I am a Hindu

You are empowered to censure me, It is your freedom of speech; But if I censure you, I will be branded as intolerant. If you criticize my faith, It is your enlightened; If I criticize your faith, I will be branded as bigoted. If you laugh at my faith, You will be decorated as secular; […]

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Terra Incognita: Why Modi matters

JERUSALEM POST, ISRAEL Terra Incognita: Why Modi matters By SETH J. FRANTZMAN 18/05/2014 The world needs more leaders like India’s incoming PM, not because of his checkered past, but because we need to not fear national, linguistic and religious pride and nation-states that respect their origins. As it became clear that Narendra Modi of the […]

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Aborting the Goddess : India’s Shame

From ancient times India has been worshipped as Mata Bharat or Mother India. The country’s very soil is therefore not just motherland but the mother goddess herself. Which makes the now notorious brutal rape and murder of the 23 year old female medical student all the more poignant.Stripped of her clothes, dignity and very essence […]

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Indian Communist Academia living off American Tax Payers

In forming our opinions it is essential to have access to accurate information. In many respects the internet has broken down traditional barriers of communication. Valid criticism is levelled that this makes it difficult to authenticate facts. Nevertheless the well-worn methods of research and scholarship need not be compromised. Indeed they can be enhanced as […]

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The Assam Tea Party Movement

by Ranbir Assam in north-east India is famous for its tea. Assam tea is a favoured brew among many drinkers of that now quintessential British as well as Indian hot beverage of choice. However recently this major tea-growing area of the world has been wracked by horrific violence.   On 27 July 2012 NDTV reported […]

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Colour Prejudice in India

by Ranbir In India the preference for lighter skin is well known. In Bollywood lighter actresses such as Katrina Kaif find that the right skin tone outweighs talent and ignorance of Hindi. Skin lightening products do roaring trade. But what lies at the root of all this? Many people assume it is because over three […]

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Pakistan as Arab Spring Template

The term Pakistan was coined in 1933 by Indian Muslim student Choudhury Rahmat Ali while studying at Cambridge. In Now or Never he argued that India’s Muslim minority needed their own homeland to be safe from Hindu majority tyranny: “The ideals which move our thirty million brethren-in-faith living in these provinces to make the highest […]

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Beauty and the ‘Beast’ of Sufism

by Ranbir Singh Sufism is contrasted with more intolerant strains of Islam, notably that advocating jihad, proscribing of dancing and music, intolerance towards the kuffar, and strict interpretation of sharia. Unlike the stern teachings found within Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia or the Shia strain in Iran , Sufi Islam holds a more mystical approach in […]

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