Current Affairs Editorials

DDA's WATER SUPPLY ERRATIC

2011-08-27T20:42:00.000-07:00

The DDA did not supply a drop of water on 23rd and 27th of Aug 2011 forcing the MC to procure it through private tankers. A complaint is being filed with the civic agency.

All residents are requested to kindly ensure that no water is wasted.

MANISH TEWARI'S APOLOGY TO ANNA

2011-08-25T20:14:00.000-07:00

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Manish-Tewari-regrets-hurting-Anna-still-faces-lawsuit/articleshow/9739234.cms#write

Any apology forced by circumstances or others cannot be sincere. Manish Tewari not only hurt Anna by his comments on the Gandhian, but has also abused his country wide supporters. Since the 'sorry' is not from the heart, it should be taken with a pinch of salt. Also, since he made the statement as General Secretary of Congress, people have an insight of the Congress' views. Let next general elections convince the Congress of how sorry it should be !

Congress Calls Anna Hazare 'Unelected Tyrant'

2011-06-15T21:30:00.000-07:00

The Congress is right in calling Anna Hazare a tyrant. After all, he is trespassing on Congress' God given right. Besides, Anna is also adamantly set on a course that hits the pockets of politicians as a whole. While the entire political class of the day can easily be mistaken for a bunch of thieves, the Congress stalwarts grab the cake when it comes to looting India. What's more, their partners in looting, read UPA, are also in some sort of a competition in this exercise. With Anna Hazare insisting on a measure, read strong Lokpal, the Congress is smart enough to recognize the threat and initiate measures to neutralise it. In fact, Anna and his Civil Society colleagues should expect more trouble ahead as the Congress will show even lesser tolerance towards any attempt to block its looting spree.

PAKISTAN, US AND AL QAIDA: DOUBLE GAME

2011-05-09T08:09:00.000-07:00

The unintended consequences of
American funding in Pakistan.

by Lawrence Wright, New Yorker, May 16, 2011

It’s the end of the Second World War, and the United States is deciding what to do about two immense, poor, densely populated countries in Asia. America chooses one of the countries, becoming its benefactor.

Over the decades, it pours billions of dollars into that country’s economy, training and equipping its military and its intelligence services. The stated goal is to create a reliable ally with strong institutions and a modern, vigorous democracy. The other country, meanwhile, is spurned because it forges alliances with America’s enemies.

The country not chosen was India, which “tilted” toward the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Pakistan became America’s protégé, firmly supporting its fight to contain Communism. The benefits that Pakistan accrued from this relationship were quickly apparent: in the nineteen-sixties, its economy was an exemplar. India, by contrast, was a byword for basket case. Fifty years then went by. What was the result of this social experiment?

India has become the state that we tried to create in Pakistan. It is a rising economic star, militarily powerful and democratic, and it shares American interests. Pakistan, however, is one of the most anti-American countries in the world, and a covert sponsor of terrorism. Politically and economically, it verges on being a failed state. And, despite Pakistani avowals to the contrary, America’s worst enemy, Osama bin Laden, had been hiding there for years—in strikingly comfortable circumstances—before U.S. commandos finally tracked him down and killed him, on May 2nd.

American aid is hardly the only factor that led these two countries to such disparate outcomes. But, at this pivotal moment, it would be a mistake not to examine the degree to which U.S. dollars have undermined our strategic relationship with Pakistan—and created monstrous contradictions within Pakistan itself.

American money began flowing into Pakistan in 1954, when a mutual defense agreement was signed. During the next decade, nearly two and a half billion dollars in economic assistance, and seven hundred million in military aid, went to Pakistan. After the 1965 Pakistan-India war began, the U.S. essentially withdrew aid to both countries. Gradually, U.S. economic aid was restored, but the Pakistani military was kept on probation.

Those civilian-aid programs were largely successful. Christine Fair, a specialist on South Asia at the Center for Peace and Security Studies, at Georgetown University, notes that the original model for economic assistance was “demand driven”—local groups or governments proposed projects and applied for grants. Aid usually came in the form of matching funds, so that grantees had a stake in the projects. Moreover, American specialists presided over the disbursement of these funds and served as managers. “That was effective,” Fair says. “But we haven’t done it for decades.”

Then, in 1979, U.S. intelligence discovered that Pakistan was secretly building a uranium-enrichment facility in response to India’s nuclear-weapons program. That April, the military dictator of Pakistan, General Mohammed Zia-ul-Haq, hanged the civilian President he had expelled from office, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto; he then cancelled elections. U.S. aid came to a halt. At the same time, Zia began giving support to an Islamist organization, Jamaat-e-Islami, the forerunner of many more radical groups to come. In November, a mob of Jamaat followers, inflamed by a rumor that the U.S. and Israel were behind an attack on the Grand Mosque, in Mecca, burned the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad to the ground, killing two Americans and two Pakistani employees. The American romance with Pakistan was over, but the marriage was just about to begin.

The very next month, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. President Jimmy Carter, in a panic, offered Zia four hundred million dollars in economic and military aid. Zia rejected the offer, calling it “peanuts”—the term often arises in Pakistani critiques of American aid, but it must have rankled the peanut farmer in the White House. Zia was smart to hold out. Under Carter’s successor, Ronald Reagan, U.S. aid nearly quintupled: about three billion dollars in economic assistance and two billion in military aid. The Reagan Administration also provided three billion dollars to Afghan jihadis. These funds went through the sticky hands of the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, the spy branch of the Pakistani Army.

Starting in 1987, the I.S.I. was headed by General Hamid Gul, a cunning and bitterly anti-American figure. The I.S.I. became so glutted with power and money that it formed a “state within a state,” in the words of Benazir Bhutto, who became Pakistan’s Prime Minister in 1988. She eventually fired Gul, fearing that he was engineering a coup.

Milton Bearden, a former C.I.A. station chief in Pakistan, once described Gul to me as having a “rococo” personality. In 2004, I visited Gul -- a short man with a rigid, military posture and raptor-like features -- at his villa in Rawalpindi. He proudly asked his servant to bring me an orange from his private grove. I asked Gul why, during the Afghan jihad, he had favored Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the seven warlords who had been designated to receive American assistance in the fight against the Soviets.

Hekmatyar was the most brutal member of the group, but, crucially, he was a Pashtun, like Gul. As I ate the orange, Gul offered a more principled rationale for his choice: “I went to each of the seven, you see, and I asked them, ‘I know you are the strongest, but who is No. 2?’ ” He formed a tight, smug smile. “They all said Hekmatyar.”

Later, Gul helped oversee the creation of the Taliban, reportedly using mainly Saudi money. The I.S.I. openly supported the Taliban until September 11, 2001. Since then, the Pakistani government has disavowed the group, but it is widely believed that it still provides Taliban leaders with safe harbor in Quetta, where they stage jihad against Western forces in Afghanistan.

In 1990, President George H. W. Bush cut off military aid to Pakistan. Ostensibly, this was in response to Pakistan’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, but it’s also true that, after the Soviets were pushed out of Afghanistan, in the late eighties, the U.S. lost interest in Pakistan. U.S. assistance, directed almost entirely toward food and counter-narcotics efforts, fell to forty-five million dollars a year, and declined further after 1998, when Pakistan began testing nuclear weapons.

After the September 11th attacks, Pakistan abruptly became America’s key ally in the “war on terror.” Under President George W. Bush, the U.S. gave billions of dollars to Pakistan, most of it in unrestricted funds, to combat terrorism. Pervez Musharraf, who served as President between 1999 and 2008, now admits that during his tenure he diverted many of those billions to arm Pakistan against its hobgoblin enemy, India. “Whoever wishes to be angry, let them be angry—why should we bother?” Musharraf said in an interview on the Pakistani television channel Express News. “We have to maintain our security.” Since Musharraf left office, there has been little indication that U.S. aid—$4.5 billion in 2010, one of the largest amounts ever given to a foreign country—is being more properly spent.

The main beneficiary of U.S. money, the Pakistani military, has never won a war, but, according to “Military Inc.,” by Ayesha Siddiqa, it has done very well in its investments: hotels, real estate, shopping malls. Such entrepreneurship, however corrupt, fills a gap, as Pakistan’s economy is now almost entirely dependent on American taxpayers.

In a country of a hundred and eighty million people, fewer than two million citizens pay taxes, and Pakistan’s leaders are doing little to change the situation. In Karachi, the financial capital, the government recently inaugurated a program to appoint eunuchs as tax collectors. Eunuchs are considered relentless scolds in South Asia, and the threat of being hounded by one is somehow supposed to take the place of audits.

In 2008, Pakistan’s government made the dramatic announcement that it was placing the I.S.I. under the control of its Interior Ministry—a restructuring that was revoked within hours by inflamed military leaders, who effectively vetoed the government. That November, Lashkar-e-Taiba, a terrorist organization that has reportedly received backing from the I.S.I. to wage jihad in Kashmir, carried out attacks on tourists in Mumbai. According to American indictments, an I.S.I. officer directed the surveillance of suitable targets.

Those sites included the Taj and Oberoi hotels, the train station, the Leopold Café, and the Chabad House, a Lubavitch outpost run by an American rabbi and his pregnant wife. According to Sebastian Rotella, who has written extensively for ProPublica about the attack, “They were going out of their way to kill Americans.” At the hotels, the attackers sorted through passports, looking for American and British citizens. In the end, a hundred and sixty-six people were killed, but only six were Americans. The Pakistani government denied any involvement, although it eventually conceded that the attacks had been planned in Pakistan.

Ali Soufan, a former F.B.I. special agent who interrogated many of the Al Qaeda members captured in Pakistan, told me that “the majority of them said that Lashkar-e-Taiba had given them shelter.” After the battle of Tora Bora, he added, the Al Qaeda members who fled to Pakistan—including top leaders—were greeted by Lashkar operatives and taken to safe houses. Some Pakistanis worry that Lashkar may become the new Al Qaeda.

In 2009, Senators Richard Lugar and John Kerry, recognizing that American military aid had given the Army and the I.S.I. disproportionate power in Pakistan, helped pass legislation in Congress sanctioning seven and a half billion dollars in civilian assistance, to be disbursed over a period of five years. Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, apparently at the direction of the military, flew to Washington, and insisted that his country would not be micromanaged. So far, less than a hundred and eighty million dollars of that money has been spent, because the civilian projects require oversight and checks on corruption. The Pakistani military, meanwhile, submits expense claims every month to the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad; according to a report in the Guardian, receipts are not provided—or requested.

One day in March, 2004, when I was in Peshawar, in northern Pakistan, a firefight broke out in the tribal areas nearby. The newspapers said the Army was fighting Al Qaeda, and had surrounded Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s deputy. Zawahiri escaped, but the troops captured a number of Al Qaeda fighters, including Zawahiri’s son Ahmed.

The next day, a newspaper bore the headline “AHMED’S TALKING!” Yet Zawahiri doesn’t have a son named Ahmed. After that day, nothing more was said about Ahmed, but I kept puzzling over that tricked-up episode. I began to wonder, What would happen if the Pakistani military actually captured or killed Al Qaeda’s top leaders? The great flow of dollars would stop, just as it had in Afghanistan after the Soviets limped away. I realized that, despite all the suffering the war on terror had brought to Pakistan, the military was addicted to the money it generated. The Pakistani Army and the I.S.I. were in the looking-for-bin-Laden business, and if they found him they’d be out of business.
A number of investigative reports have suggested that the I.S.I. diverted American money designated for fighting terrorism to the Taliban. According to a 2007 document released by WikiLeaks, U.S. military interrogators at Guantánamo implicitly acknowledged this problem when they placed the I.S.I. on an internal list of “terrorist and terrorist-support entities.”

In October, 2009, I went to Washington to attend a daylong conference on “Al Qaeda and Its Allies.” (The event was sponsored by the New America Foundation and by the Center on Law and Security, at N.Y.U.’s law school, where I am a fellow.) The final panel discussion was devoted to Pakistan. Major General Mahmud Ali Durrani, a former Pakistani Ambassador to the U.S., spoke of the importance of having America and Pakistan united in their military strategy, especially in South Waziristan, which he called “the epicenter of militancy.”

The halfhearted efforts of the Pakistani Army to oppose its radical protégés there had created a ferocious backlash. The Taliban attacked I.S.I. offices and began taking over parts of Pakistani territory, including the Swat Valley, which is less than a hundred miles from Islamabad. Just two weeks before the conference, a group of Taliban fighters attacked the military headquarters in Rawalpindi, a mile from where General Durrani lives. The I.S.I. had lost control of its creation.

Durrani made a plea for the U.S. to continue its partnership with Pakistan. “Trust us, developing Pakistan’s capacity to fight terrorism will pay rich dividends,” he said. “I do not want to sound ungrateful, but what had been supplied over the last five years, in terms of hardware, is almost peanuts.” When I had the opportunity to ask a question, I pointed out that, since 9/11, the U.S. had given eleven billion dollars to Pakistan, the bulk of it in military aid, much of which was misappropriated to buy weapons to defend against India. If Pakistan didn’t have the equipment to fight insurgents and terrorists in the tribal areas, was that really America’s fault? And if American aid to Pakistan—especially military assistance—had done more harm than good, shouldn’t it be drastically reduced?

Another retired general on the podium, Talat Masood, responded that the losses Pakistan had suffered in the “so-called war on terror” amounted to more than forty billion dollars. “So please don’t harp on the eleven billion,” he said.

Pakistan has indeed suffered for its official alliance with the U.S. In 2006, there were six suicide bombings in the country; the next year there were fifty-six, with six hundred and forty people killed. Last year, twelve hundred people were murdered by suicide bombers. More than three thousand Pakistani soldiers and officers have been killed in the war, including eighty-five members of the I.S.I. Yet many of these wounds have been self-inflicted, for the military and the I.S.I. created and nurtured the very groups—such as the Taliban—that have turned against the Pakistani state. And the money used to fund these radical organizations came largely from American taxpayers.

Many foreign-policy experts maintain that America cannot, at this juncture, cut off military aid to Pakistan—even if elements of the I.S.I. turn out to have harbored bin Laden. There are two prongs to this argument. One is that America needs Pakistan’s support in order to defeat the Taliban. If the U.S. withdraws aid, it is argued, Pakistan might insist that we can no longer fly drones over tribal areas. But Pakistan has covertly supported the drone program for years, in return for the U.S.’s targeting of Taliban forces that it cannot vanquish on its own. Without U.S. aid, the Pakistani military will need drone assistance more than ever.

The more pressing concern is that radical Islamists will somehow get their hands on a nuclear bomb, either through covert means or by actually coming to power. “The military is playing on this fear,” a Pakistani reporter, Pir Zubair Shah, told me.

As much as half of the money the U.S. gave to the I.S.I. to fight the Soviets was diverted to build nuclear weapons. The father of Pakistan’s bomb, A. Q. Khan, later sold plans and nuclear equipment to Libya, North Korea, and Iran. A month before 9/11, Pakistani nuclear scientists even opened a secret dialogue with Al Qaeda. The government of Pakistan has denied knowledge of what Khan and his associates were doing.

In February, 2009, the Pakistani government announced that it had “dismantled the nuclear black market network.” There is no way of knowing if this is true. Neither the U.S. nor the International Atomic Energy Agency has been allowed to interview Khan. According to a recent report by the Congressional Research Service, the “current status of Pakistan’s nuclear export network is unclear.” Meanwhile, American policymakers have been paralyzed by Pakistan’s nuclear capability. They have repeatedly expressed the worry that, if Pakistan is alienated, its nuclear secrets and materials might get into the wrong hands. But that has already happened.

Not only has American military aid been wasted, misused, and turned against us; it may well have undermined the Pakistani military, which has feasted on huge donations but is far weaker than its nemesis, the Indian military. If the measure of our aid is the gratitude of the Pakistani people and the loyalty of their government, then it has clearly been a failure.

Last year, a Pew Research Center survey found that half of Pakistanis believe that the U.S. gives little or no assistance at all. Even the Finance Minister, Hafiz Shaikh, said last month that it was “largely a myth” that the U.S. had given tens of billions of dollars to Pakistan. And if the measure of our aid is Pakistan’s internal security, the program has fallen short in that respect as well. Pakistan is endangered not by India, as the government believes, but by the very radical movements that the military helped create to act as terrorist proxies.

Eliminating, or sharply reducing, military aid to Pakistan would have consequences, but they may not be the ones we fear. Diminishing the power of the military class would open up more room for civilian rule. Many Pakistanis are in favor of less U.S. aid; their slogan is “trade not aid.” In particular, Pakistani businessmen have long sought U.S. tax breaks for their textiles, which American manufacturers have resisted. Such a move would empower the civilian middle class.

India would no doubt welcome a reduction in military aid to Pakistan, and the U.S. could use this as leverage to pressure India to allow the Kashmiris to vote on their future, which would very likely be a vote for independence. These two actions might do far more to enhance Pakistan’s stability, and to insure its friendship, than the billions of dollars that America now pays like a ransom.

Within the I.S.I., there is a secret organization known as the S Wing, which is largely composed of supposedly retired military and I.S.I. officers. “It doesn’t exist on paper,” a source close to the I.S.I. told me. The S Wing handles relations with radical elements. “If something happens, then they have deniability,” the source explained. If any group within the Pakistani military helped hide bin Laden, it was likely S Wing.

Eight days before Osama bin Laden was killed, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the head of the Pakistani Army, went to the Kakul military academy in Abbottabad, less than a mile from the villa where bin Laden was living. “General Kayani told the cadets, ‘We have broken the backbone of the militants,’ ” Pir Zubair Shah, the reporter, told me. “But the backbone was right there.”

Perhaps with a touch of theatre, Hamid Gul, the former I.S.I. chief, publicly expressed wonder that bin Laden was living in a city with three army regiments, less than a mile from an élite military academy, in a house that appeared to have been built expressly to protect him. Aside from the military, Gul told the Associated Press, “there is the local police, the Intelligence Bureau, Military Intelligence, the I.S.I. They all had a presence there.” ♦

UPA II WONT LET THE LAW TAKE ITS OWN COURSE

2011-02-23T17:24:00.000-08:00

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Govt-wont-fix-time-limit-for-deciding-mercy-petitions-Chidambaram/articleshow/7557257.cms

Afzal Guru was sentenced to death in 2002 after being found guilty of plotting the terror attack on Parliament on December 13, 2001. First the Delhi High Court upheld the trial court sentence and then the Supreme Court confirmed it in August 2005. But his execution was stayed after his wife Tabassum filed the mercy petition in October 2006, which is "still under examination'' in the home ministry and is yet to be submitted to Rashtrapati Bhawan. The government made it clear that it will not prescribe a time-limit for decisions on mercy petitions of prisoners on death row.

In other words, the UPA II led by Congress will not allow the law to take its own course. it does'nt come as any surprise that 'justice delivery system' and the nation are less important for the Congress than its own political calculations.

KASHMIR: MYTHS, REALITY AND ARUNDHATI ROY

2010-10-27T04:21:00.000-07:00

Arundhati Roy says Kashmir was never a part of India. We look at why she is wrong and why India’s position is not as vulnerable as it is portrayed to be.

At the time of Indian independence, none of the princely states were part of India. The Hindu ruler of Kashmir Maharaja Hari Singh wanted to remain independent. In spite of entreaties from various quarters including from Governor General of India Loius Mountbatten, the Maharaja continued to dither and remain non-committal.

Myth I

Kashmir has never been an integral part of India: Arundhati Roy.

The Story

At the time of Indian independence, none of the princely states — Hyderabad, Gwalior, Mysore, Baroda and Kashmir, to name a few — were part of India. They were called princely states — quasi-sovereign states ruled by the Indian princes under the "suzerainty" of the British. There were as many as 568 states in India when the British decided to leave India.

In 1947, under the Mountbatten Plan, they were given two options — either affiliate with India or with Pakistan. Though most of the princely states thirsted for freedom, that option was closed at the insistence of the Congress party. Though the choice of which entity to join was left to the rulers of the princely states, it was largely understood that the religious denomination of the majority of the citizens and geographical contiguities of the states would be the preponderant determining criteria.

Kashmir fulfilled both these paramount criteria to join Pakistan — geographical contiguity with the newly-formed state and religious domination of the majority of its citizens.

However, there was a problem: The Hindu ruler of Kashmir Maharaja Hari Singh wanted something which was not on the table — azaadi, or freedom from both India and Pakistan. He wanted Kashmir to remain independent. In spite of entreaties from various quarters including from the Governor General of India, Loius Mountbatten, the Maharaja continued to dither and remained non-committal. And the situation reached a stalemate.

Jinnah and Pakistan perceived this intransigence of the Maharaja to be a clever ploy by India and Mountbatten to pluck Kashmir surreptiously from Pakistan's grasp. So, in an operation that today can be seen as a precursor of the Kargil Operation, Pakistan launched a military invasion of Kashmir on October 22, 1947.

Pashtun tribals and irregulars, morally and logistically supported by the Pakistan army, were sent in to force the Maharaja to accede to Pakistan. The invaders reached the outskirts of Srinagar, the capital. And threatened to besiege the city.

A frightened and panick-stricken Maharaja radioed Delhi for military help. The Indian leadership argued that it would not be legally possible to send in the Indian Army unless Kashmir acceded to India formally. After another bout of resistance, the Maharaja finally yielded and Mountbatten's aide V P Menon was sent to Srinagar to secure his signature on the Instrument of Accession. Once signed (on 26 October 1947), the Indian Army was airlifted to Srinagar and the Pakistani invaders were beaten back, but not before they controlled about one-third of Kashmir.

The Reality:

As soon as the Maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession, Kashmir's accession to India was complete in the legal and formal sense — the same Instrument of Accession that was signed by more than 500 other princely states. That is a fact of history, which cannot be disputed without stretching the truth. It's there in black and white. In fact, it can be argued that it was Pakistan's folly of invading Kashmir, overplaying its hand, which sowed the seeds of the Kashmir imbroglio.

When the irregulars from Pakistan invaded India on October 22, 1947, Prime Minister Nehru went to the UN in good faith to call on the world body to intervene and ensure that Pakistan pull back its troops. Based on the Indian complaint and the counter-arguments of Pakistan, the UN Security Council called for not only an immediate ceasefire, but also a plebiscite to determine the wishes of the Kashmiris.

Myth II

India refuses to uphold the UN-mandated plebiscite that gives the right of self-determination to the Kashmiri people: Pakistan

The Story

When the irregulars from Pakistan invaded India on October 22, 1947, Prime Minister Nehru went to the UN in good faith to call on the world body to intervene and ensure that Pakistan pull back its troops. Based on the Indian complaint and the counter-arguments of Pakistan, the UN Security Council called for not only an immediate ceasefire, but also a plebiscite to determine the wishes of the Kashmiris.

Ignoring the advice of his Home Minister Sardar Patel and Indian Army commanders that India should not agree to a ceasefire before the area captured by the invaders was reclaimed, Nehru went ahead and not only ordered an immediate ceasefire but also agreed in principle to the plebiscite — a promise that has not been kept.

The Reality

This is the instance used to castigate India for not only breaking the spirit of the UN resolution but also ignoring the legitimate aspirations of the Kashmiri people.

But just look at what UN Resolution 38 of 17 January 1948 actually says about the run-up to the plebiscite —

"The Government of Pakistan should undertake to use its best endeavours: To secure the withdrawal from the State of Jammu and Kashmir of tribesmen and Pakistani nationals not normally resident therein who have entered the State for the purposes of fighting, and to prevent any intrusion into the State of such elements and any furnishing of material aid to those fighting in the State".

Please read that again.The much-bandied resolution, used to whip India with by the critics, clearly states that Pakistan will "withdraw" all "Pakistani nationals" and "tribesmen" who infiltrated on October 22, 1947 from the soil of the whole of Jammu and Kashmir as it existed then, without exception. This was the UN resolution's 'first condition' for the beginning of the process towards the plebiscite.

Has that condition been fulfilled by Pakistan? Has the land 'occupied' by the Pakistanis and the tribesmen in 1947 been vacated? Isn't the reality that Pakistan occupied and continues to occupy more than one-third of the territory of Kashmir?

As a way to fulfill the mandate and hold the plebiscite, will Pakistan be willing to vacate PoK now, 63 years after the resolution? The answer is written on the wall.

For all intents and purposes the UN resolution on Kashmir is as good as dead.

No wonder then that the wily but pragmatic General Musharraf gave up the usual Pakistani harping on self-determination in Kashmir for a more practical and doable out-of-the-box solution, which unfortunately is being disowned by the present Pakistani government.

Ignoring the advise of his Home Minister, Sardar Patel, and Indian Army commanders that India should not agree to a ceasefire before the area captured by the invaders was reclaimed, Nehru went ahead and not only ordered an immediate ceasefire but also agreed in principle to the plebiscite, a promise that has not been kept.

Myth III

Pakistan has always stood by Kashmir, as against the brutality of the Indian security forces in the Indian side of Kashmir: Pakistan

a) Pakistan has carved out the Northern Areas (now called Gilgit-Baltistan, almost 72,971 Sq km) from Kashmir into a separate administrative and political unit. This area, which was part of the undivided Kashmir at the time of independence, has been 'annexed' by Pakistan, as it were, and separated from Kashmir.

b) In 1963, Pakistan illegally ceded 5,800 sq km in the Trans-Karakoram Tract to China. The Tract was part of the original state of Jammu and Kashmir.

c) Pakistan actively encourages "other people" to settle in PoK and have even allowed the Chinese a huge presence in Gilgit-Baltistan, ostensibly for developing the infrastructure of the region.

In contrast:

a) Territorially, the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir is the same entity that existed in 1947, except for the portions gobbled-up by Pakistan/China.

b) The Freedom House Report, 2010, on the level of 'freedom' in PoK characterised it as "not free', while the Indian side of Kashmir was defined as "partly free".

c) No non-Kashmiri can buy as much as an inch of land in the state of Jammu & Kashmir. There has been no attempt by India to change the demographics or the state's ethnic character. The only demographic change that has happened in the state has been the "ethnic cleansing" of the Kashmiri pundits from the Valley. A mass exodus which has largely been ignored by the media and the powers-that-be.

Therefore, there is nothing much really that India has to feel defensive about. Whatever Arundhati Roy or others may put out on the air.

A New Initiative by Govt of India

2010-10-05T21:14:00.001-07:00

Government of India has an online Grievance forum at http://www.pgportal.gov.in

The govt. wants people to use this tool to highlight the problems they faced while dealing with Government officials or departments like

1) Railways

2) Posts

3) Telecom (incl. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) & Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL )

4) Urban Development ( Delhi Development Authority (DDA) , Land & Development Office (L&DO) , Central Public Works Department (CPWD) , etc)

5) Petroleum & Natural Gas

6) Civil Aviation ( Air India , Airports Authority of India , etc)

7) Shipping , Road Transport & Highways

8) Tourism

9) Public Sector Banks Allahabad Bank, Andhra Bank, Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, Bank of Maharashtra, Canara Bank, Central Bank of India, Corporation Bank, Dena Bank, Indian Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Industrial Development Bank of India Ltd, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Punjab & Sind Bank, Punjab National Bank, Small Industries Development Bank of India, State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur, State Bank of Hyderabad, State Bank of India, State Bank of Indore, State Bank of Mysore, State Bank of Patiala, State Bank of Travancore, Syndicate Bank, UCO Bank, Union Bank of India, United Bank of India and Vijaya Bank.

10) Public Sector Insurance Companies GIC of India Life Insurance Corporation of India National Insurance Company Ltd. The New India Assurance Company Ltd. The Oriental Insurance Company Ltd. United India Insurance Company Ltd.

11) National Saving Scheme of Ministry of Finance

12) Employees' Provident Fund Organization

13) Regional Passport Authorities Regional Passport Office, Ahemadabad Regional Passport Office, Amritsar Regional Passport Office, Bangalore Regional Passport Office, Bareilly Regional Passport Office, Bhopal Regional Passport Office, Bhubaneswar Regional Passport Office, Chandigarh Regional Passport Office, Chennai Regional Passport Office, Cochin Regional Passport Office, Coimbatore Regional Passport Office, Dehradun Regional Passport Office, Delhi Regional Passport Office, Ghaziabad Regional Passport Office, Goa Regional Passport Office, Guwahati Regional Passport Office, Hyderabad Regional Passport Office, Jaipur Regional Passport Office, Jalandhar Regional Passport Office, Jammu Regional Passport Office, Kolkata Regional Passport Office, Kozhikode Regional Passport Office, Lucknow Regional Passport Office, Madurai Regional Passport Office, Malappuram Regional Passport Office, Mumbai Regional Passport Office, Nagpur Regional Passport Office, Patna Regional Passport Office, Pune Regional Passport Office, Raipur Regional Passport Office, Ranchi Regional Passport Office, Shimla Regional Passport Office, Srinagar Regional Passport Office, Surat Regional Passport Office, Thane Regional Passport Office, Trichy Regional Passport Office, Trivandrum Regional Passport Office, Visakhapatnam

14) Central Government Health Scheme

15) Central Board of Secondary Education

16) Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan

17) National Institute of Open Schooling

18) Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti

19) Central Universities

20) ESI Hospitals and Dispensaries directly controlled by ESI Corporation under Ministry of Labour

It is better to use this grievance forum and educate others who don't know about this facility than just talking about the 'System' in India.

THE 'SECULAR' BOAST

2010-09-14T18:16:00.000-07:00

Our politicians keep trying to prove their secular credentials at any forum or media interaction. They never tire of putting one another down by hurling accusations of not being 'secular' or 'secular enough'. I recently received a forward from one of my Army friends, who in turn received it from someone else, that explains the true meaning of 'secular' lies in practice of the concept and not in bragging about it just to promote self interest. I wish I knew the author of this article; but am reproducing it here. Read on ............

As a retired Army 0fficer, I never stop marveling at the gullibility of our countrymen to be provoked with alacrity into virulence in the name of religion and regionalism. I have never heard the word 'secular' during all my service -- and yet, the simple things that are done simply in the army make it appear like an island of sanity in a sea of hatred.

In the Army, each 0fficer identifies with the religion of his troops. In regiments where the soldiers are from more than one religion, the officers -- and indeed all jawans attend the weekly religious prayers of all the faiths. In earlier days how many times have I trooped out of the battalion mandir and, having worn my shoes, entered the battalion church or, taking them off again, entered the Gurudwara next door? A few years ago it all became simpler -- Mandirs, Masjids, Gurudwars and Churches began to share premises all over the army, and named Dharamsthan or Sarvadharamsthal. It saved us the walk.

Perhaps it is so because the Army genuinely believes in two central 'truths' -- oneness of God and victory in operations. Both are so sacred we cannot nitpick and question the basics.

In fact, sometimes the army mixes up the two! 0n a visit to the holy cave at Amarnath a few years ago I saw a plaque mounted on the side of the hill by a battalion that had once guarded the annual Yatra. It said, 'Best wishes from -....- battalion. Deployed for Operation Amarnath.

On another instance, I remember a Commanding 0fficer ordered the battalion Maulaviji to conduct the proceedings of Janamashtmi prayers because the panditji had to proceed on leave on compassionate grounds. No eyebrows were raised. It was the most rousing and best-prepared sermon on Lord Krishna I have ever had the pleasure of listening to.

On the Line of Control, a company of Khemkhani Muslim soldiers replaced a Dogra battalion. Over the next few days, the post was shelled heavily by Pakistanis, and there were a few non-fatal casualties. 0ne day, the junior commissioned officer of the company, Subedar Sarwar Khan walked up to the company commander Major Sharma and said, "Sahib, ever since the Dogras left, the mandir has been shut. Why don't you open it once every evening and do aarti? Why are we displeasing the Gods?"

Major Sharma shamefacedly confessed he did not know all the words of the aarti. Subedar Sarwar went away and that night, huddled over the radio set under a weak lantern light, painstakingly took down the words of the aarti from the post of another battalion!

How many of us know that along the entire border with Pakistan, our troops abstain from alcohol and non-vegetarian food on all Thursdays? The reason: It is called the Peer day -- essentially a day of religious significance for the Muslims.

In 1984, after Operation Bluestar there was anguish in the Sikh community over the desecration of the holiest of their shrines. Some of this anger and hurt was visible in the Army too.

I remember the first Sikh festival days after the event -- the number of army personnel of every religious denomination that thronged the regimental Gurudwara of the nearest Sikh battalion was the largest I had seen. I distinctly remember each officer and soldier who put his forehead to the ground to pay obeisance appeared to linger just a wee bit longer than usual. Was I imagining this? I do not think so. There was that empathy and caring implicit in the quality of the gesture that appeared to say, "You are hurt and we all understand."

We were deployed on the Line of Control those days. Soon after the news of disaffection among a small section of Sikh troops was broadcast on the BBC, Pakistani troops deployed opposite the Sikh battalion yelled across to express their 'solidarity' with the Sikhs.

The Sikh havildar shouted back that the Pakistanis had better not harbor any wrong notions. "If you dare move towards this post, we will mow you down."

Finally, a real -- and true -- gem....

Two boys of a Sikh regiment battalion were overheard discussing this a day before Christmas.

"Why are we having a holiday tomorrow?" asked Sepoy Singh.

"It is Christmas," replied the wiser Naik Singh.

"But what is Christmas?"

"Christmas," replied Naik Singh, with his eyes half shut in reverence and hands in a spontaneous prayer-clasp, "is the Guruparb of the Christians."

PROFILING OF CITIZENS: TAKE A LOOK

2010-09-12T21:56:00.000-07:00

The world has become so insulated from reality that it imagines America can suffer defeat without any inconvenience to its people. Absolutely No Profiling! Pause a moment, reflect back, and take the following multiple choice test.These events are actual events from history. They really happened! Do you remember?

HERE'S THE TEST

1. 1968 Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed by:

a. Superman

b. Jay Leno

c. Harry Potter

d. A Muslim male extremist between the ages of 17 and 40

2. In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were kidnapped and massacred by:

a. Olga Corbett

b. Sitting Bull

c. Arnold Schwarzenegger