tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65223433651947775162024-02-20T02:22:44.533-08:00ViewcraftStanlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09940239636761161878noreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6522343365194777516.post-18340122956892484662018-01-12T08:31:00.002-08:002018-01-12T08:31:45.226-08:00The Four Wise Men <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Perhaps the operative part of the letter the four judges have sent to the Chief Justice is this: "There have been instances where cases having far-reaching consequences for the Nation and the institution had been assigned by the Chief Justice of this court selectively to the benches "of their preference" without any rational basis for such assignment (with quote marks). And in the press conference, while asked if the case of Justice Loya's death is among the cases referred to<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;"> in the letter, Justice Gogoi replied, 'Yes."</span></div>
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It's huge, unprecedented and extraordinary. In plain words, four senior judges at the Supreme Court -- one of them could be the next CJI-- come out in public and say the rot has spread even to the highest office of India's judiciary. This is an inflexion point. Something Prime Minister Modi could certainly say has happened for the real first time while he is in power. But it also demands answers. According to whose "preference" cases are being allotted in the Supreme Court? Is the CJI a pawn acting on behalf of some external forces? If the freedom of judiciary is in danger, as the letter claims, who is endangering it? When the judges say they don't want future generations to say they sold their souls, the question is who all in the judiciary have already sold their souls and who are the buyers?</div>
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You may not get the answers. Instead, there will be a vicious campaign against the judges. Some Alok Bhatt, who's followed by none other than the Prime Minister himself, has already tweeted, "Impeach all four bastards and also drag everyone instigating judiciary." (He didn't take much time to realise who's against whom). The whole issue could be brushed as an intra-judiciary power struggle. The judges could be accused of acting out of frustration or many more. But remember, these kind of incidents do not happen every year, not in every decade. It's happening for the first time in the history of the country, so it needs that strong a reason. It shows how serious the situation is. And I am sure the judges have taken this path after much deliberation, including of the consequences. As a citizen, I genuinely appreciate their patriotism, moral courage and commitment to constitutional values. You often hear these words from bigots, sectarian nationalists and power-hungry maniacs these days. But Justices Kurian Joseph, J. Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi and Madan Lokur have exemplified these values through their dissent. <a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/democracyindanger?source=feed_text&story_id=10156971985763272" style="color: #365899; font-family: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="_5afx" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz" style="color: #4267b2; font-family: inherit; unicode-bidi: isolate;">#</span><span class="_58cm" style="font-family: inherit;">DemocracyInDanger</span></span></a>, really.</div>
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Stanlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09940239636761161878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6522343365194777516.post-53657173076761409022018-01-12T08:28:00.001-08:002018-01-12T08:28:20.949-08:00Let There Be More WCCs<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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On this wall, I had bragged about Kerala's social advances whenever it came under assault by Sangh propaganda. There are actual progress the state has achieved in many fields. But when it comes to misogyny, Kerala, sadly, is as bad as any other place in the country. Just have a look at the down-rating campaign carried out by the fans of Malayalam movie super stars against Women in Cinema Collective. The reason: the grouping shared an article critical o<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;">f Mammootty (to be specific, his choice of characters at the age of 67, <a data-ft="{"tn":"-U"}" data-lynx-mode="async" data-lynx-uri="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F2E7jtHw&h=ATNT03cJmD5vBXNhu86Hw0BhYaYr6qNQsTOB3VGWVKhbhpgw10gX7beRwVq2qqoc8cbhda4472_06hYgzgNfE2HuQwGhUhO4Qs2e-Su9_2CrFynh903evN2FXh6aQf4XD1F2Qku0Ev7eQvLnR8vrfQvJx8W7ziVriTJR3lvkU7Zon8Df0YKGvapBCFnVUuLAsldcbOv_MVYg7WBo6bK8GvtBzh1eUD_UhiMYZWRXXRCblFaSc0jMR6KA5KFC5fKCU7M-CzuF1JsT1GMwqzaD8NKKvSHrhTvrP5yODDNP" href="http://bit.ly/2E7jtHw" rel="noopener nofollow" style="color: #365899; font-family: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/2E7jtHw</a>) on their Facebook page (which they later deleted). Since then, fans have been giving single star rating to the WCC Facebook page with atrocious comments on the women associated with the group.</span></div>
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Some say, quite innocently, the down-rating campaign is a democratic exercise and the fans are just using that. But it's not that simple. First, these fan handles are writing the filthiest of the comments about women artists on the WCC page. Second, what's the reason and motive behind this campaign? (I won't be surprised, given the criminal networks in the film industry, even if these trolls are paid.) The context was the controversy triggered by actor Parvathy's criticism about the misogynistic portrayal of women in Malayalam cinema, with a reference to Mammootty's Kasaba. It should have triggered a debate in any healthy society with influential voices in the industry concerned taking the lead. instead, they chose to remain silent, when cyber thugs unleashed a hate campaign. The motive is to stifle voices of dissent from women through bullying, cyber mob-attacks and threats.</div>
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Worse, the so-called superstars are all silent. Mammootty just made an ambivalent comment that he'd not asked anyone to speak on behalf of him -- not a word about the cyber bullying, rape threats and abuses, which still continue. It's a colleague of their who is being targeted, for raising a critical opinion. Still, none of the leading stars came out in support for Parvathy. None of them is expected to come in support for WCC either. Even Manju Warrier, "the lady super star", dodged questions on the issue. Some, like Pratap Pothan, are busy complaining about the absence of an organisation for men in cinema (what a trash)! Still, it's impressive that Parvathy, unlike most others in the field, is holding the fort. She wrote an article on Scroll, explaining her views (<a data-ft="{"tn":"-U"}" data-lynx-mode="async" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F2CHqm6g&h=ATMbK01u8UjbaWwCU4ao8Y-ZnZvUmh1FGL4kF3zyXJDvOSbYRgeV78Z5aqPjEuNBNeF2YS6V79pySgcKRwoavIAb1oTv5_SDDmz9kPS0Um4JNTze1Cvp50gRUosElVuijKllAxFOOpB3r7T-x8R_XCOVPZyPcf2VCRUQ_wSpqBRolXPTEDda_pkVsMY6zAMRVFG3qZh_VskEoblRC6m2YgAIxopp4n1g6wn2xUG5sH8ZvWexPtaOijO9d6zipzBXOEknLDgh1EEqo93n619RmQ2LWJXz-ZYkkw" rel="noopener nofollow" style="color: #365899; font-family: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/2CHqm6g</a>). On Twitter, you see a confident, valiant woman sitting back enjoying the show "with popcorn". She may be lacking support now. She may have been attacked by the brain-dead cyber thugs. But the flag she holds is the future. Let there be more Parvathys and WCCs.</div>
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Stanlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09940239636761161878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6522343365194777516.post-31889661489096285322018-01-02T09:33:00.001-08:002018-01-02T09:33:17.583-08:00All the Superstar's Men<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Fans of these so-called Malayalam superstars are as bad as religious fundamentalists -- intolerant, abusive, thuggish and incapable of possessing even a semblance of progressivism. Take the two recent instances. When Dileep was arrested in the case of abducting and assaulting a female colleague, these fan groups launched a campaign against the victim and in favour of the 'popular hero'. Even those who took strong stances supporting the victim were targeted online.</div>
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The second incident is the cyberattacks actor Parvathy is facing over raising some valid comments on anti-woman scenes in Kasaba, a repulsive, hard-to-finish Mammootty movie. Mammootty fans started an abusive, shaming campaign against Parvathy on social media, including making death and rape threats. Now they call for boycotting Parvathy's coming movie, My Story, a video song of which is being mass-disliked on YouTube (some of them had even called for boycotting Mayanadhi, a crime-romance drama released around Christmas. The reason is that the movie is directed by Aashiq Abu, whose wife, Rima, is a friend of Parvathy). All for a woman saying some words criticising a superstar movie.</div>
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Interestingly, though unsurprisingly, the biggies in the Malayalam movie, both male and female actors, have turned a blind eye to the incident. The producer of Kasaba apparently offered a job to one of the cyber abusers. Even Mammootty took a couple of weeks to respond to the verbal assaults these cyber thugs make in his name. He said he hasn't entrusted anyone to speak on behalf of him, falling short of condemning his fans' actions. Seeing this bullying and hate campaign, even I feel ashamed of being a Mammootty fan in my school-college days. And it's terrible that the so-called megastar, whose fancy dress movies hardly make any impact these days, be it in the box office or in the minds of cinema lovers, is still unmoved by all this.</div>
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Stanlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09940239636761161878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6522343365194777516.post-49110056455625445762014-03-14T07:04:00.002-07:002014-03-14T07:04:35.960-07:00Waiting for a deluge<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">With the US-led international troops set to leave </span><a class="storyTags" href="http://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=Afghanistan" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 255) !important; cursor: pointer; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Afghanistan</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">in 2014, the country is once again at the crossroads in its search for peace and stability. Even after the </span><a class="storyTags" href="http://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=Taliban" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 255) !important; cursor: pointer; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Taliban</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">’s ouster from power and a decade-long war that followed, the spectre of the 1990s is staring at modern Afghanistan. The federal government is now weak, society is fragmented, different militia are rising, the Taliban is strong and international troops are leaving. Will Afghanistan fall back to post-Soviet days? </span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">http://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/waiting-for-a-deluge-113010900066_1.html</span></span></div>
Stanlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09940239636761161878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6522343365194777516.post-51996233575051030182014-03-08T04:03:00.000-08:002014-03-08T04:03:06.237-08:00Deconstructing The War On Terror<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.799999237060547px;">Five days after the September 11 attack, the then US President, George W. Bush promised to rid the world of "evil doers". Before two weeks had passed, he said, "our war begins with al-Qaeda but it doesn't end there". Instead, "it will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated". Those words marked the beginning of the 9/11 wars, which saw the United States fighting a protracted battle against "evil" regimes and extremist groups in the Muslim world. Jason Burke, The Guardian's foreign correspondent, writes in his latest book, The 9/11 Wars, that all the major figures in the Bush administration had repeatedly stressed against going for a war against terror on a global scale. They warned that "this new conflict would last a long time". It did, even outliving Bush's presidency. - See more at: http://www.businessworld.in/news/books/reviews/deconstructing-the-war-on-terror/389464/page-1.html#sthash.Wz2xPMT3.dpuf </span></div>
Stanlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09940239636761161878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6522343365194777516.post-75634446476751904912014-03-07T06:59:00.000-08:002014-03-07T06:59:15.129-08:00Winter of Arab discontent<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">Was it a coup? Some call it an "atypical" coup. Anti-Muslim Brotherhood protesters who backed Egyptian military's intervention to remove elected President Mohamed Morsi from power on July 3 term it a "recolution" (a mix of revolution and a coup). Ask John Kerry, the US secretary of state, and he will say the "military did not take over". </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">Call it a coup or some other term, but what happened in Egypt is that it has slipped under another military regime, at least for now. But the roots of the present crisis go back to the Brotherhood's government days. When the Freedom and Justice Party - the political wing of the Brothers - mistook its electoral victories for a mandate for Islamising Egypt even as the economic worries of the country remained unaddressed, it set the stage for the second phase of mass uprisings in the country. </span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">http://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/winter-of-arab-discontent-113083001089_1.html</span></span></div>
Stanlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09940239636761161878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6522343365194777516.post-3428117224838927452014-03-07T06:56:00.003-08:002014-03-07T06:56:49.684-08:00The history and mystery of Pakistan<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">Pakistan is a nation of contradictions. It's a country created in the name of religion, where the father of the nation, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, wanted to build a liberal democratic state. It started as a democratic country, like India, but soon slipped into military dictatorship, which shaped Pakistan's ideology in the years that followed. It's both a victim and a promoter of religious terrorism. It's a country that proved many wrong in the past but remains the centre of global geopolitical risk assessments. It's not an easy country to understand. </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">Apocalypse Pakistan: An Anatomy of 'the World's Most Dangerous Nation'</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">, written by two Italian journalists, Francesca Marino and Beniamino Natale, attempts to do the nearly impossible job of unravelling the mystery that is Pakistan. </span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">http://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/the-history-and-mystery-of-pakistan-113100101202_1.html</span></span></div>
Stanlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09940239636761161878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6522343365194777516.post-67360776612877435122014-03-07T06:54:00.003-08:002014-03-07T06:54:37.178-08:00Heading due South<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">"The </span><a class="storyTags" href="http://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=South+Commission" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 255) !important; cursor: pointer; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">South Commission</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"> is convinced that the developed countries cannot play the role of the engine of Southern growth. The new locomotive forces have to be found within the South itself. South-South co-operation is therefore crucial." Manmohan Singh, then secretary general of the South Commission, said this to a symposium on development at Espoo, Finland, in May 1989.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">Dr Singh's statement came at a time when the Atlantic powers, under the leadership of the Group of Seven (G7), were using the debt crisis of the 1980s to remake the global economic order in their favour. The "Third World project" was already in retreat. What was on offer was the structural adjustment programme of the Washington Consensus. "…Intellectuals like Manmohan Singh," writes </span><a class="storyTags" href="http://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=Vijay+Prashad" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 255) !important; cursor: pointer; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Vijay Prashad</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"> in his latest book, </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"><a class="storyTags" href="http://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=The+Poorer+Nations" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 255) !important; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">The Poorer Nations</a></i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">, "began to trumpet a new siren: Neoliberalism with Southern Characteristics for domestic policy and South-South Cooperation for international policy. It was not a capitulation to the North, but the creation of a new approach." </span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">http://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/heading-due-south-113061600611_1.html</span></span></div>
Stanlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09940239636761161878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6522343365194777516.post-8251368153045410042014-03-07T06:53:00.003-08:002014-03-07T06:53:58.477-08:00The West's sanction for global war<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">The George Bush administration's inflexibility on Iran was "bombastic diplomacy" that "wasted energy and hardened the lines". Under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran had "a right to peaceful nuclear power and to enrichment in the purpose". If you thought these words came from some left-leaning critics of the Bush foreign policy, think again. Senator John Kerry, now US secretary of state, expressed these views in 2009 when he was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. If these views were to become the US policy propounded by Secretary of State Kerry in 2013, write </span><a class="storyTags" href="http://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=Peter+Oborne" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 255) !important; cursor: pointer; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Peter Oborne</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"> and </span><a class="storyTags" href="http://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=David+Morrison" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 255) !important; cursor: pointer; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">David Morrison</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"> in their book, </span><a class="storyTags" href="http://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=A+Dangerous+Delusion" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 255) !important; cursor: pointer; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">A Dangerous Delusion</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">: </span><a class="storyTags" href="http://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=Why+The+West+Is+Wrong+About+Nuclear+Iran" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 255) !important; cursor: pointer; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Why the West is Wrong About Nuclear Iran</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">, "the prospects for a settlement with Iran on the nuclear issue would be excellent". If not, which is most likely, the authors have no doubt that "the outlook for the world is grim". </span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">http://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/the-west-s-sanction-for-global-war-113071001007_1.html</span></span></div>
Stanlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09940239636761161878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6522343365194777516.post-724148624234709132014-03-07T06:53:00.000-08:002014-03-07T06:53:15.816-08:00On a wing and a Predator<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">In </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">Minority Report, </i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">the 2002 Steven Spielberg movie, the job of PreCrime, a specialised police department, is not to hunt down current criminals but to track down future criminals. The movie is set in the year 2054, apparently because the Spielberg crew might have thought such police operations were a distant reality. Perhaps the Academy Award-winning director could read journalist Jeremy Scahill's latest book,</span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"><a class="storyTags" href="http://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=Dirty+Wars%3A+The+World+Is+A+Battlefield" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 255) !important; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield</a>, </i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">which says the pre-crime hunt is already here, though in the name of the war on terror. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">http://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/on-a-wing-and-a-predator-113072501169_1.html</span></div>
Stanlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09940239636761161878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6522343365194777516.post-36842374236944227862013-12-18T08:26:00.000-08:002013-12-18T08:26:08.336-08:00Sri Lanka's unfinished war<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">Karu was a grocery shopkeeper in Puthukkudiyiruppu when</span><a class="storyTags" href="http://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=Sri+Lanka" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 255) !important; cursor: pointer; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Sri Lanka</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">’s 26-year-long civil war was nearing its end. Like tens of thousands of Tamil civilians in the island nation’s north and northeast, Karu and his pregnant wife, Gowri, were caught up in the war in 2009. He was attacked and dumped in a hospital, where he was brutally tortured; his wife gave birth to a baby girl in a bunker in the heyday of the war. They finally managed to leave Sri Lanka for Tamil Nadu and then set out on a deadly 27-day-long boat journey to Australia. </span><a href="http://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/sri-lanka-s-unfinished-war-113021900867_1.html">http://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/sri-lanka-s-unfinished-war-113021900867_1.html</a></div>
Stanlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09940239636761161878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6522343365194777516.post-77519648262953449722013-12-18T08:24:00.000-08:002013-12-18T08:24:02.749-08:00The Syrian Conundrum<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: justify;">“I guess you killed 7,000 people there,” a Lebanese businessman once said to Rifaat al-Assad, the younger brother of former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, referring to the Hama massacre of 1982. Rifaat was the commanding general of the Hama operation in which Syrian troops, under order from President Hafez, massacred scores of people to quell a Sunni rebellion against the Baathist regime. Normally a politician will play down such a ghastly incident. But Rifaat’s response was rather surprising. “What are you talking about, 7000?” He said to the businessman. “No, no. We killed 38,000.” This conversation, cited in Thomas Friedman’s award-winning book, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: justify;">From Beirut to Jerusalem</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: justify;">, offers a complete picture of how President Hafez put down the rebellion in Hama. </span><a href="http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/TheSyrianConundrum_sjohny_140212">http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/TheSyrianConundrum_sjohny_140212</a></div>
Stanlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09940239636761161878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6522343365194777516.post-3557227834239290882013-12-18T08:23:00.000-08:002013-12-18T08:23:10.868-08:00The Unending Iranian Nuclear Crisis<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #2c2c2c; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; text-align: justify;">If anybody thought that a change of talk in the Bush administration’s Iran policy would be enough to induce the “isolated” Tehran to give up its intransigence and toe the western line, the July 19 meeting proved him or her wrong. Before the Geneva meeting between Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, the US sent feelers to Tehran. In a clear indication that Washington was prepared to change its belligerent stand towards Tehran, the Bush administration announced that William Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs, would attend the meet. In addition, unconfirmed reports said the US was planning to open a diplomatic post in Tehran for the first time since relations were severed during the 444-day occupation of the American embassy in Tehran nearly three decades ago. </span><a href="http://www.idsa.in/idsastrategiccomments/TheUnendingIranianNuclearCrisis_SJohny_250708">http://www.idsa.in/idsastrategiccomments/TheUnendingIranianNuclearCrisis_SJohny_250708</a></div>
Stanlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09940239636761161878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6522343365194777516.post-21151058823225584732013-12-18T08:22:00.001-08:002013-12-18T08:22:09.859-08:00A Decade of Wars, Crises and Rises<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #362f2d; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; text-align: justify;">In international politics, decades are important tools that help us understand and interpret history better. The major developments in the past often come to our mind with tags of decades – the economic crisis of 1920’s, the wars of 1930’s, the reconstruction of 1950’s, the Lost Decade, and so on. Now, standing at the starting point of a new decade, how do we analyse the bygone one (2000-10)? </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #362f2d; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; text-align: justify;">According to British historian Andrew Roberts, the first ten years of the new century, or the Noughties, were full of troubles. It witnessed two major wars, one of the gravest financial crises in decades, a number of natural disasters including Tsunami, and changes in global power dynamics. At the beginning of the century, not many might have forecast such a troublesome first decade.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #362f2d; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; text-align: justify;"> </span><a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/a-decade-of-wars-crises-and-rises/16868">http://www.globalresearch.ca/a-decade-of-wars-crises-and-rises/16868</a></div>
Stanlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09940239636761161878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6522343365194777516.post-48322110644826555872013-12-18T08:20:00.000-08:002013-12-18T08:20:59.295-08:00Why India should continue engaging Iran?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #0f0f0f; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.390625px;">Both the summit and its host have historically been important for India. Keeping up with that importance, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh embarked on a four-day trip to Iran on Tuesday to attend the 16th summit of the 120-member non-aligned movement (NAM). The gathering at the Iranian capital assumes greater significance because it is happening at a time when Iran is being isolated by western countries, led by the US, for its controversial nuclear programme. The West has recently imposed a slew of sanctions on the Islamic Republic aimed at scuttling its nuclear programme, which, they say, is attempting to build bomb. On the contrary, Iran has long maintained that the programme is for peaceful civilian purposes. </span><a href="http://www.pragoti.in/node/4757">http://www.pragoti.in/node/4757</a></div>
Stanlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09940239636761161878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6522343365194777516.post-58629039528805030032013-12-18T03:42:00.001-08:002013-12-18T03:43:43.880-08:00The survival of Pakistan<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">"Every country has a military, but Pakistani military has a country," so goes a popular adage in </span><a class="storyTags" href="http://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=Pakistan" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 255) !important; cursor: pointer; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Pakistan</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">, which says something about the tremendous power of the armed forces in that country. The military has ruled Pakistan more than half of the country's existence and its interests go beyond the traditional barracks of any military force. The Pakistani military, better known as the "establishment" in the country, has people in politics, industry, civil society, media and even among extremists, who collectively make sure its interests are best served. </span><a href="http://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/the-survival-of-pakistan-113041600609_1.html">http://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/the-survival-of-pakistan-113041600609_1.html</a></div>
Stanlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09940239636761161878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6522343365194777516.post-17008707613667978822013-12-18T03:40:00.003-08:002013-12-18T03:40:27.602-08:00When the battle's lost and won<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, Arial, Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">Will the Afghan government survive? With international troops in Afghanistan set to pull out in 2014, this question is becoming louder day by day. What makes the list of achievements, often issued from Kabul and Washington, less attractive is Afghanistan’s own history. What followed the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, after 10 years of fighting American- and Saudi-backed guerrillas known as the Mujahedeen, was chaos. </span><a href="http://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/when-the-battle-s-lost-and-won-112101300053_1.html">http://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/when-the-battle-s-lost-and-won-112101300053_1.html</a></div>
Stanlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09940239636761161878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6522343365194777516.post-2852767264670760712013-12-18T03:39:00.000-08:002013-12-18T03:39:02.286-08:00The Geopolitical Syrian Puzzle<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 21px;">Saddam Hussein called the first Iraq war the “mother of all battles”. Wait a minute before you blame me for quoting a dead “despised dictator”. Look at today’s Middle East and North Africa. Barring some hit-and-run or run-after-being hit military campaigns such as the Libya bombing of 1986 or the multinational forces in Lebanon during 1983-84, the Iraq war was the first major direct American intervention in the region. In 1991, the Americans came to the Middle East to stay there. Twelve years later, Iraq was bombed again, destroyed and its president assassinated. </span><a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/09/10/the-geopolitical-syrian-puzzle/">http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/09/10/the-geopolitical-syrian-puzzle/</a></div>
Stanlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09940239636761161878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6522343365194777516.post-11597750198656180572013-12-18T03:37:00.000-08:002013-12-18T03:37:02.559-08:00Why Syria?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; line-height: 21px;">History repeats itself. Not as a farce; but as tragedy. Those who witnessed the White House-led propaganda against Iraq in the run-up to the 2003 American war on that country cannot miss the startling similarities between those days and the past few ones. Replace Iraq with Syria. It’s almost a reloading of history. If Iraq was part of a larger American plan to reshape the Middle East, irrespective of what all the explanation the Bush clique and the neocon media were distributing, the real reasons behind a possible Syrian war cannot be different. </span><a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/08/30/why-syria/">http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/08/30/why-syria/</a></div>
Stanlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09940239636761161878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6522343365194777516.post-49367854627102520332010-07-18T07:10:00.000-07:002010-07-18T07:14:06.999-07:00Barbarism of our times<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H8egcYXhOY0/TEMMHO47VTI/AAAAAAAAAck/viu948CHPpg/s1600/Isra.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 160px; height: 90px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H8egcYXhOY0/TEMMHO47VTI/AAAAAAAAAck/viu948CHPpg/s400/Isra.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495249288717620530" border="0" /></a>On April 19 this year, the 62nd Independence Day of Israel, US President Barack Obama reiterated his country’s “commitment” to protecting Israeli’s security. The US, Obama said in a White House statement, shared an “unbreakable bond” with Tel Aviv and was confident that the ties “will only be strengthened into the future”. This Bush-style statement came from a President who had promised a “new beginning” for the Muslims amid reports that Israel’s blockade of Gaza had caused a humanitarian catastrophe. Barely one-and-a-half months later, Israel stormed a convoy of ships carrying aid to the Gaza strip, killing at least nine people. President Obama called the incident “tragic”, but stopped there.<br /><br />Even while expressing concern over the “loss of lives” in Israeli raid on May 31 of the aid ships in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea, the President was cautious to avoid any harsh words against Israel. No direct criticism, no moral outrage!<br /><br />What Obama said was that such acts (read killing of those who want to help the Gazans) would not serve the long term security interests of Israel. He further said Israel has “legitimate security concerns” as it’s living under the “threat” of missiles from Gaza (fired by Hamas). In the UN Security Council, the US blocked an anti-Israel resolution and helped the passage of another that doesn’t even name Israel, but just condemns the “acts that led to the nine deaths”. Going a step further, Vice President Joe Biden defended Israeli Premier Binyamin Netanyahu, who supported outright the military onslaught against the aid workers. Israel has “absolute right” to defend its security interests, Biden said on June 2. “It's legitimate for Israel to say, ‘I don't know what's on that ship. These guys are dropping eight – 3,000 rockets on my people,’” he added.<br /><br />If the US can’t condemn Israel now, then when will it do? One might ask after seeing these direct and indirect efforts the Obama administration has taken in defence of Israel. Most of the world leaders came strongly against Israel’s “act of war” against the six-ship flotilla – three cargo and three passenger ships. The ships, sent by the Free Gaza Movement, an international coalition of activist groups, carried tonnes of cement and other aid materials for the blockade-hit Gaza.<br /><br />The blockade imposed by Israel doesn’t allow any ships to reach the Gaza coast. Israeli troops have also sealed all entry points of the Gaza, a small strip of land that houses around 1.5 million people. Israeli forces even restrict the movement of people to and from Gaza. Israel’s point is that the Hamas is posing a serious threat to Israeli’s as the Islamic resistance movement fires rockets and short range missiles into the Israeli territory. The international community (read the US) failed miserably to persuade Israel to lift the blockade. Instead, the top administration officials of Obama repeated time and again about the so called security concerns of the Jewish state. Even Obama, who pressed Netanyahu for a freeze of new settlement activities in the West Bank, did not annoy Israel by raising the Gaza blockade issue.<br /><br />Gaza is now more or less a prison camp, or the world’s largest concentration camp. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) launched a lethal offensive against the Gazans in George W Bush’s last days in office in January 2009. Obama was the president-elect. He did not utter a word when Israeli forces massacred around 1,500 Palestinians. Since then, Israel turned Gaza into a hell on the earth. Since the blockade started in 2007, the economic infrastructure has been virtually dismantled. “Mass unemployment, extreme poverty and food price rises caused by shortages have left four in five Gazans dependent on humanitarian aid,” says a report published by the Amnesty International on June 1, 2010. According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the number of refugees living in abject poverty in the Gaza Strip has tripled since the blockade began. It adds that more than 60 percent of households are currently “food insecure”. A veteran Indian diplomat, who had lived almost three decades in the Middle East, told this author last month that even the science labs of all colleges in Gaza have been shut as no chemical is available in the strip due to the blockade. “The science students are nowhere. They can’t continue even their studies,” he said.<br /><br />Is it this Gaza that poses a “genuine security threat” to the mighty Israel? Bibi Netanyahu might say yes. So does the powerful Jewish lobby in Washington. The Obama administration, which invoked hope at its early days in office, has disappointed all peace loving minds in the world. President Obama doesn’t have the strength at least to criticize Israel even after such a horrible act. The international community never goes beyond issuing statements when it comes to Israel. The UNSC is dysfunctional whenever Israel mocks at the international law. It seems peace is a strange word in the Middle East. The barbarism is set to rule forever. And the US interests, irrespective of who is sitting in the White House, will never antagonize that barbarism. (Zeenews, June 7, 2010)Stanlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09940239636761161878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6522343365194777516.post-11772024727734986952010-07-18T07:02:00.000-07:002010-07-18T07:06:09.933-07:00A year marred by inflation<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H8egcYXhOY0/TEMKNasld1I/AAAAAAAAAcc/lkq0MQ6crKM/s1600/infla.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 160px; height: 90px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H8egcYXhOY0/TEMKNasld1I/AAAAAAAAAcc/lkq0MQ6crKM/s400/infla.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495247195943040850" border="0" /></a>Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, while addressing reporters in New Delhi to mark the completion of one year in office of the second UPA government, was overtly cautious. His answers were brief and he did not make any tall claims about the government’s performance.<br /><br />"I believe that the record of our first year of UPA-II is a record of reasonable achievement. I am the first person to admit that we could have done more," the Prime Minister told reporters in his first national press conference since the UPA was re-elected in May last year.<br /><br />What made the Prime Minister take such a cautious if not critical path while talking about his own government? Perhaps, the first question he faced at the conference could clarify this. “Why is the Prime Minister, himself a well-known economist, not able to manage the country’s food economy properly?” asked a journalist opening the press conference.<br /><br />One year into the second UPA government, this could well be the core question or challenge the ruling coalition faces. Despite the government’s achievements on maintaining high economic growth, it failed miserably to contain high prices. The Prime Minister knows price rice is a highly sensitive issue in a poor country like India. So he blamed international factors for the problems in the domestic economy and repeated the government’s view that the prices are falling and inflation would be contained by year-end.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Growth without Equity?<br /></span>The UPA was re-elected in 2009 May at a time when the country was still under the clouds of the worst economic crisis in decades. The country’s financial industry was battered by the global crisis and the economy was slowing down. The growth rate fell sharply from around 9 percent to 6.7 percent in 2008-09. Most of the advanced economies were still in recession.<br /><br />The main promise of the UPA was growth with equity, or simply put, “inclusive growth”. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee presented the first budget of the UPA-II by giving importance to public spending and domestic demand. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) cut down key interest rates to ensure credit flow did not get hit. These combined efforts by the government as well as the apex bank, meant to take the economy back to the growth track, seem to have paid off.<br /><br />The economy, as the key government officials predicted, fast returned to high growth rates even as the equity markets returned to healthy levels. Against an IMF forecast of only 5.1 percent GDP growth in 2009, actual growth was 7.2 percent, despite a major drought. The Sensex rose from 14,000 points to 16,875 in 12 months. But is that enough?<br /><br />Though growth is back, it’s not yet clear whether the country’s economy is totally out of woods. The global economy still faces risks. Nobody has a clear idea about how much India will be affected if the Eurozone debt crisis spawns another global debt squeeze. The markets still stand vulnerable. And above all, inflation is hanging like a Sword of Damocles over the economy.<br /><br />India has one of the highest inflation rates among the major economies of the world: Wholesale price-based inflation is close to 10 percent and consumer price inflation is an astronomical 17 percent. In many other countries, inflation is just 0-3 percent.<br /><br />According to many economists, the government should have given utmost importance to curbing prices as it affects the daily lives of millions of poor Indians. Instead, the second budget of the UPA put more focus on financial discipline. The government cut down fuel and fertiliser subsidies to reduce the fiscal deficit. It increased fuel prices several times to help the oil marketing companies overcome under-recoveries. This was a double blow to the common man who was already hit by high prices.<br /><br />The Agriculture Minister could not come up with effective steps to tackle prices. Neither could the Finance Minister keep the headline inflation under check. They also failed to keep their promise on tax reforms. It postponed the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) from April 2010 to next year. Even telecom reforms were moving at snails pace. It was after a long wait, the auction of third generation (3G) airwaves finally took place in May.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Whither roadmap?</span><br />It’s true that the government has four more years in office. Ample time to correct wrong policies and initiate new projects. But as the Prime Minister himself said the government could have done more in the first year. Singh expressed hope that inflation would come down to 5-6 percent by December this year. Even the most optimistic economist would say this is an ambitious target. But what options that the government has to tackle inflation is still unclear. Neither the Prime Minister nor his Finance Minister has spoken about it yet, though both claim that inflation would fall.<br /><br />Singh appeared convinced of what should be done to accelerate inclusive growth. “We have to invest more in infrastructure, take bold steps to remove chronic poverty and increase the productivity and efficiency of our agriculture sector,” he told reporters. Well said. But where is the roadmap? On the first anniversary, the government looks clueless on how to take ahead its inclusive agenda? It should first come up with a roadmap by clearly identifying its thrust areas like the first UPA government did. There has to be a better coordination between the Congress party and the government. And above all, the Prime Minister should lead from the front.<br /><br />(Written for Zeenews, May 27, 2010)Stanlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09940239636761161878noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6522343365194777516.post-63035546323283513012010-07-03T11:13:00.000-07:002010-07-03T11:17:53.473-07:00Single-Pointed Khomeinism<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H8egcYXhOY0/TC9-ludu6yI/AAAAAAAAAcU/WUNtoA88MKY/s1600/KH.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 90px; height: 160px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_H8egcYXhOY0/TC9-ludu6yI/AAAAAAAAAcU/WUNtoA88MKY/s400/KH.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489745657380924194" border="0" /></a>Ayatollah Khomeini was one of the most influential political personalities of the past century. His interpretation of political Islam had the revolutionary zeal to topple a regime which enjoyed unequivocal support of the American empire. After three decades of the revolution, Khomeini’s legacy still lives in Iran and beyond. Con Coughlin, the best selling author of “Saddam: His Secret Life”, is taking a detailed effort to understand this legacy in his latest book, “Khomeini’s Ghost”.<br /><br />What legacy did Khomeini bequeath to his heirs? For an independent historian, this is a complicated question as the ayatollah still remains perplexing subject. He was a puritan, but an anti-imperialist to the core. At the same time, he stood for empowering his people, and built a comparatively stable political system and undertook radical income distribution. For Coughlin, however, Khomeini’s legacy is single pointed. “Following his death in 1989, Khomeini bequeathed a legacy to his heirs, a legacy of militant Islam that is the cause of so many of the challenges the world faces today, whether it is the potential threat posed by Iran’s nuclear programme or Iranian funded and trained Islamist groups in Iraq and Afghanistan, Lebanon and Gaza.” He says even Iran’s quest for atom bomb was the “central part of Khomeini’s legacy.”<br /><br />Through this biographical work of Imam Khomeini, Coughlin is actually trying to understand ideological underpinnings of the Iranian regime and how it’s related with Khomeinism. The ayatollah “accomplished his lifelong ambition of creating an Islamic state based on the strict interpretation of Shariah law,” writes Coughlin in an apparent effort to portray Iran as a conservative, rigid religious state. Despite being a theocratic state, it should not be forgotten that the Iranian constitution provides for an elected legislature and declares that the country should be run on the basis of “public opinion”. <br /><br />The book is divided into two parts – Origins and Legacy. In the first part, Coughlin discusses Khomeini’s early life, his rise as a major critic of the unpopular Shah regime, life in exile and the eventful return to Tehran in 1979 February. It’s in the second part, Coughlin tries to define Iran black-and-white terms, saying it’s a rogue sate still led by the fundamentalist ideas of Imam Khomeini. <br /><br />For the author, Iran is a state which helped al-Qaeda, trained terrorists in Iraq and militants in Lebanon and Palestine. Coughlin writes that Tehran masterminded the escape of operatives fleeing from Afghanistan, including Osama bin Laden’s son Saad, and provided them safe haven. “The presence of such prominent Al Qaeda militants in Iran . . . was yet another issue that would undermine Khatami’s attempts to improve relations with the West,” he says. But he forgets to write that Iran offered help to the US during the Afghan war and the Khatami government actually hunted down Taliban operatives escaped from Afghanistan.<br /><br />Khomeini’s Ghosts is an easy read. It is rich with historical facts and discusses the nuances of the Islamic revolution in detail. But it looks a one-sided anaylysis of Imam Khomeini, one of the most influential personalities on the Islamic street. Coughlin’s key argument that Khomeini’s doctrine “has made to the radicalization of the Muslim world” is untenable. There are different streams of Islamic radicalism in the world. Well before the Islamic revolution, the Brotherhood had inspired millions of Muslim youth across the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) to organize on religious lines. Khomeini’s principles were based on the Shiite world view, while most of the Islamic radical groups of present era are Sunnis. So, Khomeini’s ghosts do not seem to be as dangerous as Coughlin says.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Con Coughlin</span>, “Khomeini’s Ghosts”, Pan Books, 2009 (Reviewed for Purple Beret)Stanlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09940239636761161878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6522343365194777516.post-84556355599764987122010-06-05T11:09:00.000-07:002010-06-05T11:11:12.609-07:00War and Peace in Asia<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H8egcYXhOY0/TAqTIJJkVeI/AAAAAAAAAcM/f_KTJprk0G4/s1600/book.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 111px; height: 178px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H8egcYXhOY0/TAqTIJJkVeI/AAAAAAAAAcM/f_KTJprk0G4/s400/book.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5479353664753915362" border="0" /></a>Doest the 21st century belong to Asia? Many economists, strategic experts and world leaders think so. The growing clout of Asian countries in the present international system, the strategic importance of Asia to the super powers and the relative escape of China and India from the global financial crisis have emboldened the view that Asia holds the key in an evolving multi-polar world in the new century. But at the same time, Asia faces several security challenges – both inter and intra-state challenges. “The Future of War and Peace in Asia”, a compilation of essays edited by N.S. Sisodia and S. Kalyanaraman, is looking into this strategic dimension of an emerging Asia. <br /><br />As Sisodia, the director of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA), India’s premier strategic research think tank, notes in the preface, the impact of the global slowdown on Asian economies has “accelerated the shift of economic power to Asia”. The coming decade will see Asia becoming a principal theatre of international politics and security. One of the major challenges Asia will face in its rise, according to the book, will be intra-state conflicts. “Asia is the main theatre of action for jihadist groups, which among others, include the al-Qaeda and its franchises, Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, Pakistani groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Jamaat ul-Mujahideen and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami in Bangladesh, Jemaah Islamiyah in the Southeast Asian countries, the Abu Sayyaf group in the Philippines, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan,” writes Kalyanaraman, a research fellow at the IDSA, in the introduction.<br /><br />But the “security problematique” is not limited to intra-state conflicts. There are multiple actors -- Asian and non-Asian – who have security and economic interests in the region. Apart from India and China, the two countries often dubbed as key Asian powers in the coming decades, the US, Russia and Japan also have interests in the continent. The roles these five major and emerging powers play in the continent are crucial for “ensuring and maintaining long-term peace, stable balance of power, economic growth and security in Asia”. <br /><br />The 18 chapters of “The Future of War and Peace in Asia”, divided into five key parts, discuss the changing face of war in the region and its geopolitical implications. The first part, “The Changing Face of War”, addresses the issue of “irregular warfare”, its manifestations in the Af-Pak region and West Asia and the challenges it poses to modern states. The second part, “Preparing for War”, explores how militaries in the region are modernizing themselves and preparing to face the existing and forthcoming security challenges. Will the technological advancements change the nature of war in Asia? What changes the space technology and missile defence are going to bring in the military doctrines of major Asian powers? Part three of the book, “Star Wars in Asia”, addresses these issues. The last two parts, “Asian Geopolitics” and “The Emerging Asian Order”, are mainly focused on the geopolitical angle. It also discusses the interests and interventions of big powers like the US and Russia in the Asian continent.<br /><br />It is now a widely accepted view that the East is rising. Its economic clout is fast increasing in a world shaken by the collapse of western capitalism. But this rise could not be sustained unless the East prepares itself to face up to the security challenges. “The Future of War and Peace in Asia” brilliantly analyses the security dilemma of Asia countries and the geopolitical implications of the emerging Asian order. The editors have cautiously selected chapters so that the book can give a comprehensive understanding of conflicts and tensions in Asia and also the dynamics of power shift.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">N.S. Sisodia and S. Kalyanaraman </span>(Eds) (2010), “The Future of War and Peace in Asia”, New Delhi: Magnum Books. (Reviewed for Purple Beret)Stanlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09940239636761161878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6522343365194777516.post-42732700777700234932010-05-26T00:01:00.000-07:002010-05-26T00:10:05.400-07:00Taliban’s Chaos Theory<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H8egcYXhOY0/S_zIQOn557I/AAAAAAAAAbw/wek42SOci7A/s1600/kayos.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5475471428104611762" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 90px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 120px" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_H8egcYXhOY0/S_zIQOn557I/AAAAAAAAAbw/wek42SOci7A/s400/kayos.jpg" border="0" /></a> “You need three qualities today if you want to fight the terrorists. Number one, you must have the military with you… Number two, you shouldn’t be seen by the entire religious lobby to be alien. The third element: don’t be seen as an extension of the United States.” These words of Parvez Musharraf, uttered a few weeks after the death of Benazir Bhutto in January 2008, show the kind of politics he espoused during his tenure as Pakistan’s president. Musharraf was a man who knew the presence of jihadist outfits in his country could be used to enhance Pakistan’s “strategic importance in Western eyes”, writes Ahmed Rashid in “Descent into Chaos”. And the General did the same, like other allies of the US in the “region” (Pakistan, Afghanistan and the five Central Asian Republics). For Rashid, author of the best selling “Taliban”, the region is “vital for global stability”. But the misguided “war on terror” of the US and the inability of the Western powers to contribute to nation building in these countries, particularly in the post-9/11 Afghanistan has created nothing but chaos.<br /><div><br />Who made things worse? Rashid says even the Clinton administration bears some responsibility for the present chaos. It was during the Clinton presidency, the Taliban mobilized resources, consolidated power in Afghanistan and grew in strength in the region. But the Clinton administration failed to foresee the lurking dangers and come up with a vision to fight Taliban. George Bush, who actually started a war against Taliban, eventually played it into the hands of the same Islamic fundamentalists, thanks to the strategies of Defence Secretary Ronald Rumsfeld. It was Rumsfeld who insisted the inclusion of tribal warlords in the Afghan cabinet, says Rashid. Moreover, Bush’s defence secretary was against the idea of expanding the western-backed security system beyond Kabul, a strategy which later proved to be a blunder.<br />President Bush, who opened another war front in Iraq before accomplishing his “mission” in Afghanistan, made things complicated. The mounting military challenge in Iraq diluted the US engagement in Afghanistan, which eventually helped the Taliban regroup with the help of ISI. Though Pakistan, which supported the Taliban when it was in power, had to change its position in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the country’s controversial spy agency, the Inter Service Intelligence, continued its dubious policies, writes Rashid. President Bush thought Musharraf was “indispensable” in his war on terror. This was a strategic limitation for the US. The Bush administration, finding itself in a catch-22 situation, completely gave up its efforts to push for political reforms in the military-ruled Pakistan and the Central Asian dictatorships and continued to pumping millions of dollars to support these regimes in the name of the alliance against terror.</div><br /><div>What should have been down? “Afghanistan had to be rescued from itself. Autocratic regimes in Pakistan and Central Asia had to change their repressive ways sand listen to their alienated and poverty-stricken citizens…The West had to wake up to the realities and responsibilities of injustice, poverty, lack of education, which it ignored for too long,” writes Rashid. But nothing of these happened. The al-Qaueda and Taliban became more powerful, Afghanistan fell into deeper chaos, Pakistan, though the military rule came to an end, is now fighting itself and the Central Asian republics are as bloody as ever. Understanding the existing complexities and dangers, Rashid urges the international community to “face up to our collective future”.<br />“Descent into Chaos” is a well-written, detailed description of what happened to the War on Terror in the South-Central Asia. The analysis of Rashid, who has covered the region extensively as a reporter, looks stunningly authentic and his style of writing ensures an enjoyable reading. Still, it lacks the in-depth analysis of an academic. Rashid’s admiration for leaders like Hamid Karzai and Benazir Bhutto may not go down well with many readers. Blaming only Musharraf for Pakistan’s problems may not a proper diagnosis. </div><br /><div><strong>Ahmed Rashid </strong>(2008), “Descent into Chaos: How the war against Islamic extremism is being lost in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia”, Penguin: London. (Reviewed for Purple Beret)</div>Stanlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09940239636761161878noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6522343365194777516.post-19465641488819576332010-04-18T02:14:00.000-07:002010-04-18T02:17:15.299-07:00The Great RBI Tightrope-Walk<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H8egcYXhOY0/S8rN3xf9LcI/AAAAAAAAAbg/Ab3R3iB2lNE/s1600/RBI.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 156px; height: 98px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_H8egcYXhOY0/S8rN3xf9LcI/AAAAAAAAAbg/Ab3R3iB2lNE/s400/RBI.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5461403856204017090" border="0" /></a>It’s a difficult time for central bankers across the world. They need to be extremely vigilant and take visionary policy decisions, so that the gradual but still fragile recovery of the global economy doesn’t get derailed. During boom years, the central bankers would have the freedom to take risks to ensure high growth rate. During crises, they would not have many options but to adopt non-conventional policies to pump prime the crippling economies. But the recovery period is different. Any monetary or fiscal mis-step could undermine everything.<br /><br />The Reserve Bank of India Governor, D Subbarao, who will announce the central bank’s annual monetary policy on April 20, also faces the same challenge. While formulating the monetary policy, the RBI chief will have to give utmost importance to at least two things – the government’s growth expectations and the rising inflationary monster.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Beware excess liquidity</span><br />The RBI has taken several bold decisions in the past. It is not an institution which shies away from taking risks that might disrupt the status quo. When the economy was in perils following the collapse of Lehman Brothers and recession in the advanced economies, the RBI stepped in with radical measures to stimulate domestic demand and ensure cash flow through the financial system. It had lowered the reverse repo rate, at which it absorbs excess cash from the banking system, by 275 basis points and repo rate, at which the RBI lends to banks, by 425 basis points since the global financial crisis broke. It had also lowered the cash reserve ratio by 400 basis points.<br /><br />These moves were widely appreciated by economists in India. Lower rates encouraged banks to lend more to consumers, who kept the domestic demand steady. This was the growth mantra during the crisis period, which proved to be a huge success.<br /><br />But excess breeds collapse. One of the key reasons for the fall of the US financial market, according to many liberal critics, was the cheap monetary policy of Alan Greenspan during the boom years. His decision to keep Fed rates at record lows spawned excess, which developed into asset bubbles only to bring down the entire financial industry eventually. Moreover, excess liquidity will also send inflation northwards, which is a nightmare for every government. So, what will Subbarao likely do on April 20?<br /><br />Given his credentials as an orthodox economist and an interfering central bank head, the last thing Subbarao will prefer would be to don the mantle of Greenspan. He has made it clear earlier that he would not support long lasting cheap money policy. This was evident when the RBI sprung a surprise in the last week of March by announcing a 25 basis point each hike in both reverse repo and repo rates. The apex bank had started tightening liquidity earlier by raising the cash reserve ratio, the portion of deposits banks are required to park with the RBI, by an unexpected 75 basis points to 5.75 percent. The message was clear – excess liquidity should be sucked out of the system for its financial health.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Who will tame inflation?</span><br />Now, when Subbarao reviews RBI’s monetary policy, the macro economy is better placed. Most of the top government officials are optimistic that the economy would grow over 8 percent in the current fiscal. Industrial production is also growing steadily, indicating that the economy is on a firm track. IIP expanded by 15.1 percent in February.<br /><br />On the other hand, inflation is soaring. Food inflation has been hovering around 17 percent for quite some time now. Despite the government’s promise to remove supply side bottlenecks, food prices are still high. The headline inflation in March rose to 9.90 percent from 9.89 percent in February, higher than the RBI’s projection of 8.5 percent.<br /><br />The RBI cannot turn a blind eye towards this reality. If inflation is not bridled, it will put down growing demand and endanger even the recovery. But a sharp rise in interest rates will prompt banks to increase lending rates which could squeeze credit flow and cripple the purchasing capacity of domestic consumers.<br /><br />So, many expect the RBI to increase the repo and reverse repo rates by 25 basis points each. The reverse repo rate is now at 3.5 percent while the repo rate is at 5 percent. A hike in these rates of a quarter of a percentage point each and 50 basis points rise in the cash reserve ration would suck out roughly Rs 23,000 crore from the system. This, according to financial experts, would rein in the inflationary expectations.<br /><br />A higher hike in rates is unlikely given the fragility of the global economic recovery. The economies outside Asia are still struggling with several challenges. Moreover, the debt crisis in Greece is threatening the new normal prevailing across Europe. If it spills over to other economies, a new wave of crisis will emerge. So, dangers are still lurking. The RBI Governor should keep that in mind.Stanlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09940239636761161878noreply@blogger.com0