The Elephant Ride

A Look at UP Elections

The people of Uttar Pradesh have spoken and thrashing all pre-poll concoctions have voted the Bahujan Samaj Party lead by the one and only Mayawati with a simple majority to lord over them for the next five years.


As the route to power in Delhi is through Lucknow - and as I have predicted earlier - with such a performance, it’s only a matter of time before Mayawati sat on the PM’s chair. Only a bullet can stop this.


Now that the verdict is out, its time to take a look at the seven-phase poll.


It is an astounding feat for the EC to have held a poll in crime infested UP without a single violent incident. This success of holding crime free election once more gives importance to Police reforms in India. The message is that if the Police are not under the control of the state govt, the better will be the law and order situation in the state.


The final voter turnout in UP was 44%. And still we have a clear result in the elections with Mayawati winning a simple majority. Due to the EC’s no-nonsense security arrangements, SP goons couldn’t work their magic and consequently lost but surprisingly increased their vote share. No wonder then Mulayam blamed the EC for SP’s defeat. This defeat doesn’t mean Mulayam is down and out. He can hope to capitalise on Mayawati’s blunders to bounce back just like the BJP has got back its urban Hindu vote bank due to the stupidities of the Congress Party led UPA govt.


BJP, which was hoping to capture Delhi in 2009 via Lucknow, will now have to find another route to Delhi. After all the alliance and caste arithmetic they conjured up for the UP yudh, the BJP alliance at the end of day ended up with just 51 seats. Something unbelievable after the same party had swept the UP urban areas consolidating the urban Hindu vote in the municipal elections a few months earlier. So why did BJP’s traditional upper-caste and OBC voters all over the state desert it this time despite its mother organisation the RSS working overtime to maximise BJP’s chances? Are they fed up with its communal politics? Are they sick of BJP’s anti-Muslim propaganda CDs and vitriolic anti-Muslim speeches? Are they not worried about national security?


The Congress Party’s performance in UP after all the high expectations from their messiah Rahul baba turned out to be a damp squib. From hoping to win about 50 seats - and play the kingmaker - the Congress party ended up with just 21 seats that is four down from last time. Surely it takes more than road shows, whining about fourteen ‘lost’ years and hogging the limelight on television to capture power in UP. If the indicators are anything, then it is only a matter of time before the Congress Party is wiped out in UP.


The way Mayawati wove her mayajaal over the voters of UP is amazing. To her solid Dalit vote base she has added this time upper-castes (chiefly Brahmins), some OBCs and some Muslims. What we are seeing is the repeat of the social engineering of the Congress party before Mandal and Mandir with the Dalits replacing the upper-castes as the dominant group. Her “Sarvajan Samaj” experiment has resulted in BSP forming a govt on its own for the first time in UP. It is definitely a sea change if the Brahmins and other upper-castes are ready to trust a Dalit with their future instead of a party for them formed by them. It remains to be seen if Mayawati is able to replicate her “Sarvajan Samaj” experiment in rest of India especially in Rajastan and Madhya Pradesh, which are going to polls in 2008. Mayawati is eyeing the Hindutva laboratory of Gujarat next. Will she be able to destroy the hate lab for once and for all?


Once again the Muslim voter of UP turned out to be far shrewder than any of the armchair political analysts ever thought. Just like in 2004 general elections this time too they voted to defeat BJP.BJP was pinning on the splintering of the Muslim vote to see them through in many seats. Even if this had happened how would the BJP have won when the upper-castes too had deserted them? No wonder the BJP bigwigs are at their wits end trying to decipher the UP verdict.


Mayawati didn’t ask for the Muslim vote openly still they voted tactically to elect the non-BJP stronger candidate. The best news is that they were clever enough not to fall for BJP’s insidious provocations and at the same time to see the futility of voting for Muslim parties that sprang up recently in order to ‘protect’ the interests of Indian Muslims. If the Muslims of UP have such intelligence then why cant they use it to enable them to stand shoulder to shoulder with rest of Indians? How long will they live in their own cocoon?


When Mayawati became the CM for the first time it was reported that she made a cool 250 crores in six months flat. Now with a mandate for five years, only god almighty can predict how much she will end up with.


Psephology and UP Elections
In the age of satellite television and the Internet, Indian psephology and psephologists are having a good time. What with professionals and wannabes having a go at it. It has become immaterial whether the ‘psephologists’ are getting it right or wrong. All that matters is getting more eyeballs and hits to ones channel or website.


Prannoy Roy called the father of Indian psephology who once upon a time used to get all his predictions right lost it completely after Mandal and Mandir made its mark in Indian elections. Fed up with getting muck on his face every time, Roy had no option but stop predicting all together. But with the proliferation of English news channels, which had no qualms in trying their hands at psephology, he had no option but to restart it. After moderate success in calling some recent state elections correctly, his big test was undoubtedly Uttar Pradesh. UP is no two-party state but a cauldron of caste and communal politics and Prannoy Roy failed miserably in this acid test. His elaborate half-hour exit poll programmes had everything to hoodwink viewers. What was amazing was the way many intelligent Internet savvy people fell hook, line and sinker for Roy’s subterfuge. At first he tom-tomed the fact that for his exit poll, he polled more voters than his nearest rival (read CNN-IBN). In other words his predictions are trustworthy than his rivals. At the start of the polls, Roy had given BJP very few seats (55-60 seats) but the moment the communal CD became news, he simply doubled BJP’s figures to 95-105 seats. Any astute mind would have seen through this and asked some tough questions but the moron the viewer is believed him. So at the end of the seventh phase, Roy gave BJP 108-118 seats, which is nowhere near the actual 51 seats BJP alliance won. So it is clear Prannoy Roy has not made any essential changes to his psephological methods so that he gets his predictions correct but is only trying to increase the TRPs of his channels with his exit poll rip off.


At the end of the day only one psephologist got anywhere near to the actual figures. Many people will have a hard time in believing how this much-mocked psephologist got anywhere near to the actual winning figures. He is the guy who called the caste-ridden state of Bihar correctly. What does that mean? Its simply means he and his team have access to some kind of data and software that can decipher the poll signals almost correctly. So next time before one cast aspersions on experts in their respective fields, it will be better to ask oneself whether he or she is qualified to take on the so-called expert or not. Armchair expertise-ing is a dangerous thing.


It is nice to see wannabe psephologists too trying their hand at psephology. But when one tries to engineer the findings to fit ones political leanings or ideology, you are bound to end up with muck egg on your face. Another thing wannabes - who are probably sitting in some nice air-conditioned cabin or cubicle - shouldn’t try is questioning the professionals who always have access to stuff wannabes can never have.

Dav in Demand

Pakistan have expressed its interest in Bangladesh’s outgoing coach Dav Whatmore. Now this is going to raise Whatmore’s value even more as he is the frontrunner to replace Chappell.

India should not waste anymore time and get Whatmore to sign on the dotted line at the earliest. Now that the stakes are high with Pakistan too wanting him, the least that we offer him should beat Pakistan’s best offer. As he is the best presently available we need him at any cost.

After we get Whatmore, and if we hope to have the same results as the ones he produced out of Sri Lanka and to some extend Bangladesh, then we can’t tie high hands at the back and then ask him to produce a Sri Lanka out of our team. Hope BCCI keeps that in mind while trashing out his contract.

Stratfor on BrahMos and the Export Market

Here is Stratfor's article on Indo-Russian joint venture BrahMos Supersonic Missile and its prospects in the export market.

The supersonic BrahMos anti-ship missile is being prepared for its first test-launch from a submarine, which could take place later this month. Already a well-tested design, the compact and versatile BrahMos also appears to have an export market waiting for it. Though the missile's true potential remains to be seen, it seems poised to achieve widespread proliferation. Taking its name from a juxtaposition of the names of the Indian Brahmaputra and Russian Moscow rivers, BrahMos Aerospace Private Ltd. began as an Indian-Russian venture in 1998. However, the design work on the BrahMos missile can be traced to the Soviet Union in 1985 -- the fledgling SS-N-26, on which the BrahMos is based, had already been through substantial testing by the time the company was formed. From the beginning of the joint venture, the export market has been part of the BrahMos' future. The world anti-ship missile market has been dominated since the 1970s by the French Exocet and the U.S. Harpoon. Compared to their predecessors, these missiles were compact and versatile. It was easy to find room on the deck of a ship for a few launcher canisters. They flew close to Mach 1 and, after a couple of design evolutions, were capable of being launched out of torpedo tubes or from aircraft. They quickly became the global standard, either through export sales or through widespread copying of the basic design. Exocets were used in combat in 1982 in the Falkland Islands war, sinking the HMS Sheffield and another ship (a third was damaged). Five years later, the USS Stark was struck by an Exocet fired from an Iraqi Mirage F-1 fighter (although the U.S. frigate survived). Eventually the Exocet (and other missiles based on the same design) grew from a first-class naval weapon, which it remains, into a tool of nonstate actors. In July 2006, an Iranian-supplied, Chinese-built C-802 -- which, while not necessarily a direct copy, is similar to the Exocet in most significant ways -- was used by Hezbollah to attack the INS Hanit off the coast of Beirut. But despite the Exocet's popularity, supersonic anti-ship missiles -- for a long time the sole purview of the Soviet Union -- are far more capable and devastating weapons. Missiles like the Soviet SS-N-19 Shipwreck and SS-N-22 Sunburn make naval planners nervous. At speeds up to Mach 3, when a supersonic sea-skimming missile appears on the horizon, response time is measured in seconds. Furthermore, at such speeds, the kinetic energy of the impact alone stands to do massive damage to a modern, thinly-armored surface combat vessel, even if the warhead fails to detonate. If the missile is destroyed at close range, debris traveling at high speed can still pepper the target, or even inflict more serious damage. However, these weapons have proven too big and unwieldy to become truly successful export products. The Shipwreck was never exported, and China received the Sunburn only as a result of importing the Russian platform designed to carry it, the Sovremenny-class destroyer. This is where the BrahMos comes in. Designed from the ground up as a supersonic missile, the BrahMos can approach speeds of Mach 3 -- three times as fast as either the Harpoon or the Exocet. The standard BrahMos missile can carry up to a 650-pound warhead, which is heavier than the Harpoon's payload and nearly double that of the Exocet. Touted as the "Universal Supersonic Cruise Missile" by the BrahMos joint venture, it -- like the Harpoon and the Exocet before it -- can be land-, surface-, sub- or air-launched and offers a substantial improvement in range from its predecessors. Of course, the BrahMos is not perfect. The first of two major drawbacks at this point is the diameter. Unlike the Harpoon and Exocet, the BrahMos is too thick to fit into a standard 21-inch torpedo tube (or even the rarer 26-inch tubes). This means submarines will have to be modified to carry it -- not a particularly cheap or attractive option. Also, the BrahMos does not come cheap -- reportedly in excess of $2 million each, more than twice the cost of a Harpoon or Exocet. However, the improved capability could prove more than sufficiently compelling. The BrahMos has already begun to be fielded on Indian naval vessels, and seems set to become a mainstay of the Indian military. Malaysia and Indonesia have also expressed interest -- Malaysia is expected to sign a formal deal later this week, and reportedly plans eventually to equip its new Su-30MKM Flanker jets with the missile. The export market, it would appear, is ready for an upgrade in capability and is willing to pay the price. It is quite telling that the first potential export customer for the BrahMos is Malaysia. In other words, the first country outside of Russia, India and China to field a supersonic anti-ship missile is not another great naval power, but a modest one. The fact that Malaysia could soon field an offensive naval capability that was once the sole purview of the Soviet Union marks a fundamental shift in the maritime threat environment -- a fact that could ultimately change the playing field not just for navies, but also for worldwide shipping. Click to Enlarge And Malaysia is only the first. Other nations from Algeria to Venezuela might find the new capability similarly enticing. Nations such as Taiwan could be just as intrigued by the availability of a supersonic cruise missile -- a role that the BrahMos also can play with modified targeting and guidance -- for land attacks. Ultimately, however impressive the BrahMos' success in the export market proves to be, the genie is out of the bottle; a new generation of versatile, compact supersonic anti-ship missiles is here to stay. If the BrahMos fails to capture that market, Russia has alternative export products up its sleeve. [Stratfor]

Bangladesh: Chickens Have Come Home to Roost

Stratfor looks at the latest jihadi terror bombings in Bangladesh.

Three bombs exploded at train stations in Bangladesh's capital of Dhaka, its main port of Chittagong and the northeastern city of Sylhet on May 1. The previously unknown group Jadid (meaning "new") al Qaeda Bangladesh claimed responsibility for the attacks, which injured one rickshaw puller. While the bombings were small in scale, they shared many features with larger, more destructive attacks carried out elsewhere by militant groups operating in India as well as jihadist groups. Given the incompetence of Bangladesh's security forces, the South Asian country's political instability and the relatively free reign enjoyed by militant groups operating there, it is unlikely much can be done to prevent future attacks by Jadid al Qaeda Bangladesh. Jadid al Qaeda Bangladesh claimed responsibility for the bombings in leaflets and inscribed metal plates left at the Dhaka and Sylhet stations. According to Bangladeshi officials, the messages said "Stop associating with nonbelievers. Stop working for NGOs by May 10. Or prepare for death." Written in Bengali, but signed in English, the messages demanded that "If Hazrat (Prophet) Mohammed is not declared the superman of the world by May 10, all nongovernmental organizations will be blown up." The warning against associating with nonbelievers was a reference to the Ahmadiyah sect, a heterodox Islamic offshoot considered heretical by mainstream Muslim groups. Sunni extremists have targeted this group in the past. Many conservative Islamic groups in Bangladesh oppose nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in part because they are funded by Western donors and employ women workers, while some NGOs involved in AIDS work have been targeted in the because they are associated with "un-Islamic" issues and behavior. Mass transit has been a favorite target of militant groups because of the soft nature of the target and the guarantee of a high casualty count. This was evident in al Qaeda's March 2004 attack on commuter trains in Madrid, the July 2005 bombings in London, and the bombings of commuter trains and stations in Mumbai, India, one year later. Militants in South Asia have been paying particular attention to trains since the Mumbai attacks, with hoaxes and threats called in to railway stations as well as actual attacks on trains. The spread of these tactics in Bangladesh also comes at a time of increasing Islamization of militant groups operating in northeast India. Although Jadid al Qaeda Bangladesh appears to follow the tactical doctrine of al Qaeda and Kashmiri Islamist militant groups operating in India, its attack was much smaller is scope and fell far short of the effectiveness of the more established groups. The attack occurred at approximately 7 a.m. local time, when large numbers of commuters could be expected to generate a high casualty count. Given that May 1 is a public holiday in Bangladesh, traffic was higher than usual, with the stations packed with people traveling to visit family during the two-day holiday. This attack's timing is consistent with the tactics of jihadists, who often time their attacks to maximize death and destruction. The Dhaka bomb was planted near the station ticket counter, the Sylhet station bomb was placed under a seat in the waiting room and the bomb in Chittagong exploded on a sidewalk outside the station as a rickshaw puller tried to open the small cotton bag it was hidden in. If Jadid al Qaeda Bangladesh is in fact a new group, its first attack proves the group possesses at least one competent bomb maker. This was established by the near-simultaneous detonation of multiple bombs separated by great distances. Whether other improvised explosive devices (IEDs) set to go off at the same time elsewhere ultimately failed to detonate remains unknown -- but if this attack only targeted the three stations, the bombmaker earned a 100 percent success rate. The group also seems reluctant to cause mass casualties. Despite exploding at crowded stations, the IEDs failed to kill anyone, while the rickshaw puller, who had one of the devices explode in his face, only suffered slight injuries. This is consistent with some -- but by no means all -- earlier bombings in Bangladesh. Previous small bombings in Bangladesh notably included the 2005 bombing campaign by the outlawed Islamist group Jamaat al Mujahideen. In August of that year the group detonated more than 200 small devices across the country, killing three people and injuring more than 100. In November of the same year it attacked courthouses in Dhaka, killing at least 13 and wounding approximately 40. Bangladesh's security forces are ill-equipped to deal with militant groups. Thus, Jadid al Qaeda Bangladesh might succeed in carrying out more, possibly bigger bombings if their May 10 deadline is not met. While mass arrests could disrupt the group's cells, Bangladeshi security forces' ineptitude combined with the country's unstable political situation make it unlikely much can be done to stop the country's many militant groups.[Stratfor]

So, finally the chickens have come home to roost in Bangladesh too. Bangladesh is now paying the price for electing Begum Khaleda Zia as its PM who happily hobnobbed with jihadi groups and also let them have a free run during her regime.


If as Stratfor states, Bangladesh is ill-equipped to deal with militant groups then India should offer full support to the current administration in the fight against jihadi terror. As Bangladesh is also the base for terror groups targeting India, particularly India Northeast, a sincere cooperation between the two countries can mitigate the threat of jihadi terror to both countries significantly.

Stratfor on the Indo-US Civilian Nuclear Deal

Here is Stratfor's article on the Indo-US Civilian Nuclear Deal in full.

Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon will have a dinner meeting with U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns on Tuesday in an attempt to iron out differences over a pending U.S.-Indian civilian nuclear agreement. It has been nearly two years since India and the United States announced a strategic nuclear partnership, yet both sides continue to stare defiantly at one another from across the negotiating table. While Indians are well accustomed to slow-moving political processes, the sticking points holding up this important deal are threatening to upset a geopolitical balance that the United States is attempting to develop in the Indian Ocean basin. Under the agreement, India will be given access to civilian nuclear fuel and technology from the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group, despite the fact that New Delhi is not a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). For this deal to take effect, Indian and U.S. officials must ink a bilateral deal -- termed the "123 agreement" -- that reconciles Indian demands with the final version of the bill passed by the U.S. Congress in December 2006. The problem is that India is not too pleased with several new stipulations that Congress added to the original agreement, and neither side has much of an appetite for making concessions at this point. The version that is currently up for debate stipulates that the United States will cease nuclear cooperation with India if India conducts a nuclear test in the future, and that India will not be allowed to reprocess spent nuclear fuel itself. But these two demands challenge the groundwork laid by Indian policymakers over the past 50 years. A testing ban simply will not fly in Indian defense circles. India's last major military standoff with nuclear rival Pakistan was only about five years ago, so New Delhi feels it cannot agree to become legally bound by a moratorium on nuclear testing while it faces a very real threat across its border. The issue could be resolved, however, by inserting language similar to that included in the withdrawal clauses of several other disarmament treaties such as the NPT. Such a clause allows the party in question to withdraw from the agreement when "extraordinary events ... have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country." The reprocessing issue is a bit more complex. At its current pace, India does not have enough uranium reserves to support both its civilian and military nuclear programs in the long run. With the U.S. nuclear deal, India can preserve its domestic source of uranium for its unsupervised military program, and use imported uranium for its supervised civilian reactors, allowing the Indian nuclear defense program to leap ahead (and keep Pakistani leaders up at night). However, India also owns more than 30 percent of the world's thorium reserves, compared to just 0.7 percent of uranium reserves. It makes good economic sense -- and is one of India's long-term goals -- to pursue a nuclear program that fully utilizes the country's abundant thorium reserves, rather than become increasingly dependent on foreign suppliers for its nuclear fuel. At the risk of getting too technical: uranium-fueled reactors will operate with thorium in the reactor chamber, so that while the Indians are potentially generating "traditional" nuclear power, they are also irradiating thorium, which will turn it into U-233. That U-233 can then be extracted, via reprocessing, and used to create a new type of nuclear fuel for a different reactor. This would allow India to take advantage of its wealth of thorium for power production. The problem (from the U.S. perspective) is that U-233 also can be used in nuclear weapons programs -- and the idea of indirectly supporting India's nuclear defense program is not something that U.S. President George W. Bush will be able to sell to Congress, even though, with Iraq in shambles, his administration is extremely keen on claiming a foreign policy success. Meanwhile, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is also under a great deal of political pressure at home, and cannot afford to give the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party more fodder to use against him by appearing to cave in to U.S. demands. Indian officials and lobby groups are now being blamed in New Delhi for failing to communicate clearly India's core objections to the agreement much earlier in the process. With exasperation rising on all sides, negotiators in Washington and New Delhi are hoping to work out their differences ahead of a meeting between Bush and Singh in June on the sidelines of the G-8 summit in Germany. We are not prepared to declare the deal dead just yet, but the pressure is on.[Stratfor]

The Spin Work

The UK daily Telegraph’s India based South Asia correspondent Peter Foster in a first-hand account exposes what we all knew before. Foster who was covering Rahul Gandhi’s poll campaign in UP for an article writes:

[….] However suffice to say that his performance in Lucknow was close to terrible. First he had a 'roadshow' which involved zooming round the city with his head sticking out of the sunroof of a jeep while being showered with rose petals and serenaded by a cacophonous oompa band. This was the warm up act for a 'rally' that evening in the old city of Lucknow which was only attended by a few hundred Congress workers and faithful. Rahul was clearly furious when he saw the embarrassing turn-out, berating his team of advisers in public, on stage while wagging a finger at the rows of empty seats. And yet the next morning, as I waited to board a plain back to Delhi, I read in the local newspaper how Rahul had received a welcome the like of which had not been seen in 'living memory' except for the former Indian BJP prime minster Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Lucknow's most famous son. It's interesting how the Indian media has jumped onto the 'son-rise' bandwagon, even though Rahul is a rotten public speaker and, compared to firebrand polulist politicians of Uttar Pradesh, like Mayawati or Mulayam Singh Yadav is about as engaging as a slap on the face with a wet fish. All of which means there are two parallel universes out there. The one in which Rahul, a product of the international educated classes, stumbles round rural India looking faintly bewildered and the world of the newspapers where he's the coming saviour of Congress. As we say in our business, never let the facts get in the way of a good story. I suppose the thinking goes that with the help of his Gandhi name and so much sycophantically positive press coverage the legend will outstrip the reality to the point where he does become PM material in the popular mind. [Peter Foster]

As Foster cant read Hindi, I suspect it must be the Congress mouthpiece Hindustan Times that published those ‘glowing’ reports.

A Reality Check for the Media

The news channel revolution that has taken this country by storm in this decade is showing no signs of abating. Today India has the most number of ‘national’ (read: Hindi) news channels in the world. Add to this the various regional and English news channels. The increase in the channels has made the news editors of these channels to come up with hair-raising stuff to keep the TRPs shooting north. So much so that even trivial matters are played 24x7 with myriad interpretations by the experts and viewers via phone-ins to keep the viewers enraptured. One has a hard time to find a decent channel among the multitude.


Fed up with the trash dished out by the Indian media - both print and electronic – CNN-IBN’s investigative journalist VK Shashi Kumar does some plain speaking and asks some hard questions to fellow journalists. Here, I publish some excerpts from his a little bit old hard-hitting blog post.

[…..] The point I am making is simply this. News is not trivia. News is not trivial. But News channels have made it their business to be both trivia-communicators and trivial-titillates. Also a large section of the media in this country has taken to crass commercialisation to justify its editorial policies. Most editorial questions are answered with 'will it sell'? Or 'Will it bring in the TRPs'? By degrading content, by excessively dumbing down, by becoming hostage to easy market economics, by failing to realize the truism of content being king and the market being its courtier, the media in India has erased the credibility of the pursuit of journalism. More often than not it is seen as taking sides, it is seen as a tool of political expediency and easy money. The 1990s has been the decade in which the media has fallen from its hallowed glory. And in the 2000s instead of arresting its slide, the media has further slipped from the Imagination of India, into some other kind of disconnectedness. … […] And so while we look within and protest loudly against the attack on the press and so on, can we also look at what we have done to the business of news itself? Fact is that media MUST be commercial because it exists, breathes and lives within the market economy. But since its commercial qualities are completely and wholly dependent on an extremely hypersensitive quality-CREDIBILITY-products in news genres, like newspapers, magazines and TV news channels, are not like any other product. There are rules of the game. And these rules have an ethical resonance…. a news product has to be responsible, factual and ethical. But news television is hardly any of these nowadays. …. […] Media, especially, news television is focusing on the trivia. It is stressing more on information and not on being informative. It has no grand purpose in India. It simply meanders in mediocrity. It is voyeuristic and simply oriented to commerce. It is not oriented as an ethical, profit making enterprise that is in the business of being on the top of the information chain and cutting edge news delivery. Every single day hundreds of journalists across the country from low-paid-barely-surviving media entities to the well paid-huge networks go out into the world in which they live in the pursuit of truth. Risking their lives and putting themselves in harm's way to inform the nation, hold political leaders, bureaucracy, police and the captains of industry accountable to the citizens of this country. Nothing can be more invigorating than being a participant in a functioning democracy. Yet, editors, the guardians of the Fourth Pillar, fail to live up to expectations of either the viewers or their professional compatriots. Therefore, it is the proprietors and editors of media organizations who are responsible for the manner in which journalists and media organizations are being targetted systematically. No wonder Hindu fundamentalist goons with saffron flags can walk in and smash a news channel's office in Bombay. Tomorrow it will be some other kind of thugs in some other city. […] Media is increasingly losing its adversarial position. It is no longer the harbinger of progressive and democratic values. It is no longer a defender of the rights of the citizenry It is no longer a staunch advocate of the underdog and a champion of everyday heroes. Across media organizations it is time for the real editors to stand up and be counted. It is time for them to stare down a story and say NO. The market and the citizens who make that market function will be very unforgiving. That market is expanding and so is the appetite for engaging news, views and information. The challenge is not only about delivery, but also of effective, quality delivery. This is the reason why the news television space continues to be competitive despite a plethora of news channels because the market (of which a large constituency is that of more than 500 million young Indians) is waiting for a QUALITY, CREDIBLE, PASSIONATE, ENERGETIC channel that engages with a rising, impatient, discerning and young India. And, therefore, those who take their TRP ordained places for granted may just wake up to a new reality. [ibnblogs]

Read the full post for a better understanding. Paisa vasool guaranteed!

Russia Announces its Comeback

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signalled Russia's return to the centerstage of world politics from where it was thrown out when the USSR lost the Cold War. Putin in his annual state of the union address - which could be his last before he demits the office in 2008 - used his speech to reassert an identity for a united Russia and to talk in no uncertain terms about where Russia is going.

Throughout the speech, Putin returned to the idea of unifying a nation that is making a comeback. He spent much time celebrating Russia's political and economic consolidation -- which, he said, will allow the government to improve the standard of living for the population and address the social problems laid out in his 2006 address. He outlined a string of ambitious reforms for the housing, education and pension sectors, as well as an overhaul of the transportation, aviation and nuclear power sectors. Putin wants Russia to be great again. He has successfully consolidated his political and economic control and now hopes to stoke the fires of nationalism and rally the people behind a new Russian identity. And Russians are applauding; they have not had a strong sense of identity in 18 years. With a unified populace behind him, Putin hopes Russia can assert itself on the international scene as it has not done for decades. That assertiveness came through clearly in Putin's harsh rhetoric for the international community. He accused foreign countries of hoping "to continue plundering our national wealth as they did in the past," and trying "to deprive our country of its economic and political independence." He called for a moratorium on the implementation of the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, which has been the foundation of Europe's post-Cold War security. Regardless of whether the Kremlin acts on it, this was a clear signal to the rest of the world that Russia believes it no longer needs to adhere to Western rules. Russian leaders have always included veiled threats to the West (or East) in their formal speeches. But now the government has the cash, political power and popular support it needs to make good on them. For the first time since the end of the Cold War, the international community will take the Kremlin's threats seriously -- even if Moscow does not actually intend to act on them. [.....] Anyone who has been watching Russia in the past few years will not be surprised by this. The various signs have been apparent: the aggressive takeover of Russia's energy sector; the maneuvering among the members of Putin's inner circle; and the crackdowns on dissidents, media, political parties and foreign influence. Russia has begun to lay the groundwork for a massive revitalization that will include its energy sector, its military, its former territories and its autonomy from Western rules and demands.In effect, Putin has now announced the state's return to its old ways.[Stratfor]

Not only this, Russia under Putin has also shown India its place in Russia's scheme of things. And we are not able to do anything about that.

It is time India played its cards well and does not put all its eggs in one basket (read: United States). A strong Russia will find it extremely hard to ignore the business opportunities in a fast growing India just like they found out with China. We should learn to play competing countries off against each other - something that is practised with finesse by countries like Fiji, Myanmar etc.

Defending the Indefensible

A couple of days back Stratfor had brought out a report on Pakistan’s notorious intelligence agency, ISI’s efforts to Islamise India’s Northeast. A Pakistani origin journalist based in Canada, Abid Ullah Jan - who himself is critical of ISI - has reacted to this Stratfor report. In an article he tries to paint the ISI as just a “tool” in the hands of Pakistani governments and one “without any strategic mission, vision or direction of its own”. He further says that this is a part of US’s long-term strategy to undermine Pakistan and make it submit more to USA’s whims and that Stratfor a.k.a “shadow CIA” was just used by CIA as the messenger.

The latest CIA allegation levelled against the Pakistan intelligence agency, the ISI, is that it is spreading Islamization in South Asia in collusion with the Bangladesh intelligence agencies to set a trap of Islamic militants for India. These allegations appeared in America's premium news intelligence service STRATFOR, which is also known as the CIA's cousin. Those who work for STRATFOR are also the leading figures in running discussion groups such as the Political Islam Discussion Group (PIDL) for infecting the debate about Muslims and Islam. Such reports are part of the CIA’s (read the US government’s) long term scheme to undermine Pakistan, starting with neutralizing its armed forces and its intelligence agencies. To be fair, like the overall Pakistan military force, the much dreaded ISI has been used like a whore by the CIA in every possible way. At home, both the civilian and military dictators use the ISI as a draconian tool. But this is all that the ISI is: just a tool, without any strategic mission, vision or direction of its own. [.....] ......The question is: Why then does the CIA come up with these allegations against the ISI? The answer is simple: to extract more obedience from Islamabad in the near future and to facilitate the ditching of the ISI in the longer term. History shows that the U.S. government has previously attempted to use ISI crimes to press Pakistani governments into submission. The Washington Post published a report in its September 12, 1994 edition in an attempt to implicate the Pakistan army in drug trafficking. The News published the same report in October 1994. In 2003, the ISI faced severe criticism at a U.S. Senate briefing on the drug trade, a crime in which the CIA has been involved since 1960. Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall tell us in Cocaine Politics Drugs, Armies and the CIA in Central America, (University of California Press, 1991 that the CIA works with narcotics traffickers and then fights to suppress the truth. They conclude, the U.S. government “is one of the world’s largest drug pushers.” Time and again, the U.S. lawmakers threatened the ISI and Pakistan with allegations of drug trafficking, yet ignored the fact that even if some military or ISI officials were involved in drug trafficking on a personal level, the amount they privately smuggled into the United States was no more than a fraction of the amount trafficked by the U.S. agencies. According to Paul Johnson: “By the end of the 1980s it was calculated that the illegal use of drugs in the United States netted its controllers over $110 billion a year.” (Paul Johnson, Modern Times, New York: Harper Perenial, 1991 rev. ed., p.782.) According to the San Diego Union-Tribune (August 13, 1996), Celerino Castelo--a former DEA agent--stated that together with three other ex-DEA agents, they were willing to testify in Congress regarding their direct knowledge of CIA involvement in international drug trafficking. Castillo estimates that approximately 75 percent of narcotics entered the United States with the acquiescence or direct participation of CIA and foreign intelligence agents. In this backdrop, the March 2003 hearing of the U.S. Senate[1] was just another threat in the vast trap being laid for the Pakistani army for the next several years. Furthermore, ISI assets, Saeed Sheikh and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were used in operation 9/11. The extent to which the ISI was dragged into the trap of 9/11 is not fully known. That, however, remains a time bomb for Pakistan. It didn’t get diffused with the “termination” of former ISI chief General Mahmood Ahmad. It can explode at any time the US decides to disarm and neutralise Pakistan like Iraq. The entrapment process adopted by the U.S. agencies is very simple. They plan and commit a crime of serious magnitude. They achieve their strategic objective behind the crime. At the same time, they involve the victim in just a fraction of the overall criminal plan. The unknown/unintended cooperation in the crime is then later used to punish the victim. This is exactly how the BCCI was trapped. Irrefutable evidence demonstrates that the CIA funded the operation against the BCCI with drug money, earned through the organized selling of drugs to its own employees. According to the court transcripts of the BCCI case: “By late 1987, the agents had passed approximately $2.2 million derived from Don Chepe’s proceeds through the IDC account, and had split the 7-8 percent commission profit with Mora and Don Chepe’s representative Javier Ospina, without telling any BCCI officers about drugs.”[2] Yet, it was the BCCI that paid the price. The recent allegations of the ISI’s spreading Islamization in South Asia is part of the overall pressure exerted to extract more obedience from Islamabad for strategic reasons. Unlike Mossad and the CIA with their long term plans, the ISI is nothing more than what its current masters want it to be. The allegations of its spreading Islamization are just nonsensical. How is it possible for the commander in chief of the armed forces, hell bent on eradicating all traces of Islam from the constitution, the school curriculum and at home, to allow one of his strategic arm’s, the ISI – presently holding hundreds of Islamic activists in illegal detention – to evangelize Islam! No doubt Musharraf is bluffing his paranoid masters with the mantra of enlightened moderation to prolong his rule. To believe, however, that his pet agency is working with a strategic vision for the spread of Islam would be naïve beyond the farther reaches of imagination.[MMN]

What Stratfor reported on ISI’s agenda for India and particularly India’s northeast, was nothing new. Security analysts world over have called Pakistan’s ISI “a law unto themselves”. There is overwhelming evidence of ISI’s involvement in the 9/11 terror attacks and in abetting terrorism world over. There is also evidence of Pakistan working overtime to delete embarrassing details of its involvement in the 9/11 terror attacks.


With such overwhelming evidence on ISI’s global terror activities lying around, it’s audacious on Jan’s part to try pull the wool over the public’s eye like this.

Stratfor on the Islamisation of India's North-East

Stratfor opines India should give closer attention to the growing Islamisation in the northeast.But with the UPA govt on a Muslim appeasement drive, this is like asking for the moon.

Northeastern India is a region wracked by secessionist violence, where wide networks of drug smuggling, extortion and arms trafficking run rampant. India has traditionally dealt with the myriad secessionist movements through force, fearing that any concessions made to one group would only exacerbate the others' secessionist tendencies and further undermine the country's territorial integrity. The balkanization of the region and the constant drain on Indian resources required to deal with these rebel movements was all part of the United Kingdom's blueprint for the Indian subcontinent to prevent its former colony from developing a strong national identity and emerging as a major Asiatic power. Up until the partition in 1947, the British played a major role in encouraging tribal, ethnic, religious and linguistic identities, and in isolating various tribal groups from the mainland and the plains areas in Assam for the British East India Co. to secure its commercial enterprise. Pakistan did not hesitate to jump in where the British left off in the post-partition period, and has since used its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency to fund, train and arm these rebel groups in order to keep India's hands tied. The largest and most powerful of the northeast secessionist movements is the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA). Once a student movement with populist aims to redistribute the state's oil wealth, ULFA has gradually changed into what appears to be a moneymaking machine with a strong willingness to do the ISI's bidding. ULFA runs an impressive extortion racket in the northeast, where Assam's tea plantation owners and corporate leaders are regularly targeted. The group maintains that its armed campaign will not let up until the Indian government engages it in unconditional peace talks. Yet, when New Delhi makes such an offer, ULFA usually responds with a bombing, as was the case in the April 9 bomb attack near Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's motorcade in the Assamese capital of Guwahati. ULFA's leadership understands that New Delhi is not about to reward the armed movement with political concessions, and does not wish to disturb the financial networks it has running throughout the region. Moreover, to preserve their militant proxy, the group's handlers in both Pakistan's and Bangladesh's intelligence services have told ULFA not to hold peace talks with the Indian government. Pakistan's ISI, in cooperation with Bangladesh's Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), appears to be investing a considerable amount of resources in solidifying India's militant corridor. There are growing indications that these two agencies are working clandestinely in Bangladesh to bring all the northeast-based insurgent outfits and jihadist elements under one umbrella. The ISI has facilitated cooperation between ULFA and other northeastern militant outfits with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka, Islamist militant groups in Kashmir, Islamist groups in Bangladesh and a growing number of al Qaeda-linked jihadist groups operating in the region. Religion, ethnicity and ideology lose relevance within this militant network, as each group has a common interest in furthering their militant and financial capabilities by working together. For example, Tigers cadres organize training camps in the northeast and use their maritime contacts to assist ULFA in transporting arms and narcotics up to Cambodia in ULFA-owned shrimp trawlers that operate out of Bangladesh's Chittagong port. The Tigers have also been known to train Maoist rebels in Nepal and India at camps in the jungles of India's eastern state of Bihar. ULFA's growing links with Bangladeshi Islamists and jihadist elements in the area are increasingly coming to light. The April 9 attack timed with Singh's visit to Assam marked the group's first-ever suicide bombing, a tactic that was pioneered by the Tigers (a non-Islamist, majority Hindu group) and has been frequently employed by Islamist militants. Prior to the attack, ULFA chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa warned that New Delhi's offer for unconditional peace talks was not acceptable, and that that ULFA cadres "have reached such a stage they would strap bombs on their chest and attack." ULFA's adoption of suicide bombing looks to be the result of the group's increased Islamization caused by collusion with Islamist outfits in the region. The bomber in the April 9 suicide attack was Ainul Ali, a Muslim. Indian security sources revealed that ULFA did not have many Muslim cadres in its fold in the past, but the increasing flow of Bangladeshi refugees across the border has given the group more -- and more capable -- members willing to sacrifice their lives for the group's cause with nudging from the ISI. Collaboration between ULFA and the Islamist militants will expand further, as political conditions in Bangladesh appear to be indirectly contributing to the empowerment of Islamists there. Using the Pakistani military regime as an example, Bangladeshi army chief Lt. Gen. Moeen U. Ahmed is reasserting the army's role in Bangladeshi politics -- which have long suffered from a bitter political feud between the family dynasties represented by the Awami League, led by Sheikh Hasina, and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, led by Begum Khaleda Zia. With both party leaders driven into exile, a political vacuum has started to take root in the country, and Bangladesh's Islamist parties are anxiously waiting to fill it. India will be taking note of these political developments in Dhaka, though there is not much New Delhi can or wants to do to intervene. As a result, New Delhi is facing a bleak situation in which the ISI's maneuvers and Bangladesh's political troubles are sure to further constrain India's ability to dig itself out of the militant trap Pakistan has set.[Stratfor]

Cartoon Speak: Pain & Relief

Courtesy: The Hindu

The Hindu on Brian Charles Lara

Cricket's last emperor The timing of Brian Lara's retirement from international cricket is a wistful reminder that not all great sportspersons can exit on a high. In his prime, the left-handed genius — Test cricket's highest run-getter with 11,953 runs at 52.88 — was a glorious attacking batsman whose swift footwork, range of strokes, and courage placed him above all contemporary cricketers. Aesthetically, Lara's batting always had the power to elevate the senses. "I've come out there and tried to entertain," Lara said, summing up his approach to the game. "You have to remember that people pay to come through the turnstiles." An exceptional sportsman who upheld the finest traditions of the game, Lara chose to `walk' every single time he knew he had been dismissed fairly. His knocks were characterised by a fierce commitment to the team's cause. While he was susceptible early on, what set him apart was his ability to capitalise brilliantly on starts. Lara's penchant for steep scores — his 34 Test centuries include nine doubles and two triples — helped secure his reputation as the greatest match-winner of his generation. Wisden ranked his unbeaten 153 at Bridgetown, 1999, which took West Indies to a one-wicket win over Australia, as the second greatest innings in Test history — after Bradman's 270 against England in Melbourne, 1937. The only man to recapture the record for highest Test score — with knocks of 375 and then 400 not out, both against England, after Matthew Hayden posted 380 against Zimbabwe in the interregnum — Lara naturally holds the current record for the highest first class score (501 not out). The first half of the 37-year old Trinidadian's international career was rich in spoils. It was also marked by inconsistency and punctuated by spells of rebelliousness, reflecting a confusion born of sudden stardom. It was a more sober Lara who made the effort to revitalise his career in a breakthrough series against Sri Lanka in 2001-2002 — accounting for an astonishing 42 per cent of his team's output in a three-Test series. By then West Indies cricket was in a state of terminal decline, making people wonder how such transcendental individual greatness could co-exist with such collective mediocrity. Lara's stints as captain were mostly unsuccessful. While he did spur the West Indies on to a spirited win in the 2004 ICC Champions Trophy in England, his side's performance on home soil at the 2007 ICC World Cup has been mostly toothless. Given how far and fast Caribbean cricket has declined, and how quickly sports such as baseball and basketball have caught the imagination of young athletes in those islands in the sun, Lara may be the last of the giants. He will be missed by millions of cricket lovers.[The Hindu]

Educating Rahul Gandhi

A few truths for Rahul and a look at his future.


The desperation on Rahul Baba’s face is showing. After all he has to revive his moribund Party in the caste-ridden state of Uttar Pradesh if he and his family have to carry on their family business. Every other day Rahul Baba gives the praja of India lessons in Indian history. His first lesson was on the politics of Babri Masjid/Ram Mandir issue. According to him had a Gandhi been active in politics in 1992, the Babri Masjid wouldn’t have been demolished. Its hard to believe him after all that his Dad did to see the Mandir replace the Masjid. Or maybe he was right. But shouldn’t we also focus on why did the then PM late PV Narasimha Rao accept the then UP CM Kalyan Singh’s assurance of safeguarding the Masjid and didn’t proactively take steps to protect the Masjid by imposing president rule in UP?


Today looking back to those days then one way the demolition of the Masjid has been a blessing in disguise for the country. Let me explain.


In 1991 satellite television beamed live the Gulf War into our living rooms and thus the satellite television revolution hit India. Today India has the most number of satellite news channels who are constantly on the lookout for captivating news to drive their TRPs northwards. Just imagine the political capital the Sangh Parivar would have made year after year by holding public meetings in front of the Masjid where rabblerousing speeches are delivered with the Masjid being described as an eyesore standing on the birthplace of Lord Ram. Would the satellite new channels let go of an opportunity to drive their TRPs northwards by not telecasting the meetings? I am of the opinion that PVN foresaw the power of Satellite television and saved at least South India from Hindutva forces by his ‘inaction’ in December 1992. Today some states in the South are more than 80% cabled.


With the Masjid demolished the Sangh Parivar lost the object of hate they so loved to deride and use to whip up communal passions in otherwise sedate Hindu men and women. Moreover, the PVN govt had started to unshackle an economy that was chained up by the Nehru-Gandhi Dynasty. A free market economy cannot succeed in an environment of strife and mayhem. IMO it is because of the demolition of the Masjid in 1992 that the BJP never crossed 190 Lok Sabha seats till today and thus was unable to turn rest of India into the lab of Hindutva as they had done to Gujarat. So if Rahul Baba’s Congress Party is ruling at the Center today, in a way he can thank late PVN for facilitating it by bottling the genie his Dad let out when he opened the locks of the Masjid and allowed Shilanyas thus legitimising BJP’s Ram Mandir Movement.


At Rahul Baba’s second teaching session the praja were subjected to a barrage of new theories on the freedom movement, Bangladesh liberation war, and India’s economic renaissance.


The arrogance emanating out of being born with a "power spoon" in his mouth is clearly evident in Rahul Baba statements. Someone tell him it is the Gujju Gandhi who is the father of this nation and not the Kashmiri Nehru who just happened to be Bapu’s favourite. Someone please tell Rahul Baba that Albert Einstein once wrote: “generations to come, it may be, will scarce believe that such one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth" about the half-naked fakir. No one wrote anything like that about his great-grandfather.


Someone tell Rahul Baba that the British didn’t transfer India to the Nehru-Gandhi Dynasty as their private jagir (estate). Millions of nameless Indians heeded the call of the Mahatma for nonviolent struggle against the British rule. Millions braved the lathis and bullets as they faced the mightiest empire on the planet. Others like Bagat Singh, Azad, Bose, etc felt this ideology was kaput and violent revolution was their chosen path to freedom. At the time of independence the Mahatma - whose word was sacrosanct in the INC - was adamant on making Nehru India’s first Prime Minister. This was the only reason why this country fell into the hands of the Nehru–Gandhi dynasty despite severe opposition in the INC itself to his candidature.


Then Rahul Baba’s next lesson was on how Indira Gandhi divided Pakistan. Someone please tell Rahul Baba that the liberation of Bangladesh and thus dismembering of Pakistan was not anything that was planned and executed by Indira Gandhi a la Musharraf’s Kargil fiasco. Even school kids know that Indira Gandhi only exploited Pakistan’s mishandling of the crisis in East Pakistan. With 93,000 Pakistani POWs and good chunks of West Pakistani territory in hand, Indira had another chance to correct her father’s biggest blunder but she being her father’s daughter lost what the Indian army had won on the battlefield on the negotiating table that too on a mere verbal promise by Bhutto. Rahul would like to remember that Indian Muslims he is assiduously trying too woo were never really for the creation of Bangladesh. With this claim he might have just pissed of those Muslims who were falling for his charms in the UP elections.


Now looking back, has interfering in Pakistan’s internal affairs done any good to us? This mail in "The Hindu" is revealing:

It was a pyrrhic victory for India in the 1971 war if one considers its long-term consequences. Earlier, India had to deal with only one enemy whose eastern wing was its Achilles' heel. In 1971, it relieved the Pakistani military establishment of the onerous burden of safeguarding its east and enabled it to focus on Kashmir. We are now in an unenviable position of having to deal with independent but inimical states on both our flanks.[The Hindu]

On a lighter note today India would have been playing in the Cricket World Cup Super 8’s in the Windies if Bangladesh weren’t around.


Then Rahul Baba took lessons on India’s economy. Now this coming from someone who can’t even calculate correctly the average growth rate of India minus Uttar Pradesh is hard to digest. If only someone told this guy about the nearly irreparable damage done to this nation’s economy particularly to the economy of the BIMARU states by the Nehru-Gandhi Dynasty’s retarded economic policies.


Rahul Gandhi’s Future


Now lets look at the Congress and Rahul’s future. The question is whether Rahul Gandhi can ever lead the Congress on its own or as part of a coalition to power and become India’s PM? I am of the firm view that never ever will a Gandhi from the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty win a mandate and sit on the PM’s chair. Let me explain.


For sometime now the Congress has been steadily losing one vote bank after the other especially in the highly populated North India. Mandal and Mandir gifted the upper caste vote to the BJP. BSP took away the Dalit vote and a demolished Masjid gifted the Muslim vote to SP, BSP, RJD, etc.


As the Congress declined in the North, the ascendant BJP was inching closer to power at the Center with help of regional parties. BJP that had built its vote bank on the divisive Ram Mandir issue, just couldn’t fulfill its main promise of building a Ram Mandir at Ayodhya despite being in power for more than six years. Nor did it deliver on its other pet issues like Article 370, UCC, etc. Moreover, India’s most humiliating events occurred during BJP’s rule – the Kandahar humiliation, Parliament attack, etc. All these resulted in disillusionment among the upper castes who rejected the BJP in the general elections of 2004.


Another reason why BJP lost power in 2004 was because of the tactical voting by the Muslims who were undoubtedly rattled by the state sponsored Gujarat riots. Their only aim was to defeat BJP at any cost. In UP where the BJP was hoping to win 50-60 LS seats had to contend with 10 seats. The UP Muslims voted en bloc for the Samajwadi Party in order to defeat BJP.


In the state elections of 2003 BJP won a landslide in three of the four states not only because of the anti-incumbency factor but also because BSP had cut into Congress’s sizable Dalit vote in MP and Rajasthan resulting in Congress losing a large number of seats to the BJP.


Once BSP has the Dalit vote it never returns to Congress. This fact the Congress Party is yet to comprehend. The latest loss was in the Delhi Municipal elections where the BSP won 15 seats and due to vote cutting the Congress lost 60-65 seats to the BJP.Be it Delhi, Punjab, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, etc the sizable Dalit vote is fast slipping out of the Congress hands and it has no strategy to contain the flow.


Right now the Congress Party is on a single-point agenda of reviving its Muslim vote bank so the person who humiliated Sonia Gandhi bites the dust in Uttar Pradesh. In its zeal to see Mulayam’s end, the Congress party had thrown the national interest to the wind. By appeasing Muslims at the cost of national interest and the OBCs at the cost of upper castes, it hope to take away Mulayam’s vote bank of Yadavs and Muslims. But poll signals emanating from UP and elsewhere is not supporting this. Rather, the Congress has lost seat after seat to BJP, BSP, SP, etc since 2004 general elections.


IMO the 2008 state elections will be the break or make election for the Congress Party and Rahul Gandhi in North India. If anti-incumbency can get Congress some votes then BSP will ensure Congress losing Dalit votes resulting in BJP’s return to power in Rajasthan and MP. Delhi is already out of Congress hands. The way things are in Chattisgarh the Congress has a chance there if they can exploit the tribal disillusionment.


Now coming to South India, Congress is still in the reckoning in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Pondicherry. In Tamil Nadu it has been reduced to BJP’s level in Andhra Pradesh.


In South India BJP has been able to make a mark only in Karnataka that too after flogging the divisive “Ayodhya of South” dispute.


In Andhra, BJP had to be content with the breadcrumbs thrown at them by the Telugu Desam Party. After the electorate voted out TDP mainly because of its support to BJP at the center even after Gujarat riots, the TDP has rightly cut all ties with BJP. It is only a matter of time before Chandrababu Naidu is back in power with the vote of all sections of the people of Andhra Pradesh. Now it is up to the Muslims of Andhra Pradesh not to play into the hands of Sanghis by indulging in stupid anti-national/pan-islam activities. We need peace in Andhra Pradesh to realise the vision of Chandrababu Naidu at a faster pace.


The rest of South Indian Muslims too should realise that the BJP can only grow in South India if they can find any communal situation to exploit and it is up to them not to create any such situation. After fifteen years of economic liberalisation, South India has emerged as the economic powerhouse of India. Lets take this chance and prosper together.


Looking forward to 2009 general elections, the Congress with its Muslim/OBC-appeasing agenda having driven the upper-castes back into BJP’s hands and with no clue on how to handle the economy, which in turn is driving the rest of its vote bank away will find it a Herculean task to win even 25 seats in North India. In South, West and NE India the picture in 2009 will be equally bleak due to the anti-incumbency factor in TN, AP, Assam, Maharashtra and Pondicherry, etc


It remains to be seen whether the present PM Manmohan Singh will be replaced with Rahul Gandhi anytime during the remaining tenure of the UPA govt. Other than that there is no way Rahul Gandhi will ever become India’s PM.


If Mayawati is able to provide a credible alternative to the Congress and the BJP in 2009, IMO many regional parties that are supporting the Congress or BJP today will be open to ally with BSP with Behenji as the Prime Ministerial candidate.

Kendo - Pakistani Version

In the above photograph the Pakistani version of the Japanese martial art of fencing is depicted. In Pakistan this is martial art is practised exclusively by women.

In this photograph the original version of Kendo as practised by the Japanese is shown.

Killer of Giants

What else can we call this Bangladesh cricket team?

With India out of the World Cup I was finding it hard to watch or enjoy any of the matches. As I wrote earlier due to India’s early exit, I am supporting Sri Lanka but not that wholeheartedly. Then Saturday’s Bangladesh-South Africa match changed all that. Now after seeing how the tiger cubs mauled the then #1 team, I too have become a fan of this Bangladeshi team and I am pretty excited about the World Cup now as the fight for the semi-final berths is up for grabs. I have forgiven them for throwing us out of the World Cup and now looking forward to see Bangladesh’s remaining matches and their possible giant killing acts. I also hope to stay up late till the matches end. Bangladesh’s next possible victims are England, WI and Scotland. The best news for the Bangla team is that these teams are not playing well and this gives the Bangladesh team a real chance to win all three matches and find a place in the semis. And if they find anyone else other than Australia in the semis then they have a real chance of playing the finals.


India tours Bangladesh next. Before the World Cup, for India this was a “good for nothing” tour – just good to give the ‘minnows’ some fielding practice. Now with India yet to realise what hit them when they played Bangladesh in the World Cup, will surely want to save further embarrassment. For this, the Board is thinking of axing some senior players so the average age of the Indian team will match the average age of the Bangla team, which is 24. Now even if India is mauled by the tiger cubs at least there wont be any embarrassment. But I hope the so-called minnows trash our team like trash so that we learn some hard lessons. First of all we should learn not to treat anyone like trash. Second, never take any team lightly. Third, always keep up-to-date with the minnows’ progress.


With the coach’s place falling vacant following Chappell’s resignation Dav Whatmore whose term with the Bangladesh team is ending has expressed a desire to take up the lucrative and ‘prestigious’ job of coaching India. He is undoubtedly the perfect choice available right now. The wonders Whatmore has done with Sri Lanka first and now with this Bangladesh team is there for all of us to see. However, I think - for the good of world cricket - he should be with the Bangladesh team for a couple of years more so that he can transform them into a world beating team on a consistent basis. After that we can consider hiring him if he is still interested.


I am very much dejected and angry by India’s abject capitulation in the World Cup especially against Bangladesh. But after some introspection I am glad they trashed us in every department of the game that day and thereby make us look inward for a moment and realise where we stand in terms of being a Cricketing power and I thank those tiger cubs for that.

Next Level in ULFA's Terror Campaign

Stratfor is of the view that the April 8th bomb explosion near PM Manmohan Singh’s motorcade route in Assam could indicate the next level in ULFA’s “liberation struggle”. Stratfor writes, “Although the explosion appears to have been premature, it strongly suggests the ULFA is expanding its targeting criteria to include national figures. Moreover, this could have been the group's first suicide bombing.”

It is possible the bomber was planning to place the device along the motorcade route when he collided with the autorickshaw. However, there also is reason to believe this was the first suicide attack staged by the ULFA. In March, ULFA chairperson Arabinda Rajkhowa hinted in an e-mailed statement that the group was ready to conduct suicide attacks, saying members have reached the stage in which "they would strap bombs on their chest and attack." If this incident was indeed a premature suicide bombing, it would indicate the group has added a powerful new weapon to its arsenal. ...ULFA, however, also is a powerful, profit-generating entity, deriving much of its income from protection and extortion rackets and other illegal activities. As in the past, the ULFA rejected the Assam government's latest offer to hold unconditional peace talks. Moreover, given that the ULFA has been known to carry out provocative attacks in response to such offers of talks, an attack near Singh's motorcade might have been meant to derail any chance of negotiations. With lucrative enterprises involved, the group's leadership has a strong incentive to sustain the militant front for business purposes. If this was a suicide attack, the ULFA could have gotten the inspiration from Islamist groups in Bangladesh or the Sri Lankan separatist group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The ULFA, which wields influence in Bangladesh through its considerable financial resources, could have obtained the services of a suicide bomber or bombmakers from Islamist groups in that country. The ULFA also has established ties with the Tigers, whose campaign against the Sri Lankan government has long included the use of suicide bombers, many of whom have used motorcycles to stage their attacks. However, the ULFA's limited experience in constructing suicide bombs as well as poor workmanship or design on the part of the bombmaker might have led to the premature detonation. ULFA has assassinated state officials in Assam before, but this apparently was its first attempt against the prime minister, which indicates an escalation in the group's targeting criteria.[Stratfor]

One of the militants killed during the explosion was identified as Ainul Ali. He was the one carrying the bomb. ULFA members are basically Hindu upper-caste. This Muslim guy could be one of those hired by ULFA from Bangladeshi Islamist groups.

Afghanistan: Time for India to Revamp Ties With the Northern Alliance

Of late the Afghan government headed by President Hamid Karzai has come under increased pressure to negotiate with the Taliban. Anti-Taliban elements also have established a new political group, indicating another move toward reintegrating segments of the Taliban into the Afghan government. Kabul's move to engage the pragmatists in the Pashtun jihadist movement has had an unsettling effect, both within the ranks of the Taliban and among their Tajik-led rivals.


Stratfor predicts that it is unlikely that President Hamid Karzai will be able to balance these two forces, and his own government could be overwhelmed by a new north-south fault line. This means it is time for India to revamp old ties with the Northern Alliance.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said April 6 that he and other government officials have been in contact with Taliban representatives for some time. This announcement -- a bow to increasing pressure to work with the jihadists -- comes a day after Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, former ambassador of the ousted Taliban regime, criticized Kabul's negotiations with moderate Taliban, calling the talks a "conspiracy" designed to sow dissent within the ranks of the Pashtun jihadist movement. Meanwhile, former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani -- a Tajik Islamist -- announced April 3 the launch of a new political coalition called the United National Front. In addition to former communists, this group includes former mujahideen who participated in the 1979-89 fight against Soviet forces, the 1992-96 intra-Islamist civil war and the 1996-2001 struggle against the Taliban regime. Some of the more prominent figures in this new group are former Defense Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim, Parliament Speaker Younis Qanooni and Prince Mustafa Zahir, the grandson of ailing former King Mohammad Zahir Shah. One of the group's key goals is to amend the 2003 constitution to allow for proportional representation in parliament, and to create a prime minister position. These Tajik-led, mostly northern forces have watched the resurgence of the Taliban over the last few years, as well as the government's intense struggle to contain them. They understand that Kabul's renewed efforts to rein in the insurgency via negotiations eventually will lead to the empowerment of the majority Pashtun community, since the Taliban constitute the only potent political force among the Pashtuns. Since the fall of the Taliban regime, the Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras and other opponents of the Pashtun jihadists have been content with Karzai's weakness -- and, by extension, the weakness of the Pashtun community. This has allowed them to consolidate their hold in their respective regions and gain a share of the national pie. But now that weakness is becoming a liability for these northerners, given that an enfeebled central government cannot act as a secure buffer between them and the Taliban in the country's south. Hence, they are moving to galvanize their ranks and erect legal and constitutional barriers to counter a revived Pashtun presence in the south and in Kabul. These old Taliban enemies are not the only ones concerned about Kabul's moves to re-engage Taliban fighters. The Taliban themselves also are worried that recent offers of talks and a share in the government will cause fissures in their ranks, which already are divided. Moreover, Karzai is not the only one pushing for negotiations; this discussion is taking place even within government circles in NATO member states such as the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada and others. There increasingly is evidence that the Taliban have realized that they cannot expect to dominate Afghanistan again like they did during 1996-2001, when they extended their writ almost to the country's northern border with Tajikistan. Despite former Taliban ambassador Zaeef's April 5 criticism of the government's actions, he also said that the problem is not Karzai or his government. "The problem is with foreigners," he added, "and [the Taliban] are fighting them and [calling] their war a freedom fight." This statement represents a slow movement on the part of the Taliban away from the rhetoric that Karzai's regime is illegitimate and must be defeated. In other words, we are seeing the re-creation of Afghanistan's north-south divide. Even more problematic from a stability point of view, the Karzai regime likely will not be able to balance these two forces, and the government could be the first casualty of a new war between the Pashtun majority and the Tajik-led minorities.[Stratfor]