Barbarism of Pakistan

Press Statement by VHP Working President (External) Ashokrao Chowgule

Barbarism of Pakistan

 (ChGoa)-10-Jun.2013

The beheading of the two Indian jawans by the Pakistani army is another indication of how much barbarism has steeped in that institution.  There seems to be a tradition in the Pakistani army to undertake such barbarism against the Hindu soldiers, and the fact that the incidents are repeated is a clear sign that they take a perverse pleasure in the act.

During the Kargil War, Capt Saurabh Kalia was brutally murdered and  his mutilated body was returned to India.  The intention was to try and instil fear in the jawans of the Indian army to try and demoralise them.  However, the character of the jawans was such that such a barbaric act actually encouraged them to fight with even greater vigour in defence of Bharat Mata. 

Earlier in 1999,Ilyas Kashmiri,a former member of the Special Services Group(SSG)of the Pakistan Army, and his men entered Indian territory, killed an Indian soldier, decapitated him and carried his head as a trophy to Pakistan.He presented the head to Musharraf who congratulated him and his men and rewarded them. 

The home minister of Pakistan comes to India to discuss peace.  But he uses the opportunity of his presence on Indian soil to say that Capt Kalia could have been killed due to weather.  Instead of asking him to immediately leave India, the government decided to ignore the atrocious statement, and continued to talk to him. 

Musharraf has been felicitated not only by the various governments of India, but he is paid to speak to Indians at programmes organised by the media and other organisations.  And there are many Indians who pay to hear him speak in a manner that is extremely insulting to our country. 

Even today, the Pakistani government is defending the barbaric action of its army. 

Vishwa Hindu Parishad is extremely saddened by the fact that those who proclaim that they are trying to get the people of India and Pakistan to discuss ways to achieve peace in the supposed people-to-people contact do not even think it necessary to discuss the barbaric behaviour of the Pakistani army.  However, in such programmes many of the Indians seem to support the false allegations made by the Pakistanis about human rights violation by the Indian army and other forces who are sacrificing their lives to protect India and its people. 

It needs to be mentioned here that when Shambhaji Maharaj, the son of Shivaji, was captured by Aurangzeb, he was tortured for three days to force him to convert to Islam.  However, the great Maharaj bravely faced the extreme pain, and died a martyr rather than be unfaithful to the memory of his father, who established the Hindu Pad Padshahi. 

Vishwa Hindu Parishad demands:

1.      All contacts between Pakistan and India be immediately suspended until those guilty of the   barbarism are brought to justice.  This is not only the persons who have indulged in the act, but also their superiors in the army and the establishment.

2.      People like Musharraf should not be allowed to step on Indian soil.

3.    Media and other organisations should not be allowed to invite people from Pakistan who only use the platform to hurl abuse against India.

4. The so called Track II diplomacy should be immediately stopped by those organising such futile efforts.  The only purpose such programmes achieve is to give the people of India a false   impression that genuine peace can still be achieved even with the barbarism that is seen in       Pakistan.

Contact: ashokvc@chowgulegoa.com.

A Hindu moment for Congress

http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2013/01/a-hindu-moment-for-congress-stephen.html

Column: A Hindu moment for Congress

Stephen Prothero9:09p.m. EST January 3, 2013

Swearing in of new House member holds lesson for politicians.

(Photo: J. Scott Applewhite, AP)

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

·         Hawaii's Rep. Tulsi Gabbard was raised by Hindu mother and Catholic father.

·         As a child she was exposed to New Testament and Hindu's Bhagavad Gita.

·         Her new colleagues should note Gita's message of "selfless service".

When a Hindu priest from Ohio offered the first Hindu prayer in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, the socially conservative Family Research Council denounced the prayer as "one more indication that our nation is drifting from its Judeo-Christian roots." When a Hindu from Nevada offered the first Hindu prayer in the Senate in 2007, protesters from the anti-abortion group Operation Save America interrupted him, calling on Jesus to forgive the nation "for allowing a prayer of the wicked."

But on Thursday, when Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, the first Hindu ever elected to the Congress, took her oath of office on the Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita, the nation simply shrugged. "I believe strongly in embracing diversity," Gabbard told me in an e-mail interview, and for now at least this "aloha spirit" is spreading to the mainland.

Raised by a Hindu mother and a Catholic father in "a multiracial, multicultural, multifaith family," Gabbard was exposed as a child to both the New Testament and the Bhagavad Gita. As a teenager, she embraced a Hindu identity and took the Gita as her guide.

The Gita is a small portion of the Indian epic the Mahabharata ("Great India"), which appears on its face to be a book about war — a bloody battle between two rival clans: the righteous Pandavas and the unrighteous Kauravas. In fact, at some 100,000 verses(longer than the Bible, the Iliad and the Odyssey combined) the Mahabharata is the world's longest reflection on war.

The Gita itself is a manifesto on duty that takes place on the eve of the bloodletting. Arjuna, a member of the righteous Pandava family, is about to march into battle. As a warrior, he knows it is his duty to fight. Yet he also knows that if he fights, he will kill kinsmen and teachers alike. What to do? The answer comes from Arjuna's charioteer, who also happens to be the Hindu god Krishna in disguise. And what Krishna says is that Arjuna must fight. He must do so, however, without desiring the "fruits" of his actions.

I asked Gabbard how this teaching might apply to politics. Gabbard replied that the Gita teaches her to try "to maintain my equilibrium in either success or failure." She then turned to Mahatma Gandhi: "The world's most famous Hindu, Mahatma Gandhi ... worked tirelessly for the welfare of his country and all of humanity without any thought of personal gain, leaving his ultimate success or failure in God's hands."

When I pressed Gabbard, who was deployed twice to the Middle East with the Hawaii Army National Guard, about applying Krishna's words to her own battlefield experiences, she initially said that the Gita isn't really about war. The central topics of the Gita are, she said, "enlightenment, love for God, selfless service, and how each of us can succeed in our struggle on the 'battlefields' of life." She then added that during wartime, she "found great comfort and shelter in the Bhagavad Gita's message of the eternality of the soul and God's unconditional love."

As a religion professor, I see her swearing in as a "teachable moment" — a Hindu moment. But it could also be a time to shed some light from Asia onto American politics.

The problem in Washington today is that legislators almost always act based on how they think their actions will help or hurt their political careers. An antidote to our epidemic of partisanship can be found in the "great tradition of conciliation" in which American statesmen from Thomas Jefferson to John Kennedy put the good of the country above the interests of self, party, or region. This tradition could be revived, if only we would heed the words of George Washington, who warned against the "mischiefs of the spirit of party," or of Patrick Henry, who exclaimed, "I am not a Virginian but an American."

It could also be revived by an infusion of the Gita's principle of selfless service. If Democrats and Republicans could learn to cast their votes without first (and foremost) calculating the costs and benefits to their personal careers, Capitol Hill would start to look a less like a battlefield between rival clans and more like the arena of compromise and conciliation our Founders intended it to be.

Stephen Prothero is a professor in Boston University's religion department and the author of The American Bible: How Our Words Unite, Divide, and Define a Nation.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/01/03/hindu-tulsi-gabbard-congress/1808127/

दुर्लभ संयोग, गंगा हुई पश्चिम वाहिनी

 महाकंुभ पर्व के लिए सुखद संयोग बन रहा है। गंगा की एक धारा का प्रवाह पश्चिम वाहिनी हो गया है। इससे गंगा-यमुना का संगम किला घाट के पास बन रहा है। पद्म पुराण के मुताबिक यह संयोग अत्यंत दुर्लभ है।

**  पश्चिम वाहिनी गंगा-यमुना के संगम में स्नान से एक कल्प के पाप नष्ट होते हैं। छतनाग से गंगा का प्रवाह दो भागों में बंट गया है। एक धारा अरैल में यमुना से मिल रही है। यहां बन रहे संगम के बाद गंगा का प्रवाह काशी की ओर मुड़ जा रहा है। दूसरी धारा उलटकर पश्चिम वाहिनी हो गई, जिसकी वजह से गंगा का मैदान काफी विस्तृत हो गया है। गंगा की यह धारा किले तक पहंुचने का प्रयास कर रही है।

स्रोतः http://in.jagran.yahoo.com/epaper/index.php?location=49&edition=2013-01-09&pageno=5#id=111759074432930714_49_2013-01-09

state assembly on Saturday passed the Odisha Hindu Religious Endowments (Amendment) Bill 2012

After three-day marathon debate, the state assembly on Saturday passed the Odisha Hindu Religious Endowments (Amendment) Bill 2012, which gives first preference to the state government to buy immovable properties from Hindu religious institutions.

As per the amendment in the Odisha Hindu Religious Endowments Act, 1951, any proposal to dispose of immovable property of any Hindu religious institutions, the first sale offer will go to the State government. If the State Government refused to buy the endowment property, the property will be put to public sale with permission from the Endowments Commissioner, Law Minister Raghunath Mohanty told the Assembly.

Opposition BJP and Congress had sought withdrawal of the Bill saying it was hastily introduced keeping in mind some ulterior motive. Allaying any apprehension, law minister Raghunath Mohanty said it would help government buy such land in important places for larger public good. Currently, land of these institutions is being purchased by private parties, preventing the government from using those for public purpose such as expansion of office, court building and roads.The amendment to the original Act was required as the power to grant permission for sale of immovable property, mostly land of Hindu religious institutions, was vested with the Endowments Commissioner. The State Government has little scope to know about sale or mortgage of endowments property except when dispute arises over the property and the parties involved in the dispute went for appeal. Secretary of Law Department is the first appellate authority for hearing the appeal.

The Minister said there are many religious institutions, managed by either hereditary trustee or non-hereditary Trust Board constituted under the provisions of the Endowments Act, are not financially sound. In many cases, immovable properties of such institutions are located in areas where development is taking place at a rapid pace.

In view of the huge price rise of real estate, the middle class, lower middle class and economically weaker sections are not able to participate in the auction of endowments land in important localities. Only higher income groups and people in real estate business are taking advantage of the sale of endowments properties.

Mohanty said in many cases properties of such institutions were located in important urban localities where development was fast taking place. But whenever the institutions decide to sell those, only rich people were able to but those. The state has over 16000 temples and over 450 mutts.

The State Government will intimate its decision whether to purchase the land or not to the Trustee or the person-in-charge of the endowments property within 45 days which may be extended by another 30 days, the Minister said

Raped Hindu girl in Sindh finds support ANITA JOSHUA Civil society activists of Pakistan are rallying to secure justice for the six-year-old Hindu girl from the Meghwar community who was raped in the Umerkot district of Sindh last week. The girl was found raped and tortured on a street. Her case did not get much media attention after two local journalists who reported about it were threatened by the alleged perpetrators. The Class I student was shifted from the local hospital to a larger one in Lyari on the intervention of the Deputy Speaker of Sindh Assembly. Meanwhile, activists have started an online petition to draw attention to her case in particular and the condition of the Hindu community in general. In a related development, a Hindu doctor was shot dead in the Mastung area of Balochistan while on his way home. http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-international/raped-hindu-girl-in-sindh-finds-support/article4198111.ece

Raped Hindu girl in Sindh finds support

ANITA JOSHUA

Civil society activists of Pakistan are rallying to secure justice for the six-year-old Hindu girl from the Meghwar community who was raped in the Umerkot district of Sindh last week.

The girl was found raped and tortured on a street. Her case did not get much media attention after two local journalists who reported about it were threatened by the alleged perpetrators. The Class I student was shifted from the local hospital to a larger one in Lyari on the intervention of the Deputy Speaker of Sindh Assembly.

Meanwhile, activists have started an online petition to draw attention to her case in particular and the condition of the Hindu community in general.

In a related development, a Hindu doctor was shot dead in the Mastung area of Balochistan while on his way home.

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-international/raped-hindu-girl-in-sindh-finds-support/article4198111.ece