Posted on 02/14/2006 5:26:56 AM PST by Alex Marko
NEW DELHI, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Hardline Hindu groups and radical Muslims burned Valentine's Day greeting cards on Tuesday and held protests across India against celebrating the festival of love, saying it was a Western import that spread immorality.
Saint Valentine's Day has become increasingly popular in India in recent years, a trend led by retailers who do healthy business selling heart-shaped balloons and fluffy teddy bears.
But the growing popularity of the day in officially secular, but mainly Hindu India has also sparked protests which have sometimes turned violent.
On Tuesday, protests were held in the capital New Delhi, some towns in the country's south and the only Muslim state of Jammu and Kashmir, where an Islamic insurgency has raged since 1989.
About two dozen women separatists, veiled in black from head to toe, rummaged shops and burnt Valentine's Day cards in Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital, witnesses said.
"Valentine's Day spreads immorality among the youth," Asiya Andrabi of the Dukhtaran-e-Milat (Daughters of the Muslim Faith), a group of women separatists, said in a statement.
"We appeal to our children to stay away from this western culture."
In Bangalore, India's technology capital, as well as Hubli town, both located in the southern state of Karnataka, groups of Hindu nationalists burnt a big heart-shaped card.
About 50 Hindu activists wearing holy saffron-coloured scarves held a noisy protest in a popular market near the Delhi University campus, a Reuters photographer said.
They burnt greeting cards which they were carrying and shouted "Down with Valentine's Day". (Additional reporting by Sheikh Mushtaq in SRINAGAR)
"We appeal to our children to stay away from this western culture."
Yeah, instead we try to encourage them to blow up cafes where mothers and children are innocently sipping coffee, tea, and milk. Or to behead people whose hands are bound and unable to fight back. Or to blow up unsuspecting vehicles simply driving down the road from point A to point B in order to live their daily lives. We believe these to be much healthier activities. Western values simply don't cater to good muslim values of irrational hatred.
"India was a civilized country while your ancestors were still in caves"
India was NEVER a civilized country. Even the guy who built the taj mahal had the hands of the builders but off (and the fingers of the people who sewed the tapestries etc) so they could not build another one for someone else.India is still a barbaric country today.
"it is far more civilized than Ireland."
Not if you and gengis and carrot-stick are examples of fine upstanding indians.
And the IRA is illegal in Ireland, unlike the RSS in India.
Thanx :)
"I have NO TOLERANCE for racist jerks like you."
The same to you.
Yes. This seems to be the consensus (from Wikipedia):
"Many countries claim to have invented the chess game in some incipient form. The most commonly held belief is that chess originated in India, where it was called Chaturanga. The earliest mention of Chaturanga appears in the Indian classic, the Mahabharata, written circa 2,000 BC. Another theory exists that chess arose from the similar game of Chinese chess, or at least a predecessor thereof, existing in China since the 2nd century BC. Joseph Needham and David Li are two of many scholars who have favored this theory.
Chess eventually spread westward to Europe and eastward as far as Japan, spawning variants as it went. One theory suggests that it migrated from India to Persia, where its terminology was translated into Persian, and its name changed to chatrang. The entrance of chess into Europe, notably, is marked by a massive improvement in the powers of the queen. The oldest known texts describing chess seem to indicate a bi-directional spread from the Persian empire. From Persia it entered the Islamic world, where the names of its pieces largely remained in their Persian forms in early Islamic times. Its name became shatranj, which continued in Spanish as ajedrez and in Greek as zatrikion, but in most of Europe was replaced by versions of the Persian word shâh = "king".
"Yeah, so you tell us the truth."
I already have.
Then bug off, moron, and don't come back, and take your IRA with you.
And take your barbarian family with you, herr Hitler.
I am sorry, the RSS never killed or bombed people. They are fascists alright but they are anywhere close to IRA.
Aww come on lets hear it again!
Correction: They are fascists alright but they aren't anywhere close to the IRA.
"Of course not. India's a Great Power with its own interests."
Well at least we agree on that.
"For the most part, however, those interests align with America's. The two countries are pretty natural allies at this point. "
But disagree on this. I for one, think that India's interests are more in line with Commie China's.
"no aggresive designs on its neighbors "
cough Goa 1961 cough Hyderabad 1948 cough Jammu Kashmir cough parts of China cough other smaller places too
"doesn't qualift as civilized, in your mind?"
no, because they have 3rd world values and viciously persecute Christians.
But I am NOT a racist, NOR do I hate India. Actually, my longstanding conflict with gengis khan and others started on an old thread on which I politely suggested (To ANOTHER POSTER!) that India might be a potential enemy of the United States.
Gengis Khan and his fellow Indians began their response with "you SPEWED..." and proceeded to call me a retard, racist b*st*rd, moron, and other much nastier names that I wont mention here.
And all this was just because I suggested tentatively to someone (not even gengis or his friends) that India might be a potential enemy of the United States.
I don't support the IRA they are terrorists and they are rightly illegal in Ireland.
spawning variants is the key word...modern chess as we know it came from Germany
I don't see how you could come to this conclusion. India has no long-term plans to challenge American military dominance in the Wester Pacific. And their interests in fighting Islamic extremism is very much identical to our's.
cough Goa 1961 cough Hyderabad 1948 cough Jammu Kashmir cough parts of China cough other smaller places too
Goa and Hyderabad were ends of colonialism. Kashmir is clearly a disputed territory that India has as much a claim to as Pakistan. And I seriously doubt India has designs on taking territory from another nuclear power such as China.
no, because they have 3rd world values and viciously persecute Christians.
Really, the Indian government persecutes Christians? So, they're not allowed to vote, build churches, worship freely etc.?
Oh you mean that thread where you tried to insinuate a little trouble and got mauled in the process. Well they werent actually Indians, most of them were Americans who think of India as allies. Check my pinglist.
You have a very Clintonian definition of the origins of chess.
INFIDELS! HOW DARE THEY INSULT A HIGH HOLY DAY OF CONSUMERISM!
Agreed.
And also read this article:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1577899/posts
Its about India-China rivalry.
"And I seriously doubt India has designs on taking territory from another nuclear power such as China. "
China has occupied Tibet and parts of Kashmir to which they have no claim.
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