We are going through tough times. Terrorists are striking at will all over India. Naxals have considerable presence in a large part of India. North East is still simmering with insurgents. Violence in Kashmir is not showing any signs of reducing. Tamil Nadu is facing the problem of large number of refugees from Sri Lanka. And in these times our politicians find a new and innovative way to keep us and them busy: Dividing us in the name of region. India is a union of many states wherein any person can reside and earn in any part of India.
I have lots to talk about on this topic but a blog of a friend of mine covers more or less all the topics that i wanted to discuss (along with the comments). So, i wont just duplicate the matter and just provide the link:
SUSHANT BAHADUR's Blog: Regionalism at its Scariest.
Thursday, 23 October 2008
Sunday, 19 October 2008
The big leap towards moon
October 22 2008....a red letter day for India...we will join an elite league of nations (USA and Russia) who have presence on moon....our indigenous PSLV will launch a remote sensing satellite which will orbit in lunar orbit and which will survey the lunar surface to produce a complete map of its chemical characteristics and 3-dimensional topography. It is the day when Chandrayaan-1, the first step in India's latest foray into space takes place.
Firstly, I would like to discuss India's extra-ordinary success in space field. The main credit of Indian space program goes to Dr. Vikram Sarabhai and Dr. Homi Bhabha. These two legends saw the need of space research very early. They knew that if India has to become self-reliant and a superpower in future then we have to give proper attention to space research. At that time, when we were just independent and even food was a concern then talking about stars and moon would have sounded nonsense. But credit must be given to them and even to politicians (yes, credit should be given where it is due) for being fore-sighted and continuing with continuous progress in space research. And thus, India entered the space with Aryabhatta in 1975 and has continued to make steady progress since then.
India's beginning was modest. We had to face many disappointments but still we continued making steady progress. Our INSAT series of satellites made us self-reliant in the field of communication. We did most of these launches without the help of any external agency or country. India was facing sanctions from all the major nations and hence leave aside newest technology, our scientist had no access to even the latest equipments and gadgets. But their dedication resulted in one giant stride after another. Initially, world ridiculed our small achievements but they had to eat their words when we were successful in developing PSLV and GSLV.
And now the time has come for India to take the next big step in space research. Till now, our research was for us, to make us self-reliant in fields of communication and defence. But now for the first time the world is also eagerly watching an Indian space programme. This is a field which has been dormant for past many years and which has immense scope. India is doing research in this field not only to study about moon but using it as a precursor to future manned space missions and Mars mission. The success of this mission will put India in the higher echelons of space research.
It also provides a great opportunity to India to make the research really profitable. Chandrayaan is going to take off with payload from NASA and ESA as well. For the past some time we have been getting requests from various countries for the use of our PSLV and GSLV launchers to launch their satellites. This showcases not only the great stride made by India but also provides a good business proposition.
Another reason why i think that Chandrayaan was needed was to tell the world about our might. In order to be a superpower we need to act like one. Our scientist have already shown their might by building indigenous PSLV, GSLV, Tejas and our missile system. At present we are capable of nuclear strikes. And still the world has agreed to give us nuclear fuel and technology without us signing CTBT or NPT is really credible. It says a lot about the world's faith in us and also their hope that we can refine the existing knowledge.
I am not an expert on this topic but i know for certain that India needed something of the scale of Chandrayaan to take Indian space programme to the next level.It makes me real proud to see us making so much progress, to see NASA ask ISRO if they could use our facilities, to see scientists worldwide looking forward to our mission. It is a tribute to all the scientists who have toiled hard for this. Research is a continuous thing and whatever we are today is because of the initial hardships faced by and resolved by scientists from times of Sarabhai and Bhabha.
We owe this success to the hard work of numerous scientists of ISRO, DRDO and various other institutes. It is really makes me proud to see one of them, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam as our President when we announced and started this mission.
JAI HIND!!!
Firstly, I would like to discuss India's extra-ordinary success in space field. The main credit of Indian space program goes to Dr. Vikram Sarabhai and Dr. Homi Bhabha. These two legends saw the need of space research very early. They knew that if India has to become self-reliant and a superpower in future then we have to give proper attention to space research. At that time, when we were just independent and even food was a concern then talking about stars and moon would have sounded nonsense. But credit must be given to them and even to politicians (yes, credit should be given where it is due) for being fore-sighted and continuing with continuous progress in space research. And thus, India entered the space with Aryabhatta in 1975 and has continued to make steady progress since then.
India's beginning was modest. We had to face many disappointments but still we continued making steady progress. Our INSAT series of satellites made us self-reliant in the field of communication. We did most of these launches without the help of any external agency or country. India was facing sanctions from all the major nations and hence leave aside newest technology, our scientist had no access to even the latest equipments and gadgets. But their dedication resulted in one giant stride after another. Initially, world ridiculed our small achievements but they had to eat their words when we were successful in developing PSLV and GSLV.
And now the time has come for India to take the next big step in space research. Till now, our research was for us, to make us self-reliant in fields of communication and defence. But now for the first time the world is also eagerly watching an Indian space programme. This is a field which has been dormant for past many years and which has immense scope. India is doing research in this field not only to study about moon but using it as a precursor to future manned space missions and Mars mission. The success of this mission will put India in the higher echelons of space research.
It also provides a great opportunity to India to make the research really profitable. Chandrayaan is going to take off with payload from NASA and ESA as well. For the past some time we have been getting requests from various countries for the use of our PSLV and GSLV launchers to launch their satellites. This showcases not only the great stride made by India but also provides a good business proposition.
Another reason why i think that Chandrayaan was needed was to tell the world about our might. In order to be a superpower we need to act like one. Our scientist have already shown their might by building indigenous PSLV, GSLV, Tejas and our missile system. At present we are capable of nuclear strikes. And still the world has agreed to give us nuclear fuel and technology without us signing CTBT or NPT is really credible. It says a lot about the world's faith in us and also their hope that we can refine the existing knowledge.
I am not an expert on this topic but i know for certain that India needed something of the scale of Chandrayaan to take Indian space programme to the next level.It makes me real proud to see us making so much progress, to see NASA ask ISRO if they could use our facilities, to see scientists worldwide looking forward to our mission. It is a tribute to all the scientists who have toiled hard for this. Research is a continuous thing and whatever we are today is because of the initial hardships faced by and resolved by scientists from times of Sarabhai and Bhabha.
We owe this success to the hard work of numerous scientists of ISRO, DRDO and various other institutes. It is really makes me proud to see one of them, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam as our President when we announced and started this mission.
JAI HIND!!!
Monday, 13 October 2008
Isn't INDIA A Sovereign Country?
As far as i remember India is a sovereign country....and a sovereign nation is independent in making its decision....no other country has any right in its internal matters as long as it doesn't affect that country....India has respected the sovereignty of other countries, big or small, and its high time other countries also did same...and if they don't do that there is nothing wrong in telling them their mistake...
Recently after Orissa violence when our respected Prime Minister visited Europe, he was reminded by many of their leaders about this crime and violence taking place....agreed, the violence should be condemned but what right do they have to criticize India....did we interfere when racial violence gripped Paris and its sub-urbs....did India ask USA to clean its house when there was repeated reports of violence against Muslims and Sikhs after 9/11....no....because India believes these are internal matters of those countries...
Similarly what is happening in Orissa, Karnataka is also internal matter of India and so is the Post-Godhra riots....what happened in Gujarat was really unfortunate but that doesn't mean other nations can insult us by not providing visa to one of the elected CMs of an Indian State...whatever may be the role of Narendra Modi in the riots is an internal matter of India that will be dealt with by Indian judiciary and Indian electorate.....if they have a problem with that then they are free to stop relations with India...many countries had reservations about China's human rights record but will any government dare to refuse visa to leave aside Hu Jintao or Wen Jiabao, even to a normal diplomat???
These countries are showing great hypocrisy...on one hand they don't mind praising Musharraf or for that matter even Bush(isn't he responsible for the un-ending war in Afghanistan and Iraq) but not allowing Modi to visit.....they are investing in Gujarat but not ready to talk to its elected governement....they want to do business with Gujaratis but not listen to them....and our leaders, instead of supporting him to showcase Indian unity are making ridicule of him....i am not asking them to forgive him...they may continue boycotting him....but when it comes to a matter of national pride they should leave behind their petty politics.....
Also, recently one Indian Diplomat was refused visa to visit China because he belonged to Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims as its own....result: our Govt. sent the delegation minus that official....by doing that hasn't India accepted that it considers the state as a disputed territory.....there have been various instances of China doing it....but we go out of our way to ensure that no untoward incident or even protests during Beijing torch rally....
I have taken only three recent examples of India allowing others to compromise on Indian soverignty but there are numerous more examples like continuous questions about Kashmir, North-east, even some laws, financial policies....
If India wants to become a superpower (which we are capable of) then we need to act like one....everybody pushes a push-over....it is high time we stopped being bullied by other nations...we are more than capable of making our own decisions and ruling our country....
JAI HIND!!!
Recently after Orissa violence when our respected Prime Minister visited Europe, he was reminded by many of their leaders about this crime and violence taking place....agreed, the violence should be condemned but what right do they have to criticize India....did we interfere when racial violence gripped Paris and its sub-urbs....did India ask USA to clean its house when there was repeated reports of violence against Muslims and Sikhs after 9/11....no....because India believes these are internal matters of those countries...
Similarly what is happening in Orissa, Karnataka is also internal matter of India and so is the Post-Godhra riots....what happened in Gujarat was really unfortunate but that doesn't mean other nations can insult us by not providing visa to one of the elected CMs of an Indian State...whatever may be the role of Narendra Modi in the riots is an internal matter of India that will be dealt with by Indian judiciary and Indian electorate.....if they have a problem with that then they are free to stop relations with India...many countries had reservations about China's human rights record but will any government dare to refuse visa to leave aside Hu Jintao or Wen Jiabao, even to a normal diplomat???
These countries are showing great hypocrisy...on one hand they don't mind praising Musharraf or for that matter even Bush(isn't he responsible for the un-ending war in Afghanistan and Iraq) but not allowing Modi to visit.....they are investing in Gujarat but not ready to talk to its elected governement....they want to do business with Gujaratis but not listen to them....and our leaders, instead of supporting him to showcase Indian unity are making ridicule of him....i am not asking them to forgive him...they may continue boycotting him....but when it comes to a matter of national pride they should leave behind their petty politics.....
Also, recently one Indian Diplomat was refused visa to visit China because he belonged to Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims as its own....result: our Govt. sent the delegation minus that official....by doing that hasn't India accepted that it considers the state as a disputed territory.....there have been various instances of China doing it....but we go out of our way to ensure that no untoward incident or even protests during Beijing torch rally....
I have taken only three recent examples of India allowing others to compromise on Indian soverignty but there are numerous more examples like continuous questions about Kashmir, North-east, even some laws, financial policies....
If India wants to become a superpower (which we are capable of) then we need to act like one....everybody pushes a push-over....it is high time we stopped being bullied by other nations...we are more than capable of making our own decisions and ruling our country....
JAI HIND!!!
Sunday, 12 October 2008
Why is religion being treated as a business??
Continuing with the violence in Orissa over conversions and re-conversions, i don't understand what exactly are the holy men of both the religion doing there....
The people there are really backward and whatever developmental work that is done for them is commendable....but over here we have two sets of "holy men" who are exploiting them....Hinduism doesn't believe in conversions and even Christianity doesn't believe in forced conversion....the work being done by missionaries all over India is really great but it is also true that many of them do indulge in forceful conversions in remote places...Jesus didn't force his followers to be with him....He did not give them allurements and freebies....a person who claims to work for the downtrodden should not ask for any favour in return...by asking the poor and ignorant tribals to convert, they are exploiting them...here we have a large population of tribal christians who don't even know much about Christianity and who still continue to worship their nature Gods.....Jesus wanted his message to spread not a mere increase in number of his followers.....
Also, i don't understand the term re-conversion....it is the same as conversion....whether the person was born as christian or converted to Chritianity doesn't make a difference....if u are asking him to convert to Hinduism it is conversion and nothing else.....you may call it fancy names like re-conversion or home-coming....but that will not change the truth.....every person has a right to choose his religion.....all must respect it......
I also believe that all religions have the right to be preached...but it should only be preached not forced to anybody....also if you are giving allurements or using force to convert people to your religion then you are insulting your religion by accepting the fact that your religion is not good enough to survive without these tactics......every religion is the same because it shows the path of salvation....there is one God who is called different names by different people....just as there are multiple paths to reach a place, there are multiple paths of religion to attain salvation....
Also, i strongly believe that religion is a personal matter and hence there should be a ban on mass conversions.......if a person identifies with another religion then only ahould he be allowed to convert but what happens in case of mass conversions is many just join the bandwagon and convert without even knowing much about it....see the classical case of dalits converting to Buddhism just because Ambedkar did it....and then the self-proclaimed leaders of these groups showcase the converts as trophies....humans are much more then trophies.....
In the end i just hope that the religious men continue to do the thing God has chosen them to do and that is preaching virtues and serving the needed self-lessly and leave the business to businessmen....religion should not be treated as a commodity which has to be sold...
The people there are really backward and whatever developmental work that is done for them is commendable....but over here we have two sets of "holy men" who are exploiting them....Hinduism doesn't believe in conversions and even Christianity doesn't believe in forced conversion....the work being done by missionaries all over India is really great but it is also true that many of them do indulge in forceful conversions in remote places...Jesus didn't force his followers to be with him....He did not give them allurements and freebies....a person who claims to work for the downtrodden should not ask for any favour in return...by asking the poor and ignorant tribals to convert, they are exploiting them...here we have a large population of tribal christians who don't even know much about Christianity and who still continue to worship their nature Gods.....Jesus wanted his message to spread not a mere increase in number of his followers.....
Also, i don't understand the term re-conversion....it is the same as conversion....whether the person was born as christian or converted to Chritianity doesn't make a difference....if u are asking him to convert to Hinduism it is conversion and nothing else.....you may call it fancy names like re-conversion or home-coming....but that will not change the truth.....every person has a right to choose his religion.....all must respect it......
I also believe that all religions have the right to be preached...but it should only be preached not forced to anybody....also if you are giving allurements or using force to convert people to your religion then you are insulting your religion by accepting the fact that your religion is not good enough to survive without these tactics......every religion is the same because it shows the path of salvation....there is one God who is called different names by different people....just as there are multiple paths to reach a place, there are multiple paths of religion to attain salvation....
Also, i strongly believe that religion is a personal matter and hence there should be a ban on mass conversions.......if a person identifies with another religion then only ahould he be allowed to convert but what happens in case of mass conversions is many just join the bandwagon and convert without even knowing much about it....see the classical case of dalits converting to Buddhism just because Ambedkar did it....and then the self-proclaimed leaders of these groups showcase the converts as trophies....humans are much more then trophies.....
In the end i just hope that the religious men continue to do the thing God has chosen them to do and that is preaching virtues and serving the needed self-lessly and leave the business to businessmen....religion should not be treated as a commodity which has to be sold...
Friday, 10 October 2008
Violence Vs Religion
For the past many weeks we are facing violence in many parts of India in the name of religion. Some fanatics are burning Christians in the name of Ram....i don't consider those perpetrators of violence as Hindus because any person who claims to follow in the ideals of Ram can not do so....those persons are insulting Hinduism.....
Firstly i challenge all the fanatics to show me even one Veda, Upanishad, Purana, etc. where god has asked us to convert others....it is because Hinduism doesn't believe in conversion....in Hinduism u practice or not u r Hindu.....Valmiki was Hindu even wen he was a bandit...even ravana was attacked because he was cruel not because he belonged to raksha kula ( who also were considered Hindus only).....so what is this all talk about conversion to Hinduism all about????I being a Hindu by birth cant myself pin point a special day or event wherein i can claim that that day onwards i became hindu then what conversion ceremony are they following???
And violence in the name of religion is the worst....tolerance is the most important virtue....see the efforts made by Krishna to prevent mahabharata....see the chances given by Ram to ravana....these chances were given in spite of injustice being done, cruelty being committed.....and here violence is done because some persons decided to take another road to salvation....even in Hinduism we have so many gods and goddesses...so shouldn't tomorrow Maheshwaris (followers of Shiv) get up and kill Vaishnavs (followers of Vishnu)....
If burning churches and killing humans was not a lesser crime they even indulge in rape....the followers of Krishna, the one who helped Draupadi in her chir-haran, becoming dushashan.....the worshippers of Durga and Kali taking advantage of hapless girls.....and the biggest irony is they call themselves Bajrang Dal after baal brahmachari Hanuman.....Hinduism teaches us that women are to be respected.... revere her as mother, love her as sister and take care of her as daughter.....so this act is totally against Hinduism...
Nobody has the right to commit crime in name of god....be it Ram or Allah or Jesus....
I will continue about conversions and re-conversions in my next post.
Firstly i challenge all the fanatics to show me even one Veda, Upanishad, Purana, etc. where god has asked us to convert others....it is because Hinduism doesn't believe in conversion....in Hinduism u practice or not u r Hindu.....Valmiki was Hindu even wen he was a bandit...even ravana was attacked because he was cruel not because he belonged to raksha kula ( who also were considered Hindus only).....so what is this all talk about conversion to Hinduism all about????I being a Hindu by birth cant myself pin point a special day or event wherein i can claim that that day onwards i became hindu then what conversion ceremony are they following???
And violence in the name of religion is the worst....tolerance is the most important virtue....see the efforts made by Krishna to prevent mahabharata....see the chances given by Ram to ravana....these chances were given in spite of injustice being done, cruelty being committed.....and here violence is done because some persons decided to take another road to salvation....even in Hinduism we have so many gods and goddesses...so shouldn't tomorrow Maheshwaris (followers of Shiv) get up and kill Vaishnavs (followers of Vishnu)....
If burning churches and killing humans was not a lesser crime they even indulge in rape....the followers of Krishna, the one who helped Draupadi in her chir-haran, becoming dushashan.....the worshippers of Durga and Kali taking advantage of hapless girls.....and the biggest irony is they call themselves Bajrang Dal after baal brahmachari Hanuman.....Hinduism teaches us that women are to be respected.... revere her as mother, love her as sister and take care of her as daughter.....so this act is totally against Hinduism...
Nobody has the right to commit crime in name of god....be it Ram or Allah or Jesus....
I will continue about conversions and re-conversions in my next post.
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