Praful Bidwai has an article on Sania Mirza which he then converts that to a roll call of achievers who are Muslims. After some Hindu nationalist and middle class pseudo-liberal bashing, he lists all the Muslims who have made it in India. These include the Khans of Bollywood, Shabana Azmi, Tabu, Saif Ali Khan, Saeed Mirza, Zayed Khan, Javed Akhtar, Mohammed Azharuddin, Irfan Pathan, Mohammed Kaif, Zaheer Khan etc. But one very important name is missing from the list, one person whom most of us see as a great Indian – the Indian President Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam.
I am sure Mr. Bidwai accidently missed this name and it has nothing to do with the fact that Abdul Kalam was involved with India’s nuclear weapons, missiles and was nominated by NDA Administration to the position of the President of India.
Related Links: The importance of Sania Mirza (according to Praful Bidwai)

Security agencies manning the Indo-Nepal border have been issued orders to let in all Nepali citizens, including Maoists, fleeing the crackdown after the dismissal of the Himalayan Kingdom

Matt Marshall, investigating the anemic growth of American startups think that a lot of VC money is now going overseas, especially to India and China.

That said, Battery Ventures, which has offices in San Mateo, raised a $450 million fund in September, and recently led it’s first investment in India: $15 million in Bangalore’s Tejas Networks, which is developing optical networking products in the Indian market for a fraction of what American companies do, says partner Thomas Crotty. Battery hopes to help it expand into the U.S market with the help of a partnership with Nortel, he said. Matrix Partners, another big-name firm with offices in Menlo Park, also recently opened an office Bangalore to start investing there. They plan on about one or two a year. Stay tuned as we follow this trend — unfortunately, there are no great statistics out there that reliably quantify it. [Is VC money going abroad?]

When the Congress Govt. with Communist support came into power in India there was a fear that the relations that the previous NDA Govt. had built with United States and Israel would erode. But on the contrary, the relation seems to be going fine, even though many of us don’t like the kid glove treatment that the General across the border is getting.

What does all this mean geopolitically? First, there is the fact that the left-of-center Congress Party-led government willingly worked with the United States in responding to the tsunami. In the past, such a regime would have gone to great lengths to torpedo any American effort to provide relief in the region. For example, when a massive cyclone hit Bangladesh in 1991, leaving extensive devastation in its wake, India expressed misgivings about the U.S. response, which was called “Operation Sea Angel.” These anxieties, a product of the cold-war years, have steadily dissipated over the past decade, replaced by a willingness to work with, and even court, the United States on a range of issues, from anti-piracy operations in the Indian Ocean to jointly confronting terrorism. Indeed, the growing scope of military-to-military contacts between the two countries over the past several years (a centerpiece of the new Indo-U.S. relationship) made it possible for the two states to play a leading and coordinated role in post-tsunami relief. To be sure, the countries remain at odds over certain issues, such as India’s ties to Iran and the brutal regime in Myanmar. But the signs point in a positive direction. For example, in a sharp departure from the past, the ongoing U.S. military presence in Sri Lanka to provide humanitarian assistance has not elicited any visceral, reflexive comments from New Delhi officialdom. The latent suspicion of all American initiatives in the region that until recently preoccupied India’s foreign policy elite now appears to be in steady decline. [Assist Leader via Dan Drezner]

After the nuclear tests, there was a series of discussions between India and United States in which both the nations understood each other more clearly. During the Kargil crisis, United States sided with India, much to the surprise of New Delhi, according to Strobe Talbott.
But one of the important reasons for the removal of suspicion is improved trade relations between the two countries and India was one of the three countries which supported Bush’s re-election.

For people like us living in the West Coast of United States, there is no Air India service to India. Air India does code sharing with Malaysian and Singapore Airlines due to the lack of aircraft and some geriatric agreements which restrict the number of flights. But now India and US have started negotiations which will increase the number of flights and carriers operating between the two countries.

The new agreement will enable US airlines, many of them on the verge of bankruptcy, to fly unhindered from any city in the US to any in India, while also giving an equal chance to India’s fledgling airlines that have long been squashed by the monopolist Air India. There will be no restrictions on how often carriers fly, the kind of aircraft they use and the prices they charge.
A top Indian official involved in the talks said India would protect its national carrier interest, but “you can’t allow corporate interests of one airline to undermine India’s overall trade interests” –

Now that India is extending dual citizenship to all citizens living overseas, L K Advani asked if gangsters who live in Pakistan and illegal immigrants from Bangladesh will be given dual citizenship.
Dual citizenship is given to citizens of those countries which allow dual citizenship. Since Pakistan and Bangladesh both allow this, this becomes a possibility.
But then Para 7 of the Citizenship Amendment Act 2003 has the following line

(ii), but does not include a person who is or had been at any time a citizen of Pakistan, Bangladesh or such other country as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, specify.

I guess that rules out citizenship for all the people Advani is concerned about.

India and Iran have signed an agreement to export natural gas to India. Besides this, the agreement also gives Indian companies a 20 percent share in the development of Iranian gas fields.

According to the agreement, Iran will ship five million tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to India per annum for the next 25 years, with an option to increase the amount to 7.5 million tons.
Initial negotiations on the agreement began last November following months of talks about the possibility of India investing in Iran

When India conducted the nuclear tests, it was Defence Minister George Fernandes who went ballistic against China. He cited that China was the India’s enemy number one and reason for the nuclear tests. But now after six years, he seems to have changed his mind and even started some introspection.

Former Defence Minister George Fernandes, known for his strong views against China, on Wednesday surprised audience, mostly Tibetans, by lavishing praise on the communist nation for its progress and saying India should take Beijing’s professions of friendship “sincerely”.
“China is growing rapidly as a power while we are lagging behind more than we should. Its economy today is three times the size of our own, and all this is their own work,” he said at a seminar on China’s under-construction railway line to Lhasa.
“The entire nation has accepted the task of becoming the biggest economic power in the world,” he said praising the Chinese people for their “discipline”. [George Fernandes heaps praise on China]

He had retracted from the enemy number one statement long time back with the clarification – “I never said China is enemy number one. But I did say that in my perception of national security, China is enemy number one.” (Maybe he was John Kerry’s inspiration for the Iraq vote statement). He also blamed the intelligence agencies for feeding him all the wrong information.
We have to apologize to the Pakistanis and give them back their title of enemy number one.

March 1: Ha, ha. Buddhadeb is not going to like this. They are saying Communists have really abjured violence. From sedition, they have moved to sedation. Otherwise, how do you explain the West Bengal phenomenon? It is pure democratic sedation. And since Marxism is a religion, it is the opium of the people. These bourgeois jokes

The tsunami striking us in the last days of 2004 must be seen not as an ominous signal for the future, but as the culmination of a legacy of hate and destruction that we, the Indian people, unitedly and finally overcame in the political sphere in 2004.