[url="http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/19sld1.htm"]http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/19sld1.htm[/url]

[url="http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/19sld2.htm"]http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/19sld2.htm[/url]

[url="http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/19sld3.htm"]http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/19sld3.htm[/url]

[url="http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/19sld4.htm"]http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/19sld4.htm[/url]

[url="http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/19sld5.htm"]http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/19sld5.htm[/url]

[url="http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/19sld6.htm"]http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/19sld6.htm[/url]





Galileo, the space probe launched on October 18, 1989, arrived in Jupiter's orbit on December 7, 1995, for what was scheduled to be a two-year exploration. Over the next eight years, the craft revealed some secrets of the solar system's biggest planet.

Galileo will crash into Jupiter on Sunday. It is being 'killed' to save potential life on Europa, one of Jupiter's moons.



If Galileo, which could contain bacteria from Earth, crashes into Europa, NASA scientists believe it could contaminate whatever may be living there.



Europa is covered with a sheet of ice, which hides a vast ocean. Beneath that ocean, there might be volcanic activity, and the combination of heat and water is ideal for the creation of life.



Photographs: Courtesy, NASA

Links to background information and FAQs on Ayodhya

Quote:[url="http://www.flex.com/~jai/articles/ayodhya.html"]http://www.flex.com/~jai/articles/ayodhya.html[/url]



BRIEF HISTORY - 1528 THRU 1934 :



RECENT HISTORY - 1934 THRU 1992



[url="http://www.hvk.org/specialrepo/bjpwp/ch1.html"]http://www.hvk.org/specialrepo/bjpwp/ch1.html[/url]



Arnold Toynbee's view of Ayodhya



[url="http://www.hvk.org/specialrepo/bjpwp/"]http://www.hvk.org/specialrepo/bjpwp/[/url]



BJP's white paper on Ayodhya



[url="http://www.ayodhya.com/ayotemplet.jsp?sno=4"]http://www.ayodhya.com/ayotemplet.jsp?sno=4[/url]



Some FAQs on Ayodhya



[url="http://www.bharatvani.org/books/ayodhya/intro.htm"]http://www.bharatvani.org/books/ayodhya/intro.htm[/url]



Ayodhya and After by Koenraad Elst(online book)



[url="http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20030602&fname=Cover+Story+%28F%29&sid=1"]Secrets Of The Shrine[/url] 

Sandipan Deb gets into the heavily-guarded excavation site at Ayodhya and finds clues to a confusing past Updates



SANDIPAN DEB





The following article refers to the dastardly role that the Communists played in the Ayodhya drama.



[url="http://www.wac.uct.ac.za/croatia/gupta.htm"]ROLE OF INTELLECTUALS AND ITS CONSEQUENCES ON AYODHYA ISSUE[/url]

S.P. Gupta Chairman. Indian Archaeological Society.

Hi all,



This Friday we'll be one month old. :thumbsup



India Forum went live on Aug 12th - 3 days ahead of the planned launch date of Aug 15th.



Last weekend we signed up our 50th member - all word of mouth referral. We have had a very low key approach to promoting this site - there's a lot of rif-raff out there in cyberspace which we don't want to attract.



Quality rather than quantity has been our goal. If you know of good postors out

there, please do invite them here.



Remember, a site/forum is only as good as the quality of posts/postors on that forum.



Please use this thread to posts any suggestions/comments etc on how to improve this site and quality of posts.

[url="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/xml/uncomp/articleshow?artid=174045"]MS settles down in Hyderabad facility[/url]

SOFIA TIPPOO

[url="http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=34472"]Osama bin Forgotten[/url]



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted: September 8, 2003

1:00 a.m. Eastern





© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com



WASHINGTON – Why is Osama bin Laden still a threat to America two years after President Bush promised to capture him "dead or alive"?



Why does Bush continue to appease Pakistan, where bin Laden is hiding, even when Pakistan bars our military from joining the hunt for him there?



Why does the president continue to cover for the Saudis, despite mounting evidence of their complicity in 9-11?



And why did he take a sharp turn into Iraq in the middle of a war on al-Qaida, when his own intelligence dossier ruled out Iraqi sponsorship of any "attacks against U.S. territory," including 9-11, and concluded Saddam Hussein wouldn't even try to join forces with al-Qaida unless "sufficiently desperate" and provoked by U.S. attack?



My new book, "Crude Politics: How Bush's Oil Cronies Hijacked the War on Terrorism," answers these disturbing questions and others, such as the ones raised by the principals at Barnes & Noble.com in their recent interview with me. Here is the full exchange:



Barnes & Noble.com: "Crude Politics" is subtitled "How Bush's Oil Cronies Hijacked the War on Terrorism." Who are these "cronies"?



Paul Sperry: They include onetime Caspian energy industry lobbyist Zalmay Khalilzad, Bush's broker for regime change in Kabul and now Baghdad; Dick Cheney, whose Halliburton Co. has long been a player in both the Caspian and in Iraq; Condi Rice, longtime director of ChevronTexaco, the Caspian's biggest investor and also a player now in Iraq; Deputy Secretary of State Rich Armitage, formerly a powerful Caspian lobbyist in Washington; Commerce Secretary Don Evans, whose former oil firm is partly owned by Unocal, the original lead investor in the trans-Afghan pipelines that Khalilzad lobbied for and which are now on the fast track to development. The rest of the cronies are listed in the "Players & Power Brokers" section in the front of "Crude Politics." Many of them were among the principals who crafted the post-9-11 war strategy.



B&N.com: You're politically conservative, yet you criticize the approach Bush has taken to the war on terror. At what point did you start to feel that Bush wasn't doing the right thing?



PS: My doubts really crystallized in December 2001, when Osama bin Laden escaped from Afghanistan and many of my Special Ops and CentCom sources began griping about the Bush administration's odd military strategy of focusing on the Taliban and "regime change," while using local Afghan proxy fighters to hunt down bin Laden.



B&N.com: You cite our relationship with Pakistan, an ostensible "ally" in the war on terror, as an "unholy alliance." Why is that?



PS: Pakistan is the world's epicenter of anti-American terror. As I document in "Crude Politics," almost every terrorist act against the U.S. or its interests abroad has had a Pakistani connection. That includes September 11th. Pakistan is where terrorists, including senior members of al-Qaida, meet, train, study and hide out – all under the nose of Pakistani strongman [Gen. Pervez] Musharraf.



Why is Bush so deferential to Musharraf? Why has he bought him off with billions of dollars in U.S. aid? One reason is he agreed to sign a deal with U.S. puppet Hamid Karzai in Kabul, also a onetime energy consultant, to develop the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline, or TAP, which continues on through Pakistan. The Taliban, which Musharraf backed, was blocking its development. The multibillion-dollar gas pipeline is now on the fast track – unlike the hunt for bin Laden.



B&N.com: Should Saudi Arabia be included in any "axis of evil" when it comes to harboring and fostering terrorism? Why did the administration whisk Osama's relatives out of the country only days after 9-11?



PS: If the Bush Doctrine were applied evenly and apolitically, which it isn't, we would count Saudi Arabia among our enemies, not allies. In fact, there is far, far more evidence linking Riyadh to al-Qaida and September 11th than Baghdad. Of course, don't tell that to Bush, who has fudged the evidence in both cases. The main reason he allowed Osama's relatives to be whisked out of the country after September 11th is the same reason he won't declassify those 28 pages on Saudi in the 9-11 report: Prince Bandar. He and the Bush family go way back, and it was Bandar who lobbied the White House to spirit the bin Ladens out of the country, and it is Bandar and his wife and brother-in-law, Prince Turki, who are cited in the 9-11 report as possible co-conspirators.



What's more, it's a fact, not a rumor, that Bush's father and consigliere James Baker personally have done business with the bin Laden family. In "Crude Politics," I produce a secret letter between a top Bush administration official and a Saudi official that reveals the alarming degree of access and clout the royal family has with this administration. Bottom line: Bush is covering for the Saudis, and it's not just for strategic geopolitical reasons.



B&N.com: Is Bush guilty of exploiting one of the worst American tragedies of all time?



PS: I'm afraid so. The book's subtitle is not just for effect. They really did hijack this war to pursue their hidden agendas. But that doesn't mean they didn't want to bring al-Qaida leaders to justice, their royal benefactors notwithstanding. They did, and still do, it's just that the war provided a golden opportunity to do other things at the same time – namely, to open up new oil frontiers – and that's where they blew it. Trying to kill two birds with one stone sewed such a high degree of complexity into the operation that it caused them to take their eye off the main quarry, bin Laden, and now he's still threatening us two years after he attacked us.



I pray we get him tomorrow, before he can order another major hit on us. That would be the real victory, though it would still be somewhat pyrrhic. If we had caught him in the winter of 2001 – when we had a bead on him in southern Afghanistan, and a golden chance to take him out – I doubt the American people would have countenanced this messy Iraqi dogleg in the war on terror, or the further erosion of our civil liberties. And I'm certain our economy and mutual fund balances would look better.



B&N.com: Why didn't Bush send a massive number of ground troops into Afghanistan to get Osama, as he later did to get Saddam? Was it fear of a "quagmire," something we may well now be facing in Iraq?



PS: Well, that's the reason he gave, anyway. But the Afghan plan as drafted by senior White House security adviser Khalilzad, who staffed the Pentagon during the early 2001 transition, called for using local Afghan proxies to give the different tribal factions a stake in the new U.S.-approved regime. Unfortunately, they betrayed us by letting Osama escape across the border into Pakistan. Bush followed Khalilzad's blueprint right down to installing him as Afghan envoy and lifting the Pressler Amendment and other sanctions on Pakistan. The blueprint is documented in two policy white papers Khalilzad wrote, one of which is revealed for the first time in "Crude Politics."



And now Bush is following Khalilzad's plan in Baghdad, where he's grooming an oil-tied Iraqi defector to replace Saddam Hussein. The influential Khalilzad, an Afghan native and a Muslim, is not exactly a household name, and the White House likes it that way. He is a shadowy operator. He gets no mention whatever in Bob Woodward's book on the war, but readers will become well acquainted with Mr. Khalilzad in "Crude Politics."



B&N.com: The question of whether the Bush administration lied about the threat Iraq posed to us is running rampant in the headlines. Do you feel Bush and his people deliberately misrepresented the situation in order to get the American people behind the Iraq war?



PS: Absolutely, there is no question now that Bush sold the American people a bill of goods about the alleged Iraqi threat to them. And even if they stumble on some evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program or a clear al-Qaida link at this late juncture, it still won't confirm Bush's prewar rhetoric, because we now know the intelligence underlying the rhetoric was soft – and in some cases fabricated. The cat's officially out of the bag: We went into Baghdad on a hunch, not on hard intelligence. Any evidence we find now in Iraq isn't confirmation, it's luck.



That's no way to prosecute a war, and certainly no way to start a war. And it's the height of irresponsibility to do so in the middle of a war on al-Qaida, the real threat to America. Bush diverted resources – such as troops, intelligence assets, Arabic translators – from the hunt for bin Laden and his top henchmen like Dr. Zawahiri. That's inexcusable, and Bush supporters with any modicum of intellectual honesty should be mad as hell about it. And that's coming from someone who voted for Bush.



B&N.com: Considering that both Bush and Vice President Cheney, as well as a fair number of their appointees, have worked in the oil business, should we be all that surprised that they seem so eager to establish oil supplies in both Afghanistan and Iraq?



PS: Actually, as cynical as I am, I thought this would be one crisis in which politicians would shove their ulterior motives, hidden agendas and special interests down a deep dark hole and just do what's right for the country for a change. But the oil motive is something anti-war protesters assumed right off the bat – and it turns out they were right. They've been easy to dismiss, however, because they've failed to articulate the who-what-when-where-why-and-how when they have charged, "It's about oil!" "Crude Politics" documents it, chronicles it, provides new dots, makes all the connections, providing the actual road map to the conspiracy.



But again, the war has not been all about oil, as many protesters charge, and I should note that I viewed the Afghanistan counterstrikes as morally justified, and am more hawk than dove, but it certainly has been a good piece of it. To make any real sense of the administration's war strategy, you have to follow the oil. It really is that simple, although how they've gone about it is quite complicated. The political and corporate connections alone are fascinating.



B&N.com: Both Afghanistan and Iraq seem to be falling apart, after U.S. intervention was supposed to stabilize things there and "liberate" the civilians. What will both countries look like a year from now, in your opinion?



PS: The only thing that will be liberated in those Islamic nations is the U.N. economic sanctions on their rogue regimes – sanctions that until now had precluded U.S. oil companies from investing there. That's why "regime change," something you'll recall candidate Bush considered a bad word, suddenly became so important. Though there have been some successes, all we've really done in Afghanistan is scatter al-Qaida terrorists, like so many angry red ants, without killing their queen. Bush might as well have just taken a big stick and stirred up a giant anthill.



Same goes for Iraq, though we didn't even scatter al-Qaida there. We displaced a lot of Iraqi citizens, families, children, many of them Shiites who weren't at all a part of Saddam's regime and who are growing increasingly resentful of the U.S. occupation. But there's too much oil money at stake in both countries for us to leave. Our military will be there to provide security for U.S. investments for decades to come. Tragically, instead of just getting bin Laden and getting out, Bush only drove us deeper into a part of the world that already hates us.



I pray there will be no Bush blowback, like the blowback from his father's Saudi-centric actions in the Gulf 12 years earlier. I pray our young soldiers whom Bush put in harm's way over there won't continue to be sitting ducks. But I am not optimistic.



B&N.com: With Bush running hard for re-election, is it safe to assume he won't be getting your vote? Do you see anyone on the Democratic side you'd feel comfortable voting for instead?



PS: Like I said, I voted for Bush, but I don't plan to vote for a Republican or a Democrat this time. Both parties disgust me now, quite frankly.



Related offer:



Wonder why Osama bin Laden is still on the loose as we near the second anniversary of 9-11? Paul Sperry's explosive new book, "CRUDE POLITICS: How Bush_s Oil Cronies Hijacked the War on Terrorism," answers that disturbing question and more. Order your copy now in WorldNetDaily's online store, ShopNetDaily!









--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Paul Sperry is Washington bureau chief for WorldNetDaily.

The CPM does not like India's burgeoning relationship with Israel. The main reason is that it wants to keep the pot boiling between followers of India's 2 major religions



[url="http://www.telegraphindia.com/1030907/asp/nation/story_2341301.asp"]CPM call to clarify stand on Palestine[/url]

OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

New Delhi, Sept. 6: CPM general secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet has asked Atal Bihari Vajpayee to clarify his government’s stand on Palestine, two days before Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon arrives on an official visit.



In a three-page letter to the Prime Minister, Surjeet said: “It is incumbent on the part of the government to reiterate its stand on Palestine in the context of the invitation extended to the Israeli Prime Minister.”



He added: “It is time that the government clarified its stand instead of trying to run with the hare and hunt with the hound.”



Surjeet asked the Centre to clarify if it supported the creation of an independent Palestine state as per relevant UN resolutions. He wished to know if the government sought the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the West Bank and Gaza strip and if it recognised the Palestinian Liberation Organisation as the genuine representative of Palestinians.



This is not the first time the CPM has criticised the Centre’s foreign policy. It has often said the government is moving away from India’s traditional policy based on national consensus.



Surjeet pointed out Sharon had to quit as defence minister following a massacre of Palestinian refugees. “On February 13, 1983, a commission of inquiry set up by the Israeli government found Sharon guilty of complicity in the massacre in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in Beirut between September 16-18 1982,” he said.

[url="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/default?xml=0&"]Jugraj complains of pain in right elbow[/url]

Quote:Former Olympian Ramandeep Singh who has been asked by Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) to keep it posted about the progress made by Jugraj and also to send details of medical reports for the purpose of consulting experts in India and abroad.

Quote:He requested the visitors to follow the well-known cricket commentator and presenter Harsha Bhogle who wished speedy recovery of Jugraj by sending him card and a bouquet at hospital. Interestingly, Harsha decided against visiting Jugraj at hospital so that he did not cause a disturbance.

Before the whining drowns it out, listen to the new India





Arun Shourie



Twenty to twenty-five years ago, even 10 years ago, few of us had heard of Information Technology. Today, exports from this industry are worth $10 billion — that is, over Rs 45,000 crore a year. That figure is 20 per cent of our total exports.



In spite of the fact that each of the markets to which we supply IT software and solutions has been in the trough of recession for years, IT exports have grown by 26 per cent this year.





Infosys had not even been born 25 years ago. Wipro was a company selling vegetable oil. Indeed, other than the ‘‘Tata’’ in Tata Consultancy Services, there is scarcely a name in the IT industry that was known then.



And guess what the average age is in the industry? Just 26 and a half! These 26/27-year-olds have changed the world’s perception of India. It’s not just a country of snake-charmers, it’s a country against which protectionist walls have to be erected. Of course, we can also charm snakes.



And not just, to pluck a phrase of Malcolm Muggeridge, snakes in snakes’ clothing!



And these 26-year-olds are changing India’s perception also of itself: that India can; that, therefore, we should face the world with confidence.



That is the situation in activity after activity. We lament the fact that, while we are ahead in software, we have lost out to China in IT hardware. That is true — as of the moment. We shooed away firms like Motorola when they approached us in the early 1990s for facilities to set up manufacturing operations in India. China welcomed them, it wooed them, it created every conceivable facility for hardware firms from Japan, of course, but also from Taiwan, a country at which 400 of its missiles are aimed. It has thereby leapt ahead.



But the game is hardly over. That world-class hardware can be produced in India is evident. How many of us would have heard of Moser-Baer? Located in unprepossessing Noida, it is the world’s third largest optical media manufacturer, and the lowest-cost producer of CD-Recorders. Its exports are close to Rs 1,000 crore.



The firm sells data-storage products to seven of the world’s top 10 CD-R producers. And it produces them so efficiently that, to shield themselves, European competitors had to file an anti-dumping case to stop and penalise its exports to Europe. Moser-Baer fought on its own. And won.



A firm most of us have not heard of. A firm that is manufacturing products at the cutting edge of technology. A firm exporting Rs 1,000 crore of products that require the utmost precision and technological sophistication. A firm that European firms fear.



And equally important — the very international fora that our ideologues shout are instruments of exploitation hold against European firms, and in favour of this Indian firm.



There is more. Moser-Baer has acquired Capco Luxembourg, a firm that owns 49 per cent of a Netherlands-based CD-R distributor. And it has set up Glyphics Media Inc. in the United States—for markets in North and South America. And here we are being made to shiver at the thought that foreign firms are about to swallow us!



Heard of Tandon Electronics? Its exports of electronic hardware are close to Rs 4,000 crore!



At a moment’s notice, my friends Amit Mitra of FICCI and Tarun Das of CII send me particulars of firm after firm, in sector after sector, that has broken new ground. A sample:





• Fifteen of the world’s major automobile manufacturers are now obtaining components from Indian firms.

• Just last year, exports of auto-components were $375 million. This year they are close to $1.5 billion. Estimates indicate they will reach $15 billion within six to seven years.



• Hero Honda is now the largest manufacturer of motorcycles in the world—with an output of 17 lakh motorcycles a year.



• One lakh Indica cars of the Tatas are to be marketed in Europe by Rover, one of the United Kingdom’s most prestigious auto-manufacturers under its — that is, Rover’s — brand name.



• Bharat Forge has the world’s largest single-location forging facility — of 1.2 lakh tonnes per annum. Its client list includes Toyota, Honda, Volvo, Cummins, Daimler Chrysler. It has been chosen as a supplier of small forging parts for Toyota’s global transmission parts’ sourcing hub in Bangalore.



• Asian Paints has production facilities in 22 countries spread across five continents. It has recently acquired Berger International, which gives it access to 11 countries, and SCIB Chemical SAE in Egypt. Asian Paints is the market leader in 11 of the 22 countries in which it is present, including India.



• Hindustan Inks has the world’s largest single stream, fully integrated ink plant, of 1 lakh tonnes per annum capacity, at Vapi, Gujarat. It has a manufacturing plant and a 100 per cent subsidiary in the US. It has another 100 per cent subsidiary in Austria.



• For two years running, General Motors has awarded Sundaram Clayton its ‘Best Supplier Award’; the volumes it sources out of India are growing every year.



• Ford has presented the ‘Gold World Excellence Award’ to Cooper Tyres.



• Essel Propack is the world’s largest laminated tube manufacturer. It has a manufacturing presence in 11 countries including China, a global manufacturing share of 25 per cent, and caters to all of P&G’s laminated tube requirements in the US, and 40 per cent of Unilever’s.



• Aston Martin, one of the world’s most expensive car brands, has contracted prototyping its latest luxury sports car to an India-based designer. This would be the cheapest car to roll out of Aston Martin’s stable.



• Maruti has been the preferred supplier of small cars under the Suzuki brand for Europe. Suzuki has now decided to make India its manufacturing, export and research hub outside Japan.



• Hyundai Motors India is about to become the parent Hyundai Motors Corporation’s global small car hub. In 2003, HMC will source 25,000 Santros from HMI’s plant in India. By 2010 HMI is targeted to supply half a million cars to HMC.



It was only in 1999 that HMI got its first outsourcing contract and already, in 2003, 20 per cent of its sales will be what it supplies as an outsourcing hub. It is exporting cars to Indonesia, Algeria, Morocco, Columbia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.



• Ford India got its first outsourcing contract in 2000. Within 3 years outsourcing accounts for 35 per cent of its sales. Ford India supplies to Mexico, Brazil and China. The parent Ford is sourcing close to $40 million worth of components from India, and plans to increase these in the coming years.



Ford India is already the sole manufacturing and supply base for Ikon cars and components. These are being exported to Mexico, China and Africa.



• Toyota Kirloskar Motors chose India over competitive destinations like Philippines and China for setting up a new project to source transmissions as this option proved more economical.



• Europe’s leading tractor maker, Renault, has chosen International Tractors (ITL) as its sole global sourcing hub for 40 to 85 horsepower tractors.



• Tyco Electronics India bagged its first outsourcing contract in 1998-99. So successful has it been that components and products others have contracted from it already account for 50 per cent of its total sales. It supplies to the parent, Tyco Europe.



• TISCO is today the lowest cost producer of hot-rolled steel in the world.



• TVS Motor Company has been awarded the coveted Deming Prize for Total Quality Management. Many of the largest of organisations, even American ones—like GE—have not managed that recognition yet!



India’s pharmaceutical industry has come to be feared as much as its infotech industry. It is already worth $ 6.5 billion and it has been growing at 8-10 per cent a year. It’s the fourth largest pharmaceutical industry in terms of volumes and 13th in value. Its exports have crossed $2 billion, and have increased by 30 per cent in the past five years. India is among the top five manufacturers of bulk drugs.



Even more telling is another figure. We are always being frightened, ‘‘Multinational drug companies are about to takeover.’’ In 1971 the share of these MNCs in the Indian market was 75 per cent. Today it’s 35 per cent!



There’s another feature we should bear in mind: India’s strengths are becoming evident across the technology spectrum:





• We are among the three countries in the world that have built supercomputers on their own, the US and Japan being the other two: two months ago, the fourth generation PARAM super-computer was inaugurated in Bangalore.

• We are among six countries in the world that launch satellites. We launch some of our own satellites of course; we have launched satellites for others too, among them such countries as Germany and Belgium. We have the largest set of remote sensing satellites. Our INSAT system is also among the world’s largest domestic satellite communication systems.



At the other end:





• India is one of the world’s largest diamond cutting and polishing centres. CLSA estimates nine of every 10 stones sold in the world pass through India.

• Trade of Indian medicinal plants has crossed Rs 4,000 crore.



Here is proof positive that liberalisation has indeed worked. ‘‘By opening the economy before giving it a chance to become competitive, we have thrown our industry to the wolves,’’ it used to be said. Quite the contrary. The success in exports, in fields such as IT in which competition is fierce, in which technological change is fast as lightning, success in auto-components, in pharmaceuticals shows that our industry has fought back, it has become competitive.



Remember all that shouting about Chinese batteries a year ago? ‘‘Markets are closing down, thousands are being thrown out of their meagre businesses, factory after factory has shut down.’’ That was the shouting just a few months ago.



Where are those batteries from China? Yes, trade with China has grown—by 104% in the past year. But according to figures of the Chinese Government, in the first five months of 2003, India has amassed a surplus in its trade with China, a surplus of close to half a billion dollars.



And China is just an instance. Exports as a whole, and in the face of an unrelenting recession in the West, have grown by 19 per cent in the year. In a word, what committees upon committees with their piles of recommendations would not have achieved, being actually exposed to actual competition has.



Our foreign exchange reserves are at an all-time high—$82 billion. We have announced that we will not be taking aid from a string of countries.



• We are giving aid to 10 or 11 countries.

• We are pre-paying our debt.

•We have just ‘‘loaned’’ $300 million to the IMF!



How distant the days when we used to wait anxiously for the announcement about what the Aid India Club meeting in Paris had decided to give us.



But there is the other side—equally telling. Why is it that so few among us know even the elementary facts about these successes? Why is it that so much of public, specifically political, discourse, when it is not whining is just wailing?

Sacred Spaces: Exploring Traditions of Shared Faith in India by Yoginder

Sikand





Publisher: Penguin India 0143029312 | Paperback Format: B | 288 pages

| List Price: Rs 250.00 Published : 1/15/2003 Territory : World

Rating : -->



A fascinating journey through the world of Sufi pirs, babas and rishis



The politics of communal hatred in recent times has brought under attack the

heterodoxy of our religious life. This book explores popular religious cults

from various parts of the country that defy the logic of communities as neatly

separated from and necessarily opposed to each other. Travelling from Kerala to

war-torn Kashmir, and from Punjab to Madhya Pradesh, through twenty-five places

of popular pilgrimage—dargahs, temples and shrines—Yoginder Sikand finds

followers from different communities flocking together in common worship.



At Hazrat Nund Rishi at Charar-e-Sharif, or the Wavar shrine at the Ayyappa

pilgrimage of Sabarimala, at the temple of Goddess Elamma of Sauditti, or the

dargah of Sarmad of Delhi, Sikand meets saints, keepers and devotees to

discover how traditions associated with these places have historically

challenged religious as well as secular elites, and offered their adherents a

powerful and deeply humanist vision of the sacred, freed from the narrow

boundaries of caste and creed. But it is also noteworthy that some of these

shrines, such as the Swami Dattatreya Budhan Baba in Karnataka, have been

transformed over time and become sites of communal contestation.



Weaving together legend, history, ethnography and reminiscences with critical

insights, Sacred Spaces affords us a rare glimpse of religious traditions

outside the mainstream. This rich legacy could well be invaluable in promoting

alternate ways of understanding religion and the notion of community identity,

a need that has never been more urgent than it is today.



">Customers Who bought this book also bought Customers Reviews

-->

Guys (gals?), I would like to start a thread to collect corruption related news items reported in mainstream INDIAN media. My concern is that it will immediately get hijacked by the individuals with agenda, causing the admins to shut it down. The idea here is not to gather dirt on one specific individual/leader/minister/party/organization but as a whole keep tab on news items pertaining to all corruption realted issues. I am proposing the "news folder" approach which would at least allow us to archive reference material in the thread.



I'm cut-pasting some guidelines (cut+paste from BR) for this thread:

• PLEASE DO NOT post a news article without the proper heading and the URL.
  
  
• PLEASE DO NOT post a news article without explicit mention of the source (Radio or TV channel name, time, program) along with the news.
  
  
• PLEASE DO NOT post an entire article unless there is no archiving available on the news site. Should you post an entire article, give proper credit to the source; mention the date of the article, and the URL.
  
  
• PLEASE DO NOT comment and/or discuss on the news articles posted in the news folder.