'Nobody has proved that Ram did not exist' and `Preferences and prejudices'

This news round-up consists of two very welcome articles.

The first concerns this very balanced interview of Togadia on rediff. Unfortunately, not may leading newspapers in India have been presenting balanced views on various national issues. However, rediff has always made an effort to portray the sentiments of a common Hindu person. Here Togadia answers many questions regarding the `Ram Sethu issue' very precisely. One such question is about the existence of Shri Ram. While many have claimed that there is no proof that Shri Ram exsisted, it would be foolish for anyone with a rational mind to conclude then that Shri Ram did not exist. To the question about his views on such people, Togadia retorts that `Nobody has proved that Ram did not exist'. When asked his views on whether Shri Ram was God, man or a historical figure, his answer was ready `For me, Ram is God, a man and a historical figure.'

Another item in this new round-up is this article in The Hindu. While it is welknown that The Hindu is a pro-leftists newspaper and does not hesitate to propogate leftists views while giving less coverage to other news item, it is now getting difficult for the newspaper to continue with this practice. One clear example of this policy is the readers' column on The Hindu website. The only comments getting published there are the ones that support the opinion expressed in the news articles or are in the line with the left-congress viewpoint. It would take a really brave effort on the part of the newspaper to publish those comments that criticise it. However, it seems that the number of such comments has been on the increase and there is criticism of the paper for not being neutral on this issue. At least, the newspaper has come out with this `justifying' article citing reasons for its policy. This is indeed a welcome developement. First of all, it proves that the paper's policy was under criticism (why would it justify it otherwise?) and secondly that there is increase in the number of people feeling that not everything that is published in such a newspaper can be 100% true.

We are world champions!!!

The Indian team which was not expected to go beyond the second round, defeated teams like Australia, England, South Africa and Pakistan to clinch the first Twenty20 world cup! There were many moments that made this championship memorable. One of those was the consecutive sixth sixer that Yuvraj hit. Yuvraj's sixes not only avenged the five sixes hit on his bowling but also the loss of ODI series in England. Many, including yours truly, felt that England managed to win the ODI series 4-3 only because of certain questionable umpiring decisions that went in their favour. If Sachin and Dravid were not given out wrongly, the outcome of the series could have been different. Finally, it was only fitting that Flintoff, who has been involved in many such dubious wickets, was involved in the incident that is supposed to have motivated Yuvraj.

I missed many of India's matches due to the workshop at Mainz. Later when I went through the news again, I saw one curious item. Apparently Pietersen was runout after allegedly being obstructed by Pollock. I saw the footage of the incident later and could not find any fault with Pollock. In fact, in my opinion, both Pollock and KP were looking at the ball and so the accident occurred. But I was really surprised at the suggestion of England captain Collingwood that the third umpire could have given KP notout. Looking at the reaction of England team in general, one might feel that they have lost the final of some important tournament because of this runout. Guardian reported that England did not recover from this runout and lost the match to SA. Indeed the runout must have been be playing heavily on their mind for a long time because they lost the next match as well to New Zealand. Poor Englishmen, when they were just recovering from the runout Yuvraj came along and sent them home without a point in the second round.

Anyway, now Australia are in India for a 7-match series and let's hope that India repeat the heroics under the leadership of fearless Dhoni!

(belated) Happy independence day

I was facing a problem in my internet connection for last few days, therefore could not wish you all promptly. Sorry for that.

There is a nice article in rediff about Prof. M. C. Puri, a mathematician who died in the terrorist attack at IISc. Incidentally, 15 August is the birthdate of Prof. Puri. Some of his students have set up website for him, which is also worth a look.

Another news worth reading is here: A mosque in Jaikwadi, near Paithan (Maharashtra) was washed out in the floods and remnants of a temple were found in the structure alongwith a head of Nandi. Muslims tried to build the mosque in haste to bury all the evidences. Thanks to the alertness of some Shivsainiks, that was stopped. Those muslims then went to the police station and police lathicharged on the shivsainiks. One wonders at this moment if police had been this active if the situation had been reverse.

Lots of plans

I am really thankful to those who drop by my blog even if I am inactive for a long time. Special thanks are due to Dadoji, Nikhil and Amit.

Now that everything is running smoothly, I do have plans of becoming a regular blogger. Samudrika had asked me for some Marathi blogs and I have also bookmarked some of them. A blog about marathi blogs should be penned as soon as possible. I should also add links to my blog leading to all those blogs that I read quite regularly. There are many issues on which I have an opinion: reservations, office of profit issue, usual events in Jammu (à la Ghulam Nabi Azad), football, cricket and much more. I would also like to describe my Rennes trip with some photos.

There are some conferences/workshops coming up within a week and I have to prepare my talks. So there is no other option but to keep all these plans safe and return to them in July. At least, after putting them down here, I will always feel the necessity to implement them. So long then till July!

Adventures with Lappu

Lappu is the name by which I fondly call my newly purchased laptop. I also got a free printer with Lappu which is named as Pintu.

I am more comfortable with linux than Windows and so have been trying to upload linux on Lappu for last two weeks or so. My knowledge about computers is very close to zero. When I brought an Ubuntu cd from Ritesh, I did not even know how to boot Lappu. I first inserted the cd when windows was running and then tried pressing F12 several times. After restarting Lappu a few times I noticed a small note in the upper-right corner about booting options. The problem was that Lappu was very fast in starting windows without giving me an opportunity of pressing F12.

Somehow I managed to boot it using the cd, but then I did not know about partitioning the disk. In the beginning, I tried to install linux on windows directory. Thankfully it did not work. Later when I sat on Lappu with Arnab and told him all that I had done, he had a good look at me and said that he appreciated my courage. I told him that I had only uploaded some photos on windows and they were fine even after my attempts to load linux in windows area. He again looked at me with a patient look and told me that he was rather worried about my windows than the photos!

We both tried to upload Ubuntu, it did not work but this time we knew the reasons! My Lappu had a big screen (1440 x 900) and there were some resolution problems. We later tried to upload madriva and with help from Ritesh, it finally started running smoothly. But I was not to give up. By now I knew everything about disk partitioning, resolutions and uploading linux; and so I decided to try Ubuntu again, alone!

When I told Arnab about my plans, he said he again appreciated my courage and that he would be available if there are any more problems. I thanked him, lighted an agarbathi in front of Ganeshji and started with Ubuntu. Everything went quite smoothly and within 40 minutes or so, Ubuntu was running successfully on Lappu. I opened firefox and quickly wrote a mail to Anuradha describing my success.

Meanwhile I went to Rennes for a meeting of `Young Number Theorists' for half a week. After coming back, I decided to explore Kubuntu, the KDE version of Ubuntu. But something went wrong and the Grub bootloader stopped working (perhaps because I forgot to light an agarbathi this time). This meant that I was not even able to use windows on Lappu. After starting it, the screen would remain blank for some time and then it would inform me that Grub is not working because of `error 17'! This was on Sunday night.

Joseph had invited me for dinner on Monday evening. When I came back, it was already past midnight, but I was going to try once more for Ubuntu. Thankfully, Arnab had changed the BIOS preferences and had made `booting from cd' to be the first option. I told Lappu that if Ubuntu worked this time, I would be loyal with it for six months, at least, and would not try for Kubuntu or any other type of linux. The result was good and today in the office I could also connect it to internet and could download almost all the packages that I need. Now I can latex my papers/articles and view all kinds of files in linux. I do have the plan of sticking to Ubuntu for six months, but hope that the resolution problem would be solved by then.

waiting

I have recently ordered a laptop and looking forward to receive it soon. Then I hope to be more regular in my blogging. Recently I have been feeling guilty of blogging in office hours. So I tried to blog only on weekends. But it did not work out that well. Some work or other kept coming up on weekends and then I ended up posting the blog on a weekday finally. Once the laptop arrives, I hope that my officetime will be spent only in office work and other time only in non-office work. :-)

surfings of the last week

Quite often I have nothing to say here, or the thing that I have will take a long time to say. Therefore I have decided to give links to some good posts or news items that I liked in the last week. These posts will of course be equally good and interesting, but I would put them in an order in which I would like you to read them. I will try to write at least this post on every weekend.

1. A memorable year for India (part II): Incidentally, the year 2006 is 150th, 100th and 50th birth year of three of the great personalities of Indian history. Harshal is planning to write three posts on them. This second post is about Shri. Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, the second sarasanghachalak of R.S.S.


2. A memorable year for India (part I): This post is about Shri. Bal Gangadhar Tilak, perhaps the only leader from garam dal with a broad mass base. He is the one who initiated Swadeshi and Bahishkar movements. He has inspired several stalwarts like V. D. Savarkar.


3. A puppy's last moments: A very touching post, written in very simple language but does not fail to portray the complete picture in front of you.
   

Scuffle between media, Imam's supporters

(Courtesy:rediff)

Journalists waiting outside the prime minister's residence on Race Course road were attacked by the supporters of Shahi Imam Syed Ahmed Bukhari of Jama Masjid, when they tried to stop him for answering some their questions.

The Imam had visited Dr Singh with a memorandum. Bukhari accused the media of being agents of the Rashtriya Swayamevak Sangh, who were out to spread communal disharmony. The Imam did little to stop journalists, including women scribes, from being attacked by his supporters, who also used abusive language.

On a complaint filed by Yusuf Ansari of Zee News and Vijay Trivedi of NDTV, the Delhi police has registered a case against the Imam and his supporters. Yusuf Ansari told rediff.com that the prime minister's special protection group made no effort to stop the unruly supporters of the Imam.

In the memorandum submitted to Dr Singh, the community leaders demanded immediate release of Muslims detained under Prevention of Terrorism Act in Gujarat and Maharashtra. They also sought an immediate halt to alleged atrocities on Muslims in Assam on the pretext of checking foreign nationals, restoration of the minority status for Aligarh Muslim University, unconditional talks with 'popular and responsible' leaders of Kashmir and evacuation of illegal occupants from Waqf properties.

Consider this another example: Kanchi Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswathi was arrested like a criminal on Diwali night for a murder case. So far, I have not heard of any disturbances by Hindus against this decision.

Are hindus still untolerant?

Mass killing in Kashmir and related incidents

(Courtesy: rediff)

At least 22 Hindu villagers were killed and eight others critically wounded in a militant massacre in village Kalhan in Doda district of Jammu region.

A senior police officer told rediff.com that a group of heavily armed militants swooped in on Kalhan late Sunday night and gathered the Hindu villagers in the house of the village headman.

"The militants opened indiscriminate fire at the unarmed villagers huddled inside the house. 22 villagers died on the spot while eight others were critically wounded. The injured have been airlifted to Jammu for specialised treatment," Jammu range police chief inspector general of police Dr S P Vaid said.

There is also the news of some muslims dying in Vadodara. As I understand, the central goverment has warned the CM (Gujarat) to ensure peace in Vadodara. It is a simple logic that if a construction has encroached on public property, then it should be demolished, be it a dargah or a mandir.

I distinctly remember the case of a mandir in Pune being shifted, not because it was encroaching on public property but the municipalty wanted to enlarge the road and the mandir was exactly beside the road. It was done sometime between 1996 and 1998, and the mandir was near Mhatre pul, if someone cares for particulars. No eyebrows were raised and the whole procedure was carried out peacefully within a month or so. I have heard reports of mosques being shifted or destroyed in Arab countries in the enlargements of roads, but do not have any direct links to them rightnow.

I was once talking to my officemate, who is a mathematics professor from Iran and is visiting Paris now. He told me that the only problem between India and Pakistan is that of Kashmir! If that problem is solved, everything will be alright. I replied that there is no guarantee that Pakistanis would behave better if Kashmir was given to them. Basically, they had no right to the land that they are holding rightnow. But it was given to them and clearly they are not happy with it.

Look at Bangladesh: The country exists today because of India and see how they are repaying! IMHO, the fault is there in the very basic foundations of muslim religion. A religion that always believes in expanding and wiping out other religions can never keep people happy. Incidentally, some prominant muslims who have had good opinions about our country have come in some way or other into contact with Hindus in their childhood, and learnt these virtues from them. Two examples that quickly come to my mind are of President APJ Abdul Kalam and Shehnai mastro Ustad Bismillah Khan!

It is the time now for all pseudo-secularists in our country to realise that Hindu philosophy is the real secular philosophy!

A very sad end

It was indeed a sad end to a very promising political career. There might be differences of opinions about him but certainly all would agree that this was not the way for Pramod Mahajan to die.