ISSUES AND CONCERNS

Friends This October signifies the completion of yet another eventful year of this journey 'towards a purposeful regimen'. Yes, ISSUES & CONCERNS has completed 13 long years. Looking back over the shoulder, this sojourn has been very trying and tiring too. But the satisfaction of completing a milestone has its own rejuvenating dimension. We are certainly more sure of facing the future with confidence. Monsoon has ebbed. But it has been far more copious than the requirement. In different parts of the country there have been massive water logging and inundation. Hopefully it has not damaged the food crops to any cognizable extent. But it was clear that climate is changing. Hope our experience of this year’s monsoon fury shall become handy in the next monsoon to be better prepared. Bombing at church in Peshawar, where some close to 100 died with over 200 injured, was the worst terror attack that world witnessed in recent times. It was very very sad and bad that in in...

RAJASTHAN: It is rather sad that we had to start this column with the episode involving a 16 year old girl accusing a septuagenarian preacher Aasaram of sexual assault at his Jodhpur Ashram. A student of 12th from the preacher’s Chindwara gurukul in Madhya Pradesh has even alleged that the accused has threatened to eliminate her parents if she goes public about the alleged assault.  Public, she did go, with Delhi police filing an FIR and recording her statement before a magistrate under section 164 of Criminal Procedure Code. Although, the details of the incident is not important, as long as the truth of the sexual assault is established and the perpetrator is dealt with extreme severity for the crime committed on a minor.  The incident allegedly happened in Jodhpur, where the girl was brought by her parents to see this Aasaram from the hostel in Chindwara, for a cure of an alleged possession of the girl by the evil spirit. What transpired in the Ashram is in public do...

Majority in Pakistan MJ Akbar was in Karachi some years ago, he recounts, at the home of a close Pakistani friend. Between them they decide to visit the Binori mosque and madrasa, founded by Maulana Yusuf  Binori immediately after Aug. 1947. It is another matter, that despite being a dignitary in the Pakistani official apparatus, the friend too, had never visited this Binori mosque for all the six plus decades’ post independence. Was this too, a reflection of the air of uncertainty prevailing in Karachi? This location was widely believed to be a sanctuary for Osama Bin Laden during his association with US forces in their fight against Soviet Union’s presence in Afghanistan. On reaching the mosque, MJA describes “We mounted steps that opened into a spacious courtyard surrounded by rooms. A few students loitered around with their usual outfit, of white kurta and the two inches above ankle pyjama, like in any Islamic seminary in the subcontinent. As I bent to unlace my shoes, I di...

Science, God, and Myths. Prof. B. M. Hegde, hegdebm@gmail.com "The impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with   our conscious selves, arose through chance seems to me the chief argument forthe existence of God." Charles Darwin (1809-1882)    While the word science brings reverence in hearts of many superficial thinkers, the word God also brings about similar feelings may be, ina largergroup of people. It is time to have a liberal debate on the subjects to demolish many myths that abound in this area. Both sides have their proponents who hate the opposite view so strongly that they miss the truth in between the two extremes. The greatest exponent of Neo-Darwinism, the corner stone of science, Richard Dawkins, is still clear in supporting the unsupportable neo Darwinism. Similarly there are powerful people in the organised religious fields who abhor science and attribute everything to their God. There are enough and more data to su...

Crazy police urinate into youth’s mouth Kolkata: A fresh controversy, which is likely to push the Mamata Banerjee administration into another uncomfortable corner, finds three policemen in Kolkata accused of urinating on a youth, who had asked them for help against some antisocial. The parents of 20-year-old Md. Rafiq Anwar, a resident of Beniapukur, which is barely a couple of kilometers away from the city’s central business district, filed a complaint with the local police station alleging that their son was walking towards his home late evening through the Park Circus Maidan – the large sports ground and morning walkers’ haven provides much-needed greenery to the otherwise concertized area-when he was accosted by four men. The men asked Rafiq for a matchbox to light their cigarette, but when he said he had none and walked on, they stopped him again, surrounded him and started forcibly digging his pockets. As these men were taking away Rafiq’s mobile phone and whatever cash...

Mentally challenged girl accused of blasphemy by imam in Islamabad - Imam arrested but released Islamabad: A Muslim cleric charged with falsely accusing a Christian girl of blasphemy was freed by a Pakistani court for lack of evidence. Khalid Jadoon Chishti was arrested last year on charges of planting pages of the Quran in a shopping bag containing burnt paper to strengthen the blasphemy case against Rimsha Masih, a mentally challenged teenager. Chisti's lawyer Wajid Gilani said a court in Islamabad had accepted his plea that there was not enough evidence to prosecute him. Masih was booked under the controversial blasphemy law and spent three weeks in jail before she was released when it emerged that the imam of the mosque in her neighbourhood had falsely implicated her. Three witnesses who testified against the cleric had later backtracked from their statements, The Express Tribune reported. They said police had "forced" them to testify against Chishti. Masih an...

Intolerance of a weird kind Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia has revoked the permanent residency status of a Singaporean resort owner who was arrested on a charge of defiling a place of worship after he allowed Buddhists to use a Muslim prayer room.  Syed Ahmed Alkaff, a 45-year-old Singaporean with Malaysian permanent residency status, was arrested on August 11 at Tanjung Sutera Resort in southern Johor state under Section 295 of the Penal Code for injuring or defiling a place of worship. He had allowed a group of Buddhists from Singapore to use the prayer hall for chanting. Alkaff was later released on bail.  Cow falls thru roof to kill sleeping man London : In a bizarre incident, a 45-year-old Brazilian man has died after a one-tonne cow fell through his roof on top of him as he was in bed. Joao Maria de Souza had been in bed with his wife Leni when the animal fell through the ceiling of their home in Caratinga, southeast Brazil, narrowly missing his wife. The cow is b...

INDIA AND UNITED STATES: STRATEGIC FRIENDS?  Dr. M. V. Kamath Some weeks ago I received a list of twenty nine Indian Americans who are presently supposedly holding high positions in the U.S Administration, including offices in the White House. The list seemed unbelievable. It was sent to me by one himself an Indian American, and for a time I felt an intense desire to publish it. But then I became hesitant. What if the list proved to be totally incorrect? Was I being taken for a ride? But then, to what purpose? After a great deal of thought I decided that I would drop the idea. It is no secret that many Indian Americans are holding top jobs in the fields of trade and commerce, as much as in the field of education like, say, Amartya Sen. We have also seen a couple of them elected to the Governorship of states. But how completely integrated are Indian Americans in American society as a whole? That is, perhaps, a matter for deep study. It was once said that a large percentage o...