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Showing posts from October, 2017

Who was Tipu Sultan?

Who was Tipu Sultan by Ravi Visvesvaraya Sharada Prasad    ============ Indian history is getting hijacked by Hindutvadi fascists distorting facts and figures. Nothing is immune to these extremists who want to rewrite history and force their garbage through the mouth of anyone interested in swallowing it. As Mr. Prasad shows below, they even tried to distort history about Tipu Sultan; simply because the latter was a Muslim Sultan who fought against marauding Marathas, who happened to be Hindus. Maratha hoodlums and terrorists are now celebrated as real  heroes while the true ones that fought against colonization are not only forgotten but are often times maligned. Read the story below. ====== THE blatantly false propaganda being spread by the Hindutva Sangha Parivar over Tipu Sultan is reaching outlandish proportions. A Hindutva troll is trying to teach me my own family history with regard to Tipu Sultan’s patronage of Hindu temples. She has been posting all kinds of nonsense o

Savitri Devi: The mystical fascist being resurrected by the alt-right

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Savitri Devi, a mystical admirer of Hitler and a cat-loving devotee of the Aryan myth, seemed destined to fade into obscurity after her death 25 years ago. But thanks to the rise of the extreme right, her name and her image now crop up online more and more, writes Maria Margaronis. In 2012, browsing the website of Greece's Golden Dawn party for an article I was writing, I stumbled on a picture of a woman in a blue silk sari gazing at a bust of Hitler against a blazing sunset sky. What was this apparently Hindu woman doing on the site of an openly racist party devoted to expelling all foreigners from Greece? I filed her as a curiosity at the back of my mind, until the rising tide of extreme-right politics in Europe and America threw up the name "Savitri Devi" once again. It isn't hard these days to find discussions of Savitri Devi's books on neo-Nazi web forums, especially The Lightning and the Sun, which expounds the theory that Hitler was an avatar - an inca

President Trump: heed the plight of the Rohingya

Murat Guzel lives and works in Pennsylvania. He is the founder and CEO of Natural Food Group, a multinational organics food and beverage company. The Washington Examiner posted his plea to President Trump, which I post below. ---------- Malatya, the town where I was born, hosts one of the 25 refugee camps across the plains of southeastern Turkey. With our NATO allies, the United States has helped provide 2,083 shipping containers in Malatya alone that serve as homes for 7,625 refugees. In the dusty summer heat and in the windy, rainy winter, they serve as shelter for men, women, and children who have escaped the Syrian conflict. A small commitment of our tax dollars early in a refugee crisis is an investment in the future. According to NATO’s Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Center, the Turkish government and private sector have diligently clothed, fed, and housed over 3.1 million people fleeing conflict. This makes Turkey the host country with the largest refugee po

Rohingya children: Raped, kidnapped, orphaned

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The plight of the Rohingyas forced to flee the atrocities committed by militants and the army in Myanmar is hard to stomach. The most vulnerable are children, as John Owens' photo series shows. Shot and stabbed : Since August, more than 600,000 Rohingya have fled from Myanmar into Bangladesh. "The day the military came, they burnt down the village and shot my mother as she was trying to escape. My father couldn’t walk, so they stabbed him. I saw this with my own eyes," says 10-year-old Mohammed Belal who managed to run away from his village. Haunted by the trauma Mohammed’s sister Nur also watched the slaughter. She and her brother now live in a shelter for unaccompanied children in Bangladesh. She can play there and gets regular meals, a stark contrast to her journey from Myanmar where she and her brother nearly starved. But she is still haunted by the trauma of the recent weeks. "I miss my parents, my home, my country,"

Rohingya girls under 10 raped while fleeing Myanmar, MSF says

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Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) says more than half the girls it has treated after sexual assaults are under 18. Fiona MacGregor in Cox’s Bazar Wednesday 25 October 2017 04.56 EDT Last modified on Wednesday 25 October 2017 05.55 EDT Rohingya children, some of them under 10 years old, are receiving treatment for rape in camps on the Bangladesh border, according to medics who say that young refugees account for half of those sexually assaulted while fleeing violence in Myanmar. Médecins Sans Frontières says dozens of Rohingya girls have been given medical and psychological support at its Kutupalong health facility’s sexual and reproductive health unit – a specialist clinic for survivors of sexual assault based in the largest refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar.                                   Of those fleeing Rakhine state who come to the clinic for treatment relating to rape, “about 50% are aged 18 or under, including one girl who was nine years old and several othe

Dr Zarni's reaction to US measures against Myanmar military

To view  Dr Zarni's reaction to US measures click here .

Interview of Dr Azeem Ibrahim on Rohingya

To view the video on interview of Dr Azeem Ibrahim, click here . He says: ‘The ambition of the army and the elite in Myanmar has always been to eliminate the Rohingya.’

He Escaped Burma, But Not Australia’s Abusive Refugee Policy

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He Escaped Burma, But Not Australia’s Abusive Refugee Policy Rohingya Refugee Has Spent 4 Years on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island Nazish Dholakia  @nazishd Media Desk Officer Refugees and asylum seekers protest against Australia’s offshore processing policy at a detention center on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea. © 2017 Private Nazish Dholakia  @nazishd Media Desk Officer When the Burmese military appeared in “Faruk’s” home village in Rakhine State in 2013, his mother pleaded for him to leave. They are Rohingya Muslims, who have long been persecuted in Burma, and his mom feared for her 18-year-old son’s safety. She’d heard of Rohingya men who had been summarily executed when the military arranged “meetings” in their villages. Faruk fled. He made the journey from  Burma  by boat to Thailand, to Malaysia, to Indonesia, and then to Australia’s Christmas Island. But when his boat reached Australian waters, Australian immigration officials questioned him and transferred

DPRK’s little known secrets ensure sustainability of the Stalinist regime

In recent months, North Korea has attracted much world attention due to its nuclear program threatening its neighbors to the east and south. The official name of the country is Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), although it is neither democratic nor a people’s republic. The state is run by Kim Jong-un, a tyrant with a Fred Flintstone haircut. He is effectively one of the last pure hereditary absolute monarchs on the planet. He is the Marshal of the DPRK, the Great Successor, and the Sun of the 21st Century. In his mid-30s, the Supreme Leader owns the longest list of excessive honorifics anywhere, every one of them unearned. He is the youngest head of state in the world and probably the most spoiled. Recently, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was in Seoul, South Korea where he said the threat of nuclear missile attack by North Korea is accelerating. With the South Korean defense minister Song Young-moo at his side, Mattis accused the DPRK of illegal and unnecessary miss

Are millions of Christians worshipping wrong relics?

To read the report click here .

Myanmar's ethnic clleansing of Rohingya population - in pictures

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 Confused and scared, two-year-old Hazera holds on to her mother after reaching Bangladesh from Myanmar Myanmar's military has brutally evicted more than half a million Rohingya people from the country's northern Rakhine state. The UN human rights office says their homes and villages have been burned down, and their crops and livestock destroyed to stop them coming back. Rohingya who fled to neighbouring Bangladesh say that the security services' "clearance operations" involved mass civilian killings, torture, and child rape. The military denies committing genocide, insisting it has only targeted Rohingya militants. But for those who fear being homeless or worse, the semantics are immaterial. Bangladesh's UN ambassador says more than 600,000 people have crossed the border since late August, joining the 300,000 or so who fled earlier outbreaks of violence. They are starving and exhausted. Many are traumatised, and most have children with them. BBC photo

The Art and science of being charismatic

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What do Bill Clinton, Steve Jobs and Tony Blair have in common ? Love ‘em or loathe ‘em, they all oozed charisma. Charismatic leaders can inspire followers to be more loyal and work harder. But are there different ways in which leaders can be charismatic? While BBC Capital has previously examined how being charming can help influence people in the workplace, charisma involves a rather different set of skills. Researchers have shown that charisma involves communicating (whether verbally or in written text) using powerful metaphors and anecdotes, using expressions and body language that successfully convey emotions that back up your message while displaying confidence, among other traits. Charm involves making eye contact with individuals and flashing them a smile, getting people to talk about themselves, asking personal questions and making empathic statements, whereas charismatic leaders don’t necessarily have to interact directly with the people they influence at all – they can do