Confucius told his disciple Tzu-Kung that a good ruler should hold on to trust even if he had to give up power over weapons or food. The trust should be guarded till the last as without trust we cannot stand. This holds true even today. The economic system propagated by the west throughout the world as globalisation has created the cancer of
On May 13 President Barack Obama welcomed North Atlantic Treaty Organization secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen to the White House and the two pledged to continue the world’s two major wars, those in Afghanistan and Libya. There are over 150,000 foreign troops engaged in the nearly ten-year war in Afghanistan, at least 130,000 of them se
The United States, France and Britain invaded Libya with cruise missiles, stealth bombers, fighter jets and attack jets. Although NATO has taken over the military operation, US President Barack Obama has been bombing Libya with Hellfire missiles from unmanned Predator drones. The number of civilians these foreign forces have killed remains unknown.
Some Thoughts on the IMF, Global Injustice, and a Stranger on a Train How can I tell a story we already know too well? Her name was Africa. His was France. He colonized her, exploited her, silenced her, and even decades after it was supposed to have ended, still acted with a high hand in resolving her affairs in places like Côte d’I
It’s all about perception management. The media is trying to dig up as much dirt as they can on Dominique Strauss-Kahn so they can hang the man before he ever sees the inside of a courthouse. It reminds me of the Terry Schiavo case, where devoted-husband Michael was pegged as an insensitive slimeball for carrying out the explicit wishes of hi
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar was a great social reformer who practiced what he preached. As he said, “He who gives up verbosity and acts as per the principle of ‘irrespective of whether others do it or not, as far as I am concerned, I will practice reform on a daily basis” alone is a true reformer (1935, Hindutvache panchapran or The
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Hari Om
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27 May 2011
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India is a democratic country where all adult Indians without exception enjoy the right to elect their government(s) every five years. They can, if they so desire, reelect the government, as they recently did in Assam. They can, if they so desire, vote out the ruling party, as they recently did in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and West Bengal. The s
Swatantryaveer Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (28 May 1883 - 26 Feb 1966) was a fearless freedom fighter, social reformer, writer, dramatist, historian, political leader and philosopher. Unfortunately, Savarkar has been a victim of malice and misinformation. Those who disagree with Savarkar’s political views start with the assumption that he was an
Developments in the Middle East have created an impact in Jammu and Kashmir which witnessed a disturbed last summer. Events in Egypt and elsewhere have almost evaporated the public demoralization in Kashmir valley that had set in after the failed ‘Quit Kashmir’ campaign, and once again created a hope amongst the rank and file of the sep
In a wicked irony, Congress crown prince Rahul Gandhi, who mistakes cheap theatrics for serious politics, recently courted ‘arrest’ in support of the farmers’ agitation against land acquisition by the Mayawati government for the Yamuna Expressway. He followed it up with a sensational allegation (soon found to be baseless) that a m
Indian agriculture lost one of its most cogent voices at a time when the farming community nationwide is facing the growing menace of State-driven expropriation of land for crony capitalists. This trend, which we may designate as the corporatisation of private property, parallels the other disturbing tendency towards the privatisation of public res
We must dwell, first, on the word ‘civilization’. Civilization as the material manifestation (‘artifacts’) of foundational idea-systems (‘mentifacts’) stands for any one of the sequential phases in human history when a given system of institutions spreads beyond the boundaries of the state(s) that originally gave
Christian society has been at the receiving end of a bitter fight between Hindu and Christian organizations for the last decade. Church has used them as a safety jacket and despite lots of problems has not deviated from the core agenda. Foreign grants to the Church have enormously increased over the said period and Church has used this fund to set
The arrest of IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn has all the appearances of a frame-up ordered by powerful members of the financial establishment, in liaison with France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, whose presidency has served the interests of the US at the expense of those of France and the European Union. While there is for the moment
With the Palestinians demonstrating and the International Monetary Fund in turmoil, it would seem odd to focus this week on something called the Visegrad Group. But this is not a frivolous choice. What the Visegrad Group decided to do last week will, I think, resonate for years, long after the alleged attempted rape by Dominique Strauss-Kahn is for
Interest in the US Military and Intelligence CommunityThis is an opportunity to discuss information about the cosmic linkage between the US military and civilian intelligence Remote Viewing programs, and ancient and modern history of Earth and Extraterrestrial contact. The subject is much broader and more interesting than the title implies.&nb
The past week has been filled with announcements and speculations on how Osama bin Laden was killed and on Washington’s source of intelligence. After any operation of this sort, the world is filled with speculation on sources and methods by people who don’t know, and silence or dissembling by those who do. Obfuscating on how intell
“The Nazis killed tens of MILLIONS. They got a trial. Why? Because we’re not like them. We’re Americans. We roll different.” – Michael Moore in an interview last week [fortnight] When I heard the news a week ago Sunday [1 May], I immediately felt great. I felt relief. I thought of those who lost a loved one on 9/1
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Hari Om
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19 May 2011
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The people of West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Kerala and Puducherry have given their verdict, and the winning parties are now in the process of forming their respective governments. In West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress of the mercurial Mamata Banerjee, in alliance with the Congress Party, has scored a magnificent victory, ending the 34-year-long
There are no hostages in the game of geopolitics. Russia’s reaction to the Bin Laden assassination reveals its own dilemma about how best to accommodate the West, says Eric Walberg The Kremlin limited itself to a brief statement congratulating the United States for its success in killing Osama Bin Laden, noting Russia’s own firsth
The first big reward from the Sonia-Manmohan government to the people, for the “trust” reposed in them by the unfortunate and gullible people of this land, has come - perhaps a bit too early. With an unprecedented hike of petrol prices by a whopping five rupees - only the ninth in nine months - there is hopefully one immediate opportuni
There are some important lessons to be learnt by political parties from this decisive verdict given by the people of Tamil Nadu. ‘No’ to freebies The people have clearly conveyed the message that freebies do not matter much and what actually matters is good governance. Though giving “freebies” is an old electoral
To this essential question we have a good answer in the Bible in the Greek Book of Sirach. In its chapter 13 we may read: “What part hath the rich with the poor? The wild ass is the lion’s prey in the desert: so also the poor are nurture for the rich.” Due to this danger a reasonable man shall be suspicious of propositions of
Viktor Ivanov, director of Russia’s anti-drug agency, announced to reporters on May 5 that “Osama [bin Laden] launched the heroin drug trafficking [in Afghanistan]…. He is gone; that is to say, he was killed. This is a major success of our US partners. However, the drug problem is not solved,” as quoted in Itar-Tass May 6.&n
Osama was Left Handed...“In politics stupidity is not a handicap”, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821.) For those who believe in omens, the triumphal announcement of the murder of Osama bin Laden, his son and various of his household (if it were he) by US special forces did not bode well. Running at the bottom of Fox4O on the event was
“The incoming helicopters took fire; they didn’t take fire. The Pakistanis didn’t know; they did know. Osama’s wife was a human shield; she wasn’t a human shield. It was his wife; it wasn’t his wife. Osama had a gun; he didn’t have a gun…If you’re not a conspiracy theorist in the United States o
From my long years of association with intelligence work in NATO, including familiarity with Mossad agents who are experts in cover up, I can say without fear of ridicule that there are just too many loopholes in the Osama bin Laden death story as put out by US President Barack Obama, and since ‘refined’ and ‘modified’ every
On April 28, a few days before the US Navy Seals personnel flew into Pakistan under presidential order to kill Osama bin Laden, President Barack Obama announced a number of personnel changes in the nation’s security apparatus at the highest levels. These nominees require US Senate confirmation before they assume their respective jobs. Ob
It’s Time to Stop Celebrating and Go Back to Kansas Back in the 1960s, Senator George Aiken of Vermont offered two American presidents a plan for dealing with the Vietnam War: declare victory and go home. Roundly ignored at the time, it’s a plan worth considering again today for a war in Afghanistan and Pakistan now in its tenth year.&n
The present NATO campaign against Gaddafi in Libya has given rise to great confusion, both among those waging this ineffective campaign, and among those observing it. Many whose opinions I normally respect see this as a necessary war against a villain – though some choose to see Gaddafi as the villain, and others point to Obama.My own take on
With five phases of voting just over, and with an average voting percentage exceeding 80%, it is time to take stock of the just-concluded electoral battle and the message emanating from it. Were all that matters for West Bengal given their due by politicians in the fray or simply left out? It has been said that voting behaviour this time has
Three earlier essays on “the Hazare phenomenon” enlarged on the duplicity involved of Hazare and company in their crusade against corruption.[1] The essays noted, in particular, the shady financial dealings and absence of transparency and accountability in the publicly-presented accounts of the NGOs of Hazare & co., though
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Hari Om
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11 May 2011
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The elimination of Al-Qaeda chief and the world’s most wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden by the United States on May 2 has created a splendid situation for India. This, notwithstanding the fact that there is the possibility of Al-Qaeda operatives and Pakistan-based terrorist organizations like Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and
Osama bin Laden’s purported last will and testament, and the manner of his death, holds vital lessons that the Islamic world, particularly the Sunni Muslim Ummah, should urgently ponder. According to the Kuwait-based Al-Anbaa newspaper, bin Laden instructed his wives not to remarry, thus flouting Islamic law and practice, and putting himself
A recent release of Wikileaks documents must have created a flurry of concern among the anglophiles in the White House. One such document shows that through interrogations of the Guantanamo Bay detainees, it has come to light that Adil Hadi al-Jaza’iri Bin Hamlili, an al-Qaeda assassin of Algerian descent, was found “to have withheld im
On April 29 the White House issued an executive order to enforce new and more stringent sanctions against Syria and appealed to European North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies to follow suit. In a letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives President Barack Obama wrote, “I have determined that the Government of Syria’s huma
We are currently seeing a “Satirical Shakespearean Play” unfold before our very eyes and yet none of us can see through this “Weapon of Mass Deception”. When involved in intelligence or information gathering, you have to focus on the incident right from the start and document everything spoken, all available videos and
The objective of the war against Libya is not just its oil reserves (now estimated at 60 billion barrels), which are the greatest in Africa and whose extraction costs are among the lowest in the world, nor the natural gas reserves of which are estimated at about 1,500 billion cubic meters. In the crosshairs of “willing” of the operation
In 1997 Trilateral Commission founder Zbigniew Brzezinski, the godfather of the Afghan mujahadeen, wrote a book titled, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geopolitical Imperatives. In the book Brzezinski - who sat on the board at BP Amoco - argues that the key to global power is control of Eurasia and that the “key to contro
The unredacted Guantanamo files show clearly that the trail to Abbottabad was known to the US intelligence services at least since 2005, when al-Libi, another Abbottabad dweller, was captured. Timing is everything. The US President announced killing of Osama bin Laden just as Wikileaks completed its publication of Guantanamo files. Was it coi
In the mid-1980’s the UN tried to broker a peace deal in Afghanistan involving a complete Soviet withdrawal in return for an end to US and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) support for the Afghan rebels. The Reagan Administration refused the UN deal. It wanted to “give the Soviets their Vietnam” as part of a grander scheme
The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced on Thursday that he would soon stand before the United Nations and report on alleged Libyan war crimes. We can only hope that his brief will include the latest war crime, the murder of Qaddafi’s family, his son and three grandchildren, and the assassination attempt on the life
The Wall Street Journal reported on April 7 that the Syrian government reversed a ban on women teachers wearing Islamic face cover in the classroom. The concession to Western-backed Islamist protestors is instructive, since the secular socialist Assad government is clearly in the crosshairs of City of London bankers attempting to redraw the po
One of the most exciting aspects of the economic growth of both China and India is their increasing realization that the African nations will be an important leg on which these two countries’ growth will depend. While Beijing has its work cut out, New Delhi appears to be proceeding in an ad hoc fashion. It is, however, important to direct Ind
On 2nd May 2011, the world media erupted into a concert of plaudits, encomiums and wild-eyed screams followed by endless streams of commentary about the reported killing of Osama bin Laden, the world’s most wanted man, whom most of the “civilized world’s” armed forces had allegedly been in hot pursuit of since the 11th of Se
What about Our Non-human Corporate Offenders?“Slavery is the legal fiction that a person is property. Corporate personhood is the legal fiction that property is a person.” -- Anonymous The infamous decision of the NeoConservative, pro-corporate, anti-democratic Supreme Court “Gang of Five” in their Citizens United decis
[On 30 April 2011, Hon’ble Speaker Meira Kumar appointed Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, MP, as Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee for 2011-2012, vide Lok Sabha Bulletin –Part II No. 2730. This development comes in the wake of the contentious meeting of the PAC on 28 April, where 11 of the 21 Committee members claimed to have ‘vote
IMF has recently changed its stance on capital controls. How sincere is the change and how relevant is it for India? The impact of controls on the magnitude and composition of capital flows, the cost of transaction and monetary policy has been a subject of enormous debate. The International Monetary Fund, or IMF, has historically been hawkish
Over the last decade or so, I have been trying as hard as I can to highlight the rotten state of the value-free departments of economics and the many business schools around the world, and how they have been infected by the now discredited neo-liberalism and the “Washington Consensus”. Recently, a dear friend sent me a copy of a le