Register your religion “Muslim” as printed in Census form: Mushawarat

By TCN News,

New Delhi: All India Muslim Majlise Mushawarat has appealed to Muslims to register their religion as “Muslim” – as it is printed in the Census 2011 form – and not insist on Islam as there is the word “Muslim” under religion section, not Islam.

“If you tell them your religion is Islam, not Muslim, it is most likely the illiterate Census workers will put your name in Other Religions section, and thus the actual number of Muslims will go down,” Dr Zafrul Islam Khan, Acting President of Mushawarat said in a statement today.

Commenting on the error in the Census form he said that the officials have erred to put Muslim as religion of Muslims. The religion of Muslims is Islam, not Muslim, he said. But he cautioned that correcting the error can be done only through court while the second and last part of the Census is going to start on 9th Feb 2011 so it is better to put your religion as Muslim for the greater interest of the community.

He appealed to the spread this message through statements and ads in newspapers, announcements from mosques and distributing handbills.

Northeast issues: Forum to draw national attention

By IANS,

Aizawl : Major political parties in northeast India have decided to form a joint forum to highlight the region's problems.

Leaders of the Naga People's Front (NPF), the Mizo National Front (MNF) and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and former Lok Sabha speaker P.A. Sangma met in New Delhi last week and decided to float a regional forum to underline the common issues of northeast India comprising eight states.

"There will be another summit in the national capital Feb 20 where leaders of all regional parties and MPs from the northeastern states would give the final shape to the proposed forum," MNF leader Zoding Sanga told reporters.

He said that the Feb 20 conference would also finalised the future course of action of the regional parties.

The NPF is the dominant partner of the ruling Democratic Alliance of Nagaland (DAN) government in Nagaland while the MNF is the main opposition party in the Congress ruled Mizoram.

NCP is the main opposition party in the Congress ruled Meghalaya though it is the coalition partner of the Congress led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the centre.

"The regional party leaders in their meeting in Delhi have planned to launch the new forum before the upcoming Assam assembly elections, which are likely to be held in April," the MNF leader said.

"If all the recognised regional parties come under one umbrella, it could have influence in the national politics and draw attention of the central government about the problems of the region," he added.

MNF president and former Mizoram chief minister Zoramthanga and Nagaland Chief Minister and NPF chief Neiphu Rio were among those also attended the meeting.

AGP suffers setback as its top leader joins BJP

By IANS,

Dibrugarh (Assam) : Assam's main opposition Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) Tuesday suffered a major setback when its firebrand leader and former MP Sarbananda Sonowal quit the party and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at a public rally here.

The rally was attended by a host of BJP leaders, including party president Nitin Gadkari and Varun Gandhi, who is the in-charge of the BJP's affairs in Assam.

"I was fed up with the AGP as the party leadership compromised on the core issue of Bangladeshi infiltration. I realised there is no space for me in the party that compromised on the issue of influx, and hence thought the best option was to join the BJP," Sonowal told the rally.

"During the past few months, the AGP leadership started hobnobbing with the AUDF (Asom United Democratic Front), which is opposed to our stand against infiltration. I realised the AGP leadership was simply interested in power and ready to compromise on their ideology by even teaming up with the AUDF," he said.

Sonowal has always been very vocal on the infiltration issue and was instrumental in getting the controversial Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act (IMDT) scrapped by the Supreme Court in 2006.

The apex court verdict scrapping the IMDT Act followed a petition of Sonowal. The act placed the onus of proving that a person is a foreign national on the complainant rather than the person so accused.

The act has now been replaced with the Foreigners Act, 1946, applicable across India, where the accused needs to prove his or her citizenship, if questioned.

Addressing the rally, the BJP president said the party was eyeing to capture power in Assam with assembly polls due in March-April.

"The Congress government in Assam has become a national burden with corruption being the hallmark. People in Assam are looking for a change and the BJP is here to give that change," Gadkari said.

Hillary! Take Notice: Egyptians Are Not Intimidated by the F-16s Flying on their Heads in Cairo

By Yvonne Ridley
Al-Jazeerah, CCUN, January 31, 2011
As people across Egypt continued resisting and rising against the brutal dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak it is quite clear they will not stop until he goes.
 Quite clear to everyone, that is, apart from the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who is so out of touch with what is happening on the ground you have to wonder who on earth is advising her.
 She appears to have no idea of the burning resentment and hatred held towards America among the ordinary men and women of Egypt. More than 100 have paid the blood price, so far, for standing up to the US backed tyrant Mubarak and two thousand others are injured.
 It has been lost on no one that the empty shell casings from live ammunition and gas cannisters, which litter Tahrir Square and other streets across Egypt, were provided by the United States of America.
 The “Made in the USA” empty shell casings tell their own story not just of the innocents they have killed, but of their origins and of America’s deadly legacy of unwelcome foreign interference in the region.
The Egyptian people have been fed propaganda for 30 years, their evening news on State TV is sanitized and censored and many have been afraid to speak out freely under the US backed dictatorship of Mubarak.
But do not for one minute think the Egyptian people are stupid – sadly the US has once again completely misread and underestimated an entire population.
These demonstrations are as much a protest against US meddling in their affairs as they are against the Mubarak regime.
Despite all of this Clinton showed not one ounce of compassion or humility when she made her latest blundering speech.
With the sensitivity of a bull in a china shop, she called for an orderly transition but only after heaping praise on the Mubarak government which has “made and kept peace with Israel avoiding violence, turmoil and death in the region.”
 She told ABC News: "Democracy, human rights and economic reform are in the best interests of the Egyptian people." These are the same people her own government ignored as they continued to fund and back Mubarak with billions of US tax payers dollars over the decades.
The BBC's North America editor Mark Mardell says Clinton's comments are a sign that the Obama administration is edging towards accepting, if not openly endorsing, an end to Mubarak's rule. The truth is Mark, the Egyptian people do not want any more US interference – they do not want any more American weapons being used against them. America has no interest in the people of Egypt. Its only concern is for the man-made pariah state next door – Israel.
Clinton has been so out of step since this whole turmoil began to erupt. Both she and Obama remained completely silent for four whole weeks as scores of Tunisians died in that uprising and it was only when their man, Zine El Abedine Ben Ali took flight that they condemned his brutality.
When Egypt threatened to kick off Clinton said assuredly that the country was “stable.” That was a week ago and as she is beginning to learn, a week is a long time in politics. She says she wants democracy – but what sort of democracy Hillary? The sort that sees another tyrant take power? Or are you really going to let the people decide?
And by the way, the people are beginning to rise and resist right across the Maghreb, throughout the Middle East and Asia. US Foreign Policy has turned America in to the most hated country in the world and if Washington really told their own people the truth,. I know the millions upon millions of decent US citizens would be horrified by what is being done in their name.
 But the truth is the American people are kept well away from the truth and are among the most least informed people in the world today.
Few Americans have any idea that this and the previous Bush administrations do not want democracy in the region. In fact they have collectively punished the people of Gaza for exercising their democratic right by voting for a Hamas-dominated government.
This has not been lost on the Egyptian people Hillary who, by the way, have a great love for Palestine, a place in their heart for Gaza and an even deeper hatred and mistrust for the brutal Zionist State, which really does threaten peace and stability in the region.
As I write this F16 fighter jets and attack helicopters, made in America, are flying overhead to try and intimidate the Egyptian people. Too late – there isn’t an army in the world that can beat this peoples’ army. Their fear has gone.
 Your ill-informed advisers won’t tell you this Hillary, but I hate to see an empowered female make such a prat of herself, so here’s a piece of advice. The time has come when you really must step back and take a vow of silence. Every time you open your mouth you are looking and sounding even more stupid than the female presenter on Egyptian State TV who assures us all is at peace with the world and the streets of Egypt are empty and calm.
*British journalist Yvonne Ridley is the European President of the International Muslim Women’s Union
 http://aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20Editorials/2011/January/31%20o/Hillary%20Take%20Notice%20Egyptians%20Are%20Not%20Intimidated%20by%20the%20F-16s%20Flying%20on%20their%20Heads%20in%20Cairo%20By%20Yvonne%20Ridley.htm

Transformation Is Coming to the Arab World, Despite Biden's Defense of Dictators

By Mazin Qumsiyeh
Al-Jazeerah, CCUN, January 31, 2011

"Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things and he’s been very responsible on, relative to geopolitical interest in the region, the Middle East peace efforts; the actions Egypt has taken relative to normalizing relationship with Israel.… I would not refer to him as a dictator” US Vice President Joe Biden ( a lackey of AIPAC)

I first visited Egypt 30 years ago in 1981 to do research for my master's thesis which was later published in my first book "The Bats of Egypt".  I visited Egypt twice since then and I recall vividly police abuse of their own people and yet the Egyptians I encountered mocked and joked about dictatorship.  We tried at least from a distance to support our Egyptian brothers and sisters as they struggle for freedom. Arabs everywhere (yes even here in occupied Palestine) are talking about a transformation and about revolution.  But all such transformations carry pain. Over 200 Egyptians were killed, thousands injured, and there is much destruction.  Yet in a nation of 85 million people this is still a relatively peaceful transformation.   While dealing with the present is critical we must also at this juncture start to look post dictatorship in the Arab world and plan the future.
I recall vividly a talk by a self-described "Liberal Zionist" (an oxymoron) at Duke University on 1 March 198l; at 77 year old he had no inhibitions in saying "Zionists do not want democracy in the Arab world."  He explained that if Egypt was a democracy, it would not have signed a peace deal with Israel since the sentiments of the Arab people does not accept such arrangements that could be done with someone like President Sadat or King Hussein.  On this point he was absolutely correct but in the long run such short-sighted perspective is self-destructive (1).
As I watched last night Hosni Mubarak make his (hopefully last) speech, I was very much reminded of the last speech of the Shah of Iran, Marcos of the Philippines, Bin Ali of Tunisia.  They all claimed after so many years of torturing their own people that they now want to "reform".  The US funded and supported the brutal Mubarak regime for over 30 years even as plenty of evidence from human rights organizations documented its abuse of its own citizens. See example videos of torture by Egyptian police (2).  This is also the same police who, on the instruction of the Mubarak dictatorship, beat international activists trying to provide humanitarian relief to besieged Gaza (3).  Mubarak then went on to for the first time appoint a vice president (his intelligence chief and ex-army buddy Omar Suleiman) and appoint another army officer as prime minister.   It is now recognized that his reign is ending and a new era is beginning.
It is rather amusing that the brutal dictator of "Saudi" Arabia (a country named after a ruling family!) called to support Mubarak and stated that the demonstrators are hooligans and criminals.  Anyone who knows anything about Egypt knows that this amazing and inspiring mostly nonviolent revolution is a true expression of the will of the Egyptian people regardless of their political or religious persuasions (leftist, Muslim Brotherhood, Nasserite Arab Nationalist, Christians, Muslims, etc). 
In other news in brief for those who don't keep up with internet news or those who watch mainly the (supine) Western Media:
-Large demonstrations by Egyptians and human rights defenders at Egyptian embassies around the world all demanding democracy
-Israeli embassy in Cairo essentially emptied (an apartheid state embassy in the largest Arab country is an abomination)
-Israeli pundits very worried about how Egypt might look after Mubarak.
-There are many signs that the Egyptian military (like the Tunisian military) may be critical in this struggle.  Already there are instances where the demonstrators were protected from the Egyptian police by the Egyptian military. See footage (4)
-A number of human rights groups and Egyptian community representatives abroad all called for ending the Egyptian police brutality. By contrast EU and US government officials are making feeble statements to hedge their bets and at best call for "peaceful" actions from "all sides". Slowly they were forced to modify their retorhic to talk about "change" but must finally call on their puppet Mubarak to leave power and insist that he and his sons and family return the billions stolen from the Egyptian people.
-A number of religious and civil organizations in Egypt broke their silence to support the ouster of the "last Pharaoh"
-The dictatorship cutting of web and mobile phone services and banning reporting by groups like Al-Jazeera did little to stem the tide of protest because people are living it daily in their homes and on the streets and they are not being incited from outside.
-Protests spread to Jordan and Yemen (two other Western supported governments).  There are now plans for large protests in Syria and other countries.
-On the Palestinian Authority TV news, they noted that Mahmoud Abbas called Mubarak and stated his support for stability of Egypt.  Other news outlets stated that he fully supports the Mubarak regime.  Hamas then came in to say that they support the Egyptian people.  Sadly, I think all rational human beings know which horse to bet on in this struggle between people and a western-supported dictator who accomplished nothing for his people and instead enriched his family (his sons are billionaires in a country in which tens of millions of people live on less than $1 a day).  
I wrote seven months ago that "The political leadership in the fragmented Arab countries and Palestinian authority have convinced themselves that they have no option but to endlessly try to talk to politicians from Tel Aviv and Washington (the latter also Israeli occupied territory) hoping for some 'gestures'….I know most politicians like to feel 100% safe (mostly for their position of power) and are afraid of any change.  But I wish they would realize that daring politicians make the history books and those who hang around trying to protect their seats will be forgotten.  Cowardice is never a virtue." And then I concluded that "In the demonstrations yesterday, a child in Gaza was carrying a sign that says 'we demand freedom' and a child in Cairo that says 'children in Egypt and in Gaza want the siege lifted'. That is our future - not elderly politicians meeting to do media damage control with empty words. "(5)
But make no mistake about it: no power transformation happens without a period of unrest, instability, and pain.  I believe in these difficult periods, humans are tested.  Some are weak and may even try to use the situations to make some quick personal profit. Others are of strong and decent character and this shows in their watching for their neighbors and their community.  I have seen countless pictures and heard countless stories of acts that can only be described as heroic (e.g. people protecting the national museum in Cairo or their neighbors' houses).  Intellectuals are stepping forward to articulate rational scenarios for the future.  People helping other people.   So I think we will weather the transition.  As to what the future holds.  Clearly, the era of ignoring the masses is gone.  It will not be easy since we have a legacy of decades of poor education (one that does not emphasize civic and individual responsibility etc). Getting rid of dictators is not enough. Building a civic participatory society is not easy (Europe's enlightenment did not come just from removing a few dictators). 
People's expectation raised for change will dash against the reality that it will take decades to create systems of governance, accountability, economic justice, etc to allow for unleashing the great potential in the Arab world.  And there is great potential (natural resources, water, educated hard-working middle class etc).  It is critical that people begin to chart this future honestly and pragmatically.  Slogans will not work.  We the people must take responsibility for our own lives and for our communities.  We need to take time to educate children in a very, very different way than we were educated.  The beginnings may be simple.  For example, in many Arab countries, people were thinking that as long as the country is not theirs (ruled by dictators), they can only watch over their own personal space and literally dump trash in the public space.  In the new era, they have to learn that public space is theirs too.  Order and respect for fellow citizens and for the country will have to be taught very early to our children.  This is but one example for laying a brick in the road to real freedom and real prosperity.  The bricks though are many and they will have to be fashioned and laid by the people.  It is very hard work but it is the only way forward.
(1) I challenged him on this in the Q&A and then wrote a follow-up letter that was published in the Duke Chronicle. Seehttp://www.qumsiyeh.org/zionistpositionfailstorecognizeotherside/
(2) Torture at Egyptian police stations, here are three examples (warning disturbing content!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhQRFz65M6s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCHM6LYiBsY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8KG5N_yq1s 
3) Egyptian police beat Free Gaza convoy activist on December 30, 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT4tk2RiNIo 
4) See this associated press story about role of Egyptian military
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/01/29/ap/middleeast/main7296653.shtml
and this interesting footage of military shielding demonstrators
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfqcEsDwgYQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQD-X9G9xfk 
5) Mazin Qumsiyeh “Of Cowardice, Dignity and Solidarity” http://www.qumsiyeh.org/ofcowardicedignityandsolidarity/
Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
http://qumsiyeh.org

http://aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20Editorials/2011/January/31%20o/Transformation%20Is%20Coming%20to%20the%20Arab%20World,%20Despite%20Biden's%20Defense%20of%20Dictators%20By%20Mazin%20Qumsiyeh.htm