Nirvana!

And the world remained silent! Since late 1989 J&K has been in the grip of a vicious movement of Islamist extremist terrorism. Thousands of lives have been lost in this conflict over 2 decades of a sub-conventional war that has inflicted enormous suffering on the people of the State.  Among the worst victims of this conflict are the Kashmiri Pandits, descendants of Hindu priests and among the original inhabitants of the Kashmir Valley, with a recorded history of over 5,000 years. The Pandits have been the targets and victims of one of the most successful, though little-known, campaigns of ethnic cleansing in the world. Pogroms of a far lesser magnitude in other parts of the world have attracted international attention, censure and action in support of the victim communities, but this is an insidious campaign that has passed virtually unnoticed, and on which the world remains silent. Between February and March 1990, 140,000 to 160,000 Pandits had fled the Kashmir Valley to

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) , also known as The UN Refugee Agency observes 20th of June every year as ‘ World Refugee Day ’.  The mandate of the UNHCR is to ‘provide, on a non-political and humanitarian basis, international protection to refugees and to seek permanent solutions for them’. The UNHCR proudly claims that it has won the Nobel Peace prize twice in 1954 and 1981. Such an organization which has a lofty mandate and has won several awards including the Nobel peace prize has somehow chose to ignore the plight of more than 2 million refugees of various denominations in Jammu & Kashmir who are living a life of penury in despicable conditions for the past several decades.  Neither has the organization raised the issue in its reports nor has it intervened with the concerned governments to address their plight and repatriate them.   UNHCR State of the Global refugees 2012 report released this month does not even mention the refugees of J

Today's episode of the Kannada quiz program 'That Antha Heli' had one Harekala Hajabba as a guest participant. Hajabba's life story is no less than a drama that can unfold on screen and inspirational on all counts.  H ajabba is a fruit hawk er who with his meagre savings set up a school for children.  Harekala Hajabba lost his hut to river floods. But that did not deter him.  Hajabba collected little funds from selling oranges and finally setup 'Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat Higher Primary School' in Newpadupu, near Mangalore.  He started selling oranges since then. He never went to school and he always felt that the root cause of his travails was his lack of schooling & education. But he always dreamt of seeing his village kids go to school.  We find it difficult to even respond to difficulties of those near us or take responsibility for the sake of the nation. (All photos belong to their respective owners) And here we have a frui

The answers to the questions here ->  http://prashanth-vaidyaraj.blogspot.in/2013/08/what-do-terms-atheism-religion-etc-mean.html   IMHO emerge when we try to understand the origin of each of those terms like 'Religion', 'Atheism', 'God', etc. The subject matter is too vast hence I will try to be specific to the questions raised in this post.   The factors that make a 'Religion' are a 'God', his messenger, a single authoritative book and a structure to assemble its followers. This 'God' is a male who has created the universe and everything in it, including the evil. 'God' is all powerful and can get angry and can punish you when one does not adhere to his commands. His messenger is to whom 'God' has 'revealed' his 'message' in form of 'commandments' and 'Book'. If one follows the dictums as mentioned in the 'Book' it is deemed as 'Good' else it is deemed 'Bad'.

As I read the title of an article in the front page of in today's The New Indian Express, a barrage of questions came to my mind. The title (see pic) loudly cried thus, "'Athiest' CM turns religious, Visits Temple in Mysore"!!! Now the que stions that came to my mind: Can Siddaramaiah or anyone who are born and brought up in native Bharateeya families belonging to one of the thousands of traditions & customs, claim to be an 'Atheist'? In short, who can claim to be an 'Atheist'? What does '... turns religious ...' mean? What does 'religion' mean exactly and which are the religions present in India and the world? Does Siddaramaiah or any Bharateeya adhering to their own native traditions or personal belief systems 'turn religious'? In fact, how can a Bharateeya turn 'religious'? If TNIE meant 'Nastika', are 'Atheism' and Nastika traditions one and the same? Now, can 'vi