Each dawn brings new hope for conscientious humans

Ahmed Malik, a Muslim caretaker at Amarnath, blesses a devotee inside the cave. The annual pilgrimage began early this month amid threats of militant attacks along the 46-km route between Pahalgam and the cave-shrine, situated 3,888 meters above sea level. 

“I feel that I have lost something. It is my strong belief that without the Kashmiri Hindus one cannot talk about Kashmiri identity, or Kashmir. This is because it is their land. We, the Kashmiri Muslims, are converts [to Islam]. And it is the Kashmiri Hindus who have understood us best just as we understand them.

Kashmiri Hindus form about 5 to 6% of the total population of Kashmir and the Muslims form about 95%. But what sustains my belief that Kashmir is incomplete without its Hindus is the fact that we have lived together for six centuries amicably, without shedding blood.

One of the great Kashmiri kings even got the classic Indian epic the Mahabharata and other ancient Sanskrit texts translated into Persian.

I am currently compiling an encyclopedia of Sufis in South Asia. During my work I have come across manuscripts written by Kashmiri Hindus which talk of the oneness of God, the one Creator who belongs to all and does not distinguish between Hindus and Muslims.” Ishaq Khan, Professor at Kashmir University, Srinagar

Fossil hints ast India's mythical river
Geologists in India say they have found an elephant fossil in the Thar desert of Rajasthan, supporting earlier theories that the vast desert was once a fertile area. BBC

Huge anti-war protest in Florence
Hundreds of thousands of protesters from across Europe joined a rally in the Italian city of Florence on Saturday to voice their opposition to any war with Iraq. BBC

The rise of India's popaddum queen
Jaswanti Ben Popat, nearing 70, hardly looks the type who would be whizzing in and out of boardrooms, or chairing meetings on million-dollar deals which decide the fate of thousands of people. BBC

Satellite mapping fights corruption
Digital maps of Bangladesh are proving invaluable in the fight against sleaze in a country branded as one of the most corrupt in the world. BBC

Malaria genomes cracked
New ways of tackling malaria - the infection which kills a million people a year - are likely to be developed as a result of a new scientific milestone. BBC

Iran's women fans await stadium access
For 23 years, supporting their favourite football team from the terraces has not been an option for women in Iran. BBC

Learn for free online
Like almost every organisation in the US, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology spent the late 1990s struggling with the question of how to take advantage of the internet. BBC

Canada PM warns arrogant West
The Canadian Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, has warned the US and other wealthy nations against "humiliating" poorer countries and said perceived Western arrogance had played a part in the 11 September attacks. BBC

Nigerian women made Rome citizen
A Nigerian woman who was saved from being stoned to death under Islamic Sharia law has been made an honorary citizen of the Italian capital, Rome. BBC

Briton volunteers as human shield for Iraq
In the UK there is little appetite for a war with Iraq, according to the opinion polls. But few who oppose military conflict would go to the same lengths as Matt Barr. BBC

Indonesian reef excites scientists
Coral researchers have revealed the location of what they think is the most valuable cluster of reefs in the world. BBC

Arab leaders denounce violence
The leaders of Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia have "rejected all forms of violence" and expressed "sincere" Arab determination to forge peace with Israel. BBC

Thousands rally for peace in Tel Aviv
Tens of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets of Tel Aviv to demand the immediate withdrawal of the Israel army and settlers from Palestinian territories. BBC

French protest gather pace
The biggest protests yet against far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen have swept France, with crowds across the country estimated at up to 250,000. BBC

Musharraf berates Muslim world
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has said Islamic countries will remain backward unless they concentrate more on scientific and technological development. BBC

Blaire calls on faiths to unite
Prime Minister Tony Blair has told a conference of Christians and Muslims that there is a renewed urgency for greater religious understanding in the wake of the 11 September terror attacks. BBC

Spacey leads Lennon tribute
Former Beatle John Lennon was remembered on Tuesday night in a star-studded concert in New York. BBC

India's simple computer for the poor
The Simputer, a new cheap computer developed in India, could help the poor join the information age. Go Digital's Tracey Logan spoke to Vinay Deshpande of the Simputer Trust, ahead of the computer's launch in November. BBC

Hero's final home call
Details of a phone call from a passenger preparing to attack an armed hijacker have provided the clearest picture yet of the plane's final moments. BBC

Nations unite in mourning
Countries throughout the world are observing a day of mourning for those killed in the US terror attacks. BBC

Kashmir shepherd hits temple jackpot
A Muslim shepherd in central Kashmir may never need to work again after discovering an ancient Hindu temple. BBC

Libya to buy all Caribbean bananas
Libya is reported to have offered to buy all the bananas produced in the Caribbean region at above market prices. BBC

Decade against the odds
When it was launched few people in the media business thought the Big Issue would last for 10 issues - let alone 10 years. Here Gibby Zobel and Max Daly of the magazine's news team reveal the secret of their success. BBC

Racism summit seeks consensus
After a day of opening speeches, the international conference on racism in the South African city of Durban is beginning the task of reaching a consensus and an action plan. BBC

Activists urge caste debate
Ahead of a major UN conference on racism, due to open in South Africa on Friday, many Indian non-government groups are demanding that caste-ism - discrimination on the grounds of caste - should be added to the agenda. BBC

Genoa set for summit onslaught
The final stages of a massive security operation swung into effect in Genoa on Wednesday, as the Italian port braced itself for the arrival of tens of thousands of protesters. BBC

Bono praises French debt effort
U2 singer Bono has thanked French prime minister Lionel Jospin for his country's efforts to write off the debt of the world's poorest countries. BBC

Timor secures huge oil royalties
Australia and the former Indonesian territory of East Timor have signed an agreement designed to give the fledgling nation an income of thousands of millions of dollars over the next 30 years. BBC

US drops Brazil AIDS drug case
The United States has dropped its complaint against Brazil for allowing the production of generic Aids-treatment drugs within the South American country. BBC

Soros scholarships for gypsies
The billionaire financier George Soros has announced a new programme to give new university scholarships to hundreds of Roma people, also known as gypsies, across eastern Europe. BBC

Dark visions at Venice Biennale
Asian artists at this year's Venice Biennale have staged an exciting variety of shows around the city. Many are designed to please and entertain. Some have arrived with a darker vision. BBC

Global skills push
Young people are being urged to join a campaign to call for better training in vocational skills for children in developing countries. BBC

State of the Earth study launched
The United Nations has launched a $21m (£15m) assessment of the Earth's ecosystems. BBC

Inter-continental robot surgery
Surgeons in the US have successfully used computers and robots to take part in operations in a different continent. BBC

Musharraf condemns religious hardliners
Pakistan's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, has condemned hardline Islamists and called on the people of the country to shun religious fanaticism. BBC

Silicon ally: Indo-Paki bhai-tech
For someone who once served has a sub-lieutenant on the aircraft carrier INS Vikrant, Raj Singh's Pakistani 'connections' are quite remarkable. Now a celebrated techie-turned-angel investor in Silicon Valley, Singh's career is a paean to sub-continental kinship and an object lesson in how business can foster better relations, a message many feel is hopelessly lost in the present embittered atmosphere in the region. TOI

More Everest records broken
Two Americans have set new Everest records. Erik Weihenmayer has become the first blind person to reach the top of the world's highest mountain. Another American, Sherman Bull, has become the oldest Everest climber at the age of 64. BBC

Africa to get cheap malaria drug
A new treatment for malaria is to be made available to developing countries at cost price. The World Health Organization (WHO) has joined forces with Swiss pharmaceutical firm Novartis to ensure that the drug Coartem is made available to patients who desperately need it. BBC

Young poor march in Argentina
Some 400 of Argentina's youngsters have arrived in the capital, Buenos Aires, at the end of a 2,000-kilometre march to highlight child poverty. BBC

India's bank of ideas
Graduation Days are the same all over the world: proud parents snapping away, students self-conscious in gowns and hoods as they examine their diplomas while walking down from the platform - the first steps in the rest of their lives. BBC

Protester paints hull of nuclear sub
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has launched an investigation after an anti-nuclear protester spray painted the side of a Trident submarine. BBC

Protests disrupt US island exercises
Protesters have disrupted the first day of controversial American military exercises on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques. BBC

Jordan acts on child abuse
Jordan has been tackling the issue of child abuse. Under the direction of Queen Rania it has opened the first centre for abused children in the Arab world. BBC

Hindu women spread the word
Bright and busy, Sunitee Kadgil is struggling to fit in a number of people who want her to perform Hindu death rites, house-warmings and naming ceremonies. BBC

Ethical activists step up the fight
Your average shareholder should, if he or she is lucky, enjoy a healthy dividend, a few glossy reports in the post and a nice lunch every now and then at the company's expense. BBC

Oil drilling in refuge appears dead
As activists around the country observed Earth Day Sunday, word came that the Bush administration no longer intends to push for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Christine Todd Whitman, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, told NBC News that the plan was essentially dead because it would be too hard to win congressional approval. BBC

Jackson to tackle child slavery
Pop superstar Michael Jackson will travel to the east African country of Sudan to campaign for an end to child slavery in the country. BBC

Violence re-ignites in Quebec
Riot police in Quebec City have fired water cannon and tear gas at anti-globalisation demonstrators outside a summit discussing plans for the world's largest free trade area. BBC  MSNBC

Why elephants don't forget
The saying that elephants never forget has been backed by science. And it seems that the old adage may be particularly true in the case of matriarchs, who lead the herd. BBC

Greens contemplate US oil boycott
Green party delegates from more than 60 countries, who are in Australia for their first ever international conference, are discussing a possible boycott of United States oil companies. BBC

Brazilian lost tribe discovered
An expedition in a remote Amazonian region of Brazil has made contact with a tribe of indigenous Indians never before exposed to western society. BBC

Pupil loses battle over exclusion
A 16-year-old schoolboy has lost his challenge to teachers' right to take industrial action over disruptive pupils. BBC

Russians rally for NTV

Several thousand people have been demonstrating in Moscow against the takeover of the independent Russian television station NTV by the state-owned company Gazprom. BBC

Vajpayee proposes a world free of N-arms
In a renewed appeal for global disarmament, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said on Friday if all nuclear nations agreed to destroy their arsenal, India was also prepared to do so. (TOI)

Into the heart of the Whirlpool galaxy
New images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) have revealed remarkable new details in one of the most spectacular galaxies known, the so-called "Whirlpool" galaxy, also called M51. BBC

Kenya's flower power
If you're not a nature lover before you come to Lake Naivasha, you certainly will be after your stay. The beauty is staggering. There's the lake itself, a smooth, gleaming expanse of water - 150 square kilometres of it. BBC

Euro MPs fight 'cruel' cosmetics
Members of the European Parliament have voted to ban the sale of all cosmetics which have been tested on animals. BBC

Zapatistas address Mexican leaders
An unarmed delegation from the Zapatista rebels has appeared before Mexico's congress to present its case for indigenous rights legislation. BBC

Taiwan switches off red light district
Authorities in the Taiwanese capital, Taipei, are shutting the doors on the city's legal brothels. BBC

Nuclear cargo forced back
A train carrying a consignment of nuclear waste to a storage site in northern Germany has been temporarily reversed to a secure location after protesters blocked the railway. BBC

Delhi commuters face chaos
Commuters in the Indian capital, Delhi, are bracing for chaos after thousands of buses and taxis were declared unfit for the road in a court ruling. BBC

US court backs anti-Shell lawsuit
The US Supreme Court has ruled that families of two environmental activists executed in Nigeria can sue the oil company Shell in New York. BBC

Argentina remembers Dirty War
Thousands of people demonstrated in Buenos Aires on Saturday to mark the 25th anniversary of the coup which brought in seven years of military rule. BBC

Afghan feminists go online
A group of Afghan feminists have turned to the internet to draw attention to atrocities and human rights abuses committed against women under Taleban rule. BBC

Anti-globalisation clashes in Italy
Thousands of anti-globalisation protesters have clashed with riot police in the Italian city of Naples. BBC

Pakistan's saviour of the desperate
Pakistan's welfare system is in a state of collapse. People no longer look to the government for help, but to one extraordinary individual, Abdul Sattar Edhi. BBC

Indian website breaks the mould
"News, views and all the juice." That's how the ground-breaking news and entertainment portal, Tehelka.com, describes itself on its home page. BBC

Third world to get HIV drugs
Pharmaceutical manufacturer Merck & Co. announced that it will drastically cut prices for two HIV drugs in AIDS-ravaged Africa and other developing parts of the world. Globe And Mail

Out of Africa
During a Civil War, thousands of Sudanese boys fled through the bush, facing death at every turn. Now the survivors are moving here. This is their story NEWSWEEK

Norwegians march against racism
Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of the Norwegian capital, Oslo, in protest at the killing of a black teenager which is being blamed on neo-Nazis. BBC

China's growing holy war
As night falls over the working-class district of Yau Ma Tei in Hong Kong, the bustling streets become silent and murky. Inside a second-floor tenement, two dozen Falun Gong practitioners sit closely together, chanting from their handbooks. MSNBC

Call to end Iraqi's sanctions
Labour MP Tony Benn has branded the effect of the west's sanctions policy towards Iraq as a "war crime". BBC

Sting receives human rights award
The British rock singer, Sting, has been given one of Chile's highest awards for his work defending human rights. BBC

Stop plundering planet
Humans are in danger of becoming "predators plundering the earth", the Archbishop of Canterbury has warned in his New Year's Message. BBC

Putting a price on slavery's legacy
People begin trickling into the ramshackle recreation center an hour before the program is slated to begin, drawn by a promise that many of them believe speaks to the core of their existence as African Americans. MSNBC 

Canada cancels debt
Canada is placing a moratorium on repayments of about $700 million in loans to some of the world's poorest countries. The move, announced Tuesday by Finance Minister Paul Martin, puts Canada on the leading edge of an international initiative to forgive all debt owed by severely impoverished nations. Montreal Gazette. 

Death penalty petition targets US
Opponents of the death penalty have organised a mass petition urging moratoriums on capital punishment throughout the world. BBC

Hawaiian reefs
Noting that 90 percent of the coral reefs in the central Indian Ocean have died and that reefs elsewhere are threatened by pollution, fishing and other human activities, President Bill Clinton on Monday established the largest protected area in the United States — an 84-million-acre ecosystem reserve around the northwestern Hawaiian Islands and their vast reef system. MSNBC

Activists rail against military in space
Authorities arrested 23 peace activists, including actor Martin Sheen, during a protest Saturday against military space technology. MSNBC

Nirvana behind bars
Three years ago Bhupinder Singh, a burly 23-year-old man, was sent to Tihar Jail on the outskirts of New Delhi. He’d been charged with murder. When Singh arrived at Tihar, say prison officials, he was angry and violent. Then, in 1999, he joined a meditation program inside the prison. Newsweek

New face of race
Every day in America, we are redrawing the color lines and redefining what race really means. It’s not just a matter of black and white anymore; the nuances of brown and yellow and red mean more— and less—than ever. The promise and perils ahead. Newsweek

Aborigines granted Olympics protest
The Australian Government has given Aborigines permission to demonstrate near Sydney airport in the days leading up to the 2000 Olympics. BBC

Music giants sued for price fixing
State attorneys from 28 US states have filed a law suit against the world's five largest record companies, accusing them of fixing compact disc prices. BBC

Call for cluster bomb ban
Disarmament campaigners are calling for a global moratorium on the manufacture and use of cluster bombs. BBC

World anti-smoking drive intensifies
The largest ever conference on the health effects of smoking has opened in Chicago with denunciations of the international tobacco industry. BBC 

Support for forced marriage victims
Potential victims of forced marriages will be issued with pocket-sized lists of support telephone numbers under a new action plan unveiled by the government. BBC

A new way of giving
Our generosity may be the best measure of our humanity. To become fabulously wealthy, to win great fame - these are triumphs not of humanity but of vanity. For the past two decades of robust economic growth, Americans have too often reveled in that vanity. Time

Whaling ban stays for now
The International Whaling Commission has ended its meeting in Adelaide by voting to maintain the present moratorium on commercial whaling - for the time being. BBC

Saving the giant sea turtle
Environmentalists in Ghana are to set up six sanctuaries along the country's Atlantic coast to save the endangered giant sea turtle. BBC

Kashmir to ban shahtoosh
The Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir has said it will ban the trade in shahtoosh shawls, made from the hair of an endangered antelope. BBC

Heroes for the planet
Meet people doing extraordinary things to preserve and protect the environment. Time

Gaiety at Kashmir border
Thousands of Indians and Pakistanis have gathered at the Kashmir border to celebrate an annual festival at a holy shrine. BBC

Nazi slaves to be paid $7-billion
Germany signed a historic $7.1-billion deal yesterday to compensate nearly one million slave and forced labourers, an agreement that is likely to provide the last major payment arising from the actions of the Nazi regime. Globe and Mail

Hospitals offer ancient healing
One of the first hospitals outside South Asia which specialises in ancient Indian medical techniques has opened in London. BBC

Efforts under way
Efforts under way to help salvage Mexico's Sea of Cortez. CNN

Girls schools return in US
All-girls' schools are making a comeback in the United States, reversing a long period of decline.  BBC

10% forest to be preserved
10 per cent of the Brazilian rainforest is going to be preserved by a coalition.  BBC

Laddism is dead
Men aspire to a life of monogamy, marriage and parenting, rejecting the drunken one-night-stand culture of "laddism", according to a survey. BBC

Scientist wins $1-million religious prize
Professor Freeman Dyson, one of the world's pre-eminent physicists, who once said that theologians should be abolished, has won the 2000 Templeton Prize for progress in religion. BBC

Symbolic march unites Australians
About 150,000 Australians have taken part in a walk of reconciliation across Sydney's Harbour Bridge in a gesture of support for the country's Aborigines. BBC

Nepal claims rhino success
The Nepalese authorities have claimed success in the conservation of one of the world's most endangered species - the one-horned rhino. BBC

Coca-cola's $1-billion aid to minorities
The Coca-Cola company says it intends to spend $1bn to boost business opportunities for ethnic minorities and women in the US. BBC

Prince warns of playing 'god'
“Prince Charles, a long-standing opponent of genetically-modified food, is to warn the scientific community that tampering with nature could cause great harm to the world.” BBC

Had you enough of the rat race?
Increasing numbers of professionals are packing in their high-powered jobs and volunteering as charity workers abroad, according to research by the Voluntary Service Overseas. BBC

Sir Paul's landmine crusade
Sir Paul McCartney has joined the worldwide campaign to ban landmines. The former Beatle became involved in the project after seeing the work his girlfriend Heather Mills has done to help people injured by the hidden weapons. BBC

World celebrates Earth Day
“Over 500 million people in 85 countries are expected to celebrate Earth Day on Saturday. It will be the 30th time the organisers have made their annual attempt to bring together the planet's population to "promote a healthy environment and a peaceful, just, sustainable world".” BBC

Europe chemical weapons free
“The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has agreed to accede to the international convention banning the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. . . . It is the last country in Europe to do so and in due course, it will have to open up its chemical facilities - both military and many civil plants - to international inspection.” BBC