This is a sad story of the North East.
It is a first-person account of how bad things are in the beautiful land of the “seven sisters” - in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and other neighbouring states in the North East of India.
Having lived for several years in Assam, I have a very special affinity for the region and great personal interest in the developments there.
Assam, together with its six “sisters” is also a region of great strategic importance and critical to long term stability of our country.
Some of you may know that the physical link between India and this region is a tenous “chickens neck” - a strip of land that, at places, is merely 21kms in width - sandwiched between Nepal on one side and Bangladesh on the other.
Bear in mind also that the region has been troubled by various insurgency movements for the last three decades and things look like they are reaching a boiling point. Equally worrying is the pan-Indian links that are being forged by terrorist organisations in the region.
To gauge the enormity of this risk, read “Insurgency in India’s Northeast: Cross-border Links and Strategic Alliances” by Wasbir Hussain…and a more recent news-snippet, “ULFA outsourcing suicide attacks” which mentions growing links between ULFA and Harkat-ul-Jihadi Islami (HuJI).
Of course most of you would remember that HuJI is suspected to be behind the recent terrorist attack in Hyderabad.
It feels that the time to act is now…but the government in New Delhi is either sleeping - or wide awake but hoping that the problem will solve itself.
Keep Reading…
September 22nd, 2007
Posted by
B Shantanu |
An Indian Identity, Current Affairs, India & Its Neighbours, Muslim Population in India, Politics and Governance in India, Post Independence History, Terrorism in India |
7 comments
Amidst esteemed leader Karunanidhi’s latest remarks questioning the historical basis of Ramayana and Shri Rama, comes this news-report from The Hindu (Thanks, Anirban).
Excerpts (emphasis mine) from “Ramayana is not a myth: S.R. Rao”:
“President of the Society for Marine Archaeology in India S.R. Rao said that Ramayana cannot be dismissed as a myth, just as it was done earlier in the case of Mahabharata.
…In the case of Ramayana, he said strong tradition depicts Hampi in Karnataka as Kishkindha, which was visited by Rama. The culture of Kishkindha at that time was of Neolithic levels, it said.
Prof. Rao, who undertook deep-sea excavations near Dwaraka, discovered the submerged parts of the town where Krishna lived when he was director of National Institute of Oceanography.
He said that the culture (seen in Kishkindha) has several Neolithic sites spread over Patapadu and Pusalpadu in Bellary district. Another important site is Bandi Pushala Chenu in Bellary-Kurnool area where excavations of the Harappan steatite wheel-like beads are found.
These beads occur in all Harappan sites as early as 3000 BC.
Bithur near Kanpur, a traditional Ramayana site, had yielded weapons of the culture, archeologically designated as ochre-coloured pottery, ranging from 1500 to 2000 BC or even 3000 BC near Ghaneswar in Rajasthan.
Excavations at the Neolithic culture site at Mahagara in the Belan valley of Uttar Pradesh yielded rice dated around 4000 BC.
Further north-west in Pakistan, the cotton growing Neolithic culture is 7,000 years old (5000 BC). When Rama came to Kishkindha, the Vanaras were the same Neolithic people, whose help he took, said Prof. Rao.
…
Ramayana is built on a core of truth depicting the life of a particular people and period, Prof. Rao added.”
I am hoping to do some more background research on this over the next few days but if any of you have additional information and/or links, please email me or leave a comment.
DhanyawAd.
Related Post: A Search for the Historical Krishna
Recommended Reading: The Historical Rama; Varnam’s series on Dwarka and finally: Scientific questions to ASI on Ram Sethu
Peripheral post: Of Vimanas and Time Travel
.
UPDATE: Came across this article yesterday Ram Setu: historicity of Ramayana
Will try and post a summary here.
UPDATE II: Highly Recommended: http://arvindneela.blogspot.com/2007/09/romila-thapars-double-standards-and.html. Sumamry to follow.
September 22nd, 2007
Posted by
B Shantanu |
Ancient Indian History, Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization |
11 comments
