Atal Behari Vajpayee has been roundly criticised on all sides for letting his liberal mask slip during his visit to Gujarat ... The proposal for a national debate on conversions in the context of attacks on minorities ... is strange and out of character coming from someone like Vajpayee ... However, he went much further. By saying conversions invited re-conversions, he appeared to take the VHP and Hindu Jagran Manch's conspiracy theories seriously and lend legitimacy to their activities. To commend Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel for effective law and order action is to ignore the facts which tell a different story ... What he has done ... has given comfort to religious fundamentalists. It is even worse that he failed to condemn lawlessness as strongly as he ought to ...
VHP and HJM activists are trying to settle their disagreement with members of another religion by violence and threats of violence. That has got to stop .. Conversion ... is not the real issue ... Ashok Singhal's latest and factually unfounded statements confirm ... that the target of VHP propaganda is the Congress led by Sonia Gandhi. Political mobilisation through religious means is nothing new to the VHP. Any excuse will do. No theory is too bizarre, no means too immoral for its political purposes. This time it is the turn of poor tribals in a state ruled by the BJP to be terrorised ... How long is the BJP going to pretend that it has no idea what the VHP is up to? Its methods are immoral and illegal.
Animal Welfare Board On Curbing Cow Slaughter
The chairman of the Animal Welfare Board of India and former chief justice of Rajasthan; Ghuman Mal Lodha, lashed out at the Haryana government for its inability to curb the growing incident of cow slaughter in the Mewat region, where around 5,000 cows and calves are being slaughtered daily. He was speaking at a meet organised at Pinagawan, about 90 kms from Gurgaon, on December 1, to promote awareness among the Meos, an illiterate and backward community which depends on cow slaughter for its livelihood.
"It will require the creation of a special task force covering the states of Haryana, UP, Rajasthan and Delhi, so that the killing of cows and their export to other states for butchering can be stopped", he said.
Lodha further informed the gathering that the Animal Welfare Board was against the export of meat for foreign exchange, adding that the board has given financial aid amounting to Rs. four crore to various animal welfare organisations this year.
