Old Columns

040. Why do Afghan fanatics poison their school girls?
They do not want their women folk to get educated and eventually question the chauvinistic revolutionaries and mosque-bound mullahs and finally endanger their fanatically religious schemes for international terrorism. India too was once in the dark ages. Widows were forcefully thrown into the funeral pyres of late husbands, and if they escaped, their lives were turned into hell by the caste Hindus. It was William Bentinck who abolished this ‘Sathi’ under the compulsion of national leaders like Rajaram Mohan Roy. Roy, Gandhi and Nehru advocated for the education of women, and in due course, the women in India began to be enlightened and liberated. Today women hold prominent positions in the leadership of political parties and governmental administration in India. When India was divided into two, Pakistan shared the blessings of having educated womenfolk. If the people of Afghanistan cannot prevent their fanatics and revolutionaries from committing such heinous crimes as poisoning the wells in girls’ schools to prevent them educating themselves for a future, the U.S and other foreign troops shall not pull out of Afghanistan, however hard a few rogue nations compel. It is the world’s will, and they have the world’s support. We all know that educated Muslims live contentedly and decently with a single wife and there are fewer divorces among them. It is the uneducated Muslims who are not satisfied with even a dozen wives. The Ayatollahs of Afghanistan want to lead an uncontrolled lusty life. They know that with their poor or no education, they will not get women to marry them in the future. That is why they adopted the extreme measure of poisoning girls in their schools, a double terror. They badly want to keep their society uneducated and their womenfolk kept in darkness without the light and refinement of education. If someone in this world tells that he won’t send his children to school but will grow them as pick pockets and cut throats, capture and hang him, before he sires one more child to destruct the world with. Quran is something to read and learn, not to be violated. We should admit that the state of women folk in Pakistan is far better when compared to that of their sisters in Afghanistan. These wretched men want to have their women to view them as Kings, and know that once educated, these women will begin to view them as degenerated lusty worms. Once this happens, the bold womenfolk of Afghanistan, if they are half as bold in their genes as these men, will take things including politics into their hands and the Afghanistan society will revert to matriarchy as it indeed was in the past. What hinders the Afghan women now is their mountainous terrain which prevents their easy escaping. If the world wishes and the U.N. and UNESCO interfere, the next decade will see the total liberation of Afghan women and the total vanishing of those bulls who think the most important organ in the human body is placed not uppermost, but in the middle.

News: Afghans protest woman's public execution. KABUL: Dozens of rights activists took to the streets Wednesday to protest over the recent public execution of a young woman for alleged adultery, which was captured in a horrific video.

AFP | Jul 11, 2012, 01.53PM IST


Jul 16, 2012 3:09 AM IST


Yes, there indeed are quite a number of people in Afghanistan who condemn in their minds the atrocities including women and children's slaughter carried out by a minority in the name of their religion. We shall not ever underestimate or undervalue the greatness of the Afghan people. Lying at the cross roads of civilization, they always have been hunted by so many races, countries and emperors during the ages which all brought out how brave can the Afghan people be. First it was Genghis Khan, then it was the British and then it was the Russians. We cannot simply disparage the great and diresome resistance the Mujahideens put up for the defense of their country, especially in defense of their women and children who were then subjected to the atrocities done by the invading Russian army. The present killing of a young girl by a multitude of armed males does not reflect the national mind of Afghanistan.

Read all comments in an article of your selection and you will learn many new things, good, bad and ugly. Even the news reporter can learn what he ought to have been included in his or her report. The news article would convey practically only a bit of information but the comments are the people's education. Let knowledge accumulate at one place from everywhere so that one who happens to come across news will find a treasure trove of information waiting for him. Even trivial opinions from people will have higher value in other circumstances and when viewed from other angles. If we not read all comments and go after a single one, it can be made to become convenient and handy to start a communal revolution, by us. Moreover, if there are no comment pages, who will read these news articles?

Why do Afghan fanatics poison their school girls?

They do not want their women folk to get educated and eventually question the chauvinistic revolutionaries and mosque-bound mullahs and finally endanger their fanatically religious schemes for international terrorism. India too was once in the dark ages. Widows were forcefully thrown into the funeral pyres of late husbands, and if they escaped, their lives were turned into hell by the caste Hindus. It was William Bentinck who abolished this ‘Sathi’ under the compulsion of national leaders like Rajaram Mohan Roy. Roy, Gandhi and Nehru advocated for the education of women, and in due course, the women in India began to be enlightened and liberated. Today women hold prominent positions in the leadership of political parties and governmental administration in India. When India was divided into two, Pakistan shared the blessings of having educated womenfolk. If the people of Afghanistan cannot prevent their fanatics and revolutionaries from committing such heinous crimes as poisoning the wells in girls’ schools to prevent them educating themselves for a future, the U.S and other foreign troops shall not pull out of Afghanistan, however hard a few rogue nations compel. It is the world’s will, and they have the world’s support. We all know that educated Muslims live contentedly and decently with a single wife and there are fewer divorces among them. It is the uneducated Muslims who are not satisfied with even a dozen wives. The Ayatollahs of Afghanistan want to lead an uncontrolled lusty life. They know that with their poor or no education, they will not get women to marry them in the future. That is why they adopted the extreme measure of poisoning girls in their schools, a double terror. They badly want to keep their society uneducated and their womenfolk kept in darkness without the light and refinement of education. If someone in this world tells that he won’t send his children to school but will grow them as pick pockets and cut throats, capture and hang him, before he sires one more child to destruct the world with. Quran is something to read and learn, not to be violated. We should admit that the state of women folk in Pakistan is far better when compared to that of their sisters in Afghanistan. These wretched men want to have their women to view them as Kings, and know that once educated, these women will begin to view them as degenerated lusty worms. Once this happens, the bold womenfolk of Afghanistan, if they are half as bold in their genes as these men, will take things including politics into their hands and the Afghanistan society will revert to matriarchy as it indeed was in the past. What hinders the Afghan women now is their mountainous terrain which prevents their easy escaping. If the world wishes and the U.N. and UNESCO interfere, the next decade will see the total liberation of Afghan women and the total vanishing of those bulls who think the most important organ in the human body is placed not uppermost, but in the middle.

Recently a young woman was brutally beaten to death by a band of armed males in Afghanistan who claimed that she was unchaste as if they all had been virgins.

This killing of a young girl by a multitude of armed males does not reflect the national mind of Afghanistan. This brutal killing of a hapless woman does not satisfy any religious edicts either but quenches blood thirst of a few fanatics alone. We forget Mohammed's flight for life which reminds us all that life is precious to every one. Killers, psychopaths and maniacs disguised as religious activists stain this religion's humane tradition and dignity. They have never read the Holy Book with their soul ever even though they can repeat many sentences from the text verbatim. It is time they once go and see the angels of morality who made their appearance in the Sauranna Caves. There indeed are quite a number of people in Afghanistan who condemn in their minds the atrocities including women’s and children's slaughters carried out by a minority in the name of their religion. We shall not ever underestimate or undervalue the greatness of the Afghan people. Lying at the cross roads of civilization, they always have been hunted by so many races, countries and emperors during the ages which all brought out how brave the Afghan people can stand and resist. First it was Genghis Khan, then it was the British and then it was the Russians. We cannot simply disparage the great and diresome resistance the Mujahideens put up for the defense of their country, especially in defense of their women and children who were at one time subjected to the atrocities done by the invading Russian army. 

News: 150 Afghan schoolgirls poisoned in anti-education attack. KUNDUZ ( Afghanistan): About 150 Afghan schoolgirls were poisoned on Tuesday after drinking contaminated water at a high school in the country's north, officials said, blaming it on conservative radicals opposed to female education.
Reuters | Apr 17, 2012, 07.39PM IST.




015. Anti-piracy cell cracks down on pirated books. 

Book publishers do have their rights to be protected against unauthorized copying but where do medical book publishers get their materials for publication from? Most medical books are compilations of scientific and technical knowledge gained and developed by mankind and human society through the ages. Rarely do medical book publishing companies commission proficient science writers to write articles for their proposed books. Mainly they steal articles from famous scientific publications and journals, giving or giving not due credit to the sources of those articles and their original writers. Let us take the example of Anatomy text books published by many famous and costly publishing companies. It was not doctors, medical men or scientists who conceived and developed anatomy as a fully developed branch of science. It was the artists of the Renaissance period in Italy in the sixteenth century like Leonardo Da Vinci who developed the study of the internal organs of mammals. He was actually searching for a spot in the human body where we can fit the wings when we would be able and equipped enough to fly as naturally as the birds through the air. He dissected more than a dozen human bodies in his dissecting table, and whether those were all dead when they were brought to his table and if they were, where he got them from are still unknown. It was his famous sketch books that formed the foundations for the science of modern anatomy. It was the contributions of so many unknown and known persons accumulated through ages that we share and make use of in a multitude of ways today as public knowledge. Knowledge is public. There is not any such thing as patented knowledge. Had there been no Aristotle and Democritus, there would now been no Bill Gates and Microsoft. And they know this. That is why they make so many of their services unpaid. The medical book publishers also should acknowledge this. If enquiries with the same intensity go into the offices, archives and stores of the medical book publishers, more heinous and organized stealing of copyrighted materials would sure be brought to daylight. Recent newspaper reports brought one sad condition to public attention anyway. The brighter among the medical students hail from poor families and they cannot afford costly medical books. Copying medical books manually and otherwise has been going on for more than 50 years and they have produced more good doctors than payment seats now produce in India. Years back they were hand copied. We are in need of good and benevolent doctors, not arrogant and pampered rich scoundrels in the medical field. After so many years, it is good to see a humanitarian comment coming from law enforcers, the one regarding a raiding police officer commenting on the benefit of the poor students getting hold of premium text books at a lower rate. It seems the intelligent and educated among them can express their hearts.

News: THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Anti-Piracy Cell of the state police has arrested four persons for violating the copyrights act. The officials of the cell made the arrest after conducting a raid on the photocopy shops at the TRIDA shopping complex near Thiruvananthapuram Medical College.

Where did the bus shelters in Kerala go?
When transport buses began to ply the routes of Kerala, drivers of these vehicles stopped them where it was convenient for them to stop. These points gradually became Bus Stops. Usually they were at places where a steep climb stops or ends. When buses began to regularly stop at the same spot, for the convenience and rest of travellers as buses were not regular and prompt on time then, little shops began to be established in and around the place. First came the pan shop, then the grocer, baker and the hair cutting saloon and then the butcher, carpenter and the florist. When travel became a regular habit, people began to construct houses nearby for residence and for commerce. Thus the town developed around the bus stop. It was the bus stop that caused the town. When people saw that their women and children waited long hours for the bus, standing here and there and unsheltered from rain and shine, good organizations in villages and towns constructed waiting shelters for their convenience. It was the standard practice for K.S.Y.F, D.Y.F.I, I.N.T.U.C, C.I.T.U, A.I.T.U.C, B.M.S, local clubs and generous individuals to construct a waiting shed in their locality. When we travelled through Kerala from Kaseragodu to Kaliyikkavila and through the inroads to inner villages, we could see thousands of such resting places constructed by the good minded local people for their brothers and sisters and children to rest till the bus comes. Many of them were well constructed, with concrete roofs and cement benches. Those which were constructed with eucalyptus poles and thatched roofing also were promptly maintenanced each year by those who constructed them.

As townships came to be established around bus stops, the price of land soared and only the rich could afford to purchase land there and build houses. It was because there was this bus stop and the conveniences of travel resulting from it that these rich people came to that place, purchased land, built houses and settled. Before long they began to think another way. ‘Because the buses stop in front of our houses and people always are sitting there in the bus stops, we are nowadays getting no privacy. Moreover the real estate agents have told that if the bus stop could be moved, then our land would fetch considerably more money when sold someday. That P.W.D. Roads Division engineer who shares my table in the bar also has once told me that removing a bus stop from its place is easy.’ In every main junction in Trivandrum, when we travel through the East Fort – Peroorkada route we can see bus stops removed thus in so many places such as Peroorkada, Ambalammukku, Kowdiar, Vellayambalam, Palayam, Statue and Ayurveda College Junction, to please the rich. When bus stops began to be moved, they were moved to places where there were no security and safety for women passengers. Drunkards began to roam these areas; they would sit on the seats provided for passengers, spit on the floor, call passengers obscene names and lie on the floor without any clothes on. All these never would have happened had these bus stops remained in the main proper junctions which they caused to come into being. The local people call them ‘snakes’ which is apt. Sometimes they would get hold of and seize lonely women passengers who can only scream but no help would come to their aid. For a few spoiled rich persons, by a few wicked road engineers, are these women of Kerala suffering this ignominious shame. MLAs, MPs, State Ministers and Government Secretaries travelling high speed in people’s cars do see these things but never utter a word in the Assembly, Parliament, Cabinet and Secretariate. They do know everything and can understand everything, as when election comes, they go to every house and describe every woe of people vividly. When they ascend the throne they conveniently forget things which they described days before in stages and platforms. People waiting in miserable bus stands waiting for overcrowded buses to come see authorities flying before them with dozens of police escort cars and curse them publicly. These authorities also know that the people are doing this when they pass but this doesn’t affect those ignominious births in any way. Once we become a shameless politician or authority and taste the thrill and sweetness of the power of authority, we gain the power to ignore shame.


News: Modern bus shelter project hits roadblock. THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The project being undertaken by Thiruvananthapuram Road Development Company Limited (TRDCL) to set up modern bus shelters with a new look has halted midway as the company is yet to receive payment for the already completed bus shelters.


(To Be Continued)


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