Passionate About India

The former US president George W. Bush called Hugo Chavez of Venezuela a “devil” and allegedly backed his opposition in the subsequent elections, to the point that there were rumours, confirmed by Chavez, that the Americans had hatched a plot to kill him. Reports alleged that organisations like FBI and CIA were all primed up wanting to get rid of Chavez. There were numerous other assassination attempts, ranging from attempts by Gov. Manuel Rosales (his arch rival in domestic polity belonging to Un Nuevo Tiempo) to those by the Columbian secret police. However, all those attempts were foiled by the mercy of his fate, before he eventually died bravely fighting cancer on March 5, 2013. As his coffin, draped in the national flag, was passed through the streets of Caracas, the very sight of swelling crowds flocking in for the last glimpse of their beloved leader spoke volumes of his popularity and larger-than-life image. And why not! He was a socialist leader who had the guts to take US ...

After celebrating the execution of Saddam and (almost) writing the obituary of Fidel Castro, the US was sitting pretty and eying an opportunity to engage with Iran. But, the hale and hearty revival of Castro and his iconoclastic interview, blasting Bush for freeing a terrorist and his biofuel plans, terming the latter as a genocide, had put sudden halt to the celebrations. Moreover, much to their chagrin, what they have witnessed over the last couple of weeks are some historic decisions that were taken up by a few countries, which could well mark the end of their hegemony and the beginning of the new world order. To begin with, lets start with the most historic and yet carefully ignored news of this week. On 1 May 2007, the Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, severed ties with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, after clearing debts in advance and pledged to start a new Banco del Sur. He stated that this new bank would disburse finances for state projects across Latin Ame...