The Koyil The Lord resides at Chitrambalam The Lord resides at Chidambaram The Lord resides at Tiruvambalam The Lord resides at the Splendorous Podu - Tirumantiram – the Tenth Tirumurai; Song 869 - Saint Tirumoolar, 3rd century CE For Tamil Saivites across the world, Chidamba
After two decades of economic reforms, the economy has certainly changed gears and moved into the fast lane. So, alas, has corruption. Twenty years after the launch of economic reforms, India has come a long way on the road to prosperity. The elephant, however, looks tired although it still has miles to go. Faced with a real prospect of de
India’s future security needs call for strengthening its porous northwestern frontier, which means strengthening Indian military and intelligence capabilities in the Kashmir Valley, Jammu and Ladakh. With the stakes becoming higher, the business-as-usual attitude and knee-jerk reactions to Kashmiri Muslims’ and Pakistani terroristsR
India’s northwest frontier will remain a security threat for years, if not decades, to come. Any effort from any quarter to slacken up on that area’s security instead of further strengthening it, at the behest of India’s secular and internationalist crowd who are still under the spell of their former British Liberal masters, will
It is a great irony that a secular Government should deeply embroil itself in the administration and running of Hindu temples and institutions in the guise of supervising the secular aspects of temple administration. This grotesque policy of the Government to supervise religious institutions applies only to Hindu Religious institutions. Visel
Palestine is important not because it is as beautiful as Tuscany, nor because the Palestinians are suffering, and not even because it is occupied by a Jewish state. What we need to understand is that the Jews have been handed Palestine not because they were so smart or so strong or so devoted, but by Imperial design. Palestine is important be
On a rocky slope dropping steeply away from the busy main road at the entrance to West Jerusalem is to be found a scattering of ancient stone houses, empty and clinging precariously to terraces hewn from the hillside centuries ago. Although most Israeli drivers barely notice the buildings, this small ghost town - neglected for the past six decades
No, I didn’t make up the whistleblower title for Registered Geologist Robert (Bob) H. Gilkeson. For his important work on groundwater contamination at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, in 2007 he received the annual “Whistleblower Award” from the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability at a Washington, DC reception. The Los Ala
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Hari Om
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24 Jul 2011
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33 Comments
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The United States, which is not a friend of India by any yardstick, has done the needful, doubtless for its own reasons. The arrest of the US citizen and Pakistani Kashmiri agent Ghulam Nabi Fai, director of the American Kashmir Committee (AKC), by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on July 20, has stunned the Anglo-American-Asian world. &
Leo Panakal will go down in history as the man who drove a stake through Satan Lucifer’s heart. If you are a gentle ordinary soul who doesn’t know who Lucifer is or doesn’t care, don’t tread here, for Leo Panakal had little patience for the lot of you when he was alive. Nobody knew very well what he was talking about while h
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Hari Om
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22 Jul 2011
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11 Comments
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The New Delhi-appointed interlocutors came out with a “four-point formula” for the resolution of the so-called Kashmir issue and meeting the aspirations of the people inhabiting different regions of the state – Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. They evolved this formula on the basis of their interaction with the 50-odd delegates who part
The US government (White House and Congress) spends $10 billion dollars a month, or $120 billion a year, to fight an estimated “50 -75 ‘Al Qaeda types’ in Afghanistan”, according to the CIA and quoted in the Financial Times of London (6/25 -26/11, p. 5). During the past 30 months of the Obama presidency,
The Rockefellers, ever since the days of old John D., have enjoyed the great outdoors. They also seem to have figured out how to make that great outdoors pay. Over the past decade, new Environmental Working Group data show, Manhattan mega millionaire and John D. great-grandson Mark Rockefeller has pocketed nearly $330,000 in federal subsidies for n
How does political censorship work in liberal societies? When my film, “Year Zero: the Silent Death of Cambodia,” was banned in the United States in 1980, the broadcaster PBS cut all contact. Negotiations were ended abruptly; phone calls were not returned. Something had happened. But what? “Year Zero” had already alerted muc
Joel Mbithi, farm manager of the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute’s Kiboko Research Station, and Yoseph Beyene, CIMMYT maize breeder, discuss experimental plots. They are developing drought tolerant top-cross hybrids as part of the Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) project. This is run by the African Agricultural Technology Foundat
The Indian entrepreneurial and middle classes have fueled a great land rush, even land grab, all over the country, causing acrimony and heartburn, at times even bloodshed. Over the past decade, farmers have been pressured to part with fertile multi-crop land for industrial, urban development and infrastructure projects, triggering fears that crony
Like the country it governs, Washington is a city of extremes. In a car, you can zip in bare moments from northwest District of Columbia, its streets lined with million-dollar homes and palatial embassies, its inhabitants sporting one of the nation’s lowest jobless rates, to Anacostia, a mostly forgotten neighborhood in southeastern DC with o
With unemployment at a near historic high in the United States, could you imagine any American company bringing in foreign workers to work for them below the minimum wage and with no benefits? Most people would say no. But can you imagine those same Americans forcing foreign workers to stay here, with no pay, and constant abuse? That is actually ha
Considering the large output of literary texts trying to assess the impact of the globalization policies adopted by the Indian government in 1991, we feel that those published in the early phase of this economic revival deserve special attention – first as forerunners and then as imaginative constructs. A quick glance at the events lead
Rita Nath Keshari: The Golden Island is the first Indian novel on the subject of neocolonialism. Most of your observations in the book are happening even today, though your original Odia book was published in 1994, and you must have started writing much before. How could you presage the realities? Hrusikesh Panda [author]: You may have noticed
WHILE hearing a PIL petition recently, the Supreme Court expressed concern over the starvation deaths in India, ironically the world’s third most powerful country. The judiciary posed a very stark question ~ how can there be two Indias? ~ one hit by starvation and the other enjoying an excess of luxuries. The government has advanced vary
The financial flip-flop of Egypt’s revolutionary government, first requesting and then declining a $3 billion dollar IMF loan, highlights Egypt’s hard choices at this point in the revolution, but is a good sign, says Eric Walberg It is no secret that Egypt has put all its faith in the US and Western international institution
The raid and plunder of Hindu temples, which would qualify as the oldest and still ongoing reality show in the world, took a thrilling turn recently by the surfacing of Lord Padmanabha’s wealth in a tele-tsunami, flooding living rooms all over the world with news ripples. To a predominantly Mammon-worshipping, literally iconoclastic world whi
A few days after Barack Obama’s December 2009 announcement of 33,000 more troops being sent to Afghanistan, in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Defense Secretary Robert Gates advanced the official justification for escalation: the Afghan Taliban would not abandon its ties with al-Qaeda unless forced to do so by US militar
Russia has entered election season, with parliamentary elections in December and presidential elections in March 2012. Typically, this is not an issue of concern, as most Russian elections have been designed to usher a chosen candidate and political party into office since 2000. Interesting shifts are under way this election season, however. While
“George Papandreou is not bought, he is rented. He sells public enterprises to the multinationals. He reduces wages, pensions and employment at the behest of the IMF. He turns over the public treasury to the European banks. He supports NATO’s war against Libya. He directs the Greek Coast Guard to enforce Netanyahu’s
A 30-year war for energy preeminence? You wouldn’t wish it even on a desperate planet. But that’s where we’re headed and there’s no turning back. From 1618 to 1648, Europe was engulfed in a series of intensely brutal conflicts known collectively as the Thirty Years’ War. It was, in part, a struggle bet
Can Bhagwan, rudely awakened from ‘ananta sayanam’ (divine sleep or yog-nidra on the divine serpent Anantha Seshanaga) during which He maintains the stability of the worlds, be forced, equally abruptly, to return to His repose because the Profane have developed cold feet? Thiruvananthapuram, sacred abode of Sri Anantha Padmanabha Swamy,
The Global Commission on Drug Policy, based in Rio de Janeiro and funded by the drug legalization lobby’s strongest voice, George Soros, issued a report on June 2 saying the war on drugs is a failure, costing governments oodles of money to no effect. The “global war on drugs has failed,” the report states, “with devastating
As Washington and its cohorts march towards the Eurasian Heartland, they have tried to manipulate Islam as a geo-political tool. They have created political and social chaos in the process. Along the way they have tried to redefine Islam and to subordinate it to the interests of global capital by ushering in a new generation of so-
On the 20 May 2011 rally in Varanasi, Congress president Sonia Gandhi said, “No government has acted so sternly against corruption like the UPA government. Those who attack us over corruption, can’t they see corruption within?” (1) Exactly a month previously, on April 19, in a letter to Anna Hazare, she wrote, “I believe the
Shame on us! I mean, shame on Hindus! Something outrageous has been happening since the first of this month in one of the most sacred places on our bhumi, and we, sons of this bhumi, are shamelessly watching the sacrilege without an iota of fury. The Supreme Court of India, which is just 60 years old, has constituted a seven member committee
How do you instill nationalism in the Indian State? Specifically the Indian Government that is supposed to be its guardian and servant? Odd as it may seem, the question is legitimate. For how else could one explain a major public sector undertaking like the Metals and Minerals Trading Corporation (MMTC) sponsoring a blatantly anti-Hindu a
Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), with the backing of Reps. Walter Jones (R-NC) and Jim Moran (D-VA), has introduced a bill in the House of Representatives (H.R.1489) “Return to Prudent Banking Act of 2011,” which would reinstate the original 1933 Glass Steagall Act, that broke up the Depression-era “too big to fail” banks, and ga
The Indian economy is in trouble. Although the economy continues to show high GDP growth, there is a growing disparity between India’s sea of poor people and the few at the top of the heap. Out-of-control inflation, caused by the inflow of billions of dollars in hot money, combined with poor productivity due to weak physical infrastructure ha
On April 12, 2011 the Japanese government officially announced that the severity of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster had reached level 7, the highest on the International Nuclear Event Scale. Before Fukushima, the only level 7 case was the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, whose 25th anniversary was marked on April 26. Two and a half months after the
New Delhi’s determination in pursuing access to enrichment and reprocessing technology with the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group, after receiving Washington’s clean waiver in September 2008, is disturbing because it shows we are probably the only major world capital that is not reassessing atomic energy after the Fukushima tragedy.
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Senthil
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04 Jul 2011
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We are rediscovering the wealth of India. And the immense beauty in which it was gathered and preserved and protected for the common good in times of trouble is truly uplifting to our tired spirits. Suddenly this seems an exciting country to live in … But, as the Supreme Court-ordered public accounting of hitherto unknown treasures
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Naragan
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04 Jul 2011
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The secret police of Malaysia – the Police Special Branch cannot be but observers of a change they cannot affect – they cannot change the course of Malaysian history, they are close observers at best. I am writing this piece after being at the Butterworth Police Station this afternoon [27 June 2011], awaiting the outcome of th
[On 30 June 2011, The New York Times reported that the sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who had to resign as chief of the International Monetary Fund following this allegation, was on the verge of collapse. With uncanny timing, immediately after the election of France’s Christine Lagarde as new IMF chief, New York investiga
There are many parallels between Vietnam and Afghanistan. The recent American mayors’ resolution to “bring our war $$ home” and Obama’s announcement that troops are now being withdrawn are fresh reminders, but the story they tell is grim, says Eric Walberg In Baltimore, the nation’s mayors debated and passed a War Do
Almost every day articles appear in the world’s media claiming we must embrace GM foods if we’re to feed the world, with the emphasis of late often on solving the food and climate crises via hardier, cheaper, more sustainable and more abundant GM crops. Claims that GM crops are some sort of panacea are hardly new. A decade ago Monsanto
Introduction “We have about 50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit
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Hari Om
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01 Jul 2011
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29 Comments
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Jammu & Kashmir is again in the news, with anti-India forces upping the ante and virtually asking New Delhi to quit the State to forge a lasting peace in the region. The Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), a congregation of 57 Muslim nations, including Pakistan, termed the Indian Jammu & Kashmir as “Indian-occupied.” It us
The killing of Osama bin Laden may not seriously affect the ongoing war in Afghanistan, but it could hasten the professional demise of Pakistan’s all-powerful army chief, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani. Reports leaking out of Pakistan indicate that the eleven corps commanders, in whose collective name the army chief crushes Pakistan’s dem