Indo-UK News & Discussion 9th Aug 2011

IndraD · Post by **IndraD** » 16 Aug 2011 12:47

Lisa wrote:
IndraD wrote: It is still close-see this from WSJ

http://blogs.wsj.com/dailyfix/2011/08/1 ... ts-warily/
I doubt you have ever been to London or the UK else you would understand why your defence is feeble.

Be happy if that makes you so

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 16 Aug 2011 18:27

UK to consider curfews in future riots.

Meanwhile,guess who is funding the global production of cluster bombs?

UK banks fund deadly cluster-bomb industry

Xcpts:

By Jerome Taylor
Tuesday, 16 August 2011

British high-street banks, including two institutions that were bailed out by taxpayers, are investing hundreds of millions of pounds in companies that manufacture cluster bombs – despite a growing global ban outlawing the production and trade of the weapons.

How cluster bombs work: click here to download graphic (71k)

The Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB, Barclays and HSBC have all provided funding to the makers of cluster bombs, even as international opinion turns against a weapons system that is inherently indiscriminate and routinely maims or kills civilians.

An investigation by Dutch arms experts into how financial institutions continue to invest in the industry has revealed that the virtually state-owned RBS is the UK's worst offender. Saved by the public purse after its collapse during the credit crisis, taxpayers now own 83 per cent of the bank. But that has not stopped it from investing hundreds of millions of pounds in the arms trade.

In October 2010, RBS was part of a banking syndicate that provided the American arms manufacturer Alliant Techsystems with a $1bn (£600m) five-year credit facility, with RBS itself loaning $80m. It has also underwritten $110.1m in bonds to Alliant Techsystems and Lockheed Martin.

The partially state-owned Lloyds, which was bailed out by the taxpayer with an injection of £20bn of state funds, has also invested in Lockheed Martin, the US arms giant that has a long track record of making cluster munitions. In November 2009, Lloyds contributed $62.5m as part of a 12-bank syndicate when Lockheed issued bonds for a total of $1.5bn.

Other British high street banks have also played a role in investing in arms companies known to make cluster weapons. In April 2009, Barclays and HSBC were involved in a major financing deal with Textron, a US arms manufacturer that builds a "sensor fused weapon" – the world's most powerful cluster bomb. Alliant Techsystems makes the weapon's rocket motor.

Textron issued $757.4m worth of bonds and shares with the financial aid of a 10-bank syndicate. HSBC and Barclays combined underwrote $44.6m worth of loans. Barclays then went on to invest a further $75m in a separate Textron bond deal five months later.

The report on the banks, a joint piece of research by the Dutch and Belgium NGOs IKV Pax Christi and Netwerk Vlaaneren, reveals that since May 2008, 166 financial institutions across the world have invested an estimated $39bn in the eight largest cluster-munitions manufacturers.

None of these investments is illegal. But they will lead to further concerns about the moral behaviour of the banking industry at a time of public anger over its role in the credit crisis and bankers' bonuses.

The majority of investors in cluster munitions are from countries such as China, Russia and the US, which have refused to sign up to the global ban. Those countries are also the world's largest producers of sub-munitions.

But financial investment has also come from banks within nine countries that have signed up to the treaty. Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Switzerland and the Netherlands have yet to pass legislation that specifically forbids indirect investment in cluster-bomb producers.

Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg and New Zealand are the only countries that have banned banks from directly or indirectly financing cluster bombs. Within the financial industry there are signs that some banks are beginning to distance themselves from cluster-bomb makers. Since the publication of the Pax Christi report, HSBC said it has brought in a new investment policy that forbids it from investing in companies that make such weapons. The bank would not confirm whether that means it has ended its relationship with Textron. But Mark Hemingway, the head of media relations at HSBC, told The Independent: "We have exited relationships with clients if the requirements of our policy are not being met."

A spokeswoman for Barclays said the company's investment policy "explicitly prohibits financing trade in landmines, cluster bombs or any equipment designed to be used as an instrument of torture". Barclays would not confirm whether it would no longer invest in Textron but The Independent understands no new investments have been made since 2010. The relationship has also been discussed by senior execs at the bank.

In contrast, Lloyds and RBS resolutely defended their investments. A spokesman for Lloyds said: "Lloyds does not knowingly finance or otherwise support the manufacture of any weaponry that breaches UK, US, EU or UN legislation, or weapons which have been outlawed by International Treaty. These include, amongst others, bans on anti-personnel mines and cluster munitions."

RBS said it had been assured by arms companies that they don't make cluster bombs. "We do not invest in cluster munitions. We have received assurances from our defence-sector clients that that they are not in breach of the Convention on Cluster Munitions," a spokesperson said.

But Oliver Sprague, an arms expert at Amnesty, said: "High street banks like Royal Bank of Scotland are making a mockery of UK law by shamefully investing in companies that make weapons the UK Government and 108 other countries have clearly and quite rightly banned. Given the UK Government's clear decision to ban cluster munitions, no UK financial institutions should be assisting their production."

Laura Cheeseman, who is the director of the Cluster Munition Coalition, which spearheaded the lobbying drive for the ban on cluster weapons, said: "The UK and other countries that have already signed the ban treaty should pass strong national legislation to make sure they are not contributing to the production of weapons that they have outlawed."

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 16 Aug 2011 23:09

brihaspati wrote:...

By the way - UKstan has always been a riot haven. It has always always rioted - and in spite of my aversion for vulgar Marxism, I cannot but help seeing the standard pattern of a blood-sucking elite that resulted from politically auto-erotic orgasmic frenzy of repeated layers of culture-destroying, looting, band of marauders and invaders, siphoning off people's resources for their personal pleasures. This in turn provided disincentive for the commons to be productive and just like the Moghuls needed an increasing state coercive machinery to keep down dissent.

Not many are aware of this but UK is one long history of underclass uprisings which as in many other places were mostly unsuccessful. Peasant uprisings and dissentw ere a common feature of the medieval period - and at least one king deceptively drew the leader of one such uprising to be ambushed an massacred on the pretext of "parley". The reasons for the uprising have also been pretty consistent. One of teh first historically known uprisings is supposed to be that by Budica - a widowed wife of a Celto-Breton chief, whose husband had allied with the romans perhaps out of domestic political concerns, and who before his death as per Roman claims had left his property willed to the Romans. The Romans in their typical rapist looting enslaving mindset came and tool possession, and supposedly also took public pleasure with Budica's daughters as part of the spoils [written by a Roman who therefore did not think the act impossible for Romans even if it is propaganda and boasting by Thaparite logic]. This led to the first historically recorded case of "rioting" in which the then early Roman colony of London was burned to the ground and its Roman inhabitants massacared. Budica was eventually killed and her army destroyed by the coordinated Roman military machine.

Same was the story with the north - where natives constantly harassed Romans, and Hadrians wall was the result, but even this did not protect the south, and once Romans withdrew, the whole country descended into chaos, looting, rioting [plenty of archeological proof]. Saxons were invited as mercenaries by the splintered polity who took possession of the land and the women, and another bout of rioting resulted. In their turn, Danes and Vikings started landing, enslaving and another bout of rioting. We still see the genetic proof of this in having the older male gene-pool being replaced across the so-called middle-England viking line. Note that even if each of Saxon or Danish/Vikings invasions were supposedly resisted or repulsed - they sequentially form the elite and form kingdoms. It is a Saxonic/Viking polity that is replaced by William - himself a grandson of a Viking looter and rioter who had established himself in northern France. After William won at Hastings, he enforced marraiges with Saxon heiresses - widowed or otherwise, and simply gave away older Saxon fiefs to his looting companions. His taxation policies were one of the first signs of the looting machine that the British rashtra perfected for the benefit of the elite. Subsequent history of royal politics was a history of extreme opportunism, immorality even by their own touted standards, brutal and bloody coercion of the population to maintain extremes of exploitation, and a continuous series of peasant and underclass uprisings that led ultimately to the middle orders briefly asserting themselves at the regicide of Charles I.

Since then part of the upper-middle orders have been coopted into the ruling power structure through parliamentary restructuring, but the result is an elite that lives in an entirely separate world of luxury and guaranteed consumption [can William earn his keep for example? Or the various tycoons whose wealth swim in warm tropical waters away from taxation in the island dank and rains].

This is an extremely brutalized society with a long millenial level continuous history of brutalization at the hands of elite, and whose cultural poverty is starkly exemplified in the elite's open admiration of the "Roman empire" which beat the Brits to a pulp - but a hatred of the poor Italian [and Pope] which could not hold onto sadistic imperium, or the Greeks who lost their dominance, or the Welsh/Irish/Scotts who resisted but were defeated and often had richer cultures than the band of looters that became British aristos. It is the same bootlicking of the strong master and kicking the poor dog mentality that despises and constructs racist theories based on historical military defeats or victories.

The basis of British social psychology is in an obsession with violence and social coercion, where the ruling elite adopted the late Roman imperial tactics of keeping the city mobs happy by throwing them basic biological needs. In return there is always the coerced underclass counter pressure. But to maintain that Romans needed more wars abroad and colonial extraction of such biological resources - and slaves.

Roman senate-assembly - British Hse of Lords/parliament
Roman arena --- soccer stadia
Roman Knights in charge of districts of the city of Rome - gangsters
Roman free grain/bread - social-welfare payments
Roman slaves/indentured-labour - immigrants

In fact one will be able to see many uncanny parallels with the growth and decline phases of the Roman empire compacted perhaps just into a few centuries in UK.

Bji,
Here is a book review that gives credence to your analysis:

Rony wrote:Britannia - The Failed State: Tribal Conflict and the End of Roman Britain

This is a well told revisionist version of how the Romans and the Saxons actually took over Britain. The Britons hated the tribe next door more than the overseas newcomers, and invited in the Romans and Saxons to help them in their local rivalries. The Romans were happy to perpetuate and rule through the tribes, and the defensive works of later Roman Britain reflect inter tribal violence, being mostly on tribal borders rather than against external marauders. After the Romans had gone, the tribal kingdoms reasserted their political independence, in a process the author usefully compares to the revival of local nationalisms in late 20th century eastern Europe and Africa. The tribal kings then called in the Saxons as hired swords and settled them on disputed tribal borders, and in due course the Saxons took over the tribal kingdoms more or less intact as the starting point for their own disunited kingdoms - the Heptarchy. The argument is credible and persuasive. Both Caesar and Gildas commented on the Britons' disunion, and the author shows how the defensive and military archaeology matches the tribal geography. The Catuvellauni in particular made enemies of everyone around as they tried to push out from their territories north of the Thames. Boadicea's Iceni tribe burned London and St Albans in AD 61 not simply because they hated new towns but because they hated Catuvellauni towns. For the Romans the province was routinely treated as a PR opportunity or a launchpad to take over the rest of the empire. The Britons always thought in tribal terms - they had no idea a United Kingdom would come along over a thousand years later. The barbarians in other Roman provinces were strong enough to stop this sort of balkanisation when the western Empire fell, but the Saxons in Britain were not strong or united enough to do the same for another five hundred years.

So why only four stars. Well the author could have tried harder to fill in the historical gaps in the Roman period : how far did the Romans treat Britannia as an entity ; did the later Roman "sub provinces" match the tribal borders ; what was the impact of the large permanent Roman military presence upon the tribes ; did the local aristocracy view themselves as British ? What part in all this was played by the Christian church, and why did it vanish ? Also the author rightly complains of the poor historical record, so it is surprising that he feels able repeatedly to contradict or ignore Tacitus who is the best historian that we do have - his father in law had governed Britannia for eight years soon after Boadicea's revolt. Tacitus is clear and plausible for example on the causes of Boadicea's revolt (greedy and overbearing Romans), he does detail the British atrocities (including crucifixions - presumably picked up from the Romans) and he is also clear that it was Boadicea who attacked the Romans in the final battle (with or without a stirring speech first). However, these lapses do not undermine the book's central point.

Finally, as the author says, several of the tribal kingdoms survive to this day, as Sussex, Kent and Essex for instance. So when these counties clash at cricket, they are prolonging a two thousand year old struggle.

hnair · Post by **hnair** » 17 Aug 2011 01:10

whilst everyone (including us) were looking at paki@uk antics, the chavs were seething. So they rioted this time. In hindsight, matter of time, considering the squalor these poor gentry seems to be in.

I saw someone comment on rapper-culture as reason for violence. That is a broad brushing of a rather legit offshoot of "urban free form expressionism" into a criminal enterprise. Not advisable for an Indian to parrot that gora line

(Public Enemy and other early rappers were subaltern messengers of the African-americans. They got repeatedly shot by the gora mainstream under "advocating violence" labels during Reagan-Bush eras, but prevailed with great difficulty to remain relevant. Only till mid-90s that is. The unfortunate and unsolved Tupac murder made the work easier for gora mainstreamers - rappers started getting associated with guns and pimping in a glamorous way and most of them fell for it, hook, line and sinker. I thought Eminem and Kid Rock will start off a "chav" equivalent movement in the trailer-parks across atlantic, but they fizzled out, without any transformation in a positive direction. There is a lot of pent up angst)

IndraD · Post by **IndraD** » 17 Aug 2011 01:35

I am stunned to see that in articles over here in UK news papers there are clear references to Black culture pervading whites giving rise to violence and riots. If the initial comment by a veteran 'white chavs have become blacks' evoked some criticism there are many takers of the concept as well.

anjan · Post by **anjan** » 17 Aug 2011 04:30

IndraD wrote:I am stunned to see that in articles over here in UK news papers there are clear references to Black culture pervading whites giving rise to violence and riots. If the initial comment by a veteran 'white chavs have become blacks' evoked some criticism there are many takers of the concept as well.

Your lack of knowledge of London is clearly affecting your judgement,

It's interesting how fast the mask falls off Europe at the smallest sign of violence or even the possibility.

IndraD · Post by **IndraD** » 17 Aug 2011 16:21

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... ences.html

Lib Democrats up in arms against harsh sentences of imprisonment for those who incited rioting through Facebook.

Rule books have been put aside this time in giving tough sentences.

In other news-

Part-time Britain hits record high as unemployment soars
Britain's economic recovery hopes were dashed today as official figures showed unemployment rose by 38,000 in the three months to June to 2.49m and the number of people working part-time because they could not find full-time jobs surged to a new record high

krisna · Post by **krisna** » 17 Aug 2011 21:53

British rioters the spawn of a bankrupt ruling elite

THE riots in London and elsewhere in Britain are a backhanded tribute to the long-term intellectual torpor, moral cowardice, incompetence and careerist opportunism of the British political and intellectual class.

Consider for a moment the following: although youth unemployment in Britain is very high, that is to say about 20 per cent of those aged under 25, the country has had to import young foreign labour for a long time, even for unskilled work in the service sector.

No sensible employer in a service industry would choose a young Briton if he could have a young Pole; the young Pole is not only likely to have a good work ethic and refined manners, he is likely to be able to add up and -- most humiliating of all -- to speak better English than the Briton, at least if by that we mean the standard variety of the language. He may not be more fluent but his English will be more correct and his accent easier to understand.

British youth leads the Western world in almost all aspects of social pathology, from teenage pregnancy to drug taking, from drunkenness to violent criminality. There is no form of bad behaviour that our version of the welfare state has not sought out and subsidised.

British children are much likelier to have a television in their bedroom than a father living at home. One-third of them never eat a meal at a table with another member of their household -- family is not the word for the social arrangements of the people in the areas from which the rioters mainly come. They are therefore radically unsocialised and deeply egotistical, viewing relations with other human beings in the same way as Lenin: Who whom, who does what to whom. By the time they grow up, they are destined not only for unemployment but unemployability.

For young women in much of Britain, dependence does not mean dependence on the government: that, for them, is independence. Dependence means any kind of reliance on the men who have impregnated them who, of course, regard their own subventions from the state as pocket money, to be supplemented by a little light trafficking. (According to his brother, Mark Duggan, the man whose death at the hands of the probably incompetent police allegedly sparked the riots, "was involved in things", which things being delicately left to the imagination of his interlocutor.)

Relatively poor as the rioting sector of society is, it nevertheless possesses all the electronic equipment necessary for the prosecution of the main business of life; that is to say, entertainment by popular culture. And what a culture British popular culture is!

Hard hitting article on uk state of affairs.
also see some of the comments.

Haresh · Post by **Haresh** » 17 Aug 2011 23:55

Indian couple who lost their law firm jobs due to ‘forbidden love’ at centre of first caste discrimination tribunal

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1VJYbfYnt

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 18 Aug 2011 01:03

sounds more like a case of the boss was interested in the girl and is now carrying a very big bunch of sour grapes

IndraD · Post by **IndraD** » 18 Aug 2011 02:00

Lalmohan wrote:sounds more like a case of the boss was interested in the girl and is now carrying a very big bunch of sour grapes

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Indian-co ... 34466.aspx

Apparently it was a firm owned by an Indian as the name suggests (Heer manak), some time back the home secretary had suggested that all such cases of discrimination based on caste would be treated at par with racism

krisna · Post by **krisna** » 18 Aug 2011 04:05

Riot sentences stir backlash in UK

Take Anderson Fernandes. He faces possible jail time for stealing two scoops of ice cream during a Manchester riot. There are other cases involving petty theft like stealing a bottle of water, a cake and chewing gum.

The riots have cost the country dearly. Five people were killed. Others lost their homes and businesses at an estimated cost of hundreds of millions dollars.

And that may explain what seem to be particularly harsh sentences for Jordan Blackshaw and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenen. They each got four years in prison for using Facebook to incite a riot, or rather failing to incite a riot.
Both invited their Facebook friends to join in the looting with a "smash down" at an appointed place and time. No one showed up, however, except for police who promptly arrested them.
But that sentence has prompted a backlash from critics.

So, what's the public take on crime and punishment? Using the chatter on Twitter and other social media as a barometer, the four-year sentence for inciting a riot that never happened via Facebook was a step too far. In fact, there's now a Facebook page set up in their defense.

krisna · Post by **krisna** » 18 Aug 2011 04:10

Sarkozy and Merkel plot £13bn tax raid on the UK to save euro

France and Germany yesterday demanded a £13billion a year tax raid on Britain to bail out the euro.
But a leading think-tank branded the plans ‘economic suicide’ for the UK.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said they wanted to slap a financial transactions tax on all 27 countries in the European Union – in order to prop up the 17 nations in the single currency.

The ‘Tobin tax’ would disproportionately hit the City of London, which accounts for about 70 per cent of the financial services industry in Europe.

Global stocks fell yesterday as markets reacted negatively to the plans. The FTSE 100 fell by 26 points to 5,331. Britain has been calling for Germany to agree to fund ‘eurobonds’, in which Europe’s biggest economy would underwrite the debts of countries such as Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal.
But instead Germany and France took aim at Britain.

Jarita · Post by **Jarita** » 18 Aug 2011 04:54

Haresh wrote: Indian couple who lost their law firm jobs due to ‘forbidden love’ at centre of first caste discrimination tribunal

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1VJYbfYnt

Rubbish ... Must have been fired for incompetency and is using the caste angle which the brits would love to play up given their past excuses to play up any of the faultlines in India.
Their attempt to make it part of equality laws is also fraught with mischief because the Indian jaati system is not race or religion. It cannot be classified into any western constructs yet their is an attempt to do so

Haresh · Post by **Haresh** » 18 Aug 2011 13:39

Jarita,

Let the case progress, the unfortunate truth is alot of this sort of thing goes on here. Hopefully over time it will be forgotten.

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 18 Aug 2011 13:41

most Jats i've met are very against 'their women' marrying outside... this is another case of the same

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 18 Aug 2011 16:21

Most interesting historic facts about "Roman Britain" and parallels today.One of our most distinguished parliamentarians wrote many moons ago that Britain was the most "mongrelized" state in Europe! The details posted above reveal details well.The analysis by many commentators that the latest bout of rioting was expressive of another "class struggle" has much accuracy.Prince Charles,was on TV this morning visiting the affected areas.His trust has for decades tried to help inner-city communities and his statement that for decades "we've been treating only the symptoms of the disease" and that in the absence of a community social network which gave opportunities to young people based upon their skills and abilities,they drifted into becoming members of gangs so that they could "belong" somewhere is spot on.Charles has sparred with several govts. over this iossue in the past,apart from his other pet pastimes,organic food,conservation and architecture and firmly against GM crops,which has made him an international target for the GM lobby.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 18 Aug 2011 18:36

krisna wrote:British rioters the spawn of a bankrupt ruling elite

what has long been apparent to anyone who has taken a short walk with his eyes open down any frequented British street: that a considerable proportion of the country's young population (a proportion that is declining) is ugly, aggressive, vicious, badly educated, uncouth and criminally inclined.

This was beautifully summed up in a typically Brit song a few years ago
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmYT79tPvLg&ob=av3e
[youtube]wmYT79tPvLg&ob=av3e[/youtube]

Haresh · Post by **Haresh** » 18 Aug 2011 19:00

Shiv,

That video just about sums it up, in London anyway.

Street/youth culture now is about contempt for hardwork, achievment, good manners and decent society.

For years, especially the last 13 with labour was about admitting large amounts of unsuitable immigrants & asylum seekers into the country. Research has shown the 9 out of every 10 jobs has gone to a new immigrant. What hope for the youth.

Some want open borders with no controls, they cannot have their cake and eat it, where are the new jobs going to come from for these unemployed youth??

Liberals/lefties want generous welfare payments, the country can't afford it.
The underclass know that if a daughter gets pregnant she will be provided with free accomodation/welfare.
We have somali asylum seekers with huge families who have no intention of working or integrating being given 8 bedroom houses in swanky London areas like Hampstead & South Kensington.
Why work when you can get it all for free.
Labour (the 8astards) played havoc with the education system, the figures were cooked to show an improvement in exam results while the quality of education has dropped. There was even a course in how to claim welfare!!!!

Cameron is hobbled by the liberal democrats.

I think I will retire in India, there is nothing here anymore.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 18 Aug 2011 19:02

Haresh wrote: I think I will retire in India, there is nothing here anymore.

Do what some of my friends do. Have a house in India. Winter in India, play golf. Yenjaay Britain in summer.

IndraD · Post by **IndraD** » 18 Aug 2011 23:02

Haresh wrote:We have somali asylum seekers with huge families who have no intention of working or integrating being given 8 bedroom houses in swanky London areas like Hampstead & South Kensington.
Why work when you can get it all for free.
Labour (the 8astards) played havoc with the education system, the figures were cooked to show an improvement in exam results while the quality of education has dropped. There was even a course in how to claim welfare!!!!

Cameron is hobbled by the liberal democrats.

Somali refugee handed over keys of 2 million pounds house

This Somali refused a less expensive but bigger house in Birmingham citing reason that his friends are in London.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 19 Aug 2011 07:53

Rioters in London are Thatcher’s ‘grandchildren’
( Britain or Brundi)
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/18/2 ... chers.html

am often asked, when in the United States or Europe, whether I feel frightened while traveling through such obviously dangerous places as Afghanistan and Kashmir.It’s hard for me to explain, and so I never confess, that I feel more insecure on the streets of Tower Hamlets, a London borough just south of Tottenham and Hackney, the epicenters of London’s riots.Tower Hamlets, where I often go to work in a friend’s apartment, has among the highest rates of poverty, overcrowding and crime in Britain. But it is not a ghetto. Segregation is more insidious, and inequality has shrewd disguises, in what is also one of London’s most diverse boroughs. Among the rundown, gang-infested council estates, the bingo halls, betting shops and working-class pubs, there are wine bars, boutique shops, cafes and studio apartments costing more than a half-million dollars. Bankers as well as artists, designers and other well-paid members of the creative class have turned pockets of Tower Hamlets into London’s answer to Manhattan’s East Village.With their obvious education, wealth and mobility, these gentrifiers pay an indirect “inequality tax” in the form of routine burglaries, muggings and occasional physical assaults. I hear sirens in Tower Hamlets more frequently than in any other part of London.
The enduring effects of this radical socioeconomic engineering are now visible in the United Kingdom, not least in some of the world’s highest levels of inequality. As more contract and part-time work appeared, the old bourgeois ideal of a stable career — one still alive in European countries that have not wholeheartedly embraced Anglo-American capitalism — disappeared. An underclass consisting of the unemployed and unemployable grew and grew, even as the old working class fragmented.More policing and imprisonment become the easiest way to deal with rising social problems; Britain now has more people in prison per capita than any major Western country apart from the United States. During and after Thatcher’s years in power, state expenditure on law enforcement rose exponentially.But, as the riots revealed, the police cannot perform their Hobbesian task of staving off the brutish state of nature if there are not enough informal keepers of public order such as intact families, not to mention bus conductors, park keepers and truant officers.British conservatives today speak a lot of the Big Society. But they remain blind to how a culture devoted to social and economic individualism undermines the traditional institutions that they pay ritual obeisance to, such as marriage. The “broken Britain” lamented by David Cameron now has more teenage mothers, babies born outside marriage and binge drinkers than any country in Europe.As the political economist Karl Polanyi pointed out: “Ultimately, the control of the economic system by the market is of overwhelming consequence to the whole organization of society: It means no less than the running of society as an adjunct to the market.”

Punk Mishra, author of “Temptations of the West: How to be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet and Beyond,” is a Bloomberg View columnist

Haresh · Post by **Haresh** » 19 Aug 2011 13:55

Our prison walls are too high to look over, moan terror suspects

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1VSonsFEj

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 19 Aug 2011 20:26

krisna wrote:Sarkozy and Merkel plot £13bn tax raid on the UK to save euro
France and Germany yesterday demanded a £13billion a year tax raid on Britain to bail out the euro.
But a leading think-tank branded the plans ‘economic suicide’ for the UK.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said they wanted to slap a financial transactions tax on all 27 countries in the European Union – in order to prop up the 17 nations in the single currency.

The ‘Tobin tax’ would disproportionately hit the City of London, which accounts for about 70 per cent of the financial services industry in Europe.

Global stocks fell yesterday as markets reacted negatively to the plans. The FTSE 100 fell by 26 points to 5,331. Britain has been calling for Germany to agree to fund ‘eurobonds’, in which Europe’s biggest economy would underwrite the debts of countries such as Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal.
But instead Germany and France took aim at Britain.

Perfect time to return financial centers back to desh!

Prof where are you?

Lisa · Post by **Lisa** » 19 Aug 2011 21:33

krisna wrote:Sarkozy and Merkel plot £13bn tax raid on the UK to save euro
France and Germany yesterday demanded a £13billion a year tax raid on Britain to bail out the euro.
But a leading think-tank branded the plans ‘economic suicide’ for the UK.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said they wanted to slap a financial transactions tax on all 27 countries in the European Union – in order to prop up the 17 nations in the single currency.

The ‘Tobin tax’ would disproportionately hit the City of London, which accounts for about 70 per cent of the financial services industry in Europe.

Global stocks fell yesterday as markets reacted negatively to the plans. The FTSE 100 fell by 26 points to 5,331. Britain has been calling for Germany to agree to fund ‘eurobonds’, in which Europe’s biggest economy would underwrite the debts of countries such as Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal.
But instead Germany and France took aim at Britain.

Pie in the sky. UK has a veto on taxation matters in the EU.

Haresh · Post by **Haresh** » 23 Aug 2011 20:33

have any of you guys in the UK been watching the new series of Strike Back-Project Dawn?

This is a link to it.
http://sky1.sky.com/strike-back

the story basically is this:
1/Brit intelligence is trying to find a pak terrorist.
2/They set up an operation in Delhi to capture him
3/They are working with the ISI
4/While in a hotel, a group of paki terrorists attack the hotel, carry out a massacre and take hostages.
5/2 Brit special forces members are lose in the hotel.
6/ After the initial attack the Brit HQ in Delhi is discovered and the senior Indian Army officer is not happy that UK intelligence is working in India with the ISI.

Interesting to watch, will see how it develops.

I was curious to know what BR members think would happen, if Brit intelligence actually did something like this in real life in cahoots with ISI.

Hitesh · Post by **Hitesh** » 24 Aug 2011 01:15

In real life, I hope that the GoI has the balls to declare the Brits as foreign operatives illegally working for a foreign government or failing to declare themselves as foreign agents to the GoI like USA did likewise with spies on US territory and arrest them. Furthermore, arrest them on charges of kidnapping, violence, and terrorism. Not to mention weapon charges.

When you are on Indian land, Indian law runs the writ and I could give a frigging shit about Brit or US sensibilities. This is not a one way street. Hell, if you had the Raymond Davis episode in India, there is no way I would condone GoI releasing Davis at all. Davis is to be tried under the court and sentenced according to Indian laws and the US can go ****** itself.

BijuShet · Post by **BijuShet** » 24 Aug 2011 01:47

Hitesh wrote:In real life, I hope that the GoI has the balls to declare the Brits as foreign operatives illegally working for a foreign government or failing to declare themselves as foreign agents to the GoI like USA did likewise with spies on US territory and arrest them. Furthermore, arrest them on charges of kidnapping, violence, and terrorism. Not to mention weapon charges.

When you are on Indian land, Indian law runs the writ and I could give a frigging shit about Brit or US sensibilities. This is not a one way street. Hell, if you had the Raymond Davis episode in India, there is no way I would condone GoI releasing Davis at all. Davis is to be tried under the court and sentenced according to Indian laws and the US can go ****** itself.

Hiteshji, If I recall correctly, I remember reading on BRF that Brit spec forces, with GoI blessing, did try to find and rescue some of their citizens kidnapped in J&K in the early 90s but failed in that mission. Also please readup on Purulia arms dropping case and what happened to the accused who were caught and later allowed to leave India under suspicious circumstances. While at it read up on Warren Anderson of Union Carbide and Bhopal Gas Tragedy and how the man was let go by GoI.

Don't bet anything valuable on GoI acting any different than GoTSP if Raymond Davis episode were to happen in India.

Hitesh · Post by **Hitesh** » 25 Aug 2011 00:24

All of that happened during Congress's watch. All the more reason to see the Congress party go.

Ambar · Post by **Ambar** » 25 Aug 2011 08:07

BijuShet wrote:
Hiteshji, If I recall correctly, I remember reading on BRF that Brit spec forces, with GoI blessing, did try to find and rescue some of their citizens kidnapped in J&K in the early 90s but failed in that mission. Also please readup on Purulia arms dropping case and what happened to the accused who were caught and later allowed to leave India under suspicious circumstances. While at it read up on Warren Anderson of Union Carbide and Bhopal Gas Tragedy and how the man was let go by GoI.

Don't bet anything valuable on GoI acting any different than GoTSP if Raymond Davis episode were to happen in India.

The kidnapping was the Al-faran episode in the mid-90s if i remember right. Purulia arms dropping case has no clear stake holders and remains murky to this day. Some say MI-6 notified RAW about imminent arms deal between Peter Bleach and some unknown individuals from India.

ManjaM · Post by **ManjaM** » 26 Aug 2011 03:25

Nothing strategic about this news bit, but nevertheless....
Man gets parts of his face bitten off in street fight
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpoo ... -29291680/

Haresh · Post by **Haresh** » 26 Aug 2011 15:27

ManjaM,

It is a gruesome story, however if two people decide to fight then anything goes. My only problem is with innocents being attacked.

I have a/bitten people in fights.
b/stamped on heads and kicked in face.
c/ smashed opponents head against wall.
d/headbutted opponent.

If you want a nice clean fight take up bowling!!

Neela · Post by **Neela** » 26 Aug 2011 16:02

Haresh wrote:ManjaM,

It is a gruesome story, however if two people decide to fight then anything goes. My only problem is with innocents being attacked.

I have a/bitten people in fights.
b/stamped on heads and kicked in face.
c/ smashed opponents head against wall.
d/headbutted opponent.

If you want a nice clean fight take up bowling!!

Note to self.
Never attend BR London meet.
Stay clear of Haresh!

JwalaMukhi · Post by **JwalaMukhi** » 27 Aug 2011 05:24

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14681776

There are now 86,821 people locked up in jails, young offender institutions and immigration removal centres.

No doubt, lot of increase is due to retribution justice of the upper caste westminster brahmins on the lower caste daleets of Brixton, Manchester, liverpool and other areas.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 01 Sep 2011 17:55

Poor Johnny Gurkha! For almost two centuries he has fought most valiantrly for King and country,from the dusty vales of Afghanistan to the icy territory of the Falkland Isles,always sent in to terrify the enemy with his Khukri.Long was his lament about a fair deal for his services,an equal treatment as any other British soldier.

However,his gallant services and umpteen VCs and other military medlas he has won for King,Queen and country,he has now been given short shrift for his glittering legacy in arms,fighting for and thus alleviating the "white man's burden"! A sad end and humiliating dismissal to a most glorious career in uniform for many JGs.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... -jobs.html

Gurkhas bear brunt as Forces sack 2,000
The Gurkhas will bear the heaviest burden in a round of military redundancies announced today.

Dr Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, said the sackings were “sad news” but blamed the previous administration.

“The responsibility for these redundancies lies with the incompetence of the last Labour government who left the nation’s finances broken and a £38 billion black hole in the defence budget,” he said.

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 02 Sep 2011 06:34

MI5 former chief decries 'war on terror'

September 11 was a "monstrous crime" but it needed a considered response, an appreciation of the causes and roots of terrorism, she said later in answers to questions. She said she hoped there were those – she implied in western governments – who were considering having "talks with al-Qaida".

Haresh · Post by **Haresh** » 02 Sep 2011 14:17

Britain needs to remind India it is still a manufacturing nation

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/econ ... ation.html

Neela · Post by **Neela** » 02 Sep 2011 14:31

Haresh wrote:Britain needs to remind India it is still a manufacturing nation

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/econ ... ation.html

Haresh, the timing of this is interesting.
In the last weeks , both Bombardier and Rolls Royce made announcements regarding moving to Germany.

Bombardier lost out to Siemens and is now closing its coach plant - 1400 jobs affected.
Rolls Royce said its new engine test facility might be located in Brandenburg.

Haresh · Post by **Haresh** » 02 Sep 2011 14:48

Can't find a wine to go with your curry? Waitrose launches new spicy vintage... out of India

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1WmtR5OKr

NOTE THE COMMENT ABOUT AID, THEY JUST CAN'T RESIST IT!!!!

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 02 Sep 2011 15:06

well other than the cos listed , BAE Systems (partially UK) & ARM, are there any other british made products (leaving aside food products like jams , cakes and whiskies) the world should be afraid of?

in the areas which capture the media eye - fashion, consumer electronics, comics, films, basic science breakthroughs, semiconductors, medicines the UK is not very prominent. US is a titan in all these and much more.