suchandra

Nepal President worships at Krishna temple Kathmandu (PTI): Nepalese President Ram Baran Yadav on Saturday visited the famous Krishna Temple at Lalitpur near here for the first time after assuming power to pay homage to Lord Krishna on the occasion of Sri Krishna Janamashtami.

Tens of thousands of devotees have thronged the famous 21 pinnacle temple at Patan Durbar Square since Saturday morning.

The President alongwith high ranked government officials and diplomats reached the temple at 8.30 a.m. (local time) and spent about 10 minutes there.

Krishna Temple is made of stone on which Indian epic Mahabharata has been inscribed.

The Himalayan nation, which recently abolished monarchy, has a tradition of its King visiting the Krishna Temple on the occasion.

After the abolition of monarchy, the duty to be the chief guest at major Hindu festivals is being executed by the head of the state.

This is the second Hindu festival, after the Matchhendranath Bhotojatra festival last month, which the President Yadav attended as the head of state.

Last year Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala had attended these functions as acting head of the state.

Are you saying Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Advaita, Judaism are not wrong inspite of their million contradictions with each other, barring within themselves? What is the use of following one when every theory in this world is right? On your second para I have a comment. I agree that the authenticity of a philosophy can be measured by the act of the follower. But only to an extent. This measurement of a follower is also subjective. For e.g. Advaiti's call a person a fool, paranoid, arrogant, and other name calling if anyone questions or clarifies the principles of Advaita. You may have seen in this forum how members like Dark Warrior and Justin were attacked just because they said Advaita does not gel with new-age non-science or logic or perception. A person who questions Gaudiya Vaishnavism is said to be ignorant, whereas the person may be someone who is a genuine inquirer. Everyone has a pre-conceived opinion of what a good and bad behavior is. What is good behavior for a Vaishnava may not be good for an Advaiti or a Buddhist and vice versa.

Looks like the debates can be reduced, simplified to atheism versus theism.

Intelligent design versus Evolution theory. Since somehow the atheists are getting incredible unlimited amount of intelligence to speak against the theists, the acaryas tell us, it is a futile attempt trying to preach to atheists, they will never accept, find always a refutation and are slippery as an eel. Here the internet forum has a distinct disadvantage. There's no prasadam and no kirtan. But just this was Lord Caitanya's success formula for reclaiming the conditioned souls who are fighting with their own uncontrolled minds.

No vedic cremation for the dead as Ganga swallows ghats

http://www.mynews.in/fullstory.aspx?storyid=9138

<table><tbody><tr><td width="100%"><table width="100%" align="center" bgcolor="#f7f7f7" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td colspan="4" class="matterblack" align="right" bgcolor="white">Publication Date 23/8/2008 5:49:41 PM(IST) </td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr><tr><td>

</td></tr></tbody></table> Kanpur: Incessant rains have not only posed hardship for the living, but the dead are also under the wrath of rain God as most of the cremation points in this industrial city have been submerged in water of the swollen river Ganga.

Heavy downpour this monsoon season has brought troubles galore for the people residing here, who had to cope up with problems of power cuts, waterlogging, traffic snarls and filthy roads.

The overflowing river Ganga is not only posing problems for those residing at the low-lying areas, but also to those who want to cremate their family members at the ghat as almost all the cremation points were inundated with the sacred river water.

The people were forced to adopt electric cremation method for disposing the bodies.

Out of the thirty ghats, including four cremation points, most were marooned.

However, adding more to their woes, the electric cremation facility was available only at Vhairon and Bhagatdass ghat resulting in no ending ques.

Besides, dry wood had fallen short and continuous spells of shower were making difficult to perform vedic method of cremation.

Earlier, electric crematorium were used only for disposing the unclaimed bodies for Rs 500, however, now nature has left no choice and people were reluctantly using this modern technique.

'''We were left with no choice, but to go for electric cremation as intermittent rainfall and flood situation at the ghats were posing hardship in performing the traditional cremation method,'' Mr Deepak, who had arrived to participate in a funeral said.

© 2008 mynews.in

Wildwood house built in harmony with nature

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/lifestyle/stories.nsf/lifestyle/homedecor/story/020bb861d9b7d9f8862574ab0059f84a?OpenDocument

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The exterior shows the symmetry of the design in the Bucks' home. Bob says though they originally wanted only a deck on one side, laws of Vedic architecture said they needed one on each side for symmetry. The deck on the right is used for meditation. The Kalash, a symbol of Vedic style, stands out atop.

(Sarah Conard/For the P-D)</td></tr></tbody></table>

WRITTEN BY AMY BERTRAND

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH LIFESTYLE EDITOR

08/23/2008

Bob Buck began his journey with Transcendental Meditation more than 30 years ago. Along that journey, he read about Maharishi Vedic architecture, a type of building design in accord with the Natural Law. The principles of Vedic architecture were set forth thousands of years ago in a Sanskrit text. But it was Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of Transcendental Meditation, who interpreted them and brought them to light for modern folks.

"The idea is that you live in a house in harmony with nature," Bob says. "We know buildings can make you sick, so why not approach that from another perspective. What can buildings do to make you healthy?"

The idea of Vedic architecture "had always been percolating in the back of my mind," Bob says. But it wasn't until he and Joan began house hunting that his thoughts turned serious. "We couldn't find the right house, so we considered building one," Bob says.

Bob and Joan visited a subdivision open house in Fairfield, Iowa, which is considered the epicenter for Vedic building. They saw farmhouses, contemporary homes and traditional homes, and they all "had such a feeling to them, an energy," Joan says.

Bob went to the open house as a bit of a skeptic, but at the end of the day "there was something about those houses."

After designing their own home through an architect in Fairfield, the plans were sent to a team of architects in the Netherlands for approval. The Bucks then selected a builder and began the process.

Though they built it according to the principles, the style, with its white walls, tall ceilings and exorbitant amounts of light, is all theirs. "It's sort of a contemporary Frank Lloyd Wright prairie house," Bob says. "We don't have a lot on the walls because we figure the windows to the outdoors are our art.

"You get close to nature as a result of living here," Bob says. "Friends say they feel the energy and the positive flow when they come here, and that's really rewarding."

For more information — visit www.vedicarchitecture.org

PRINCIPLES OF VEDIC STYLE

THE RIGHT LAND • When the Bucks were looking to build, they had to find a piece of land that met the right requirements of Vedic principles. It had to face due east and had to slope to the east or south or both. It couldn't be near a prison, hospital or cemetery. The Bucks found three acres of wooded land in Wildwood and decided it was the right spot.

ALL ABOUT DIRECTION • The house, and all rooms, must be on the cardinal points of a compass. Nothing can be placed on angles; that means no corner sinks or angled walls. The staircase has to have an odd number of stairs and must go clockwise.

RIGHT PLACEMENT OF ROOMS • The rooms must be arranged in a particular way, to induce the best use of them. For instance, the kitchen must be southeast of the entrance because that site is conducive to cooking. The cooktop must also face east. "It was a bit of a challenge designing a kitchen how we wanted it that fit all the principles," Joan says. What they have is a square kitchen full of beautiful cabinets and granite countertops with a large island in the center. The west side opens to the dining room. The family room must be in the south or southwest corner. The den or office should be in the northwest portion of the house. The meditation room also must face east. In addition, you aren't supposed to have an attached garage (you don't want the toxins to enter the house), but the Bucks got around that with an attached breezeway.

BACK TO NATURE • Nature is highly valued in Vedic architecture. "You should use as many natural products as possible," Joan says. For example, they used cellulose instead of fiberglass for insulation and wood instead of metal for the beams in their home.

CENTER OF THE HOUSE • The Brahmasthan is the directional center of the home. According to Vedic principles, it must be clearly marked and cannot be walked on. To mark theirs, the Bucks put four tiles amid their Asian beechwood floors. The tile theme was also carried out in the entry for aesthetics. Light and energy must also have optimal flow along each of the four directional lines, which means a door or operable window has to be placed along each of those lines, including on the upper level, which opens to below. In addition, skylights bring in lots of light from above.

(First photo - The living room adheres to several principles of Vedic architecture, including a wide open floor plan; Second photo - The dining room also adheres to Vedic design, which, like Feng Shui promotes the flow of energy; Last two photo's - The Brahmasthan, or central point in the Buck's Wildwood home, is marked by tiles and covered by a plant stand to prevent people from walking on it. Photos by Sarah Conard | freelance Special to the Post-Dispatch.)

Health& Lifestyle22 Aug 2008 05:49 pm

Three Questions to ask about your Digestion

http://www.thinkvedic.com/2008/08/22/three-questions-to-ask-about-your-digestion/

Regardless of who you are, where you are from and what you do for a living, it is very important to be able to digest what you eat. In fact, I tell everyone that you can eat whatever you want, as long as you can digest it. Digestion is really the key to a healthy physiology. So, how is your digestion?

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There are three factors to consider when you are analyzing your digestion. The three questions you should ask yourself are:

• <!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->How do you feel after you eat?

• <!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->How hungry do you feel around meal times?

• <!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->How is your elimination?

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A typical meal takes on average three hours to fully digest. The first hour of digestion is the Kapha time of digestion, which means that all of the lubrication of the food, as well as the mixing of chemicals take place. The second hour of digestion is Pitta time of digestion. During this time, all of the transformation of the food takes place, so that all nutrients are effectively extracted and metabolized. At this time, the food passes from the upper 2/3 of the stomach, down to the lower 1/3 of the stomach and into the duodenum. Then, the last hour of digestion is the Vata time of digestion in which all of the remaining solids are passed down to the intestines for proper elimination. Now, if you feel any discomfort during any of these hours of digestion, then there is a likely chance of an imbalanced functioning of one or more of these doshas.

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The next factor to consider is how hungry are you? It is natural to feel hungry around breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Being too busy is never an excuse not to eat. There is also never a reason to skip any meals either. Not having an appetite around meal times is also a sign of indigestion.

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And the last important factor to consider in regards to your digestion is your elimination. How well are your bowel movements? If you are not having at least one good, solid bowel movement a day, then you need to take care of the problem. Elimination is a function of Vata and if you are having any kind of trouble with elimination, whether its loose bowels, hard bowels, no urge to eliminate bowels, or even blood in your stool, then you do need to take care of it. Your elimination systems should always be in working order. If there is a problem, then that is also a sign of indigestion.

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Digestion is really the key to a healthy physiology, so next time, I will share with you on how to improve your digestion.

Illinois Professor Studies 19th Century Hindu Renaissance

Source: http://www.thonline.com/article.cfm?id=213064

BLOOMINGTON, IL, USA, August 20, 2008: When Brian Hatcher, now a professor at Illinois Wesleyan University, first gazed upon a pamphlet of obscure Hindu writings in a London library, he knew he had happened upon something significant. His find, in 1990, marked an exciting moment for a professor delving into his topic: the modernist Hindu movement of the 19th century.

Hatcher translates the Bengali-language pamphlet title as “Discourses by Members” — the members being prominent Indians who called themselves the Truth-Propagating Society (”Tattvabodhini Sabha”). The writings dated to 1839 and 1840. The publication date was 1841. There was no table of contents and only initials to identify authors of 21 discourses.

Research enabled Hatcher to identify with reasonable certainty most of these authors, and through his research he knew the group well. The Truth-Propagating Society was a piece of a Vedanta-Centered Hindu reform movement aimed at bridging the ancient religion into the modern world. Hatcher believes his find at least inches forward the study of modern Hinduism.

The Story of the Birth of Lord Krishna

By Subhamoy Das, About.com

posted August 23 2008

Hinduism Ads Lord Krishna Shri Krishna Lord Shiva Dancing Shiva Lord Ganesha

<!--gc-->The birth of Krishna is in itself a transcendental phenomenon that generates awe among the Hindus and overwhelms one and all with its supra mundane happenings.Mother Earth, unable to bear the burden of sins committed by evil kings and rulers, appealed to Brahma, the Creator for help. Brahma prayed to the Supreme Lord Vishnu, who assured him that he would soon be born on earth to annihilate tyrannical forces.

One such evil force was Kamsa, the ruler of Mathura (in northern India) and his people were utterly terrified of him. On the day Kamsa's sister Devaki was married off to Vasudeva, an akashvani or voice from the sky was heard prophesying that Devaki's 8th son would be the destroyer of Kamsa. The frightened Kamsa immediately unsheathed his sword to kill his sister but Vasudeva intervened and implored Kamsa to spare his bride, and promised to hand over every new born child to him. Kamsa relented but imprisoned both Devaki and her husband Vasudeva.

When Devaki gave birth to her first child, Kamsa came to the prison cell and slaughtered the newborn. In this way, he killed the first six sons of Devaki. Even before her 8th child was born, Devaki and Vasudeva started lamenting its fate and theirs. Then suddenly Lord Vishnu appeared before them and said he himself was coming to rescue them and the people of Mathura. He asked Vasudeva to carry him to the house of his friend, the cowherd chief Nanda in Gokula right after his birth, where Nanda's wife Yashoda had given birth to a daughter.

He was to exchange his boy and bring Yashoda's baby daughter back to the prison. Vishnu assured them that "nothing shall bar your path".

At midnight on ashtami, the divine baby was born in Kamsa's prison. Remembering the divine instructions, Vasudeva clasped the child to his bosom and started for Gokula, but found that his legs were in chains. He jerked his legs and was unfettered! The massive iron-barred doors unlocked and opened up.While crossing river Yamuna, Vasudeva held his baby high over his head. The rain fell in torrents and the river was in spate. But the water made way for Vasudeva and miraculously a five-mouthed snake followed him from behind and provided shelter over the baby.

When Vasudeva reached Gokula, he found the door of Nanda's house open. He exchanged the babies and hurried back to the prison of Kamsa with the baby girl. Early in the morning, all the people at Gokula rejoiced the birth of Nanda's beautiful male child. Vasudeva came back to Mathura and as he entered, the doors of the prison closed themselves.

When Kamsa came to know about the birth, he rushed inside the prison and tried to kill the baby. But this time it skipped from his hand and reaching the sky. She was transformed into the goddess Yogamaya, who told Kamsa: "O foolish! What will you get by killing me? Your nemesis is already born somewhere else."

In his youth Krishna killed Kamsa along with all his cruel associates, liberated his parents from prison, and reinstated Ugrasen as the King of Mathura.

Although there're lots of rascals who reject sastra as worldly opinion when it comes to their possessions being robbed they immediately think otherwise and say yes, correct, when it mentioned in the holy scripture of Srimad-Bhagavatam, in kali-yuga the governments will finally overtax and confiscate (see below) that citicizens have to hide in forests.

Bangladeshi Hindus - Coveted Enemies Under the Vested Property Act

<!-- begin content --> http://www.asiantribune.com/?q=node/12866

Sat, 2008-08-23 01:18 By Rabindranath Trivedi for Asian Tribune

Part -I

Dhaka , 23 August, (Asiantribune.com) : The Vested Property Act (VPA), a controversial law in Bangladesh that allowed the Government to confiscate property from individuals it deemed as an enemy of the state. Before independence it was known as the Enemy Property Act and is still referred to as such in common parlance. The act is criticized as a tool for appropriating the lands of the minority population The vested property was known in Pakistan as ‘enemy property' after the 1965 Indo-Pak war.

On 6 September 1965, Pakistan proclaimed a state of emergency under the Defense of Pakistan Ordinance at the outbreak of war with India. In exercise of the powers conferred by the Ordinance, the Central Government of Pakistan promulgated on the same day the Defence of Pakistan Rules. Under the rules, the Governor of East Pakistan passed an Order on 3 December 1965 regarding enemy property by which the property of the minorities was declared “Enemy Property”.

Renamed as Vested Property Act

After Bangladesh won independence through bloody War of Liberation against Pakistan in December 1971, President of Bangladesh in his Order No-29 of 1972 ,changed the nomenclature to Vested Property Act without altering the contain of the law. After a long struggle and a bloody war of Independence the rise of Bangladesh naturally conveyed the message to the democratic and progressive forces that the communally promulgated Enemy Property Act would not continue.

Surprisingly enough the existence of the Act is inconsistent not only with the UDHR but also with the provisions of the constitution itself. In Independent Bangladesh on 26th March of 1972 Bangladesh (Vesting of Property and Assets) President's order No. 29 replaced former Enemy Property Act. But it was a classic irony that Bangladesh saw the continuation of two mutually opposed things simultaneously, One a secular democratic constitution in 1972 and the other the continuance of the Enemy Property Act though in a new name. Bangladeshi Hindus become coveted enemy under VPA. What does it mean? ’

The VP Act was practically declared void by promulgating 'The Enemy Property (Continuance of Emergency Provisions) (Repeal) Act XLV in parliament on 23 March 1974. But immediately after words another declaration named the Vested and Non-resident Property (Administration) Act XL VI of 1974, brought the above act into force. This Act was later amended on 27 November 1976, by the Enemy Property (Continuance of Emergency Provision) (Repeal) (Amendment) Ordinance 1976.

The government, or any officer or authority as directed by the government, was empowered to administer, control, manage and dispose of, by transfer or otherwise the enemy property or enemy firms known as 'vested property'. The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in a judgment said:” Since the law of enemy property itself died with the repeal of Ordinance No.1 of 1969 on 23 -3-1974 no further vested property case can be started thereafter on the basis of the law which is already dead.

Accordingly, there is no basis at all to treat the case land as vested property upon started VP Case No-210 of 1980. (58 DLR 2006 pp 177-185). A writ petition has been filed in the High Court of the Bangladesh Supreme Court in August 2008 for annulment of VPA,

The Government of Bangladesh has, within the framework of this law, taken possession of property declared to belong to the enemy, by appropriating the property of members of the Hindu minority who had migrated to India, or by appropriating the property of people who were heirs or co –owners. Since then the issue has been rolling with ordinances, amendments, circulars, memos, and committee and so on. But no tangible action has yet been taken by the Government to solve the contentious issue of minority Hindus.

Though renamed as the Vested Property Act in 1974, the law still retains the fundamental ability to deprive a Bangladeshi citizen of his/her property simply by declaration of that person as an enemy of the state. Leaving the country through abandonment is cited as the most common reason for this, and it is frequently the case that Hindu families who have one or several members leaving the country (for economic as well as political reasons) have their entire property confiscated due to labeling as enemy.

The enactment of Enemy (Vested) Property Laws which are at the heart of the matter relating to the various socio-economic problems of the minorities in Bangladesh has not come all on a sudden. This act is actually the culmination of many discriminatory ordinances passed one after another by the ruling elites of both Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Chronologically they are: The East Bengal (Emergency) Requisition of Property Act (XIII of1948), The East Bengal Evacuees (Administration of Property) Act (VIII of1949), The East Bengal Evacuees (Restoration of Possession) Act (XXII of 1951), The East Bengal Evacuees (Administration of Immovable Property) Act(XXIV of 1951), The East Bengal Prevention of Transfer of Property and Removal of Documents and Records Act of 1952, The Pakistan (Administration of Evacuees Property) Act (XII of 1957), The East Pakistan Disturbed Persons (Rehabilitation) Ordinance (No 1 of 1964), The Defence of Pakistan Ordinance(No. XXIII of 6th September, 1965), The Defence of Pakistan Rules of 1965,The Enemy Property (Custody and Registration) Order of 1965, The East Pakistan Enemy Property (Lands and Buildings Administration and Disposal Order of 1966.

The Enemy Property (Continuance of Emergency Provision) Ordinance No. 1 of 1969. Bangladesh (Vesting of Property and Assets) President's (Order No. 29 of 1972). The Enemy Property (Continuance of Emergency Provisions) (Repeal) Act (XLV of 1974), The Vested and Non-Resident Property (Administration) Act (XLVI of 1974). The Vested and Non-Resident (Administration) (Repeal) Ordinance 1976 The Ordinance, (No. XCII of 1976). The Ordinance No. XCIII of 1976.

As Pakistan was established on the two nation theory from the very beginning the rulers were quick to smash any kind of democratic movement. They deliberately used communal tactics to drive out religious minorities’ from their home land and to suppress all kinds of movement.

It may be recalled that "Transfer of Property Act" is ignored in case of the Hindus by keeping the Enemy Property Act as the Vested Property Act. So the property based crisis deepened and disturbed society at the root.

One report makes it clear how with the promulgation of the Vested and Non-resident Property (Repeal) Ordinance by President A. M. Sayem during the rule of General Ziaur Rahman, many government officials became the owners of lands earlier held by the Hindus.

With this process of eviction of the Hindu peasantry and their ejection from the villages has appeared a new class of land grabbers. The gradual disappearance of the Hindu peasantry from the Bangladesh countryside, the same report shows, reached a new phase with the circular of 23 May 1977 on the Ministry of Lands of the Government of Bangladesh which empowered the Tehsildars to find out the lands suitable for enlisting as enemy property.

Since there was a provision for rewarding the successful tehsildars they felt encouraged to bring many undisputed properties of the Hindus under this list.

Hindu peasants were thus left with no alternative, but to move on, as they could not expect any remedy from the additional deputy commissioner, the sub-divisional officer, or the circle officer who, like the tehsildar, were similarly entrusted with the responsibility and similarly promised reward. While steps for disposal of vested properties were under way at different levels, the President Genl. H M Ershad issued an order to stop disposal and fresh enlistment of vested property by an announcement on 31 July 1984, in the conference of the representative of the Hindu community held at Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka.

In pursuance of the announcement of the President, the Ministry of Land Administration and Land Reforms issued a memo on 23 November 1984 reiterating that disposal of vested property and further enlistment of any property as vested would stop on 21 June 1984, and that any action taken in contravention of the announcement of the President should be treated as cancelled. The government, however, issued a memo on 1 June 1989 revoking the ban on renewal of lease and eviction from vested property on certain conditions.

On November 4, 1993, the then BNP Government led by Begum Zia made another declaration for scrutiny of the census list of the enemy properties. This declaration was another initiative to use the 'Act' to harass and oppress the religious minorities in Bangladesh. In a changed political situation the present govt. issued two circulars from the ministry of land on November, 14, 1996 the gist of which is –

1. (a) Not to enlist any more property as enemy vested properly.

1.(b) Without prior permission of the land ministry no member of Hindu, Buddhist, Christian communities shall be evicted out.

2. In land survey the land property of religious minorities should be properly assessed During Awami League Government (1996-2001),the Vested Properties Return Act, 2001 is not only tokenism.

It may well be the beginning of legalising the omissions and commissions committed under a patently discriminatory law. Sheikh Hasina led Awami League government annulled this VP Act in 2001. It wanted to return the 'Vested' property to their original Hindu owners. The move was criticised as a 'political tokenism' aimed to appease minority voters prior to the general elections.

Hindu properties continue to be' vested'- a recent observation

Nearly two lakh Hindus have lost 22 lakh acres of their land and houses during the last six years, a Dhaka University Professor Abul Barkat says in May 2007 . At the current market price, the value of the 22 lakh acres of land (one acre roughly equals three bighas) that the Hindu families were displaced from is Tk 2,52,000 crore, which is more than half of the country’s gross domestic product, he says Some 12 lakh or 44 per cent of the 27 lakh Hindu households in the country were affected by the Enemy Property Act 1965 and its post-independence version, the Vested Property Act 1974. Prof. Barkat points out that 53 per cent of the family displacement and 74 per cent of the land grabbing occurred before the country’s independence in 1971 .

About 1.2 million households and 6 million people belonging to the Hindu community have been directly and severely affected by the Enemy/Vested Property Act. The community has lost 2.6 million acres of its own land in addition to other moveable and immovable property. The approximate money value of such loss (US $ 55 billion) would be equivalent to 75 per cent of the GDP of Bangladesh (at 2007 prices). The EPA/Vested Property Act has compelled Hindus to break family ties. Stress and strain, mental agony and a fuelling of religious fundamentalism have been the offshoot. The deprivation led to the growth of a communal mindset in what had been a historical secular climate and context.

The Bangladeshi newspaper Daily Sangbad (21st March 1977) alleged that at that point in time, according to the government's own figures, 702,335 acres (2,842 km²) of cultivable land and 22,835 homes were listed as enemy property.According to a report of the Land Ministry in October 2004,submitted to a parliamentary standing committee "445,726 acres of vested property out of 643,140 acres ended up in encroachment across the country. “Grabbers gabbled up more than two thirds of vested property as the government lost control over the lands as the custodian and its long-line dithering blocked anti-encroachment efforts,” the report said. (The Daily Star, 15 October 2004) Professor Abul Barkat and his co-authors have accurately projected the economic history, lapses in the land laws, willful negligence of the bureaucracy and greed of the politicians for property.

Prof Barkat found that no list of the people evicted or the quantum of lands grabbed on the basis of the Vested Property Act has been prepared till date. Instead, politically powerful people grabbed most of the land during the reign of the BNP-led alliance government between 2001 and 2006. Politically powerful people grabbed most of the Hindu lands during the reign of Begum Khaleda Zia's. Forty-five per cent of the land grabbers were affiliated with the BNP, 31 per cent with the Awami League, eight per cent with Jamaat-e-Islami and six per cent with the Jatiya Party and other political organisations, the New Age and the Daily Janakantha, on 27 May.07 quote Prof Barkat. The affected Hindu families met with more incidents of violence and repression in the immediate-past five years of the BNP-led government than in the previous five years of the Awami League government, the Barkat research report concludes. (NewAge, Janakantha, Manabzamin,27 May.07)

Rabindranath Trivediis a retired Addl.Secretary and former Press Secretary to the President of Bangladesh, Secretary General Human Rights Congress for Bangladesh Minorities (HRCBM) Bangladesh National Chapter.

- Asian Tribune -

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr valign="top"><td width="845">Hindi music set to relive golden era: Roop Kumar Rathod</td></tr> <tr valign="top"><td width="845"> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody><tr valign="top"><td width="479"> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr valign="top"><td colspan="2" width="100%">

http://www.ptinews.com/pti%5Cptisite.nsf/0/6E4D18985D57E6D6652574AD0032C8C5?OpenDocument

</td></tr> <tr valign="top"><td colspan="2" width="100%"></td></tr> </tbody></table> </td><td width="132"></td><td width="120"></td></tr> </tbody></table> </td></tr> </tbody></table> New Delhi, Aug 22 (PTI) Bollywood singer Roop Kumar Rathod, known for hit numbers like 'Maula Mere Maula' from 'Anwar' and 'Tere Liye' from 'Veer Zaara', is of the belief that the Hindi music industry is set for a change and the golden era of 60s and 70s will be recreated.

"It's a full circle. The soulful music era of 60s and 70s will be recreated soon. In 80s and 90s, the industry saw the growth of ghazals and disco dance numbers. Then came sufi songs. So it's time for melodious songs again," says the versatile singer.

Rathod who shot to fame with films like 'Sarfrosh' and 'Border' says that there are some music directors, sadly a minuscule percentage, in the industry who compose melodious music and the rest just concentrate on beats.

"I won't comment on music directors like 'Pritam' or 'Himmesh Reshamiya', who are popular but compose music keeping in mind the beats and tunes. There are other like Shankar Mahadeven, legendary A R Rehman , for who melody is still a priority. Songs of the film 'Taare Zameen Par' shows listeners still want to hear good songs," says Rathod.

After the superhit 'Maula Mere Maula, the singer is ready with another sufi song "Teri justajoo" which he says is an extension of the previous one.

'Teri Justajoo' is the only fresh song in an album of the same name, which is a compilation of popular songs by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, A.R. Rahman and Kailash Kher among

[url="http://living.oneindia.in/index.html"]

<!--start print text--> Lucknow's Shakeel Paints His Love For Lord Krishna

Lucknow 23 August 2008: Lord Krishna, the Hindu God who has endeared himself in various forms, as a child, a lover and a charioteer for Arjuna in the Mahabharta battle, has followers all over India, across religions.

The ensuing Hindu festival Gokulashtami in Lucknow not only heralds the birth of Lord Krishna but also is an index of communal amity. An example of this is reflected in Mohammed Shakeel who has tried to express his feelings after engrossing himself for years into designing attractive murals of Lord Krishna and his beloved Radha.

Despite professing Muslim faith, Shakeel has been drawn to Lord Krishna's thoughts for over eight years

Shakeel has made a series of 30 oil paintings titled "Krishna, the Messenger", has conveyed his thoughts on the sermon believed to have been delivered by Lord Krishna to the warrior prince Arjuna.

Before attempting his paintings Shakeel studied the legends related to Lord Krishna. For this, he visited a number of temples and Ashrams in various parts of the country.

Through his paintings, Shakeel has depicted Bhagwad Gita or the celestial song. He derives immense joy in painting themes related to Lord Krishna.

"If I continue doing it my whole life, even then I'll never be satisfied. It takes at least two months to complete one painting. If I work my whole life on Krishna, there will still be subjects related to Him. I am just waiting for an admirer of Krishna to come and see my paintings and understand them," says Mohammed Shakeel.

Shakeel maintains that Lord Krishna doesn't belong to a single religion and neither he can categorize in any caste or creed because He is the essence of life. He believes that whether it is Islam or Christianity or Sikhism, the ethos of all the faiths and philosophies are similar to Lord Krishna"s life, theology and deeds.

"I can work my whole life painting Krishna because Krishna doesn't belong to any religion. This is a very important fact and people have to understand it, they have to go into the depths to understand what mythology means. There is a message in every canvass," adds Mohammed Shakeel.

Shakeel says he is a Muslim, but above all a human being and believes that the life of every person is based on Krishna"s gospel “Karm Karo Phal Ki Chinta Na Karo" (Just perform your duty without worrying about its fruit).

In the series, Shakeel has shown Krishna"s giving sermon to Arjuna on the battlefield. The other paintings relate Radha-Krishna"s love, Krishna-Gopi"s Raasleela (Lord"s dance with friends), Jeevan Darshan (the portrayal of life), Vishwa Roopa Darshan (Celestial presentation of the God himself showing the universe in Him) besides themes showing kindness and greatness of love.

Shakeel, interestingly, doesn't wish to sell his paintings. He just wishes to devote his entire life sketching and painting the philosophy of life as preached by Lord Krishna.

He has worked with noted painter M.F. Hussain for a long time and is a national award winner.

All Indian life is here

The British Library's Ramayana miniatures - masterpieces of Hindu art, many painted by Muslims - are testimony to a time when religious relations on the subcontinent were less fraught, writes William Dalrymple

<!-- end article-header -->

• William Dalrymple
  
• The Guardian,
  
• Saturday August 23 2008
  
• Article history

The demons try to rouse Ravana's brother. Photograph: British Library

The BBC recently celebrated its success in drawing 10 million viewers to the final episode of the latest series of Doctor Who, but it was still a long way short of the figures achieved by Doordarshan, the Indian state television company, which in the late 1980s drew more than 100 million viewers to its mythological epic, the Ramayana.

1. The Ramayana
   
2. Love and Valour in India's Great Epic
   
3. British Library,
   
4. London
   
5. NW1 2DB

1. Until September 14 2008
   
2. Free
   
3. British Library

The Ramayana, on which the series was closely based, is the first great work of Sanskrit poetry and, along with the Mahabharata, one of the two great Sanskrit epics of Indian literature. Dating in its current form from around the middle of the first millennium BC, it is traditionally credited to the sage Valmiki, who is said to have invented the sloka form (stanzas of two lines, each with 16 syllables) while writing it.

The epic follows the life of its hero, Prince Rama, whose magical powers and divine destiny were first revealed when he broke the bow of Shiva and won the hand of the beautiful Sita. Disaster falls when, thanks to the plotting of a wicked stepmother, the couple are exiled to the forest along with Rama's faithful brother Lakshman, and Sita is then abducted by the demon Ravana. The story follows Rama's quest to rescue his beloved from the clutches of Ravana with the help of an army of monkeys led by the simian god Hanuman and the monkey king Sugriva. The story reaches its climax with a full-scale assault on Ravana's island fortress of Lanka by the forces of Rama and Hanuman, after which the separated couple are reunited and return in triumph to their capital of Ayodhya, so initiating the golden age of Ram Raja.

It is a fabulous tale of exile, struggle, loss and redemption, and over time it grew from a local oral saga about the heroic doings of the kings of Kosala in north India to a 24,000-sloka Sanskrit epic whose action spans the entire subcontinent. For over two millennia, it has moved and inspired a diverse range of Indian writers and artists, and as the success of the television series dramatically demonstrated, it is still treasured as the common property of every Hindu - as well as that of many Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians - from the highly educated Brahmin rocket scientist to the most impoverished roadside shoeblack.

The British Library has brought the Ramayana to London, mounting a remarkable exhibition that showcases 120 breathtaking miniatures from what is probably the most beautiful version of the story ever painted: the 17th-century Ramayana commissioned by Rana Jagat Singh of Mewar (1628-52). This found a home in Britain thanks to the Scottish scholar Colonel James Tod (1782-1835), author of the Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, whose almost complete absorption into Rajasthani culture led one rival to complain that he was "too much of a Rajpoot himself to deal with Rajpoots".

The Mewar Ramayana - a seven-volume work that was produced by at least three different scriptoria and once included more than 400 paintings - is arguably the masterpiece of Rajasthani painting, and is certainly one of the supreme monuments of 17th-century Indian art. This great manuscript, one of the most spectacular of the many unseen treasures in the British Library's Indian collections, forms the core of the exhibition; yet the lavish show includes a huge range of other representations of the epic, demonstrating the way that the Ramayana has spread not only across India, but through the whole of south-east Asia, where it has worked its way into Buddhist and Chinese scripture and adapted itself to almost every known form of traditional media, from miniature and scroll painting to dance, drama, opera, shadow puppetry and, most recently, film and television.

As the exhibition shows through sound archive recordings and looped videos of the TV series, film posters and contemporary live performances of the epic in towns, villages and forest clearings across the subcontinent, the Ramayana - unlike the ancient epics of Europe, such as the Iliad, the Odyssey, Beowulf and the Ring saga, which are now the province mostly of academics and of literature classes - is very much a living epic. Bards still tour villages telling the story with the help of painted scrolls, while singers sing devotional hymns recalling the valour of Lord Rama or the faithfulness of his Sita. Even more remarkably, some castes of wandering storytellers still know the 24,000-verse epic in its entirety.

An anthropologist friend of mine once met one such storyteller in a little village in the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Despite being illiterate, this particular bard knew the Mahabharata which, with its 100,000 slokas, is longer even than the seven-book Ramayana; it is said to be roughly eight times the length of the Iliad and Odyssey put together, and four times the length of the Bible. My friend asked the bard how he could remember so huge a poem. The minstrel replied that, in his mind, each stanza was written on a pebble. The pile of pebbles lay before him always; all he had to do was remember the order in which they were arranged and "read" from one pebble after another. Astonishingly, he said this was not the only epic he knew.

India's population may not be particularly literate (the literacy rate is just over 60%), but it is culturally erudite. As Anthony Lane noted in the New Yorker, in the aftermath of the attacks on the US, the people of New York again and again compared what had happened to them on 9/11 to films or TV: "It was like Independence Day"; "It was like Die Hard"; "No, Die Hard 2." In contrast, when the tsunami struck south Asia at the end of 2004, Indians were able to reach for a more sustaining narrative than disaster movies: the apocalyptic calamities that fill ancient Indian literature. As the Sanskritist Wendy Doniger puts it, "Myths pick up the pieces where philosophy throws up its hands. The great myths may help survivors to think through this unthinkable catastrophe, to make sense by analogy."

It is no accident that the Mewar Ramayana was composed in response to a catastrophe. In the late 16th century, as the Mughal emperors extended their control over Rajasthan, only the Ranas of Mewar managed to resist submitting to the authority of the Muslim rulers of Delhi. In the course of this resistance, their ancestral library, kept in the great fort of Chittor, was burned at the fall of that last redoubt to the Mughal war machine. Years later, when the Ranas re-established their capital at Udaipur, the Mewar Ramayana was commissioned by Rana Jagat Singh as part of the effort to rebuild his family's library, and it may have been under his influence that the manuscript came to link the Mewar dynasty with Rama (from whom it claimed descent), while connecting the demon Ravana with the Mughals. So it is that we see Ravana taking a ceremonial bath in a Mughal imperial tent, and appearing at his palace window to give darshan of himself as Jahangir and Shah Jahan did from the balcony of their apartments in the Red Fort; below the massed demons of Lanka give a salute to their king just as Mughal courtiers do in Mughal manuscripts.

The boldly coloured, wonderfully lively miniatures of the Mewar Ramayana are the principal glory of this exhibition. Most have never before been illustrated or shown in public, and up to now have been known only to a handful of art historians. While they vary in quality, and few achieve the fineness of detail of high imperial Mughal art, the best of them - especially those by master miniaturist Sahib Din - are some of the most swirlingly energetic images ever produced by Indian artists.

Often the more urban or palace images are compartmentalised into two or three separate areas by architectural frames and blocks of primary colour. In contrast, the rural scenes tend to be whole-frame, with the artists showing a marked and very Indian love of the natural world: dark-skinned elephants charge, trunks and tails curling with pleasure, over forested Rajasthani mountains; peacocks, white ibis and red-crowned hoopoes flit between mango orchards and banana plantations; deer nuzzle each other in the forest, as wild boar root around for nuts and berries. All Indian life is here: haggling shopkeepers decorate their stalls for a festival; groups of meditating sages and wizened ascetics with their hair woven into beehive topknots and dreadlocks sit on the ghats of a sacred river performing their austerities; palace ladies lounge amid the fountains of their zenanas and sit gossiping in their quarters; boatmen row villagers over rivers swollen in full Monsoon-spate; dancers dance, drummers drum and lovers love.

Especially effective are the fabulous scenes of the advance of the monkey army on Lanka: against a vivid red ground, the monkeys move forward in great waves like a succession of breakers on a Goan beach. A blue-skinned Rama, with garlands of jasmine around his shoulders sits, bow at the ready, on the back of Hanuman; Lakshman follows, sitting astride a saddle of mango leaves, a quiver of arrows at the ready, and sword and dagger flashing from his waistband. Yet the Mewar artists can do pathos and beauty as well as energy and movement: Sita is invariably shown large-eyed and melancholic, as she sits mournful and pensive in her red Rajasthani gagra choli amid Ravana's pleasure gardens, awaiting her lost lover.

The finest image of all, however, is the wonderfully comic image of the demon army trying to wake Ravana's brother, the giant Kumbhakarna: as the portly, moustachioed figure of the colossus lies horizontally across the length of the miniature in his red underpants, mouth open to emit loud snores, Lilliputian demons swarm around him, poking him with tridents and knocking him with hammers and clubs. A band of singing women is brought forward to try to rouse him; another demon brings a braying ass; two elephants are manoeuvred to trumpet into one ear, while a dog-headed demon barks into the other. To one side lie the great pitchers of wine and heaps of meat - dead humans and monkeys - intended for the giant's breakfast when he awakes. The composition is set against a yellow ochre ground that highlights the brown bulk of the giant.

Around the central exhibit of the Mewar Ramayana is an array of supporting material that shows the spread of the epic from oral narrative to painted text, as well as from local dynastic history to pan-Asian epic: stone images of Hanuman from Vijayanagara, papier-mâché masks of Sita from the Bengali Durga Puja, dance costumes and Kathakali headdresses from Kerala, Thanjavur ivories, Company prints, Malay shadow puppets, Kalighat woodcuts, Nayaka bronzes, Andhra textiles, Javanese paintings and Burmese embroidery.

Although Rama was clearly identified as both the perfect man and an avatar of Vishnu by the end of the first millennium BC, there is little indication of a cult that explicitly worshiped Rama as a god until many centuries later, and there are surprisingly few images of Lord Rama extant compared to the voluminous iconography in painting, sculpture and metalwork associated with another Vishnu avatar, Lord Krishna. This began to change in the 17th century, when Tulsidas equated Rama with Brahman, the supreme deity of Vedanta philosophy, but as late as the mid-19th century there was no notion that the epic was exclusively the preserve of Hindus.

Even before the Mewar Ramayana was painted, Hamida Banu Begum, the mother of the Mughal emperor Akbar, is known to have commissioned her own illustrated copy of the epic and asked for it to be brought to her on her deathbed. Sahib Din, the artist who seems to have coordinated the project of the Mewar Ramayana and who painted many of the most spectacular miniatures in the exhibition, was also a Muslim. As late as the 1830s, one of the first orders issued by the Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar II on ascending the throne of Delhi was to change the route of the annual Ram Lila procession - the highlight of the annual Dussehra festivities, marking the return of Rama and Sita to their city of Ayodhya and the victory of light over darkness - so that the Mughal court could enjoy the spectacle from the parapets of the Red Fort. Likewise the finest textiles illustrating the Ramayana in the show were commissioned not by Hindu rulers, but by the Muslim sultanates of Indonesia. Even today in Delhi, as in the other great Indian Muslim cities (Lucknow, Hyderabad, Agra), Muslims join their Hindu neighbours to enjoy the same festivities. It is therefore especially sad that in the late 1980s the cult of Lord Rama was hijacked by India's resurgent Hindu fundamentalists to become the major source of division and communal violence in contemporary Indian politics.

The argument revolved around the question of whether Mir Baqi, a general of the Mughal emperor Babur (1483-1530), had built his mosque at Ayodhya over a temple commemorating the birthplace of Lord Rama. Although there was no clear archaeological evidence to confirm either the existence of the temple or even the identification of the modern town of Ayodhya with its legendary predecessor, rightwing Hindu organisations began holding rallies at the site, campaigning for the rebuilding of the temple and the destruction of the mosque.

Finally, during the 1992 rally, a crowd of 200,000 militants, whipped into a frenzy by the political leaders of the rightwing Bharatiya Janata party, stormed the barricades. Shouting "Death to the Muslims!" the militants attacked the mosque with sledgehammers. One after another, like symbols of India's fragile traditions of tolerance, democracy and secularism, the three domes were smashed to rubble. Over the next month, violent unrest swept India: mobs went on the rampage and Muslims were burned alive in their homes, scalded by acid bombs or knifed in the streets. By the time the army was brought in, at least 1,400 people had been slaughtered in Mumbai alone.

The British Library Ramayana goes some way to recovering the great epic from the hands of the fundamentalists. For this great masterpiece of Hindu art, much of it devoutly painted by Muslim artists, recalls a time when relations between Hindus and Muslims were less fraught and polarised, and when the great story of Lord Rama brought communities together, rather than violently separating them.

It also reveals the quality of material in the library's Indian collections. Certainly, this is one of the most imaginatively mounted and vivid shows of Indian art seen in the capital for many years. It is also a wonderful farewell flourish by its curator, Jerry Losty, the legendary keeper of the library's Indian art who retired last year after 34 years, and whose final curtain call this show represents.

India says NSG clearance is U.S. responsibility Siddharth Varadarajan

Saturday 23 August 2008

<table bgcolor="#d0f0ff" border="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td> Cartel to meet again in two weeks to consider amended waiver </td></tr></tbody></table> Vienna: The United States’ inability to deliver a key part of its side of the July 2005 nuclear bargain with New Delhi became apparent on Friday as the Nuclear Suppliers Group ended an extraordinary plenary meeting without reaching agreement on a proposal to waive its restrictive export guidelines for India.

More crucially, the fact that India will now be asked to accept changes in the draft waiver that could conceivably limit the scope of nuclear cooperation or place conditions on it of one kind or another suggests the three-year-old nuclear deal could well be approaching its most serious break point to date.

Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon is now set to fly directly to Washington from Vienna to discuss the issues which arose in the NSG meeting and examine the American proposals, if any, for a change in the wording of the waiver. But it is apparent that there is little scope for India to accommodate the kind of demands a number of NSG countries made in the two-day meeting.

“Things are really very clear,” a senior official told The Hindu when asked for his reaction to the NSG stalemate. “There was an agreement in 2005 in which we both made certain commitments. We have delivered on all of ours. Now the Americans have to deliver the NSG,” he said, “not us.” In the July 2005 statement, President George W. Bush committed himself to “work with friends and allies to adjust international regimes to enable full civil nuclear energy cooperation and trade with India.” Indian officials say securing NSG clearance by extracting further commitments from India or diluting the scope of cooperation was not part of the bargain.

The NSG, which consists of 45 countries and takes all its decisions by consensus, will now meet again here on September 4 and 5 to reconsider the India question on the basis of a new draft waiver that the U.S. has said it will bring to the group. The dates were informally agreed to but found no mention in the brief communiqué issued by the NSG, presumably because the U.S. needs to secure India’s concurrence to any language change before it is able to come before the suppliers group again.

“Participating governments exchanged views in a constructive manner, and agreed to meet again in the near future to continue their deliberations,” the NSG statement simply noted.

Asked what sort of amendments the American side was asked to make by those NSG countries that were critical of the original proposal, a European diplomat told The Hindu that a number of states had made suggestions on virtually every aspect of the draft. “I think the whole thing will be reformulated, but in a positive way,” he said, requesting that he and his country not be identified out of respect for the NSG’s rules of confidentiality.

Another diplomat said the NSG raised concerns on nuclear testing, adherence to NPT full-scope safeguards, the need for a review mechanism to assess Indian compliance, as well as restrictions on enrichment and reprocessing technology. “There was a reference in the earlier U.S. draft to the desirability of India eventually accepting the NPT and its safeguards that was more positive than what we have now,” the diplomat said. “So, I think America will have to come back to us with a new draft before any decision is possible.”

Speaking to reporters at the end of the meeting, acting U.S. Under Secretary for Arms Control John D. Rood said the U.S. was “pleased with the results of the discussion” and remained “very optimistic” about continuing to make progress “towards this important goal” of permitting civilian nuclear cooperation with India. He noted that “many delegations spoke about this important question” and said the India waiver would “remain something the group continues to work through in a serious manner.”

Hey suchandra by any chance do you have a date for then that article by Stèphane Foucart was published?

Just put it into google, right now they want to introduce, GM potatoes all over Europe. Since action groups have no money to pay lawyers but folks like BASF have a whole team of the best lawyers it should be clear who wins the case.

http://www.seedquest.com/News/releases/2006/december/17731.htm

http://www.gmo-safety.eu/en/potato/starch/32.docu.html

http://www.gmo-compass.org/eng/news/310.basf_expects_eu_approval_amflora_within_weeks.html

Germany's BASF takes GM potato case to EU court

July 24, 2008

http://greenbio.checkbiotech.org/news/2008-07-24/Germanys_BASF_takes_GM_potato_case_to_EU_court/

By Mantik Kusjanto

FRANKFURT, Germany - BASF has taken legal action against the European Commission for failure to act on its genetically modified Amflora potato, the German chemicals company said on Thursday.

BASF said in a statement it filed the action with the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg because the Commission unjustifiably delayed the approval of Amflora after a 12-year process.

"EU commissioners have postponed Amflora's approval despite repeated positive safety assessments by EFSA, the European Food Safety Authority," said Stefan Marcinowski, a member of BASF's executive board.

Marcinowski said the company was "not prepared to accept any further delays".

Amflora is engineered to yield high amounts of starch, eliminating the viscous gel-like substance amylose so it contains only one starch ingredient: amylopectin.

It is not intended for human consumption but rather for industrial use such as in the paper industry to make glossy magazine coatings, in textiles for yarn sizing and as an additive in adhesive or sprayable concrete.

© Thomson Reuters 2008

Requires adobe flash player plugin, click "next scene", click "autoplay".

<embed src="http://krishna.terapad.com/resources/3490/assets/videos/MXv1.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="680" height="380">

Hard to believe in the age of making impossible things possible.

Kashmir faces shortage of life-saving drugs <hr style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="1"> <!-- / icon and title --> <!-- message -->

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=1fffdd85-717d-411f-8c8d-a92ad994cde8&ParentID=824ffd89-cfa3-44ac-ad8d-7919b597f98c&&Headline=Kashmir+faces+shortage+of+life-saving+drugs

Sarwar Kashani, Indo-Asian News Service

Srinagar, August 22, 2008

First Published: 10:37 IST(22/8/2008)Last Updated: 10:39 IST(22/8/2008)

Shakeel Ahmed Mir had to return disappointed from a chemist shop in Srinagar as he couldn't get an insulin injection for his diabetic mother. This was the 12th pharmacist's shop from which he had returned empty-handed. "I don't know what to do," a distressed Mir said, as his mother was fast running out of the stock at home. He has now asked a friend in Delhi to send the drug.

Mir's predicament is shared by thousands of patients and their relatives in the Kashmir valley in the wake of shortage of life-saving drugs.

"We are currently facing shortage of many life-saving drugs, as supply is disrupted due to protests at many places on the (Jammu-Srinagar) National Highway," said Mohammed Saleem, a chemist in city centre Lal Chowk.

Jammu and Kashmir is battling with crises at many fronts for the last two and a half months, as protests and shutdowns have taken a toll on supply of essential commodities.

The trouble started after the government May 26 allocated 40 hectares of forest land in Kashmir to a Hindu temple trust.

This triggered violent protests in the Muslim dominated valley as Kashmiri leaders, separatist as well as mainstream, alleged that the land was meant to tamper with the demography of Kashmir.

The government was forced to revoke the land transfer orders July 1 which invited counter agitation in Hindu-majority Jammu. At least 40 people have died, mostly in police and paramilitary firing, in the troubled state.

Some protesting Hindu groups blocked the national highway - the only motorable road link to the valley - disrupting supply of essential commodities including medicines.

Muslim protesters, backed mainly by separatist leaders, allege that the Jammu protesters had forced an "economic blockade" on the valley, an allegation denied by the protesters in Jammu.

The supply was resumed to some extent last week though officials admit that it still wasn't normal.

"Around 750 trucks carrying essential commodities entered the valley Wednesday night," an official spokesman told IANS.

The spokesman said before the trouble 1,200 to 1,500 truckloads of essential commodities used to unload in the Kashmir valley every day. "Today it doesn't cross the 800 mark".

General secretary of Kashmir Medical Representatives Association Sheikh Niyaz said: "We have a shortage of about 90 percent of life-saving drugs in the valley because no medicines have come from Jammu."

Nine out of 10 pharmacy depots in the state are in Jammu, Niyaz added. "We have not received any fresh supplies, barring one truckload of generic drugs last week.

"Right now the pharmacies are just about managing by supplying each other but even that can last for not more than a week."

According to doctors here, the most critical shortage was of anti-cancer drugs.

Medical Superintendent of SMHS hospital Waseem Qureshi said he had "adequate quantity of life- saving drugs for 750 indoor patients in the hospital" but expressed worries "over thousands of patients who need the drugs at home".

One of the biggest medical stores in Srinagar, Sajjad Medicare, is also running out of medicines, especially life-saving drugs.

"We are facing shortage of about 40 life-saving drugs. The important items of leading companies that are the fastest running brands are out of stock," shopowner Sajjad Ahmad told IANS.

"We are medical representatives and we receive the medicines first. We have not received any this month. How is the government claiming stocks are adequate?" asked Arshad Ahmed, who works as a medical representative of Menarin Raunaq Pharma.

 

I have to say that although I had some reservations, I was pleasantly surprised.

<!-- end .post-middle --><!-- the bottom of the post, the background graphic gets applied here -->

 

Guess for such kind of topic the internet is out of place. Not that this apology can be written by anyone even Gauri das himself, but when an apology is coming so belated nobody would say, I was pleasantly surprised.

When arranging such kind of report authentic I would have posted some photographs.

The festivities will begin with a special pooja to goddess Chamundeswari, the presiding deity of the city, atop the Chamundi hills.

In the old testament it says that if your children are disobedient then you can take them to the gates of your town and stone them to death. Kill them.

 

It is hard to believe that anyone would quote the Old Testament as a text advocating ahimsa.

That's right, the Old Testament was quoted to highlight that modern people cannot do anything with it when it says, thou shall not kill. Can't even grasp that animals resist in the same way like human beings when facing death.

At the same time thou shall not kill refers to any killing, it doesn't say, thou shall not murder, refering only to human beings.

For example cows have to be machanically fixed with heavy steal, otherwise you won't be able to kill them because they want to live like we humans do.

Can we extend the same logic to humans?

 

Humans have natural sexual desires. By your logic, it is blind then, to go against nature and repress oneself of sex because of a religious mandate.

The actual situation is that people are not interested to get the facts about what vedic culture is - are having some vage understanding but not because there's no possibility to get the details, they want to remain in ignorance.

There's no question to repress oneself, even Lord Krsna says, repression is the wrong path, leads to the opposite result.

As illustrated in the above-mentioned verse of Śrī Yamunacarya, a sincere devotee of the Lord shuns all material sense enjoyment due to his higher taste for spiritual enjoyment in the association of the Lord. That is the secret of success. One who is not, therefore, in Krsna consciousness, however powerful he may be in controlling the senses by artificial repression, is sure ultimately to fail, for the slightest thought of sense pleasure will agitate him to gratify his desires.

 

Bg 2.63

"Even a man of knowledge acts according to his own nature, for everyone follows the nature he has acquired from the three modes. What can repression accomplish?"

Bhagavad-gita 3.33

PURPORT

Unless one is situated on the transcendental platform of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he cannot get free from the influence of the modes of material nature, as it is confirmed by the Lord in the Seventh Chapter (7.14). Therefore, even for the most highly educated person on the mundane plane, it is impossible to get out of the entanglement of māyā simply by theoretical knowledge, or by separating the soul from the body. There are many so-called spiritualists who outwardly pose as advanced in the science but inwardly or privately are completely under particular modes of nature which they are unable to surpass. Academically, one may be very learned, but because of his long association with material nature, he is in bondage. Kṛṣṇa consciousness helps one to get out of the material entanglement, even though one may be engaged in his prescribed duties in terms of material existence. Therefore, without being fully in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, one should not give up his occupational duties. No one should suddenly give up his prescribed duties and become a so-called yogī or transcendentalist artificially. It is better to be situated in one's position and to try to attain Kṛṣṇa consciousness under superior training. Thus one may be freed from the clutches of Kṛṣṇa's māyā.

Rajanish Kakade/AP

An artisan works on a statue of Hindu elephant god Ganesh in preparation for a ten-day

long Ganesh Festival

Statues of Hindu God Causing River Pollution

<!-- headline --> August 21, 2008 11:06 AM

http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/international/Aug-08/Hindu-Elephant-Statues-Causing-River-Pollution.html

by findingDulcinea Staff

New, commercially made idols used in the Hindu festival Ganesh Caturthi are releasing toxic dyes into India’s waterways, spurring a campaign to return to traditional, natural materials.

Ganesh Statues Causing Trouble

<!-- SECTION RESOURCES --> The “Ganesh Chaturthi” festival celebrates the birthday of the elephant god Ganesh, and is held during the beginning of August or September every year according to the Hindu calendar. The festivities end with the immersion of thousands of large Ganesh statues into bodies of water.

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The growing crowds honoring Ganesh have attracted commercial vendors offering brightly colored statues that may look appealing but are threatening India’s waterways, according to environmentalists.

Traditionally, the idols were made with natural ingredients such as mud, clay and vegetable-based dyes. But the commercialization of the holiday has spawned a proliferation of bigger and brighter idols made out of plaster of Paris and painted with toxic chemical dyes, according to the Kalpavriksh environment action group, which is campaigning to make the festival more environmentally sensitive.

“This festival brings together thousands of people, but in modern times is also contributing to serious environmental pollution,” the Kalpavriksh group says, thanks to new commercial Ganesh statues “painted using toxic chemical dyes to make them bright and attractive to buyers.”

The toxic materials are poisoning water bodies, harming plants and fish, and sickening those who drink the water downstream. “The immersion of idols made out of chemical materials causes significant water pollution,” the group says, also citing problems with the festival’s crowds and noise.

Experiments with lies

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/FullcoverageStoryPage.aspx?sectionName=&id=aa2210ce-fae9-4c1c-a2ef-ce563089a962AmarnathLandRow_Special&&Headline=Experiments+with+lies

Sidharth Nath Singh

August 21, 2008

First Published: 22:29 IST(21/8/2008)

Last Updated: 23:02 IST(21/8/2008)

<!--End of top module-->Rajmohan Gandhi’s article ‘Lal Before the Storm’ (Hindustan Times, August 20) was disappointing for not only misrepresenting the essence of L.K. Advani’s letter to the Prime Minister but also for misquoting him. Gandhi wrote “For the first time, an important political leader has suggested that not just the terrorists but all the people of the Kashmir Valley are adversaries — foes of the Motherland, of the national flag, and of the Army.” This could be his suggestion but surely not of Advani, who has concluded his letter to the PM by writing, “I feel greatly saddened by the loss of so many lives, be it in Jammu or in Kashmir Valley.” Unfortunately the word ‘Kashmiri Muslims’ was used by the writer and not by Advani. Moreover, Gandhi has equated the unrest in Jammu and the Valley to Muslim versus Hindu whereas Advani has said in the third para of his letter, “The problem in J&K today is not Hindu versus Muslim, nor is it even Jammu region versus the Valley. It is essentially nationalists versus the separatists.”

Gandhi has rightly said, “A difficult reality can be dealt with in two ways. It can be admitted, deplored and corrected. Or it can be welcomed with glee, presented as a fundamental and unchangeable truth and used as a political springboard.” I wish he had the courage to admit, deplore and correct the “shameful surrender” of the UPA and J&K government under pressure from separatist forces in the matter of the Amarnath land row. I wish he had stood up and lamented PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti when she called for dual currency in J&K and marching across the LoC. I wish he had the strength to criticise Lalu and Mulayam for supporting SIMI or condemned the Congress Party when their spokesperson had equated Shri Amarnath Yatra Sangharsh Samiti to the separatist organisation Hurriyat Conference. Many such ‘springboards’ were made available but Gandhi decided to ignore them.

Advani has narrated the facts by reminding Manmohan Singh of the existing ‘Jammu and Kashmir Shri Amarnathji Shrine Act 2000’ and detailing Section 16 of the Act defining the duties of the Shrine Board which emanates from the provisions of Articles 26 and 27 of the Constitution. The Act is in consonance with the secular polity of India — something the UPA government has ignored for the sake of vote bank politics. Advani has rightly asked the PM to wake up and implement the law.

I don’t think by asking any government to ensure that the law of the land be implemented, one risks being criticised, by any stretch of the imagination, for ‘jumping on a political springboard’, as the writer has accused Advani of doing.

Sidharth Nath Singh is a National Executive Member, BJP.

Originally Posted by suchandra

Similarly everything what sastra says is not debate/opinion/sentiment but fact.

 

Originally Posted by kaisersose

For this to be true,

 

1. All people on the planet should follow the same Shastra

2. All people should interpet Shanstra the exact same way.

 

Since this is not true (for from it, actually), your statement is not correct.

 

.........................................................................

Originally Posted by suchandra

When Krsna says in Bhagavad-gita, we're His eternal parts, made in His own image and meant for a lifestyle of eternal life, full of bliss and knowledge, then this is not debate but reality. If some people come up with the idea, oh it is good to dissolve my existence, I want to become nothing, zero, happily annihilated, this is an insult against our Creator.

 

Originally Posted by kaisersose

You mean, your creator. The Buddhist does not acknowledge the Gita as Shastra or Krishna as a God/Creator.

 

How then is his religious belief an insult to your God? If it is so, then your religious beliefs are an insult to his religion.

Cheers

 

....................................................................................

 

Keisersose Do you understand what Suchandra has told you about the facts of his Scriptures?

 

Do you understand?

 

We [not counting you, nor Buddhists] understand what he is saying.

 

His statement is correct. Understand that it is correct.

 

What is happening here is that you are saying he is incorrect based on what you have heard from some other third party.

 

If the US Constitution is correct --all would follow?

1. All people on the planet should follow the same US Constitution? Yes!

2. All people should interpet US Constitution the exact same way. Yes!

 

 

Since your Constitution is not correct. We ignore it and follow in the footsteps of great men since time immemorial.

 

There is no debate here!

 

Of all the postings under this Thread --where are the COURSE TOPICS that would constitute an Education?

 

List the topics that a buddhist would learn!

Where's the metaphysics?

 

These discussions are composed of 'My professor wears a red Bow-tie and here's why ....'

 

'No, my professor wears a Green Bow-tie because ..."

 

WHAT THE HELL IS THE EDUCATIONAL SUBJECT MATTER?

 

Do you know anything about Buddhist doctrine other then every possible periphiral tangent except what actually comprises the Core Curricullum of Class Topics?

 

 

 

Thanks Bhaktajan, "no debate here", might sound like a dogma, but vedic knowledge is scientific in that sense that material logic also cannot refute it. For example people still argue about, also known as ahimsa principle in Buddhism, thou shall not kill (Exodus 20:13; Deuteronomy 5:17), it is not clear enough. A religious minority group even stating, the Old Testament says, we should only eat cloven hoofed ruminants, in other words, the Old Testament instructing they should eat cows. However, when we see how much cows defend themselves and struggle not to be killed and how there's a real death struggle, is this not proof enough? What more proof people need to understand that animals don't want to be killed? God gave them two eyes to see.

But people cannot see this, are blind and instead fight with their own brains and not with the topic.

Temples set to celebrate Janmashtami

http://www.southasianfocus.ca/community/article/55005

Wednesday August 20 2008 Lord Krishna with his consort Radha... from an 18th century Rajasthani painting.

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The community celebrates Krishna Janmashtami, the birth anniversary of Lord Krishna, this weekend.Janmashtami, known variously in different parts of India and elsewhere as Krishnashtami, Saatam Aatham, Gokulashtami, Ashtami Rohini, Srikrishna Jayanti or Sree Jayanthi, is a Hindu festival celebrating the birth of Krishna.

The festival generally falls sometime in the months of August or September of the Gregorian calendar.

Lord Krishna is an avatar of Lord Vishnu, the Protector, who together with Lord Brahma, the Creator, and Lord Shiva, the Redeemer, makes up the primary pantheon of Hindu Gods.

Hinduism follows the precepts of Sanatan Dharma which, more than a religion, is a way of life. It believes in the One God, with Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva being three faces of the same. Along with Krishna, Lord Rama is another avatar of Lord Vishnu.

Temples across the GTA are preparing to celebrate Janmashtami this Saturday. The biggest temple in Brampton, the Hindu Sabha Mandir (9225 The Gore Road), is as usual planning to stage the festival the evening of Aug. 23 within its complex.

This year the lead-up to Janmashtami has been daily recitals of Shri Vishnu Puran Katha by Bhagvat Shiromani Shri Swami Deen Dayalu Ji Pandey every evening. Priti Bhoj is being served daily.

At Mississauga Ram Mandir (270 Export Boulevard), a program of pooja, bhajan and kirtan has been scheduled Aug. 23 from 6 p.m., culminating with the celebration of Shri Krisna Janam from 12 midnight.

Krishna Janmashtami is observed on the eighth day of the dark half (Krishna Paksha) of the month of Shraavana in the Hindu calendar, when the Rohini Nakshatram is ascendent.

The Hindu calendar being lunar, these two events the day being the eighth of the waning moon (Krishna-paksha Ashtami) and the Rohini Nakshatram being ascendent may overlap for only a few hours. In such an event, the festival may be celebrated on different (but successive) days by different people, depending on their local or family traditions.

The ritual is to fast the previous day (Saptami, seventh day). This is followed by a night-long vigil commemorating the birth of Krishna at night, and his immediate removal by his father to a foster-home for safe-keeping.

At midnight, the deity of the infant Krishna is bathed, placed in a cradle and worshipped. In the early morning, ladies draw patterns of little children's feet outside the house with rice-flour paste, walking towards the house. This symbolizes the entry of the infant Krishna into his foster-home.

This is performed to recreate incidents from the life of Krishna and commemorate his love for Radha. The Rasa Lila recreates the youthful Krishna's dalliance with the milkmaids of his native land.

Krishna is often depicted as a baby, as a young boy playing a flute as in the Bhagavata Purana, or as a youthful prince giving direction and guidance as in the Bhagvad Gita, according to web content encyclopedia Wikipedia.

The stories of Krishna appear across a broad spectrum of Hindu philosophical and theological traditions.

Though they may sometimes differ in the detail, some core features are shared by all. These include a divine incarnation, a pastoral childhood and youth, and life as a heroic warrior and teacher protecting the people.

The festival is celebrated with great joy and communal togetherness.

For this to be true,

 

1. All people on the planet should follow the same Shastra

2. All people should interpet Shanstra the exact same way.

 

Since this is not true (for from it, actually), your statement is not correct.

 

 

 

You mean, your creator. The Buddhist does not acknowledge the Gita as Shastra or Krishna as a God/Creator.

 

How then is his religious belief an insult to your God? If it is so, then your religious beliefs are an insult to his religion.

 

Cheers

So you're claiming that when I say, a young boy will become a man and then an old man this a religious belief?

Since Buddhism says our original state is zero and the cosmic creation is false what do you want to discuss with Buddhists? For them it is all an illusion. How an illusion can be an insult? It is all zero, nothing.

Illusion seems a huge topic also in Buddhist philosophy.

An illusive olive branch from the Dalai Lama

By Jin Canrong (chinadaily.com.cn)

Updated: 2008-08-21 11:00

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<!--enpproperty <date>2008-08-21 11:00:22.0</date><author>Jin Canrong</author><title>An illusive olive branch from the Dalai Lama</title><keyword>dalai, dalai lama, tibet</keyword><subtitle></subtitle><introtitle></introtitle><siteid>1</siteid><nodeid>158961</nodeid><nodename>Regional</nodename><nodesearchname>2@webnews</nodesearchname>/enpproperty--><!--enpcontent--> Just one day ahead of the opening of the Beijing Olympic Games, The New York Times published an editorial by its commentator and former correspondent in China, Nicholas D. Kristof, introducing the so-called Dalai Lama's new ideas on the Tibet issue.

In the commentary titled "An olive branch from the Dalai Lama", Kristof also gave his opinions about the Tibet issue with his incomplete knowledge of Beijing's policy on Tibet.

It is inexplicable that the Dalai Lama publicized his requests through a Western journalist, instead of raising them directly to the Central Government, since Beijing has spoken out repeatedly the door to dialogues is open. Talking through an American journalist's mouth reduces the creditability of his message, and makes people wonder if the Dalai really desired to solve the problems or is it another PR smoking campaign on behalf of the West.

From 2002 to early this year, the Central Government had six contacts with Dalai's envoys, and although the March 14 violent riot in Lhasa enraged the Chinese people, the Communist Party's United Front Work Department still managed to arrange two dialogues with his envoys. So, whom the Dalai Lama should talk to is the Central Government in Beijing, not some Western individuals.

In his latest messages, relayed through Kristof, the Dalai Lama requested not to talk to the United Front Work Department of China any more, but with top state leaders, such as the president or the premier, and even asked for the removal of the Communist Party chief in charge of the Tibetan Autonomous Region. These wonton requests are totally unreasonable which could only set new barriers to future dialogue. The requests also make people suspect of the Dalai Lama's credibility to seek genuine solutions.

The Dalai Lama said, via Kristof's writings, that it is his utmost concession to accept the socialist society in Tibet led by the Chinese Communist Party, and in return he demand the the Central Government make compromises. This is nothing but his negotiation skills.

In fact, it is what the Dalai Lama must recognize, and it is also an unchangeable fact that socialism led by CCP has been the basic social system in Tibet ever since the launching of the Tibetan Autonomous Region in 1965. The region has made great progress in modernization under this social system. To change the basic system will cause unimaginable disasters to Tibet. It is also futile for a few planning to revise the basic system.

The Dalai Lama also talked about the so-called "all Tibetan areas", asking to expand the territorial and political boundaries of the Tibetan Autonomous Region to encompass about one-fourth of China's land mass, merging parts of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces. He also demanded that the Central Government physically block people from migrating into the Tibetan region. This ill-willed suggestion ignores the Constitutional rights of other ethnic groups to move freely and do businesses freely in China. And, a bigger and "all Tibetans' Area", as suggested by the Dalai Lama, will lead to an ethnic cleansing that all non-Tibetan residents will have to be moved out.

Kristof, in his article, put forward some specific requirements for the Dalai Lama after he highlighted Dalai's "new ideas". Kristof suggested that Dalai could enter and leave Tibet freely, restrict immigration to the Tibetan Autonomous Region, allow pre-school children to enter monasteries, strengthen Tibetan language promotion and phase in more Tibetan officials and so on. Sure, it is Dalai's right to bring suggestions but the suggestions should be reasonable and sound.

The freedom of migration is privileged by China's Constitution and any prohibition of this right is against modern law and individual citizens' basic human right. Children of all ethnic groups have right to receive nine-year basic education and both their parents and our government have obligation to do so. Religious freedom is protected after the children are grown up to make decisions for themselves.

In the process of modernization, The Tibet Autonomous Region, like other Chinese provinces and regions, faces the dilemma between modernization and traditional culture protection. The fact is that China has done lots of fruitful work to widen and spread Tibetan language teaching and usage and to protect Tibetan ethnic culture.

"The point is our culture not politics," as Dalai Lama was quoted by Kristof in the article. However readers can only smell the heavy scent of politics in the requirements made by the Dalai Lama. Culture protection is made use of by the lama.