Egyptians bring “The System” Down

These are historical times. The most significant and autocratic leader of the Arab world has been brought down in a span of two weeks without any specific trigger that impacted the people directly. The life in Egypt before the protests began was no different from what it was on any day for the past several years. The way one country’s revolution has impacted the people of another and now of several more in the region is a telling sign of how almost every Muslim is on the brink of revolt against their leaders’ inability to bring about prosperity, justice and dignity.

Egyptians were able to succeed with sheer will against a government which until two weeks ago had complete and unequivocal support of the most powerful country in the world. The success of this revolution is a convincing argument against those in Indian polity who conveniently escape responsibility by blaming the various separatist problems on support from other countries or a handy work of gangs of criminals (Maoists). A region’s affairs are run by the people who inhabit it. There always are opportunists and influencers, but eventually it is the locals who decide there own fate. If the Indian government really intends to govern with control and efficiency it must focus on bringing about prosperity to the people who belong to the region. The government, authoritarian or democratic must “earn” the support of its populace and not worry about fighting with the outside world. If Saddam and Mubarak ruled their countries for decades without any major issues, it has to do with the fact that they really had the support of its people. The people may have supported the governments reluctantly for lack of a better alternative but it definitely does not have anything to do with the autocratic rule of fist. Never mind the western minded concept of stability as a result of democracy; earning support and trust of its people is how even the kings in ancient times have ruled there kingdoms. Opportunists exist with opportunity, and there is a lot of opportunity in the Indian system. Unfortunately there isn’t much choice and that is why we are still struggling with our issues and lagging far behind the developed world in prosperity and development.

The way almost suddenly everyone in Egypt just got influenced by the success of Tunisia’s revolution looks as if some mind-altering virus has spread in the region and is now making its way to other Arab countries. This is the stuff Hollywood Sci-Fi movies are made of. This is also the stuff that my daydreams are made of. Unfortunately for me these are for my own country and not for some far away land that I remember exists only when I see “The Mummy” for the Nth time on Star Movies. However, I have also never felt this happy for any event outside of my own country before. I feel strange feeling happy about the revolution almost as if it happened in India. Maybe because I know this is the best I can get.

With all the anti-Muslim propaganda, the scenes of hardliners protesting in Pakistan, the footage of Taliban executing people; never did I imagine ever in my life that masses of people chanting Allah O Akbar would sound pleasant. But then as I said in the beginning of this now garrulous blog, these are historical times. These are times of change.

For the Americans, Ironically the “Domino Theory” coined by them during the Vietnam war more than four decades ago comes back to haunt them this time from the most unlikely of places. Americans could have predicted the fall of almost any government in the Arab world but not Egypt. From the perspective of long term future, if this domino effect succeeds unlike the one before which Americans were able to stop even though they lost the war, it will be the beginning of the creation of a third front for them. China is already quite ahead in solidifying itself as a second front.

From a historical perspective, the Arabs and Europeans controlled much of the world before the Industrial revolution left the former far behind. Many believe this change would sink the Arabs deeper into fundamentalism, but I believe it might and more likely do the opposite and yet for the worse for the rest of the world. Beliefs which are close to ones heart maybe controlled by authoritarian regimes but it is a free and jubilant environment that enables a willing change. This change will make the Arabs only stronger. However, the way this environment has been won, it is also likely to bring about extreme nationalism, and we all know what that could lead to. A friend of mine once pointed out to me that the world map has changed quite drastically almost every 100 years, it might very well be the beginning of the next change. The last change can be referred to 1991 with the collapse of USSR. I am definitely not going to be around by 2090s, so I guess I got nothing to worry about if I do make the prophecy that we are due for a major change by then and that this event in Egypt is a stepping stone. However, leaving the political map aside, the geographical one might change sooner on account of the global climate changes.

Sometimes I wonder why did Hindus not succeed as much as the Arabs or the Christians/Europeans in spite of having a richer, far ahead of time and more complex system of governance. The Indus Valley Civilization could not do what others could even though it had the edge in terms of modernity during its time. To put it simply it could be due to the over complexity of the caste system which divided the people and did not provide a single thread to bind a huge population. Hindus lost it because they tried to solve for everything. Too many freaking gods man. Muslims and Christians with their relatively simplistic belief system ended up being better. In the end the over intelligence, the analysis-paralysis killed us. We are taught in school that the British divided us and then ruled us. Well I think we were already divided. they just came and made the most out of it.

So going back to the Egypt revolution, where is my country in all this? Nowhere. India is just just too big and diverse for its own good. But today is not the day to be gloomy. Today is the day to celebrate the success of a side which has been the underdogs for far too long. For me by not being on any particular side, it is more fun to follow this event. It is like watching a wild card win a grand slam – thrilling. And thrilled I am indeed!

To finally end this feast of weekend prolixity here is a funny yet a curt reminder of what just happened – www.ismubarakstillpresident.com

Self Centered not Hypocrites

There is no righteousness in the decision to support or not support Mubarak just like there wasn’t and isn’t any in the policy towards Communism, Taliban, Korea, China, the Muslim world or whatever have you. It is all a matter of what is good for the interests of the Americans. I do not see anything wrong with that from an American perspective. It has always been about money. Right from the time immortal the desire to be prosperous (and not get screwed over in the process) has driven the matters of the world. Whether we are talking about the birth of religions, period before or after the industrial revolution, beginning and end of colonization, the world wars, communism or the conflicts with the Muslim world, each period’s events have economy as the driving factor – one way or another. Justifying these though with complete facts and analysis would be a book-length article

Americans are not hypocrites; they are simply self-centered. The rest of the world needs to be just the same and it is. No one supports or opposes America because of morality. While Americans try their best to manipulate the world, the world too acts in its own interests. Countries do take a stand against America wherever it is beneficial and can be got away with without screwing oneself. America has more or less a firm grip on the world and most of the time countries need to tow its line. They do and justify it with whatever BS they can come up with to make their governments survive. More often than not towing the line is beneficial for economic interests and so be it – forget the righteousness, it can be justified. After all there isn’t really any right or wrong. It is just a matter of which side of the line you are on.

In fact from a perspective of “the right thing to do”, if people in Iraq or Afghanistan have not toppled their respective governments that too would have been just and as per the will of the people. That is democracy. But then we all know, Americans didn’t wait that long. There was no righteousness here, just a self-centered relentless approach to pursue one’s own national interest. Had they got away by simply nuking the place(s), they’d very well have done that. Injustices are everywhere in abundance. Almost all nations of the African continent, Indian Sub-Continent, China and many countries in South East Asia – conditions large populations are living in are probably worse in these countries than what existed in Iraq under Saddam. Americans could have chosen any or all; but curing the problems of another was not the objective to begin with. Honestly, I really can’t fathom to the best of my ability what Americans actually gained by any of their conflicts post Vietnam but considering they continue to be the most powerful nation, I am sure whatever they are doing (or did) is right for their own good. Too bad for those on the receiving end. This is the nature of the game – Survival of the fittest.

After exhausting its own markets, the world trade is no more about selling the resources of one country in your own for a profit. It is more complicated and more interdependent. Trade still has to be aggressive for maximum profit but more tactful than ever before. The place one buys from also has your customers. Thanks to the large population of the developing world it is more lucrative too. In fact the prosperity of the developing world is better for the trade unlike before where one could manipulate a less prosperous and hence weaker producer. Now that producer is also the customer. The more prosperous Asia gets the better it is for the west. Caveat though is maintaining the upper hand; and this is where the real game is. Keep developing the developing world but maintain control and tilt of power.

What Hitler did was stupid and rash. Was it really an evil thing to do? He could have gone about the same objective in a different manner and killed exactly the same number of people albeit with a completely different historical opinion. Had he taken this same approach a few hundred years before his time, he’d have been called Alexander the Great.

Power to colonize any country of the world still exists with the very same countries but it just isn’t profitable anymore. The world is still very much ruled by the companies but the customers are no longer just in the developed world, they are everywhere and so the strategy is different but objectives just the same. Fighting a war no long gives supremacy and profit; and so No Nuking Nobody No More!

I really had to copy-paste the whole article below – written right to the point. This is the first time for me to read this point of view from a western writer for a western newspaper. Not surprisingly it is from a Non-American for a Non-American newspaper.

The West’s itch to meddle is no help. Leave Egypt along

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/01/west-itch-meddle-leave-egypt-alone

We are hypocrites. We cheer on the brave Tunisians and Egyptians as they assert the revolutionary power of the street. Hands off, we cry. Let them do it their way. It has taken a long time, but let the people get the credit and be strengthened thereby.

We gave no such licence to the Iraqis or Afghans. We presumed it was our job to dictate how they should be governed. We accused their leaders of crimes and decided to punish them all, massacring thousands. We declared a "freedom agenda", and bombed them to bits.

Hosni Mubarak of Egypt is another Saddam Hussein, a secular dictator ruling a Muslim country with a rod of iron through a kleptocracy of cronies. Less wealthy than Saddam, he had to rely on American support, but he was only a little more subtle in his ruthlessness.

We are told that there were sound strategic reasons for supporting Mubarak – as there once were for supporting the Ba’athists, Assad of Syria and Saddam himself. There were similar reasons for backing the Ben Ali dynasty in Tunisia and "Britain’s good friend", the outrageous Colonel Gaddafi of Libya. All offered a supposed bulwark against Muslim extremism, a monster of which Americans and Britons are told to show a pathological, all-consuming and costly terror. Now, apparently, that no longer applies to Egypt.

In reality there is no such thing as an ethical foreign policy. There is something philosophical called ethics and something pragmatic called foreign policy. The art of diplomacy lies in navigating between them. The Blair-Bush "crusade for democracy" failed to do so. It was motivated by the most dangerous thing in politics, religious fervour.

What is happening in Egypt is plainly exhilarating to any lover of civil liberty. So too was Georgia’s rose revolution, Ukraine’s orange revolution, Burma’s saffron revolution, Iran’s green revolution and Tunisia’s jasmine revolution. Few people scanning the pastel shades of designer Trotskyism will remember which were successful and which not, but they made great television.

In each of these cases people burst out in visceral opposition to dictatorship. Driven beyond endurance, they took the last option available to autonomous individuals and marched down the street. The outcome depended on the security and self-confidence of the regime and its command of the army. It rarely depended on the approval or assistance of outsiders. Indeed the most effective weapon deployed against an uprising in a moment of national crisis is to call it a tool of foreign interests. This was certainly the case in Iran.

To western eyes, watching revolutions is re-enacting our own democratic origins. They remind us, sometimes smugly, that much of the world has yet to find the path to free elections, free speech and freedom of assembly. But they are also the political equivalents of earthquake or flood. Surely these people need our advice, our aid, at least our running commentary. The itch to intervene becomes irresistible.

Britain, with a history of ineptitude in handling Egypt, offered its pennyworth at the weekend. The Foreign Office said: "We don’t want to see Egypt fall into the hands of extremists … We want an orderly transition to free and fair elections, and a greater freedom and democracy in Egypt."

Who cares what Britain "wants" in Egypt? Egypt is not Britain’s responsibility any more, insofar as it ever was.

The US is in an equally absurd position. Having intervened for three decades, backing Mubarak with $1.5bn a year for armed forces alone, Washington has slithered from declaring him a "force for stability in the region" to "demanding an orderly transition of power". The message to all allies is that an American friend in need is a friend who will vanish at the first sign of trouble.

America could intervene, as Bush and Donald Rumsfeld might have done, with Blair cooing along behind. They could have told Mubarak to reform his regime but hang in there. Since Washington regards the Middle East as a powder keg about to explode in its backyard, it should not allow the Muslim Brotherhood to run Egypt. Bush would have told Egypt to get the "bad guys" off the street. What are tanks for? Why are those F-16s buzzing round the sky? Drop bombs like American and British pilots did on Serbs, Iraqis and Afghans. Retain control or the mad mullahs will be at all our throats. Western security is too important to be left to the mob.

Alternatively Washington might intervene on the other side. It might argue that Mubarak has shot his bolt and "engineer regime change". Don’t rely on rioters, half of them probably extremists. America could remove Mubarak as it removed Mullah Omar and Saddam Hussein, by force. Give Cairo a dose of the shock and awe. This is the policy supported elsewhere by Democrats and Republicans, Labour and Conservatives, that the west had a right and a duty to ordain regime change in Muslim countries. What was good for Afghans and Iraqis must be good for Egyptians – and perhaps even Iranians and Pakistanis.

Such interventions would be mad. Had the west not intervened in Iraq and Afghanistan, I bet the Iraqi people would by now have found a way to be rid of Saddam. They or the army would have done what the Tunisians and the Egyptians are doing, and at far less cost in lives, upheaval and chaos. As for the Taliban, as clients of Islamabad they would have come to Pakistani heel. The Afghans would be a threat to nobody but themselves.

What history will call the Wars of 9/11 have killed immeasurably more people than did 9/11 itself. They have cost western taxpayers billions that would have gone far to relieving global disease and famine. American and British governments, for reasons embedded in some imperial paranoia, grotesquely exaggerated the threat posed to them by the Muslim world. They embarked on a campaign of intervention, regime change and nation building far from their shores. The campaign has been inept and counterproductive, as well as in breach of the United Nations charter on self-determination.

Egypt, Tunisia, Iran and Pakistan are all Muslim states wrestling with agonies of self-determination. The west’s sole contribution has been to plunge two of their neighbours, Iraq and Afghanistan, into a bloodbath of insecurity and chaos. This is not our continent, these are not our countries and none of this is our business. We should leave them alone.

Grow Up!

Is this all that Filipinos have to worry about? President of 12th most populated country in the world is spending his time explaining the cars he is riding!? Over that he thinks government money spent on buying a secure car could be unnecessary! He is the president for heaven’s sake, it is not his life as an individual that is important, it is the life of the “President of the Philippines” which is important and it will always be wise overspending on the side of caution in this matter. It should not be an issue if a lot of money is spent buying the right vehicle, plane, house or whatever … this is petty and calls for growing up!  

And then the dude wants to stop on the traffic lights to prove a point. It is definitely a big hassle for the people on the roads but the authorities should work on other aspects like aggressively channeling the traffic, limiting the movement of VIPs within the city, using helicopters wherever possible etc then to make the damn head of state stop on a traffic light. I bet they are spending more in covering the security while he is waiting on a stop light as compared of if he’d have just zipped past. And then they’ll make him a hero once he gets killed on a traffic light.

Sounds amateurish that the president of the 325 billion dollar economy needs to ride a leased/borrowed/whatever car from a relative and then explain it too.

Looks like this president tries to address every single minutest aspect of attention he gets from the public. In other words, is this a vain president, insecure and overtly conscious of his image?

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/211765/pnoy-on-lexus-this-is-the-last-time-i-will-talk-about-cars#comment-136243402

How Bastar battlefield turned into death bed

59 CRPF men against 200 Maoists is not a bad ratio. Or shall I say “should” not be as bad a ratio that the casualties end up as one-sided. Can you imagine 200 terrorists winning a one-sided battle with 59 US marines. There sure will be a bloodbath on the other side big enough that they won’t be able to take away weapons or their injured/dead with them.

The fact is that CRPF men would have tried to run away the moment they’d have been ambushed. They just wouldn’t have fought. How will they? They are poorly trained and don’t have enough/right arms to fight with. Shouldn’t this be the case for the opposite side? What a pity.

Why do we not have 59 CRPF casualties? Why did the rest not stay on to fight till the end? How did they let the maoists take away their dead/injured? How did the maoists afford to take the left over arms of dead CRPF? It is obvious that maoists didn’t just ambush and then run away. They stayed on and cleaned up their mess as there was no one else to kill. Either the enemy (CRPF) had been killed or it ran away.

Jo dar gaya, samjho mar gaya. That is what happened in Bastar.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/How-Bastar-battlefield-turned-into-death-bed/articleshow/6112347.cms

 

Twenty-seven men of the 39 Battalion were ambushed and cut down by Maoists in Narayanpur on Tuesday afternoon. Most had crouched behind the mud walls of the field, taking cover and firing back at the Maoists. But it was an unequal battle since the Maoists were in a remarkably secure position: A 20 feet deep nullah or rivulet, which the police say, they used as a trench to launch the attack on the CRPF party.

“The party with 59 CRPF men and one special police officer had left the camp early morning to clear the road unto Jhari Ghati ahead of movement of buses and troops. They were on their way back when they were ambushed near the nullah 3km short of the camp,”

It was not clear if any Maoist had been killed. “Our men said they saw bodies of at least 10 Maoists being carried away on wooden stretchers,” said an officer, who did not wish to be named.
men fell to bullets in this piece of land about 10 metres long and 20 metres wide.CRPF men, exposed to a shower of lead fought to the end almost without cover, wounded and huddled in a tiny paddy field. Along the mud walls of a small paddy field, big splotches of blood had turned the brown earth and tiny green shoots red. A majority of CRPFAnd the

Bangit Disappointed

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/06/07/10/bangit-disappointed-call-his-resignation-aquino-camp

He is the Military Man, shouldn’t he be the one to Shut Up as it is him with his loud unleashed mouth that is mixing politics with military by going on about his sob story!?

Philippines’ political system is really immature. It is frustrating to track Indian politics as I belong to that system and it hurts to see it screwing up. But when similar stuff happens elsewhere in a different manner, it does not cause frustration, it causes amusement.

However, to be fair, India may be a third world fucked up country just like the Philippines (if not more) but Indian Military is in a different league and way above the follies of the Indian political system. Indian military, its professionalism, standards and processes are probably the best in the world and beyond most if not all of the developed world. Obviously it is not fair to expect Philippine military at that standard.

The crumpled sari

One of the best reads in a really long time. Every single line is worth replicating here. The whole article is very well written. Fresh and brainy views. Not the usual stale sob story of the system that we read every so often.

In fact, the quality of this article gets further reinforced by the praise showed in the comments. Usually one reads all sorts of comments on opinionated articles going in all directions. Here the comments are unanimous in the praise of the writer. Bravo!

http://www.hindustantimes.com/rssfeed/sagarikaghose/The-crumpled-sari/Article1-555009.aspx

Sagarika Ghose
Hindustan Times

The crumpled sari is decidedly unaesthetic. So is the untidy hair and rough speech. But then if you are a lone woman without patronage or godfathers or family lineage, fighting a brutal Left Front machine for 20 years, perhaps you can’t afford the luxury of being a bhadramahila (genteel woman). Mamata Banerjee may be the object of elite derision for her wild ways, but the fact is that she is a remarkable politician, one who gives hope that the dream of Indian democracy is still alive. The Trinamool triumph in West Bengal’s municipal elections has created worry that West Bengal is going from the frying pan of the Left to the fire of the Trinamool. But there are many reasons to celebrate the victory.

The old man in a loin cloth, who knew that the biggest curse of our subcontinent is the elitism of its leaders and the wretchedness of its people, would shudder at the kind of democracy we are fast becoming. An exclusive band of super rich families controls Parliament. Sons and daughters are smoothly inheriting their parents’ political seats and legacies, accompanied and cocooned by corporate and social networks built over generations. A benevolent feudalism is replacing parliamentary representation, where the ‘leader’ builds his base among ‘his people’ in the spirit of the old zamindars rather than in the spirit of parliamentary democracy. We hear no passionate speeches in Parliament, we still don’t know what exactly motivates today’s MPs beyond family duties, we are not allowed to ask what the thinking is among the supreme leaders of the government. Politics is best defined as a contest of ideas. But we hear no new ideas, our politicians are not called upon to formulate new thoughts, because talking to the people or to the media is regarded with contempt by the new neo zamindars in their black-tinted Pajeros, who demand constant subservience.

If Pakistan had Jinnah’s Savile Row suit as the leitmotif of its politics, we had the loin cloth. The loin cloth was supposed to define our democracy, as a mark of constant identification, dialogue and contact with the people. Yet today the elitism of our politics is so entrenched that we are failing to generate mass leaders, or bridge builders who alone can heal the wounds created by our harsh social differences. The mass leader is extinct in India. Instead we are fast becoming a plutocracy like Pakistan where the jihadi is the demon child born from a terrifying world of opportunity-less destitution on the one hand and a closed super-rich world on the other. We must thank god for the Lalus, Mulayams, Mayas and Mamatas. Without them our democracy would be like Pakistan’s, a bonsai plant set out for international display.

We are not yet Pakistan because in our country a young plebeian woman Mamata Banerjee can even defeat a veteran communist warhorse like Somnath Chatterjee in that famous Jadavpur election of 1984. She can then rise through the party ranks, by dint of raw streetfighting and a rumbustious political style, to such an extent that Congress leaders can feel threatened enough to force her to leave and set up her own party. It is an irony that the very Bengal Congress leaders who blocked Mamata at every turn are now forced to survive on her whim. When Mamata Banerjee sat next to the train tracks at Jhargram, at the site of the tragic train collision insisting that she would not move until the last body was taken out, it was a political moment almost reminiscent of Indira Gandhi on an elephant crossing a flooded river to sit with the suffering villagers of Belchi. We’re used to seeing politicians at corporate gatherings or at conferences. We rarely see them sitting on train tracks. We see Left leaders holding forth on foreign policy but the Left must ask itself why today it has no leader like her. Mamata fought the Left for 20 years, never losing stamina even after the disastrous one seat showing of 2004. In the end voters rewarded her for her tenacity.

Yet Mamata Banerjee is not your textbook democrat or a reassuring force of governance like a Nitish Kumar. She’s seen as irresponsible, volatile, unpredictable, too inclined to dharnas and rallies and not the best performing minister. She was at the head of the rag tag coalition that drove the Tata plant out of Singur, her relationship with the Maoists is still unresolved, her constantly changing manifesto is based on negativism and the Trinamool still lacks the solid party organisation and base of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). There is every possibility that once in power, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will struggle to govern, and much like Mayawati, err on the side of ad hoc populism. The Trinamool itself could run out of steam. Once the thirst for ‘parivartan’ has been exhausted, the party could lose its raison d’etre and be reduced to a regional rump or a one-woman band.

Yet the enormous significance of Mamata Banerjee is that in an era when mass leaders are an endangered species, she is a natural born mass leader who has climbed the political ladder by sheer public mobilisation. Look at the recent Rajya Sabha nominations. The sad fact is that salient, talented and important as all the Rajya Sabha nominees are, many of them would perhaps struggle to retain their deposits in a popular election. Our fashionable disdain for ‘netagiri’ has meant that mass movements in India have become de-legitimised and almost extinct.

But it’s the grassroots leaders who have the power to ensure that we do not become Pakistan where the rich control politics and the poor blow themselves up out of desperation, either as Maoists or jihadists. For better or worse, we still need our Mamata Banerjees.

Sagarika Ghose is Senior Editor, CNN-IBN
The views expressed by the author are personal

Come out of the shell

http://www.hindustantimes.com/rssfeed/columnsothers/Come-out-of-the-shell/Article1-554498.aspx

While Sitaram is most likely a jerk … the Hindu impotence is again so very visible here. While India’s position is in no way comparable to Turkey, it must indeed carve out its own independent foreign policy. Moreover, foreign policy aside, what is wrong is wrong. Weather the whole thing about aid ships going through the blockade was a publicity stunt or not, the fact is, Israel got no business setting up blockades in international waters.

Our bureaucrats try to evaluate too much. too much of the bloody tark-vitark. Just speak your mind. Be honest to your beliefs and the world will come to respect you for who you are.

Pulp fiction of the worst kind

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100605/jsp/nation/story_12531342.jsp

While I am dead against censorship of any kind, I am also against Lies. The guy’s just wrote absurd stuff in the book man and then he is justifying by calling it a “fictionalized biography”!

Mr Singhvi, just as always have come up with the most fitting of terms to describe this – “pulp fiction of the worst kind”. I just love this guy. He can argue the wrong to right; and this time he is right – what else does a guy like that need to win an argument!

Arundhati backs maoists

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/arundhati-backs-maoists-dares-authorities-to-arrest-her/628935/

Devouring news in papers, TV and internet in no way guarantees us the Truth. The only way to arrive at the Truth is to be either in it or arrive at it logically. Moreover, many a times, there is no truth, no right or wrong; it’s just a matter of which side of the line you are on.

No resistance can survive without the support of people. It is easy to say that a few thugs with guns are holding the country to ransom. The fact is locals in this vast area spread across central and south-eastern India support these few thugs else they’d have been finished long time back.

If a huge population supports them, then there’s got to be a reason and logic for it. People don’t just go and support a cause unless there is something in it for them. Tribals may not know how to read and write but then Education has no relation to Intelligence. Tribals know what is good for them and what is not.

First the government needs to have the right intentions and should not be corrupt. Actually this is where it ends. But let’s assume for a second that government (read politicians) has right intentions for the welfare of its population. If this is the case then it needs to find the cause of the disease and not look so much into its symptoms which are obvious. Most likely the cause will turn out to be a fault with the corrupt and malicious governance.

Forget about Arundhati and what her agenda is. Instead of arguing over the message we are arguing whether to shoot the messenger or not!

Cash for Kills!

http://www.risingkashmir.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=23985&mosmsg=Your%20comment%20will%20be%20checked%20before%20publishing.&Itemid=1

It is ridiculous if Army is giving cash to its troops for kills! I don’t even think one needs to go into an analysis of why it is bad. Wonder if it really is true. If it is, man, I’ll be damned and ashamed of the policy makers!