Pakistan India: Citizens Push for Peace Who is this Jatin Desai? Is he card carrying member of Journalist Party of India? Has he ever written anything in past? And if yes in which journal?

Himanshu Rai: The Light of India I hope another like him will be born who will make entertaining movies sans songs.

Streets of Bahadurgunj Okay I found Mirganj and Zero Road and a Laxman Market Road. They intersect at Latitude= 25°26'19" and Longitude= 81°50'26".

Your writing style is wistful, nostalgic and matter-of-fact. The piece is good. Keep writing. If you can find old photos and take some new of same neighborhood then it would be interesting.

Streets of Bahadurgunj "How I wish one day to write the color full details of most"

First of all I could not find Bahadurgunj in Google Earth. First thing you should do is to find exact Latitude and Longitude and post it to Google Earth or here. That will help me browse this locality on GE and see if there are any interesting photos are there on GE. Next you should give more details. Like what was major road in neighborhood, what was major Mandir/Masjid in neighborhood, cinema-ghar, ischool, etc.

Sufi Muhammed...No More a Joke #8

"Pakistan's short sighted policy in not treating the Soviet intervention as an internal matter of Afghanistan, has resulted in islamisation, talbanisation, narcotics , gun running, loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs to Afghan refugees who now will not go home."

But did not Jinnah say Pakistan would help USA if Soviets came? That Pakistan was strategically placed for thwarting Soviet menace?

The Gentle Power of the Sufi Tradition Islamic man of my heart would have been Al-Biruni. Islamic man of Murad Baig's liking would be Avicenna. They were comtemporary. Al-Biruni critcised Avicenna and his easy acceptance of Aristotle as Gospel Truth, whereas Al-Biruni attacked everything in his sight using strict scientific method. He criticised Astrology and separated Astronomy from Astrology. It would have been possible de-Islamize Al-Biruni using his own method of science and he will love that you did that to him. OTOH Avicenna went into denial. He entrusted task of replying to Al-Biruni's letters to a student. Major literary output of Al-Biruni is destroyed.

Following info from wikipedia:

Al-Biruni's works number 146 in total. ... Among these works, only 22 have survived, and only 13 of these works have been published. 6 of his surviving works are on astronomy.

Avicenna wrote almost 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived.

The Gentle Power of the Sufi Tradition Buddhism was never principal school of thought in India. It did spread as a result of efforts of Ashoka. In Buddha's times his preachings were successful in gaining a big following. He signed on many celebrities and Rajas (who were very violent) of his time. It seems that Buddha suffered a crisis of faith. He was to be king and a kshatriya and it was expected that he will harden himself in his attitudes to life and violence but contrary happened. Rather it did not happen, it is just that he was like that only right from chilhood; much given to brooding thoughts and always becoming upset at cruelty even to animals also. He was depressive type. Not King type. But as soon as he was dead his movement's influence started to wane because of infighting among his followers. There were many parting of ways, and then debates to mend differences some more sinking of difference and then more infighting and so on. Ashoka was majorly influenced by significant buddhists of his time and also by other movements and thinkers. There was no nice solution in existing books and wisdoms of the problem of war caused depression. People turned to all kinds of Gurus and wisemen and intuitive psychiatrists and preachers and charlatans and such. In Ashoka's times there was a choice of schools.

The Gentle Power of the Sufi Tradition "Its earliest inspiration may have been from the early doctrines of Buddha, especially the Abhidhamma Pitaka, and may have also later inspired the Bhagavat Gita that was much later interpolated into the constantly evolving versions of the great legend of the Mahabharata."

In other words what you are saying is Sufism's earliest inspiration may have been from the early doctrines of Buddha, especially the Abhidhamma Pitaka. And it[Sufism] may have also later inspired the Bhagavat Gita that was much later interpolated into the constantly evolving versions of the great legend of the Mahabharata.

Or do you mean early doctrines of Buddha ispired both Sufism as well as Bhagavat Gita? Sorry, your sentence construction is confusing.

From wikipedia's entry on Bhagavat Gita: "Scholars have opined that the date of composition of the Bhagavad Gita is between the 5th and the 2nd century BC." In light of this is your conjecture plausible? Bhagavat Gita may have been interpolated at a later date after main body of text of Mahabharat was fully developed. But what evidence you have of Buddhism or Sufism inspiring Gita. Any archeological evidence or philological basis of such a claim?

State of Denial Waqar

"For the most part, the religious lot of the country has quietly and not so quietly supported the terrorists. The people of Pukhtunkhwa have been held hostage by Taliban, Pukhtuns' land is burning. What Taliban are doing is plain barbarism. When a religion is taken over by militants and zealots this is what you get."

Is it possible that Islam attracts towards itself precisely those people who more easily adopt violent behavior? Is it possible that there are elements in the body of writings that teach message of Islam which has unfortunate effect on minds of its readers (especially more impressionable ones), which starts them on the path of psychopathy where they cease seeing such incidents as anything wrong?

Is there any objective study of how reading material one reads affects ones sense of guilt? Religious literature is more likely to have words designed to brainwash. Literature which is overtly not religious may have subtle messages inciting adoption of hardline attitudes but it may not be as effective as openly religious texts. Has anyone done studies like this vis-a-vis Islamic religious literature?

Lashes to lashes, dust to dust anil

She need not have written like this: "impotent little pen" if she wanted masadi to pay respect to her. Shandana is fake pompous academic. Otherwise why write like this: "this is not a problem created by barbaric savages, this kind of brutality is in fact built into islam. we cannot vanquish it till we vanquish the religion from our lives. in my books, that kind of attitude doesn't dignify a response"?

Unless if she is the one who is incapable (what is female of impotent? frigid?) ... Unless if she is the one who is incapable of making any comment? Why cannt one study the phenomena of islam as causing an obsession with brutality amongst its followers? Even strictly as an academic exercise? Well? Why in your books such questions be not proper topic of an academe's investigation? You are so special? Islam is special? What?

IMO brutality is in fact built into islam. And we need not have exclusive or between "a problem created by barbaric savages" and "we cannot vanquish it till we vanquish the religion".

Lashes to lashes, dust to dust #29 by Akbarhussain

"If I would bring an evidence to charge someone, jurisprudence puts the burden on me to prove its genuinity"

Really? And how does one do that? What is process? What is the method jurisprudence will recognise as "correct" for a video?

So by same token you are saying it is fake, or, at any rate you are saying it could be fake, then should not I ask you to prove your claim? You are saying it could be fake, and I am saying prove it. It is not enough to say that it "could" be fake. Burden is on you because you are challenging.

Your mother might have slept with another man (not your father). Therefore, she has indeed slept with another man. Therefore, you might not be son of your father. Therefore, you are not son of your father. Does such argument sound logical to you? Now if you claim that you are son of your father and I am contesting that then onus of proving that you are son of your father should be on me or on you?

Forget about onus. I am just asking what is the method to be followed? For your paternity DNA evidence is used. For proving genuinity of video onus is on me. Granted. My question to you is you (or a court) will reject simply because it could have been made by spending a few thousand rupees? Will it not accept it at least as prima facie evidence. And bother about genuinity only after someone contests its genuinity? For "fakeness" of video onus is on you to prove because you are saying that it could be fake. So you prove that is is fake.

And what are the methods that will be used? To prove genuinity what method will be used? To prove fakeness what method will be used?

Lashes to lashes, dust to dust #26

"apparently fake videos"

Can you describe the method one can use to identify this video as fake? Dont argue that "such a video anyone can make by spending a couple of thousand rupees" therefore indeed "it has been made by spending a couple of thousand rupees".

Lashes to lashes, dust to dust "The second is that somehow their barbarism is justified, their brand of Islam prompted (‘brand’? When did Islam become toothpaste?) by America’s war on terror."

I have no other comment to offer but I can comment on an issue of language. When a thing as nebulous as Islam is being talked about everyone puts his spin on what it is. When a person's sum total of writings and sayings on Islam is looked upon it is perfectly valid to talk about XYZ's brand of Islam. It is just a way to classify XYZ's viewpoints and compare and contrast with average view of people on Islam. In this, don't you think that it has happened? That, Taliban is manufacturing a brand of Islam different from average Pakistani's brand of Islam? Why express outrage at such usage? Come on, it is just an expression. It happens with all religions. As time goes all religions are interpreted in a variety of ways. When these varieties become too different groups showing allegiance to different interpretations often fight. Do you think Islam has fallen from sky complete with guarantee that it shall not have variety of interpretations? Do you think Islam is so "special"? No it is not. Actually part of the problem is the naive belief of its followers that it is a perfect religion which shall and must remain unchanged. And any attempt to change or think through with our imperfect minds what hallucinating pedophile actually meant, when he said this or that, should be branded as unacceptable revisionism which may happen to other "lesser" religions of planet earth but not Islam. Come on you must be crazy. Brands happen. Accept it. Not accepting it is same kind of denial that you accuse other people of indulging in.

Pakistan Faces Unprecedented Water Scarcity "UN warned the world may be close to its first water war"

Where? Where it is going to happen? Does UN know that? Does UN know other causes of war? For example one country sending so-called non-state actors to kill peple in a neighboring country? Or, a country alleging that WMD exist somewhere and uses it as an excuse for pre-emptive military action? So many reasons of wars.

The Sangh Octopussy laddu,

"on what basis do you consider various listed small organizations as part of rss?"

dost is not saying that. He is attributing. To wikipedia website. Words starting with "The Sangh Parivar includes" ... and ending with "Bharatiya Vichara Kendra" are direct cut-and-paste except for some word changed.

There is in this list an org called "Vit Salahkar Parishad". May be Hindus need one such sorely with financial crisis of past months. May be making it a secular will attract Muslims who will then cry foul when advice is given involving any transaction not consistent with Islam. So they made it a Hindu org. Because in India secular means Islamic.

Jihad Revised "You cannot decide who is Muslim or who is an unbeliever"

In other words there can be a person who professes even atheism but he may actually be more muslim than a bad Muslim person who even though professes Islam is not actually a Muslim. And determination by "you" to decide who is Muslim is not possible. Muslimness is not human-computable function.