The Wall Street Journal headlined “An Internet Activist Commits Suicide.” New York’s medical examiner announced death by “hang(ing) himself in his Brooklyn apartment.” Lingering suspicions remain. Why would someone with so much to give end it all this way? He was one of the Internet generation’s best and brightest. He advocated online freedom.
A long time in the making and announced by François Hollande six months in advance, the French intervention in Mali was portrayed as an emergency decision in response to dramatic developments. This scheme aims not only at seizing Mali’s gold and uranium, but more especially at paving the way for the destabilization of Algeria. "Appetite comes
Some sensitive and difficult-to-believe facts of the freedom movement merit our attention, particularly how the Congress, Mohandas Gandhi, and Jawaharlal Nehru planted and nurtured the seed of Pakistan. They did this by actively promoting the Pakistan scheme; and by passively taking several wrong political decisions in their quest for total power i
Though the ‘Pakistan Spring’ launched with fanfare at Lahore on December 23, 2012, fizzled out when the January 15, 2013 Islamabad rally failed to gather momentum, it’s enduring lesson is that nations targetted for ‘revolution’ by foreign-returned messiahs must subject the putative saviours to close...
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by
Hari Om
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on
28 Jan 2013
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25 Comments
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The Indian nation is in the mood for radical change. It wants the unpopular and insensitive Congress-led UPA Government that has been in office since May 2004 to go lock, stock and barrel. It also has no faith in the Left parties like the CPI and the CPI-M. The nation also doesn’t like parties like the SP, the BSP, the RJD, the LJP, the NCP and sim
The period following WWII in eastern Europe is considered to be a black one, best forgotten. All the pre-war governments had been quasi-fascist dictatorships which either succumbed to the Nazi onslaught (Poland) or actively cooperated with the Germans (Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria). The Soviet liberation was greeted with trepidation by many – with go
In his first presidential address to the nation on the eve of our 64th Republic Day, Mr. Pranab Mukherjee invoked the glorious heritage of Indian civilisation and History to rouse the nation to address its contemporary challenges in a manner befitting our great legacies. It was a glorious departure from mundane speeches of the past, a speech to whi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2 October 1869-30 January 1948) is one of the most lauded and idolized personalities in the world. Yet, researching for a novel on the freedom movement, the author came across a mountain of documentation revealing a decidedly unsavory side of the man popularly known as Mahatma, both in his character traits and in his pol
Over one billion citizens of India shall be celebrating India’s 64th Republic Day all over the country while over 10 million citizens of India in Jammu & Kashmir continue to be denied the fruits of the country’s democratic Constitution and National Flag since 1950. The founders of the Indian Constitution failed to appreciate the emotional and c
Oh MartyrsThe battle of freedom once begun And handed down from sire to son Though often lost is ever won!! To-day is the tenth of May! It was on this day, that in the ever memorable year of 1857, the first campaign of the War of Independence was opened by you, Oh Martyrs, on the battlefield of India. The Motherland, awakened to the sense of
According to Indian belief, India, from the beginning of time, is a land of the sacred. Here all life including insects, ants, all animals and plants, big or small, each and everyone has a sanctity of his or her own and the soul of each living being migrates from one life-form to another life-form till the individual soul, after countless births an
The decision of Germany’s Bundesbank to repatriate part of its Gold Reserves held at the New York Federal Reserve bank has triggered a frenzy in the gold market.German news sources suggest that a large portion of the German gold stored in the vaults of the New York Fed and the Banque de France is to be moved back to Germany. According to analysts,
We have for so long ignored and disregarded the wealth of knowledge from our glorious 2500-year-old civilization that we have become mere appendages to western civilization. We have been mere objects whilst the west seized mastery over the history of the last 500 years. It is time to reflect what we have given up in spite of the great technological
Why has the present and prior Administration engaged in such a comprehensive, sustained, and, to date, largely successful cover-up?- Sen. Bob Graham, “Keys to the Kingdom,” June 7, 2011 … [We] will crush al-Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority - Sen. Barack Obama, Presidential campaign debate, Oct. 7, 2008 On Sept.
In the course of human history, education has evolved through some major stages. First, at the origins of mankind, education was an initiation into the behavioural codes, rites and customs of the tribe, intended to permit and facilitate communications among its members and with the natural and supernatural environment. It enabled survival by passin
Last week I wrote about the crisis of unemployment in Europe. I received a great deal of feedback, with Europeans agreeing that this is the core problem and Americans arguing that the United States has the same problem, asserting that US unemployment is twice as high as the government's official unemployment rate. My counterargument is that unemplo
There is an urgent need for the Centre to revisit the present administrative structure in which generalists (officers of the Indian Administrative Service) have come to occupy all important positions in the Government of India and the various State Governments, resulting in the complete sidelining of specialists. There is, equally, a need to study
From what has came out from the tripartite meeting in Geneva between the Russians, the Americans and the international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, Friday, January 11, it is clear that the refusal of the United States to recognize the failure of the war they launched against Syria and its president Bashar al-Assad is a major obstacle that prevents a poli
The bombshell came from Kathmandu a fortnight ago when a deep informant said that pressure is being brought on India and Nepal to merge. Yes, you heard it right. The pressure on Nepal is from the American, European and Israeli diplomats for geo-political reasons; the pressure on Delhi is from nationalists of Nepal except those who are in positions
Kamalananda Bharati Swamiji, a founder of Hindu Devalaya Parirakshana Samiti, has for the past few years been one of those at the forefront of the public movement against the Andhra Pradesh Hindu Religious Endowment Department’s total mismanagement and corrupt administration of Hindu temples, including the renowned Tirupati Balaji Devasthanam by th
In another shameful decision by the US Department of Justice, earlier this month federal prosecutors reached a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) with UK banking giant HSBC, Europe’s largest bank. Shameful perhaps, but entirely predictable. After all, in an era characterized by economic collapse owing to gross criminality by leading financial act
Above the sound of gunfire and improvised explosive devices was the deafening silence of the human rights industry. Binayak Sen, Arundhati Roy, Mahasweta Devi et al, quick to berate government for alleged atrocities against Maoist marauders, did not squeak when Maoists in Jharkhand planted IEDs in the bodies of two CRPF jawans last week; 17 persons including...
Every year January 15 is celebrated as Army Day. It marks the day the first Indian soldier, General KM Cariappa, took over as commander-in-chief of the Indian Army. The nation had every reason to be proud to have an Indian at the helm of its forces. In those idealistic days, we as a nation took pride in our nationality and accorded to our country t
It’s all going according to the hideous plan. Dozens of sectarian killings are occurring every day in the region spanning from North Africa to Syria to Afghanistan and Pakistan, creating chaos, and threatening to detonate a Sunni-versus-Shi’ite conflict that could drown the region in blood. If the bloodshed doesn’t end up provoking a nuclear confro
The nation was just about coming to grips with the brutal gang-rape in New Delhi when its collective sensibility was assaulted by the equally brutal killing of two of its brave soldiers, Lance Naik Hemraj and Lance Naik Sudhakar Singh, while patrolling the line of control at Mendhar, Jammu and Kashmir. While there exists no doubt about this sordid
2012 was a trailer; the real film is on the way. India is on the cusp of a major political overhaul. Old perceptions, calculations and thought categories are proving to be inadequate even as battle lines are being drawn for a decisive conflict. The confrontation is between the incumbent decrepit political order largely fashioned by Jawaharlal Nehru
The end of the year always prompts questions about what the most important issue of the next year may be. It's a simplistic question, since every year sees many things happen and for each of us a different one might be important. But it is still worth considering what single issue could cause the world to change course. In my view, the most importa
The fortunes of brand Hurriyat witnessed a solid nosedive in the year gone by, despite which the conglomerate managed to stay afloat by some energetic manipulation of the media and orchestration of disruption when an opportunity presented itself. The first major initiative by the Hurriyat was in March, 2012, when the chairman of the conglomerate, M
The timing chosen by President Bashar al-Assad to propose a plan to end the crisis is not trivial. It coincided, first, with successive defeats for the armed groups, which destroyed the illusions of the United States and its European and Arab auxiliaries, distorting all their calculations, and then with information about a Russian-American meeting,
It is admittedly not hard to imagine how someone can predict a vision of hell in a country like Syria which has become a hornet’s nest of terrorism and which is tumbling into further chaos and bloodshed. Lakhdar Brahimi, who represents the United Nations and the Arab League, has predicted as many as 100,000 people could be killed “in the next
“According to Robert Baer, a former CIA covert operations specialist, the CIA endorsed the idea of using the Muslim Brotherhood against Nasser in Egypt. In “Sleeping With the Devil,” Baer outlines the tactics of a top-secret US effort: ‘At the bottom of it all was this dirty little secret in Washington: the White House looked on the Muslim Brotherh
2012 offered a mixed bag for Jammu and Kashmir so far as security is concerned. This was the second consecutive year when the state witnessed a modicum of peace which translated into unhindered social/economic activity. The going was, however, not totally smooth; many issues came up, some due to circumstances and others most cleverly orchestrated b
Because of the power vested in the EU Commission in Brussels, Belgium, with command over a space encompassing 27 nations with more than 500 million citizens and the largest nominal world gross domestic product (GDP) of 18 trillion US dollars, it’s perhaps no surprise in this era of moral promiscuity that powerful private lobby groups such as the to
Serious disquiet is growing in some Washington quarters over the foreign policy conducted by the Obama White House, particularly the alliance forged with al-Qaeda to overthrow the government of Libya, and now, the government of Syria, to be followed, of course, by Iran. Many fear that the policy of continuous war, besides bankrupting America, could
Was American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on a secret mission to Iran in the first week of December 2012? More specifically, was her recent, rather long illness, due to injuries sustained in a plane crash during this assignment? According to reports emanating from Israeli and Russian intelligence sources, Clinton was injured, apparently serio
UN “peace envoy” Lakhdar Brahimi is attempting to broker a transitional government ahead of proposed elections in Syria. For Brahimi, his efforts are not only in vain, they are entirely disingenuous. The proposal of a “transitional government” in the midst of what is in fact a foreign invasion, funded, armed, and perpetuated openly by foreign inter
Terrorism is terrorism and it cannot be defined otherwise unless the interests of one party tilt the scale in disfavor of another and the dichotomization of the terrorists in Syria into good and bad by the West casts doubt on its claim on democracy. In a somber political tone, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov lashed out as “absolutely unaccep
On Dec. 18, the US State Department's Accountability Review Board released an unclassified version of its investigation into the Sept. 12 attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the attack, so the report was widely anticipated by the public and by government
Last June the Hambantota port in southern Sri Lanka, the country’s first Chinese-funded and built port, was inaugurated and declared ready for international shipping. Interestingly, the first cargo unloaded at the new port was a shipment of 1,000 cars imported from India. The construction agreement for the port had been signed on March 12, 2007, be
The Congress party hardcore has always been adept at reading the tea leaves, smoke signals, and other occult signs indicating the way its fortunes are blowing. It is fully aware of its declining credibility since 2009, both at the Centre and in Delhi state. Hence, it views the results of the Gujarat elections, which many see as boosting the prime ministerial...