Moscow: Here in Moscow I recently received a dark-blue folder dated 1975. It contains one of the most well-buried secrets of Middle Eastern and of US diplomacy. The secret file, written by the Soviet Ambassador in Cairo, Vladimir M. Vinogradov, apparently a draft for a memorandum addressed to the Soviet politbureau, describes the 1973 October War a
By agreeing to examine the validity of the Bodhgaya Temple Act, 1949, to nullify Hindu control over the famed vihara, the Supreme Court has inadvertently exposed The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, to scrutiny and opened the door for Hindu claims to historical temples they have demanded for centuries. The Narasimha Rao regime
Welcome to 1984 - the flight landed a little late and George Orwell has departed. But nevertheless, we made it. And Big Brother Cheney ... sorry, Chidambaram, is watching. Former Supreme Court Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer had warned as recently as November 2011, while releasing a book on Aadhaar that “the project Aadhaar should not be implemente
I have over a long period of time highlighted the massive fraud that has been going on in this country and around the world for decades and is now totally out of control. Among the many Ponzi scams Gordon Bowden and I have uncovered, this particular fraud must top the list. The nuts and bolts of this story begin in May 2006 and continue to this day
[Stratfor] Editor's Note: This is the first installment of a new series on the national strategies of today's global power and other regional powers. This installment establishes a framework for understating the current state of the world. The evolution of geopolitics is cyclical. Powers rise, fall and shift. Changes occur in every generation
There is one aspect of the current economic crisis in Europe and America which is completely glossed over: the present plight of these mighty economies validates the traditional Indian wisdom on economic and financial matters and puts a question mark on economic models (and lifestyles) centred on debt. Consider the likely scenarios in Greece and th
“Smiling tiger may look friendly but is very dangerous.” That is how US Senate Committee Chairman Senator Fred Thompson spoke about China Resource Enterprise (CRE). Investigating China’s attempts to influence the 1996 US presidential campaign, the Committee identified CRE as a conduit for “espionage - economic, political and
Have American and Israeli efforts to pin international terrorism on Iran just gone global? A series of bomb attacks apparently on Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia are now being linked with blasts in the Thai capital, Bangkok, for which it is reported that three Iranian men have been arrested. Israel is claiming that the explosive devices reco
In this Part-2 of my story I present the history, culture, land use and livelihoods of affected people in Balitutha, Dhenkia, Gobindpur and Nuagaon villages and establish that the acts of Odisha Government and POSCO are illegal. Shankara, Dr Iyer and I left Bhuvaneshwar on the morning of 7 November 2011 and entered the anti-POSCO battle zone around
[I visited the POSCO battlefield in November 2011 and witnessed a war raging between banksters and financial fraudsters owned POSCO and the unarmed, helpless people of Dhenkia, Nuagaon and Govindpur. Much of the livelihood, environmental, governance and humanitarian issues have been covered by many writers very thoroughly, hence I focus on the glob
According to tradition, Shiva, Pashupatinath, spent his most of his time on the top of holy Kailas Mansarovar, practicing yogic austerities, joy and love with his divine consort Parvati. Lake Mansarovar and mount Kailas are the soul of all OM followers in the world. Lord Pashupatinath, Swayambhunath, Lumbini, Barahachetra, Gosaikunda, Muktinath, Ri
Can the Police really put a dent in the UK’s Paedophile Ring? Unlikely. The huge UK paedophile ring involves senior political figures who are still out there doing what they know best - which is nothing to do with politics. Recently we heard that our police had broken a massive paedophile ring, but we have all heard of such activity before, O
Twenty-one weed species around the world are now resistant to glyphosate, up from zero in 1996 -- the year Monsanto started marketing its genetically engineered Roundup Ready crops. Glyphosate, now the world’s bestselling weed killer and the key ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, is emerging as one of the most dangerous Monsant
Talk about talks on Afghanistan has taken over the print pages of mainstream media, but very little news is trickling out of what is actually happening on the ground there. From the talk, it would seem that talks are about to sprout like wild cacti in the Arab desert. But it is not at all clear at this point in time that any talks are actually taki
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Hari Om
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17 Feb 2012
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Union Steel Minister Beni Prasad Verma has, in the manner of an experienced relay race runner, picked up the communal card that his colleague Salman Khurshid was forced to drop by an irate Election Commission, thus making it clear to a bemused electorate the Congress is in dire straits in UP, desperately needs for minority votes, and will stoop to
Salafist (excuse me, “deeply Catholic”) Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum appears back in the race for chief elephant after trouncing Mitt Romney in Minnesota and Colorado. But beware: Minnesotans are an unpredictable lot, with the only black Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison, their own Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, and of
Washington has made tremendous preparations for a military assault on Iran. There is speculationthat Washington has called off its two longest running wars--Iraq and Afghanistan--in order to deploy forces against Iran. Two of Washington’s fleets have been assigned to the Persian Gulf along with NATO warships. Missiles have been spread amongst
US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta suggested last week that the United States could wrap up combat operations in Afghanistan by the end of 2013, well before the longstanding 2014 deadline when full control is to be ceded to Kabul. Troops would remain in Afghanistan until 2014, as agreed upon at the 2010 Lisbon Summit, and would be engaged in two rol
The important thing about the attack on an Israeli diplomat’s car [109 CD 35; blue number plate with CD meaning Diplomatic Corps] is that it happened within the square mile of sanitized Delhi that rules over 1.2 billion Indians. This is an intensely patrolled area; at every intersection you will find a fast police car with armed policemen to
Mao Zedong famously declared that the “US is a paper tiger” and that in war, the people is paramount in winning and not weapons. Atomic weapons will not enable a country to win the war. If there was one statement that galvanised the Chinese people to stand up and be counted in the face of open threats of nuclear war and oppression, this
New Delhi must invoke the UN Convention on Biodiversity to fight the growing piracy of India’s biodiversity by multinational companies, rather than leave this vital task to well meaning activists and NGOs that could be out-manoeuvred by powerful corporates backed by the clout of the Western capitals in which they are embedded. The Indian melo
Russia’s electoral scene has been transformed in the past two months, without a doubt inspired by the political winds from the Middle East and the earlier colour revolutions in Russia’s “near abroad”. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s casual return to the presidential scene was greeted as an effrontery by an electorate w
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Hari Om
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13 Feb 2012
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Pakistan observes February 5 every year as the “Kashmir Solidarity Day” and reiterates its stand that “Jammu and Kashmir is a disputed territory” and that the Indian presence in this part of the state is “illegal and against the people’s will”. Pakistan has been observing this day as “Kashmir Solidari
It is no surprise that Hindus - lock, stock and barrel - are shamelessly indifferent to the fact that rank corruption and deliberate mismanagement is prevalent and burgeoning in one of their holiest Temples. In Tamil Nadu, it has been so for generations. So what happens if one brave Hindu amongst this docile and subservient lot chooses to act
Moscow: For a month, Moscow was bracing itself for the February 4 Rally. It was pre-planned and prepared by the anti-Putin pro-Western liberal opposition. Despite sub-zero Fahrenheit (minus 20 degrees Centigrade) arctic frost, the organizers hoped to break their pre-Christmas record and gather a huge crowd and a procession to shatter the will of th
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Sartre
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11 Feb 2012
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“I was personally present when the deputy economics minister of Iran was talking to a foreign society in Berlin. And the gentleman said very openly to the shocked audience ‘OK. You don’t want to buy our goods. Well, the Chinese do’”. Remember the real reason why Moammar Gadhafi is dead. He dared to propose and sta
"What we need is an ethnicity strategy based on patriotism. Any individual living in this country should be keenly aware of their faith and ethnicity. But above all they must be citizens of Russia – and be proud of it. No one has the right to place ethnic and religious concerns above state law. The law, however, must take account of ethnic an
“I see our goal in years to come as sweeping away all that stands in the way of our national development, completing the establishment in Russia of a political system, a structure of social guarantees and safeguards for the public, and an economic model that together form a single, living, ever-changing organism of state that is, at the same
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Hari Om
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08 Feb 2012
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J&K Kashmiri leadership has been demanding revocation of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and other laws which empower the Army and security forces to tackle the menace of secessionism in Kashmir and other parts of state infested with separatists and terrorists, saying such a step is needed to provide “breathing space” to
The aam admi Hindu, the traditional acharyas, gurus and maths have been and are the backbone of Hindu civilisation. Protecting them is the responsibility of the Hindu elite, especially the Hindu intellectuals. This duty had been discharged in earlier times with the labours of the Swami Vivekananda generation (19th century) and in our times by vigil
“Dialogue” according to Merriam-Webster, is “a discussion between representatives of parties to a conflict that is aimed at resolution”. Other definitions of “dialogue” are unacceptable as religious terminology is used and the event is promoted as “interfaith” dialogue and not just a chat between two
Two landmark judgments in less than a fortnight have dealt body blows to the battered image of the UPA government. The first one went in favour of Vodafone which was saved from shelling out Rs. 11000 crore as capital gains tax on the purchase of Hutch’s India operations. And now the Supreme Court has in another landmark ruling cancelled 122 l
The German government proposed last week that a European commissioner be appointed to supplant the Greek government. While phrasing the German proposal this way might seem extreme, it is not unreasonable. Under the German proposal, this commissioner would hold power over the Greek national budget and taxation. Since the European Central Bank alread
I wonder what is written in his awe inspiring speech – could it be: “We are immensely proud of your efforts to protect the streets of the United Kingdom, but one thing I must tell you is that you are all actually here to protect our geo political plan which is to rape this country of its resources and more importantly to protect the opi
After meeting again to decide Syria’s fate, the Arab League again decided to extend its “monitoring mission” in Syria. However, some Arab League nations under US diplomatic control are clamoring for blood. These countries — virtual sock puppets of US foreign policy — want to declare the Arab League monitoring mission &
Debkafile reported on 17 January that an imminent joint Israeli-US exercise had been cancelled by Israel’s prime minister, and not by the US as widely supposed. Convinced that Iran has made the decision to become a nuclear power Mr Netanyahu is preparing for possible unilateral attacks on Iranian nuclear sites. British press reports say agent
An undesirable and unhealthy controversy relating to the date of birth of four-star General Vijay Kumar Singh has flooded the media and upset the public, thanks to the games played by the higher echelons of power in the South and North Blocks. The Supreme Court had an opportunity to address this issue of massive public interest, but failed to
Washington is in a quandary over how to re-establish a functional relationship with Pakistan. The question perhaps also includes with whom would Washington start such a process: the military, or the civilian government? Since Pakistan’s internal situation is presently on hold over a three-way tussle between the Asif Ali Zardari–led civi
A distinguished historian once said, great civilisations do not die, but they can commit suicide. India, a nation and a civilisation, seems bent on taking this perilous path to ruin. Nothing else can explain the morbid determination with which the ruling Congress-led dispensation has set out to humiliate and destroy the Indian Army, the most vital
The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) has begun to lobby for the privatisation of Coal India, arguably one of India’s leading public sector units. The pretext given is that power producers have in recent months faced immense problems on account of coal shortage (actually a temporary glitch due to natural causes li
The official line from the United States and the European Union is that Tehran must be punished for continuing its efforts to develop a nuclear weapon. The punishment: sanctions on Iran's oil exports, which are meant to isolate Iran and depress the value of its currency to such a point that the country crumbles. But that line doesn't make sen