Indian Interests

[Uttam]

Law of unintended consequences
Every decision has an (equal/unequal) and opposite unintended consequences.

This change in law really scares me. Though designed to strengthen women's position in society, it may have terrible consequences. Think about an unhappy marriage (no matter what the reason may be). This law creates a huge incentive for the husband to not seek a divorce. As far as I know the divorce is granted only when both parties seek it. The two will continue living a miserable life. Mind you, I am not pointing to which party is aggrieved in this unhappy marriage.

This may increase the incidences of violence against women.

I used to think the cure for worsening sex ratio will come from the disequilibrium when the demand for bride will increase the value of girl in the society. (I have no intent of putting a Rupee value on anybody, the term "value" is representative of relative power in the society.) Then I watched Amir Khan's documentary about how the position of women is further eroded in Haryana, the place with worst sex ratio. The increased demand made women a commodity with men threatening to buy another one from a far away place.

A similar situation may arise in this case and women may further lose social standing.


And what about parents who may not want to pass on their property to their children and instead decide to donate. In that case these is no inheritance for the son. Will the judge wait for the parents to die before transferring the property. This law takes away rights of many and still may end up hurting women.

[ramana]

Uttam it will feed the human trafficking morass.

[Prem]

‘India has moved to pre-1991 stage’

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opi ... 924597.ece

Excerpts from the interview:

How does a global consultancy firm like yours view the Indian economy?

The Indian economy truly opened up, post-2001, and has been growing at a rapid pace since then. Our processes could not keep pace with the growth. So, today, the scams being unearthed are a manifestation of regulations not keeping pace with growth. The need of the hour is enforcement of these regulations to iron out any discrepancies. Global slowdown and high inflation are responsible for this decelerated growth, which has also impacted exports significantly. Secondly, the Government did not come out with regulatory reforms which could have pepped up the economy. The inefficiency of the law enforcing machinery acts as an obstacle to India’s growth story. Post the 2008 financial crisis, there has been an aberration in economic growth. The third point is the inconsistency in tax regulations, retrospective amendments and non-uniformity of the tax structure. Fourthly, the entire sentiment is down — inflation and the current account deficit have limited the monetary policy tools available. A 5 per cent growth is not good enough for an emerging economy like India. To be sustainable, we need to have at least 7-8 per cent growth. India is losing its sheen as an investment destination, though there seems to be some light at the end of the tunnel with FDI reforms coming in. For instance, Etihad Airways investment in Jet Airways and Qatar Foundation Endowment into Bharti Airtel were good news, which brought confidence back in the Indian economy.
So, what do you think has gone wrong with the Indian economy and what are the steps the Government should take to bring it back on rails?

The fundamentals are intact. Consumerism is growing rapidly, aided by high population increasing household incomes over the last two decades. What has gone wrong is the investment story. Investments are being held back and discretionary spends are coming down — these are the negatives in the economy.
There is as much as $3 trillion sitting on the various balance-sheets around the world, but this may not come to India. At the World Economic Forum (WEF), a new term MINT: Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey was coined, as the next big thing. Questions are being asked on whether BRICS has failed? Even among BRICS nations, India seems to be the worst performing country. The other important factors contributing to the Indian economy slowing down are the regulations around land acquisition, environmental clearances and the reactions to the scam around mining. It may be appropriate to see how we could get the mining industry up and running again. There are 20,000 MW of power plants ready to fire, but with no fuel as there are no internal linkages. There needs to be some accountability.
The Government should use public sector units (PSUs) to make global acquisitions, especially for buying natural resources, and so on. Surplus land of PSUs could be used to invite joint ventures either from Indian or international corporates. This by itself will help unlock value, in dealing with the fiscal deficit. There are no positive signs from the economy, though the Finance Minister held roadshows to attract investments to India. The intent is good, but this should be supplemented with ground-level implementation. Where India generally falters is in execution and implementation. The regulatory environment needs to be made less complex. We have the potential to grow faster than China, why are we not achieving it?

Chief Economic Advisor Raghuram Rajan recently talked about ‘factory Asia’ -- regional production networks connecting Asian economies. Do you think we can be part of that league?

India can become the manufacturing hub of the world. We’ve got talent and intellect. We have a good R&D ecosystem to become one of the strongest across the globe. But I think the biggest issue is corruption. There needs to be a clear war against corruption. Take countries like South Korea; they went through the same problem in the 1950s and see where their economy is today. How are we going to change the intent?
The leadership should show the intent. India still is one of the most difficult places to set up businesses.
We have moved into the pre-1991 stage in terms of approvals and bureaucracy. All the regulated industries are suffering today because bureaucrats have started exercising their powers. There needs to be intent to move to a freer economy. Logistics needs to be improved — connectivity via roads and rail needs to be better for goods to be transported efficiently. .

[svinayak]

Uttam it will feed the human trafficking morass.

Some group is working on social engineering by deceit. We need to identify which group is that

[Prem]

IF UPA comes to Power again next year using unfair underworld services then Do we see color revolution in India?

[Jarita]

And INC gets a free ride from somebody else's property. They now create two new vote banks:judges who get to decide what is the share (and hence their cut) and disgruntled women. Will lead to a lot of out of wedlock situations.

If the couple does not move a joint application, then the divorce is not sanctified

Idiot reporter and editor. Divorces are granted. Only maariages are sanctified!

Yes Chetak, mostly Hindus as those laws apply to Hindus only. And may be Christians.

During mid 80s there was a case where a Muslim woman sued for property rights and there was large hue and cry and RG govt exempted Muslims from those provisions.



I can understand acquired property being shared but what rights to ancestral property?

The reason for acquired property being split as the spouse has by being in the union contributed to the acquisiton of the property and hence deserves a half the share.

What is the spouse's contribution to the ancestral property?

Not sure if this is a votebank issue. Unlike in the west, families typically vote for similar ideologies. A few divorced women will not change the equation. Womens issues hardly come up as the big factor driving voting.

[Adrija]

Cross-posting

http://www.firstpost.com/india/digvijay ... 65791.html

I remember that a long time back I had the same conversation on the question of Indian identity under a different avatar with perhaps Ramana- whether we are a civilizational state, in which case perpetuating and propagating civilizational values should gain primary importance, including most critically in our education set-up, OR we are a "modern, secular" nation state

The Congress is clearly of the view that we are a nation state; they deny the role which the dharmic worldview has in keeping this country as one, and are actively trying to build a new shared national identity based on the "Hindu/ Muslim joint freedom struggle". This, IMVVHO (and if I am being charitable to them that there is actually an ideology other than power clinging and Gandhi parivaar worship), is perhaps prompted by the belief that any attempt to re-inforce India's civilizational identity is unacceptable to the Muslims and will result in another partition. This was most recently voiced by Shashi Tharoor on India not being a Hindu Pakistan

I do not recall how the conversation with Ramana finally ended, and have been unable to trace it in the archives (it was in the same Indian Interests thread, IIRC). Perhaps with the subsequent addition of diggaj like Atriji Bji et al, AND in the context of the fraying (and hopefully burial in 2014) of the Nehruvian consensus as heralded by NaMo, perhaps it may be appropriate to discuss this again

[abhishek_sharma]

Interview: Amartya Sen

[chetak]

Uttam it will feed the human trafficking morass.

Some group is working on social engineering by deceit. We need to identify which group is that

N A C

[Rony]

On Sudharshan TV

Why objection on Hindu Rashtra ?

[abhishek_sharma]

Coomi Kapoor's Column

A thing of beauty

There is a large mural of scantily clad women posing next to a lake in the North Block office of Minister of State for Home R P N Singh. The painting was made by students of the JJ School of Art back in 1935, when the secretariat was built during the Raj. The title of the scene is taken from a John Keats poem. Over time, the canvas got covered with grime and was damaged by seepage. So for years, the actual scene was not visible. Two years ago, the canvas was restored and repainted and now hangs prominently in the minister's office. Some TV photographers feel that the bathing nymphs are not a suitable backdrop for taking shots of the minister and ensure that the mural does not figure in visuals of Singh sitting at his desk.

Protective cover

When P Chidambaram was home minister, he cut down drastically the list of those provided special protection by central forces. But his successor, Sushil Kumar Shinde, has changed the policy and is extremely liberal in clearing requests for special protection. Shinde has included in the security list a number of new names, including Manish Tewari, Mukesh Ambani, Buta Singh, Sachin Pilot and Beni Prasad Verma. Chidambaram had also recommended that only the NSG be used for VIP protection as the CRPF and CISF are engaged in fighting the Maoist threat. Shinde has reversed this order too.

Power couples

IFS officer Sanjay Singh, who retired as Secretary, East, is the latest in a string of high-profile bureaucrats whose spouses are also in top positions. Singh's wife Sujatha Singh is the new Foreign Secretary. Hardeep Puri, who was formerly Indian ambassador to the United Nations, is staying on in the US because his wife Lakshmi Puri has become acting head of UN Women. Sindhushree Khullar, wife of Rahul Khullar, Chairperson of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and former commerce secretary, is now a Member Secretary in the Planning Commission. The post was held earlier by Sudha Pillai, wife of former home secretary G K Pillai.

Managing politics

Rahul Gandhi has tried to apply the management skills he learnt as a business consultant at the Monitor Group to run the Congress. But the experiment has not been very successful. For instance, Rahul sent out a six-page form to party members seeking updates on their achievements. Queries included names and numbers of their district and block committees, the number of meetings held by the committees, programmes carried out and targets identified for the next three months. Most in the party are not used to filling out such forms and were left confused. Paradoxically, those familiar with such a concept and who seemed to do a good job answering the queries are not very good at grassroots politics.

Return of prodigals?

Apart from overtures to B S Yeddyurappa, Narendra Modi also wants Babulal Marandi of the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) back in the BJP. The Gujarat Chief Minister spoke to Marandi over the phone when he was in Delhi recently to attend a BJP parliamentary party meeting. Marandi, who has a clean image, had left the BJP a bitter man after it had installed Arjun Munda as chief minister. After leaving the BJP, Marandi aligned with the Congress. But with the Congress now backing a JMM government in the state, Modi feels that Marandi might be persuaded to return home. Marandi has 11 MLAs and two MPs in the Lok Sabha. However, while Marandi's return would be a feather in Modi's cap, his re-induction would be stoutly opposed by Munda.

Robotic legs

Former Chhattisgarh chief minister Ajit Jogi does not wear his new robotic legs, which he bought this March for Rs 1 crore, when he visits Delhi, preferring to use a wheelchair. Jogi explains that he does not want to transport the expensive equipment, which includes a very powerful battery, and 27 computers, from Raipur for fear that the computer settings might get altered. The team which finetuned his equipment is in New Zealand, and he doesn't want that risk. Jogi is the first man in Asia to use the robotic legs, which enable him to walk a limited distance. He has been confined to a wheelchair since his spinal cord was damaged in an accident in 2004. The technology of robotic legs is still at an experimental stage and New Zealand is the only country which permitted Jogi to take the high-tech equipment out of the country.

[ramana]

X-Post...
We are at a crux in modern Indian history. The 'peaceful' transfer of power to the INC led by English educated DIE had created a defacto monarchial state in India away from the republican nature of the state that was proclaimed in 26 Jan 1950.

This moanarchial(!) state has grown deep roots especially with Sonia Gandhi at the helm of the INC. All the party functionaries are in INC only due to their ties and loyalties to the Gandhi family. It was mirrored in all the regional (DMK, SP, RJD, TDP, NCP which are dynastic) and opposition (BJP which is leader based) parties.

Meantime India is undergoing social and economic changes whicha re unravelling the old social comapct that loowed the moanarchy to persist. Modi represents the new social and economic upheaval which is uprttoing the old ideas in all the parties.

See how Sharughan Sinha makes claims about Advani just as an INC accolyte would make about the Gandhi family.


We are seeing a struggle between moanarchial and republican impulses in this election.


* I intentionally spelled it as moanrchial as the adherents are moaning and whining. There is nothing regal about their behavior.

[Sanku]

Ok this is big, it appears that the Gunga Din Amartya babu, was responsible for wrecking the Nalanda project and pushing out Kalam, chalk one more Indian interest project down the drain due to MEA.

Kalam’s letter damning Amartya Sen out in public

He chose not to create a public controversy even while writing to Krishna on July 4 that he was upset by the way the project was being handled and hence he could not remain associated with it any longer. He wrote how sad he was at everything going wrong in reviving a great seat of learning in Buddhist philosophy and statecraft. Revival of the first residential international educational institution which flourished between 5th and 12th centuries near Patna is in controversies even before it starts any academic courses.

The letter reads: “Having (been) involved in various academic and administrative proceedings of Nalanda University since August 2007, I believe that the candidates to be selected/appointed to the post of chancellor and vice-chancellor should be of extraordinary intellect with academic and management expertise. Both have to personally involve themselves full-time in Bihar so that a robust and strong international institution is built.”

The ministry of external affairs had taken over the project since it was conceptualised as an international university involving the 16 ASEAN countries like China, Japan, Australia, Korea and Thailand, even while Dr Kalam kept insisting that it should better be handled by the human resources development ministry as it has the required experience in the field of education.

The government tried to suppress Dr Kalam’s damning letter as it was taken on record in the governing board meeting of the university but not made public until a Patna journalist wrote to him to know the truth.

Dr Kalam felt frustrated with the people at the helm of affairs and his resignation was a rebuff to prof Amartya Sen and his protégé Dr Gopa Sabharwal, who was brought in as the vice-chancellor designate, without Kalam’s knowledge. Being chairman of the governing board, Sen’s position is equivalent to chancellor’s (the university officially has none as yet). Neither Sen nor Sabharwal could inspire the confidence of Kalam.

[Sanku]

Rajnath pledges to rebuild Bamiyan Buddha in UP's Kushi Nagar

If Bharatiya Janata Party Rajnath Singh has his way, the Bamiyan Buddha could rise again.


This time, though, in India.

In Kushi Nagar, Uttar Pradesh, where the Buddha attained Parinirvana after his death.

The Bamiyan Buddhas -- the two sixth century monumental statues of standing Buddha carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamiyan valley in the Hazarajat region of central Afghanistan -- were destroyed by the Taliban during their rule.

The BJP chief and former chief minister of UP, who is on a five-day visit to the United States, reiterated this on Tuesday at a major Afghan policy speech at Capitol Hill, jointly organised by the Foundation for India and Indian Diaspora Studies; US India Political Action Committee and American Foreign Policy Council.

"I would like to recall that I was the chief minister of India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, when one of Afghanistan's most prestigious and adorable historic sites at Bamiyan, which was also the world's biggest statue of Bhagwan Buddha, was vandalised by the fundamentalist regime of Taliban in 2001," Singh said in his key note address to the Conference on Afghanistan.

"At that time, as a symbol of the common commitment of India and Afghanistan to global peace and harmony, I pledged to build the replica of Bamiyan Buddha at Kushi Nagar in Uttar Pradesh, a town where Bhagwan Buddha had attained heavenly abode. I am sure this conference would be a forum to reiterate that commitment by all the distinguished people here," the BJP chief said, adding that India and Afghanistan share a millennia-old strong civilisational bond.

[chaanakya]

That would be a good idea

[member_20317]

As Mystery Illness Stalks Its Young, India Intensifies Search for a Killer
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/world ... .html?_r=0

MUZAFFARPUR, India — India’s top health officials say the disease, known officially as acute encephalitis syndrome, has them stumped.“This outbreak happens every year, and we have not been able to identify the cause or link even a single factor responsible,” Dr. L. S. Chauhan, the director of the National Center for Disease Control in India, said in an interview.Dr. Chauhan hopes to change that. With help from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, he started a program this year to train an elite cadre of disease sleuths, part of a recently organized Epidemic Intelligence Service in India that he hopes will eventually undertake the investigations of India’s estimated 1,500 epidemics. But the outbreak in Muzaffarpur is slowly spreading to neighboring areas, and Dr. Chauhan has thrown everything he can at it, assigning all seven of his trainees — each already an accomplished physician. Experts from the C.D.C. are advising them, and their work is being closely followed by concerned officials in the United States.The first reports of this mysterious illness date to 1995, when nearly 1,000 children were sickened and 300 died in Muzaffarpur’s three hospitals. Smaller epidemics have followed almost every year since.Officials say they do not know whether the illness began in 1995 or had simply gone unnoticed before. Not only has it spread to nearby areas, but researchers have also recently found similar cases in neighboring Nepal. Some outbreaks in India have gone unreported because officials suppressed any mention for fear of prompting panic or criticism.“India has a huge problem with encephalitis,” said Dr. Rajesh Pandey, one of the epidemiologists camped out in Muzaffarpur, “and it’s not something almost anyone knows about.”“This is a real mystery,” Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the C.D.C. director, said in a telephone interview. “We’re not sure we’ll be able to solve it, but at least we can unleash the best epidemiological tools we have to try to answer the question.”Dr. Chauhan’s team has been given a rustic guesthouse next to a hospital here. There is no air-conditioning, the beds sag and the electricity is fitful. But there is an urgency to the doctors’ work. They gather almost every night in a small dining room to update crude posters with information about each case and debate their theories. A new virus, an old bacteria, litchis, alcoholic tree sap, heat, pesticides, rats, bats and sand flies are among the suspected causes.

Is this the following organization. Helpful fellows. They have to sift through so much of data to accurately identify the vector/pathogen.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
4770 Buford Highway NE (F-60)
Atlanta, GA 30341

Lone guys like Dr. Rajesh Pandey have to work so hard on these matters. Wish there was a Govt. of India support for good samaritans like Dr. Rajesh Pandey. Had it not been for trained professionals from US the good doctor's work could never even have been acknowledged. My respect for the Americans grows with this.

CDC also the organisation that helped collect data on how epidemics could move across the populations if there is one point of origin say in the recently concluded Kumbh Mela. Hope the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had set up its own research outfit to cooperate with the Americans.

Also the highlighting is mine so Jhujar ji kindly excuse the meddling.

[ramana]

ravi_g, Note the first appearance of the disease:1995 ie four years after the fall of FSU and about two years after latur plague. I wouldnt rule out a Paki hand at trying bacteriological warfare. The Latur palgue issue is not resolved conclusively even after so many years and so namy eminent persons being involved.


Recall one Paki scientist Mohd. Baheersuddin, who disappeared with the Taliban, was supposed to be a biologist. Backwaters of Bihar are an ideal place to test out new weapons and people will blame it on backwardness. Add to that we have politically correct, euunchs running the government who wont call a spade a spade lest they have to act.

[Jarita]

Robotic legs

Former Chhattisgarh chief minister Ajit Jogi does not wear his new robotic legs, which he bought this March for Rs 1 crore, when he visits Delhi, preferring to use a wheelchair. Jogi explains that he does not want to transport the expensive equipment, which includes a very powerful battery, and 27 computers, from Raipur for fear that the computer settings might get altered. The team which finetuned his equipment is in New Zealand, and he doesn't want that risk. Jogi is the first man in Asia to use the robotic legs, which enable him to walk a limited distance. He has been confined to a wheelchair since his spinal cord was damaged in an accident in 2004. The technology of robotic legs is still at an experimental stage and New Zealand is the only country which permitted Jogi to take the high-tech equipment out of the country.

What did he get this privilege for? What did he trade in the country for this? Either he gave away vast amounts of natural resources to vested interests or it is his religious antecedents and the importance of the work he is doing.
I am surprised no one has asked him that question.

[ramana]

X-Post...
We are at a crux in modern Indian history. The 'peaceful' transfer of power to the INC led by English educated DIE had created a defacto monarchial state in India away from the republican nature of the state that was proclaimed in 26 Jan 1950.

This moanarchial(!) state has grown deep roots especially with Sonia Gandhi at the helm of the INC. All the party functionaries are in INC only due to their ties and loyalties to the Gandhi family. It was mirrored in all the regional (DMK, SP, RJD, TDP, NCP which are dynastic) and opposition (BJP which is leader based) parties.

Meantime India is undergoing social and economic changes whicha re unravelling the old social comapct that loowed the moanarchy to persist. Modi represents the new social and economic upheaval which is uprttoing the old ideas in all the parties.

See how Shatrughan Sinha makes claims about Advani just as an INC accolyte would make about the Gandhi family.


We are seeing a struggle between moanarchial and republican impulses in this election.


* I intentionally spelled it as moanrchial as the adherents are moaning and whining. There is nothing regal about their behavior.

X-post that gives evidence to my thoughts:

How The Indian Media Supporting Congress Party! Share This & let everyone know about the Alliance of Indian Media & Congressss Party Please read thissssss.....

"1. Hindustan Times – Shobhna Bhartia, owner and editor-in-chief of Hindustan Times is a Congress MP from Rajya Sabha.

2. Vinod Sharma, HT Political Affairs editor, is essentially a Congress spokesman on all TV panel discussions, because once his boss’ term gets over, he will be looking out for her RS seat next

3. Barkha Dutt and Vir Sanghvi, famous Congress stooges (and intermediaries for UPA allies) who were exposed in the Radiagate scandal, and are virtual Congress spokespersons in their capacities as electronic media personalities, are the ones who write opinion and op-ed columns most frequently (once every week) on the editorial pages of HT. In return, Barkha and Sanghvi are rewarded with Padma Shris and other monetary compensation by the Nehru dynasty or Congress party.

4. NDTV’s promoters are Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy. Radhika’s sister Brinda Karat is a famous CPM leader (well known for anti-Baba Ramdev views) and Brinda’s husband Prakash Karat is the CPM Politburo General Secretary (well known for preferring Congress over BJP). And Prannoy Roy’s first cousin is the famous far-leftist pro-Maoist-Naxalite pro-Kashmiri-terrorists “intellectual” Arundhati Suzanna Roy.

5. NDTV’s Barkha Dutt’s reality has already been exposed by me in above section.

6. NDTV’s Sonia Singh is the wife of Uttar Pradesh Congress MP, Union minister and ex-princely state ruler, Mr. R. P. N. Singh, who is one of the fastest rising stars in the Congress party. If you remember, Sonia Singh is a very high-profile anchor on NDTV whose pro-Congress anti-BJP bias is legendary.

7. NDTV’s Nidhi Razdan (high-profile anchor of Left Right Centre) is the current girlfriend of J&K CM Omar Abdullah (after Omar recently divorced his wife of several years and mother of his two children, Payal). Nidhi Razdan is also famous for her legendary pro-Congress and anti-BJP bias.

8. CNN-IBN : Rajdeep Sardesai’s wife and co-promoter of CNN-IBN, Sagarika Ghose, who anchors Face the Nation and is famous journalist of CNN-IBN (well, her hubby is the owner-editor-in-chief after all) are famous Congress stooges.

9. Sagarika’s father Bhaskar Ghose was a famous sarkari babu and was made the chief of Prasar Bharati (Doordarshan) during Indira and Rajiv regimes. Bhaskar Ghose was well-known for personal loyalty to the Nehru dynasty, and now his daughter and son-in-law are rewarded with their own channel to do Congress propaganda.

10. In fact Sagarika’s extended family even consists of her aunts Ruma Pal (former Supreme Court justice and a close friend of the Nehru family) and Arundhati Ghose (former diplomat and Indian ambassador to various countries, predictably, under Congress regimes).

11. Let’s now come to another famous CNN-IBN media personality who also writes columns frequently for Hindustan Times — Karan Thapar. What you may not know is that the Nehru family itself is related, through blood and marriages, to the high-profile Thapar family. India’s Army chief during the 1962 debacle against China, Gen. P. N. Thapar, is brother-in-law of Nayantara Sehgal, the daughter of Vijaylakshmi Pandit and niece of Jawaharlal Nehru. Gen. Thapar’s son is pro-Congress journalist Karan Thapar. Gen. Thapar’s sister is Romila Thapar, a famous “top” typical JNU Nehruvian communist ideologue historian, who gets to write our textbooks and pollute them with pro-Congress Marxist propaganda.

12. The HIndu – The Worst – N. Ram, owner and editor-in-chief (till February 2012) of The Hindu, was once a vice president of the Students Federation of India. SFI is the students’ wing of the CPM.

13. P. Sainath of the The Hindu (acclaimed journalist well known for his, again, unsurprisingly, typical left-wing Nehruvian communism ideology), is the nephew of Congress politician V. Shankar Giri and the grandson of V. V. Giri, ex-President of India and famous Congress politician. Giri was especially known to be one of the first few staunch loyalists of Indira, and whom Indira fielded for President elections against her own party’s Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy, and who ultimately became the cause of the first high-profile split in the Indian National Congress into Congress (O) and Congress (I) — almost all the pre-independence regional stalwarts split away to join Congress (O) or form their own state parties, and the rest including Giri (all the loyalists of the Nehru family staying on with Indira).

14. Or even what about little known News24 Hindi media channel? Owned by ex-journalist and editor Rajiv Shukla, famous Congress MP in Rajya Sabha, Union minister, industrialist, BCCI vice president and IPL chairman.

15. Or even what about little known Lokmat (and IBN Lokmat) that is Marathi newspaper (and channel) in Maharashtra? Owner and editors-in-chief are the brothers Vijay Darda (Congress MP) and Rajendra Darda (Congress MLA in Maharashtra, and minister in state govt).

16. Or even the other bigger and smaller media houses, such as The Times of India and Indian Express, where the Nehru dynasty has managed to infiltrate its loyalists such as Dileep Padgaonkar and Shekhar Gupta, who are essentially paid stooges of the Congress party.

17 Vinod Mehta - Outlook editor has been well known to take anti BJP stand

The Congress (in fact just the one single family — the Nehru dynasty) has been in power for 56 of the last 65 years of independence. This matters a LOT. Personal relationships have been built, blackmail-worthy secrets have been spied, monumental wealth has been accumulated … all by the one single Nehru dynasty (and its family-business-cum-political-party aka Congress) that helps it maintain its tight irongrip over not just the entire Indian mainstream media, but also deep into our bureaucracy, our governmental institutions, and even our journalism and mass media colleges and grad schools.

We have probably not even scratched the surface of the network of family and personal relationships through which the Nehru dynasty has completely dominated and controlled the entire intellectual, historian and journalist landscape of India. And we haven’t even talked about the monumental wealth or the blackmailing secrets. All because the one single dynasty got to rule over India for 60 years uninterrupted. It matters a LOT.

The typical JNU Nehruvian communist left-libbers ideologues have really perpetrated some kind of stranglehold on India’s journalism, media and intellectual space.

Almost all opposition (or even centre-right ideologues) journalists have been slowly thrown out of their jobs due to pressure from the Congress and the Nehru family.

Even the great venerable Ramnath Goenka, frustrated and broken by repeated I-T raids and ED investigations ultimately had to fire Arun Shourie twice from the Indian Express, which was once the best Indian newspaper in the 1970s and 80s. That was the team — Goenka the owner, Shourie the editor, and S. Gurumurthy the fearless journalist, that brought political heavyweights like Indira Gandhi down on her knees and even took on corporate honchos like Dhirubhai Ambani. (Ramnath Goenka inspired the Mithun Chakraborty character and S. Gurumurthy inspired the R. Madhavan character in the Ambani biopic “Guru”.)

But very few centre-right ideologues are left in India’s media space today, that too in minor publications like The Pioneer. Almost all the mainstream media houses have been thoroughly infiltrated and coerced into towing the Congress’ line, sometimes just through ideology and relationships, and not even money power.

The Congress party essentially owns and controls every single mainstream media house in India, including Hindustan Times, The Times of India, NDTV, CNN-IBN, The Hindu, Tehelka, Outlook, etc"

[member_20317]

ravi_g, Note the first appearance of the disease:1995 ie four years after the fall of FSU and about two years after latur plague. I wouldnt rule out a Paki hand at trying bacteriological warfare. The Latur palgue issue is not resolved conclusively even after so many years and so namy eminent persons being involved.


Recall one Paki scientist Mohd. Baheersuddin, who disappeared with the Taliban, was supposed to be a biologist. Backwaters of Bihar are an ideal place to test out new weapons and people will blame it on backwardness. Add to that we have politically correct, euunchs running the government who wont call a spade a spade lest they have to act.

Re. epidemics. Do you remember in 90s and till 2006 there used to be a very strange outbreak of different kinds of rumours.

Ganesh ji murtis drinking milk in 95 around 3 years after the Babri demolition

Monkey man of Delhi around 5 years later

Seawater in Mumbai turning sweet around 5 years later still.

Then off course you have the NaMo related stuff up.

But then I am not suggesting anything. Moi a shareef man onree.

[ramana]

You think CTheorists are not?

[member_20317]

CTheorists are maha baadmass. They suggest a Paki vested interest in every Hindu-Muslim angle. Unfortunately 33000 communal incidents since 47 does not help us liberal people.



Okey lets excercise some restraint lest somebody invokes Sorcha Faal and a certain Amigo Rao states the fact that Serial killers only have two names (David Berkowitz, Ted Bundy, Richard Speck) but all lone gunmen/assassins always have three names (John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, Mark David Chapman, Jared Lee Loughner, Anders Behring Breivik)

[Sushupti]

Justice Bahuguna to CM Bahuguna. Only way to go up the ladder in Sonia's congress is to sing Jesus song.

Anti Conversion Law in Himachal Pradesh shocking, says Justice Bahuguna

http://indianchristians.in/news/index2. ... =1&id=1083

[abhishek_sharma]

Views from the Right

Word Play

Both Sangh Parivar weeklies glossed over Narendra Modi's "burqa of secularism" accusation. Both underplayed Modi's visit to Pune, where the remark was made. Neither mentions the controversial remarks, and focusses on issues such as Modi's observations on the education system. The Organiser, however, alluded to the controversy by carrying a cover page article which laments that "those who oppose enacting the uniform civil code call themselves secular and those who demand the enacting of the uniform civil code in terms of Article 44 are dubbed communal".

Uncle Sam Says

Both Sangh Parivar publications criticised the government's recent move to liberalise FDI regulations for 13 sectors. Panchjanya published a cover story, "Sam khush hua", with an accompanying image of US President Barack Obama's shadow looming over Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi. An editorial in Panchjanya suggested that American pressure was behind the relaxing of FDI rules. It expressed special concern over FDI liberalisation in defence and telecom. The editorial hints at a foreign hand by questioning why the move was "hurriedly" taken only days after Obama voiced the need for more reforms in India. A full-page article in the Organiser by BJP general secretary Muralidhar Rao echoed such apprehensions. "The Finance Minister Shri P. Chidambaram had recently visited the US and soon after his return, the Cabinet Committee on Security cleared the decision of opening a few more sectors for increased FDI. People have genuine doubts about who has actually inspired or influenced this decision of the UPA government", he wrote. The piece alleges that the country's external deficit has been "created" by the government's inaction and that the "UPA government, instead of hitting the problem at its root, is using the situation to promote its agenda of promoting foreign interests by raising FDI caps in 12 important sectors".

Slipping Neighbour

An article in the Organiser draws attention to the changing perception of India in Bhutan in the wake of India's decision to cut fuel subsidies, and also to the fallout of the democratic process in Bhutan. It asserts, "With democracy striking roots in our Himalayan neighbour, electoral politics has had a negative impact on the national happiness index of the country... [and is] jeopardising crucial India-Bhutan relations". The article highlights how the recent decision to cut fuel subsidies led to the perception that India has a "heavy-handed, big brotherly attitude" towards Bhutan. The article suggests that the government recalibrate its diplomacy in view of the democratisation of India's neighbour. It further states that India should "tactically support Bhutanese engagement with the outer world" but also protect Indian interests, given China's designs on Bhutan.

Compiled by Ravish Tiwari

[kish]

"By Education Iam an Englishman, by culture iam a muslim and iam a Hindu only by accident" by first prime minister of India.

And that is the biggest "accident" ever happened in India.

National health department should use this pic for all its Anti-Tobacco ads. This pic will get displayed in all cigarette packets, with a tag line "It causes cancer" (Common, I didn't mean the first prime minister. I swear, I meant Tobacco causes cancer)

[Prem]

http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy ... 960724.ece

Are we ready for ‘peak water’ and smaller harvests?

Wells are drying up and underwater tables falling so fast in the Middle East and parts of India, China and the U.S. that food supplies are seriously threatened, one of the world's leading resource analysts has warned.In a major new essay Lester Brown, head of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, claims that 18 countries, together containing half the world's people, are now over pumping their underground water tables to the point — known as “peak water” — where they are not replenishing and where harvests are getting smaller each year.The situation is most serious in the Middle East. According to Brown: “Among the countries whose water supply has peaked and begun to decline are Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. By 2016 Saudi Arabia projects it will be importing some 15 m tonnes of wheat, rice, corn and barley to feed its population of 30 million people. It is the first country to publicly project how aquifer depletion will shrink its grain harvest.
India’s crisis
The situation in India may be even worse, given that well drillers are now using modified oil-drilling technology to reach water half a mile or more deep. “The harvest has been expanding rapidly in recent years, but only because of massive over pumping from the water table. The margin between food consumption and survival is precarious in India, whose population is growing by 18 million per year and where irrigation depends almost entirely on underground water. Farmers have drilled some 21 m irrigation wells and are pumping vast amounts of underground water, and water tables are declining at an accelerating rate in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu.”

[Prem]

Octogenarian's Himalayan Adventure . Check the Rohtang Pass, Road and its natural beauty

[Yayavar]

"By Education Iam an Englishman, by culture iam a muslim and iam a Hindu only by accident" by first prime minister of India.

Where did he say above? I've heard of 'being the last Englishman..' (apparently said to JK Galbraith).

[kish]

"By Education Iam an Englishman, by culture iam a muslim and iam a Hindu only by accident" by first prime minister of India.

Where did he say above? I've heard of 'being the last Englishman..' (apparently said to JK Galbraith).

Please check the below mentioned link

Cry for a Hindu Nation – 2

In 1949, Nehru said that 'to talk of Hindu culture would injure India's interests'. He himself had admitted more than once that by Education he was an Englishman, by views an internationalist, by culture a Muslim, and a Hindu only by accidental birth. With all this massive evidence, there is little scope for doubt that Nehru had total contempt for Hindu religion, for Hindu culture, for Hindu society and for the average Hindu. - See more at: http://www.boloji.com/index.cfm?md=Cont ... hffW5.dpuf

[rohitvats]

Justice Bahuguna to CM Bahuguna. Only way to go up the ladder in Sonia's congress is to sing Jesus song.

Anti Conversion Law in Himachal Pradesh shocking, says Justice Bahuguna

http://indianchristians.in/news/index2. ... =1&id=1083

Himachal is one place where both types of jehadis have not had any success...guess, the fact that Rajputs are a dominant cast followed by Brahmins is one of the reasons. Also, unlike other states, no rank poverty to be exploited or fault lines.

[RamaY]

A discussion on language:English.

http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/we-the ... hum/284801

I am posting this hear for the speakers failed to call the spade spade.
1. It is English that colonized India and destroyed india (GDP from 30% of the world to 3%)
2. English were the one who enslaved entire races (yet the didn't throw English out and took another language)
3. English is not the world language, especially in economic sense, for English speaking nations do not have even 50% of world GDP or trade.

The deracination is so deep, it needs a national Dhamka.

[Hari Seldon]

Shocking...who could have thunk it would come to this??!!

The Bengal Tigers In The R&AW Cage (By Jessica Fox at the Sri Lanka Guardian)

A (f)article about how RAW is training BD commandos to usurp regimes & create unrest in Dhaka in a SL edition of a UKstani noosepaper.... I kid you not...

[Prem]

Delivering a Jolt to India's Teacher Training
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/29/world ... .html?_r=0

MUMBAI — Samidha Shetya, a mill worker’s daughter with a 10th-grade education, was among the first group of women to start working as teachers for a private group called Muktangan in 2003.When Mrs. Shetya began at Muktangan, she was given three months of training and told to find children she could enroll in kindergarten; she began with two classes of 30 students each. Having studied only in the Marathi language, she had to use a translator to get through Muktangan’s English-language curriculum.She also had her own battle at home. “In my in-laws’ home, no woman worked,” she said. “I had to really convince them. Now they see what a difference it has made on all of us.”Now 30, she is training to take on a managerial role at N.M. Joshi Preschool, which has 90 students.Muktangan, which works with seven Mumbai public schools, may be a relatively small player in the education system, but it is contributing to a larger debate over how India’s teachers should be recruited, trained and developed.Across Mumbai, there is a shortage of both public school spaces and qualified educators. About 30 percent of English-language teaching jobs remain unfilled, according to the city’s Education Department.And the quality of teaching in the 1,600 elementary schools and 49 secondary schools financed by the government is often poor. According to Dasra, a foundation, about half of 8-year-olds in Mumbai public schools cannot write and a third cannot understand numbers. Increasingly, even working-class families are looking to send their children to private institutions.Muktangan has tried to address the problem in an unconventional way: In the last decade, it has trained almost 500 teachers, who start out with a 12th-grade education in any local language and at least 3rd-grade-level English.A decade ago, when Mrs. Shetya started, she received only three months of preparation. Now, applicants go through a year of training before they are placed in classrooms to observe and learn; their own education continues through their careers.

[ramana]

Increasingly NYT is writing India related stories while Indian media is headlining about some bus falls into ravine in South Africa!!!!

[svinayak]

Increasingly NYT is writing India related stories while Indian media is headlining about some bus falls into ravine in South Africa!!!!

NYT has no real reason to report on India. It has been baiting India with stoies on TSP and India/TSP stories for decades.

Indian media has been taken over by globalization and there is no Indian english media which reports for India with India point of view

[Prem]

Increasingly NYT is writing India related stories while Indian media is headlining about some bus falls into ravine in South Africa!!!!

Couple of years ago they were updating their blog on India average once a month while News on Poaqakhottas was daily affair. The positive change in attitude is recent phenomenon only, after the Time Square incident.

[ramana]

rsangram ji was talking of the fractious and fractured Hindu. A partial story. But some of the posts above illustrate a more complex reality.

As before, I would suggest that the fractures are more intensive and more damaging in the urban educated Hindu, especially if gone through Christian missionary or other schools watched over by hawk-eyed secularists. More intense in members of the forward sections, or those who have traditional shenanigans of by-birth-superiority compared to less pure aam Hindus.

The fractures represent the results of elite ambition and sense of entitlement by birth, while not always inheriting a justifiable merit. The elite pride prevents self-analysis and analysis of where and how one's beliefs have come about - with grand excuses of how-they-were-brought-up and "conditioned". The same excuses could be and are given by jihadis or Pakis for their perversions. The bias against "analysis" seems to coinicide with a defense mechanism of not digging out the foundations of world-views.

When people here loosely and casually talk about "everyone's beliefs" being acknowledged and that is what a "Hindu" should and must be - do they stop and think where exactly in which "Hindu" theme this can be supported?

Is enslavement of militarily defeated people being a "belief" - to be acknowledged? Is automatic annulment of marriage of a captive woman to be acknowledged because it is a belief? Are attacks on women and children [yes contrary to spin - if they are children and women of pagans - they can be] to be acknowledged because it is also a belief? Is the culling of adult males of those who do not believe in what you believe after checking their puberty status - to be acknowledged because it is a "belief"? Are rapes of captive women and boys to be acknowledged because it is part of a belief system?

The urban, elite, forward caste, English medium or missionary educated, Congress-Left influenced Hindu should set the entire tone and definition of what "Hindu" belief should be - tuned entirely according to opportunist pandering to demands of totalitarian religions ?

What happened to having at least some values system which trains you to deride slavery and sex-slavery and rape and genocide - no matter where it appears, and if it appears as part of a claimed religious belief system - then refuse to acknowledge that religion as being acceptable and allowable without fundamental rejection and reform of unacceptable elements of that religion? What twisted perversion hides behind passing on everything as equal equal and acceptable - if its claimed as part of "belief"? Are the same minds equally accepting of jauhar and "sati" because people sincerely believed in them?

The wonders of deracination and conscious self-deception!

and

Sometime ago, I posted an excerpt from a book on the Doon School. The author, though highly sympathetic [perhaps no alternative realistically for professional reasons] to the paradigm of late imperial manufacture of a docile/devoted sub-class of natives - inadvertently points out something I have long talked of.

This is the creation of a psychological space - a separate, urban space of the "school" that represents civilization and "progress" in the minds of its inhabitants. This construct is extended to the whole nation, as a desirable one - claimed apparently on egalitarian and other ideas tokenizing supposed advanced civilizations - with the hypocritical undertone of the residents themselves enjoying highly privileged family existences and roots. But the rest of the nation is seen as barbaric and relatively chaotic, regressive, uncivilized.

The urban "secular" space, becomes both a mental as well as physical space - which is seen as holding out as embattled refugia against the barbarism of the surrounding nation.

The urbanite is more connected to foreign nations - his existence and financial base is more subject to crosswinds from abroad and the largesse or opportunities provided by the state regime as well as grater proximity to the state power. Therefore, the urbanite - especially of the variety in India represented above, would be under immense pressures to self-justify the compromises he needs to make to retain his lifestyle. This he does by deracinating himself, so the ideological contradictions of swinging with crosswinds become less psychologically traumatic. The way out will be by justifying a vacuum ideology - in which everything is claimed to be tolerated, and of course the greatest need is to appear to conform with regime demands in the ideological sphere. So if the regime throws red eyes at the religion of the urban-opportunist-islander - he would be keen to become ashamed of his religion, keen to distance himself from it. If the regime is appreciative of other religions, he will try his best to be appreciative of those other religions.

To do all this flexibly and without psychological crisis - he will claim he is an universalist, finds good in every religion ,and wants to tolerate all belief systems. That will be accompanied by greater commitment to his "island", greater distance from the surrounding sea of "barbarism" and "backwardness" or "conservatism", and pehaps even militant defense of his psychological, financial and physical "urban" space.

That is the source of the fracture. Hinduism facilitates this more because it is not totalitarian. But lack of totalitarian control does not mean that you can opportunistically jeopardize your own larger society.

In other words moral compass wtih respect to once own culture and religion is lost. And cognitive dissonace kicks in to prevent self analysis and awareness.

We saw this with most members who left in a huff.

[Prem]

India's Silent Poverty Reduction Miracle

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articl ... 19407.html

When China reduced people in poverty by 220 million between 1978 and 2004, the world applauded this as the greatest poverty reduction in history. Amartya Sen, Joseph Stiglitz and all other poverty specialists cheered.India has just reduced its number of poor from 407 million to 269 million, a fall of 138 million in seven years between 2004-05 and 2011-12. This is faster than China’s poverty reduction rate at a comparable stage of development, though for a much shorter period. Are the China-cheerers hailing India for doing even better?No, many who hailed China are today rubbishing the Indian achievement as meaningless or statistically fudged. This includes the left, many NGOs and some TV anchors. The double standard is startling. The Tendulkar Committee determined India’s poverty definition. The Tendulkar poverty line in 2011-12 came to Rs 4,000 per rural and Rs 5,000 per urban family of five. Critics say this is ridiculously low. But it is roughly equal to the World Bank’s well-established poverty line of $1.25 per day in Purchasing Power Parity terms (which translates into around 50 cents/day in current dollars). This is used by over 100 countries, by the United Nations and many other international agencies. When the whole world uses this standard, why call it statistical fudge?When China claimed to have lifted 220 million people out of poverty, guess what its poverty line was? Just $85 per year, or $0.24 per day! Whatever statistical adjustments you make for comparability, it was far lower than today’s Tendulkar line. Did today’s critics of the Tendulkar line castigate China for fudging? No, they sang China’s praises.

The World Bank actually has two lines — $1.25 denoting extreme poverty, and $2 denoting moderate poverty. India can also adopt two lines, the Tendulkar line for extreme poverty and a new Rangarajan line for moderate poverty, at around $2/day.But this will in no way diminish the great achievement of slashing the number of those historically called poor — we can call them the “extreme poor”— by 138 million in seven years. Allowing for rising population in this period, the number saved from extreme poverty is even higher at 180 million.This spread of subsidies to those above the extreme poverty line was once called “leakages to the non-poor.” But it is considered good politics even if it is bad economics. This explains why the government chose to cover 67% of the population in the Food Security Bill, even though the poverty ratio at the time was 30%.However, critics quickly exposed this as a double standard. They asked, if your Food Security Bill views two-thirds of the people as needy, how could you have a poverty line saying only one third are poor? The government found it difficult to say this was good politics even if it was bad economics. Instead, it appointed the Rangarajan Committee to devise a higher poverty line. This line will almost certainly be around the moderate poverty line ($ 2/day in PPP terms) of the World Bank.
Many critics and TV anchors will cheer at the prospect of freebies to two-thirds of the population. Yet here lie the seeds of fiscal disaster. India is poor because it has spent too much on ill-targeted subsidies, leaving too little for infrastructure and effective education that will raise incomes permanently. Total subsidies (mostly non-merit subsidies) exploded in the 1980s, reaching 14.5 % of GDP, almost as much as all central and state tax revenue. This ended in a fiscal and balance of payments crisis in 1991.The risk of a new poverty line of $2/day is that it will create political demands for more freebies to twothird of the population. That will further erode limited funds for productive spending.In theory we can limit subsidies to the poorest and cut out unworthy subsidies. In practice, the combined pressure of vote banks and TV anchors threatens to raise subsidies beyond all prudent limits. There lie the seeds of another 1991-style disaster.

[harbans]

That this be done, IMO is in India's interests:

[ramana]

Ver good and insightful interview. Just a change of words and subsititute India for Europe it applies equally to most of the conclusions.

Walter Laquer the eminent historian puts things in prespective:

Walter Laquer on Decline of Europe

The two world wars and the Cold War has undone Europe. No place can withstand nearly a century of war with mass casualties in people and ideas.

'An Anxious Continent'
Walter Laqueur on Europe's Decline
British-American historian Walter Laqueur experienced the demise of the old Europe and the rise of the new. In a SPIEGEL interview, he shares his gloomy forecast for a European Union gripped by debt crisis.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Laqueur, you experienced Europe and the Europeans in the best and the worst of times. Historical hot spots and the stations of your personal biography were closely and sometimes dramatically intertwined. Which conclusions have you reached today, at the advanced age of 92?

Laqueur: I became a historian of the postwar era in Europe, but the Europe I knew no longer exists. My book "Out of the Ruins of Europe," published in 1970, ended with an optimistic assessment of the future. Later, in 2008, "The Last Days of Europe: Epitaph for an Old Continent" was published. I returned to the subject in my latest book, "After the Fall: The End of the European Dream and the Decline of a Continent." The sequence of titles probably says it all.

SPIEGEL: The last two, at any rate, sound as if the demise of the Western world were imminent.

Laqueur: Europe will not be buried by ashes, like Pompeii or Herculaneum, but Europe is in decline. It's certainly horrifying to consider its helplessness in the face of the approaching storms. After being the center of world politics for so long, the old continent now runs the risk of becoming a pawn.

SPIEGEL: Fortunately, the European Union refrained from pursuing any imperial ambitions. Nevertheless, it remains an impressive entity, both politically and economically, despite the financial and debt crisis.

Laqueur: Europe will likely remain influential in the future as an economic power and trading partner. But the continent still isn't standing on its own feet politically and militarily today. This wouldn't be that important if power politics didn't play a role and conflicts were resolved peacefully by the United Nations or the International Court of Justice. But the conflicts have not decreased. Their inherent fanaticism and passions continue to burn, as we can now see, once again, in Syria and in Egypt. Under these circumstances, is it realistic to call for European independence in global politics?

SPIEGEL: Why shouldn't the EU be able to be a champion of soft power?

Laqueur: Freedom, human rights, social justice are all wonderful, and I don't want to minimize the achievements of European societies. But a role model? Europe is much too weak to play a civilizing or moral role in world politics. Nice speeches and well-intentioned admonitions carry little weight when made from a position of weakness. In fact, all they do is aggravate China and Russia. Such reproofs are presumptuous, insincere and, unfortunately, often ridiculous. Under the current circumstances, Europe would be well advised to keep a lower profile.

SPIEGEL: That's the kind of advice that another eminence grise (former German Chancellor) Helmut Schmidt, likes to dispense.

Laqueur: I'm afraid that Europe has largely squandered its moral credit. It shies away from imposing sanctions; it has a very hard time intervening in crises outside Europe; and it has even demonstrated its general impotence in wars in its own backyard. Most European governments, not least the German government, don't even have the guts to admit that they are playing a double game.

SPIEGEL: After two world wars, it goes without saying that Europe is in a post-heroic state.

Laqueur: Yes, but how will the postmodern age survive in a world in which, all too often, chaos prevails, rather than international law? The champions of postmodernism will have to act in accordance with two different methods: first, using those that regulate our treatment of one another, and second, using methods to deal with the bullies and thugs who have yet to achieve the enlightened condition of the postmodern age.

SPIEGEL: You seem to advocate a sort of liberal imperialism, which seems self-contradictory. No one believes the United States when it takes that approach, either.

Laqueur: That is, in fact, an unnecessarily provocative concept, which doesn't embody a realistic policy, either. An approach to international politics that involves two different codes of rules, values and standards doesn't just constitute discrimination, but also requires a cold-blooded decisiveness that Europe lacks. Europe is often motivated by fear, which both the bullies and those who need help recognize.

SPIEGEL: Nevertheless, the EU would be extremely welcome as a player in the global game in many parts of the world.

Laqueur: Certainly, but the European crisis is not primarily just a debt crisis. The real question is: Does Europe, in its apathy, even want to play a role in global politics? Arthur Schopenhauer, the great philosopher of pessimism, said that it's easy to want, but that "wanting to want" is virtually impossible. No matter how often European values are invoked and praised, a weak will, inertia, fatigue, self-doubt and lack of self-confidence all amount to the psychological diagnosis of a weak ego.

SPIEGEL: After the horrors of the 20th century and Germany's two attempts to secure global power, both of which failed miserably, is depression a part of the European state of mind?

Laqueur: Pharmacologists have yet to develop a drug to treat the collective depression of entire nations and generations. Keeping a low profile is easier for most Europeans than coming up with the political will to become a major political power once again.

SPIEGEL: It's also not as risky.

Laqueur: I'm not so sure about that. Only time will tell. The Europeans haven't quite understood that trying to stay out of the fray offers no protection against the consequences of global policy. Retreat offers no security against the consequences. Perhaps exaggerated caution is sometimes appropriate, but inaction can also prove to be disastrous. During his recent visit to Berlin, President Barack Obama said that remembering history should not lead to our withdrawing from history. I don't think that the economic, political and military problems Europe faces are insurmountable by any means. Nevertheless, a strange "abulia" has taken hold. French psychologists coined the term in the late 19th century to describe an inexplicable lack of will, which some now interpret as a symptom of aging in prosperity.

SPIEGEL: Isn't it a little facile to accuse Europe of decadence? Europe has always moved forward from one crisis to the next.

Laqueur: A 19th century cynic once said that a crisis is the period between two other crises. Historians are probably conservative by nature, and they tend to be skeptical. (Former German Chancellor) Konrad Adenauer once said something to the effect that there are countless ways to do something wrong, but only one way to do it right. I'm sticking to my diagnosis that Europe is in decline, especially when measured against the expectations that arose after the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Iron Curtain.

SPIEGEL: At the time, optimism surrounding the euro went so far that even in the United States, predictions were made, in books, lectures and essays, that the 21st century would be the European century.

Laqueur: Around the turn of the millennium, European leaders seemed convinced, at their summit meetings, that Europe was in the process of becoming a shining example, a role model for other nations, with its international virtues, its shared values, its model of the social welfare state and its system of intergovernmental relations. Anyone who questioned that was not only branded as a pessimist, but also as a reactionary. This euphoria probably has more to with a disappointment over America, especially the America of (former US President) George W. Bush, than with actual circumstances in Europe. Thanks to the short-sighted, arrogant and aggressive US foreign policy of those years, a European anti-Americanism flared up, which has remained latent on both the left and the right, and it distorted Europeans' views of their own weaknesses.

SPIEGEL: Is Europe experiencing a moment of truth in the current crisis?

Laqueur: I'd have to answer that question with another question. What are the prospects for a reversal of the process? The decline is relative, and it's taking place gradually. The situation is bad, even very bad in Greece, Spain and Portugal, but it isn't devastating. Europeans are making every effort to prevent a crash and achieve a soft landing. The collapse of the monetary union is not unavoidable. In fact, if one considers the consequential costs, I think it's somewhat unlikely in the foreseeable future. Perhaps a rapid decline would be even better, because it would raise awareness of the need for a general overhaul of the European structure. Crises bring about solidarity, as Jean Monnet, one of Europe's founding fathers, knew all too well.

SPIEGEL: People now recognize that the EU is both a community of solidarity and a community of fate. This is symbolized by the creation of a bailout and stability mechanism.

Laqueur: But, as a result, Europeans have lost the sense of clear and present danger. Once again, European leaders believe that they are out of the woods. Well, miracles happen. But it's my impression that the formula is being applied that promises the least amount of success in the longer term and is the least painful -- a little reform here, a little tinkering there, and a dose of business as usual.

SPIEGEL: One could also say, less caustically, that this is simply pragmatic crisis management, as practiced by Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Laqueur: It's a policy based on persistence. It appears that there is a hidden law in history, where institutions, once they are established, become self-propelling and continue to exist, contrary to all expectations or fears, or at least much longer than expected. There is always a retarding, persevering moment before the collapse arrives.

SPIEGEL: So we end up with a rude awakening, after all?

Laqueur: The rise and fall of empires are constants in history. Historians have been searching for explanations since antiquity. Is it, as Oswald Spengler said after World War I, an unavoidable consequence of the aging process, an older person's desire for a quiet and undisturbed life? Has material prosperity created a timid society, one that avoids all conflicts and tries to ignore all warning signs that it sees as detrimental to its hedonism?

SPIEGEL: Spengler's theory explained nothing. It was merely an expression of a mood in 1918. And doesn't a saturated society have its advantages, too, such as a reduced propensity to violence?

Laqueur: Of course, life doesn't just take place at the top. Being eliminated from the Champions League isn't the end. But then it might be advisable to somewhat limit the generous distribution of good advice to other countries and not to invoke one's own achievements as enthusiastically. Constant self-praise could easily become counterproductive, because one's achievements should never be taken for granted. The EU may survive the current crisis, but what about the next one and the one after that? It is no longer a given that the majority of Europeans want to continue to the end of the path to a political union. The first stabs at moving away from that concept are unmistakable. Nothing is without an alternative in history and politics.

SPIEGEL: In that case, would what remained of Europe consist of more than a geographical concept and a cultural memory?

Laqueur: What will Europe turn out to be? Europe needs the world, and the world needs Europe. These are august words that people like to hear, and to some extent they are also true. Who couldn't agree with that? But does the world feel the same way? The possibility that Europe will become a museum or a cultural amusement park for the nouveau riche of globalization is not completely out of the question. Ten years ago, 900,000 Chinese came to Western Europe as tourists. Now it's several million.

SPIEGEL: Does that bother you, as an old European?

Laqueur: I think I've traveled to every European country, except Norway and Albania. My father never made it to France or Great Britain, and my mother never left her native country. My first station in Europe, after returning from Israel in the early 1950s, was Paris, the second one was Berlin, and the third was London, where I was director of the Wiener Library for 30 years. I can almost see the grave of Karl Marx from my apartment in London. London has become less interesting than it used to be, and yet I'm not deeply sentimental. Yes, I feel a certain regret that Europe hasn't come as far as one could have hoped. But I haven't lost any sleep over it, either.

SPIEGEL: You once wrote that you would have preferred to live at the end of the 19th century instead of in the horrible 20th century. That was the old Europe to a T.

Laqueur: (laughing) Especially in Paris! The fin de siècle, with its Belle Époque, was an incredibly optimistic time. Even the socialists felt that things were improving and that they would soon come to power, for the good of mankind. This brings us to an interesting insight: The years after the French defeat of 1870 and 1871 were years of depression, when Paul Verlaine wrote in a poem: "I am the Empire at the end of decadent days." Thirty years later, Paris was a city filled with energy and joie de vivre, with theaters, dance halls, cabaret, the Impressionists' salon, the 1889 World's Fair, the construction of the Eiffel Tower and Louis Blériot's flight across the English Channel. The French had rediscovered their optimism, and no one knows exactly why.

SPIEGEL: But that spells hope for Europe.

Laqueur: (laughing) Hope springs eternal. It's one of the most frequently quoted verses of English poetry. The poet was Alexander Pope, a decidedly cautious man. He had many enemies, and we know from his sister that he never went out into the street without his large, aggressive dog, and always with two loaded pistols in his bag.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Laqueur, we thank you for this interview.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

URL:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/eur ... 12837.html

The interviewer is also a learned person and asks good and informed questions to draw out the scholar's views. Unlike breaking news DDM in India.