tragic persecution of hundreds of people falsely 
> accused of terrorism. Nearly all of these are Muslim; nearly all 
> of these are poor.
> “We will rise to the challenge and I am confident we will be able 
> to defeat these forces,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said as he 
> walked about in the debris at Ahmedabad’s civil hospital, where 
> two blasts had inflicted the worst casualties. He urged political 
> parties and police and intelligence agencies to work together 
> against efforts aimed at “destroying our social fabric, 
> undermining communal harmony.” Unfortunately, given their 
> staggering record of false cases against innocent people, it 
> appears that incompetent police and intelligence agencies are 
> doing exactly the opposite.
> Maulana Abdul Haleem’s story, chronicled below, is a searing 
> example why.
> SINCE SUNDAY, in anonymous plants in the stenographic news media, 
> police have claimed that Haleem is a SIMI member linked with 
> Pakistan- and Bangladeshbased terrorists. Gujarat government’s 
> lawyer told the remand magistrate that Haleem sent Muslim youth 
> from Ahmedabad to Uttar Pradesh to train as terrorists to avenge 
> the 2002 mass killings of Muslims in the state. He said they 
> planned, among others, to assassinate BJP leader LK Advani and 
> Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Police have said Haleem was 
> absconding since he was named an accused in this case in 2002.
> TEHELKA’s investigation in Ahmedabad following the cleric’s arrest 
> has thrown up strong evidence, documentary and circumstantial, 
> that far from absconding, Haleem has lived at his house — which is 
> less than a km from the local police station — for years and led a 
> public life within his community. The charge against him that he 
> sent Muslims to train as terrorists is highly dubious based as it 
> is on just one letter from Haleem whose contents don’t remotely 
> reflect a link with terrorism. And until Saturday’s bomb blasts, 
> Ahmedabad police had never called Haleem a SIMI member.
> If anything, Haleem’s family and followers say police have 
> harassed him for years for his role in helping victims of the 2002 
> anti-Muslim violence. This year, on May 27, an inspector from the 
> police station sent Haleem a onepage handwritten notice in 
> Gujarati. It said: “An office of Markaz Ahle-Hadis [the Islamic 
> sect to which Haleem and his followers belong] Trust has been 
> opened in Shop no. 4 in the Alishan Shopping Centre. You are its 
> head… Many members have been appointed in it. You are directed to 
> submit a list of their names, addresses and phone numbers.”
> Apart from the gross illegality of such a demand on a trust 
> constituted as per law with no criminal charge against it, the 
> letter proves the police knew Haleem’s whereabouts and were in 
> touch with him as late as two months ago. Indeed, the notice 
> mentions Haleem’s home address: 2, Devi Park Society, near 
> Baikunth Dham Temple. Haleem’s family has proof that the police 
> received his reply the next day.
> A month later, on June 29, Haleem rushed telegrams to Gujarat’s 
> director-general of police and Ahmedabad’s police commissioner 
> claiming that the police forcibly entered his house that day and 
> harassed his wife and children in his absence. “We are peace-
> loving and law-abiding citizens and have never been part of any 
> illegal activity,” Haleem wrote the telegram in Hindi. “The police 
> are unlawfully harassing me and my family without appropriate 
> cause. This is aviolation of our civil rights.” Predictably, he 
> didn’t hear from either officer.
> In April, when a local outfit called Social Unity & Peace Forum, 
> which has both Muslims and Hindus as its members, organised a 
> socio-religious meeting, it wrote to the police seeking permission 
> to use loudspeakers. That application clearly mentioned that 
> Haleem would be the main speaker at the event. Haleem’s family 
> also offers his driving licence, renewed by the Ahmedabad 
> transport office on December 28, 2006, as proof that he led a 
> normal life all along. Three years ago, in July 2005, the Gujarati 
> newspaper Divya Bhaskar had published Haleem’s picture with a 
> statement he released at a press conference giving his views on a 
> raging controversy over the alleged rape of a woman, Imrana, by 
> her father-in-law in a village in Uttar Pradesh.
> “It is crazy that we have to prove Maulana Haleem’s innocence,” 
> says his friend Haneef Shaikh, who has appealed to the Gujarat 
> governor to secure the cleric’s release. Adds Nazir, in whose 
> house Haleem has lived with his family as tenant: “I have known 
> Maulana most closely. He is a man of religion and has never 
> indulged in terrorism.” Says Haleem’s wife Noor Saba: “I swear by 
> my children that my husband is not a terrorist. He is being framed.”
> Outrage and disbelief is unmistakable in the cleric’s 
> neighbourhood. “Maulana Haleem has helped hundreds in their daily 
> lives by imparting them the skills of patience and fortitude,” 
> says a shaken Ehsanul Haq, a 27-year-old embroiderer. Haq fishes 
> out his marriage certificate, the nikaahnama the Maulana signed 
> after presiding at his wedding on June 1, to show that Haleem 
> wasn’t any absconder. Haleem had delivered a sermon to the guests 
> at Haq’s wedding over loudspeakers that Haq had installed — with 
> police permission.
> Abdul Haleem, who turned 43 on July 13, hails from Uttar Pradesh 
> and has lived in Ahmedabad from 1988. He is a preacher with a 
> puritanical Islamic sect called Ahle Hadis that began on the 
> subcontinent some 180 years ago and has survived a frowning Sunni 
> orthodoxy. The sect lays its store by the Hadis — the oral 
> narrative of Prophet Mohammad’s life — as a guiding principle for 
> Muslims in addition to the Quran. The news media have long 
> parroted the police’s insinuation that Ahle-Hadis is a terrorist 
> outfit linked with Lashkar-e-Tayaba. The police claim its members 
> include many terror accused such as those of the July 2006 Mumbai 
> train blasts. The sect, with a claimed membership of 30 million in 
> India, denies the charge. It points out that Union Home Minister 
> Shivraj Patil was the chief guest at its national symposium two 
> years ago at New Delhi.
> In Ahmedabad, Haleem led the 5,000-odd Ahle Hadis followers for 14 
> years, resigning three years ago to minister a small mosque so he 
> could begin life as a scrap dealer to earn a regular income to 
> feed his wife and seven children, the oldest two of whom study at 
> a madarsa in Delhi.
> HALEEM’S TROUBLES had begun soon after the 2002 anti-Muslim 
> violence in Gujarat as he involved himself in relief work at the 
> camps housing hundreds of Muslim refugees. An Ahmedabad native 
> named Shahid Bakshi, who lived in Kuwait and was visiting his 
> home, came to meet Haleem with two other Muslims. One of them was 
> from Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh who also lived in Kuwait. The 
> other was a small-time trader from Moradabad. The three wanted to 
> help 10-year-old Muslim orphans of the 2002 violence by bringing 
> them free education and care, so Haleem took them to four refugee 
> camps. A week later, one camp responded saying it had found 34 
> children for such care. Haleem phoned the Kuwait expatriate, who 
> was then in Moradabad, and also wrote to him about the offer. But 
> getting no response, the plan died and, importantly, no children 
> were ever sent.
> Three months later, in August 2002, Delhi Police arrested Shahid 
> Bakshi and the other expatriate from Kuwait allegedly with 4.5 kg 
> of the explosive material, RDX. The Moradabad trader was also 
> arrested from his hometown. All three were charged under the 
> Prevention of Terrorism Act for conspiring to carry out terrorist 
> acts. Delhi Police found Haleem’s letter (about the camp’s offer 
> of the orphan children) with the expatriate from Kuwait. As both 
> Bakshi and Haleem were from Ahmedabad, police there were informed. 
> Immediately, Ahmedabad police officer DG Vanzara called in Haleem 
> and detained him — illegally — for five days. (Vanzara is now in 
> jail, accused of killing Gujarat businessman Sohrabuddin in cold 
> blood in 2005 and trying to pass him off as a terrorist.) Haleem’s 
> family frantically filed a petition with the Gujarat High Court to 
> secure his release. “The judge ordered the police to bring Haleem 
> to the court in two hours,” recalls the
> family’s lawyer, Hashim Qureshi. The police instantly released 
> Haleem who rushed to the court where his statement on his illegal 
> detention was duly recorded and is part of official documents.
> Even as Delhi Police created the ‘RDX case’ against the two 
> expatriates visiting from Kuwait and the Moradabad trader, police 
> in Ahmedabad created a parallel case against the same individuals 
> for “luring Muslim youth to train as terrorists in Moradabad”. 
> This is the case the police and the media have referred since 
> Haleem’s arrest for the July 26 bomb blasts to argue that the 
> cleric was involved in “sending Muslim youth to train as 
> terrorists”. The Gujarat government lawyer was openly lying on 
> Monday when he told the magistrate that Haleem had sent “30 youth” 
> to Moradabad for training as terrorists. The charge-sheet in the 
> case clearly admits that the so-called conspiracy had remained on 
> paper and no children ever travelled from Ahmedabad to Moradabad.
> While Delhi’s ‘RDX case’ named Haleem a witness, Ahmedabad’s 
> ‘terrorist training case’ named him an accused and said he was 
> absconding. The law says the police have to follow due legal 
> process before declaring an accused as absconding. This includes 
> searches at his house and workplace in view of independent 
> witnesses, and recording statements from neighbours to establish 
> that the accused has not been seen for a long time. The Ahmedabad 
> police did not bother with this exercise.
> The entire case against Haleem is based on a letter he wrote to 
> the expatriate from Kuwait, Farhan Ahmad Ali. Dated August 7, 
> 2002, the letter makes no reference to terrorist training or any 
> other unlawful activity. It simply said: “You had come [to 
> Ahmedabad] with an ‘ahem maqsad’ (important goal).” With a giant 
> leap of imagination, the police claim that the words “ahem maqsad” 
> can only mean a conspiracy for terrorist training. Haleem wrote 
> that six of the children were orphans and the rest poor. He 
> concluded the letter saying: “I believe that by god’s grace you 
> will certainly help me in this educational and constructive 
> mission to propagate Islam.” In his deposition before a Delhi 
> court in the ‘RDX case’, Haleem said he was told the children will 
> get “a good education and decent living” in Moradabad, and had no 
> clue if Bakshi and the others aimed to train the children as 
> terrorists.Last year, the Delhi judge hearing the ‘RDX case’ found 
> Shahid Bakshi and the other expatriate from Kuwait, Farhan Ahmad 
> Ali, guilty and sentenced each to seven years in jail. The court 
> accepted the police version even though the only witnesses to the 
> alleged recovery of RDX were policemen. Ahmad Ali had claimed that 
> he was arrested at the airport as he was to board a flight to 
> Kuwait, and said he had tickets as proof. The judge ignored that.
> Both Bakshi and Ahmad Ali appealed at the Delhi High Court against 
> their conviction. Here is an incredible twister: while they got 
> bail from the Delhi High Court despite being convicted by the 
> lower court, they were denied bail by the Gujarat High Court in 
> the ‘terrorist training case’ although no guilt has yet been 
> established in that case and the Gujarat crime branch admits their 
> crime never went beyond hatching the alleged conspiracy. That’s 
> not all.
> The Moradabad trader, a frail 56-year-old man named Hafiz Mohammad 
> Tahir, was acquitted in the ‘RDX case’. He proved doubly lucky 
> when the Gujarat High Court granted him bail in the ‘terrorist 
> training case’ in June 2004. In its eye-opening bail order, the 
> judge said: “… All that remains against the present applicant 
> [Tahir] is that he visited Ahmedabad and had visited camps to 
> identify the children so that they can be better looked after. 
> That by itself cannot be considered an offence.”
> Since Bakshi and Ahmad Ali are accused of exactly the same crime, 
> the argument should be valid for them, too. Yet, another Gujarat 
> High Court judge denied them bail and both continue to languish in 
> jail. Tahir has, meanwhile, moved to Ahmedabad because the Gujarat 
> High Court’s 2004 bail order said he must report to the Crime 
> Branch office in Ahmedabad every Sunday. On Sunday, July 27, the 
> morning after the blasts, Tahir visited the crime branch office 
> with trepidation. “They grilled me four hours on the blasts,” 
> Tahir told TEHELKA. “I was glad when they let me go.”
> The hearing in the ‘terrorist training case’ is nearly over. It is 
> to be seen if a separate trial will be called against Haleem, 
> since he is no more “absconding”. Meanwhile, Haleem’s family is 
> worried stiff over the next meal and the next month’s house rent 
> of Rs 2,500. Haleem’s wife says she has no savings. His lone 
> employee, a daily labourer, is trying to run Haleem’s scrap shop.
> SADLY, MAULANA Abdul Haleem’s story is anything but rare. One 
> glaring case concerns a “family of terrorists”. On July 15, a 
> posse of policemen arrested 28-year-old Mohammad Muqeemuddin Yasir 
> as he returned home at night from his father’s workshop in 
> Hyderabad. Ten days later, when serial bomb blasts rocked 
> Bangalore on July 25 killing two people, Hyderabad Police 
> Commissioner Prasanna Rao told the Hindustan Times newspaper that, 
> during interrogation, Yasir had confessed that before his arrest, 
> he had taken terror “operatives” to Karnataka and “arranged safe 
> houses” for them. Of course, Yasir denies the confession. “I 
> haven’t told them anything,” Yasir told his mother, Tasleem 
> Fatima, when she visited him at the jail on July 29. “The police 
> are lying.” Fatima told TEHELKA her son was tortured during what 
> the police commissioner calls “interrogation”. “He was hung upside 
> down and beaten,” she said.
> Apart from the fact that a confession made to the police is 
> inadmissible as evidence before a judge (never mind that the news 
> media accept confessions as gospel), Yasir’s alleged confession, 
> if true, should be a slap on the face of the Hyderabad Police. 
> After all, Yasir is an ex-SIMI member whose father and one brother 
> are jailed on charges of terrorism. Yasir’s father, 56-yearold 
> Maulana Mohammad Nasiruddin, is a wellrespected cleric who has now 
> incarcerated in Sabarmati jail in Ahmedabad for nearly four years 
> and has been denied bail all the way up to the Supreme Court. 
> Yasir’s younger brother, Riasuddin Nasir, is jailed in Karnataka’s 
> Belgaum district since he was arrested in January.
> With his brother and father suspected as dreaded terrorists, the 
> Hyderabad Police should have kept tabs on Yasir all the time and 
> instantly known if he was aiding terrorists. That the police 
> didn’t catch Yasir “arranging safe houses” for terrorists in 
> Karnataka is because he probably never did any such thing. This