Indian Interests

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 15 Apr 2008 23:25

Its very disconcerting that India does not have anymore experts on Indian affairs. We alsways have some US scholar to talk and quote about. Looks like the UGC and the area studies program has failed miserably. Earlier India used to have Indian experts on most subjects but under UGC they have become mindless midgets.

Rye, Are you familiar with Uttarakanda in Ramcharitmanas? I was fortunate to hear the recital last weekend. Try to find it at gitapress.com. It has English translation.
In that the poet gives an analogy(~p 1079 footnotes) between minds trapped in Maya and compares to parrots and mokeys which are trapped by simple devices. We all are familiar with the monkey trap thanks to Kgoan's BRM article. The parrots are trapped by a string arrangement which does not bind it however the parrot in its illusion thinks it is trapped and flutters needlessly and grows tired and the trapper comes along and cages it. I was struck that the whole structure of laws is like the parrot trap and India is the typical parrot. The poet says that humans should think of how to get out of the trap.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 16 Apr 2008 02:27

X-Posted.. Should be looked at from Indian POV.

Gerard wrote:Robert Kaplan on the new balance of power

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 16 Apr 2008 03:18

ramana wrote:X-Posted.. Should be looked at from Indian POV.

Gerard wrote:Robert Kaplan on the new balance of power

OT but still:-

The U.S has sold the USS Trenton, a former amphibious ship, to the Indian navy; it has sold the Indians F-18 Super Hornets, it has replaced all their P-3 surveillance planes with P-8s

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 16 Apr 2008 06:44

Ramana, vaguely remember my granny telling me stories about uttharakandam when I was a kid. Will look it up. thanks.

As an aside, it struck me that EU and India are almost identical in terms of composition and ability to project power (given the same internal tug of war -- EU has a "euro" core that seems to bind the core nations while India has an "indic" core). I am deliberately not terming them "christian" and "hindu" because that is a stupid way of viewing this reality. Maybe this is what is being termed as the end of the nation state -- what is really ending is the notion of states with monolithic cultures and traditions, is more like it.

All that is missing is the idiots in the Chinese communist party allowing their various sub cultures to celebrate their past (or whatever was not destroyed by the great leap forward) but that is not in their centrally controlled cultural DNA.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 16 Apr 2008 11:58

>>Robert Thurman, leading scholar, writer and the first American to be ordained as a monk in Tibetan Buddhism

Thank you dude, for Uma!!!

derkonig · Post by **derkonig** » 16 Apr 2008 13:04

^
AoA to that.

MN Kumar · Post by **MN Kumar** » 16 Apr 2008 15:22

President Patil addresses near empty Brazil Senate

BRASILIA: President Pratibha Patil found herself addressing a near empty Brazil Senate with only 20 of the 81-member house in attendance, leaving the President's office fuming and Brazilian authorities as well as Indian Embassy officials struggling for an explanation.

In fact, had it not been the Indian delegation, including Non-Conventional Energy Minister Vilasrao Muttemwar, the President's husband Devisingh Shekhawat and Indian Ambassador to Brazil Hardeep Singh Puri, who were seated in the front row, the hall would have looked absolutely empty when Patil made her speech on Tuesday.

Patil is on a 12-day tour of Latin American countries, starting with Brazil. Her address to the Senate had been projected as a sign of the strengthening relations between the two powerful democracies.

As Embassy officials and Brazilian authorities tried to explain the situation, the President's office was believed to be unhappy over what it saw as an embarrassment.

Brazil's ambassador in New Delhi Marco Antonio Diniz BrandÃ£o said: "There is a change in perception. When we convene a special session we usually do not call all the members. We invite the party leaders to be present."

Patil in her speech urged both countries to move the bilateral partnership between the government to the next higher level of partnership between the people of both countries.

Brazil's bicameral National Congress consists of the Senate of Brazil, the Upper House, and the Chamber of Deputies of Brazil, the Lower House.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 16 Apr 2008 18:28

Excellent. This provides us with many reciprocal opportunities. As the Brazilians would know, if they bothered to study us at all, we NEVER forget.

I personally don't give a flying fu(k what their explanations are... an address to the senate is an address to the senate. If it was an address to the party leaders, they could do it in one of the closed rooms. The ambassador's explanation is bullshit...

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 18 Apr 2008 04:44

naman 1857 (video promo) -

a countrywide call for a moment of silence on May 10, 2008 at 18:57 hrs IST.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 18 Apr 2008 05:05

The lack of warmth for a visiting Indian head of state in Brazil is disconcerting. Brazil is a strategic partner and India has done a lot of things for them. if you look at many third world initiatives you find India and Brazil co -sponsoring stuff. Many Indians form Goa have goen there to settle and run their establishments. Something is not right here. The mandrins need to look into this.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 18 Apr 2008 05:23

Pratibha Patilâ€™s address to Mexican Parliament cancelled

http://www.hindu.com/2008/04/18/stories ... 541200.htm

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 18 Apr 2008 05:43

So what's the story with the behaviour of all these south american countries? This is just nonsense that some internal tussle is so bad that they cannot come to the chambers for a visiting dignitary.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 18 Apr 2008 06:03

x-post

nsriram wrote:

Maybe you have discounted the possibility that I know a little bit about these matters. By elites I mean intellectual elites; elitism in this sense is likely to have a reasonably strong correlation (but obviously far from perfect) with caste and class. More data needs to be gathered but to assume that all groups in India (or anywhere else) have the same set of talents is absurd. Equal rights and Equal opportunities does not imply everyone/everygroup is born with the same sets of potentials. To assume that this must be is foolhardy. Also we need to take into account the flood of research that is changing the facts on short term effects in natural selection (cf. recent effects of natural selection on the IQ of Ashkenazim).

-----
How do high IQ people rationalize to themselves suppressing mention of national differences in average IQâ€”especially when they spend so much time thinking about how they, personally, are smarter than other people?

A common stratagem, I've found, is to assume that IQ differences matter only if they are genetic in origin. Since no decent, civilized, right-thinking person could possibly believe that racial differences in IQ have any genetic basis, then racial and national differences in average IQ can't possibly exist.

Exceptâ€”they do exist.
------

from http://www.vdare.com/Sailer/060423_lynn.htm which considers China vs. India differences..

Also see the smart fraction theory in
http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/sft.htm which should be comprehensible to anyone familar with some statistics. The idea here is that successful societies need to have a threshold percent of citizenry above (a fairly low, compared to the types who frequent this forum) IQ barrier

China has a larger mean but smaller variance (even when compared with many European countries).. but it does seem very likely their smart fraction is higher (even in long term as in 50 years out) than India's.

On the importance of people at the extreme (and not so extreme) tails, see Gangan Prathap's analysis

A soft mathematical model for Brain drain

"The more talented people of any society are disproportionately more important than their sheer numbers would indicate"

http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/sep102003/593.pdf

The distribution of talent in India is something (IMO) of strategic importance and it must be determined as a guide for sensible policy.. political correctness be damned.

Of course there are non-IQ factors.. cultural aspects such as the ability to co-operate.. here is where certain Indian groups may have a serious advantage (Gujaratis come to mind).

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 18 Apr 2008 06:07

Sathyarthi posted that the Tibetan language had characteristics closer to devanagari, but it appears that, all Indian languages actually have the common characteristic that a group of consonants and vowels can be combined to form a totally new character. It is also interesting that Tamil is very similar to english in the sense that such character combining is not followed.

Sathyarthi wrote:

Tibetan script is quite easy since it is like other Indian scripts and even looks somewhat like bengali or devanagari. Language is another matter. Check the tibetan mantra "Om mani padme hum" as written in Tibetan:

The language rules that combine the vowel and consonant in a single character -- such as the "m" is "Om" is a combination of "oo" (vowel looking similar to the sanskrit "oo") and the "M" (as seen from the second character "M")), and the "dm" character (second to last) is a combination of "dha" and the "M" into a single character).

It would be nice if there was a univerally accepted open source library that allows people to add new language support for software. The idea would be to develop a flexible framework to support new Indian languages incrementally by building a rule-based phoenetic keyboard/display driver, that can be used to internationalize software in all Indian languages, even the minor ones, so that we do not lose the rich variety of languages we have today by forcing everyone to work on computers in a small subset of languages.

OffTopic: Native keyboards that follow phonetic rules to combine multiple characters using user-defined rules of combination and display the modified character. Long time ago IIT had a language lab where arbitrary fonts can be designed using bezier curves (they had a public demonstration) -- Professor Kalyanakrishnan, IIRC. That technology along with a rule driven keyboard driver that is available to all Indian hacker types (assuming that such people exist) to write software that can input and display in their own mother tongue.

Maybe I am wrong, but right now we are using western tech that is not adapted to the structure of Indian languages, especially the rules that combine multiple vowels and consonants into a single character.

English is similar to Tamil than it is to Devanagari, at least in the sense that there are no composite characters composed of multiple syllables. Tamil's disadvantage is the lack of disctinction between the hard and soft consonants (there is only one "Pa", so it is hard to tell the difference between "b" and "p", "g" and "k", however there is a hard and a soft "l").

This will also ensure that everyone follows the Indian computer standards rather than India having to follow their standards on Indian languages, as is the case right now (the Unicode standard).

indygill · Post by **indygill** » 18 Apr 2008 06:08

The lack of warmth for a visiting Indian head of state in Brazil is disconcerting. Brazil is a strategic partner and India has done a lot of things for them. if you look at many third world initiatives you find India and Brazil co -sponsoring stuff. Many Indians form Goa have goen there to settle and run their establishments. Something is not right here.

It should make one wonder Does India count in new world-order!!! How is India portraying itself to the world in comparision to its competitor China!

Or once again China has superseded India!!!! As was the case after 1962 and now after all the drama with Tibet issue and Indian resort and cowing down to chinese pressure. What kind of signals has India given to the world?

Saral · Post by **Saral** » 18 Apr 2008 07:16

Have the Indian Interests 1 to 6 threads been trashed? I was hoping to browse through them.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 18 Apr 2008 07:24

Thinking about the snub to the Indian President in both south american countries, which power has a vested interest in treating Brazil and Mexico as its backyard and make it known to rising powers, i.e, whose toes would be treading on?

Brazil is not to be trusted, and IBSA is a untrustworthy group that needs to be ignored, if this is any indication. the relations should just be bilateral between those two countries -- they are already sold.

G Subramaniam · Post by **G Subramaniam** » 18 Apr 2008 07:41

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 03,00.html

As Prickly as Cactus
Friday, Feb. 15, 1963
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As the third round of the Kashmir talks began in Karachi last week, a cactus plant was prominently placed on the negotiating table in front of India's Chief Negotiator Sardar Swaran Singhâ€”an apt symbol of just how prickly the dispute between India and Pakistan still remains. Yet by the end of the day, the first faint glimmer of compromise was visible. In a sharp departure from its previous inflexible stand, India indicated that it would be willing to partition Kashmir along a boundary other than the current U.N. cease-fire line, which now gives India two-thirds of the province, including all of the rich Vale of Kashmir. The new Indian proposal called for India to keep Ladakh, part of which is currently occupied by Red China, most of the predominantly Hindu area of Jammu, and one-half of the Vale, including the province's capital of Srinigar. Pakistan would get the rest of the province, plus rights of free access for all its citizens to the Indian parts of the province.

Though Pakistan still says it wants all of Kashmir, it has sidetracked its demand for a plebiscite over the whole area, which is 77% Moslem. The prospect is for another round of negotiations in April, this time in New Delhi.
---

Bhutto rejected this offer and egged on Ayub to start Op Gibralter

Karan Dixit · Post by **Karan Dixit** » 18 Apr 2008 09:13

France to field largest assault ship in wargames with India

http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/apr/16navy.htm

shyam · Post by **shyam** » 18 Apr 2008 11:19

Rye wrote: Sathyarthi wrote:
Tibetan script is quite easy since it is like other Indian scripts and even looks somewhat like bengali or devanagari. Language is another matter. Check the tibetan mantra "Om mani padme hum" as written in Tibetan:

India should accept Tibetan language as one of its official languages.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 18 Apr 2008 11:23

If India has accepted English then it can accept Tibetan language

shyam · Post by **shyam** » 18 Apr 2008 11:31

Acceptance for Tibetan language is that it is rooted in Sanskrit and a lot of Indian population in Ladak (Ladaki is a dialect of Tibetan) and Tibetans in India speak that.

By doing this India can make first step to reclaim Tibet.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 18 Apr 2008 11:48

shyam wrote:Acceptance for Tibetan language is that it is rooted in Sanskrit and a lot of Indian population in Ladak (Ladaki is a dialect of Tibetan) and Tibetans in India speak that.

By doing this India can make first step to reclaim Tibet.

But it has taken India 60 years to accept Sanskrit as its official language and to be supported by central funds.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 18 Apr 2008 14:50

Achyara; I cam completely disappointed that you chose to cross post a completely nonsensical post which is pulled out of some ones Musharraff.

Some majorly statistically relevant data sets have been used in there!! :roll:Its the work of a typical white supremacist pig -- they can say what ever they want about blacks and whites and yellows but please leave us browns out.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 18 Apr 2008 20:26

I am also brown

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 18 Apr 2008 20:47

The first step is the establishemen tof Tibet House. It then got side tracked. A via media is to declare Tibetian as Classical language as many ancient Sanskrit texts were translated into Tibetian and recovered during the 19th century. Right now there are only two classical languages: Sanskrit and Tamil. There is agitation to have Telugu so declared but Tibetian is a better candidate. Serves two purposes.

satya · Post by **satya** » 21 Apr 2008 17:45

Time to rethink policy on strategic deterrence

India has a track record of taking no hard decisions until its back is to the wall, and its preferred position "on the fence" is no longer an option. This was proved in 1948 and 1965 when Pakistan-backed infiltrators invaded Kashmir, in 1962 during the Chinese aggression, in 1991 before the economic reforms and in Kargil in 1999. Little was made of the summoning of our ambassador in Beijing in March this year at the unearthly hour of 2 am by the Chinese to protest against pro-Tibet agitations in New Delhi. This even as lightly-armed Chinese troops were reported to have crossed into Nepalese territory in civilian clothes to "keep an eye on Tibetan agitators." In addition to the numerous Chinese incursions along the Line of Actual Control in Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh and Uttarakhand, the media has reported incursions into Sikkim, which China had accepted was Indian territory.

China, India and Japan are expected to drive the global economy between 2020 and 2050. China's economy is booming and it may overtake the American economy in the next two or three decades. It will be closely followed by India. China and India compete primarily for energy (oil, coal and nuclear power). Japan too needs energy, but being far more advanced, with a smaller population and a good base for civilian nuclear energy, its impact on the Sino-Indian oil race is marginal. Besides, it has good relations with India and no territorial disputes with either India or China. It has its own issues with China, but neither nation allows those to come in the way of trade with each other.

Japan's security is guaranteed by the American nuclear umbrella. Given the advanced state of its space rockets and civil nuclear plants, Japan is believed to be just a step away from producing nuclear weapons with delivery systems. India, on the other hand, has no choice but to look after its total security, spanning the spectrum between terrorist strikes, conventional war and nuclear threats.

It is the duty of every democratically-elected government to protect its citizens. This issue becomes even more critical in the environment that India finds itself in - two nuclear-armed neighbours, both of who have large territorial claims on our territory, and both of whom have gone to war with us in the past. Pakistan and China have a combination of delivery systems that can cover peninsular India with ballistic missiles, aircraft and cruise missiles. China has carried out 45 tests while Pakistan has tested a proven weapon six times. India conducted five tests in 1998, including three irrelevant sub-kiloton tests. That's an indication of the priority our defence capabilities command.

India has faced numerous tactical surprises from Pakistan in Kashmir and also terrorist attacks. China has also tactically surprised us by annexing Aksai Chin, followed by the 1962 invasion. Now, over 45 years later, China has sprung another semi-strategic surprise by developing massive infrastructure along our northern borders, which enables its military to carry out rapid deployment, putting us at a disadvantage. China is aware that India will need some 10 to 15 years to build comparable infrastructure - Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Arunachal Pradesh in early 2008 and announced a major infrastructure package. Further, we have a "no first use" policy with respect to nuclear weapons.

China has, reportedly, stepped up incursions along our northern borders, with the aim of pressuring India to make major concessions to resolve the boundary dispute. By repeatedly claiming Tawang - which it occupied and vacated in 1962 - China has gone back on an earlier agreement that the boundary dispute resolution would not involve exchange of any populated territory. Further, it must be noted that China resolved its boundary disputes with its other neighbours, including Russia, without any major exchange of territory. China also has a clear "string of pearls" policy, whereby it aims to set up naval facilities/outposts in the Indian Ocean region to provide security to its sea lanes of communication, through which it imports large quantities of oil from the Gulf. At the same time, it retains the capability to disrupt similar seaborne trade of India.

Pakistan, despite internal turmoil, has surprised us by testing nuclear-capable ballistic missiles and cruise missiles on an almost monthly basis. Such tests, apart from providing valuable operating experience, also enable modified equipment to be tested, along with fine-tuning command and control systems. Pakistan's newly-elected Prime Minister has reconfirmed his country's stand on Kashmir and also its strategic deterrent. Pakistan, unlike India has a "first strike" policy in case certain thresholds are crossed.

In India, we have a policy of disclosing strategic projects to the world well before any project is operational - the most recent when the Defence Research and Development Organisation made public details of a submerged missile firing in the Bay of Bengal, oblivious to the impact this might have on a second-strike capability. The DRDO has promised and made much of a few more projects in the pipeline. Compare this with the Chinese intercept of its old weather satellite at an altitude of 800 km in January this year. Or with the recent US Navy direct hit at its defunct 500 kg spy satellite. Not only are we technologically challenged, but we compromise on our strategic interests. A single nuclear bomb hitting any major, densely-populated Indian city will leave about 1,00,000 to 2,00,000 dead, with an equal number badly burnt or suffering from radiation sickness. This is not taking into account damage to infrastructure.

India has, so far, faced tactical surprises with conventional weapons by conventional forces or terrorists. A strategic surprise involving use of WMDs may have disastrous consequences. Will our strategic deterrent posture be more effective in its primary task of deterrence if our present policy is modified to include some thresholds and scenarios where we will react? It is time for an urgent debate on India's strategic nuclear weapons policy and posture to ensure that our deterrence, today, will actually deter. India urgently needs a more relevant nuclear deterrence policy, which meets the twin demands of not creating major diplomatic upheavals while ensuring that it deters. We need to re-assess our "no-first-strike policy", while accelerating our military preparedness. Building up our strategic deterrence capability must be put on the front burner, without premature publicity. Our scientists will have to deliver, because unlike conventional weapons and civilian nuclear reactors (assuming the Indo-US nuclear deal is "operationalised"), strategic deterrence cannot be purchased.
Vice-Admiral Arun Kumar Singh retired as Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Eastern Naval Command, Visakhapatnam, in April 2007

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 21 Apr 2008 17:53

Ah this is the thread I was looking for

DMK's bogus Tamil New Year

DMK's bogus Tamil New Year

Tamil Nadu's DMK regime could easily win the prize for the most original intellectual initiatives in the country. First it rewrote the history of Indian civilisation. Sri Rama is a figment of the imagination of Aryan Hindus, superimposed upon the Dravidian culture of Tamil Nadu. He never built the Setu erroneously named after him; it is a sandbar created by nature so that cronies of the current regime can make a fortune dredging it.

Tamil Hindus have lived with so much humiliation since the tirades of EV Ramaswamy Naicker that they don't know how to combat continuing insults to ancient reverences and traditions. The arrest of the Kanchi Acharyas on trumped up charges was the most frontal attack on Hindu civilisation since the assassination of Guru Tegh Bahadur four centuries ago.

Now a more insidious assault has begun to break the unity and continuity of Hindu tradition by vivisecting its civilisational concord. Hindus celebrating Baisakhi this year will be astonished to find their Tamil brethren culturally marooned as Chief Minister M Karunanidhi has decreed that the State will no longer observe Baisakhi as the Hindu New Year. Seventy million Tamils in India and Sri Lanka are afflicted by this move, as the forces behind the Indian innovation are trying to scuttle the Tamil New Year holiday in Sri Lanka as well.

Kalaignar was inaugurating a cultural festival organised by his daughter, Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi, on January 10, 2008 when he unilaterally announced that the Tamil New Year would henceforth be celebrated on the first day of the Tamil month Thai (Pongal, Makar Sankranti) instead of the first day of the month Chithirai. In a pre-planned move, he piloted a Bill on January 29, 2008 changing the Tamil New Year from April 14 to Pongal (14 January), and had it passed on February 1, 2008.

Baisakhi is observed as the Hindu New Year in Haryana, Punjab, Assam, Tripura, Manipur, West Bengal, Orissa, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Myanmar, Kampuchea, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand. It marks the first day in the Hindu solar calendar dating back to Aryabhatta and the Surya Siddhanta (fourth century CE). Hindu seers calculated the earth's distance to the moon, sun and other planets at a time when most of the world was unaware of the value of the integer zero; an atheist politician has no locus standi to tamper with tradition. Kalaignar claims to have consulted Tamil scholars and cultural experts before ordering the switch; this suggests a conspiracy against the Tamil-Hindu ethos. The academic credentials of these scholars must be revealed immediately.

Tamils say the 'Karunanidhi New Year' coincides with January 1 in the Julian calendar (January 14 of the Gregorian), and the whole exercise may be an attempt to move closer to the church year. Kalaignar reportedly also proposes to change the names of the Tamil months and weekdays to remove pan-Indic terms; a so-called Tiruvalluvar era commencing in 31 BC has already been introduced.

A word on Tiruvalluvar is in order. Jains have contributed vastly to the shaping of Tamil history and culture, especially Tamil literature and its most important ethical text, Tirukkural of Tiruvalluvar. The Jain poet-monk Ilankovatikal wrote the classic Silappatikaram (fifth century); the Sivakacintamani was written by Digambara Muni Tiruttakkatevar (ninth century). Important Tamil grammars, dictionaries and technical treatises were written by Jains, such as Pavananti's Nannul (12th century), the standard Tamil grammar; these were all appreciated by Saiv and Vaisnav scholars.

I say this to emphasise the shared nature of our civilisation and reject the new sectarian-racism being injected into the country from various quarters. Regarding the Tiruvalluvar era, there is no evidence he was born in 31 BC. V Pillai (History of Tamil Language and Literature, 1956) felt the internal evidence of Tirukkural suggested Tiruvalluvar lived around 600 AD.

As for the new Tamil month-names, they are simply the signs of the zodiac in Tamil (Capricorn, Aquarius, Aries, etc). But each month of the Indic solar calendar, Aadi (Ashaada), Purataadi (Bhadrapada), Markazhi (Margasirsha) has special rituals and fasts attached to it. Hence people perceive an attempt to erase the entire underpinnings of Hindu observances in rural Tamil Nadu.

A private news channel has reported that the HR&CE department has issued instructions to all temples to prohibit the sacred 'Panchangam Reading' ritual and other New Year celebrations on Baisakhi. This atheist offensive to diminish a living civilisation is consistent with what has long been happening in Tamil Nadu. Temple land and funds are routinely appropriated by the state with impunity; if Hindu society hopes to recover autonomy and self-esteem, it must begin by fighting for the rights and inalienable dignity of the temples. Hindu dharma has survived centuries of iconoclasm only because Hindu warriors and civilians did not shirk encounters, but rushed in thousands to defend their gods and temples to the last drop of blood. Come to north India and count the graves of sadhus at contested religious spaces.

Yet the civilisational challenge remains equally grim in the north. In 1999, Sikhs were asked to disown the ancient Hindu lunar calendar for a new Nanakshahi (crypto-Gregorian) calendar invented in Canada by one Pal Singh Purewal. Traditionally, the Sikh New Year falls on Baisakhi, when Guru Gobind Singh created the Khalsa. Purewal's calendar incorporates Gregorian features such as 365 days, five hours, 48 minutes and 45 seconds with a leap year every four years! It aims at detaching Sikh identity from its pan-Indic roots, a move already quite advanced given Sikh infatuation with minority status.

The Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee accepted the Nanakshahi calendar in 2003, but the Akal Takht refused, upset at the arbitrary fixing of birth and death anniversaries of the Gurus. There is no historic evidence that Guru Gobind Singh was born on January 5; likewise with other Gurpurabs. Under a compromise formula, Baisakhi, Diwali, Guru Nanak's Birthday, Holi and Lohri (Makara Sankranti, Pongal) continue according to the Hindu calendar; events like Guru Arjun Singh's birth anniversary and the martyrdom of Guru Tegh Bahadur and Guru Gobind Singh are fixed according to the Nanakshahi calendar. A casual walk through Sikh mohallas shows the growing presence of evangelical churches. Custodians of the Sikh faith must wake up to the reality that loss of Hindu moorings may capsize the tradition itself.

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 23 Apr 2008 02:00

India, the incredible and the vulnerable

putnanja · Post by **putnanja** » 23 Apr 2008 02:01

Think tanks and policy institutes engage a resurgent India

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 23 Apr 2008 02:33

RaviBg wrote:Think tanks and policy institutes engage a resurgent India

More than a hundred years later, the Rockefeller Foundation-funded Asia Society is returning the favour by emerging as a platform advocating robust Indo-US ties. The good news is that the US is showing the way of lobbying a resurgent India and other countries are following the trend.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 23 Apr 2008 02:49

And folks think there is Rockefeller foundation under every rock?

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 24 Apr 2008 14:34

ramana wrote:Its very disconcerting that India does not have anymore experts on Indian affairs. We alsways have some US scholar to talk and quote about. Looks like the UGC and the area studies program has failed miserably. Earlier India used to have Indian experts on most subjects but under UGC they have become mindless midgets.

BPM uvacha --

Not so credible India

Not so credible India
Pratap Bhanu Mehta
Posted online: Thursday, April 24, 2008 at 0019 hrs Print Email
Why the world sees Indiaâ€™s foreign policy as non-serious and whimsical

India has a growing sense of itself as an important player on the world stage. But there is often a curious gap between its self-perception and the way the rest of the world views it. There is absolutely no doubt about the increasing importance of India. The world is looking to India on many dimensions: its economic prospects, cultural visibility and its own political example. There is a sense that, despite some serious challenges, the momentum of history is on Indiaâ€™s side. The future is only Indiaâ€™s to lose. But there is also tremendous apprehension in different parts of the world about the Indian stateâ€™s ability to leverage this opportunity to its full advantage. In meetings across the world, whether in Asia or the United States, the usual homage is paid to the Indian growth story. But shortly thereafter, the frustrations begin to emerge. While it is usually a mistake to let oneâ€™s own sense of self be shaped by how others view one, it would be equally myopic to ignore the fact that perceptions matter. And many of these perceptions are not to our advantage.

The biggest source of frustration the world over is the near paralytic fragmentation of authority in our politics. Before we get too defensive and start with homilies on our deepening democracy, we must understand this. Everyone understands the complexities of democracy. What observers donâ€™t find understandable is the degree to which every small interest can exercise veto over important issues, without concern for any minimal degree of rationality. On the Indo-US nuclear deal, for instance, people can understand principled reasons for different parties not wanting it. What they are not convinced about is whether the reasons given by our parties are indeed principled. The worry is not that our politics is fragmented: the worry is that it projects the air of being non-serious and whimsical.

But the issue is much broader than the nuclear deal. A whole range of issues is stuck. Progress in FTAs and trade liberalisation with Asean, exploiting the slivers of opportunity we have had for pressing an advantage with China and Pakistan, a clear-eyed view of the developments in Sri Lanka or Nepal, or a more constructive role on issues of global importance are all areas where there is more talk than action. India is fast acquiring a reputation that is best captured in a couplet that was once used, perhaps unfairly, for Nehru: nahin ikrar ka alam, nahin inkar ka pehelu. Whatever our substantive differences, it would be disingenuous to deny that the rest of the world does have a sense of Indian policymaking seriously drifting, bereft of leadership and likely to be held hostage to all kinds of uncertainties.

Besides the political vacuum, many observers agree that there is also the serious challenge of what Marshall Bouton called the â€œsoft infrastructureâ€

satya · Post by **satya** » 27 Apr 2008 17:59

Assertion of the underdog

Not sure where else to post this article related to BJP but its imp. and also kinda true about BJP's image among locals . BJP need to do something about this brahmin-bania party image if it has to become a serious contender at national level .

Raghavendra · Post by **Raghavendra** » 27 Apr 2008 19:02

satya wrote:Assertion of the underdog

Not sure where else to post this article related to BJP but its imp. and also kinda true about BJP's image among locals . BJP need to do something about this brahmin-bania party image if it has to become a serious contender at national level .

So kalyan singh was not given a fair deal, then which party made him the CM of UP. The report mentions the turf war between Yedi and Ananth but is silent on who weilds the power in state BJP. It is the state unit president Sadanand Gowda and not yedi or ananth. and finally if the 2 persons who wrote the report have forgotten it was the bjp which has had an dalit as it's national party president while in other parties like congress people cant even dream of occupying that seat.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 27 Apr 2008 21:54

satya wrote:Assertion of the underdog

Not sure where else to post this article related to BJP but its imp. and also kinda true about BJP's image among locals . BJP need to do something about this brahmin-bania party image if it has to become a serious contender at national level .

Just before the election such reports are printed. They need to do the same thing with Congress party.

At last, as the party gets ready for E-2009, it is realising the importance of leaders with mass base, even if they come from the wrong caste.

So a Yeddyurappa has become a potential chief minister, a Bharati may stage a dramatic homecoming, a Sushil Modi can drop an upper caste from the Cabinet and continue to be the deputy chief minister, and Munde canâ€™t be taken for granted.

Even in a party like BJP, every underdog has his day.

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 28 Apr 2008 02:04

India doesnâ€™t count yet

a second world nation? The thought may be radical to most, but thatâ€™s exactly what Parag Khanna, fellow at New America Foundation argues in The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order, saying the 21st century will be dominated by three first-world superpowers: the United States, China and the European Union. And they will compete for resources in nations in east Europe, Latin America and West Asia â€” countries of the second world.

Neshant · Post by **Neshant** » 28 Apr 2008 10:38

he brushes off india like its nothing.

vsudhir · Post by **vsudhir** » 28 Apr 2008 16:36

Neshant wrote:he brushes off india like its nothing.

Good.

IMVVHO, our leadership can't yet handle being a cynosure in the great powers game. Our leaders get either delusions of grandeur or wobbly-weak knees that are out of sync with current capabilities.

We're better off w/o attn from the Parag Khanna types. Build capability first - infrastruc, scitech, institutions, industry....Aaah.

Then we can have our netas and thinkers strut around, national colors on display.

Again, JMTPs etc.

/Have a nice day all.

ranganathan · Post by **ranganathan** » 28 Apr 2008 16:40

China is a 3 world nation and can only compete in low volume, low quality markets. Pakistan, iraw, afghanistan..some parts of africa like zimbabwae. I think India needs to concentrate on building techscience and other infrastructure in India.

Bharat Rakshak

Indian Interests

Western pressure to give up JK in 1963