Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Bush's love of India will outlast him - Financial Times - MSNBC.com
Edward Luce from FT.com writes this article suggesting that having an ally in India by providing nuclear deal declared earlier this year is a bad move on Washington's part. He points out the rising anti-americanism in India and even warns that the nuclear technology might fall into the next government's hand which could be BJP.
Mr. Edward Luce, let me ask you this as politely as I can. ARE YOU CRAZZYYY? I think you have got to be nuts to make the statements you have made. Yes, I am talking to you and you can not deny my claim that you have no clue of world politics especially India. Let me prove it to you.
India has always used restraint and acted responsibly when it comes to dangarous technologies (WMDs, nuclear and so on). Listen to Ronen Sen who is India's ambassador to US and he will tell you that India already has nuclear capabilities and even capability to enrich uranium. So what will US offer exactly that India doesn't have? Yes, thats a valid question. India needs investments into nuclear energy sector and also already enriched Uranium which can be directly used for reactors that generate power for domestic needs.
New Delhi has better track record than most of the nations with Non-proliferation treaty signed. Delhi is looking for investment from disinvestment point of view. If the investment is made into energy sector with foreign collaborations, that will allow government to use scarse funds in some other welfare projects.
What will US gain out of this whole thing? To begin with, US will have investment interests in India's huge market for domestic power generation. India has maintained that this will have nothing to do with India's military desires. Second, Delhi doesn't look at Washington as a nation that walks the talk especially w.r.t. War on Terror. India suffers a lot from terrorism as well and has stood firm on its principles all along. Bush on the other hand is realizing recently that India actually makes more friend to US interests than Pakistan who they have blindly supported for last 40-50 years. After what A. Q. Khan did, after finding out the funds for 9-11 came from Pakistan and after london police exposing plot to blow up US bound airliners had Pakistani links, it leaves no doubt in my mind that the picture in south Asia is clear.
Last interest US has in making friends with India is do maintain its support and presence in south asia especially with China growing stronger on many issues.
His article is at http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14587895/
Friday, August 25, 2006
Vande Mataram
Why it reminds me today is because of the controversy. People have no time to earn living but politicians will squeeze every bit of their blood creating controversies. Every radical party in India will try to take sides and entice people to get involved. I remember my conversations with Taher Vohra (my good friend) regarding this when we were riding BEST bus. His point was that Vande Mataram being national song and patriotic in nature should not be remixed as done by Rehman. You do not mess with national values. I am a huge rehman music fan and may be because of that I was of the opinion that freedom of speech also involves composing an album like this. I would not respect nationa anthem being remixed but this is different.
Five or six years ago, I had received email form Venky (I was in Infosys that time) suggesting that Jana-Gana-Mana the national anthem is actually written to praise Queen of England and so should be changed to something we have. Let me remind you that Gurudev Rabindra Nath Tagore is the only poet in the entire world that has written national anthems for two different countries (India and Bangla desh). He for one is above all this and you know what! Worst case, lets assume that the song was written for the queen. So what? We know the VT railway station was built by British and the rail system and type of governance and the school education system and the postal system and many similar examples can be drawn.
People have become obsessed with changing everything that was once touched by British or was being used by British. This has parallels with the achoot (untouchables) movement in India. Segregation is not the answer here. How much more we will try to divide ourselves. We will divide ourselves by religion, race, color, sect, cast, political orientation, social status, financial status, education, and many more. There are millions of more ways humans can be divided. So why should they stand together? If they all stand together what can they oppose and what can they fight against? Let me give you a list of enemies to fight. If you really have this bad urge to fight then fight against human exploitation, drugs, cancer, AIDS, enemies-of-humanity. If you are one of those who like to fight for something no matter who are you fighting against, then fight FOR democracy, peace, harmony. Is it worth fighting for? Oh… sure YES.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
All Indians are not vegetarians!!
I have heard it many times from people things like "are you guys (Indians) vegans... no we are *NOT* because we do eat milk products (Ken I hope you are reading this because I have told you this 2-3 times by now). Someone thought Indians are amish people... now thats just silly. In India, people in different local regions have food influences that are subjective to geographical location. Food is mostly what is available locally. Offcourse this is not always true but this is what I have seen. Now for those of you who think mostly Indians are vegetarians, read this article and see how much you know about Indians.
Friday, August 11, 2006
Oil prices and gas companies
Here is the craziest thing I see going on and I can't do much but feel agitated. Gas companies are making record profits last few years. Gas prices have gone up from already high values. This time the reason is that gas supply may have troubles because of the war between israel and hizbollah gorrillas. Wait a second!! Neither Israel no lebonan produce Oil. How come gas prices in US are still high? The experts say the route in the middle east may be hampered due to this war and so supplies might be less for higher demand. I have heard these guys talk about Oil prices fluctuations and supply-demand equations. Based on hypothetical situations the gas prices are record high values these days. Bush administration does nothing about it and the question is exactly what they can do? I understand basic supply and demand philosophy but for month you can sing the same rhetoric that the demand may be more and supplies will be less. The last month that middle east war is going on, supplies are not affecte. Atleast I have not heard that news. That means the oil supply is normal but the prices are still high under the state of fear that the supplies might reduce. This is ridiculous. Not just because of it affects common people like me but also because this is blue collar rip off. The gas companies have not done anything to invest big time for alternative fuels or even to do simple maintenance. Look at BP's decision to shut down alaskan pipeline. These jerks made over 70 bollions in last 5 years and they have spent 1.3 or something billion for maintenence. Warnings were ignored. OK so you will ask, this is not good for British Petroleum either right because they have lost business for those many days they have that pipeline closed. There are 2 arguments about that. BP is irresponsible company to ignore consistent warnings for last 5 years. BP profits are up and the shares are not going down which means company doesn't loose much anyway.
After 2/3 years congressional committee will be setup and they will investigate to find that yes... there were malpractices. Bull shit!! I say. Look at Tobacco lawsuits where many states as well as federal government gets historical tobacco lawsuit money from tobacco companies. How much of that money is being spent on people actually quiting to smoke? Not much. Why is that you will ask. Thats because state governments can use tobacco money for health related issues or even reroute that money to fill budget deficeits. It will be interesting to see the percent of people quitting compared to percentage of people (teenagers mostly I guess) picking up smoking.
It just goes on like that...
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Myanmar - Suu Ki fights for over decades
Myanmar has been oppressing people opinion and their choice of Su Ki since 1991. Military regime over there has confined her to her house and the situation in Burma a.k.a. Myanmar is not improving. I wonder if the biggest nations like US and EU promote democracy and talk all the bull shit about value of human life... well why is it that US or United Nations do not do more than just lodging a formal "we are unhappy with the situation in Myanmar" tune in public eye.
To me Suu Ki is like mother Teresa or Mahatma Gandhi. Only 3 of Gandhi's followers are well known today for the non violence principle they have doctrined.1) Late Dr. Matrin Luther King Jr.
2) Great Nelson Mandella
and 3) Aung San Suu Ki
I often read about her and I have also seen movie called "Beyond Rangoon" which puts the situation in perspective for you. Myanmar has lot of natural oil reserves and the dictator of Myanmar runs the economy by exchanging guns and army supplies for oil and so on. Most of the Myanmar is farming land and people are peaceful.
Having China in the region has not influenced anything in south Asia and I wonder when Myanmar will dawn the day rising with democratic government in place.
There has got to be something that can be done about this.
Read more at http://hotzone.yahoo.com/b/hotzone/blogs6925
