Indian Interests

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archan
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by archan »

Can someone please enlighten me as to how the profiling of BRF forum members and their (mis)conceptions, notions etc. is a subject matter of a thread on "Indian Interests"?
What do we have to do to keep threads on topic, start banning people for offenses like these?
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by RayC »

Since a reference to Jyoti Basu has been made, this would be an interesting read:

Destroyer of West Bengal

JB
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by a_kumar »

brihaspati wrote:
a_kumar wrote
This became evident to me when I looked back at CBN's failure and YSR's initial success (2004 elections). While anti-incumbency and drought have all contributed to YSR's victory, a major part was that he knew pulse of the people and that the people that mattered in elections thought they had his ear (and they did).
I am always intrigued by such examples as proofs of "closeness" to "people" and "knowing people's pulse". As far as we know Jyoti Basu from WB was a long lasting CM whose campaigns usually drew huge crowds and mammoth rallies. So his electoral success should be taken as reflection of WB people's pulse, and then all the drubbing we give to the so-called "leftist goons" are actually being dished out to "genuine popular feelings". Same goes for shining examples in Bihar, Jharkhand, Haryana, Maharashtra,.....Forumites from Kerala may also add in their take on this electoral success == popular pulse theory.
I am not saying "knowing the pulse" necessarily leads to only good, it may very well help populist leaders take everybody for a ride (eg. YSR, JB?)

What I am saying is

(1) YSR (2004 elections specifically) used this well to his advantage.

(2) "without knowing the pulse and more crucially, without reaching out at that level, we can't do much".

Ergo.. my point that got lost...
there needs to be a wider conversation between the two worlds.
How do we get there?

--------Added Later
Just looked up the last pages of the locked avatar. I guess I am beginning to see what I waded into.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by archan »

The posts on Anil Ambani's possible MGM acquisition have been moved to Tech and Econ forum in the M&A thread. There is a specific thread for this topic. Let us not bring interests of private Indian companies into Indian Interests thread. Of course, all of it may be Indian Interest but we have to keep this thread focused on something at least! :lol:
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Prem »

http://dick-meom.blogspot.com/2010/01/o ... learn.html
.
As for giving peace a chance,
the sentiment is nice, but it does not work when your self-appointed enemy
wants to kill you. Gandhi’s campaign of non-violence (often quite violent in
its reality) only worked because his opponent was willing to play along.
Gandhi would not have survived very long in Nazi Germany, Stalin’s Russia,
Mao’s (or today’s) China, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, or Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
Effective non-violence is contractual. Where the contract does not exist,
Gandhi dies.

The problem is religion. Our Islamist enemies are inspired by it, while we
are terrified even to talk about it. We are in the unique position of
denying that our enemies know what they themselves are up to. They insist,
publicly, that their goal is our destruction (or, in their mildest moods,
our conversion) in their god’s name. We contort ourselves to insist that
their religious rhetoric is all a sham, that they are merely cynics
exploiting the superstitions of the masses. Setting aside the point that a
devout believer can behave cynically in his mundane actions, our phony,
one-dimensional analysis of al-Qaeda and its ilk has precious little to do
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Sanku »

From Shyam Saran's speech posted by Ramana on US-PRC thread -- three points that are most critical to long term Indian intrests
(i) If our foreign policy experience teaches us one thing it is that change is inevitable, rapid and often discontinuous. There is hardly an international boundary between two states that is where it was two hundred years ago. The speed of the rise of China and India in the last quarter of the twentieth century is proof of the rapidity of change. History has accelerated but not the speed of our thought. We invariably underestimate its pace and the fact that it is almost always discontinuous. It is hard to think of a single major political development which is a straight line extrapolation of existing trends and therefore predictable. And yet we continue to do precisely that, analysing politics and the international situation as though they will follow a linear course extrapolating present trends.

(ii) Since the balance of power is relative, small shifts have exaggerated effects on the international system. Today we are in a completely changed situation. Whether it is the Asian balance or the global economy, both have been so transformed in the last three years that we probably need to rethink our assumptions. There is no going back to the earlier pattern of the global economy. Nor are we at the end of the crisis.

History teaches us that India has been most prosperous, successful and at peace when she was most connected to the rest of the world. My generation has seen a remarkable change in India’s place in the world. I hope the next generation can improve upon our happy experience.
1) The point of discontinuous change I chose because we Indics -- by the virtue of living in the eternal Bharata one which is inherently stable -- tend to overlook

2) The effect of small changes leveraging great forces is another related point that we Indics often overlook becoming to optimistic or pessimistic.

3) The point of India needing to go out and engage the world rather than looking inwards in a insular fortress mentality can not be over stated.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Prem »

Will they make it?
Risks to India’s rise are both internal and external. In any case, right now, based on the configuration of the mindsets of our people and politicians, chances of India becoming a geopolitical superpower must be rated low. There needs to be a mean and ruthless streak for that to be achieved. We still lack it. Other threats exist at the mental level here in India too. That is one of collective inferiority complex and wanting to be patted. But, physical—internal and external—threats are more important and real for India than for China.
http://www.livemint.com/2010/01/1820432 ... t.html?h=D
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by ramana »

Sanku and Prem look at the article on Generations in the Indo-US thread and in the Book review thread and see if you can draw parallels.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Pranav »

Deportation of a nation
Tarun Vijay, 16 January 2010, 11:00 PM IST

Nineteen always comes before the twenty-six. But here, in our gloriously decorated centres of governance, we celebrate January 26 with a blank look at our republic's bruised soul showcased through January 19, considered the day when the biggest forced exodus of Kashmiri Hindus from the valley was accelerated.

A republic is merely a signature of the Constitution adopted for governing a people, who, in turn, constitute a nation. That nation actually represents the continuity of the civilisational flow of the land and its inhabitants. Ironically, in our case the republic, instead of nurturing those roots, is trying to overwhelm the memories of the soul of this nation with decorated mass annihilators. It’s like putting more earth on the debris to stifle any voices of the living underneath it instead of unearthing and safeguarding the life underneath.

Kashmir, one of the fountainheads of Indian civilisational memories and a symbol of the highest achievements in the scholarship that made India a centre of universal acclaim, is one such example. Everything about its relation with the rest of the Indian nation’s body is sought to be deleted as if a nation is a computer storage you can add to or delete from at your whim.

Mercifully, these neo-state-owners are not gods. Hence, the debris, even when put under mounds of earth, show the facts, however unpalatable they might be to the Wahhabi variety of secularism. The truth about Kashmir comes out in a miraculous demonstration of life. The memory of Rishi Kashyap, whose name Kashmir wears, the history contained in "Raj Tarangini" and the valour of the citizen King Lalitaditya, the sacred bareness of Kashmir's Meera Lal Dyad, the spiritualism of Muslim fakir Rishi Nund, victory campaigns of Zoravar Singh, the region's defining glory in Amarnath, Shankaracharya’s Hill and Mata Vaishno Devi, and Vivekananda’s unique realisation at Kheer Bhawani. The age-old fountainhead of Hindu wisdom reflected in Sharada Peeth and the origin of Shri Vidya, Shaiv traditions and the Wazvan, Samovar amalgamation that looked once inseparable.

Can there be a Kashmir without these? What happened on January 19 is part of the efforts to erase all that.

On that day 20 years ago, one of the largest and most painful exoduses of a community took place. Although, agreeably, it's tough in such circumstances to pinpoint a single date, this has come to be registered as one such day of mass escape of the Hindus from the assaults of jihadis in the valley. This was the day when the mosques blared out a message from their loudspeakers: Pundits leave the valley, leaving behind your women. We want Pakistan, without Pundits.

The killings were brutal. Famous philosopher-poet Sarvanand Premi and his son. Their eyes were gouged out before they were killed. Sarla Bhatt. A nurse in a Srinagar hospital. Mass-raped and killed. Tika Lala Taplu, Lassa Kaul. Prem Nath Bhatt. H L Khera and Mushirul Haq (their killers were acquitted recently after a 19-year-long trial). Those were the days when such killings did make some news in Delhi.

It’s amazing to find a studied silence in the Indian and the foreign media on an exodus that made the valley‘s cultural vibgyor vanish. It's shocking to see a secular tribe in the national capital too hospitable to patriotic Indians' slayers like Musharraf and Yasin Malik, the former being the instigator of the Kargil war and the latter facing cases of murders including those of Indian Air Force officers. Google and find out about him. He was the guest of honour at a recently concluded India-Pakistan dialogue for peace which was conducted without a single participation from refugee Kashmiri Hindus.

We are about to celebrate yet another day of the republic without willing to see that this republic hasn’t been able to assure safety to the patriotic people of Kashmir and has stage-managed an autonomy report that is widely seen as a document of separation mocking at the resolution of Parliament swearing to guard India's integrity and take back the land illegally occupied by Pakistan and China.

A resolution passed in December 2009 by Panun Kashmir, an organisation of Kashmiri Hindus said: "It is a matter of extreme apathy that the exiled Kashmiri Pandits are forced to live in subhuman conditions and subsistence in so-called migrant camps in Jammu and elsewhere for the last 20 years. There is no policy for reversing the genocide and rehabilitating the community in its homeland and the governments of India as well as the J&K state have treated the holocaust with bizarre inaptitude and abandonment. In the last 20 years the government has made empty announcements and piecemeal return formulae, only to further compound the plight of the community.”

When a people are uprooted, not just the bodies that consume food and procreate are transferred from one station to another. It’s an entire life cycle and the reservoirs of collective memory that get dehydrated. It affects and destroys a language, traditions that weave the fabric of a societal dynamic, songs and beliefs, religious rituals and places of worship, behaviour and protocols that were created and nurtured by the elders as far back as a thousand years, oral history and the patterns of living including homes, food, utensils, methods to greet and calls to organise for a resistance. It affects the attire, the way children are reared, marriages solemnised and the dead cremated.

An entire world is lost.

A single citizen of the republic contains in him the entire fabric of the nationhood as much as a drop of the ocean carries the ocean in itself. Kashmiri Hindus deported from the valley is like the Indian nation deported from this region. Mere geography doesn’t constitute nationhood.

Afghanistan was Gandhar. We lost it. We lost Taxila, Bappa Rawal’s Rawalpindi, Dahar and Jhoolelal’s Sind and Dhakeshwari’s Dhaka with the Ramana Kali temple, destroyed by Pakistanis in 1971 yet to be rebuilt, as neither Mujib nor Hasina’s government, so lovingly described as "friendly" allowed its reconstruction. When the people, representing the spirit of a nation are deported, the nation’s cultural ethos too gets fragile and finally eliminated. The memory, once a living life force, gets museum-ised.

Imagine how this will sound: Once upon a time, Kashmiri Hindus lived in the valley.

Now we have our own kith and kin, in our independent republic living as refugees for the ‘crime’ of being Hindus and loyal to the Indian nationhood, who refused to side with the pro-Pakistan separatists.

We in our entirety share the sin of forgetting our soul. Our sin is we loved to dine with the killers.

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.co ... f-a-nation
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by rkirankr »

^^ The people , the common citizens are also responsible for the negligence. Whenever I raise the issue of KP in discussions, I am called a RSS man, VHP and what not. The powers that be in India have ensured that such type of issues get wiped out from public memory. Hence the cr@p like aman ki ayesha gets wahs wahs.

Another reason is that many think (from my observation) that whatever happened pre 1947 is not bound to happen again as "that" is history. They do not realise that the same forces which plucked out Gandhar, Taxila , Dhaka are still active today.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Sanku »

Funnily enough I have been thinking on this for a while, when I saw the US article and then saw Ramana's post as well.

I think it is very important to do the same generational study on Indians too -- and here are my first thoughts (please note that as I write it, I am myself unsure whether I have accurately captured the generations and their thinking, so if any one wants to add and or modify I would welcome that and would appreciate any debates that are set in motion)

Generations (birth years)

1860-1900
The visionaries -- This was the generation which led a Indian comeback in the post 1857 period, Swami Vivekananda, MKG, Aurobindo, Patel Nehru etc form this generation

1900-1940
The freedom fighters -- This was the generation which added the manpower and idealism to actually bring about the changes to Indian society leading to Indian independence -- Bhagat Singh, Subhas Bose, Chandrashekar Azad etc belong to this generation

1940-1960
The nation builders -- This was the generation which built India as we know in the current state, they also occupy the top echelons of leadership

1960-1980
The free generation -- The first free generation of Indians w.r.t. the above time line; these are the folks who saw the worst of the socialist period as well as the opportunities of a independent India. Not completely in leadership position yet.

1980-now
The post liberalization generation -- The new India.

----------

If the above makes sense we can also start adding attributes to the above groups etc.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Pranav »

'Include all Muslims in BPL, then exclude the well-off'
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/inclu ... f/569084/0

In a move that could stir the political pot, the Rural Development Ministry, under Congress leader C P Joshi, has proposed “automatic inclusion” of Muslims in the Below Poverty Line (BPL) list of families along with Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs).

Aware of the political sensitivities involved, the Ministry plans to replace the word “Muslim” with “Minority” to pre-empt opposition, especially from BJP-ruled states.
Expectedly, there is horrified response in the readers' comments to this blatant discrimination and pandering.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by shiv »

Pranav wrote:
'Include all Muslims in BPL, then exclude the well-off'
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/inclu ... f/569084/0
Ha haha ha haaa :rotfl: That is one way of ensuring that a particular group of rich friends can be included in BPL and they and the minister and the next seven generations live happily ever after.

I mean - India is full of scams - but at least the scam should sound implementable..
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Jarita »

Pranav wrote:
'Include all Muslims in BPL, then exclude the well-off'
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/inclu ... f/569084/0

In a move that could stir the political pot, the Rural Development Ministry, under Congress leader C P Joshi, has proposed “automatic inclusion” of Muslims in the Below Poverty Line (BPL) list of families along with Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs).

Aware of the political sensitivities involved, the Ministry plans to replace the word “Muslim” with “Minority” to pre-empt opposition, especially from BJP-ruled states.
Expectedly, there is horrified response in the readers' comments to this blatant discrimination and pandering.

One of the respondents

Indian express please investigate further
By: n.krishna | Tuesday , 19 Jan '10 20:24:43 PM Reply | Forward
PM never won an election in India and is the first PM who has never been elected to the Lok Sabha. Economist Dr Ashok Mitra was also Chief financial Advisor to Indira and a former FM or WB, wrote a book titled %u2018A Prattler%u2019s Tale%u2019 in 2007 and book says that the USA pressurised P.V. Narasimha Rao to take the present PM as the FM in Rao%u2019s Cabinet.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Jarita »

The current crew of advisors to GOI - Sachar - check out his orientation

http://thekashmir.wordpress.com/

In my heart of hearts, I was glad Rajinder Sachar provided us an opportunity to give vent to our pent-up frustrations. Listening to Sachar’s apologetic introduction on ‘Indian treachery in annexing Kashmir’ (yes, it’s true, he said that), I found reasons for continuing my struggle for a separate homeland in Kashmir.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by ramana »

One has to realize that society undergoes transformation every so often and rejuvenates itself to survive. Currently the only tool in the GOI toolkit for lifting the poor from poverty is targetted benefits to 'weaker' sections thru government reservations. We all know the consequences of that as it has been tried elsewhere and in India : creates vested interests, siphons off funds from really needy, divides people inot votebanks etc, etc. However the role of Govt as a % of formal GDP is high and hence this approach is being pursued. Once the role of non-Govt sector becomes greater as % of GDP it will provide more tools to allievate the problems.

Note: When the only tool you have is hammer then every problem looks like a nail.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by ShauryaT »

ramana wrote: Note: When the only tool you have is hammer then every problem looks like a nail.
Very accurate observation. The ONLY government that recognized this structural issue and sincerely tried to do something about it was the ABV government. It was primarily through the disinvestment efforts of Arun Shourie. Credit should be given to ABV's leadership, who tried to do this in spite of opposition from one and all - inside his party, opposition, bureaucracy, affiliates, allies, everyone.

Arun Shourie and the top BJP leadership tried to take this hammer away from the hands of government. What will the telecomm minister or petroleum minister do, if there is no PSU to manage and/or prices to set. Although they were not able to pull off very many large scale changes, it fired up the imagination of the nation that Indians do not need the chattra chaya of an all powerful government.

For me, this is an acid test for any government, i.e: to reduce the size of the footprint of government. No prizes for guessing, how does the UPA fare in this area, in my view.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by shiv »

Shaurya given that "government" in India consists of local government, state government and central government and each of these has a different footprint, and the fact that at the ground level it may be UPA, BJP or some other party that is pulling the strings and "shaping the footprint" what specific meaning did you have when you spoke of a smaller government footprint? What footprint of which government?
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by sourab_c »

Mumbai: Taxi drivers must know Marathi
The Maharashtra government has announced new rules for taxi drivers that will not allow many migrants to get permits in the state.
The state government has decided to give new taxi permits to only those who have lived in the state for 15 years. The new rules say that to get a permit, the person should also be able to read. speak and write Marathi.
This move is being seen as a political one, with the Congress possibly trying to make inroads into Shiv Sena and MNS vote banks. Migrants in Mumbai have, however, traditionally supported the ruling Congress, and the party may stand to lose in these quarters.
Can Shri Pratibha Patel (being the Commander in chief ) not order the MARCOS to go pick up Raj Thackeray and his goons from Mumbai and drop them in the Arabian Sea ?
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by ramana »

Something to ponder about.

Op-Ed in Pioneer
http://www.dailypioneer.com/230725/Suga ... d-lie.html
OPED | Thursday, January 21, 2010 | Email | Print |


Sugar-coated lie

Shailaja Chandra

The so-called ‘demographic dividend’ is so much bunkum and no more. Limited access to education and healthcare among young men and women has left them with no awareness about family planning and HIV/AIDS. A demographic disaster is in the making

An excellent report by the International Institute of Population Sciences, Mumbai, has demolished the ‘demographic dividend’ theory; one which has been urban India’s euphoric rejoinder to stave off any concerns about the questionable social health of Indian youth. The report points in no uncertain terms to a demographic disaster taking place, having “squandered” the potential that could have given that dividend.

Titled A Profile of Youth in India the report is a State-wide study and systematically captures the urban-rural split, as well as the male-female disparities in education and reproductive health among adolescents and the youth — a huge segment of India’s population. The report has to be taken seriously because it was published by a Government organisation under the aegis of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The image of an exuberant youth, educated and resilient, has been shattered through this report. Here are some of the highlights:

A significant proportion of the youth were found to have received little education. Many were illiterate and several were burdened with onerous familial responsibilities. The enormous lack of education that prevailed among the female and rural youth left no opportunity for them to contribute to development or the tremendous challenge of nation building. A third of the females and only two out of every five men were found to have completed 10 years of schooling. Only two out of five adolescents were found actually attending school, leaving the rest of them destined to join the ranks of the uneducated and unemployable. One out of five teenage girls possessed no education, with one in three Muslim girls falling into this category.

The report found every third adolescent girl to be married. The element of gauna was found to be fractional, so negating the theory that child marriages were only symbolic. Early marriages consummated well before the legal minimum age of marriage had negated efforts to reach the goals of the national youth policy.

Limited use of contraception for spacing, and an over-reliance on traditional methods persisted after decades of chasing the family planning programme. Among the youth the unmet need for family planning soared. What did these young, married women know? Not even a fifth of the 20 to 24year-olds knew about the fertile days within the menstrual cycle; adolescent girls knew far less. Knowledge among boys was virtually non-existent. Yet the rhythm method continued to be the most preferred form of family planning despite knowledge about the menstrual cycle being so poor. For all the work that the State AIDS Societies claimed to have done, and all the money that they had exhausted, only 20 per cent of the female youth had comprehensive knowledge about the routes of transmission and prevention of HIV/AIDS infection. In several States only half such women had even heard
about AIDS.

Undernutrition and anaemia continued to be very high among adolescents and the youth, doubling health risks for pregnant and breast-feeding women, as well as their infants. Large-scale use of tobacco and alcohol prevailed among very young adolescents with negative health fallouts over a lifetime. A high prevalence of domestic violence existed and the social norms inherited by the youth still justified wife beating.

Obviously, several Government programmes despite incremental improvements are haemorrhaging badly at places. The claims made by the National Literacy Mission, the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the ICDS programmes are clearly either coloured or false. :eek: Unfortunately, the report has no silver lining. The report has not spared either the outcomes of the family planning programme or the national AIDS control programme. At one level it is highly satisfactory that the present dispensation believes in transparency and has not pushed these facts under the carpet. On the other, it is disheartening to find that there are no outcries from the State Governments that ought to have either felt ashamed of their failure or combative if they did not subscribe to the findings. Instead a climate of ‘business as usual’ prevails and one can wager that none of the people in charge of youth affairs, woman and child development, education, literacy, or the prevention of AIDS and premature marriages have looked at the report.

Clearly, all the hard work is not reaching the most vulnerable people of this country. There is absolutely no case for more Government; we need smarter Government. While that exploration should take priority, for starters, the demographic dividend theory should be dumped publicly, because it is just a sugar-coated lie.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Prem »

India As Alberuni Saw It

http://voi.org/20100117341/17jan2010/vi ... sawit.html
Alberuni starts Indica by observing "the Hindus entirely differ from us in every respect"9. First and foremost difference is the language. Sanskrit is a language of enormous range, both in words and in inflections. They call one and the same thing by various names and unless one knows the context in which the word is spoken. Some of the sounds of consonants are neither identical nor resemble with the Arabic and Persian. And the Hindus write their scientific books in metrics so that they can be committed to memory and thus prevented from corruption. This metrical form of literary composition makes the study of Sanskrit particularly difficult.10

Not only the language, the Hindus totally differ from us (Muslims) in religion, as "we believe in nothing in which they believe" and vice versa. He goes on to observe that on theological topics "at the utmost they fight with words, but they will never stake their soul or body or their property on religious controversy."11 Instead, he noted, all their fanaticism is directed against foreigners whom they call mlecchas i.e. impure and forbid any connection with them12. The Hindus have concepts of pollution and never desire that once thing is polluted, it should be purified and thus recovered. They are not allowed receive anybody who does not belong to them, even if he wished to be inclined to their religion13, he went on to write.
He wrote the customs and manners the Hindus differ so completely from the Muslims that "they frighten their children with us, our dress and our ways and customs" and decree us as "devil's breed". They regard "everything we do as opposite of all that is good and proper".14 Some of the reasons of Hindus' repugnance of Muslims are complete banishment of Buddhists from countries from Khurasan, Persis, Irak, Mosul and Syria, first by the Zoroastrians and then by Islam. And then Muhammad ibn Elkasim entered India proper, conquered the cities of Bahmanwa and Mulsthan and went as far as Kanauj -- "all these events planted a deeply rooted hatred in their hearts."15
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by ShauryaT »

The bad vibes
A memorandum of conversations between Chinese Premiere Chou_En-Lai and Nixon in February 1972 in Beijing shows that Chou shared Nixon’s intense dislike of the Nehru family. It is interesting that our enemies view Nehru book Discovery of India as evidence of Nehru’s expansionist ambitions, whereas Indians see Nehru as a flag bearer for pacifism.

Chou said to Nixon " It is also a great pity that the daughter has taken as her legacy the philosophy of her father embodied in the book "Discovery of India". The Chinese premiere seemed to feel that Nehru had visualized a greater Indian empire including Malaysia, Ceylon, etc "It would probably also include our Tibet", Chou added resentfully. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was to voice a similar sentiment while talking to Nixon in 1973. "Pakistan is not the only neighbour of India which has suffered--Nepal, Sikkim, Burma and China have all suffered similarly. Living in peace with India does not mean Indian hegemony in South Asia."
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by ShauryaT »

Shiv: I will respond in detail in some time, instead of a short one.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Prem »

Home: Shivshankar Menon to be new National Security Adviser
http://netindian.in/news/2010/01/21/000 ... ty-adviser
Former Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon will be India's next National Security Adviser (NSA), official sources said here today.
The sources said Mr Menon's name was cleared by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC), which met here today with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the chair.Mr Menon, 61, will succeed Mr M K Narayanan, 75, who has already been named as the new Governor of West Bengal. Mr Menon is expected to assume charge in the next couple of days after Mr Narayanan demits office. Mr Narayanan is likely to take office in Kolkata before the Republic Day celebrations on January 26.Talking to reporters this evening, Mr Menon said he was "humbled" by the new assignment, describing it as a "big responsibility". He promised to do his best in the new
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by ShauryaT »

Soaring at 60: Presidents & Precedents SUBHASH C KASHYAP

A quick list on the key issues/decisions by the 12 Presidents of India and the role they have played.
Varoon Shekhar
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Re: Indian Interests

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"A memorandum of conversations between Chinese Premiere Chou_En-Lai and Nixon in February 1972 in Beijing shows that Chou shared Nixon’s intense dislike of the Nehru family. It is interesting that our enemies view Nehru book Discovery of India as evidence of Nehru’s expansionist ambitions, whereas Indians see Nehru as a flag bearer for pacifism.

Chou said to Nixon " It is also a great pity that the daughter has taken as her legacy the philosophy of her father embodied in the book "Discovery of India". The Chinese premiere seemed to feel that Nehru had visualized a greater Indian empire including Malaysia, Ceylon, etc "It would probably also include our Tibet", Chou added resentfully. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was to voice a similar sentiment"


Highly contrived, intellectually crooked, unscrupulous power game played at the highest levels of world politics. At that stage, the Nixon-Kissinger duo was trying to wean away the Chinese( specifically, their leadership) from the Russians, and China was very willing to oblige for its own geopolitical reasons, reasons that had nothing to do with workers' or peasants' rights, of course.

India had just won a war with Pakistan, with most of the world, including most Americans, on its side. Though not Kissinger-Nixon and the cold war hardliners.

As for "Discovery of India", whatever you may think of Nehru and his blunders in Kashmir and Tibet, that book is again warmly regarded by almost anyone who has read it. It contains many stirring and moving passages, and brings out the soul of India in its own way. Nehru did make references to a possible large federation of countries spanning the area from Vietnam to Syria, but there is nothing about India being the centre of any 'empire'. Nehru viewed empires as anachronistic, even relics of barbarism.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by RamaY »

putnanja wrote:No matter who wins, India's stake in Lanka will go up

...
...
From the time India sent in 250,000 family rescue packs to the internally displaced persons during the war and rendered vital assistance to the war itself, it has moved to qualitatively change its largely positive ties with Sri Lanka. In 2010, India has already given $105 million in assistance to the country, making it the single largest grant in one year to any country. Although Bangladesh was the latest country to hit the $1 billion mark in assistance from India, Sri Lanka has moved way beyond the pledges and is actually showing results on the ground.
...
For the latter, India already has seven demining teams at work on the ground while starting a comprehensive agriculture initiative (Afghanistan is the other country where India is focusing on agriculture). But its big projects -- running over $700 million -- will be to work on connectivity in the north, particularly through two big railway projects, which India actually swiped from China. The northern railway project and the Medavachiya-Talaimanar railway will put the north on the Sri Lanka map again, but equally important, it will be the point of connectivity with India too.
...
...

I am very glad to see that India is building soft power in its neighborhood.

$1B per nation is in ballpark with my model.


***
On a different note

I hope India sets up a comprehensive emergency management node, which will maintain 100-250,000 family kits in reserve consisting of

- 6 person tent = $100
- Solar Water purifier = $20
- LED Crank light = $10
- Tropical first aid medical kit = $20
- Food supply = $20
- Cloths, blankets etc = $30

Community Items (per 250 Families = 250x100 = $25000)
- 1x20k Generator + gas for 10 days = $3000
- Water purifying system = $4000
- Temporary Toilet system = $4000
- School material = $5000
- Community cooking equipment = $5000
- Transportation & others = $4000

Total = $300 per family

Total budget for $100-250,000 kits = $30M - $75M.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by A_Gupta »

Problems in the study of India: intellectual freedom is lacking - article by Jakob De Roover.
http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?264014
shiv
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by shiv »

A_Gupta wrote:Problems in the study of India: intellectual freedom is lacking - article by Jakob De Roover.
http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?264014
Reasonably good article though I could not plough through the whole article. Sociologsists - living in their cocoon must come under such pressure. Their methods of judging societies have been wrong - and facing a society that is giving them flak they have the choice of misjudging the society (as they seem to be doing) or taking a look at what it is about themselves and their interaction with the society that is causing a problem.

Sociology is essentially the psychology of a group. Psychology itself is a difficult subject because when one mind (mind 1) tries to understand the other mind (mind 2) , mind 1 is biased by its own upbringing and reads mind 2 though the filter of that upbringing. It is not easy to be a good sociologist.

Sociologists of the West have studied other humans like they might study chimps and have written reams much like they might write about chimps. Now Indian chimps are reading what has been writtenand realise that a lot of crap was written and more crap is being written. But the sociologists do not want to hear the chimps opinions. They are saying "Chimp society (Hindutva) is getting more aggressive"

This is, of course a silly mistake. When you are studying chimp (Hindu) society it is worth putting down the chimps viewpoint rather than pre-judging him as aggressive.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Varoon Shekhar »

"Reasonably good article though I could not plough through the whole article.."

Yes, but the writer makes a major omission. He refers to two types of critics of Hinduism, the old 'false Gods' Christian fanatics, and the new sociological commentators focusing on caste inequality. But in this set up, there is an utterly false presumption that Hinduism itself is static and frozen in time, only the 'critics' have changed.

Hasn't this writer heard about the Arya Samaj, the Prarthna Samaj, the ISKCON, Shirdi and Satya Sai Baba, Ravi Shankar( the sage) Swami Ram Dev, philosophers like Radhakrishnan and Rajagoplachari, plus scores of modern mandirs in North America, Europe and in India itself.

Here, the devotional, contemplative, meditative and philosophical, as well as the communitarian aspect of Hinduism is stressed. Caste inequality, if not caste itself, is denounced, downplayed or ignored.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by shiv »

Varoon Shekhar wrote: But in this set up, there is an utterly false presumption that Hinduism itself is static and frozen in time, only the 'critics' have changed.

Hasn't this writer heard about the Arya Samaj, the Prarthna Samaj, the ISKCON, Shirdi and Satya Sai Baba, Ravi Shankar( the sage) Swami Ram Dev, philosophers like Radhakrishnan and Rajagoplachari, plus scores of modern mandirs in North America, Europe and in India itself.
The lacunae were the reason why I was unable to plough through an article that I nearly dismissed as "more of same". This is what I mean by stuck in one's own biases.

The concept of "cognitive bias"(kelik) is becoming more commonly cited - especially with reference to medicine in which doctors "cognitive biases" (tendency to believe in certain long held views) could interfere with a doctor's ability to pick up unusual signs and symptoms. It is only a matter of time when the concept of cognitive bias is extended to include all humans and all types of people - including sociologists and psychologists who will be shown to be suffering from a cognitive bias themselves that prevents them from seeing things that should be visible to them in the absence of bias.

And yes, cognitive dissonance occurs when cognitive bias is pointed out, and the "angry reaction" of cognitive dissonance is to dismiss Hindu protests as "right wing Hindutva"

Sorry for pisking it out - but it is relevant over vast areas of human endeavor and "knowledge"
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by RayC »

Most religions are vibrant.

Even the Pope has African indigenous rites.

It is the mindset of the 'conservative' that is locked in a time warp!

Hinduism evolves and accepts reality. Thus, it is safe and cannot be destroyed!
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by A_Gupta »

Varoon Shekhar wrote:"Reasonably good article though I could not plough through the whole article.."

Yes, but the writer makes a major omission. He refers to two types of critics of Hinduism, the old 'false Gods' Christian fanatics, and the new sociological commentators focusing on caste inequality. But in this set up, there is an utterly false presumption that Hinduism itself is static and frozen in time, only the 'critics' have changed.
The author is part of a research group actively doing research in India with Indian collaboration.
http://www.cultuurwetenschap.be/
http://www.cultuurwetenschap.be/index2.php

You have to recognize the limitations of space in a magazine article.

The fundamental philosophy behind this group's research is expressed in this, excerpted from the introduction of one of the PhD theses produced by the group:
To address these issues, the research programme takes a unique entry point: the Western descriptions of India are approached as expressions of the Western culture and its experience of human beings and societies. When a person describes another human being, the resulting description often tells us more about the describer than about the described. The same holds good at the level of cultures. If there is a common conceptual structure to the European descriptions of India, then this structure reflects a shared and common European culture. The heuristic derived from this is that, as a scholar, one can use the European descriptions of other cultures to trace basic patterns and characteristics of the Western culture. That is, we do not accept these descriptions of India as primarily providing knowledge of the Indian culture and society, but we identify the limitations—cognitive limits—on the Western understanding by studying the way in which the West has viewed India.

Once these cognitive limits are identified and an alternative description of the West comes into being, we can start developing alternative descriptions of the Indian culture and its traditions. A serious problem surfaces in this context. As the “scientific” descriptions of India have been dominated by the European scholars and as colonialism has impacted a great deal on the Indian minds—both claims will be taken up in the course of this account—the current descriptions of the Indian culture and traditions are seriously curtailed. They simply do not help us to understand and analyze Indian society and its issues. Scholarly work on the Indian “religions” (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, etc.), for example, is increasingly being criticized for its Western European bias and the skewed theories this produces.

Therefore, we have to be fully aware of the fact that there is a common conceptual structure underlying the Indian responses to the West as well. This Indian response was primarily a response on how Europe described India. Hence, the self-descriptions of India that resulted from this intercultural encounter often exhibit a structure that is rooted in the Western European culture combined with indigenous elements. Knowing this we can start digging for a better understanding of the Indian traditions and social structures and translate their insights into the conceptual language of the twenty-first century.
PS: removed some stuff to make the point sharper.

PPS: http://www.neurope.eu/articles/87642.php

PPPS: http://www.svabhinava.org/HinduCiviliza ... -frame.php
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Malayappan »

A view:
How the next decade can be India’s by William H Avery
Malayappan
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Re: Indian Interests

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Varoon Shekhar
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Varoon Shekhar »

A Gupta, that's good, and there is no doubt the individual you are referring to is a high brow intellectual. But it would be nice to see some down-to-earth comment attributed to him as well. All the talk of cognitive this, and heuristic that, is wonderful. But has this writer actually been to a modern Hindu temple or read/seen the works of Hindu reformers( eg the Ramakrishna mission, Arya Samaj, etc) to dispel ingrained myths and images of Hinduism as being highly inegalitarian, which is the biggest criticism made of the religion by its opponents, or by outsiders. It's called living Hinduism.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by ShauryaT »

Comprehensive modernisation
Going by the evidence at hand, the debate on military modernisation in India is very sketchily defined and focused only on the Legacy efforts. Notwithstanding the enhanced allocations and outlays for capital expenditure in the defence budget, defence modernisation will always be underdone unless Transformational and Adaptive efforts are also clearly identified and fully integrated via a long-term plan. This modernisation plan will have to be then disciplined in accord with a sustainable, adaptive and cost-effective national security strategy. Given the lack of strategic guidance from the top and institutional effeteness in defence planning, such thought is, and will remain wishful thinking. Alas!
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by krithivas »

I'm really not sure about this direction that Congress is leading India towards. Mr. Ramesh seems to be too malleable ....

GM Brinjal should not be allowed: Scientists to India
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/new ... 525271.cms
With less than 10 days to go for Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh's final call on the introduction of genetically modified brinjal, leading scientist Pushp Bhargava, who was also the Supreme Court nominee to the country's biotech regulator, Monday warned that if Bt Brinjal is allowed it would be the "single largest disaster".
ShauryaT
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by ShauryaT »

Pragati for February

Just posting some tit bits from the above, which may be of interest to ponder over.
The finance ministry, in its representation to the parliamentary standing
committee on defence in 2007, has acknowledged that an 8-10 percent de
rigueur increase over the previous year’s allocation delivers the next year’s
allocation for defence. The budgeting therefore does not get linked to any
plan for the financial year, but is merely incremental.
In 2008-09, the capital budget was slashed by Rs
7,000 crore at the revised estimates stage, which meant
a sudden reduction of 38 percent in funds earmarked for
new acquisitions.
There are three critical aspects of defence
economics: first, projecting national resources available
now and in the future; second, the proportion of these
resources to be allocated for internal and external
security and within each of the two areas; and third, the
efficiency with which the resources are used.
This is a serious gap which needs to be urgently
addressed in an era when geo-politics and geo-economics
are increasingly inter-related. While this is recognised
by other major powers, particularly China, India has
been relatively slow in integrating the two to enhance
its strategic leverage.
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Re: Indian Interests

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45 days and still fresh
- In Delhi lab, world’s longest-lasting tomatoes

G.S. MUDUR

New Delhi, Feb.1: Refrigerator marketers, looks like you need to change your “farm-fresh” sales pitch.

Plant biologists in India have discovered two previously unknown genes that are involved in fruit ripening and shut them down to create what might be the world’s longest-lasting tomatoes.

The tomatoes developed at the National Institute of Plant Genome Research (NIPGR), New Delhi, can retain their firmness and texture for up to 45 days without refrigeration, compared with ordinary tomatoes that shrink and lose texture in about 15 days.

The researchers at the NIPGR have applied their gene-silencing technology on tomatoes, but they say it may also, in theory, be used to increase the shelf life of mangoes, papayas and bananas.

“We’re not adding new genes into tomatoes -- the shelf life is increased by shutting down two genes that make the fruits go soft,” said Asis Datta, the senior scientist at the NIPGR who led this research.

Datta and his colleagues identified two plant enzymes and their genes — alpha-Man and beta-Hex — that drive fruit ripening. Then they applied a well-known trick called RNA-interference to “silence”, or shut down, the alpha-Man and beta-Hex genes. The results of their experiments will appear tomorrow in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The lack of a widespread network of cold-storage facilities and the softening of fruits during transportation leads to the post-harvest loss of nearly 40 per cent of India’s annual produce of fruits and vegetables.

Many research groups, including one at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, have previously tried to increase shelf life of tomatoes by suppressing various known enzymes involved in the process of ripening.

“But the shelf-life improvements so far have been inadequate -- either from the point of view of softness or texture of the tomatoes,” said Subhra Chakraborty, a team member at the NIPGR.

More at:

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