one of the better artciles I have read on the Ayodhya temple issue.
I guess Vir Sanghvi is not completely pinkofied.

is he the guru of islamic jehadi terrorits.
snippets from the article:
The most useful insights into the shaping of Bin Laden may lie not in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan, or the rampant materialism of 1970s Saudi Arabia, but the biography of a long dead Egyptian fundamentalist scholar called Sayyid Qutb.
Qutb, regarded as the father of modern fundamentalism and described by his (Arab) biographer as "the most famous personality of the Muslim world in the second half of the 20th century", is being increasingly cited as the figure who has most influenced the al-Qaida leader.

Qutb seems to have rejected all kinds of government, secular and theocratic, and, on one reading at least, he seems to advocate a kind of anarcho-Islam.

Am editing extensively my blog(as my regular readers would have noticed from the new format). please leave your feedback/comments on the tag board on the right of the screen.

a new way to fight spam
looks like this thing will actually stop or at least control spam(if its ever implemented).
the funda is "if you are not on my buddy list you pay a small amount of money to send me a email". this money is paid to a not-for-profit website which will issue the charity stamp.

Something dosent ring true about this

A american young woman protests in favor of palestinians and dies for her cause
a snippet from her email to her parents

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Currently, the Israeli army is building a fourteen-meter-high wall between Rafah in Palestine and the border, carving a no-mans land from the houses along the border. Six hundred and two homes have been completely bulldozed according to the Rafah Popular Refugee Committee. The number of homes that have been partially destroyed is greater.

Today as I walked on top of the rubble where homes once stood, Egyptian soldiers called to me from the other side of the border, "Go! Go!" because a tank was coming. Followed by waving and "what's your name?". There is something disturbing about this friendly curiosity. It reminded me of how much, to some degree, we are all kids curious about other kids: Egyptian kids shouting at strange women wandering into the path of tanks. Palestinian kids shot from the tanks when they peak out from behind walls to see what's going on. International kids standing in front of tanks with banners.

Israeli kids in the tanks anonymously, occasionally shouting-- and also occasionally waving--many forced to be here, many just aggressive, shooting into the houses as we wander away.
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she seems to be a honest lover of the palestinian cause.
i wonder how many palestinians have died for their cause and why their stories are never highlighted.
more links abt rachel : here and here

what is this new Technical Intelligence Agency
is it going to be like NSA as suggested by the article or more like the clearing house of all collected electronic intelligence an euphemism for tapped radio signals ?

Bombay Train blast
right on the aniversery of the bombay blasts there has been another blast in a local train in bombay. I am pretty worried. Is my Bombay (Mumbai wotever...) turning into another jerusalaem. was just talking to some relatives in mumbai and all of them seem pretty worried. police also seems to be taking this quite seriously. there are sniffer dogs a-plenty in Wadala and the rumors are flying thick and fast.

Babies and Dogs.
i feel americans give a lot of importance to pets esp dogs and cats. they are present everywhere. There are a lot more pet food/ medicine/ litter collector/ litter deoderiser etc ads than baby food or baby medicines ads. i understand abt baby food becoming a standard product and no longer requiring ads but still it does not mean well for a society to have more pet stuff ads than baby food ads. i feel this is a mirroring of the lop-sided value structure of the american society. whats your opinion?

Lest we Forget
March 12 is the 10th anniversery of the Mumbai (Bombay) bomb blasts conducted by muslim militants in conjunction with the the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI which killed over 260 people and brought the city to its knees. but due to the spirit of the people of Mumbai it was fully working the next day.
Thanks to Ravikiran for reminding me.

cricket lovers read this.
why is dalmia suddenly so eager for india to play pakistan. i would goo one step ahead and say that dalmia is planning a split in icc. for this he needs a big-money tournament. nothing like a indo-pak test series. in the process he also gets the "asian votes" or asian support. as it is south africa supports india. he created the bangladesh vote too for this purpose only. am sure kenya is being dangled a vote(test-playing status..they do deserve this tough) too. this guy is amazing. trust him to make up something grand pretty soon after the WC.

non-cricket lovers who dont know wot am talking abt, please excuse.

this is what i like about US (a democracy):
A sikh is harrased by a budweiser sipping "gentleman" who thinks he is Osama's helper in NY subway and other random people help him(the sikh guy) out of the situation which could have turned ugly.

and this happens in India. SO SAD.

end of freedom in america
snippet::
Stephen Downs was wearing a T-shirt bearing the words "Give Peace A Chance" that he had just purchased from a vendor inside the Crossgates Mall in Guilderland, New York, near Albany.

"I was in the food court with my son when I was confronted by two security guards and ordered to either take off the T-shirt or leave the mall," said Downs.

what is hapenning to america : the land of freedom and liberty.

a very intersting cricket link

Cricket and Terrorism.
Prem Panicker rightly points out that:

And while flushing out the crap, let's start with that old chestnut that politics and sports should be kept separate -- each time you hear it, in context of a World Cup that has seen as much unsavory politics as cricket, you find your teeth on edge. (Did anyone ask England to keep politics from sport when it boycotted Zimbabwe for purely political reasons?)

This Cup has seen two boycotts. So how many Englishmen have died at the hands of Zimbabweans? None.

How many Kiwis have been killed by Kenyans? None.

How many Indians have died at the hands of sponsored terrorism? A small matter of 60-something thousand.

That, and only that, is the reason India has not played Pakistan in bilateral competition in three years, no matter what General Pervez Musharraf thinks or says; that is the reason why India will not play Pakistan in bilateral competition in the near future, no matter how Musharraf pleads or blusters.