It appears that Sir NaMo whether elected PM or not (unlikely IMO) will have a chance for the prize that he truly craves: a visa to the USA. So far the State Department has held back due to the coordinated efforts of the Christian lobby and the NRI secular front. The main proponent was the Gujarati (and of late) the business (US, India) lobby.

The basic argument is impeccable. A country that issues “good morals” certificates (aka visa) while happily supporting immoral regime/leader(s) through thick and thin should not hold back now, else an “authoritarian” regime will sign a friendship-as-high-as-himalayas document first.

Also it is the case that a large section of the Indian middle-class (even including some minorities) has a clear preference for an autocratic regime/leader (with economic growth as the first and only objective).

The visa was denied because of Mr. Modi’s alleged role in the 2002 riots in Gujarat that left more than 1,000 dead, most of them Muslims. But it came about from a highly unusual coalition made up of Indian-born activists, evangelical Christians, Jewish leaders and Republican members of Congress concerned about religious freedom around the globe.    I had a front-row seat to these events as they unfolded. I worked in Washington. D.C., from 2003 to 2011, mostly at Amnesty International and in the United States Congress, and I was a part of the campaign to deny Mr. Modi a visa.

In 1996, Nina Shea, the director of the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, organized a summit sponsored by the National Association of Evangelicals, an umbrella group that represents 42,000 Evangelical Churches. At the conclusion of the event, the delegates pledged their collective efforts to “take appropriate action to combat the intolerable religious persecution now victimizing fellow believers and those of other faiths.”

In the fall of 2002, an Indian-born, Washington-based evangelical Christian named John Prabhudoss led a delegation to riot-affected Ahmedabad that included two Republican congressmen, Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania and Mr. Wolf. Another person on the trip was Raju Rajagopal, an Indian-born retired health professional based in Berkeley, Calif. “It was unimaginable what we saw in Gujarat,” Mr. Rajagopal said. “People in Gujarat told us that Indian Americans were sending loads of money to groups like the R.S.S. and the V.H.P.” that, he argued, had a role in fueling the violence, Mr. Rajagopal said. …..He co-wrote a 91-page report  that alleged that the India Development and Relief Fund, which was based in the United States, had collected $4 million and sent some of the funds to right-wing Hindu groups.

Soon after the release of the report, Silicon Valley companies with large numbers of Indian-American employees promised to either stop or suspend donor matching programs with the fund. “It was a tremendous victory and it gave us momentum to keep fighting,” Mr. Rajagopal said.

Continue reading →

…in Canada.

IMO one should be able to dress as s/he pleases in a public place (personal dress law!!) unless it leads to a public problem (inability to see properly to drive, interaction in a teaching job, or identification as a witness/defendant in court).

LAWYERS and JPs will have to ask women wearing burqas to show their faces before witnessing their signatures under tough new laws in New South Wales. The move to “burqa-proof” identity checks follows a public outcry following last year’s controversial Carnita Matthews case. Ms Matthews, a Muslim, had her conviction overturned for knowingly making a false statement accusing a police officer of racism because the prosecution could not prove that she had signed the statement. The 23-year-old JP who witnessed the signature of a woman wearing a full black niqab had assumed it was Ms Matthews but had not asked her to show her face.

Given this growing backlash, many people now see clothing as a civil rights issue, standing up for conservative muslim women who are caught between the law and the (patriarchal) community. In this sense there is an overlap between the UCC debate in India and the burqa debate in the West. Generally, people will be more comfortable in viewing other people as belonging to communities (rather than individuals) and society as being made up of communities.

On the day after the Parti Québécois tabled Bill 60 on Nov. 7, I started wearing a hijab at work, to publicly register my opposition to the proposed values charter. I am not a Muslim. But I am a public-sector worker — an associate professor of history at Concordia University — and as such, a category of worker that would be affected by the charter in my working life.

I already had been considering wearing a hijab for some time, not just to register my opposition to the principle of a values charter but also as a gesture of support for the people that Bill 60 proposes to target. Wearing a hijab — or any other  — also seemed to me to be a potentially effective strategy for defying the charter’s effective implementation, if Bill 60 is ever passed.

“I’m not really Muslim,” I felt inclined to tell people. “I’m only doing this to oppose the charter.” But that felt like cheating. On the day the charter was tabled, I decided it was time to make a stronger commitment — wearing a hijab more consistently, and wearing a proper hijab.

My youngest son, age 5, thought the hijab was fine. “Everyone can wear what they want to,” he said. But my 8-year-old son was clearly uncomfortable when he saw me striding through the classroom toward him. “Kids are going to make fun of me,” he said. He was right.

regards

…is ready to set over the Yamuna river. It is a chilly winter no doubt and the grim reaper is ever-ready with his tool-box. For survival faith is of essence and when faith is lost so will be the (long, honorable) battle.

regards

…the gulf between Oman and the GCC widens to the dismay of opinion makers who are asking – what is the matter with Oman?

What are Oman’s motives for publicly rejecting the Gulf union and threatening to withdraw from the Gulf Cooperation Council if such a union is formed? This was the question posed by Jame El Theyabi in the London-based newspaper Al Hayat.

Without informing any of the GCC states, Oman hosted secret talks between Washington and Tehran, which resulted in the Geneva deal between Iran and the P5+1 group.

Does Oman feel any repudiation or marginalisation from its sisterly states? Is it dismayed by the GCC’s incompatible policies? Or is all part of efforts to dismantle the current Gulf body and instead cooperate with Iran, with which Oman shares the world’s most strategic oil route, Strait of Hormuz, in a bid to force the Gulf states to accept a regional body that includes Iraq and Iran?

Oman’s opposition is mainly politically driven. The country fears that the union might abolish its sovereignty or plunge it into unwanted conflicts. Oman also has business interests and a non-aggression pact with Iran.

The union will be a turning point in the welfare and the strength of the Gulf people. Oman, being a small country, should accept it because it can only add to its economic and social growth. Hence the need to deter Oman from departure and convince it to join the union…..

regards

Speaking of religion induced cycle of violence it appears that Bangladesh is on the brink of civil war.due to unresolved issues (ideology of state) during the original civil war. Both leaders/ladies are not for being “wobbly” and the country is engulfed in petty violence.

Bangladesh’s highest court on Tuesday halted the execution of a top Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) just 90 minutes before he was set to become the first person executed for war crimes during the country’s bloody independence fight. “The chamber judge of the Supreme Court has stayed the hanging until 10.30am tomorrow (Wednesday),” Abdul Quader Molla’s defence lawyer Shishir Munir told AFP.

Molla, who had been set to be executed just before midnight, is convicted of mass murder and rape during the Bangladesh’s 1971 independence war against Pakistan.

“In the presence of two magistrates he was asked whether he would seek pardon from the president and said ‘no’.”

regards

…migrants riot in Little India, last time this happened was in 1969.

Singapore prosecutors will charge 24 Indian workers for taking part in the city-state’s first riot in more than 40 years, police said on Tuesday. The men face jail terms of up to 10 years plus caning for charges of rioting with dangerous weapons in the hour-long fracas on Sunday night, triggered when an Indian construction worker was struck and killed by a private bus in the Little India district.

They were among 400 people involved in the rampage that saw 39 police and civil defence staff injured, and 25 vehicles — including 16 police cars — damaged or torched.

The 55-year-old Singaporean bus driver who killed construction worker Sakthivel Kumaravelu, 33, has been released on bail after being arrested for causing death by a negligent act, police said.

Meanwhile, national hand wringing over the incident, Singapore’s first riot since racial disturbances in 1969, continued with authorities calling for calm and warning against stoking racial hatred amid online attacks against foreign workers in the city-state.

The Southeast Asian nation of 5.4 million people is one of the wealthiest places in the world but depends heavily on guest workers, with labourers from South Asia dominating sectors like construction. “The riot was an isolated incident arising from the unlawful actions of an unruly mob reacting to a fatal traffic accident,” Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in a statement on Monday. “We must not allow this bad incident to tarnish our views of the foreign worker community here.”

S Iswaran, the city-state’s second minister for the interior, said there would be a ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol in the area where the riot broke out this weekend, amid signs that “alcohol consumption was a contributory factor”.

regards

….7 lives so far but (sad to say) there is every chance that an 8th attempt may succeed. Very much a living death sentence (30 years running) for a 78 year young man. It is a wonder that his health had not broken down and he was able to fight off his attackers.

Three Sikh men and a woman convicted of carrying out a revenge attack on Lt Gen (retd) KS Brar, the hero of the 1984 Operation Blue Star, were on Tuesday sentenced from 10-and-half years to 14 years in prison by a British court. The Khalistani supporters had tried to slash the throat of the 78-year-old former Indian Army officer in a revenge attack on the streets of central London last year for his role in leading the operation to flush out extremists from the Sikh holy shrine of Golden Temple in Amritsar.

Barjinder Singh Sangha and Dilbagh Singh were sentenced to 14 years in prison by Southwark Crown Court here. Mandeep Singh Sandhu will serve 10 years and six months in prison while Harjit Kaurand will serve a 11-year sentence. They have to spend at least half the sentences in custody and can then be released on licence.

Brar, giving evidence via videolink from India, said a pro-Khalistan website had declared him the “number one enemy of the Sikhs”. Another threat he said he received read: “There have been seven attempts on his life which have not succeeded, but the eighth one will.” He was not protected on his trip to London, which he said was a private holiday.

regards

And what he said to his Holiness:

Holy Father; I come from a multifaceted environment. Holy Father, it is an honour to be invited, I am told that you like people to pray for you, I pray for your success to bring amity and peace in this world. 

Mr. Mandela has left the world, the poor of the world are orphaned, you are the fresh hope of the 4.5 billion poor and the heartbroken, forlorn masses. You are a holy father to the Roman Catholic Church but a father to these 4.5 billion orphan heartbroken people, they all look at you as the new hope.

I would like to present a printed copy of a covenant granting a Charter of Privileges to the monks of St. Catherine Monastery in Mt. Sinai. It consists of several clauses covering all aspects of human rights including such topics as the protection of Christians, freedom of worship and movement. I hope this can become the benchmark of a deferential affiliation between two Abrahamic religions. 

Even though we’ve been generations out of Islam; Latifs are still fighting the good fight, for a peaceful, prosperous & joyful Ummah lol.