Talks Of Disintegration

While the Pakistan Govt. is bluffing about the operations going in Balochistan, there is more trouble brewing.

The situation in Balochistan might lead to disintegration of the country, declared former chief minister of Balochistan Sardar Attaullah Mengal here on Monday.

He said the nationalists were only demanding democracy and their right to govern themselves. He said Pakhtoons were their brothers and could join them (Baloch nationalists). But, he said, what would the Punjabis do who had nothing to sell to the outside world and had only Data Darbar.

He said Balochistan was being developed now because it suited the Punjabis and the military, as they want to make it a colony of the army and federation. About Prime Minister Shujaat Hussain

On India's Governance

Daniel Drezner has a link to Guruchara Das’s op-ed in the Financial Times about India’s Crisis of Governance.

No single institution has disappointed us more than our bureaucracy. When we were young we bought the cruel myth of the “steel frame” – a stable system that would provide continuity. We were told that Britain was not as well-governed as India because it did not have the Indian Civil Service. Today our bureaucracy has become the single biggest obstacle to development. Indians think of their bureaucrats as self-serving, obstructive and corrupt. Instead of shepherding through economic reforms, they are blocking them.

In the 1950s, the idealistic Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, wanted a regulatory framework for his “mixed economy”, but instead, in the holy names of socialism, the bureaucrats created a thousand controls and killed our industrial revolution at birth. In my 30 years in business I did not meet a single bureaucrat who really understood my business, yet each had the power to ruin it. Our failures have been due less to ideology and more to poor management.[Daniel Drezner]

What's Happening in Balochistan ?

According to Balochistan’s Chief Minister, there is no military operation going on there.

Prime Minister Ch Shujaat Hussein refuted the impression that a major military crackdown is going on in Balochistan. Talking to BBC, the premier said no operation was carried out in the province and action has been taken against individuals involved in subversive activity.[Pak Tribune]

But according to Pakistan’s Interior Minister, there is a military operation going on

Hayat said the Pakistani government also has launched a military operation in the country’s southern Balochistan province, which borders the Afghan province of Kandahar. Taliban leader Mullah Omar is a native of Kandahar where the disbanded religious movement still enjoys some support.[Washington Times]

Stem Cell Battles

One of the areas where President Bush and Senator Kerry disagree entirely is on the funding for Stem Cell Reasearch. Like the ancient Church, which opposed new scientific discoveries because it did not go well with the religious laws, the President has been using his religious beliefs to stop Federal Funding for Stem Cell Research.
The problem with this is that other countries like Britain who are not tied by such rightwing thoughts are issuing licences to allow their researchers to use cloning techniques to produce stem cells.Soon other countries would be much ahead of United States in finding cures to diseases. The positions held by the President is not supported by members of the Republican Party. Few months back, former First Lady, Nancy Reagan had come out in support of Stem Cell Research

In an election year, it is no surprise that John Kerry, the Democratic candidate for the presidency, has sought to take advantage. He says he will end the Bush administration

Bloody Day In Jammu & Kashmir

So how was Independence Day celebrated in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir ? Both factions of the Hurriyat were united in one thing – Boycotting the Independence Day celebrations.
The healing touch of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed seems to be working fine as 17 people are injured in a bomb blast.

Nobody claimed responsibility for Sunday’s rocket attack in Kashmir, but police blamed it on Islamic rebels fighting for Kashmir’s independence from India or its merger with Pakistan since 1989. When the rocket hit, children had gathered to watch an Independence Day ceremony organized by the Indian army at a school in Dangiwachi village, some 45 miles north of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu-Kashmir state.[ABC News]

Happy Independence Day To India

And while are celebrating this Independence Day, we realize that we may have our differences of opinion, but the spirit of India runs in all of us.

One has a parade with floats and an elaborate fashion show in a Fremont parking lot while the other is set in a beautiful park in downtown San Jose easily accessible by light rail. But the Bay Area’s dueling festivals this weekend to honor India’s independence appeared to have everything else in common — great food, cute kids busting a move, and a chance to reunite with old friends.

After 12 years of luring the Bay Area’s Indo-American community to Fremont to celebrate the annual Festival of India, a rift and power struggle among organizers this year forced a splinter group to carry out a threat to host a rival event, India’s Independence Day Celebration, for the first time in San Jose. Both celebrations are this weekend, and both are drawing large crowds. By 5 p.m. Saturday, an estimated 10,000 tickets were sold in Fremont and 4,000 in San Jose, organizers said.[San Jose Mercury News]

An Exploited Province

In 1947 when the British were leaving the subcontinent, the Princely states were given three options: independence, accession to India or accession to Pakistan. One Princely state declared Independence and soon the army of one the nations marched into the state and forced the leader to sign the Instrument of Accession.
Later the central government dismissed the provincial government and when the people reacted violently, a massive deployment of army was done. The rebels were dismissd as miscreants and the army was given a free hand to crush the rebellion. 80,000 troops were deployed to bring into control 55,000 rebels. The rebellion was crushed, and the rebels moved into a neighboring country where they received support and money.
Does this all sound familiar ? It is not what you think. The Princely state was Balochistan, the invading country was Pakistan and the country which offered the rebels support was Afghanistan.
As Mary Anne Weaver wrote in her book, Pakistan, it is the tribal rule that runs here. Pakistan has exploited Balochistan for its gas supplies and oil, but still the province remains backward. There have been recent violence and even the Chief Minister was ambushed.

The clash in Balochistan is between aggressive modernisation (backed by military force) and the Baloch people

Buddhist Site in Gulbarga

A research team of the Kannada Research Institute of Karnatak University has discovered what could be a 2,000-year-old Buddhist site at Tunnur in Chitapur taluk of Gulbarga district.
During the excavation, archaeologists recovered priceless artefacts and terracotta items revealing the influence of Buddhism in the region. According to Dr. Shadaksharaiah, the research team found artefacts dating back to many centuries and most of the sculptural panels found were scattered in a radius of about 1 km.
Some of the panels recovered included one depicting Mandoka Jataka story, Dharmachakra, a piece of stupa fence, and two types of memorial stones. In the Mandoka Jataka story panel the figures of a queen, Amatya, pattada horse, and pattada elephant are clearly visible, and the panel is quite similar to the one recovered from Hampi in Bellary district.
Research scholars during the course of their work found two distinct memorials. One of them belonged to the king and the royal members and another to the common people. In the former, there are figures of a horse, servants of the royal family, and king and queen seated and holding goblets.
Some of the memorials bear labels with inscriptions in Brahmi script and Prakrit language. One of them reads: “Valavasa Papalana Kanhasa.” Kanhasa means Krishna. [Sun Network via India India Archaeology]

An Un-Islamic Act

All Iran wants to do is pursue a “peaceful” nuclear program and the whole world is against them. The Europeans understand this vey well and so they agreed to block any security council resolutions against Iran. But now Iran’s President Mohammad Khatami has said that the country is willing to pay any price for pursuing the “peaceful” program.

Khatami said Tehran was ready to give guarantees that its nuclear program, including enriching uranium, would not be diverted toward making weapons, as Washington suspects. He said atomic weapons go against the teachings of Islam.[Yahoo News via LGF]

Since atomic weapons are un-Islamic, we know which Islamic nation is a criminal before the eyes of God.

The Kashmir Talk Drama

Now the moderates in Hurriyat Conference have backed off talks from the Indian Govt saying that they don’t like the pre-conditions. The pre-condition they are referring to is the statement that the dialogue would be held under the framework of the Indian Constitution.
Now any Indian Minister who has sworn allegience to the Indian Union cannot hold talks with anyone outside the framework of the constitution. This was how talks were held before and then there was no issue. But then the Hurriyat are no democracy lovers. They asked people to boycott the elections because “the election process is no solution to the Kashmir problem”

Praveen Swami chronicles the latest developments in the Hurriyat. The hardline Islamic fundamentalists of the Jamaat-e-Islami ‘organisation’, backed by Hizbul Mujahideen, its armed ‘faction’ are on the ascendency. This leaves the moderate elements of the Hurriyat, which was playing peek-a-boo over talks with the Indian government, in a state of disarray.

The moderates are suffering because of their own lack of conviction. And they lack conviction because they lack representative credentials. Once the Indian government began warming up to the Hurriyat, its Pakistani architects got worried and promptly pulled the plug, leaving the Hurriyat grasping for the correct end ‘of a rotting bough’. The Islamic hardliners and their terrorist offspring had no such problems – their stand was consistently in favour of an Islamic turn towards Pakistan.[The Acorn]

Maybe this is just a strategy by the Hurriyat leaders to show that they too can be tough.