As August draws to a close, so does the first phase of the Obama presidency. The first months of any US presidency are spent filling key positions and learning the levers of foreign and national security policy. There are also the first rounds of visits with foreign leaders and the first tentative forays into foreign policy. The first summer sees t
For some time now, Hindus have been exercised over biased Western agencies indulging in institutionalized undermining of Hindu religious philosophy, culture, figures and icons through prejudiced application of experimental social sciences masquerading as foolproof scientific scholarship. Such discriminatory tendencies are not isolated to academia,
The situation in Kerala now is similar to that of India on the eve of the Khilafat Movement. One who cross-examines the situations of both segments of history can see several parallels. The Hindus of Kerala cannot forget the terrible days of the Moplah Riots of 1921, offshoot of the Khilafat-Non-Cooperation moment. Since 1905, certain anti-national
On Aug.17, addressing the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Phoenix, Ariz., and referring to the ongoing war in Afghanistan, US President Barack Obama said: “We must never forget: This is not a war of choice… This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again.” He staunchly defen
Conversion as motiveIt is an open secret that the foremost aim of the Church is to spread Christianity throughout the world and establish its rule. Yet an Indian government led by a ‘Hindu’ party welcomed Pope John Paul II as a State Guest and allowed him to give a clarion call for evangelization of India on this sacred Hindu Bhumi. Wit
In 2007, the UNHCR reported on the decline of Gaza’s Fishing Industry and stressed the importance of allowing fishermen to go about their daily lives in this vital industry. Fishing historically has been the only lifeline for the people of Gaza. It has been very much part of their daily life and nutritional intake. The UN has allowed the esta
Having inherited a no-win war from his predecessor, the 44th US President, Barack Obama, has decided to invest more money and fire-power in Afghanistan, a policy guaranteed to make the war in the coming days not only financially and physically more costly, but a gruesome one, in the same way the Vietnam War was.His new commander of US and NATO troo
The US seven-year war and occupation of Iraq is driven by several major political forces and informed by a variety of imperial interests. However these interests do not in themselves explain the depth and scope of the sustained, massive and continuing destruction of an entire society and its reduction to a permanent state of war. The range of polit
Though the Iraq war is certainly not over, it has reached a crossroads. During the course of the war, about 40 countries sent troops to fight in what was called “Multi-National Force-Iraq.” As of this summer, only one foreign country’s fighting forces remain in Iraq - those of the United States. A name change in January 2010 will
Doug Rokke earned his B.S. in Physics at Western Illinois University followed by his M.S. and Ph.D. in physics and technology education at the University of Illinois. His military career has spanned 4 decades to include combat duty during the Vietnam War and Gulf War 1. Doug served as a member of the 3rd US Army Medical Command’s Nuclear, Bio
Pak response to IntifadaThe tactical dimensions of the Intifada in Kashmir valley are coming to the fore sooner than later. Any doubts that the recent public mobilisation drives in Kashmir Valley have been deft manoeuvres to create space for both the Pakistani Government and the separatists in Jammu & Kashmir state in the existing international
“The banks - hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created - are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. They frankly own the place.” - US Senator Dick Durbin, Democratic Party Whip, April 30, 2009While the US spends trillions of dollars to bail out its banking system, leaving i
When the Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh stated in the Indian Parliament that India could not change her neighbours, did he convey the message to the Indian people that India could not choose policies which its neighbours did not approve? How come that the Indian Prime Minister did not know that in the community of nations there are no nei
On March 27, US President Barack Obama told his administration members and the media that “the future of Afghanistan is inextricably linked to the future of its neighbour, Pakistan. In the nearly eight years since 9/11, al Qaeda and its extremist allies have moved across the border to the remote areas of the Pakistani frontier.” A
This article will highlight some of the misinterpretations of Hinduism in Encyclopædia Britannica, many of which are very offending to any Hindu reader and those who know and respect Hinduism. The author has based this article on the contents of [1]. Text quoted from Encyclopædia Britannica 2009 Student and Home Edition is in slanted re
It was Einstein who stated that if the Honey Bee disappeared from the surface of the earth, man would have four years of life left. “No More Bees, No more Pollination, No more Plants, No more Animals, No More Man.”Hence the fall of Bee population in America, Latin America and Europe should concern every human being. It is said that one
President Obama has repeated his call for a public option in health care, in order to create some competition for the insurance companies and keep them honest. We the people need to call for a public option in banking, in order to create some competition for the private banks and keep them honest. In Wall Street’s latest affront to
It is hard to imagine moonscape was once the proud city of Gaza. Do the residents of Gaza fully understand the hidden contamination that exists amidst this devastated landscape? What lies ahead for those that survive, and will secondary contamination result in more deaths? We have already revealed the consequences and impact on the civilian populat
Has it all come to this? The wars and invasions, the death and destruction, the exile and torture, the resistance and collapse? In a world of shrinking energy reserves, is Iraq finally fated to become what it was going to be anyway, even before the chaos and catastrophe set in: a giant gas pump for an energy-starved planet? Will it all end not with
The unwarranted expulsion of senior leader Jaswant Singh, who would possibly have been the sole critic of the BJP’s shoddy performance in the 2009 parliamentary elections at the so-called chintan baithak, showcases LK Advani’s Stalinist control over the party and signals a direct snub and challenge to the RSS Sarsanghachalak who desires
Some of the heavier bombs dropped on Gaza didn’t go off. Was this a blessing or had the contamination of Gaza already taken place? We know many weapons contain Depleted Uranium, but we do not know what is contained in these bigger munitions of war. As reported elsewhere, some of the larger bombs dropped in Lebanon were “Dirty Bombs&rdqu
We have seen and heard many sad stories from victims of uranium based weaponry covering so many theatres of war Balkans – Kuwait – Iraq – Afghanistan – Lebanon – Gaza, and now possibly Pakistan. But do we really understand the consequences of these evil weapons that are manufactured in the US and used by all NATO and I
The Supreme Court’s startling decision to award a staggering Rs. 10 lakh as compensation to the family of underworld character Sohrabuddin Sheikh bodes ill for India’s battle against jihadi terror and its native accomplices. Sohrabuddin and his wife, Kausar Bi, were killed by Gujarat Police in November 2005. On August 11, a Supreme Cour
This is the story of one of the great unspoken scandals of our times. Today, the people across the world who most need life-saving medicine are being prevented from producing it. Here’s the latest example: factories across the poor world are desperate to start producing their own cheaper Tamiflu to protect their populations – but they a
On July 16, in a speech to the Economic Club of Chicago, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that the “central question” for the defense of the United States was how the military should be “organized, equipped - and funded - in the years ahead, to win the wars we are in while being prepared for threats on or beyond the horizon.
We have seen many threats and accusations made against Iran and its Nuclear Research Programme with condemnations coming from the US, UK, NATO countries and the “Big Boys Club” known as the UN Security Council. Repeated warnings and many dress rehearsals for such an attack have been carried out by Israel. This cat and mouse game has gon
The Bilderberg Group and the European Union Project In 1954, the Bilderberg Group was founded in the Netherlands, which was a secretive meeting held once a year, drawing roughly 130 of the political-financial-military-academic-media elites from North America and Western Europe as “an informal network of influential people who could consult ea
[In recent times, there has been much churning in society about the nature of Indian nationalism and the Indian state. Central to this debate is the status of the Hindu people, their religion and culture, in their natal land. Beginning with the repugnant colonial Aryan Invasion Theory to the Partition of 1947, but by no means ending with that traum
The Partition of India led to the creation on 14 August and 15 August 1947, respectively, of the states of Dominion of Pakistan (later Islamic Republic of Pakistan) and Dominion of India (later Republic of India). Partition most dramatically involved the Bengal province of British India into East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and the Indian state of We
Two seemingly separate but actually connected developments in India have, perhaps, not got serious attention from political analysts. One was the complaint of actor Emraan Hashmi that he was being denied suitable accommodation in a Mumbai locality because he was a Muslim. And the second was the hostile reaction of the All India Muslim Personal Law
Over the past few years, India, the world’s largest (if also rowdiest) democracy, has matched its political freedoms with economic ones, unleashing a torrent of growth and wealth creation that is transforming the lives of millions. India's economic clout is beginning to make itself felt on the international stage. As “Time” magazi
Six decades after Independence and the creation of Pakistan, why does the communal problem remain wholly unresolved even in the truncated India? In fact, it has grown to unimaginable proportions if we take (as we should) the whole of undivided India into consideration. The answer lies essentially in a wrong idea of India that dominated the thinking
Indian Minister of State for Environment Jairam Ramesh said on July 31 in New Delhi that he was going to Beijing in the last week of August, to discuss the stand of developing countries on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). He was releasing a booklet that puts together the submissions India recently made to the negotiations, in
On June 29 US President Barack Obama hosted his Colombian counterpart Alvaro Uribe at the White House and weeks later it was announced that the Pentagon plans to deploy troops to five air and naval bases in Colombia, the largest recipient of American military assistance in Latin America and the third largest in the world, having received over $5 bi
When an insurance firm boss saw a field hospital for the poor in Virginia, he knew he had to speak out. Here, he tells Paul Harris of his fears for Obama’s bid to bring about radical change. Wendell Potter can remember exactly when he took the first steps on his journey to becoming a whistleblower and turning against one of the most powe
Scientific Tests Must Be Approved by Industry FirstOne of the great mysteries surrounding the spread of GMO plants around the world since the first commercial crops were released in the early 1990’s in the USA and Argentina has been the absence of independent scientific studies of possible long-term effects of a diet of GMO plants on humans o
[The unveiling of Tamil Jaina saint-poet, Thiruvalluvar’s, statue in Bangalore yesterday by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, is a virtual coup by Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa, who retains the capacity to spring the quiet surprise. That this will be followed next week by Yeddyruppa unveiling the statue of Kannada saint-po
A bill to make voting compulsory for every eligible voter in elections to the Lok Sabha or State Assembly has been introduced in Parliament. It proposes to levy ‘penalties’ for not voting and to ‘incentivise’ voting by providing rewards. The penalties would be - a fine of Rs 500 or two days’ imprisonment, or forfeiture
Russia, Oil and Revolution By the 1870s, John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Empire had a virtual monopoly over the United States, and even many foreign countries. In 1890, the King of Holland gave his blessing for the creation of an international oil company called Royal Dutch Oil Company, which was mainly founded to refine and sell kerosene
US Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Georgia and Ukraine partly answered questions over how US-Russian talks went during US President Barack Obama’s visit to Russia in early July. That Biden’s visit took place at all reaffirms the US commitment to the principle that Russia does not have the right to a sphere of influence in thes
Every year, India faces water scarcity due to delayed monsoons and inadequate rainfall in certain places. This has resulted in deaths due to water scarcity and water-borne diseases.Historically, tanks and lakes were an important source fulfilling water demands of the population. Kautilya’s Arthashastra (1) (4th century BC) gives copious infor
The recent tragedy of illicit and adulterated liquor in Gujarat has once again brought to the fore deeper anxieties regarding the status of the food we consume. It is common knowledge that milk continues to be adulterated with impunity in India. This adulterated milk is made from incredible ingredients like urea (a fertilizer), shampoo (hair cleane
After seeing the past verdicts in favour of Dikshidars, in their own cases as well as in cases concerning other temples, one feels for the Dikshidar community for its continuing misery. Despite a flurry of judgments against brazen attempts to takeover the temple, the state government has not shown an iota of remorse. The state government’s tr
Facing an acute shortage of electrical power, the government of Bangladesh has revived the almost five-decade old project to build a nuclear power plant in Rooppur. Last March, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed made it official, when she told Parliament that her government would set up a nuclear power plant in Rooppur to meet the country’s g
Tamil Nadu has been under the successive spell of ‘Dravidian’ governments since 1967. Branding ‘Non-Brahmins’ as ‘Tamil-Dravidians’ and ‘Brahmins’ as ‘Sanskrit-Aryans,’ the ‘stalwarts’ of the Dravidian Movement have been trying to separate the Tamil people from the ‘Hindu
White America, represented by Vice President Joe Biden, was forced to put its weight behind first African-American President Barack Obama, to tide over an ugly spat over racial profiling in a nation where everyone admits skin colour and associated socio-historical issues still resonate deeply. It is to be hoped this will be a profound lesson in hum
Predictions, rumours and warnings are flying thick in media space. Hopeful visions of recovery, backed by assurances that “the worst is behind us” are vying for attention with ominous alarm calls about the tidal wave that may be heading our way. What are some of the most reasonable and prudent conclusions we can draw, without painting a
Some months ago, a bill to provide women reservation of 33% seats in Parliament and State Assemblies was introduced in the Rajya Sabha. One reason cited for the proposed measure was/is that though women comprise nearly 50 percent of the population, they have a meagre representation in the legislatures. If that is the reason, shouldn’t at leas
At a recent seminar, the various leadership challenges India has to overcome in order to become a superpower were identified. It was rightly asserted that Indian civilization right from Mehrgarh (7000-3000 BC) through the Golden Age (Maurya and Gupta period) to the Sikh Empire had a glorious tradition of administration, scientific innovation and empire...
Israel lays claim to huge offshore gas reserves, but could this field extend into Lebanon’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and could Lebanon succumb to the same treatment as the people of Gaza? This year Israel had some very promising news from the American company drilling in its offshore waters. Noble Energy announced a significant natural g