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Muslim Voice Of America Blog Lets Knowledge Guide Our Path |
Munich: Taliban-linked extremism in Afghanistan is blossoming because of Western intervention there and is set to spread to India, Central Asia and Arab states, Iran’s foreign minister has warned.
Iran is deeply concerned to prevent the spread of the drugs trade and extremism from Afghanistan, but is also bitterly critical of the NATO-led and UN-sanctioned mission in the country, Manouchehr Mottaki said.
“The policies imposed in recent years … in security, fighting against extremism and drug traffic – the policies in this respect are all defeated and failed,” Mottaki told a midnight session of the prestigious Munich Security Conference.
Taliban-linked extremism “can be divided into two (regional) branches: one is going to spread to the Arab countries, the other to India and Central Asia”, Mottaki warned.
And Iran has already had some 3,000 soldiers and police killed by drug traffickers moving from Afghanistan across Iran, he said.
After years of conflict in Afghanistan, the West is growing concerned that Islamist terrorist groups are looking to set up new bases in areas such as Yemen and Somalia.
Russia, meanwhile, warns that terrorists are launching new campaigns in the states of the North Caucasus. The Munich Security Conference brings together top defence experts from around the world.
The weekend meeting was set to debate issues including the NATO mission in Afghanistan, in the presence of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
Source: DPA
Jinnah was a secular man, says Jaswant
Daily Times Monitor
LAHORE: Former Indian External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh has said that Muhammad Ali Jinnah was a secular man, and that he had initially opposed the division of Bengal and Punjab.
In an interview with Ejaz Haider on a private TV channel, Singh said that the BJP’s decision to expel him from the party has deeply hurt and disappointed him. He further stated that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a hard-line Hindu nationalist group, was pulling strings in the BJP. The BJP expelled Singh from the party on August 18 after determining that his recently released book, Jinnah: India-Partition Independence, went against the core principles of the BJP’s ideology.
Singh said that India Today, a prominent magazine, got five eminent historians to determine who was responsible for the partition of India. The editor of the magazine, according to Singh, said that there was consensus among the historians that Jawaharlal Nehru, not Jinnah, was responsible for partition, and that his book was based on this consensus. Singh added that we need to re-examine history objectively and truthfully to figure out a path for the future.
Responding to a question, Singh said that Jinnah was forced to choose the option of partition, and that partition was an instrument to end all peace in the South Asian region. But, Singh added, “we can find a solution as we are all victims. We should know that no one will come back to restore peace for us unless we ourselves wake up…try and find out where we went wrong.” The veteran politician, now an independent member of the Indian parliament, concluded by stressing that “we must expand the constituency of peace in the region”.
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Jawaharlal Nehru, not Jinnah was responsible for partition Of India says Jaswant
Washington: Citing a “disturbing increase” in communal violence against religious minorities, particularly Christians in Orissa in 2008 and Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, a US body has placed India on its ‘watch list’ on religious freedom.
India earned the ‘watch list’ designation due to the “largely inadequate response” from the Indian government to protect the rights of religious minorities, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) said in a statement.
“It is extremely disappointing that India, which has a multitude of religious communities, has done so little to protect and bring justice to its religious minorities under siege,” said Leonard Leo, USCIRF chair.
The bipartisan federal government commission’s India chapter “was released this week to mark the first anniversary of the start of the anti-Christian violence in Orissa”.
Other countries currently on the commission’s ‘watch list’ are Afghanistan, Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, Laos, the Russian Federation, Somalia, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Venezuela.
USCIRF said the murder of Swami Laxmananand Saraswati by Maoist rebels in Kandhamal in Orissa Aug 23 last year sparked a prolonged and destructive campaign targeting Christians, resulting in attacks against churches and individuals.
These attacks largely were carried out by individuals associated with “Hindu nationalist groups”, and resulted in at least 40 deaths and the destruction of hundreds of homes and dozens of churches, it said.
Tens of thousands were displaced and today many still remain in refugee camps, afraid to return home, it said.
“India’s democratic institutions charged with upholding the rule of law, most notably state and central judiciaries and police, have emerged as unwilling or unable to seek redress for victims of the violence. More must be done to ensure future violence does not occur and that perpetrators are held accountable,” Leo said.
Similarly, during the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat, India’s National Human Rights Commission found that the government not only failed to prevent the attacks against religious minorities, but that state and local officials aided and participated in the violence.
In both Orissa and Gujarat, court convictions have been infrequent, perpetrators rarely brought to justice and thousands of people remain displaced, USCIRF alleged.
The India chapter of the USCIRF said the deficiencies in investigating and prosecuting cases have resulted in a culture of impunity that gives members of vulnerable minority communities few assurances of their safety, particularly in areas with a history of communal violence, and little hope of perpetrator accountability.
The report asked the Obama administration to urge the Indian government to take new measures to promote communal harmony, protect religious minorities, and prevent communal violence.
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India on US ‘watch list’ on religious freedom
WESTERN countries are hypocritical and must sacrifice some luxuries before asking developing countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions, India’s climate change envoy has said.
The envoy received support from another key international player when China insisted that rich countries should commit to large cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases, but declined to put a ceiling on its own levels.
Four months before the Copenhagen conference, which aims to produce a successor to the Kyoto Treaty, China’s chief climate change negotiator confirmed that the world’s leading polluter was holding out for developed countries to reduce emissions by 40 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020.
“We have all along believed that due to the historical responsibility of the developed nations, they must continue to take the lead with large reductions beyond 2012,” said Yu Qingtai.
India’s envoy, Shyam Saran, said his country would not take any measures that could restrict its growth. Instead, he said, it would fund developments to reduce carbon emissions, increase green power generation and improve energy efficiency.
Any further measures demanded by developed countries would be taken only if full funding and technological support were provided, he said.
Mr Saran said his Government planned to bring electricity to remote villages by transforming agricultural waste into power. The Government would not yield to pressure from the “hypocritical” West, he said.
“No one is prepared to touch their living standards,” he said. “If you say, ‘You’re producing Tata Nanos [India's new car], what will that do to the world?’, but not talk about your two or three cars per family, it’s hypocritical.
“We can’t be ambitious if we all protect our turf. We need a collaborative response.”
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Sacrifice your luxuries, India tells West
By indiaabroad
Mumbai, July 31 (IANS) Wondering why people talked of secularism in India, actor Emraan Hashmi Friday accused a Mumbai housing society of refusing him permission to buy a flat because he is Muslim – a complaint echoed in the past by others in Bollywood.
Emraan has complained to the Maharashtra Minorities Commission (MMC), which says the management of Nibbana Complex, a posh society in Bandra’s elite Pali Hill area, is still considering his ‘antecedents’ before taking a final call.
‘This has political connotations, so they don’t want to talk about it openly. Yesterday, they told me that I can’t get the NoC. I asked them why aren’t you giving me the (no objection) certificate — am I a criminal, or a terrorist or have I done anything illegal?’ Emraan told reporters here Friday with his uncle and well-known filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt by his side.
Emraan said: ‘It is strange that they don’t tell you on your face that you can’t get a house because you are a Muslim. It would have been easier if they would have told me openly. What they told me is that they can’t allow me to live there because I am a serial kisser and my presence will have a bad influence on the children staying there.’
The actor, who featured in films like ‘Murder’ and ‘Gangster – A Love Story’, wanted to buy a house in Pali Hill so that he could stay close to his parents.
In his complaint to the MMC, he said he was refused the NoC despite paying the token amount of Rs.100,000 and the society management ignored his parents’ requests to meet them over the issue.
MMC vice-chairman Abraham Mathai said: ‘We have been told that the society is considering the ‘antecedents’ of the applicant (Hashmi) before it can take a final decision in the matter.’
‘Accordingly, we have also advised Hashmi to get a Crime Investigation Department (CID) G Branch certificate, which will effectively prove his antecedents and submit it to the housing society,’ Mathai told IANS today.
Mathai said if the society is found to have practised communal bias its office bearers could face action.
An office bearer of the Nibbana Complex, however, told mediapersons that certain other formalities had to be completed before Emraan could be granted the NoC. He added that a society meeting was scheduled for next Sunday to take a final decision, but the applicant had raised a controversy before that.
In the past, senior actress and former MP Shabana Azmi alleged religious discrimination when she attempted to buy a flat in Mumbai. Actor Arbaaz Khan, brother of Salman Khan, had also experienced similar difficulties when he attempted to buy a flat here.
Emraan said: ‘Being a celebrity if I’m facing problems in buying a house here, I wonder what kind of problems others would have been facing. All the time we are talking about secularism but with such incidents what secularism are people talking about?’
He said someone suggested to him that he purchase the house in the name of his wife Parveen, who is a Hindu. ‘I can do that, but why should I do that?’ he asked.
Bhatt said such discrimination was a serious problem plaguing the country.
‘Even 62 years after independence, the virus of communalism is alive in an area like Pali Hill, which is known as India’s Beverly Hills where stars like Sunil Dutt lived and Dilip Kumar is still living there. It’s a serious problem and is the country ready to accept that communalism is still surviving?’
‘There are also certain societies in the area that do not give NoCs to non-Hindus,’ he said.
