According to a widely circulated invitation on the internet, a ‘massive demonstration rally’ will be held on 4 October 2008 in front of the UN office in New York, to protest against a ‘small group of misguided fascist ideologues and caste supremacists’ who are corrupting Indian civilisation. Perusing the stentorian note of w
Of course, Katharine Gun was free to have a conscience, as long as it didn’t interfere with her work at a British intelligence agency. To the authorities, practically speaking, a conscience was apt to be less tangible than a pixel on a computer screen. But suddenly - one routine morning, while she was scrolling through email at her desk - con
In recent weeks, particularly following the removal of Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s former President and Chief of Army Staff, on 18 August, Washington has begun to train its guns on Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), which is on the border with Afghanistan. On 3 September, US troops raided a known ha
In May 2006, at the height of the violence in Iraq, Senator Joe Biden floated a controversial proposal: carve out autonomous regions for the three main ethnic and religious groups - Kurds, Sunni Arabs, and Arab Shi’ites - and give them control of most governmental functions except for the military and oil industry, which would remain under ce
Today’s “Global War on Terrorism” is a modern form of inquisition. It has all the essential ingredients of the French and Spanish inquisitions. Going after “Islamic terrorists”, carrying out a worldwide preemptive war to “protect the Homeland” are used to justify a military agenda. &nb
Seven years after 9/11, we witness another, greater and even more enjoyable collapse, that of the American financial pyramid. It took some twenty years in building; its collapse took only a few weeks. Let us cut the hypocritical crap: this was a wonderful show, no ifs, ands or buts. The US stock markets boomed when they bombed Baghdad and Belg
From our offices in Manhattan, we look out on the tall, gleaming skyscrapers that are cathedrals of wealth and power - the Olympus ruled by the gods of finance, the temples of the mighty, the holy of holies, whose priests guard the sacred texts of salvation - the ones containing the secrets of sub-prime lending and derivatives as mysterious and elu
Russia is determined to bring NATO’s expansion eastward to a halt. Can it prevail? NATO’s metamorphosis from Cold War Euro-policeman into the unabashed global military arm of the United States over the past 18 years has left a trail of debris from the Balkans to Afghanistan that will take decades to clear. It is a flagrant v
[America is over as a financial superpower; the world financial system will now be multi-polar. Many feel the crisis was caused by Anglo-Saxon greed for double-digit profits and unconscionable bonuses for bankers and company executives - Editor]The high tide of realism has finally hit Washington. Wall Street’s financial profligacy and lack of
Over the past several months we have written quite a bit about the Russian resurgence. This discussion predates Russia’s military action in Georgia. Indeed, we have discussed the revival of Russian power since at least 2005, the implications of the FSB's return since April and the potential return of the Cold War since March. After the 7 Augu
Almost seven years after energy giant Enron collapsed, a series of court decisions has opened the door to new trials for some convicted corporate executives and threatened to hobble the Justice Department’s efforts to pursue future corporate-fraud cases. In the wake of the scandal, prosecutors pursued executives for covering up the comp
These days when the Wall Street is being seriously considered to be re-named as ‘swindler’s paradise’, a sickening article appeared in the International Herald Tribune on 21 September 2008, penned by Rita Chandran and George Chen. The article made clear that some of those thieves and swindlers, or their accomplishes, now no longer
As anti-missionary (not anti-Christian) violence is reported from some parts of the country, we are once again witnessing the familiar charade of public debate. A government that showed stoic indifference to a series of terrorist acts that killed dozens in several Indian cities; stayed mute when fanatic mobs desecrated the Tricolour on the Independ
George Bush sent to Bolivia his Ambassador of Ethnic Cleansing [Original title translated from the Spanish]He presented his credentials before President Evo Morales on 13 October 2006; but three months before his arrival in Bolivia, when he was still in Pristina fulfilling his role as head of the US mission in Kosovo, it was already being said
Russia is attempting to reforge its Cold War-era influence in its near abroad. This is not simply an issue of nostalgia, but a perfectly logical and predictable reaction to the Russian environment. Russia lacks easily definable, easily defendable borders. There is no redoubt to which the Russians can withdraw, and the only security they know comes
Halliburton takes advantage of a European loophole that lets corporations hide beneficiaries and assets. Little is known of a customary European legal practice that offers corporations and individuals an opportunity to profit from assets while maintaining complete anonymity of the beneficiary’s identity. This is referred to as “Hi
Nobody expected industrial capitalism to end up like this. Nobody even saw it evolving in this direction. I’m afraid this failing is not unusual among futurists: The natural tendency is to think about how economies can best grow and evolve, not how it can be untracked. But an unforeseen road always seems to appear, and there goes society goes
Inspired by acquiring a new Pakistani President, who has no base in the institutions of the country, or in the population, the United States landed troops inside Pakistan 3 September to combat militants there, without permission of Pakistan’s government. The operation was carried out about 72 hours before the late Prime Minister Benazir Bhutt
[Frida Berrigan, arms expert, finds that in the past seven years, the Pentagon’s key role as war fighter has increasingly become a privatized operation. In Iraq, a Congressional Budget Office report in August showed the US has already spent at least $100 billion on private contractors who outnumber the 146,000 US troops in Iraq. Part of the c
Delhi lived through another horrific evening of jehadi terrorism on Saturday, 13 September. A series of bomb blasts rocked the city from one end to the other. Each location had children, young men, women, elderly people out on a Saturday evening. The heart of Delhi was pierced with impunity and such accuracy that it could hardly be deigned an act o
Post-Kandhamal, post-Mangalore, the issue of conversions has taken centre-stage. “Christians are a persecuted, hapless minority”; “How can a minority that accounts for less than 2.5% of the population pose a threat to the 84% Hindus of the country?” is the general refrain. “If Christian missionaries had been indu
“Washington is forced to watch other powers shape events” (Financial Times, 25 August 2008) Introduction Everywhere one looks, US imperial policy has suffered major military and diplomatic defeats. With the backing of the Democratic Congress, the Republican White House’s aggressive pursuit of a military approach to empi
What is Washington to do as the financial system collapses? Clearly, stark differences in approach as well as in public policy have already emerged. Bail-out Bear Stearns and pump up the brokerage and investment business with new lines of credit. Nationalize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on the backs of the taxpayer - but let Lehman drown. Tell the fi
In his Memoirs, David Lloyd George, Prime Minister of Britain, explained why his government made “a contract with Jewry” (the Balfour Declaration) in 1917. Leopold Amery, author of the final draft of that contract, acted for the British side but secretly identified as Jewish. Could he represent both parties simultaneously? If
[Written originally in October 1995, this article retains its relevance even today – Editor]Continuing terrorist actions and violent demonstrations over the last five decades have turned India’s North-east into a dangerous place. Large-scale introduction of narcotics and arms from neighboring Myanmar (Burma) and China has made this stra
Ever since the sub-prime real-estate crisis exploded in the United States over a year ago, hurting its principal banks and other investment funds, many have wondered how to contain it. Today, the new failures of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch demonstrate - if that were necessary - that this question is doubly outdated. In fact, two seawall
The latest disclosures about the Indo-US nuclear deal are a final wake up call for the government if it cares even a farthing for national interests. Will it care to retract its steps even now? The artificial hype about the Indo-US nuclear deal created by the Congress Party and its media cohorts has been punctured once again by the Americans.
The unfortunate controversy over the 100 acre plot of waste forest land at Baltal, which does not have a single tree and which snow makes unapproachable and uninhabitable for seven months a year, led to the fall of a State Government and threatened our national integrity. It polarized the population of two regions of the State, caused many deaths a
The traumatic turbulence on Wall Street triggered by the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the sell-out of Merrill Lynch has spread panic across the global financial system. Even the $85-billion bail out for distressed insurance giant AIG has failed to curb the panic. Central banks from Moscow to Sydney are pumping billions of dollars into the
The unfortunate controversy over the 100 acre plot of waste forest land at Baltal, which does not have a single tree and is unapproachable and uninhabitable for seven months a year on account of heavy snow, caused the fall of the State Government and posed a threat to national integrity. It polarized the population of the two regions of the S
As the Bush administration was entering office in 2000, Donald Rumsfeld exuberantly expressed its grandiose ambitions for Middle East domination, telling a National Security Council meeting: “Imagine what the region would look like without Saddam and with a regime that’s aligned with US interests. It would change everything in the regio
[One of the consequences of the Caucasus war is that it effectively derailed plans to attack Iran. An obvious indicator is rapidly declining price of oil: it went up as the war seemed imminent, and declined as war plans deconstructed. Deepening ties between Russia and Turkey also make the war unlikely – Editor] Aghast at the atrocities c
[Given its rising affluence, India is attracting increasing attention from the market-oriented West than at any time since the Second World War. Yet the case for a friendly Indian engagement with China and Russia has never been stronger. There is need to rethink the current push to integrate India into a world of “armed consumerism” and
The terrorist attacks on Delhi have brought forth the usual condemnations and declarations, but nothing has been said that adds anything to our understanding of a phenomenon that seems beyond rational analysis. Who are the “Indian Mujaheddin?” Who finances them, and to what end?It no longer makes much sense to accuse Pakistan of being t
The events of the past seven years have yielded a definitive judgment on the strategy that the Bush administration conceived in the wake of 9/11 to wage its so-called Global War on Terror. That strategy has failed, massively and irrevocably. To acknowledge that failure is to confront an urgent national priority: to scrap the Bush approach in
In the heat and dust raised by the manner in which India secured a questionable waiver at the Nuclear Suppliers Group in Vienna on 6 September 2008, many opponents predicted the nuclear deal would mean only what the Americans said it would mean. A former Indian ambassador to Turkey revealed that a Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey, a NATO ally of Was
The ambush that cost ten French soldiers their lives on 18 August reminded our country what other nations engaged in the ISAF (such as Canada, which has lost 93 men) already knew: “We are witnessing the return of war operations,” to use the terms the head of the French armed services’ General Staff, General Jean-Louis Georgelin, e
The Russo-Georgian war continues to resonate, and it is time to expand our view of it. The primary players in Georgia, apart from the Georgians, were the Russians and Americans. On the margins were the Europeans, providing advice and admonitions but carrying little weight. Another player, carrying out a murkier role, was Israel. Israeli advisers we
The tragic turn of events in Kandhamal in Orissa once again highlights the urgent need for church authorities to immediately halt the fraudulent conversions of India’s Tribal and Dalit populace, which are causing so much heart-burning and cultural anxiety.[The Constitutional term for the latter group is Scheduled Caste, but missionaries have
[Serious Indian scholars have always contended that the British colonial invention of the Aryan Invasion Theory was inspired by the Bible. Now A reputed Israeli scholar says the Bible was invented by imaginative theologians, and the Jewish ‘history’ of persecution and exile is a myth concocted in 19th century Germany! There were po
[Exile and Return are classic Gnostic myths, symbolising our soul and its venture into the material world to be completed by return to its heavenly Father. They have some currency in Cabbala as a part of Divine scheme to rearrange the World. Zionism is (was) a bastard reading of Gnostic and Cabbalist texts, where profound, symbolic and metaphoric i
Here it is, as simply as I can put it: In the course of any year, there must be relatively few countries on this planet on which US soldiers do not set foot, whether with guns blazing, humanitarian aid in hand, or just for a friendly visit. In startling numbers of countries, our soldiers not only arrive, but stay interminably, if not indefini
[Official America is good at keeping its dirty secrets. Most citizens across the globe do not know that Black Americans still DO NOT HAVE the RIGHT TO VOTE as natural-born citizens; this is a privilege granted by the American President to Black adults every ten years! That is the true face of American Democracy. The Barack Obama candidacy made
If CPM general secretary Prakash Karat seriously hopes to derail the Indo-US nuclear deal, he would know that the only way to do this is through the political process. This involves conceiving a gigantic war strategy, which in turn involves seeking a spectrum of allies. In the Mahabharata war, no tribe was too humble to be wooed by the ultimat
A lot has been written about last month’s conflict between Russia and Georgia, and the continuing tensions in the region. Certainly, there were many important lessons to be gleaned from the conflict relating to the Russian military, Russian foreign policy and the broader geo-political balance of power. One facet of the Russian operations
[The American model of Corporate Executives moving between Government, top universities, powerful think tanks or NGOs, is now being increasingly exposed in the US as responsible for the stifling of opinion and dissent, and the complete perversion of public life. It has made American citizens guinea pigs in the hands of faceless corporate bureaucrat
Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger. Here’s the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right-wing - the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party - are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president
Does the liberal-left have a clue? I sometimes think not. In his book, “What’s the Matter With Kansas?,” Thomas Frank made the excellent point that the Karl Rove Republicans take advantage of ordinary’s people’s frustrations and resentments to lead them into voting against their best interest. Frank’s new b
Many Western analysts have chosen to interpret the recent fighting in the Caucasus as the onset of a new Cold War, with a small pro-Western democracy bravely resisting a brutal reincarnation of Stalin’s jack-booted Soviet Union. Others have viewed it a throwback to the age-old ethnic politics of south-eastern Europe, with assorted minorities
The recent turmoil in Jammu and Kashmir State saw some harsh comments from sections of the national press. This has hurt Kashmiri separatists. It should not have happened. Some positive steps to normalize trilateral relations were in the process. An understanding on this complicated issue has to be brought about only through dialogue. The act
Some things are scandalously evident in the current nuclear tamasha in the capital, even to a non-specialist like this writer. One, the drama over India getting the so-called waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group was totally engineered by the West. The purpose was to heighten tensions in New Delhi and make it agree to script changes wh
Accession of Jammu & Kashmir State to the Indian Union on 27 October 1947 came about in abnormal conditions. Tribesmen of the North West Frontier Province swept into the valley on Pakistan’s behest, the British and NWFP Governor having drawn a discreet roadmap for the incursion in the early summer of 1947. Any far-looking historian c
Was an independent Ossetia inevitable after Kosovo or is it an US election ruse gone wrong? Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a gritty, straight-talking 30-minute interview with CNN [last] week in Russian. It was not translated or reported on widely in the US media, which is a shame. He charged that US military personnel were in South Oss
The United States has been fighting a war in the Islamic world since 2001. Its main theatres of operation are in Afghanistan and Iraq, but its politico-military focus spreads throughout the Islamic world, from Mindanao to Morocco. The situation on 7 August 2008 was as follows:1. The war in Iraq was moving toward an acc
In judging the shape of a future John McCain presidency, there are already plenty of dots that are easy to connect. They reveal an image of a war-like Empire so full of hubris that it could take the world into a cascade of crises, while extinguishing what is left of the noble American Republic. McCain has made clear he would continue and even escal
There are many people who write history. There are very few who make history through their writings. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who died at the age of 89, was one of them. In many ways, Solzhenitsyn laid the intellectual foundations for the fall of Soviet communism. That is well known. But Solzhenitsyn also laid the intellectual foundation for the Rus
In a letter written in 1648, Swedish statesman Axel Oxenstierna, chancellor to King Gustavus Adolphus and Queen Christina, counselled: “Know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed.” The fighting between Russia and the former Soviet republic of Georgia is an unnerving reminder of that, and of how quickly the balance
[One of India’s most respected nuclear scientists, who has consistently opposed the Indo-US Nuclear Deal even when other voices fell silent, comments on the recent revelations from the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives. This statement has been made available to us by reliable sources, and is hereby reproduced in goo
In recent weeks, many “liberals” have argued in leading Indian publications such as The Times of India and The Hindustan Times that if Kashmiris (Muslims naturally) do not want to remain with India, they should be allowed “azadi,” i.e., to secede from the Union of India and join the previous breakaway rogue-nation called Pak
Democrats in Denver should skip one of their parties and read the American Monetary ActHow are things going at the Democratic Party National Convention in Denver this week? Are they talking about the fact that the Western world is run by an international financial elite headquartered in London, the financial capitals of mainland Europe (such as Fra
The recommendations of the Sixth Central Pay Commission have been accepted by the Government after taking into account the recommendations of the Committee of Secretaries set up for the job. Sadly, despite the demand by Service Chiefs for inclusion of a representative of the defence forces in the Pay Commission itself, or later in the Committ
Washington is the city where the scandals happen. Every American knows this, but we also believe, if only vaguely, that the really monumental scandals are a thing of the past; that the golden age of misgovernment-for-profit ended with the cavalry charge and the robber barons, at about the same time presidents stopped wearing beards. I moved t
The recent separatist surge in the Kashmir valley has removed the fig-leaf of faux national integration of the Nehruvian variety, exposing its political and intellectual hollowness. It is time to re-examine and discard its basics. But does the secularist establishment care? Nothing has exposed the political and intellectual hollowness of Nehr
A new book by author Ron Suskind claims the White House ordered the CIA to forge a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein. Suskind writes in “The Way of the World,” that the alleged forgery - adamantly denied by the White House - was designed to portray a false link between Hussein’s r
[As New Delhi is pressured by faux concerns of the Nuclear Suppliers Group to accept conditionalities that the Government of India will not have time (if the Prime Minister has the desire) to take to the Union Cabinet, the Parliament, or the nation at large, the real truth of the Proliferation Industry seeps out, despite all attempts to choke the t
The signing on 14 August of an agreement between the governments of the United States and Poland to deploy on Polish soil US ‘interceptor missiles’ is the most dangerous move towards nuclear war the world has seen since the 1962 Cuba Missile crisis. Far from a defensive move to protect European NATO states from a Russian nuclear at
Ignited Hindu men, women and children, agitating for restoration of a land allotted to pilgrims to Sri Amarnath, and the very thought of a blockade-that-never-was had Kashmiri’s majority population in visible sweat. Fear showed in the eyes and voices of ‘ordinary’ traders fearing for the remuneration from their annual fruit harves
On 30 August 2008, New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin ordered full evacuation of the city - the first mandatory evacuation since Hurricane Katrina three years ago - as Hurricane Gustav grew into “the storm of the century” and moved toward the Louisiana coast. The political impact of the storm led Gov. Bobby Jindal (Louisiana) and Gov. Rick
Italy has dared comment on the Orissa situation, ignoring the gruesome pre-planned murder of Swami Laxmanananda and four disciples on Krishna Janmastami day. This blatant interference in India ’s internal affairs is to support evangelical aggression against India ’s native communities. Italy’s own treatment of the peaceful Roma pe
Thinking about the massive failure of the US media to report truthfully is sobering. The United States , bristling with nuclear weapons and pursuing a policy of world hegemony, has a population that is kept in the dark – indeed brainwashed – about the most important and most dangerous events of our time.The power of the Israel Lob