On 27 February 1933, four weeks after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany, there was a devastating fire in the national Reichstag (parliament) in Berlin. Firefighters trying to save the building found in it a mentally disabled Danish bricklayer who confessed under questioning to be a communist who had come for “political work” in Ger
The position of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) leader, General Michel Aoun, on the electoral law, has been the target of a smear campaign in order to distort it. While since he was in command of the army until he became a major political leader, he always displayed his opposition to sectarianism. From the start of the debate on the electora
At least three such services have started a devious campaign against China for allegedly starting the Financial World War III. Financial World War III has started, but it is not China but the moribund Zionist Anglo-American Empire who unleashed the war. I append below the transcript of a video put out by Brad Hoppman. He is the publisher of a finan
By granting a six week stay on the death sentence of four aides of ivory and sandalwood smuggler Veerappan, the Supreme Court has heightened emotions in Jammu and Kashmir over the hanging of Afzal Guru, and strengthened feelings in some quarters that the President did an injustice by rejecting the mercy petitions of Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru. The Union Home...
Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain began his three-day visit to India by invoking the “huge ties” between the two countries of “history, language, culture and business.” One wonders which particular aspect of the shared history of the two nations he found supportive of his current quest for broadened economic linkages. Could it be what the Eas
The debate over the dangers of fluoride has been ongoing for more than six decades. Study after study confirms that fluoride is a dangerous toxic poison that bio-accumulates in your body while being ineffective at preventing dental decay. Dr. David Kennedy’s documentary film Fluoridegate — An American Tragedy,1 exposes the sordid truth about water
The future of Russia’s ability to remain a global energy supplier and the strength the Russian energy sector gives the Kremlin are increasingly in question. After a decade of robust energy exports and revenues, Russia is cutting natural gas prices to Europe while revenue projections for its energy behemoth, Gazprom, are declining starting this year
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Hari Om
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22 Feb 2013
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Pakistan, which says again and again that Jammu & Kashmir is an “unfinished agenda of partition”, has been bleeding India with a thousand-cut almost at regular intervals to promote its rabidly anti-India agenda and annex this part of Jammu & Kashmir. It has been claiming that since Jammu & Kashmir was a Muslim-majority State, it should
The president gave his annual state-of-the-union reading of a speech that could have been written by the Hallmark Cards Political Greetings Division, touching on all the most important aspects of our national condition: We are the greatest nation in the history of the world and we have some problems but we’re working on them and not to worry, we’ll
Markandey Katju was a judge of the Supreme Court of India who, after retirement, was appointed chairman of the statutory Press Council of India. As PCI Chairman, Katju is predisposed to making pronouncements not only pertaining directly to the Press, but pertaining also to a number of issues of general public interest, including homi
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Hari Om
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19 Feb 2013
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They rule the state. They exercise unbridled and absolute powers. There is no accountability. They are above law. They have converted the State into the “second most corrupt” State in India. They control all the portfolios with political weight and considerable funds. They enjoy representation in the Jammu & Kashmir Legislative Assembly which d
The Italian government has instituted an inquiry into its state-owned aerospace company, Finmeccanica, for paying a hefty bribe to seal a contract for supply of 12 Augusta Westland helicopters to the Indian Air Force. Indian Defence Minister AK Antony has ordered a CBI enquiry into the deal and put on hold the delivery of nine out of the twelve hel
Why does the British government build a splendid new home for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) when it is imposing painful cuts in all other areas of public expenditure? Why does the BBC need a “Global News Room” with more reporters worldwide than CNN, and far more than India, China and Africa combined? Why continue to have full-fledged s
Two images meet the eye of any informed observer of Turkey. The contemporary reality is that of a Mediterranean nation which stretches up to the Caucasus and almost touches Central Asia. The historical perspective reveals a vast empire. Out of the five main ones created by Turkic people in the last thousand years, in Central Asia (Kipcak), Tr
The Delhi gang-rape case has opened a Pandora’s Box and one of the most hotly debated topics emerging out of this is Police Reforms and improvement in the criminal justice system. As is well-known, the criminal justice system, which is generally defined as the system of practices and institutions of governments directed at upholding social control,
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Hari Om
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15 Feb 2013
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On February 9, the December 13, 2001 Parliament attack case convict and Jaish-e-Mohammad operative Mohammad Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri terrorist, was sent to the gallows and finally brought to justice. This should have happened between 2005 and 2006, but the Congress-led UPA Government delayed his execution for reasons best known to it. The BJP and oth
“Our situation may not only be stranger than we suppose; it may be stranger than we can suppose” - J.B. Haldane People demanding governmental change are not united in focusing on the political economics at the root of most global problems, but they are moving in that direction. This shows that many can understand the situation, however strange
American Foreign Policy – Have our war lovers learned anything? Over the past four decades, of all the reasons people over a certain age have given for their becoming radicalized against US foreign policy, the Vietnam War has easily been the one most often cited. And I myself am the best example of this that you could find. I sometimes think that i
Why they keep happening and why they will continue: From almost the day that they were introduced in the late 1980s and early 1990s, sudden, unexpected suicides and homicides have been reported in patients taking serotonin-enhancing antidepressants such as Prozac, Paxil, and Zoloft. I’m not surprised this problem hasn’t disappeared, nor will it unl
It wasn’t a very good month for US soldiers and veterans and the Pentagon. What with the ongoing revelations out of the Veterans Administration that 18 military veterans commit suicide every day and that there are more active duty soldiers killing themselves than are being killed in combat. This war isn’t very glorious. It also hasn’t been a v
VHP leader Praveen Togadia’s tasteless response to MIM legislator Akbaruddin Owaisi was not so much a warning in case the latter instigated communal mischief as an open indictment of his bête noire Narendra Modi for alleged complicity in the Gujarat riots of 2002. Using Owaisi’s ‘remove the police’ boast as a peg, Togadia bragged that police were absent in ...
“Do not politicise the issue”, Congress leader Digvijay Singh said repeatedly while answering questions about the execution of Afzal Guru, one of the masterminds behind the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001. Unfortunately, ever since news of the execution broke out on 9 February 2013, it is only politics that is being playe
As US President Barack Obama’s second-term foreign policy team begins to take shape, Iran remains unfinished business for the US administration. The diplomatic malaise surrounding this issue over the past decade has taken its toll on Washington and Tehran. Even as the United States and Iran are putting out feelers for another round of negotiations,
I was a little benumbed whilst watching this technically advanced but socio-politically regressive movie. Kamal Haasan lied to all of us when he stated that this movie is his tribute to Indian Muslims and will make them proud. This movie had me even more worried than ever. The message propagated all through the course of this slick production is ba
In recent weeks there has been a sea change in the Bharatiya Janta Party. Under its unexpected new president and unnamed prime ministerial candidate, the party has a new profile and after a long time appears to be a serious contender in the next general elections, whenever these are held. The growing national consensus is that elections could be he
Every nation has its own set of idiosyncrasies, more so loud and messy democracies. India has more than its fair share of eccentricities. In our great and burgeoning democracy, the media, especially the electronic section, laps up controversies like a cat takes to cream. Hours upon hours of valuable media time and space is dedicated to issues that
In the cold winter of 1989-90, a mobocracy, a part of the hydra-headed terrorism supported by Pakistan, tore into pieces what was known as Kashmiriyat. A community’s our sense of security was pierced by the bullets of men we came to recognise as jihadis, mujahidin. And a whole community was rendered homeless, forced into exile. Since the terro
The controversy caused by the statements of the Doha coalition leader, Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib, announcing that he was willing to meet with members of the Syrian government, proves that this structure, created upon an American decision, is only a façade of the Muslim Brotherhood. That organization has publicly terrorized al-Khatib to push him not to c
Romila Thapar, the favourite historian of Indian Marxists and the feted and decorated icon of certain international scholarly circles, is settling further into her dogmatic worldview, as can be discerned from the talks she has been giving in recent years. The old dogmas are carefully swaddled in more attractive clothes (sometimes not even that) but
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Hari Om
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06 Feb 2013
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Is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) thinking in terms of reviving its pre-1991 agenda to take on the Congress party and expose its “designs of appeasement politics” and fake “secularism” and fight the upcoming general elections on Hindutva plank? The answer seems to be in the affirmative considering reports emanating from Delhi on January 31 after
It is heartening to observe that India is finally displaying sensitivity towards its women and is moving ahead with some stringent laws against those who commit barbaric sexual assaults against them. In the wake of strong protests and widespread disgust generated by the brutal gang-rape of a young woman in New Delhi late last year, the government a
In a major overture to its Indian-origin citizens (mainly Hindus of Tamil stock), the Malaysian government lifted its four-year ban on the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf), on the eve of the auspicious Tamil month of Thaipusam, on January 25, 2013. The Registrar of Societies informed Hindraf chairman P Waythamoorthy that Home Minister Hishammudd
The French military’s current campaign to dislodge jihadist militants from northern Mali and the recent high-profile attack against a natural gas facility in Algeria are both directly linked to the foreign intervention in Libya that overthrew the Gadhafi regime. There is also a strong connection between these events and foreign powers’ decision not
To the many crimes of President Vladimir Putin, a new one was added last month: kicking babies, sweet, innocent, plump babies - out of sheer wickedness. This crime was discussed ad nauseam, until it became a meme which was summed up by the NY Times’ own Thomas Friedman: “When recently confronted with his regime’s bad behavior, [Putin’s] first
The vote value in Indian democracy means that every citizen who is qualified voter is vested with the absolute right to vote for the person of his/her choice. Yet the electoral system in India is passing through turbulence as there are several questions that need to be answered regarding this vote value. It is imperative that the right to fra
North Korea’s state-run media reported Sunday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has ordered the country’s top security officials to take “substantial and high-profile important state measures,” which has been widely interpreted to mean that North Korea is planning its third nuclear test. Kim said the orders were retaliation for the US-led push t