Ishwar Sharan's Blog, page 187
July 6, 2016
Zakir Naik influenced Dhaka attackers – PTI
Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz presenting Zakir Naik, president of the Islamic Research Foundation in India, with the 2015 King Faisal International Prize for Service to Islam in Riyadh. Naik was honoured for being one of the most renowned non-Arabic speaking promoters of Wahhabi Islam and abusers of Hindus and Hinduism. He also received […]
July 5, 2016
The atrocious state of education in India – Madhura Karnik
A large number of children still don’t go to school. And many of those who do, drop out at some stage. … The country is home to the highest number of illiterates—in 2011, it was 282.6 million people aged over seven. – Madhura Karnik An evaluation of college teachers in the northern Indian state of Uttar […]
July 4, 2016
Why are Indian historians in a denial mode? – David Frawley
It is time for … deconstructionist historians to be deconstructed. Such historians, whose view of the world is purely outward, do not have the insight to appreciate India. … Their historical accounts reflect the attempt of a recent ruling elite to rewrite history in its own image—and to deny legitimacy for any other group, even if […]
July 3, 2016
July 4th, The Original Brexit: Evolving identities and contested interpretations – Bharavi
The thirteen colonies formed a new nation in a political sense, but their colonizing tendencies were still of impeccable British vintage. For, these thirteen united states … grew by a process of colonization, conquest and even outright purchase—of the lands of Native Americans (“Red Indians”), or of lands conquered by Spanish or French or Russians […]
July 4th, the Original Brexit: Evolving identities and contested interpretations – Bharavi
The thirteen colonies formed a new nation in a political sense, but their colonizing tendencies were still of impeccable British vintage. For, these thirteen united states … grew by a process of colonization, conquest and even outright purchase—of the lands of Native Americans (“Red Indians”), or of lands conquered by Spanish or French or Russians […]
Making oneself in one’s own image – Ravi Shankar
The modern age has found its soul in the cell phone. Aristotle has written about the contrast between philautia, which is rooted in self-worth, and pleonexia, the desire to grab an unfair share of what is not yours. – Ravi Shankar In public life, sensitivity is hardly ever at a premium. Last week, Somya Gurjar, a […]
July 2, 2016
10 – Tamil Nadu in the grip of Jihad – Thamizhchelvan
Islamic fundamentalism has been on the rise as evidenced by the recent infamous Ambur riots during which the State Police force suffered heavily at the hands of Islamic extremists in July 2015. – Thamizhchelvan Vellore is a city, a Municipal Corporation. It is also a Lok Sabha Constituency comprising Vellore, Anaicut Village, Kilvazhithunaiankuppam (SC), Gudiyatham, Vaniyambadi and Ambur […]
July 1, 2016
What Hinduism is lacking – Maria Wirth
It struck me one morning that the respect for dogmatic religions is based on irrationality and how easily it could be corrected if Hindus would choose to be as irrational and if they would back up—this is an important ingredient—their irrationality with blasphemy laws. Hindus could take part in the one-upmanship of “only we are […]
June 30, 2016
Devdutt Pattanaik’s mythical Aryan race – Aravindan Neelakandan
It is time we jettison forever the ideas of an Aryan race or an Aryan homeland and stop trying to make the poor ‘Aryans’ of imaginary realms authors or outsiders of any past culture of India. – Aravindan Neelakandan Pop-mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik, in a Swarajya column, makes some interesting observations. He says that Hindu nationalists were […]
June 29, 2016
Book Review: A colonial debate on Sati – Farrukh Dhondy
Sydney Smith attacked the missionaries as not being gentlemen scholars of the clergy but rather “devout tinkers who set off for the East”. He castigates them for their intolerance of the religions they find there: “The missionaries complain of intolerance. A weasel might as well complain of intolerance when he is throttled for sucking eggs.” […]
