A research team of the Kannada Research Institute of Karnatak University has discovered what could be a 2,000-year-old Buddhist site at Tunnur in Chitapur taluk of Gulbarga district.
During the excavation, archaeologists recovered priceless artefacts and terracotta items revealing the influence of Buddhism in the region. According to Dr. Shadaksharaiah, the research team found artefacts dating back to many centuries and most of the sculptural panels found were scattered in a radius of about 1 km.
Some of the panels recovered included one depicting Mandoka Jataka story, Dharmachakra, a piece of stupa fence, and two types of memorial stones. In the Mandoka Jataka story panel the figures of a queen, Amatya, pattada horse, and pattada elephant are clearly visible, and the panel is quite similar to the one recovered from Hampi in Bellary district.
Research scholars during the course of their work found two distinct memorials. One of them belonged to the king and the royal members and another to the common people. In the former, there are figures of a horse, servants of the royal family, and king and queen seated and holding goblets.
Some of the memorials bear labels with inscriptions in Brahmi script and Prakrit language. One of them reads: “Valavasa Papalana Kanhasa.” Kanhasa means Krishna. [Sun Network via India India Archaeology]
An Un-Islamic Act
All Iran wants to do is pursue a “peaceful” nuclear program and the whole world is against them. The Europeans understand this vey well and so they agreed to block any security council resolutions against Iran. But now Iran’s President Mohammad Khatami has said that the country is willing to pay any price for pursuing the “peaceful” program.
Khatami said Tehran was ready to give guarantees that its nuclear program, including enriching uranium, would not be diverted toward making weapons, as Washington suspects. He said atomic weapons go against the teachings of Islam.[Yahoo News via LGF]
Since atomic weapons are un-Islamic, we know which Islamic nation is a criminal before the eyes of God.
The Kashmir Talk Drama
Now the moderates in Hurriyat Conference have backed off talks from the Indian Govt saying that they don’t like the pre-conditions. The pre-condition they are referring to is the statement that the dialogue would be held under the framework of the Indian Constitution.
Now any Indian Minister who has sworn allegience to the Indian Union cannot hold talks with anyone outside the framework of the constitution. This was how talks were held before and then there was no issue. But then the Hurriyat are no democracy lovers. They asked people to boycott the elections because “the election process is no solution to the Kashmir problem”
Praveen Swami chronicles the latest developments in the Hurriyat. The hardline Islamic fundamentalists of the Jamaat-e-Islami ‘organisation’, backed by Hizbul Mujahideen, its armed ‘faction’ are on the ascendency. This leaves the moderate elements of the Hurriyat, which was playing peek-a-boo over talks with the Indian government, in a state of disarray.
The moderates are suffering because of their own lack of conviction. And they lack conviction because they lack representative credentials. Once the Indian government began warming up to the Hurriyat, its Pakistani architects got worried and promptly pulled the plug, leaving the Hurriyat grasping for the correct end ‘of a rotting bough’. The Islamic hardliners and their terrorist offspring had no such problems – their stand was consistently in favour of an Islamic turn towards Pakistan.[The Acorn]
Maybe this is just a strategy by the Hurriyat leaders to show that they too can be tough.
Accuse The Accuser
As I pointed out earlier, if you are guilty of something, the best strategy is to accuse your accusers of the same crime. Then you have to repeat it as many times as possible so that the label sticks on the accuser. President Bush has used this trick successfully by labeling John Kerry as a flip-flopper, while taking focus away from the fact that he too has been a flip-flopper.
Now Pakistan, our major ally in the war in terror is using the same trick
Pakistan on Tuesday asked India to stop its diplomatic mission in Afghanistan from sponsoring terrorism inside Pakistan, as a step forward to settle issues related to terrorism.[The Nation]
A Pampered State
One of the solutions for the Kashmir problem is to grant more autonomy for the state. But Arvind Lavakare in this article writes that the state has all the freedom it wants by staying with the Indian Union.
J&K is the only state in India where a distinction has been permitted to be made between state citizens (designated as ‘permanent residents’) and other Indian citizens (who are not ‘permanent residents’) and where — contrary to the principles of equality before the law (Article 14), prohibition of discrimination on the ground of place of birth (Article 15) and equality of opportunity in public employment (Article 16), — laws are permissible to confer special rights and privileges on ‘permanent residents’ with respect to employment under the state government, acquisition of immovable property in the state, settlement in the state and right to scholarships as well as other state government aid
As though all of the above and more besides was not enough to honour the ‘special status’ of J&K, the nugget that insults the dignity of India is Section 64 of the J&K constitution. This section stipulates that the oath of affirmation to be made by i. a candidate for election to the state legislature ii. a member of the state legislature iii. a deputy minister and a minister (including the chief minister) of the state government and iv. a judge of the state high court should ‘bear true faith and allegiance to the constitution of the State as by law established.’ Note that the allegiance here is exclusively to the constitution of J&K state and not to the Constitution of India in addition.[Rediff]
So here you have a pampered state which does not owe allegience to the Indian Union and still get subsidised by the country and no political party in India has the guts to abrogate this.
Globalization and Kashmir
Magnum Software Services, located on the outskirts of Srinagar, Kashmir’s main city and the nerve center of a 15-year revolt against Indian rule, has become the first company in the region to bag an international back-office services contract. The firm has recruited 315 young Kashmiri men and women in recent weeks to format medical files and research data for a Singapore client. Soon it also plans to provide accounting and legal transcription services.[NY Times]
Besides this foreign investment, there are Indian companies investing in Jammu and Kashmir as well. Other than tourism and export of Kashmiri shawls, now new industries are popping up creating more employment, which alone can lead to a decrease in terrorism.
You Can Be Premji
Q: So what happens if you go to one of the schools where you are involved and a young Muslim kid comes up and says
Did Nawaz Sharif Know ?
Crossing the Line of Control and taking over Kargil in India was a plan implemented by the Pakistani Superman Musharraf. There have been various versions of stories on if the Democratically elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was aware of these plans. Nawaz Sharif has always maintained that he neve knew about it and was shocked when the Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee called him to ask what was going on. Now the temporary Pakistani Prime Minister Shujjat Hussain has said that Nawaz Sharif was in the loop.
Debunking former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s claim that he was kept in the dark on the Kargil operations by army chief Gen Pervez Musharraf, Pakistani Premier Shujjat Hussain has said that Sharif had not only given the go ahead for the incursions but also wanted to wrest Srinagar.
“I was present there. It was Nawaz Sharif’s desire to reach Srinagar. People should keep one face. Sharif has kept a dual face,” Hussain, who was interior minister in the Sharif government, told Aaj Tak.[Rediff]
There are reasons to believe that Sharif did not know about it. For example in his trial after Gen. Musharraf took over, the ex-Prime Minister complained that the “ill-planned and ill-conceived operation was kept so secret that the Prime Minister, some Corps Commanders and the Chief of Navy and Air Force were kept in the dark”.
On June 11, the Indian Govt. released two tapes of the conversation between Gen. Musharraf and Lt. General Mohammed Aziz in which it was evident that the Prime Minister was not involved.
But Pakistani Army officers maintain that the Kargil operation was first mentioned to Sharif in a meeting that took place in an ISI office in Lahore in February 1999 and the Prime Minister granted formal approval in the second week of March at a meeting held in the ISI headquarters in Islamabad. But according to eyewitness reports, there was only a mention of increasing militant activity and not an incursion across the border.
According to Owen Bennet Jones in his book, Pakistan, the Army probably told Sharif something, but not in detail. The Army thought that the operation would remain as a small border skirmish and not get into a full blown war. In this context, the new revelation by a puppet prime minister of Musharraf that Sharif wanted to wrest Srinagar seems unbelievable. [Information adapted from Pakistan]
10 Olympic Medals For India
The Macroeconomics team of PricewaterhouseCoopers is predicting that India will win 10 medals in the Athens Olympics.
The Indians managed only one bronze medal in the previous edition at Sydney, but the analysis, which takes into account factors like population, average income levels, whether the country is the host nation and whether it was previously a part of the Soviet Bloc, predicts an unprecedented haul for the country.[Rediff]
Note that the study does not take into account the number of medals India has won in the previous Olympics. Also it does not take into account of the fact that India did not send troops to Iraq.
An Economic Solution
While a diplomatic or political solution to Kashmir seems far away, an economic solution would be a good start from the Indian point of view. Already the state of Jammu and Kashmir has been getting massive funds from the Indian Union.
The Union government’s aid to J&K has therefore far outstripped the growth in the GDP, which has averaged roughly 5% in this time frame. What does this mean? J&K gets a larger and larger share of central expenditure on states. In fact, it gets 10 percent of all central assistance and J&K has received more than any other state since 1995! Far out of proportion to its fair share, which by population should be about 1 percent: that is, J&K gets roughly ten times what it deserves.[Rajeev Srinivasan on Rediff]
But what is needed is more and more Indian companies setting up shop in the state so that there is economic development as well as assimilation. And the Govt. of Jammu and Kashmir is going in that direction.
FOUR leading leather companies from Chennai, including one that makes shoes for Florsheim brand, have committed to set up facilities in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) either on their own or through collaborations with local partners. Apart from the leather sector, Mr Sayeed and Mr Sahasranamam said, the K.K. Birla group has committed to set up another textile unit at a cost of Rs 560 crore, while others like the Oswal and Dhainik Bhaskar groups are also keen on setting up textile units. [Businessline]