Quote:It is hard to connect this Hindu terror mastermind over-drive with the Swami Aseemanand of tribal simplicity and boundless energy, whom I have known since the last 11 years and interacted with closely.



A man of deep passion and relentless commitment to tribal welfare, he displayed no interest in anything which had no connection with the tribal world. The Samjhauta Express, the Malegaon, Mecca Masjid, Ajmer Sharif -- none of these have the remotest connection with tribals. So to me, they cannot trigger any interest in Aseemanand.



Yet, he is found to be the mastermind and has even confessed to his involvement in the terror attacks!



Ever since he came to the Dangs district in south Gujarat in 1995, he has gone totally tribal -- the Dangi tribals have converted him irrevocably so much so that Bengal (Editor's note: from where he hails) is past, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is past, the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram is past; the Dangi tribal world is the overwhelming present and a clear future.



His mission in life was to serve the tribals, for which he had to join either the Christian missionaries or Hindu organisations working in the same field. He joined the Ramakrishna Mission and worked on their behalf in Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya and Mizoram. But the Ramakrishna Mission failed to match his zeal.



Thoroughly disappointed, he joined the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, an RSS affiliate. He worked for them in the Andaman and Nicobar islands and finally landed in the Dangs via Jharkhand and Maharashtra. Even the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram found his single-minded zeal disturbing and he was dumped in this remote Dangs district where the organisation had failed to make any headway.



He walked to the remotest tribal hamlets and stayed with tribal families in their huts, ate what they ate and shared their life in full; unlike most missionaries, Christian or Hindu, he passed no value judgement on them. He detested the very idea of foisting vegetarianism on the tribals or putting a stop to their animal sacrifice rituals.



While parting, he would give a framed photo of Lord Hanuman or a wooden Hanuman idol to the tribal family, charging them Rs 50. His choice of Hanuman stemmed from the fact that the tribals worshipped the monkey god.



After establishing a popular base among the tribals, he set up an ashram-cum-residential school at Vaghai, which turned out to be a huge success. This made Christian missionaries operating in the area most uneasy.



The boiling point came in 1998 when he planned a big expansion in Subir, 60 km from Vaghai. By Christmas in 1999, there was open confrontation between the tribal followers of Swami Aseemanand and Christian missionaries.



There was an outcry in the national media, with the burning of prayer huts being described as burning of Christian churches. The first rude awakening for Swami Aseemanand came around this time.



The Sangh Parivar dreads adverse media publicity, especially in a state where the Bharatiya Janata Party is in power. He was ordered to move out of the Dangs.



But this very event made ordinary Hindus reach out to him. An NRI was so impressed by him that he donated money to build a hospital and a residential school in Subir. But the BJP government, fearing a missionary-media backlash, has not given permission for that to this day.



Post his arrest, Swami Aseemanand is painted as a fraud in the media for not building this school and hospital. But for the local tribals and Hindu religious organisations who sheltered him, he would have vanished into oblivion.



With the tribals refusing to respond to others in the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, Swami Aseemanand was brought back to Subir where he promptly began the construction of the Sabridham Mandir.



In his unique style, not just the labourers but even the contractor who built the temple, was a tribal. He skilfully wove the Bhil woman Sabri of the Ramayana into a tribal form of worship. It created such a wave among the tribals that Sabridham has become a tribal Badrinath of sorts.



The very government which blocked the building of a hospital and school, now gave full support to the first Sabri Kumbh in 2006, which attracted tribals from all over the country, offering the single largest platform for political mobilisation of tribals.



The entire Sangh Parivar top leadership and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi [ Images ] were present at the inauguration, not because they loved Aseemanand, but because this presented them with a golden political opportunity.



Now the Sangh Parivar would like to control Sabridham minus Swami Aseemanand. So it too would prefer him out of Gujarat. Ironically, the Sangh Parivar and Christian missionaries desire the same thing for different reasons.



The ashram, which Swami Aseemanand built adjoining the Sabridham temple, has meals cooked by tribals. The roti is made from a local coarse grain called nagli. Contrary to adverse media reports, the ashram was an open house where anyone could stay.



Sunil Joshi, Sandeep Dange, Sadhvi Pragya and others accused in the Hindu terror cases could have stayed there without Aseemanand knowing about their plans.



But nothing beyond that for this man with a single focus on tribal welfare -- at most he can be a polite listener. The Muslim factor would come into Swami Aseemanand's world to the extent that it impinged on the tribals. Thus, for hours he can elaborate on how Muslims usurped tribal lands by marrying tribal women to get around the ban on buying tribal lands.



Or as a Bengali, he can get worked up over the Bangladeshi influx. So in theory, he could plan the bombing of a train to Bangladesh, but not the Samjhauta Express. He can be involved in a plan to drive away Muslim settlers with tribal wives from tribal areas, but not Malegaon or Ajmer or the Mecca Masjid.



I have spent hours talking to him and there had never been a hint of what he has landed up in. After the chargesheet was filed in the Malegaon case and his name was not found on it, he resurfaced in September 2009.



He rang me up one day, saying he was in Ahmedabad and that he wanted to meet up. He picked me up after half an hour and we drove around the city in his car. I was shocked by his altered appearance.



Instead of his supremely confident and dynamic self, he looked disoriented and confused, like a lost tribal who does not know what had hit him -- hardly the mastermind in person!



His first words were, "Arvindbhai, you must be thinking that I am carrying out evil activities and you should be wanting to shun me."



Trying to put him at ease, I told him, "Maharaj, those Hindus who know you will never believe these allegations and would rush to your defence."



Baffled at my response, he said: "But the Hindus I met treated me like a worm."



In a matter of fact tone, I explained, "They all must be RSS Hindus."



He gave me a long incredulous look and admitted that he had only met RSS Hindus while on the run.



"But what can I do? They are the only ones I know, they are my family."



In an hour-long drive, I clinically analysed the RSS's response.



At the end of my analysis, his mind became clear. A semblance of the old Swami Aseemanand had returned. Then he asked me if I was an RSS swayamsevak, for I knew so much about it.



I laughed and told him if I ever had joined them, I would have ended up as confused and disoriented as him.



He laughed for the first time.



Swami Aseemanand thanked me effusively and left for Nadiad. After a fortnight I got a call from him; his old confidence had been fully restored. I asked him what the secret of his recovery was. He burst out laughing and said, "I followed your advice and met ordinary Hindus only."



Then his involvement in the blast was resurrected by the Rajasthan Anti-Terrorist Squad and he was arrested in Haridwar. He had been on the run for several months.



This development coincidentally came around the same time as the Binayak Sen judgment.



Both worked for the tribals, yet the media's response is unsettlingly sinister.



The same media, which eulogises Sen, does not even give fair coverage to Swami Aseemanand. Both are Bengali Brahmins; both loved the tribals. But Jatin Chatterji alias Aseemanand did not take the right Naxal path to tribal welfare!



The Dang tribals worship him. Yet, there is not a single report covering this aspect. Instead, there are fake reports painting him as a bully.

Quote:I wrote this initially for publication in a newspaper, but on second thoughts decided they would have too hard a time with it. Hence I decided to just post it here. I omitted to add a bunch of other information I had because of the word limit, but it would be useful to think of:



a) how the media and the State always suppress information about the misadventures of Christist godmen: the Sister Abhaya case has been essentially shelved because the Supreme Court (how conveniently!) decided that narco-analysis was not acceptable, just in time for the perps nun Seffi and godmen Kottoor and Puthrukkayil to escape



<img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cool.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='B)' /> how large-scale conversion has turned not only the Northeast, but most of Kerala and parts of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh into Xtist-majority areas where Hindus are oppressed



c) how land-grab is one of the major objectives: the tribals are converted, and their land is simply taken over by the Xtists. The entire Western Ghats in Kerala, formerly tribal and public land, has been captured by Xtists



d) how Xtists are expropriating Hindu cultural artifacts and claiming them to be their own, eg. bharatanatyam, mohini attam, yoga, karnatic music



e) how Hindu leaders and Hindu children are being abducted in Pakistan (especially in Baluchistan) and there is not a peep from the Government of India about it. Most recently, the most revered Hindu monk, an 80-year-old, was abducted and hasn’t been heard from since — we should presume he has been murdered



f) how Xtist icons have started appearing with State benediction. The crosses on official Indian coins are clearly Xtist idols.



I did not have space to go into these, but they are worth considering.



Here’s the original article:



Is there a powerful mafia working tirelessly to convert Hindus?



Rajeev Srinivasan wonders if there is a malevolent design behind how Hindu leaders are consistently subjected to brutality by the State



What do Aseemanand, Lakshmananda and the Kanchi Swami have in common? They were all making things difficult for missionaries to meet their conversion targets, and they paid for that ‘sin’. There is a sinister pattern – if you stand in the way of the conversion mafia, they will liquidate you.



Aseemanand’s social and educational work for decades in the tribal Dangs district of Gujarat has been highly appreciated by the tribals themselves. But he has been jailed on flimsy charges, likely tortured, and what sounds suspiciously like a ‘confession-at-the-point-of-a-gun’ has been wrung out of him.



Lakshmananda, the octogenarian monk who worked for thirty years in Orissa’s tribal areas, was the subject of many death threats; he was physically assaulted; and finally he and others in his ashram were gunned down with AK-47s.



The Kanchi Swami was humiliated – tejovadham – on trumped-up charges; he was jailed like a common criminal (as though house arrest were unknown in India), in a deliberate effort to damage the prestige of the Kanchi Sankara Matham. The Kanchi Swami’s ‘crime’? He has been active among the scheduled castes in Tamil Nadu, ensuring their inclusion in what had long been criticized as an upper-caste institution.



The list is endless: there is the Bangalore monk Nityananda – wasn’t it quite amazing that minutes after his allegedly compromising videos were flashed on TV, there was a self-organizing ‘irate mob’ available to burn down his ashram? After all the righteous indignation, when the alleged woman in the video – actress Ranjitha – said that the whole thing was fabricated by a missionary, who is also issuing death threats against her, that was blanked out by the pliant media.



Possible reason for the wrath against Nityananda: the charismatic, lower-caste monk was seen as a role model, and was attracting large numbers of young followers from the lower castes.



Then there were the persistent allegations against the Sai Baba of Puttaparthi regarding pedophilia – it turned out that when challenged in court, the accusers simply had no leg to stand on.



There have been many attempts to damage the prestige of the Sabarimala shrine. The possible reason: there has been a lot of conversion among lower castes, especially in Tamil Nadu, by the judicious use of a Madonna cult. This appeals to the Indian weakness for mother-and-child memes (as in the baby Krishna imagery), and resulted in a rather good harvest. The growth of the Sabarimala pilgrimage halted this particular conversion juggernaut.



First, there was the attempt to physically wipe out the shrine – although that could be attributed to more mundane motives, such as encroaching on the forest land nearby. Some time in the 1950s, before the pilgrimage became popular, Christians actually set fire to the temple.



Then there was the attempt to manufacture a historical Christian presence at Nilakkal, on the route of the pilgrimage. Allegedly, a 2000-year-old wooden cross, installed by the famous Saint Thomas, was unearthed intact. That would have been a genuine miracle – 2000-year-old wood does not survive buried in Kerala’s humid earth; and Thomas had never even come to India (he died in Ortona, Italy, as certified by the Vatican). But it was a good try.



Third, there was the ‘compromising photographs’ ploy. The chief priest of Sabarimala was invited to an apartment in Cochin, where he was coerced into compromising positions, and photographed, by some Christians.



Fourth, there was the “I went to Sabarimala and touched the deity” scam by a film-extra. She claimed that, contrary to custom that women of child-bearing age do not visit the shrine, she had gone there in her twenties, and in the crush of pilgrims, had fallen in the sanctum and touched the murti by accident, thus polluting it. All of which turned out to be untrue. No surprise that she is married to a Christian.



If you put two and two together, it can be seen that there is a Vietnam, or a South Korea, developing in India. These Buddhist-dominated nations were rapidly Christianized in the post-war period; Buddhist monks were seen self-immolating in South Vietnam, in self-sacrificing protest against religious oppression at the hands of Catholic tyrants like Madame Nhu.



Similarly, South Korea, for long a Buddhist-majority nation, was turned in five decades into a Bible-thumping country. In India’s northeast, of course, converted Nagas now demand a separate Christian Naga nation. Violent Christian terrorist groups massacre Hindus – Shanti Tripura, a Hindu monk, was shot dead (ah, the signature AK-47 again) in his temple. The same with Bineshwar Brahma, Hindu Bodo leader and litterateur. Then there are the Hindu Reang tribals, 45,000 of whom were ethnically cleansed from Tripura for refusing to convert.



This pattern of abuse suggests that there is indeed a systematic, sinister plan in action.

Quote:Government-religion tension



Proactive dialogue necessary over 4-river project



Bitter tension between the government and religious bodies is escalating to a fever pitich. The Buddhists have vowed no dialogue until the end of the Lee Myung-bak administration because of the unfair treatment. Cardinal Nicholas Chung Jin-suk faces a call to resign from the head of the Archdiocese of Seoul for his alleged support for the four-river refurbishment project.



Twenty-five liberal priests Monday criticized the cardinal for supporting the four-river project in defiance of the conclusion made by the supreme decision-making body of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Korea.



They believe Chung’s resignation is unavoidable as he confused laypersons and priests through an incorrect message. They asked the cardinal to solicit forgiveness and retire from the post. They said Chung’s has been over the retirement age for four years anyway.



It is unprecedented for a Catholic leader to face calls for resignation.



The Buddhist community has also declared a cut-off in communication with the incumbent administration. Subsequently, it has barred lawmakers of the governing Grand National Party from entering temples in an unbecoming show of revenge. Angering the Buddhists against their self-control is the reduction of the state budget for the temple stay program for next year.



The nation’s largest Buddhist sect, the Jogye Order, accused the Lee administration of its allegedly biased view that the program will promote only Buddhism. It said the program is necessary to promote Korean culture and tourism as well.



The Buddhist circle, still full of human emotions under their grey robes, vowed to return all state subsidies to the government in protest of the budget reduction.



The Catholics and Buddhists embarrass the Presbyterian President Lee. This is not the first time that Buddhists have aired open criticism of the Lee administration in the past three years. The Buddhists got fumed when the head of the Jogye Order had his car searched two years ago.



The Buddhist community has issued a paper on its position highlighting 100 cases of alleged unfair treatment and regrettable mistakes that have taken place under the Lee administration.



The current feuding is between the government and the Buddhists. The Catholic community is internally divisive. The common denominator of the trouble is the discord over the four-river project. It is not and should not be a sign of worsening relations among different religions.



Korea is an international model for its inter-faith harmony. Ultimately, Koreans have long regarded religion as a means for the unification of the country and its people. Korea has never experienced a national split due to religious differences. Regions joined hands to safeguard the country in times of crisis. Religious leaders took the initiative to wage an independence struggle against Japanese colonial rule. The Korean Conference on Religion and Peace has been working as a channel for inter-faith dialogue and cooperation.



The current troubles are traceable to a lack of communication between the government and the different religious sects. The government must become more proactive in communicating with Buddhists and Catholics on key policy issues. It should take extra care not to give the impression that the Lee administration is unfair in its policies on religion.



http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2010/12/137_78011.html

Quote:At Donna Georgina’s by William Dalrymple



The history of Goa is written most succinctly in the portraits of the Portuguese Viceroys that still line the corridors of the abandoned convent of St. Francis of Assisi in Old Goa.



The early Portuguese Viceroys are giants among men: chain-mailed warlords like Pedro da Alem Castro, a vast bull of a man with great mutton chop whiskers and knee-high leather boots. The boots terminate in a pair of sparkling golden spurs; his plate-metal doublet is bursting to contain his massive physique. All around Castro are others of his ilk: big men with hanging-judge eyes and thick bird's nest beards. Each is pictured holding a long steel rapier.



Then, sometime late in the eighteenth century, an air of ambiguity suddenly sets in. Fernando Martins Mascarenhas was the Governor of Goa only a few decades after Castro had returned to Portugal, but he could have been from another millennium. Mascarenhas is a powdered dandy in silk stockings; a fluffy lace ruff brushes his chin. He is pictured leaning on a stick, his lips pursed and his tunic half-unbuttoned; it is as if he is depicted on his way out of a brothel. In contemporary North India, a couple of generations in the withering heat of the Gangetic plains turned the Great Moguls from hardy Turkic warlords into pale princes in petticoats. In the same way, by the end of the eighteenth century, the fanatical Portuguese conquistadors had somehow been transformed into effeminate fops in bows and laces.



The Portuguese had first visited Goa in the last days of the Middle Ages. In 1498 Vasco da Gama discovered the sea route to the Indies, and he immediately began planning ways of wresting control of the Indian Ocean from the Muslims, and so diverting the spice trade to Portugal. By August 1507 Afonso de Albuquerque, 'the Caesar of the East', had built a fortress on the island of Socotra to block the mouth of the Red Sea and cut off Arab traders from India, and in March 1510, Albuquerque arrived off the coast of Goa. With him came fleet of 23 caravels, galleons and war barks. Albuquerque massacred the Muslim defenders of the local fort, then carved out for himself a small crescent-shaped enclave clinging onto the Western seaboard of the Deccan. From this fortified enclave, the Portuguese planned to control the Maritime routes of the East.



The conquistador chose his kingdom well. Goa is an area of great natural abundance and the state is envied throughout India for its rich red soils and fertile paddy fields, its excellent mangoes and cool sea breezes. From its harbours, Albuquerque's fleet brutally enforced the Portuguese monopoly of the spice trade.



In its earliest incarnation Old Goa was a grim fortress city, the headquarters of a string of fifty heavily armed artillery bastions stretching the length of the Indian littoral. But by 1600, the same transition that had transformed the conquistadors into dandies turned Old Goa from a fortified barracks into a vast metropolis of 75,000 people, the swaggering capital of the Portuguese Empire in the East. It was larger than contemporary Madrid and virtually as populous as Lisbon whose civic privileges it shared. The mangrove swamps were cleared and in their place rose the walls and towers of Viceregal palaces, elegant townhouses, austere monasteries and elaborate baroque cathedrals.



With easy wealth had come a softening of the hard edges. The fops and dandies had no interest in war and concentrated instead on their seraglios. Old Goa became more famous for its whores than for its canons or cathedrals. According to the records of the Goan Royal Hospital, by the first quarter of the seventeenth century at least 500 Portuguese a year were dying from syphilis and "the effects of profligacy". Although the ecclesiastical authorities issued edicts condemning the sexual 'laxity' of the married women who 'drugged their husbands the better to enjoy their lovers,' this did not stop the clerics themselves keeping whole harems of black slave girls for their pleasure. In the 1590's the first Dutch galleons began defying the Portuguese monopoly; by 1638 Goa was being blockaded by Dutch warships. Sixty years later in 1700, according to a Scottish sea captain, it was a "place of small Trade and most of its Riches lay in the Hands of indolent Country Gentlemen, who loiter away their days in Ease, Luxury and Pride."



So it was to remain. The jungle crept back, leaving only a litter of superb baroque churches- none of which would look out of place on the streets of Lisbon, Madrid or Rome - half strangled by the mangrove swamps.



The most magnificent of the surviving buildings is Bom Jesus, the church which now acts as the enormous vaulted mausoleum of Goa's great saint, the sixteenth century Jesuit missionary St. Francis Xavier. To modern tastes, Xavier seems to have been a brute- when he visited Goa he was so shocked by the lingering pagan practices performed by the colony's converted Hindus that he successfully petitioned for the import of the Inquisition- but this does not stop Goans of all faiths revering his memory four hundred years later. Indeed a decade ago when the miraculously undecayed body of St. Francis was last put on public display on the altar of Bom Jesus, one Hindu lady was so overcome with devotional fervour that she bit off the little toe of the saint's left foot and smuggled her relic out of the church in her mouth. She was only apprehended when removing the mummified toe from her mouth at the queue for the ferry.



Ironically, the healing powers of St. Francis are today particularly sought after by the very 'pagan' Hindus Xavier sought to convert or persecute. Outside Bom Jesus stand the usual lines of postcard and trinket sellers. But among the Catholics selling effigies of the Virgin and pictures of the Pope, are a group of Hindus who squat on the pavement and sell wax models of legs, arms, heads and ribs. I asked them what the models were for:



"To put on the tomb of St. Francis," replied one of the vendors. "If you have a broken leg you put one of these wax legs on the Mr. Xavier's tomb. If you have headache then you put one wax head, and so on."



"How does that help?" I asked.



"This model will remind the saint to cure your problem," replied the fetish salesman. "Then pain will be finished double quick, no problem."



Today the best view of the old metropolis can be had from the Chapel of Our Lady of the Mount. To get there you must climb a kilometre long flight of steps, once a passeggiata for the Goan gentry, now a deserted forest path frequented only by babbler birds, peacocks and monkeys.



Scarlet flamboya trees corkscrew out of the cobbles. Bushes block the magnificent gateways into now collapsed convents and overgrown aristocratic palaces. The architrave of a perfect Renaissance arch has rotted to the texture of old peach stone. Roots spiral over corniches; tubers grip the armorial shields of long-forgotten grand Goan families. As you near the chapel, its facade now half-submerged under a web of vines and creepers, there is no sound but for the eerie creek of old timber and the rustle of palms.



The panorama from the chapel's front steps is astonishing. The odd spire, a vault, a cupula, a broken pediment can be seen poking out of the forest canopy. You look down past the domes and spires of the churches and monasteries and see the evening light pick out the wandering course of the Mandovi River beyond.



The river is empty now: the docks are deserted; the galleons long sunk. Of the one of the greatest cities of the Renaissance world, almost nothing now remains.



"But of course despite everything they hung on," said Donna Georgina, leaning back on her wickerwork divan. "Despite the loss of the trading Empire they ruled us for another three hundred years. They were in Goa for a full two and a half centuries before you British conquered a single inch of Indian soil; and they were still here in 1960, more than a decade after you all went home again."



"Until Nehru threw them out at the liberation of Goa in 1961."



"Liberation?" said Donna Georgina, her face clouding over as quickly as a Goan sky at the height of the monsoon. "Did you say liberation? Botheration more like!"



I had clearly said the wrong thing, and Donna Georgina Figueiredo was now sitting bolt upright on her divan, rigid with indignation. We were talking in her eighteenth century ancestral mansion, not from the outside the largest of the Indo-Portuguese colonial estancias that still dot Goa, but from the inside certainly one of the most perfectly preserved. I had driven to Donna Georgina's village, Lutolim, along a lagoon edged in coconut groves, breadfruit trees and flowering hibiscus. The village revolved around the large white baroque church. In front of it stood a small piazza; to one side was the school, on the other side, the taverna, The Good Shepherd Bar. In it, appropriately enough, you could see the village priest sitting at a table in a white cassock, reading the daily paper. Scattered around the vicinity were the grand houses of the village, and at the grandest of them all was the Estancia Donna Georgina.



Inside, a servant had showed me to a divan. On one side, next to an eighteenth century Indo-Portuguese tallboy, stood a superb tall Satsuma vase. From the walls hung dark ancestral portraits. Other treasures- Macau porcelain, superb statuary, Mannerist devotional images- were dotted carelessly around the wooden galleries. On entering the room, Donna Georgina had clapped her hands. Within seconds another barefoot servant came running down the passage from the kitchen:



"Francis, bring Mr. Dalrymple a glass of chilled mango juice. I will have a cup of tea."



The servant padded off down the bare wooden floorboards. It was then that I had made my gaffe about the liberation. Donna Georgina clasped her hands and raised her eyes to heaven:



"Now understand thees, young man," she said in an accent heavy with Southern European vowels. "When the Indians came to Goa in 1961 it was 100% an invasion. From what were they supposed to be liberating us? Not the Portuguese because the Portuguese never oppressed us. Let me tell you exactly what it was the Indians were freeing us from. They were kindly liberating us from peace and from security."



Donna Georgina had fearsome beady black eyes and her hair was arranged in a tight quiff. She wore a flowery Portuguese blouse bought in Lisbon, offset by a severe black skirt. She nodded her head vigorously:



"We were ruled from Portugal for exactly 451 years and 23 days!" she said. "The result of this is that we are completely different from Indians- completely different! We Goans have a different mentality, a different language, a different culture. Although we are now under Indian occupation, I feel awkward when I cross the border into India... everything changes: the food, the landscape, the buildings, the people, the way of life..."



Donna Georgina stared over my shoulder towards the open window: "In the Portuguese days we never had to lock our houses at night. Now we can never be sure we are safe even during the day. And you know who we fear most? The Indian politicians. Absolutely unscrupulous people. They have cut our forests, ransacked our properties. They have made life impossible for everyone- particularly all us landowners. They offer our land to the people in their election promises: never give anything that belongs to them- oh no, not even a pin- but they never think twice about offering people what belongs to others. Oh yes. That's very easy for them."



What Donna Georgina said reflected stories I had heard repeated all over Goa. The sheer length of time that the Portuguese had hung on in their little Indian colony- some four hundred and fifty years of intermingling and intermarriage- had forged uniquely close bonds between the colonisers and colonised. As a result most Goans still considered their state a place apart: a cultured Mediterranean island, quite distinct from the rest of India. As they quickly let you know, they ate bread not chapattis; drank in tavernas not tea shops; many of them were Roman Catholic not Hindu; and their musicians played guitars and sang fados. None of them, they assured you, could stand the sound of sitars or shenai.



Moreover, like Donna Georgina, most educated Goans still talked about "those Indians" and "crossing the border to India", while happily describing their last visit to their cousins in the Algarve as if they had been revisiting some much-loved childhood home. Absorption into a wider India, they would admit, had certainly brought prosperity to the previously stagnant colony, but at a price. Public life has become corrupted, and the distinct identity of Goa was being forcibly and deliberately eroded.



Portuguese, for example, was no longer taught in the Goan schools; Portuguese places names were everywhere being Sankritised; the superb colonial buildings in Panjim were being deliberately pulled down to make way for anonymous Indian concrete: the Mansion of the Count of Menem, the last of the great Panjim aristocratic town houses, was destroyed only in 1986 to make way for a six storey block of flats.



There were, it was true, still some last remaining corners left: the haphazard, narrow cobbled lanes of Fontainhas, for example, the oldest quarter of Panjim. Fontainhas still looks like a small chunk of Portugal washed up on the shores of the Indian Ocean. Here old spinsters in flowery dresses sit on their verandas reading the evening papers, chatting to each other in Portuguese. Wandering through them of an evening you come across scenes impossible to imagine anywhere else in India: violinists practice Vila Lobos in front of open windows; caged birds sit chirping on ornate art nouveau balconies looking out over small red-tiled piazzas. As you watch, old men in pressed linen trousers and Homburg hats spill out of the tavernas: with walking sticks in their hands, they make their way unsteadily across the cobbles, past the lines of battered 1940's Volkswagen Beatles slowly rusting themselves into oblivion. A Mediterranean douceur hangs palpably, almost visibly, over its streets.



But such corners, insisted Donna Georgina, were becoming harder and harder to find. For twenty minutes my hostess listed the now familiar litany of complaints:



"We could not fight the Indians in 1961," she said. "They were too many. Goa was a small place and could not defend itself. Even today we are only one million people. What can we do against 900 million Indians? But their seizure of Goa was an act of force. The majority here were opposed to the Indian invasion. That was why they had to come with their army, their air force and their navy. That day we all cried bitterly. It was the end of the good old days."



Donna Georgina brought out a small handkerchief and dabbed her eyes.



"In fact, since 1961 we've had two invasions. First it was the Indians. They plundered Goa: cut down our forests and took away our woods. Their politicians created havoc. Then after that it was the turn of the hippies. Disgusting. That's what those people were. Dees-gusting. All that nudism. And sexual acts: on the beach, on the roads- even in Panjim. Panjim! Imagine: kissing in public and I don't know what else. Disgusting."



The previous afternoon I had seen what remained of Goa's once vibrant hippy community. Here instead of the rusting Volkswagens of Fontainhas, a line of Enfield Bullet motorbikes were parked beneath the palm trees. The weekly hippy flea market was packing up as I arrived: the German Holy Man was returning his stock of Hindu charms to his bag while under the next palm tree a Mexican bootlegger was putting his remaining cans of imported lager back into his knapsack. On the dunes by the shore, a bonfire was roaring, and what appeared to be a topless six-a-side female football team- an odd sight anywhere in the world, but an astonishing one in India- were kicking a ball around. To one side another group of bangled backpackers were cheering them on while passing a 10-inch joint from hand to hand:



"Shoot!"



"Intergalactic!"



"Cos-mic!"



In the sixties, Anjuna Beach had been the goal of every self-respecting hippy in Asia. From Hampstead and Berlin, from the barricades of Paris to the opium dens of San Francisco, streams of tie-dyed teenagers crossed Asia to reach this shore and make love on the breakers. Whole nomad communities formed around the beaches: Anjuna, Chapora, Colva and Calangute, previously backwaters barely known even to the sophisticates in Panjim, became mantras on the lips of fashion-conscious acid-heads across Europe and the U.S.



But in time, as the Sixties turned into the long hangover of the Seventies, most of the hippies either died of overdoses or went home. The young who come today are mostly students, generally a pretty affluent middle-class bunch who in due course will no doubt go home, cut off their pig tails and become merchant bankers and commodity brokers. Only very few of the genuine die-hard flower children of '67 still remain. Some have become very rich- it doesn't take much imagination to work out what trade their fortunes have come from- but most of these Stayer's On are good natured old freaks who grow their own, flap around in flared denim, hold forth on dragon lines, the Gaia theory and world harmony, and make ends meet by selling chocolate hash brownies, aromatherapy oils and Indian waistcoats to the backpackers. This fossilised relic of Haight Ashbury is pretty tame stuff, but you would never guess this talking to Donna Georgina:



"Of course its because of drugs that their behaviour is like it is," hissed my hostess. "Disgusting people. Drugs and sexual acts and I don't know what else. I don't know which is worse: those hippies or our modern Indian politicians. The Portuguese wouldn't have allowed either."



Donna Georgina sipped her tea defiantly: "Mr. Salazar would have known what to do with those hippies. He wouldn't have let them behave the way they did. "



The old lady took me around the house. She showed me the great ballroom where they held the last ball in 1936 and the sunken cloister where she grew all the essential ingredients for her kitchen- chillies and asparagus, coconut and lemon grass, tea rose, papaya and balsam.



"Despite the hippies and the politicians you seem at least to have maintained your house," I said looking around at the succession of perfectly preserved colonial Portuguese rooms surrounding us.



"Thanks to hard work," said Donna Georgina. "Hard labour I might call it. I'm currently fighting twenty-five law suits in an effort to keep the family property intact. That's right: twenty-five of them. Then there are the monkeys: big monkeys who jump on the roof and try to tear it apart. And as for preparing for the Monsoon rains: it’s worse than a wedding. The amount of work: checking the drains, making sure nothing leaks... But let me tell you this: it is my duty so to do. It is my duty to my ancestors, to myself and to society."



We ended up in front of the ancient oratoria: a cupboard-like object which opened up like a tabernacle to reveal ranks of devotional images, crucifixes, icons and flickering candles. There every day, twice a day, the household met up to say a decade of the rosary. On the wall beside it, Donna Georgina had hung a pen and ink drawing of the Holy Family.



"I drew it myself," she explained, seeing where I was looking. "The baby is Jesus and the lamb that he is feeding symbolises Humanity. The old lady is St. Anne, Jesus’ grandmamma. All the ancient families of Goa have St. Anne as their patron saint."



Donna Georgina paused, leaving the last phrase hanging in the air:



"It's entirely through St. Anne's intercession and God's protection that this house is standing and that I am still alive. People always ask me: 'Living alone you must have someone to look after you. Who is it?' To which I reply: 'God Almighty, Jesus Christ and St. Anne.'



"And young man. Let me tell you this. Between them they are doing a very good job."

http://www.travelintelligence.com/travel-writing/donna-georgina%E2%80%99s

Quote:Chinese church plan at birthplace Confucius sparks protests

Plans to build an enormous 3,000-seater church in the birthplace Confucius have stirred up nationalist sentiment in China after a group of leading authorities on the ancient philosopher-sage raised objections to the project.



[color="#800080"]Photo:[/color] Qufu's Confucius Temple, eastern China's Shandong province Photo: CORBIS

By Peter Foster, Beijing 5:40PM GMT 28 Dec 2010



The government-backed church, to be built in a modern-Gothic style almost to the same height as St Peter's in the Vatican, was intended to be a beacon of intercultural understanding between Western Christianity and Eastern Confucianism.

[color="#800080"](Christianism trying for interfaith dialogue again. I.e. the First Steps.)[/color]



[color="#0000FF"]However the plans have been met with fierce opposition after a group of ten leading scholars published an open letter condemning the proposal, in an appeal that has now been supported by 105 more scholars, 48 cultural organisations and 19 websites.[/color]



"If a super-large Confucius temple were built in Jerusalem, Mecca or the Vatican, overshadowing the religious buildings there, how would the people feel about it? Would the government and the people accept it?" asked the open letter.

[color="#800080"](:clapping:

BTW, I've been shown some Chinese forums, and the stuff that's visible in English is very interesting. Stuff one *still* doesn't see among Hindus.)[/color]



The £2 million church is to be built just two miles from the sprawling Confucian temple complex in the town of Qufu in Shandong, which includes the garden and the house of Confucius.



If built, it will reach 136ft tall, only 12ft shorter than St Peter's in Rome and [color="#0000FF"]towering above the main Confucius Temple[/color] which is just 81ft tall.

[color="#800080"](Oft-used tactic.)[/color]



Related Articles: China attacks Pope's Christmas message 28 Dec 2010



The protesters have not been mollified by the fact that the church will include a centre for [color="#0000FF"]cross-cultural dialogues[/color] between the two civilisations and have also detected a [color="#0000FF"]cultural insult in the choice of 3,000 seats for the new church, since this is the same number of disciples originally taught by Confucius (551BC to 479BC).[/color]

[color="#800080"](Yeah, we know: everyone is a target of catholicism's inculturation techniques.

But if this had happened in India, the Hindu-origin seculars would have totally missed the significance of the inculturation tactic. But the Chinese aren't conditioned to be blind to such goings-on: they were victims of a *different* social engineering project.)[/color]



"The building of the church shows the spread of Christianity, while the exchange centre will facilitate Christianity to blend in China and have an impact on China," pastor Gao Ming, head of the Christian Council of Jining City, which administers Qufu, said while defending the project to the Xinhua news agency.



Although Confucius was attacked as an unwanted vestige of feudalism during the Mao era, China's current leaders have seized on his teachings as a means of promoting their own goal of creating a "harmonious society", as modern China searches for a value-system.

[color="#800080"](There's a reason Daoism - China's indigenous, ancestral religion - is bypassed. It is heathenism after all. Goes against the #1 command of all christoclass mindviruses. Chinese govt's efforts in the Daoist sphere are solely for tourist purposes and for declaring they have token remnants of some 'Chinese culture' devoid of its otherwise inseparable religion. It's not because of any genuine interest on the govt's part in regaining the population's native religion. Even Confucius is used for that. Still, the Chinese must welcome being allowed to return to openly associating themselves with it.)[/color]



[color="#0000FF"]Abroad, Confucius is also used as an agent of Chinese soft-power, with a number of Confucius Institutes being opened around the world with the aim of spreading the message that China's rise is peaceful.[/color]



Officially China has some 23m Christians, although unofficial numbers of the "underground" house Church movement suggest there could be more than 100m Chinese Christians, more than the 73m members of the Communist Party.



Wang Ruichang, associate professor of Humanities at Beijing's Capital University, and one of the ten signatories to the open letter, said that the objections were not crudely nationalist or anti-Christian, but that the church was inappropriate to its surroundings.



"The church is not in sympathy with the style of nearby buildings which are important historical relics. It doesn't mean we oppose the rules of respecting freedom of religions. Actually we don't agree with the extremist quotes given by some netizens while opposing the building of the church," he said.





Prof Wang added that protecting and improving the image of Confucianism after the battering of the Cultural Revolution years (1966-76) was an essential part of China's renaissance. "The rejuvenation of China not only lies in the rise of economy and military but only lies in the revival of traditional Chinese culture," he added.

[color="#800080"](That's more than the secularised masses of India are able to work out.

Sadly though, Daoism is still oppressed. Unlike Confucianism, its heathen traditions are not the sort that can be marketed by communism.)[/color]

Quote:"Now understand thees, young man," she said in an accent heavy with Southern European vowels. "When the Indians came to Goa in 1961 it was 100% an invasion. From what were they supposed to be liberating us? Not the Portuguese because the Portuguese never oppressed us. Let me tell you exactly what it was the Indians were freeing us from. They were kindly liberating us from peace and from security."

Quote:What Donna Georgina said reflected stories I had heard repeated all over Goa. The sheer length of time that the Portuguese had hung on in their little Indian colony- some four hundred and fifty years of intermingling and intermarriage- had forged uniquely close bonds between the colonisers and colonised. [color="#800080"](Only the minority catholic sheep of course - they're the ones suffering from Stockholm Syndrome - absolutely no one else.)[/color] As a result most Goans still considered their state a place apart: a cultured Mediterranean island, quite distinct from the rest of India. As they quickly let you know, they ate bread not chapattis; drank in tavernas not tea shops; many of them were Roman Catholic not Hindu; and their musicians played guitars and sang fados. None of them, they assured you, could stand the sound of sitars or shenai.

Quote:"We could not fight the Indians in 1961," she said. "They were too many. Goa was a small place and could not defend itself. Even today we are only one million people. What can we do against 900 million Indians? But their seizure of Goa was an act of force. The majority here were opposed to the Indian invasion. That was why they had to come with their army, their air force and their navy. That day we [color="#FF0000"]all[/color] cried bitterly. It was the end of the good old days."

Quote:Following reveals the true attitudes of Goan Galileans I had mentioned before (nostalgia for Portuguese occupation where they could torture Hindu heathens at will)

Quote:Donna Georgina paused, leaving the last phrase hanging in the air:

[...]

'God Almighty, Jesus Christ and St. Anne.'

"And young man. Let me tell you this. Between them they are doing a very good job."

Quote:Since this story is apparently a reproduction of the biblical account of the conception of Samuel, whose mother was also called Hannah, even the name of the mother of Mary seems to be doubtful.

Quote:The renowned Father John of Eck of Ingolstadt, in a sermon on St. Anne (published at Paris in 1579), pretends to know even the names of the parents St. Anne.

Quote:The supposed relics of St. Anne were brought from the Holy Land to Constantinople in 710 and were still kept there in the church of St. Sophia in 1333. The tradition of the church of Apt in southern France pretends that the body of St. Anne was brought to Apt by St. Lazarus, the friend of Christ, was hidden by St. Auspicius (d. 398), and found again during the reign of Charlemagne (feast, Monday after the octave of Easter)

Quote:All our information concerning the names and lives of Sts. Joachim and Anne, the parents of Mary, is derived from apocryphal literature

Quote:Authorities in Bhutan have signaled that they will permit the registration at least one Christian organization in the landlocked Asian nation. Currently, Christians are permitted to worship in their homes but are forbidden to gather in public or spread the Gospel.



Two Indian missionary orders are preparing to enter Bhutan if the government allows them to be registered. Father Arul Raj, founder of the Society of the Daughters of Mary Immaculate and the Society of the Missionaries of Mary Immaculate, says that the two orders, which work in education and assist the poor, “do not openly ..

..

Quote:Destroyed cultures: The unfortunate story of Totos

Tuesday, 29 August 2006



The Totos are a small tribe of 1241 people that lives close to the Bhutan border. They have a small temple but gather in it only once a year for an annual ritual.



They are a ferocious and fighting people, and very proud of their culture and religion. Their main livelihood is pig farming.

[color="#800080"](Repeat: Profoundly dangerous/suicidal to separate religion into "culture and religion", when both *are* religion in the case of heathenism. This artificial segregation is exactly what christianism wants: then it can claim it has preserved "culture" since heathens foolishly implied there were 2 separate aspects.)[/color]



The militant Nagas heard about them and sent missionaries to start a work among them. At first they had limited success. The Toto chief heard about them, and beat the missionaries terribly who fled for their lives.

[color="#800080"](How fortunate for the Totos to have such a Raja who knows his duty to his religion/Gods and hence his people. But then, it is reciprocative: the Totos seem to have been a very deserving population at the time they were still hyper-heathen.)[/color]



In 1996, pastor P.M. Thomas a keralite representing [color="#0000FF"]Himalayan Evangelical Mission[/color], a church planting organization approached Totos as a stranger.



He convinced the Totos to let him start an English medium school by adopting the education evangelism strategy.



Totos donated five acres of land let pastor Thomas start the school under the condition that he should not engage in converting their tribe.



1997 the school started functioning in Totopara with 65 students.Five more missionaries were brought in as teachers one of whom married the daughter of a Toto leader.



[color="#0000FF"]Pastor Thomas specifically told the missionaries not to baptize one-by-one and wait for atleast 50% of the population to be brought under their fold before performing mass conversion. He feared that any conversion on individual basis would bring a backlash for this valiant tribe and result in the killing of the convert and missionaries.[/color]



It seems that his team has achieved its goal of wiping off another native culture from the face of earth.

Quote:India - a Mission Sending Nation

Wednesday, 31 January 2007

[color="#0000FF"]source: The article was found at a missionary discussion forum. It seems to be a presentation at meeting or a conference[/color]



[...]

Our mission agencies must start a foreign missions department and start identifying regions of the world where mission opportunity exists. Our denominations must start foreign churches /dioceses. Our theological institutes must train students for global mission. Our researchers must provide mission information of various parts of the world and facilitate global missionary involvement. We must develop a Center for World Missions to play a catalytic role to promote global mission and network with other global agencies.



[color="#0000FF"]We could start with our neighboring countries like Bhutan, Bangladesh, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka etc. We could look at other 10-40 countries in Middle East, southeast Asia and even China and Latin America. We could also begin to work among the global Indian Diaspora in over 120 countries. The Christian witness among overseas Indian are very low and could be natural step before reaching out to people in those host cultures. We could also leverage the global Indian image as a technology leader to use it as developmental platform in working in other cultures. (see my artilce on TechnoMissionaries on use ICT for developmental mission).[/color]

[color="#800080"](Nothing new. It's why one always discounted the modern/progressive Hindus' dead-in-the-water argument that "India's technological advancement" will help protect India's heathenism. But, like Hindus' Temple money is stolen by christianism for christianism, so will all the development of the nation that has been achieved by Hindus be credited to christianism by christianism.

In reality, nothing can protect heathenism except individuals being heathen. Consciously, insubvertibly.)[/color]



This is beyond pragmatic approaches to mission work that we are most effective in our own cultures. Although that is true, the spiritual reality is when we commit to serve other people, God blesses the work among our own people.

[...]

Quote:South Carolina Woman, Miriam Fowler Smith, Kills Nephew’s Dog Because It Chewed On Her Bible

Strange News — By Dave on 2011/01/26 8:32 AM





Miriam Fowler Smith, 65, told cops on Monday that she hung and burned her nephew’s pit bull after the animal took a bite out of her bible.



She claimed [color="#FF0000"]God urged her to kill Diamond, a 1-year-old female dog, because the animal was a “devil dog”[/color] and would hurt neighborhood children.



Smith was arrested on Sunday and remains in Spartanburg County jail. She could face faces 180 days or up to five years behind bars if she’s convicted with felony animal cruelty.



She does not have a lawyer yet.



Authorities said Smith confessed to wrapping an extension cord around Diamond’s neck, hung the animal from a tree, and then set the pup on fire.



Andy Fowler, the dog’s owner and Smith’s nephew, left home on Jan. 9. When he returned on Jan. 15, his beloved dog was missing.



When Fowler confronted his aunt, she admitted to killing the dog, according to cops.



Police found the dead canine nearby under a pile of dried grass. Part of the orange cord was still wrapped around the dog’s neck. The smell of kerosene lingered in the air, according to animal control’s report.



Jaime Nelson, director of the county’s Environmental Enforcement Department, said Smith’s mental state could affect what type of punishment she receives.



He was shocked by the woman’s detached attitude as she recounted the horrific slay.



“She just acted like what’s done has been done,” Nelson said.



Via.

Quote:Woman: [color="#FF0000"]God Told Me[/color] To Hang, Burn Pit Bull

[color="#800080"](How very jeebusjehovallah. So very biblical. At least no zombie-sheep can claim it is "not in character with" the gawd of their babble.*)[/color]

By Graeme Moore

Published: January 24, 2011



A Spartanburg County woman told animal control officers God advised her to hang and then burn her nephew's pit bull because it was "a devil dog" and because it had chewed her bible.



Spartanburg County animal control officers said Miriam Fowler Smith, 65, of Pacolet Mills, confessed to wrapping an extension cord around the dog's neck, hanging it from a tree, and then setting it on fire.



Smith faces one felony count of ill treatment of animals in general, and she remains in the Spartanburg County Detention Center as of this posting.



The dog, named Diamond, belonged to Smith's nephew, Andy Fowler, who left the home on Jan. 9. When he returned Jan. 15, Fowler noticed the dog wasn't there.



He told officers he assumed the dog had gotten loose and was running free, but when he pressed his aunt, she confessed to killing it, according to animal control officers.



Officers found the body of the animal under a mound of dried grass on the property at 410 John Worthy Road in Pacolet Mills.



Officers state they spoke with Smith while they were there January 16 when she came out of the home to walk to church.

(Faithful.)



The report states she told officers she killed the dog after it chewed on her bible and that she was afraid children in the neighborhood could be bitten by the animal.

(The "social concern" plea about a 1-year old pup being a "threat" to neighbourhood children isn't working. The brutal nature of the murder shows her hateful intent. It was obviously murder motivated by base christian *revenge*: the 1 year old puppy had a nibble at the faithful christian's yuck babble, which is why the evil old christo-zombie did the christian/extreme thing: strung it up like the christo-KKK did enslaved Africans who made a bid for freedom, and then she burnt it like the christo invaders burnt indigenous native Americans.)



Animal Control Director James Nelson says this case is the first time in his career that anyone’s ever been charged under the felony statute against cruelty to animals.



Officers arrested Smith Sunday, January 23, and as of Monday at 11:21 a.m. she was still being held in the Spartanburg County Detention Center.

Quote:Staines verdict should not have been amended



The Supreme Court’s decision to amend its judgement in the Graham Staines case by excising those portions of it that dealt with the activities of Christian missionaries and the conversion of poor tribals through fraud and inducement is extremely regrettable and unfortunate. It is absurd to suggest, as has been done by a group of busybodies who masquerade as India’s ‘civil society’ and whose only claim to fame is their proximity to certain individuals associated with the Congress who wield tremendous clout at the moment by virtue of the political and constitutional posts they occupy, that the Supreme Court, in its original judgement, had sought to minimise the horrific crime committed by Dara Singh and his associate Mahendra Hembram who have been held guilty of setting the vehicle in which Staines and his two young sons were sleeping on fire resulting in their death. The ghastly incident happened more than a decade ago in a remote village of Odisha where tribals had begun to resent missionaries converting fellow tribals to Christianity, thus upsetting social equilibrium and morphing their cultural identity. The Supreme Court’s judgement is a stern reiteration of the fact that the guilty men acted in an unconscionable manner and deserved the punishment meted out to them: Life imprisonment. But to the credit of the Bench, it also provided a context to the crime because it was neither committed in isolation nor motivated by factors other than to protest against evangelism aimed at ‘harvesting souls’. Such elaboration is perfectly acceptable and, in this newspaper’s opinion, added balance to the judicial verdict. Yet, those who seek to be seen as patrons of unrestrained evangelism and missionaries who misuse the freedom to preach and propagate religion guaranteed by the Constitution chose to cavil against the judgement and launched a vitriolic campaign of calumny, attributing political motives to a verdict of the highest court of the land and demanding the Government’s intervention. The Supreme Court should have stood up to those questioning its integrity. Tragically, it chose to capitulate, setting a dangerous precedent. In future, every time a judgement goes against the political interests of a devious few, they will cite the amendment of the Graham Staines judgement to demand similar revision.



It is equally important to remember that removing certain sentences from a particular verdict will not change facts on the ground. The people of India are fully aware of missionaries and evangelists converting the indigent and the illiterate to Christianity through means that are fraudulent, coercive or inducement. It’s not for nothing that State Governments have adopted anti-conversion laws, although these are held in contempt and violated with impunity by those who claim to represent the Church. Nothing has changed since the time when the Niyogi Commission recorded the questionable activities of missionaries. On the contrary, with more money coming in as ‘aid’ for evangelical missions, the scale of the fraud being committed in the name of faith has increased. There is nothing charitable about missionaries who foray deep into India’s interiors looking for souls to harvest; it is antithetical to everything that our Constitution stands for. This is precisely the point that was made by the Supreme Court in its judgement in the Stanislaus vs State of Madhya Pradesh case. Will that judgement be expunged from the court’s records now?



http://www.dailypioneer.com/313454/A-tragic-capitulation.html

Quote:India Approves Posco's Proposed Plant With Conditions

BY PRASENJIT BHATTACHARYA

NEW DELHI - India's environment ministry Monday said South Korean steel maker Posco's much-delayed $12 billion plant can go ahead with certain conditions, sending a signal that environmental concerns won't derail mega-industrial projects needed to keep the country's economic growth on track.



The clearance comes five years after Posco announced it would set up a 12 million tons a year steel plant in the mineral-rich eastern province of Orissa, in what could become the country's single-largest foreign investment to date.



The approval offers some hope to investors, especially those in India's steel



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703439504576115461806949474.html

Quote:After morning services, Lee also participates in Hagilmo, a group comprising management-level figures of major conglomerates like LG, Samsung and Hyundai.

Aside from these smaller groups, the network within Somang is wide and active. More than 200 top military and political figures currently attend the church, including Lee Kyung-sook, the chairman of the transition committee, and Chung Mong-joon, a member of the Grand National Party and the sixth son of Hyundai’s founder, Chung Joo-young.

Other notable figures include Park Tae-jun, the former chairman of Posco; Yun Yeong-gwan, former minister of foreign affairs and trade, and Seo Sang-mok, the former minister of health and welfare. http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2885994

Quote:Travancore devaswom board has had any number of atheists/communists on it. Now I'm told it has one cicily on it, which is a xian name

about 11 hours ago via Seesmic for Android

@mpanj19 temple lands have been taken over by govt. Lands were deeded to support temples economically. Social role being eroded by leftists

about 11 hours ago via Seesmic for Android in reply to mpanj19

Anantha padmanabha temple is historic: presiding deity of travancore, kings ruled as His regents since ca 1730. Run well by royal family

about 11 hours ago via Seesmic for Android

If this is constitutional, the constitution is discriminatory. Govt must keep out of religion. Only hindu temples doing well are private.

about 14 hours ago via Seesmic for Android

Anantha padmanabha temple takeover within two weeks of sabarimala tragedy as evidence of total govt loot, destruction of any hindu shrine.

about 14 hours ago via Seesmic for Android

Govts take over, loot, destroy hindu temples, but not churches/mosques. If this is not religious discrimination, what is?

about 14 hours ago via Seesmic for Android

Kerala high court orders govt takeover of trivandrum's anantha padmanabha temple. This means certain ruin. Apartheid against hindus. about 14 hours ago via Seesmic for Android



http://twitter.com/RajeevSrinivasa

Quote:Some attacks on churches aimed at defaming govt: Panel



Bangalore, February 1, DHNS:



The Justice B K Somasekara Commission of Inquiry, which probed the attacks on churches, on Tuesday released details of each case and named those responsible for the attacks in some cases.



As many as 57 churches and prayers halls were attacked in nine districts in the State in 2008.

Referring to St Mary’s Church in Kolar, the Commission ruled out the involvement of any Hindu organisation. The allegations of conversion are true, but they were not the ground for the attack. It was a deliberate attempt by some local group or political force to create evidence to link the attack to other such incidents involving churches, and thereby demoralise or demolish the ruling BJP government.



On the attack on St James Church at Mariyannapalya in Bangalore, the Commission confirmed there was indeed an attack. But it said attempts by Christians to convert people in the area, and resistance by the members of Adi Kaveri Trust of Chittiappa and local Hindus were the reasons for the incident.



The Church personnel did not cooperate with the police in preventing the attack. There appears to be illegal acquisition of public property by both the Church personnel and the Chittiappa group, which requires a serious inquiry, the report said.

Legal steps sought



The government and the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike should take legal steps to remove all encroachments and illegal planting of Christian Crosses, besides illegal constructions in the Kalvari Betta area, the Commission recommended.



In case of the Holy Name of Jesus Church at Rajarajeshwarinagar, the report said the attack was sporadic -- carried out by either a passerby or by some miscreants to create evidence against the ruling party.



There are indications of corruption in the City Corporation, the report said. The commissioner should uniformly regularise any irregularity in licensing, etc, regarding constructions, especially of this church, subject to rules, the report added.



A make-believe attempt



In the case of St Anthony New Church, Yedanahalli, the report said the attack was a make-believe aimed at linking it other similar incidents.



The main culprits appear to be Father Santhosh, David and his men and two police constables, B M Nagaraj and B P Nagendra Kumar. The CoD police failed in their investigation to locate the culprits, the report said.



Somasekara defends his report



Bangalore, dhns: The Justice B K Somasekara Commission of Inquiry on Tuesday said its final report on the church attacks was prepared after a detailed and transparent inquiry but was misinterpreted by a few.



Justice Somasekara, in a written clarification, stated there was no need for Christain petitioners to be apprehensive about the direct or indirect involvement of politicians, the BJP, the Sangh Pariwar and the State government in the attacks.



Every bit of inference and findings of the report was based on evidence and elaborate discussion of all contentions presented before the Commission. The final report should be read in continuation of the interim report submitted to the government in February last, the inquiry panel chief said.



He said there was no lapse on the part of the Commission and any fair comments were welcome. “But all such expressions by anybody shall be subject to legal consequences under Section 10A (1) of the Commission of Inquiry Act. Ignorance of the law is no excuse; and this will apply to all,” he said.



http://www.deccanherald.com/content/133990/some-attacks-churches-aimed-defaming.html

Quote:Court approves Government request to loot Sree Padmanabha Swami temple

31/01/2011 03:40:40 HK



Kochi: Kerala High Court today directed Kerala Government to take over Sree Padmanabha Swamy temple from Travancore Royal family.



The Marxist led LDF government of Kerala has started back door planning to take over famous Sree Padmanabha Swami temple from the current temple trust controlled mainly by the Travancore Royal Family the very first day they came to power.



Communist party is planned this move through some of the trusted mediators who have good connection with the Royal family. Since all the involved parties know well that any move to touch Sree Padmanabha swami temple will create tension in Thiruvananthapuram and will invite strong protests from Hindus all over Kerala, the discussions were going on secretly without inviting public attention.



The temple is very famous for its discipline and strict and unique ways of conducting poojas as per the rituals dictated by the Vilwamangaluthu swamiyar. Till this day the predecessors of swamiyar follows the same age old traditions without fail. Once the government takes over the temple, there is a huge chance of all these pooja getting sabotaged and politicians led board dictating norms to government as we see now in the case of Sabarimala and Guruvayur.

(It's why christianism does it)



Recently when a controversy was raised related to opening one of the jewel den of Lord Padmanabha, court intervened and took an initial stock of all valuables available.The assets were so huge that the government officials who came were really shocked which prompted the Government to take over the Temple now. Temple have lot of properties in and around Kerala in the form of buildings as well as real estate. Other than this there are huge collections of Diamond, gold and silver as well as rare pieces of pooja items inside the temple.

(Compare with similar christoterrorism in Nepal about the Kovil of Pashupatinatha, Jan 2011):

Quote:A staunch Hindu activist who fought three legal battles to safeguard the rights of Pashupatinath, Nepal's holiest Hindu shrine, has struck a new legal blow, opposing the government's decision to open the main treasury of the temple, which Hindus believe was padlocked for over 2,000 years and should remain unopened.

[...]

Last month, the cabinet decided that the main treasury, said to contain fabled riches, should be opened and an inventory made of the valuables it contained.



The ministers also decided while the gold, silver and cash there should be kept in the central bank, other items should be showcased in museums.

All devotees in Kerala are very well aware of the plight of major temples like Guruvayoor and Sabarimala, which are now controlled by politicians in the name of Devaswom board. These politicians are only interested in looting the wealth of the temples and the money donated by devotees as various offerings to the temple.



The court in its earlier directive from Judge Sri Vasavan has asked the governments interest in taking over the temple. Government has prepared an affidavit showing interest in taking over the temple. As per government, the Travancore royal family has no legal or religious rights. Government is planning to put the argument in the following way.



As per temple records, during the Malyalam year (kolla varsham ) 925 and Makara Masam 5th Sri Marthanda varma Maharaja donated his entire wealth and Travancore state in the name of lord Sree Padmanabha. As per this record, the owner ship of temple and its assets lies with lord Sri Padmanabha. This is also mentioned in Travancore guardian act which treats gods/ idols as minor and need court approval for any kind of transactions related to temple. It also mentions that any one including Raja who has donated money to the temple will have no rights as per this act. The temple and associated properties were already donated to Lord and hence royal family has no say in this matter as per Government.

(NO. It is this way: the Temple - as also all of Travancore - *legally* belongs to my Father, Bhagavan Padmanabha. Not to christo-alien terrorist govt.

And since the Maharaja gave all his state to Bhagavan: all Travancore's people belong to Him. In fact, any converts should revert to their Father and Mother. No christoterrorising "missionising" allowed there.

Hindoos acting on the interests of their Father, Shri Padmanabha, are the only ones who have any say over the Temple, its functioning, its traditional rituals, and its wealth - which should remain there.)



As a ruler of the old Travancore state, the Travancore family had rights on the day to day governance of the temple till independence. After that they lost the rights. To make the rights of the family on the temple formal, an amendment was brought by Govt of India on 1971 which gave special Raja title to few of the old rulers. This title need to be given by president of India and the deceased Raja Sri Chithira thirunal was the last person in the Travancore family who held that title. The current Raja Marthanda Varma doesn’t have the title from the government. The reason for his ineligibility is he was not a ruler of the Travancore region when India got independence. Supreme Court also has confirmed that this is a requirement to award title in one of its verdict of similar nature.



The temple is not a private property of Raja and this is also clearly mentioned in the registration details of the trust at Pattom registration office. The trustees as per the registration held on 1965 Aug 12 are the deceased Raja Sri Chithira Thirunal, Sri Marthandavarma Elayaraja and secretary of Raja Sri Vaidyanatha Iyer.



As per the 1949 pact done between Travancore and Kochi and Indian Union, Srichithira Thirunal who was the Travancore Raja was declared as the Rajapramukh and he held the title till his death. After his death on 1991 the Travancore family lost its say in the trust and doesn’t hold any rights now. The LDF government is playing the current dirty game using this loop hole in the trust laws. As of today the day to day affairs of the temple are still managed by Travancore royal family led by Uthradom Thirunal Marthanda Varma Raja.

(Our maharajas were loyal Hindoos who loved their Gods. But I wish they had never been blinkered by the promises of that empty ideology of "nationalism" (which Replaces Hindoo religion) into giving the Hindu rule of their Hindoo subjects - that was entrusted solely to them - to the sickular "Indian" union.

The same misfortune that ensued can be seen in the way Nepal has now been stripped of its Hindu maharaja to whom was entrusted Hindoo Nepal and now it's become "secular" christoterrorised Nepal. And so the Hindoo Pashus of Pashupatinatha now have to fight to protect what is his.)



Hindu organisations have earlier warned Government that any such move to take over temple will be opposed tooth and nail and the devotees of Sree Padmanabha swami will oppose this move with all their might.

Quote: Sattanathan

31/01/2011 05:10:32 Repeat of Tamilnadu Temple loot

All the gold and jewels of Lord Padmanabha will henceforth adorn the ladies of commie and congi dealers, just like DMK and ADMK bastards looted Temple jewels of Sri Ranganathar, Srirangam and all other Temples of Tamilnadu, replacing them with fakes over time. Kudos to Demonocracy. Hindus of entire country must rise up as one person and stop this loot.

Quote:The most effective way for Julian to further his cause was to do all he could to ensure that the worship of the gods was firmly linked to the material prosperity of the Empire in the minds of his subjects. That, above all, was what Constantine had done for the Church. Behind the success of his reforms had stood the brute force of money.135 Vast sums were spent on the building of basilicas, and there were grand endowments of land to the Church. That land, moreover, was to be exempt from tax. Clerics were excused the burden of costly public offices, even personally subsidized. There were food allowances for Christian widows and nuns. To pay for it all, Constantine looked to a source of funds accumulated over centuries: the huge treasure house of precious metals lying to hand in the ancestral temples. Pagans, it has been nicely said, had financed their own destruction. 136 Julian's most pressing task in this connection was to do the same in reverse, to restore the temples as the perceived focus of public beneficia at the expense of the Church.137

Quote:Govt. take over of Sree Padmanabha Swamy Temple- Togadia warns of Nation wide protest

02/02/2011 16:08:38 HK



Kochi: VHP International General Secretary Dr Pravin Togadia warned of National wide protest, If Kerala government went ahead with take over of famed Sree Padmanabha Swami temple. In the upcoming meeting of Hindu spiritual leaders in Prayag will formulate the protest strategies to safe guard the temple. The Government who show no interest in interfering the matters of Mosques or Churches in Kerala considers Temples as soft target, Told Togadia

Quote:Propagation of the tenets of Christ on tourist visa!

30/01/2011 12:01:03 Prof. C. I. Issac



Twelve decade old Asia’s largest Christian Convention is proposed to be conducted as usual on the sand-bed of the Holy River Pamba at Maramon near the Partharsarthy Temple of Aranmula from 2011 February 13 to 20. Aranmula is known for its one thousand year old and distinctive technological excellence - the metal mirror. It is not made of glass but with bell metal. This is a unique art which may not found any place in the world. The metallurgical technique of the mirror manufacturing is handed down from generation to generation by Hindu bronze-smith [moosari] jati of the Aranmula Temple hamlet.



However the centre of the point to ponder is not the metal mirror but the modus operandi of the Convention. The organizers of the meet are MTEA, the missionary wing of Mar Thoma Church. The theme of this year’s convention is: “Where are you?” & “Where is your brother?” Prima facie the theme is not dangerous. But when one who seeks the answer through a biblical point of view the answer should be different. The answer is: “are you and your brother is in Christ?” Let off this theme for the time being.



Out of the ten speakers of this convention, four are foreigners. They are Archbishop Roger Herft from Australia, Dr N Barnery Pityana from South Africa, Rev. Canon Peter Maiden from England and Rev. Ulf G Ekman of Sweden. All the four foreigners will be in the pulpit of the proposed convention with their visiting visas as usual. Actual purpose of their visit is evangelistic endeavors but they will be with tourist visas.



To an average Keralite nothing as extraordinary in it, because it is the customary practice of minority dominated political life of Kerala. Really all the above four are invited by the MTEA with malicious intention of violate the visa norms. Their purpose of the visit is evangelical activities, not tourist zeal. Violation of visa norms is criminal offence. The countries of the above speakers treat the violation of visa norms seriously. Then why not we spare them? A country where the ruling party’s supreme itself violated visa norms and reciprocity norms of citizenship; then who can enforce it?

Quote:Nun Mary Turcotte recants accusation of rape after police release sketch of made-up suspect



BY Alison Gendar and James Fanelli

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS



Tuesday, February 1st 2011, 4:00 AM



A Brooklyn nun from a fringe Christian sect has confessed to an unholy lie: telling cops she was sexually attacked and left unconscious in a snowbank, sources said Monday.



After a police search for a hulking black man was launched, the 26-year-old white woman from the Apostles of Infinite Love convent in East Flatbush recanted, the sources said.



She told cops she made up the story in an attempt to cover up a consensual sex romp with a bodega worker inside the Glenwood Ave. residence.



A woman in religious garb who answered the door at the convent said the nun, identified as Mary Turcotte, suffered an "emotional break" and made everything up - even her excuse.



"Nothing happened, none of it," said the woman, who declined to give her name.



"It was all proven to be false. It wasn't her fault. She is going to move out and we are going to get her some help."

(Let me guess: "satan" made her do it? Then why not blame that other non-existent one which christos always swear by: nuns are possessed "inspired" by jeebus after all...)



The convent appears to be linked to a Canadian-based religious order founded in the 1960s by a defrocked Catholic priest who ordained himself Pope.

(And this matters how? There have been *many* anti-popes. Usually they're recognised as the real pope by some clique of Truer Catholics. Even that 20th century official Pope John 23 or 26 himself - you know, Angelo Roncalli - is considered an anti-pope now, whether they've burnt his remains for a heretic yet I don't know, but privately the vatican considers him an anti-pope for his lax reforms. And then there's the rogue Society of Pius XII or whatever - which assumed for itself claims of being the "True Catholic church" and conducts mass strictly in Latin while correctly boo-ing at inculturation as "pagan" offences taken on by the comparatively lax Vatican official Church.

Even that Society of Pius XII has its own elected anti-pope, whom the followers consider the True Pope. As I recall that Goan christo-terrorist "Bring On The Inquisition" Mascarenhas, who is a card-carrying member, explained why JPII and Ratzinger aren't the real popes - using very catholic arguments that no True catholic can deny.)



Turcotte claimed she was headed there the night of Jan. 22 when a thug ambushed her, choked her until she passed out and dragged her - in her habit - eight blocks.



She said she awoke in the snow with her underwear down and her breasts exposed. She said she was treated at a hospital and sought counsel from her Mother Superior.



Police were informed of the rape last Thursday, and put out an alert asking for the public's help in finding a suspect - described as black, 40 to 50 years old, 6-feet-4 and up to 250 pounds.

(Ah yes, how predictable: insinuate poor African men as "Da Rapist" of chaste christo-white nun. They're christos' favourite for casting as "The Fiend", because they're so rebellious that they "can't be tamed" by the christo-hierarchy of the US. Hence the christo-societal psyops against them.)



Cops released a sketch, but they were skeptical someone could have dragged or carried a woman in nun's gear through the streets without drawing notice.



When a penitent Turcotte recanted, her excuse was that she needed a story to cover up a real sexual encounter: bedding a shop worker she sneaked into the convent through the back door, sources said.

(And of course the cover story that jumped to her mind was: "why get caught when you can blame some African.")



Police have not charged her with any crime.

(No of course they didn't. As you can see - here comes the Moral Lesson, kids - "it's not a crime to lie for gawd, let alone to blame a figment of an African for heinous crimes and thereby breath new life into the old anti-African stereotype. Christo-racism is okay, as long as you are a nun/priest/faithful christo/islamic and especially if you are trying to save the reputation of your religion's chastity/peacefulness/blablabla."

And to think heathens mistook such goings-on for pre-abolition America. No no, 1st Feb 2011 is last week.)



No one at the convent would discuss the order's affiliation, but the Apostles of Infinite Love sect based in Quebec has been described as a cultlike group that has successfully fended off sex abuse allegations.

(How could one forget, the inevitable apologetics to save face for christianism: "not a True christian church".

But all of christianism answers to that description: "cult-like" - check. "Successfully fended off sex abuse allegations" - check. Sounds like the True Christianism to me.)

Quote:[...]

About 1.75% of the Sindhi population has changed their religious faith within the last two years. That is about 7000 people out of 400,000 Sindhi speaking Hindus in Ulhasnagar. The Sindhi Hindu community is upset with the sudden drastic changes and are more so because many of the Sindhi’s who have converted do not consider it to be a conversion but rather state that they have just chosen a different faith. Most have not even changed their Hindu names.

[color="#800080"](Helps with cryptochristianism)[/color]

[...]