From a news-report from Liverpool..
A group of 11 Asian men plied five girls, as young as 13, with drink and drugs and… (Caution: May not be suitable for work; strong and explicit content)
The clue to the identity of these eleven men is hidden in this sentence from another report:
One girl, who was 13 when the alleged abuse began, told police that the men she met were ‘friends’ who looked after her and ‘her number would be passed around amongst the Pakistani men in her area’.
“Asian” has long been a …

Earlier today, I was reminded of this news-item from June ’11:
Mystery surrounds an American agency carrying out a survey in different parts of India to know the Muslim opinion on some sensitive issues like placing Sharia over the Indian laws, Islam’s role in mainstram Indian politics, and whether Islam is under any serious threat.
…Kerala Police chief Jacob Punnose says the survey had communal overtones and hence a case has been filed against TNS India for asking communally sensitive questions.
“We have decided to file a case of 153(a) under Indian Penal …

Uplifting post of the week..in which small steps do make a difference.
Three days ago, on the post related to “distant” Assam, long-time blog reader Kaffir alerted us to a BBC news-report which had a map of India with the entire state of J&K lopped off (pl see comment #9). Here is a cached screenshot of the article (pl click to enlarge):

Kaffir subsequently wrote to the BBC:
I told them that the map was incorrect, that J&K was very much part of India, gave them a link to GOI website that …

Many of you must have read/heard about these two fairly “popular” myths about J&K:

“Kashmir is the ‘most heavily militarized zone’ in the world” or its variations: “There is an Indian soldier for every ten civilians in Kashmir”; “The Indian troops-to-Kashmiri people ratio in the occupied Kashmir is the largest ever soldiers-to-civilians ratio in the world”
The last two decades of violence in the state have left 10,000 missing and 100,000 dead

Pragmatic_desi has done a fine job of exploding the first one…Excerpts from Mythbusting: Soldiers-to-civilians ratio in Kashmir (emphasis added):
These myths …

..and why blocking of blogs is not the only thing you should be worrying about.
Most, if not all, of you must have read about the recent case against Rahul Gandhi involving a missing girl that was dismissed last week. What struck me was this last sentence from the report in The Hindu (emphasis added):
On the basis of her deposition, the court imposed a cost of Rs. 50 lakh on the petitioner and, taking suo motu cognisance of an effort to defame a high-profile person, ordered a CBI probe.
Suo-moto cognisance? I …

Some of you may remember this tweet from barbarindian yesterday in which he referred to this report by PTI on the demolition of an “illegal” religious structure:
..Police on Wednesday lobbed teargas shells and used force to disperse scores of people protesting the demolition of an “illegal” religious structure in south-east Delhi…“A number of people gathered at the area police station and marched towards the demolition spot. They were prevented from entering the spot. They broke the barricades and tried to enter the premises. We had to resort to lobbing teargas …

Once upon a time, when I was young and naive – and the world was full of roses, I used to “trust” the BBC for telling us the news the way it was..That was a long time ago. I am not so young anymore (although only four years older than the “Youth Icon”!), certainly not as naive and I now know the world has thorns too. As for BBC, this snippet from a report says it all. This is how the corporation reported a recent controversial comment by Jack Straw …

Dr Prodosh Aich, in “Lies with Long Legs*” (Ch 1, Pg 51):

We are, what we know.
And we only know what we have been told.

Past Quotes and Thoughts for the Week are here.
*The entire book (“Lies with Long Legs“) is in the process of being made available in downloadable, pdf format. You can now read/download the first chapter (200kB) via the “Docs and Slides” widget on the “Resources” page.
Related Post: Thus a system was created..later identified..as “corruption” in the Third-World

I wonder whats next? Misguided Tourists?
This is what I am talking about…

Screenshot of Google World News webpage taken at around 1.16am IST
Related Posts:
Very very bad militants
My name is whatever…and I’m not a terrorist
Bad Militants…
The missing “T-word”
Somewhat Related: Why the “War Against Terror” cannot be won by guns alone
Also read: Why terrorists are called “militants” in India

The first link leads here and the second news-story is here.
Source: Google News screenshot at ~630pm IST