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)]

The Kashmir deal – II

Few days back, the Time Magazine broke the story that India was willing to move the border of Jammu and Kashmir few miles to the east as a solution to the Kashmir Problem. This was immediately denied by India. But now Asia Times has more information on the deal.

First Musharraf, say Western diplomatic sources, assured US Secretary of State Colin Powell that Pakistan was agreeable to a territorial adjustment along the LoC, to which India apparently agreed during earlier discussions with Powell before he left for Islamabad from New Delhi on a recent visit to the subcontinent.

A similar statement by Manmohan, though denied by the Indian High Commission, provides credence to the claim that a blueprint for a modified LoC as an anchor to a settlement in Kashmir already exists.

A just-retired general of the Indian army, who preferred not to be quoted by name, told Asia Times Online that a settlement blueprint that has been agreed in principle by both sides exists and is being kept under wraps to be disclosed at a juncture politically suitable for both countries.

The general added that adjustment of a few kilometers on either side of LoC is unlikely to alter the strategic advantage of either India or Pakistan. He claimed that political leaders at a very senior level in the previous administration and the present United Progressive Alliance government have been briefed on this. [On Kashmir, hot air and trial balloons]

I hope the anonymous source who gave information to Time Magazine is not the same one who is telling all this to Asia Times. India’s National Security Advisor and his Pakistani counterpart have been meeting in various countries having secret discussions and anything the elected leader of India and the dictator of Pakistan will discuss in New York would have been agreed upon previously. This seems to look more than a trial balloon now.