US to Pakistan: Stop anti-India terror groups; Kashmir bilateral issue.Pakistan is calling for President Barack Obama to intervene in its longstanding dispute with India over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, the cause of two of the three wars the nuclear-armed rivals have fought.
The Obama administration is laying out a new multiyear, multibillion-dollar military aid package for Pakistan as it presses the Islamabad government to step up the fight against extremists there and in neighboring Afghanistan!
Jaitely criticises Centre for allowing pro-sedition conference in Delhi
Indian Holocaust My Father`s Life and Time - FIVE Hundred Eleven
Palash Biswas
http://indianholocaustmyfatherslifeandtime.blogspot.com/
Obama to press for open doors in retail during India visit!Defence deals to be focal point.
Economic Times reports:
The line-up for US President Barack Obama's visit to India includes deals for purchase of key surveillance equipment from American firms to improve technical intelligence gathering of the Indian security agencies. The home ministry's wishlist includes high frequency radars for monitoring cross-border movement, coast guard equipment and highly-sensitive sensors.
The home ministry would also discuss ways to further strengthen intelligence-sharing and real-time coordination with the US agencies during the Obama trip. In fact, discussions on some of the proposals discussed by Union home minister P Chidambaram during his visit to the US last year, including cooperation on forensic sciences, besides proposals like Natgrid and National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) will be taken forward.
Of course, the focal point of Mr Obama's visit, would be defence deals, the main ones being a mega contract for purchase of C17 Globemaster III heavy transport aircraft, procurement of an additional four P81 maritime reconnaissance aircraft and buying of GE engines for light combat aircraft (LCA).
Meanwhile, as part of preparatory meetings for Obama's visit here from November 6 to 9, top US diplomats on Thursday met external affairs minister S M Krishna and discussed key deliverables of the visit as well as bilateral and regional issues to advance Indo-US ties. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns and Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Robert Blake met Mr Krishna and "the discussions centered on President Obama's upcoming visit, as well as regional and multilateral issues that advance the US-India bilateral relationship," a statement by the US Embassy said here.
According to sources, Mr Krishna conveyed India's concerns over recent US government moves to curb outsourcing and talked about easing of restrictions that bar US high-tech exports to India. The Burns-Blake visit, officials said is likely to be the last major top level visit of US officials to India before the Obama visit, sources said. Mr Burns will also travel to Kolkata to meet West Bengal governor and former national security adviser M K Narayanan, who had played a key role in complex negotiations that led to the signing of the landmark India-US civil nuke deal. Burns and Blake will leave on Friday for the US.
Though Mr Obama's programme for his India visit is still being finalised, Delhi and Mumbai are certain to host him. A last call on his trip to Amritsar, however, is still awaited, even as reports suggest that he may have nixed the visit to Golden Temple to avoid wearing headgear, a must for all visitors to the shrine, as it would have furthered speculation that he is a Muslim.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/Defence-deals-to-be-focal-point-of-Obamas-trip/articleshow/6789941.cms
Manmohan Singh favours modernisation of country's defence doctrines!Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today favoured modernisation of the country's defence doctrines to respond to new and non-traditional threats including from non-state actors and groups.
Getting tough with Pakistan, the United States has told visiting Pakistani leaders to stop all terrorist elements within its border that pose a threat to India and Afghanistan and also rejected Islamabad's request to intervene in the Kashmir dispute.On the otherhand,Pakistan is calling for President Barack Obama to intervene in its longstanding dispute with India over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, the cause of two of the three wars the nuclear-armed rivals have fought.
In the on-going strategic dialogue, the US said that the Kashmir dispute should be resolved through bilateral talks between India and Pakistan.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration is laying out a new multiyear, multibillion-dollar military aid package for Pakistan as it presses the Islamabad government to step up the fight against extremists there and in neighboring Afghanistan, U.S. officials say.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi were to unveil the plan on Friday at the end of the latest round of high-level U.S.-Pakistani strategic talks here, the officials said.
22 Oct, 2010, 06.28AM IST, Chaitali Chakravarty & G Ganapathy Subramaniam,ET Bureau
Obama to press for open doors in retail during India visit
NEW DELHI: US President Barack Obama is expected to raise the issue of allowing foreign investment in multi-brand retail during his visit next month, after Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke sets the stage next week with a strong pitch for liberalising the industry.
Mr Duke will land in India ahead of the US president's visit and, in his first public meeting in the country, will address an open session in Ficci, officials in the know said. He is expected to present the largest retailer's business case there.
"Wal-Mart is crucial for America and India is crucial for Wal-Mart," said Harminder Sahni, MD of retail consulting firm Wazir Advisors, adding that FDI in multi-brand retail should figure prominently in Mr Obama's talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Getting into the retail business in India is important for Wal-Mart in view of the huge growth potential here due to a booming economy and increasing incomes.
Also, growth has stagnated in the US, the retailer's key market. The world's largest retailer sold consumer goods worth $405 billion in fiscal year 2010.
Retail is among a handful of sectors which are not open to FDI and various proposals to open up the sector landed on the back burner due to political resistance.
There are also apprehensions that hawkers, mom-&-pop stores and sundry retailers in the unorganised sector would be thrown out of business.
According to an official in the consumer affairs department, which looks after policies governing retail, a new proposal to allow 51% FDI in retail — tagged with safeguards — would be floated soon.
The outcome of this, however, will depend on the political response to the proposal, the person added.
The government last month constituted an inter-ministerial panel chaired by Kewal Ram, senior economic advisor in the consumer affairs ministry, to look into the matter.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/services/retailing/Obama-to-press-for-open-doors-in-retail-during-India-visit/articleshow/6789670.cms
'We will continue to work with Pakistan, try to find ways to put pressure on these extremist elements that represent a threat to Pakistan, a threat to Afghanistan, a threat to India, a threat to the region as a whole and a threat to the United States,' State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told foreign media Thursday.
'So this security and counter-terrorism remains a significant part of our strategic dialogue,' he said.
The dialogue led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi is also attended by Pakistan's powerful army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.
On Kashmir, Crowley said: 'We recognise the importance of Kashmir to both India and Pakistan. We absolutely want to see tensions eased and ultimately a resolution to the situation in Kashmir.'
'That we believe needs to come through additional dialogue between Pakistan and India. We have not been asked by both countries to play a particular role. This is the reason why, for a number of reasons we continue to encourage further dialogue between India and Pakistan,' he said in response to a question.
Crowley described both India and Pakistan as US allies and said his country will continue to encourage both countries in their efforts to achieve piece and stability in the region.
His comments came a day after Qureshi sought US intervention in resolving the Kashmir issue.
Meanwhile, the Foreign Policy magazine's blog 'The Cable' reported that the get tough with terrorists message was delivered personally by US President Barack Obama to the visiting Pakistani delegation during a meeting with National Security Advisor in-waiting Tom Donilon.
Qureshi, Kayani, Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh and Pakistan Ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani were among those present at the meeting.
Obama dropped by and stayed for 50 minutes, according to an official who was there, and personally delivered the tough message that other top US officials have been communicating since the Pakistani delegation arrived, the Cable said.
Earlier Wednesday, Clinton dropped in unannounced during an another meeting between Special US Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke and Kayani.
'She delivered the message that Washington's patience is wearing thin with Pakistan's ongoing reluctance to take a more aggressive stance against militant groups operating from Pakistan over the Afghan border,' The Cable reported.
A similar message was delivered to General Kayani in another high-level meeting Wednesday at the Pentagon with Defence Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman admiral Mike Mullen.
Pak troops linked to abuses could lose American aid
The money will be provided over the next five years under the State Department's Foreign Military Financing program that funds other countries' purchases of U.S.-made arms, ammunition and accessories, the officials said. Precise details of what Pakistan will receive under the program were still being determined, they said.
The officials would speak only on condition of anonymity ahead of the announcement, which the administration hoped would reassure Pakistan of the long-term U.S. commitment to Pakistan's military needs and help it bolster its efforts to go after Taliban and al-Qaida affiliates on its territory.
The new aid package will not benefit Pakistani military units suspected of human rights abuses. The Obama administration already has cut off aid to some Pakistani units over concerns they may have been involved in abuses that include extrajudicial killings and torture, a senior U.S. official said late Thursday.
The official said aid to a handful of Pakistani units believed to have committed, encouraged or tolerated abuses were suspended under 1997 legislation championed by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. The so-called Leahy Amendment bars U.S. military assistance from going to foreign armed forces suspected of committing atrocities.
"In accordance with the Leahy Amendment, we have withheld assistance from a small number of units linked to gross human rights violations," the official said. "At the same time, we have encouraged Pakistan to improve its human rights training, and it is taking steps in that direction."
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
It was not immediately clear when the decision to withhold the assistance was first taken or exactly how many Pakistani military units were affected.
Act tough on terror groups threatening India, Afghan: US to Pak
Halting assistance to certain units will not affect broader U.S. support for Pakistan's military, which is considered key to counter-terrorism efforts in the region.
The new military aid replaces a similar but less valuable package that began in 2005 and expired on Oct. 1 that the Pakistanis have been keen to renew. It also complements $7.5 billion in civilian assistance the administration has already committed to Pakistan over five years, some of which has been diverted to help the country deal with devastating floods.
Although the exact terms of the deal are still being negotiated, the goal is to ramp up U.S. military aid to Pakistan incrementally over the five-year period, from $300 million next year, to $350 million in 2012 until the $2 billion is met, officials said. The previous agreement was for about $500 million less, they said.
State Department officials have declined to discuss the specifics of the new program although they have acknowledged it is being negotiated. On Tuesday, Frank Ruggiero, the U.S. deputy special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, told reporters there was a fresh "need for a multiyear planning process for Pakistani security assistance."
This week's talks in Washington - the third round of the U.S.-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue - come as the countries try to ease tensions over American military incursions across the border from Afghanistan and allegations that Islamabad is not doing enough to target Taliban militants.
The U.S. has signaled that its patience is running out with Islamabad's reluctance to fight insurgents, a stance that has not changed despite billions of dollars in American aid.
During the last round in Islamabad in July, Clinton announced more than $500 million in aid for a variety of projects, including renovating hospitals, improving water distribution and upgrading hydroelectric dams. The U.S. had to re-examine its plans after the meeting, however, after Pakistan was hit by the worst floods in the country's history.
Jaitely criticises Centre for allowing pro-sedition conference in Delhi
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Arun Jaitely on Friday, criticised the Central Government for allowing an anti-India and pro-sedition conference in New Delhi.
He pointed out that a large number of separatist groups met in Delhi, under the nose of the central government at a conference to instigate and encourage sedition in India. The title of the conference was 'Azadi', and all reports indicated that India cannot be won and must be broken. This was unacceptable for any country he said.
Chidambaram refutes Jaitley's charge
On Thursday, a conference 'Freedom, the only way' was organized in the national capital by a separatist organization.
Kashmiri separatist leader and the Chairman of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference Syed Ali Shah Geelani chaired the seminar.
Novelist Arundhati Roy, who was present at the seminar, advocated the ideas of the separatists as their right to speech.
Jaitley said this right couldn't be exercised at the cost of the national integrity.
He also accused the Central Government of ignoring such elements, and demanded that severe action should be taken against those present at the meeting.
"There is no such option available with government to ignore seditious groups when they exercise this right of sedition. The government is bound to act as per law and the law is clear that all those who have participated in this conference, which has openly promoted destruction of India's sovereignty and integrity, must be prosecuted under the severe laws that we have available under the penal code," said Jaitely.
US asks for Pak-China nuke arrangement details
ISLAMABAD: The US has asked Pakistan to provide more information about a civilian nuclear arrangement it has concluded with China, America's special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke has said.
Holbrooke's statement on the nuclear issue, made during an interview with visiting Pakistani journalists, followed an earlier comment by his deputy, Frank Ruggiero, who told reporters in Washington that the US was "not in any discussions with the Pakistanis on civil nuclear cooperation".
Pakistan may "quietly try to persuade the US at least to withdraw its objection to an arrangement it has made with China for building new civil nuclear plants at Chashma," the Dawn newspaper quoted its sources as saying.
Holbrooke, when asked to comment on US objections to the arrangement, said: "We have asked for more information on the Chinese-Pakistan arrangement to see how they fit in with international regimes".
Last month, US under secretary of state for Nuclear Security Thomas D'Agostino said the US believed that the transfer of new reactors to Pakistan extended beyond the cooperation China had reached with Pakistan before joining the Nuclear Suppliers Group in 2004.
He said that Beijing needs to seek the permission of the NSG before making further investments.
China insists that the arrangement with Pakistan was made before it joined the NSG and, therefore, NSG restrictions do not apply to this deal.
Holbrooke acknowledged holding private conversations with Pakistani officials on Islamabad's desire for a civil nuclear deal like the one the US concluded with India in 2008.
"We are well aware of Pakistani strategic goal and desire. It's one of the many things we have talked about frankly in private with our friends in Pakistan," he said.
On the second day of the third round of the Pakistan-US strategic dialogue on Thursday, some Pakistani officials indicated that enhancing nuclear energy was one of Islamabad's "main strategic goals".
The US has made it clear that it is not offering a nuclear deal to Pakistan as of now.
In the interview with Pakistani journalists, Holbrooke also emphasised the need for military action against militants hiding in North Waziristan tribal region.
Holbrooke also acknowledged that Pakistan-India tensions affected the situation in Afghanistan and the US is willing to help reduce tensions.
But he made it clear that the US could not play any mediatory role in resolving the Kashmir dispute, the main cause for tensions between the two nuclear-armed nations.
'India seems to be withering away'
RSN Singh | 2010-09-28 15:53:32
The second week of September 2010 was a very grim indicator about the effete and compromising nature of our political dispensation, at the cost of the 'Union' of India.
Two issues - the Kashmir imbroglio and the Maoist menace - continue to mock at the ineptitude of the Indian authorities.
The Indian political leadership, obsessed with vote bank politics, is too shortsighted to recognize the importance of making quick decisions.
Every second day, our Prime Minister keeps upwardly revising his estimate of GDP growth, but he has failed to reconcile economics and security. Does he realize that the growth rate would be far higher than eight percent, had the eastern half of our country not been hijacked by Maoists and various insurgent groups? Road and rail movement, investment and the general business environment there is under the shadow of Red guns.
Bengal has been allowed to become a killing field and the efforts of some well meaning and progressive Chief Ministers in the country's eastern half are being stymied by the Central Authorities in conformity with their vote-bank agenda. This is going to cost the nation dearly as the instability in the eastern half has begun to spill over to the western half.
The violence in both Kashmir and Maoist strongholds has seen a similar trajectory in the past few months.
Even as Kashmir was being violently manipulated by the Pakistan-sponsored elements within the country (which includes mainstream parties), the Maoists' bandh caused more than 30 express and mail trains, including three Rajdhani Express, trains to be stranded on various railway stations between Mughalsarai and Dhanbad, a distance of more than 1000 km.
This was due to a huge explosion on the railway track near the Jain pilgrimage center of Parasnath. Also, as in many earlier Maoist bandhs, some railway stations were under siege and one goods train was derailed.
In various parts of the Red Corridor, no vehicles were on the road as the Maoists had threatened to chop off the hands of any driver who dared to defy the shutdown.
During the Maoist bandh, more than a dozen people were murdered in the states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bengal and Bihar. In the same period, 18 people lost their lives in Kashmir during anti-India demonstrations. The casualties in the Red Corridor, which was far more widespread, did not receive the same attention as Kashmir.
There is a frenzied recruitment drive on in Kashmir, the latest accent being on women and children. The large infusion of funds for payment to 'stone throwers' is intriguing. So is the increasing amount of funds available with the Maoists.
In the three adjoining Maoist-impacted districts of Bihar - Lakhisarai, Monghyr, and Jamui - the Maoists have put up posters issuing a diktat that every village must provide a stipulated number of boys and girls for their Peoples Liberation Army (PLA). The Maoists have offered to pay salaries at par with the government. They have also announced an enhanced package for computer literate cadres.
In neighbouring Pakistan, the jihadi organizations pay a salary to their cadres which is at par with the Pakistani Army personnel. In Pakistan, therefore, it is not uncommon to find a jihadi and a regular soldier from the same family. The author has also come across a few families in India where two brothers are serving with the police and the Maoists respectively.
As far as the ordinary cadres of the Kashmir and the Maoist movement are concerned, it is the money, and not the ideology, which is the incentive. Six years ago, a group of armed Maoist cadres revealed to this author that they were paid Rs 3,500 a month. Therefore, the latest offer by the Maoist leaders is phenomenal jump and is indicative of the burgeoning financial muscle of the outfit.
To keep the law from tracing them, the Maoist leaders use the lower cadres for murders, and reward them with extorted money or captured land. Most Maoist leaders have their families in urban centres where they have acquired huge properties. Similarly, the Kashmiri leadership is never in the forefront; they only issue calendars and handle the vast amount of money pouring in both from India and Pakistan. Their own children are in the best institutions abroad.
Following the abductions of police personnel in Bihar, there is unprecedented impetus in recruitment and training activities by the Maoists. The forest reserve in Gaya serves as their training camp. Obstacles and concrete bunkers have been made for the purpose. The recruits are trained to handle explosives, hijack trains and aircraft and even to carry out suicide bombings. All over the reserve forest, there are warnings of dire consequences to trespassers and to forest rangers that they will be beheaded if they were to venture inside.
Similarly, in Kashmir, ordinary citizens are being trained at selected places in the nuances of stone pelting. The stone pelting activity involves very intricate logistics, mobilization and coordination, and is getting increasingly sophisticated in terms of the intended effect and calibration of media coverage.
The common man in Kashmir, who has a stake in the peace and prosperity of the region, only wants to get along with life. But such is the intimidation of the pro-Pakistan elements that they have to take to the streets for fear of being physically and financially targeted, or ostracized in the name of jihad. These pro-Pak elements have become a law-unto-themselves.
The Maoists are intimidating law-abiding citizens in a similar manner. Two days after the hostage crisis in Lakhisarai in Bihar, some 200-300 Maoists swooped down on the house of a local BJP leader in Darbhanga village, which is under the jurisdiction of Imamganj police station of Gaya district. The Maoists had brought tractors with them and snaffled the entire household of furniture, jewellery and food grains.
Earlier, the Kangaroo Court of the Maoists had issued a 'property attachment order'. The BJP leader was told by the Maoists that he was being punished for his association with the speaker of the Bihar Assembly, who is also the local MLA of the area.
A month ago, the PA of the speaker of the Bihar Assembly had his limbs broken by the Maoists in a Kangaroo Court. This author met a sitting High Court Judge from the same area in the Red Corridor, who lamented that the state machinery was unable to cope with the criminal activities of the Maoists. If this is the plight of politicians and other VIPs, one can imagine what the fate of the common man is. He was earlier torn between two parallel administrations, but now his choice is becoming increasingly limited in favour of extremists, for he must turn to the stronger side if he is to survive.
The state is increasingly finding it difficult to reestablish its writ in Kashmir and in the Red Corridor.
It is seen that insurgencies thrive only in those areas where subsistence is relatively easy. Ironically, the radical movements in both Kashmir and the Red Corridor are in overwhelming measure being sustained by the Indian taxpayers’ money. The central assistance to Kashmir is nearly 10,000 crore rupees, eight times more than the average given to other states. The poverty level in Kashmir is four percent as against the national average of 21 percent.
Thankfully, the separatist leadership in Kashmir has finally acknowledged that their agitation is not about governance, development and employment. The Maoists have also conveyed the same by targeting schools, hospitals, panchayat buildings, bridges, trains and railway tracks.
All major Maoist attacks in the recent past were carried out by four wheeler and two-wheeler borne cadres. The influx of funds has not only ensured high salaries for the cadre, but also modern facilities in their camps. Some of these have amenities such as regular electricity supply through solar panels. Most of these panels have been forcibly taken away from poor localities, where they were installed as part of government anti-poverty initiatives.
A lot of criminals from other parts of the country have congregated in the Red Corridor to rake in quick money from the thriving extortion and illegal mining industry of the Maoists. Both the Kashmir agitation and the Maoist menace are being abetted by the ISI, with the subtle indulgence of China. Both have links with jihadi groups in Pakistan and insurgent groups in the Northeast.
In both Kashmir and Red Corridor, the government has allowed its instrument of governance - the security forces - to be denigrated, abused, disparaged, and demoralized by not only the extremists, but also respected academics and human rights 'activists'.
The moral and financial source of sustenance of these 'activists', and the media platforms that they utilize, remains a mystery.
Both the Kashmir and Maoist problem have been allowed to reach a situation where, in order to preserve the Indian nation-state, large casualties are inevitable. The government cannot deal with them without enormous collateral damage.
The state of affairs has emboldened other groups to challenge the residual might of the Indian state. One such group has even threatened to disrupt the Commonwealth Games. In psychological terms, India seems to be withering away.
Will we be able to ensure our motherland's physical integrity?
RSN Singh is a former military intelligence officer who later served in the Research and Analysis Wing, or R&AW. The author of two books: Asian Strategic and Military Perspective and Military Factor in Pakistan, he is also Associate Editor, Indian Defence Review.
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We need Arundhati Roy like a hole in the head
Nandini Krishnan | 2010-06-07 10:25:15
I would begin with a quote if I cared for Arundhati Roy's speeches or fifty-page essays. But I don't.
Unfortunately, a lot of people do.
Even more sadly, they believe the approval of someone who is in the public eye counts as universal validation of their actions.
More than a decade after her first (and probably last) novel received a Booker for exotifying India, Roy is more famous for her anti-government activism than anything else - be it declaring independence from India, defending militancy and terrorism in Kashmir or sympathising with Maoist violence.
"I am on this side of the line. I do not care…pick me up, put me in jail," she declared boldly, referring to her espousal of the Naxal cause, at a lecture organised by the Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights last week.
Yeah, right - jail another self-proclaimed activist and stir up a storm of support in the media, which is at present largely disgruntled with her rants.
She has been forced to backtrack on several comments and issue clarifications like "I never called them 'Gandhians with Guns'. What I meant was…" and "while 99 per cent of Naxals are tribals, 99 per cent of tribals are not Maoists".
Related story: I didn't term Maoists as 'Gandhians with Guns': Roy
This from the woman who saluted the 'people of Dantewada' after 76 CRPF and police personnel were ambushed and killed by Red Rebels.
Did she stop to think that these 76 men were risking their lives and making do with terrible conditions for a monthly salary that those of us who have the privilege of access to forums of expression might very well blow up on a few dinners? That these men defending the country's land are not agents of the industries that mint money from the projects they run on this land?
For more details: I salute the people of Dantewada: Arundhati
What people like Arundhati Roy and Mahasweta Devi, who have marketed themselves well enough to find an audience wherever they go, often forget is that anger - their own and that of the people they erect pedestals for - can be misdirected.
The innocuously named People's Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA) is being increasingly associated with activity of this kind. Sources from investigation agencies have spoken about their likely involvement in the Gyaneshwari Express derailment that killed 150 people on May 28.
Media reports quoted PCPA doing an "oopsy-daisy!", saying their intention was to derail a goods train and not murder people. Maoists claimed they were attacking the state apparatus (twenty Special Police Officers) when they blew up a passenger bus in Dantewada on May 17.
Resentment against the government has been finding an outlet in the torture and death of citizens of this country, whose only crime is that they haven't joined a band of guerrillas. Or that they don't like them.
They've beheaded a policeman (Inspector Francis Induwar) and several villagers (the last incident happened in Munger on March 2, when Naxals kidnapped Kamleshwari and Kailash, whom they claimed were police informers.) The name Daniel Pearl ring a bell, anyone?
Strategy expert Bhaskar Roy has spoken of how Maoist leader Koteswar Rao expressed his admiration for the Mumbai terror attack.
For more details: Fairytales and Naxal dreams
How long before the Maoists decide to follow suit? How difficult could it be for them to hijack a plane or blow it up? How much time before they break into corporate offices and luxury hotels and hold hostages to ransom?
Ill-informed 'activists' like Arundhati Roy quote statistics about profits companies are raking in, and invite Indians to join the Maoists in their war, claiming they have stopped these corporates in their tracks.
But which corporate honcho was travelling in that train or that bus? Most of the passengers were returning home to see their families, after months away. Are these the industrialists drinking the blood of the poor villagers whom circumstances have purportedly forced into Naxalism?
Roy seems to believe the likes of Chhatradhar Mahato and Kishenji are Indian versions of Robin Hood, fighting with "bows and arrows" against the "sophisticated weapons" of the security forces.
Ummm…seen video footage of the arms the Maoists have surrendered, Ms Roy? Some might well be of a higher grade than those used by our armed forces. Ever thought about who's funding these poor, downtrodden innocents who've been forced to fight the armed version of the Gandhian battle?
Read: Make Naxals win this war: Arundhati
And yet, the verbose Ms Roy couldn't answer the question of what would happen if the Maoists were to gain control of the areas that house the mining industry.
Why not look for an antecedent in the birthplace of 'guerrilla'? The rather cutely-named 'Little War' in Cuba went on to produce an iron-fisted regime that controlled and suppressed the rights it had fought for against General Batista.
Why not look at the LTTE? A liberation army that was vanquished after 30 years of governing its territories like a kingdom-unto-itself, and at irreparable cost to the people it claimed to be protecting.
Yes, why not arm the Maoists? Didn't the state support the Salwa Judum? Hasn't every powerhouse created its Frankenstein's Monster? Weren't Saddam, Osama and Prabhakaran the darlings of some government or the other before they were branded terrorists?
Perhaps these Voices of the Maoists do have a point about the neglect of the people. Perhaps they are right about the Memoranda of Understanding that have looted tribal habitats of minerals and wealth. Perhaps they are even right in speaking of the Home Minister's links to Vedanta (and not the philosophy).
But while Home Minister P Chidambaram and West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee are engaged in a tug-of-war over passing the buck, surrounded by their security men, the guerrilla force is not attacking the government. They're waging a war against people even more hapless than they themselves once were.
Is an "armed struggle" the solution to government apathy? If every poor person in India decided to become a Maoist, where would this country be? If they were all to be given weapons, whom would they shoot and kill?
Also read: Chhattisgarh DGP hits out at activists supporting Maoists
The Maoists have consistently turned down invitations to hold talks. India doesn't have the best record where 'talks' are concerned - we've been 'talking' to Pakistan for half a century - but is killing non-Naxals a solution to this?
It may have been Abraham Lincoln who famously quoted the Bible and said "a house divided against itself cannot stand". But the adage hasn't been proved true as many times in any other country as in India. It is this quality which saw parts being swallowed whole by the Mughals and then raped by the British.
We can debate about a government attacking its own citizens, but how can those who claim to be exempt from the law qualify as citizens? We live in far more dangerous times than the Colonial Era, and the world is watching as the big candidate for the United Nations Security Council struggles with 'internal security threats'.
In an age of neo-colonialism and terrorism, with far too many vested interests to keep track of, what are we opening ourselves to in providing forums for Maoist sympathisers?
The author is a journalist based in Chennai. She blogs at http://disbursedmeditations.blogspot.com
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Five steps to fix the Naxals
General J F R Jacob | 2010-07-06 14:01:07
The anti-Naxal operations currently being conducted have achieved little, with the Maoists now openly challenging the government to do its worst.
This is mostly due to the lack of understanding on the part of those in command of the methodology and conduct of counter insurgency operations.
The author had taken part in counter insurgency operations in Sumatra in 1945-46. Our columns were ambushed numerous times, but we were trained to react. We moved in a balanced tactical formation, by bounds - scouts, advanced guard and main body. Once we hit an ambush, we were able to deploy, encircle and break it.
Unfortunately this pattern of operation does not obtain with our paramilitary forces like the CRPF.
In 1970, I oversaw the establishment of the counter insurgency school in Mizoram. We ensured that before being inducted for counter-insurgency operations in the northeast, every battalion was put through intensive counter insurgency training for two whole months.
I have worked with Central Reserve Police [CRP] battalions, and they are good, solid units.
In 1965, when I was commanding the brigade at Samba we had 16 CRP with us. They looked after an unfenced and un-demarcated border with competence. There were several shootouts, and their performance was commendable.
Later in 1971 in East Pakistan, 16 CRP and other CRP battalions operated in border areas against the Pakistanis with courage and determination.
There is an old army saying: 'There are no bad units, only bad officers.'
The army, on the orders of then Prime Minister Mrs Indira Gandhi, was employed to break the Naxal revolt in West Bengal in 1969-71. Mrs Gandhi was pragmatic and took hard decisions, like she did in 1971.
Was Mrs Gandhi wrong? I think not. The Naxals were driven out of West Bengal by mid 1971.
Incidentally Toofani (the Dassault MD-450) and Hunter aircraft of the Indian Air Force bombed Aizwal town on March 4-5, 1966, to evict the Mizo rebels who had literally captured the town.
I do not recommend such offensive action. The air force should be used only for surveillance and logistics.
There are two factors required to keep an insurgency going - firm bases and lines of supply for money, arms and ammunition. As long as these factors obtain, the insurgency will continue.
In the present Naxal insurgency, their firm bases are in the jungles and villages, though they have started moving into the towns. The money they get is from taxes and forcible contributions. The arms they use are captured from the CRP and police. They also buy weapons from Nepal and Myanmar.
Since these two parameters still obtain and remain unbroken, the Naxals are therefore well equipped to fight on and they will do so until they achieve their aims.
There should be a review of the tactics employed by the paramilitary in counter insurgency operations. It is of little use just sending columns into the jungle to take on the elusive and highly mobile Naxal gangs. They are mobile, far more mobile than our paramilitary troops. Mobility is comparative, but it is also a key factor. Our CRP units must strive to be more mobile than the Naxals if they hope to have any effect. So far, these columns have achieved little.
The following method used by the author in1974-75 in intercepting two Naga gangs going to China to collect weapons should be employed. The second gang of some three hundred was surrounded and captured.
In a nutshell, this was the doctrine used by the author in those days, and they still have relevance today.
Find (By surveillance, local intelligence etc),
Fix (Ensure contact is maintained),
Surround (This is imperative, otherwise they will melt away),
Close in and finally,
Apprehend.
The Indian army still puts whole battalions into counter insurgency training for two months at the counter insurgency school in Mizoram before deploying them for counter insurgency operations. The CRP too should have a fully fledged counter insurgency school based on the army model.
If appropriate corrective measures are implemented, I am confident that that the CRP battalions will overcome the Naxals.
I wish them all success.
Editor's note:
- Lt Gen Jacob is not an armchair warrior. He has dealt with terrorism and insurgency over a period of many years.
- As a young major, he took part in intensive counter insurgency operations in Sumatra 1945/1946.
- In 1970, he was responsible for setting up the army counter insurgency school in Mizoram.
- He was in charge of anti-Naxal operations in West Bengal in 1969-1971. The then chief minister Siddharta Shankar Ray used to say: 'Jake and I, we broke the Naxals.'
- In 1974/1975 the army intercepted two Naga gangs going to China [Jacob camped at Mokochong to conduct operations]. The army attacked their bases and finally forced the insurgents to sign the Shillong Accord in 1975. To recap tactics; interrupted their lines of supply for arms and ammunition from China and destroyed their bases within Nagaland. Twelve years of peace followed.
- He oversaw operations in Mizoram and got the hostiles to the negotiating table in Calcutta. [Calcutta Conference] (1978).
- On the other side of the coin, he was responsible in setting up the Bangladesh Mukti Bahini in April 1971, and oversaw their operations.
- In October 2007, He was invited to speak to the American military, State Department and CIA at Capitol Hill. The lecture was broadcast live. The US Marine Corps subsequently requested permission to incorporate parts of the talk in their counterinsurgency doctrine.
http://sify.com/news/five-steps-to-fix-the-naxals-news-columns-khgobhdbbaj.html
| Friday October 22, 10:00 AM |  * |
G20 officials pour cold water on U.S. proposals
 * |
| Click to enlarge photo |
By Tetsushi Kajimoto and Toni Vorobyova
GYEONGJU, South Korea (Reuters) - A global agreement to tackle economic imbalances and fend off the prospect of damaging currency devaluations looked set to evade finance officials at the G20 meeting in South Korea.
G20 finance officials started their formal meetings on Friday with nations from the developing world and Japan dismissing U.S. proposals to set limits on current account balances in an effort to defuse tensions over currencies that economists fear could trigger trade wars.
"We need to talk about it first, but numerical targets are unrealistic," Japanese Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda said on Friday.
Many emerging market policymakers are loath to allow their currencies to appreciate substantially and blame the U.S. for financial mismanagement that led to the global financial crisis and accuse it of engaging in its own devaluation by flooding markets with liquidity from its quantitative easing policies.
That has had the effect of pushing a wall of money into emerging markets like Brazil, forcing them to adopt a range of measures to stem capital flows which have boosted asset prices and complicated fiscal and monetary policy.
While the G20 won praise for coordination of stimulus packages during the global financial crisis, such a sense of unity has gradually evaporated in the face of strains resulting from unprecedented efforts to revive global growth.
It appears increasingly unlikely that any meaningful agreements at the summit will be reached aside from a commitment to a development agenda for poorer nations that has been backed by hosts South Korea and a framework for financial regulation.
Washington's proposal to set a 4 percent target for current account surpluses and deficits, a measure that appeared aimed at China's huge trade surplus, were torpedoed by both developing and advanced nations.
"One thing is clear the final agreement on this framework agreement (on economic stability) will not be made at the finance ministers' meeting," Russian finance official Andrey Bokarev said ahead of the meetings.
"There is an action plan, but there are an awful lot of complaints, proposals."
MARKETS WATCH TONE OF COMMUNIQUE
Failure to reach an global agreement has been priced into financial markets, although any hardening of the tone of the final communique, due on Saturday, could bolster emerging market currencies at the expense of the dollar.
The language of the last G20 summit stressed the need to "refrain from competitive devaluations" and a shift to something stronger such as refraining from competitive undervaluation would be a significant move, said Credit Suisse currency strategist Olivier Desbarres.
"You would have to commit to allowing your currency to appreciate," he said.
That would require a step change from the likes of China and host South Korea.
Policymakers said that while the likes of China, India and Germany would probably reject the ambitious U.S. proposals for numerical targets, the negotiations had a long way to run.
"The actual drafting of the communique will only begin Friday night after first round of meetings between the finance ministers and central bank governors," a senior emerging market policymaker present at the talks told Reuters on Thursday.
(Additional reporting by Abhijit Neogy; Writing by David Chance; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
| Friday October 22, 11:00 AM |  * |
The haves, the have-nots and the dreamless dead
 * |
| Click to enlarge photo |
By Emily Kaiser
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In 2007, when the world was on the brink of financial crisis, U.S. income inequality hit its highest mark since 1928, just before the Great Depression.
Coincidence? Maybe not.
Economists are only beginning to study the parallels between the 1920s and the most recent decade to try to understand why both periods ended in financial disaster. Their early findings suggest inequality may not directly cause crises, but it can be a contributing factor.
This raises a host of social, economic and political questions. Should public policy aim to reduce inequality, and if so by what means? Does concentrated wealth at the top of the income spectrum generate asset bubbles, or vice versa? Could raising taxes or interest rates ward off financial meltdowns?
Americans are generally not bothered by inequality because they believe with hard work, they, too, can strike it rich. Government policies aimed at spreading the wealth rarely get much support. (Remember 2008, when then-candidate Barack Obama's campaign-trail comment about redistributing the wealth catapulted "Joe the Plumber" into media stardom?)
"It is usually only left-leaning rich people that care about inequality in the U.S.," said Carol Graham, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank who studies the economics of happiness.
Graphics:
Wealth gap in OECD countries, click http://r.reuters.com/syh69p
Those attitudes may be subtly shifting, although it is unclear that this is anything more than just a temporary knee-jerk reaction to the latest bout of turmoil.
Public opinion polls show voters mixed on whether to back higher taxes on the wealthiest households, as President Obama has proposed. The issue is so contentious that Congress put off its decision until after the November 2 midterm elections.
Resentment toward Wall Street is simmering as bankers' paychecks swell to pre-crisis levels while unemployment remains more than twice as high as it was in 2007. Some politicians have been voted out of office simply because they supported the $700 billion bank bailout enacted in 2008.
Yet there is nowhere near majority backing for the sort of progressive New Deal policies passed during the Great Depression, which helped narrow the wealth gap and keep it contained until it resumed widening in the 1970s.
This time around, the wealth disparity narrowed in 2008 because rich households took a heavier hit from the financial crisis, but Census Bureau data shows it turned around immediately. In 2009, inequality was at the highest level since Census began tracking household income in 1967.
America has one of the largest wealth gaps among advanced economies. Based on an inequality measure known as the Gini coefficient, the United States ranks on a par with developing countries such as Ivory Coast, Jamaica and Malaysia, according to the CIA World Factbook.
TRACKING THE DIVIDE
Emmanuel Saez, a University of California, Berkeley, economist who was awarded a 2010 MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant for his work on income inequality, said recession-induced income declines for the super-rich tend to be fleeting unless there are "drastic" regulatory and tax policy changes.
His research with co-author Thomas Piketty shows the top 1 percentile of households took home 23.5 percent of income in 2007, the largest share since 1928, but that slipped back to 20.9 percent in 2008. (Unlike Census, Saez relies on IRS tax data, which is released with a two-year lag, so he does not yet have figures for 2009.)
During the last period of economic expansion, 2002 to 2007, the top 1 percent enjoyed 10.1 percent annual income growth, adjusted for inflation. For the other 99 percent, the growth rate was just 1.3 percent, Saez found. That meant the top 1 percent received 65 cents of every dollar in income growth.
"We need to decide as a society whether this increase in income inequality is efficient and acceptable and, if not, what mix of institutional reforms should be developed to counter it," he concluded.
COMMON THREADS
There is little agreement among economists about what precisely links high inequality to crises, which helps explain why so few officials saw the financial upheaval coming.
Rapid expansion of credit is one common thread.
Robert Reich, a Berkeley public policy professor and a labor secretary under President Bill Clinton, thinks stagnant middle-class wages led households to pull equity from their homes and overload on debt to maintain living standards.
Raghuram Rajan, a professor at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business and a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, believes governments tend to promote easy credit when inequality spikes to assuage middle-class anger about falling behind.
"One way to paper over the rising inequality was to lend so that people could spend," Rajan said.
In the 1920s, it was expansion of farm credit, installment loans and home mortgages. In the last decade, it was leveraged borrowing and lending, by home buyers who put no money down or investment banks that lent out $30 for each $1 held.
"Housing credit gave you an instrument to assist those falling behind without them feeling they're beneficiaries of some sort of subsidy," Rajan said. "Even if their incomes are stagnant, they feel really good about becoming homeowners."
BUBBLES AND YACHTS
Another theory is that concentration of wealth at the top sends investors searching for riskier interest-bearing savings. When so much cash is sloshing around, traditional safe investments such as Treasury debt yield very little, and wealthy investors may seek out fatter returns elsewhere.
Mark Thoma, who teaches economics at the University of Oregon, wonders if the flood of investment cash from the ultra-rich -- both in the United States and abroad -- encouraged Wall Street to create seemingly safe mortgage-backed securities that later proved disastrously risky.
"When we see income inequality rising, we ought to start looking for bubbles," he said.
Kemal Dervis, global economy and development division director at Brookings and a former economy minister for Turkey, said reducing inequality isn't just a matter of fairness or morality. An economy based on consumption needs consumers, and if too much wealth is concentrated at the top there may be times when there is not enough demand to support growth.
"There may be demand for private jets and yachts, but you need a healthy middle-income group (to drive consumption of basic goods)," he said. "In the golden age of capitalism, in the 1950s and 60s, everyone shared in income growth."
MISSING THE LINK
The fact that economists are even examining the link between inequality and financial crises shows just how much the thinking has changed in the wake of the Great Recession.
Paul Krugman, the Nobel prize-winning economist, said that before 2008, when he spoke of inequality approaching levels last seen before the Great Depression, it would inevitably lead to questions about whether another crisis was looming.
"No, I'd say -- there really isn't a clear reason why high inequality should lead to macroeconomic crisis," he recalled in a presentation to a conference on income inequality in June.
Now, he says, he is considering whether inequality somehow creates macroeconomic vulnerability.
Krugman certainly wasn't the only one who dismissed the idea of a connection between inequality and crisis before the latest episode.
Ajay Kapur, a Deutsche Bank strategist, spotted the inequality parallels between the 1920s and the most recent decade, but didn't see the meltdown coming. The former Citigroup strategist created a stir five years ago when he built an investment strategy around his thesis that essentially divided the world into two camps: the rich and the rest.
Kapur told clients in 2005 that the United States and a handful of other economies were developing into "plutonomies" where the wealthy few powered economic growth and consumed much of its bounty, while the "multitudinous many" shared the leftovers.
Plutonomies come around only once or twice a century, he argued -- 16th century Spain, 17th century Holland, the Gilded Age. The last time it happened in the United States was during the "Roaring 1920s".
There was money to be made by buying shares of luxury companies that made toys for the rich, he told clients, suggesting a basket of stocks that included upscale retailer Burberry and luxury home builder Toll Brothers.
"When I presented this to clients, they said, 'Okay, this is interesting because you're telling me what happened in the 1920s is happening right now, and you obviously know what happened after 1929, right?'," Kapur said in an interview.
His response? That can't happen again because we know better now.
"To be perfectly honest.... I certainly didn't think it would all melt down in 2007. I'd be lying if I said that."
Kapur still isn't convinced there is a direct connection, and points out that 2007 and 1928 are only two data points and it's dangerous to draw conclusions from such a small sample.
SEEDS OF INEQUALITY
Inequality doesn't always lead to financial crisis, which makes it difficult for policymakers to know when it might be growing into a serious problem that ought to be addressed.
Many of the root causes -- technological advances, financial innovation, higher education -- are social goods, not ills, so it makes little sense to attack them.
The traditional view among economists is that combating inequality would hurt growth. Many argue that inequality is "if anything, favorable to -- or at least a necessary by-product of -- economic growth," as Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas researchers wrote in a 2008 paper on inequality.
In the decades before the Great Depression, advances in mass-production and transportation enabled large-scale factories to churn out more goods with fewer workers.
In the past two decades, the big change was the explosion of personal computing and the Internet. The ability to instantaneously transmit masses of information over thousands of miles meant workers no longer needed to be in the same place, and jobs could easily shift to low-cost locales such as Bangalore, India, or Shenzhen, China.
Demand for unskilled labor fell. The relatively small segment of the population with the qualifications to compete -- in the 1920s, a high school diploma; in today's economy, a college degree -- earned more money, widening the wealth gap.
Unemployment data bears that out. Even before the latest recession started in late 2007, the jobless rate for those with only a high school diploma was more than double the rate for those with at least a Bachelor's degree. As of September 2010, unemployment among high school graduates was 10 percent; for those with a four-year college degree it was just 4.4 percent.
This suggests one government response to inequality should be to channel more money into education, said Jack Ablin, chief investment adviser for Harris Private Bank in Chicago.
Ablin said only a small sliver of his high net-worth clients inherited their wealth, so simply comparing wealth concentration between the 1920s and now may be a bit unfair.
"Becoming wealthy in the olden days was almost genetic," he said, referring to wealth handed down from generation to generation.
I CAN BE BILL GATES
The work hard, get rich formula is deeply embedded in the American psyche, which helps explain why Americans have generally tolerated inequality.
For every dynastic family name such as Kennedy or Rockefeller, there are those who reached the top through creativity and sweat, from Sam Walton who built the global Walmart empire from a single dime store in Arkansas, to Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin who started their company in a garage.
Rags to riches tales are an integral part of what makes the United States a beacon to immigrants who dream of a better life. No one embodies that better than President Obama, whose mother once turned to food stamps to feed her family, yet he was able to attend top-tier universities and aspire to the most powerful office in the world.
Graham, the Brookings economist who studies happiness, said most Americans, including the poor, believe that hard work is more important than luck in getting ahead.
"If I work hard enough, I too can be Bill Gates," is how Graham explains the philosophy.
The only groups that don't share that view and consistently rank toward the bottom on measures of happiness are the long-term unemployed and those without health care, she said.
Both groups grew during the recession. As of September, there were 6.1 million people who had been out of work for more than six months, more than four times as many as there were at the start of the recession.
Deborah Coleman is one of the long-term unemployed. There is no disguising the anger felt by the 58-year-old former telecommunications company manager in Cincinnati, who has been out of work for more than two years.
"Am I pissed that I have lost everything while the rich on Wall Street are still living it up? You bet I'm pissed," she said. "I'm one of the many people who've lost everything and then been swept under the carpet."
TAXING THE RICH
Graham does not yet have enough data to determine whether attitudes toward inequality shifted after the financial crisis, but she suspects there has been very little movement.
The debate over whether to extend Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest households may provide an early litmus test. Obama has proposed keeping the lower tax rates only for families making less than $250,000, but Republicans and a handful of Democrats went them extended for all.
Obama's framing of the issue suggests the White House does not see much voter support for using tax policy to even out income inequality.
On the campaign trail in 2008, Obama told Joe Wurzelbacher, who became known as Joe the Plumber, that if the economy is good for those at the bottom, it's going to be good for everyone. His comments about redistribution sparked fury among conservatives who saw it as evidence the future president harbored socialist leanings.
Since that "spread the wealth" gaffe, Obama has chosen his words more carefully and regularly points out that he is no modern-day Robin Hood.
Ending the tax breaks for the wealthiest "isn't to punish folks who are better off -- God bless them -- it is because we can't afford the $700 billion price tag," Obama said recently.
His opponents say imposing higher taxes would kill the economic recovery because the rich spend, invest and hire more than everyone else, faintly echoing the plutonomy theme laid out by Deutsche Bank's Kapur.
DREAMLESS DEAD
Like cholesterol, there is a "good" and a "bad" kind of inequality, according to Francois Facchini, an economist at the University of Paris.
The "good" kind is aspirational. It encourages people to strive toward success, like Graham's Bill Gates analogy. The "bad" kind fosters disillusionment, a feeling that no matter how hard you work, you cannot win.
Pollster John Zogby sees a growing number of Americans falling into the second category. He calls them the "Dreamless Dead," those who no longer believe in the existence of the American Dream of hard work begetting success.
Those who work hard but fail to get ahead lose faith in the dream, he said. Beginning in the 1990s, Zogby noticed an increase in the percentage of people who said they were working in jobs that paid less than previous positions.
"That's when I started to zero in on the American Dream because my assumption was it was going up in smoke," he said.
In the early 1990s, 14 percent of those polled by Zogby said they were making less money than they had before. After the recession, the percentage had more than doubled.
Janet Townsend, who has worked at General Motors for 34 years, is one of those faced with the prospect of a drastic pay cut. She was told she'd have to take a 50 percent wage reduction because GM wanted to sell the Indianapolis plant where she works to a private investor. Union workers opposed the deal. The plant will be shut next year.
"I haven't seen any auto executives or Wall Street bankers taking a paycut, in fact their pay seems to keep going up," she said. "This country is built on the principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
"But when a corporation tries to make me take a 50 percent pay cut, then you're taking away my right to pursue happiness while enhancing your own."
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DAWN.com - 7 hours ago
The attempts to paint Obama as Muslim and his assiduous denials perhaps reflect the relations between Islam and the West. –Photo by Reuters Perphaps only in ...
'Keep Golden Temple on US President Obama's schedule'
Hindustan Times - 11 hours ago
PTI The American Sikh community has asked the White House to keep the Golden Temple on the schedule of US President Barack Obama during his visit to India ...
Sikhs Lament Obama Plan to Bypass India Temple
New York Times - Ken Maguire - 12 hours ago
WASHINGTON — Sikhs in the United States expressed their frustration Thursday that President Obama would skip a tentatively planned visit to ...
Zardari may visit Washington next month
DAWN.com - 15 hours ago
By Our Correspondent The White House confirmed on Thursday that President Barack Obama invited Mr Zardari to Washington during a meeting with a Pakistani ...
There's no need to kowtow to the US
Daily News & Analysis - 16 hours ago
US president Barack Obama's three-day visit to India starting November 6 is giving rise to feverish anxieties and expectations. ...
Harper at Amritsar
Politico (blog) - Ben Smith - 17 hours ago
A Canadian blogger posts this image of Stephen Harper at the Sikh shrine at Amritsar — which President Obama reportedly won't visit to avoid being ...Pak foreign office says American president is welcome
Daily News & Analysis - Amir Mir - 17 hours ago
The Pakistani government welcomed on Thursday US President Barack Obama's decision to visit Islamabad in early ...
Defence deals to be focal point of Obama's trip
Economic Times - 17 hours ago
NEW DELHI: The line-up for US President Barack Obama's visit to India includes deals for purchase of key surveillance equipment from American firms to ...
Ahead of Obama's visit, US sees India as 'partner and not target'
Times of India - 18 hours ago
NEW DELHI: Ahead of the visit by US President Barack Obama, Washington on Thursday said it has a deep strategic interest in India's rise as a global power. ...
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Sikh Americans campaign for Obama trip to Amritsar
59 minutes ago - Sify
Obama to visit Pak in 2011, delinks it from India visit
Oct 20, 2010 - Times of India
United States hi-tech sanctions against India to go
Oct 20, 2010 - Hindustan Times
Why Obama won't visit Amritsar
Oct 19, 2010 - NDTV.com
No headscarf, Obama may skip Golden Temple visit
Oct 18, 2010 - Indian Express
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Why Obama won't visit Amritsar
NDTV.com - Oct 21, 2010 Watch video
<div class="video-thumb thumbnail"><a class="js-link thumbnail-toggle" href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="return false;"><img src="http://i.ytimg.com/vi/WX4Lkris8ZM/default.jpg" alt="" class="thumbnail" width="120" height="90"> <div class="icon play-icon"></div></a></div> <div class="video-details"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX4Lkris8ZM">Why Obama won't visit Amritsar</a> <span class="source">NDTV.com</span> - Oct 21, 2010 <div class="icon video-icon"></div> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX4Lkris8ZM">Watch video</a></div>
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'Jaish planning strikes during Obama trip'
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Obama's 'tough love message' to Pak on fight against Haqqani network, LeT
Sify - 3 hours ago
US President Barack Obama has reportedly asked his administration to "deliver a tough love message" to Pakistan over its reluctance to act against the ...
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Hindustan Times - 8 hours ago
US President Barack Obama has told Islamabad he doesn't want to bracket his visit to Pakistan with India because adding it would mean spending only half a ...
President Obama to General Kayani: Can You Hear Me Now?
Huffington Post (blog) - 14 hours ago
The third round of the US-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue is being held this week in Washington, DC, in the backdrop of domestic political crises, economic woes ...
According to Musharraf, while it is customary in Pakistan during times of "turmoil" to "look to the army," he believes that "the times of military coups in Pakistan are over. The latest political developments have shown that the Supreme Court has set a bar on itself not to validate a military takeover."
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A red carpet for growth
Economic Times - 15 hours ago
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Daily Times - 17 hours ago
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NPR (blog) - Jj Sutherland - 20 hours ago
Fascinating post over at The Cable. A bunch of high level Pakistani officials are in Washington this week, in some 13 different working ...
Obama popular in India: Poll
Hindustan Times - Oct 21, 2010
PTI When President Barack Obama travels to India next month, he will be visiting a country where both he and America are immensely popular along with its ...
US 'won't compromise' on Pak's democracy: Obama
Sify - Oct 21, 2010
The United States will not compromise on democracy in Pakistan, and will continue providing all possible assistance to it, US President Barack Obama has ...
Waiting for Obama
HardNews Magazine - 5 hours ago
In a few weeks from now, US President Barack Obama would travel to New Delhi on a two-day state visit that has the potential to take the ties between the ...
Obama announcement on Pakistan visit, invitation to President Zardari very ...
Associated Press of Pakistan - 6 hours ago
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Partnership with India never mattered more to US: Burns
Indian Express - 2 hours ago
President Barack Obama's visit next month would be an "extraordinary milestone" in Indo-US relations as the partnership between the countries had never ...India Digest: India Resists US Pushback on Nuclear Liability
Wall Street Journal (blog) - 10 hours ago
Here is a roundup of news from Indian newspapers, news wires and Web sites on Friday, October 22, 2010. The Wall Street Journal has not verified these ...US official hints at lifting nuclear curbs on India
Hindustan Times - 11 hours ago
In the first official pronouncement, the US on Thursday said it wants "export control policies" to reflect India "as a partner, not a target", ...
Liability law has put nuclear agreement in jeopardy: Burns
The Hindu - 20 hours ago
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It takes two to tango
Hindustan Times - 21 hours ago
The most important accomplishment of the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement, from the perspective of New Delhi, was to bring an end to India's isolation ...
Indo-US ties looking at bigger Asian role: former US official
Sify - 22 hours ago
New Delhi, Oct 21 (IANS) The India-US relationship is moving beyond the subcontinent as the two are looking for cooperation in the Asian context, ...
India's n-bill deviates significantly from global standards
Economic Times - Oct 21, 2010
WASHINGTON: The Civil Nuclear Liability Bill "deviates significantly" from international standards and renders equipment suppliers potentially liable for as ...
Indo-US relationship needs new ideas and ambitions: Burns
Hindustan Times - Oct 20, 2010
PTI Indo-US relationship has been "losing some energy" and needs jolts of new ideas and ambitions, a former US diplomat has said and asked the Obama ...Like George Bush, Obama Must Keep India on Side
Worldmeets.us - Oct 19, 2010
"The Obama Administration has been less forthcoming in its support of Indian aspirations than the Bush Administration … As two great democracies, ...
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India at the high table
Sin Chew Jit Poh - Oct 20, 2010
India's uncontested elevation to a non-permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council, with the endorsement of 187 of the 192 UN member-states, ...
'Obama should stop asking India to join NPT as non-nuke state'
Times of India - Oct 19, 2010
WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama should endorse India's bid for permanent seat in the UN Security Council, remove ISRO from the entities list and stop ...<B>Shyam Saran:</B> India in the UN Security Council
Sify - Shyam Saran - Oct 19, 2010
For the many enthusiastic votaries of the ongoing Commonwealth Games (CWG), one compelling argument advanced was that India’s ability to plan and execute, ...
"Now is a critical time in this partnership, a moment to transform past bilateral accomplishments into regional and global successes. We urge American and Indian leaders to seize it," former deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage and former under secretary of state for political affairs, R Nicholas Burns said.
more by Nicholas Burns - Oct 19, 2010 - Times of India (14 occurrences)
Roemer hints at Obama announcing US support for India's UNSC permanent membership
Sify - Oct 19, 2010
US Ambassador to India, Timothy Roemer, has hinted that President Barack Obama, who is to undertake a state visit of India in the first week of November, ...
India's new global role
Hindustan Times - Oct 18, 2010
Indian diplomacy will face a challenging two years when it assumes its non permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council next January. ...
'Time ripe for Obama to back India's UNSC bid'
Rediff - Oct 18, 2010
Karl F Inderfurth, former United States assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs in the Clinton administration, who was with President Bill ...
Obama coming with bag of goodies
Deccan Herald - 19 hours ago
Foremost in the list of gifts is the possible American backing for a United Nations Security Council seat, as well as assurance on outsourcing, ...
India deserves a seat on the Security Council
GulfNews - Manik Mehta - Oct 21, 2010
How can a poor and underdeveloped country such as India, despite its size and democratic commitment, ...
Not All Roads Lead Everyone to the UN Security Council
IDN InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters - Suresh Jaura - Oct 21, 2010
TORONTO (IDN) – While India is relishing its success in having made it to the United Nations Security Council, official Canada is licking ...
India Needs Fresh Thinking at UN
The Diplomat - Sanjay Kumar - Oct 20, 2010
India's election last week to a two-year stint as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council gives this country a new ...
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