Indian Interests

[shiv]

From my personal perspective, it is in India's interest that the Stability:Instability ratio should be at a level significantly lower than the optimal benchmarks for either China or the United States. The Pakistan we want to see is one far more unstable than that either China or the United States want to see... it should be so unstable that its practical utility as a rentier to either China or the United States is utterly degraded, so that both those outside powers find the costs of supporting Pakistan increasing asymptotically while the returns diminish approaching zero.

Exactly! That is the stable Pakistan I want to see.

[Philip]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/pu ... detail.asp

The piece about the Shariah and threat to the US needs to be understood by us too.

xcpt:

Even Tony Blair, who had allowed his government’s policies to be dictated by Islamist followers of Maududi and the Muslim Brotherhood, recently stated that Radical Islam is the world’s greatest threat.

The Team B report states:

What cannot credibly be denied, however, is that:

a. shariah is firmly rooted in Islam’s doctrinal texts, and it is favored by influential Islamic commentators, institutions, and academic centers (for example, the faculty at al-Azhar University in Cairo, for centuries the seat of Sunni learning and jurisprudence);

b. shariah has been, for over a half-century, lavishly financed and propagated by Islamic regimes (particularly Saudi Arabia and Iran), through the offices of disciplined international organizations (particularly the Muslim Brotherhood); and

c. due to the fact that Islam lacks a central, universally recognized hierarchical authority (in contrast to, say, the Roman Catholic papacy), authentic Islamic moderates and reformers have an incredibly difficult task in endeavoring to delegitimize shariah in the community where it matters most: the world’s Muslims.

The report demands that genuine moderate Muslims and Islamic reformers must be encouraged, for without them, the hardline “Islamist” ideology will prevail.

Chapter 4 deals specifically with the Muslim Brotherhood, and other subsections of Chapter 5 deal with Hamas, al-Qaeda, Khomeinism, Hezbollah, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Tablighi Jamaat and Jamaat al-Fuqra.

For too long, governments in the West, including those in America, have taken on board a fictional version of Islam, a myth. This has allowed (p.17 of the report) individuals like Abdurahman Alamoudi to be an adviser at the White House, even though this Muslim Brotherhood member supported terrorist groups and was himself subsequently jailed for 23 years for terrorist offenses.

Alamoudi had claimed in 1996, at the time that he was nominating and vetting chaplains for the U.S. military and prisons, that: “either we do it now or we do it after a hundred years, but this country will become a Muslim country.”

Other people who have masqueraded as “moderates” and have had the ear of government in America have had the same attitudes. Omar Ahmad, founder of CAIR had stated in 1998 that:

“If you choose to live here [in America]… you have a responsibility to deliver the message of Islam. Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Quran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth.”

While a fictional interpretation of Islam is used to filter the reality of the Muslim world and its undercurrents, the West and America in particular will be compromised and ultimately overthrown. The report is a sourcebook that lists and defines most of the major global Islamist movements and showing how they operate upon a strict interpretation of the laws and rules of sharia. Interpreted in this literalist fashion, sharia makes Islam into a political ideology and literalist interpretations of sharia must be accepted for what they are – they divide the world into two halves – Dar-ul Islam (the House of Islam) and Dar-ul Harb (the House of War). Infidels reside in the House of War and strict radical interpretation of Sharia dictates that the House of War must be fought until the entire world is within the House of Islam.

Chapter 8 of the report (p.133) states:

In fact, by manipulating perceptions at the national strategic level about the nature of shariah, the enemy can actually exercise profound influence over the nature and adequacy of the defense mounted. That is most especially true of actions needed to contend with the Muslim Brotherhood’s stealth jihad – even though we know its avowed purpose is aimed at “eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands.”

To fully understand America’s peril in the face of such enemies, we must carefully consider our collective failure to contend with their successful pursuit of information dominance and psychological strategy, critical ingredients in information warfare. We must come to grips with, and correct, the control they have come to enjoy over what Americans, and most especially the U.S. civilian, intelligence, and military leadership, understand about shariah and its proponents.

America is at a crossroads, and the current administration – most notably the president and John Brennan – feature strongly within the report, and their refusal to acknowledge a Global Jihad is seen as potentially dangerous. The current administration has a need for a “wake-up call.”

However, this is not just a problem with one administration – previous governments have made the same errors, but the media and others are faulted for their “dhimmi” (appeasing, submissive) attitudes. Chapter 7 of the report Page 129 states:

It is easy to see why dhimmi populations in Islamic lands would collude in “protecting” Islam from “offense” or criticism; they rightly and understandably fear the consequences under shariah. But why do Westerners, in academia, the media, the White House, or the United Nations collude in these same “protections”?

[krisna]

Print news thrives in India

In the wake of the failing newspaper industry throughout more developed countries, newspapers in at least one country are going strong: India. For example, the country's largest English-language paper, the Times of India has a circulation of 4 million and is "one of the world's top ten publications by circulation," as stated in an article by Groundreport.com from the beginning of this year.
This has created a "newspaper renaissance," where there are "new titles and fatter editions appearing by the month," said an AFP article. According to a survey by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, paid newspapers in India have gone up 44 percent since 2005 to total 2,700 papers. This puts India ahead of the United States, which has 1,397 paid-for daily newspapers and China, which has about 1,000 papers.
"India also has the world's highest paid-for daily circulation, having surpassed China for the first time in 2008," according to the AFP article.

According to a statement by Bhaskar Rao, director of New Delhi's Centre for Media Studies, to AFP, Indians have a "hunger to know" and that after they watch a story on television, they want to find more about it in the paper the next day.

a lot of Indian newspapers are fairly cheap, with "revenue driven by advertising rather than sales."

risk of being at mercy of paid news

Plus, more and more people are reading newspapers since the 1990s because more people in India are gaining the ability to read, which could mean that more readership could be gained in the future as literacy rates go up.

hope young Indians do not go DIE and SLIME way

Circulation of Hindi newspapers, for example, has risen from less than eight million in the early 1990s to more than 25 million in 2009. And circulation figures only tell half the story, as many more people read newspapers than actually buy them,"(Indian innovation ) according to AFP.

Hope vernacular press is less DIE and less SLIME than english DDM

In addition, Indian newspapers do not have to worry so much about competing with the Internet, since connections costs and a "lack of infrastructure" means that people using the Internet is low, with only 55 million web users.

This has to improve as we get more information here with comparison.

[shiv]

Speaking for myself - every individual in my house has separate net access and there is more than one TV set.

But the net gives you no local info (deaths/events) and TV forces sensationalism down your throat and chooses when it wants to throw ads at you. The paper makes no such demand and can be resold to a "raddi paper wala" so we recoup 20% of the cost. We get 3 newspapers at home

[JE Menon]

Yeah, I should try telling my father to read the news on the laptop with his morning tea on the verandah !!! I don't see the newspaper business going down anytime soon in India.

[shiv]

In the light of discussions as to whether this forum is Hindutvadi or not, here is what Kissinger rote (Book edition 2001-2002). I don't like Kissinger either but he has clout and his thoughts surely reflect what is felt but not said. See the highlighted bit in these 2 scanned pages. Heck read it all:

Click on the thumbnail

[JE Menon]

thanx doc...

[ramana]

Kissinger writes with half knowledge and he is quoted as param satya vachan!

[svinayak]

For such people there is always answer
http://www.medhajournal.com/indology/56 ... india.html
The Unity of India
WEDNESDAY, 26 NOVEMBER 2008 11:12 DILEEP KARANTH
This article1 is an attempt to explore the idea of an India – to see whether the idea is meaningful, and if so, to trace the birth and the evolution of the idea. Was this concept indigenous to India? Was it a bequest by outsiders, or invaders, or colonizers?

Just like Kissinger 100 years ago many people said the same thing about India

An English authority, Sir John Strachey, had this to say about India:
... this is the first and most essential thing to learn about India – that there is not and never was an India or even any country of India, possessing according to European ideas, any sort of unity, physical, political ...2

His was not an isolated opinion.

Reginald Craddock, Home Minister of the Government of India under Hardinge and Chelmsford, in The dilemma in India (1929) denied the existence of an Indian nation:
An Indian Nation, if such be possible, has to be created before it can exist. It never existed in the past, and it does not exist now. ... There is no word for ‘Indian’ in any vernacular tongue; there is not even any word for ‘India’. Nor is there any reason why there should be an Indian Nation. The bond or union among the races to be found there is that they have for the last century and a half been governed in common by a Foreign Power.3

According to Craddock, India was merely, like Europe, a subcontinent within the vast single continent of Europe and Asia, whose peoples had “roamed over the whole” in prehistoric times. Down the centuries nationalities had become localized, until Europe and India, for example, each contained well over twenty separate countries, divided by race and language. India looked like one country only if seen from the outside, from ignorance or distance.

http://www.svabhinava.org/HinduCiviliza ... -frame.php

[Venkarl]

Xposting from POK thread

20 SEP, 2010, 09.19PM IST,PTI
India considering deepwater gas pipeline from Oman: Report

DUABI: India is actively considering building a 2,000-km-long deepwater transnational gas pipeline from Oman for transporting natural gas sourced from Turkmenistan, Iran and Qatar, a leading industry official has said.
The proposed sub-sea pipeline will meet the additional gas requirement of the UAE, Oman and India, besides easing gas transportation issues of producing countries like Turkmenistan, Iran and Qatar, Subodh Kumar Jain, Director of South Asia Gas Enterprise (SAGE), told Times of Oman.

This was proposed in the last century itself....still considering

On TAPI in today's Hindu paper. Which one are we going for....? confused

[Philip]

Devastating news and India's image takes a further blow.MMS has been sleeping all along obsessed with his N-deal as a veteran international media personality said to me not too long ago.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/others ... es-19.html

Commonwealth Games 2010 in crisis as 19 injured in stadium foot bridge collapse
At least 19 people have been injured after a foot bridge collapsed near the main Commonwealth Games stadium in Delhi as fears grow that the event may be called off amid concerns over security, accommodation and competitor safety.

Team leaders from England, Scotland, Wales, New Zealand, Australia and Canada have all expressed "grave concerns" over the housing for the 6,500 team members and said some was "unsafe and unfit for human habitation".

However, Sports minister Hugh Robertson said he remains confident the Games will go ahead.

"It would be an utter tragedy if anything went wrong at the last moment," he said. "There is nothing that I have seen or heard that has suggested that these are problems that cannot be sorted out.

"I'm expecting that our teams will turn up in Delhi as announced and that the Games will go ahead as planned."

Conditions in the athletes' village prompted Scottish officials to describe their team's accommodation as "unsafe and unfit for human habitation."

[AdityaM]

Doesn't Ayodhya offers a perfect foil for kangriss to divert attention from the CWG failure?

Increasingly Kalmadi looks like the fall guy behind whom the whole govt machinery is hiding. If the bridge falls, pavements & roads break, dengue spread then how is it his fault?

[ramana]

Doesn't Ayodhya offers a perfect foil for kangriss to divert attention from the CWG failure?

Increasingly Kalmadi looks like the fall guy behind whom the whole govt machinery is hiding. If the bridge falls, pavements & roads break, dengue spread then how is it his fault?

There is BJP as fallback.

[ramana]

Atleast some people are still dreaming.


India has potential to become a superpower

WARANGAL: To become a superpower India needs to grow at 10 per cent per annum in GDP, raise investment in agriculture to raise three crops a year, enable formers to export besides deployment IT in high employment industries, observed Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy.

Delivering the fourth silver jubilee endowment lecture on Kakatiya University campus here on Tuesday, Dr. Swamy said to realise the potential to become a global power, Indians should focus on innovation, respect merit and take calculated risk. “India was a superpower for centuries till about 1,500 AD. The invasions of Moghuls and British are an indication and students from across the globe came to the famous Nalanda university,” he pointed out. However, India declined later and in 1947 it made a mistake by opting Soviet model of economy which proved disastrous. “What is holding Indians back from realising the potential of becoming a ? In one phrase, it is our present ruling elite's Anglo-Indian culture and a mindset to appease and capitulate to those who want to belittle or control India,” Dr. Swamy, senior faculty of Harvard University pointed out.

The younger generation of India should not attach any importance to caste as it is no more relevant and be prepared to take risk to achieve something worthwhile in life, Dr. Swamy exhorted the large gathering of students.

The lecture was instituted by the Department of Commerce & Business Management of Kakatiya University on the eve of its completion of 25 years. This was the fourth lecture. Vice-Chancellor N. Lingamurthy, Registrar A. Sadanandam, Commerce Department Head P. Jogachary and others were present.

Would be interesting to get full text of his lecture.

[ramana]

K.P. Nayar reports on Mrs Rao's Harvard lecture

Deng touch, Kautilya counter

Wish he didnt refer to Deng/Weng...

Deng touch, Kautilya counter
K.P.NAYAR


New York, Sept. 21: Precisely three weeks before India is elected as a member of the UN Security Council after a gap of nearly two decades, foreign secretary Nirupama Rao yesterday presented a comprehensive outline of the country’s external affairs at the world’s most high profile high table, which New Delhi will occupy for two years from January 1, 2011.

A China expert, a former ambassador in Beijing and the country’s foremost authority on Sino-Indian boundary, Rao’s presentation at Harvard’s South Asia Initiative was reminiscent of Deng Xiaoping’s famous description of Beijing’s policies in his time as “socialism with Chinese characteristics”. For analysts looking for straws in the wind about trends in New Delhi’s policies almost on the eve of the UN General Assembly’s “general debate” attended by heads of state and government, Rao also injected a sense of realism to the popular lore about India’s rise as a global power.

“Today, it is almost de rigeur to speak of the dynamic Indian growth story despite the ravages of the global economic crisis. But, to put our arms around the Indian experience, you have to go beyond just the factor of fast economic growth,” she told the Harvard audience, delivering the Harish C. Mahindra Memorial Lecture.

To “join the ranks of the developed countries,” she said, India would have to maintain “an average growth of a minimum of 7.5 per cent GDP per year (and) achieve a 10-fold increase in per capita income in the next 30 years... At this rate of growth, by 2020, we should be able to be categorised as a middle income developing country.”

Seeking to anchor India’s foreign policy on these growth objectives, Rao said “this approach has shaped and defined India’s role on the global stage today, as the policies we seek to articulate and endorse internationally are based on our own domestic experience”.

Explaining the transformation perceived by her audience to global policies with Indian characteristics, Deng-style, Rao recalled that “the well-springs of India’s foreign policy as we began life as an independent nation” were “issues such as decolonisation, the creation of an Afro-Asian community of like-minded countries, the emphasis on the principles of peaceful co-existence based on mutual respect between nations”, among others.

Not that such issues are no more relevant. But today, “driving our foreign policy priorities and our desire for strategic autonomy are factors of external security, internal security, the need for sustained economic growth, our energy security, maritime security and access to technology and innovation.”

Adding growth as a rarely articulated dimension to foreign policy, Rao said: “Where our global role and our foreign policy comes into this growth story is to ensure that we create an environment, an external environment that is conducive to an increased flow of capital into the country.”

At the same time, the foreign secretary poured cold water on the idea touted by some in India and hoped for by many more in the US that New Delhi’s foreign and security policies could be anchored to those of Washington as Indo-US relations continue to blossom.

“India is too large a country to be dovetailed into alliance type of relationships. In order to modernise our country we need to, and we have succeeded in, forging well-rounded strategic partnerships with all major powers.”

Perhaps for the first time since a setback in Sharm el-Sheikh in July last year when the UPA government was heavily criticised at home for perceived concessions to Islamabad, the foreign secretary explained the rationale behind Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s determination to seek a rapprochement with Pakistan despite heavy odds.

Quoting Kautilya, the philosopher-statesman associated with the rise of the Maurya empire, Rao said “we understand well the Kautilyan advice that a great power loses stature if it remains bogged down in neighbourhood entanglements. We are determined to persevere in our dialogue with Pakistan in order to resolve outstanding issues”.

Like the adage that charity begins at home, she emphasised that “any visualisation of India’s global role must begin in our immediate neighbourhood because situational factors in that environment affect our internal security and therefore merit our greatest attention”. Besides, the “Indian economy with its rapid growth and the impact this exerts beyond our borders, is fast becoming an anchoring element in the region”. Therefore, “a peaceful neighbourhood is mandatory for the realisation of our own vision of economic growth”.

With barely seven weeks left for US president Barack Obama’s visit to India, when Afghanistan will be a critical subject of discussion, the foreign secretary did some plain speaking on Pakistan’s criticism of New Delhi’s role in Kabul, which has gained some traction in America, in sections of the Obama administration, within the strategic community and in the media. “We have a direct interest in Afghanistan, not because we see it as a theatre of rivalry with Pakistan but because of the growing fusion of terrorist groups that operate from Afghanistan and Pakistan and their activities in India... We stand by (our) commitment (of development assistance) despite the grave threat under which our personnel and people are working in Afghanistan to transform the lives of ordinary Afghan people.”

Two decades ago, an Indian foreign secretary’s speech would have been replete with praise for non-alignment and similar ideas. Yesterday, Rao pointed out that last year in September, at its Pittsburgh Summit, the G-20 “was designated as the premier forum for international economic cooperation. We see the G-20 process as a move towards a more representative mechanism to manage global economic and financial issues”.

I always liked her speeches even when she was the Counsellor at DC in the 90s. Still remember her "Read the good things about India and Share the optimism" admonition to the India naysayers haunting DC.

My only concern is we should not be tied up in "peace in our times" kind of Munichian rhetoric. We need to tell TSP and US how afar and no farther India will allow the neighborhood to tie her down.

I am glad she says no farther in Afghanistan and says it in the lions den.

[Paul]

K.P. Nayar reports on Mrs Rao's Harvard lecture

Deng touch, Kautilya counter

Wish he didnt refer to Deng/Weng...

Deng touch, Kautilya counter
K.P.NAYAR

.
.
.
.
.
“India is too large a country to be dovetailed into alliance type of relationships.

Ramana, The west has a solution for solving this riddle. You have pointed the solution in other threads so yourself.

BTW......MMS said the same in another speech. It is good that mandarins and leaders are in sync on the direction. It the ways and means for achieving this where they have differences.

[ramana]

In the early years while States integration was going on it might have been possible their pipe dreams could turn into reality. However now after over 70 years and all the common struggles its not feasible. Its possible that without their knowledge, India has extended its greater abroad via SAARC.

Next decade I expect to see more ME and African countries including KSA, SA and Kenya become part of SAARC. The BMIST intiative is there for the East Asia.

All it needs is a steady and firm hand to deal with scamsters and trouble makers and keep the Indian worth high to create its own dynamic.

[Prem]

As we all know, the real fun will start after 2020, This decade is crucial, espcially till 2017 when nominal economy crosses 4T mark . After this no power on earth will be able to dislodge indian Elephant wherever, whenever it decide to sit or stand on particular place or issue. Its very crucial for survival that we get into Middle Income group in next ten years.

[Philip]

While we should not get "bogged down" with troublesome neighbour Pak,what can anyone do if Pak/its army/ISI continue to plot and plan perfidious terror against India? AS said before,if we do not want to teach it another military lesson,and perhaps lower ourselves down to Pak's level,then diplomatic punishment is the answer.Pak must be treated like a contagious disease and "quarantined" diplomatically by India.No contacts whatsoever.Zilch.Until it reforms itself and a democratic govt. is truly not just "in power",but also "weilding power", with whom India can talk to.

[SSridhar]

K.P. Nayar reports on Mrs Rao's Harvard lecture

Deng touch, Kautilya counter

Quoting Kautilya, the philosopher-statesman associated with the rise of the Maurya empire, Rao said “we understand well the Kautilyan advice that a great power loses stature if it remains bogged down in neighbourhood entanglements. We are determined to persevere in our dialogue with Pakistan in order to resolve outstanding issues”.

One hopes that GoI remembers the various other 'advices' of Kautilya, especially those of handling truculent neighbours.

Today, whether one likes it or not, Pakistan ties us down considerably, either by itself or in collusion with other countries. To deal with Pakistan is therefore our top most priority. We cannot ignore that country. We cannot wait for ever to reach an invincible economic strength before undermining and destroying Pakistan. While the degree of our destruction of Pakistan can accelerate as we increase our economic strength, we have to do things commensurate with our current strengths even today. War is not the only path as Kautilya has shown. It gives me some hope that when Ms. Rao speaks of Kautilya, she is indeed conveying a message. Extending a hand of peace is only one of the four facets of dealing with such nations as TSP. After all, we have listened to tales of how 'Chankyan' India was etc. from Pakistani analysts and commentators and it is real time to show Pakistan what it truly meant.

Indian interests will be mightily served if we learn to nippable situations right in the bud rather than allowing to them to assume gargantuan proportions. This is especially true as we begin to routinely take our rightful seat in the High Table.

[svinayak]

One hopes that GoI remembers the various other 'advices' of Kautilya, especially those of handling truculent neighbours.

Today, whether one likes it or not, Pakistan ties us down considerably, either by itself or in collusion with other countries. To deal with Pakistan is therefore our top most priority. We cannot ignore that country.

India does not need to get tied down. It needs to keep moving for a larger role.
India delayed its larger role by 3-4 decades and this has been taken advantage by the local players
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvA91gWMkEI
Similar discussion in this PPBS program

[Dhiman]

GoI spend $70 million on Ayni airbase, but may not get to use it.

[Venkarl]

Acharya ji...thanks for the video link

[kmkraoind]

As we all know, the real fun will start after 2020, This decade is crucial, espcially till 2017 when nominal economy crosses 4T mark . After this no power on earth will be able to dislodge indian Elephant wherever, whenever it decide to sit or stand on particular place or issue. Its very crucial for survival that we get into Middle Income group in next ten years.

Prosperity, non-homogeneous society and passive people with non-militaristic tendencies is a explosive combination.

[SSridhar]

Today, whether one likes it or not, Pakistan ties us down considerably, either by itself or in collusion with other countries.

India does not need to get tied down. It needs to keep moving for a larger role.
India delayed its larger role by 3-4 decades and this has been taken advantage by the local players

Acharya, today other countries are issuing travel advisories against visiting India, sports teams are pulling out citing security concerns, India has to expend enormous efforts combating externally-induced terrorism sapping the energies and money that could be spent more effectively, our diplomats have to keep rebutting false and frivolous accusations against us every day, ordinary citizens going about their normal business that would put food on their plate the next day have to keep constantly worrying about terrorists etc. etc. This is what tying down does. While we will continue to make progress in spite of all this, our progress is thwarted and we are losing innocent lives in the process which can be traced directly to this enduring hostility. Again, it is a bitter pill but our speed has been slowed down by Pakistan.

[ramana]

JN Dixit said that in an interview in 1993 after his retirement as MEA Secy on BBC. It ended up costing India atleast fifteen years of his useful service due to petty politicians.

SS its known only problem as SB Chavan has said in Lok Sabha in 1993 is TSP has very big backers and unless India compormises and submits to them or grows big enough to defy them or they collapse the situation will be like this only.

A very good chance was 2001 when they attacked the Lok Sabha. If India had taken out TSP and presented a fait accompli (ridding the world of terrorist nation) it would have been swallowed.

Unfortunately gatham gatahah!

[Hari Seldon]

^^^ Can't help but recall sri Shivas's golden dictum - gifting ICBM tech to TSP may be the best way to get the 'powerful backers' to back off.

In 1 stroke it would expose every 3.5 bit backer's backside to packee chicanery.

[svinayak]

Acharya, today other countries are issuing travel advisories against visiting India, sports teams are pulling out citing security concerns, India has to expend enormous efforts combating externally-induced terrorism sapping the energies and money that could be spent more effectively, our diplomats have to keep rebutting false and frivolous accusations against us every day, ordinary citizens going about their normal business that would put food on their plate the next day have to keep constantly worrying about terrorists etc. etc. This is what tying down does. While we will continue to make progress in spite of all this, our progress is thwarted and we are losing innocent lives in the process which can be traced directly to this enduring hostility. Again, it is a bitter pill but our speed has been slowed down by Pakistan.

Doe India have a political parties which are looking out for the nation interest of Indians. Indians have not elected the leadership which will devise a strategy which takes 30 years to take care of such problems. The generation which is the elite looks at the west for all solutions and is not rooted in the history of India and its vision.

[Prem]

Doe India have a political parties which are looking out for the nation interest of Indians. Indians have not elected the leadership which will devise a strategy which takes 30 years to take care of such problems. The generation which is the elite looks at the west for all solutions and is not rooted in the history of India and its vision

Till this fundamental political weakness is fixed, India cant stop interference of ouside powers. Now this political class wants to weaken national security. When Army cheif has to come out to make public plea then onlee Upparwala knows what sort of creatures have infested GOI.

[RamaY]

Acharya, today other countries are issuing travel advisories against visiting India, sports teams are pulling out citing security concerns, India has to expend enormous efforts combating externally-induced terrorism sapping the energies and money that could be spent more effectively, our diplomats have to keep rebutting false and frivolous accusations against us every day, ordinary citizens going about their normal business that would put food on their plate the next day have to keep constantly worrying about terrorists etc. etc. This is what tying down does. While we will continue to make progress in spite of all this, our progress is thwarted and we are losing innocent lives in the process which can be traced directly to this enduring hostility. Again, it is a bitter pill but our speed has been slowed down by Pakistan.

This is what happens when GOI claims a 26/11 scale terrorist event means nothing to India and makes a joke out of the nation (the same INDIA that is supposed to stand united when CWG fails). Why blaming other nations?

The less we talk about "the ordinary citizens going about their normal business to put food on the table" is the better for them and the nation. These ordinary citizens have nothing to do with travel advisories or failure of CWG games or failure of the govt in protecting national interests. The ordinary citizens gave that responsibility to GOI by paying taxes and authority by living as per law-of-land.

[brihaspati]

All the pain caused to the common Indian with respect to anxiety about terror attacks, all the supposed loss of resources that are tied down in combating Pak and the real players behind it who use Pak as the proxy - why can it go on and on and on?

One single factor can explain it almost entirely - that somehow the cost of that pain and tying down does not matter to those who have power to decide India's actions as a nation. Or that the costs are negligible compared to the costs of taking action.

Now it is always difficult to assign prices to intangible, non-material aspects of human life like "pain", "lack of development", "quality of life", "aspirations" etc. More often the prices of such things are set by - again - those who have obtained and are able to maintain the power to decide the action of the rashtra. Moreover such a decision making power is retained by a very small proportion of the entire population.

How is such power obtained by a minuscule group over an immense majority and retained in spite of the fact that such power is being obviously used to decide "prices" unilaterally and to the disadvantage of the collective? That appears to be a paradox because it has become now a global fashion to automatically associate a formal democratic electoral process with power shifting to the majority. In reality it is far from the truth. Democratic electoral process is still a formal process that simply legitimizes and reflects the existing power relations within the society and power is not simply a question of numerical strengths.

In every society - power is weilded by a determined and obsessed minority whose entire life, and perhaps even their morning biological chores start with an overwhelming insecurity complex with a parallel megalomania fueling a singleminded drive to "control" everything and all humanity around them. It is this rather rare mentality that will gradually concentrate such abnomal people in a small network who recognize that they have to cooperate with similar minded people to attain their objectives [similar minded people can also spoil hence they have to be coopted].

Every society comes to be dominated by such groups because the large majority are not driven by that obsession to control and every society - irrespective of its formal representation method is ultimately situated in a rashtra whose power is held by a determined and control-obsessed minority. Therefore such power elite also know that they are not going to be so harshly penalized for their crimes that it makes power as an enterprise unprofitable. [That would have meant that the general common mass have similar obsessions and who would therefore have long before been coopted].

The tolerance of Pak is contradictory to this mentality? Not really! The Paki elite behaviour is similar in its drive if not in its overt manifestation and the Indian power elite recognizes that the Paki elite are psychological kin - the Paki elite has the same obsession in holding on to power, the same insecurities, and the same drives and therefore the same persistence. They will similarly not be concerned about the prices their own country men have to bear - because they in their own way have and can ensure that representative processes merely reflect the actual power relations within the society. So Indian power elite will swing between trying to coopt the Paki elite [the WKK syndrome and "peace overtures"] and engaging in fierce factional infighting - but always, always be wary of the "other" power elite.

Maulana Ziauddin Barani devised a plan by which the Khilji sultanate based in Delhi could become "permanent" and advised Alauddin that the best method of ensuring control over the society was to extract all social surplus to the extent that only that necessary to reproduce labour would be retained in the commons. In the modern period such an extraction process is difficult to justify - so control can be retained in a slightly camouflaged form. Here, the primary form of growth input factor - capital and land redistribution is controlled, so that capital and land does not reach the vast majority of producers directly which implies that they have less negotiating power on the market for resources of factors of production. This virtually reduces to the Barani-Alauddin model whereby the vast majority of producers ultimately land up with just sufficient surplus to reproduce themselves - so that they do not have the time or incentive or energy left to devote to thinking about changing the power relations.

Moreover the rashtra can be quite vicious and prompt in swooping down on its own subjects whenever there is a smallest possibility of the power-elites' control being challenged - a speed which is always missing in dealing with external power-elite like that of Pak.

Over time Indian elite also came to the same problem that Barani-Alauddin model came to - that of diminishing returns and loss of productivity endangering the very continuity of power. In modern times this has been solved by resorting to a two-pronged strategy. The first is to harness the productivity of that portion of the commons that is driven by the more common natural human drive to "create" and "innovate" [power elite are singularly impotent and infertile in creativity - perhaps the hidden reason that they are so insecure and seek to satisfy that shortcoming with power] and loosen control just enough to encourage such creativity. Second, to redistribute part of the social surplus thus generated through a form of charity - just as the successive adopters of the Barani-Alauddin model did - to ensure control over the non-creative portion of the commons. In modern times charity takes the form of special claims to the social surplus in the form of reservations to portions of the social surplus. It is charity because it does not incentivize productivity, and is not related or proportional to productivity and creativity. Note that the modern "charity" does not redistribute sources of producing surplus - capital and land, only ensuring dependence on the redistributing elite for consumption.

[Pranav]

How is such power obtained by a minuscule group over an immense majority and retained in spite of the fact that such power is being obviously used to decide "prices" unilaterally and to the disadvantage of the collective? That appears to be a paradox because it has become now a global fashion to automatically associate a formal democratic electoral process with power shifting to the majority. In reality it is far from the truth. Democratic electoral process is still a formal process that simply legitimizes and reflects the existing power relations within the society and power is not simply a question of numerical strengths.

Excellent analysis ... the only thing to add is the role of external players in propping up domestic elites for their own advantage.

Therefore such power elite also know that they are not going to be so harshly penalized for their crimes that it makes power as an enterprise unprofitable. [That would have meant that the general common mass have similar obsessions and who would therefore have long before been coopted].

Is it possible to make the average citizen acutely aware and active. These days most "respectable" individuals have their brains numbed by the daily media indoctrination.

[JwalaMukhi]

Doe India have a political parties which are looking out for the nation interest of Indians. Indians have not elected the leadership which will devise a strategy which takes 30 years to take care of such problems. The generation which is the elite looks at the west for all solutions and is not rooted in the history of India and its vision

Till this fundamental political weakness is fixed, India cant stop interference of ouside powers. Now this political class wants to weaken national security. When Army cheif has to come out to make public plea then onlee Upparwala knows what sort of creatures have infested GOI.

Brihaspatiji has explained very well in the above post as to why such leadership is going to be tough to come up with, unless something fundamentally changes in the way Indians deal with themselves. The leadership has devised very well a strategy to take care of such problems at personal level. The solution to all the problems has been found to be simple and effective, and that route has been emancipation through emigration. This is lucrative for all the leadership.
A casual audit of all the members of Rajya Sabha/Loksabha and babucracy would be very revealing. How many have either themselves, direct wards, better halfs and immediate family members, who have found emancipation through emigration to different regions outside of India? That answer would be very revealing.
Just because many of near ones and dear ones of leadership have found emancipation through emigration, doesn't mean that the leadership material should be not rooted in history of India and its vision. But, it is very measurable parameter which directly casts a vote, on how well the leadership has stake and hope on the policies that they are pursuing. Such measures and audit would be verboten.

Till it dawns on the leadership material in the coming generations, that emancipation through emigration could work for some, but is no solution for all Indians, leadership with Indian Interests in deed and thoughts will be rare. Partly will explain why the leaderships find it easy to twitter the difficulty to mingle with the cattle class in India, because policies pursued by leadership is firmly entrenched in expanding cattle class.

Reducing the base of thinking population is common ploy to hold onto the power base. Advanced followers of that techinque thrive in regions west of India to arabian lands.

[Pranav]

Swamy's tweet:

@NishkaK :No one in Parliament asks Antonia and Raul why they fibbed on their educational qualification,or why Bianca was in Macao recently?

http://twitter.com/Swamy39/status/25266286976

If Gandhi family is transferring ill-gotten gains from Switzerland to Macao, what does it mean for India-China relations?

[Philip]

Mihir Bose with some tough questions about India and our "cultural attitude" towards sport,which helps explain the CWG fiasco.It is a scathing indictment of the Indian attitude and demands attention and reflection.

I also feel that we (babudom/politicos) do not respect sport and sportsmen and women.We treat them like circus animals and have been doing so for years.Our hockey teams in the past had to travel "turd class",World Billiard champion Michael Ferreira had no money for even public transport and washed his own clothes when he won the title abroad,our current celebrated grand-slam winning tennis players even today complained about outstanding dues and threatened a walk-out,our shooters train abroad,women athletes are sexually harrassed,the list can go on and on.This is why that insidious filthy slimeball "Secretary-General" of the OC no less mind you,Bhanot, spoke about "different hygenic standards".To him sportsmen are no better than coolies who should be happy by his standards defecating in the gardens and spitting paan on the walls.When one of our sportsmen or women win something abroad,the politicos and officials all rush to bask in reflected glory,as if they were world champions! Just like our valiant jawans and men and women of the armed forces,they are lauded in a crisis and then forgotten immediately afterwards and have to wait for years even before getting their just rewards.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 87034.html

Why India is a bit player in the world of sport

Deep-seated cultural attitudes may be to blame for the Commonwealth Games fiasco

By Mihir Bose
Thursday, 23 September 2010

Does India always have a problem making a strong entrance on the world stage? That was certainly the view of E M Forster's fictional English hero Fielding in A Passage to India who ranked the country alongside Belgium as cutting a sorry figure.

As India booms, that may sound like an outdated concept. Yet the hash the Indians are making of the Commonwealth Games suggests that even Belgium would object to being compared with them. Belgium successfully staged the 2000 European football championship, albeit in partnership with Holland, and the same duo is hoping to host the 2018 World Cup.

In contrast, the Delhi Commonwealth Games have seen the deaths of numerous construction workers, a massive uprooting of the capital's poor and, following allegations of corruption, the Indian Prime Minister stepping in to appoint officials to supervise the project.

And, despite spending a staggering $6bn (£3.8bn), as delegates arrived in Delhi this week they condemned the athletes' village as filthy, unhygienic and unfit for human habitation. Dave Currie, the head of the New Zealand Games team, even suggested that this could lead to the Games being cancelled altogether. And, to add to the mayhem, a footbridge gave way near the main Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.

The problems the Games have revealed are more than the usual Indian contradictions. This ancient culture which is supposed to be measured and slow is actually one where everyone wants to go fast. One of the favourite Indian expressions is "Juldi, juldi" ("hurry, hurry"). The only problem is the stifling bureaucracy and the agonisingly inefficient infrastructure. The result is that cries of "Juldi, juldi" rise like a cloud of vapour while the actual pace of the journey matches the legendary Indian bullock cart.

And, while India still has a Soviet-style Planning Commission which produces five year plans, the country has an instinctive aversion to the sort of long-term planning which major sports events require. The Indian ability to improvise cannot be doubted. Last year, when security concerns meant that the Indian Premier League could not be staged in India, within weeks it had been moved to South Africa in the sort of operation that would be unthinkable in any other country.

The organisers of the Commonwealth Games, aware of this, took the unprecedented decision of moving their chief executive Mike Hooper from his comfortable office in central London to Delhi. The hope was that the feisty New Zealander would bring a much needed dose of Anglo-Saxon realism to the Indian belief that it will be all right on the night, summed up in the phrase "Chalta hai" ("It will do").

But not even Hooper could have solved the deep-seated problems revealed by the Commonwealth Games. These raise serious doubts as to whether, for all the money being spent on the tournament and all the talk of national pride, Indians actually care about sport.

Cricket apart, India is one of the great underachievers of modern sport. Until 2008, India's Olympic golds had all come in hockey. In Beijing, the country did win its first individual gold in shooting, but it has never done anything of note in the high-profile events of swimming, track and field. Its contingent for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver was so shambolic that the city's large Indian origin population started organising donations for the team. The odd individual Indian has sometimes made sporting headlines but, given the country's immense size and its long exposure to western sports, its failure to make a mark on the world sporting stage is astonishing.

One explanation has been provided by Ashwini Kumar, a former vice president of the International Olympic Committee."India has no base for sports despite its enormous population. Sport in our country is khel-khood (just a bit of fun)," he said.

"It goes against the grain of our country, against our tradition to play sports the way they do in the West. If a child in our country returns from the playground, he is not asked by his parents how he fared, but slapped for missing his studies and wasting his time. Sport is against our Indian ethos, our cultural tradition."

It has been estimated that less than 2 per cent of schools have playgrounds and even these are not the sort of playing fields common in the West, but just a little piece of open land where the children can run about.

Matters are not helped by the fact that education is not controlled centrally but by the various state governments. This leads to a profusion of policies, with sport often falling between the two stools of the centre and the state.

Unlike other countries, Indian politicians have historically shown little interest in sport. The Commonwealth Games are due to start in Delhi the day after India celebrates the birth of Mahatma Gandhi.

Yet the man venerated as the father of the Indian nation never concealed his aversion to sport – a fact that he frankly confessed in his autobiography. Indeed, in 1932, when Indian hockey ruled the world and Gandhi was asked for help in funding the team's participation in the Los Angeles Games, the "great-souled one" famously enquired: "What is hockey?"

The contrast with China and Mao could not be starker. The first paper Mao wrote back in 1917 was about the importance of sport.

In language that the Victorians, who popularised sport in this country, would have understood well, he said: "It is absolutely right to say that one must build a strong body if he or she wants to cultivate inner strength." For Mao, sport was also part of state policy, as he demonstrated in the 1970s by using "ping pong" diplomacy to seek a rapprochement with Richard Nixon and the United States.

The great Indian savant Swami Vivekananda did once advise his countrymen that they would find God more easily if they played football rather than spent hours studying the Gita – the Hindu bible – but his was a voice in the wilderness. Jawaharlal Nehru did his bit for sport and cricket in particular, not least by keeping India in the Commonwealth – a decision which went against the policy of the ruling Congress Party. But, unlike China, sport in India was never part of any centrally-driven policy.

This sports vacuum has been ideal for bureaucrats and low-level politicians, who have found sport a useful base upon which to build public support. Their path has been helped by the fact that, cricket apart, former Indian sportsmen and women have little or no involvement in running sports organisations, and most sports, particularly those contested at the Olympics, do not attract much commercial support.

For years Indian football was run by a Calcutta-based politician, while Suresh Kalmadi, a former pilot in the Indian Air Force and a Congress politician who is organising the Commonwealth Games, used Indian athletics and then the Indian Olympic Association to build his powerful base.

Even in cricket, which has always had upper- and middle-class support – having been sponsored by the Indian princes and then by Indian business – politicians are playing an increasingly important role.

Where once former cricketers were involved in running the sport, now it is powerful politicians like the current leader of Indian cricket and world cricket, the Indian cabinet minister Sharad Power. While his political clout cannot be doubted, there is nothing in his background which suggests much of an involvement with the game.

The most galling thing for the Indians is the contrast this provides with China, which used the 2008 Beijing Olympics as a giant coming-out party, proving that it could beat the West at its own sports. The tragedy for India is that, whatever happens in Delhi over the next few weeks, the world will conclude that this is another area where India cannot match its Asian rival.

[kittoo]

As we all know, the real fun will start after 2020, This decade is crucial, espcially till 2017 when nominal economy crosses 4T mark . After this no power on earth will be able to dislodge indian Elephant wherever, whenever it decide to sit or stand on particular place or issue. Its very crucial for survival that we get into Middle Income group in next ten years.

Prosperity, non-homogeneous society and passive people with non-militaristic tendencies is a explosive combination.

So true! History has taught us that India runs in cycles. It creates wealth, gets looted, rises again and again creates wealth and gets looted again and so on.....

[Prem]

This happened to india only when it was fragmanted and not united . This is the first time India is acting like one unit but i fear Congress /PS Pinkos wont let it remain united. Our internal enemies are more dangeorus than the external one and this weaknes wont wither soon.Educational system, Media and political control will make sure many Indians remain DIE .

[ramana]

source:
Instituion Builder

Homi Sethna

Homi had a realistic distrust of the Americans. “We were told [in 1966] to devalue the rupee, which we did. We were told that money would flow once we devalued, and it would be all milk and honey. But money did not flow in.”

BTW we met the retired person who was the 'no notes' keeper of POK I. All in his mind.

[Chinmayanand]

Making A Positive Difference

Two schools of thought guide most of India's debate on Africa. On the one hand, you have the emulationists who believe that India should match Chinese moves in Africa without any delay or hesitation. But the reality is that New Delhi simply lacks the capabilities and profile to compete. India's public companies have a record of bids lost to the Chinese, starting with the 2006 Angola oil debacle and, more recently, in a large Ethiopian rail project. On the political front, the 2008 India-Africa summit in Delhi attracted merely 14 African leaders, as compared to 48 who visited Beijing in 2006.

On the other hand, you have the singularists who refuse any comparison to China and underline India's "absolute uniqueness". These optimists take particular pleasure from African accusations that depict the Chinese as "mercantilist mandarins" and, as if in a zero-sum game, they like to believe that Africans will eventually recognise the long-term costs of the Chinese model and "choose" India. Unfortunately, their overconfidence has bred strategic inertia and a disinterest in looking at Africa in comparative and critical terms.

Instead of emulating China in blind competition or stubbornly refusing any comparison with its northern neighbour, New Delhi should focus on a long-term exploration of five dimensions that distinguish it positively and could develop into a strategic advantage over Beijing.

First, New Delhi should not shy away from publicising that instead of just "giving fish" and thus perpetuating Africa's dependence, it is teaching the continent how to fish for itself. Unlike the state-centric Chinese model based on resource extraction, India's presence in Africa is marked by the predominance of its private sector, mainly small and medium enterprises focussing on education, skilling and health services.

India's Pan-African e-Network links 53 African countries and plays a crucial role in fostering skills and human resources that are critical for the continent to develop in a sustainable way. These projects require considerable investments but, in the long run, they will pay off as African countries start to recognise India's added value in contributing not only to the quantity, but also to the quality of their economic growth.

Second, India and Africa share an enviable geographical proximity in the western Indian Ocean. The piracy threat along the Somali and East African coast offers the Indian Navy a superb opportunity to develop into a regional security provider. India could maximise this by keeping sea lanes of communication like the Gulf of Aden or the Mozambique channel secure, and by developing the naval capabilities of the East African states through increased joint exercises, new listening posts and the supply of vessels. The Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (from which China is excluded) and the revival of the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation are important steps in this direction. Tactical triangulations with other partners, such as the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) naval forces, the US AFRICOM, the EU or NATO, could further leverage this advantage over China.

Third, India could start thinking on the lines of a possible "Delhi consensus" and develop its democracy and human rights discourse in Africa. As a founding member of the Community of Democracies, Delhi could explore this "regime advantage" over China in Africa and dismiss the spurious advantages and supposed popularity of the "Beijing consensus". Several African countries have expressed interest in learning from India's successful experience with federalism.

Others are keen in working with the Election Commission of India to study and replicate India's unique electronic voting system. India's vibrant base of local government institutions and its independent judicial system based on the rule of law are two other areas in which India can outflank China by sharing its expertise through technical cooperation and responding to specific African needs.

Fourth, India needs to explore its diplomatic capital as a "bridging power". India's role as a non-aligned power and consistent support to the African independence movements have also earned it a persisting respectability as a "Southern power". Unlike China, which is increasingly seen from a G2 perspective, it is a founding member of the G-77 of developing nations and held its presidency twice. India is also a member of the Commonwealth organisation and at the heart of the impressive tri-continental IBSA axis that gives it an advantage to engage the Southern Africa Development Community and sub-Saharan Africa.

A final advantage resides in the cultural proximity between Africa and India. Almost 100,000 Indian citizens and one million people of Indian origin live in Africa. Unlike the radically segregated Chinese "labour diaspora" that has often provoked violent protests in host countries, Indian communities are fully integrated, as well as interested in offering their local expertise and privileged access channels as consultants to Indian interests. At the same time, India could also explore the added value it offers as an English-speaking and culturally familiar country to the increasing number of Africans who look for opportunities abroad.

The writer is a research scholar at the Johns Hopkins' School of Advanced International Studies, Washington DC.

[Rony]

Nationalism In Hindu Culture

by Radhakumud Mookerji

http://www.archive.org/details/national ... n032123mbp