Via Hindustan Times, we learn that a certain Moorthy Muthuswamy of New York based Indian-American Intellectuals Forum has objected to Jet Airways being given a license to fly into the US.
The newspaper quotes from his letter to US Secretary of Transportation, Norm Mineta, to whom he suggests that the airline's numerous Muslim employees might constitute a potential threat to US national security?! Speaking of the proportion of Muslims at the airline, he apparently writes:
I suspect it is well over 50 per cent. (In India Muslims constitutes only 14 per cent of the population and have the highest illiteracy rates). This statistics is clear giveaway, perhaps confirming its jihadi connections.
Wow! We don't hold any brief for Jet Airways, and our contempt for jihadi terrorists is well chronicled on this blog. But for Mr. Muthuswamy to make allegations as serious as this based apparently on how many Muslims work at Jet Airways is stunning & offensive, to say the least.
Friday, June 10, 2005
Condoleezza Rice
We'd strongly praised Ms. Rice's appointment to Secretary of State last year. In an interview with Charlie Rose broadcast last night, she validated our positive view of her. Someday, perhaps she'll consider running for Presidency of the United States.
She ably represents a political-right absent bigotry which is enormously inspiring.
Here's the transcript of her must-read interview. On India she says:
So in a place like India, where you have many, many different ethnic groups and religions, they can find a place within the democratic institutions; they don't have to try and destroy it from without. That's what democracy brings. And yes, our democratic -- the fact that we share a democratic heritage and institutions with India is enormously important.
She ably represents a political-right absent bigotry which is enormously inspiring.
Here's the transcript of her must-read interview. On India she says:
So in a place like India, where you have many, many different ethnic groups and religions, they can find a place within the democratic institutions; they don't have to try and destroy it from without. That's what democracy brings. And yes, our democratic -- the fact that we share a democratic heritage and institutions with India is enormously important.
Thursday, June 09, 2005
The Advani Triangulation
BJP leader L K Advani is playing the old political game of triangulation. Here, the player picks a calculated quarrel with extremists of his own stripe, thus appearing moderate in contrast.
Bill Clinton was a master of this strategy. In 1992, with America frustrated with liberalism, Mr. Clinton famously put down the African-American rapper Sister Souljah for her extreme views. In one stroke, he was able to cast himself as a centrist -- the rest is history.
Mr. Advani hopes to achieve much the same by provoking India's Saffron-Right extremists. If he is successful, he will (superficially at least) move in the direction of the Secular-Right political space this blog typifies.
This is good and understandable political strategy. After all, India's Hindu voters don't seem to be much impressed by the Hindutva extremism. Even at the height of communal tensions provoked by these dark forces, India's Hindu voters (commendably) declined to give them parliamentary majorities. It's unlikely this dynamic will ever change. Mr. Advani is smart to recognize this and try to cut his losses.
Now, it's easy to dismiss extremists who act out their beliefs; it's much harder to dismiss extremists who ably pretend to be moderates. Mr. Vajpayee's success is a case in point. This is why Mr. Advani's political move to embrace the center is a cause of some worry for this Secular-Right blogger.
We are also amused by Mr. Advani's newly-discovered warmth for Pakistan. We now have the spectacle of the BJP being more courteous to Muslims abroad, than Muslims of India. Reminds us of the Hindi proverb: Ghar Mein Sher, Bahar Chooha!!
Bill Clinton was a master of this strategy. In 1992, with America frustrated with liberalism, Mr. Clinton famously put down the African-American rapper Sister Souljah for her extreme views. In one stroke, he was able to cast himself as a centrist -- the rest is history.
Mr. Advani hopes to achieve much the same by provoking India's Saffron-Right extremists. If he is successful, he will (superficially at least) move in the direction of the Secular-Right political space this blog typifies.
This is good and understandable political strategy. After all, India's Hindu voters don't seem to be much impressed by the Hindutva extremism. Even at the height of communal tensions provoked by these dark forces, India's Hindu voters (commendably) declined to give them parliamentary majorities. It's unlikely this dynamic will ever change. Mr. Advani is smart to recognize this and try to cut his losses.
Now, it's easy to dismiss extremists who act out their beliefs; it's much harder to dismiss extremists who ably pretend to be moderates. Mr. Vajpayee's success is a case in point. This is why Mr. Advani's political move to embrace the center is a cause of some worry for this Secular-Right blogger.
We are also amused by Mr. Advani's newly-discovered warmth for Pakistan. We now have the spectacle of the BJP being more courteous to Muslims abroad, than Muslims of India. Reminds us of the Hindi proverb: Ghar Mein Sher, Bahar Chooha!!
Five Year Old Policeman
Via BBC, a stunning story of a five year old boy being forced to work at a police station. And, he is not alone.
What are we doing to our children?
What are we doing to our children?
My Reach Exceeds His Grasp
In The Washington Post, the influential Jim Hoagland compares India favorably to China and asks Whose Asian Century?
India's reach is finally beginning to exceed China's grasp!!
India's reach is finally beginning to exceed China's grasp!!
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Another Saudi Outrage
Via Times of India, Two Indians arrested in Saudi Arabia for the grave offense of prayer.
Another Munchian Moment
Via Drudge report: The dawn of the 'hybrid man'; macho is endangered species...! This is the latest "thinking" coming out of France.
The emergence of this new male beast who wants to look and feel good, and who will also have an impact on the role of women, presages a new potentially lucrative market for the European fashion industry.
Our comment, a Munchian scream!!
The emergence of this new male beast who wants to look and feel good, and who will also have an impact on the role of women, presages a new potentially lucrative market for the European fashion industry.
Our comment, a Munchian scream!!
Do Maps Have Morals?
Via Technology Review, this thought-provoking essay on the startling technology and applications of modern cartography is worth a read, especially because India is a player in this field.
Six months ago, relief workers used digital maps to find their way through areas devastated by the Indian Ocean tsunami. The U.S. Air Force relies on such maps in Iraq. Aerial photographs and digital mapmaking tools are allowing the governments of Uruguay and Brazil to survey and sell off vast tracts of land. "Sitting there in Arlington, Virginia, you can buy land in Brazil," says Christopher Simpson, a professor of communications at American University in Washington, DC, who's been studying current uses of remote sensing in Latin America. In theory, Brazilian peasants can buy the land they currently till. But in practice, Simpson says, the best properties will be snapped up by "those with the most resources, who are best organized, with the best overview." In other words, those with access to digital maps of millions of unclaimed acres.
Hmm.
Six months ago, relief workers used digital maps to find their way through areas devastated by the Indian Ocean tsunami. The U.S. Air Force relies on such maps in Iraq. Aerial photographs and digital mapmaking tools are allowing the governments of Uruguay and Brazil to survey and sell off vast tracts of land. "Sitting there in Arlington, Virginia, you can buy land in Brazil," says Christopher Simpson, a professor of communications at American University in Washington, DC, who's been studying current uses of remote sensing in Latin America. In theory, Brazilian peasants can buy the land they currently till. But in practice, Simpson says, the best properties will be snapped up by "those with the most resources, who are best organized, with the best overview." In other words, those with access to digital maps of millions of unclaimed acres.
Hmm.
Monday, June 06, 2005
Portrait Of A Monster
Via Outlook, a look at Prachanda.
[True to form, Outlook finds a way to knock America even in this story of the Nepali Marxist monster; still, the profile is worth a read.]
[True to form, Outlook finds a way to knock America even in this story of the Nepali Marxist monster; still, the profile is worth a read.]
Blond Ambition
Via Rediff, here's a photograph of the Blond Lalu doll. (hat tip: Amit for alerting his readers to the existence of the said doll)
Our comment, a Munchian scream!!!
Our comment, a Munchian scream!!!
Sunday, June 05, 2005
Ten Most Harmful Books, And Seven Great Movies
Via Human Events Online (an uber-conservative publication), here are the ten most harmful books of the 19th & 20th centuries. Offered without comment.
While on lists, here are the seven best political films we've seen, and highly recommend (for seeing again & again, that is):
1. Apocalypse Now
2. The Dancer Upstairs
3. Ardha Satya
4. The Quiet American
5. The Last Emperor
6. The Killing Fields
7. The Year of Living Dangerously
While on lists, here are the seven best political films we've seen, and highly recommend (for seeing again & again, that is):
1. Apocalypse Now
2. The Dancer Upstairs
3. Ardha Satya
4. The Quiet American
5. The Last Emperor
6. The Killing Fields
7. The Year of Living Dangerously
Friday, June 03, 2005
It's Hard To Be Easy!
Via Opinion Journal, a brilliant, must-read, meditation on why technological advances can't free us from life's "hassle quota."
The author, Cameron Stracher, writes very perceptively:
Life, it turns out, has a certain minimum hassle quota. As in physics, matter can never be destroyed--it can just be transformed. If we speed up the time it takes to go through the toll booth, we slow down time somewhere else. If we ease access to our bank account, we complicate access to bankers. If we free the ties to the workplace, we tighten them to the home.
Also:
And don't even start about cell phones, voice mail, email, BlackBerrys and all the other modern forms of communication. Yes, they have untethered us from the office, freeing us from the boundaries that used to divide work from home. But does anyone really think that's an entirely good thing? Worse, the devices have created the expectation of constant contact, which results in interrupted vacations to check the office voice-mail and email systems. It is the brave road warrior, indeed, who can ignore the constant bleating of the cellphone/voice-mail indicator. Most of us curse the day Marconi transmitted his first wireless signal.
This last bit resonates big time with this blogger who, much to the astonishment of everyone he knows, does not own or use a mobile phone!! [He does confess to owning mobile phone stocks -- but that is capitalism!!!]
The author, Cameron Stracher, writes very perceptively:
Life, it turns out, has a certain minimum hassle quota. As in physics, matter can never be destroyed--it can just be transformed. If we speed up the time it takes to go through the toll booth, we slow down time somewhere else. If we ease access to our bank account, we complicate access to bankers. If we free the ties to the workplace, we tighten them to the home.
Also:
And don't even start about cell phones, voice mail, email, BlackBerrys and all the other modern forms of communication. Yes, they have untethered us from the office, freeing us from the boundaries that used to divide work from home. But does anyone really think that's an entirely good thing? Worse, the devices have created the expectation of constant contact, which results in interrupted vacations to check the office voice-mail and email systems. It is the brave road warrior, indeed, who can ignore the constant bleating of the cellphone/voice-mail indicator. Most of us curse the day Marconi transmitted his first wireless signal.
This last bit resonates big time with this blogger who, much to the astonishment of everyone he knows, does not own or use a mobile phone!! [He does confess to owning mobile phone stocks -- but that is capitalism!!!]
Security Council Expansion and China
On China calling the G4's proposal for UNSC expansion dangerous, Stratfor writes:
China will use its veto power to defeat a draft resolution proposed by Brazil, Germany, India and Japan to expand the U.N. Security Council should this resolution come up for a vote, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, Wang Guangya, said June 2. Wang's statement allows China room to uphold its commitment not to obstruct permanent Indian membership on the Security Council and to continue building the new Sino-Indian friendship while it uses other methods to ensure Japan does not get a seat.
We predicted precisely this scenario in this April post. We also have recommendations for what India should do once its security council push, predictably, comes to a nought!
China will use its veto power to defeat a draft resolution proposed by Brazil, Germany, India and Japan to expand the U.N. Security Council should this resolution come up for a vote, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, Wang Guangya, said June 2. Wang's statement allows China room to uphold its commitment not to obstruct permanent Indian membership on the Security Council and to continue building the new Sino-Indian friendship while it uses other methods to ensure Japan does not get a seat.
We predicted precisely this scenario in this April post. We also have recommendations for what India should do once its security council push, predictably, comes to a nought!
Thursday, June 02, 2005
The Nectar of Life
Sandeep builds on our post The Jewel In The Cobra's Mouth lamenting the lack of serious Sanskrit scholarship in India. He attributes this to the intellectual climate of post-independence India.
See his excellent post The Nectar of Life.
See his excellent post The Nectar of Life.
242 Hindus
A European Lesson For Liberal India
New York Times columnist David Brooks writes about how EU's failures in France & Holland are really a comment on Europe's hyper-welfare state model.
Indian liberals, take heed.
Indian liberals, take heed.
China's Peaceful Rise?
Now that Brookings has posted the transcript of Jaswant Singh's talk we blogged on yesterday, here's a very interesting excerpt, during Q&A:
QUESTION: Do you in fact believe in what China espouses as a peaceful rising, or do you see them as a threat?
MR. SINGH: I think the Peoples Republic of China is currently so engaged with the great issue that confronts them as a country that there is no free play available for that country to engage in conflict. They do want another 20 to 30 years of consistent development in which they can address what they have themselves identified as the great modernizations and as also economic development. It has always been China's strategic philosophy that if your adversary is humbled without conflict, then that's a much better way to humble. And it's the assessment of the Peoples Republic that if they're able to grow economically, as they're demonstrating today, then in the foreseeable future of just about a decade or so, it has already, I mean, my [inaudible] the achievement that the Peoples Republic has demonstrated and the acclaim that the world has accorded to it has already conferred upon it the great power status that they seek. They don't have to go to [inaudible] for that purpose.
No free play, Mr. Singh says, thus dismissing the threat from ascendant China -- and he leads supposedly the party of hawks. He is clearly inebriated with the arrack of ostriches.
This denial of Chinese threat is, alas, a widely held view among India's strategic circles. A couple years ago, a senior Indian member of parliament told a group of our friends of his visit to Beijing where he met, the then President, Jiang Zimin. Jiang told him that, for China, geo-politics is all about economics -- as it should be for India. India has apparently bought this theory hook, line, and sinker.
Then there's the reality, always ready to puncture hot air balloons.
Let's just count the number of muscular balls China presently has in the air. Then let's ponder on whether this is evidence of China's peaceful rise.
Escalating tensions between China, Japan cause for concern
China has its eye on divided Korea
Taiwan Rejects China's Revised Definition of Relations
China: UN Council Resolution Dangerous
QUESTION: Do you in fact believe in what China espouses as a peaceful rising, or do you see them as a threat?
MR. SINGH: I think the Peoples Republic of China is currently so engaged with the great issue that confronts them as a country that there is no free play available for that country to engage in conflict. They do want another 20 to 30 years of consistent development in which they can address what they have themselves identified as the great modernizations and as also economic development. It has always been China's strategic philosophy that if your adversary is humbled without conflict, then that's a much better way to humble. And it's the assessment of the Peoples Republic that if they're able to grow economically, as they're demonstrating today, then in the foreseeable future of just about a decade or so, it has already, I mean, my [inaudible] the achievement that the Peoples Republic has demonstrated and the acclaim that the world has accorded to it has already conferred upon it the great power status that they seek. They don't have to go to [inaudible] for that purpose.
No free play, Mr. Singh says, thus dismissing the threat from ascendant China -- and he leads supposedly the party of hawks. He is clearly inebriated with the arrack of ostriches.
This denial of Chinese threat is, alas, a widely held view among India's strategic circles. A couple years ago, a senior Indian member of parliament told a group of our friends of his visit to Beijing where he met, the then President, Jiang Zimin. Jiang told him that, for China, geo-politics is all about economics -- as it should be for India. India has apparently bought this theory hook, line, and sinker.
Then there's the reality, always ready to puncture hot air balloons.
Let's just count the number of muscular balls China presently has in the air. Then let's ponder on whether this is evidence of China's peaceful rise.
Escalating tensions between China, Japan cause for concern
China has its eye on divided Korea
Taiwan Rejects China's Revised Definition of Relations
China: UN Council Resolution Dangerous
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Jaswant Singh At Brookings
We caught C-Span's coverage of Jaswant Singh's speech at Brookings yesterday. Fascinating stuff.
He spoke at length about mutual mis-perceptions between US & India, and the consequent problems this creates for notions like strategic partnership or natural alliance.
Of course, it doesn't help when our most intelligent diplomats, like Mr. Singh, are also the most unintelligible. For all the knowledge of foreign policy issues this blogger has, he had to strain to understand what Mr. Singh was really implying by his complex and oblique idea construction. We can only wonder what the Americans in the audience thought.
Why do Indian diplomats speak in riddles and not in plain English?
He spoke at length about mutual mis-perceptions between US & India, and the consequent problems this creates for notions like strategic partnership or natural alliance.
Of course, it doesn't help when our most intelligent diplomats, like Mr. Singh, are also the most unintelligible. For all the knowledge of foreign policy issues this blogger has, he had to strain to understand what Mr. Singh was really implying by his complex and oblique idea construction. We can only wonder what the Americans in the audience thought.
Why do Indian diplomats speak in riddles and not in plain English?
Why Museums Matter
Via Opinion Journal, Phillippe De Montebello, Director of New York's fantastic Metropolitan Museum of Art explains why museums matter: For the study and understanding of mankind, he writes.
Last November, we'd linked to another brilliant essay on museums, in Kabul (!), that's also worth reading in this context.
Last November, we'd linked to another brilliant essay on museums, in Kabul (!), that's also worth reading in this context.
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