Nitin's Rightful Criticism Of Tehelka

Nitin criticizes Tehelka for publishing a rather shaky article questioning Gujarat’s economic success. Gaurav, in turn, criticizes Nitin for shooting the messenger. I think Gaurav is way off base. Nitin accomplished two things by writing what he did: first, he refuted the claims made by the article and, second, he criticizes Tehelka for its shoddy, gotcha-journalism practices.

Newspapers are supposed to be contrarian by nature, to question prevailing views, and to cast doubts on utterances by governments and public officials. I do not question Tehelka’s right to doubt the Gujarat government's claims, but I do question its methods, which seems to be driven by economic (to sell more magazines and get more hits on its web site), and a hidden political agenda (most newspapers and magazines India are left-wing) against the BJP-led Gujarat government.

Integrity and credibility are stock and trade of the journalism business, and Tehelka seems to be losing on this score.

Karuna Caught In United Kingdom

Here’s an interesting story from Sri Lanka:

Damning evidence has surfaced that the Government smuggled LTTE renegade commander Karuna to Great Britain on a forged diplomatic passport.

An investigation revealed that the forged diplomatic passport was issued by the Immigration Department on the orders of higher authorities in the name of Kokila Gunawardena on August 30, 2007.

Who is Karuna? He is a renegade LTTE commander who broke off from the LTTE to, ostensibly, protest the marginalization of eastern Sri Lankan Tamils within the organization. It’s been long rumored Sri Lankan intelligence services have been secretly backing him: in the vain hope that eastern Sri Lankan Tamils would rally to his side, weakening the LTTE by dividing them in two. This support did not materialize as planned, mostly due to the ruthless efficiency in how the LTTE deals with dissent. Karuna was a marked man, and so were his supporters.

I would gander a guess that Sri Lanka decided to cut its losses and redeploy their resources elsewhere. They could have left Karuna twisting in the wind; a LTTE hit squad would’ve finished him off sooner or later. After all, they never forget traitors nor do they stop hunting them. On the other hand, Sri Lanka wanted to spare themselves the embarrassment, so they decided to send him into exile, hopefully buying his silence. London is a good choice as Karuna’s family was already ensconced there.

And Sri Lanka risked a diplomatic row to send Karuna to London. Using a false name, a forged passport, and outright mendacity, Sri Lanka tried to smuggle Karuna into the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, Karuna was caught at the airport and arrested. No doubt he’ll be deported back to Sri Lanka. Karuna will try to ask for political asylum—perhaps this was the plan, after all—and may well receive it given liberal asylum policies of Europe.

I’m sure the United Kingdom is outraged that Sri Lanka was abusing the Vienna Convention, which governs diplomatic protocols, to send the likes of Karuna to the U.K. under the guise of diplomatic cover. We haven’t heard the last of this story.

UPDATE: Human rights groups are calling Britain to prosecute Karuna for war crimes, including torture and recruitment of child soldiers. I don’t think this will go anywhere. I doubt Britain has the jurisdiction to prosecute a person whose crimes were committed in another sovereign nation; and I’m unfamiliar with international law to have an opinion one way or the other. The only scenario that I can see is that Karuna is deported to Sri Lanka and tried for his crimes there.

Musharraf Promises To Be Tough, Again

Conservative will say anything to protect Musharraf, their boy in Pakistan, to save face. For example, the gang at Powerline write:

The Asian Age reports that Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has given the go-ahead for a massive crackdown in the restive tribal areas for the purpose of crushing pro-Taliban and Al Qaeda militants. To the extent that Musharaf is serious, this doesn't seem like the time for the U.S. to counteract his attempts to consolidate power.

Musharraf had 7-years and over $10 billion in U.S. aid to be serious about cracking down on pro-Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants. Why is he doing this now, and why does he need to suspend democracy to do it. They don’t ask these questions. They just blindly accept the bullshit being spouted by Musharraf and his cronies. Conservatives have become those parents who are frequently frustrated in their attempts to discipline a spoiled child, who constantly makes empty promises. All I can say is: here we go again.

Frontline Kisses China's Ass

This article on the Communist Party of China’s 17th Congress proves that Frontline magazine is nothing more than an appendage of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). There’s not a single negative comment in it. It’s all praise: China can do no wrong. The author giddily writes:

The “Scientific Outlook on Development” is projected as a pathway to “a harmonious socialist society”, whose establishment is also outlined in the latest amendment. The idea is to “turn China into a prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and harmonious modern socialist country”. The amendment further stipulates that “the CPC leads the people in developing the socialist market economy”. A related mandate is that the party “unwaveringly consolidates and develops the public sector of the economy and unswervingly encourages, supports and guides the development of the non-public sector”.

What China practices is not socialism but a type of gangster capitalism that shuts out much of the population from the prosperity that elites and the oligarchs are presently reaping. China obfuscate it by calling it “Scientific Outlook on Development.” Typical commie hypocrisy and double-speak. It’s the type of capitalism communists continually decry in India, but have no problem praising China for.

What the article fails to mention is rising discontent in the countryside among farmers. So far China has resorted to repressive measures, coupled with tight controls on media, to keep things quiet. But with hundreds of millions of people seething, how much longer can China keep lids on issues simmering for years? Frontline never explored this position because it has its head too far up its asses to take notice.

Pakistan: What Does The Common Man Think

The throttling of democracy in Pakistan is a matter of grave concern, and I’m the last person to belittle it, but is it a crisis the media makes it out to be? Is Pakistan really on precipice of an Islamic takeover? I’ve seen the pictures on the Internet and television of thousands of people protesting the declaration of martial law, but most of them appear to be lawyers. Naturally, they would be upset if the judicial system is shuttered, it’s their livelihood after all.

I want to know what the man on the street thinks, the regular guy who is trying to eke out a living—the laborer, street merchants, low-level government employees and other people the media tend to ignore. What do they think of Musharraf and his declaration of martial law? Does it touch their lives in anyway? My guess would be no. For them, the next day will be just like yesterday. What does it matter to them what the government does, after all it’s never been there for them. And why should they care about lawyers and students protesting for democracy, a mere trifle in their world. To the common man, they’re part of the same ineffective and corrupt system.

If you look at it: you have to be a cynic to live and survive in present-day Pakistan.

Writer's Strike

The writer’s strike is a mixed blessing. On one hand, it will give me an opportunity to catch-up on shows—on DVD—I may have missed and, on the other hand, it will shorten seasons on shows I really, really like, specifically Scrubs, which is in its final season.

The last time there was a lengthy writer’s strike was in the late-80s, which spawned the mindless reality-television movement. It’s still with us today and if the strike continues for a long-time (which is likely), expect more of it.

Hope the strike ends soon.

Zia's Legacy Haunts Pakistan

Kevin Drum has an interesting post about Pakistan and Islamic parties gaining control of Pakistan after President Musharraf declared martial law.

Over at Informed Comment, Juan Cole suggests that the Islamist movement in Pakistan isn't really very impressive, but adds that events could change that: "What is really significant, however, is that Qazi Hussain [the leader of the fundamentalist Jamaat-i Islami] is the only major party leader openly calling for mass resistance against Musharraf, a stance which will help the popularity of his party even if (as seems likely) he winds up in jail over it."

What we’re seeing are the final results of late President Zia-ul-Haq’s handiwork blowing up in our faces. It was Zia who Islamized, not only Pakistan, but the military as well. Much of the officer corp—from junior to mid-level—are hardcore Islamists. There’s a clear nexus between Islamists and the military that wasn’t there before, but is definitely there now.

Since the military is a bulwark of stability in Pakistan, and the only institution with any real authority, what it says goes. Governments cannot rule without their blessing. The elites rely on them to maintain law and order (and their positions of power) as it is they who have the guns. If the military collapses, so does Pakistan.

And if the military is under the sway of Islamists, vote count—and, yes, even democracy—is meaningless.

DillanTV: Episode 1

I would like to present to you Kid Karamel, a.k.a. Dillan Agarwalla, and my nephew, in his first video.



As you can see, he’s quite mischievous and curious and, not to mention, highly mobile. He’s adorable as well.

Funny Movie Trailer And Zee Commercials

A funny scene from the movie Goa to Bombay:



If the driver looks familiar, he's also in this very funny Zee Cinema commercial:



And if you like this Zee Cinema commercial, here's another:



Enjoy!

Martial Law Declared In Pakistan

President Musharraf, who is still General Musharraf, has committed his second coup by declaring martial law, suspending the constitution, and sequestering the Supreme Court. Did Benazir Bhutto have an inkling of what was going to happen? She abruptly left for Dubai, ostensibly to see her children and ailing mother, but now we know the real reason—she was trying to avoid arrest.

Satire: America's Mideast Diplomatic Offensive

Winning the hearts and minds of the Arab world as told by The Daily Show



This is why The Daily Show is a must see, better than any cable or network news broadcast.

US Navy Battle Pirates: Soft Power At Work

The U.S. Navy battling with pirates off the coast of Somalia is not getting the media attention it deserves. It’s an important new role for the U.S. Navy—the role of maritime policeman—and its implications are far reaching. By protecting trade routes from marauding pirates, the United States is doing a service that will earn it respect in the world community, something that has been quite fleeting of late. It’s an example of “soft power," something the United States should use more of, not less.

Being a “policeman” requires retooling the U.S. Navy from top to bottom. Presently, the U.S. Navy is built to fight major wars, with its aircraft carrier battle groups central to its strategy, which is overkill for battling pirates, who tend to operate in small groups. No, what the Navy needs to be is more nimble, something akin to the U.S. Army, which increasingly uses small, highly mobile groups (company size or less) instead of large, lumbering groups (divisions). What the Navy needs are more patrol boats and attack submarines rather than aircraft carriers, cruiser and destroyers.

Robert D. Kaplan, who writes about defense matters for The Atlantic, has been talking about restructuring the U.S. Navy for quite some time now, echoes what I have written above:

In essence, this new maritime strategy represents a restrained, nuanced yearning for a bigger Navy, albeit one whose mission will be cooperation with other navies. That requires more than just new ships. “A key to fostering such relationships is development of sufficient cultural, historical, and linguistic expertise among our Sailors, Marines and Coast Guardsmen to nurture effective interaction with diverse international partners.” Such training costs money and creates bureaucratic challenges, but it helps lay the groundwork for an exceedingly gradual, elegant decline of the Navy’s capabilities—a future in which it has fewer platforms but gets more out of the ones it does have by working more closely with others.

Another thing Kaplan writes about is the fact that the U.S. can’t go it alone. It will need the cooperation of many countries and, yes, including China, which, given its export-oriented economy, needs to keep trade routes secure.

Book Review: While Europe Slept

Europe as we know it is slowly disappearing as radical Islam steadily spreads across the land, helped by multicultural do-gooders and socialist statists? This seems to be the premise of Bruce Bawer’s While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within, a polemic about the growing menace of radical Islam and how it is slowly destroying Europe and it’s liberal, freedom-loving ideals.

The way Bawer tells it, it is an apocalypse in the making. That unless radical Islam is stopped in its tracks, Europe will become Islamized and Europe, as we know, will cease to exist. Reality or just plain hysterics? I think it’s a little of both.

Bawer is not some conservative nut job, but a noted writer and critic who lives in Norway and sees first-hand what effect radical Islam is having. Radical Islamists demand Sharia be imposed, that gays be murdered (Bawer is gay, so imagine his reaction), and that democracy be dismantled. All for recreating some mythical caliphate that existed in the seventh century.

It’s not clear whom to blame: Muslims, who fail to assimilate; or Europeans, who coddle them. Bawer tends to blame the latter. Made up mostly of politicians, journalists and other elites, they are Europe’s ruling class; and they have a blind spot to the coming danger.

These elites—mostly socialists, multiculturalists, and other assorted leftists—tend to treat Muslim as some exotic ethnic group to be protected, not as an ideology. With lax immigration policies, Muslims arrive in Europe by the planeloads, where they are not integrated or assimilated in anyway, but are separated, forced to live in ghettos, encouraged to keep their culture, keep to themselves, and are discouraged from learning the language, culture, values of their adopted land. It is the kind of patronizing racism that is practiced throughout Europe.

This explains radical Islam appeal among Muslim immigrants and their offspring. Alienated by the country they live in, they are susceptible to entreaties by radical Islamists, who control many of the mosques (and funded by the government), and fed a steady diet of anti-Western rhetoric, and conditioned to hate the country they live in. It explains why crimes by Muslim youths are on the rise throughout Europe, something Bawer continually harps on. Remember the Paris riots of 2006? It was by Muslim youths. Of course, the European press tends to whitewash these stories, blaming capitalism, globalization, or some other bogeyman of the week.

But is Europe going to hell, or is it so far along that there is no going back? Bruce Bawer doesn’t say much on the subject except that Europe must get its act together less it becomes some Islamic backwater, bereft of liberty, happiness, and democracy.

Personally, I think Europe is made of sturdier stuff and will survive with its ideals intact. Opposition to radical Islam has been slow, but growing steadier by year. A new crop of politicians, which Bawer mentions, are on the rise who plan to do something about the problems at hand; helped by Muslims, who are equally repulsed by the repugnancy of some of their fellow co-religionist’s stridently anti-Western views, who want to share in Europe’s prosperity, and its idels, while practicing their faith. Bawer gives these Muslims little shrift, in my opinion.

Essentially, the central theme of this book is about multiculturalism gone arye. Bawer often compares Europe to the United States, and how the latter has done a great job of assimilating its Muslims, while the former utterly failed in assimilating theirs.

X-Files: The Sequal

There’s a new X-Files movie in the works. Filming begins in December, with a release date for late July 2008. What’s it all about:

Creator Chris Carter says that the movie will focus on a stand-alone mystery rather than exploring the show's dense mythology. Beyond that, he's not spilling details, only saying, "It will be scary."

The reason it took so long to make a sequel was the fact that Chris Carter was fighting with FOX over, what else, money over syndication and DVD rights. But with a writer’s strike on the horizon, it was now or never. So Carter and FOX settled quickly just to get this project off the ground. Hope it’s good.

Pakistan And RAW: The Drama Continues

This is getting tiring:

The three assassin terrorists arrested recently by the law enforcing agencies, have revealed that Indian intelligence service (RAW) hired them for Rs 6.5 million to murder three Chinese nationals on July 8, 2007 at Peshawar. This clearly shows that India wants to disrupt developmental activities by intimidating Chinese engineers in Pakistan. Ever since the Chinese engineers have undertaken the construction of Gwadar deep seaport, a series of attacks targeting Chinese nationals have become a regular feature. The terrorists are not only attempting to damage Pakistan’s economic growth, they want to jeopardize the “strategic partnership’’ between the two countries. Pakistan’s friendship with China is unique and has stood the test of time in the matters concerning national security and economic cooperation.

It’s incredible. Every time there’s terrorist activity on Pakistani soil, it’s automatically attributed to India and its intelligence agency, RAW. Not only that, Pakistani security agencies always manage to capture the terrorists (yet they can't find jihadis or Osama bin Laden), who quickly admit they were in the employ of RAW. No other evidence is offered aside from “confessions” made by the supposed terrorists, who no doubt were coerced—i.e. tortured—into making false statements implicating India. Then we never hear from these terrorists ever again.

This scenario will be repeated in a few months time.