Unease with Islam finds voice in Europe’s mainstream

Question is Why terror attack in the name of Religion?

Most wrenching is the issue of free speech and the growing fear that any criticism could provoke violence

Europe appears to be crossing an invisible line regarding its Muslim minorities: more people in the political mainstream are arguing that Islam cannot be reconciled with European values.

“You saw what happened with the pope,” said Patrick Gonman, 43, the owner of Raga, a funky wine bar in downtown Antwerp, 40 km from here. He said Islam is an aggressive religion. And the next day they kill a nun somewhere and make his point. “Rationality is gone.”

Gonman is hardly an extremist. In fact, he organised a protest last week in which 20 bars and restaurants closed on the night when a far-right party with an anti-Muslim message held a rally nearby.

His worry is shared by centrists across Europe angry at terror attacks in the name of religion on a continent that has largely abandoned it, and disturbed that any criticism of Islam or Muslim immigration provokes threats of violence.

technorati tags: Europe, EU, Islam, Terrorism, Terror, Religion, Islamism

Quake raises fears of 2nd N. Korea test

Update:North Korea says it conducts nuke test

TOKYO – A strong earthquake in northern Japan on Wednesday may have led the Tokyo government to suspect that
North Korea had conducted a second nuclear test.In Washington, White House spokesman Blair Jones said U.S. officials had not detected any evidence of additional North Korea testing.

“Japanese officials are now saying that this occurrence may be related to an earthquake in northern Japan,” Jones said.

The reaction to the earthquake underscored the jitters in Asia over reports that North Korea planned a second test after it announced Monday it had conducted its first nuclear test. Some analysts expect the regime to conduct more tests amid suspicion the first, relatively small explosion might have partially failed.

technorati tags: News, , Korea, Japan, North Korea

Reservation: A game of Politics or A need of India?

Today Moily Committee has recommended, and defined, staggered implementation of quota system depending on each institution’s capacity to upgrade.

NEW DELHI, October 10: To ensure that the 27% OBC quota doesn’t come at one go and, thereby, undermine standards and infrastructure in institutions of higher education, the Veerappa Moily Committee has recommended, and defined, staggered implementation depending on each institution’s capacity to upgrade.

As per its roadmap, all Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and the Indian Institute of Science will implement 9% quotas each year beginning 2007-8 and ending 2009-2010 to reach the goal of 27%. In other words, the capacity expansion each year will be 18% (9% for OBCs and 9% for general).

Reservation: A game of Politics or A need of India?

Our government has recently announced plans for increasing the reservation or quote system from 27% to 49.5%. As per government note this reservation or quota system is essential and its only and main purpose is to increase the social diversity in campuses and work places by lowering the entry criteria for certain identifiable groups who are grossly under-represented in proportion to their numbers in general population. In short, its corrective measure by the government, to give justice and equal opportunity to backward class.

 

As citizen of India I would love to see when government will try to give equal right and equal opportunity to every citizen. While implementing this quota system, government is not doing justice with every citizen of India, what government is trying to do, give the benefit for particular segment of society for their own vote bank this is total injustice.

 

We need quota system if it’s based on economical basis, not on caste basis. Even our constitution says, No one in India is allowed to discriminate any body on basis, race, gender, sex or on caste. By implementing the quota system on basis of caste, government is dividing the society and it is termed as racial discrimination.

 

In 1979 when Mandal commission was setup, to asses the situation of socially backward and economically backward class people, commission didn’t have any records of OBC, so commission used the 1930 data, came up with the idea that in India almost 52% people are from OBC. So till today all the quota system is based on this report, which is made of data of 1930 census. Since then not a single government has tried to asses the situation again. Not even today government is ready to do survey to find out exactly how many people belong to OBC /SC/ST. Every one knows since the implementation of this quote system based on Mandal commission, many communities have been benefited and now they are cream layers of our society.

 

 

So my question is when these cream layers of OBC /SC/ST are not any more socially or economically backward, why they still get the benefit of quote system?

 

Even government knows very clearly that, this quota system is only going to benefit the economically sound people of lower caste or backward class. If we look on some of the studies, it clearly says that the OBC class is quite comparable with the general caste in terms of annual per capita consumption.

 

By implementing this quota system on caste basis, government is running away from its main duty that is giving these OBC /SC/ ST people their basic rights. These people need proper infrastructure to raise them selves, so that they can perform equally with others citizen of this country. What is the use of reservation in IIM or IIT, when person from this community don’t even have access to the proper school in his village or in town? I know many villages and town, which don’t even have proper government school or public schools. Government should put more efforts in building basic infrastructure for these backward classes; give them proper education so that can compete any where in world not just in India.

 

At present government doesn’t have any proper monitoring system to see and check, who is taking the advantage of this quota system? Whether this quota is really going to benefit OBS/SC/ST or its benefiting people with money and power? I still remember that in June or July 2006 there was program on TV showing how people of upper caste in Punjab are busy in making false certificate of OBS/SC/ST so that they can get use this biased quota system to get job and education.

 

So who is benefiting from this quota system? People with money and power. Every one knows that you can get the certificate of OBC/SC/ST from your local authority, if you pay some bribe, it is happening now, it has happened in past where people took the advantage of this system and today they are working in some big government sector and take my word it will happen in future again, as government doesn’t have any proper monitoring service.

 

So in short the current approach from quota system is not going to help all those people who are leading very pathetic life in India, irrespective of their caste, religion and colour. People who really need this sort of help from government will not be getting any benefit from this quota system.

 

If government really wants to do some thing for these people, then she should provide proper primary education system first to every citizen who is leading pathetic life irrespective of caste and religion. Give them proper and full scholarship, motivate them to go to school, reduced the drop out from school.

 

It just a shame that some our Ministers, are talking of quota system just to raise their vote bank. We need reservation on grounds of economics, not on caste system. We need proper infrastructure which government has promised us. We need proper primary education for these poor people.

 

I would welcome any government move to support every citizen of this Great India irrespective their caste and religion, to make their life and their children life better for tomorrow.

 

Please don’t divide this country on caste system; we had enough of caste system in India.

 

technorati tags: India, IndiaHappenings, News, India_News, Current_Affairs

Now Ghandhigiri in Colleges!

Lage Raho Munna Bhai popularised Gandhism under the new term called Gandhigiri. This movie has left so much effect on our society that now a days most of the youths talking about Ghandhism. Many have started to follow the path of Ghandhism and I hope many more will start sooner or later. The only doubt I have that many people in our society try to forget many thing in such a pace that nothing could survive for long. Our core value on which we fought our independence and become independent nation is Gandhism values. But before the releasing of this movie Gandhi exists only on the walls of Political Offices and Currency notes. The politicians who propagate this ideology themselves do not follow the principles! Also, it is the fault of our generation who wants to go a long way in a short time. I hope this time people wont forget so soon the core values on which India stand today and I also hope that many more college will start similar type of courses so that our new generation will understand what Ghandgism is all about and why it so much important in today’s hatred world.

Now, a little bit of Gandhi in colleges

 

 

 

Gandhi — both the man and the idea — is seeping into city campuses. At least four colleges have set up centres for Gandhian studies, aimed at teaching the Mahatma’s principles and their applicability in day-to-day life.

The colleges — KJ Somaiya College, Birla College, CHM College and Shailendra Education Society’s College of Arts, Commerce and Science — have also decided to jointly conduct outreach programmes on Gandhian studies.

Vaidehi Daptardar, principal of KJ Somaiya College, said new-age jargon like crisis management and anger management, but with a Gandhian twist, would be in the course’s “priority list”.

Funded by the University Grants Commission, the centres will provide a three-month certificate course and organise seminars, besides conducting research on Gandhian literature.

technorati tags: India, IndiaNews, Bollywood, Gandhi