HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: s1006420@titan.ucc.umass.edu (and a thousand battles shall be won..)
Subject: Culture x Nature
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 20:05:49 GMT

My point is that culture overrides nature in several aspects -
clothing is one. To say that just because ppl live in a hot climate,
means that they will wear little clothing (like in a jungle) is
to be totally unaware of culture and its influence on ppl. For 
example, several indians have now changed to wearing western clothes,
even tho they still live in the jungle (without air - conditioning 
and without houses btw),
in the same habitat as they had before. And to think that every non-indian
that goes to live in the jungle starts to live with little clothes
is also to be unaware of culture and history. Just one example: 
When the jesuits first came to the amazon, not only did they 
not shed away their most heavy and uncomfortable
clothing, they tried to make the indians change their way of clothing 
(viewed as 'sinful') to something they felt acceptable. 
You don't need more than a superficial look at history, to see it is full of
examples of uncomfortable and sometimes unhealthy practices
human beings have engaged in, despite their natural habitat.
My point is that culture is not developed in a linear or 
concrete only mode of thought, therefore just the climate conditions
are not the only thing to come into play in the process of culture
and clothing in a particular society as you seemed to say.

V.
From: userMTAM@mts.ucs.UAlberta.CA (Mohammad Tamim)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh
Subject: SHORT WAVE TRANSMISSION IN BANGLA
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 92 22:54:07 GMT
Organization: MTS Univ of Alberta     

HI!
I WILL REALLY APPRECIATE IF ANYONE COULD GIVE ME ANY INFORMATION
REGARDING RECEIVING SHORT WAVE TRANSMISSION IN BANGLA, SPECIALLY
IN WESTERN CANADA. CAN YOU TUNE IN RADIO BANGLADESH OR AKASHVANI?
PLEASE, LET ME KNOW ABOUT THE FREQUENCIES AND TIME.
THANKS IN ADVANCE.
TAMIM
U OF ALBERTA
MTAM@UALTAMTS.BITNET
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh,soc.culture.pakistan,soc.culture.indian
From: dogar@rtsg.mot.com (Haroon H. Dogar)
Subject: Re: Book Review: Negationism in India
Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Group
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 17:03:24 GMT

misra@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Boo!) writes:

>	Jamia-Islamia is a anit-hindu group based in many cities in North 
>India and has been responsible for many hindu-muslim riots. If you dont 
>know I suggest you find out first before posting..

Jamia-Islamia huh? Ok. If you say so. :-)

matric? BSc.?
-hd
Xref: sparky soc.culture.bangladesh:4536 soc.culture.pakistan:13766 soc.culture.indian:28364
From: ngrjn@milton.u.washington.edu (V Nagarajan)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh,soc.culture.pakistan,soc.culture.indian
Subject: Why polygamy may be illegal (was: Contradictions in ...)
Date: 16 Aug 92 21:58:02 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Aug16.215802.7350
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle

In article <1992Aug15.154739.18892@bernina.ethz.ch> nadeem@igpho (Nadeem Malik) writes:
.
.
>There is no reason to ban polygamy at all. In fact, if the West especailly
>adopts polygamy, then it would solve overnight a lot of social problems
>destroying their society. Besides, there is a defacto polygamy, and indeed
>polyandry, rampant since World War II in Western culture ... this is all in
>name of FREEDOM!

	Well, outright murder and theft continue to occur eventho they are
	illegal. I haven't heard this as an argument for allowing theft
	and murder. The existence of something in spite of actions to
	outlaw it is not usually a good argument to do away with the pertinent
	laws.

>
>And on that last point, might I ask how can modern day freedom-thinkers
>justify banning polygamy? 
>

	Polygamy (ie polygyny and polyandry) works in favor of men in 
	patriarchial societies. It would be inordinately hard for a woman
	to divorce her husband or sue him for monetary compensation (when
	her husband takes a second wife) as the status of single women 
	is low and women are financially dependent on their husbands after
	marriage. Even in this country this situation is beginning to 
	change only now.

	As an anology consider the hypothetical situation if governments
	were to decide not to intervene in conflicts amongst its citizens.
	This would appear to be an even-handed approach as, if A attacks
	B, B can retaliate in kind and that could be enough of a deterrent
	to ensure peace. In reality, tho, if A happens to be more powerful, 
	the situation would de facto favor A. An activist government 
	serves as a reasonable equalizer of the status of its citizens. 
	There has to be a constant, judicious balancing of liberty with 
	interventionism.

	For the same reasons, arguments along the lines of `oh, the woman
	knows what she is getting into in polygynous situations - she
	is old enough to decide alright' betray a basic dishonesty.
	Remember slavery is outlawed for some very good reasons and
	it is not legal even for mature individuals to sell themselves.

							- Nagarajan
	
Xref: sparky soc.culture.bangladesh:4494 soc.culture.indian:28198 soc.culture.pakistan:13678
From: sankar@hal.COM (Sankar Bandy)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh,soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.pakistan
Subject: Re: Contradictions in Quaran
Date: 15 Aug 92 00:34:00 GMT
Organization: HaL Computer Systems, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: quality.hal.com

In article <1992Aug13.230244.25745@uceng.UC.EDU> mghayalo@uceng.UC.EDU (Manoj Ghayalod) writes:
>In article <1992Aug13.152729.24246@cs.yale.edu> ahmed-shakil@CS.YALE.EDU (Shakil Waiz Ahmed) writes:
>>
>>In article <1992Aug13.063644.28151@uceng.UC.EDU>, mghayalo@uceng.UC.EDU (Manoj Ghayalod) writes:
>>> In article <1992Aug13.011649.16448@cs.yale.edu> ahmed-shakil@CS.YALE.EDU (Shakil Waiz Ahmed) writes:
>>
>>
>>Nope, no second thoughts.  I claim it is timeless.  You claim that it
>>isn't.  Your claim that it isn't rests on your assertion that DNA
>>identifying of parents will become a 100% method one day.  Something
.......... Stuff deleted  .......
>and only in extreme cases. As for cutting peoples hands for robbing
>there are more chances of innocents suffering a fate which will be permenant.
>Is this punishment given on extreme cases or all theives are treated alike?
>
>Do you get a feeling we are getting nowhere?
>
>Manoj

I am using this posting to apologize to Syed Hyder Khan, for becoming personal
in my debate. Believe me, thats not my habit. This is not an excuse, but this
was a direct effect of finding out how irrational is the logic of Shakil 
Ahmed, in this on-going thread. It seems he is hell bent on twisting and
torturing every word of Koran to try to answer the logic of Gopal and Manoj
(albeit in a way which to everybody else becomes ridiculous). I am no great
judge of him, but even if Muhammod was alive today, he would have cried
"help help" after going through this series of logic presented by Shakil.

However after a recent posting by Naveed, I know I have made a mistake by
generalising everybody to be as irrational as Shakil. My apology again.

>> Sankar
Organization: Physics, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 21:18:10 -0400 
From: "Arun K. Gupta" <ag3l+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Some News



Saw in the Arab News (a Saudi paper) that the Chakma rebels have
called a ceasefire till at least Nov. 10; local elections are to
be held; the Bangla. govt. has promised some form of limited
autonomy to three districts (sorry I forget the names), where
there live (according to the newspapers) 500,000 Buddhists and
300,000 recent Muslim settlers. Over 60,000 Chakmas are supposed
to have fled to India, perhaps they will return home.

Maybe a few things are looking up ?
-arun gupta
ag3L@andrew.cmu.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh
From: kundu@watson.ibm.com (Sandip Kundu)
Subject: Minoritity in Govt. positions
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 14:25:24 GMT
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

In article <1992Aug13.223158.1@engvms.unl.edu> mermmzh@engvms.unl.edu writes:
>Members of Ziaur Rahman's cabinet ( approx. 10 years ago )
>
>Sunil Gupta
>Rosoraj Mondal
>Benita Roy ( President's Adviser)
>
>Members of Ershad's Cabinet ( 2 years ago )
>
>Nitai Roy
>Sunil Gupta
>
>
>The only Hindu member of the present Khaleda's cabinet is
>
>Gayesshor Roy
> 
>---Zakir


Following stat on Bangladesh was compiled Mr. Chitta Dutta, a
retired Major General of Bangladesh Army. He was awarded "Bir
Uttam" title by Bangladesh Government. Now he crusades against
discrimination in Bangladesh. He has collected a lot of data.
Following is a sample (1991):

        post              total            minority
        
        IG                1                0
        DIG               6                0
        Additional IG     18               1
        SP                87               2

        Secretary         49               0
        Addl. Secy        26               0
        Joint Secy        134              3

        Excise & Cust.
        officers          152              1
        Income Tax 
        officers          450              8

        Major Gen         22               0
        Brigadier         65               0
        Colonel           70               1
        Lt. Colonel       450              8

        GM in 
        nationalised      37               0
        Banks        

(Banks surveyed are Sonali, Janata, Agrani, Krishi and Shilpa)

He has also compiled statistics to show that for a government
job, given two candidates with similar qualifications, X from 
a religious minority and one Y from majority, Y is about 50 times 
more likely than X to get the job. 

Sandip Kundu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh
From: masroor@human.ai.kyushu-u.ac.jp (Muhammad Masroor Ali)
Subject: Re: KulturSchock
Organization: Dept. of Comp. Sci. and Comm. Eng., Kyushu Univ., Fukuoka, Japan
    14:37:46 GMT
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 03:26:07 GMT
X-Bytes: 563

In article <1992Aug17.143746.15699@udel.edu> kazi@hercules.cis.udel.edu (Zunaid Kazi) writes:

>........ I could imagine some things
>which might cause a slight upturn of the eyebrows.

	[Stuff deleted]



Thanks ZHK for bringing some good humor (well, perhaps you did not mean 
to bring humor, rather wanted to save the newcomers from  awkward 
situations) to SCB. We were becoming too engrossed in serious 
discussions.


I would like to add a request. 

>.... And many, many more. Care to add anyone?

Please also write these `many, many more's.



Masroor



Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh
From: psycho@makalu.Stanford.EDU (Mr. Knotty Sycho)
Subject: Bangladeshi politicians call strike to protest lawmaker's shooting
Keywords: international, non-usa government, government, military weapons,
        military, fighting
Organization: Peace and Freedom Institute, Stanford University
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 22:09:51 GMT



	DHAKA, Bangladesh (UPI) -- Fifteen leftist and left-center political
parties called Tuesday for a dawn-to-dusk strike to protest the shooting
of a left-wing member of Parliament, and supporters of the lawmaker
blamed the attack on right-wing Islamic fundamentalists.
	Leaders of the 15 political groups staged a demonstration in central
Dhaka to rally support for the strike, which will be held Wednesday to
protest the shooting of Rashed Khan Menon, the secretary general of the
Bangladesh Workers Party.
	Three gunmen pumped two bullets into Menon from close range Monday
night. The bullets ripped through his rib cage, seriously damaging his
liver and one lung. Officials at the Combined Military Hospital said
Menon was ``stable and steadily improving'' after a four-hour operation.
	Surgeons who conducted the operation said Menon received 12 pints of
blood during the operation and described his survival as ``nothing short
of a miracle.''
	Opposition leader Sheikh Hasina Wazed, who rushed to his bedside,
quoted Menon as asking: ``What sin have I committed? Is it wrong to do
politics in this country?''
	Speakers at the rally Tuesday blamed Islamic fundamentalists for the
attack on Menon and warned that they would not tolerate such violence
any more.
	``They have declared war on us. It is now time for us to declare war
on them again,'' said Lt. Col. Kazi Nuruzzaman, a decorated hero of
Bangladesh's war of independence against Pakistan.
	The Jamaat-i-Islami and other fundamentalist parties backed Pakistan
during the 1971 conflict and recruited volunteers known as ``razakars''
to provide battlefield support to Islamabad's troops.
	Jamaat chief Golam Azam is accused by opposition parties of having
committed war crimes in 1971, when an estimated 3 million Bengalis were
killed by Pakistani troops and their local allies. Menon has been
pushing the government to put Azam on trial for war crimes in connection
with the conflict.
	A shadowy and violent group known as the Jubo Command terms has
called the effort to try Golam Azam an ``Indian conspiracy.'' The Jubo
Command, which is thought to be a front for the Jamaat and the ultra-
rightwing Freedom Party, has vowed to ``eliminate'' all anti-Azam
campaigners.
	Azam left the country in November 1971 and returned seven years later
on a Pakistani passport. He is currently in jail awaiting a high court
decision as to whether a government order cancelling his Bangladeshi
citizenship in 1973 was valid or not.


Xref: sparky soc.culture.bangladesh:4450 soc.culture.indian:27979 soc.culture.pakistan:13608
From: sarkar@grip.cis.upenn.edu (Nilanjan Sarkar)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh,soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.pakistan
Subject: Re: Contradictions in Quaran
Date: 14 Aug 92 21:33:48 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.bangladesh
Organization: GRASP Lab, University of Pennsylvania

In article <1992Aug14.194110.8327@cs.yale.edu> ahmed-shakil@CS.YALE.EDU (Shakil Waiz Ahmed) writes:
>
>In article <1992Aug14.125402.8346@uceng.UC.EDU>, mghayalo@uceng.UC.EDU (Manoj Ghayalod) writes:
>> In article <1992Aug14.145011.5624@cs.yale.edu> ahmed-shakil@CS.YALE.EDU (Shakil Waiz Ahmed) writes:

>> But you still say that a man can have more than one wife in some
   ----------------------------------------------------------------
>> cases but a woman should have only one husband under any condition. 
   ------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Could you be termed as a sexist?
>
>I could, as you appear to, but it would be wrong.  You see, it's not
>just a matter of the very specific situations under which polygyny is
>permitted.  Don't forget that it is a woman's *choice* to decide
>whether she would go into a marriage like that.  Clearly, almost all
>women will choose not to walk into something like that, regardless of
>circumstances.  Why is that sexist?
                 ------------------

Sometimes I really wonder what is the real reason that you don't see the
other person's point. Is it that you don't *want* to see that and
think what you say/understand is the *ultimate* ? Or, accepting defeat
gracefully in an argument is totally unknown to you ? Or, you are 
really so stupid as not to see the opponent's point ? Whatever be
the case, you repeat your *verdict* one more time and say "what is
your point ?" !

Now the case in hand is very clear. Remove your mental block and read
this question - " a man can have more than one wife in some cases (those
cases may be very rare), but, no matter what, a woman *can not* have
                              --------------
more than one husband - is this sexist attitude ?" . For the time
being forget who said that and whether it is straight from the almighty
who can not make any mistake and all those glorifying adjectives.
Say, I tell you this - won't you think me sexist ? Don't twist the
argument by saying it is the woman's choice whether to accept polygyny
or not - the question is - why the woman will not have a choice for
polyandry when man is given the choice of polygyny ? And, is not
it sexist ?


Is it sufficiently clear or I should expect - "what is your point ?" !

If you are planning to argue that polygyny is a privilege given to women
and polyandry is a privilege not given to man - my argument still holds,
it is sexist.



>-- Shakil


Nilanjan
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh,soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.pakistan
From: ahmed-shakil@CS.YALE.EDU (Shakil Waiz Ahmed)
Subject: Re: Contradictions in Quaran
Organization: Yale University, Department of Computer Science
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 18:25:39 GMT


In article <1992Aug13.164802.7803@u.washington.edu>, ngrjn@milton.u.washington.edu (V Nagarajan) writes:
	
> 	Hmm. There are some things that Shakil has a propensity to easily
> 	forget. We went thru the DNA typing discussion not too long ago and
> 	at the time I showed that when it comes to *paternity disputes*
> 	DNA tests are A OK. (There are NO scientific misgivings on this
> 	point) The probability of misidentity can be made arbitrarily small. 
> 	Orders of magnitude smaller, in fact, than the chances that two 
> 	newborns will be mistakenly switched in a hospital ward. (I am 
> 	sure everyone has heard of at least one or two cases of this.)

Um, let's see now, there is a certain probabilty, Px, that two newborns
would be switched in a hospital ward.  So far so good.  Now let us
look at the obvious.  There is also a certain probability, Py, that two
DNA samples are switched.  Could V Nagarajan possibly have forgotten
about Py in all his miraculous computations?  Well, now let's note
further than babies in general are not identical to each other, at
least not to the human eye which can note the physical differences.
But a DNA sample lies in some test tube or other chemical container.
Most of us apparently don't have the visual powers of our friend V
Nagarajan because we cannot distinguish between DNA samples by just
looking at them with the naked eye.  Indeed, that would lead most
people to conclude that Py is considerably larger than Px, casting the
above-mentioned calculations deep off into theoretical utopia...

> 	in the middle. At any rate, I don't wish to go beyond this and 
> 	this will be my last and only post in this seasonal free-for-all
> 	thread, on account of my feeling that Shakil keeps repeating the
> 	same thing over and over again like a broken record. 

Hmmmmm.  Now I wonder who keeps playing this broken record?  You see,
in this day and age, most of us prefer CD's to records...

-- Shakil
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh,soc.culture.pakistan,soc.culture.indian
From: nadeem@igpho (Nadeem Malik)
Subject: Re: Contradictions in the Qu'ran
Organization: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, CH
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 13:08:35 GMT

ag3l+@andrew.cmu.edu (Arun K. Gupta) writes:
: 
: Nadeem Malik is correct in the statistics that (at least in 1971 or so)
: there were more Hindu men with two or more wives than Muslim men with
: two or more wives in India.
: 
: As far as polygamy and Hinduism go: the matter of fact is there is no
: ONE Hindu code of law, there are several. I think some of them permit
: polygamy (and some permit polyandry.)  The law codes followed have changed
: with the era and circumstances. However, the majority follow a monogamous
: code, (I think).
: 
: As I have said before, a good portion of the demand for a uniform civil
: code is thinly veiled Muslim bashing. There *is* however a need to
: reform the Muslim personal law in India.
: 
: -arun gupta
: ag3L@andrew.cmu.edu

Would you elaborate on the last paragraph please. Which areas of Muslim
personal need to be reformed? Please give a few examples.

Nadeem Malik
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh,soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.pakistan
From: bhattach@dip.eecs.umich.edu (sayan bhattacharyya)
Subject: Re: Culture x Nature
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor, MI
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 22:36:49 GMT

In article <1992Aug17.200549.26269@nic.umass.edu> s1006420@titan.ucc.umass.edu (and a thousand battles shall be won..) writes:

>My point is that culture overrides nature in several aspects -
>clothing is one. To say that just because ppl live in a hot climate,
>means that they will wear little clothing (like in a jungle) is
>to be totally unaware of culture and its influence on ppl. For 
>example, several indians have now changed to wearing western clothes,
                  -------
>even tho they still live in the jungle (without air - conditioning 
>and without houses btw),
>in the same habitat as they had before. And to think that every non-indian
                                                                 ---------
>that goes to live in the jungle starts to live with little clothes
>is also to be unaware of culture and history. Just one example: 
>When the jesuits first came to the amazon, not only did they 
>not shed away their most heavy and uncomfortable
>clothing, they tried to make the indians change their way of clothing 
                                  -------
>(viewed as 'sinful') to something they felt acceptable. 
>You don't need more than a superficial look at history, to see it is full of
>examples of uncomfortable and sometimes unhealthy practices
>human beings have engaged in, despite their natural habitat.
>My point is that culture is not developed in a linear or 
>concrete only mode of thought, therefore just the climate conditions
>are not the only thing to come into play in the process of culture
>and clothing in a particular society as you seemed to say.
>
>V.


V ,  

It is obvious from the context that by 'indian' in this post you meant 
the Amazonian natives, but since this thread is being cross-posted to all 
the three subcontinental soc.culture  groups, including soc.culture.indian,
the use of this term might get a little confusing. 

-Sayan.




Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh,soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.pakistan
From: kazi@mercury.cis.udel.edu (Zunaid Kazi)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh
Subject: Re: Ficticiousgods
Date: 21 Aug 92 17:42:50 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Delaware, Newark

In article <1992Aug21.154837.24167@tamsun.tamu.edu> nns3321@tamuts.tamu.edu (Nripendra Nath Sarker) writes:
>
>Let's say there are n number of gods with n different religions existing
>in this world. Therefore, there are n paradises and n hells. If you are a 
>believer of a religion, you have chance (not sure) go to the paradise of
>of your god to live with a bunch of beautiful women. But for sure 
>the other (n-1) gods will drag you to their hells and a single god of 
>yours can not protect you from (n-1) gods. So, every body us is going 
>to hell after our death.
>
>In fact, we are already living in hells fighting for the ficticious
>gods we have created.

Some comments:

1] If there is a benevolent god, then all's well, and it doesn't matter.
2] If there is a malevolent god, then nothing matters.
3] If its both malevolent and benevolent, then it's no god.

4] Let's try to make paradise on earth.

5] BTW, you are neglecting one half of the world by populating paradise with
   beautiful women. Put some handsome men, like me :), to even up the odds.
   :-)

>nripen

-zunaid
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh