Indians in the last 200 years have different kinds of history

One is puranas which have beenc arried over for atleast 1000 years



Other is the history as written by foriegn invaders



Indians have been living with both of them for several centuries and have not debated on the force of history.





It is the study of History with the intent to find out laws that will enable predictions in the domain of

today's power dynamics. Sadly, this is a far cry from the approach adopted to the teaching of History in India today, where a

Macaulayan education system dumps thousands of irrelevant facts into young minds effectively resulting in mental constipation.





--

THis thread is to study the general perception and the image in the minds of Indians with a std education.

India's verbal adherence to the UN Charter has been unequivocal. This, despite the fact that the UN platform has been singularly hostile to Indian aspirations both in the J&K issue as well as the de facto Nuclearization of India. The following is the speech by ABV. By and large it is a good speech, probably written by one of those Babus who stood first in the IAS exam.



[url="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/xml/uncomp/articleshow?msid=202564"]http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll...how?msid=202564[/url]



He had this to say to his old friend Mush ,

Quote:Yesterday, the president of Pakistan chose this august assembly to make a public admission for the first time that Pakistan is sponsoring terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. After claiming that there is an indigenous struggle in Kashmir, he has offered to encourage a general cessation of violence within Kashmir, in return for "reciprocal obligations and restraints".Touche for ABV. obviously how can the terrorist state 'encourage' a general cessation of violence, if they do not already have a measure of influence and control over the jihadis and are constantly encouraging the jihadis in their murderous game.







We totally refuse to let terrorism become a tool of blackmail. Just as the world did not negotiate with Al Qaida or the Taliban, we shall not negotiate with terrorism.an excellent point. In my recollection this is the first time that an Indian PM has called the Paki actions blackmail.







If we do so, we would be betraying the people of Jammu and Kashmir, who defied a most ferocious campaign of violence and intimidation sponsored from across our borders, and participated in an election, which has been universally hailed as free and fair. This was an unequivocal expression of both determination and self-determination.







When the cross-border terrorism stops - or when we eradicate it - we can have a dialogue with Pakistan on the other issues between us.







While on this subject, I would also like to point out to the president of Pakistan that he should not confuse the legitimate aspiration for equality of nations with outmoded concepts of military parity.

At the time when Christ was born, the Indic civilization pervaded a vast area of Asia , bounded on the north by the steppes of Central Asia, on the west by the Persian empire and on the east by by what is now known as South East Asia. Contrary to what is popularly believed it was the Indic civilization that had far greater currency in most of Asia rather than the Sinic (even in China). This topic will attempt to explore what we are uncovering from recent studies. we start of with this vignette from HH on the Parthian empire. The word Iran is a derivative of Arya and it is clear that the modern Iranian considers himself descended from Aryans. It is another matter that i have a problem with the category of Aryan as an ethnic designator, but that is a topic for another thread.



When i use the word Greater it is more in a geographical sense and not to imply superiority over other civilizations. The French author Coedes uses the term 'Farther India' to describe such geographies where the Indic civilization was the predominant one. Furthermore, it does not imply that the entire area was under one central suzerainty. What it does mean is that a traveller could go from one corner of this vast area to another and find himself in linguistic and cultural affinity wherever he went

Quote:The Seleucid kingdom was founded by one of Alexander's generals

Seleukos Nikator, who had led his troops with much perseverance during

the former's Indian campaign. The Seleucid kingdom started

degenerating in 245BCE as Indo-Greek kshatrapa, Andragoras declared

himself an independent monarch. About this time and Iranian tribe

termed the Parni organized a massive cavalry army in the steppes,

broke free from another Iranian tribe, the Daha, that was their

overlord, and moved into Southern Turkmenistan. From here the Parni

launched a massive invasion of Andragoras' satrapy under the

leadership of their famed leader Arshaka (Arsaces in Greek).

Andragoras was killed in the battle against the Parni and the Greeks

forces scattered, allowing the invaders to conquered the territory to

the southeast of the Caspian corresponding to Hyrcania and Parthia.

After this they acquired the name Parthians in the West after the

territory they had conquered. This sparked off a see-saw struggle with

the Macedonians that turned to their advantage after the death of the

Arshaka who had a prolonged war with Seleukos II. Arshaka II his son

was beaten in battles by Antiochus III and had to sue peace after

losing Hyrcania. However, in 171BC, the Parthian king Mithradata I

came to power, who(Mithridates in Greek) raised them to the height of

their glory. In 148 BC he crushed the Seleukids in crucial battle,

sacking Media, in 141 he followed it up with the conquest of Babylon.

Then he struck to his east outflanking the Indo-Greek army and

destroying it at Margiana and annexed their territory to found what

may be called the Parthian empire. He settled the Shaka tribe that

aided him in these conquests in Seistan (Shakastan) and took on the

title Kshatyatama- emperor. His son Phraetra II (Phratres) finally

destroyed the Seleukid empire completely by smashing them completely

in 129 BC. This was followed by a struggle with their onetime allies

the Shakas, and the Massagetaen tribes of the Daha confederacy that

nearly destroyed the Parthians. Their capital was established in Nisa

near today's Ashkhabad and studies show that within a few years of

their conquest of the new territory they became quite urban in their

economy. Excavation reports by Russians at Nisa reveal large fortified

constructions, with Fire temples. This suggests that we should not be

so prompt in claiming that the oasis civilizations and the mature/late

Harappan had nothing to do with the early Indo-Iranians- the parallel

to the Parthians is very clear. The Indo-Iranians could have occupied

these centers and become urban in a very short time: note the Fire

temples were not an acquired cult for these Parthians but merely

expanded on urban settlement. Hence, what we see is a near complete

Aryan domination of both Persia and the steppes till they were

ultimately decimated and absorbed by the great expansion of the

Altaics under Motun-tegin of the first Hun Kha'khanate.

I've waited for a bit too long to start this thread on Indian Cuisine.

Feel free share interesting tidbits about all that yummy stuff....you know cuisines, great food joints, secret recipes, URLs of interest etc.



If HH/Kaushal or history experts can connect some dots across civilizations/nations using food habits, I personally would be most interested.



Some URLs:

[url="http://www.bawarchi.com"]http://www.bawarchi.com[/url]

[url="http://www.sanjeevkapoor.com"]http://www.sanjeevkapoor.com[/url] <-- recipes for paid subscribers <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> (I always suspected that he holds something back - if you know what I mean)

[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.