A profound and significant change has just occurred in the Levant – the Russian army has begun to engage against terrorism in Syria. Although Russia has been absent from the international scene since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and although it is moving with care, it has just created a Russo-Syrian Commission, has begun supplying weapons, sharing in...
Within the span of barely a month, a previously unknown 22-year old has become a nationwide sensation with a protest (that turned violent) demanding education and job reservation for the Patel community by inclusion in the OBC list. Yes, the politically and financially powerful Patel...
After the din of the recently concluded general election in Sri Lanka is over, the United National Party leader Ranil Wickremesinghe has been sworn in as prime minister. He is poised to work with a national unity government. There are eight takeaways from the election and its aftermath that can help in visualising the future course of events in the island...
Pakistan backing out from the process that would have led to a composite dialogue with India is disappointing and unfortunate for South Asia. Resumption of a composite dialogue would have been in the best interests for peace and development in the region. The two leaders, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, reached an accord in Ufa ...
While the Western Press salutes the authorisation given by Turkey to the United States, allowing the US to use its military bases in order to fight Daesh, Thierry Meyssan looks at the nation’s internal tensions. In his view, maintaining Mr. Erdoğan in power, as well as the lack of a new majority during the next general elections, will rapidly lead to civil...
That a strongman from the land of the Iron Man of India could not overcome the rot in the Lutyens framework after 15 months at the commanding heights of the polity is a sordid exposé of the entrenched interests that have made mal-governance the abiding story of India. Four decades of sustained injustice to the Armed Forces, despite increasing claims made on ...
The Delhi power distribution companies’ (discoms) rip-off of the consumer has finally been established. Under the benign gaze of a regime that gifted 51 per cent controlling interest in the Delhi Electricity Supply Undertaking, the two private companies (three discoms) engaged in a scam whose full dimensions are not yet fully quantified. The Comptroller and ...
An air of change is blowing across both Japan and India, but it has not yet helped to optimize benefits by raising bilateral relations to a higher level. There is a likelihood that even in the long run, this air of change may not be able to get these two major Asian nations to knuckle down and contribute to each other’s and the region’s economy unless they w...
The demand for special status has reached a high pitch in Andhra Pradesh with politics around the issue heating up. Special category status was promised on the floor of parliament by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, but without making it part of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Bill that created the new Telangana state. The issue was propped up during th...
The resumption of the repression of Kurds in Turkey is nothing more than a consequence of the impossible task of implementing the Juppé-Wright plan of 2011. While it was easy to deploy Daesh in the Syrian desert and the provinces of Nineveh and d’al-Anbar (Iraq), which are mostly Sunnite, it proved to be impossible to take control of the Kurdish...
Cooperation in space technology and boosting presence in the critical Asia-Pacific theatre for commerce and security are the compelling reasons behind New Delhi reaching out to the small island countries in the Pacific Ocean rim. Fiji, a small Pacific island country, hosted Indian scientists to track India’s first inter-planetary Mars Orbiter Mission – Manga...
For the last two weeks, the international Press has been full of rumours announcing the beginning of a US military operation against Syria. Thierry Meyssan, who has already denounced a manipulation by General John Allen and his friends, whose aim is to sabotage the USA-Iran agreements, re-visits the absurdity of this charge. He explains why the strategic sup...
The United States of America and the Soviet Union had equal footing in the Levant’s main crisis; namely the Arab-Israeli conflict in the 1950’s, 1960’s and the first half of the 70’s. Many, especially in the Arab camp, argue otherwise, and regard that American support for Israel had always been much stronger than any support the USSR had ever offered any Ara...
As noted in my last post, the draft of the post 2015 agenda that governments have agreed upon is the disastrous product of a dysfunctional UN. To show what a meaningful agenda could be, I’ve drafted the text below. If governments go ahead with their agreed text I invite civil society organizations to consider adapting and adopting the...
I have just finished reading the agreed draft of the “development agenda” the United Nations will put before world leaders next month. It has every characteristic of what UN insiders call a “Second Committee text;” that is to say, without vision, guided entirely by precedent, and wholly unrealistic. Usually negotiated by Second and Third Secretaries too low ...
These days, Sweden is all agog. In the midst of the coldest summer in living history that deprived the Swedes of their normal sun-accumulating July routine, the country plunged into an exciting search for a Russian submarine in the Stockholm archipelago, and (as opposed to the previous rounds of this venerable Swedish maritime saga) this time they actually f...
Syria is winning. Despite ongoing bloodshed and serious economic pressure, Syria is advancing steadily towards a military and strategic victory that will transform the Middle East. There is clear evidence that Washington’s plans – whether for ‘regime change’, for rendering the state dysfunctional or for dismembering the country on sectarian lines – have...
With a population of 5.7 million, a bit larger than that of Turkmenistan to its northwest, Kyrgyzstan is arguably economically the weakest of Central Asia’s “stan” nations. Its territory is mostly mountainous, skirting the fertile and politically volatile Ferghana Valley in its west while much of its eastern part borders the economic powerhouse,...
With a week to go before Sri Lanka people elect a new parliament, former president Mahinda Rajapaksa predicted the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA), which had fielded him, would win “up to” 117 seats. However, a pre-election survey showed only 27.5 percent voters preferred him over his bête noir and prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, leader of the r...
Summer reigns all over Europe, from Greece to Sweden. Vacations have emptied the offices, and filled the beaches. Flowers bloom all over, and their fragrance flows like a river. Endless festivals, performances and art compositions embellish the quaint old cities. But things are not as ever before. The old continent is sick. Living is easy, but not for you. F...
On 16 July 2015, the Srinagar bench of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court set a dangerous precedent by ruling that the State legislature and not the Parliament of India, is sovereign. This poses a serious threat to national sovereignty and territorial integrity and calls for an immediate challenge in the Supreme Court. This offers an opportunity to bury the pe...
In late October 1962, the world stood on the brink of thermonuclear war. In reaction to the Bay of Pigs invasion, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev dispatched Soviet nuclear weapons to Cuba. For 13 days in October 1962, the danger of a thermonuclear war between the two superpowers was greater than at any moment until today. Hardline advisors to both President...
n the scramble to access Kurdistan’s oil and gas wealth, the US and UK are turning a blind eye to complicity in ‘Islamic State’ oil smuggling
Key allies in the US and UK led war on Islamic State (ISIS) are covertly financing the terrorist movement according to senior political sources in the region. US and British oil companies are heavily invested in the m...
People are not equal in death, either. Some deaths are more newsworthy than others. The media and politicians love spectacular acts of terror, fires, disaster, the death of the wealthy and privileged, a death conducive to a cause. Such is the death of 300 passengers and crew of the Malaysian airliner flight 17 in the crash in Donbass, near Russian-Ukrainian ...
The 2016 presidential election is picking up heat. Literally. With twenty two candidates - seventeen on the side of the Grand Old Party and five Democrats - this may be the biggest number of presidential hopefuls seeking nomination ever.
Of the 22 candidates in the field so far, Hillary Clinton currently has the overall advantage. The Clinton campaign has ...
The Modi government’s intention to resolve the insurgency problem in the northeast is laudable. The results are visible in the historic accord signed with the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah group) for permanent peace, ending the practice of routine renewal of ceasefire agreements. As of now, a framework agreement has been reached setting...
I have to begin this column with a mea culpa: I have been predicting a US attack on Iran since at least 2007 and so far, I have been completely wrong. The attack never happened. What I did get right, at least I hope so, are the reasons why this attack has failed to materialize, at least so far. In purely military terms, an attack on Iran could not succeed be...
One thing apparent from the recent execution of one of the masterminds of 1993 Mumbai serial blasts is that India intends to adopt a policy of zero tolerance towards terrorism. The long drawn out judicial process leading to the hanging of Yakub Memon was transparent and the accused had recourse to the best lawyers in the country to defend him to the very end...
The Kabul government is preparing for a big advance in northern Afghanistan. National Security Forces have been involved in intense clashes with the Taliban in 7 provinces. At the moment security forces have gained ground only in Faryab province. The Taliban has now started a new offensive in the Badakhshan province by taking control of the “Kala” military b...
Dharma as the Number or Code of Existence and Life: Hence Dharma is both a thing and its law, its number in the pythagorean sense, or logos (a cognate of the samskrt Loka) as alluded to by Heraclitus in his 50th Fragment: “It is wise to heed not me but the Logos and to confess that all things are one”.
The word Muni which applies to the Buddha as well is ...
Abstract: Dharma is a normative empirical concept derived from the observation of nature and the contemplation of the individual and collective self (inner nature) for the regulation of society in accordance with the laws of the universe. Further Dharma is the essential, non-material or “noumenal” character, sign or number (in the pythagorean-platonic sense:...