RSS is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, an XML format for distributing news headlines on the Web, also known as syndication.

First started by Netscape as part of the My Netscape site, it expanded through Dave Winer and Userland. RSS started off in an RDF format, but RSS 0.91 (the current version) is not, which leads to some annoying issues when trying to parse different pages.

Virtually every news site and weblog uses RSS for syndicating content. It would actually make for a really nice Everything feature. The most useful site for RSS information is probably http://www.oreillynet.com/topics/rss/rss, but http://www.webtechniques.com/archives/2000/02/eisenzopf/ serves as a nice introduction.

The RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) is a communal fascist right wing Hindu organisation in India. The RSS was built around the Nazi ideology and during the Indian struggle for Independence, the RSS constantly sided with the British. The RSS was also responsible for assasinating Gandhi.
For a long time, the antics of the RSS were passed off as simply amusing, but unfortunately in recent years they have become quite powerful. The government at the Centre is a BJP(Bhartiya Janata Party) government. The BJP started off as a satellite of the RSS and many of its members are members of the RSS.

The activities of the RSS are too numerous to recount here but let me at least put down a few of the ridiculous ones.
The RSS is against Islam and wishes to deny the Moghuls any part in Indian culture. So here is one of their claims:
"The Taj Mahal was not built by Shah Jahan. It is actually a Hindu temple and was built by Prithviraj Chauhan. The reason that no records seem to support this is that Shah Jahan had all records of that time burnt. Even now, two rooms in the Taj Mahal are closed off because they contain statues of Shiva. The government has been part of the conspiracy to prevent the truth from coming out, and so keeps these rooms closed"
Well well, there are similar claims for almost all products of Moghul architectue!! Of course none of them hold any water, because there is absolutely no historical evidence to back them up. Another simple proof is the fact that the dome which is a distinctive part of Moghul Architecure, was not seen in India before. It came straight from Persia...

The RSS also claims that the Harappans were the early Aryans and that the Vedic civilization grew out the Harappan civilization. By doing this they wish to show that India was not invaded before the Moghuls. One of the primary problems with their theory was that the Vedic civilization was known to have relied heavily on horses but there is no trace of horses in Harappa. That couldnt have been a barrier for the RSS could it? What do you think they did? They took one of the "unicorn seals" of the Harappan civilization, modified the image on a computer to make it look like a horse and published it in a book!
The same book also contained claims about how the Harappan script had been deciphered. The RSS started with the premise that the Harappan script could not represent vowels!. Its amazing what you can do with that assumption.
Lets say the English script had no vowels and you were to see the letter MN. What all could you make of it. Well "MAN, MEN, MOAN, MEAN, MINI, MANE, MAIN, MONEY, MIN" for starters...
Proceeding in this scientific(I'm serious they said that their analysis was very scientific) way, the RSS went on to prove that the Harappan script was basically a form of Sanskrit!

The RSS has revivalist tendencies and would like to say that all knowledge is contained in the Vedas. They would like Sanskrit(which was always a super elite language and never a language of the people) to be brought back. They would object at girls wearing jeans. They would like to rewrite History textbooks to show that they actually played a part in the freedom struggle(whereas they were alway informers).

Unfortunately, the influence of the RSS seems to be growing...

Please also see my WU on Gujarat

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