For several weeks, just as most states across the United States began to reopen following three months of lockdown to “flatten the curve”, several states including Texas and Florida began reporting record new numbers who tested positive for the coronavirus. At least that is what the world is being told. More careful investigation suggests what is unfolding i...
Prudence dictates it is better to let sleeping dogs lie. But wisdom demands that the unpalatable and unpleasant, at least those in public domain, be discussed publicly and thrashed out in public interest. On July 4, 2020, The Hindustan Times carried a report under the heading ‘NSA Doval coordinated PM Modi’s surprise Nimu visit’. I was too shocked at the ...
As Eurasia’s geopolitical sands shift, Iran is touting a sea and rail hook-up involving Iranian, Russian, and Indian ports that would link the sub-continent to northern Europe as a viable alternative to Egypt’s Suez Canal and addition to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Iranian and Indian officials suggest the route would significantly cut shipping time and...
Violent demonstrations have broken out in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Thousands marched, dozens were arrested, but more citizens continued to arrive and join the protests. The people of the only Jewish state are upset and unhappy. They expected a better outcome from their fight with corona. Israel was the first state to implement a full lockdown. The Chinese...
The Khilafat Movement (1919-1924) was a scripturally ordained movement with a history in India that dates from the time when the first Islamic invader set foot on Indian soil. In modern times, the fixation for the Ottoman Khalifa amongst Sufis, ulama, middle-class Muslim intelligentsia, Muslim press and common Muslims started at least since the 1830s. The id...
Everything in life is relative. A truism that actually is true. Make 50% of your field goals in the NBA and you’re on your way to stardom. Complete 50% of your passes in the NFL and a quarterback would be lucky to make the Jets’ taxi squad. Sport a career batting average in the .260 range, be a butcher in the field, yet if you manage 400 home runs and...
About four hundred members of the Church of England fled their country where they were considered fanatics. They took refuge in Leiden, Holland, where they were able to live according to the Calvinist tradition, or more precisely the Puritan interpretation of Christianity. Probably at the request of King James I, they sent two groups to the Americas to fight...
Hobbled by harsh US sanctions and a global economic downturn, Iran has discovered a new opportunity: hot air that carries messages to its opponents. China, albeit far less economically impaired, sees virtue in the business too. A proposed 25-year humongous China-Iran cooperation deal has proven to be good business. Reams of media reporting and analysis and c...
Neo-liberal capitalism has transformed the social democratic capitalism that followed the Second World War into a more oppressive and destructive form with greater accumulation of minority wealth and majority poverty than the world has ever seen. The present stage in the usual boom-bust cycle of market forces under private profit rule, now multiplied by a st...
In October 2018, in France, a deaf woman protested from small towns and the countryside. The country’s leaders and the media were stunned to discover the existence of a social class they did not know and had never met before: a petty bourgeoisie, which had been excluded from the big cities and relegated to the “French desert”, an area where public services a...
India’s boycott of the Border and Roads Initiative (B&RI) on grounds that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) goes through Gilgit-Baltistan that was part of the kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir and hence belongs to India, has been viewed by Beijing as threatening the security of the CPEC. Pakistan is the only country that...
To a devout Muslim, doctrine overrides conscience. Islamic doctrine flows from a triad of Islamic scriptures that includes Quran, Hadith (narrative record of the sayings or customs of Prophet Muhammad) and the Sira (biography of the Prophet Muhammad) or Sunnah (tradition or way of Prophet Muhammad). Whether at a personal or community level, it is...
A Palestinian move to secure Palestine’s energy needs by tying them to high-stakes Turkish regional gambits constitutes an effort to reduce Palestinian dependence on Israel at a time when the Jewish state is looking at annexing parts of the occupied West Bank. When Faed Mustafa, Palestine’s ambassador in Ankara, expressed interest in June in negotiating with...
The war in Afghanistan was officially launched to avenge the attacks of September 11, 2001. However, it had been prepared beforehand. For two decades, we have been explaining in these columns that it is the first in a long series of wars aimed at destroying all state structures in the broader Middle East (Rumsfeld/Cebrowski strategy) in order to control the ...
The relentless advance of coronavirus terror has been broken. Recalcitrant Serbs rebelled against their President when he ordered them back under house arrest. After two days of street battles with dozens of policemen hospitalised, the sturdy protesters won; the authorities surrendered and gave up their plans to lock Belgrade down. Shops, pubs and restaurant...
Throughout 2011 and the first half of 2012, the United States and Russia secretly discussed their plans for the Broader Middle East. The Pentagon was pursuing the Rumsfeld/Cebrowski strategy, i.e. the plan to destroy all state structures (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria...), but President Barack Obama was looking for a way to withdraw militarily from the reg...
Already at the core of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Jerusalem is emerging as yet another frontline in the struggle for regional hegemony in the Middle East. With its annexationist policies, Israel is backing Saudi and UAE efforts to counter Turkish activity in the city and weaken Jordan’s position as the custodian of Islam’s third most holy site.
Israe...
In the Mahabharata, the Kaurava Army had better warriors and generals than the Pandavas; their forces were also much larger and better trained. It was on this strategic calculation that Prince Duryodhana decided to fight against the Pandavas. The Pandavas won because they had Dharma (Righteousness) on their side. The Kaurava Generals were not convinced about...
The Khilafat Movement (1919-1924) refers to the ferment among Indian Muslims consequent to the threatened dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire and the abolition of the Turkish Caliphate at the end of the World War I. The Khilafat Movement primarily sought the restoration of the Khalifa (lit. successor; religious and temporal head of global Muslims). The Movem...
People like Snowden were not privy to the details. But the implications of the technical tasks they were doing pointed to the conclusion that such a compact was in place. Lawlessness was destined to win. In particular regard to elite political consensus, let us recall the bipartisan cabal formed by President Bush in 2002 to launch a radical surveillance prog...
Edward Snowden’s book (Permanent Record, Metropolitan Books, 2019) is not a ‘coming-of-age’ saga. It is necessary to say that at the outset. One of the peculiarities of our times is the penchant for rendering everything in terms of so-called ‘human interest’. The most profound events, the most penetrating analysis, the most stirring ideas – all are reduced t...
The much debated and delayed Sri Lanka parliamentary election is now scheduled to be held on August 5. After missing two dates set earlier for the election, after the disposal of eight fundamental rights cases, the Election Commission (EC) announcement came with a lot of conditions on conduct of campaigning as well as the elections, thanks to the Covid-19 pa...
The hiring by Saudi Arabia of an international public relations firm to counter doubts about Mohammed bin Salman’s $500 billion USD dream of a futuristic city on the Red Sea suggests that the kingdom’s economic and financial crisis has not dampened his penchant for big ticket, high-profile projects. When Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan announced au...
Homo homini lupus est, said Plautus. Our new masters beat the old Roman comic dramatist at his game by establishing Homo homini toxic est as the new norm. They have trained us to be afraid of each other, to wear masks, to keep social distance, or even better, to stay home. They prefer it this way, with us locked away, out of their way, ordering things by Int...
In May 2020, Beijing intruded into Indian territory at some places across the long border, and Kathmandu claimed areas of Uttarakhand where India is building a road to Lipulekh Pass on the Tibetan border, to smoothen the journey for pilgrims to Kailash Mansarovar. Amidst rising tensions, Nepalese police firing killed an Indian citizen and injured two...
The current wakeup call being experienced by more Americans about historic racism is leading to hopeful actions, but if all that results is removal of symbolic remnants of a wretched past, these may lead to very little substantial change of the present and future. The rush to remove statues, change street names, remove written distortions of history and deno...
China was quick to aid coronavirus-stricken Sri Lanka. Chinese magnanimity and speed in responding to the Indian Ocean island’s request contrasted starkly with Beijing’s more measured response to Africa’s needs, widely expected to be the pandemic’s next hotspot. Geography was but one reason why China favoured the strategic island that straddles one of the In...
The history of South Asia and China was dominated by the British broadly from the 17th century to the mid-20th century. Today, almost seven decades after the exit of the British, India and China remain unable to reconcile to their new destinies and move on. Border demarcation done by the British dominates the political spectrum. Over almost seven decades and...
Secret US bio laboratories are strewn across multiple countries in Africa, Asia, and even Europe. This is a global problem that is the attention of various media outlets as of late. More and more frequently, the numerous articles published on this issue voice questions such as: what secret programs (even supported by the country they are located in) are the...
It is easy to view Nepal’s recent enactment of a bill approving a new map of the country and emblem as an anti-Indian act. It showed a triangular sliver of 372 sq. km. in Uttarakhand - Limpiyadhura-Kalapani-Lipulekh - as part of Nepal. Nepal Prime Minister KP Oli’s initiative to push the constitutional amendment bill is mischievous, to say the least. It is u...
The best news that I read during these pandemic times came on June 22, 2020 in India Today. On an appeal against the apex court’s decision of June 18, banning the Puri Jagannath Rath Yatra, a three-member bench of the same court permitted the Rath Yatra on a ritualistic scale, without devotee participation. What interested me more was that the Chief Justice,...