Stan_Savljevic wrote:chaanakya wrote: Neither he is a batsman or bowler of even minuscule staturehttp://www.abc.net.au/rn/sportsfactor/s ... 401143.htm...........
He should have been elected to the Board of Cricket of Church. An explosion triggered by a suspected arson attack ripped apart an Indian restaurant in Sydney [ Images ], prompting the police to investigate the possible links of the incident to a bomb threat.
The Indian restaurant in Sydney was on Monday night engulfed by fire, which the police suspect was 'deliberately lit'. Four people escaped unhurt in the incident. The police are investigating the possibility of links to a bomb threat at the Copper Tiffin restaurant on Cleveland Street some time ago, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
A local restaurant owner said he had heard a 'loud explosion, like a bomb' just after 11:30 pm. The explosion threw out debris and caused shreds of glass and signs to cover the road.
"Then I see people climbing out of a window, about four, (it was) very lucky," he said. Two people were seen running away from the site just after 11.30 pm, as fire engulfed the building, witnesses told the police.
chaanakya wrote: Neither he is a batsman or bowler of even minuscule stature
[snip][snip]
Well that does counts for Nano stature.
[snip][snip]
you did good rahul. I was indeed amiss in quoting whole text.Last edited by Rahul M on 05 Jul 2010 05:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.do you really need to quote the whole thing to put in a couple of lines in reply ?
I'm sure it was the handiwork of homesick pawkis missing their Friday IED-mubarakajit_tr wrote:Blast hits Indian restaurant in Sydney; no casualties
An explosion triggered by a suspected arson attack ripped apart an Indian restaurant in Sydney [ Images ], prompting the police to investigate the possible links of the incident to a bomb threat.
The Indian restaurant in Sydney was on Monday night engulfed by fire, which the police suspect was 'deliberately lit'. Four people escaped unhurt in the incident. The police are investigating the possibility of links to a bomb threat at the Copper Tiffin restaurant on Cleveland Street some time ago, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
A local restaurant owner said he had heard a 'loud explosion, like a bomb' just after 11:30 pm. The explosion threw out debris and caused shreds of glass and signs to cover the road.
"Then I see people climbing out of a window, about four, (it was) very lucky," he said. Two people were seen running away from the site just after 11.30 pm, as fire engulfed the building, witnesses told the police.
The recent overthrow of Kevin Rudd as Australia's prime minister surprised Australians and foreign observers alike, Indians included. In the face of adverse polling data, the Australian Labour Party ruthlessly ejected its once-popular leader and replaced him with Julia Gillard, who is now Australia's first woman prime minister - Canberra's Indira.
Now the Gillard-led Labour government is tipped to win national elections expected within the next two months. But what does the Gillard ascension mean for Australia's troubled yet promising relations with India? On balance, it is good news, not least because of Gillard's proven pragmatic and consultative style of leadership. She is a listener, and may well prove more diplomatic than her predecessor, despite his foreign service background. Moreover, she already knows and has a positive working rapport with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Yet Gillard must deal with the baggage of having been deputy prime minister and education minister in the Rudd Labour government, which struggled to find political traction with New Delhi.
Despite the recent flurry of vindictive criticism of former conservative Prime Minister John Howard from some Indian commentators ^ after his failed bid to be vice-president of the International Cricket Council - the fact is that he had an instinctive understanding of India's importance, and left Australia-India relations in good shape.
A few months before his election defeat in 2007 he even managed to change decades of Australian policy, by agreeing in principle to sell uranium to India - a decision Rudd immediately reversed. Rudd proclaimed the grand intention of bringing India to the front rank of Australia's foreign friends, but found this easier said than done. Admittedly, he made some strides in the relationship: expanding diplomatic representation through new consulates, creating momentum towards a free trade agreement and concluding a security declaration and strategic partnership that will allow greater defence and intelligence cooperation.
But Rudd was hamstrung by the party's rigid ideological line against uranium exports to non-NPT countries. He was also immediately - if unfairly - mistrusted in New Delhi because of his reputation as a Mandarin-speaking China expert, even though in reality he had his own healthy worries about China's military power.
Yet what most spoiled Rudd's chances with India was the crisis over the welfare of Indian students in Australia. An education relationship had become diverted too far too fast into a get-rich scheme for immigration middlemen and substandard colleges, coupled with a perceived shortcut to residency visas for thousands of young people desperate for a new life abroad. Rudd's government did not create this mess, but did not act quickly or sensitively enough to deal with the difficulties and criminal violence encountered by some of the 1,20,000 Indian students in Australia.
Gillard's challenge is that she inherits Rudd's mixed legacy. So she will need to move promptly to chart her own vision for making the relationship between two great Indian Ocean democracies all that it can be. She hails from the traditionally anti-nuclear left wing of her party, and her political base is the state of Victoria, where much of the violence against Indian students has occurred, and where the state Labour government has been accused of an ineffective response. Yet Gillard could easily turn these points to her advantage in dealings with India.
On international students, Gillard can rightly claim that as education minister she oversaw Canberra's efforts, however belated, to improve welfare and safety. As prime minister, she will have more capacity than Rudd to put pressure on the Victorian government to keep lifting its game.
One thing that should not greatly bother Indian observers is Gillard's public comments about the need to manage Australia's population growth. She has distanced herself, on environmental grounds, from Rudd's reported advocacy of a 'big Australia' of up to 40 million people, up from the current 23 million.
Yet there is little doubt that the Welsh-born Gillard knows full well that skilled, hardworking immigrants and their families are essential to Australia's economic and social dynamism. There is every indication that her vision of Australia's future population includes a place for sustainable migration from India.
Her reputation among Victoria's Indian community is already positive. She was reportedly a strong supporter of the establishment of an Indian consulate-general in Melbourne some years ago. And her electorate, in a working-class Melbourne neighbourhood, is home to many Indian students and migrants.
The big question will be where she ends up standing on uranium exports. Rudd probably wanted to change his party's policy, but felt - with good reason, it turns out - that he lacked enough support within the party machine to launch a rapid attack on party orthodoxy.
Gillard is different. The very fact that she is from the left should give her an advantage in persuading this faction of the merits of Australian civil uranium exports to India, including for diplomatic, economic, climate change and standard-of-living reasons.
The Australian Labour Party's next national conference is due in 2011. If Gillard does not choose that opportunity to lead a push to overturn the outdated ban on uranium sales to India, then New Delhi will indeed have reason to be disappointed. But for now she has an election on her hands, and India should give her the benefit of the doubt.
PS:What did they teach in them convict camps of yore? It appears that the only savvy ones in the land of OZ are the "boat people" and the Abos!By Germaine Greer
Published: 7:00AM BST 24 Aug 2010
Julia Gillard is a childless 48-year-old unmarried atheist redhead who lives in sin with her hairdresser. She is also the first woman to become prime minister of Australia. Just in case you thought that might mean a new era had dawned, be assured that it is probably just about over. Not that Gillard had radical intentions, or radical policies, or any policies. Her slogan was “moving forward” – to nowhere in particular. The election, which took place this weekend, was hers to lose and she has all but lost it.
The opposition had fallen in a heap after the Liberal Party “spilt” its ablest and most charismatic politician, Malcolm Turnbull, for insisting that the party recognise climate change. Into the breach to lead the Liberal-National coalition stepped the Mad Monk, Tony Abbott, ears akimbo, wide mouth agape, who refuses to believe that anything needs to be done about climate change. He set about building an image as one of the boys, a strategy that misfired when photographed during a triathlon wearing bathing trunks that Australians call “budgie-smugglers’. (His budgie was actually more like a “wren”, as unkind observers pointed out.)
Geordie nation resigned to life in little leagueWe have yet to see Gillard in a thong. The election wasn’t fought on policies or issues or ideologies, but on sound-bites and gossip – and sex. Not the kind you do, but the kind you are. If there was something new about it, it was that women voted for a woman just because she was a woman. The tabloids did their best to represent Gillard as a treacherous Jezebel, who stabbed her predecessor, Kevin Rudd, otherwise known as the Milky Bar Kid, in the back. Mr Rudd was, of course, not stabbed, but dumped in June by the Labour Party which is run, not by Mr Rudd or Ms Gillard, but by a junta of faceless male powerbrokers who prefer to remain anonymous.
Mr Rudd had been getting on everybody’s nerves, not just because he was a control freak who threw tantrums if he didn’t get what he wanted the instant he wanted it, but also because one minute he was jumping all over people telling them that global warming was “the greatest moral challenge of our time” and the next minute, when his proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme began to look like an electoral liability, blithely postponed its introduction to 2013.
Rudd had also made a serious tactical error. He’d gone off on a junket and left his deputy, Gillard, running the country. Gillard is as likeable as Rudd is charmless. She is self-deprecating; he is ludicrously vainglorious. She is a mistress of understatement; he is a ranter. Ms Gillard was then fresh from a debacle known as Building the Education Revolution, for which she was largely responsible, but she was so sensible about everything, so smiley and unhurried, that Australians blinking at her on breakfast TV decided they could do with more of her. So did the Labour junta. The opinion polls were showing that the nation had had a bellyful of Rudd, and so the party dumped him and crowned Gillard. The junta then decided that their girl would go to the people for a mandate before the novelty of having a female at the helm had worn off. This turned out to be a mistake.
Anyone who thought Australia had a woman PM because of some fundamental change in the nation’s psyche was immediately reassured. Gillard was pilloried for her “deliberate” childnessness, her clothes, her morals, her looks, her undeniably unimpressive boyfriend, and her betrayal of Rudd. In any grown-up country her opponent, Tony Abbott would have been unelectable. He looks and sounds like a clown. There is not an issue that Abbott will fail to reduce to a fatuous mantra. “Stop the waste. Stop the boats,” he would intone.
Everyone wants to stop waste. Stopping the the leaky bottoms in which desperate people are struggling across the Indian Ocean towards Australia, is a different matter, and Abbott has no more idea of how to do it, short of scuttling them, than anyone else. No politician has the cojones to tell the voters that boat people are not a problem. They are all convinced that the Australian people rejoice to see boat people persecuted and tormented. Abbott supplied the requisite savagery at intervals between displaying his athletic prowess and trotting out his wife and daughters in presidential fashion. Gillard responded by wheeling on the boyfriend who could never manage to look anything but gormless, particularly when she was holding his hand.
What Abbott turned out to be surprisingly good at was nasty one-liners. The worst was his response to a suggestion that Gillard had changed her mind and was ready to take part in a second TV debate, this time on the economy, Abbott’s weak point. Abbott refused, asking “Are you suggesting that when it comes from Julia 'no' doesn’t mean 'no’?” The recoil was immediate. Abbott played dumb. And yet, it may be that Abbott’s repartee is what hung the result. Women had already decided that they didn’t like Abbott; what Abbott’s brutal insensitivity just might have done is consolidate the Ocker vote.
To hold a clear majority a political party must hold 76 seats. The coalition won 70, Labour 72, and at last count four were undecided. Of the others one (Melbourne) had been won by a Green (Adam Bandt) and there were three Independents, all of them erstwhile members of the National Party, previously known as the Country Party. The Green will probably support Labour; the three Independents are – well – independent.
The media have dubbed them the “Haystack amigos” after the 1986 comedy film Three Amigos, with Steve Martin, Chevy Chase and Martin Short. “Haystack” is a citified way of reminding us that all three come from rural constituencies and are therefore “bushies” or hillbillies. One of them, Bob Katter, who wears a hat nearly as big as the sombreros of the three amigos and calls himself “Your Force from the North’, hates the leader of the National Party, Warren Truss, more than poison and this may keep him from joining the coalition, though he has much in common with his fellow Catholic, Tony Abbott, including opposition to same sex marriage.
If anyone deserves to be in a commanding position it is Katter. He will be negotiating for his constituents in the huge rural seat of Kennedy, which he has won time after time, this time with 75 per cent of the votes. For years he has fought a losing battle to represent the farmers who were sold out by the Nationals, hence his implacable loathing of their leader. Now he has the power to drive a hard bargain, to demand the protective tariffs his farmers need and prohibition of the import of cheap bananas, mangoes, tomatoes and citrus. Katter has grown up with Aboriginal people, describes himself as “not quite white’, and has been regarded with amused condescension by political careerists.
However the stalemate is resolved, Australia will still be a global polluter, exporting coal as fast as anyone can be got to buy it, vying with Canada to dig up the most uranium, failing to make even a minimal effort to control the largest per capita energy consumption in the world. Gillard may yet get to keep her executive jet, but the power-brokers will never let her pursue any policy that would cost votes.
Australia’s future looks grim enough with Gillard but with Abbott it would look terrifying.
For this stupid commentbiswas wrote:^ why?
Philip wrote:PS:What did they teach in them convict camps of yore? It appears that the only savvy ones in the land of OZ are the "boat people" and the Abos!
Raghavendra ji,Raghavendra wrote:^ reported
Issue was philip's racist post, if admins dont find it that way then its alrite for me but why poke your nose in our matter, seems you are the one having khujili in nether regions.chetak wrote:Raghavendra ji,Raghavendra wrote:^ reported
Why the khujilli?
I thought that the comments were fairly mild for an openly racist country.
Phillip saar was being very polite onlee.
The DFAT said Australia continues to receive reports about terrorists plan to attack public places, including hotels and tourist locations, in New Delhi, Mumbai and other major cities.
The media reports inform that a state cabinet minister for Ports and Waterways in Australia's New South Wales, Paul McLeay, who used his office computer to visit p*rn*graphic and gambling websites has resigned.
Limerick---
Oz Minister, on job, had surfed an adult site,
He was made to quit, when the act came to light.
It was writ of the right,
That sent a warning light.
Home is the right place to surf a p*rn site!
Well - sorry to intrude.Raghavendra wrote:
Issue was philip's racist post, if admins dont find it that way then its alrite for me but why poke your nose in our matter, seems you are the one having khujili in nether regions.
Ouch! Shivji, That surely will lighten things up...shiv wrote:Well - sorry to intrude.
Want to lighten things up.. There was a joke about Aussies I heard in the UK
"What's the difference between Australia and a cup of yogurt?"
Ans: There's more culture in the yogurt.
..sorry
I don't think its the money Manish, I agree with Arihant. The chances of getting uranium with labour in power are indeed very very slip.Manishw wrote:^ Don't bet on it, we are becoming a economic powerhouse.Money talks.Wait for some time.
Australia is keen to resume negotiations with New Delhi on uranium exports to India, given the possibility of the Abbott government coming to power. The huge swing away from the ruling Labor Party has almost ensured this
Sushil Kumar Shinde played his part to convince the current administration but returned empty handed ...The Labour government has stoutly refused to sell uranium to India saying that India isn't a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. However, even before the apparent hung parliament scenario made waves over the weekend, the opposition party in Australia has vocally reinforced the need to renew trade ties and greater engagement with India.
Sushil Kumar Shinde, who was on a five-day visit to Australia in June this year, had said that he had initiated some discussions on sourcing uranium supplies. Hoping that the Australian government would accommodate India's need for uranium, Shinde had reportedly said, ``The whole world is supporting us in our civil nuclear programme. It is for them (Australia) to decide.''
The Abbott government has been making all the right noises..but unfortunately for India, labours got in through the back-door.Australia's Julie Bishop had said: ``Refusing to sell uranium to India, which can now import nuclear technology from the US and gets uranium from Canada, is illogical.''
The India-China race well summarised by Jagdeep Ghai..China's growing interest in Australian uranium has also come under scrutiny with a new deal at the start of August, when a major Chinese state-owned enterprise declared that it was set to take control of a Western Australian uranium exploration and mining company.
And now that we know which way the hung government is heading - Julia Gillard = Labour party = NO unranium for India..Jagdeep Ghai, finance director at state-owned Nuclear Power Corporation pointed out in a recent seminar that India's needs are expected to grow 10-fold to 8,000 tonnes as it quadruples capacity to 20 GW. He added that China would purchase about 5,000 metric tonnes this year, more than twice as much as it consumes, building stockpiles for new reactors. With China's economy expected to grow 10.1% this year, as compared to India's 8.6%, both the nations are stockpiling. Who gets ahead in the race is a moot point.
shukla wrote: I think India will have to wait for another 5 years before the labour government ends term
That is too simplistic a take. There was little hope of a quick U deal even if Tony Abbott had come to power. From all that can be guessed, Uranium policy within the Labor is a factional/ideological dispute minus the faceless thugs. If Julia Gillard firmly establishes herself as the shrewd manipulator that she is, and given that she has been back and forth to India, it would not be entirely surprising if the govt gets some common sense. The Kevin Ruud and QD based faction will still hold some sucker punches, but JG is not a dumass by any means. I mean to steal the leadership from right under KR's nose, throwing a surprise election, and somehow managing to stick in power -- all requires skills that are far beyond normal. Same for TA -- guy was nowhere in the picture a few months back. Came close to stealing the throne from right under JG's nose. One has to wait and see how this show unfurls.This election, Gillard Vs Abbott was equivalent from an Indian perspective to - NO uranium Vs Uranium..
Actually the coalition (under Tony Abbot) had announced a very specific - ' we will sell uranium to India' policy in this election. Rest of your analysis I agree with. Aust will sell U to India eventually irrespective of which party is in power.Stan_Savljevic wrote: IThat is too simplistic a take. There was little hope of a quick U deal even if Tony Abbott had come to power. From all that can be guessed, Uranium policy within the Labor is a factional/ideological dispute minus the faceless thugs.
Shukla: Good analysis. Kevin Rudd had many in India worried - recall the suggestion on this forum (only half-joking) that he was the Manchurian Candidate. More generally, I fear that China has co-opted many more Aussie politicians - observe the number that retire from politics and join "the China trade" (often consultancies).shukla wrote:
It was clear that Kevin Rudd (now ex-pm) had made relations with China (its top trading partner) his top priority. In their recent foreign policy debate, in tune with the just concluded elections, it was obvious that Labour had made it very clear, through their proposed froeign minister hopeful that that there would under no circumstances sell Uranium to India unless they signed the NPT. On the contrary the opposition hopeful Julie Bishop, not only criticized this short sighted foreign policy but also promised the in-principle decision to sell uranium to India, a free trade agreement and greater defence co-operation with India (as she had then quoted 'natural maritime partners'). Tony Abbott had also made it crystal clear that Uranium sales to India was one of his key foreign policy priorities.
I agree entirely - Australia is the new battleground for India - it is rapidly going into the Chinese orbit, and large volues of migrants should be part of the strategy to stem it. Other ideas are quickly needed - I fear too many sectors of the Australian economy have become China-centric, Chinese dominated or routinely paying homage to China.Stan_Savljevic wrote: It is time Indians immigrate to Oz aplenty so that they dont let this place become china's backyard more. When the dust settles, it will be an India vs china contest and the goras will be just a sideshow. It is still an island in the Indian Ocean.
vera_k wrote:What can be done to encourage Indians in Australia to have more children (like 4 each)? Quotas in Central government education are one idea.
Apologies. Slip of tongue..(or slip of fingers rather)Stan_Savljevic wrote:shukla wrote: I think India will have to wait for another 5 years before the labour government ends term
Oz elections happen once in 3 years. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Australia
Agreed that this wouldn't be quick and easy for him. But at least he has shown the "Intent" to do the needful. The labour government has shown neither the intent nor the will..There was little hope of a quick U deal even if Tony Abbott had come to power.
I would say this is a overtly optimistic view point. Wouldn't be happier if I am proven wrong. I think it is highly unlikely that she would go against party line. And given how precariously her government would be placed selling India Uranium would be the last thing on her mind.From all that can be guessed, Uranium policy within the Labor is a factional/ideological dispute minus the faceless thugs. If Julia Gillard firmly establishes herself as the shrewd manipulator that she is, and given that she has been back and forth to India, it would not be entirely surprising if the govt gets some common sense.
AgreeIt is time Indians immigrate to Oz aplenty so that they dont let this place become china's backyard more.
Gauging from things so far as Uranium sales go, China 1, India 0.When the dust settles, it will be an India vs china contest and the goras will be just a sideshow.
RajeshA wrote:vera_k wrote:What can be done to encourage Indians in Australia to have more children (like 4 each)? Quotas in Central government education are one idea.
- Convert all of them to Islam!
- Hook them to p0rn0 films!
- Encourage all Indians to learn Kamasutra by heart
- Stuff Haldiram's Son-Papri with "tharki-churan"!
- Through Indian Embassy/Consulate allow them to import heavily subsidized generic double potency Wiagra!
- Upon every fourth child being registered as OCI/PIO at the Indian Embassy/Consulate in Australia, grant the mother, a duty-free $10,000 shopping holiday in India.
- ...
