Another brother of our Colonel neighbor was an Additional District Magistrate (ADM). He visited us in mid-November and informed us that Sheikh Abdullah had been freed from prison and made Prime Minister of the state on 7th or 8th November 1947….
Nutcases and Murderers
What can I say about the murder of 20 people in Turkey? Near-simultaneous car bombs exploded outside two Istanbul synagogues filled with worshippers Saturday, killing at least 20 people and wounding more than 300. The government said the attack had international links, raising suspicions that the al-Qaida terror network was involved. One blast tore apart… Continue reading Nutcases and Murderers
Slavery, Women and Islam
Let us start with a suggestion: Abrogate the bold parts in the Quranic verses below. Quran 23:1-6: Successful indeed are the believers who are humble in their prayers, and who shun vain conversation, and who are payers of the poor-due; And who guard their modesty – save from their wives or the (slaves) that their… Continue reading Slavery, Women and Islam
My Life in Kashmir VI
A few days later, three women came to the house we were staying in. They were the mother, sister-in-law and elder sister of my sister’s friend. The sister-in-law had a deep one inch wide wound in her neck which had become septic…
Political Surveys
You might have heard of the Political Compass survey which asks you a bunch of questions and then maps you on a two-dimensional map where the horizontal axis is for left/right economic views and the vertical axis signifies libertarian/authoritarian. My results were in the left libertarian quadrant (-1.62, -5.33). Tim Lambert has a table with… Continue reading Political Surveys
My Life in Kashmir V
Our neighbour and his brother were Colonels in Maharaja’s army. They were on the border but their families were at home. Same day it came to be known that their families had planned to shift to some safer place. Our guardians requested them …
Matrix and Kill Bill
We watched The Matrix Revolutions and Kill Bill: Vol. 1 over the weekend. The Matrix Revolutions is an OK movie in my opinion. All the reviews and blog posts about it that I have read have panned the movie, but I liked it better than The Matrix Reloaded. Reloaded had a lot of bad philosophisizing… Continue reading Matrix and Kill Bill
My Life in Kashmir IV
Initially, Muslim majority provinces were to form Pakistan and the rest India. States were to decide their future according to wishes of their people. Baluchistan, Sind, NWFP, Punjab and Bengal were Muslim majority provinces. It was decided to divide Punjab and Bengal …
Muslim Women and Mosques
I mentioned the HijabMan blog before. It turns out he doesn’t live in Canada. Seems like I just imagined that. Anyway, as I mentioned before, he had a post (permalink not working; scroll to the Nov 5 post) on the role of women in mosques. The mosque I visited is the only one in this… Continue reading Muslim Women and Mosques
Meeting Wes Clark
I didn’t exactly meet him, just attended the Wes Clark event here at Tech today. There were about 200 people there (I am not a crowd-counter; so I might be wildly off). Wes Clark gave a 20 minute speech which covered Iraq and foreign policy in general. He didn’t say anything about domestic issues. However,… Continue reading Meeting Wes Clark