Passionate About India

Natural resources have always been the moot point for many a conflict and have tempted Kings and kingdoms into conflicts and wars since ages. A quick journey across our history would be enough to realise that the mightiest regimes have made planned moves to conquer natural resources – be it precious minerals, radioactive elements, energy resources, drugs, water or even human power. Talking about modern history, countries like US, UK and other Western powers have invaded nations in search of human slaves to natural gas. Amidst all this, the bad news is that the era of cheap natural resources is definitely far gone. Natural resources and illegal occupation are very closely linked together; yet the correlation is largely ignored. The one time champion and monopolist nation of natural resources today is finding it expensive to explore its own natural wealth and is rather depending on imports. As per the US Geological Survey, 2011, United States imports 93 per cent of its antimony and 10...

The People’s Republic of China may have initially missed out on industrial revolution that made the western nations what they are today and constrained China to an emerging economy in spite of its mercurial economic growth for the last three-and-a-half decades. But learning from the past, it is all set to become a front-runner in the virtual revolution, and is very ready to leverage maximum possible benefits out of it. In fact, it has gone a step further to set off cyber warfare with other countries in the congested and tightly competitive virtual world. And this time, it won’t settle for being a laggard, for it is heading fast towards its most cherished goal of becoming a global superpower! Undoubtedly, the modern warfare is no more about the number of casualties or destruction of physical property. The new doctrines of war is all about attacking a nation economically and paralyzing it for years to come. An economically broken nation would not only destroy its human capital in t...

First it was Afghanistan, then Iraq, after that it was Libya and now Syria! The targets of US intervention in the civil war of the Middle East are never ending. The US supported (first clandestinely and then openly) the separatist movement in Syria and a civil war in full swing has been the result, a war that has brought with it violent confrontations between President Assad and his Islamist population. Sowing the seeds of instigation have been the hawks of American foreign policy like Fouad Ajami and many more (for the uninitiated, Fouad Ajami – advisor to the former United States Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, as well as close aide and associate of Paul Wolfowitz, former Deputy Secretary of Defence and lead architect of the Iraq war – had been a staunch supporter of the Iraq war)! And now, America is playing the same game in its war cry against Syria. If the Iraq war were to be a benchmark, then we clearly know that there is practically no repentance in the American establish...

I had written this after the Virginia Tech shootout and I write again – capitalism is a great slave, but a pathetic master. This truth unfortunately gets lost in our chase for that elusive dream... especially in America, the land that has been marketed as the land of dreams – the Great American Dream. It’s the dream of being independent masters of our lives, the dream of making big bucks and the dream of being happy – even if that happiness is being bought by money, which all of them chase out there. No doubt, the US, on its part, has been fairly successful in creating material comfort aplenty. It has upped the living standard of its average citizen to an extent that it stands amongst the highest – even if that is a result of more than 200 years of unbridled growth and exploitation. Thus, the shop window of Americanism looks lucidly attractive; you’ve got all of them standing there – from Bill Gates to Michael Dell – in Tommy Hilfigers and Ralph Laurens! And that is what has made the r...

Five very important things happened in the month of May for India. They have actually made an impact on our destiny. I will write just in a while about what those events are and how they affected India. Two words seem to have become very popular in popular media: governance and leadership. From America to Greece to Venezuela to India, the big journalists that I know and the media that I read and watch seem to complain that the world faces a crisis of governance and leadership. Even during my recent trip to America, I sensed a public cry about great leadership. I think almost all of us will agree that there is indeed a crisis. People across continents are angry and the media is doing a wonderful job of highlighting that anger. Frankly, I am more concerned about India. In my last editorial, I wrote that the Indian media seems to have forgotten its purpose and mission as the fourth pillar of our democracy. In fact, I often call it a demonocracy! But perhaps, it is also time to remember le...

I have been in the United States the last few days on a lecture tour. Every time I come here, I discover more fascinating things about this fascinating country! Though my hectic tour has not allowed me much time, as I would have loved to go through all manners of newspapers and magazines, I have still managed to go through a lot of them. And one thing strikes me as very strange. I mean, most of the media is full of stories about the imminent face off between the Republican Mitt Romney and the Democrat incumbent Barack Obama. But the media seems to have an equal number of stories on the Tea Party, on how the Republicans are waging a war on women and on how Obama has a massive lead over Romney when it comes to women voters in America. One thing you must grant this country – even those from the ‘Left’ ideologies who dislike America so much – the freedom of speech here is genuine and everybody seems to exercise the right to yell their heads off! I was blown away by some of the articles, co...

First of all, congratulations to our Chief Election Commissioner Dr. Quraishi for yet again managing the elections with the least reports of rigging; congratulations also to Akhilesh for becoming an icon overnight for the Indian youth through sheer hard work. I shall write on him very soon! This time, I want to write on something that is spoken about every time that elections are held anywhere in India – the question of election time funding. Of course, it’s shameful the way black money dominates election funding in India. But then, if you thought American Presidential elections – the nomination fight for which is underway currently in the USA – are clean, then here are some facts which will make you think again! Actually, throughout history, elections have never been democratic in the true sense with money power significantly dominating the outcome instead of ability, one way or the other. There has been rarely an election where power-variables have not played their role. Almost all e...

United States’ finely tuned images of ‘land of opportunity’, ‘land of the free’ and ‘home of the brave’ – all have in recent time received a major jolt with protestors pouring in from all over the country in thousands. It is probably the biggest protest since anti-Vietnam-war demonstrations in the 70s! Finally their police are finding it tough to control their own people. This time they are failing to smoke them out, because the enemy lies in every other house. I wrote about the coming end of capitalism – the way we know it – in 2008 itself as an aftermath of the latest recession that has hit the world due to its blind belief in free market profiteering and was surprised why (despite people around the world, from countries in the Middle East to a laid back country like India, showing a tendency to come out on the streets to press for their rights) people in the western world were delaying coming out in the streets to press for what was their right – the right to stable and dignified li...

Just a couple of weeks back, some tens of thousands of American citizens got together to protest US President Barack Obama’s healthcare plans. Obama has been trying his best to expand health coverage for American citizens, at the same time also trying to arrest the ever increasing healthcare costs in the US. As per his plan, healthcare is going to adequately cover as many as 97% of the American population. Currently, it is estimated that around 46 million Americans do not have health cover and around 25 million of them are not adequately covered. Now, on the face of it, the plan looks fine; but what has agitated an average American is the very fact that this plan (of adequately covering 97% Americans under health insurance) calls for a budget of $600 billion, which would be mobilized through higher taxes. This element of higher taxes has antagonized the Americans, coupled with the fact that they do not want the government to interfere into health affairs. Such is the fury among America...

you are receptive to change and don’t stick to irrational logic just for the heck of it! Prior to this editorial, I’ve written a couple of more editorials on the American President, Barack Obama. In those editorials, I have been extremely appreciative with respect to his historic win; and more than anything else, with his win that had actually made the American citizen the real winner. I had also been extremely candid with my appreciation towards him, not just for him becoming the President but the arousing reasons that made him so. For the uninitiated, I wrote that he demanded change from his fellow Americans, not simply with respect to the economic outlook or foreign policy, but in something graver; he beseeched them to realise that in the hardships of today should not be forgotten the intensity of the American character of past. This is not to miss how enamoured I was with his outstanding speeches. But then, that’s history now as President Obama is already a few months old in the Wh...

November 4, 2008… In all probability, we shall not see another day of more global historical relevance in our lifetimes! While I had hoped that Barack Obama should win the American Presidential polls (you all would know how less of love I have for George Bush and his party representatives), yet, I didn’t really believe six months back that it would be him standing as the President-elect of America today. That the majority in America could vote for a black, half-Muslim, with madrasaa education (in Indonesia, where he lived with his second Muslim father) – whatever his credentials were – was something I felt was quite tough a call. But the tough has happened today! Barack Obama might not be historically a great leader, but he has created history under his leadership. He may not have been a great revolutionary or may not have been identified with any cause-centred leadership – like Martin Luther King Jr had been – but he showed that having got the chance of being the right man at the righ...

When the body bags of American soldiers started their return journey from Iraq, it was reason enough to revive the haunting nightmares of the Vietnam war. A war where several hundreds of thousands of American soldiers had to pay with their lives for an ideological war between the American and Soviet policymakers. A war whose end was not in sight for forty long years and which served little for the betterment of mankind, except for the eternal tension of an incumbent war – or what was commonly known as the Cold War era. For President Bush and his coterie, it was too much of a risk not to mitigate the domestic backlash against the body bags and continue with the loot of Iraq. And yet, the stakes in Iraq in terms of oil reserves and the potential contracts for reconstruction were too luring to be given up just for the sake of preventing the body bags from coming home. After all, the body bags are nothing but a petite collateral price for the big Iraq pie in the offing. In these days of ou...

Recently I came across a very interesting analysis in the Wall Street Journal, adapted from Mr. Douglas J Feith’s (Under Secretary of Defense for Policy - July 2001 till August 2005) memoir - “War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism”. As per Mr. Feith’s analysis – “between September 2002 and 2003, President Bush delivered nine major talks about Iraq. There were, on an average, approximately 14 paragraphs per speech on Saddam’s record as an enemy, aggressor, tyrant and danger, with only three paragraphs on promoting democracy. In the next year – from September 2003 to September 2004 – Mr. Bush delivered 15 major talks about Iraq. The average number of paragraphs devoted to the record of threats from Saddam was one, and the number devoted to democracy promotion was approximately 11”. Clearly indicating the double standards of President Bush and his Administration on the Iraq issue! However, it is not just with Iraq. President Bush has been maintaining al...

Hillary Clinton just two days back said that the Iraq war can’t be won. I really hope you didn’t get carried away reading it and started taking her seriously! She is still a first generation dynastic hopeful with her husband having no war experience. George Bush on the other hand is a seasoned second generation warring cowboy!! And trust you me he knows the game better than you can imagine. Let me explain you how the smoke ‘em out cowboy has actually won the war on Iraq... well at least as far as his schemes were concerned!! It has been exactly five years since the time President George Bush went on a rampage on Iraq, hunting for those world threatening WMDs!! In these five years the world is testimony to the fact that the US could neither find any WMDs, nor could their intelligence establish any links between the Late Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaida, but in effect, on account of the ongoing American engagement, Iraq got completely devastated. Over 1.1 million Iraqis have been killed, some...

It is a well known fact that the Americans heavily invested in the Mujahideen forces in Afghanistan against the USSR. It is also a well known fact that after the war was over and the American objective of ousting the Russian army was served, they dumped the Mujahideens, which finally resulted in the emergence of Osama. Eventually, when the American funding stopped, these armed Mujahideens turned their heat on the Americans, finally culminating into 9/11. And now the US government has decided to extend military training beyond the Pakistani Army, to their paramilitary forces. This decision could not have come at a worse time as Pakistan is already reeling under tremendous internal political and civil crises, which is getting more complicated by the day. And add to it the inability of the intelligence as well as the law enforcement agencies to prevent the spate of suicide attacks by the fundamentalists, the last thing that Pakistan needed now was more number of people getting professiona...

That’s Bush’s way of celebrating the New Year. He thought his obvious personal vendetta was the gift that the world was waiting for in this New Year. And as has happened often with many ill-educated fools like him in the past, Bush too gave it to the world with a shameless pretence of righteousness, thinking what he personally thought to be right was indeed what was right and worthy of celebration. In previous such hangings, I remember how the pernicious Pakistani dictator Zia-ul-Haq had taken personal revenge in a similar way and blatantly used his country’s judicial machinery to get Zulfi qar Ali Bhutto hanged. But then, that was imaginable – Bhutto, after all, was a key political opponent he wanted to get rid of. Plus, Zia was manipulating his own country’s judicial system for the same. But what has happened with Saddam is unimaginable! It’s the first time perhaps that a country has interfered directly in another nation’s political process, arrested a leader it wanted to get rid of ...