Category: Uncategorized

Lawyer Asama Javed is ‘fixer for forced marriage’

X.T.M · August 3, 2018 · 7 comments

Lawyer Asama Javed is ‘fixer for forced marriage’

The video in the link is 5 minutes long and worth seeing. This is pretty shocking since the lawyer, Asma Javed, is (and I’m excerpting):

On the surface Asma Javed 44, appears to be an upstanding member of her community, a political career with the Labour Party, now a partner in a law firm, a governor at a local primary school and on the fostering panel at Bradford Council. Yet her ‘marital advice’ exposes a complete disregard for basic human rights and utter contempt for British values.

What struck me is that Ms. Javed is obviously British born & bred since she easily slips into the Bradistani patois. But her Punjabi/Mirpuri is at native levels; this wasn’t supposed to happen after so many generations in the UK.

Since I’m a BritPak I’m quite the integrationist but in this case something’s got to give.  My thoughts on integration versus assimilation are mainly concerned with High Culture; even though I can understand Shakespeare and actually like it, I’ll ultimately still identify with Ferdowsi & Ghalib (probably the two poster boys for Turanistan)

The Augean Stables that is the British Muslim community needs to be cleansed. This is not a “Pakistani” issue but a Muslim one as we can see in this bit of news as well. Teenager jailed for life over British Museum bomb plot. When did Muslim culture in Europe become so degenerate?

 

Rakhigarhi sneak-peaks

Razib Khan · August 3, 2018 · 21 comments

Over at my other weblog, noting that the Indian press is finally starting to simply report the substantive contents of the Rakhigarhi results. As we all know the media can distort and misrepresent, so we need to be cautious and wait on the final paper, mostly because with that the authors can speak freely and without intermediation. But, I have heard through the grapevine the general results, and the results are exactly what Outlook India is currently reporting.

The Rakhigarhi samples themselves aren’t that interesting to me. But, Niraj Rai seems to be pushing the admixture event with IndoA-Aryans after 1500 BC. This could be a misquote, or, it could be that the researchers from various groups now have enough data to fine-tune their parameters so as to narrow down various admixture timing events.

Iranian and Indian Fields Medallist; Mr. Birkar and Mr. Venkatesh

X.T.M · August 2, 2018 · 31 comments

I learnt about the Fields Medallist, Caucher Birkar, from a comment in BP. To make it even sweeter it so happens Mr. Birkar is from Cambridge so it’s a big win for our fair city in the ongoing competition with the States. Cambridge as a rule of thumb is the best STEM University this side of the Atlantic but MIT & Stanford make a good run for it’s money on a world-wide basis.

At any I immediately went into Internet Iranian mode and pronounced Mr. Birkar as the Second Iranian to win this in a row.. In my rush to proclaim a victory for Iranian I didn’t realise I was technically correct since the Fields Medal is every 4years and he follows into the footsteps of the late & great Maryam Mirzakhani. To my mind Mr. Birkar is British Iranian since Kurdistan is not a nation and even if it were it is still a part of Greater Iranian; as the children of Medians, Kurdish and Azeri identities, are simply subsets of Great Iran.

Vidhi noted that Mr. Venkatesh won the award too (it’s given every 4 years to 4 mathematicians under 40).

Interestingly enough he’s being described as an Aussie Prodigy even though he’s probably a TamBram of some sort (born in Delhi). Immigration doesn’t seem to be working out so badly for Australia:

Professor Venkatesh is just the second Australian to receive the Fields Medal. Dr Terence Tao won the award in 2006. Continue reading Iranian and Indian Fields Medallist; Mr. Birkar and Mr. Venkatesh

Around the Brown World

X.T.M · August 1, 2018 · 19 comments

More to follow. I do agree with the hanging bit .. Suggestions for newsworthy items also welcome..

Does Bangladesh need to do more to “assert” itself?

X.T.M · July 31, 2018 · 54 comments

http://www.caravanmagazine.in/politics/assam-supreme-court-nrc-muslim-families-breaking-detention

I’m sharing a short link on what’s going on in Assam; frankly it’s pretty disgusting.

The NorthEast wing of India has seen much ethnic turbulence:

(1.) Nepalis expelled from Bhutan

(2.) Bengalis from Assam

(3.) Rohingyas from Burma

Nepalese and Bangladeshis seem to be the hyper fecund Indo-Aryan ethnicities overwhelming the Sino-Tibetan populations. It’s a continuation of a millennia old pattern of the “Aryanisation” of the East.

Even though I laid Bangladesh’s dramatic achievements in social metrics; I fear it’s developing a “Wakanda” attitude towards events in its neighbourhood.

It doesn’t go without saying that I’m much more sympathetic with the Party of the Widow than I am to the Party of the Daughter. I can’t also claim to know anything about Bangladeshi politics but just venturing my opinions, as I do.

It would also be interesting to see how Bangladeshis perceive:

(a) the Indo-Bangladesh relationship post 1971

(b) the Rohingya issue and whether Bangladesh has to do something about it

(c) the “illegal infiltrators” in the NorthEast that makes Indians go apoplectic..

It doesn’t make sense to me that Bangladesh, which is a nation explicitly founded on an indigenous Indic identity, seems to attract so much ire.

Indians seem to think that South Asia will become Muslim in generation and a half at best; faulty reading of demographic trends make for good politics as we have seen in the West as well.

I’ll end on something rather off-topic but what I saw on a Facebook by a Persian girl in South Africa.

She turns to her friend and says “we are the only two coloured people in the room.”

Her black friend shoots back “And you’re in camouflage.”

The point of this narrative is that identity is complex and intricate..

Ancient India, archaeology, etc.

Razib Khan · July 31, 2018 · 12 comments

I think I have asked before, but I’m soliciting suggestions about a book on Indian prehistory, with a focus on the period between 10 and 2 thousand years ago. India: The Ancient Past: A History of the Indian Subcontinent from c. 7000 BCE to CE 1200 looks decent, but I don’t have an ability to evaluate this stuff.

The reason is pretty simple. I’ve been asked to write a book chapter on the genetics of India. The draft is written, and I think we’re 80-90% done with the genetic “big picture.” The real work is going to be in synthesizing with archaeology. To be entirely frank I’m not sure how open Indian archaeologists are going to be to the new genetics, which is not stopping at any time in the near future. So I think perhaps I should see what I can snap together myself.

Anyway, suggestions appreciated. Though keep in mind that I don’t know much archaeology and don’t care that much about ancient village plans….

Assam register: Four million risk losing India citizenship

X.T.M · July 30, 2018 · 46 comments

The National Register of Citizens (NRC) is a list of people who can prove they came to the state by 24 March 1971, a day before neighbouring Bangladesh declared independence.

India says the process is needed to identify illegal Bangladeshi migrants.

But it has sparked fears of a witch hunt against Assam’s ethnic minorities.

Assam register: Four million risk losing India citizenship

Activists say the NRC is now being used as a pretext for a two-pronged attack – by Hindu nationalists and Assamese hardliners – on the state’s Bengali community, a large portion of whom are Muslims.

Like Hasitun, many Bengalis live in the wetlands dotted along the Bramaputra river, moving around when water levels rise. Their paperwork, if it exists, is often inaccurate.

Officials claim illegal Bangladeshis are enmeshed in the Bengali population, often hiding in plain sight with forged papers – and a thorough examination of all documents is the only way to find them.

“They are openly threatening to get rid of Muslims, and what happened to the Rohingya in Myanmar, could happen to us here.”

This is wrong; very wrong. Magnanimity is an important part of any country’s policy and I do think that India is becoming far too draconian about the Muslim Question..

Pakistan’s future lies in solidarity with Turanistan .. I should write in to Imran Bhai and offer to be his foreign policy advisor.

Persian Vs. Punjabi Vs. Urdu

X.T.M · July 30, 2018 · 12 comments

I was going to write a long post about my thoughts on Janus-faced Pakistan and thankfully I deleted it. Instead I stumbled across these rather interesting clips. They should the distinction between popular culture in Pakistan (Punjabi) and the Urdu High Culture.

It’s an interesting clip where Talha can understand virtually all the Persian words but for the accent and Amir can’t get a single Punjabi word.

I found this clip as well and incidentally Amir’s success rate with understanding Urdu just shot up. It is simply unbelievable and wonderful. Also when Talha is in “Urdu” mode he is able to tackle with the Persian words far better than when he was in Punjabi mode because his frame of references shifts away from rustic.

Also as a quibble (I may have to write in) but Pakistani Punjabi (like all languages spoken cis-Radcliffe) is written in Nasta’liq. I do not know why Amir has “over-exoticised” the Punjabi script when he has made subsequent videos with Sikhs etc. Gotta love the Persians and their complete amnesia when it comes to the East; a bit like how Indian has forgotten her historic sway in South East Asia, where Hinduism is the fundamental sub-strata.

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