India-US News and Discussion

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munna
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by munna »

SwamyG wrote:I repeat Unkil will do things that benefits him. Who is currently in the safaid ghar does not matter.
Who decides what benefits unkil?? The occupier of safed ghar is every bit instrumental in shaping those policy direction flows. Disparaging me is tactic that I am immune to, I have defended Bush cause he was an Indian friend (at least had the perception) and was called a "moron" some time back at a party in duplee city while visiting US for the very act of his defence. I do not care how much support a cult leader has or not but if he is explicitly trying to run us down then we will too use all public foras to disparage and poke holes in his policies.
pgbhat wrote:Most of policy stems from langley and pentagon ... marketing is left to the govermund of the day
That is why I respect Bush cause he single handedly took on the bureaucracy and equal equal ayatollahs. My punjabi brain calls for "yaraan naal yaraan yaari" (being large hearted friends of friends) and not disown them cause they are no longer in power. Man in the mansion is every bit important as people in bureaucracy.

PS: Anyways it is not Dems vs Reps or Bush VS O that I am interested in. My objective behind starting the new flow of posts was to have a policy matrix gamed from our side to deal with a frustrated or weakened O (not necessary it will happen but seems imminent) when it comes to our week points.
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by ramana »

Sanku wrote:
munna wrote: I hold no brief for Shikar Singh but do believe his presence saves us from a lot of trouble otherwise coming our way in the form of anatgonistic west that would have hounded us with a Modi/Advani as PM. The best case scenario is Obama fails in his healthcare bill initiative, MMS does chai-biskoot for 5 years and then we have a far more virulent regime take over the reins of economically stronger India in charge of a complete triad of deterrent.
Yes the law of unintended consequences/Karma.

Aapke muh mein ghee shakkar
Munna, You read me wrong. I was referring to the WSJ blogger of that name(Shikar Singh) who wants India to ask for US mediation with TSP! Whats the word for "hunted" in Hindi or Paschimi? For thats what India will become "hunted" or game.


Agree with bolded part. And double Sanku's recommendation.
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by SwamyG »

Munna: You might be immune to disparaging; but let me ask you a question - Where did I disparage you? Or do you construe me laughing at Bush being a visionary was remark against you?

Well you are getting in your own way. You seemed to have an objective and you just go about b*tch-slapping Obama as you please and as many times as you want. And let us not get needlessly into punjabi, tamil, english, telugu, sanskrit ithaydi brains.
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by munna »

ramana wrote:Munna, You read me wrong. I was referring to the WSJ blogger of that name(Shikar Singh) who wants India to ask for US mediation with TSP! Whats the word for "hunted" in Hindi or Paschimi? For thats what India will become "hunted" or game.
Agree with bolded part. And double Sanku's recommendation.
Sorry Ramanaji I thought you meant MMS was gamed or hunted at Sharm-El-Sheikh. Well the word for hunted is "Shikaar" and the hunter is "Shikaari". Although I still believe India will still be the last man standing in this love fest between TSPA, Big Owl and India, we should not take individual bumps as some speed breakers in our ride towards glory.
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by munna »

SwamyG wrote:Munna: You might be immune to disparaging; but let me ask you a question - Where did I disparage you? Or do you construe me laughing at Bush being a visionary was remark against you?
Just meant 4 smileys and 3 yeahs are not necessary to tell me his (Bush) flaws, I will very much listen to you without them too.
Well you are getting in your own way. You seemed to have an objective and you just go about b*tch-slapping Obama as you please and as many times as you want
No my only objective is to point towards any particularly vicious leader against India and Big Owl is being one. If I disparage Musharraff then will do the same to him too, I am not swayed by his toady media nor the liberal consensus. The argument that all are bad to India is a bit like DDMs "All politicians are bad" cover for INC post 26/11 and is an attempt to hide his tilt towards Pakistan. I am trying to discuss the impact of weakening of a particularly anti-India president and what should be our responses to it?

And let us not get needlessly into punjabi, tamil, english, telugu, sanskrit ithaydi brains
Just quoting a quote from my mother tongue and not being a chauvinist!
Last edited by munna on 25 Jul 2009 08:56, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by vsudhir »

SwamyG makes a good point that it is indeed too early to write off the chances of the successful passage of the healthcare reformation (or is it Renaissance?) under Sri Obama's compassionate supervision (or is it dupervision? Lets settle for super duper vision, ok?).

I for one certainly hope Sri Obama Europeanizes or rather Canadianizes America. The old, week, inform, homeless, single mothers and others in the US have a far more meritorious case and claim on taxpayer dollahs, than do 'em ICGs, Fakap, Iraq, Paki aid, F22s, EJ funding and the like. Don't get me wrong, am not in the least writing off unkil or anything like that. In fact, Asia will be a net loser if unkil withdraws 100% but perhaps a 50% reduction in attn and dollahs showered on military buildups in this region can't be too bad. Perhaps. Or so moi hopes.

Anyway, blogger Mish shedlock writes up a rational storm in
Open Letter to President [Sri] Obama on Healthcare and the Economy

Good read, even if one doesn't agree 400%.
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by munna »

vsudhir wrote:SwamyG makes a good point that it is indeed too early to write off the chances of the successful passage of the healthcare reformation (or is it Renaissance?) under Sri Obama's compassionate supervision (or is it dupervision? Lets settle for super duper vision, ok?)
Neither do I believe that he will be defeated in a jiffy but what is refreshing is that the messiah is being questioned and the lemmings like establishment is no longer following his mad rush towards glory, couple that with him rubbing the Israel lobby the wrong way and the fiscal stimulus's (in)effectiveness in curbing unemployment. All of these make for interesting next few months at Rajdhani Parvatam.
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by vera_k »

Immigration reform is lined up next after healthcare. If he manages to get that through, he'll get re-elected and we're looking at fairly steady Democrat majorities 8-9 years down the road. Kind of like the Republican majorites after the 1986 IRCA.
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by Dileep »

Is the horse dead yet? And I run the danger of flogging it?
RajeshA wrote: o Would it be a criminal issue or a civilian issue, if somebody on the VIP List is screened on the aircraft?
I believe the logic of the law is like this:

The frisking rules are set for the airport security (CISF) to be enforced upon all the passengers. The excemption are for them. So, it would be a criminal offense if a CISF guy did the frisking.

There is no rule for or against an airline making additional security requirements over and above the IATA rules. Unless DGCA has made a rule saying that the frisking is illegal, the airline have not broken the law.
o I thought that the tickets one buys, are issued according to IATA rules, and not country specific rules like TSA rules!
No. The tickets issued by a US carrier need to obey BOTH the IATA and TSA(and FAA), whichever is stringent. Some such rules that were in place way before the security rules are about the liability on accidents, luggage allowances etc.
o Would you be in the know, whether the ex-President was screened in the aircraft (which would be unusual) or in the aerobridge, or in the airport building itself? This brings us to the first question!
All reports say that he was screened at the aerobridge.
o Has DGCA already made those demands that the foreign airline comply with Indian rules, including exemption from screening for those on the VIP List, whether that be
  • before the aerobridge,
  • on the aerobridge,
  • on the aircraft while it is still in Indian territory,
  • on the aircraft while it is in international airspace,
  • on the aircraft while it is US airspace.
I don't think so. The DGCA rules are for the airport security apparatus, and the excemption is for those rules. Since the rules don't apply to the airliner, the excemptions also don't apply. If DGCA want to enforce the excemption, they will have to make a rule saying "following VVIPs should not be subjected to security check by the airline". If that happened, the airline is in violation of a law.

I believe this is not the case, otherwise the thug would have already been arrested.

I am personally against VIP culture, but that is against the two bit politico who uses it as a status symbol (and the "sambandhakkaaran* of the royal family), not against ex heads of state/govt. Yes, even Deve Gowda is fine in the list.


*a slight made to a guy who shows off his in-laws. More about it on nukkad.
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by arun »

Excerpt from a Boston Globe op-ed.

Is Kapil Kommireddi an Indian citizen :?: :
US risks alienating India

By Kapil Komireddi | July 25, 2009

…………………......... Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to India this week came at a time when much of the goodwill generated by Bush’s efforts has soured. There is growing concern in New Delhi that the Obama administration, in its quest to win Pakistan’s wholehearted support for the war in Afghanistan, is pushing India to make extraordinary concessions to Islamabad. Last week, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh signed a joint declaration with his Pakistani counterpart to carry forward the “composite dialogue’’ with Islamabad regardless of Pakistan’s evident failure to prosecute the perpetrators of last November’s brutal attacks in Mumbai.

The government denies it, but the view that the declaration was a consequence of intense American pressure is unanimous in New Delhi. On Monday, the Indian government, as if compensating for this controversial concession, bluntly refused to sign any binding agreements on climate change with the United States. India’s Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh went about personally distributing copies of his exchange with Clinton to members of the press as she stood by silently. ………….....................

In its bid to appease Islamabad’s ruling elite, Washington risks alienating the Indian people. But New Delhi’s discomfort with President Obama goes beyond Pakistan. If his appointment of Representative Ellen Tauscher, a trenchant critic of the US-India civilian nuclear accord, to undersecretary of state for arms control and international affairs raised serious doubts in India about its full implementation, his choice of Tim Roemer, an Indiana congressman not particularly known for his knowledge of India, as ambassador to New Delhi looked like a snub - when contrasted with his pick for China, the high-profile Governor Jon Huntsman.

Obama has often said that he views India as a crucial 21st-century partner for the United States. But judged against his actions, his assurances sound like platitudes. Clinton’s five-day visit to India was meant to assuage New Delhi’s growing anxieties; it may have served only to aggravate them.

Kapil Komireddi is an Indian writer who specializes in South Asian affairs.


Boston Globe
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by arun »

RaviBg wrote:'Obama, Hillary differ in courting India'
{Snipped}"Real policymaking power, some say, is now exercised by a small West Wing group cantered on Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.
...{Snipped}

In search of a better China policy, "the White House saw the need to hedge against China, it looked to Russia," he says suggesting that's what the president's trip to Moscow this month was all about.

"Clinton's concept of siding with another large democracy seems much more attractive - and sustainable. Most important, the U.S. and India share values," Mr. Chang said.
...
...
The Forbes article by Gordon Chang is available here:
Clinton Chooses India

Gordon G. Chang , 07.24.09, 12:00 AM EDT

Alone in the administration, the Secretary of State makes the right call.

What has Hillary Clinton been doing in Asia in the last few days? First, she strengthened ties with the world's most populous democracy, visiting Mumbai and New Delhi and inking important agreements. Then she headed to Thailand where, among other things, she attended the Asean summit and signed its Treaty of Amity and Cooperation. ………………..............

But what was the Secretary of State really doing? She left the U.S. amid reports of intense infighting with a White House intent on marginalizing her role. ……………..............

This week, for instance, one of her State Department aides has argued in off-the-record conversations that Obama has been making a series of foreign policy blunders, among them letting the Chinese do whatever they want and giving them more than they ask for. The trip to India and Thailand, in one sense, is Clinton's way of literally and figuratively distancing herself from Obama, her way of letting us know she has better policies for dealing with Beijing.

Is this any way for Washington to conduct foreign relations? No, it's not, but it was virtually inevitable that Obama and Clinton would try to undermine each other. And in any event, the president needed a better China policy, and hers will definitely be more effective. To the extent the White House saw the need to hedge against China, it looked to Russia. ……………….....................

Yet the president needs to think about why we have to be wary about Beijing in the first place. It is not because China is large, rising or has the potential to become a peer competitor. It is because the nature of China's government--an insecure one-party regime--makes it an unreliable partner. ……………

Obama's response so far has been to partner with an insecure, secretive, intolerant and unpredictable Russia to counterbalance a China sharing the same characteristics. …………….. Moreover, Russia is a poor choice to begin with. Its economy is falling fast, it is plagued by intractable regional differences and its horrible demographic trends suggest its international standing will inevitably erode ……………….

Clinton's concept of siding with another large democracy seems much more attractive--and sustainable. Most important, the U.S. and India share values. ………..........................

Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China. He writes a weekly column for Forbes.

Forbes
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by Sanku »

ramana wrote: Whats the word for "hunted" in Hindi or Paschimi? For thats what India will become "hunted" or game.
The word I think you are looking for is Shikaar (although difficult to tell it apart in the english script from Shikar )

It can mean both the hunt as well as the prey depending on the context
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by RajeshA »

Dileep, thanks for your insight on Screening Exemptions for VIPs.
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by arun »

It is simply scandalous that the Dr. Manmohan Singh Government has been so tardy in actioning this case :oops:.

With the lapse of some 3 months since the frisking of our former President Abdul Kalam I will not be surprised to be shortly finding out that the US nationals against whom the FIR has been lodged have long since fled from India as was the case with, Lockheed Martin India's CEO Ambassador Douglas A Hartwick:
FIR FILED, ROW GROWS

Four US airline officials booked for frisking Kalam

CNN-IBN
Published on Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 17:32

…………… CNN-IBN learns the FIR has been lodged against Laurent Recoura, country director, Allen Field, station manager of Continental, Cynthia Carlier, area security manager, and Jaideep, security in-charge. ………….........

CNN-IBN
Meanwhile even after being unconscionably tardy, the Dr. Manmohan Singh Government does not appear to see any need of ensuring that the guilty are fortwith brought to book and bureaucratic tardiness is permitted to prevail:

Delhi Police in a fix over lodging FIR in Kalam frisking case
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by RajeshA »

If Obama and his friends have decided to sideline Hillary Clinton, then it sets a nice situation.

Obama takes care of
- Mideast personally by giving Lectures in Ankara, Cairo, etc., disses Israel, and uses George Mitchell to do the shuttling.
- China through the G-2, Treasury Dept.
- Russia through his own highest-level diplomacy
- AfPak through Holbrooke
- Iraq through the Pentagon
- Europe again personally with his equation with Angela Merkel, etc.

So what is left over for Hillary? Where is she going to leave her mark, on what rock is she going to build her legacy? She has to choose from the leftovers for the State Department -

That leaves Iran
That leaves South-East Asia
That leaves Climate-Change
That leaves Nuclear Non-Proliferation
That leaves Aid Programs for the Third World

... and that leaves India

Democratic controlled State Dept has usually been averse to good relations with India. But if State Dept is cut off from all big item issues of the world, they would have to take what is left and make the most of it. Condoleeza Rice was able to steer the State Dept. to show more positive interest in India.

Hillary Clinton too can do the same.
  • First and foremost she can clip the wings of the Non-Poliferation Ayotallahs who think that under the reign of the Non-Proliferationist-in-Chief Barack Obama they can start all over again to do a CRE on India.
  • Secondly she can put a stop to all those who think, that Kashmir needs to be brought into the mix, to pay for Pakistan's services in GWoT or for keeping India in the dock
  • Thirdly, she can ensure that India gets good terms in any agreement with the United States, be it on defense or in other areas
  • Fourthly, she can be a voice for balancing the tendencies in the Obama Administration to hand over Asia to China, ignoring India's interests
  • Fifthly in India's tussle with Pakistan, she can ensure that even as US retains a pro-Pakistani rhetoric, they force Pakistan to yield on terrorism, and other areas
The more Obama is disinterested in India, the more room for maneuverability she has. She knows she will be the Secretary of State only for one term, and then she will be thrown out. She is not going to get any rewards for Obama's Non-Proliferation Agenda, because all the brownie-points would be collected by Obama. There is no need for her to go our of her way to support him on that. She can always plead that there are too many countries which are uncooperative.

Where she can score is on Climate Change. When she was a candidate she did give a few lectures on climate change. So it is not an agenda connected only to Obama.

Another area where she can score points is India. After all, Indians were one of her core constituencies. If she improves US-India relations, where Obama seems distracted, that constituency would remain with her. Atmospherics count.

These can be her two legacies when she leaves Office on 20th January 2012.
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by derkonig »

^^^
Good all in all, how will India remember Hillary's trip? Will it be about continued US interest in India or will the general feeling be that it was purely to promote US interests while overriding Indian concerns.
Also, how does the GoTUS rate this visit?
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by NRao »

India JUST may have to encourage a coalition within the US of the current SD + industrial giants that will have a stake in India. Not that they all should dump China, which is what China's game plan is - to dump India. But certainly the one person running US FP from the White House needs to go. A very, very tough act, but doable.

BUT, this does seem to indicate my conclusion that Clinton did NOT mis-speak about ENR while in India. If at all it is just the opposite. She conducted a coup of the G8.

Let us see.
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by RajeshA »

Can it be that there is internal sniping going on in GOTUS on the issue of ENR for India?
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by Kakkaji »

MJ Akbar's take in dailypioneer.com. Posting in full. My apologies if already posted:

Dulcet smiles in public, straight talk in private
MJ Akbar

Hillary Clinton’s seamless public-posture-private-face skills, surely honed during the many domestic and national crises during Mr Bill Clinton’s term as President, were put to admirable use during her visit to India. Her first visit to India, as Mrs President, was arguably her most important. It established the goodwill that her husband put to such excellent diplomatic use during his state visit. The ice that Mr Clinton broke became a tide during Mr George W Bush’s eight years. The jury is still out on whether the tide will recede, stagnate or become a flood.

A politician without public relations has to be terribly lucky to be popular. Ms Clinton has outdistanced luck. She crafted her language with enough nuance to fool an advertising agency. Focussed on the Indian need for appearances she de-hyphenated her visit from Pakistan and bracketed it with ASEAN. New Delhi squirms at any equivalence with Islamabad, as an India-Pakistan itinerary would imply; its self-image, backed up by international recognition of its growing economic muscle, places India on a much higher status platform than Pakistan. Ms Clinton surely recalled one reason why her husband was such a hit in India: Because he gave Pakistan barely the time of the day on that subcontinental tour, stopping over only for a humiliating few hours after some rather desperate pleading by Islamabad. A hyphen with a neighbour like China is no problem for India, as King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia gauged so astutely during his breakthrough visit to India.

Ms Clinton began by upgrading India from ‘emerging’ superpower to ‘dormant’ superpower, before slipping in the stiletto: If India wanted to be called grown-up it would have to behave like one. To get an Obama-Hillary promotion from ‘dormant superpower’ to ‘active superpower’ India needs to sign the NPT, which will force Pakistan to sign as well. (There is very little talk in Washington, incidentally, of getting Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.) India would also have to stop being, to use an appropriate term, defensive about the end-user agreement, a necessary pre-condition for arms sales from the sole technology superpower. If other nations purchasing American arms could find pen and ink to sign, why should India be exempted? Otherwise, dear Indian friends, you are going to be stuck with Sukhois in the sky while the Pakistanis get boutique arsenals at Wal-Mart prices, the cash for which comes from Washington in any case. Make up your mind, sleepyhead! If you want to become a strategic partner of the United States, the deal is crystal clear: India gets the partnership while Pentagon decides the strategy. That’s the way with Nato, and near-Nato allies like Pakistan. If India wants to be a near-near-Nato ally, keep the ink wet.

Friendship can always take a tweak or two, if required. America’s nuclear industry would be delighted to fulfil the Indian order for two plants, indented in the Letter of Intent given in September 2008. There is merely the little matter of insurance liability. Everyone remembers Union Carbide’s grinder through the courts after Bhopal. Which sensible corporation would want to shut down as a consequence of one mistake? Lots of mature, flourishing and indisputably independent nations place a cap on insurance liability so that a brave company like Westinghouse knows exactly what it is getting into. Moreover, if an Indian company like Tata or Ambani operates a Westinghouse plant, the insurance liability should be a local, not American, headache, even if the damage is through a design flaw. If Americans had operated the plant they would have discovered the flaw before the accident, isn’t it?

Who could argue with Ms Clinton’s dulcet public smile and private straight talk?

I cannot recall an equally impressive American Secretary of State since Mr Henry Kissinger, and, take my word for it, Mr Kissinger’s smile was not dulcet. Ms Clinton’s forthcoming book on diplomacy should have a working title: How to make friends in India and influence people in Pakistan. All through her India trip she dropped little alibis for Pakistan, and no one either noticed or cared, even when she explained away Islamabad’s duplicity in the case against Hafiz Saeed. The legal process tends to be time-consuming everywhere: We all know that, don’t we?

Language, the right choice of phrase, the selection of proper nuance and moment: These were Ms Clinton’s great weapons. How unobservant of her hosts, then, not to pick up a lesson in the fine art of shaping opinion. The joint statement in Egypt is a problem. The people have questions. But the justifications trotted by Delhi’s second-tier power line have only made the Government’s dilemma worse. To accept that the drafting was poor was to admit error; what is poor for India must be ipso facto rich for Pakistan. This was compounded by an atrocious claim that the joint statement was not “legally binding”. International relations are taped to the written and signed word. That is why we hold Pakistan down to Gen Pervez Musharraf’s recognition of cross-border terrorism in a joint statement. Even in the wasteland of the Indo-Pak dialogue, joint statements are the landmarks by which we negotiate the journey. They must be laughing off their heads and giggling across their bellies in Islamabad.


The Congress, sensibly, imposed omertà. Silence can do no worse than evoke a snide aside from media. Since a thick skin is compulsory in public life, such nicks leave neither a mark nor a scar. A twist-and-weave misstatement, on the other hand, can stain a Government’s reputation without cleaning the mess. But who can tell the bold and the beautiful that it is sometimes better to be cool and quiet?
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by ramana »

x-posted...
Do we have a list of people that met Hillary Clinton in Mumbai? Business and politicians and eminent people.
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by Gerard »

To get an Obama-Hillary promotion from ‘dormant superpower’ to ‘active superpower’ India needs to sign the NPT, which will force Pakistan to sign as well.
Is there anyone left in the US ruling elite who seriously thinks that India will ever get rid of its nuclear weapons by signing the NPT? And a "superpower" without nuclear arms?
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by Chellaram »

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) claims the US needs to keep the F-22 fighter plane program alive in order to deal with emerging international threats -- including India (which is the first country he thinks of when coming up with his list of enemies):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP9By-fHG4s

:shock: :roll:

cant call him clueless or ignorant, however, considering that he is the founder and co-chair of Senate India Caucus
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by svinayak »

Here is a statement from their office:

"Sen. Cornyn misspoke saying 'India' when he meant to say 'China.' As Founder and Co-chairman of the Senate India Caucus, no Senator has greater respect or admiration for India or values our relationship with them more. Sen. Cornyn regrets the mistake and apologizes for any misunderstanding this may have caused."
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by vera_k »

Come on, there's no way Sen. Cornyn meant what he said. He must have misspoken.
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by putnanja »

MEA stalling India's rise to great power?
NEW DELHI: Instead of a catalyst for India's transformation into a world power, the foreign ministry may be a drag, preventing the nation from
moving up the international power ladder.

This is the conclusion drawn by Daniel Markey, of the Council for Foreign Relations and a former US state department official. Markey says in his article titled ‘Developing India’s Foreign Policy Software’ that India’s diplomatic service, think-tanks and universities are not yet up to the task of managing an agenda befitting a great power.

Raising doubts over India’s “software’’, which he describes as the intellectual and institutional infrastructure, Markey says institutions charged with researching, formulating, debating and implementing foreign policy are often underdeveloped, in decay, or chronically short of resources.

On the high-profile IFS, Markey says it is “small, hobbled by its selection process and inadequate mid-career training’’ and tends not to make use of outside expertise.

Markey says India needs to expand its foreign service to keep pace with its global aspirations. “In contrast to organisations with an up-or-out promotion scheme where underperformers are weeded out, nearly everyone in the IFS rises to the upper echelons,’’ says Markey.

According to former diplomat and author Krishna S Rana, Markey’s study indicates how India’s major foreign policy partners like the US perceive India’s stunted capacity to engage in international negotiations on multiple subjects because of outdated institutional arrangements.

In fact, Markey’s study in a way is an authentication of an earlier report prepared by diplomat S K Lambah in which he had said that merit and performance —and not seniority alone — should be the main criteria for promotion. Lambah also said in his 2002 report that the weeding out process should begin at the level of director.

Markey also harps on the fact that the IFS is constrained by its selection process which, he says, is rooted in the old civil service tradition. “The fact that the highest scorers in the civil service exam tend to choose non-IFS careers also reflects poorly on the prestige and appeal of the foreign service,’’ says Markey’s report.

The MEA outsources analytical tasks to think-tanks, as senior policy-makers are bogged down by daily operational responsibilities. On India’s think-tanks, the report says these lack sufficient access to the information or resources required to conduct high-quality, policy-relevant scholarship.

It adds that India’s “poorly funded’’ universities fail to provide world-class education in the fields of foreign policy and that the media and private firms are not built to “undertake foreign policy research or training’’.
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by putnanja »

shyamd
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Post by shyamd »

Indian American group concerned over high handed attitude of AP police
Washington D.C., July 20, 2009: Indian Muslim Council, an advocacy group dedicated towards safeguarding India's pluralist and tolerant ethos, is concerned that the Andhra Pradesh police may have acted without due process in transferring custody of the suspect arrested at Hyderabad airport without obtaining a transient warrant from an appropriate court.

IMC-USA fears that Andhra Pradesh police may have repeated the same mistakes of the previous arrests and handing over the custody of alleged accused to police of other states without the oversight of the courts.

According to news from Hyderabad on Jul 19, 2009 Shaukatullah Ghori, has been arrested as he arrived at the Rajiv Gandhi International airport in Hyderabad on suspicions of his involvement in Akshardham temple attack. Mr. Rasheed Ahmed, President of IMC-USA said that "The behavior of the Andhra Pradesh police as documented in the Andhra Pradesh State Minorities Commission report compiled by an Independent Commissioner Advocate Ravi Chander following the illegal arrests and torture of 23 suspects accused in the Hyderabad bomb blasts in 2007 leaves little confidence in the A.P. Police's professionalism" Mr. Ahmed added that "I might add that almost all of these so called terrorists were later found innocent and acquitted by the criminal courts".

IMC-USA reminds that the draconian law like POTA has produced no positive results for the security of the nation; it has only made Indian citizens less free.

Indian Muslim Council-USA is the largest advocacy organization of Indian Muslims in the United States with 10 chapters across the nation.
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by bala »

There was a small news item that many missed here. Hilary Clinton, after her extensive visits to TSP, India and Asian nations returned back to the US and the first thing she did is drop in and visit with China's representative in the US. This clearly implies that the Chinese are calling the shots, maybe the ROI for their debt forgiveness program. How better than to have US State Dept report to them on the findings in TSP, India and other Asian nations. I am sure the briefing spent an inordinate amount of time on India. The US Democrats are deeply in bed with China.
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by Amber G. »

bala wrote:There was a small news item that many missed here. Hilary Clinton, after her extensive visits to TSP, India and Asian nations returned back to the US... .
Minor correction, Hilary Clinton may have been brave enough to duck sniper fire in Bosnia but one look at this Image..
.and, ... she did not visit TSP this time... :mrgreen:
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by r_subramanian »

Chicken samosa served at White House reception
Would this improve Indo-US relations :-?
Pledging a new era of engagement with the world, US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama served "chicken samosa" among other mouthwatering dishes at a White House reception hosted for scores of ambassadors, including new Indian envoy to the US Meera Shankar.
...
Chicken Samosa
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by putnanja »

BOTH SWEET AND BITTER- It is good for India to shake hands with the US, not embrace it - Kanwal Sibal
For a country like India it is very difficult to find the right balance in forging relations with the United States of America. The relationship cannot be one of equals because of overwhelming US power. It cannot be based on unequal status either, as that would be politically problematic. There is a lot to be gained in building strong ties with the US, but the “collateral damage” can be significant. As it is the world’s foremost power, the largest market and the most advanced country technologically, for a rising power like India, the relationship with the US cannot be ignored. Habituated to pre-eminence, the US will not cede space without attempting to fit countries in the global system designed and dominated by it. This is euphemistically defined as countries bearing their share of global responsibilities, of becoming responsible stakeholders. This explains the tensions in policies of countries like India towards the US. We want to be close to the US and yet want to keep a distance. We are flattered by the overtures the US makes towards us, but feel unsure about how far we should go in response. If the US offers to help India become a global power, a section of the Indian establishment gets excited, whereas another section fears the likely loss of independence this may entail.

...
Another form of pressure is through US non-governmental organizations that sit in judgment on countries and give score-cards for transparency, corruption levels, religious freedoms, democracy index, openness of economy and so on, constantly putting others on the defensive internationally.
...

In the defence field, the US can offer some very advanced technologies, but its military sales and transfers are accompanied by end-use monitoring that in many ways infringe the sovereignty of the recipient country. The US can demand such intrusive rights from allies whose defence it is responsible for, but not from independent countries who might make their own decisions on the security issues confronting them. I
...
...
The recent visit of the secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, should be viewed in the context just outlined. The visit was successful in many ways from the US point of view, but the results were mixed for us. The sweetness of success with the US is often laced with the bitterness of a forced concession. The public relations blitz surrounding her visit distracted attention from a hard headed examination of what she said and did not say, and the political intent behind the issues put in the forefront of discussions with us. The atmospherics were excellent, courtesy our fawning media that treated her as a political star, dividing their attention between serious business and trivialities.

...
We conveyed our agreement to the end-use monitoring agreement — no signing is required — to which the US attached priority, but the logistics support agreement and the communications interoperability and security memorandum of agreement, the other two defence-related agreements that the US has mooted, and about which we continue to have reservations, could not be finalized.
...
...
On climate change, the tough US message has been enveloped in the language of engagement, and what is essentially a multilateral issue is sought to be treated as a bilateral India-US issue, which would be problematic for us. On the sensitive issue of terror, on which the US position is particularly unsatisfactory from our point of view, Clinton got away by being general and evasive and was not put on the mat. She sought to please us with sound bites and avoided displeasing Pakistan by not addressing publicly our specific grievances. The understanding she showed of Pakistan’s inability to bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai attack to justice quickly was unfortunate, especially as the implication was that Pakistan genuinely wants to do so, a proposition that flies in the face of the reality of its conduct.
...
...
The challenge before India is to leverage US strengths to its advantage without conceding ground on issues of vital interest to us. Decrying the US ideologically would be entirely wrong, just as relying on the US to make us a global power would be fanciful. We should be ready to shake hands with the US but be cautious about embracing it.
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by CRamS »

r_subramanian wrote:Chicken samosa served at White House reception
Would this improve Indo-US relations :-?
Pledging a new era of engagement with the world, US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama served "chicken samosa" among other mouthwatering dishes at a White House reception hosted for scores of ambassadors, including new Indian envoy to the US Meera Shankar.
...
Chicken Samosa
Actually, DDM will go ecstatic, citing this as India arriving on the global scene :-). "My friend Strobe" as Jassu bhai fondly remembers him, who said that if India does this, this, and this, it will be rewarded with a US presedential visit; now might say that if India does this, this, and this; samosa will become a permanent item on white house's menu :-).
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by bala »

amber G. wrote:she did not visit TSP this time

Yes, my bad. However she gets briefed by her representatives and the flavor of the times is South Asia in the US State Dept. BTW, today US treasury secretary Geithner and Obama are pitching their economic tale to Deputy Premier of China. They are calming his nerves about the tidy trade imbalance loot that China has stashed away in the US economy. China must be attaching a string of conditions and I bet that India is at the receiving end of those demands. Watch for more cuddling of the US with China.
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by SwamyG »

Dems and Repubs equally can contribute to laws and policies that could/will have impact on India. An example: Industry donates to drug plan foes
Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., and Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C. authored a bill to give drug companies 12 years of exclusive rights to sell biotech drugs, rather than seven as proposed by President Obama.

Lawmakers who count pharmaceutical companies among their biggest contributors lead the opposition to a health care proposal that would cut costs by allowing generic drugs to compete sooner with pricey biotechnology drugs, campaign-finance records show.
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by Satya_anveshi »

bala wrote:China must be attaching a string of conditions and I bet that India is at the receiving end of those demands. Watch for more cuddling of the US with China.
I sincerely hope that concerned people in *all* of our establishment should be very wary now.

[*]Chinese losses and vulnerability exposed due to crisis
[*]Uighur crisis
[*]India's seemingly coming out jihadi mess in J&K
[*]Situation in SL and resultant "big boy" attitude by India there
[*]*supposed* strategic alliances with US and military exercise in IOR
[*]weapons development (longer range Agnis, advanced Prithivi's and now Arihants) and narrowing the gap

So many other reasons when chinese were left with nothing but sit tight.

What does it take US to once again turn a blind eye, or even actually aid in planning and abetting a crisis like 1962 on India?
N3 nicely put in in Uighur thread...Anytime now..
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

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Wife: NY man wanted in Bhopal gas leak 'haunted'
BRIDGEHAMPTON, N.Y. — The former head of the chemical company responsible for the gas leak that killed 10,000 people in India 25 years ago has been "haunted" for years by the world's worst industrial disaster, his wife said Saturday.

An Indian court issued a warrant Friday for Warren Anderson, the former head of Union Carbide Corp., for the leak of 40 tons of poisonous gas that killed 10,000 people in Bhopal. Anderson was arrested just after the disaster in the central Indian city but quickly left the country.

U.S. authorities have not moved to extradite him and he has maintained homes in Florida, Connecticut and in Long Island's Hamptons.

His wife, Lillian, answered the door Saturday at the couple's modest yellow farmhouse with a white picket fence, and silver Cadillac parked in the driveway. Her husband is 89 and in poor health, she said.

"We covered everything way back when," she said. "He's been haunted for many years" by the accident.

Lillian Anderson wasn't aware of the new arrest warrant and said, "It's probably some political thing." She said her husband wasn't at home.

"When you get to be 87 or 85 years old you just don't remember anything. You try to put bad things out of your mind," she said.

Anderson was the chief executive of Union Carbide, now owned by Midland, Mich.-based Dow Chemical Co., when the deadly gas cloud leaked from its Bhopal factory on Dec. 3, 1984.
<SNIP>
On Friday, in response to a recent appeal by a victims' group, Prakash Mohan Tiwari ordered the arrest of Anderson. Tiwari, Bhopal's chief judicial magistrate, also ordered the federal government to press Washington for the American's extradition.

India's government as of Saturday had not acted on the court's request to seek his extradition.

Foreign governments typically notify the State Department through their U.S. embassies when extradition is requested of an American citizen and the request is reviewed by the Justice Department.

A message left at the Indian Embassy in Washington was not immediately returned Saturday. State Department spokeswoman Megan Mattson said Saturday she is not aware of an extradition or arrest request from India or the embassy.
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by svinayak »

* LIFE & STYLE
* JULY 31, 2009
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... %3Darticle


Hollywood Destroys the World

The new wave of disaster movies and TV shows isn’t about staving off the apocalypse. It’s what happens afterwards that counts. Viggo Mortensen versus the cannibals.

By JOHN JURGENSEN and JAMIN BROPHY-WARREN
[CALAMITY1] Alcon Entertainment

Denzel Washington stars in ‘The Book of Eli.’

Director Roland Emmerich has nearly destroyed the world three times already. This time, he means to finish the job.

In his next movie, “2012,” which comes out in November, the earth will rip apart, fulfilling an ancient prophecy. The director previously leveled civilization with an alien attack in the 1996 movie “Independence Day,” unleashed Godzilla a couple years later and orchestrated a climate disaster in 2004’s “The Day After Tomorrow.” His new film, he says, reflects a darker world view. “I’m really very pessimistic these days,” he says.
video
The End of The World As You Know It
3:11

A new crop of Hollywood disaster flicks coming this fall deal not with the fall of civilization but the struggles of post-apocalyptic survivors. John Jurgenson reports.

A flood of postapocalyptic stories is now headed toward movie theaters and TV screens: Expect to see characters fending off cannibals, picking up day-to-day survival techniques and struggling to maintain their humanity amid the ruins. Previous waves of pop-culture disaster, from the Atomic Age paranoia of “War of the Worlds” to Watergate-era flicks such as “The Towering Inferno,” have depicted calamity in stunning detail. Many of the new projects, however, actually skip the spectacle of doomsday. Instead, they’re more fixed on what goes down in the aftermath.

In “The Book of Eli,” a movie scheduled for January, Denzel Washington plays the fierce protector of a book that holds the key to mankind’s redemption in an American wasteland created by a war 30 years earlier. “Day One,” a series coming to NBC in March, follows a handful of neighbors trying to survive and understand a calamity that erased the world’s infrastructure. “The Colony,” now airing on Discovery Channel, is a reality show set in an imagined end-times period in which contestants hunt for food, water and shelter after a presumed disaster.

No humans at all survive in the blighted world of “9,” an animated film produced by Tim Burton in which mechanical dolls learn from the mistakes of their extinct creators (release date: 09/09/2009). Strong buzz has been building since last year for “The Road,” this October’s film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s best-selling novel, about a boy and his father trudging through the scorched remnants of an unspecified cataclysm.
1) Things to Come

(1936): Written by H.G. Wells, this speculative tale, whose plot follows 100 years of future history, follows a society torn apart by war. Many of the battles in the movie presaged those of World War II, which was just on the horizon.
2) When Worlds Collide

(1951): Based on the 1932 sci-fi novel by Philip Gordon Wylie and Edwin Balmer, the film won an Academy Award for its special effects depicting the outcome of a rogue planet’s collision with the Earth. “The Mummy” director Stephen Sommers will helm the 2010 remake.
3) War of the Worlds

(1953): Martian invaders are the centerpiece of this film based on the H.G. Wells novel. Orson Welles narrated a radio version in 1938; Tom Cruise starred in Steven Spielberg’s 2005 film remake.
4) On the Beach

(1959): Written during the chill of the Cold War, Nevil Shute’s novel about the aftermath of World War III was adapted for film and starred Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, and Fred Astaire.
[CALAMITYSIDE2] Everett Collection
5) Planet of the Apes

(1968): Charlton Heston faces off against a civilization in which apes enslave men; a scene in front of the Statue of Liberty’s head became one of sci-fi’s biggest shockers. The movie inspired four movie sequels and a widely-panned 2001 remake.
6) The Omega Man

(1971): Chased by nocturnal, blood-drinking mutants, Mr. Heston once again struggles to survive in a bleak new world ravaged by biological warfare. The story originated from the Richard Matheson novel “I Am Legend,” which was also the title used for the blockbuster 2007 remake starring Will Smith.
7) Mad Max

(1979): This dystopian film tracked a policeman (played by Mel Gibson) avenging the death of his family. The movie’s vistas of dusty highways and ruined automobile
8) The Terminator

s were much-copied by other filmmakers.

(1984): The film, about rebel robots who launch a war on humans, started a franchise that has run for more than two decades so far, and helped launch Arnold Schwarzenegger’s career as an action star.
9) Armageddon

(1998): Director Michael Bay’s film was emblematic of the disaster movie craze of the late 1990s that included other asteroid films such as “Deep Impact” and a spate of nature-related ones including “Twister” and “Volcano.”
[CALAMITYSIDE3] Photofest
10) The Matrix

(1999): What if the world as we know it ended and nobody noticed? This thriller from the Wachowski Brothers portrays a future in which evil machines keep humans pacified by immersing them in a computer simulation that mimics everyday reality. Keanu Reeves plays Neo, far left, the hero who discovers the truth, and helps to save mankind from illusion.
11) 28 Days Later

(2002): Science and horror meet in this Danny Boyle-directed movie in which an experimental virus creates fast-moving zombies who chase victims through the English countryside.
12) Idiocracy

(2007): “Office Space” director Mike Judge’s satirical take on a future dominated and decimated by rampant stupidity. The film flopped but lives on as a cult favorite.
[CALAMITYSIDE4] Disney/Pixar
13. Wall-E

(2008): The apocalypse through the eyes of Pixar, this film about a world abandoned by humans and buried with trash introduced the title character, a doe-eyed, garbage-collecting robot. He unwittingly discovers plant life, spurring man’s return to his home planet.

--Jamin Brophy-Warren

Most of the storytellers say they are reacting to anxiety over real threats in uncertain times: the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, two U.S. wars abroad, multiple pandemics, a global financial crisis and new attention to environmental perils. “The Road” even weaves in footage shot during recent disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina, into its scenes of destruction.

“For me, I feel like I live in an apocalyptic world with global warfare, a recession, and resource scarcity,” says Jesse Alexander, writer and executive producer of NBC’s “Day One.”
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by Singha »

excerpt from "Assam - valley of tea and temples" by amrit baruah - a story of his life in 1930s assam.

Then came Pearl Harbor and its effects: the soldiers; the trucks, bigger than what people had seen; a new vehicle called the jeep. And then the jungles really came down, makeshift airstrips appeared and planes looking like the “raths” or sky chariots (which the scriptures talked about when describing the war between some gods) and which local people had not seen till 1942, began to fly in and land.
At the same time, a phenomenal work of building a road started. It started beyond the towns of Lido and Marghareta —remote towns with Italian names because the British had brought in an Italian architect to take care of a daunting construction job.
American equipment, the kind not seen before—big tractors, tall cranes looking like birds that went up to the skies, and tools that were models of efficiency, before which the forest did not have a chance—soon brought to life two roads, the famous Burma Road and the Stilwell Road.
A massive war effort of men, material, supplies and trucks began to climb up these roads towards the enemy.

It was an amazing feat. All the building materials had to come from outside the state from whichever port was convenient
for the landing of these materials. From the port it came by train and towards the end of the journey, it was a narrowgauge
train. And then GIs continued to arrive.

The GI was not part of India’s history. The British tommy, even that 21yearold
who arrived for the first time in India from a small town in England, automatically became part of the Raj. Somewhere in his past, it was likely
that he had a connection with India. His nephew, his granduncle, the brother of his brotherinlaw
may have served in India in any of the civilian or military operations. Or at least a neighbor was similarly connected.

Now comes the GI. To the common man in India, he is a soldier but he is not to be feared. A white man who was friendly, in spite of the language barrier, he seemed to want to talk more than just ordering a drink or a taxi— the extent of the British tommy's verbal connection with this Indian.
If there was keeping of a distance with the GI it was more from the Indian’s side because the latter was not used to social conversational giveandtake
with a white man.

Soon the ways of this new white man, the American, were noticed and talked about. If the GI wanted a taxi, he did not mind crossing the street to get into the taxi, unlike the British tommy who demanded that the taxi driver come around, cross the street and stop where he was and open the door. If the only way to go in that hot sun was a humanpulled
rickshaw, the GI was privately uncomfortable sitting on the rickshaw being pulled by a sweating human being, and a frail one at that. His way of handling it, perhaps even without any psychological analysis, was to get the rickshaw driver to sit and be pulled by the GI for a short distance, thus making the situation a comfortable one. Now he could sit and be pulled
.

Occasionally there would be some humorous story that circulated in the city. A GI reluctantly stood up at the end of a movie in Metro when “God Save the King” was played and it was compulsory that the audience stand. It seems that he said under his breath, “God won’t save their king, we Americans will.” The Indians loved it.

Indians commented that these are good guys, not haughty like British soldiers who thought it was beneath their standard to be seen in Indian neighborhoods.
Some GIs visited the Bengali artist Jamini Roy in his studio, and bought his art creations exquisite
small pieces to send home as Calcutta souvenirs.

Like Americans at home, the young GI knew practically nothing about India. Back home most of his countrymen did not have the direct experience of India the
dust, heat, spicy food, comfort of servants, the customary “koi hai” British brand of power and prestige. India, for most Americans, was a poor but exotic place, which gave Hollywood Elephant Boy, with Sabu in the lead role. It also gave Hollywood a few other movies; with the Taj Mahal, tigers and turbans. It was a playful connection that America had with India just as for the Indian, America meant Hollywood.

In some quarters, the connection was more serious. It was known that while Churchill and Roosevelt agreed on most matters, one of their major differences was independence
for India, which Roosevelt used to argue for. That was a matter that used to evoke from Churchill “over my dead body,” or something in more dignified language.
But there was one thing about India which this young GI had known from his parents. India had Gandhi and whatever Gandhi was doing was great. As a soldier he was apolitical and he did not know the details; but instinctively
he was for Gandhi’s movement. He had occasionally heard about it from his parents.

Considering the comforts of home from which this boy, hardly out of high school, had been plucked, to be put in the jungles of remote Assam, his adjustment was remarkable.
It was not easy, what with heavy monsoon rains, leeches crawling up their trousers, malaria, dysentery, and Japanese bayonets. When not involved in marches and action, his refuge was the soldiers’ camps, behind mosquitonetted
verandahs, to his Life and Time and Lucky Strikes and Philip Morris and listening to bigband
music from home over the shortwave
radio, courtesy of the USO, and “pinup
girl” Betty Grable.

There was a third refuge but that could happen only during
his R and R trip to Calcutta. He was prized by the AngloIndian
girls who loved not just his generosity but his outgoingness and cordiality, contrasted with that of the British soldier; and he had something which the British tommy could not give these girls —as one of them worded it, the GI could give her “those Clark Gable accents” coming
out of the dark when the two of them were together. They were thrilled by that.

The war brought America with a human face. This country that was associated with glamour and celluloid suddenly appeared in flesh and blood and a vulnerability that England had not shown all during her two hundred years in India. There are two scenes remaining from that period that illustrate this human face.

It was the spring of 1943; there was a large GI base outside
of my home town Jorhat where an airport had sprung up within a few months. In the blackedout
town, I was returning with a couple of friends from a late night movie. We were walking on the Trunk Road. It had begun to rain and suddenly there was a streak of lightning. At that moment, we saw a young GI, apparently drunk, unsteady on his feet, crying and shouting, “Guys, don't leave me.” We did not know what to do; feeling helpless and sorry for him, we kept walking.

The other scene was during the day and in the hot sun of summer when the temperature went up to 120 degrees. A group of GIs were constructing an extension of a road near their camp and they had nothing on but their short shorts. That was the first time anyone in the town had seen a white man with his body almost bare. In that one noontime,
those guys shattered a westerner’s heritage of always appearing in public fully dressed—the men in suits and ties, the women in long dresses, and always dressing for dinner
while being waited upon by the “native help.”
:rotfl:

Through the GI, the American image—shiny, informal, comfortable and convenient—began to spread. The big wrench; suit carrier garment
bag instead of the bulky suitcase
in which the suits had to be carefully folded; the Ronson cigarette lighter instead of matches; the leather toiletkit
bag; the shoulder bag, out of which the shiny Life magazine came; the long cartons of Philip Morris cigarettes, the pack opening in a different way than the English and Indian cigarettes did; sunglasses with green lenses, whereas the lenses that Indians had seen until then were always black. An entire mystique grew up around this young American. It seemed to people that war could be hell but Americans knew how to make the road to hell at least comfortable. :twisted:
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Re: India-US News and Discussion

Post by Singha »

2nd excerpt:

The happygolucky noncolonial
mood that the GI conveyed
to the Indians in contrast with his fellow white soldier,
the British tommy, had a coveredup
ugly fact for which of course the individual GI was not responsible. That was segregation—not only in the American South, which we had read about in high school, but in the U.S. armed services as well.
For one thing there were no black soldiers in India and certainly not in my corner of Assam Valley. It was not until nearly 65 years later, while reading through the Washington Post of June 4, 2008, that I learned not only that racial segregation
was alive and well even in my remote IndiaBurma
frontier, but that there had been an ugly episode in my own backyard.
Here is the gist of the story as reported in the Post of June 4, 2008—at times in the words of Will Haygood, Washington
Post staff writer:

“He was a smoothie and a cad, walking and swaying up and down U street as if he owned the town. Young women swooned over Herman Perry in those preWorld
War II days. He liked silk suits and white shirts, soul food and dancing at night. The war, as it had done to so many others, caught him up in in midstride.”
He was shipped out to the IndoBurma
theater. The 849th Engineer Aviation Battalion (750 black soldiers, Herman Perry among them, and 50 white officers) headed towards that frontier from Staten Island in July of 1943. None of the black soldiers were told their destination. That destination was a massive building project—the building of the Stilwell Road to connect with the future Burma Road, to ferry supplies to aid the Chinese.
For all these years Perry’s family—a surviving sister— had been bewildered about his death. His remains never came home.

And now the story is out due to the zeal of a 33yearold
firsttime
author: Yale graduate Brendan Koerner, whose book on this story, Now the Hell will Start: One Soldier’s Flight from the Greatest Manhunt of World War II, has just been published. Some critics refer to it as a “Heart of Darkness,” “Apocalypse Now” type of story.

To make it particularly
arresting, Koerner’s book utilizes army documents and records that he obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. He became obsessed with the case, and left his Manhattan apartment for the Burmese jungles— where he became ill—looking for traces of Perry’s past.

Here is what he has put together:
Like many of the black soldiers in the unit—men who swung shovels and pickaxes and broke rock all day—Perry complained of mistreatment. In his case, it was quite specific.
He had already served two weeks beyond his original 90 days in the stockade without any explanation.
So one morning he just walked out to the jungle. Within hours Perry was confronted on the road by Lt. Harold Cody, who was unarmed and intended to arrest Perry. Sweating and sobbing, Perry kept shouting at Cody, “Get back, get back!” But Cody was inching towards him.

It was then that it happened—the incident that would seal Perry’s fate. He took his rifle and shot Cody in the chest and then the stomach and immediately ran towards the jungle, which he seemed to know quite well.

What came after that is even more unreal. Perry arrived in a village of Naga tribesmen—headhunters who were at first puzzled and soon charmed by him. Perry stayed on, married a young woman of the Naga tribe, and fathered a child. “I intended to spend the remaining years of my life in the jungle,” Perry later confessed, “and live with the Naga girl whom I claim as my wife.”

The manhunt that had been given up was resumed once word spread about a black man in a Naga tribal village. Cornered and bleeding from a gunshot wound inflicted by
U.S. soldiers, he was taken to a makeshift army hospital, where he was given blood. It was blood from the black soldiers;
the army would not allow blood from a white soldier to be given to a black.


Now the story shifts to the sleepy town in my own childhood
backyard that played a crucial role in the story—the town of Ledo. Perry’s court martial began in early September, 1944, at a tea plantation there. His military lawyer, Clayton Oberholtzer, had been a smalltown
attorney
in Ohio. It was his first murder case. The verdict: guilty; the sentence: death by hanging.
Perry awaited his fateful day in the Lado stockade, shackled
to a log “like a chastised dog,” according to Koerner. The weeks rolled by because an appeal was automatic. In December Perry escaped, thanks to a pair of pliers someone had slipped to him. The Assam Police Gazette had an article
titled “A colored Houdini from the USA, aided by a few Naga tricks, is sure playing ‘hobs’ with the traps that have been set for him.”

Days later, sitting at a campfire and surrounded yet again, Perry was out of energy. “You got me” was all that he had to say to his captors.
On the morning of March 15, 1945, Perry was driven in the dark to his date with the gallows. Cullum, the 89yearold
military police officer who finally had charge of this manhunt, received a letter from Perry’s halfbrother,
who was trying to find out what had happened to him. Cullum replied: “If he had used the right attitude and if the army had used his abilities, he could have been an excellent jungle
scout. But in the 1940s he was a road builder.”

Edna Wilson, 83, is the sole survivor of the Perry siblings.
A retired nurse’s assistant, she says that she knew her brother had been disappointed with his treatment in the military. “It was tough for him all along. Going overseas in the bottom of that ship like that. The colored soldiers were treated like a bunch of animals.” The family knew nothing about her brother’s precarious emotional state or ineffective legal counsel, she added. Then she said: “He didn’t have nobody on his side.”
The family came to know of Perry’s resting place in a military
cemetery in Hawaii. Wilson scrounged up a thousand dollars to have her brother’s body dug up and cremated.
Just seven months ago, there was a knock at the door at Wilson’s home in Washington, D.C. The mailman had delivered a box containing her brother’s ashes.
“He is home now,” she says of the Jungle King, who used to glide up and down U Street.
By autumn 1945, the busy airstrips, the makeshift openair
giant movie screens, the mosquitonetted
camps, the jungle hospitals, the mess halls gradually became deserted. Buffalos literally came to roam the region once again.
All that was left in that area that associated it with the Second World War was a cemetery for fallen soldiers. Nearly fifty years later, I visited this immaculately maintained
spot of green that I entered through a gateway.
As I was walking slowly, stopping every five feet or so, the caretaker mentioned, politely and hesitantly, that it would be dusk in another half an hour and that the gate would close.
I thanked him and noticed a small metal eagle on one of the graves. I realized that the grave was not for a British or an Indian soldier
I stopped and read.
31115894 Sergeant A. S. Oja United States Army Air Corps 7th August 1944 Age 23.
Locked