Associated Press gets it wrong

If Pakistan is clashing with someone, it has to be India. This theory has been such deep roots into the world psyche, that the fact that even when Pakistanis are shooting Afghanis, the Editors do not realize it. So see the title in Jerusalem Post US spy drone crash prompts Pakistan-India clash. Now before you start wondering on the whats and whys of this story, you find that the real story is that an American drone crashed into Pakistan resulting in gunfire between the countries across the Durand line. India is nowhere in the picture.

Getting back on their feet

2004 was a good year for removing poverty because developing countries experienced a 6.1 percent economic growth and according to the World Bank, this was an expansion unprecedented in history.

For example, most Americans would be surprised to learn that millions of poor people who live on less than $1 per day would be better off if they could go into debt. The reason they can’t is that the institutions required to sustain capitalism are not present.
The poor who are addressed in our lessons are the absolute poor — the more than 1 billion people around the world who live on less than $1 per day. They have nothing, and they have no way of acquiring anything because of the governmental and social institutions that surround them.
One big reason people in more advanced societies are able to enjoy a more comfortable existence is that they are able to purchase items by going into debt. Americans take that for granted. Any person living in absolute poverty would love to trade positions with any one of us and walk in our shoes — to have a job and be able to borrow money for a car or a home.
It’s a shame that America’s youth do not understand these basic economic concepts. If they did, they’d be less inclined to join globalization protests because they would understand why the economies of China and India grew by 8.8 percent and 6 percent, respectively, last year. [Ignorance shrouds capitalism’s profound impact on reducing poverty]

The poor who lost everything in the tsunami will have to rebuild everything from scratch and also depend on charity. In developed countries people have life insurance, house insurance, and insurance for all possible things. So when an earthquake or hurricane destroys property, these institutions of capitalism kick in and put people back on their feet.

Only about a quarter of the victims would have been breadwinners eligible for life insurance, and maybe only a quarter of them would have had any coverage, he added. The lack of coverage means global insurers expect to pick up only a small portion of the reconstruction bill following Sunday’s killer waves, which wreaked damage of more than $13.6 billion, according to Munich Re, the world’s biggest reinsurer.
In India, where more than 12,000 people died in the tsunami, only about a tenth of the billion-strong population has life insurance. In Sri Lanka, where the death toll could exceed 30,000, insurance is even less common. [Little insurance help for survivors]

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Tsunami and Mahabalipuram

One of the monuments that survived the tsunami was the shore temple of Mahabalipuram (named after Mahabali of Onam festival or Pallava king Mamalla).

Once upon a time, in the first century A.D., it was a tiny port town bustling with life.
By the 6th century, it had become the capital of the Pallava kings who ruled these shores and built several exquisite temples to thank the deities for their thriving empire.
However, some time in the past, the town was abandoned, probably because the sea engulfed it and the temples and rock monuments were buried in heaps of sand.
It was only in the 1800s that the exquisite rock carvings and temples, said to be the oldest surviving temples on the east coast of India, about 60 km south of Chennai, were rediscovered and unearthed by British architects. [Mammoth temple that withstood tsunami]

The current temple survived because it had hard rock bases embedded very deep. But then according to local mythology there were seven temples and six of them were swallowed by the sea. Graham Hancock and team spent time doing some marine archaeology and found some structures under the ocean.

Diving in challenging conditions, the team found the “foundation of walls, broken pillars, steps, and many scattered stone blocks,” said Kamlesh Vora, a marine archaeologist with NIO.
Vora, Halls, and the rest of the team were quickly convinced that they had made a major discovery of man-made structures. “Here there would be no furrowed brows, no peering at reefs from different angles, no dusting for elusive archaeological fingerprints,” said Halls. “Here man was everywhere.”
“All structures are made of granite stone which is locally available,” Vora continued. “The archaeological and inscriptional evidence of sites on land near shore indicate a possible date of construction of these structures between 1,500 to 1,200 years before present. We now need to carry out detailed explorations and searches for datable antiquities and inscriptional evidences on the finds.”
If the Mahabalipuram ruins are found to be of the same temple complex as the shore temple, the discovery would lend credence to the local tales that outsiders have often disregarded as legend. [New Underwater Finds Raise Questions About Flood Myths]

Saudi Oil, Pakistani Bomb and United States

The Saudi government, itself under assault from Al Qaeda, is not in the business of directly financing terrorism, and since 9/11 it has responded to American pressure to control the flow of charitable funds to active terrorist groups. But what it still pays for, and what the religious charities its citizens are obliged to contribute to pay for, is a worldwide network of mosques, schools and Islamic centers that proselytize the belligerent and intolerant Wahhabi variant of Islam that is dominant in Saudi Arabia. As a result of this oil-financed largess, the teachings of more tolerant and humane Muslim leaders are losing ground in countries like Indonesia and Pakistan. Wahhabi mosques that glorify armed jihad have also made alarming gains among the Muslim populations of Europe and the United States.
For years, Saudi Arabian oil money bankrolled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and provided financial support to Pakistan’s government. It was Saudi aid that allowed Pakistan to defy international sanctions imposed over its nuclear bomb testing. Without Saudi money there is some question whether chronically impoverished Pakistan could have ever afforded to develop nuclear weapons and the crucial bomb-related technologies that its scientists passed on to Iran, Libya, North Korea and perhaps other countries as well. [The Saudi Syndrome]

The Saudi support for Pakistan’s nuclear program has been reported before and Saudis have used this as a bargaining chip. While Benazir Bhutto was not allowed to visit the nuclear facilities, Saudi Arabia’s Prince Sultan was given a guided tour.
The editorial is a call for Americans to think while buying gas guzzlers. Here in California there are more and more hybrid cars on the road than before. But then what happens in tree-hugging, war-hating California is not a reflection of the nation. The demand for oil around the world is just increasing as China and India need it to keep their booming economies running. This means more money for Saudi Arabia to fund its militant programs.
But as the largest consumer of Oil, it is United States that has to take the lead in reducing its dependency. Will that happen voluntarily ? I doubt unless the gas price shoots up to the unaffordable range or the oil wells dry up, the consumption will reduce.

Pakistani tsunami of jealousy

Pakistanis cannot seem to digest the fact that (a) India did not accept aid (b) India is helping all its neighbors. Iftikar Gilani is sad that India did not accept aid from even China. So he writes an article quoting some Diplomats who have no names. It is pretty easy to write such stuff masking your jealousy and putting words into the mouth of invisible people.

The Indian government had even refused an aid offer from China which offered a $3 million aid package for tsunami victims in India. It has now joined in relief operations being carried out by the United States, Australia and Japan. Diplomats said the motive behind this move is India$(Bs (Burge to be recognised as a major power in the Indian Ocean along with these countries. The Indian navy has launched four rescue and relief operations $(O T(Bhe Operation Seawave (along the Andamans cost), Operation Rainbow in Sri Lanka, Operation Castor in the Maldives and the Operation Gambhir in Indonesia..[India wants all credit for tsunami relief operations]

The title of the article conveys all his frustration. India has never claimed credit for all the tsunami operations. There are many other countries which are involved in relief operations and this disaster has bought many countries alongwith India to put a humanitarian coalition of the willing and apparently no one contacted Pakistan to join them. In fact Pakistan is sending its Navy ships and flying sorties to Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Can well call them as jumping to earn brownie points ?
In fact Al-Jazeera of all places has an article giving India credit for not having to accept aid and for coming of age.

Gone were the days, when the first port of call for all heads of Indian government was either the US or the UN, whenever any big calamities hit its people. That newly acquired confidence will not go unnoticed by the rest of the world. India has come of age, and as befits a nation aspiring to be counted on the highest seats of world governance, India had taken the fi! rst step to project itself as a self-sufficient and responsible nation that could take care of its people without having to go around the world with a begging ball.
The next, step for India, will be, no doubt, to look beyond its borders and treat all such natural tragedies as common concern of all the people of the world. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has come out of that centuries old Brahmanical taboo that ghettoized India to its own shores. In today$(Bs (Bglobalized world, India under the new leadership, has confidently and promptly acquired the new accoutrements that perfectly suit the native ethos of a people humane enough to populate this vast continent of a nation, without any reference to ideologies of religion, caste, region, race and languages. Let all such ideologies compete to fit the criteria of being the best suited to India$(Bs (Bcoming of age and its humanitarian contribution to the peace and well-being of the world. [India’s Coming of Age, Post-Tsunami ]

Erasing the Communist link

There has been mention in Sulekha Newshopper that AID India is a charity that uses DYFI for its work. DYFI is the youth wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). To look for this, I scanned the AID India website and there was no mention of DYFI anywhere. So for example if you look at the despatch from Chennai you get to read

After the initial shock and chaos, we are now quite well organized to handle the relief efforts. A number of organizations have started working together to handle the relief work – AID, TNSF, Pondicherry Science Forum, Vidyarambam, Pratham and the PHM Organizations. We have formed a quick informal coalition to coordinate this work. As of now the state level coordination is being done from the AID-India office in Gopalapuram Chennai. [Update from Chennai-III]

But then if you look at the cached page from Google, you see that the word DYFI was taken out from the same paragraph.

After the initial shock and chaos, we are now quite well organized to handle the relief efforts. A number of organizations have started working together to handle the relief work – AID, TNSF, Pondicherry Science Forum, DYFI, Vidyarambam, Pratham and the PHM Organizations. We have formed a quick informal coalition to coordinate this work. As of now the state level coordination is being done from the AID-India office in Gopalapuram Chennai.[ Update from Chennai-III (cached version)]

The same editing is seen in the Update from Chennai and its cached version.
Why is AID India removing this DYFI word from all its documents ? Is it because they are no longer working with them or are they trying to remove the Communist link or are they supressing information ? Can anyone from AID India answer ?
From various reports I have been reading they seem to be doing excellent job on the ground and seem to have very little overhead.
Update:

AID India, an organisation I can

New Year Celebration – Commie style

Left-wing rebels killed at least 17 peasants in northeast Colombia on New Year’s Eve in reprisal for cooperating with far-right paramilitaries, police and local authorities said Saturday.
The massacre, in which police said four children and six women died, took place Friday night in the town of Tame, in the province of Arauca near the Venezuelan border. The oil-rich region is contested by Marxist rebels and their paramilitary foes.
The victims were gathered for a New Year’s Eve celebration when they were attacked, said Tame Mayor Alfredo Guzman.
Police say the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, carried out the crime. Authorities say the group killed nine peasant coca growers in August and 34 in June in the neighboring province of Norte de Santander. [Rebels Kill 17 Peasants in Colombia, Police Say]

FARC was established in 1964 by the Columbian Communist Party to defend Communist controlled areas and is considered the best equipped insurgency of Marxist origin in Latin America. You would think that Communism is a religion meant to defend the rights of peasants and common folk from exploitation. But looking at their activities, the same people are exploited and murdered.

Tsunami side effects

It is said that animals can sense when disaster is going to strike and escape. But what is not often mentioned is that humans become insane during such times. Here are two stories.
Apparently when you are going to provide aid in Indonesia, you have to dress as per Islamic code.

“The Americans have to understand our culture here,” said Hilmy Bakar Almascaty, vice-chairman of the Jakarta-based Islamic Defenders Front, which is mobilising relief efforts of its own.
“If they are not sensitive to local issues then there will be problems. If American women come to Aceh, they must wear dilbab for example. There is Sharia law in Aceh and that is what is dictated.”
USAid’s Bok said it was unlikely US service personnel would adhere to a Muslim dresscode.
“I don’t think the practice of Islam in Aceh is such that it forces all people to wear dilbab,” said Weiss. “This is not Saudi Arabia.” [Indonesian Islamic Group Wants US military aidgivers to wear Islamic dress]

The next one is from Tamil Nadu

People have died, but politics lives on. A strange game of politics in so in Tamil Nadu. J Jayalalitha is the chief minister of the state and controls a TV channel, Jaya TV. M Karunanidhi is her chief rival and controls Sun TV. Sun TV keeps showing news that portrays the government