The government and the TTP had agreed to a truce earlier this year after Afghanistan's new Taliban rulers took a prominent role in brokering peace talks, but negotiations made little progress and there were frequent breaches. The Express Tribune had reported that the talks reached a deadlock as the terror group refused to budge from its demand for the reversal of the merger of erstwhile Fata with the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

"We... have shown our continued patience so that the negotiation process is not sabotaged," the TTP said in the statement. "But the army and intelligence agencies do not stop and continue the attacks, so now our retaliatory attacks will also start across the country." The TTP claimed that there have been constant operations on its militants by the security forces and they have not been stopped despite the "patience" shown by it. "Wherever you find an opportunity to attack, do proceed," the statement urged its terrorists.

How polite,

Islamabad fears that if the TTP or its splinter groups join Da’ish, it would multiply Pakistan’s security challenges. Pakistan is also concerned that this scenario will be exploited by external players including India.

Oh no wouldn't that be terrible

Yes hello Doval ji

Analyst Saad Khan, a Peshawar-based retired brigadier, played down the significance of the TTP statement saying the ceasefire was barely observed anyway. "The Afghan Taliban have assured the whole world that they will not allow their territory to be used against any other country," he told AFP. "It is important to initiate serious negotiations with the Afghan Taliban on this issue and make them aware of the seriousness of the matter."

Pakis when Kabul fell:

Pakis now: P..please tal.talichads can you pl..please not bomb us?

Sheetal Deo was shocked when she got a letter from her Queens apartment building’s co-op board calling her Diwali decoration “offensive” and demanding she take it down.

“My decoration said ‘Happy Diwali’ and had a swastika on it,” said Deo, a physician, who was celebrating the Hindu festival of lights.

The equilateral cross with its legs bent at right angles is a millennia-old sacred symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism that represents peace and good fortune, and was also used widely by Indigenous people worldwide in a similar vein.

But in the West, this symbol is often equated to Adolf Hitler’s hakenkreuz or the hooked cross – a symbol of hate that evokes the trauma of the Holocaust and the horrors of Nazi Germany. White supremacists, neo-Nazi groups and vandals have continued to use Hitler’s symbol to stoke fear and hate.

Over the past decade, as the Asian diaspora has grown in North America, the call to reclaim the swastika as a sacred symbol has become louder. These minority faith communities are being joined by Native American elders whose ancestors have long used the symbol as part of healing rituals.

Deo believes she and people of other faiths should not have to sacrifice or apologize for a sacred symbol simply because it is often conflated with its tainted version.

“To me, that’s intolerable,” she said.

Yet to others, the idea that the swastika could be redeemed is unthinkable.

Holocaust survivors in particular could be re-traumatized when they see the symbol, said Shelley Rood Wernick, managing director of the Jewish Federations of North America’s Center on Holocaust Survivor Care.

“One of the hallmarks of trauma is that it shatters a person’s sense of safety,” said Wernick, whose grandparents met at a displaced persons’ camp in Austria after World War II. “The swastika was a representation of the concept that stood for the annihilation of an entire people.”

For her grandparents and the elderly survivors she serves, Wernick said, the symbol is the physical representation of the horrors they experienced.

“I recognize the swastika as a symbol of hate.”

New York-based Steven Heller, a design historian and author of “Swastika: Symbol Beyond Redemption?”, said the swastika is “a charged symbol for so many whose loved ones were criminally and brutally murdered.” Heller’s great-grandfather perished during the Holocaust.

“A rose by any other name is a rose,” he said. “In the end it’s how a symbol affects you visually and emotionally. For many, it creates a visceral impact and that’s a fact.”

The symbol itself dates back to prehistoric times. The word “swastika” has Sanskrit roots and means “the mark of well being.” It has been used in prayers of the Rig Veda, the oldest of Hindu scriptures. In Buddhism, the symbol is known as “manji” and signifies the Buddha’s footsteps. It is used to mark the location of Buddhist temples. In China it’s called Wàn, and denotes the universe or the manifestation and creativity of God. The swastika is carved into the Jains’ emblem representing the four types of birth an embodied soul might attain until it is eventually liberated from the cycle of birth and death. In the Zoroastrian faith, it represents the four elements – water, fire, air and earth.

In India, the ubiquitous symbol can be seen on thresholds, drawn with vermillion and turmeric, and displayed on shop doors, vehicles, food packaging and at festivals or special occasions. Elsewhere, it has been found in the Roman catacombs, ruins in Greece and Iran, and in Ethiopian and Spanish churches.

The swastika also was a Native American symbol used by many southwestern tribes, particularly the Navajo and Hopi. To the Navajo, it represented a whirling log, a sacred image used in healing rituals and sand paintings. Swastika motifs can be found in items carbon-dated to 15,000 years ago on display at the National Museum of the History of Ukraine as well as on artifacts recovered from the ruins of the ancient Indus Valley civilizations that flourished between 2600 and 1900 BC.

The symbol was revived during the 19th century excavations in the ancient city of Troy by German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, who connected it to a shared Aryan culture across Europe and Asia. Historians believe it is this notion that made the symbol appealing to nationalist groups in Germany including the Nazi Party, which adopted it in 1920.

In North America, in the early 20th century, swastikas made their way into ceramic tiles, architectural features, military insignia, team logos, government buildings and marketing campaigns. Coca-Cola issued a swastika pendant. Carlsberg beer bottles came etched with swastikas. The Boy Scouts handed out badges with the symbol until 1940.

The Rev. T.K. Nakagaki said he was shocked when he first heard the swastika referred to as a “universal symbol of evil” at an interfaith conference. The New York-based Buddhist priest, who was ordained in the 750-year-old Jodoshinshu tradition of Japanese Buddhism, says when he hears the word “swastika” or “manji,” he thinks of a Buddhist temple because that is what it represents in Japan where he grew up.

“You cannot call it a symbol of evil or (deny) other facts that have existed for hundreds of years, just because of Hitler,” he said.

In his 2018 book titled “The Buddhist Swastika and Hitler’s Cross: Rescuing a Symbol of Peace from the Forces of Hate,” Nakagaki posits that Hitler referred to the symbol as the hooked cross or hakenkreuz. Nakagaki’s research also shows the symbol was called the hakenkreuz in U.S. newspapers until the early 1930s, when the word swastika replaced it.

Nakagaki believes more dialogue is needed even though it will be uncomfortable.

“This is peace work, too,” he said.

The Coalition of Hindus of North America is one of several faith groups leading the effort to differentiate the swastika from the hakenkreuz. They supported a new California law that criminalizes the public display of the hakenkreuz — making an exception for the sacred swastika.

Pushpita Prasad, a spokesperson for the Hindu group, called it a victory, but said the legislation unfortunately labels both Hitler’s symbol and the sacred one as swastikas.

This is “not just an esoteric battle,” Prasad said, but an issue with real-life consequences for immigrant communities, whose members have resorted to self-censoring.

Vikas Jain, a Cleveland physician, said he and his wife hid images containing the symbol when their children’s friends visited because “they wouldn’t know the difference.” Jain says he stands in solidarity with the Jewish community, but is sad that he cannot freely practice his Jain faith “because of this lack of understanding.”

He noted that the global Jain emblem has a swastika in it, but the U.S. Jain community deliberately removed it from its seal. Jain wishes people would differentiate between their symbol of peace and Hitler’s swastika just as they do with the hateful burning cross symbol and Christianity’s sacred crucifix.

Before World War II, the name “Swastika” was so popular in North America it was used to mark numerous locations. Swastika Park, a housing subdivision in Miami, was created in 1917, and still has that name. In 2020, the hamlet of Swastika, nestled in the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York, decided to keep its name after town councilors determined that it predated WWII and referred to the prosperity symbol.

Swastika Acres, the name of a Denver housing subdivision, can be traced to the Denver Swastika Land Company. It was founded in 1908, and changed its name to Old Cherry Hills in 2019 after a unanimous city council vote. In September, the town council in Puslinch, Ontario, voted to change the name of the street Swastika Trail to Holly Trail.

Next month, the Oregon Geographic Names Board, which supervises the naming of geographic features within the state, is set to vote to rename Swastika Mountain, a 4,197-foot butte in the Umpqua National Forest. Kerry Tymchuk, executive director of the Oregon Historical Society, said although its name can only be found on a map, it made news in January when two stranded hikers were rescued from the mountain.

“A Eugene resident saw that news report and asked why on earth was this mountain called that in this day and age,” said Tymchuk. He said the mountain got its name in the 1900s from a neighboring ranch whose owner branded his cattle with the swastika.

Tymchuk said the names board is set to rename Mount Swastika as Mount Halo after Chief Halito, who led the Yoncalla Kalapuya tribe in the 1800s.

“Most people we’ve heard from associate it with Nazism,” Tymchuk said.

For the Navajo people, the symbol, shaped like a swirl, represents the universe and life, said Patricia Anne Davis, an elder of the Choctaw and Dineh nations.

“It was a spiritual, esoteric symbol that was woven into the Navajo rugs, until Hitler took something good and beautiful and made it twisted,” she said.

In the early 20th century, traders encouraged Native artists to use it on their crafts; it appeared often on silver work, textiles and pottery. But after it became a Nazi symbol, representatives from the Hopi, Navajo, Apache and Tohono O’odham tribes signed a proclamation in 1940 banning its use.

Davis views the original symbol that was used by many Indigenous people as one of peace, healing and goodness.

“I understand the wounds and trauma that Jewish people experience when they see that symbol,” she said. “All I can do is affirm its true meaning — the one that never changed across cultures, languages and history. It’s time to restore the authentic meaning of that symbol.”

Like Nakagaki, Jeff Kelman, a New Hampshire-based Holocaust historian, believes the hakenkreuz and swastika were distinct. Kelman who takes this message to Jewish communities, is optimistic about the symbol’s redemption because he sees his message resonating with many in his community, including Holocaust survivors.

“When they learn an Indian girl could be named Swastika and she could be harassed in school, they understand how they should see these as two separate symbols,” he said. “No one in the Jewish community wants to see Hitler’s legacy continue to harm people.”

Greta Elbogen, an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor whose grandmother and cousins were killed at Auschwitz, says she was surprised to learn about the symbol’s sacred past. Elbogen was born in 1938 when the Nazis forcibly annexed Austria. She went into hiding with relatives in Hungary, immigrated to the U.S. in 1956 and became a social worker.

This new knowledge about the swastika, Elbogen said, feels liberating; she no longer fears a symbol that was used to terrorize.

“Hearing that the swastika is beautiful and sacred to so many people is a blessing,” she said. “It’s time to let go of the past and look to the future.”

For many, the swastika evokes a visceral reaction unlike any other, said Mark Pitcavage, senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism who for the past 22 years has maintained the group’s hate symbols database.

“The only symbol that would even come close to the swastika is the symbol of a hooded Klansman,” he said.

The ADL explains the sanctity of the swastika in many faiths and cultures, and there are other lesser-known religious symbols that must be similarly contextualized, Pitcavage said. One is the Celtic cross – a traditional Christian symbol used for religious purposes and to symbolize Irish pride – which is used by a number of white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups.

Similarly, Thor’s hammer is an important symbol for those who follow neo-Norse religions such as Asatru. But white supremacists have adopted it as well, often creating racist versions of the hammer by incorporating hate symbols such as Hitler’s hakenkreuz.

“In the case of the swastika, Hitler polluted a symbol that was used innocuously in a variety of contexts,” Pitcavage said. “Because that meaning has become so entrenched in the West, while I believe it is possible to create some awareness, I don’t think that its association with the Nazis can be completely eliminated.”

Trans lives matter

Can we please get some recognition for our trans racial nipplestani dalitx kween?

Osman Ozturk- A Turkish youth who travelled thousands of kilometres to support Kashmiri’s facing oppression under illegal Indian occupation. He was martyred during an encounter with Indian forces in July 1997. (Shared by Head of a leading university.) pic.twitter.com/uDmHdp5P9P

— Masood Khan (@Masood__Khan) May 3, 2020

Trans lives matter a lot more than jihadi's

When Dr Ambedkar made his choice of me, I didn’t have the vaguest idea of the kind of circumstances I would have to confront. I was his wife as well as his doctor, making it absolutely necessary for me to take care of his food, medicines, rest and everything else fastidiously. We got married on 15 April 1948, and discipline and sense arrived in Dr Ambedkar’s daily routine. The handling of his daily schedule sometimes made it inevitable that some leaders and workers were denied the opportunity of meeting him. It was quite possible that some of them got upset, but I really had no choice except to suffer their resentment. It is unfortunate that these people did not carry sharp enough sensibilities. The Constitution of independent India was altogether the creation of Dr Ambedkar. He worked on it for sixteen to eighteen hours every day at a stretch. He would say, ‘I am repaying my debt to the people of this soil.’ When I got married to Dr Ambedkar, I had simply one thing in mind— complete surrender; walk every step with him like his shadow for the sake of the work he had undertaken and give him company in every sense of the word. I feel grateful that till his last moment I stayed with him like his shadow with body, mind and soul.

Lmao he worked hard for the copy paste constitution Prob spent all that time writing affirmative action bits kek.

Dr Ambedkar was a pure, personified paragon of public life. We had nothing in our life that we could not lose.

After Dr Ambedkar’s passing away, the Dalit leaders of those times did not want any obstructions from the members of the Ambedkar family. Accordingly, they created a rift between Yeshwant and me. They made him the president of the Bauddha Mahasabha and got him busy in touring and proselytization, and systematically spread poison in the Dalit community by conspiring to create suspicions against me related to Dr Ambedkar’s death and keeping these suspicions alive. Their machinations are evidence of how low people can stoop to serve their own ends and to gain political power. This was how some self-seekers systematically performed the ‘great deed’ of creating a rift in the Dalit community and between us, mother and son. This plot was put into place to have me thrown out of the political stream that Dr Ambedkar had intended for me. From the domestic and political perspective, it was a terrible thing to happen because, in my opinion, it brought rack and ruin upon the community. These self-serving Dalit leaders wanted to raise a storm against me so as to separate me from the community. It was for furthering this despicable effort that they raised the demand of getting the cause of Dr Ambedkar’s death probed.

Kek based dalitbros.

Why the frick is a mutt doing a PhD from a worthless university in India lmfao?

Indian police have said rats ate about 600kg of cannabis after a court demanded that the confiscated drugs be produced as evidence during a trial for people facing smuggling charges.

Police in the northern city of Mathura wrote to magistrates to say 581kg of the drugs had gone missing from two storerooms after being seized from traffickers more than five years ago.

Public prosecutor Ranveer Singh said the drugs were eaten by rodents and could not be produced.

"There is no place in the police station where the stored goods can be saved from the rats. The remaining [cannabis] from the huge consignment was destroyed by officers," prosecutors told the court.

Police arrested six people on suspicion of smuggling on a motorway and seized the drugs in two consignments in 2018 and 2019.

The alleged smugglers are now on trial for drug trafficking and other narcotics charges.

Police delivered samples of the drugs to the court at the beginning of the trial but were mandated to produce the actual cache to bolster their case and obtain a conviction.

The court asked senior police officers to ensure the safety of the evidence, which was meant to be presented on Saturday.

The prosecution told the court that nearly 700kg of cannabis stored across several police stations in the district were under threat from rats.

They also spoke of the inability to deal with the rodents, which they said were overwhelming the most secure places inside police stations.

"Being small in size, the rats have no fear of police, nor can the police officers be considered experts in solving the problem," prosecutors said.

Trials in India can take years, if not decades, and many accused often escape punishment over poor police investigations or evidence management.

Prosecutors in eastern Jharkhand state told a court in 2017 that rats consumed nearly 45kg of marijuana that was stored in a trafficking case involving 150kg of drugs.

Police in neighbouring Bihar state that year said rats drank about one million litres of alcohol kept in storerooms in one of the country's few dry states.

https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/2022/11/23/indian-police-say-rats-ate-600kg-of-cannabis-from-station-storeroom/

When Maya, a much-adored tigress in India’s Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve, abandoned her equally adored young cubs this June, park officials feared the worst. Soon after, Maya was spotted mating with some roving males, seemingly unconcerned about her one-year-old litter. But now local naturalists think Maya’s behavior is actually evidence of a crafty new strategy to help ensure her cubs’ survival: “false mating.”

Like many mammals—including bears, lions and bottlenose dolphins—male tigers will kill the cubs of their rivals whenever they can, so as to precipitate a new estrus cycle and impregnate the tigress with their own offspring. Tiger moms typically seek to protect their cubs from such a fate for 18 to 24 months, before pushing them out to establish their own territories. (Tiger fathers have no role in raising the young, so no help there.)

But the crowded conditions in Tadoba and other Indian national parks are making that increasingly difficult. The ranges of several roving rivals frequently overlap with the dominant male’s, bringing danger precariously close to vulnerable cubs, says Bilal Habib, a carnivore researcher at the Wildlife Institute of India.

“In high-density areas, where there are more males, the best strategy for a female is to try to leave the cubs early, go with the males, and then go back and look for her litter again,” Habib explains. “If she tries to fight with the males, that may be fatal for her and fatal for the cubs.”

The name “false mating”—which occurs among lions and other species—is a little misleading. It refers to actual s*x, just not at the time when a female is able to conceive. (Typically, tigresses go into estrus once every three to nine weeks, and are most likely to conceive during three to six days within that period.) Habib’s theory is that Maya is using s*x not to conceive, but to placate roving male tigers and perhaps make them think they have successfully impregnated her.

Afterwards, she returns back to her cubs, leaving the appeased male none the wiser.

Job done

Sure scrote

Other tiger researchers say Maya’s seemingly strange mating habits are just the tip of the iceberg. Overlapping territories have bred all sorts of unusual tiger behaviors, including more frequent fighting and dominant males apparently tolerating rivals. In some crowded ranges, serial mating with different males suggests the possibility that tiger litters—like those of domestic cats—may even have multiple fathers.

While that shared access might result in greater genetic diversity and prevent rival males from killing strange cubs, it could also prove problematic. High-density areas see more frequent infighting between rival males and territorial females alike, Habib says. And the imperative for mothers like Maya to leave their cubs early could itself have dire implications.

“What we suspect is if tiger cubs in high-density areas are forced to disperse early—at 12, 14 months—that makes their chances for survival very low,” he says. Danger, it seems, comes in many stripes.

Scroticide fricking when?

On his way home on Monday, a white car stopped near him on the Kapurthala road in which 4 girls were sitting.

The girl driving the car asked for an address written on a slip which she gave him. As soon as he started looking at the slip, the girl allegedly sprayed something in his eyes, after which he could not see anything and eventually, fainted.

Next, as he gained consciousness, he was sitting with them in the car, blindfolded with hands tied behind his back.

After this the girls took him to an unknown place where they allegedly drugged him.

He alleged that they were drinking alchohol and forced him to drink as well.

After this all four took turns to r*pe him, the man claimed.

Later at around 3 AM, the girls left from there leaving him blindfolded and with hands tied.

The man told reporters that the girls seemed to be from good families. All were talking among themselves mostly in English. However, they talked to him in Punjabi only.

Following the news, the Intelligence Department of Punjab police has initiated a suo moto probe in the matter, reports claimed.

Nobody:
The high Lich speaking incantations to his skeleton army: pic.twitter.com/IksoVitBUI

— sin at er bayns (@RickJamesFan) November 20, 2022

The note, circulated among Union ministries, underlines that the ancient democratic traditions explain the "survival of the Hindu culture and the civilisation in the face of the 2,000 years of invasions by alien ethnicities and cultures".

“There was no aristocracy in India like, say, in Greece. The Hindu state rarely presented that high degree of centralisation associated with the Roman empire… ,” it said.

“(In India) there was no concentration of the prestige of birth, influence of wealth and political office which made social organisations autocratic and aristocratic,” the note said.

“Whether the existence of two kinds of states janapada and rajya or the two assemblies called sabha and samiti forming essential features of the government – all indicate that the ancient form of governance in India was democratic, contrary to the general belief that it was monarchical,” he said.

Janapadas were republican against the explicitly monarchical rajyas(republican aristocracy), sabha and samiti were prior to state formation.

So much shirk

I unironically can't wait for their state elections.

On exertion and destiny

Kripa said, "We have heard all that thou hast said, O puissant one! Listen, however, to a few words of mine, O mighty armed one! All men are subjected to and governed by these two forces, Destiny and Exertion. There is nothing higher than these two. Our acts do not become successful in consequence of destiny alone, nor of exertion alone, O best of men! Success springs from the union of the two. All purposes, high and low, are dependent on a union of those two. In the whole world, it is through these two that men are seen to act as also to abstain. What result is produced by the clouds pouring upon a mountain? What results are not produced by them pouring upon a cultivated field? Exertion, where destiny is not auspicious, and absence of exertion where destiny is auspicious, both these are fruitless! What I have said before (about the union of the two) is the truth. If the rains properly moisten a well-tilled soil, the seed produces great results. Human success is of this nature.

Sometimes, Destiny, having settled a course of events, acts of itself (without waiting for exertion). For all that, the wise, aided by skill have recourse to exertion. All the purposes of human acts, O bull among men, are accomplished by the aid of those two together. Influenced by these two, men are seen to strive or abstain. Recourse may be had to exertion. But exertion succeeds through destiny. It is in consequence also of destiny that one who sets himself to work, depending on exertion, attains to success. The exertion, however, of even a competent man, even when well directed, is without the concurrence of destiny, seen in the world to be unproductive of fruit. Those, therefore, among men, that are idle and without intelligence, disapprove of exertion. This however, is not the opinion of the wise.

Generally, an act performed is not seen to be unproductive of fruit in the world. The absent of action, again, is seen to be productive of grave misery. A person obtaining something of itself without having made any efforts, as also one not obtaining anything even after exertion, is not to be seen. One who is busy in action is capable of supporting life. He, on the other hand, that is idle, never obtains happiness. In this world of men it is generally seen that they that are addicted to action are always inspired by the desire of earning good. If one devoted to action succeeds in gaining his object or fails to obtain the fruit of his acts, he does not become censurable in any respect. If anyone in the world is seen to luxuriously enjoy the fruits of action without doing any action, he is generally seen to incur ridicule and become an object of hatred. He who, disregarding this rule about action, liveth otherwise, is said to do an injury to himself. This is the opinion of those that are endued with intelligence.

Efforts become unproductive of fruits in consequence of these two reasons: destiny without exertion and exertion without destiny. Without exertion, no act in this world becomes successful. Devoted to action and endued with skill, that person, however, who, having bowed down to the gods, seeks, the accomplishment of his objects, is never lost. The same is the case with one who, desirous of success, properly waits upon the aged, asks of them what is for his good, and obeys their beneficial counsels. Men approved by the old should always be solicited for counsel while one has recourse to exertion. These men are the infallible root of means, and success is dependent on means. He who applies his efforts after listening to the words of the old, soon reaps abundant fruits from those efforts. That man who, without reverence and respect for others (capable of giving him good counsel), seeks the accomplishment of his purposes, moved by passion, anger, fear, and avarice, soon loses his prosperity.

This Duryodhana, stained by covetousness and bereft of foresight, had without taking counsel, foolishly commenced to seek the accomplishment of an undigested project. Disregarding all his well-wishers and taking counsel with only the wicked, he had, though dissuaded, waged hostilities with the Pandavas who are his superiors in all good qualities. He had, from the beginning, been very wicked. He could not restrain himself. He did not do the bidding of friends. For all that, he is now burning in grief and amid calamity. As regards ourselves since we have followed that sinful wretch, this great calamity hath, therefore, overtaken us! This great calamity has scorched my understanding. Plunged in reflection, I fail to see what is for our good!

A man that is stupefied himself should ask counsel of his friends. In such friends he hath his understanding, his humility, and his prosperity. One's actions should have their root in them. That should be done which intelligent friends, having settled by their understanding, should counsel. Let us, therefore, repair to Dhritarashtra and Gandhari and the high-souled Vidura and ask them as what we should do. Asked by us, they will say what, after all this, is for our good. We should do what they say. Even this is my certain resolution. Those men whose acts do not succeed even after the application of exertion, should, without doubt, be regarded as afflicted by destiny."

Addressing a gathering, Thakor, in the viral clip is heard saying, "We gave the votes (to BJP) to do something new but they pushed the entire country to depth, and if anyone can save the country then it is the Muslim community, and if anyone can save the congress, only Muslims can do that."

How will Thakorcels ever recover?