Skip to main content

Posts

Bangladeshis in India sent back $6.6 billion last year, 6% of their homeland’s GDP

  Bangladesh receives nearly half of its total remittances from India. Migrant workers from the impoverished South Asian country sent home $14 billion last year, according to the World Bank. Bangladeshi workers in India transferred more than $6.6 billion to their home country, making them the biggest source of remittances to Bangladesh. This is more than four times the money being sent from Saudi Arabia, the second-highest contributor. India is a preferred destination among Bangladeshi migrants because of the low cost of migration. “Migrants can avoid securing a plethora of documents including issuance of passports if they migrate to India,” says a study published by the  While there aren’t recent data available on the total number of Bangladeshis staying in India, we do know that nearly 500,000 visas were issued in 2012-13. Illegal immigration has become a hot-button issue in India. Prime minister Narendra Modi reiterated his strong stance against illegal immig...

Hindu Fearlessness through the Ages

Hindu Fearlessness through the Ages One hears it all too often:  ‘Hindus are cowards, they only deserve what they are suffering.’ Mahatma Gandhi said it clearly enough:  ‘The Muslim is a bully, the Hindu a coward.’  But Hindus are by no means cowards. Hindus as such have their problems, but lack of bravery is not one of them. Look at the  Bangladesh war of 1971. The Pakistani Army was brave enough as long as its job consisted in raping Bengali women, but as soon as the Indian Army appeared on the  scene, all they could do was to flee and to surrender. The Majority Hindu Army liberated the oppressed Muslims and the persecuted Hindus of Bangladesh. Or look at the Kargil war of 1999. Though  the  politicians forbade the Indian soldiers from taking the war into enemy territory by crossing the Pak  border, the Indian Army besieged the Kargil mountain which the Pak invaders had taken, and  reconquered it. Let us look  at the histor...

Government clears counter-China move in Andamans

The prompt approval to set up a radar station on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands signalled the Modi government's intent to deal with China on its own terms. Rediff.com contributor Anita Katyal reports. In a decision which could impact relations between New Delhi and Beijing, India on Tuesday cleared a longstanding proposal from the Coast Guard to set up a radar station on Narcondam Island in the Andaman and Nicobar islands, located opposite the Coco Island where the Chinese are said to have set up a listening post. The decision comes a day after China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi left New Delhi following his 'useful and comprehensive' talks with the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance government. The Coast Guard proposal had been pending for nearly a decade after environmental groups and wildlife activists raised objections that the project would cause irreparable damage to the habitat of the Narcondam Hornbill, a bird whose only home is the N...

Square Root Computation - Aryabhatta

Hi there, If you would ask me to vote for the most horrifying part of mathematics in school, I wouldn't bat an eyelid before screaming : Square-root ! A common Maths joke is illustrated below: For me, and for countless other school-children, determination of Square Root of a given number (running into numerous digits) would always prove an arduous task. Thank God we are allowed to use Calculators in colleges! The standard method taught was that of the long division, shown below: But did you know that the method to determine a Square root was devised by Aryabhatta, as early as 475 AD? Though the knowledge of Square roots existed in India from the BC ages, proof of the method is given in Aryabhatta's celebrated work, Aryabhatiyam. The relevant Sloka is given below: Translated into English, it says: Divide the Non-square place by twice the Square Root of the Square place, then subtract the Square from the next Square place. ...

'Won’t allow special havens for Pandits' : Syed Ali Shah Geelani

  Government wants to create special havens in certain parts of J&K: Syed Ali Shah Geelani Opposing any move to rehabilitate Kashmiri Pandits by creating protected settlements in the Valley, radical separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani on Wednesday claimed certain havens were being sought to be created in certain places in southern, central and northern Kashmir. “Pandits are a part of the Kashmir society and they will always be welcome in their motherland. But, let it be clear that any plan to settle them exclusively in protected colonies would be completely unacceptable to the separatist leadership and the people here,” Mr. Geelani said. The 86-year-old politician condemned the Narendra Modi government’s purported plans to permanently settle the Punjabi and other non-J&K refugees from Pakistan in the State and grant them the status of permanent residents. Source :  Hindu

Caravan of jihadists coming from Afghanistan to liberate Kashmir : Al-Qaida

London :  A chilling new video from the al-Qaida has asked Muslims in Kashmir to emulate "brothers" in Syria and Iraq and wage a violent jihad against India. The video, which includes a statement read by Maulana Asim Umar, a senior leader of al-Qaida's Pakistan cell will definitely have India's security officers worried. The video promises a "caravan of jihadists coming from Afghanistan to liberate Kashmir". The video, titled, "The War Continues: A Statement on Kashmir's Muslims," features an audio sermon by Umar. The video runs footages dating back to 2010 of protests on the roads of Srinagar in which civilians were killed during a standoff with India's security forces. Interestingly, the video addresses Muslims on both sides of the line of control — both on the Indian and Pakistani side as well as to the broader Muslim populations of both countries. In the video, Kashmiri Muslims are urged to join the global jihadi movemen...

India expects Australia to return 900-year-old ‘Dancing Shiva’ statue, other sculptures: Indian High Commissioner

India last Wednesday said it expects Australia to return a 900-year-old ‘Dancing Shiva’ statue and another stone sculpture bought from a disgraced Indian antiquities dealer. “We are satisfied with the steps taken and cooperation extended by the Australian government in response to this issue,” India’s High Commissioner Biren Nanda said in Melbourne. “We had formally requested the return of the statues and currently there is a process which is being followed to resolve the issue. We expect that the statues would be returned to India,” he told PTI in Melbourne. The Canberra-based Indian High Commission had formally requested the return of a 900-year-old Dancing Shiva statue from the National Gallery of Australia and a stone sculpture of the god Ardhanarishvara from the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Following the request of Indian government, the two galleries in March this year “voluntarily removed” the sculptures from public display. Both artefacts were bought ...