Bharat Rakshak

pankajs wrote:^
CRamS saar that to me indicates that at least some the so called liberals are now realizing that their fathers, brothers, husbands, sons and all future male issues have been branded as rapist. Apart from the these the male liberals have themselves been branded as rapist.

I haven't read the post. Just going by your comments.

Amber G. wrote: He articulated it pretty well how India and US are good friends..

Heiner Beilefeldt, UNHRC's Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion and beliefs, said Viet Nam had made progress in observing freedoms, including the expansion of religious dignitaries, followers and worship facilities, in recent years. Beilefeldt studied the current conditions in Viet Nam and wrote a report on the country's achievements and ongoing issues.

Viet Nam should continue refining legal regulations on religions and beliefs while clarifying allegations related to those freedoms, he said. He also expressed his willingness to continue working in Viet Nam as a special rapporteur.

Amber G. wrote:but Obama did not insult India.In fact, every small indication I get in terms of real values (eg details of scientific collaboration etc) I am amazed at the rate the relationship is becoming better.

ramana wrote:
BTW just remarking, MUTU meme runs deep and wide in the Forum. Even the umbrage at MMS being called names (looks like well deserved based on a litany of books (Baru et al) and news reports and court summons) is not really in support of MMS and his coterie but for US.

Shreeman wrote:(Totally ok. One of my better rants in a while. For an on-the-go piece, without editing, a very mad output)

But the outburst of Mohan Bhagwat against Mother Teresa, an acknowledged saint — acknowledged by all communities and peoples — has put me back on the hit list.

It warmed the cockles of my heart that ordinary Hindus, not known to me, still thought well of me and would like to be friends 25 years after my retirement, when I could not directly serve them.

Julio Robeiro wrote:Christians have consistently punched above their weight — not as much as the tiny Parsi community, but just as noticeably

Albany: An Indian-origin woman found dead at her apartment in the US last week was apparently shot in the head, the media reported.

The 37-year-old Randhir Kaur - a dental student at the University of California in San Francisco - was shot once in the head at her apartment on March 8, police said, according to a CBS San Francisco report on Sunday.

She was reported to have attended prayers at a gurdwara earlier in the day.

When Kaur did not show up the following day, her colleagues became concerned and notified a family member who went to her apartment and found her body, police said.

Detectives found no sign of forced entry into her apartment or foul play. Kaur`s car was found parked and locked at her residence.

On March 9, police found personal items belonging to Kaur inside a trash receptacle, roughly two miles away from her apartment.

Criminalists from the Alameda county sheriff`s crime laboratory have been called to assist in the investigation, which police said was a standard practice for any homicide in the city.

Two additional investigators have been assigned to the case, bringing the total number of full-time investigators to six, along with several part-time personnel, police said.

Arjun wrote:

Julio Robeiro wrote:Christians have consistently punched above their weight — not as much as the tiny Parsi community, but just as noticeably

Not true....Christians don't rank very high in the communities that punch above their weight in India.

Even when looking at 'minority' religions - Jains, Sikhs and Parsis far surpass Christians on any metric. If we are to look at caste rather than religions as the basis of community - then there are many, many more communities that would far surpass the Christians on standard attainment metrics.

ramana wrote:In one sense partly true. The Anglo-Indians have a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha. The Railways, the Indian Air Force and Indian Navy early on had quite a contingent from that community.

Sagar G wrote:Another hate crime
[On March 9, police found personal items belonging to Kaur inside a trash receptacle, roughly two miles away from her apartment.Criminalists from the Alameda county sheriff`s crime laboratory have been called to assist in the investigation, which police said was a standard practice for any homicide in the city.Two additional investigators have been assigned to the case, bringing the total number of full-time investigators to six, along with several part-time personnel, police said.

Arjun wrote:

ramana wrote:In one sense partly true. The Anglo-Indians have a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha. The Railways, the Indian Air Force and Indian Navy early on had quite a contingent from that community.

True...Anglo Indians have made a mark in teaching, Armed Forces & sports.

Two castes within Indian Christians - the Syrian Christians of Kerala, & the Mangalore / Goan Catholics of Konkan coast also score very well in various attainment stats. Both of these castes are not shy of proudly proclaiming their Brahmin roots though and genetics clearly has had a role to play in their success. At the same time - there is a lot of emigration from these castes in particular while the growth of Christian population through evangelism is primarily from the BC / SC / ST community in India. Overall Christian attainment stats therefore remain low.

It will certainly be the same as the country’s defence minister’s as our ancestors arrived in Goa with the sage Parshuram at the same time. Perhaps we share a common ancestor somewhere down the line. It is an accident of history that my forefathers converted and his did not. I do not and never shall know the circumstances that made it so.

svenkat wrote:Arjun saar,
That reference to 'genetic' was unwarranted.

It is a fact that some christians of west coast do identify themselves as descendants of brahmanas.

It will certainly be the same as the country’s defence minister’s as our ancestors arrived in Goa with the sage Parshuram at the same time. Perhaps we share a common ancestor somewhere down the line. It is an accident of history that my forefathers converted and his did not. I do not and never shall know the circumstances that made it so.

JF Ribeiro conveniently forgets that christians enjoy huge properties and privileges(running educational institutions) which are an imperialist legacy.Why should Yeshu worshippers continue to have these imperialist relics of privilege?Do christists have some genetic/racial superiority they should have unhindered privilege of peddling influence?Does US allow hindus to control the historical narrative or to form a baneful influence on their children/students?

svenkat wrote:That reference to 'genetic' was unwarranted.

ramana wrote:I think a film to document the heinous and grievous abuses that women face all over the world is a laudable object. One of our members created two twitter links that document Violence against women(@violenceonwomen) news reports and human trafficking news reports (@HumanTrafficIND) and collate news reports in English news media in India to bring about awareness. The two links have google maps which also map the news reports.

However the BBC documentary by focusing on India without providing world wide context, especially now its clear such contextual information has been edited out is a hit job. And is in along line of Anglo-Saxon Conrardian angst.

DES MOINES — One afternoon last week, David Lane watched from the sidelines as a roomful of Iowa evangelical pastors applauded a defense of religious liberty by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. That night, he gazed out from the stage as the pastors surrounded Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana in a prayer circle.

For Mr. Lane, a onetime Bible salesman and self-described former “wild man,” connecting the pastors with two likely presidential candidates was more than a good day’s work. It was part of what he sees as his mission, which is to make evangelical Christians a decisive power in the Republican Party.

“An army,” he said. “That’s the goal.”

And Mr. Lane is positioning himself as a field marshal. A fast-talking and born-again veteran of conservative politics with experience in Washington, Texas and California, Mr. Lane, 60, travels the country trying to persuade evangelical clergy members to become politically active.

His hope is that the politicized pastors will help mobilize congregations that have been disheartened by the repeated failure of socially conservative candidates, and by a party that has softened its opposition to same-sex marriage.

It is an organizing approach far different from those in the days when larger-than-life leaders like the Moral Majority founder, Jerry Falwell, who died in 2007, or Pat Robertson, now 84, could activate evangelical voters simply by anointing a candidate.

But close observers of evangelicals and their political involvement say Mr. Lane is emblematic of a new generation of evangelical leaders who draw local support or exert influence through niche issues or their own networks.

Unlike political operatives such as Ralph Reed, the former executive director of the Christian Coalition who helped elect George W. Bush before becoming ensnared in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, Mr. Lane does not have an extensive organization.

What Mr. Lane, a former public relations man, does have going for him is a decentralized landscape in which a determined believer with an extensive network of ground-level evangelical leaders and a limitless capacity for talking on the phone can exert influence on Republican presidential candidates eager to reach evangelical voters.

“David is the real deal,” said the Rev. Brad Atkins, a prominent pastor in South Carolina. “He really believes that this is his calling.”

And it is here in Iowa, where conservatives traditionally have an inordinate influence in the state’s Republican presidential caucuses, that evangelicals have their best shot of shaping the field. In what he says is his effort to restore “our Christian heritage,” Mr. Lane’s American Renewal Project has already shown its influence in Iowa by helping to unseat three State Supreme Court justices who voted to allow same-sex marriage.

But Mr. Lane’s ambitions are national — he focused on battleground states in 2014 and has built an email list of 100,000 pastors around the country.

His goal now is to get 1,000 pastors to run for public office, and their potential support has drawn a virtual pilgrimage of conservative candidates eager to join the tours Mr. Lane organizes to Israel and to his “Pastors and Pews” events.

“A good friend” Mr. Cruz said.

“A great friend,” Mr. Jindal said.

With some of the energy gone from the evangelical movement, said John C. Green, a political scientist at the University of Akron and an expert on evangelicals, “this is about keeping the pressure on for the next election.”

“Lane has influence with pastors, and they listen to him,” Mr. Green added.

All this activity has caught the attention of liberal opponents, who call Mr. Lane an extremist for his belief that abortion will incur divine vengeance on America and his argument that the Republican Party will be destroyed by its acceptance of same-sex marriage just as the Whig Party was destroyed by its acceptance of slavery in the 19th century.

They have sought to cast him as the de facto travel agent for the American Family Association, a Mississippi-based conservative religious organization, which had to distance itself from a spokesman, Bryan Fischer, who called homosexuals “Nazis” and argued that Muslims should not enjoy First Amendment rights and should be converted to Christianity.

Mr. Lane said that he raises his own money for his trips and events from a handful of wealthy donors, whose names he declined to divulge, and that the American Family Association pays him a retainer and provides him with legal and accounting assistance. In return the group, which has an expansive radio network, Internet constituency and budget, gets its name on all of Mr. Lane’s events and adds to its database the contact information of all the pastors he organizes.

Questions about his associations or accusations that he is an opportunist clearly get under Mr. Lane’s skin. But, he said, they show how he is “on the radar.”

And it is a long way from where he started. Raised in rural Oklahoma by his grandparents after his parents divorced in his infancy and his father left, Mr. Lane hit bottom as a partying student at the University of Mississippi, where for four summers he sold Bibles door to door.

“I’d stay drunk all night and sell Bibles all day,” he said. With about a semester to go in 1977, he dropped out, instead pursuing a life of “drugs, wine, women and song.” (“Le Freak” by Chic and “cocaine,” he clarified.)

He eventually sought redemption from the Bible and a series of motivational speaking mentors. Judge Ziglar, author of “Timid Salesmen Have Skinny Kids” and brother of the famed motivational speaker Zig Ziglar, took an interest in him.

Then, after having a conversion moment in a downtown Atlanta alley following a motivational seminar, he moved to Houston and came under the wing of Judge Paul Pressler, a key figure in the resurgence of the Baptist conservative movement and the Moral Majority.

Bob Perry, the wealthy Texas home builder and Republican donor, who later funded the Swift Boat Veterans campaign against John Kerry in 2004, gave Mr. Lane $3,000 of seed money to get started in Washington, where Mr. Lane began working for Carl Channell in support of President Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” defense system.

“Spitz taught me the fund-raising business,” said Mr. Lane, using a nickname for Mr. Channell. “He was a homosexual.”

He eventually worked for Mr. Falwell, and throughout his career gained a reputation as a “pastor’s friend,” said his own former pastor, the Rev. Gary Miller, who tearfully recalled Mr. Lane’s handing him a pair of new shoes during a period of tight finances in his own life.

And it is as a pastoral impresario that Mr. Lane has found his influence and attracted an audience of auditioning politicians. He organized an event with Gov. Rick Perry and hundreds of evangelical pastors in Texas in 2005. Dozens of events and candidates and seven years later, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky attended an event in South Carolina.

“They say you’re anti-Israel,” Mr. Lane said he told Mr. Paul when they met, and asked if he had ever been to Israel. When Mr. Paul said he had not, Mr. Lane, whose daughter now works for Mr. Paul, asked if the senator would be interested in going on a tour with evangelical leaders from Iowa and South Carolina.

Two years ago, Mr. Paul, his wife, Kelley, and their sons joined about 50 pastors and evangelical leaders on the trip. Afterward, Mr. Lane said, he received a note from Mr. Paul in which he wrote that he had awaked from a dream singing “How Great Thou Art” and that two of his sons had committed their lives to Christ.

After Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey made a good impression at a Republican event later that year, Mr. Lane offered him the chance to join primary state pastors on a “Reagan, Thatcher, John Paul II” tour to California, London and Rome.

“They turned it down,” said Mr. Lane, who smiled when asked if he thought that was a mistake.

Instead, Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, jumped at the opportunity, subbing former Nazi concentration camps and Oskar Schindler’s former factory in Poland for the stop in Rome.

Last month, Mr. Lane took 60 members of the Republican National Committee to Jerusalem at a cost, he said, of about $500,000. A trip to Israel with Mr. Jindal is planned for July.

Missing from his travel manifests and events are the Republican Party’s establishment candidates. While Mr. Lane is technically neutral at this point, he clearly is no fan of the more moderate wing of his party. He said he tried to rescue the 2008 and 2012 tickets by advocating Mr. Huckabee for vice president.

While he admires Jeb Bush’s record as governor of Florida, especially his opposition to taking Terri Schiavo off life support, he scoffed at Mr. Bush’s choice for evangelical liaison, noting that he was “26 years old” and that his father was “behind Romney.” And as far as Mr. Bush’s hiring an openly gay communications director, he said: “I don’t understand what he’s up to. Personnel is policy.”

Mr. Lane is himself something of a one-man operation. He said that he shares the same hard-charging engine as his father, a car dealer who made the Chevrolet Hall of Fame, and since setting up shop in Southern California in 1998, Mr. Lane has acted mostly behind the scenes. Last week’s conference, and the two presidential hopefuls, was a calculated step into the spotlight.

“If the Lord were to call 1,000 pastors in America — 1,000 — and they ended up with an average of 300 volunteers per campaign in 2016, that would be 300,000 grass-root, precinct-level, evangelical conservatives coming from the bottom up,” he said to the ballroom full of pastors. “It would change America.”

JE Menon wrote:I think it would be fairly easy to establish this, perhaps as simple as assessing whether these upper castes they have converted from have been much lower in these achievement metrics. I presume these upper castes are brahmins, etc... Should be controlled for relative population sizes of course

"One thing is very clear that the number of asylees of Indian origin are increasing every year, which is a matter of concern," said Satnam Singh Chahal, NAPA executive director.

Hari Seldon wrote:US gave 700 Indians political asylum in 2014 (India Today)

"One thing is very clear that the number of asylees of Indian origin are increasing every year, which is a matter of concern," said Satnam Singh Chahal, NAPA executive director.

Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar had earlier told reporters here that action will be taken against those who had allegedly vandalised the church.

Khattar had said that an FIR has been registered on the statement of church priest Subhash Chander, against several persons including Anil Godara, Dalbir Singh, Raj Kumar, Kuldeep, Satpal, Krishan, Suresh, Dinesh, Jogender, Kulwant, Sudhir, Bijender, Satnarain and Chhotu Ram.

Khattar had told the Assembly yesterday that the building was reportedly built in an illegal colony and the vandalisation was the result of an altercation between the priest and those who attacked the place of worship.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today expressed his concern over the incident and asked for an immediate report on facts and action taken.

Hari Seldon wrote:US gave 700 Indians political asylum in 2014 (India Today)

"One thing is very clear that the number of asylees of Indian origin are increasing every year, which is a matter of concern," said Satnam Singh Chahal, NAPA executive director.

Kashi wrote:

Amber G. wrote:but Obama did not insult India.In fact, every small indication I get in terms of real values (eg details of scientific collaboration etc) I am amazed at the rate the relationship is becoming better.

So as per you Obama's speech at Siri Fort and then again at the prayer meeting "did not insult India", then how do you classify those statements?

If the relationship is indeed getting better as you said, then why was this need to indulge in verbal skulduggery?

I put a bomb in a passenger train and passengers' body parts were hanging from the burnt tree branches near the station, and this 3rd-world dictatorship is threatening to put me in jail for expressing my free opinion in that mannner!