Meeting Ravikiran

Yesterday was a productive day as we found solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. By we I mean me and Ravikiran. Though he had made fun of Mallus many times I decided to meet him here in the Bay Area where he was visiting. But instead of giving me his phone number at the motel, he gave his fax number. I let it slide as well, afterall he gave me the GMail invite.
Though I was scared that he would knock me out with his PJs he turned out to be quite a affable person. We talked about blogs, A Roy, Nehru, and MadMan (I don’t remember exactly how Madhu came into this discussion). We also discussed the dangers of Communism, solutions on eradicating poverty and bringing world peace. Furthur discussions on this matter will be conducted at a Foregin Secretary level.
Ravikiran is now on his way back to India, where the challenging task of deleting spam comments on his blog awaits him.

Some words of advice

The Information Minister of the Congress government in Andhara Pradesh state, Mohammad Ali Shabber, Monday said that 150 million Indian Muslims feel that Pakistan is following a wrong policy on Kashmir as Islam does not allow any kind of violence.
The Muslim minister said: “You Pakistanis need to understand that despite certain instances of communal violence here, we the Muslims are otherwise quite safe in our own worship places in a Hindu-dominated society. On the other hand, Pakistani Muslims are killing each other in their mosques in the name of Islam, Shiaism and Sunniism.”
Talking to a group of visiting Pakistani journalists, the minister said the Indian Muslims were enjoying fruits of secularism and democracy. Without mincing any words, he said Pakistanis need to realise that the Indian Muslims strongly support New Delhi over Kashmir and want the Pakistani government and public to stop interfering in Indian held Kashmir. This, he said, was in the best interest of everybody. [Indian Muslims back Delhi on Kashmir, claims minister]

Ouch! That should hurt a lot. The appropriate response from the other side would be to call Mohammad Ali Shabber a Hindu stooge.

Spreading ideology through mass murder

Throughout the world, we see that wherever socialists took power, genocide followed. In the USSR, up to 30 million people were murdered by Communists. Tens of millions were slaughtered in China. Two million in Vietnam. A million and a half in Cambodia. Up to three and a half million people in North Korea. In Afghanistan upon Communist take-over, at least 12,000 people were killed in Kabul alone in the first few months.
The reason why genocides occur under a socialist form of economics is very simple. For one, politicians have total power over the masses. They can tell you where to live, what to buy

Communist Terrorists

Just days before the RJD-sponsored rally in Patna on December 23, CPI-Maoist naxalites on Sunday night blew up a small railway bridge between Karmandiha and Sasaram, 96 km from Gaya, in Mughalsarai division of ECR.
Maoists, who were prevented from holding a rally in Patna, have threatened to disturb RJD rally by targeting railways, among other things. The RJD has booked 18 special trains to ferry party supporters to Patna from different parts of the state.
Sources said that over two dozen armed naxalites reached the spot around 1 am and blew up the bridge. “It could have been fatal had they blasted the bridge half-an-hour earlier when the Howrah-New Delhi Rajdhani Express crossed the bridge,” a railway official said. [Maoists blast rail bridge to disrupt rally]

The Communist contribution to the development of India.

Richard Boucher – Washington Bob

Richard Boucher, the State Dept spokesman will even put Baghdad Bob to shame. He is known to make insensitive statements. Now that Pakistani all-in-one CEO Musharraf has decided to stay on as the Army Chief, the State Dept had no official condemntation of it. Isn’t it the policy of the current administration to promote democracy in Islamic countries ? Isn’t that why we invaded Iraq ?
But Richard Boucher, the Washington Bob said that United States will continue to promote democracy in Pakistan, by rewarding the dictator with money and arms.

Coins from Kashmir

Ancient coins belonging to the era of Hindu kings Harsha and Kalsha have been unearthed by some labourers during construction work at Watnar near Kokernag in Anantnag district of Jammu and Kashmir.
An earthen urn containing the copper coins weighing 16.3 kgs and dating back to at least 10 centuries were found by the labourers a few days back when they were working on the plinth for construction of a religious school, the Department of Archaeology, Archives and Museums (AAM) said here today.
Describing them as “priceless”, an AAM spokesman told reporters, “the coins are of Hindu period and were in vogue during the reign of Harsha and Kalsha.” The urn was handed over by the labourers to Deputy Commissioner Ananantag who handed them over to the department. The department did not give the actual number of coins in the urn but said research would be conducted to decipher the language inscribed on them as also to find out the exact age. [Ancient coins unearthed in J-K]

Harsha who ruled from 1089-1111 AD started as a noble king, but later as he ran into financial troubles, he started destroying temples for gold. He even had an office for the destruction of gods.

Breeding hatred

What they teach in history books in Pakistan is very insightful.

A famous Pakistani historian says that the distorted facts and the fictitious history that is being taught in Pakistani schools is responsible for breeding hatred among the young.
Dr Mubarak Ali, a historian and editor of the magazine, Tareekh, told the audience at the Peshawar Press Club on Wednesday that the language used history and textbooks was provocative. He referred to the words conspiracies, intrigues, treachery, prejudices, enmity with Muslims, collusion, Hindu mentality and political tactics being frequently used that gave an impression that Hindus could not be friends with Muslims.
He said that the Hindu enmity was frequently mentioned in the history books.
Delivering a lecture on What should be the Pakistan studies, Dr Ali noted that history had no connection with religion and culture and that secularism was indispensable for democracy.
He said the Pakistani history had been distorted and that it was the need of hour that students be enlightened regarding the history of culture, archaeology and popular movements of different regions of Pakistan. He said folk stories and literature were an important part of history and these should be brought into the limelight.
He said the authors of the history books had not been professional with the result that the students were unaware of the true history of Pakistan.
Dr Ali refuted the frequent claim that the Muslims of the sub-continent blamed the British and Hindus for their backwardness. If we go through the real history, we find that Muslims were not as oppressed as they have been painted in the history books, he said. [Distorted history is breeding hatred]

And at the same time Communists in India are trying their best to re-write history so that some horrible incidents can be erased.

The Cham people

Yesterday there was a news on the discovery of a linga in Vietnam in the Cham community. The first religion of Cham was Shaivite Hinduism.

In the midst of modern day Vietnam, some distinct touches of India remain. These are artefacts of the Cham civilisation that flourished in central Vietnam from the 2nd to 15th century AD. Indian influence in Vietnam spread through its linkages with this dynasty.
The Chams became Indianised through commercial links with India – they adopted Hinduism, employed Sanskrit as a sacred language and borrowed heavily from Indian art. The effects of these are evident in the Cham monuments in the Quang Nam province, 700 km from capital Hanoi.
The Chams battled constantly with the Vietnamese in the north of their kingdom and the Khmers (in modern Cambodia) in the west. The Chams threw off Khmer rule in the 12th century but were entirely absorbed by Vietnam in the 17th century. One of the greatest Cham sites, My Son, is considered the equivalent of Angkor Vat, Cambodia, in terms of archaeological importance. It became a religious centre under King Bhadravarman in the late fourth century. Most of the temples were dedicated to Lord Shiva.
The Vietnam war destroyed My Son – the temples and ruins bombed to bits. Today they require extensive restoration work. A proposal for cooperation between India and Vietnam for restoration and conservation of Cham monuments is being considered by the Archaeological Survey of India. The Cham monuments of My Son have been declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco. The greatest collection of the Cham ruins is at the Cham Museum in Danang. [India lives on in ancient Vietnamese ruins]