Author: जयकृष्णः | ജയകൃഷ്ണൻ

The Andorra Proposal

Ok, so after the adjusting the LoC proposal, we have another one, this time from the Hurriyat.

The Hurriyat has been propounding the ‘Andorra Proposal’, under which Kashmir becomes an independent principality with foreign policy, defence and financial support shared by India and Pakistan. Sources say the proposal would result in the Kashmir Valley – including Pakistan-occupied Kashmir – dominated by Muslims, being carved out into a principality with its own Parliament. However, India and Pakistan would have nominated representatives.

India and Pakistan would also share the responsibility of defending a demilitarised Kashmir, which would only have a police force. According to the proposal, the Line of Control (LoC) could be recognised as International Border (IB) by both India and Pakistan but would on ground remain a soft border across which Kashmiris would move freely.[Hurriyat opens Andorra’s box on Kashmir crisis]

Even though the previous Indian Govt. had considered adjusting the LoC, now they are suggesting that Pakistan Occupied Kashmir should be merged with India. I wonder if this proposal will get approval from Pakistan as they would be giving up the land they grabbed in the 1948 war. But since the puppet masters of the Hurriyat are the Pakistanis, wonder who came up with this idea.

Movie Reviews

  • Bad Santa – Bad Movie.
  • Cold Mountain – Slow but a very moving film by Anthony Minghella (The English Patient). Excellent perfomance by Jude Law and Renée Zellweger.
  • Passion of Christ – The pain of Jesus gets to you in this powerful movie about the last 12 hrs of Jesus. It is a must watch.
  • Samay (H) – If you want to see one good hindi movie, see this. Well made, well directed, and well thought out murder mystery. The end is not very believable, but then it is a Hindi movie.
  • Cast Away – Boring for most part. But amazing performance by Tom Hanks
  • Outfoxed – a documentary analyzing the biased journalism of Fox News Channel who still claim that they are “Fair and Balanced”. Must see.

Survived another Earthquake

First it was as if I was feeling dizzy. Everything around me on thr 6th floor started shaking. When I got up and looked around, people were all running towards the stairs and evacuating the building. The building stopped shaking in about 25 seconds.
We survived yet another earthquake in California of magnitude 5.8. This is not the first time for me as I have survived earthquakes, floods, fires before.

Pop Quiz: Which Musharraf is lying ?

Pakistani Army Chief/CEO/President/General de Gaulle wannabe (Jan 2002):

Pakistan’s president says he thinks Osama bin Laden is most likely dead because the suspected terrorist has been unable to get treatment for his kidney disease. “I think now, frankly, he is dead for the reason he is a … kidney patient,” Gen. Pervez Musharraf said on Friday in an interview with CNN.

Pakistani Army Chief/CEO/President/General de Gaulle wannabe (Sept 2004):

In an interview with CNN on Friday, Musharraf said he is “reasonably sure” that bin Laden is still alive. He said the reason bin Laden is still at large is a combination of the terrain where he disappeared — in remote eastern Afghanistan or western Pakistan — and that “he has supporters” in the area where he is hiding.

Adjusting the LOC

Following the revelation by Time Magazine that India had agreed to adjust the Line of Control by few miles as a solution to the Kashmir Problem and the Indian denial of it, there appeared a news in Asia Times with more details of the LoC deal.
Now there is a report suggesting that it was not the Congress led UPA administration that first came up with the idea.

But looking at options on J&K, the Manmohan Singh government would not be the first to have thought of forging peace with Pakistan by altering the LoC. A Rand Corporation 2001 publication states that responsible elements in the NDA government had suggested that changes in the LoC could be considered.

It says privately India admits at the “highest levels” that making the LoC the international border is the “only acceptable” option for New Delhi. To give the exact lines: “From India’s point of view, the only acceptable concession is the conversion of the LoC (perhaps with some modifications) into a de jure international border, a fact privately admitted in interviews at the highest levels of the Indian government.”

Even though India-Pakistan engagement is far from over, most “credible” solutions seem to be various “LoC formulae”. The Rand study does, however, note that “larger Indian goal is to provide a positive atmosphere so that the relevant Pakistani leadership can build public support for the concessions that Islamabad will eventually have to make”.[NDA suggested changes in LoC]

BBC News meanwhile has a feature on the possible solutions to the Kashmir problem.

Book Review: In Defence of Globalization

cover While Globalization can mean many things, it is economic globalization that is the favourite target of protestors around the world. Who are these protestors and why are they bothered ? Some of them are outright hypocrites as we have seen in the World Social Forum and the Communists of Kerala. The anti-capitalism movement has now morphed into anti-globalization to anti-corporations to anti-American movement. Jagdish Bhagwati of Columbia University has decided to take the protestors head on and is the focus of his book In Defense of Globalization
The accusation against globalization is that it increases poverty in both rich and poor coutries, destroys unions and labor rights, harms women, destroys local cultures, and damages the environment. He tackles each issue one by one.
The author had worked in the Planning Commision of India in the 60s and the plan they came up with to decrease poverty, to make wealth trickle down to the bottom was to grow the pie. It required that the government would take steps to accelerate growth by building infrastructure and attracting foreign funds. But growth may not really pull the poor into gainful employment like the tribals in India and inner city youth in United States. According to Bhagwati, the poor’s access to investment can be made sure by replacing bureaucrats with the market. Another way to accelerate growth is by trade and the case he mentions is that of countries like Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. While these countries expanded trade, India remained closed and hence missed an opportunity.
Continue reading “Book Review: In Defence of Globalization” →

Pop Quiz: Who is right ?

Donald Rumsfeld, US Defence Secretary:

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rusmfeld has said Iraq’s scheduled January elections might not take place in areas of that country where violence remains rampant. Rumsfeld told a U.S. Senate committee yesterday that the elections might only extend to 75 to 80 percent of Iraq due to heavy violence in the rest of the country. But he said such an election, while imperfect, would still be better than nothing.

Richard Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State

The No. 2 official at the State Department said Friday that the elections planned for January in Iraq must be “open to all citizens,” contradicting Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who has suggested that voting might not be possible in the more-violent areas.

“We’re going to have an election that is free and open and that has to be open to all citizens. It’s got to be our best effort to get it into troubled areas as well,” Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told a House committee Friday, after being asked about Rumsfeld’s words.

Hitler's Indian Army

By 1942, there were many Indians in the POW camps of the Germans. These Indians were fighting in the British Army against the Germans. Subhash Chandra Bose visited Germany at that time and organized a Free India Legion army by converting these POWs into soldiers swearing allegience to Hitler. But later Bose abandoned them and moved to Japan. .

Finally, by August 1942, Bose’s recruitment drive got fully into swing. Mass ceremonies were held in which dozens of Indian POWs joined in mass oaths of allegiance to Adolf Hitler. These are the words that were used by men that had formally sworn an oath to the British king: “I swear by God this holy oath that I will obey the leader of the German race and state, Adolf Hitler, as the commander of the German armed forces in the fight for India, whose leader is Subhas Chandra Bose.”

I managed to track down one of Bose’s former recruits, Lieutenant Barwant Singh, who can still remember the Indian revolutionary arriving at his prisoner of war camp. “He was introduced to us as a leader from our country who wanted to talk to us,” he said. “He wanted 500 volunteers who would be trained in Germany and then parachuted into India. Everyone raised their hands. Thousands of us volunteered.” [Hitler’s secret Indian Army. (via World in the times of Sridhar)]