Dear All: Ahead of the judgement, opening this thread on Ayodhya with this piece of breaking news (unverified):

Indian high court rules that key piece of land disputed by Hindus and Muslims goes in favor of Hindus – al Jazeera TV
Comments, views and thoughts welcome. Pl keep it polite and civil. Thank you all.
P.S. Courtesy, CenterofRight, I learn that:
Ayodhya, Ayodhya Verdict and Allhabad high court trending worldwide on twitter
Nice.
Related Posts: Revisiting Ram Janmabhoomi: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3
Also read: Proof of temple found at …

Some of you would remember NDTV’s “Big Fight” from a few weeks back where the topic was “Younger politicians - time to take over“.
I had taken some notes while watching the programme and what struck me was that none of the participants (mainly leaders from mainstream political parties) identified what I felt were the *real* reasons why you dont see more “young politicians”…
While I was discussing this with a friend last week, he suggested taking a straw poll on my blog to find out why youngsters (or anyone else for that …

To those of us whose image of “Samraat” Ashoka (Ashoka the Great) has been shaped by Amar Chitra Katha or the eponymous movie, it will come as a suprise that there may actually have been three different Kings by the name of Ashok and the real history of the “Ashok the Great” may be more complex than hitherto imagined.
I am reproducing below some excerpts from some early but ground-breaking research by Kishore Patnaik which he shared on a Yahoo! group recently…It makes for fascinating reading (emphasis mine).
*** Excerpts BEGIN – …

How many of you have heard the story of great warrior Arjun suffering an ignominious defeat at the hands of a gang of marauders*? I had a vague recollection of it but when someone mentioned it to me the other day, I decided to dig deeper.
Courtesy psych-prism, here is the short story…and within it, a great lesson for all of us.
Once Bhagwaan Shri Krishna was wounded and Arjun decide to go and see him…On the way, he met Narad Muni who advised him not to touch Shri Krishna, otherwise great …

For many of us, the government’s craven capitulation on the Amarnath issue was less of a surprise and more of a denouement of something we had feared all along…i.e. our political leadership can no longer be trusted to look after India’s national interest.
Parama Karuna-ji summed it up neatly in one of her posts on a Yahoo! group:
I understand your point…I (we) have been trying my (our) best to be as diplomatic as possible, for many years. My point is that I think we don’t have much time left now.
Our task …

Amidst all the violence and “protests” around the issue of transfer of 40 hectares of land to Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board (SASB), I noticed two questions that appear to have gone unanswered.
The first question…and this is really the elephant in the room, is, “How many “Hindus” would it take to change the demography of Kashmir?
It is important to consider this question as this is what seems to upset most Kashmiris. To wit:
…President of Action Committee Against Land Transfer (ACALT) and former Kashmir Bar Association President, Mian Abdul Qayoom…termed the (SASB) …

French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy on the crisis in Darfur quoted in Guernica, June 2008:
…I was there (in Darfur)…just one year ago nearly to the day, smuggling myself across the border with Chad, crossing 500, 600 kilometers of a devastated Darfur. And I must say what I saw then, what I experienced there never left my mind and my heart since. I was deeply shocked in the most intense sense of the word by this experience, even if I lived many others in my life since my youth in Bangladesh, in Pakistan. What I saw …

Some thought-provoking excerpts from: Does Europe have a Civilising mission in India? by Jakob De Roover*, published on 16 June 2008 – Issue : 786.
*** Excerpts Begin *** 
Recently, the European Parliament hosted a meeting on “caste discrimination in South Asia”. At the meeting, participants stated that “India is being ruled by castes not by laws” and that they demanded justice, because there “is one incredible India and one untouchable India.” The EU was urged to come out with a policy statement on the subject. One MEP, referring to the caste system, said …

If you are wondering about the link between the two, it is AIDS !
Apparently, Call Centre “Romeos” are one of the leading reasons for increasing AIDS in India.
And Hindu fundamentalists are indirectly helping this by opposing circumcision…which supposedly helps fight AIDS.
Please read on*…
A new AIDS threat is rising in India’s numerous call centers, where young staff are increasingly having unprotected sex with multiple partners in affairs developed during night shifts, a top AIDS expert has warned. [ link ]
…”You will see call center Romeos are a major high risk for HIV,” Solomon …

in other words… “try very hard to please someone“.
New Delhi, Jun 22 (PTI) Railway Minister Lalu Prasad today instructed authorities to install signboards in Urdu at the Old Delhi railway station so that passengers from Pakistan can get the information in their own language.
Lalu, who visited Old Delhi Railway station late this evening, met passengers from trans-border Samjhauta Express…
The passengers…made use of the opportunity (and)…complained about their problems in reading signboards, which are in Hindi and English languages. [link]

I wonder if there are any signs in Hindi in Lahore? or …