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You are here: Home / Archives for Nasheman

New study outlines how Americans see Sikhism

January 14, 2015 by Nasheman

A Sikh boy marches in the annual Sikh Day Parade in New York, April 27, 2013. CREDIT: REUTERS/KEITH BEDFORD/FILES

A Sikh boy marches in the annual Sikh Day Parade in New York, April 27, 2013. CREDIT: REUTERS/KEITH BEDFORD/FILES

by Arun Kumar

Washington: A new comprehensive study of Sikhs in America, outlining how Americans perceive Sikhism and what the community needs to convey to effectively build positive awareness in America, is set to be released later this month.

The study giving facts, images, and stories of Sikhs in America, was conducted by noted pollster Geoff Garin, president of Peter D. Hart Research, who was the chief strategic advisor to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.

It will be published by the National Sikh Campaign (NSC) launched earlier this year to help promote the Sikh image in America.

NSC hopes to use this data to shape the Sikh community’s communication strategy going forward, according to a media release.

“This study will help our community because we now know what we need to be communicating and whom we need to be communicating with to build awareness a” which is critical for a brighter, violence-free future in America said Gurwin Singh Ahuja, co-founder and executive director of NSC.

“This future hinges on our ability to effectively tell our fellow citizens that our values are their values, that Sikh values are American values,a¿ he said.

The report outlines how Sikh Americans are currently viewed by their fellow Americans at large, the key targeted messages Sikhs need to communicate to the broader public to build maximum understanding of their faith and their identity, and the specific communities the Sikh community needs to communicate with to build relationships.

This thorough study is the result of a political style national polling methodology, including focus groups, according to Rajwant Singh, chairman of the Sikh Council on Religion and Education (SCORE) and senior advisor to NSC.

The report will pave the way for NSC to begin larger advertisement and media collaborations with highly-regarded political consulting firm, AKPD a” founded by David Axelrod, one of President Barack Obama’s main campaign strategists, the release said.

Since its launch, NSC has been networking with business leaders and Gurdwaras around the country to engage them to join this unprecedented campaign for Sikhs in America.

(IANS)

Filed Under: India Tagged With: Sikhism, Sikhs, United States, USA

River inter-linking to continue despite opposition, says Venkaiah Naidu

January 14, 2015 by Nasheman

River linking

New Delhi: Notwithstanding concerns raised by environmentalists, the Union government on Tuesday said it will take up inter-linking of rivers on a priority basis “come what may” and that any “obstacles” which may come in the way would be addressed or removed.

“Some of our environmentalist friends are raising voices. There will be voices in democracy, let there be. But, they have answers also … We have to take up river linking on a priority basis come what may,” Union urban development minister M. Venkaiah Naidu said at a function to mark ‘India Water Week’ here.

“Whatever obstacles come, that has be addressed and they have to be removed,” he added.

Environmentalists have raised concerns over inter-linking of rivers, claiming that it would threaten the ac-aquatic life and has no hydrological and ecological soundness.

Mr. Naidu said developed countries are “giving us lessons and sermons” and added, “We have to first develop, then we can give lessons to others.”

Filed Under: Environment, India Tagged With: BJP, Indian Rivers Inter-link, River Linking, Rivers, Venkaiah Naidu, Water

Over 30 bodies found in canal in Uttar Pradesh

January 14, 2015 by Nasheman

30-bodies-found-in-canal-in-Uttar-Pradesh

Lucknow: Over 30 unclaimed and rotten bodies were found floating Tuesday in a canal in Unnao, 60 km from Uttar Pradesh capital Lucknow, according to news reports.

Officials, soon after the discovery of the bodies noticed by the locals, rushed to the Paeriyar Ghat where people go to consign mortal remains to flames. Police said these bodies were of people whose families did not have enough money to give them a decent cremation.

Inspector General of Police (Kanpur) Ashutosh Pandey said due to lack of money, the bodies were either dumped by families in the shallow waters of the Ganga or left buried under sand in the encastchment area.

These, he added, would float after being eaten up by river animals and fishes. Some bodies were half burnt and half eaten up, officials informed.

Inspector General (Law and Order) A. Satish Ganesh informed that police were looking into all possible angles.

Saumya Agarwal, district magistrate of Unnao, has since ordered the cremation of all the bodies.

Initially it was rumoured that the bodies were of victims those who were killed in Unnao’s hooch tragedy Monday.

Laxmikant Bajpayi, BJP state president, also reached the scene after news of bodies being recovered reached to him.

He spoke to senior government officials and asked them not to use machines to lift the bodies, instead he advised to get autopsies conducted and give them a decent creamation Wednesday.

(Agencies)

Filed Under: India Tagged With: Unnao, Uttar Pradesh

Idukki India's first district connected with optical fibre project

January 14, 2015 by Nasheman

idukki-broadband

Thiruvananthapuram: Idukki district in the state has become the first in India to be connected with high-speed rural broadband network.

Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad Monday commissioned the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) at Idukki.

NOFN would open up new avenues for telecom service providers, Internet service providers and cable TV operators, content providers to launch next generation services and spur creation of local employment opportunities in a big way.

Currently, the district has 8 block offices and 53 gram panchayats. Of these 8 block offices and 52 gram panchayats have been connected on optical fibre and one gram panchayat, namely Edamalakudy, is connected through VSAT, an official statement said.

Edamalakudy, is a tribal gram panchayat consisting of 26 tribal villages with a population of around 2,200. It is remotely located, around 18 km from Pettimudi which is the last point one can go to using a vehicle.

“BSNL has made exceptional efforts in connecting this gram panchayat and now broadband Internet as well as mobile services are available over here. For the first time the villages under this panchayat would be connected through mobile phones and Internet,” it added.

NOFN aims to provide high-speed broadband connectivity to 2.5 lakh gram panchayats by December 2016 and the estimated cost of the project is around Rs 30,000 crore.

The government has set a target of rolling out optical fibre network across 50,000 village panchayat by the end of this financial year, 1 lakh by March 2016 and another 1 lakh by end of 2016.

Filed Under: India Tagged With: Idukki, National Optical Fibre Network, NOFN

Two injured in clashes in Kundapur

January 13, 2015 by Nasheman

Representational Image

Representational Image

Mangaluru: Two persons were seriously injured in clashes between members of two communities at Kodi near Kundapura in Udupi district, police said.

The clash began near a hotel at Halavalli where the two persons were attacked by a group of people yesterday. They had been hospitalised. Two others of another community also sustained minor injuries in the clashes, police said.

The complaint by two men who claimed they were attacked first registered at the Kundapur police station said they were attacked by a 25-member group with soda bottles. In the counter-complaint, the other two said they were attacked by a group of youths when they were returning from a relative’s house.

Armed reserve police personnel had been deployed in the area following the clashes. Kundapur police have registered two cases and investigations are on.

(PTI)

Filed Under: India Tagged With: Communal Violence, Kundapur

BJP MPs spent crores of taxpayers' money at five star hotel: reports

January 13, 2015 by Nasheman

BJP

New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government’s austerity polices have taken a hit after an RTI report claimed that many BJP MPs enjoyed their overstay at five-star hotels on tax-payers’ money.

The RTI report showed that till November 15,2014, 92 MPs, since their election, several of them from the BJP, have been living at the Ashoka Hotel in Delhi, in spite of being allotted the government accommodation, said an IBN Live report.

The report further claimed that the hotel bills is likely to be in crores.

According to the rules, the MPs should move into the residences within eight days of the allotment.

However, the BJP MPs in question have denied overstaying at five-star hotels and rubbished the report saying its data was outdated.

The latest RTI revelation contradicts the Modi government’s austerity policies. Last year, the Finance Ministry in order to cut down the unexpected expenditure by 10 percent announced a few austerity measures. The measures included orders to officials to avoid meetings at five-star hotels, restriction on ministers’ first class air travel to abroad among others.

(Agencies)

Filed Under: India Tagged With: BJP, Narendra Modi, RTI

Delhi election Feb 7, result Feb 10

January 12, 2015 by Nasheman

delhi-assembly-election

New Delhi: Delhi will vote to elect a new assembly Feb 7, a year after the AAP government resigned after 49 days in power, and the votes will be counted Feb 10, it was announced Monday.

Election Commissioner V.S. Sampath said the last date for nomination of candidates will be Jan 21 and they could withdraw from the contest by Jan 24.

Delhi elected a hung assembly in December 2013 after which the Aam Aadmi Party formed a minority government headed by Arvind Kejriwal with Congress backing. Kejriwal resigned Feb 14, 2014.

The Delhi assembly was dissolved in November last year, after all three major parties – the BJP, the Congress, and Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party – said they were not in a position to form the government.

Delhi has not had a chief minister since Arvind Kejriwal resigned after 49 days in office in February last year. His party has appealed to Delhi to give it a majority and Mr Kejriwal the chance to be chief minister for a longer term this time.

(IANS)

Filed Under: India Tagged With: AAP, Arvind Kejriwal, BJP, Congress, Delhi, Elections, Narendra Modi

NRIs can vote through postal ballots

January 12, 2015 by Nasheman

Supreme Court India

New Delhi: The Centre on Monday told the Supreme Court that the EC’s recommendation to extend voting rights to NRIs through postal ballots have been accepted in letter and spirit.

Taking note of the submissions, a bench comprising Chief Justice H L Dattu and A K Sikri asked the Centre to inform it about “further steps taken to implement the suggestions.”

The bench posted the matter after eight weeks, asking the Centre to do the needful at the earliest.

“Since the views and recommendation have been accepted let them go ahead with the follow-up. They will have to carry out the follow—up process at the earliest,” the bench said.

The Centre’s stand was clarified by Additional Solicitor General P L Narasimha, who said certain amendments are required to be carried out and the ministry of law is working on them, taking into consideration the EC recommendations.

On November 14 last year, the Supreme Court had asked the Centre to make its stand clear on the EC’s proposal for allowing NRIs to cast their votes through proxy voting and e-ballots in polls in India.

The apex court had then granted four weeks time to the government to respond to the proposal prepared by a 12-member committee led by Vinod Zutshi, Deputy Election Commissioner, for ‘Exploring Feasibility of Alternative Options for Voting by Overseas Electors.’

In the report, the committee has said it is of the view that e-postal ballot, where blank postal ballot is transferred electronically to NRIs and returned by post, can be employed after validation of the process and pilot implementation in one or two constituencies.

The report further said the process can be scaled up for Parliamentary elections, if found feasible, practicable and meeting the objectives of free and fair polls.

The committee comprising officials from the EC, Law Ministry and MEA had gathered opinion from all sections before submitting a report to the apex court.

The poll panel had contended that the move to allow NRIs to use proxy voting on the lines of defence personnel and e-ballot facility will require changes in the law and a legislative framework.

According to the provisions of the Representation of People Act, a person who is a citizen of India and who has not acquired the citizenship of any other country and is otherwise eligible to be registered as a voter and who is absent from his place of ordinary residence in India owing to employment, education or otherwise, is eligible to be registered as a voter in the constituency in which his place of residence in India, as mentioned in his passport, is located.

The court had earlier asked the EC to place before it the report of the committee set up by it to “study various available options for the purpose of NRI voting“.

The apex court was hearing a batch of PILs in which it has been contended that the existing provision which mandates NRI voter to be physically present in the constituency to exercise his vote was discriminatory and violative of fundamental rights.

The petitioners, including NRI Shamsheer VP, have submitted that over one crore people will be entitled to cast their vote if NRIs are allowed to vote from overseas.

The PILs said 114 countries have adopted external voting and among them are 20 Asian countries. It said the external voting could be held by setting up polling booths at the diplomatic mission, or by postal, proxy or electronic voting.

(PTI)

Filed Under: India Tagged With: NRI, Supreme court, Voting Rights

Was Sunanda Pushkar really murdered?

January 12, 2015 by Nasheman

It can only be suicide or accidental death. These wild conspiracy theories don’t wash.

Sunanda Pushkar Shashi Tharoor

by Rahul Singh, Daily O

It could be India’s most sensational murder mystery of 2015, even though the alleged murder took place in the beginning of 2014. I am of course referring to the tragic end of Sunanda Pushkar Tharoor, the beautiful wife of the high-profile Indian member of Parliament and former minister, Shashi Tharoor. After remaining inexplicably silent for a year, the Delhi Police chief stunned the country by recently announcing that Sunanda had not committed suicide, nor died from an accidental dose of drugs and alcohol, as had been believed earlier, but had actually been done away with.

Why it took the Delhi Police a whole year to come to this startling conclusion is baffling. Their explanation that India does not have a laboratory to test the viscera in question for poison, sounds both lame and questionable. Even if India does not have such a facility, why did it take a year to send the viscera abroad and get back the reports? The police point to the 15 bruises on Sunanda’s body and a puncture mark, to back their claim of violence and poisoning – bruises and a mark that were visible a year ago.

The timing of the police announcement is also suspect. It took place, with a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-dominated government in power. When Sunanda died the Congress-dominated coalition was in power. And Tharoor was a Congress minister and also close to the party’s president, Sonia Gandhi. Is the police announcement connected with the change in government? It would seem so: The Indian police and even the main investigation agency, the Central Bureau of Intelligence (CBI), though they are meant to be immune from political pressures, are notorious for bending towards whichever party is in power. This could be the BJP’s way of embarrassing Tharoor and the Congress party.

Be that as it may, the needle of suspicion has fallen on Shashi Tharoor who, to avoid media glare, fled to an Ayurvedic health spa in his home state of Kerala (since then, he gave a brief press conference on January 9 evening). Meanwhile, his detractors have been baying for his blood. I was on a TV show the evening of the police announcement. The anchor of the show had already made up his mind on Tharoor’s guilt, as had most of the panelists, which included two women lawyer-activists. I could hardly get a word in, so worked up was the anchor and the panelists against Tharoor.

At this point a personal disclosure is called for.

I have known Shashi Tharoor, on and off, since his college days. His uncle (father’s brother), Tharoor Parameshwar, was the managing director of the magazine of which I was the editor, the Reader’s Digest. In fact, Shashi’s father, Chandran Tharoor, also worked for a short while with the “Digest”. Shashi was an outstanding student who went to the USA for higher studies, before joining the United Nations (U.N.). He rose in the U.N. to the second highest rank and when the top job, that of secretary general, fell vacant, he put up his candidacy, with the Indian government actively supporting it. Both the then Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, and Sonia Gandhi were said to have had a soft corner for him.

Though Tharoor failed in his U.N. bid, he returned to India, joined politics, with the Congress giving him a “safe” seat in Kerala, from where he was elected to Parliament. He went on to become a minister. His undoing was his involvement in the lucrative cricket IPL and his somewhat messy personal life. He bought a stake in a cricket team and gave Sunanda, who had become his girlfriend (both had been married twice before), “sweat equity” worth a large sum in the team. His controversial cricket deal forced his resignation as minister. Meanwhile, he married Sunanda, a head-strong lady and a successful entrepreneur in Dubai. They became a very high-profile and glamorous couple, constantly in the news.

Other women were clearly attracted to the handsome, intelligent and highly articulate Shashi Tharoor. Pakistani socialite, Mehr Tarar, was one of them. Sunanda discovered tweets and messages between the two that infuriated her. Tharoor’s domestic help, Narain, whom the Delhi Police have been questioning, has given a new twist to the case. He has revealed that one “Sunil” was with Sunanda in her hotel room, two days before her death. Narain also claimed that the couple had frequent fights and that Sunanda had told Tharoor that he was “finished”, just before her death. Well-known journalist Nalini Singh, a close friend of Sunanda, is also on record as saying that Sunanda was planning to hold a press conference, the implication being that she was going to expose her husband. Expose what? His supposed infidelity, or something else?

So, was she murdered to keep her silent? And by whom? Apart from Tharoor, who could be the other possible suspects? What would have been their motives? The hotel in which she died has CCTV coverage of those who entered and left her room. It should not be difficult to identify all those persons and narrow down the suspects, if indeed she was murdered.

To me at least, these wild conspiracy theories don’t wash and the most plausible explanation for Sunanda’s death remains what the earlier autopsy report showed: Suicide or accidental death. However, the Delhi Police think otherwise and there is no doubt that many new and intriguing questions have been raised. I suspect the final answer to the mystery will take quite a long while to unfold.

Filed Under: Opinion Tagged With: BJP, Congress, Crime, Shashi Tharoor, Sunanda Pushkar

Peshawar army school reopens after massacre

January 12, 2015 by Nasheman

Security is tight as children return to school where the Pakistani Taliban killed 141 people last month.

More than 130 young students were killed in the attack, the deadliest in Pakistan's history [Reuters]

More than 130 young students were killed in the attack, the deadliest in Pakistan’s history [Reuters]

by Asad Hashim, Al Jazeera

Peshawar, Pakistan: Peshawar’s Army Public School, the site of a massacre that killed 141 people almost a month ago, has reopened amid tight security in the capital of Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

Helicopters flew overhead as dozens of army soldiers patrolled the streets around the APS, tightly screening entry and exit points to the school, early on Monday morning.

Grim-faced soldiers stood guard as hundreds of children and their parents streamed into the school, where a memorial service was held in the presence of the country’s army chief, General Raheel Sharif.

The mood among the students was sombre, but defiant, as they entered the premises. Many of the children were brought to the school in army trucks, which doubled up as school buses on the first day of school in the new year.

Access to the school was tightly controlled, with army soldiers standing guard on several pickets established in the streets around the school, as well at the graveyard immediately adjacent to it.

Deadliest attack

Particular attention was paid to the locality behind the school, from where at least seven gunmen broke into the premises on December 16, in an attack that saw them go room by room, killing 141 people in all, the deadliest attack in Pakistan’s history.

More than 130 of those killed were students, many of them executed in their classrooms and in the school’s main auditorium.

In the wake of the attack, Pakistan lifted a moratorium on executions in what it called “terrorism cases”, and constituted military courts to try said cases.

The army also stepped up ongoing military operations in the country’s tribal areas, where troops have been battling the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its allies since June.

The TTP claimed responsibility for the attack on the school in Peshawar, saying it was carried out in “revenge” for the alleged killing of women and children in the tribal areas by the military.

‘Challenging the TTP’

“I think it is a good thing that the school is reopening,” Tariq Aziz, 30, whose younger brother, Asad, was killed in the attack, told Al Jazeera. “Already time has been wasted, and the students’ studies are suffering.”

“Even if we are not safe, what can we do? We have to send our children to school. For the sake of their education.”

Hasan Syed, 10, survived the attack, and was one of those who went back to the school on Monday.

“I will not be afraid of going back – I will go back to the school,” he told Al Jazeera. “This determination is because my cousin [Asad Aziz] was martyred. If I go to school, it is like I am challenging the terrorists.”

The reopening of the APS and other schools across Pakistan has been delayed several times, as authorities race to verify that adequate security arrangements are in place.

On Monday, thousands of schools reopened across the country, but many remained shut, as the government had not yet issued them certificates of approval for commencement of classes.

In Peshawar, 118 schools reopened on Monday, while a further 1,380 remained shut.

Filed Under: Muslim World Tagged With: Army Public School, Pakistan, Peshawar, Taliban, Tehrik i Taliban Pakistan, TTP

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