The concept of the Noosphere defined by Russian visionary scientist V I Vernadsky has become part of the contemporary scientific and philosophical dictionary and some cyberneticians and futurists predict that geopolitics and geo-economics will be subsumed or replaced in the coming decades by noopolitics and nooeconomics as we gradually, but rapidly
For almost three decades I’ve been studying nudibranchs in the tropical Indian and Pacific Oceans. Nudibranchs are beautiful and brightly coloured sea slugs that thrive on healthy coral reefs. While that has been exhilarating, it is the changes that I’ve seen on these reefs that make me sit upright in bed in the middle of the night. Cl
There is only ONE truth which I know. Being a commando in the Indian army and leading men into the jaws of death will make my soul rest in peace one day! Because when the great scorer comes to mark against my name, for all that I did, I will be a proud man who served this country and a cause for which so many brave Ind
Anteing Up, Betting, and Bluffing in the New Great Game Future historians may well agree that the twenty-first century Silk Road first opened for business on December 14, 2009. That was the day a crucial stretch of pipeline officially went into operation linking the fabulously energy-rich state of Turkmenistan (via Kazakhstan and Uzbeki
“The enemy is only 50 yards from us. We are heavily outnumbered. We are under devastating fire. I shall not withdraw an inch but will fight to our last man and our last round.” - Maj. Somnath Sharma, 4 Kumaon Regiment, Param Vir Chakra (posthumous), to Brigade Hqrs. as he fell seven-to-one fighting the enemy at Srinagar airport
Looming losses from ForeclosureGate qualify as the sort of systemic risk warranting the breakup of the too-big-to-fail banks under the new financial reform bill. The new Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) probably didn’t expect to have its authority called on quite so soon, but Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Florida) has just put the
The Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir failed to conceal the hidden agenda he conceived during a visit to Pakistan in 2007, though he had lot of time on his side to take up the issue. Omar Abdullah’s utterances on the floor of the Legislative Assembly in Srinagar last month proved counter-productive, though he chose that venue fu
Even as the government probes the multiple scams associated with the recent Commonwealth Games, New Delhi would do well to reconsider our continued participation in this colonial relic. International power dynamics are rapidly changing and at least three organisations have simply lost their raison d’etre, viz., the Commonwealth, the European
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Hari Om
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26 Oct 2010
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25 Comments
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It was not altogether unexpected that the newly-appointed interlocutors on J&K, Dileep Padgaonkar and Radha Kumar, would come to the rescue of the radical Islamist Syed Ali Shah Geelani and rabid Maoist Arundhati Roy, who openly preached and instigated sedition in the heart of the capital on October 21. It was expected that they w
Christianisation was the third force of colonialism as best expressed by Jomo Kenyatta, the late Kenyan leader, who said: “When the white man came he had the bible we had the land. Then he said ‘let us close our eyes and pray’. When we opened our eyes we had the bible he had the land.” This is further confirmed by t
Obama has just lost his close friend and chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who is making the unusual transition from national to municipal politics. He is also losing his closest adviser David Axelrod (pragmatist Emanuel described their difference as prose versus poetry) and his mentor and director of the National Economic Council Larry Summers.
In this article, we focus on a related concept, namely the process of “manufacturing dissent” (rather than “consent”), which plays a decisive role in serving the interests of the ruling class. Under contemporary capitalism, the illusion of democracy must prevail. It is in the interest of the corporate eli
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Hari Om
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23 Oct 2010
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14 Comments
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It is an established fact that the root cause of trouble in Kashmir is Pakistan. Islamabad has been fomenting trouble in Jammu & Kashmir since its creation. It waged four full-scale wars on India in 1947-1948, 1965, 1971 and 1999 in order to grab Kashmir, but faced humiliating defeats at the hands of the Indian Army and a determined Indian lead
Pakistan is now firmly caught in a vortex of violence. There is no indication whatsoever that the Pakistani authorities have either the capability, or the intent, to get to the root cause of this catastrophic development, to put a stop to the growing violence. What is evident, however, is that Pakistan is becoming increasingly unstable, with large
Twenty-eight heads of state of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) will meet in Lisbon on Nov. 20 to approve a new “Strategic Concept,” the alliance’s mission statement for the next decade. This will be NATO’s third Strategic Concept since the Cold War ended. The last two came in 1991 - as the Soviet Union
“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” François-Marie Arouet -”Voltaire” (1694-1778.) I have a deeply held belief that the duty of a commentator is, to the best of one’s ability, to record, to shine light in often dark places, to act as a voice for those whose own vo
Big business and the wealthy are pouring unprecedented sums of money into the US congressional elections, according to data reported in the media over the past several days. While the lion’s share of the money is going to candidates of the Republican Party, Democrats are also raking in millions, underscoring the status of both parties as poli
Distortion of the history of the partition of India, false propaganda and lies, shroud the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India in 1947, as well as the exclusion of the State from the Indian Constitutional organization by virtue of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution in 1950. The Indian political class in its attempt to substitute
Vijaya Dashami is celebrated in our country with great gaiety and enthusiasm from time immemorial as a day of victory of the “Dharma” i.e. virtue, service and righteousness. This year the festival comes at a time when the entire nation is heartened by the court verdict on the Rama Janmabhumi issue, delivered on 30 September 2010. &nbs
The euphoria created by the booming stock market has diverted public attention away from the worrisome spurt in trade deficit i.e. excess of imports over exports. There is a link between the two: massive inflows of foreign capital. Foreigners flush with freshly printed dollars are betting high on our stocks, driving the Sensex through the roof. Tho
The Western commercial system exists to extract more from consumers than it supplies in products and services. Its goal is profit and has never been to improve the human condition but to exploit it. When governments institutionalize this system, they place their nations on suicidal paths, because as Jefferson recognized, “Merchants have no co
JP Morgan suspends 56,000 foreclosures, GMAC and BOA“Maybe this is like shock therapy. Maybe this will actually get the lenders to the table and encourage them to work out deals that are to the benefit of everybody.” - Economist Karl E. Case, quoted in the New York Times The hits are coming fast and furiously. Major Wall
A victim of outside instigators and poor governance by both New Delhi and the state government, the Indian part of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) state continues to seethe in violence, with no end in sight. During the last three months, at least 100 of the stone-throwing protestors in the Kashmir valley have lost their lives challenging the Indian sec
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon reflected the growing Anglo-American itch to interfere in Kashmir with his recent comments about the need to end the unrest in the Valley; hints about expansion of the Security Council; and pious hope that India and Pakistan would furnish an ‘official request’ for a UN role in Kashmir. He did admit was I
The new Ottomans and the new Byzantines are poised for an intercept as the US stumbles in the current Great Game. The neocon plan to transform the Middle East and Central Asia into a pliant client of the US empire and its only-democracy-in-the-Middle-East is now facing a very different playing field. Not only are the wars against the Palestin
The U.S. government issued a warning Oct. 3 advising Americans traveling to Europe to be “vigilant.” U.S. intelligence apparently has acquired information indicating that al Qaeda is planning to carry out attacks in European cities similar to those carried out in Mumbai, India, in November 2008. In Mumbai, attackers armed with firearms,
On 29 Sept. 2010, an NGO called the Women’s Initiative for Peace in South Asia (WIPSA), organised a dialogue titled, Sisters for Peace: Voices from Kashmir, at the UN Conference Hall at Lodi Road, in collaboration with the National Foundation for India and UN Information Centre. When some nationalists arrived at the venue on learning of
It took just a day for secularist sewer rats to crawl out of their holes after the Ayodhya judgment. Mulayam Singh Yadav discovered that Muslims felt ‘cheated and disappointed’ by the verdict, even before any Muslim said so. Most likely, it was Mr. Yadav, like others of his ilk, who felt cheated and disappointed, both by the content of
Madam Chairperson, I will deliver my statement in Hindi. Not only is Hindi our national language, but it is also one of the five most spoken languages and is the nearest sister of Sanskrit, one of the oldest spoken languages of the world, whose literature has given us the concept of ‘Vasudev Kutumbkam’, the entire world is one family. I
Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, in a speech to the Legislative Assembly on Oct. 6, literally threatened to reopen all issues relating to the State’s Accession to India in 1947, knowing full well that this was signed by the only competent authority of the time, Maharaja Hari Singh. The maharaja’s action was backed by al
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Hari Om
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08 Oct 2010
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The RSS’ former spokesperson, M.G. Vaidya, 88, seems to have gone astray. He has proffered a solution to the so-called Kashmir problem, which, if accepted, would involve the negation of the Indian Constitution and a spectacular victory for those seeking another division of India on the basis of the two-nation theory. Vaidya circulated h
Ever since the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court reserved its verdict on the long awaited title suit in the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi case in July this year, media outlets waged an aggressive campaign that India has moved on and has become mature enough to go beyond polarized identity politics, and so on. This raises serious questions about the
The vice chairman of the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) Dr H.T. Sangliana giving a clean chit to the Orissa government on the Kandhamal violence by praising the steps taken to bring normalcy to Phulbani district has given a blow to the Christian organisations’ allegations against the regime. These organisations had alleged that seve
Abrahamic religions world over are getting ready to abdicate or dilute secular values. Islam has already flagged off the revival of the medieval stratagem of religious expedition: Koran in one hand and sword in the other. The Church and Islam are in a compromising mood. Recent news from USA justifies this contention. The Ground Zero Mosque pr
Intifada and mob violence, the tools to further the agenda of terrorism and proxy war in Jammu & Kashmir, has been tested by Pakistan and the separatist elements in the Kashmir Valley. This is getting support in terms of firing from across the Line of Control (LoC) by Pakistan, to push more terrorists into the State, to create violence and terr
The full blown crisis in Kashmir has not been averted, but we are being told that the Government of India has managed it from getting out of hand. Yet if we see the ground realities, we will be highly disappointed. There were media reports that the Cabinet Committee on Security will eventually move to curtail the powers of the armed forces by scali
Militants in Tajikistan’s Rasht Valley ambushed a military convoy of 75 Tajik troops Sept. 19, killing 25 military personnel according to official reports and 40 according to the militants, who attacked from higher ground with small arms, automatic weapons and grenades. The Tajik troops were part of a nationwide deployment of security f
If there is a clear winner in the vexatious dispute over the Ram Janmabhoomi, it is Truth (satya), which has triumphed in the face of formidable obstacles placed by cussed political actors nurturing communal votebanks, aided and abetted by an army of rapidly secular (read viciously anti-Hindu) fellow travellers in media, academia, and of course, th
[On Sept. 30, 2010, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court brought half-closure to a six-decade old legal dispute in a five-century-old Hindu struggle to recover the site revered as the birthplace of Maryada Purushottam Shri Rama. On a prima facie reading, the judgment is not surprising. Previous attempts for compromise on the basis of excha