Every business leader in the US is now visiting India. Craig Barret, Intel’s Chief Executive was there for a two day visit and was evaluating India for setting up a chip manufacturing center. Intel hired 800 people this year making the total employee count about 2400. Intel has invested $40 million so far and is planning to invest the same over the next two years.
The next person was Steve Ballmer, who too is bullish about India and made some commitments to serve the rural population of India. The only specific he provided was that Windows is being localized into 14 additional Indian languages. Currently it is available only in Hindi.
Unlike the Americans in the State Department, these businessmen do not find it necessary to make the obligatory visit to Pakistan. There no hyphenated equation with the neighbor nextdoor and the businessmen know where to put the money and where not to. If only the State Dept followed the instincts of the businessmen.
Why do we need the Hurriyat ?
Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Tuesday met All Parties Hurriyat Conference leaders in New Delhi. Aziz, in New Delhi on a two-day visit, held discussions with acting Hurriyat chairman Mirwaiz Omar Farooq, Maulana Abbas Ansari, Abdul Gani Bhat, Bilal Lone, Yasin Malik, Shabir Shah and Syed Ali Shah Geelani. Later, Aziz hosted a dinner for all of them at Pakistan House. [Aziz meets separatist leaders]
The Hurriyat leaders cannot meet the Indian Prime Minister when he travels all way to Jammu and Kashmir, but rush to Delhi to meet the Pakistani Prime Minister. But now it looks like they are scared that they will be left out of the negotiations.
The Hurriyat wants the easy way out. They want to be the legitimate representatives of the Indian Kashmiris, but they do want to stand for any elections. They want to break Jammu and Kashmir and be crowned its rulers. The Indian Express has a detailed account of the Hurriyat’s meeting with Shaukat Aziz.
According to one leader who attended the meeting, Aziz asked all leaders, one by one, to respond to Islamabad
Kuninda Coins
The Kunindas are a tribe who were dominant in Himachal Pradesh sometime between 1st century BC and 3 rd century AD. I looked up all the history books I have and none of them mention this tribe at all.
The Kunindas were dominant in Himachal Pradesh for a long time. They are mentioned in epics and puranas. In the Mahabharata they are known to have been defeated by Arjuna. In the Vishnu Purana the Kuninda territory has been named specifically as Kulindopatyaka foothills. Varahamehra also places them somewhere in the Himalayan region.
On the basis of literary sources Cunningham has identified the ancient Kulindas with the present day Kunets of Kulu and Shimla. Ptolemy believed the origin of Kuninda in the country irrigated by the river Ganga, Yamuna, Sutlej and Beas.
Incidentally most of the Kuninda coins have been found in places associated with these rivers e.g. Kashipur, Kumaon, Saharnpur, Garhwal, Haryana and Punjab. In Himachal, Kuninda coins have been found at Tappa-Mewa in Hamirpur district, Jawalamukhi and Kangra. A hoard of coins was discovered at Chakker in the Balh valley. With the study of these coins and the knowledge of the places from where the discoveries were made one can conclude that this Kuninda tribe ruled this region from 1st century B.C. to 3rd century A.D.
The Kuninda issued two types of coins. One type was issued about 1st century B.C. and the other about three centuries later. The present hoard was issued during the 1st century B.C. and bears the name Amogbhuti.
The obverse of the coin is in Brahmi and reverse in Khroshti. The obverse has a deer on the right and Lakshmi is facing it. On the reverse a five- arched hill surmounted by Nandipada, on the right a tree in the railing and on the left two swastik and Inderdhwaja. At the bottom is a wavy line representing a river. [Kuninda coins found via India Archaeology]
Joke Of The Day
Many of you might have mistakenly believed that Islam was a religion started by Muhammed in 7th century AD. But according to Renowned Orator of Islam and Comparative Religions Dr Zakir Naik it is not so.
”Islam is not the new religion as propagated by westenern protogonists. The Islamic religion is as old as Hinduism and it was very well established in Vedas, Upanishads and also in Puranas, Dr Zakir Naik claimed”. [There are many similarities between Islam and Hinduism: Cleric]
Yeah right!
No More Cards
Here is one piece which appeared in the Urdu press and not in any English newspapers from Pakistan.
Quoted in Nawa-e-Waqt (September 2, 2004) ex-ISI chief Hameed Gul said that Pakistan had played all its cards to get India to resolve the Kashmir dispute and now there was no card left to play. He said Pakistan first declared ceasefire unilaterally, then allowed India to fence the LoC and then talked of a solution outside the UN resolutions but nothing had happened.
Hameed Gul is right about the first part. Pakistan has played all its cards, the last one being jihad, which put the integrity of the state at stake. It is now time to change tack or sink. The new policy is to bind the wounds inflicted on Pakistan by jihad. It has its own cards, but they are different from the ones that were played in the past but got ruffed. [Khaled Ahmed
Ancient Tibetan City
Tibet is now synonymous with Buddhism. But till 7th century AD, the religion of Tibet was Bön. This religion which was rooted in Shamanistic practices also has a founder similar to Buddha. His name was Yungdrung Bön and he too left the palace to be a monk. Now archaeological excavations have discovered artifacts from that era.
In Ngari, Southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, archaeologists investigated the ruins of the mysterious “Silver Castle,” and discovered fantastic statues of Bon gods, which belonged to a religion prevalent on the roof of the world a millennium ago. The ancient city, known as the “Silver Castle of Qionglong (today’s Zhada, Ngari),” was in Tibetan legends the capital of Zhangzhung Kingdom.
It fell into oblivion in the 10th century when the Guge Kingdom was founded and Tibetans converted from the Bon religion to Buddhism. It had been forgotten until archaeologists discovered its ruins in the 1920s. Since the investigation kicked off this June, archaeologists have been reporting amazing finds on the ruins, which lie on the northern bank of the Xiangquan (Langqen Zangbo) River and covers an area of 130,000 square metres.
“Lying before us is a magnificent castle boasting buzzing lives a millennium ago, with well-planned residential areas, ritual and public buildings, defence walls and even secret underground tunnels,” said archaeologist Huo Wei from Sichuan University. Porcelain shreds and iron tools were unearthed along with statues of Bon gods. One of them, painted in green and gold, have two faces – one on the front and one on the back. “It’s only an investigation. We’ll never know what the ground is hiding from us until an excavation begins,” said Huo. [Ancient Tibetan city]
Jihad in India
Maulana Nasiruddin, an Islamic cleric who had some ambitious plans was arrested in Hyderabad, India.
“Maulana has been associated with Jamaat-e-Islami, a moderate organisation since 1970. The notorious Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) is a student wing of the organisation and Maulana has been associated with it too,” Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch) D.G. Vanzara told reporters.
“He has been associated with several other organisations and has connections spreading from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. He has confessed during interrogation that he was working on bringing a number of organisations under one banner to intensify ‘jihad’ for establishing a “Khilafat” or Islamic theocratic state in India,” Vanzara said.
He said the Maulana was also a great orator and motivated many youths to go to Pakistan for terrorist training.
“Maulana very proudly noted in the confession that Osama bin Laden was his role model,” Vanzara said. [India: ‘Arrested cleric conspired to build Islamic state’]
Arafat and India
While Arafat is a terrorist, a corrupt leader and one who betrayed the Palestinian people of their homeland, in India he is seen as a friend and statesman.
In India we respect dictators and terrorists. We have maintained good relations with Arafat, Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein etc. All these maybe necessary due to trade and other strategic concerns. But even when these people murdered their citizens or was involved in terrorist activities we kept quiet.
Arafat called Indira Gandhi his sister and Rajiv Gandhi as his brother. Arafat also had good personal relations with many Indian diplomats like T S Tirumuthy and Romesh Bhandari. Praful Bidwai even wrote an article about Arafat without a mention of his terrorist activities.
But for all this servility what did we get in return ? A public support for India’s position on Kashmir ? No. But still India votes in support for the Palestinian position in the United Nations. This position is consistent with the general policy towards Arab nations where we appease them without getting anything in return. (Yes, we have Indian workers in Arab countries, but it is an economic necessity for them as well)
So you would think that for all this service, the Palestinians would have a special respect for Indians and would treat them accordingly. So guess what happened when the Indian delegation went for Arafat’s funeral.
The Indian delegation, which reached Cairo to attend the funeral service of Palestinian Pesident Yaser Arafat, faced disappointment as it was not allowed a last glimpse of the man who symbolised Palestinian nationalism.
The delegation, led by External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh, could not pay floral tributes at Arafat’s coffin before a military plane at the Almaza airbase flew it to the Egyptian Sinai town of El-Arish en route to the burial in the West Bank. The reason being entry to the airbase was allowed only to heads of state and governments.
At the iron gate of the airbase, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Oman Foreign Minister Yousuf Bin Allavi, Natwar Singh, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, CPM leader Sitaram Yechuri and Minister of State for External Affairs E Ahamed stood side by side. [Indian leaders not allowed to see Arafat]
Yes, only heads of state were allowed to meet Arafat and the Palestinians would not waive that rule for their “special” friend.
The Proposed Solution
The solution that Indian Govt. is coming up with as a solution to the Kashmir problem is to grant more autonomy to the state based on the Kashmir Autonomy Report.
While rejecting Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s recent formula on Kashmir, India has proposed a “self rule” and “open borders” to both parts of Jammu and Kashmir. The proposal put forward here unofficially by the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) has set a flurry of activity within the government.
Officials here on Friday were busy dusting off the ‘Kashmir Autonomy Report’, passed by the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly in June 2000, but later out rightly rejected by the previous Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.
“Dr Manmohan Singh is in a fast mode of firming up his own Kashmir solution to counter the Musharraf formula with maximum autonomy to the people of Jammu and Kashmir and an eventual “borderless” Kashmir by pressurizing Pakistan to give similar autonomy in their part of Kashmir,” sources in the PMO here said. Also China will be made to come around to revive silk routes between Kashmir, Tibet and Xinjiang that could generate prosperity in the region.
During his visit to Delhi on November 23, Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz is supposed to officially convey the proposals floated by President Pervez Musharraf through the media. Dr Manmohan Singh has, however, foreclosed any consideration of such proposals by asserting that there would be no redrawing of the international boundaries or realignment of regions that smacks of communal dimensions.
India has the benefit of the autonomy report prepared by the Kashmiri experts and adopted by the state assembly to move fast in this direction, the sources pointed out. They said it is not necessary for New Delhi to agree on everything in the report but it will be the basis for starting a process of political discussion. India is keen that the Supreme Court, the Election Commission and the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) continue to have jurisdiction over Jammu and Kashmir. [India proposes ‘self-rule,’ ‘open borders’ in both Kashmirs]
Flip Flopping on Indian Troop Withdrawal
Nov 11, 2004
Shaukat Aziz, Pakistani Prime Minister:
Pakistan Premier Shaukat Aziz today welcomed the statement by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to reduce troops in Jammu and Kashmir, a move Islamabad hoped would have a “salutary effect” in Kashmir and help further the peace process between the two countries.[Pak PM welcomes India’s move to reduce troops in Kashmir]
Nov 19, 2004
Musharraf, President and CEO of Pakistan:
Musharraf gave a lukewarm welcome to the pullout of troops from Kashmir, suggesting it was a superficial step. “These are good optics, but they are not striking at the strategic issue of moving forward on a resolution. [Musharraf unhappy with signals from India]
So before coming to India, Shaukat Aziz should get the script from Musharraf so that he does not get embarassed while he is in India.