Cholera epidemic overwhelms Yemen

Three hundred and twenty-nine Cholera deaths among 32000 confirmed cases !

No this is not a statistic from 19th century Europe but from 2017.

It was 163 years ago that John Snow established the fact that killer disease Cholera was transmitted through ingestion of food and water contaminated by feces of infected patients. Though it was much before discovery of pathogenic bacteria and antibiotics to combat them, just the discovery of method of transmission helped to contain devastating Cholera epidemics in Western Europe.

In this 21st century armed with all the high-tech drugs and gadgets, and with immense scientific knowledge one does not expect such epidemics to happen again. But sadly it is happening now in war-torn Yemen, where US backed Saudi’s fight Iran backed Houthis.

Children getting treatment – via BBC

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Land for harvesting votes

Ever since Modi became Prime Minister of India, Yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s business has expanded by manifold. Not only his spiritual Yoga business but also his “chemical free” consumer goods  business.

Baba who had claimed his “genuine” Ayurvedic medical products and yoga can cure AIDS and Homosexuality has now become the leading player in whole range of products for home use. It seems the tremendous support Modi got from Baba Ramdev for catching votes is being reciprocated by giving huge chunks of land at big discounts as per this Reuters report.

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Determined to lose heart and minds of Kashmiris

The ruling Hindutva party in India, the BJP, is it seems determined to antagonise the local population in Kashmir valley. They act as if they only consider the land of Kashmir as part of India , not the people living there.  This is reflected in the award given to an army officer who became infamous by using a civilian tied to a jeep as a human shield against stone pelting by Kashmiris.

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Beliefs that creates murderers

The gruesome mob killing of Mashal Khan is sending shock waves across the liberal minority in Pakistan. It will be good if they realise that religion & religion based politics  is the root of the problem. This article in the Dawn it seems shows such realisation.

Because while the videos will have caused many to recoil, the visuals and the audio will have made others rejoice.

Turn up the volume and hear the howls and screams. This wasn’t ignorance or the lack of knowledge; it was total belief and piety.

They weren’t screaming for blood; they were chanting the name of God.

The videos are an advertisement and an admonition: this is what we will do, this is what you need to do and this is what must be done.

Like snuff films for the masses, it took minutes and hours for the videos to spread; it’s taken days for the state to respond — a gap that may as well have been an eternity because of the effectiveness of the former and the flaccidness of the latter.

And in the state’s claim that no crime was committed by the victim lies a denial of reality — it doesn’t matter to the murderous that an innocent life was taken.

An innocent life is a price worth paying to defend the higher cause — that no one in no way and at no time may ever even think of doing what the dead man was accused of doing.

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Alienation in Kashmir at an all time high ?

Tbe recent by polls in Kashmir saw only around 7% of people exercising their franchise. Fear of violence, boycott call by militants and more importantly resentment against state and central governments played a part.

For last one year or so the local population is becoming increasingly alienated from Indian mainstream.

One shocking image underlined this change. It showed a Kashmiri man tied down to the front of a vehicle of security forces. He was supposed to have been used as a human shield to escape attack by locals with stones.

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Ambedkar on Islam, Partition and Hindu Raj

Dr B R Ambedkar, Dalit icon and architect of Indian Constitution was a personality whose writings are used by all kinds of people to highlight their points. The  Marxist Left in India use them to fight Hindutva Right, the non Marxist Left and the centrist Congress use them to fight the Hindutva and the Communists, the Hindutva Right use it to attack Islam and the Dalits try to use them for their own survival.

So what did Ambedkar write about Islam ?

In his book Pakistan Or The Partition Of India, a collection of his writings and speeches,  published in 1940 Ambedkar wrote :

Hinduism is said to divide people and in contrast Islam is said to bind people together. This is only a half truth. For Islam divides as inexorably as it binds. Islam is a close corporation and the distinction that it makes between Muslims and non-Muslims is a very real, very positive and very alienating distinction. The brotherhood of Islam is not the universal brotherhood of man. It is brotherhood of Muslims for Muslims only. There is a fraternity, but its benefit is confined to those within that corporation. For those who are outside the corporation, there is nothing but contempt and enmity. The second defect of Islam is that it is a system of social self-government and is incompatible with local self-government, because the allegiance of a Muslim does not rest on his domicile in the country which is his but on the faith to which he belongs. To the Muslim ibi bene ibi patria is unthinkable. Wherever there is the rule of Islam, there is his own country. In other words, Islam can never allow a true Muslim to adopt India as his motherland and regard a Hindu as his kith and kin.

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Ambedkar on Hinduism

Today we remember the architect of Indian Constitution, Dr B R Ambedkar on his birth anniversary.

Here is an excerpt from his 1936 book “Annihilation of Caste”, actually a speech that was never delivered.

[9:] Caste may be bad. Caste may lead to conduct so gross as to be called man’s inhumanity to man. All the same, it must be recognized that the Hindus observe Caste not because they are inhuman or wrong-headed. They observe Caste because they are deeply religious. People are not wrong in observing Caste. In my view, what is wrong is their religion, which has inculcated this notion of Caste. If this is correct, then obviously the enemy you must grapple with is not the people who observe Caste, but the Shastras which teach them this religion of Caste. Criticising and ridiculing people for not inter- dining or inter-marrying, or occasionally holding inter-caste dinners and celebrating inter-caste marriages, is a futile method of achieving the desired end. The real remedy is to destroy the belief in the sanctity of the Shastras.

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Campus murder by mob for blasphemy

A 23 year old was killed by a mob of fellow students in a University in Pakistan. Mashal was killed by the mob for alleged disrespect for Sunni Islam.

MARDAN: Hundreds of students beat to death a classmate known for his liberal views on a university campus in the country’s conservative northwest Thursday, police and witnesses said.

Mashal Khan, a journalism student, was stripped, beaten, shot, and thrown from the second floor of his hostel at the Abdul Wali Khan university in Mardan, sources at the university said.Graphic video footage from the scene shows dozens of men outside the hostel kicking and hurling projectiles at a body sprawled on the ground.

Blasphemy is a hugely sensitive charge in the conservative Muslim country, and can carry the death penalty. Even unproven allegations can cause mob lynchings and violence.

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Freethinkers Meet – Dare to think

Excitement is rising among Freethinkers of Kerala, India as the two day event that brings together the humanist Freethinkers of the state for an intellectual feast is fast approaching.

Organised under the aegis  of “Freethinkers” Facebook group and Kerala Freethinkers Forum the Freethinkers meet 2017  is scheduled for April 22 and 23 at Vyloppilli Samskrithi Bhavan in Thiruvananthapuram.

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Cow rights versus human rights

Shiv Viswanath writes in The Hindu

” Worse, there is a split, where the Muslim is portrayed as a butcher in these Hindutva dreams, while the cow as animal acquires a humanity. With this inversion, the cow becomes a person while the Muslim becomes a non-person, losing his rights as a citizen. Such a militant Hindutva has little sense of Hinduism or the Constitution.”

I agree with his view that Hindutva forces consider Muslims as non persons, inferior to Cows.
I also agree that it is completely in opposite to the position of our Constitution.
But to say that such an attitude has nothing to do with Hinduism is wrong. It seems Shiv Viswanath has not read Hindu scriptures properly. Or he is trying to absolve religion of its guilt , a very common practice among intellectuals to remain popular.

 

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See Manu smrithi 4:162
“Let him never offend the teacher who initiated him, nor him who explained the Veda, nor his father and mother, nor (any other) Guru, nor cows, nor Brahmanas, nor any men performing austerities.”
Hindus always had a rigid hierarchy in which those without a sacred thread had much inferior position than the cows.

Hindutva forces are only using those inhuman scriptures to create hate and grab power.