An attempt to start another riot, I guess. It won’t work.
Five killed, 16 injured in blast at Hyderabad mosque- Hindustan Times
At least five people were killed and 16 injured in a bomb blast during Friday prayers at the historic Mecca Masjid here.
Eyewitnesses said the blast occurred when thousands of Muslims were about to complete ‘namaz’.
The blast took place near ‘wazu khana’ or water tank, where Muslims do ablution before offering prayers.
Lifted from comments… (thanks Ajit Singh)
Siachen glacier has been melting alarmingly more due to military activity of India and Pakistan than global warming, a new study has said. Siachen glacier was rapidly melting because of the ongoing military activity at the highest flashpoint of the world, according to the study conducted by Arshad H Abbasi, a consultant for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
Source (Zee News)
Well, that’s interesting, and a bold and provocative argument. Where is it coming from? The source is a document from Arshad H Abbasi of the Pakistan wing of the World Wildlife Fund.
The problem is being caused by the establishment of permanent cantonments on either side of the Saltoro ridge, the daily heavy air traffic to advance camps (up to Indra Col post), the cutting and melting of glacial ice through the application of chemical, daily dumping of more than a ton of chemicals, metals, organic and human waste, daily leakages from 2000 gallons of kerosene oil from 250 km plastic pipeline laid by India throughout the glacier
Unfortunately, the article does not provide any references to studies, or any justification for the argument made. The argument definitely “feels” right, and it maybe true, but the data provided does not support the conclusions. South Asia’s ice is definitely melting, as pointed out earlier, and the effects are going to be fairly catastrophic. It would be good to know why, global warming is surely the prime suspect. And this stupid war does not help, I am sick of India, Pakistan, Al Qaeda, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the US, etc. purporting to speak for the Kashmiris, killing and oppressing the people, carrying out ethnic cleansing in the guise of patriotism and destroying one of the most beautiful places on earth. But can military activity destroy the second largest non polar glacier?
Who knows, maybe a potential catastrophe will get the protagonists talking, and maybe Siachen will become a peace park. All I know is that I start writing a post about the science of the Siachen melt and quickly devolve into a despair spiral as I contemplate the pointlessness of destroying the most beautiful part of South Asia in order to possess it.
Members of Parliament from Tamil Nadu will have to resign if the Centre does not come forward to ensure a ceasefire in Sri Lanka within two weeks, according to a resolution adopted at an all-party meet chaired by Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi on Tuesday.
Asked if this meant Ministers in the Union Cabinet and MPs in the Rajya Sabha would resign in the event of the ceasefire not happening in two weeks, Mr. Karunanidhi told The Hindu that he meant that all MPs would tender their resignation. “Ministers are MPs first, are they not?” he asked.
via The Hindu : Front Page : T.N. MPs to quit if Centre fails to ensure ceasefire
As Malini Parthasarathy points out in her editorial, this sudden increase in rhetoric coming from the DMK and other Tamil parties seems to coincide with an apparent impending military breakthrough by the Sri Lankan army. Why apparent? Because the only sources of news are the SL army and the LTTE, and neither, are, shall we say, neutral! Overt support for the LTTE has been absent since the late ’80s and especially since Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, so the timing most definitely reeks of LTTE’s covert influence on the Tamil parties in Tamil Nadu. This would be a good time for the LTTE to get some breathing room and regroup.
The Central government would become a minority if this threat was carried out. Which is why the Sri Lankan envoy was summoned and India’s “concerns” were addressed, whatever that means.
I think that the LTTE is a band of ruthless terrorists who should disappear from the face of this Earth. They have systematically eradicated moderate Tamils in their bid to be the only Tamil voice. Additionally, they have killed many civilians, Tamil, Sinhalese and Indian over the course of their bloody insurgency. The Sri Lankan army and polity, of course, are guilty of mass genocide and human rights themselves. But, they have the power of the nation state behind them and smell a final victory. I don’t seem them stopping now.
How is this going to end? Not very well for the central government, who will lose quite a bit of support after only recently surviving a confidence vote. Not too well for the millions of civilians caught in the conflict, who will bear the brunt of increasing desperation on both sides of the war. Will the LTTE ask for a negotiated ceasefire if things get too hot for them? Probably. Will the Tamils of Northern Sri Lanka ever get the autonomy they so deserve? Not if the Sri Lankan government sees itself as being in a position of strength. So, why was this war fought? I don’t know. But, I don’t believe in war, so there…
As a great believer in the educational power of fiction, I heartily recommend Love Marriage, a story set in the Sri Lankan tamil community, tells the history from the tamil side. You can read a Q&A with the author at the always excellent Sepia Mutiny.
Seems like us South Asians die earlier from heart attacks.
ScienceDaily: South Asians Have Higher Levels Of Heart Attack Risk Factors At Younger Ages
Deaths related to cardiovascular disease occur 5 to 10 years earlier in South Asian countries than in Western countries, according to background information in the article. This has raised the possibility that South Asians exhibit a special susceptibility for acute myocardial infarction (AMI; heart attack) that is not explained by traditional risk factors.
But why?
The prevalence of protective risk factors (leisure time physical activity, regular alcohol intake, and daily intake of fruits and vegetables) were markedly lower in South Asian study participants compared with those from other countries.
Um, it is mainly behavioral, not genetic according to the authors, and hence can be mitigated by lifestyle changes.
Well, I guess it is time to take a personal stock as of 1-18-2007:
On the whole, I seem to be in decent shape. It’s good to take stock once in a while.
Can cremation be used as an offset under the Kyoto Protocol? Read on..
Seed: New Green Pyre Promoted in India
UN figures show close to 10 million people die a year in India, where 85 percent of the billion-plus population are Hindus who practice cremation. That leads to the felling of an estimated 50 million trees, leaves behind half a million tonnes of ash and produces eight million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, according to research by Agarwals Mokshda environmental group.
The solution is to design a much more efficient wood burning stove hence satisfying religious sentiments (have to use wood to burn your body) and save lots of wood.
Agarwal built his first pyre, a raised human-sized brazier under a roof with slats that could be lowered to maintain heat. The elevation allowed air to circulate and feed the fire.
It gets even better…
Mokshda hopes its projects will eventually be registered under the Kyoto Protocol’s clean development mechanism, which encourages green projects in developing countries.
It allows industrialised countries that have committed to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases to count reductions achieved through investments in projects in developing countries towards their undertakings.
Really, we can get carbon credits by improving cremation practices?? That’s creative! Going all electric on the crematorium would obviously be the best thing, but Hindu religious sentiment being what it is, this is an improvement.
If you want environmentally friendly, this has nothing on the Parsis (or Zoroastrians):
The interior of the Tower of Silence is built in three concentric circles, one each for men, women, and children. The corpses are exposed there naked. The vultures do not take long—an hour or two at the most—to strip the flesh off the bones, and these, dried by the sun, are later swept into the central well
Yes, that’s right, the vultures! Now, that’s energy efficient! Unfortunately, due the use of diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory in livestock, vulture populations in India have declined to the point that this ancient ritual is now in serious jeopardy.
The decision to make public a presidential order of last July authorizing American strikes inside Pakistan without seeking the approval of the Pakistani government ends a long debate within, and on the periphery of, the Bush administration. Senator Barack Obama, aware of this ongoing debate during his own long battle with Hillary Clinton, tried to outflank her by supporting a policy of U.S. strikes into Pakistan. Senator John McCain and Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin have now echoed this view and so it has become, by consensus, official U.S. policy.Its effects on Pakistan could be catastrophic, creating a severe crisis within the army and in the country at large. The overwhelming majority of Pakistanis are opposed to the U.S. presence in the region, viewing it as the most serious threat to peace.
Tomgram: Tariq Ali, Has the U.S. Invasion of Pakistan Begun?
This part of the world could see even more escalation in violence and death. Imagine the terror in the population as unmanned drones routinely fly over and drop bombs from the sky. The US government created this problem in the 1980s when fighting its proxy cold war. It decided that communism was a big enough threat to justify the arming of religious fundamentalists. We still continue to pay the price.
When will this colonialist meddling end? If the last 100+ years have shown us anything, Western forces cannot control this region by force, yet they keep trying, keep killing people and keep the flames alive.
Unfortunately, the women and children of this area just don’t have good alternatives. They either get oppressed by their moronic fundamentalist men or get western bombs hurled from the sky at them. Would 20 years of peace, under even fundamentalist conditions, provide enough stability to make incremental change possible? I don’t know, but I do know that unmanned “drones” dropping bombs from the sky will not bring peace.
States on alert against polio – NDTV.com – News on States on alert against polio
India appears to be in a grip of a polio outbreak with 352 cases reported so far this year, many of them from areas that were free of the virus, and officials fear the number may increase further. Uttar Pradesh alone has reported 312 cases, the highest of all the states, and World Health Organisation officials have described it as an “exporter” of the disease.
In Uttar Pradesh, officials said 90 percent of the cases were due to ignorance in the minority Muslim community, who believed the polio vaccine could make children impotent.
From wikipedia
Only four countries in the world (Nigeria, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan) are reported to have endemic polio.
I remember reading about a Nigerian Province issue with Clerics claiming “that vaccines supplied by Western donors were adulterated to reduce fertility and spread AIDS as part of a general war on Islam”, which the Wikipedia Polio article verifies. But we have never seen this in India before, and I find it hard to believe. I will remain sceptical about the Muslim clerical influence on India’s polio debacle unless I hear better. News from India sometimes builds its own “truth momentum”, with speculation and hearsay morphing into bulletproof truth in a matter of hours. It is also easy in India to start rumors to deflect blame.Here’s a contrarian take from a Reuter’s Article
“Tens of thousands of children were missed by state health workers over the past year during rounds of immunization, leading to a resurgence of the virus, they said.
“We are very concerned. It raises the threat to India and is also threatening other countries,” said Jay Wenger, head of the National Polio Surveillance Project, a collaboration between the WHO and the Indian government.
One federal official said around 10 percent of children in several western districts of Uttar Pradesh, known for its ramshackle state health care and sluggish bureaucracy, could have missed immunization between late 2005 and early 2006.
“These (vaccination) rounds were of poor quality,” said the official, who did not want to be named.”
Well, sounds more logical, does it not? But why let the depressing truth of inadequacy get in the way of a juicy and self-perpetuating tale of Muslim backwardness.
India, the emerging tiger.
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what happened to people.. On Fridays generally Mecca Masjid area is tightly secured as 10k people come to that place to offer prayers… I hope police will take control of the situation and no one will act crazy and start communal riots…
I heard 200 people gathered and started pelting stones (not sure at whome) after the blast occurred to protest… I don’t understand what they were trying to do.. instead of helping the injured they became obstacle for the ambulance to reach the hospital.. police had to use tear gas shells to make way… this is such a dumb thing to do.. instead of helping they get down to protest… I not sure where this world is going to..
Peace.
The intention behind this blast was probably to create tension in southern states.
I share your optimism. I believe such riots will not break out.
They were successful in reminding people in this part of the country that India is not immune to terror!!!