British Prime Minister David Cameron has vowed to give Sri Lanka lessons on human rights when he attends the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Sri Lanka in November 2013. This is an astonishing statement coming from the head of a country that once ran an Empire on which it was said ‘the Sun never sets’. At its peak the British Empir
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Hari Om
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25 May 2013
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“Today (May 12) is an important day for people of Jammu & Kashmir as the elections were held in Pakistan and Mian Nawaz Sharif is emerging as victorious. I from this stage at Trikulbal Pattan (Kashmir) congratulate Mian Sahib on behalf of people of Jammu & Kashmir, my government and myself and hope that he would carry forward the process of
Nawaz Sharif is all set to take over the reins of Pakistan after having won an impressive victory in the recently held elections. All eyes are set on the manner in which he relates to India. Will he live up to the encouraging words he spoke just before and after the elections? Will Indo-Pakistan relations see the new positive vibes that he promised
What kind of India will we have when an “industrial corridor” runs from Delhi to Mumbai and another from Chennai to Bangalore? Who will benefit most and who will lose most from the $1 trillion in infrastructure investment that Finance Minister P. Chidambaram deems necessary in the next decade? What will be the impact of a Chernobyl/Fukushima-style
Jammu & Kashmir is an integral part of India. The only problem that can be called the J&K Problem is the non-comprehension by India of this truth of its being the integral part of India and not distinct or separate from the other states. The problem that remains to be settled then is to free the areas of J&K illegally occupied
Some clues are dead giveaways. When Hillary Clinton, former US Secretary of State, goes to discuss “innovative” ways to break the impasse in Sri Lanka with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and not the Indian Prime Minister, and after 30 years the US Government has decided to financially assist Tamil refugees languishing in Tamil Nadu refugee camps, it all
Nomads – yak, sheep, and cattle herders – are conventionally the silent sentinels of the borders. Living close to nature in remote fringes, their sensitivity to movement and change in their isolated terrain and the speed with which they raise the alarm can determine the outcome of a border skirmish. Traditionally, cattle raids were the early warnin
The recent arrest of the Paattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) president, Dr S Ramadoss, and the brutal crackdown on its workers seems to be an act of political repression. Top functionaries of the party were arrested under the National Security Act and Goondas Act, which is simply unprecedented. The PMK had recently organised a mega conclave of its Va
As is often the case, the world media under-reported what should be a game-changing event that took place at Washington DC’s storied National Press Club, close to the very centre of American political power for five days from April 29 to May 4, 2013. The Citizen Hearing on Disclosure was convened by the Paradigm Research Group, an advocacy lob
Yasin Malik, the separatist head of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, is a troubled man these days. Torn between his family (wife and daughter in Pakistan) and his dwindling political career in India, he is going around making vague statements and courting arrest for no practical purpose whatsoever. He seems to be egged on by his few followers and so
The earth shook as the mighty salvo signalled the start. Gracefully, heavy armour proceeded along Red Square, passing by the stepped pyramid of Lenin’s Tomb, by the multi-coloured domes of St Basil, and descending to the embankment of the Moscow River; huge green trucks pulled the most obvious phallic symbols of all – the intercontinental missiles
US dollars have been flooding the financial markets ever since Bernanke launched quantitative easing allegedly to turnaround the US economy. These huge amounts of US$ toilet paper are mainly in financial markets (and in central banks) outside of the United States. A huge chunk is represented as reserves in central banks led by China and Japan. If t
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Hari Om
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17 May 2013
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Believe it or not, but the larger truth is that the Congress (of “termites”) has never considered Jammu & Kashmir an integral part of India in the real sense of the term. That’s the reason it has been considering Kashmiri Muslims as a race apart ever since October 26, 1947, when Maharaja Hari Singh, who alone had the power under the Indian Inde
Several years ago, I wrote a series of articles on a journey in Europe. It was intended both to be personal and to go beyond recent events or the abstract considerations of geopolitics. This week I begin another journey that will take me from Portugal to Singapore, and I thought that I would try my hand again at reflecting on the significance of my
Indian farmers have often been perceived as lacking initiative, but the latest developments on the farm front belie that stereotype. Not only have they shown initiative, but they have started a quiet revolution on their own steam without prompting from anyone. Least of all from the Government of India was the case with the chemically-driven agricul
President Obama’s plan to withdraw the majority of US troops from Afghanistan may lead to another war in the region. The most dangerous signal suggesting that such an outcome is indeed on the horizon was the reported May 1 border clash between the armies of Pakistan and Afghanistan that killed soldiers on both sides. Afghanistan President Hamid Kar
Almost as interesting as the results of the Karnataka state assembly have been the explanations and opinions put forth by media talking heads and political experts. They tell us more about these experts and their thinking than they do about the ground realities in the state and what voters expect from their elected leaders today. I am a native of K
Presstitute is a term coined by Gerald Celente (Press + Prostitute) and has been defined by the Urban Dictionary as “a member of the media who will alter their story and reporting based on financial interests or other ties with usually partisan individuals or groups”. An alternate definition is one who “screws” the general public by intentionally s
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Hari Om
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11 May 2013
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Thousands of essays on the genesis of and solution to the so-called Kashmir issue have appeared in national dailies and journals of repute during the last quarter century. More than 700 books on the same theme and during the same period have also come out. Most of these works – barring works on the forced exodus of over three lakh Kashmiri Hindus f
I just came across an interview of former United Nations Under-Secretary-General Brian Urquhart on the UN News Centre web site. It was supposedly conducted in 2011 to mark the 50th anniversary of Dag Hammarskjold’s death in September 1961. How I missed seeing it for over a year is a mystery, but it’s never too late to comment on what Urquhart said.