varnam

"We are brothers and sisters and should not be killing each other. Let's hold some candles and kiss each other". That was the slogan of the peaceniks who thought that with some people to people contact, (as opposed to terrorist to armed forces contact), there would be peace between India and Pakistan. They tried many tricks, like lighting candles in the border (sometimes forgetting to take the candle) and getting a Pakistani actress to kiss an Indian actor.

But looks like we are not made of the same material. This was revealed by none other than the symbol of Indo-Pak make out activity, actress Meera

Pakistani film actress Meera, who last year created flutters in Bollywood with her hot kissing scenes in film "Nazar", has done a volte-face regarding screening of Indian films in Pakistan, saying that the Bollywood films should not be shown in Pakistan because Indians had a "different culture and mindset" than the Muslims.

Vehemently opposing bringing Indian films to Pakistani cinemas, she said it should "never" happen.

"India has a different culture, Indians have a different mind-set and Indian movies should not be screened in Pakistan. We should produce our own movies. We are Muslims and we have to make films that depict our own culture," the Daily Times quoted the film actress as saying. ['Muslim' Meera does a volte-face, backs Bollywood ban in Pak]

But then you are a product of your upbringing. You have to see what is taught in schools there to see how brainwashed people are. Note that these are not madrassa books, but the ones approved by the Govt. of our friend P. Musharraf.

* The Hindus treated the ancient population of the Indus Valley very badly. They set fire to their houses and butchered them.

* The religion of Hindus did not teach them good things, Hindus did not respect women.

* The Hindu has always been an enemy of Islam. [Hindu, Enemy Of Islam]

Justice Mukherjee commission that went to Russia has returned without finding anything. Some people had suggested that after faking a plane crash in Taiwan, Subhash Bose had reached Russia and the Commission had gone there to find the truth about it. Some of the leads were fake and some were just accounts published in books of which the Commission requested an English Translation.

The truth, according to some is in the KGB archives. So Justice Mukherjee called up KGB and asked if they had any documents about Bose and they said no. So he just walked away.

Authorities of the Central Archive of the KGB, Central State Archive of Russian Federation Defence, Russian State Library, State Archive of Russian Federation, Russian State Military Archive and the Russian State Historical Archives for the Far East have informed the Commission that they had no documents relevant to its terms of enquiry, Mukherjee said.[Mukherjee Commission returns sans Netaji documents]

So far from all the information available, it seems like Subhash Bose was not in Russia and that story too was planted like the plane crash.

Previous Links: Subhash Bose: The Investigations - II, Subhash Bose: The investigations, How did Subhash Bose die?

Blogger Gaurav Sabnis quit his job at IBM India.

It all started when he made a blog post linking to an expose of IIPM and IIPM folks in a display of the superior management skills they advertise, decided to burn some Thinkpad laptops to protest this.

The Senior Executive from Lenovo, I must stress here, did not ask me to remove my posts. He asked me whether my decision remained the same in light of this communication from IIPM. I said I would get back to him after talking over the matter with several people, including my Manager in IBM. I spoke to my Manager who also confirmed that IIPM had given IBM a deadline of Monday morning, i.e morning of today, 10th October, to ensure I deleted my posts. Failing which, they would burn the laptops.[An Update]

The blogosphere is active with this news and desipundit is the focal point for this. We here at varnam.org salute Gaurav for standing up for his beliefs.

Update: Here is the wikipedia entry for IIPM

After all Pakistani proliferation activity was reduced to a singularity called A Q Khan, the Govt. (read Musharraf) said he had no knowledge of Khan's activities. Apparently Khan flew planes loaded with supplies to various countries all by himself. Atleast that is what Musharraf wants the world to believe and his annadatas seem to have trusted this version.

But once the nuclear agreement between India and US was reached, Musharraf wanted a piece of that pie too. If he was not part of the action, he would be forced to look elsewhere and it would threaten stability in the region, he warned. Now we know he was serious.

Pakistan High Commission in London is on a British intelligence list of 360 companies, universities and government organisations seeking to procure nuclear and other weapons related technology.

The 17-page document identifies 95 Pakistani organisations and government bodies, including Pakistan High Commission in London, as having assisted in the country’s nuclear programme. The list was compiled two years ago shortly after the security service mounted a surveillance operation at the Pakistani high commission, which is the only diplomatic institution on the list. Abdul Basit, Pakistan’s deputy high commissioner, said: “It is absolute rubbish and we take strong exception to these allegations.”[Pakistan's government implicated in nuclear trade]

"We have enough helicopters. The United States brought in their helicopters and more will come. We are well-equipped now. Helicopters are crucial in first three and four days. Even now they are crucial. But we have enough now," Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz told a press conference in Islamabad.[No need for Indian helicopters: Pak PM]

There are obvious risks for letting Indian helicopters into Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. What if they find out all the militant camp sites and decide to "help" people there.

Muzaffarabad and the Manshera district of NWFP, which were at the epicentre of the quake, have also been for many years the epicentre for international jihadi terrorism. The Jaish-e-Mohammad and the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, both members of Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front, had their jihadi training infrastructure in Manshera district, particularly in Balakot, which is reported to have been totally destroyed by the quake. In the beginning of this year, the Al Qaeda too had shifted one of its training camps from the Waziristan area of the Federally-administered Tribal Areas to Manshera. There were also unconfirmed reports that bin Laden had taken up residence in Manshera district. The LET and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, which are also members of the IIF, had their training infrastructure in Muzaffarabad. The United Jihad Council headed by Syed Salahuddin of the Hizbul Mujahideen, an indigenous Kashmiri terrorist organisation with no known links to the Al Qaeda or the IIF, was also operating from Muzaffarabad.[Quake in Pakistan: The sequel]

Update: As soon as the earthquake struck, I was wondering, who would be the first to blame America for this natural disaster. Seems like Arundhathi Roy has competition. Hugo Chavez, entertaining as always proposed his theory of natural disasters which put the blame on "world global capitalist model", whatever that means. Tariq Ali is more down to earth. He blamed America for not sending more helicopters from Afghanistan. At the same time Tariq Ali does not wonder why the offer from India was not taken up by Pakistani authorities? Did the victims insist that they be rescued only in American helicopters?

Col Hemant Joneja of Indian Army’s 15 Corps says

Today, a group of 10 Pak soldiers appeared on the curve, where once the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road took a left turn towards Chakoti, and asked for help. ‘‘Then our jawans crossed over (the LoC) and helped them reconstruct their bunker,’’

Soldiers of two armies got together on humanitarian grounds in the hour of crisis," he said. Shaukat Sultan, however, said, "There is no question of Indian army crossing LoC to help rebuild bunkers. All our bunkers are safe and can withstand artillery shells."

"Indian soldiers did not reconstruct any Pakistani army bunkers," an army spokesman said in New Delhi, clarifying that the soldiers had gone across unarmed to give Pakistani soldiers picks and shovels to clear debris of some pillars of the Aman Setu bridge on the Pakistani side.

Related Links: Rashomon Effect - Episode 1

Q: Since your character in Kyon Ki... is not one of those 'seen-him-before' characters, was there any method to your acting?
A: What method? No method, I play it from my heart. If I can understand and relate to the character, then I take it on and that is how I play a character.[Interview with Salman Khan]

"Fish are friends, not food". That's what Chum tells Bruce the Shark in Finding Nemo. Similarly the establishment in India keeps on repeating that Arab countries are our friends. Recently Natwar Singh suggested that it was the relationship with Arab countries that guided India's foreign relations. Nutwar, did not produce this logic out of the blue for it has been used before by the Indian Blogosphere's favourite football, Jawaharlal Nehru. Once when Albert Einstein asked for Nehru's support for the creation of Israel, he produced some kind of warped logic involving Muslims not to support it.

For all this obeisance, countries like Saudi Arabia reciprocate by funding more madrassas and not supporting India's position on Kashmir. On top of it, they are allowing the country to be used as a venue for planning terrorist activities against India. Syed Salahuddin is visiting the holy land for haj and "other" reasons.

Salahuddin has been living in Pakistan ever since he crossed the border from Indian-controlled Jammu and Kashmir 18 years ago, leaving behind his wife and children behind there, The Times of India said. He has invited like-minded people to come to Saudi Arabia where they can then together find ways to revive the ebbing momentum of terrorism in the Valley of Kashmir.[Kashmir terror chief heads for Mecca]

The K. Madhu-SN Swamy-Mammootty team has done it for the fourth time. Nerariyan CBI, the fourth in the CBI sequel, is a unique film because nowhere else in the world of cinema has a film had a fourth sequel. That way, the Nerariyan CBI team is eminently qualified to enter the Guinness Book of World Records. ['Nerariyan CBI' A Whodunit!]

How do people who don't know facts about cinema get employment as film critics? Looks like the United States Supreme Court, Rediff, and Apun Ka Choice don't need people with experience.

It is said that earthquakes don't kill people, but buildings constructed not to withstand them do. There are many factors which contributed to the deadliness of the Kashmir quake and poorly constructed buildings are just one of them. There is little we can do about the terrain and the density of population hence it would seem logical to make sure that the new buildings that are constructed will be able to withstand future quakes.

Key buildings in need of better earthquake-proofing have been identified in Delhi, and work is under way. Similar plans elsewhere have come too late to help the hospitals in Indian Kashmir. Though it is impossible to make buildings completely resistant to earthquakes, they can be made much safer. In both India and Pakistan, building codes exist; in both countries, they have been poorly enforced, with masses of unprotected housing stock in areas of great danger.[Preparing for the unknowable]

The system, with wooden frame and special nogging (placement of bricks), ‘‘proved to be quake-resistant’’, Arya said. The team includes seismologists and engineers. ‘‘Though Uri is in ruins (because of indiscriminate and excessive use of stone and mortar for walls), in Baramulla we found that buildings constructed in the bajji-diwari style had suffered the least damage. Some of them, even very old ones, developed only a few cracks,’’ he added.[Wood and brick homes withstood Saturday Shiver]

‘‘Saturday’s recordings show that while Delhi shook, Qutub stood still. There has been no damage and no noticeable vibration was recorded. Though the data is being closely analysed, we can say that certain architectural facets of the Minar and its design patterns helped Qutab withstand the tremors. Materials used in construction, wall thickness and proportionate base weight and the corresponding height besides stones used for construction helped Qutub withstand the shocks.’[When Delhi shook, Qutub stood still]’

Few days back, there was an interview (click on Listen) with Amartya Sen on National Public Radio about his new book, The Argumentative Indian. In this book he argues that civic debate is as important as elections in a democracy and India had a long history of encouraging dispute and discussion from Vedic times.He starts with the Bhagawad Geeta in which initially Krishna and Arjuna take two morally opposing positions and finally Krishna convinces Arjuna to participate in the war through reason.

The other examples he cites are from the Rig Veda, supposed to be a classical Hindu text, but one which has debate on if God exists and if he created the world. The Buddhist council held during various times argued about the Buddhist teachings and Emperor Asoka set forth rules for conducting debates. Amartya Sen's reasons that, it was this historical track record that helped democracy succeed in India while it failed in many other colonies that got freedom from the British.

Last month, actress Khusboo expressed an opinion about pre-martial sex and said that people should take safe measures to prevent AIDS and pregnancy. Immediately members of the Dalit Panthers of India went to the office of the Film Artistes' association in Chennai carrying brooms and slippers and demanded an apology. Pattali Makkal Katchi said it will protest outside the house of the actress. Khusboo was forced to apologize.

The Govt. of India is currently following the path of liberalizing the economy so that more people can increase their standard of living and naturally the Communists are against it. The path they chose to express their dissent was to shutdown the whole country. Communists are members of the Parliament, the body established to debate such issues, but they seem to have scant respect for the Parliament and the process etablished there.

An Oriya writer, Bibhudha Ranjan has a new book on Mahatma Gandhi called Michha Mahatma which contains some objectionable content according to some. The book has not been released yet, and hence this information comes from reviews. But that did not prevent people from demanding a ban on the book and burning the effigy of the writer. The author of the book claims that he has used only previously published material, but then who has time to read, think independently and engage in debate.

I have not read Amarya Sen's book and hence don't know if he claims that the Argumentative Indian still exists in India. If you look around you will see such species only in some pockets and soon they have to be added to the endangered species list. We as a society seem to have undergone reverse evolution to become The Coercive Indian.

There is a new book, Mao : The Unknown Story and it does not portray the Chairman in favourable light. In the interview (click on Listen) on National Public Radio, the authors, Jung Chang and Jon Halliday portray Mao as a brutal dictator who thought that he had the best moral values and had the freedom to control the lives of others.

They describe of a time when Mao himself as a young man had little faith in the communist party of which he was a member. He was more interested in reading books and started as a bookseller selling Communist literature. Then on a visit to his home province of Hunan he was impressed by thug violence. He wrote that that travel of 32 days changed his life and he felt a certain "esctacy".

Mao was spotted by Stalin and pushed to the top of Communist party. Since the Chinese Communist party was started by the Soviets they had a say in the affairs. But once he took control over the party, he conducted his first purge even before his sponsor Stalin, who took a few more years to murder people. Even though people complained about him to the Soviets, they were ignored. The authors also accuse that even during the Long March, Mao had to be carried and did not march with the people many of whom he purged later.

Nicholas D. Kristof reviews it for The New York Times

After Mao comes to power, Chang and Halliday show him continuing his thuggery. This is more familiar ground, but still there are revelations. Mao used the Korean War as a chance to slaughter former Nationalist soldiers. And Mao says some remarkable things about the peasants he was supposed to be championing. When they were starving in the 1950's, he instructed: "Educate peasants to eat less, and have more thin gruel. The State should try its hardest . . . to prevent peasants eating too much." In Moscow, he offered to sacrifice the lives of 300 million Chinese, half the population at the time, and in 1958 he blithely declared of the overworked population: "Working like this, with all these projects, half of China may well have to die." ['Mao': The Real Mao]

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for "Israel to be wiped off the map". He hopes that the Palestinian terror attacks would achieve that goal.

This has to be the the most outrageous statement of the century, and that too coming from a democratically elected leader. During a war like situation even a man like Musharraf has not made such statements. If the statement alone was given and asked to guess who said it, probably you would have said Hamas or Islamic Jihad, but never the President of a country. Even though most of Israel's neighbours desire what was mentioned by Ahmadinejad, no one has the audacity to make such public statements. This speaks volumes about the direction Iran is taking under the leadership of Ahmadinejad.

Today in an interview with Terry Gross, a former counterterrorism official in the Clinton and Bush administrations, Richard A. Clarke spoke about the relation between Iran and terrorist organizations. Many Al-Qaeda operatives, like the members of the Shura and bin Laden's oldest son, were captured by Iran and placed under house arrest which must be like how Pakistanis keep terrorists under house arrest. Iran has refused to hand them over to United States and this raises questions about the relationship between Iran and al-Qaeda. Besides this there is the Iranian support for Hezbollah

India does not seem to mind this terrorist connection and has even embarked on a project to build a pipeline to bring gas from Iran via Pakistan. Besides business relations, there are contacts at the level of Parliamentarians. But this does not mean that we remain silent on this statement by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Israel is one nation which has come to our help during times of need. Right from the 1962 war with China to the Kargil war in 1999, Israel has supported India even though we have always publicly kissed Arafat. When such calls for genocide are being made by the Iran, India should not use diplomatic channels to convey displeasure, but instead borrow a leaf from Musharraf's book and use megaphone diplomacy.

Footnote: Ahmadinejad also mentioned that

"Anybody who recognises Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury, [while] any [Islamic leader] who recognises the Zionist regime means he is acknowledging the surrender and defeat of the Islamic world," Ahmadinejad said.['Israel must be wiped off the map']

Understanding with DIC(K) has helped CPI(M): Pinarayi

I am sure it did.

The Oil-for-Food programme was a scheme under which Iraq, which was facing export sanctions, was authorized to sell oil to people of their choosing. Iraq, naturally chose to sell oil to nations and people who were sympathetic to their view. There is nothing illegal in this. But one source of illegal income was from something called "surcharges" paid on crude oil contracts and Iraq made about 228 million dollars through this.

Besides established companies, Iraq also awarded contracts to individuals in positions of influence as well and the selected people were ones who were influential in their countries, and produced pro-Iraq, anti-sanction views. Political parties and organizations too received allocations and familiarity with the oil trading market was not required. Individuals and entities other than the named contracting party are called "non-contractual beneficieries" in the Volker Report . Natwar Singh, Congress Party, and Bhim Singh are listed under this category.

The Indian Express has more

While Natwar has called these allegations ‘‘baseless and untrue’’, the fact is his son Jagat was involved in promoting M/s Hamdan Trading, which is owned by his friend Andy Sehgal, for cornering contracts in Iraq between 2000-2002. Indian diplomats posted in west Asia in that period confirm that Jagat Singh paid at least two visits to Iraq, one of them just days before Saddam’s ‘‘referendum’’ of October 15, 2002.

On condition of anonymity, these officials alleged Jagat, who is now Congress MLA from Lachchmangarh, Rajasthan, used the offices of the Indian Embassy in Baghdad to push his business interests. [Cong Saddamed by Natwar & his son]

Here is another gem

India's External Affairs Minister wanted to know why Mr. Volcker had headed the Committee and not "some independent person from the developing world."

"One thing is certain that in this era of liberalisation, corruption is a component of the system itself," he said.[Volcker report allegations baseless: Natwar]

Both the Communists and Congressmen seem to be caught off-guard with this and are trying all possible tricks from their book to get this off their back. Instead of using the old and crude techniques (like blame Paul Volker, blame liberalization, blame Darth Vader), it would be great if Natwar Singh can explain to us the role of Jagat Singh and his relation with Masefield AG, the contracting company. That would have more credibility. But that is too much to expect.

Related Links: The Acorn builds the case for why Natwar Singh must resign.