Salman Rushdie, Freedom from insult and Islam

“I wrote this biography of Muhammad just over ten years ago at the time of the Salman Rushdie crisis. For some time, I had been disturbed by the prejudice against Islam that I so frequently encountered, even in the most liberal and tolerant circle. After the horrific events of the 20th century, it seemed to me that we simply could not afford to cultivate a distorted and inaccurate view of the religion followed by 1.2 billion Muslims who make up a fifth of the world’s population. When Ayatollah Khomeini issued his infamous fatwah against Rushdie and his publishers, this Western prejudice became even more blatant.

“In 1990, when I was writing this book, nobody in Britain wanted to hear that almost exactly a month after the fatwah at a meeting of the Islamic Congress, forty-four out of the forty-five member states condemned the Ayatollah’s ruling as unIslamic––leaving Iran out in the cold. Very few Western people were interested to hear that the Sheikhs of Saudi Arabia, the Holy Land of Islam, and the prestigious al-Azhar madrasah in Cairo had also declared that the fatwah contravened Islamic law. Only a handful of people seemed prepared to listen sympathetically to the many Muslims in Britain who dissociated themselves from the Ayatollah, had no wish to see Rushdie killed, but who had felt profoundly distressed by what they regarded as the blasphemous portrait of Prophet Muhammad in his novel. The Western intelligentsia seemed to want to believe that the entire Muslim world was clamouring for Rushdie’s blood. Some of the leading writers, intellectuals and philosophers in Britain described Islam in a way that either showed astonishing ignorance or a quite horrifying indifference to the truth. As far as they were concerned Islam was an inherently intolerant, fanatical faith, it deserved no respect; and the sensitivities of Muslims who felt hurt by Rushdie’s portrait of their beloved Prophet in The Satanic Verses were of no importance.

“I wrote the book because it seemed a pity that Rushdie’s account of Muhammad was the only one that most Western people were likely to read. Even though I could understand what Rushdie was trying to do in his novel, it seemed important that the true story of the Prophet should also be available, because he was one of the most remarkable human beings who ever lived. It was quite difficult to find a publisher, since many assumed that Muslims would be outraged that infidel woman like myself should have the audacity to write about their Prophet, and that if they publish this book I would soon be joining Rushdie in hiding. But as it turned out, I was greatly moved by the warm and generous reception that Muslims gave my book in those difficult times.”

- the first few paragraphs of the Introduction to October 2001 edition (just after 9/11) of book Muhammad, A Biography of the Prophet written by former Roman Catholic nun Karen Armstrong.

Karen Armstrong was motivated to study Islam so thoroughly and come out with this biography only after the protest by Muslims following the publication of The Satanic Verses about two and a half decades back.

Soroor Ahmed in Two circles. More Here

Salman Rushdie is a third class writer: Justice Katju

Salman Rushdie is a “poor” and “sub-standard writer” who would have remained largely unknown but for his controversial book ‘Satanic Verses’, according to Markandey Katju, till recently a judge of the Supreme Court.

Katju, who is now the Chairman of Press Council of India, criticised the admirers of India-born author based in Britain, saying they suffered from “colonial inferiority complex” that a writer living abroad has to be great.

From a report in Hindustan Times. Here

Slamming the Jaipur Literature Festival's focus on the Indian-origin British writer, Justice Katju, a retired judge of the Supreme Court, criticised “so-called educated Indians” who “suffer from the colonial inferiority complex” and believe that writers living in India are inferior to those living abroad.

“Salman Rushdie dominated the Jaipur Literature Festival. I do not wish to get into the controversy whether banning him was correct or not. I am raising a much more fundamental issue,” he said in a statement issued on Wednesday. “I have read some of Rushdie's works and am of the opinion that he is a poor writer, and but for The Satanic Verses would have remained largely unknown. Even Midnight's Children is hardly great literature.”

From a report in The Hindu. Here

Islam emphasises on 'Freedom from insult'

Well, whether or not freedom to insult is a Western value, Islam has nothing to do with it. It lays emphasis on its exact opposite: the freedom from insult. 

It values human dignity, decency, and harmony in the society. The freedom of religion it ensures includes freedom from insults. While it does not shy away from academic discussion of its beliefs and showing the falsehood of non-Islamic beliefs, it makes sure that the discussion remains civil. In those discussions it wants to engage the intellect of its opponents; in contrast those who itch to insult their opponents are interested in satisfying their vulgar emotions.

Thus while its most important battle is against false gods it asks its followers to refrain from reviling them. (Qur’an, Al-anam, 6:108). It also reminds them to stay away from harsh speech. “Allah loves not the utterance of harsh speech save by one who has been wronged.” (Qur’an, Al-Nisa, 4:148). Prophet Muhammad, Sall-Allahu alayhi wa sallam, who is being reviled by the scum of the world, taught Muslims to never let the low moral standards of their adversaries dictate theirs.

As a result of these teachings Muslims can never even imagine insulting any Prophet --- from Adam to Moses to Jesus to Muhammad, peace be upon them all. Even when they ruled the world, Muslims treated the religious leaders of non-Muslim also with respect – even during battles. In the Baghdad court Jewish and Christian scholars engaged in open discussions with the Muslim savants.

Needless to say they had not been attracted by the freedom to insult but its exact opposite. Freedom from insult is a fundamental value that assures peace and harmony. It leads to healthy societies. And Muslims are very proud of their impeccable record here.

A earlier post in Luthfispace Here and More by Khalid Baig Here

Mother of all scams is not 2G but electrification of Indian Railways

The truth is that scams of much larger proportion were very much there even in the immediate post-independence India. Some got exposed, but some never. The most important difference is that with the passing of each year we have more and more means to know about them, therefore, we are able to know more about them.

The expansion of media, the emergence of strong bi-polar politics, enactment of Acts like RTI, judicial activism etc have made the common citizens more aware of various charges of corruption.

Today’s Suresh Kalmadi is in jail, but there might have been a Kalmadi––may be a much smaller in stature––during the 1982 Asiad Games too. But he could never be detected, thanks to weak media and opposition. Certainly everything was not hunky-dory then.

A senior railway official once commented privately that possibly the biggest scam in the country took place more than half a century back when the decision regarding the electrification of Indian Railways was taken. The decision in this regard was taken many years before the so-called Oil Crisis of 1973.

Today rail traffic gets stalled for hours and Accident Relief Trains could not reach the spot in time of emergency because the overhead wires get disconnected even after a minor mishap or derailment of one or two coaches.

Producing power to run electric trains requires lakhs of tonnes of coal every year. Huge dams were constructed causing environmental pollution and displacement of millions. Besides, the social cost it entails is much more than the amount spent on importing diesel.

According to that official the country may never be able to overcome the power crisis because these trains consume so much electricity. Diesel engines are equally efficient and powerful and do not pose any problem in reaching anywhere in the country in any circumstances. Incidentally, the first Rajdhani Express on electrified Howarh-New Delhi track introduced more than 40 years back was powered by diesel engine and it continued to do so for years. Even the US, China and many European countries prefer diesel engines over electric locomotives.

This whole exercise of electrification was taken under the influence of big lobbies––national and international. Yet nobody questioned it then and nor today some five decades later. But 2G Spectrum is on everyone’s lips.

Soroor Ahmed in Two circles. Here

Advani's Antim Yatra

The BJP conceded three goals in quick succession very much against the run of the play. Till a few weeks back, the party was in somewhat aggressive mood and tried to capitalize on the atmosphere created by Anna Hazare. It started appearing that the BJP would finally outplay the Congress. But then, like a bombshell, came the report of the Lokayukta and subsequent drama, which forced the party to get rid of Yeddyurappa. All this happened at the height of the Anna’s movement––that is a few days before and after his 12-day fast.

In the earlier two occasions the crusade against corruption has helped the BJP and erstwhile Jan Sangh. The party fully consolidated its position during the 1974 JP movement in Bihar and Navnirman movement in Gujarat. Thus gradually it emerged as the strongest of the five constituents of the Janata Party, which was formed in 1977. The conglomeration ruled the country for less than three years. The Janata Party disintegrated and in 1980 the Bharatiya Janata Party, instead of Bharatiya Jan Sangh, was formed. 

Similarly, the BJP fully capitalized the Bofors kickback issue for its own political end though it was V P Singh, who first raised the issue. Advani fully mixed the battle against corruption with the religious issue of Ram Mandir at Ayodhya. This ultimately paved the way for its victory. It thus led a 24 parties alliance and ruled the country for six years.

However, this time the crusade against corruption is not going to cut much ice. There is no Emergency in the country as in mid-1970s. Nor is there any scope to once again whip up the religious sentiment as in late 1980s and early 1990s. Now the voters of the country have tested the ‘honesty’ of the party with a difference too. Several scams rocked the country during its six years rule between 1998 and 2004. The then national president of the BJP, Bangaru Laxman, was caught in camera accepting Rs one crore from a fictitious arms dealers.

In the states, Karnataka has shown a new way to loot the country’s treasure. Octogenarian Advani finds his party in a very tight position. The second rung leadership of Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley are no match to the stature of Vajpayee and Advani while there is no dearth of partymen who want to keep Narendra Modi away. In that way Advani once again had to take up the responsibility of leading his team and playing another innings. 

Advani’s position is like Australian cricketer Bobby Simpson, who had to come out from retirement and lead his team after almost the premier players rebelled and joined World Series Cricket organized by Kerry Packer between 1977 and 1979. But that was just a stop-gap arrangement. Advani knows his role and is no doubt too old to captain the team, which is now packed.

Soroor Ahmed in Two Circles. More Here.

Advani's Antim Yatra

There is nothing more revealing in politics than a old, doddering politician who buries his head in the sand and tries to gauge the prevailing wind of public opinion. And so it is with the “former future prime minister of India“, Lalchand Kishinchand Advani who has announced what many are derisively calling his “Antim Yatra“.

At one level, Advani’s impromptu announcement of a nationwide tour at the age of 84 is proof that the flame of ambition has flickered feverishly despite the renunciation of key posts (like leader of opposition and party president) at the less-than-gentle nudging of the extra-constitutional knicker lobby that really wears the pants in the BJP.

At another level, the “Antim Yatra” is proof that the BJP is now officially bereft of both ideas and leadership. That it took the success of Anna Hazare‘s campaign for the lead opposition party to take up corruption as an issue reveals plenty about what it has been doing these past two and a half years since the 2009 electoral defeat.

And that the BJP leadership thinks that it has the credibility to talk about corruption, when its own governments and leaders in Karnataka, Gujarat, Uttaranchal and Chhatisgarh are battling (or stalling investigation of) serious charges of corruption shows the hypocrisy of it all.

Above all, Advani’s announcement of a yatra throws cold water on the aspirations of almost the entire second generation of leaders in the BJP, all of whom privately envision themselves as national leaders and almost all of whom entertain dreams of becoming prime minister.

Questions: Will Advani’s “Antim Yatra” evoke any response? Is Advani’s “Antim Yatra” merely to save his skin now that the reprehensible cash-for-votes scandal has landed squarely in his court? Notwithstanding the Congress’s plight, does the BJP have the credibility to talk of clean, corruption-free governance? Will Advani be acceptable as the face of the BJP in 2014, when he will be 86?

Courtesy : Churumuri. Here 

Do we remember our mistakes? Do we remember our failures?

Muslims are losing in another way yet they hardly pay notice to it. Wherever natural or man-made calamities strike a large number of Christian missionaries and other NGOs, especially from the West, would swoop down to take up relief and rehabilitation works. This happened even in tsunami-struck Indonesia and other South-East Asian countries. They would take thousands of orphans and keep them in orphanages run by them. Many parents would turn up to adopt them.Why will they bring up these children as Muslim? They have taken away orphans from war-torn Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq or many other countries.

Muslim community leaders would just adopt ostrich-like approach. But is not it the fact that US Presidential candidate for 2008 John McCain has an adopted daughter, who is originally from Bangladesh. She is 20 year old Bridget McCain. In fact McCain’s wife Cindy brought two ailing new born girls from a Bangladesh orphanage about two decades back and gave one to her friends.

After all the sparsely populated rich Arabian Sheikhdoms are not giving refuge to people in distress of the Muslim Ummah, not to speak of humanity in general. At most they would ‘help’ Islam by building palatial mosques, which is against the very spirit of Islam as the mosque built by Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) in Madinah then was a very simple structure even by the standard of seventh century. There are several traditions (Ahadith) of Prophet which prohibit Muslims from adoring and decorating mosques.

A healthy nation learns from its mistakes; the sick one tends to hide them. The West may be on decline but the people there still have the urge to learn from the past. As a nation Muslims are not doing so, though at some places signs of change are visible. However, the need of the hour is to rein in windbags, who are innocently and ignorantly playing into the hands of someone else.

Soroor Ahmed in Indian Muslims. More Here.

Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain.... : Will it lead to amalgamation of the Middle East into ONE NATION?

Revolutions are often exported; but sometimes imported too. As they know no national or international boundary they travel thick and fast.

The recent upsurge in the Arab world is something very unique. It is both a mixture of export and import. From Tunisia in the west to Bahrain in the east the revolutionary fervor has swept over half a dozen countries, with more coming under its spell. Though it is Tunisia, which took the lead and Egypt apparently imported from the former yet the truth is that it is the latter which is the epicenter of all the great political earthquake in the entire region. Egypt has the oldest, most organized, anti-West and anti-Israel, pro-people party called the Muslim Brotherhood with Islam as its ideology. This party was formed in 1928 and had branches in several countries. Since Egypt is the fountainhead of revolution it is attracting much more global attention.

Europe in late 18th and 19th centuries also witnessed such series of huge changes. The 1789 French Revolution was followed by two more series of big upheavals in 1830-31 and 1848. In those years a number of monarchs were overthrown but many such revolts ended in bloodbath.

Though it is England, which took the first step in the direction of democracy the credit for exporting the idea goes more to France. This notwithstanding the fact that the first French Revolution of 1789 achieved little and it was back to square minus one after 1792-93 when thousands of people were massacred in Reign of Terror. This dance macabre paved the way for the take over of Brigadier General Napoleon in 1798, who later declared himself as Emperor in 1804. As an Emperor he brought about some reforms, but by 1815 it was all over as he lost in the Battle of Waterloo and France was thrown back to history.

A series of revolts in 1831 and 1848 led to the downfall of many tyrants and paved the way for Unification of Germany and Italy. However, the real democracy, which the West boasts about, is only a 20th century phenomenon, when women too got voting rights. Incidentally France, which takes credit for the growth of democratic idea, gave voting right to women in 1945, that is, after the Allied power rescued it from the four year of German occupation on August 26, 1944.

Even the United States gave voting right to all the citizens, including the entire Black population, a few decades back. Yet the West talks too much about exporting this so-called democratic-liberalism even before implementing it in to on itself.

After the liberal democratic idea it was the turn of the Communism to take the world by storm. But a close scrutiny of Communist history would suggest something else. Though it spread far and wide it failed to bring about a series of revolution in the world as it is happening now or in Europe earlier in the history. After the Russian Revolution of 1917 no other country came under its influence. In contrast it led to the birth of anti-Communist Fascist and Nazi regimes in Italy and Germany.

Communism expanded only after the end of World War-II in 1945 when Soviet army occupied several East European countries and thrust its own regime on them. China was the first big country, where Communist Revolution took place on October 1, 1949, that is 32 years after Russia. This was followed a decade later by Cuba while Vietnam and Cambodia fought their way to become Communist countries in 1975. Communist North Korea is actually the result of three years of Korean War (1950-53) in which South got support of the United States and allies while North Korea of China.

The current series of revolts in Arab countries is likely to disturb the West and Israel more than any other countries. Unlike Europe, only one language is spoken in the entire stretch of about 22 countries. They are followers of the same religion, Islam, and almost same sect too. Suddenly the importance of Muslim Brotherhood as one single largest entity has emerged. Except Bahrain, where the majority is Shia and ruler Sunni, all the other Arab countries are predominantly Sunni. Yet these Sunni revolutionaries are getting the moral support from Shia Iran, which is perhaps the most worrying development for the West and Israel. 

Earlier European kingdoms were also predominantly Christian but there was strong sectarian divide. Almost all of them spoke different languages with nationalistic feeling very strong. Colonialism further contributed to its growth. The wave of nationalism led to the two World Wars, which caused the death of between five and six crore people the world over.

So while democratic revolutions in Europe created more differences among the European nations the changes in the Arab world tend to bridge the gap among the population spread over two continents––Africa and Asia. Any such development is likely to have a far-reaching impact on the West, which is now trying its level best to deal with the emerging situation.

A century ago Britain and France started the process of disintegrating the Ottoman Empire, which got completed in 1922. Over a hundred years later the process has started reversing. No western or Israeli intelligence agencies perhaps ever predicted that in matter of weeks things would turn upside down.

Soroor Ahmed in Newzfirst. More Here

Egypt uprising: Is it internet driven?

The western and the Indian media, have blown the role of Facebook and Twitter so much out of proportion as if there would have been no revolution without them. What they tend to forget is that the ideology, the leadership, the zeal and motivating factors are more important than means.

There seems to be a grand design to undermine the very message of the revolution. There is a need to explode the myth of internet in bringing about the revolution. It is true it played its role, but attributing the revolution just to internet is simply unacceptable. Egypt still has a big number of computer illiterates, who took to streets on their own.

Much less is being actually written about the ideology, which motivated Tunisians and Egyptians to take to streets for so many days till they ultimately succeeded in getting rid of Ben Ali and Mubarak respectively. Yes, the movements were against the dictators and Tunisians and Egyptians eagerly wanted to have government which enjoyed people’s mandate. But they wanted more than that, which the media didn’t highlight.

There is strong element of anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism in these big upsurges, but this aspect is deliberately being ignored or underplayed. In case of Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood factor is being highlighted but sometimes with the element of doubt. The West once again wants to project that the revolutionaries are impressed by democracy in Europe and the United States and so, one way or the other, want to adopt their version of Democracy.

The truth is that the concept of government based on people’s mandate is much older in Islam than the West, which partially introduced it with hardly any success for the first time after the French Revolution of 1789. In fact what they now call as liberal democracy is fairly a recent development with countries like France, the so-called nursery of democratic change, permitting its women to vote for the first time in 1945. Even in the United States and several other countries this total democracy is a recent phenomenon, in which all its citizens, including Blacks and women were allowed to vote. In fact in Australia hunting of aboriginals was legal till only half a century back, not to speak of giving voting right to them. In fact India gave voting rights to all its citizens much before several western countries––Spain, Portugal are a few examples.

So when they talk of Muslim Brotherhood, it needs to be highlighted that its concept of government having people’s mandate, has its roots in the immediate aftermath of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) and not that of the western democracy of 20th or 21st centuries. The Brotherhood was formed in 1928, much before many western countries became democratic. From its founder Hasan-al-Bannah to Sayed Qutub and Mohammad Qutub––all of them are no more alive––have dealt in great details about Islam as a way of life in their writings.
The emergence and subsequent electoral victory of Hamas in Gaza has more to do with this idea rather than of the western democracy. In fact the champion of modern democracy, the United States, has always been opposed to the election victory of Hamas in 2006 and the West never gave it legitimacy.

The western writers, journalists, and other public opinion-makers are trying to take some credit for whatever is happening in Egypt or in other Arab countries, but there is no scope for it. Had the Communist ideology been powerful as in the past, they would have some satisfaction as after all it is also a western idea. Now that they have made no contribution they are repeatedly playing up the internet theory.

True Egypt is yet to see the emergence of leader like Erbakan in Turkey or Ayotullah Khomeini in Iran, but the ideology of Islam has played a big role in bringing the people to the streets. With large number of woman-marchers clad in burqa and demonstrators offering namaz (prayer) give fair amount of idea that the revolution has Islamic color.

But the problem with the western media is that over the years, they have distorted the image of Islam so much that it has become a sort of synonym to terrorism. How can they now say that Islam believes in peaceful political change like the one which is happening now?

So if the revolutionaries refused to resort to violence in spite of provocation by Mubarak’s agents, the West was quick to conclude that those who were protesting were modern-minded liberals who wanted a western democracy.

In spite of so much information explosion, the world perhaps knows more about the role of the Google executive Wael Ghonim in bringing people to the streets than about the Supreme Guide of Muslim Brotherhood Mohammad Badie––not to confuse it with Nobel Prize winner Mohammad El-Baradei.
Badie, 68, is himself a professor of veterinary medicine at the University of Beni Suef and was named by the Egyptian State Information Service in its annual listing as one of the top one hundred Arab scientists. He is also the founder of the Higher Veterinary Institute of the Arab Republic of Yemen. Yet the name of this great scholar is hardly visible in the western media as he does not fit in the western scheme of thing.

Soroor Ahmed in Two circles. More Here.

Two rapes, two media yardsticks

Perhaps nothing exposes media’s double standards better than the two recent cases of reporting involving two females: one in Bihar and other in Uttar Pradesh.
While media, electronic as well as print, rightly pursued the gang-rape story of a Nishad, an extremely backward caste girl in Uttar Pradesh it virtually blacked out a similar incident in Bihar, where ironically a Brahmin lady principal of school, Rupam Pathak, in her 40s, was allegedly raped several times by a BJP MLA and his aide.
There is one thing common in both the stories: the involvement of ruling party MLAs and their aides. While in UP the chief minister, Mayawati, at last got her own party’s Brahmin MLA arrested and the victim-girl released from jail when the media pursued the story in Bihar the media blacked-out the story so much that the victim woman had to take up the knife herself. On January 4 she stabbed to death the BJP MLA, Raj Kishore Kesri.
What is strange is that in case of UP even after Mayawati got Bahujan Samaj Party MLA Purushottam Naresh Dwivedi arrested, the media, especially the electronic channels, continued to criticize her for taking action one month later.
In Bihar Rupam, an upper caste educated woman had been undergoing trauma for last over three years, yet nobody dared to listen to her. At last when on April 18, 2010 she lodged an FIR against the MLA the deputy chief minister of Bihar, Sushil Kumar Modi, who is the senior most leader of the BJP in the state, dubbed her blackmailer. A Local English weekly of Purnea, the town of Rupam and the MLA, carried a story based on the FIR. The state media grossly underplayed it and the national channels never deemed it fit to give any space to it.
However, the charges levelled by Rupam Pathak were serious. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, while on his visit to Purnea during Vishwas Yatra after this development, refused to share dais with the said MLA, (now late) Raj Kishore Kesri. However, his deputy Sushil Modi, while delivering his speech from the same dais openly defended the MLA making it loud and clear for the administration not to listen to the victim’s complaints. She was forced to withdraw her statement before the court.

From Soroor Ahmed's blog in newzfirst.com More Here

Bhopal Gas Tragedy : What about the poisonous gas of hypocrisy?

 

Twenty-five years and a half later what Bhopal exposed is our collective hypocrisy. It is not just a case of too lenient a punishment given by a single judge, but the failure of the entire system. Our Parliament, Judiciary, Executive – both political and permanent – and of course the Press all let us down.

 

And now we are all enacting a drama titled The Bail-out of Warren Anderson.
 

The media barons – not just young reporters and sub-editors – think that the readers or the audience are the greatest fools, therefore, should be bombarded with all the old stuffs just to dramatise the situation and earn some fast buck through advertisements. So whatever is appearing in the Press is a sort of re-mix of a quarter century old songs, of course tragic ones. All what is appearing about Anderson is nothing new.

 

Everyone who matters – and old enough – is aware that he was ushered back into his own country with full state honour by the Indian state.

 

We all know that we are not going to get the 89-year old Anderson. For a moment, suppose that he is extradited by the United States. What are we going to do with him? After all what have we done to the remaining eight Indian officials – one in fact died in the prolonged legal battle. Two years imprisonment and then bail. If Anderson is being demanded for this much then we must be generous enough to pardon him!

 

The issue is just not the accidental leak of poisonous gas, but how is it that an industry of such a nature got established in the densely populated part of Bhopal. Why did the government not force the industry to shift from the place?

 

India is a unique country where industries are situated in the heart of many cities while schools in the suburbs. Or if that is not the case the population is allowed to grow around the industries, which actually were in outskirts.

 

In many of our cities schools are set up 10-20 or even more kilometres away from the population because most of the private institutes are opened by businessmen who get cheap farm land in the outskirts of the town. Therefore, children are made to travel more than a couple of hours daily inhaling all sorts of gases on way and back.

 

In contrast, industries are situated in the heart of towns because the government lacks vision and planning. Not to speak of Warren Anderson or anyone else, we cannot influence or force our own industrialists to shift their bases outside, nor can we prevent the growth of population near the industries. The nexus between the ruling class – not just politicians – the industrialists and the land mafia plays a key role in accidents like the one which took place in Bhopal.

 

What we all need to tell the people frankly is: Yes we cannot bring Anderson because he was the boss of an MNC. No, even our own industrialists are above the law. And that Bhopal is just a small price for the ‘development’ of the country.

 

Yet one thing should be kept in mind that we were in the Soviet camp then and opposed to the United States’ design in the world. In spite of that the American influence proved so influential. Today when the Soviet Union does not exist and India is wholly in the US camp the amount of pressure the lone Super Power can put on us in any given circumstances can only be imagined.

From Soroor Ahmed's article in Radiance. More Here.

The dawn of a powerful Iran..!

The scientific output has grown 11 times faster in Iran than the world average, faster than any other country. A survey of the number of scientific publications listed in the Web of Science database shows that the growth in the Middle East––mostly in Iran and Turkey––is nearly four times faster than the world average. Only in February last Iran had sent mouse, turtles and worms into the space.

It is not any Iranian or Turkish agency but Science-Metrix, a data analysis company in Montreal, which has published a detailed report on “geo-political shift in knowledge creation” since 1980. Eric Archambault, the author of the report and president of Science-Metrix is of the view that “Asia is catching up even more rapidly than previously thought, Europe is holding its position more than most would expect. And the Middle East is the region to watch.”

If that study is to be believed the scientific output of North America––the United States is the most important country in this continent––has grown considerably slower than the world as a whole in the last two decades. World scientific output grew steadily from 450,000 papers in 1980 to 1,500,000 in 2009. Asia as a whole surpassed North America last year.

The development of Iran and Turkey need to be viewed in a different context too. They have acquired this distinction when they have elected Islamic governments in power and do not have the secular and western-minded tin-pot dictators thrust on the people.

The progress made by these two powers are being recognized by countries like Russia and China, albeit for their own diplomatic and military interest. The United States, Israel and West Europe want to use sanctions to push back their development.

The people of Iran have exploded the western myth woven since the Khomeini-led Islamic Revolution in 1979; that the country of Ayatollahs cannot make any progress.

Now the western scholars are floundering for words to explain as to how “the Iran of Mullahs” and burqa-clad women are on the threshold of the space and nuclear age and has not travelled back to the stone age as they predicted. This notwithstanding all sorts of sanctions in the past and US backed and Saddam Husain-led eight year old war thrust on it (1980-87).

From Soroor Ahmed's article From Mini-Skirts To Burqas: Iran, Turkey Clad As Scientific Powers in Indian Muslims. Read More

It might be the Chinese year of the tiger, but scientifically, 2010 is looking like Iran's year.

Scientific output has grown 11 times faster in Iran than the world average, faster than any other country. A survey of the number of scientific publications listed in the Web of Science database shows that growth in the Middle East – mostly in Turkey and Iran – is nearly four times faster than the world average.

Science-Metrix, a data-analysis company in Montreal, Canada, has published a detailed report (PDF) on "geopolitical shifts in knowledge creation" since 1980. "Asia is catching up even more rapidly than previously thought, Europe is holding its position more than most would expect, and the Middle East is a region to watch," says the report's author, Eric Archambault.

From New Scientist.com More here and here and here