Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Brief summary - Abbe Dubois - Hindu Customs Practices and Ceremonies

 
Honestly, I have heard variants of crow-sparrow stories BUT NEVER NEVER would have analyzed it from this angle(not that I am incapable of analysis or dumb stupid call what you may) - the white man surely sees beyond what folks like us can - http://www.folklorefellows.fi/netw/ffn20/oncaste.html
 
In the same article, weightage is given to what Abbe Dubois(Hindu Customs Practices and Ceremonies) has to say(I will add more here)...See below in RED.
 
Recently, we asked a colleague, Prof. emer. C. N. Ramachandran of Mangalore University, for his opinion of AbbĂ© Dubois. His verdict was: “prejudiced and unreliable”, “he has eyes only for the dung heap”. If quotations are taken from Dubois, they should be framed with source-critical remarks.
 
From my own initial reading of a few chapters of the book, the approach adopted is too prejudiced and more of shock value highlighting some primitive customs(case in point, paavadam), anti-brahmanical - if the reporting was truly reflective of what the author say rather than author's interpretation...it would have made interesting reading. What is horrifying is H K Beaucomp(guy who translated the French version to English) eulogises the author and his work - I guess there is a reason - Eurocentric scholars kissing each others you-know-what. Hopefully, after completing the book, I will come back and update this space.
 

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Why we cannot rely on moderate Muslims

Fjordman, a Norwegian blogger writes in the gatesofvienna blog:

 

http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2006/09/why-we-cannot-rely-on-moderate-muslims.html

 

The goal of ISLAM best captured by the following paragraph:

 

The Arab goal, Habash declared, was to wage war “against Europe and America” and to ensure that henceforth “there would be no peace for the West.” The Arabs, he informed her, would “advance step by step. Millimeter by millimeter. Year after year. Decade after decade. Determined, stubborn, patient. This is our strategy. A strategy that we shall expand throughout the whole planet.”

 

Fallaci thought he was referring simply to terrorism. Only later did she realize that he “also meant the cultural war, the demographic war, the religious war waged by stealing a country from its citizens — In short, the war waged through immigration, fertility, presumed pluriculturalism.”

Think twice before saying "aurat"

This is going to blow your mind : Read on(thanks shahryar)

 

http://members.aol.com/turkseven/aurat.html

Books to Read

Thanks to Ghostwriter on Rajeev’s blog:

 

  1. https://www.vedamsbooks.com/no42136.htm
  2. https://www.vedamsbooks.com/no35604.htm

 

later,

 

Monday, September 04, 2006

Invest in Foreign Markets - Indian Mutual Funds

Looking for overseas funds
Dhirendra Kumar
New Delhi, September 4, 2006


ONCE UPON a time, it used to be a truism that Indians were crazy about everything foreign, or phoren, as it used to be spelled. Nowadays the distinction between desi and phoren is blurred since you can legitimately buy Indianmade foreign goods. However, in investing the age of foreign investing is just about beginning. Now, the report on ‘Fuller Capital Account Convertibility’ released last week has also recommended an increase in ceiling on mutual funds investment abroad to 5 billion dollar in two steps.

In many ways, the increasingly permissive rules about individuals investing in foreign companies through mutual funds are a watershed in the liberalization of the Indian economy. After all, the fact that capital couldn’t flow abroad was a cornerstone of the old controlled economy.

Except that no one seems to care. The response from investors has been noticeable mainly for not being there. In Budget 2006, the Finance Minister has raised the limit for the total investments from a billion dollars to two billion dollars yet this appears to be a meaningless gesture since the actual investments have been a tiny fraction of even the older, lower limit.

In the two years since foreign investments through mutual funds have been permitted, just one fund has been launched that invests in foreign equities and that fund currently has an utterly irrelevant 13 crore rupees invested in it. That’s about 0.3 per cent of the permitted limit of 1 billion dollars. However, I don’t think this 0.3 per cent is an indicator of the future im portance of investing abroad.

Since the time that investing abroad has been permitted, the Indian stock markets have been doing better, much better, than most other markets abroad. As a result, Indian investors aren’t really interested in investing abroad. Therefore, the actual future relevance of foreign investing will be known only when the markets turn.

Think of a situation when the Indian stock markets are doing badly. And please don’t tell me that in this globalised world everything moves in tandem, take a look at our cover story in this issue. If the Indian markets are doing badly and other markets are doing well, then I expect these two billion dollars to be exhausted overnight. Fund companies will be hawking country or region specific funds and investors will probably be clamouring for ‘allotment’ since there will be an upper limit for the amount of money that could be invested.

If I peek into my crystal ball, I can foresee situations where people are buying and selling (‘informally’, and at a premium) such future products like a SBI Magnum US Tech fund or a Prudential-ICICI China Fund. Does this sound like wild speculation? No. I think this sort of a thing is almost inevitable.

At some points when AMCs need to look at this type of fund seriously, they may well find out that there foreign investing products don’t need to be exclusively foreign. I, for one, would welcome if some top-performing Indian funds could amend their offer documents and say that they could allocate investments abroad if market conditions justified it. All in all, it sounds like a very tax-efficient way to shift to a better-performing market when the need arises.

One thing is certain. Whether these things happen next year or next decade, it’s going to be a whole new world for Indian mutual funds and their investors.

Friday, September 01, 2006

Aryan Invasion Theory - Wonderful work by Sushama Londhe

Feel free to spend time on the website – this is a treasure trove of information and well-researched articles  -  http://www.hinduwisdom.info/aryan_invasion_theory.htm

 

  .

Christians seek West's atonement for colonialism

I look forward to the day when the same happens in India
 
 
 
Christians seek West's atonement for colonialism
By MacDonald Dzirutwe1 hour, 13 minutes ago
Hands aloft and tears streaming down her cheeks, Alicia Chipoyi prayed in a high-pitched voice for spiritual healing for the wounds caused by years of slavery and colonization of Africa by Europeans.
Chipoyi was one of hundreds of people attending a European-African-American church prayer meeting on atonement and reconciliation for the West's past role in the exploitation of what has become the world's poorest continent.
In prayer sessions punctuated by wailing and weeping, song and dance, delegates said the West had to repent before God as the first step to reconciliation with Africa, which blames many of its problems on the legacies of enslavement and imperialism.
"We are not looking to man for help, we are looking to God for our dignity to be restored but first of all the West must confess, repent and atone for their past," Langton Gatsi, the organizer of the meeting, told Reuters on the sidelines of the prayer session.
"Once that happens we can talk of reparations and co-operation and how we can start on an equal footing."
African leaders including Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe have in the past called for reparations from the West for its part in the slave trade.
Chris Seaton, who leads the Europe-Africa Reconciliation Process, a London-based Christian pressure group that seeks to persuade Europe to admit its past role in colonialism, said more Europeans were now aware of the "dark side of colonialism."
The West should see Africa as an equal partner in all its dealings with a continent wracked by poverty, civil wars and underdevelopment, he said.
"We are having to explain the dark side of colonialism to our people in Europe. It is a spiritual initiative which comes in a sense, as a (result) of our history," Seaton told Reuters.
"Some call it indulging on white guilt but our purpose is to acknowledge our past mistakes."
Seaton said atonement and reconciliation were the first steps toward stronger co-operation between the two continents.
"Some of the intractable problems between Africa and Europe are premised on history. We also want to listen from our counterparts in Africa and make a difference," Seaton said.
Mugabe did not attend the meeting as earlier expected, but the veteran leader has frequently blasted the West for his country's economic woes and has been hailed by some fellow Africans for standing up to powerful countries and seizing white-owned farmland.


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