Indian Interests

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ShauryaT
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by ShauryaT »

Pranav wrote: I think it's time to call him a Viceroy rather than a PM.
It is an accurate way to understand the position of the PM of India, in practice. The constitutional checks on the powers of a PM are feeble and not institutionalized. Nothing restricted to MMS alone. As long as the party in power is with the PM and/or in control of the PM, the PM is King.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Pranav »

ShauryaT wrote:
Pranav wrote: I think it's time to call him a Viceroy rather than a PM.
It is an accurate way to understand the position of the PM of India, in practice. The constitutional checks on the powers of a PM are feeble and not institutionalized. Nothing restricted to MMS alone. As long as the party in power is with the PM and/or in control of the PM, the PM is King.
Party is controlled by Sonia, so obviously the first family cannot escape the blame. One does not necessarily hold Sonia's foreign birth against her. She may have been on KGB payroll, but there are plenty of Indians, too, who are willing to sell out.
brihaspati
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by brihaspati »

The question is why the "party" needs that paticular "sole great leader"! There lies the root of the phenomenon.
Prem
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Prem »

poll sutra ( they way of India politics)

the Secret Diary Of Jairam Ramesh
http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?264470
However, let me confess, the reality is that I’m just a bit player in a script written by none other than Dr Manmohan Singhji. “In the great Indian tradition, you will first say no to Bt brinjal...we must show that we listen to dissenting voices...and then later, after ‘much consideration’ and in the ‘national interest’, we will give it the green signal. That’s exactly the tactic we so successfully employed to push through the Indo-US nuclear deal,” the PM told me as we strolled on the lawns of 10 Janpath. Now, I must confess that I was very impressed by his strategy. “Let those opposed to GM food think they are winning. Let them emerge victorious in a few battles. But we will win the war,” he added even as Soniaji, Priyankaji and a chirpy Rahulji joined us. “I say, I liked that ‘Let baingans be bygones’ Amul ad, rather clever. When we finally give the green signal for GM seeds, they can run an ad line—“Well, baingan is half done” or better still, “Well, baingan is half bharta,” Rahul piped in as he kicked a stone fitted with a CIA microphone.
Also read the
The Secret Diary Of Dr R.K. Pachauri
Malayappan
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Malayappan »

Securing national security Brajesh Mishra writing. A good, succinct summary... I do not want to quote selectively. OTOH, for the forumites not much new - worthwhile to forward to people 'a bit less sure.'
rkirankr
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by rkirankr »

Batla house encounter- disturbing aspects

Some highlights
“I’m aware that I suffer from multiple handicaps as I stand to defend myself and my police force for planning and executing ‘Operation Green Hunt’ against the Maoist insurgents in the dense jungles of Bastar. I’m acutely aware of the truth of a metaphor I flippantly coined many years ago - that in India’s transformed caste system of today, a policeman is a Shudra, someone to be ridiculed, shouted at, spat upon. …And, who are the Brahmins? The Anglophile Indians are the Brahmins - those who write and think in English, those who teach in the colleges of Delhi and other big cities” — Vishwa Ranjan, DGP Chattisgarh
According to P Sainath (Hindu 18 Feb 2010): “The ABC of Indian media roughly translates as Advertising, Bollywood and Corporate power. … And, of course, everything but everything, has to be bollywoodised. To now earn attention, issues have to be dressed up only in ways certified by the corporate media. They have to be justified not by their importance to the public but by their acceptability to the media, their owners and sponsors. The more entrenched that ABC gets, the greater the danger to the language of democracy the media so proudly claim to champion.”
Philip
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Philip »

Great tribute to Indian womenpeacekeepers!

Indian women peacekeepers hailed in Liberia
By Moni Basu, CNN

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/afric ... A+World%29
CNN) -- They are trained in sophisticated combat tactics and weaponry, crowd and mob control, counter-insurgency. They patrol the streets of the Liberian capital, expected to keep the peace after years of war.

Most of them are also mothers and form an all-women unit from India, policing in a country where a 15-year conflict was characterized by sexual violence. Rape, according to the United Nations, remains the No. 1 crime reported to police in Liberia.

The Indian women were pioneers, the unit's experience in Liberia an experiment of sorts for the United Nations.....
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by rkirankr »

Jarita
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Jarita »

^^^ Looks like just a Tamasha. The amendments to RTI act only benefit the whole neta babu system.
Sonia is just trying to play good cop and these guys are just trying to prove that the proxy PM has some power
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Stan_Savljevic »

Pranav
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Pranav »

x-posted from strategic scenario thread (originally posted by Jarita):

http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/stor ... GntEw72ik=

India up for sale to MNCs
The recent historic moratorium on Bt brinjal by Jairam Ramesh, minister of environment and forests, has created a network of citizens’ organisations around the country that have risen spontaneously from the ground, and have prevented the country’s agriculture becoming devoid of its diversity and moving in the direction of control by multinational corporations (MNCs). These corporations have strong links with the government of the United States of America US, and their sole objectives are (a) to make as much money as possible by any means, and (b) to eventually have total control over Indian agriculture, using every ruse known to the world of conmen. Unlike the government of India, they are fully aware that whosoever controls seed and agrochemical business in India, controls its agriculture. And whosoever controls our agriculture, controls India and its food security, for 62 per cent Indians derive their total sustenance from agriculture and, in our country, food security, food sovereignty, agriculture security, farmers security, and security of the rural sector, are synonymous and important components of national security and autonomy. If Bt brinjal had been approved, India would have, in course of time, ceased to be, de facto, an independent country and we, its citizens, would have had to start fighting the third war of independence which we would have eventually won, for truth always wins in the long run.


It is unfortunate that our government — our politicians and bureaucrats (exception granted) — and the rich and the powerful in the country, seem to be siding with the MNCs (read US), in their attempt to acquire control over our agriculture. This is reminiscent of India being ruled by the British through a class of Indians. Only the structure, colour and strategy of this class seem to have changed, while Britain has been replaced by the US plus the MNCs. Let us look at the evidence:


* We signed the India-US Knowledge Initiative in Agriculture during the first UPA government. Following this — and, perhaps, in preparation of this — our research and extension work in agriculture seems to have totally discounted our strengths and needs. Let me give some examples: The Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) has developed integrated pest management (IPM) and biopesticides for some 85 crops, including cotton and brinjal. Why have we not used these technologies instead of peddling Monsanto’s Bt crops?

Organic agriculture has been India’s forte. It brings better price for the produce. Andhra Pradesh already has two million acres under organic agriculture and has plans to take this area to 10 million in the next two or three years. Why are our Krishi Vigyan Kendras (I believe there is one in each district) not encouraging organic agriculture? Why does not ICAR have an institute devoted to organic agriculture?

Given today’s knowledge of molecular biology, why are our agriculture research scientists not developing varieties which would have the advantages of hybrids? The farmers can then have their own seeds and would not have to depend on seed companies. At a meeting that the director general of ICAR and I had co-chaired when I was the vice-chairman of the National Knowledge Commission, nine energy saving steps for agriculture were identified. Why have they not been taken?

The ICAR has published in several volumes, details of over 4000 traditional agriculture practices, many of which have been validated and cross-validated. We have many more documented by the National Innovation Foundation. Why are we not using the validated ones and taking steps to examine the remaining? Why are we not using our horticulture potential? For example, all the technology exists in the State Forest Research Laboratory of Arunachal Pradesh to grow over 600 orchids through tissue culture. These orchids can capture the world orchid market, replacing Thailand (for our orchids are far more beautiful and the world is tired of Thai orchids) and bring to Arunachal Pradesh a revenue of over Rs 10,000 crore a year. Why are we not pursuing the possibility?

Why is our department of agriculture not using the outstanding capabilities that our National Remote Sensing Agency has to, for example, identify diseased plants in a field so that one can prevent the spread of the disease?

* Ten of our leading CEOs signed the Indo-US CEO agreement (available on Planning Commission’s website) in which the Indian CEOs (led by Ratan Tata) agreed to put the lid on the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, promised not to give any trouble to Coca Cola and Pepsi irrespective of the quality and quantity of their misdeeds, and open our retail market to the US. There is already a US demand that India cuts down its subsidies to agriculture which are a pittance in comparison to what the US provides to its agriculturists.

* We recently signed secretly, an MoU on ‘Agriculture Cooperation and Food Security’ with the US, even though all the inputs we require — scientific, technological, managerial or social — to improve our agriculture to meet national demands (present or future) are available within the country. The MoU (The Hindu, February 24, 2010), for all practical purposes, appears to have handed over our food security and sovereignty, farmers security, agriculture security and security of the rural sector comprising 70 per cent of our population, to the US.

* The government has been supporting introduction of GM food and other crops in the country, which will eventually give control of our agriculture to US-based MNCs. Jairam Ramesh, taking into account overwhelming public opinion and unbiased scientific opinion has, rightly and courageously, in a statesman-like manner, put an indefinite moratorium on the release of Bt brinjal; he has gone on record to say that he has only two supporters in the government and the ruling party: the prime minister and Sonia Gandhi.

* Our surrender to the US seems to be total. If we buy nuclear reactors from the US (which we would be obliged to buy), we will pay most of the compensation in case of a nuclear accident, not the vendor of the reactor. And on the March 6, V K Saraswat, scientific adviser to our defence minister, said that the US is still denying us technology (Deccan Chronicle, March 7, 2010).


On November 10, 1698, Charles Eyre bought three fishing villages — Sutanuti, Govindpore and Dihi-Koikata — from a Bengali landlord for Rs1,300, and laid the foundation of today’s Kolkata. We are now trying to sell our entire country for a pittance (if for anything at all) to MNCs and the US. Those who are involved in this effort must understand that the citizens of this country are well-equipped to fight the third war of independence if that happens.

About the author:

Pushpa M Bhargava is the former vice chairman of the National Knowledge Commission
Pranav
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Pranav »

Pranav wrote:x-posted from strategic scenario thread (originally posted by Jarita):

On November 10, 1698, Charles Eyre bought three fishing villages — Sutanuti, Govindpore and Dihi-Koikata — from a Bengali landlord for Rs1,300, and laid the foundation of today’s Kolkata. We are now trying to sell our entire country for a pittance (if for anything at all) to MNCs and the US. Those who are involved in this effort must understand that the citizens of this country are well-equipped to fight the third war of independence if that happens.

About the author:

Pushpa M Bhargava is the former vice chairman of the National Knowledge Commission
When people start talking of the need to fight a war of independence, then it represents progress.

But most Indians still quite confused - there is little understanding of the many diverse means through which they are being attacked, nor is there understanding about who is orchestrating the assault.
brihaspati
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by brihaspati »

Problem onc eagain is the "mercantile mentality". This looks for short term monetary profits. Such profits are obvious for those who control the various "supply chain management" segments from the field to the mouth and back to the field. In this case, it is the production of seed and pushing for immediate high yield with consequent higher profits. Everyone from the desi side involved in the supply and marking-up process can take a cut in collaboration with the MNC's. The victims are the direct producers and the end-consumers.

Mercantile mentality does not care for the long term effects on sustainability, of the quality of the land, the health of the people, and an equitable distribution of prosperity. For it everything is despensable and tradeable - people, producers, land, consumers, health - as long as it generates fat monetary profits.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Pranav »

brihaspati wrote:Problem onc eagain is the "mercantile mentality". This looks for short term monetary profits. Such profits are obvious for those who control the various "supply chain management" segments from the field to the mouth and back to the field. In this case, it is the production of seed and pushing for immediate high yield with consequent higher profits. Everyone from the desi side involved in the supply and marking-up process can take a cut in collaboration with the MNC's. The victims are the direct producers and the end-consumers.

Mercantile mentality does not care for the long term effects on sustainability, of the quality of the land, the health of the people, and an equitable distribution of prosperity. For it everything is despensable and tradeable - people, producers, land, consumers, health - as long as it generates fat monetary profits.
True ... but this is not just about seeds and GM foods. There is a bigger game going on here.

The purpose of GM foods is to allow elites to acquire an iron grip over the food supply. A side benefit is the poisoning of the population via the toxins.

The purpose of the global warming scam is to cripple industry. Which is also the purpose of the Maoists and the NGO-funded tribal activists.

The purpose of NGOs that oppose dams is to cripple agriculture.

The purpose of many of the Church organizations is to make useful idiots out of large sections of the population (http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... ll#p829909).

The purpose of the media and the eminent historians is to keep people deluded.

and so on and so forth ...

The interesting question is whether there is any coordination or orchestration amongst these forces, and if yes, who's doing it.
Last edited by Pranav on 16 Mar 2010 19:30, edited 1 time in total.
Ameet
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Ameet »

Hope India offers assistance - State of disaster in cyclone-hit Fiji

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... rO98AiDDNQ
brihaspati
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by brihaspati »

Pranav ji,
coordiantaion can appear to take place even when individual agents are trying to maximize their own payoffs in a non-cooperative framework. This is the classic non-cooperative foundations of cooperative behaviour in game theory.

So when all the groups you mention are ach pursuing their own agenda - the prosleytizers target of "making useful idiots", GM seed producers of opening up a new market, dam protesters of saving their respective political niches, they can choose those forms of their strategy which optimize given the other choices. Certain strategy combinations by all the agents will be optimal for each agent and hence will appear as coordination.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Hari Seldon »

x-post

Shyam Saran: Premature power
India has to leverage its ‘swing’ status, engage with all and align with none
Good read, IMHO.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by RamaY »

^^^ from SS's article
India’s vulnerabilities in the next decade will be centred mainly in its neighbourhood. While the Indian subcontinent is a single geopolitical unit, it is fractured into several states, each with its own dynamics. As the largest country in the region, India’s security concerns have always encompassed and will continue to encompass the entire subcontinent. This dictates a strategy that neutralises vulnerabilities inherent in these political divisions, specifically ensuring that India’s neighbours do not become platforms for hostile activities against it by current or potential adversaries. Otherwise, India’s ability to overcome an adverse, or leverage a potentially favourable, global environment will confront severe constraints.
People must learn from History. This is exactly what happened

~300-200 BC - Yavana advances
~700-1100 AD - Turkish/Islamic advances
~1600-1800 AD - European advances

Everytime India achieves significant wealth, it attracted external powers. This time it could be USA or PRC. India better watch its periphery states and control them using Bheda and Danda strategies.

People who preach economic development without military support must read Bharatiya history - prevailing economic conditions, external players, internal fault-lines, and behavior of periphery states.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by svinayak »

RamaY wrote:
People who preach economic development without military support must read Bharatiya history - prevailing economic conditions, external players, internal fault-lines, and behavior of periphery states.
There is one poster in this forum who was advocating this. He started showing false info about US and its history in the last few centuries to show how India should follow.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Jarita »

^^^ same poster who was saying that Indian should concede to PRC. I have some choice words but will refrain
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Philip »

Indian interests endangered.The so-called disaster that the Indo-US "strategic relationship" is,is absolutely bankrupt and clearly shows up in every sphere,from Afghanisatn,Paki terror,the N-deal and nuclear disaster liabilities,GM crops,and high-tech sanctions-still in place for the ISRO,etc., which is in collaboration with NASA!

http://expressbuzz.com/edition/story.as ... wcg==&SEO=
Threat to Indian interests
Last edited by Gerard on 26 Mar 2010 02:07, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by csharma »

Bill to allow foreign varsities faces opposition from Cong

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/new ... 700113.cms
THE Centre’s hopes for a smooth passage for the foreign educational institution bill may be dashed, with a section of Congress
expressing views similar to BJP and Left.
Education is not a simple matter, decisions made today impact generations to come. If questions are being asked whether by Opposition or others, these should be welcome,” a senior Congress leader said.

Within the party questions are being asked about why the government is allowing foreign educational institutions to set up campus
in the country when Indian institutions would not be permitted to set up base by these countries. Concerns have also been flagged off about the nature of courses that would be taught in these foreign universities. There are some who feel that these might not be in keeping with national interests or priorities.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Philip »

How MNCs and their "scientists" in their pockets fleece the world and sell us dangerous drugs..(and food like GM crops too!).

Several years ago,former Maharashtra Min.Chandrasekhar Prabhu personally told me how during his tenure in charge of pharmaceuticals,how the CEO of Glaxo Intl. offerd him a huge bribe him to allow dangerous drugs banned in Europe to be sold by them in India.Prabhu immediately picked up the telephone and called the police asking them to arrest him.The Glaxo CEO immediately fled to the airport,caught the first flight and just escaped!

In India,the GM crops controversy showed how leading "scientific institutions were beneficiaries of MNC funding where GM backers were funding the "research".The "turd world" especially India wiht its billion+ population is being earmarked as the "golden goose" for such criminal corporations,who think nothing of poisoning the world to fatten their pockets.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style ... 23852.html

Glaxo funded backers of 'danger' drug
Last edited by Gerard on 26 Mar 2010 02:08, edited 1 time in total.
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RamaY
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by RamaY »

Philip-ji

My pranaams to that gentleman from Maharastra. If not for such nationalists, some thugs would have sold India to external powers long ago.

This concept of bribing one's way has been twisted carefully to allow MNCs to buy their way of into developing nations. The same corruption becomes a bad thing when their game is not allowed.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by ramana »

Pioneer Interview of Pavan Verma IFS. The author of Becoming Indian.

Looks like he explores the very issues we struggle with here on this thread and the forum


On Becoming Indian

OPED | Friday, March 26, 2010


Pavan K Varma in conversation with Kanchan Gupta

‘English cannot be given primacy over the language of our culture’

My first encounter with Pavan K Varma, or rather his writing, was when I reviewed his book Krishna: The Playful Divine many years ago. Before reading the book, I had this image of him in my mind which later proved to be entirely wrong. I had thought of Pavan as a stuffed shirt, a self-obsessed and utterly boring member of the exalted, twice-born Indian Foreign Service. Half way through Krishna, I had begun to doubt whether I had the right impression of the author; by the time I finished reading the book, I knew I was wrong. No stuffed shirt would have written a book like that. When I finally met Pavan, which was some years later, I realised he was a cut above his colleagues in the IFS, a class apart from those who represent India abroad. At an open air Hindustani classical music concert where Kishori Amonkar was in full flow and all of us had lost track of the hour of the night, Pavan taught me, with great élan, how to appreciate the finer nuances of Raga Nand Kalyan which I would have missed otherwise.

One of our finest diplomats, Pavan K Varma remains rooted in all things Hindustani — from culture to clothes to language. And that is evident in the series of books he has written exploring the mindset and worldview of the Indian middle classes. A gifted writer — he makes his point without belabouring it repeatedly — he is what may be called a ‘thinking bureaucrat’, which could be mistaken as an oxymoron by those acquainted with our bureaucracy and babus. The Great Indian Middle Class and Being Indian fetched Pavan, and deservedly so, critical acclaim as a commentator with profound thoughts on the past, the present and the future. His new book, Becoming Indian: The Unfinished Revolution of Culture and Identity, proves that praise for his earlier work was not misplaced. It’s a brilliant, incisive exposition of how colonialism has moulded the way we look at ourselves, our culture, and the world. “Those who have never been colonised can never really know what it does to the psyche of a people. Those who have been are often not fully aware of — or are unwilling to accept — the degree to which they have been compromised,” he writes in this book. That, in a sense, is the theme of Becoming Indian.

I met Pavan for a long adda on a lazy late spring afternoon in New Delhi during which we discussed his new book. What he had to say, as always, was scintillating. Below are excerpts from that unstructured discussion:

Kanchan Gupta: So tell us, what prompted you to write this book? To take the middle class series nearer to a conclusion or something else...

Pavan K Varma: Essentially, after 60 years of independence, I thought the time had come for a cultural audit. This audit entails two things. One is a rigorous analysis of colonialism because, as I write, colonialism is not about the physical subjugation of a people but the colonisation of their mind. And while a political audit takes place after the Union Jack comes down and an economic audit takes place to take stock of what is lost and what is gained, a cultural audit is something that does not take place ... this is something which is common to all colonised countries... to, in a sense, recolonise the mind. So, it is both a rigorous analysis of colonialism and a meditation on the state of culture today in our country.

I must confess I profess a fair degree of anguish at our low threshold of satisfaction and self-congratulation. Because we are not only a nation, we are a civilisation. We have 5,000 years of history, antiquity, peaks of refinement, assimilation, diversity ... but underlying that diversity, what is not visible to a superficial observer, is great unity. We are not a parvenu civilisation, we were not born 200 years ago, and therefore it is legitimate for us to see where we are in terms of our culture today in contrast to the journey we have made and where we have come.

And I believe in the reappropriation of our cultural space without chauvinism or xenophobia. This is all the more important because we are simultaneously in an aggressive phase of globalisation where the subtext in the field of culture is often co-option, where the victim is the last to know. And, when the educated are relatively rootless, that co-option becomes all the more easier. So that, essentially, is the paradigm of the book.

KG: Nothing offers a better platform than a book for a study and discourse of this nature... By the way, some people feel you have been needlessly uncharitable towards English and Western culture...

PKV: There is hardly any space left for cerebral discourse. There has been an oversimplification of what I have to say in my book. One is that I am against English. I am not. I am not for the imposition of Hindi. I am just saying that there must be respect given to our languages and while English is an indispensable language of communication, specially to help us interface with a globalising world, it cannot be given primacy over the language of our culture.

There is a language of communication and there is a language of culture. The language of culture is a window to your history, mythology, folklore, proverbs, idioms, to your creativity ... and it’s the language in which we cry and laugh. There is no contradiction between the two. Recent research shows that all those who are well-grounded first in their mother tongue pick up a foreign language that much faster.

KG: Do you believe English is still a foreign language in India?

PKV: I genuinely believe that while it is a language of communication which has been indigenised in India, it can never take the place of our natural languages. And, badly spoken English cannot become the lingua franca of a country which is so rich in its linguistic heritage.

KG: Your book opens with an intense personal experience centred around your father — his attempt to learn English and thus qualify for the ICS, in which he was successful. Did that influence your career choices? After all, the IFS, in fact the civil services, are part of the colonial governance construct, it has a hierarchical structure put in place by our colonial rulers.

PKV: Without a doubt I am a product of the milieu that, in a sense, I was condemned to inherit. That is why I went to St Columba’s, St Xavier’s and St Stephen’s. And I am not against these schools and colleges. But I have mentioned in my book that my mother withdrew me from Modern School and put me in St Columba’s because she said the standard of Hindi in Modern School was too high!

People place priorities because they are products of a milieu. English was the language which was inherited by us, it was the language of social status and, by that virtue, it was a language of exclusion. If you did not speak English with the right accent and fluency, however shallow you might be in other respects, or accomplished for that matter, you could never be part of the charmed circle which ruled India.

So I am a product of that milieu but I am able, at some level I think, and I don’t take any special credit, to see that no nation can sit on the high table of the world as we aspire without giving respect and pride to their own culture and languages. So when we try to be like them at the cost of being who we are, that forces India to become a caricature. I have served all across the world and I have seen this happen.

The whole point is that you have to be an authentic spokesman of your own milieu. Today, I believe that as far as our general cultural scene goes, Kanchan, mediocrity, mimicry, rootlessness and tokenism have become features which we need to introspect about. I don’t say this with anger, I say it calmly.

Look at the state of our humanities departments, not an original work! This is the country of Nalanda? Doctoral theses are being written with footnotes by foreign scholars. Look at the state of our literature, the man who won the Bharatiya Gnanpeeth told me his books sell less than a thousand copies. Look at the state, pardon my saying so, of even our book reviews. If you are in the UK, the country that colonised us, on the weekend any broadsheet will have 30 to 40 pages only on book reviews. Here we have leading newspapers who have dispensed with book reviews!

KG: Look at the state of our classical arts... music, dance...

PKV: Exactly! Look at the state of classical dance… I mean I have been a cultural administrator also. Top exponents of a parampara which goes back 3,000 years have to telephone friends for days before a performance to fill a hall when the entrance is free. Look at the state of classical music, the raga represents a 4,000-year-old parampara and it is a very delicate structure... the elaboration of the mood the gradual vistaar and the drut... Today we have eminent musicians performing like adolescent pop stars, catering to the lowest common denominator of an audience.

Now, I am not against pop culture. In Hyde Park — I have lived in London — when you have a pop music performance thousands go for it. But on the same day I have seen people queuing up from 11 in the morning at 20 pounds a pop to attend a performance of Western classical music. Mature civilisations nurture both. We cannot be reduced to a sterile simplicity that it is either popular culture or nothing else at all. So these are things we need to think about.

Look at the state of our monuments. Of our museums. Of our libraries. The MGMA gets 30,000 visitors a year. The Louvre gets 2.5 millions at 12 euros an entrance. The Tate gets four million visitors a year at 1.20 pounds an entrance. These statistics are there in my book. A country like China, in spite of the setback of the cultural revolution, is investing in 100 new museums, 83 are already built. Beijing alone has 150 art galleries. There’s a full gallery district. Here you have a gallery but no curators, no cataloguing worth the name! So what has happened that our threshold of satisfaction has become so low?

KG: Maybe it’s the sarkari thing, perhaps we should get the state out of it?

PKV: Hundred per cent. But the state will be out of it when there is a cultural vibrancy in the people. It’s a symbiotic relationship. The performer will be bad if the audience is unresponsive. Whether at the level of the state or at the level of the common man or at the level of the artiste and our creative people, there needs to be something that jolts us out of our complacency. Because, as I said, we are not a parvenu civilisation. We were the benchmark of civilisational excellence, Kanchan. I was amazed when I read it, 200 years before the birth of Jesus Christ, Bharata wrote the Natyashastra, 6,000 Sanskrit shlokas not on any particular art ... a meditation on aesthetics, what constitutes rasa.

Even in popular culture, Bollywood, which we hold as a brand ambassador now of India abroad, I have nothing against it, some very good films have been made, but 70 per cent of Bollywood is a lift of Hollywood! What has happened to India’s originality? Music and story? So, there is reason for us to introspect...

KG: We get carried away by foreign awards...

PKV: Yes, any foreign accolade! I give the example, I have nothing against Slumdog Millionaire although on merit I believe it was mediocre, but when it got the Bafta award, it had not been released in India, people had not seen it. Yet, without application of mind there was only only euphoria, it made headlines and breaking news everywhere. Similarly with the Booker. I have read 12 reviews of Aravind Adiga’s White Tiger in the British Press, substantive reviews, some good, some damning, some panning it. In India, when the award was announced, there was hardly a review. In this great flexible civilisation with its own refinement touchstone, the only news is that it got the Booker! There has to be santulan, there has to be equilibrium, which is a sign of maturity…

KG: We are constantly looking at foreign awards…Somebody gets the Sahitya Akademi award or Gnanpeeth does not even find mention in the media…

PKV: I will give an example, I will name the person. Sitakant Mahapatra, a very sensitive Odiya poet, he gets the Bharatiya Gnanpeeth award, and his book sells 843 copies! Even till this day in Russia, when a new edition of Pushkin is published, a million copies sell. And they were selling even during the stage of transition during and after Yeltsin when people had not got salaries for three months. So you have to think...

KG: You also talk of the mimic men!

PKV: You see mimicry is a natural consequence of rootlessness. People mimic when they are not secure in their own anchorage and my worry is that for a great deal of the educated in India today there is that rootlessness and therefore that mimicry.

KG: But Nirad C Chaudhuri, about whom you are critical in your appraisal, was equally comfortable with his Indian identity while living in Britain...

PKV: Without a doubt. But Nirad C Chaudhuri, and this is my own feeling, went out to prove that if you have to be the brown sahib, you should be the most educated, most accomplished, most knowledgeable, beyond tokenism brown sahib. And he did it in many respects. His taste of wine, his knowledge of Western culture, his reading his writing… I personally believe that it was one of those complex consequences of colonialism which produces a man of his towering intellectual stature who judges himself only in terms of his ability to be the most accomplished Indian in terms of the Western touchstone of refinements. At another level he remained Bengali at home… But to be harmonious schizophrenics is also a sign of colonial legacy.

KG: You are also harsh with Rammohun Roy…

PKV: I have used Rammohun Roy as an example to show how the well-intentioned leader in the colonial phase needed to caricature his own civilisation in order to win the approbation of the ruler. First of all, his movement against ills within his own society and religion, especially sati, was a well-intentioned crusade. But if you read his letter to the Viceroy, he first devalues his language, the learning of philosophy and metaphysics, and without a doubt they struck the right chord. And, as you know, when he went to London he actually argued in the House of Commons for the permanent residency in India of the British and a mixed community through inter-marriage between both. So Rammohun Roy, as I say in my final paragraph, shows that people are products of their times. Colonialism was a hugely, hugely impacting influence on the lives of our well-intentioned leaders…

KG: But it did help bring about reforms…

PKV: I give him credit for his crusade against obvious evils, but I analyse how when you are part of the colonial syndrome, to do that you need to caricature aspects of your civilisation — which is totally unnecessary — to win the approbation of the ruling power. It’s only an example.

KG: Today we have crossover sahibs who subscribe to the idea of being global citizens, world citizens. For them, the Indian identity becomes baggage. {DIE: Deracinated Indian Elite-BRF speak. WMI : Wellof Modern Indian in Naipaul lingo}

PKV: I would say I honestly believe in today’s time, the authentic global citizen is one who has the tools to interface with a globalising world is one who is rooted in his own milieu, his own civilisation. Because it is only that person who is rooted in his own milieu who can be a confident interlocutor with the world. Otherwise, we are producing clones. One of the great myths spawned by globalisation is that having been reduced to a global image we have all become mirror images of each other. But I believe that differences are real, that diversity needs to be respected and people who are the legatees of such a civilisation must preserve that identity because only then will they get respect.

-- Pavan K Varma’s book, Becoming Indian — The Unfinished Revolution of Culture and Identity has just been published by Penguin.

-- Follow the writer on: http://twitter.com/KanchanGupta. Blog on this and other issues at http://kanchangupta.blogspot.com. Write to him at kanchangupta@rocketmail.com

Wow!
Pavan Verma would make a good BRFite. He touches all the hot buttons and gives us assurance we are not internet Hindoos as some have tried to portray us.

Those on twitter try to contact K Gupta and send a link to this page.

Two things;

Rabindranath Tagore also wrote that one joins the ocean of knowledge through the rivers of the mother tongues in an essay on English medium of education.

There was former Maharaja in Mark Tully's book "No full stops in India" who was a confident globalized citizen rooted in Indian civlization and values the very ideal that Vermaji describes.

Will try to post his name.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Prem »

PKV: I would say I honestly believe in today’s time, the authentic global citizen is one who has the tools to interface with a globalising world is one who is rooted in his own milieu, his own civilisation. Because it is only that person who is rooted in his own milieu who can be a confident interlocutor with the world. Otherwise, we are producing clones. One of the great myths spawned by globalisation is that having been reduced to a global image we have all become mirror images of each other. But I believe that differences are real, that diversity needs to be respected and people who are the legatees of such a civilisation must preserve that identity because only then will they get respect.

-- Pavan K Varma’s book, Becoming Indian — The Unfinished Revolution of Culture and Identity has just been published by Penguin.
Its the Indians without root in da soil who have been ruling instead of governing India. Without roots they keep and perceive India in similar vein, correct this fundamental mistake, remove this weakness and unleash Indian energy for the betterment of Desh, we make thousand year leap in future in fifty years. What we require now is is an intellectual freedom movement , free the minds of mango and indian eelites. PKV,Jai Ho.
Last edited by Prem on 26 Mar 2010 04:41, edited 2 times in total.
svinayak
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by svinayak »

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B7l ... ZWI4&hl=en

Can India be an Innovation Superpower Mohan UCSC Lecture Series 3-2010.ppt
sanjaykumar
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by sanjaykumar »

It is a pleasure to read someone of Pavan K Varma's clarity of thought and expression. But clearly the anodyne is money-and lots of it. Money is the best deodorant. There is no need to be so dismissive of the globalised citizen. All I ask is for the intellectual and political freedom to berate one's homeland. Only Western Europe and India have reached this level of civilisation.
astal
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by astal »

Ramana,

Thanks for posting the interview of Pavan K Varma. Must read the book. What is especially heartening is that a foreign service official who served with distinction has such confidence and clarity about India's place in the world. From what I read on the foreign service and senior bureaucrats I was hitherto lead to believe that they as a group, had an apologetic view of ancient India civilization and achievement; and our future potential.

As an aside I note that he uses the word parvenu which on initial reading sounds to me like some word in an Indian dialect. Upon remembering that Shri Varma is an would not resort to hinglish I had to take a second guess and could immediately recognize the French origin. Parvenu - Upstart. Though it is not used much in what I have read, it is good description of the current communist Chinese so called civilization.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by svinayak »

Prem wrote:

Its the Indians without root in da soil who have been ruling instead of governing India. Without roots they keep and perceive India in similar vein, correct this fundamental mistake, remove thsi weakness and unleash Indian energy for the betetrment of Desh, we make thousand year leap in future in fifty years. What we require now is is an intellectual freedom movement , free the minds of mango and indian eelites. PKV,Jai Ho.
The only thing he says that
"And I believe in the reappropriation of our cultural space without chauvinism or xenophobia. " Why should he be apologetic about our culture.

Decolonizing the Indian Mind. That is the intellectual freedom movement. Read this book
Book Review: Decolonizing the Hindu Mind, Dr. Koenraad Elst, Part I
http://desicritics.org/2007/01/30/013444.php
http://naimisha.tripod.com/new_page_3.htm

January 30, 2007
Sandeep


The complete title of this book reads:Decolonizing the Hindu Mind: Ideological Development of Hindu Revivalism
Authored by one of the most brilliant scholars of our time, Dr. Koenraad Elst, this is a must-buy work for anybody who seeks to understand Hindu revivalism in post-Independence India. It is based on his doctoral dissertation on the same subject.This seminal work spans over 600 pages with more than 1500 footnotes and about 30 pages of bibliography. These features by no means distinguish it; rather, it stands out singularly for some of the most original insights that few researchers in this field has ever provided in recent times.Which is why writing a review on this book took me more than two years of feet-dragging. The problem I faced in writing this review was directly proportional to the astonishing gamut of topics Elst has covered.Decolonizing the Hindu Mind delves into, and challenges truckloads of myths that have assumed legitimacy in the discourse about Hinduism, Hindu revival, and Hindutva. It is quite pertinent--and interesting--to mention how Elst developed the interest to study this subject. Elst was intially curious of the BJP's rapid rise to prominence. A paltry two Lok Sabha seats in 1984 to 179 in 1998 counts for a stupedous achievement, which, according to Elst needed deeper examination.

The period which interests us is the period of Hindu revivalism's breakthrough to political prominence, c. 1988-1998... from two Lok Sabha seats in 1984 to 161 in 1996 and 179 in 1998, enough to form a Government and win a confidence vote with the help of its allies. [.] But our focus is not on the performance of political parties... It is mainly in the realm of ideas that the decade under consideration has witnessed a revolutionary breakthrough...
This sets the tone for the rest of the 600-odd pages of the book. This is perhaps one of the most dispassionate, and cold-blooded logical analyses I've ever come across. Elst examines the arguments on both sides and tracks them down to their logical conclusion, as we shall see later. He presents fundamental sources rather than media/journalistic reports, which he says--with good reason--are biased.Elst goes back to the basics by examining the works/sayings of Swami Dayananda Saraswati, Swami Vivekananda, Bankim, Swami Shraddhananda, Sri Aurobindo, and the most hated figure of them all: Savarkar. Nor does he spare the RSS, which he thinks needs to sharpen its intellectual rigour.
In spite of bursts of chauvinistic bluster, Hindus are not very aware of the treasures of their civilization; most RSS people, who chant a litany of great Hindus... would not be able to say with any precision what was so unique about the contribution of a Panini or an Aryabhatta. By contrast, all modern-educated Hindus are acutely aware of the "evils of Hindu society..."
Thus, the balance of power in the present discourse is heavily tilted against Hinduism.
It is quite common among professional Hindutva-watchers to use only documentary information, often produced by the movement's declared enemies, without ever having met a single human representative of the movement itself. Consequently, it is equally common to publicize allegations about Hindu revivalist spokesmen which no one with inside knowledge could possibly sustain, e.g. to call the mild-mannered ... Advani a "demagogue," ... qualifications which are hard to match with the fact that Advani is criticized precisely for his soft line.
Further, the way the discourse itself is shaped mostly by the much-celebrated postmodernist method, which is a subtle disguise of Marxism,
...which denies the very notion of objective knowledge, which assumes that knowledge is conditioned by one's social belonging and insists that "all research in the social sciences has a political agenda." This means in practice that once you have identified an author as a representative of the wrong interest group, his arguments are ipso facto wrong or vitiated.
This pretty much explains why any statement by pro-Hindu groups is often openly ridiculed in the mainstream media. And more dangerously
There is .. an assumption of cultural solidarity between Western India-watchers and their Indian colleagues:the former consider the latter as "our men in India...
In short, "Our men" only eagerly bend backwards to please their Western masters brethren.Continued in Part II.
JE Menon
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by JE Menon »

>>one of the most brilliant scholars of our time, Dr. Koenraad Elst,

Wow. Who knew? I mean I'm appropriately respectful of Dr. Elst and all, but I am in general wary of Western gentlemen scholars who tell us how Hindu a Hindu should be, or what a being a Hindu means in today's world.

And this one: "most RSS people, who chant a litany of great Hindus... would not be able to say with any precision what was so unique about the contribution of a Panini or an Aryabhatta."... takes the cake (Yet, I believe it is the RSS and others now considered part of the so-called "saffron brigade" which looks with some favour towards Elst and others like him, who apparently mean well).

Pavan, on the other hand, is someone you can laugh with and at. He would snort at comments like "one of the most brilliant scholars of our time" - although his Being Indian, by no means a scholarly work and he does not claim it is - is one of the better books about Indians out there. Extremely perceptive, painful in some parts to read because it reads so true, and he does not pull any punches about our own flaws.

Read it. You might reconsider your opinion on the guy. But the book is outstanding IMHO. And the man is a true Indian patriot, also IMHO of course.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Pranav »

JE Menon wrote:>>one of the most brilliant scholars of our time, Dr. Koenraad Elst,

Wow. Who knew? I mean I'm appropriately respectful of Dr. Elst and all, but I am in general wary of Western gentlemen scholars who tell us how Hindu a Hindu should be, or what a being a Hindu means in today's world.
There are many westerners who have a better understanding of Indian civilization than our Burkhas and Sagarikas.

The Guru-Shishya relationship (in a metaphorical sense) is more important than accident of birth.

So no harm in letting Elst have his say, one should judge him on his merits.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by shiv »

Pranav wrote:
There are many westerners who have a better understanding of Indian civilization than our Burkhas and Sagarikas.

The Guru-Shishya relationship (in a metaphorical sense) is more important than accident of birth.

So no harm in letting Elst have his say, one should judge him on his merits.
But the Indian civilization allows both to survive. It guides people to seek gurus, but does not punish them with death or excommunication if they do not follow their guru. Elst has his say. He has the respect of many. The Sagarikas have their say. The more powerful truth should survive rather than the more muscular person. That has always been the Indian way. The Hindu way if you like.

There is a unique method that has evolved in India (perhaps elsewhere too - I don't know) to allow truth to survive despite the fact that muscle can trump truth in any given interaction. But I will not go into that.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by svinayak »

JE Menon wrote:>>one of the most brilliant scholars of our time, Dr. Koenraad Elst,

Wow. Who knew? I mean I'm appropriately respectful of Dr. Elst and all, but I am in general wary of Western gentlemen scholars who tell us how Hindu a Hindu should be, or what a being a Hindu means in today's world.
It is just a review column. So these comments are to be taken with a pinch of salt. But the book is good. additional reading is also recommended.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by JE Menon »

>>So no harm in letting Elst have his say, one should judge him on his merits.

Elst must have his say. That is the Indian way. Whether there is harm in it or not, only time will tell. I myself am skeptical of the almost evangelical zeal with which a few foreigners (and you can count them on the fingers of one hand) have expropriated a significant space in what is regarded by many as the "Hindutva" narrative (in English) of India and its civilisational heritage. I personally find this penchant for using these gentlemen as references (do a Google search for Elst and you will see what I mean) to bolster or even to shape a new Hindu worldview to be mildly disconcerting.

Yet his word must be heard too. It just so happened that Elst's name was mentioned in one of the posts, and it occurred to me that there is almost a certain innocence in the way sections of our English speaking elite view him and others like him. Does this mean that all he says is nonsense? Of course not. I have read some of his writings, and it appears to me to be generally heartfelt and well meaning. But my personal opinion is that non-Indians must not shape our narrative, in any language.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by Masaru »

JE Menon wrote:>>So no harm in letting Elst have his say, one should judge him on his merits.
But my personal opinion is that non-Indians must not shape our narrative, in any language.
For this Indians have to take charge of their cultural heritage and learn to promote and propagate it.

There has been little effort from the govt. (beyond cheesy tourism ads.) to promote serious academic research in areas related to culture and documenting the country's heritage in well maintained museums/archaeological sites. For instance a group of indologists in Germany are doing far more to preserve and promote Sanskrit than any univ. in India; and the general sense of disrepair and neglect (discounting the lack of infrastructure) around all the major stupas/temples is just an indicator of general public apathy.

Elst is merely filling the space vacated by Indian intellectuals who possibly are disinclined to approach the topics that he addresses out of fear of being hounded as a communal propagandist by the secular establishment/media.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by svinayak »

JE Menon wrote:
Yet his word must be heard too. It just so happened that Elst's name was mentioned in one of the posts, and it occurred to me that there is almost a certain innocence in the way sections of our English speaking elite view him and others like him. Does this mean that all he says is nonsense? Of course not. I have read some of his writings, and it appears to me to be generally heartfelt and well meaning. But my personal opinion is that non-Indians must not shape our narrative, in any language.
I have met Dr Elst. I had small conversation with him and I had asked few questions to him. His answers was OK but I got the impression that he is mostly collecting information.

I agree with your point that non-Indians must not shape our narrative, in any language. I have discussed with Kaushal about this and requested him to write books on Indian contributions.
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by sanjaykumar »

For instance a group of indologists in Germany are doing far more to preserve and promote Sanskrit than any univ. in India


The Pune collation of Sanskrit is likely the greatest work on Sanskrit or indeed in a branch of philology (I believe it is still in progress).
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by svinayak »

Masaru wrote: For instance a group of indologists in Germany are doing far more to preserve and promote Sanskrit than any univ. in India; and the general sense of disrepair and neglect (discounting the lack of infrastructure) around all the major stupas/temples is just an indicator of general public apathy.
That is a western interpretation of Indian thoughts and it follows the colonial experience of the Europeans in the subcontinent.
They have shown that they have a vested interest in showing interest in Sanskrit and indology.

Check this article
http://www.scribd.com/doc/7447100/The-A ... an-History
Last edited by svinayak on 27 Mar 2010 01:47, edited 1 time in total.
JE Menon
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Re: Indian Interests

Post by JE Menon »

Masaru,

>>For this Indians have to take charge of their cultural heritage and learn to promote and propagate it.

Much of it has to do with money - as in the sourcing and application of it in the endeavour that you describe. I am convinced that in the future, significant monies will come from the private sector that will change the way we look at these things and maintain them.

Look how already things have changed. Do you come from a village or a town or a city? The temple, if you are a Hindu, or church or mosque you frequent... how has it changed over the past decade? Are the celebrations for festivals 10 yrs ago and now comparable in terms of the money poured into the effort? I look at my little village in Mallustan, and the temple there. I've seen it as a run-down shabby place, dirty and probably the sort of thing that the Pakisatans imagine when they think of an SDRE cowering in there. Today it is almost as if there is a competition to see who can donate more!!! The place has TRANSFORMED totally.

Wait a decade or so. You will see India, and especially its Hindu heritage, on steroids. Simply because a lot of poor people are making money. Guess whom they thank? And some of the middle class making money, and the upper middle class, will begin to think of our archaeological sites, our museums and our ancient manuscripts.

It will come. We need not worry. We only need to do our individual bit. At the moment, the best thing you can do is make money, and help other Indians to make money. We need to get rich. As fast as possible.
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