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Karan M wrote:Shukla sadly, is a full blown leftist, with a pro US tilt. And that interview is just rubbish.. he just bats for the indefensible.
He also has a habit of dubbing anyone who disagrees with his political views a fascist hindu fanatic/hindutva zealot.
Best he stick to purely defense reportage instead of being a political expert on all things.
Only India has such retarded brains. Conservative on military and 'left liberal' elsewhere.
Rahul Bedi was the most prominent of the ilk He used to report on defence matters for janes and social issues for IPS!
Shuklaji is one step beyond this.
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Theo, Again lets not bring her husband into this. She did what all other IFS folks with IBDA in US have done based on past benign experience.
Its the crowd mentality or herd instinct. Do wat others are doing and getting away.
sanjaykumar wrote:Now just the dog post by none other than the one who precipitated this incident in Massa embassy of Dilli ( TFTA Alicia May and TFTA Wayne May) will suffice to break this perception among India's aspirational young and probably few of the Forrin "liberals" types too.
I guess that 'forrin liberal' type is me. Sigh....do we want the Indo-US relationship held hostage to some bimbo's face book page? Time to move on. There is a lot of potential here, let us not a common slight end it.
It is common courtesy and culture in India that the poor are never derided for the effects of their poverty. I am sure most Americans adhere to that principle regardless of how emaciated the poor are.
Hardly directed at any one here SK ji,
I see no internationalists in BR there are onlee Bharateeya nationalists (some just in Heart or some both in Heart and Legal status) . But there is a huge floating population of misconfused Internationalists in the world - fruits of globalization without a doubt. They are open to poaching in the perception game between Massa and India in the current fracas and the other future games that nations tend to play.
Massa ideology of immigrant driven growth (and the psyops through their MSM to enable it) is a blood bloated leech on our nation's psyche - through which India is slowly getting digested in a mortal embrace . Time for India to step back and consolidate its National status through an independent media and an independent establishment, then the "good" and potential" can again ooze out to bridge the gap again .
Last edited by Lilo on 13 Jan 2014 00:04, edited 2 times in total.
Can it be concluded that she removing those FB links is an implicit admission of being a racist, supermascist, xenophobe? This is for all the folks who insisted on 'If DK is innocent, she should have faced it in court, rather than claim immunity'.
The dog posts and religious insults raised my hackles. I wish this goes viral. I would expect a full blown apology fron Sec. Kerry and not some wishy washy regret.
Wonder the repurcussions if she would had posted anything that would have been derogatory of muslims or the Islamic god.
sivab wrote:[She who claims diplomatic immunity, herself wrote that burger was smuggled and you are arguing otherwise?
I am talking about pearls which is a minor infraction - a few bucks in taxes is what India lost.
As you point out, burger smuggling is worse, much worse, as food items can bring in all kinds of micro-organisms. In this case may be mad-cow bacteria/virus. Who knows where her friend came from? Her friend could be an US diplomat posted in UK.
I am not arguing anything - just pointing out what I read (in spy novels ) about diplomatic pouches. My knowledge of diplomacy is limited to what I read in fiction - that is about it. If you know more, please to edumacate lay people.
Last edited by Vayutuvan on 13 Jan 2014 03:00, edited 2 times in total.
Looking at the broader picture,Anmol's posts,my earlier ones about CIA operations using EJs,NGOs,etc.,a pattern emerges.This pattern is not limited to India.It has been in operation ever since the end of the Cold War.
In order that the US maintained its "forward stance" around the globe,the first priority was to wean away the former Warsaw Pact members from Russia's orbit of influence and dangle the carrot of EU membership,western goodies ,etc.Reunification of Germany was the first step.Inevitable and popular but a huge economic millstone around the necks of the Wessies.The Ossies too did not like what they saw ,no job or social security which was guaranteed by the state during Communist rule.
Strong WP nations with clear ethnic fault lines like Yugoslavia were dismembered.Remember the savage Balkan Wars,where the West engineered hatred between Muslims and Christians? The so-called "Orange" revolutions,which were well-planned CIA operations ,saw new pro-western parties gain control.Soviet arms were all swiftly dumped and these poor nations were made to buy US/EU weaponry instead! The lure of easy ,money from western bankers duped the people.Today,the pro-western parties have in many cases been dumped ,as in the Ukraine,where the pendulum has swung back to a pro-Russia policy.
The same device has been used in the so-called "Arab Spring" revolutions.The WMD lie could not be used here to invade Iraq,but the swiftness with which Egypt was destabilised is a classic case.The UK telegraph paper said that the CIA had plotted for a whole year to bring down Mubarak.Whenever a pro-US despot reaches his sell-by date,the Yanquis are ready with an alternative whom they've been grooming for years.We'll come to India a little later! Thus Ghadaffi ,duped into disarming himself,was despatched to Hades,Tunisia was the entree,and Egypt was the main course.For dessert Syria was next,but here the Russians and Chinese who had been duped by the US/West abusing the UN,stood firmly behind Assad .A weakened US,retreating with its tail between its legs in Afghanistan and Iraq,chickened out from a super-power confrontation,which has enraged the Saudis and the Gulf sheikhdoms,Sunni backers of the Arab Spring.This was also meant to take a huge sideswipe at Iran,with Israeli assistance.As veteran scribe patrick Coburn of the Independent says,"2013 - the year in review: What a contrast between the optimism of the Arab Spring and the dark mood of today's Middle East "
And now to India.The plot was hatched over a decade ago during the era of Dubya Bush,with his loyal mini-poodle,Min Min Singh watchdog of India,wagging his tail at every crumb thrown from the white man's high table.A systematic plan to infiltrate and subvert the nation using EJs,NGOs,et al,operating in India's heartland was initiated as mentioned earlier.Kejriwal was identified in 2006,bestowed with a Magsaysay (CIA) award to popularise him at home! The NGOs swung into serious action during the Koodankulam N-Plant protests,where it was realised by US N-manufacturers,that they could not by-pass the Liability Bill that parliament had passed.So hundreds of millions of $$$ was allegedly used to conduct a year long agitation using poor fisherfolk who were well compensated for squatting on the ground.The absurd fib was put out that the agits were paid for by the fisherfolk! The local Catholic Church provided support too.Chief Qusiling Udayakumar,leader of the PMANE movement (found in a house full of explosives recently,which killed 8 people) is now being touted as an AAP stalwart to be! Not too long ago Kejriwal and he met and Kejriwal's opposition to N-power is well known,the aim to destroy India's progress in civil N-power and defang our strategic deterrent.The snakes are all crawling out from their lairs where they've been waiting for the Yanqui signal,just as our elections are around the corner.The goal.Stop the BJP at any cost! The manner in which "diplomatic fellatio" has been provided by Min Min Singh and his team of handpicked loyal servile,Yanqui bootlickers,like Ambassador Rao,for a decade,has enable the US to walk all over India fearlessly setting in place its fifth-columnists to join the fray to ensure that the replacement for the disgraced Congress-UPA is another servile entity easily manipulated by Uncle (Tom) Sam.
A whole army of "Christian soldiers" was waiting to invade Iraq after the war and convert the country.The Iraqi resistance put paid to that.Elements of the same crowd went into Sri Lanka after the tsunami for the same purpose.Sadly,many of our NGOs are either fully complicit or unaware of the true intentions of the so-called "social improvements" that their movements stand for.Nations like India are always on the defensive and receiving end when these NGOs swing into action.The IB during the KKM N-plant protests said that massive amounts of aid was sent into India to fund dubious NGOs.We allow these firang entities to swarm allover the country ,especially allowing them into the most sensitive border states to carry out their allotted tasks to destabilise us!
What is required is that India and nations on the same wavelength must now start their own NGO foreign activities,human rights groups,war crimes prosecutors,etc.,cataloguing and demanding bringing to book global war criminals like Tony B Liar,Dubya Bush,Condy Rice,and their tribe ,for their evil and diabolic acts well documented in the wars of the last decade.India,and one is talking of more than just the GOI and its arms,our desi NGO army,should demand the deportation of Headley/Gilani.Warren Anderson,our R&AW traitor,the Richards fly,Khalistanis,Eelamists,jihadists,et al,in the national interest,apart from joining hands with other international groups for punishing war criminals of today and yesterday like Kissinger (butcher of Bangla Desh).Our own NAM/whatever equivalent of the ICJ (International War Crimes Court)should be set up in India ,representing the rights of the aggrieved nations,and these despicable neo-Nazis should be tried if available or in absentia,so that there freedom of movement across the globe is at least curtailed,knowing that they would be arrested and deported if they travelled to those countries aprt of the group.It is past time that we pay back to the US and its cronies in the same coin.For too long have we allowed it to run riot all over our land.The DK affair represents the symptom of the disease,not the ailment itself.The disease needs a large lethal dose of vaccine to see that the patient never suffers from a relapse!
Last edited by Philip on 13 Jan 2014 00:14, edited 1 time in total.
Karan M wrote:Shukla sadly, is a full blown leftist, with a pro US tilt. And that interview is just rubbish.. he just bats for the indefensible.
He also has a habit of dubbing anyone who disagrees with his political views a fascist hindu fanatic/hindutva zealot.
Best he stick to purely defense reportage instead of being a political expert on all things.
Only India has such retarded brains. Conservative on military and 'left liberal' elsewhere.
Rahul Bedi was the most prominent of the ilk He used to report on defence matters for janes and social issues for IPS!
Shuklaji is one step beyond this.
He's not even really conservative on military TBH. He usually bats for left liberal views on Pak relationship, demilitarization etc as well. He represents a section of Indian peaceniks in the establishment.
Bedi, Manoj Joshi are pretty similar as you say and even one step beyond - they even look down on their fellow Indians in every sense. Per Joshi, Agni is for national pride etc - that's what he was venting on BBC etc.
Lilo wrote:Time for India to step back and consolidate its National status through an independent media and an independent establishment, then the "good" and potential" can again ooze out to bridge the gap again .
Agreed. But what's heartening to me in this entire episode is that we are still independent enough that the US had to go to such an extent to 'teach a lesson' to the IFS. Had we truly been subservient in all its forms, there would have been no need for all this dramabaazi, SR family evac, etc. There is hope, after all!
Or take those Face Book posts and de-construct the mind of some US diplomats posted in third world countries and publish it. Or write a satirical piece of the trvials of US diplomats carrying white man's ( in this case women) burden. Contrast these to travelogues of English women who endured much much more in colonial times.
ramana wrote:
Only India has such retarded brains. Conservative on military and 'left liberal' elsewhere.
Rahul Bedi was the most prominent of the ilk He used to report on defence matters for janes and social issues for IPS!
Shuklaji is one step beyond this.
He's not even really conservative on military TBH. He usually bats for left liberal views on Pak relationship, demilitarization etc as well. He represents a section of Indian peaceniks in the establishment.
Bedi, Manoj Joshi are pretty similar as you say and even one step beyond - they even look down on their fellow Indians in every sense. Per Joshi, Agni is for national pride etc - that's what he was venting on BBC etc.
I think AJ has been bought over by the US for promoting the "indo-pak friendship". Remember that aman-ki-asha was partly sponsored by US. Also, the recent Robert Gates memoir talks of "improving the Indo-pak relationship". US spends a lot on managing media in other countries, and looking at shukla's record, I don't have any doubts that he is totally batting for US interests. Hence his promotion of siachen demilitarization, articles on how India is managing Pak relations, playing down the IA soldiers' beheading etc.
Lilo wrote:...
Time for India to step back and consolidate its National status through an independent media and an independent establishment, then the "good" and potential" can again ooze out to bridge the gap again .
...
Unfortunately in India, the media is so biased towards particular political parties that establishing an "independent media" is very difficult. The media guys are biased towards political parties on domestic issues. So if a government establishes an "independent media", it will be pro-government, a la DD. Will the govt suffer its own media criticizing it because it is "independent" ?
On this issue, compare the US media. They are totally biased on domestic issues. But on international issues, they usually tow the US government line, especially if it involves any dispute of US with other countries. Rarely do you see editorials and media taking an anti-US position.
In India, the media has been so subverted by US and other lobby groups that rarely do you see any united pro-India position across all media.
TSJones wrote:Probably the embassy is on lock down status for the American women. Since the lacksidaisical security fiasco at Benghazi, they're over reacting the way government agencies usually do. They're afraid of some nut case out on the street looking for revenge after rape video was put out on the internet. Anyway they're not going to take any chances and have to answer to congressional committees for having bad security and getting one the embassy's American women attacked. And with the poison found on social media, they are shook up. Count on it. It won't save the Mays from internal reprocussions back in HQ though.
TSJ . While there has been a lot of angst, there has been no hint of fanning violence against the US. The establishment, IMO, will remember this for a while and therein lies the only associated cost for the US. Out on the street, nobody cares enough to maintain a grudge and it's business as usual. Even during the heydays when the foreign hand was used liberally in the media, I don't remember any incident of anybody advocating violence against a foreign govt on Indian soil, let alone the US. We haven't even held a grudge against Pakistan for god's sakes.
BTW, do you have an other links of said "poison on social media" ?
Last edited by KrishnaK on 13 Jan 2014 00:49, edited 1 time in total.
Since there is little information on the good "professor" Rathore, I did some checking.
He did his PhD at KU Leuven (a Catholic university) and after a couple of temp positions at Toronto and UPenn, started teaching at LUISS-Guido Carli in Rome. The institution has a "secular" face but it is the renamed version of a previous university called LUISS-Pro Deo (Latin:"For God"), headed originally by a Catholic priest and a Vatican monsignor with the blessing of the pope. More on the founder of LUISS (a chap named A. F. Morlion):
In 1945, with the support of Pope Pius XII, he founded and headed the International University of Social Studies in Rome and served five popes as their private emissary......On hearing of his death, author and editor Norman Cousins described Father Morlion as “a peace broker who helped to widen the opportunities for dialogue between western democracies and east European countries......Father Morlion’s diplomacy helped bring about the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. He was instrumental in the release of Joseph Cardinal Slipyi of the Ukraine and Joseph Cardinal Behan of Czechoslovakia, and helped pave the way for the Kennedy-Khrushchev Test Ban Treaty. He worked behind the scenes to improve relations between France and Germany as well as China and the United States.
It seems like this institution could have been a front for US/CIA interests during the Cold War. Morlion, a Belgian educated at KU Leuven, is himself buried in New York.
Rathore is also listed as a director of a group called the "International Research Network on Religion and Democracy":
putnanja wrote:I think AJ has been bought over by the US for promoting the "indo-pak friendship". Remember that aman-ki-asha was partly sponsored by US. Also, the recent Robert Gates memoir talks of "improving the Indo-pak relationship". US spends a lot on managing media in other countries, and looking at shukla's record, I don't have any doubts that he is totally batting for US interests. Hence his promotion of siachen demilitarization, articles on how India is managing Pak relations, playing down the IA soldiers' beheading etc.
Till you noted it, I had forgotten how many of these "interesting positions" he had taken up in recent days.
AS attacked even Gen PC Katoch with ad hominems for pursuing a strong line on the beheadings topic. Manoj Joshi started pushing the line "chicken hawks". And these folks justify it all on the basis of ends (Indo-Pak piss) justify the means etc. Fai, Angana Chatterji & co also got a bunch of Indian left liberals to attend their chai-biscoot stuff and all these junkets, sitting on track 2 meetings give them a high and make them think they run the show. They seek power and importance, the exact point, which G Parthasarathy (deliberately I think) snubbed him on.
He really should leave politics aside and stick to defence reportage. By trying to be an activist, with a very declared leftist agenda, he can hardly be a neutral commentator on Indo-Pak or other national political affairs either.
I must confess, about the only book by US strategic analysts I have bought in recent times is "blood telegram" by Gary Bass. Uneven tried to get me to buy his book(s), but I said kiss my ass. So I don't have any intention of buying this CIA honcho Gate's book. I am sure it will be supreme US white nationalism which I cannot relate to. But I am curious to learn what he has to say about "improving India TSP relations". I mean one has to give it to TSP and its friend in US that that post 9/11, instead of "TSP terror against India" which TSP was most terrified of, they have achieved the de-linking of TSP terror against India from GWOT. I mean any half brained objective analyst will tell you, TSP stops its terror against India, then that automatically leads to "improving India TSP relations".
Bade wrote:Why couldn't she bring her kids with her to India ? They are young and can adjust to life in India. Does the fact that they are US citizens come in the way of her taking them to India, under the circumstances she had to leave the US. In any case, her husband can accompany them and bring them to India. So it all depends on him. He has not spoken much at all to the media, even in the US. I am a little surprised at his silence too.
Kids can come to India and Husband can take citizenship too. No issues.He can denounce US and come to India and teach wine philosophy if there is any such thing.
Do you really need to teach wine philosophy??
One would have thought that folks automatically became philosophical after consuming it
Philip, although your prose is highly informative and deeply enriching, your views would be wasted on the India of today as it would be like casting pearls before swines.
The UPA that seized power in 2004 is an NGO whose victory came about through a colour revolution that had been planned way back mid 90's. I have it on good authority that the young prince Rahul was bestowed a meaningless degree in Development Studies from Cambridge to burnish his intellectual credentials, and that this was paid for through an NGO type set-up so that he may one day take on the mantle of leadership in India as a pliant non-entity for his masters.
Philip, a future Indian government will have to be courageous and reduce it's contacts with the West to the bare minimum if it wishes to follow it's own path and I don't see such a leadership on the horizon.
TSJones wrote:Probably the embassy is on lock down status for the American women. Since the lacksidaisical security fiasco at Benghazi, they're over reacting the way government agencies usually do. They're afraid of some nut case out on the street looking for revenge after rape video was put out on the internet. Anyway they're not going to take any chances and have to answer to congressional committees for having bad security and getting one the embassy's American women attacked. And with the poison found on social media, they are shook up. Count on it. It won't save the Mays from internal reprocussions back in HQ though.
TSJ . While there has been a lot of angst, there has been no hint of fanning violence against the US. The establishment, IMO, will remember this for a while and therein lies the only associated cost for the US. Out on the street, nobody cares enough to maintain a grudge and it's business as usual. Even during the heydays when the foreign hand was used liberally in the media, I don't remember any incident of anybody advocating violence against a foreign govt on Indian soil, let alone the US. We haven't even held a grudge against Pakistan for god's sakes.
BTW, do you have an other links of said "poison on social media" ?
I agree. The same buggers who were protesting with an Obama mask will probably be the same ones standing in line for a US visa. Business is business.
WASHINGTON: The US official who was expelled in a tit-for-tat diplomatic battle over Devyani Khobragade was nearing the end of his posting in India, scheduled to leave New Delhi in February. But in their three years in India, Wayne May, who headed the US embassy's security team in New Delhi, and his wife Alicia Muller May, who worked as the embassy's community liaison officer, revealed conflicting impulses and contradictory outlook towards the people and country they served in.
On the one hand, it was evidently their bleeding heart concern for housekeeper Sangeeta Richard, whose in-laws worked with them and a succession of US embassy officials, that led them to "rescue" the nanny's husband and children from the strong-arm tactics of the Indian judicial and police system that the diplomat Devyani Khobragade unleashed on them after Sangeeta fell out with her. On the other hand, their facetious comments about a stereotypical India abounding in chaos and filth, which some might see as offensive, shows them as the archetypal "ugly Americans."
They laid out their opinions and views quite guilelessly on social media through photographs and comments that were quickly seized on and distributed by bloggers and trolls ever sensitive to any perceived insult of India. Although the comments are often flippant, the kind many people make on social media without fear of consequence, they sound extremely offensive now given the fraught context of the diplomatic spat. Their profiles, pictures and comments were removed and their social media presence sanitized soon after they were discovered, but not before the online warriors had saved and uploaded them on other social media sites, portraying them as ''racist American diplomats.''
The Indian ''holy cow'' is a recurring theme in their entries, starting from the time Wayne May was posted in New Delhi in 2010. The first of the pictures appears in June 2010 with a comment from Wayne saying, ''No eating the sacred cows.'' A little later, he adds, ''one week in country and I already miss steak.''
His wife Alicia captions another photo ''Stupid Cow.'' A friend comments, ''You just insulted their cow,'' to which May responds, ''Not the first time, not the last time.'' But a short time later, she shows the kind of frustration that many Indians might also share: ''Just wait till you have to dodge these beasts in your car because they are laying in the middle of the road blocking traffic - they lose their "holiness" real fast. And, as holy as they are supposed to be, most of them are bodyline starved. It's awful to see. Everything is a contradiction here...''
There is other banter in which enraged nationalists see signs of Indian laws being broken by the meat-loving diplomats. ''Had real American Hamburbers for dinner last night. A friend smuggled them in his suitcase last night,'' Alicia Muller May writes in September 2010, soon after their arrival in India, adding, ''water buffalo burgers just aren't cutting it. Oh, the simple pleasures of life....'' Another time, she alerts her friends in Delhi to ''a good friend in Beijing who is coming to the CLO office with beautiful pearls for sale...'' - which some see as evidence that embassy premises were being used for commercial activities.
In one bizarre exchange in November 2012 in response to a Huffington Post article on claims that are meat eaters being more prone to violence and sex crimes, Alicia May says ''I'd like them to do a follow up article on how many vegetarians rape women here every day.'' It is the vegetarians that are doing the raping, not the meat eaters, she says, later adding, ''applies only to Indians, not westerners.''
The domestic Indian staff for whom they professedly had concern don't come out very well either in their corrosive social media exchanges. In one photograph, it is pointed out that their pet dog Paco looks bigger and in better health than their Indian gardener. Paco, says May, gets more protein in his diet. Another times, May goes to a mosque in Delhi with two visitors where they get a VIP tour because they are from the US embassy.
"I hate the taste but I have to be polite,'' she says about having to drink tea at the mosque. Her friend: ''Tea? I thought it was coffee.'' ''If it tastes like rancid mushroom, don't drink it.'' Friend (who is evidently serving in Afghanistan): ''Everything is rancid in Afghanistan. That's how you know it is farm fresh.''
To be sure, most of the exchanges are frivolous and typical of social media tattle. But given the sensitive positions they occupied in the US embassy, they are, particularly in hindsight, astonishingly offensive, robbing the couple of their "bleeding heart" credentials that is said to have led them to spirit out Sangeeta Richard's family from New Delhi.
What repercussions will the Mays face? Bad mouthing the brownies might not be worth anything more than a a slap on the wrist. I seriously doubt it is going to be any more than that. The Foreign service throwing one of their own under the bus because Preet Bharara and SD messed up? no way.
ramana wrote:I think now that DK has very good first hand experience with US system she should be out in the America desk so the US diplomats get to meet her in Delhi every time they visit and think over what they did.
My idea is to post her as a officer in charge of immunity/privileges of foreign diplomats (perhaps known as the protocol officer???). Force US embassy to petition her for relief in these time of excessive pandugiri as far as US diplomats are concerned
Multatuli wrote:And then there is that "economist" in that current affairs show! I forgot the buffoon's name, well it doesn't matter. Shale gas exploration in the USA will lower the price of natural gas globally, India will benefit from this even if India doesn't import a single cubic meter from the USA. And wouldn't it make more sense for the USA to sell their shale gas to Japan, South Korea and West European countries, because of the shorter distance the liquefied natural gas has to travel?
Exactly! and we should get it from the nearest source available to us i.e Middle east in general and Iran in particular.
Is this guy really an 'economist' or was he deliberately farting nonsense for a consideration.
On the Energy Secretary's visit, the plan is to import gas from USA into India. Nirupama Rao wrote a column in the WSJ about it some time ago. It's a great idea, with much more potential to start generating power in India quicker than the nuclear energy plans.
For US producers, they'll get a better price for the gas as demand rises. A higher price for gas is also necessary to support other energy sources - for instance, with gas being so cheap, it's not worth funding any additional nuclear projects.
Thanks Anmol for exposing the bigots. With this image of SR protectors shorn of 'do-goodness' for what it is, I wonder if SR's case for staying on in US is weakened.
ManjaM wrote:The Facebook flub gets picked up by Chidananda Rajaghatta from TOI through an article titled "Wayne's World"
His wife Alicia captions another photo ''Stupid Cow.'' A friend comments, ''You just insulted their cow,'' to which May responds, ''Not the first time, not the last time.''
The actual words were "You just insulted their god". Intentional obfuscation by Times of India?
14 more maids in US, threat of Devyani rerun looms
NEW DELHI: As the dust settles on the Devyani Khobragade affair, could there be other cases waiting to happen?
There are 14 domestic servants employed by Indian diplomats in the US, not to speak of a larger number in European countries. All of them have the same quasi-legal status that Khobragade's maid, Sangeeta Richard, had. All of them have gone under the same nod-wink informal arrangement with the US state department.
The ministry of external affairs (MEA) has been pushing the finance ministry for the past few years to agree to transfer these servants (called Indian-based domestic assistants in MEA parlance) to a full government-employee status. The finance ministry has been reluctant because it feels it will entail additional outgo of funds, and until now, MEA has not presented any argument to convince the finance ministry. But in the wake of the Khobragade affair, there is a greater appreciation in the government that India too needs to put its house in order.
The MEA will be pushing a more clear legal framework not only for the employment status of diplomats' servants but also a different visa status which has to be worked out with the US state department. Currently, Indian maids get an A-3 visa from the US government. If they become full government employees, they would have to get new employment contracts and A-2 visa status. That is in the longer term, but the first order of business is to regularize their status.
If they do become government employees, it still does not prevent them from jumping ship or trying to become illegal aliens in the US. But then, they would be governed by Indian laws.
It is expected that the US state department will be taking a closer look as to how the Khobragade case was allowed to explode in this way at the level of the US embassy. The Indian government is convinced that the criminal complaint made against Khobragade was done by the embassy here and signed off at fairly senior levels in the state department. The Indian assessment was this was no personal initiative by US attorney Preet Bharara but was a more considered action by US officials who should have known better.
Uttam Khobragade, Devyani's father, told TOI that the family was pushing for a full dropping of charges against the diplomat. "That is what we want and that is what we are working towards," he said.
Will bring family to Mum: Devyani dad
Foreign secretary Sujatha Singh has put a gag order on Devyani Khobragade. After her return from the US as the result of a deal worked out between the two governments, Khobragade has been quoted in the media as saying how much she misses her children and how difficult her personal life has become. Singh has reportedly asked Khobragade to hold her tongue with the media.
However, her father, Uttam Khobragade, said there were no family issues with Devyani. "We will bring them all to Mumbai," he said. Her husband, Akash Singh Rathore, an Indian-American academic, doesn't have to live in the US, he said. "He has been educated in Europe, he met Devyani in Germany, and in the past eight years, he has accompanied Devyani wherever she was posted," the father said.
ASR seems to be literally "house husband" like "house wife". No offense meant.
TSJones wrote:Probably the embassy is on lock down status for the American women. Since the lacksidaisical security fiasco at Benghazi, they're over reacting the way government agencies usually do. They're afraid of some nut case out on the street looking for revenge after rape video was put out on the internet. Anyway they're not going to take any chances and have to answer to congressional committees for having bad security and getting one the embassy's American women attacked. And with the poison found on social media, they are shook up. Count on it. It won't save the Mays from internal reprocussions back in HQ though.
TSJ . While there has been a lot of angst, there has been no hint of fanning violence against the US. The establishment, IMO, will remember this for a while and therein lies the only associated cost for the US. Out on the street, nobody cares enough to maintain a grudge and it's business as usual. Even during the heydays when the foreign hand was used liberally in the media, I don't remember any incident of anybody advocating violence against a foreign govt on Indian soil, let alone the US. We haven't even held a grudge against Pakistan for god's sakes.
BTW, do you have an other links of said "poison on social media" ?
KK ji,
That "monitering of threat levels" "standby for action" etc etc is propagandu by TSJ Saar,
Similar gas was released through various western MSM farticles on the danger to their Massa embassy in Dilli when barricades were removed in the Khobragade affair .... insinuating that India is a dysfunctional state like Somalia.
Intent was to potray India as a turd world dump hanging by the thread till the next terror attack and then suggest how the valuable massa lives inside are protected from the tinderbox situation in India through the dedication and determination of "their" boys (the 400 odd Massa marines headed by Texas Cowboy , John "The May" Wayne and corralled inside the compound were probably chuted in with the same premise ?)
as opposed to the "useless" SDRE Dilli pandus droning outside in their maruti gypsies.
On a different note , If you have watched the literally "blockbusting" Hollywood movie - Avengers, it begins with the little indian slum urchin "Maya" scurrying through the lawless Kolkata meat grinder dodging Somali type armed patrols on Toyota pickups to introduce the Herrow Dr.Hulk - so perceptions (wonder when facts too will be made to catch up?) are being built slowly and steadily to drive moar turd worlders into the embrace of all embracing Massa Disclaimer in small print: Leaving aside the exceptionals migrating to the exceptional massaland, average turd worlder Indo-chines foreign student post graduation has to bondage himself as an intern for a couple of years in revolving jobs with sweatshop level pay till he is deracinated enough and feels fit for selection to a regularised job in one of the Massa tech khan bahadurs.
MortWalker ji,
Why are they "buggers" ? those protesting in the Obama masks ?
Last edited by Lilo on 13 Jan 2014 02:20, edited 2 times in total.
Guys, Chidanand Raj of ToILet stole our fellow BR colleague Anmols' hard-work, and not only does he not give adequate credit to BR, but in fact trivializes Alicia's racist diatribes
“She is a bit angry, but I am a lot angrier at the way they [law enforcement officials] treated her in the U.S.,” her father said. “The battle is half-won. Now we have to work to get the charges against her dropped, it is a fight for her honor.”
..
But Uttam Khobragade said Richard earned almost $1,600 a month, split between payment in India in rupees and in the United States. He said there are two independent witnesses, including a houseguest in New York, who have deposed in the U.S. court that Richard was not harassed.
“The maid used to be stressed in the morning because that is a time when everybody in the family is in a hurry and the children have to be readied for school,” Khobragade said. “But in the afternoon, she was more relaxed because she was by herself. She used to find time to go to the beauty parlor regularly, and she even had bought herself an iPhone. She even sent home two big boxes full of gifts for her family through an Indian houseguest of Devyani. Is that how a harassed, underpaid maid lives?”
..
Khobragade, a retired bureaucrat from the lowest rung of India’s rigid and hierarchical caste system, has political ambitions, as well. He said he is considering contesting in the upcoming national election scheduled to be held in May from the western state of Maharashtra. He said he will raise the issue of his daughter’s battle in the United States during the election.
Devyani’s husband, Aakash Singh Rathore, an American citizen and academic, has stayed in the United States with the two children.
“My son-in-law is also upset at the way the American government has treated Devyani,” Khobragade said. “Soon they may all relocate to India after the school year ends. America would lose an intellectual.”
I think it is not fair to question the husband's silence.
CRamS wrote:Guys, Chidanand Raj of ToILet stole our fellow BR colleague Anmols' hard-work, and not only does he not give adequate credit to BR, but in fact trivializes Alicia's racist diatribes
CRamS wrote:Guys, Chidanand Raj of ToILet stole our fellow BR colleague Anmols' hard-work, and not only does he not give adequate credit to BR, but in fact trivializes Alicia's racist diatribes
He is using the dutty shoulders of "troll Nationalists" to fire potshots at massa - maybe that's the maximum the massapasand TOIlet could oblige in its columns .Yet he is atleast firing, though he is apparently trivializing , I think those who read between lines and search for sources will figure it out right.
As a patriot who has watched his motherland be torn apart by these forces, I am really glad that this DK affair has brought out these issues in the open. Stop-gap reactionary measures won't stop the hurt and permanent damage that is coming to India. DK is not the real issue. The "Breaking India" project has to be countered. All foreign government missions have to be curtailed on the basis of full reciprocity now! I hope the eyes of at least some folks in the IFS have been opened. This is a seriously-well funded, long-term, multi-interest-driven, Right Wing (evangelical)-Missionary-Left Wing(human rights) collaborative project to break India.
What repercussions will the Mays face? Bad mouthing the brownies might not be worth anything more than a a slap on the wrist. I seriously doubt it is going to be any more than that. The Foreign service throwing one of their own under the bus because Preet Bharara and SD messed up? no way.
When things go wrong you've got to be able to produce a body for sacrifice. The Foreign Service is no different than any government organization. The Mays will be "it". Unless you are absolutely convinced the Foreign Service in total is a racist, bigotted organization that looks down on poor people. I personally do not thik that is the case. A stumbling bureaucracy, that sometimes doesn't have the common sense that God gave a goose? Yes, I believe that. But a total arm of evil biggoted people? No I don't think that.
pankajs wrote:“My son-in-law is also upset at the way the American government has treated Devyani,” Khobragade said. “Soon they may all relocate to India after the school year ends. America would lose an intellectual.”
I think it is not fair to question the husband's silence.
Is he a demure woman in purdah that he only confides his upset-ness to his father-in-law? I am surprised he has not made a single statement to stand up for his wife. As I said before, if he applies for Indian citizenship it is a good sign. Even then, there should not be a "no questions asked" acceptance. Like any foreign citizen applying to become an Indian, their antecedents and associations should be checked. Till then, let's have a skeptical viewpoint.
^
Dubey ji,
Do you think GoI or IB didn't do that check before allowing DK to be posted in Massaland ?
So whose check results are we waiting now to establish his guilty unless proven innocent credentials ?
) about diplomatic pouches. My knowledge of diplomacy is limited to what I read in fiction - that is about it. If you know more, please to edumacate lay people.
. While there has been a lot of angst, there has been no hint of fanning violence against the US. The establishment, IMO, will remember this for a while and therein lies the only associated cost for the US. Out on the street, nobody cares enough to maintain a grudge and it's business as usual. Even during the heydays when the foreign hand was used liberally in the media, I don't remember any incident of anybody advocating violence against a foreign govt on Indian soil, let alone the US. We haven't even held a grudge against Pakistan for god's sakes.