varnam

In a sign of growing concern over Islamic militants' training camps in Pakistan, the Department of Homeland Security has ordered its inspectors at America's largest airports to scrutinize all travelers of Pakistani descent including U.S. citizens in an effort to catch terrorist trainees who might try to enter the United States, officials said Wednesday.

In particular, agents are being told to look for signs of injuries that could have been received during paramilitary training such as rope burns, unusual bruises and scars...Most of the camps in Pakistan are thought to be overseen by militants who belong to fundamentalist Islamic organizations with links to Al Qaeda, the official said. He added that they were probably less sophisticated than the training operations that Al Qaeda oversaw in Afghanistan before the U.S.-led military campaign to destroy them in late 2001...Even before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, U.S. authorities and their counterparts in India were closely monitoring such camps. They contend that the camps have trained Islamic militants fighting along with Pakistan against India in the contested area of Kashmir. Los Angeles Times

These are the benefits of being the citizens of a Non-Nato Major Ally. It is not just the Americans. As Kamran Shafi writes

In the end, and in light of the foregoing, let me give a short comparison of how the world looks at India and us. As of now, the Schengen States do not issue more than a three-month validity visa for those Pakistanis lucky to get one; Indians are allowed, hold on to your chairs, 10-year visas! So much for our front-line state against terrorism status; so much for our major non-Nato ally nonsense. Daily Times

Feuding warlords, Taliban attacks and political squabbling have affected Afghanistan elections. The elections that were to take place in September have now been postponed to mid-October.

There is also intensive discussion in Kabul over whether to postpone parliamentary elections until next year as violence mounts, and the disarmament of militias and warlords has faltered. Youth and civil society groups have already called for elections to be postponed until next year to ensure greater stability and freedom for voters. Political parties which are only starting to form and register are largely in favor of a postponement too, officials said.

United Nations officials and diplomats are concerned that without more disarmament of the warlords and their militias, there will be gross intimidation and interference in an early election, especially for parliamentary seats. The United Nations spokesman, Mr. Almeida e Silva, stressed that the organization was being guided by the time frame laid down in the Bonn agreements, which set elections for this year, but was also concerned to see commitments on disarmament and demobilization of militias, the surrender of heavy weapons and political freedoms met ahead of elections.

Jean Arnault, the United Nation's special representative in Afghanistan, told the Security Council in May that the Taliban and al Qaeda insurgency in southern Afghanistan was increasing, hindering voter registration and threatening the legitimacy of elections. Mr. Arnault said voter registration hasn't been possible in three of the 34 provinces and has proven difficult in nine others.

If the elections do not happen in October, it may get postponed to next year as the mountain passes will get snow covered after October.

The excavations at Adi Badri in Haryana revealed a 300 AD Kushan site. Excavations in Dholavira in Kutch revealed one the world's oldest stadiums and sign boards. These are two sites along the path of the mythical Saraswati river. These excavations would have revealed more about our past, and answered questions like: Were the Harappans the Vedic people ? Some eminent historians had already opposed these excavations as it was seen as an attempt to push the antiquity of Indian Civilization. But now there are indications that "The Saraswati Heritage Project" will be scrapped.

A pet project of the then culture minister Jagmohan, officials now indicate that it would be certainly axed. Yet, those involved with the Rs 4.98-crore project feel if this is done, it would be grossly unfair and a setback to archaeology and academics. "The Saraswati Heritage Project was not part of any saffronisation progr-amme," clarifies R S Bisht, project director and former joint DG of ASI.

Instead, Bisht claims that the project is aimed at "settling the issues of different schools of thought" on the existence of the Saraswati. He says it is entirely based on scientific principles with stress on inter-disciplinary archaeological research in which the help of prestigious institutions like IITs and the Birbal Sahni Institution is being taken.

So far, excavation has already been undertaken in 10 places � Adi Badri, Thanesar, Sandhauli, Bhirrana, Hansi (all in Haryana), Baror, Tarkhanwala Dhera, Chak 86 (all in Rajasthan), Dholavira and Juni Karan in Gujarat. The project's action taken report claims that during the excavation, remains from the pre-Harappan, Harappan and even medieval times have been discovered. Times of India

In the sixth century AD, a new kingdom emerged in mainland South-East Asia. Based in Cambodia, it absorbed the Funan kingdom established by the brahmin Kaundinya and emerged as the Khemer kingdom of Angkor. Their kings chose names ending in -varman like the Pallava kings of Kanchi and constructed one of the largest Hindu temples outside India.

The temples of Angkor, built from 879 - 1191AD, when the Khmer civilization was at the height of its development, represent one of humankind's most astonishing and enduring architectural achievements. From the great citadel of Angkor, the kings of the Khmer empire ruled over a vast domain that reached from what is now southern Vietnam to Yunan, China and from Vietnam westward to the Bay of Bengal. The structures one sees at Angkor today, more than 100 temples in all, are the surviving religious remains of a grand social and administrative metropolis whose other buildings - palaces, public buildings, and houses - were all built of wood and are long since decayed and gone.

The City of Angkor was also magnificient

They learned the metropolitan area extended far beyond Angkor Thom, the 700-year-old walled city that houses Angkor Wat. Angkor was home to about 750,000 people and covered some 1,000 square kilometers (385 square miles) $(O m(Buch larger than any other preindustrial development and similar to the shape and size of modern cities, Fletcher said.

"It's like a Los Angeles. It's not like Hong Kong," he said. "Lots and lots of open space, big gaps around the houses, huge freeways, which are the canals in this case." The city's economy was based on rice, and rice paddies spread along dozens of canals, at least one up to 20 kilometers (12 miles) long. A network of reservoirs, canals, and bridges was created to move people and goods and to ensure there was enough water to grow rice. Angkor engineers even changed the direction that some rivers flowed in what essentially was "a human-built landscape for growing rice," Fletcher said.

The general reason mentioned for the demise of this kingdom is an attack by the Thais in 1431. But now scientists think that the demise happened much before, due to the evils of urban societies, like ecological failure and infrastructure breakdown. They think it is important to study these reasons as it can provide lessons in dealing with problems many urban societies are facing today.

Fletcher, a professor at the University of Sydney, theorizes that population pressures and water woes made it harder to trade and communicate. People began migrating south toward the area around what is now Phnom Penh, where subsequent capitals were set up.

The growing population also forced people to venture into the nearby Kulen hills to cut down trees for fuel and to clear land for growing rice. That would have resulted in rain runoff carrying sediment down into the canal network, Evans said. "Anything that happened to that water management system would have had a great deal of consequence for all of the people," he said. ENN

In another report from Cambodia, India has promised to donate $5.5 million for the restoration of the Ta Prohm temple at the Angkor Wat site.

The Ta Prohm is a magnificent temple-monastery complex built in the South Indian architectural style that once housed nearly 13,000 monks and other attendants. Angkor Wat is the largest temple area in the world..

Ta Prohm has been left by archaeologists in its original jungle-covered state, some of its walls cracked apart by tree roots, making it an exotic subject for photographers and a popular destination for tourists. It was built by one of the greatest Khmer Kings, Jayavarman VII, who also built Angkor Thom as his capital and the Bayon as his state temple where a mix of Buddhist and Hindu deities were worshipped. Big News Network

Srijith has great photographs of Angkor Wat and Ta Prohm

The North East Indian State of Tripura is one plagued by seperatist violence. These terrorists who use Bangladesh as a base recently they kidnapped 42 traders. Now the Govt. has discovered one of their supporters.

The government in India's north-eastern state of Tripura says it has evidence that the state's Baptist Church is involved in backing separatist rebels. Nagmanlal Halam, secretary of the Noapara Baptist Church in Tripura, was arrested late on Monday with a large quantity of explosives. Mr Sarkar said that allegations about the close links between the state's Baptist Church and the rebel National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) have long been made by political parties and police. Now for the first time, he said, hard evidence supporting the allegations had been found. BBC

According to GlobalSecurity.org

The National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) was formed in December 1989 for the purpose of seceding from India in order to create an independent Christian fundamentalist state of Tripura. The group was banned under the Unlawful Activies Prevention Act of 1967.

Will Osama Bin Laden, Mullah Omar or Ayman Al Zawahiri be the surprise factor in the American Elections in November ?. It seems the Bush Administration is putting pressure on Musharraf to catch the the High Value Targets according to an article in The New Republic

But The New Republic has learned that Pakistani security officials have been told they must produce HVTs by the election. According to one source in Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), "The Pakistani government is really desperate and wants to flush out bin Laden and his associates after the latest pressures from the U.S. administration to deliver before the [upcoming] U.S. elections." Introducing target dates for Al Qaeda captures is a new twist in U.S.-Pakistani counterterrorism relations--according to a recently departed intelligence official, "no timetable[s]" were discussed in 2002 or 2003--but the November election is apparently bringing a new deadline pressure to the hunt.

A third source, an official who works under ISI's director, Lieutenant General Ehsan ul-Haq, informed tnr that the Pakistanis "have been told at every level that apprehension or killing of HVTs before [the] election is [an] absolute must." What's more, this source claims that Bush administration officials have told their Pakistani counterparts they have a date in mind for announcing this achievement: "The last ten days of July deadline has been given repeatedly by visitors to Islamabad and during [ul-Haq's] meetings in Washington." Says McCormack: "I'm aware of no such comment." But according to this ISI official, a White House aide told ul-Haq last spring that "it would be best if the arrest or killing of [any] HVT were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July"--the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston. TNR

Our friendly General/President next door gave a speech in which he claimed that an iron curtain is falling between the West and Muslims. He also made the assertion that the root of terrorism is illiteracy and poverty and not the madrassa education where a one sided view of the world is taught. Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch has a rebuttal.

Musharraf is probably not familiar with numerous studies that indicate that the conventional wisdom he is purveying here is actually false. The idea that terrorists are desperately poor, uneducated, and easily enticed by the promise of a few dollars or a bit of manipulative religious twaddle that the cynical power elite purvey but don?t believe in themselves ? it flies in the face of the facts. Most recently, Marc Sageman, a former CIA case officer, has found through extensive background studies of known Al-Qaeda operatives that most Islamic terrorists are, according to a Knight-Ridder report, ?well-educated, married men from middle- or upper-class families, in their mid-20s and psychologically stable ? Many of them knew several languages and traveled widely.? Sageman strongly ruled out the idea that terrorists were misfits and sociopaths: ?The data suggest that these were good kids who liked to go to school and were often overprotected by their parents.?

Last March, the acting President of the radical Muslim party Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), Qazi Hussain Ahmad, threatened to launch nationwide protests if the curriculum in Pakistan?s Islamic schools (madrassas) were reformed to eliminate verses from the Qur?an that taught violent jihad. ?To combat this,? Qazi warned, ?a major jihadi campaign has become necessary.? He sent Musharraf a pointed reminder: ?the general should note that the country came into existence on Islamic ideology and it could survive on that basis alone.? That ideology is taught daily in many of Pakistan?s 27,000 madrassas. A significant percentage of these, according to Newsweek, ?steep their students in the doctrine of holy war and function openly as jihad enlistment centers.? Front Page Magazine

Pakistan on Monday suggested the establishment of a mechanism to involve the people of Jammu and Kashmir "at some stage" in the dialogue process to resolve the vexed issue, and said a solution that "satisfies Islamabad will satisfy Kashmiris" too. Rediff

But before anyone could say react, JKLF responded

Flaying this statement, senior JKLF leader Shabir Chaudhury said in a statement that "what satisfies Islamabad, does not satisfy even their own people in Sindh, Balochistan or Frontier, how can it satisfy Kashmiris who are neither constitutionally or legally a part of Pakistan." Strongly protesting Khan's remark, Choudhury said Pakistan was a party to the Kashmir issue and as a party it could only speak about its own interest. India Express

VADODARA: Jains in Khambhat taluka of Anand were overjoyed when around 65 idols temple were unearthed at a construction site in the town. Inscriptions on them suggested that they were over 900 years old. While, the first statue was unearthed on Sunday, many more structures, including idols of Jain deity Ambica Devi, were unearthed on Monday at the site where a mamlatdar office is being built. Senior community members believed excavation might uncover a Jain temple belonging to Tirthtankar Nemnath Swami.

Officials have taken the idols in custody and are awaiting a team of archaeologists. "The structures include that of temple 'Parikar' and 'Gaadi'. The year inscribed on the plaques range from 1001 to 1130 of the Hindu calendar. This puts the structures at over 900 years old. Also, the idol of Ambica Devi is usually found in temples of Nemnath Swa-mi. "Many Jain traders had settled when Khambhat was a major trading hub. Most of the temples were developed in that period. Hence, even rarest of idols like those of sapphire and nilam are found here." Senior community members have urged the government to hand over the place to the community." It is a great matter of faith for us. Times of India

Indian Archaeologists have found the names of 670 labourers who built the Taj Mahal.

The names, written mostly in Arabic and Persian, are etched on the sandstone used in the wall and other peripheral structures on the northern side of the Taj Mahal, the Asian Age newspaper reported. Some names were also written in Hindi, the report said, quoting D. Dayalan, a senior official at the Archaeological Survey of India. Dayalan and his staff also found tridents, stars, geometrical patterns and flowers carved into some of the sandstone, implying the masons and labourers were drawn from diverse religions. "Since many of them were illiterates, they denoted symbols as a mark of their identity," Dayalan said. CNews

I am in the middle of a Job Change/Relocation this week. So blogging will be sporadic. Details will come up soon.

After living for 18 months in Los Angeles, I have moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area. In terms of blogger speak, this means that I moved from CalPundit's neighborhood to Dan Gillmor's neighborhood. This time my employer is one of the software giants. (As you may have observed, I am not very generous in revealing personal information). I don't know if it is offshoring or a bad economy, the traffic on the freeways are much better. Or maybe it is because I come from LA, which has traffic jams at 5 am on a Sunday Morning.

I will miss the high speed car chases, gang violence and random gun shots in LA. Bay Area or Silicon Valley is a very sedate place which boasts more Indian restaurants than Gas Stations. The Internet access from home will be available only from the weekend, which is when blogging will resume.

On the Job front, the market has improved. You will get a job if you know someone. So my advice is to network. Also you need to have the right qualifications. Salaries are going up too.

Now that I am back here, I can catch up on all the Malayalam movies I missed in the last 18 months.

There are some pictures from Adichanallur, near Tirunelveli where 2800 years old human skeletons were found in urns.

The series of motifs show a tall, majestic looking woman; a swathe of standing paddy next to her; a crane; a deer; a crocodile and a lizard too. These motifs resemble prehistoric cave paintings found in Erode and Dharmapuri districts of Tamil Nadu. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Chennai Circle, made the discovery this month in one of the six trenches it dug at Adichanallur. The woman who is standing holds what looks like an oval-shaped anklet in her right hand. The deer has long, straight horns and an upturned tail. The crane is perched on some vegetation. The crocodile looks as if it is crouching. It is virtually a pictorial ode. A small, thin rope was obviously used to bring about a serrated effect on the deer's horns, the sheaf of paddy, etc.

The ASI has also discovered two urns, fully intact, with beautiful decorations on them. One has a garland-like impression running below its rim, created by a thumb impression. Another urn has two necklace-like ornamentation, cutting each other. A flat, thin knob protrudes from one of these decorations. A third broken pot has a leaf-like design running all round its middle.

The "engineering marvel" at the Adichanallur burial site is its three-tier system. The earliest generation buried the dead in urns at a depth of about 10 feet. The next two generations buried them in urns in two tiers above. Urns were inserted by cutting a rocky hillock. Agriculture land was not used. Mr. Thirumoorthy said: "The three-tier system of burial shows their intention, with foresight, to accommodate future burials. Adichanallur shows the importance given to the dead in the early Tamil society in the mode of burial practice, and that society's socio, economic and religious beliefs." The Hindu

At some point mt-blacklist stopped working for me and spammers took over. So I pulled the old blog down and upgraded to MT 3.0. The look and feel is the default one and I will slowly bring back my old templates.

Now that my Wireless network is working and the new Dell laptop is in my hands, the regular postings will start.

After finding that Apple had a huge marketshare in portable music players, Sony, who revolutionized the portable music market 25 years back decided to step in. So they introduced the Sony Network Walkman which got many things right. The Sony device is smaller and has a much better battery life. But they decided to screw up in the most important area, the format of the songs. They decided not to support any of the popular music formats, including MP3.

One major downside of the new Walkman is that it can't play MP3 files, or any of the other standard formats. It can play back only a proprietary Sony format called ATRAC3, or a variation called ATRAC3plus. This means that, when you transfer your MP3 files to the new Walkman, Sony's PC software must laboriously convert them first into ATRAC3 files. Sony claims it designed the player this way because ATRAC3 produces superior sound, and because it has features that extend battery life.

For my test, I used a very modest collection of 431 standard MP3 files. SonicStage 2 refused to transfer 15 of the files, posting a nonsensical error message. After that, it took an agonizingly long two hours and 13 minutes to transfer the remaining 416 tracks to the Walkman. By contrast, Apple's iTunes software transferred all 431 songs to an iPod in about four minutes.

Will this kill the iPod ? I don't think so.

Newsweek has a new poll in which John Kerry is leading ahead of George Bush by 7 points.

Coming out of the Democratic National Convention in Boston, Sen. John Kerry now holds a seven-point lead over President George W. Bush (49 percent to 42 percent) in a three-way race with independent Ralph Nader (3 percent), according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll The poll was taken over two nights, both before and after Kerry's acceptance speech. Respondents who were queried after Kerry's Thursday night speech gave the Democrat a ten-point lead over Bush. Three weeks ago, Kerryâ??s lead was three points.

But then this was Kerry's week. If he did not make this much gain it would have been a shame. But then the President also stayed away from the limelight. But here is an interesting observation

For the first time in the NEWSWEEK poll, as many voters strongly back Kerry as strongly back Bush (31 percent to 30 percent). In an election expected to be decided by a small number of unaffiliated voters, independents now lean toward Kerry by a margin of 45 percent to 39 percent, with Nader pulling 7 percent. And voters are becoming more likely to predict a Kerry victory in November: Forty-four percent say Kerry will win vs. 43 percent who predict Bush.[via Newsweek]