Wednesday, February 28, 2007

UPA shining?

feb 27th, 2007

loses punjab

loses uttarkhand

trounced in mumbai

inflation 6.7%

your little games are being seen through by the electorate, eh?

i am dreading chidambaram's budget. in his previous incarnation as FM he managed to inherit a healthy economy and when he exited, he had converted it into a 'nehruvian rate of growth' 3.5% economy. he'll surely try to repeat the stunt now.

quattrochi is a diversionary tactic

feb 28th, 2007

isn't it amazing that the quatrocchi circus is brought up every time the UPA wants the country to be diverted from its other failings?

here see what's happened in the recent past:

1. serious inflationary pressure hurting the common man
2. terrorism running rampant
3. manmohan singh giving siachen to pakistan
4. manmohan singh giving up nukes in return for nothing
5. UPA being routed in punjab and uttarkhand
6. the markets in a tailspin
7. the budget will likely introduce many a bitter pill
8. the 5th anniversary of the godhra massacre

and so the govt and the media running around squawking 'quattrochi, quattrochi!'.

i can guarantee that quatrocchi, even if he's brought in chains to tihar jail, will never testify. he'll suffer an er... mysterious stroke in the jail hospital and pass away before spilling the beans on other white people.

this technique has been perfected in kerala. hindu women who have been sexually harassed, impregnated, etc. by politicians mysteriously die in the hospital. (it may be noted that similarly harassed mohammedan women do not die. eg. regina of ice-cream case fame.)

The dreaded "H-word"

feb 28th, 2007

yes, 'hindu' has become an insult now.

it has long been the case that 'brahmin' is an insult in nehru's india.

i was watching this malayalam movie some time ago, and i was appalled that mohanlal kept calling this poor brahmin guy a 'pattar', damned 'pattar', disgusting 'pattar' etc. 'pattar' is a derogatory term for tamil brahmins in kerala.

i am waiting to see mohanlal call some mohammedan a disgusting 'methan' or a christist a greedy 'nasrani', which are derogatory terms for mohammedans and christists, resp.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Aum

....

Any secular, activist ladies want to endorse this?

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,468828,00.html

Interview with Founder of "Council of Ex-Muslims": "Not Possible to Modernize Islam" - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News

Any of the luminous lady 'secular' activists want to react to this one and support their courageous female colleague? This one surely beckons Teesta Setalvad or perhaps a movie by Deepa Mehta?

Before they dismiss this as a 'Iranian in Europe does not concern us' stop to consider that

1- Women's Lib for the luminous-ones is greater than national issues,
2- If extra-national issues don't move the luminous ones - why do they keep talking about "Palestine" or "American Imperialism in Iraq"?

Islam vs. Women's rights - wonder which one wins?

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

amazing! former atlanticist says something nice about india

feb 27th, 2007

what, a death-bed conversion?

the former editor of the archa-atlanticist 'economist' magazine says something that must make his fellow-limey ass-kissers of china blanch, or at least have their stiff upper lips tremble a teeny-weeny bit. he acknowledges that india has legitimate concerns about china, and that bush has scored a coup by bullying india into the nuclear corner.

must be that leaving the economist has allowed him to take his head out of you-know-where.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article1434498.ece

Monday, February 26, 2007

remember godhra

feb 26th 2007

tomorrow is the anniversary of the godhra massacre of 59 innocent hindus on the sabarmati express in gujarat.

this was an act of monstrosity, burning pilgrims including many women and children.

it is to our great shame that hindus have allowed malefic marxists, missionaries (one cedric prakash) and mullahs to cover up this atrocity.

FOSA leaks as comrades squeal: ari saja

february 26th, 2007

on the eve of the godhra massacre, here's the inimitable ari saja.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Raghav

http://ivarta.com/columns/OL_070301.htm

FOSA Leaks As Comrades Squeal

By: Ari Saja
March 01, 2007
V iews expressed here are author's own and not of this website. Full disclaimer is at the bottom.

Feedback
- Hide quoted text -



The Pakistan ISI's faithful Bay Area operators appear to have tripped over themselves in their latest assault on children of the Indian Subcontinent. But first a question, please. What would your reaction be, if you were an Editor of, say, a prominent New York newspaper, and you got a letter [1] signed:
" ..all of us working towards a peaceful and hate-free South Asia .
Sincerely,
Girish Agrawal, Sabahat Ashraf, Yasmeen Fatimah, Shalini Gera, Anu Mandavilli, Balaji Narasimhan, Aamir Qureshi, Roshni Rustomji, Ramkumar Sridharan
Note: Friends of South Asia is a San Francisco Bay area based group"
Choose one answer:
a) Immensely impressed?
b) Teary-eyed with gratitude?
c) Rush to the restroom to throw up?
d) Fall off your chair laughing?
e) Roll on the floor laughing?
Here's Hint #1. Two of the above peaceful, hate-free and sincere authors (Shalini Gera and Girish Agrawal), have also declared that organizations that helped the families of the fallen 9/11 New York firefighters were "anti-Muslim" because "most of the victims were non-Muslim and the perpetrators were all Muslims". I am sure NYT's editors will be delighted to read that.

.... more

china unbelievably ahead of india in education?

feb 26th, 2007

dr prathap is right in essence, although he may be exaggerating a little for rhetorical purposes. he was an IIT JEE #1 and then gold medalist at IIT Madras, and then a PhD from there. he is concerned about the quality of education in india for sure. also, he knows chinese capabilities up close and personal because he grew up in singapore.

it is true that the chinese are creating world-class universities by pouring money into them. it is possible to buy good universities: eg. texas created the wonderful UTA by throwing oil money at it.

the quality of research in india is appalling. this is a very fine legacy of the nehruvian state, where the only thing that matter is ass-kissing. great examples were given in shourie's 'eminent historians': a famous vice-chancellor stole someone's research and got his PhD based on that.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Anil

http://www.indyvation.com/ShowContents.asp?ArticleID=67&rand=182068533

Indian media, politicians and even intellectuals are busy in self-congratulating themselves over their phenomenal economic progress in recent years. Chief scientist Gangan Prathap, who works at Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation in Bangalore, has estimated that India will take at least 163 years to match China's research workforce of 850,000 even if Beijing were to freeze the number today! Yes, 163 years to catchup with China and that too assuming that China will not do anything during all these years. India publishes less than two percent of research papers in the world, this is a shameful number for a nation of one billion people. It is the same old story of bureaucracy strangling research.

slamming india: national geographic

26th feb 2007

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rama

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dr.Gopal Krishnan < gopaln@india.com>
Date: Feb 25, 2007 1:42 AM
Subject:
To:

Dear friends REACT AND PROTEST SHARPELY AGAINST THE WRECHED AIMS OF
TARNISHING INDIAN CULTURE BY NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TV CHANNEL

On 24th February, 2006 from 8.00 PM (Indian time), National
Geographic Television Channel telecasted negative show against
Indian culture on 'Black magic and which hunting' as though it is
existing in Indian culture. This is nothing to do with Indian dharma
and heritage . Taking the pictures of few ladies and men who are drug
addicts, terribly derogatory, defaming and maligning show against
our culture was telecasted. It is being continuously telecasted by
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CHANNEL for many times on various subjects.
World over thinkers, scholars and scientists are unanimously
welcoming the great Indian heritage while The National Geographic TV
Channel is the only channel spreading these negatives cruelly
tarnishing and creating a wrong impression against Indian culture.

Send your protest to comments@natgeochannel.com and inform them
that Indians are not the generations of those who cruelly
massacred/ hanged /burnt alive 60,000 poor innocent women (in the
WEST) in the name of witch hunting and supporting god ( the number
from Encyclopedia Britannica - 2004 edn, under "witchcraft") this
number is only a small part of the historians' number of 2 million
innocent women killed in the name of god /priesthood / clergy based
on the message from Exodus 22:10 "though shall not suffer a witch to
live" in the west . "in the name of god they found it desirable and
salutary to plunge countless innocents into the darkest abysses of
human cruelty. No other religion ever cultivated such heights of
perversity" (Malleus maleficarum) We proud Indians and our
forefathers were/ are holy, scientific and rational for the last
ten thousand years.

This type of cooked up recorded TV materials against Indian culture
are being telecasted many times by NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CHANNEL. We
protest strongly and request them to stop these negatives. You
cannot kill Indian culture and spread your thoughts here.

Dr. N. Gopalakrishnan

brahma chellaney: make-believe peace

feb 25th, 2007

brahma tells it like it is about the 'piss process'

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Harsh

Make-Believe Peace
Part I
Asian Age, February 24, 2007

Brahma Chellaney

Death and destruction are an abomination to human
conscience. So when terrorist attacks and slayings
become increasingly recurrent, catchphrases like
"peace process," "confidence-building measures" and
"people-to-people contact" help serve as a salve to a
society's conscience. That in essence is the story of
today's India and its benighted relationship with
Pakistan. Unable to contain escalating attacks that
have given it the dubious distinction of being the
world's most-battered victim of terrorism, India has
sought solace behind such beguiling catchwords. In the
process, however, it is unwittingly making itself a
prisoner of make-believe.

The past week began in India with the gruesome
killing of at least 68 innocent people on board the
Samjhauta Express and ended with renewed
confidence-building bonhomie with Pakistan. To those
steeped in Indian epics, the ending may signify the
triumph of good over evil. In reality, however, the
events represent just a new page in an unending epic
about India's love for pretence.

To be sure, democratic India is no different than
autocratic Pakistan in attaching little value to the
lives of ordinary citizens. As long as the governing
elites remain ensconced in a security cover, the
leadership in New Delhi or Islamabad takes any loss of
lives in its stride. The poor, after all, have always
counted for little in both countries.

Nor are the two governments different when it comes to
play-acting and rhetoric. The Indian public, for
instance, has got so accustomed to hearing after each
attack the same empty vows to defeat terrorism that
deep cynicism has set in. The latest train attack is
proof that the two governments have become a mirror
image of each other in terms of reaction.

Every right-thinking citizen wants peace so that
national energies can be concentrated on rapid
economic modernization and the narrowing of
disparities in society. But why should New Delhi
pretend it is engaged in a "peace process" with
Islamabad when in reality the current process is
merely aimed at normalizing relations?

In any case, instead of delivering peace, the process
continues to deliver more terrorism, not just on
India's doorsteps in Jammu and Kashmir as before, but
deep inside the country. In the past year-and-a-half
alone, India has suffered major terrorist bombings
from the Gangetic plains to the south, even as the
Pakistani intelligence has opened new flanks against
this country via Bangladesh and Nepal.

If it were just called a normalization process, that
would not only be more honest but also help instil
greater reality. Pakistan's continued refusal to have
normal trade with India, for instance, is a reminder
that bilateral ties are far from full normalization. A
mutual stake in a peaceful diplomatic environment can
be fashioned only on the building blocks of regional
cooperation and integration. Today the vaunted South
Asian Free-Trade Area (SAFTA) accord is in danger of
being stillborn.

Another official pretence heard in recent days is that
the Samjhauta Express attack was an attempt to
"derail" the supposed peace process. This suggests the
bombers were naïve to believe that their act would
disrupt a process that has yet to take bilateral ties
to where they were in 1999 before the Kargil war,
despite the much-trumpeted opening of new cross-border
transportation routes. When the process survived the
much deadlier bomb attacks on Mumbai commuter trains
last July, how could a strike on the Samjhauta Express
wreck the ongoing dialogue?

In any event, the dialogue process has a
not-so-invisible third party prodding and guiding from
the back — a party that refuses to talk to Iran (on
grounds it doesn't talk to "evil") but demands India
kiss and make up with a military dictatorship that
already has a lot of blood on its hands. It is because
of this third-party role that, despite the
qualitatively escalating and geographically expanding
terrorism it confronts, India has huffed and puffed
but stayed in the farcical peace process. The
terrorists and their patrons not only cherish this
factor but also have enough experience to know that as
long as they continue to kill ordinary citizens but
spare political leaders (who with their commando rings
are difficult to target in any case), New Delhi will
continue to negotiate with Pakistan.

With the aid of a domestic media that tends to easily
go over the top, Indian officials have also suggested
that the militants' detestation of the Samjhauta
Express made the train the target. But that begs a
question: Could the bombers really have thought that
one attack would eliminate from service a train that
has run regularly since 1976, except for a two-year
hiatus? Also, why was the train attacked in India, not
in Pakistan?

India may be loath to face up to reality, but the
harsh truth is that there is a clear design behind the
increasing frequency of major terror strikes against
it. First, by attacking a range of targets, from
India's business capital and Silicon Valley to major
pilgrimage centres, the terrorists have driven home
the message that they can strike at will anywhere.

Second, by saddling India with the highest incidence
of terrorism in the world, the perpetrators and their
masterminds help present it internationally as a
country riven by internal strife. They cannot slow
down India's GDP growth rate, but they have sought to
put the accent on the negative to help undercut its
rising profile.

The mounting tide of terrorist attacks exposes India's
internal frailty in roughly the same way that
Pakistan's emergence as a common thread in the
investigations of most acts of international terror
raises troubling questions about that country's
stability. This gives vicarious comfort to those
generals in Islamabad who have always believed that
India cannot be allowed to rise without Pakistan's own
ascension, and that a sinking Pakistan should take
India down with it.

Three, the generals still value home-grown terrorist
militias as useful proxies to bleed India and to press
it to make concessions on Kashmir. To suggest that
only some elements in the Pakistan military
establishment are tied to the terrorists is to say
that there are rogue elements in the military and
intelligence beyond the control of the government. If
that were true, it would be a strange paradox that the
writ of a military dictatorship doesn't extend fully
to its own base — the military — as well as a cause
for international concern that rogue officers are on
the terrorist prowl.

If any motive can logically be deduced for the
cowardly attack on the hapless Samjhauta Express
passengers, it is a frightful one. It is as if some
sinister force, playing with the blood of the
innocent, was perhaps seeking to prove, under the nose
of the Indian government, that Pakistan is indeed a
terror victim.

It took military ruler Pervez Musharraf no time to
portray Pakistan as a victim and to claim the attack
would "strengthen the resolve" for "peace between the
two countries." His regime was also quick to resurrect
its demand from last year for joint anti-terror
investigations, but India did well to shoot it down.
Remember the outrage in India when Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh, like a bolt from the blue, turned
Indian policy on its head and declared Pakistan a
fellow victim of terror on the fifth anniversary of
9/11? He went on to embrace Pakistan as a partner
against terror. The PM's case was that since India had
tried in vain to contain growing terrorism, it could
now employ a joint mechanism to persuade the terrorist
sponsor to correct its course. Even if the joint
mechanism didn't deliver results, the reasoning went,
India will not be a loser. Such was Dr. Singh's
prescience in calling Pakistan a fellow victim of
terror that just over five months later a number of
Pakistanis fell victim to an act of terror on Indian
soil.
Perhaps it is just a coincidence that the train
bombing occurred on the eve of the Pakistan foreign
minister's visit and about two weeks before the first
meeting of the joint anti-terror mechanism. That this
first meeting is to take place nearly six months after
the mechanism was announced is a reflection of the
haste with which India embraced a half-baked proposal
from a third party now promoting peace by zealously
selling weapons to both sides. But if Indian
investigators do find credible evidence to link the
train bombers with one of the terrorist militias
fathered by the Pakistani generals, like the
Lashkar-e-Taiba or Jaish-e-Muhammed, it will raise the
troubling issue if the perpetrators acted at the
behest of their military bosses.

Is it inconceivable that a military regime waging a
low-intensity conflict against India centred on the
export of jihad to murder and maim the innocent would
order, in pursuit of dubious political goals, a
terrorist strike that kills a number of its own
countrymen, mostly Mohajirs and Hindus? And with
Pakistani missiles named after invaders like Ghauri,
Ghaznavi, Babar and Abdali, was it a mere accident
that the train attack occurred in Panipat, the scene
of three ignominious defeats in Indian history, the
last being at the hands of Abdali in 1761?

(To be continued)


Time for Reality Check
Part II
Asian Age, February 25, 2007

Brahma Chellaney

Pakistani military ruler Pervez Musharraf maintains
not only his two-faced approach on terrorism but also
the self-serving myth that his rule helps prevent an
Islamist takeover. Even if he were to die suddenly,
military rule would continue in Pakistan, with another
general succeeding him. In fact, far from being a
bulwark against radicals, Musharraf has helped
marginalize and splinter mainstream parties and
allowed Islamists to gain political space.

With Musharraf benefiting more than any other ruler in
the world from the 9/11 events, Pakistan has emerged
the third largest recipient of US aid, which includes
economic and military assistance and counter-terrorism
subsidies. In addition, America has helped Pakistan
reschedule repayment of international debt totalling
$13.5 billion, and is currently providing $5 billion
in credit guarantees for Pakistani purchase of 62 F-16
fighter-jets.

Still, as the US national intelligence director
admitted last month, Pakistan is the hub of a global
web of Al Qaeda connections and "home for some top
terrorist leaders," with President George W. Bush
himself calling Pakistan "wilder than the Wild West."
Musharraf's regime has yet to realize that before
Pakistan's image can be transformed, it has to cut off
its institutional support to terrorism. Indeed, until
the military's vice-like grip on power is broken,
Pakistan is likely to remain a problem state, neither
at peace with itself nor with its neighbours.

The make-believe on India's part, however, continues.
New Delhi has not only embraced as its partner a
regime wedded to terror, but also chosen not to speak
about the lack of democracy in Pakistan and about
Musharraf's recently unveiled plan to stay enthroned
for five more years beyond 2007. While New Delhi has
called Pakistan a "victim" of terrorism, Musharraf's
chief benefactor, Bush, has painted a grim picture of
Al Qaeda's strength inside that country, saying,
"Taliban and Al Qaeda figures do hide in remote
regions of Pakistan … and recruit and launch attacks."

India's latest showpiece is an agreement with the
Musharraf regime to purportedly reduce the "risk from
accidents relating to nuclear weapons." India needs to
deepen its engagement with Pakistan at all levels. But
confidence building cannot rest on the back of a
public-relations gimmick like this accord.

How can any kind of risks be reduced when the
Pakistani nukes are with the military and the Indian
nukes under tight civilian oversight? While the
Pakistan military has integrated nuclear weapons with
its war-fighting doctrine and strategy, India is
committed to a retaliation-only posture. Despite
global concerns about terrorists acquiring weapons of
mass destruction, the current international spotlight
on Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran helps obscure the danger
that Pakistan — with terrorists and nuclear weapons
controlled by Islamist generals — could be just one
step away from our worst nightmare.

If the Pakistan military didn't know about the nuclear
black-market ring run by Pakistani scientists and
intelligence and army officials for 16 long years, how
can it offer to reduce any "risks," that too from
"accidents" (whatever that means)? All that the latest
agreement says is that in the event of an "accident,"
the concerned state will do what it is supposed to do
in any case — "immediately take necessary measures to
minimize the radiological consequences" — and, if need
be, share "urgent information" with the other side. If
any "accident" can be covered up, one can be sure the
Pakistan military will do just that.

In the case of the far-reaching proliferation ring, a
single individual, A.Q. Khan, was conveniently made
the scapegoat in a charade that saw Musharraf pardon
and shield him. The world has been made to believe
that Khan set up and ran a nuclear Wal-Mart largely on
his own. India itself has contributed to the creation
of this fable through its references to "the A.Q . Khan
ring."

Of greater consequence for India is the nuclearization
of Pakistani terrorism. Musharraf and his fellow
generals would continue to export terror as long as
they can play nuclear poker. Disabling Pakistan's
potential for nuclear blackmail thus holds the key to
forcing it to act against transnational terrorists on
its soil. Yet, ever since the scandal over the
Pakistani illicit nuclear exports broke, India has
chosen not to depict the Pakistan military as a rogue
proliferator but rather to give it succour through
ostensible nuclear confidence-building talks started
by the Vajpayee government.

India is still unduly influenced by the Bush
administration's misbegotten policy on Pakistan.
America could be a positive influence on Indo-Pakistan
relations but the Bush team's geopolitical games make
it otherwise. Washington uses Pakistan for multiple
objectives: as a gateway to military operations in
Afghanistan; for reconnaissance and covert action in
Iran; and to counterbalance India. Bush's looming
confrontation with Iran has only enhanced Pakistan's
importance as a staging ground for US anti-Iranian
operations.

If in the process a dictatorial but pliant regime is
strengthened in Islamabad, why would the White House
care? Bush certainly has one concern — continued
Pakistani assistance to an increasingly resurgent
Taliban — yet such is his policy tangle, he doesn't
know how to stop that. But what has New Delhi to gain
by deferring to the US on Pakistan?

As if turning the entire region between India and
Israel into an arc of volatility is not enough, the
Bush team seems itching to militarily take on Iran —
an action that would disrupt energy shipments to India
through the Strait of Hormuz and potentially have a
cascading effect on the Indian economy, which is more
dependent on the Gulf for oil and gas imports than any
other major economy in the world. Yet, even on Iran,
New Delhi chose to defer to the US.

Remember what the prime minister assured Parliament
when his government marginalized India's role on Iran
by voting to take the Iranian nuclear issue out of the
International Atomic Energy Agency board (of which
India is a permanent member) to the UN Security
Council (where India has no role to play)? He said
India was opposed to punitive sanctions or coercive
measures against Iran. Now, India has been in the
international vanguard in implementing Security
Council Resolution 1737 on new sanctions against Iran.

The Bush administration transfers a range of
offensive, India-directed weapon systems to Pakistan
and then lobbies feverishly to sell arms to New Delhi
while pretending to be a factor for peace in the
region. If there is one confidence-building measure
crying for adoption, it is a commitment by India and
Pakistan to suspend arms imports for a specified
number of years — a moratorium that will have little
effect on their security but help save tens of
billions of dollars for pressing national needs. This
is a moratorium, you can be sure, Washington will not
encourage.

In fact, until the US stops geopolitically exploiting
Pakistan, Pakistanis will not regain their democratic
rights. And innocent Indians and Pakistanis will
continue to get killed by the Pakistan military's
terrorist proxies.

A military autocracy that is part of the problem
cannot become part of the solution. To secure enduring
peace on the subcontinent, there has to be a return to
civilian rule in Pakistan, with the people there
getting the freedoms that Indians enjoy. In the
absence of open elections and public accountability,
Musharraf's rule has created a pressure-cooker
society, giving rise to greater extremism. What
Pakistan needs is a safety valve — true democratic
participation that would empower the masses and allow
issues to be decided at the ballot box.

For India, the latest terrorist killings should be an
occasion for a reality check on its Pakistan policy.
No policy that forsakes reality can deliver
sustainable dividends.

(Concluded)

FOSA Leaks As Comrades Squeal

february 26th, 2007

on the eve of the godhra massacre, here's the inimitable ari saja.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Raghav

 
FOSA Leaks As Comrades Squeal
 
By: Ari Saja
March 01, 2007
V iews expressed here are author's own and not of this website. Full disclaimer is at the bottom.

  Feedback

 
 
The Pakistan ISI's faithful Bay Area operators appear to have tripped over themselves in their latest assault on children of the Indian Subcontinent. But first a question, please.  What would your reaction be, if you were an Editor of, say, a prominent New York newspaper, and you got a letter [1] signed:  
" ..all of us working towards a peaceful and hate-free South Asia .
Sincerely,
Girish Agrawal, Sabahat Ashraf, Yasmeen Fatimah, Shalini Gera, Anu Mandavilli, Balaji Narasimhan, Aamir Qureshi, Roshni Rustomji, Ramkumar Sridharan
Note: Friends of South Asia is a San Francisco Bay area based group"  
Choose one answer:
a) Immensely impressed?
b) Teary-eyed with gratitude?
c) Rush to the restroom to throw up?
d) Fall off your chair laughing?
e) Roll on the floor laughing? 
Here's Hint #1. Two of the above peaceful, hate-free and sincere authors (Shalini Gera and Girish Agrawal), have also declared that organizations that helped the families of the fallen 9/11 New York firefighters were "anti-Muslim" because "most of the victims were non-Muslim and the perpetrators were all Muslims". I am sure NYT's editors will be delighted to read that. 
Hint #2:
Pakistani newspapers [2] told us in 2003 that the "Kashmir Forum" organized by the "Friends of South Asia" (FOSA), was in fact sponsored, down to approving the list of invitees, by the notorious Inter-Services Intelligence terrorist outfit in Islamabad. The same folks who started the Al Qaeda, organized the 1993 mass bombings in Mumbai, the counterfeiting of Indian and American currency, the assasination of Afghan Resistance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud on behalf of the Taliban, the hijacking of Flight IC814 in December 99 and slitting of a passenger's throat as a rehearsal for the 9/11 hijackings, the attacks on the Indian Parliament, and most recently, the attacks on the commuter trains in Mumbai, and the latest attack on the Samjhauta Express.  
Hint #3:  One of the writers is the Official Spokesperson who said of the FOSA: "So what if we are all Marxist communists"?  
Hint #4: On August 15, 2005, several of this gang were seen carrying placards shouting: "ALLAH WILL DESTORY TERRIST INDIA AND AMERCA!" or something like that.  
The FOSA have now polished and refined their letter to the New York Times, conveying outrage at the NYT's failure to sneer again at the victims burned to death in Sleeper Coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express by a mob of ghouls at Godhra, Gujarat, on February 27, 2002. They stoned the train, locked the doors from outside, and tossed burning rags into the sleeper to ignite the 140 liters of gasoline that they had poured in. Fifty-eight humans were burned alive, many waking up too late to do anything to escape the overpowering smoke and fumes, as those fiends of South Asia yelled and danced in ghoulish glee outside. The western media of the day, led by CNN and Associated Press, immediately rushed to "rationalize" the atrocity, calling the victims "Hindu Activists" (thereby implying that it was OK that they were burned to death). Now their California agents are upset that the victims are not again blackened in name, on top of what FOSA's sponsors did to their bodies.  
The Godhra atrocity was timed to cause the Indian Army to pull back from the border, where it was ready to smash the Pakistani terrorist camps located just a few miles inside Pakistan. The FOSA had already gone into overdrive as the Indian buildup progressed, desperate to save the terrorists. The Pakistani campaign succeeded, not through FOSA's efforts, but through the Indian reaction to the riots triggered by Godhra.  
The rage exploding from the Godhra atrocity resulted in the deaths of about 1000 more Indians, of whom roughly 700 were Muslims and 300 Hindus. That included many policemen who died trying to control the riots before the Army could deploy in much of Gujarat, as FOSA danced in condemnation of India. For comparison, note that the American reaction to the 9/11 atrocities resulted in the deaths of an estimated 100,000-plus Afghans and Pakistani Taliban.  
India did not carpet-bomb Godhra, as America might have done, nor did it ship the blighted town's population to the Gulag to break rocks, as FOIL's Chinese sponsors do routinely in Xinjiang [3]
FOSA/ISI has their own scientific explanation of how the children (some 20 of the 58 were children) died. They burned themselves to death! That's right. Read the recent book by FOSA's brilliant legal eagle, Professor Nussbaum of the University of Chicago (the lair of a notorious porn writer), how the sleeper coach because the passengers (who included the wife of the Muslim Station Master of Godhra, besides the 20 children), combusted spontaneously in their sleep at 7AM on a winter morning, because of their own hate-filled "Hindutva" minds. No one has ever published the religious affiliations, if any, of the dead passengers. In the recent attack on the "Samjhauta Express", the dead were about 50-50 Hindus and Muslims. On a sleeper coach in Gujarat on any given morning, the adult passengers (who usually have to make reservations weeks or months in advance, and hence have little correlation with immediate events) must have been Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jains, Jews, Buddhists, and Communists, and the children were, well, just children, worshipping Hritik Roshan, Aishwarya Rai or Zaheer Khan, and praying to all forms of the Almighty when exams came around, and for their mothers, as they died screaming with gasoline burning their little bodies. FOSA's non-hate-filled, peaceful and sincere minds do not allow for any such possibility. The victims HAVE to be condemned – even 5 years later!   
Any concern that this spontaneous combustion theory might violate a few laws of science, is dismissed by considering that FOSA represent the very best of Bay Area South Asian Science. Dr. Shalini Gera, a signatory of the letter to the New York Times, was at Stanford Medical School until she had to leave, and later at Frost and Sullivan, a company now running advertisements in Indian media.   Anu Mandavilli is the famous authority on history, religion, scientific archaeology, politics and California Middle School textbooks, a colleague of the equally famous St. A. Farmer, assistant to Harvard Professor Herr Doktor Michael Witzel. According to a Bay Area resident, Comrade Mandavilli has also been a graduate student longer than the dinosaurs roamed the Aryan hunting grounds of Bavaria, and as long as Angana Chatterji has been declaring in classrooms of the California Institute of Integral Studies that she is a communist and proud of it.  
Leaks in the Cesspool? 
The most curious aspect of this new FOSA atrocity is the manner of its publication. Someone appears to have leaked the entire correspondence on the FOSA website leading up to this letter, so that it now appears at the blogspot http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/  
According to well-informed sources who insist on anonymity (wouldn't you, given these connections?) the leak stems from serious discord between the Pakistani-American Alliance and FOSA. Apparently PAA members are peeved at FOSA's clumsy efforts to get into the limelight, invariably ending in disasters.  They point to the "attack on the IDRF", the "Kashmir Forum", the infamous "Allah will Destory Terrist India and America" placard, and FOSA's ill-fated meddling in the school textbook issue, as an unbroken string of disasters. You may remember that FOSA's grand "amicus curiae" brief and their lawyer were tossed out [4] of the court as being completely irrelevant.  The PAA also blames FOSA for the raids in Lodi, CA, where several PAA members have been arrested, resulting in a sharp drop in the (public) membership revenue of PAA.  
According to these sources, a certain "intellectual" leader of FOSA has come under severe pressure at the workplace, with employers monitoring email, and permitting continued employment / enrollment only on condition that the person act as informer. This led directly to the Lodi, CA arrests, and more arrests are feared at any moment. Now the PAA may be retaliating, according to this source, by leaking FOSA emails to people who don't like FOSA. 
The cracks widened last year, when Stanford University shut out a widely-advertised FOSA diatribe by Biju Matthew [5], their East Coast intellectual giant, who used to teach students to admire the UnaBomber until Ryder College or the FBI deleted the website for him.  With two or more professors traumatized and disabled by the UnaBomber's letter bombs, Stanford authorities apparently did not share the enthusiasm for UnaBomber admiration. Bay Area Pakistanis, already hypersensitive to mention of their homeland's record as a terrorist sponsor, saw this needless exposure of FOSA's lurid past as another disaster.  
Matters came to a head when FOSA's sister organization, FOIL (Forum of Indian Leftists) got irritated by the blatant disloyalty in FOSA's sudden concern about media perception of the Maoist massacres of innocents in Nepal. On top of this, FOSA's interference in the California Textbook issue, on the side of Witzel's Aryan supremacist theories, did not sit well with FOIL, because it drew unwelcome media attention to the Communist Party's revision of history textbooks in the Indian states of West Bengal and Kerala. When that interference ended in disaster, with a State Court judge kicked FOSA out as unceremoniously as Stanford did to Matthew, and agreeing that the whole textbook issue involved serious violations of established procedure, Foci's stock dropped further.  
The latest FOSA decision to toe the terrorist line and abuse the little children who were burned to death at Godhra, so soon after the ISI's latest train-burning where more children – this time including Pakistanis were burned to death, apparently sickened some Pakistani members of FOSA. They worked with disgruntled Bay area FOIL intellectuals to convey the FOSA correspondence in full to the desi media.  
So does all this herald a new humanity among the communists and the Pakistani ISI terrorists? Are blizzards or common sense common in San Francisco?

Ari Saja

       Send your views to author

[1] Anon, "FOSA justifies death of Hindu Children", Feb. 24, 2007. http://intellibriefs.blogspot.com/
[2] Khalid Hasan, "Acrimonious Kashmir conference fails" Daily Times, Lahore. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_27-7-2003_pg7_41
[3] Ron Gluckman, "Strangers in their own land". http://www.gluckman.com/UighurTerror.html
[4] See "Underground Processes, Hostile Academics". http://www.indiacause.com/columns/OL_060913.htm
[5] See "Stanford Locks Out FOSA Comrade, Biju Matthew". IVarta.com, http://www.indiacause.com/columns/OL_060420.htm

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china unbelievably ahead of india in education?

feb 26th, 2007

dr prathap is right in essence, although he may be exaggerating a little for rhetorical purposes. he was an IIT JEE #1 and then gold medalist at IIT Madras, and then a PhD from there. he is concerned about the quality of education in india for sure. also, he knows chinese capabilities up close and personal because he grew up in singapore.

it is true that the chinese are creating world-class universities by pouring money into them. it is possible to buy good universities: eg. texas created the wonderful UTA by throwing oil money at it.

the quality of research in india is appalling. this is a very fine legacy of the nehruvian state, where the only thing that matter is ass-kissing. great examples were given in shourie's 'eminent historians': a famous vice-chancellor stole someone's research and got his PhD based on that.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Anil

 
Indian media, politicians and even intellectuals are busy in self-congratulating themselves over their phenomenal economic progress in recent years. Chief scientist Gangan Prathap, who works at Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation in Bangalore, has estimated that India will take at least 163 years to match China's research workforce of 850,000 even if Beijing were to freeze the number today! Yes, 163 years to catchup with China and that too assuming that China will not do anything during all these years. India publishes less than two percent of research papers in the world, this is a shameful number for a nation of one billion people. It is the same old story of bureaucracy strangling research.


--
~~~~ www.anilprasad.com

Sunday, February 25, 2007

sachar commission is illogical

feb 25th, 2007

india's mohammedans are the best-off mohammedans in the world. elsewhere, especially in mohammedan countries, the average mohammedan has few to no rights, especially if she's a female. in india, they have far more rights than anybody else, including the right to grab a disproportionate share of the nation's resources, and the right to indulge in violence with the state remaining a colluding spectator.

mohammedanism creates a class of violent jihadi thugs and this has nothing to do with deprivation or economic problems. it is a corollary to the way the ideology is structured. for instance, it is evident from empirical data that in the UK mohammedan, sikh and hindu immigrants were equally oppressed by racism and 'multiculturalism'. result? 2nd-generation sikhs and hindus are lawyers, bankers, doctors, engineers. 2nd-generation mohammedans are jihadi terrorists.

same opportunities, different outcomes. why? it is hard to conclude anything other than that it is a feature of the ideology to need to create warriors for its jihad. and it succeeds in doing so.

so even if *all* mohammedans were wealthy in india, they would be jihadi. for instance, increasing affluence has made saudis, gulf emirates dwellers, malaysians and indonesians more violently jihadi, not less. giving them more simply gives them more wherewithal to inflict damage on society. it doesn't solve any problems.
- Hide quoted text -


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Yash

http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=163&page=8
Sachar report defies logic, Muslims are better off:
Tales of backwardness and creation of political myths

There is the unique case of the Hindus of India's Kashmir: about 10 per cent of the population in 1947, they have been reduced to a tiny number (5,000). The rest numbering about 4,00,000 have been compelled to abandon their home and hearth and made refugees in their own land.

While Hindu population is falling steadily, the Muslim population is increasing. This is too well known.
The series of reports on the under-representation of the Muslims in services etc (obviously being presented as a monolithic community) and their over-representation in the jails and more such disclosures through the Sachar Committee's report, are meant to portray the overall image of a deprived community while implying that the Hindus in post-Partition India have an over-representation in services and other arenas, which is neither warranted by history nor by their number.

But first, the very methodology of producing this genre of statistics and its derivatives, which leave out the context and other parameters. In this arithmetic, it is imperative to calculate what the Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Christians have lost for ever in what are now Pakistan and Bangladesh. Their losses were entirely appropriated by the Muslims. This never happened in India. The relative position of religious communities in India can never be seen in isolation: that would make sense only when the overall scenario—the political status, economic condition as well as the security concerns of both Hindus and Muslims in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and also in India's Kashmir—is taken into account. While Pakistan and Bangladesh have carried out a religious and ethnic cleansing of its minorities, the Muslim population in India continues to rise at a rate higher than that of the Hindus.

Since the Muslim community looks at itself as a part of the fraternity of the believers world-wide, they are generally concerned at the fate of the Muslims outside India. This prompted Gandhiji to take up the Khilafat issue. That justifies rallies against Bush when he visits India but red carpet for Musharraf. Hence GoI espouses the Palestinian cause while smothering the horrible plight of the Hindus, Buddhists and Christians in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Softness towards the latter are explained because of the exigencies of the vote-bank politics and the role of petro-dollar. It is because of this umbilical chord that Pakistan keeps harping on the "plight" of the Muslims in India.

The projection of the Muslims as the only losing community is unconvincing if the totality of the picture is not smothered. Historic problems can't be viewed from arbitrarily selected starting points.

Additionally, there is the unique case of the Hindus of India's Jammu and Kashmir: about 10 per cent of the population in 1947, they have been reduced to a tiny number (5000). The rest numbering about 4,00,000 have been compelled to abandon their home and hearth and made refugees in their own land. Now eking out a miserable living in the refugee camps of Jammu and elsewhere for more than 16 years, they have been resorting to distress sell-off of their ancestral properties to the Muslims of the Kashmir Valley for a pittance.

While the Jews can return to Germany now and re-establish their synagogues and claim their property back, and the Asians of Uganda can return, that option is firmly closed to the Kashmiri Hindu refugees. Even after this, a central minister from Kashmir wants a reservation for Muslims!

Muslims of India on the whole are better off, more secure than the Hindus of Kashmir Valley. The point is some minorities are different from other minorities and some majorities are different from other majorities.

A look at this chart would further clarify this enigma of the "persecuted" minorities and "pampered" majorities.

The top three positions in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh:

President, Prime Minister and Army Chief

India: Muslim, Sikh, Sikh

Pakistan: Muslim, Muslim, Muslim

Bangladesh: Muslim, Muslim, Muslim

In India's case, it needs to be noted that Sonia (nee Maino) Gandhi, an Italian-born is the Chairperson of the ruling UPA. That is, she is the de facto head of the government. Her most trusted political advisor is Ahmad Patel

So the share of Hindus (%) in what is called the Indian sub-continent for the top jobs is nil.

Additionally the Deputy Chief of the armed forces in India happens to be a Muslim and how about the comparable figures in Pakistan and Bangladesh? As for some other prestigious positions:

Chairman of the Central Public Service Commission, which recruits the elite civil services:

India: Muslim

Pakistan: Muslim

Bangladesh: Muslim

Chief of the National Planning Commission:

India: Sikh

Pakistan: Muslim

Bangladesh: Muslim

Chief of the Election Commission:

India: Muslim

Pakistan: Muslim

Bangladesh: Muslim

Here also the Hindu share (%) is nil.

Last but not the least, the cricket teams in this part of South Asia:

India: Out of 16 players currently playing there are five Muslims.

Pakistan: So far only two Hindus have played for Pakistan (in 59 years).

Bangladesh: Only two Hindus have played so far but now they are out of the team.

I am leaving out the "heroes" from the filmdom and the advertisement world in India which are conspicuously getting bereft of Hindus. If that does not mean much, as some would say, why not name the number of non-Muslims recognised in those fields in Pakistan and Bangladesh?

Population figures: While Hindu population is falling steadily, the Muslim population is increasing. This is too well known.

In all, it may be said, very definitively that Hindus as a community are losing political power and clout very rapidly in a "shrinking and shrunken India", and would lose whatever is still left in their hands. Having been victors all along, the Muslims can't claim to be hapless victims now.

Those who tend to compare the plight of the Blacks in the USA with the Muslims in India are oblivious of history and logic. The Blacks were imported by the Whites as slaves unlike the Muslims who came as invaders and converted the local people. The Black minority has neither ruled the USA nor has it partitioned its country.

Our market-savvy pundits would say that despite the steady political/demographic decline of the Hindus, some of them are very resourceful and so there is nothing to worry. History provides many examples when money-power without the backing of politico-military support just withered away. Moreover, the number of prosperous Muslims is quite substantial. It would be quite revealing to see the percentage of the Hindus in the ever-growing list of the farmers committing suicides in Vidarbha, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and even in the communist-ruled West Bengal

Their socio-economic under-development is explained by social, psychological, political, historical and demographic factors. They also suffers because of their obsessions and misplaced priorities. The Muslim under-representation is also explained by their larger families and fascination for the madrasa.

Poverty of the people (Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, neo-Buddhists, etc) is caused by the phoney policies for the underprivileged, like the "socialistic" policies enforced by the "secular" dispensations without creating jobs.

Number game can help in making identity in politics, as it did before partition, but can never become the criterion for any unfair communal entitlements now. It may be recalled that the Jews with 0.21 per cent of the world population have got 22 per cent of all Nobel Prizes. So, how about a campaign against this "anomaly" first?

(The writer teaches history at Hansraj College, University of Delhi and is a former Member of ICSSR, a former Post Doc Research Scholar, University of London, and Visiting Fellow, Dept of Politics, University of Hull.)
---------------------------------Morebelow:-------------------- http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=163&page=11 This is how Pakistan tackles its minorities

Pakistan's Punjabi-dominated army in search of the elusive purity and to perpetuate its hold on power structures encourages the majority Punjabi Sunni population in its misadventures. In pursuit of power, the bogey of threat from India was conjured.
Pakistan, on its creation in 1947, had approximately 13 per cent minorities residing within an Islamic population of 76 million. In its unholy fervour to achieve physical instead of the spiritual purity, the minorities were reduced to 2.5 per cent even as the country's population soared to 156 million by the year 2000.

In any society, it is the minorities that play the crucial role of moderation. Their existence is a safeguard against extreme tendencies. Pakistan lost the benefit of this natural societal instrument of balance early in its history. Once the minorities, more or less, were out of the way, Pakistan's Punjabi Sunni population, which not only constituted the majority but also controlled the instruments of power in the state, turned to killing Shias, expelling Ahmadiyas from Islam, denying basic rights to the Balochis, depriving Sind of water resources, and suppressing population in the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir including Northern Areas. Under the clouds of Talibanisation, this became further skewed when the women who constitute nearly half the population were denied education and practically incarcerated in their homes—thus further impairing the societal balance. Simultaneously, Pakistan army and the ISI persisted with their destructive spree by exporting terrorism to India, SE Asia, Central Asia, EU and America—all in the name of religion! In the comity of nations, one can hardly find a parallel to this inherent self-destructive proclivity.

Pakistan's Punjabi-dominated army in search of the elusive purity and to perpetuate its hold on power structures encourages the majority Punjabi Sunni population in its misadventures. In pursuit of power, the bogey of threat from India was conjured. In schools, children were indoctrinated to hate Indians. Therefore, the genesis of the Pakistan's present fault line lies in the diabolically engineered mindset that has created multiple fault lines and which have now coalesced into one deep and divisive fault line running right across the length of the country, threatening its virtual vivisection into two halves.

The first major setback to Pakistan occurred 24 years after inception when it lost 55 per cent of its population in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and almost half of its territory. Religion could not act as effective glue due to the insatiable avarice the Pakistan's Punjabi army displayed in its refusal to share legitimate power with the eastern wing. Islamabad conveniently blames New Delhi for this separation but a closer scrutiny of facts reveals otherwise. Between 1947 and 1970, whenever Pakistan chose to attack India, the strategically simple option available to India could have been to annex East Pakistan, which Islamabad was never in a position to defend effectively due to the vast geographical distances and consequently the enormous military logistics involved. Nevertheless, New Delhi absorbed Pakistan's attacks and localised it to its western front, never extending the war to the eastern theatre. With millions of refugees pouring into India in 1971, Islamabad made its position in East Pakistan untenable, and India was compelled to initiate positive action. Since occupation of territory was not the motive, Indian Army promptly withdrew after liberating Pakistan's eastern wing from the miseries and atrocities being perpetrated by the western wing on its own people.

In 1950s, Hans J. Morgenthau, the then Director of Center for the Study of American Foreign Policy at University of Chicago, in his book The New Republic had observed, "Pakistan is not a nation and hardly a state. It has no justification, ethnic origin, language, civilisation or the consciousness of those who make up its population. They have no interest in common except one: fear of Hindu domination. It is to that fear and nothing else that Pakistan poses its existence and thus for survival as an independent state." During the same period, another American scholar Keith Callard in his book Pakistan—A Political Study commented, "The force behind the establishment of Pakistan was largely the feeling of insecurity." Both these scholars missed out on some vital aspects that can be attributed to the "fear of Hindu domination" and "insecurity". First, creation of Pakistan was an Anglo-Saxon mischief to protect their vested strategic interests. Second, the land bestowed to create Pakistan was separated amicably without war. Third, the western powers, (and China that uses Pakistan as a proxy against India) fuelled these imagined fears that only created the effect of exacerbating latter's psychological fault line. Therefore, explanations like "fear of Hindu domination" and "insecurity" and other excuses as justification are used as psywar tool to disguise Islamabad's treachery against New Delhi since 1947. Indian Political Right does not indulge in 'export of terrorism' or 'suicide bombers' as an instrument of foreign policy!

After the break-up of Pakistan in 1971, West Pakistan should have emerged as a more cohesive unit—geographically, politically, economically and in orientation. However 33 years hence, nearly 55 per cent of Pakistan's area is witnessing vicious insurgencies, which, if not controlled, could lead to further vivisection of the country. Most of the population in these areas, i.e. Waziristan, Balochistan, NWFP, and Northern Areas (Gilgit and Baltistan) in PoK has been historically difficult to control and administer. This notwithstanding, ever since Musharraf's ascension to power, these areas have slipped from peripheral disquiet to intense insurgencies. Normal governance in these areas has collapsed and is being held only by military force. These multiple fault lines as explained subsequently, if not adequately addressed, can lead to internal strife and break-up of Pakistan.

The Pakistan government has also been using money to buy the allegiance of tribal leaders. Recently, the corps commander Lt. Gen. Safdar Hussain has publicly admitted to having paid Rs. 32 million (US $ 5,40,000) to some tribal leaders for severing their links with Al-Qaeda and Taliban.

BALOCHISTAN: The Balochistan province constitutes 44 per cent (347,190 sq. km.) of Pakistan's landmass and has a population of 6.5 million, i.e. 4 per cent of Pakistan's population. Only 70 per cent of Baloch are in Pakistan, the reminder being in Iran and Afghanistan. All the 22 districts of Balochistan are currently impacted by insurgency incurring an estimated cost of Rs. 6 million every month to the Pak establishment, and also resulting in severe gas and power shortages in the country, especially in Punjab. Gas supplies from Sui, Loti and Pir Koh gas fields have been disrupted. Surface transport has been crippled. Three naval boats have so far been destroyed in Gwadar port. Railways have been compelled to operate only at night. So far, on at least a dozen occasions, railway tracks have been blown and on more than two dozens occasions gas pipelines have been targeted.

NWFP: North West Frontier Province (NWFP) with an area of 74,521 sq.km. and a population of approximately 24 million in addition to 3 million Afghan refugees, is a problem in perpetuity because of the Pashtuns, who straddle the Durand Line (2450-km-long Pakistan-Afghanistan border). The relations between the NWFP and the central government are increasingly becoming tenuous, as the majority of the population is averse to Pakistan's cooperation with the US against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The area continues to be infested with fundamentalists and Islamic terrorists In fact, it is the fundamentalist Islamic parties that call shots in the province and lend all kinds of support to the remnants of Taliban.

PoK (NORTHERN AREAS): The Northern Areas comprising Gilgit and Baltistan have an area of 72,496 sq.km. and a population of 1.5 million, and is governed directly by the central government in Pakistan. In fact, the Northern Areas, which are actually a part of PoK, but incorporated in Pakistan, are five times of the area designated as Azad Kashmir. This area, culturally and linguistically much different from other parts of Pakistan, has been subjected to state-backed Sunni terrorism. The composition of the Northern Light Infantry Units is being re-engineered by the central government to make it Sunni dominant.

The Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), which witnessed devastating earthquake in which more than 70,000 people lost their lives, witnessed the administrative apathy of the central government in Pakistan with regard to the region. The Pakistan army unlike the Indian Army was unable to respond to the needs of the people—thus leaving much of the rescue and rehabilitation to 1000 NATO personnel and fundamentalist organisations like JuD.

Predicated on the situation in Pakistan, it can be averred that more than half the country has slipped into anarchy and the remaining may also follow if Islamabad does not carry out a drastic reassessment of its nationhood and statehood. In fact, Pakistan army is getting over- stretched owing to its commitments in internal security duties and deployment on its borders with India and Afghanistan. Internally, the anti-India catalyst that sustained Pakistan army is no longer effective. Even on the Afghanistan border the ISAF and Karzai are fiercely determined to defeat any attempt by Islamabad to re-export Taliban.

Today the internal instability within Pakistan is fast acquiring proportions that could lead to further break-up of the country—all due to sheer myopic policies pursued by its military junta. An external power today does not need to wage a war. It can simply exploit the precarious internal situation by using its intelligence agencies to attain the same objectives by fuelling the dissent through psywar and financial means. Fortunately, Pakistan has to contend with a benign power like India, which in the first instance created the former by magnanimously donating its land. Therefore, Islamabad instead of exporting hatred and destruction, should seek positive parity with India and others in terms of improving the quality of life of its citizens in an inclusive manner. Towards this Pakistan must:

1.
Seek positive parity with India, i.e. with regard to human development. Negative parity will bleed Pakistan in human and economic terms.
2.
Realise that Pakistani statehood has remained vulnerable due to flawed nation-building policies, e.g. Punjabi domination, which constitutes 58 per cent of the total population.
3.
Realise that army can be a symbol of nationhood and an instrument and not the state itself.
4.
Realise that Islamic terrorists are a double-edged weapon and can never get Pakistan its illusive nationhood and statehood.
5.
Realise that by attempting to engineer history, the future is rendered in jeopardy.
6.
Realise that Pakistan has the potential to be a positive role model for other Islamic countries.

It is a well-known fact that a large number of Islamic countries are bestowed with extraordinary oil wealth that drives the world economy. If the terror factory of Pakistan and other Islamic fundamentalist institutions had used this wealth to educate and modernise their societies and to improve the quality of human resources in the early eighties, at the dawn of the 21st century, it would have emerged as a modern, powerful and positive entity in the world arena without firing a single shot! Pakistan's establishment therefore must realise that its possible vivisection, due to its flawed policies, may deal a fatal blow to the very Islamic cause, that it purports to countenance and guide. (The writer is editor, Indian Defence Review.)

Tears

feb 25th, 2007
- Hide quoted text -


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: arun
Date: Feb 25, 2007 5:33 AM
Subject: Asru- an exhibit on Bangladeshi Minorities
To: Rajeev.srinivasan@gmail.com


Dear Rajeev

You might be aware that FACT-USA did an exhibition of Kashmiri Hindus in the Washington DC a couple of years ago, which helped raise a lot of awareness. FACT together with HRCBM ( http://www.hrcbm.org ) is now embarking on its new project- an exhibition on the Bangladeshi minorities. I am attaching the introductory letter here detailing the exhibit and also soliciting financial support

You can see more details at http://www.factusa.org/Bangladesh/info/bdeshinfo.htm . Would be great if you could post it on your blog, for awareness as well as for those who may like to help

thanks and regards
arun

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Asru"
(tears)

An Exhibit on the Minorities of Bangladesh



"
Amar Sonar Bangla" - My Golden Bengal - is how the Nobel laureate poet Rabindra Nath

Tagore described the preciousness of Bengal, a land whose resilient people have endured jihad,

oppression and persecution over several centuries. Once known as the intellectual heartland of the

Indian subcontinent, Bengal was divided between India and Pakistan in 1947. After years of

political struggle, the area of Bengal under the control of Pakistan achieved independence and the

sovereign nation of Bangladesh was founded in 1971, but at a great price. Over 3 million civilians

were slaughtered by the Pakistani army and their local collaborators and another 10 million

became refugees in a matter of 9 months during the 1971 war. The majority of these victims were

Hindus, who were specifically targeted for extermination in a manner reminiscent of the

Holocaust.



Originally established as a secular democracy, Bangladesh gradually fell into the hands of Islamic

fundamentalists who declared it an Islamic Republic in 1988, and a systematic erosion of the

rights of the religious minorities began. Hindus form the largest religious minority in Bangladesh,

comprising about 11% of the population according to the 2006 census, a drastic decline from 37%

in 1947. The size of their population has made them a prime and easy target for persecution,

which takes many different shapes and forms: Hindu temples have been desecrated and razed to

the ground; prominent members of the Hindu community – professors, doctors, engineers,

businessmen - have been murdered in cold blood and their homes destroyed; women and young

girls have been raped in front of their family members or kidnapped and forcibly converted to

Islam; children have been le ft without their fathers and brothers, and with mothers or sisters

whose modesty has been ravaged and dignity stripped away, leaving no hope for their future. The

current persecution of Hindus of Bangladesh, however, is not a new phenomenon, but the

continuation of a trend that extends back centuries.



Foundation Against Continuing Terrorism, FACT, is organizing
"Asru" (tears ) which will

highlight the centuries-old plight of Hindus of Bangladesh. The exhibit has already visited several

cities in India. In the past, FACT has successfully organized exhibitions on the plight of Hindus

in Kashmir. In 2006, a resolution was introduced by the House of Representatives of the United

States Congress documenting the human rights abuses against Hindus in Kashmir (H.Con.Res.

388). This was a direct outcome of the FACT Kashmir exhibit and awareness campaign. Please

visit our website for more information.



FACT is a non-profit organization which runs solely on public contributions. We humbly solicit

donations from everyone concerned about the impact of terrorism on innocent people. Help us

accomplish our humanitarian mission of giving voice to the victims of terrorism. Please send your

donation to the address above, or contact us for any further information.



Sincerely Yours,

FACT Board Members

the truth about aurangzeb

feb 25th, 2007

great stuff from francois.

aurangazeb was a monster and a fool. because of him the mughal dynasty disappeared. if only dara shikoh had lived! i agree, we need some dara shikohs around the world.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: R V

The truth about Aurangzeb






URL for this article:
http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/feb/16francois.htm

yanks give more money to musharraf

feb 25th, 2007

ah yes, give more money to musharraf so that he can use it against us, and against you as well.

there is something completely unholy about the american embrace of pakistan.
- Hide quoted text -


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Shahryar

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/02/05/america/NA-GEN-US-Budget-Foreign-Aid.php

Afghanistan, Pakistan would see boost in Bush's proposed aid budget

The Associated Press
Monday, February 5, 2007
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WASHINGTON: Crucial U.S. South Asian allies Afghanistan and Pakistan would see increases in aid under the proposed budget that President George W. Bush introduced Monday.

Israel and Egypt would continue as the top beneficiaries of U.S. aid in the proposal, but both would see their aid cut slightly.

The proposed budget also includes a major boost in money to Kosovo, a breakaway province of Serbia, which could gain some autonomy soon under a U.N. plan.

Bush's foreign aid requests were part of a $37.4 billion (€28.9 billion) State Department package in a $2.9 trillion (€2.2 trillion) spending plan that Bush proposed Monday.

All the proposals are subject to change in negotiation with Democrats, who for the first time in Bush's tenure control both houses of Congress and must approve the president's proposals.

The administration is recommending an increase in funds to Afghanistan from $968 million (€748.9 million) in the last budget to slightly more than $1 billion (€770 million) to pay for programs for drug eradication and job training programs.

Pakistan's aid would increase to $785 million (€607.4 million) from $499 million (€386 million). The figure would include a proposed $300 million (€232 million) in military aid aimed in part at helping Pakistan fight terrorism.

Under long-standing plans, military aid to Israel for 2008 will be $2.4 billion (€1.9 billion), and Egypt will receive $1.7 billion (€1.3 billion).

Bush, who has made African aid a priority, is proposing an increase of more than 40 percent for the continent, to focus on AIDS/HIV programs.

Some of that increase reflects a boost for the aid and good government program called the Millennium Challenge Corp. The proposed budget would more than double the program's outlays from $1.1 billion (€850 billion) to $3 billion (€2.3 billion). The Millennium Challenge Corp. doles out U.S. foreign aid using business principles to set fiscal and other benchmarks for developing countries to meet.

Indonesia would receive $158 million (€122.2 million), an 18 percent increase in overall funding, if Bush's budget proposal was accepted. Aid to Kosovo would increase greatly to $151 million (€116.8 million).

Some countries, including India, which the Bush administration believes have reached a greater level of development would see decreases.

Financing of counternarcotics efforts in the Andean region of South America will remain much the same, although some money will be shifted to other parts of the budget.

The budget proposals received some immediate criticism from Congress. Republican Sen. Richard Lugar said he would push to increase money for the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program for dismantling nuclear weapons in the republics of the former Soviet Union and finding work for former weapons scientists.

Democratic Rep. Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, criticized the level proposed for the United Nations, which he said would leave a $130 million (€100.6 million) shortfall in the account used to pay U.S. dues

Sachar report defies logic

feb 25th, 2007

india's mohammedans are the best-off mohammedans in the world. elsewhere, especially in mohammedan countries, the average mohammedan has few to no rights, especially if she's a female. in india, they have far more rights than anybody else, including the right to grab a disproportionate share of the nation's resources, and the right to indulge in violence with the state remaining a colluding spectator.

mohammedanism creates a class of violent jihadi thugs and this has nothing to do with deprivation or economic problems. it is a corollary to the way the ideology is structured. for instance, it is evident from empirical data that in the UK mohammedan, sikh and hindu immigrants were equally oppressed by racism and 'multiculturalism'. result? 2nd-generation sikhs and hindus are lawyers, bankers, doctors, engineers. 2nd-generation mohammedans are jihadi terrorists.

same opportunities, different outcomes. why? it is hard to conclude anything other than that it is a feature of the ideology to need to create warriors for its jihad. and it succeeds in doing so.

so even if *all* mohammedans were wealthy in india, they would be jihadi. for instance, increasing affluence has made saudis, gulf emirates dwellers, malaysians and indonesians more violently jihadi, not less. giving them more simply gives them more wherewithal to inflict damage on society. it doesn't solve any problems.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Yash

Sachar report defies logic, Muslims are better off:
Tales of backwardness and creation of political myths
 
There is the unique case of the Hindus of India's Kashmir: about 10 per cent of the population in 1947, they have been reduced to a tiny number (5,000). The rest numbering about 4,00,000 have been compelled to abandon their home and hearth and made refugees in their own land.

While Hindu population is falling steadily, the Muslim population is increasing. This is too well known.
The series of reports on the under-representation of the Muslims in services etc (obviously being presented as a monolithic community) and their over-representation in the jails and more such disclosures through the Sachar Committee's report, are meant to portray the overall image of a deprived community while implying that the Hindus in post-Partition India have an over-representation in services and other arenas, which is neither warranted by history nor by their number.

But first, the very methodology of producing this genre of statistics and its derivatives, which leave out the context and other parameters. In this arithmetic, it is imperative to calculate what the Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Christians have lost for ever in what are now Pakistan and Bangladesh. Their losses were entirely appropriated by the Muslims. This never happened in India. The relative position of religious communities in India can never be seen in isolation: that would make sense only when the overall scenario—the political status, economic condition as well as the security concerns of both Hindus and Muslims in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and also in India's Kashmir—is taken into account. While Pakistan and Bangladesh have carried out a religious and ethnic cleansing of its minorities, the Muslim population in India continues to rise at a rate higher than that of the Hindus.

Since the Muslim community looks at itself as a part of the fraternity of the believers world-wide, they are generally concerned at the fate of the Muslims outside India. This prompted Gandhiji to take up the Khilafat issue. That justifies rallies against Bush when he visits India but red carpet for Musharraf. Hence GoI espouses the Palestinian cause while smothering the horrible plight of the Hindus, Buddhists and Christians in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Softness towards the latter are explained because of the exigencies of the vote-bank politics and the role of petro-dollar. It is because of this umbilical chord that Pakistan keeps harping on the "plight" of the Muslims in India.

The projection of the Muslims as the only losing community is unconvincing if the totality of the picture is not smothered. Historic problems can't be viewed from arbitrarily selected starting points.

Additionally, there is the unique case of the Hindus of India's Jammu and Kashmir: about 10 per cent of the population in 1947, they have been reduced to a tiny number (5000). The rest numbering about 4,00,000 have been compelled to abandon their home and hearth and made refugees in their own land. Now eking out a miserable living in the refugee camps of Jammu and elsewhere for more than 16 years, they have been resorting to distress sell-off of their ancestral properties to the Muslims of the Kashmir Valley for a pittance.

While the Jews can return to Germany now and re-establish their synagogues and claim their property back, and the Asians of Uganda can return, that option is firmly closed to the Kashmiri Hindu refugees. Even after this, a central minister from Kashmir wants a reservation for Muslims!

Muslims of India on the whole are better off, more secure than the Hindus of Kashmir Valley. The point is some minorities are different from other minorities and some majorities are different from other majorities.

A look at this chart would further clarify this enigma of the "persecuted" minorities and "pampered" majorities.

The top three positions in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh:

President, Prime Minister and Army Chief

India: Muslim, Sikh, Sikh

Pakistan: Muslim, Muslim, Muslim

Bangladesh: Muslim, Muslim, Muslim

In India's case, it needs to be noted that Sonia (nee Maino) Gandhi, an Italian-born is the Chairperson of the ruling UPA. That is, she is the de facto head of the government. Her most trusted political advisor is Ahmad Patel

So the share of Hindus (%) in what is called the Indian sub-continent for the top jobs is nil.

Additionally the Deputy Chief of the armed forces in India happens to be a Muslim and how about the comparable figures in Pakistan and Bangladesh? As for some other prestigious positions:

Chairman of the Central Public Service Commission, which recruits the elite civil services:

India: Muslim

Pakistan: Muslim

Bangladesh: Muslim

Chief of the National Planning Commission:

India: Sikh

Pakistan: Muslim

Bangladesh: Muslim

Chief of the Election Commission:

India: Muslim

Pakistan: Muslim

Bangladesh: Muslim

Here also the Hindu share (%) is nil.

Last but not the least, the cricket teams in this part of South Asia:

India: Out of 16 players currently playing there are five Muslims.

Pakistan: So far only two Hindus have played for Pakistan (in 59 years).

Bangladesh: Only two Hindus have played so far but now they are out of the team.

I am leaving out the "heroes" from the filmdom and the advertisement world in India which are conspicuously getting bereft of Hindus. If that does not mean much, as some would say, why not name the number of non-Muslims recognised in those fields in Pakistan and Bangladesh?

Population figures: While Hindu population is falling steadily, the Muslim population is increasing. This is too well known.

In all, it may be said, very definitively that Hindus as a community are losing political power and clout very rapidly in a "shrinking and shrunken India", and would lose whatever is still left in their hands. Having been victors all along, the Muslims can't claim to be hapless victims now.

Those who tend to compare the plight of the Blacks in the USA with the Muslims in India are oblivious of history and logic. The Blacks were imported by the Whites as slaves unlike the Muslims who came as invaders and converted the local people. The Black minority has neither ruled the USA nor has it partitioned its country.

Our market-savvy pundits would say that despite the steady political/demographic decline of the Hindus, some of them are very resourceful and so there is nothing to worry. History provides many examples when money-power without the backing of politico-military support just withered away. Moreover, the number of prosperous Muslims is quite substantial. It would be quite revealing to see the percentage of the Hindus in the ever-growing list of the farmers committing suicides in Vidarbha, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and even in the communist-ruled West Bengal

Their socio-economic under-development is explained by social, psychological, political, historical and demographic factors. They also suffers because of their obsessions and misplaced priorities. The Muslim under-representation is also explained by their larger families and fascination for the madrasa.

Poverty of the people (Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, neo-Buddhists, etc) is caused by the phoney policies for the underprivileged, like the "socialistic" policies enforced by the "secular" dispensations without creating jobs.

Number game can help in making identity in politics, as it did before partition, but can never become the criterion for any unfair communal entitlements now.
It may be recalled that the Jews with 0.21 per cent of the world population have got 22 per cent of all Nobel Prizes. So, how about a campaign against this "anomaly" first?

(The writer teaches history at Hansraj College, University of Delhi and is a former Member of ICSSR, a former Post Doc Research Scholar, University of London, and Visiting Fellow, Dept of Politics, University of Hull.)
---------------------------------Morebelow:-------------------- http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=163&page=11                                                                       This is how Pakistan tackles its minorities
 
Pakistan's Punjabi-dominated army in search of the elusive purity and to perpetuate its hold on power structures encourages the majority Punjabi Sunni population in its misadventures. In pursuit of power, the bogey of threat from India was conjured.
Pakistan, on its creation in 1947, had approximately 13 per cent minorities residing within an Islamic population of 76 million. In its unholy fervour to achieve physical instead of the spiritual purity, the minorities were reduced to 2.5 per cent even as the country's population soared to 156 million by the year 2000.

In any society, it is the minorities that play the crucial role of moderation. Their existence is a safeguard against extreme tendencies. Pakistan lost the benefit of this natural societal instrument of balance early in its history. Once the minorities, more or less, were out of the way, Pakistan's Punjabi Sunni population, which not only constituted the majority but also controlled the instruments of power in the state, turned to killing Shias, expelling Ahmadiyas from Islam, denying basic rights to the Balochis, depriving Sind of water resources, and suppressing population in the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir including Northern Areas. Under the clouds of Talibanisation, this became further skewed when the women who constitute nearly half the population were denied education and practically incarcerated in their homes—thus further impairing the societal balance. Simultaneously, Pakistan army and the ISI persisted with their destructive spree by exporting terrorism to India, SE Asia, Central Asia, EU and America—all in the name of religion! In the comity of nations, one can hardly find a parallel to this inherent self-destructive proclivity.

Pakistan's Punjabi-dominated army in search of the elusive purity and to perpetuate its hold on power structures encourages the majority Punjabi Sunni population in its misadventures. In pursuit of power, the bogey of threat from India was conjured. In schools, children were indoctrinated to hate Indians. Therefore, the genesis of the Pakistan's present fault line lies in the diabolically engineered mindset that has created multiple fault lines and which have now coalesced into one deep and divisive fault line running right across the length of the country, threatening its virtual vivisection into two halves.

The first major setback to Pakistan occurred 24 years after inception when it lost 55 per cent of its population in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and almost half of its territory. Religion could not act as effective glue due to the insatiable avarice the Pakistan's Punjabi army displayed in its refusal to share legitimate power with the eastern wing. Islamabad conveniently blames New Delhi for this separation but a closer scrutiny of facts reveals otherwise. Between 1947 and 1970, whenever Pakistan chose to attack India, the strategically simple option available to India could have been to annex East Pakistan, which Islamabad was never in a position to defend effectively due to the vast geographical distances and consequently the enormous military logistics involved. Nevertheless, New Delhi absorbed Pakistan's attacks and localised it to its western front, never extending the war to the eastern theatre. With millions of refugees pouring into India in 1971, Islamabad made its position in East Pakistan untenable, and India was compelled to initiate positive action. Since occupation of territory was not the motive, Indian Army promptly withdrew after liberating Pakistan's eastern wing from the miseries and atrocities being perpetrated by the western wing on its own people.

In 1950s, Hans J. Morgenthau, the then Director of Center for the Study of American Foreign Policy at University of Chicago, in his book The New Republic had observed, "Pakistan is not a nation and hardly a state. It has no justification, ethnic origin, language, civilisation or the consciousness of those who make up its population. They have no interest in common except one: fear of Hindu domination. It is to that fear and nothing else that Pakistan poses its existence and thus for survival as an independent state." During the same period, another American scholar Keith Callard in his book Pakistan—A Political Study commented, "The force behind the establishment of Pakistan was largely the feeling of insecurity." Both these scholars missed out on some vital aspects that can be attributed to the "fear of Hindu domination" and "insecurity". First, creation of Pakistan was an Anglo-Saxon mischief to protect their vested strategic interests. Second, the land bestowed to create Pakistan was separated amicably without war. Third, the western powers, (and China that uses Pakistan as a proxy against India) fuelled these imagined fears that only created the effect of exacerbating latter's psychological fault line. Therefore, explanations like "fear of Hindu domination" and "insecurity" and other excuses as justification are used as psywar tool to disguise Islamabad's treachery against New Delhi since 1947. Indian Political Right does not indulge in 'export of terrorism' or 'suicide bombers' as an instrument of foreign policy!

After the break-up of Pakistan in 1971, West Pakistan should have emerged as a more cohesive unit—geographically, politically, economically and in orientation. However 33 years hence, nearly 55 per cent of Pakistan's area is witnessing vicious insurgencies, which, if not controlled, could lead to further vivisection of the country. Most of the population in these areas, i.e. Waziristan, Balochistan, NWFP, and Northern Areas (Gilgit and Baltistan) in PoK has been historically difficult to control and administer. This notwithstanding, ever since Musharraf's ascension to power, these areas have slipped from peripheral disquiet to intense insurgencies. Normal governance in these areas has collapsed and is being held only by military force. These multiple fault lines as explained subsequently, if not adequately addressed, can lead to internal strife and break-up of Pakistan.

The Pakistan government has also been using money to buy the allegiance of tribal leaders. Recently, the corps commander Lt. Gen. Safdar Hussain has publicly admitted to having paid Rs. 32 million (US $ 5,40,000) to some tribal leaders for severing their links with Al-Qaeda and Taliban.

BALOCHISTAN: The Balochistan province constitutes 44 per cent (347,190 sq. km.) of Pakistan's landmass and has a population of 6.5 million, i.e. 4 per cent of Pakistan's population. Only 70 per cent of Baloch are in Pakistan, the reminder being in Iran and Afghanistan. All the 22 districts of Balochistan are currently impacted by insurgency incurring an estimated cost of Rs. 6 million every month to the Pak establishment, and also resulting in severe gas and power shortages in the country, especially in Punjab. Gas supplies from Sui, Loti and Pir Koh gas fields have been disrupted. Surface transport has been crippled. Three naval boats have so far been destroyed in Gwadar port. Railways have been compelled to operate only at night. So far, on at least a dozen occasions, railway tracks have been blown and on more than two dozens occasions gas pipelines have been targeted.

NWFP: North West Frontier Province (NWFP) with an area of 74,521 sq.km. and a population of approximately 24 million in addition to 3 million Afghan refugees, is a problem in perpetuity because of the Pashtuns, who straddle the Durand Line (2450-km-long Pakistan-Afghanistan border). The relations between the NWFP and the central government are increasingly becoming tenuous, as the majority of the population is averse to Pakistan's cooperation with the US against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The area continues to be infested with fundamentalists and Islamic terrorists In fact, it is the fundamentalist Islamic parties that call shots in the province and lend all kinds of support to the remnants of Taliban.

PoK (NORTHERN AREAS): The Northern Areas comprising Gilgit and Baltistan have an area of 72,496 sq.km. and a population of 1.5 million, and is governed directly by the central government in Pakistan. In fact, the Northern Areas, which are actually a part of PoK, but incorporated in Pakistan, are five times of the area designated as Azad Kashmir. This area, culturally and linguistically much different from other parts of Pakistan, has been subjected to state-backed Sunni terrorism. The composition of the Northern Light Infantry Units is being re-engineered by the central government to make it Sunni dominant.

The Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), which witnessed devastating earthquake in which more than 70,000 people lost their lives, witnessed the administrative apathy of the central government in Pakistan with regard to the region. The Pakistan army unlike the Indian Army was unable to respond to the needs of the people—thus leaving much of the rescue and rehabilitation to 1000 NATO personnel and fundamentalist organisations like JuD.

Predicated on the situation in Pakistan, it can be averred that more than half the country has slipped into anarchy and the remaining may also follow if Islamabad does not carry out a drastic reassessment of its nationhood and statehood. In fact, Pakistan army is getting over- stretched owing to its commitments in internal security duties and deployment on its borders with India and Afghanistan. Internally, the anti-India catalyst that sustained Pakistan army is no longer effective. Even on the Afghanistan border the ISAF and Karzai are fiercely determined to defeat any attempt by Islamabad to re-export Taliban.

Today the internal instability within Pakistan is fast acquiring proportions that could lead to further break-up of the country—all due to sheer myopic policies pursued by its military junta. An external power today does not need to wage a war. It can simply exploit the precarious internal situation by using its intelligence agencies to attain the same objectives by fuelling the dissent through psywar and financial means. Fortunately, Pakistan has to contend with a benign power like India, which in the first instance created the former by magnanimously donating its land. Therefore, Islamabad instead of exporting hatred and destruction, should seek positive parity with India and others in terms of improving the quality of life of its citizens in an inclusive manner. Towards this Pakistan must:
  1. Seek positive parity with India, i.e. with regard to human development. Negative parity will bleed Pakistan in human and economic terms.
  2. Realise that Pakistani statehood has remained vulnerable due to flawed nation-building policies, e.g. Punjabi domination, which constitutes 58 per cent of the total population.
  3. Realise that army can be a symbol of nationhood and an instrument and not the state itself.
  4. Realise that Islamic terrorists are a double-edged weapon and can never get Pakistan its illusive nationhood and statehood.
  5. Realise that by attempting to engineer history, the future is rendered in jeopardy.
  6. Realise that Pakistan has the potential to be a positive role model for other Islamic countries.
It is a well-known fact that a large number of Islamic countries are bestowed with extraordinary oil wealth that drives the world economy. If the terror factory of Pakistan and other Islamic fundamentalist institutions had used this wealth to educate and modernise their societies and to improve the quality of human resources in the early eighties, at the dawn of the 21st century, it would have emerged as a modern, powerful and positive entity in the world arena without firing a single shot! Pakistan's establishment therefore must realise that its possible vivisection, due to its flawed policies, may deal a fatal blow to the very Islamic cause, that it purports to countenance and guide. (The writer is editor, Indian Defence Review.)