At a presentation made before the Committee of Secretaries, the NRSA presented “concrete evidence” that suggests construction activities, excavations and movements of trucks in and around the Zangmu site.

Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said here that India has taken up the issue with China on a number of occasions, but China has consistently denied engaging in any construction activity on the Brahmaputra.

She added that the question of dam has not strained India’s relations with China.

The Brahmaputra, according to Nirupama Rao, has now become a permanent subject on the agenda of the talks between India and China. India has taken up the issue of the dam with China several times, and China has time and again denied that any dam was being built, she said.

With data from the National Remote Sensing Agency revealing construction activity by China, the government of India has decided to seek clarification from China on the matter.

The official media of China has reported that China will build 5 dams in the “middle reaches” of the river Brahmaputra (Yarlung-Tsangpo) for hydro-power projects and that they are scheduled to be completed by 2015.

The Chinese report went on to say that Huaneng, the top electricity-generating company in China, was financing the project. Gezhouba, one of the largest dam-construction firms in China, is in charge of building the project.

According to other reports, China is expected to approve more dam-building projects on the river Brahmaputra soon, with the Zangmu hydro-power project the first one to be constructed. This is to be followed by 5 other dams on the Brahmaputra – Guoduo, Dhongzhong, Ruxi, Linchang, and Xiangda.

According to experts in India, while these dam projects have small reservoirs and that China has a right to build them – it being an upper riparian state – what Indian should worry about is that China’s strategists have proposed that the Brahmaputra be “diverted” to meet the water needs of its arid north-eastern region.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had recently “reassured” the Chief Ministers of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam saying that he was “convinced” that China was not constructing dams on the Brahmaputra.

The matter also had come up at the meeting between Manmohan Singh and China’s Prime Minister Wen Jiabao held on the sidelines of the ASEAN-India and East Asia Summit in Thailand in October 2009.

It may be noted that China did not inform Pakistan when it constructed a big dam on the river Indus in Senge-Ali. Pakistan knew about China’s dam in Senge-Ali only after a book presented details of the dam.

India fears that the dam China is reportedly building, aimed at generating 540 megawatts of electricity, will result in water being denied to India.

There is no bilateral treaty in place between India and China regarding trans-boundary rivers.

According to experts, the river Brahmaputra enters India from Tibet with 71.5 BCM of water. Out of this, China is reportedly planning to divert 40 BCM of water for its needs.

The fact that the Brahmaputra has a runoff of 550 BCM of water, on an average, when it reaches Bangladesh shows that the river is being fed by its tributaries after it enters India.

The Islamic seminary at Deoband, located 150 kilometres north-east of Delhi, maintains that singing Vande Maataram violates Islam’s faith in monotheism.

A resolution adopted by the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind at its 30th general session also said that Muslims were being “targeted over the issue,” adding that “we love our country and have proved it many times, but we cannot elevate it to the status of Allah, the only one worshipped by the Muslims.”

Asserting that the ‘fatwa’ issued by the Darul Uloom is “correct,” the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind said that referring to the nation as mother and singing an ode to motherland is “un-Islamic” and violates “our faith in monotheism that is Islam’s foundation.”

It may be noted that the Jamiat’s move comes at a time when a few states such as Madhya Pradesh, ruled by the BJP, has introduced singing Vande Maataram in state-run schools.

Jamiat’s endorsement of Darul Uloom’s stand on Vande Maataram came a on the same day the ‘general session’ of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind was addressed by Union Home Minister P Chidambaram.

In his speech, P Chidambaram had taken care to stay away from any controversy and praised Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind for the resolution it adopted against terrorism in Deoband in 2008.

Chidambaram said that the Jamiat’s call against terrorism was a call to all citizens of the country, and not just Muslims, to oppose terrorism and violence. While condemning the demolition of the Babri masjid, the Home Minister said “it is the duty of the majority to look after the minorities.”

The Union Home Minister has since clarified that he was not present when the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind adopted the resolution against the recital of Vande Maataram.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) reacted to the Jamiat’s stand by saying that the presence of the Union Home Minister had “legitimized” the attitude against Vande Maataram.

In a statement, Murli Manohar Joshi, BJP leader, said that the party opposes the resolution passed by Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind.

Mukhtar Naqvi, vice-president of the BJP, said that while the singing of Vande Maataram was not compulsory, the way in which the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind opposed the song – “immortalised in Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s classic” – is unacceptable.

Naqvi also criticized P Chidambaram for having addressed a gathering where the singing of Vande Maataram was being opposed, arguing that the Minister’s speech would be construed as supporting the “retrograde” viewpoint of the Jamiat.

The Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, in other resolutions, disagreed with the proposed Central Madrasa Board, saying that such a body would be an “intrusion” in the running of madrasas.

The Jamiat demanded that that education of girls after the age of 10 should be “completely according to the norms of the Sharia.” Though the Jamiat did not specify what it meant by “Sharia norms,” it is generally believed that the radical Muslim outfit was referring to the use of the veil and the hijab as well as separate classrooms for boys and girls.

Darul Uloom has repetitively described co-education as “unlawful” and even opposed a ruling recently by a senior cleric at the much-respected Al Azhar, of Cairo, that face-veils were not needed in all-women classrooms.

Vande Mataram has always been a point of controversy ever since it was adopted by the freedom movement against the British Raj in India. Muslims had opposed it even then, and several leaders of the Congress were uncomfortable with some of the supposed ‘anti-Muslim’ tone of the novel in which the song had first appeared.

In the last twenty years, the RSS, BJP and its allies have attempted to use the Vande Mataram as a touchstone to Indian Muslims’ patriotism. This has predictably led to even more angry denunciations from Muslim organisations. After the endorsement of the Vande Mataram Fatwa, Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray said that those who do not sing the song were traitors and they should go to Pakistan or Bangladesh. That is definitely not a very helpful attitude in convincing Muslims to sing the Vande Mataram, we believe.

On the other hand, focusing on such symbolic issues other than on more substantive issues such as education and women’s rights have always been a tactic adopted by Islamic leaders – both religious and political – in India to keep the community under their thumb.

In end-November 2009, Home Minister P Chidambaram had visited Jammu & Kashmir and said that the government is considering the ban of pre-paid mobile connections in the state, since it failed in convincing people to use post-paid mobile connections.

The Ministry of Home Affairs has said that service providers or vendors were not conducting proper verification when providing pre-paid mobile numbers, as a result of which there were cases when a single person had been issued with multiple number of connections.

This has led to grave security concerns, a press release from the Ministry of Home Affairs said.

“Pre-paid connections are prone to misuse. Anyone wanting a mobile connection can always go in for a post-paid connection in Jammu and Kashmir. I think the problem is not so acute in the north-eastern States; we may also have to look at the situation in there,” Mr. Chidambaram said at a press conference.

The Minsistry has requested the Department of Telecommunications to take the necessary steps to execute the decision.

The Home ministry will execute the ban from November 1, 2009, onwards. Pre-paid customers of other states would not be able to use roaming services when they visit Jammu & Kashmir and the seven North Eastern states.

With 19 lakh customers, Bharati Airtel is the largest mobile service provider in the state followed by BSNL with 12 lakh and Aircel with 7 lakh customers.

On October 4, 2009, international media reported that a Saudi cleric, Sheikh Saad bin Nasser al-Shithri was removed from Saudi Arabia’s Council of Senior Clerics. Reason: He had opposed gender-mixing at King Abdullah Science and Technology University, the first co-ed institution in the Desert Kingdom. King Abdullah, the country’s ruler, has been battling opposition from within the deeply fundamentalist ranks of Wahabis in his own country for a while. This time, he had his way. But, the setback for fundamentalism is still the exception, not the rule.

Joy C Raphael’s book Mutawas, Saudi Arabia’s Dreaded Religious Police, tells the story of the origins of the country’s religious Gestapo, and how they have become an integral part of the Saudi society. Speckled with terrifying real-life stories and observations on the way of the Saudi religious police, Mutawas is an eye-opener for outsiders dazzled by gleaming minarets and oil wealth of Saudi Arabia.

Raphael, who spent 14 years of his career as a journalist in Saudi Arabia, grew curious about the working of the Mutawas ever since he set foot in the Holy Land. Over the duration of his stay in Saudi Arabia – he later moved to other, more humane countries in the Middle East – he collected information about the religious police, finally leading to the birth of Mutawas, published by Turtle Books, an imprint of Zen Publications.

Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Prophet Mohammed, is the land of Wahabism. Muhamed Abdul Wahab entrenched his Islamic fundamentalist ideals on the desert nation with a wedding alliance with the ruler of Saudi Arabia. This means that the ruler of Saudi Arabia is the moral guardian of Wahabism, one of the most primitive forms of Holy Islam. Iqawan, an early band of religious zealots were the forerunners of Mutawas.

Supported by Saudi Arabia’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, Mutawas have a free run in the Saudi society, with forced conversions, physical assaults and personal espionage. In Saudi Arabia, women are prevented from exposing any part of their body, and are expected to be in long body-enveloping black gowns. Men and women are segregated, and even married couples are not allowed to be together in public. Women are no allowed to drive. There are no movie theatres in Saudi Arabia, though a flourishing market in pirated movie CDs survives. Worshipping false gods of Christianity, Hinduism and
Sikhism are barred, and even keeping a crucifix, a picture of Guru Nanak or a statuette if Lord Ram can attract jail terms and lashings. Beheadings are reserved for more serious crimes, and are not uncommon. And lording over this fundamentalism mechanism are the menacing Mutawas, who consider it their sacred duty to keep the Holy Land “pure”.

Technically, Mutawas have no powers to police: they are supposed to inform the police when they spot violations of morality. They are not expected to enter homes, or conduct searches. However, these rules are observed more in the breach. Except Riyadh’s diplomatic quarters which are out of bounds for the religious zealots, no place in Saudi Arabia is safe from the tentacles of the marauding Mutawas.

Mutawas are dressed similar to most Saudis – in ankle-length robe, with a head-scarf, but no black band. They have long beards, and wear leather sandals. Moving around in the residential and commercial nooks and crannies of Riyadh’s busy entrails in their large GMC Suburbans, they spread fear in the hearts of even god-fearing Saudis, and most expatriates in the city. After numerous complaints from foreign diplomats and wealthy Saudis, Mutawas were put through a training
programme in the past, but that has served little to reform the Wahabi bigots. Joy Raphael narrates the true-life tales of several Indians, Filipinos and westerners who fell afoul of the Mutawas, and had to pay dearly for their indiscretion.

Apart from watching over public morality, Mutawas also have a sacred duty to convert as many non-Muslims to their own faith – they call it reversion. Wahabis believe that everyone is born a Muslim, and some are then distracted and misled to worshipping false gods. Reversion will bring them back to the right path. Non-Muslim expatriates are forced to convert through threats, blandishments and outright bribing. One expat coming back to Saudi Arabia from Cairo was stopped at
Immigration and asked to convert to Islam because “Muslims are good. Very good. Your religion not good.” Those who struggle to make a living in Saudi Arabia to support families at home acquiesce, or at least do not object. Some workers are arbitrarily terminated from their work, and asked to convert if they have to continue in the country. If they do agree and change faiths, they receive cash gifts, salary hikes and favorable treatment.

Many expats work as spies for the Mutawas – some for financial gains, some out of religious conviction. They move around in expat circles, feeding inside information to the religious police.

There have been occasional, half-hearted attempts to reform Mutawas, but to little avail. Joy Raphael’s book throws light on the dark deeds of the Mutawas and what drives them. The cleric who poured scorn on co-education at King Abdullah University may have landed in trouble, but Saudi Arabia is still far from leaving the Middle Ages, where the Mutawas feel they truly belong.

What is clear is that ‘Love Jihad’ refers to an allegedly well-organised campaign, being fanatically and fervently executed by young Muslim men, in which they intentionally lure women from different faiths, especially Hinduism and Christianity, into love and marriage and then forcibly convert them into Islam.

The “clandestine” campaign called ‘Love Jihad’ or ‘Romeo Jihad’ first came to light in September 2009,  when two young Muslim men from Pathanamthitta, a town south-eastern Kerala, reportedly beguiled two women, one a Hindu and the other a Christian, into marriage and later forced them to convert into Islam. 

Though at first the two women insisted that they embraced Islam of their own free will, later, after returning to their own homes, they said they had been abducted and been forced to convert to Islam.

The two young Muslim men in question reportedly belonged to Campus Front, the student wing of Popular Front of India (PFI), a radical Muslim outfit. 

The incident at Pathanamthitta triggered a plethora reports in the media on the so-called Love Jihad – covering it from various angles, and describing and defining it in different ways, so much so that the subject started weighing heavily on the minds of Malayalees in general within and outside Kerala.

At the same time, various organisations of Hindus and Christian came up with their own opinions and explanations.

The radical Hindu group called Sri Ram Sena says that thousands of non-Muslim girls, after getting married to Muslim men, have been converted to Islam by force in the last few years. Further, the Sri Ram Sena alleges that those women who have been thus converted are being trained to do “anti-national activities.”

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the country’s main Opposition party, maintains that the members of ‘Love Jihad’ are supported by funds from abroad, especially the Islamic countries in West Asia.

Christian organisations, too, are seized of the alleged threat from ‘Love Jihad.’

The powerful Kerala Catholic Bishops Council (KCBC) – an alliance of the bishops of the Catholic Church in Kerala – has come out with vivid data and description of the deeds of the radical Islamic outfit.

An article was published in the newsletter of the KCBC asserting that about 4,000 girls have been forcibly converted to Islam since 2005 after they fell in love with Muslim men.

The article, written by Father Johny Kochuparambil, secretary of the Commission for Social Harmony and Vigilance – which is a wing of the Kerala Catholic Bishops Council – lists 2,868 non-Muslim girls who were “trapped” in the “Love Jihad net” from 2006 to 2009. The writer of the article did not specify where the data was obtained from, but insisted that it came from “highly reliable sources.” 

The Kerala Catholic Bishops Council has even issued guidelines on how to protect girls from the menace, by asking parents and authorities of school and colleges to keep a close watch on the activities of the children and to discourage them from over-use of mobile phones and internet.

It appears that the alleged Islamic campaign has spread from Kerala to the neighbouring state of Karnataka.

In October 2009, the father of a woman, who converted to Islam in order to marry a Muslim man, filed a habeas corpus petition in a court in Karnataka complaining that his daughter was the victim of Love Jihad. However, the woman informed the court that she converted to Islam on her own free will.

All the same, the court observed that it has “serious suspicions” about the woman’s statement that her conversion was voluntary and that the case has “ramifications for national security.” The court went on to state that the case of the converted woman raises questions of unlawful trafficking of girls and women in Karnataka and ordered that the case be investigated by the police. 

According to the Karnataka court’s order, police in both Karnataka and Kerala initiated an investigation into whether an outfit named Love Jihad, or Romeo Jihad, did exist or not. The police of both states reached the conclusion that such a group does not exist.

Jacob Punnoose, Director-General of Police, Kerala, informed the High Court of Kerala that no organisation named ‘Love Jihad’ existed in Kerala, but added that the police have reasons to suspect that there have been “concentrated efforts” by Muslim men to persuade non-Muslim women to convert to Islam after falling in love. 

The alleged threat of ‘Love Jihad’ has brought Christian and Hindu organisations to work together to combat the “menace” since women from both the communities reportedly have become victims.

The media in Kerala quoted an office-bearer of the Christian Association for Social Action (CASA), based in Kochi, as saying that girls from both the Christian and Hindu communities are “falling prey to the Love Jihad campaign” and so the CASA is cooperating with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad on this issue.

New Delhi: The capital city of India has become a daily nightmare for women from the North-East of the country who are here to study or for work.

A close study of reports shows that the community of about 100,000 people from the north-eastern states is under threat – virtually any day, any time – of assault, molestation, or murder.

As many as 16 severe cases of molestation, rape and other forms of extreme cruelty perpetuated in Delhi against people from the North-East have been recorded so far in 2009. And, 4 of these incidents took place in the last two weeks.

The worst cases of recent atrocities against people from the North-East staying in Delhi include the murder by Pushpam Kumar Sinha, 34, of a young girl from Manipur; molestation of a girl from Arunachal by school boys; molestation of a girl from Nagaland; and assault on a couple from Nagaland.

On October 24, 2009, Pushpam Sinha, 34, a PhD scholar working at the India Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, assaulted and strangled to death Ramchanphy Hongray, the 19-year-old girl who is his neighbour, in her home in south Delhi. The man then burnt the girl’s face in order to mislead the police.

At Sarojini Nagar in Delhi, on October 12, a girl from the North-East was dragged into a van. However, the presence of mind of the victim, who is an employee of a 5-star hotel, saved her life. After the girl raised a hue and cry, passersby caught hold of one of the assailants and beat him up.

On October 17, a couple from Nagaland was assaulted by some young men, who were allegedly drunk, at Safdarjung Enclave.

The same day, a 5-year-old girl from the North-East was allegedly molested by her tuition teacher.

Earlier, in April 2009, a girl aged 6, was raped and murdered by her neighbour. The girl’s body was later fished out from a water tank nearby.

These terrifying incidents have prompted YS Dadwal, Delhi Police Commissioner, to call for a ‘zero-tolerance policy’ towards any crime committed against women from the North-East. He has ordered that crimes committed against people from the North-East be given top priority, and asked 3 Deputy Commissioners from east, south and north Delhi to act as nodal officers for the safety of women.

However, many members of the North-East community complain that the police have been slow to act.

According to Madhu Chandra, spokesman for the North-East Support Centre and Helpline, a help centre for the youth from the north-eastern states living in Delhi and the National Capital region (NCR), there have been several cases of atrocities, but police are doing little about them and demanded that the Delhi government act sternly to check these incidents.

About 4,000 students from the North-East take admission to various courses in Delhi University (DU) each year, and for them, every day in Delhi is like a nightmare, Madhu Chandra says.

A survey conducted by the North-East Support Centre and Helpline has revealed that 86% (or about 86,000) people hailing from the north-eastern states and living in Delhi face some sort of discrimination or the other “on a daily basis.”

The North-East Support Centre alleges that nearly half the number of women sexually harassed in Delhi and neighbourhood is from the North-East. He says that the Northeast Support Centre and Helpline is “flooded with complaints related to sexual harassment.”

Most members of the north-eastern community are not happy with the police. Kamakshi Sinha, who hails from Assam and doing her undergraduate course in Delhi University, says that that the police circular is “just a piece of paper.” She complains that people in Delhi call them ‘Chinky’ and such other derogatory names, and the policemen ridicule them when they go to the police station to lodge a complaint.

Another female student of Delhi University says that most girls from the North-East are even scared of approaching the police. “Police do not respond to our pleas, and we are treated like outcasts,” she laments.

Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi, MP and Congress general secretary, has said he will totally cooperate with the North-East Students Union in its efforts to curb the increasing menace of crime against both men and women the north-eastern states.

Rahul Gandhi gave this assurance to a team of members of the North-East Students Union which met him to seek his support and intervention in the matter.

The savage and totally mindless practice of the so-called ‘honour killings’ are on the rise in northern India, especially in Haryana, which is not far from the national capital of Delhi.

Look at what the ‘khap panchayat’ did to a couple in a village that is only 50 kilometres from Delhi. The ‘crime’ of the couple was that they belonged to the same ‘gotra.’

Khaps are traditional, area-based community groups. Their rulings have no legal validity. In keeping with their so-called traditions, the khap panchayats oppose and annul marriages within the same ‘gotra’ (lineage) and administer cruel and inhuman punishments to ‘erring’ couples.

On July 24, 2009, a khap panchayat ‘banished’ the couple Ravinder and Shilpa and Ravinder’s entire family from their village.

The khap panchayat ordered their banishment on the ground that Ravinder is a ‘Gehlot’ from Dharana, and Shilpa is a ‘Kadyan’ from Siwah, in Panipat.

The Kadyan khap panchayat ‘invalidated’ the marriage between the members of the two gotras because they are relatives! The khap panchayat’s skewed logic goes like this: The family of Ravinder lives in the same village as Shilpa’s extended family.

The tradition dictates that those living in khaps are not allowed to marry in the same gotra; they are not even allowed to marry a member in any gotra from the same village or the neighbouring villages.

What makes the ruling of ‘banishment’ of Ravinder’s family by the Kadyan khap panchayat all the more shocking is that it came only about 24 hours after the cruel killing of a young man called Ved Pal Mor – he was lynched by the villagers of Singhwal in the very presence of the police.

What was the crime that Ved Pal Mor committed? He married a girl from the same gotra.

The two incidents mentioned above are only the most recent in a long series of such uncivilized ‘punishments’ meted out to those couples who ‘offended’ the khap traditions.

Going further back, there are similar cruel incidents galore: In June 2009, a khap panchayat forced Manoj and his wife Babli to drink pesticide. An order by the High Court to give police protection to the couple was in vain.

In June 2009 itself, another couple, Anita and Sonu, who had ‘violated’ the khap propriety, were tricked to return to their village, only to be stabbed to death in public!

Unable to withstand the severe pressure from the khap, Ravinder, who married Shilpa, attempted suicide, but failed. Then his he and his family had to leave for the house of a relative in another village. If and when they have to return to their own village, they need to have police security.

However, the ‘sarv khap mahapanchayat’ later reduced the punishment of ‘death’ to permanent expulsion for the couple Ravinder and Shilpa, and to 3 months for Ravinder’s father. Ravinder’s two uncles and his parents-in-law were ordered to pay fines.

Now, Ravinder and Shilpa live in Delhi, but they require police escort if they would want to visit their village.

Naseeb Singh, Ravinder’s uncle, an Army personnel and who had been fined by the khap panchayat, says that the khap elders have a ‘hidden agenda’ in holding on to the inhuman tradition.

According to him, the Gehlot migrants, who were his forebears, came to the village many generations ago. At present, there are about 100 Gehlot families residing in the village.

Naseeb Singh says that his family owns 100 bighas of land in the village, and the khap panchayat’s punishment might be aimed at grabbing his family’s land.

However, Chhatar Singh Pradhan, aged 92 and head of the Kadyan khap panchayat, denies all these allegations, averring that the community only wants to protect “our bhaichara” (brotherhood) and  ‘maryada’ (honour). He asserts that the khap panchayat does not ‘order’ any killings.

Notwithstanding what Chhatar Singh Pradhan says, the ground reality is that the barbarous writ of the khap panchayat runs, and both the police and the democratically elected gram panchayats (elected according to the Panchayati Raj laws) either remain silent spectators of or provide passive consent to the inhuman acts.

Vote-hungry politicians do play a big role in perpetuating the barbaric practice of ‘honour killings.’

In the last week of September 2009, in the run-up to the elections to the Haryana Assembly, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who was then the Chief Minister of Haryana, unabashedly gave a clean chit to the khap panchayats by declaring that the community councils – which have ordered honour killings in the past -  are still part of Haryana’s traditions and values.

Perhaps mainly emboldened by the political patronage they receive, khap panchayats in Haryana are now seeking legal sanction for their acts f barbarism.

Haryana’s khap panchayats have decided to draw ‘recommendations’ to make ‘necessary’ amendments (at the state-level) to the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955 so that their ‘rulings’ get legal sanction.

Photo: Rehman Malik, Pakistan's interior minister

Pakistan has accused India of funding the Taliban fighters located along the Pak-Afghan border in order to create mayhem in Pakistan.

Rehman Malik, Interior Minister of Pakistan, in an interview to a television channel, went to the extent of saying that he is prepared to furnish the government of India with evidence to that effect.

Rehman Malik asserted that he is “convinced” about India funding the Taliban and that there are “elements” that do not want Pakistan to be stable.” When asked whether India was among those “elements,” he replied: “Of course.”

He went on to say: “If the Interior Minister of India or anyone else wants to confront me, I will be happy to confront them since I know what I am saying.”

In addition, the Pakistan Interior Minister reiterated that India is fomenting Pakistan’s problems in Balochistan.

There are many political commentators in Pakistan who agree with what Rehman Malik said about India’s alleged role in trouble in their country. Fozia Saeed, renowned academic, has been quoted by the media as saying that there are more Indians in Afghanistan than foreigners from any other country and that he feels “there may be more than meets the eye.”

The Pakistani media had reported that one of the Taliban militants who was killed was found uncircumcised. However, this has not been officially acknowledged.

India has strongly rejected Pakistan’s charge that it is helping and funding the Taliban militants against Pakistan.

Minister for External Affairs Minister S M Krishna stressed that India in fact wants the Taliban and “Talibanism” to be completely eliminated.

A K Antony, Minister for Defence, rubbished Pakistan’s allegations as “totally baseless and absurd.” He asserted that India will not and cannot back Taliban, which is “the greatest threat to peace in the world,” Antony told reporters in New Delhi on the sidelines of a function connected with Defence.

Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor said the government of India is “not at all in the business of destabilising its neighbours.” India is not interested in creating trouble in Pakistan, Shashi Tharoor said, adding that such acts are “not our style” or the kind of policy that India pursues.

Many political observers in India sees Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik’s invective directed against India as Islamabad’s bid to add insult to India’s injuries. Malik’s comments have come at a time when hostility towards India has been widely recognised as one of the driving forces behind the very existence of the Taliban.

It may be noted that Rehman Malik’s outbursts against India came close on the heels of  India’s Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao saying the other day that India had conveyed its displeasure and disappointment to Pakistan over that country’s “slow and tardy’’ progress in probing the Mumbai attacks.

Nirupama Rao had also said that the recent blast outside the Indian embassy in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, appeared to have been executed by “forces from across the border.’’ However, she had hastened to add that the Indian government would wait for the final investigation report on the incident from the authorities in Kabul.

While anything is possible – in theory – it is extremely unlikely that India has found a faction with the Taliban that it can manipulate for its own objectives. Taliban may hate the Pakistani government of aligning with the United States in its battle agaist the Taliban and Al Qaida – but do even a small faction of them dislike Pakistani government enough to ally with India? We can’t wait to see the “evidence” Rehman Malik claims to have to support his allegations!

The Congress party has staked claim to form government in Haryana after having managed to get the support of all seven Independent MLAs.

The support of the seven Independent MLAs gives the Congress the majority required in the 90-member Haryana Assembly, the results of the elections to which came out two days ago.

The Congress – which became the biggest single party in the hung Assembly with a total of 40 seats – required six more MLAs to get a simple majority in the House.

The seven Independent legislators gave their letters of support at first to the Congress and then met Jagannath Pahadia, Governor of Haryana, to inform him of their support to the Congress.

The support offered by the Independents legislators is “unconditional,” according to Randeep Singh Surjewala, Haryana’s Minister for Power Minister.

The Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) – led by former chief minister Bhajan Lal and   Kuldeep Bishnoi, Bhajan Lal’s son – said their party would be a part of the government to be formed.

Bhajan Lal and Kuldeep Bishnoi had left the Congress about 2 years ago. The Haryana Janhit Congress has 6 legislators in the new House.

Phool Chand Mullana, president of the Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee, had, on Friday, met Haryana Governor Jagannath Pahadia to stake the Congress party’s claim to form government. The Congress is the single biggest party in the new Assembly and the precedent is that the single biggest party be invited to form government, Mullana had told after he met the Governor.

Phool Chand Mullana was himself defeated in the Mullana constituency.

Om Prakash Chautala, the leader of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), the main Opposition, charged the Congress with “horse-trading” and requested the Governor not to invite the Congress to form government. The people of Haryana, Chautala added, had voted in favour of 50 non-Congress candidates in the 90-member House.

The Indian National Lok Dal has won 31 seats.

Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who has stepped down as Chief Minister and is now the caretaker Chief Minister, stresses that he is confident of the Congress forming the next government.

In the present election, the Congress fared much lower than its expectations. The Congress had won 67 seats in the Assembly elections held in February 2005 – which as 27 seats more than what it got this time around.

Even though Dalai Lama’s aim in visiting Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh is to give spiritual lessons to his followers, this visit is expected to provoke Beijing which maintains that 90,000 sq km (55,900 square miles) of Arunachal Pradesh along the border as its own.

Dalai Lama’s one week visit will start on November 8,2009. It is believed that China is anxious about Dalai Lama’s visit to the disputed state. According to Dalai Lama’s aide, the leader will fly to Tawang directly from Guwahati.

Dalai Lama fled to the north Indian hill town of Dharamsala in 1959 when he could not succeed in his revolt against the rule by the Chinese. Dalai Lama’s visit could encourage the Tibetans who struggle against Chinese territorial integrity.

The prime ministers of the two countries are set to meet in Thailand to talk about the dispute.