Egypt’s Dilemma, and Its Future: Egypt has been, since1882, one of the main targets of the British Empire, first for looting, andlater, for control and destruction, when the Egyptian people’s character andpatriotic nature rejected British imperialism. Since that time, and throughoutWorld War I, World War II, and the Cold War era, Egypt has been the
In his magisterial commentary on the Indian constitution, DD Basu emphasised that the State cannot make reservations on communal lines as this infringes clauses (i) and (ii) of Article 16. Initially, the larger political minority (Muslims) accepted this as an inevitable legacy of partition, while Christians preferred a low profile as the colonial power depar...
Human Rights Watch saysthe proposed Code of Ethics for Media in Sri Lanka gags freedom of speech. Wellthere’s much that we can ask about HRW’s own code of ethics and none of whichgives HRW any credibility. Our questions are many. HRW (formerly known asHelsinki Watch, brainchild of Robert L. Bernstein, president of Random House) wasa private Am
Homer gives credit to anEastern Prince for leading the Greeks into what became their homeland, and Alexander the Great grew upwith the belief that he belonged to an ancient Indian royal line. That belief,more than world conquest, fired his ambition, and in noting this in The History of Philosophy,Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) wrote that Alexander “de
The secularist lobby has predictably lost notime in pouncing upon Narendra Modi for describing himself as a HinduNationalist. Modi sought to explain (hedge?) the assertion by separating thetwo words before joining them. “I am nationalist. I’m patriotic. Nothing iswrong. I am born Hindu. Nothing is wrong. So I’m a Hindu nationalist. So yes,you can s
“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act”-George Orwell Edward Snowden isanother one of the several high profile altruistic whistleblowers that meets mydefinition of what a true patriot really is, namely a citizen who openly andvocally rejects the “my country, right or wrong” type of false patriotism andpublical
Edward Joseph Snowden delivered a statement to human rightsorganizations and individuals at Sheremetyevo airport at 5pm Moscow time,Friday 12th July. The meeting lasted 45 minutes. The human rights organizationsincluded Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and were given theopportunity afterwards to ask Mr Snowden questions. The Human Right
Despitecontroversies and concerns over the technology of genetically modified crops(GM crops), a selection committee headed by MS Swaminathan very recently decidedto give the US $250,000 World Food Prize jointly to the Executive VicePresident and Chief Technology Officer of Monsanto, Robert T Fraley, Marc VanMontagu, Founder of Institute of Plant B
Though I havebeen living in India for a long time, there are still some things I find hardto understand. For instance, why many so called educated Indians on television discussionforums become agitated whenever ‘Hindutva’ is mentioned. The majority ofIndians are Hindus. India is special because of its ancient Hindu tradition.Westerners are drawn to
After the publicationof Snowdenin Moscow, I received many positive responses, a few queries, – and a fewabuses. I am used to the whole lot, and I expect it whenever theGuardian newspaper is mentioned. I wrote and published in theCounterpunch and in other media the story how the Guardian deliberately censored Wikileaks files in order
The inquiry commission: An inquiry commissionunder Barjor Dalal submitted a report on the riots of July 1931. Author ShailenderSingh Jamwal (Barjor Dalal’s report of the Srinagar riot enquiry committee –1931) concluded that the riots were the desired outcome of intrigues theBritish indulged in from 1847, but Maharaja Gulab Singh astutely overcame.
The 13th of July 1931 saw an expressionof extreme communalism from the majority community of the Kashmir valley - theKashmiri Muslims. In the name of protest against the local king, Maharaja HariSingh, the Kashmiri Muslims unleashed gruesome violence on Hindus living in thevalley. The simmering On June 21, 1931, the Young Man’sMuslim Asso
In theearly 20th century, in the light of Fukuzawa Yukichi advocating Good Bye Asia,Japan decided to follow the West in spite of the appeals of RabindranathTagore, Sun Yat Sun and Okkakura to look towards the East. Thus Japan abandonedspirituality and compassion and followed the western philosophy of might isright and the hubris that the environmen
Whether or not the people ofBhutan were looking for a real change, the second election brought about achange in the ruling party of the country. How efficient will the newgovernment be in fulfilling its promises remains to be seen. Whether peopleunderstand the values of democracy or not, the process seems to show someimprovement in the exercise of
The Sindhu and Sarasvati rivers were at the centre of Rig Vedic consciousness,closely followed by the Iravati (Ravi), Sutudri (Sutlej), Vipasa (Beas),Chandrabhaga (Chenab), Vitasta (Jhelum). Hence the reference to the land asSapta Sindhu (seven rivers). The Sarasvati, mentioned some seventy times in theRig Veda, dried up in post-Vedic times and was
In two previous essays, “Yatha raja, tatha prashasan” and “The Indian administration is still `yatha raja’” [1], I had critiquedthe Union Public Service Commission’s Civil Services Examination (UPSC / CSE) asbiased and corrupt, evolved – as a system – to replicate and feed our country’sruling administration that is widely and popularly perceived to
In the midst of itsshort summer, Moscow is balmy and relaxed. Sidewalks brim with tables andmerry customers, even traffic jams are less severe due to holiday season. Theonly danger for men is the girls’ dresses, they are precariously short. In afew days, perhaps even tomorrow, the charms and dangers of the city willbe available to Edwar
The first and foremost achievementthat Bhutan made after one hundred years reign of the system of monarchy is theemergence of democracy with constitutional monarchy having been proclaimed bythe throne at the crucial hour of continued peoples’ call for a change in thesystem of government, in keeping with the global trend. We saw the People’s D
The Indian Army recently carried out anintensive changeover of its top Army Commanders, a move for which the ArmyChief, General Bikram Singh, drew some trenchant criticism. Even when the postingswere announced some weeks ago, a number of defence analysts questioned the needfor the same. Logical reasons were given against carrying out an upheaval of
Uttarakhand’s travails continue: the rain gods refuse to relent; hillsides crumble; missing pilgrims and villagers have been given up as dead; zero to inadequate relief has reached trapped human and animal survivors. Politicians and economists will quibble over the quantum of loss and funds necessary to rebuild the State, but the true dimensions of the trage...
With defeat in the next election staring at itin the eye, the UPA government has played what it evidently considers its trumpcard: the food security ordinance promising ample quantity of highly subsidizedgrains to 67 per cent of the population. The Congress leadership certainlybelieves that this will be a game-changer which will make people overloo
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Hari Om
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14 Jul 2013
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Former chief interlocutor for Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), DilipPadgaonkar, recently urged the Union Government to implement therecommendations contained in his October 12, 2011 176-page report and suggestedthat if the Kashmir issue is to be resolved, it is imperative to take on boardPakistan and Kashmiri separatists and review the Centre-State r
As the date for the visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Kashmir tolaunch the train service between Qazigund in Kashmirand Banihal in Jammu approached, the political climate of the valley witnessedimmense momentum. The possibility of talks between the separatists and thegovernment became a hot topic all over again. The Prime Minister came,&nbs
We live and learn, especially in the world ofMiddle-Eastern politics. On November 21, 2012, I wrote an article titled, ‘The Syrian Puzzle and the future of theMiddle East’. Life, it seems, is full of puzzles. That article described the fact that after GamalAbdel Nasser’s crushing of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1954, and the latter’ssearch for sa
Although surprised bythe speed of events, Thierry Meyssan celebrates the demise of the MuslimBrotherhood government which he had anticipated for a year. While theAtlanticist media supported Mohamed Morsi and decried Bashar al-Assad, he heldthe opposite view and denounced the “Arab Spring” as a manipulation. TheEgyptian street has decided [8 July 20
As happens with so much news these days, the EdwardSnowden revelations about National Security Agency (NSA) spying and just howfar we’ve come in the building of a surveillance state have swept over us 24/7-- waves of leaks, videos, charges, claims, counterclaims, skullduggery,and government threats. When a flood sweeps you away, it’s always hard to
Giza [July 9]: We are demonstrating in front of Cairo Universityin Giza to defend the rule of law: what we call ‘Shar’iyya’ or legitimacy. Thiscould easily be confused by some in the Western media with ‘Shari’a’ or Islamiclaw. It isnot news that Morsi is now held in the Republican Guard Building by Gen. MohsinShazly. But there was news yesterd
The swift action byEgypt’s military to arrest Mohamed Morsi and key leaders of his MuslimBrotherhood organization on July 3 marks a major setback for Washington’s “ArabSpring” strategy of using political Islam to spread chaos from China throughRussia across the energy-rich Middle East. Morsi’sown defense minister, armed forces chief General Ab
The much-expected talks between the Taliban andthe United States in Doha have not yet begun, and there is no clear indicationwhen the two parties, busy settling their list of pre-negotiation do’s anddon’ts, will finally sit down to discuss the features of post-2014 Afghanistanand determine role of various parties in the future. Meanwhile, some with
The recent unfortunatedeaths of two young boys in Kashmir have opened a new sad chapter in theturbulent history of the State. Irfan Nabi Ganaie, a student of class 12, diedof gunshot wounds during an anti-terrorist operation launched by the securityforces in the wee hours on Sunday, June 30, in the vicinity of his village,Markundal, in north Kashmi
Recently, the writer came across an article, “Akhilesh loses ground in UP, Mulayam loseshope” (The Sunday Guardian, July6, 2013). It states that, “A certain level of anarchy has been unleashed in thefunctioning of the (Samajwadi) party.” Among other things it refers to thewriter, saying, “Officers in the UP government are also kicking off disciplin
Occasionally I noticed that in western publications Hinduism was missingwhen religions were listed. Buddhism was there, without fail, but its mother soto speak was ignored. What could be the reason? About one billion human beingsare Hindus. Hinduism is alive and vibrant. There is hardly another people whoare as ‘religious’ and have so much faith in
In his famous Minutes on Education (1835),Thomas Babington Macaulay admitted that he had “no knowledge of either Sanscrit orArabic”, but nevertheless pontificated about the “intrinsic superiority” of Westernliterature. In the last century, Indian scholarship has unfortunately internalisedhis views and rejected the merit of our ancient literatu
All late night of July 3, one was transfixedwatching both Al Jazeerah and CNN as developments fast unfolded in Cairo and allacross Egypt. It was clear from the popular mobilisation in Tahrir Square, atthe Presidential Palace, Alexandria, Suez to Mansoura and every major cityacross Egypt, that not only had the Morsi-led Muslim Brotherhood lost thepo
The fast developing situation in Egyptand the rapid ouster of President Mohamed Morsi has puzzled many and belied theexpectation of those who thought that the revolution started two and a halfyears ago with the ouster of Hosni Mubarak. June 30, 2013, will be remembered asthe day the true revolution began. Never before in the history of Egypt h
No greater crime in thehistory of humankind can match the unrelenting and unceasing war that membersof the human species are waging almost every moment of the day against membersof other species for their flesh and bones. This is the biggest war of humankind being waged from time immemorial i.e. snuffing out the life of otherspecies in an almost on
While the international press plays up theinformation leaked by Edward Snowden as a revelation concerning the PRISMsurveillance program, feigning to have discovered what everyone should alreadyhave known for a long time, Thierry Meyssan is particularly curious about themeaning of this rebellion. From this perspective, he attaches more importanceto
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03 Jul 2013
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It has become customary with the so-called mainstream Kashmiri leaders tohoodwink and mislead the Indian nation and grind their own communal axe in thename of secularism. They masquerade as liberal democrats and genuinesecularists, but preach and practice a kind of politics that led to thecommunal partition of India in 1947, displacement of populat
Kedarnath and Badrinath, two most beloved northern tirthas, have for the past two weeks witnessed an apocalyptic spectacle of pralaya with an enraged god and angry goddess stomping a dance of death in fierce tandem. As clouds burst, mountainsides crumbled, and torrential streams hurtled multistoried buildings, hydel projects, roads, humans and animals alike ...
Sun Tzu, the ancient author of The Art of War,must be throwing a rice wine party in his heavenly tomb in the wake of theshirtsleeves California love-in between President Obama and President XiJinping. “Know your enemy” was, it seems, the theme of the meeting. Beijing wasvery much aware of -- and had furiously protested -- Washington’s deep plungein