Nirvana: Viagra, plus a glass of bubbly

 ....traditional herbs...huge industry worth Rs 9,000 crore..Naxal- ridden district of Bastar in Chhattisgarh.....champagne and a local form of Viagra....after you eat it for three or four months, that your wrinkles have lifted.....Tribals have lived longer and better ....using the abundant herbs and roots to stay vital and virile......
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Here is (hopefully) a bright idea. Grant safe passage and visiting fellowships to Maoists crouching in the jungles of Bastar (and other parts of central India) to travel to Mecca (China) and see for themselves how/why it is "glorious to be rich." 
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Cheap talk you say. How can the poor tribals ever hope to get rich. Here is another bright idea- by selling herbal Viagra to the Chinese!!!
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In turn, the Maoists can persuade the Chinese to not destroy all the tigers and rhinos and other wildlife in the search for the perfect penile care solution. What a win-win-win situation will that be. 
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Eye in the Sky. US, Pakistan, U2 etc

Dear Omar;

When he have plenty of free time on hand and nothing else to do then you can go over the following piece of a chapter of cold war history.

Hamid

Eye in the Sky – United States, Pakistan and Reconnaissance during Cold War

Hamid Hussain

‘Being a friend of the United States is like living on the banks of a great river.  The soil is wonderfully fertile, but every four or eight years the river changes course, and you may find yourself alone in a desert’.  Pakistan’s army chief and President General Muhammad Zia ul Haq to CIA director William Casey, 1983 (1)

United States and Soviet Union were engaged in a worldwide competition for dominance after the Second World War.  Intelligence gathering was an important part of this power struggle between the two super powers.  In the pre-satellite era, high altitude reconnaissance by special aircraft and signal interception were key components of intelligence gathering.  In 1950s and 60s, these operations were conducted from United States as well as from bases all around the globe. 

A variety of equipment was used to gather intelligence including static electronic monitoring facilities on the borders of Soviet Union, high altitude reconnaissance aircraft such as U-2 and RB-57 to collect electronic (ELINT), signals (SIGINT), photos (PHOTOINT), telemetry (TELEINT) and air sampling for detection of radiation emanating from nuclear test sites.  Several agencies including Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Strategic Air Command (SAC) of United States Air Force (USAF), United States Air Force Security Service (USAFSS), United States Army Special Security (USASS) and National Security Agency (NSA) were involved in these wide ranging intelligence activities.

Main focus of these operations was monitoring of missile and nuclear test sites, location of bombers, missile sites and radars and eavesdropping on Soviet communication system.  The general agreement between United States and Pakistan was that in return for Pakistan’s cooperation in such activities, United States would modernize Pakistani armed forces.  Pakistani part of the deal included provision of facilities for U.S. intelligence gathering operations as well as cooperation in some aspects of the operation.  Both parties entered into these agreements looking at their own interests.  United States saw Pakistan as a window through which to peep into Soviet Union’s backyard and Pakistan saw this cooperation as a shortest possible way of modernizing its armed forces. 

Culture and Open Defecation

A couple of weeks ago The New York Times ran a front-page story on the widespread prevalence of open defecation and malnutrition in India. This bit caught a lot of attention:

Open defecation has long been an issue in India. Some ancient Hindu texts advised people to relieve themselves far from home, a practice that Gandhi sought to curb.

You can read rebuttals here and here.

Communalism pays in votes [Data Stories Update]

The previous elections were highly polarized in riot-hit Muzzaffarnagar and Western Uttar Pradesh in general:

What was apparent was that many,many booths across the constituency essentially turned into winner-take-all contests. In these booths, the largest party ended up with a very high vote share – often in excess of 90%. Whole villages or areas under a single booth chose to vote sharply one way or the other. This was in contrast to 2009, where the average booth saw a much more diverse pattern of voting behaviour.

The map below essentially extends that analysis to the whole of UP. The darker areas saw more polarised voting, and the lighter areas saw less. What we see is a sharp difference between Western UP (where Muzaffarnagar is located), and the rest of the state. Voting in both central and Eastern UP was far less polarised than it was in the West.

Nepal Left Behind

Energy use per Capita (kg of oil equivalent per capita) in 1971:

    China             465.52
    Nepal            309.81
    Sri Lanka       299.28
    Pakistan        280.04
    India              275.56
    Bangladesh   84.08

Lokayata as a "primitive" Indian folk belief?!

The masses have always been suspicious of Brahminical mambo-jumbo but this might be taking it too far:

Lokayata is a school of ancient Indian philosophy and one of three non-orthodox schools of thought. It is popular mainly among lower classes. In ancient Chinese text, it is also known as Lokaayatika, Carapace and the like. It has a very old origin and began to exert an important influence around the 6th century BCE.
Evolution and Relevant Literature - Lokayata dates back at least to the Vedic Age or earlier. Some scholars think it is associated with the earliest Ganges civilisation and primitive Indian folk beliefs.

This was astonishing as well:

In the latter 19th century CE, several thousand of a certain Sikh sect followed the same ideas with Lokayata.

Some charts from Human Development Report 2014

South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are really the laggards of the world:

 

Indians as Over-cooked Rotis

Once Dr Radhakrishnan went for a dinner. There was a Briton at the event who said, “We are very dear to God.” Radhakrishnan laughed and told the gathering, “Friends, one day God felt like making rotis. When he was cooking the rotis, the first one was cooked less and the English were born. The second one stayed longer on the fire and the Negroes were born. Alert after His first two mistakes, when God went on to cook the third roti, it came out just right and as a result Indians were born.”—Page 8, Prernadeep -3. (Dr Radhakrishnan was the second president of India.)

180, 900, 180,000

That is to say: 180 days, 900 posts, 180,000 page views.

The new BP kicked off during snow-showers in Wisconsin (hyperbole?). Right now, intense rain showers in Mumbai (fact).
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Backed by a top-drawer management that knows all the trapeze-ing tricks on the metaphorical spider-webs and with our blogger-badshah(TM) leading from the front (assisted by many contributors), the BP ship is on full-steam ahead mode.  
The pace has been truly intense.  
The top three posts presently add up to more than 20,000 views (twice the page-view total for entire Feb)!!
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Xinjiang (again)

The night (and also day) of the long knives continues apace. March, May, and now July (next month with 31 days is....August).

Remember, when MH-370 vanished, there was suspicion/panic that it was an attack by the Uighurs? Turned out it was an Iranian kid traveling on a false passport. We try so hard to forget (and reality drags us back to all the fear and the loathing).

We have to say this about Islamists, they have absolutely no fear. 
Right now they are up against two of  the fiercest (ideological) adversaries: Israel and the Chicoms. But they are fighting an excellent asymmetric war with all the tools at their disposal.

The global public opinion is weak (yet) but strongly in favor, because the Palestinians and the Uighurs are so hopelessly out-matched. Everybody loves an under-dog.

Modern technology is also helping in shaping opinion. When Israel killed four boys playing on the beach the cameras were watching. And for all their famed efficiency, the Chicoms are unable to choke off (and shut up) Xinjiang. In the old days they would have simply packed off 15-20 mil people to the Gulags, and got rid of a few million young men altogether. But now it is not so easy. Thank heavens for small mercies.

Make no mistake, this is a full-on, hot war, just like the one in the middle-east. This one will not quietly burn off, just like the other one. Yet, there is no dandi march for peace plan from Kerry (and Ki-Moon). Why not?

More significantly, there are no protests (that we know of) in Turkey and in Iran. Nary a rock thrown in anger in Pakistan and in Kashmir. No call for Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions from (Islamic) civil rights organizations. No wrist bands declaring solidarity from courageous (muslim) sportsmen......There is no Ummah Q.E.D.
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Dozens of people were killed and injured in a “terrorist attack” in China's far western Xinjiang region, home to the mainly Muslim Uighur minority, state media reported Tuesday.
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Aakar Patel: Kabaddi made esay

.....no shortage of Punjabis who are 6'3" and 100 kg and can crawl 20 metres....this height-weight thing has to do with some optimum kabaddi size....A centre of gravity issue, a strength versus agility thing....... All the players are medium-build and stocky....this body type makes it easy for the South to participate......
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Aakar Bhai has (momentarily we hope) switched off the political channel and activated the sports channel. And what an exciting game it is: Professional Kabaddi. There is even a Pakistani pro-k team that is expected to participate.

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A few fun facts....the game did NOT originate in China. Instead it is the Dravida civilization that gets the credit. Also it is the national sports of Bangladesh where it is known as hadudu (we suspect cricket is more popular).
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The Great Sindhi Exodus (Nakba??)

......When I rose to touch his feet and take his leave, he clapped me firmly on my back. This clap on the back used to be his blessing.....‘Now you go and evacuate people from Sindh. You leave only after evacuating everyone else. Make sure you don’t leave before that.....I saw what appeared to have been flourishing townlets before, complete with houses, temples, fields, now entirely deserted, the whole of the population – evidently all Hindu – gone to the last man.’.....
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We mean Sindhi Hindus of course, driven out by the irreversible logic of the two nation theory. 
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If it is any solace, in two generations time-span they have occupied the first row of Indian business, politics, art....one giant Sindustrialist called* the late, lamented C-Sarkar as "apni dukan." Also the fact that BJP has conquered Delhi today is because of the effort of these four (horse) men: AB Vajpayee, LK Advani, MM Bhagwat, and ND Modi. Such a transformation from rags to riches is nothing short of astonishing.
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"Crossing the river by feeling the stones"

.....what Zia claimed to base his economic policies was ‘social justice’....involve economic growth.....stable prices and macroeconomic stability.....safety nets such as food vouchers for the needy....programmes for human development....development of the marginalised sections.....Social justice, I would contend, is what Sen says Bangladesh is better at than India......
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Blogger-badshah and king of economists Jyoti Rahman makes the (convincing) case that Ziaur Rahman is the true father of modern-day Bangladesh, whose efforts have directly contributed to the (relatively) advanced social parameters as well a number of foreign policy achievements.  

Indeed JR goes so far as to state that Bangladesh can be an inspiration to all the struggling Arab countries/people.
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Paraphrasing JR, while ZA Bhutto promised Islamic socialism in Pakistan, Ziaur Rahman actually implemented the same in Bangladesh; Sheikh Hasina (current PM) is now promising Islamic secularism. Perhaps Imran Khan will be better inspired by looking east instead of west.
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Eid Mubarak!!!

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The Fiddler (on the Roof) and his son

.....At the service, I began my eulogy with an anecdote from a few years earlier.....My father and stepmother were en route from New York to Westport, Connecticut, when he began feeling ill......by the time they arrived, an EMS crew was waiting......“How do you feel?” asked the head EMS guy.“I don’t feel so good.” “What hurts you?” “It hurts me that George Bush is president.”.....
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Dad, Joel Stein, was a (jewish) communist then a (jewish) progressive in middle-class America. Son, Harry Stein, was a (jewish) lefty and switched over to the evil (jewish) neo-con side. Dad would be asked by his friends: when did your son become a fascist?
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The life-story of dad, famous playwright, memorable for his creation: Fiddler on the Roof, where crisis overtakes a tradition bound (jewish) family when a daughter falls for a gentile boy.

As Stein explains reality was not so different after all: My parents never cared that I dated out of the faith or that the woman I married is about as Jewish as her Mayflower forebears. The only remark on the subject I ever heard from my father (for whom the closer to the truth, the funnier) was: “Why don’t you ever bring home a black girl, so we can show how liberal we are?”

What we liked best was this death-bed humor from an old, tired man: It was Carl Reiner....“It’s incredible, it should be in the Guinness book of records! I told Mel [Brooks], and he said, ‘It’s impossible, no 98-year-old could possibly fall down 14 steps backward and survive!’ ”.....He listened for a moment as Carl repeated what he’d told me.....“Tell Mel,” he replied wearily, “that not only is it possible; there are several people to whom I’d highly recommend it.”

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"Police were there but just watching the burning"

....The number of accusations is rising....In 2001, there was only one such complaint, but in 2011 there were 80.....2014 looks set to be a record.....In May 2014, 68 lawyers were charged with blasphemy for using the name 'Umar' in protest slogans against a police official of the same name....In the same month, prominent human rights lawyer Rashid Rehman defending a Pakistani university professor accused of blasphemy was shot and killed after being threatened in court by other lawyers....
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It does not matter if it is India or Pakistan or Sri Lanka, or Bangladesh, or....The news of late is remarkably monotonous and grim.

We remember the case of Rodney King from our time. He was viciously beaten up by LAPD officers, and the officers were initially let go by a white jury. The acquittals are considered to have triggered the Los Angeles riots of 1992 which were responsible for 53 deaths, 2,383 injuries, more than 7,000 fires, damage to 3,100 businesses, and nearly $1 billion in financial losses [ref. Wiki]. During the riots, King appeared on television and offered what would later be his famous plea, "Can we all get along?"

In South Asia there is not much point in asking can we all get along. The least the powers that be can do is to protect minorities by building more secure ghettos (aka open air prisons). Electrified fence, dobermans, paramilitary, whatever it takes. But please ensure safety (and a bit of prosperity). Is that too much to ask for?
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Three female members of the Ahmadi community, including two minors, were killed late Sunday and eight others were severely injured when an angry mob attacked and burnt five houses, a storage building and several vehicles over alleged blasphemy. Those killed in the attack include a 55-year-old woman Bashiran, a minor girl Kainat and 7-year-old girl Hira.

The future is (of) Asia (minus MENA)

Globalization and the hunt for natural resources have made this vast continent compact enough to form competing blocks which hopefully will not fight hot wars (China just blinked on the off-shore rig off Vietnam). 

OTOH there will be plenty of hot-wars in the MENA which will make the region unbearable (for staying) and unprofitable (for trading anything except oil).

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From the Pew charts we observe that for the most part Asians love the USA. The important exceptions are China, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia. Indonesia manages to identify USA as the biggest ally AND as the biggest threat. For Pakistan the USA is a bigger threat than India. OTOH India is the biggest threat for Bangladesh.

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The Return of the Butterfly

....her mother’s new ‘phone wallah’, who replaced the guy who called her ‘Huzoor’ and ‘always did jhuk ke salam’, ‘barges into her sitting room....and ‘calls Mummy “Anti”.....It’s enough to make Mummy want to leave, till Butterfly reminds her: ‘with your passport you have only two choices....Afghanistan or else, Upstairs to Him’. One of Mohsin’s many masterstrokes....
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Hilarious stuff about how South Asian elites think and talk, kind of like an extended article from the Onion....

It is a shame that for a long. long time we have not had a single, decent brown humorist. It is all high drama, betrayal, politics, ...and we are sick of it. Our best wishes to Moni Mohsin and we look forward to many such installments.
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Some of my favourite moments in The Return of the Butterfly—the third in Pakistani journalist Moni Mohsin’s immensely popular series chronicling the life and times of Butterfly, a malapropism-spouting Lahori socialite—remind me of the Four Yorkshiremen sketch in which four men, comfortably off, try to outdo each other’s accounts of humble beginnings. One says, “We lived in one room, all 26 of us, no furniture, half the floor was missing.” Another responds, “Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in the corridor!” 

The Dargah of Anuradhapura (no more)

....dargah built to honour Sikkandar Waliullah, a Muslim saint....dargah had found mention in literature for at least 400 years......green blankets of cloth covered Waliullah’s tomb; these are yanked off and burned....a couple of Qurans....one of them was thrown down a well....other was added to the bonfire.... 

In India (primarily Uttar Pradesh) riots are so frequent now that it is difficult to keep count. Earlier there was Muzaffarnagar, now Saharanpur is burning. It is not just Hindus against Muslims, it is Muslims vs. everyone else. As usual you have to read between the lines since Indian press reports are deliberately kept ambiguous.
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Three persons were killed and 26 injured in communal clashes in Saharanpur on Saturday, prompting the district administration to impose curfew and issue shoot-at-sight orders. The Army has been put on alert.....Members of one community began construction at a vacant plot near Gurdwara Road in the Qutubsher police station area allegedly without the permission of the Saharanpur Development Authority. ...Members of the other community objected to this, saying the land, near a graveyard, belonged to them.

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Neel Mukherjee for Man Booker

....Supratik attacks his mother about food. "Don't you agree we eat too much?"...."Everyone eats like this."....He attacks again: "not the servants, not the poor"........the head servant, Madan, who is part of the family, but remains separated from them....."Boro-babu, the world does not change, you destroy yourself trying to change it...Why cause people who love you to go through such misery because of it?".......Communist Supratik feels "a surge of cold fury that he is being given a lesson in political morality by the family's cook"....
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We know that the Bong bhadaralok class (genteel folks) are a mighty sentimental lot. Many of them were up-rooted from erstwhile East Bengal in 1947. Then in the 1960s-1970s Bengal experienced extreme violence first from the left and then on the left (the most intriguing part of that story was left-on-left violence). Finally a bunch of super-castes migrated to the West with its attendant identity loss problems etc.

The literary output seems focused on these extreme events and that is only to be expected. However after what seems to be a million stories and plays and movies, we find the scope to be limiting (and exhausting). Is it too much to ask the writer class to pick up a wider lens?

Tariq Ali condemns socialism

.....A unanimous Senate vote is rare, so what explains being more loyal to Israel.... An important factor is undoubtedly money.....Few British citizens are aware of the role their own country played in creating this mess.....It was not by accident, but by design that the British decided to create a new state..... 
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Well in all fairness, Ali Sahab condemns not so much socialism but "techno-fascist" socialists like Bernie Sanders of Vermont who are "progressive on everything except Israel." 

It is clear that TA shares the same world-view as Imran Khan (note: TA is a devoted fan of IK), whereby the only reason that the Arab/Muslim empire of old has not recovered is due to malicious designs by a scheming West which dances to the tune of evil Zionists. Jews are so powerful that they are even able to manipulate Western elections in favor of Zionist politicans. 

Over the last few decades, Hindus and Muslims have been kicked out of their native lands in South Asia. The Muslim population has recovered in India (but is under threat), while Hindus are now extinct in Pakistan and under threat in Bangladesh. Now it is the turn of the Christians and Muslim sects in the MENA to be wiped out. Muslims are also being cleansed from Burma and are under threat in Sri Lanka. All of this is part of a grand Western-Zionist plot to destabilize Arabs/Muslims? Really???
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The US Senate votes unanimously to defend Israel including Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. I don’t think he did it for the money. He is a paid-up member of POEEI (‘Progressive on Everything Except Israel’ and pronounced pooee) the liberal segment of US society, which is not progressive on many things, including Israel.
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"Discount Maids" on display

..."maid agencies", display women at work....domestic workers push each other around in wheelchairs, as though they're taking care of the elderly.....In another gallery, a woman cradles a baby doll and pretends to change its diapers.....Istiana, an Indonesian domestic worker in Singapore....."Those signs that say 'cheap price' and 'discount maid'. But these are people".... 
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It is quite a common practice in barbarian lands however you have to appreciate the grace and elan with which such activities are packaged in the free world. Complete with banners and posters..it is a worship of freedom, really. You are eligible to get a discount on human beings...because their humanity is not fully assured.

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Also for those who would blame it on market forces gone wild, remember this. In Singapore you are not even allowed to spit on your own hands without prior govt permission (application in triplicate to the Ministry of Good Behavior). 

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Go to the Bukit Timah Shopping Centre, a 1970s mall in central Singapore, and you will find five levels of brightly lit rooms and galleries called "Homekeeper" and "Budget Maid". Inside these rooms, dozens of women sit in a listless, artificial silence. They nod respectfully as you enter, and some watch closely as you speak to staff. You might take one home with you - for two years, or longer.
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Thyaga-Raja is our Raja

“Under present laws, copyright protection lasts for a period of 60 years after the death of the artiste....there are no descendants of Thyagaraja who can claim copyright” ....“what is happening is that music companies claiming copyright over the compositions are foo­ling the public”...."What they are doing is known as ‘copyfraud’".....
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Most of the North-South barriers have diluted over the past six decades. Food is the first thing to have been universalized, driven by truck drivers who primarily hail from the North (dhaba culture). Side by side, here in Mumbai you have the Udupi (idli-vada breakfast) culture and the Gujarati-Rajasthani thali culture. There are now many N-S marriages in our circle and we have even Bollywood spoofs about marriages (mostly super-caste though).

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The most durable division seems to us is in classical music- Carnatic vs. North Indian. There are too many super-stars and their followers who believe in rigidity and purity (nothing wrong with passion though).

It is past time to create a Classical Music Hall of Fame and for the fans on both sides of the Vindhyas to acknowledge the masters (we use Vindhya figuratively, however as Prashanth Kamath reminds us, Northern Karnataka is a hub for Hindustani music and the home of another super-man Bhimsen Joshi, thanks Prashanth). And when they do that we expect Thyaga-Raja to be the first among equals (our opinion).

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As far as the  music companies are concerned they cant be faulted for engaging in standard corporate thuggery, after all everybody else does it. Youtube merely wants to steer clear of any legal battles. It is the society of fans (and  there are millions of them) who need to engage and tell the corporates to back-off. It will be also a good idea to petition to our pitiful politicians to stop the squabbling and start something meaningful to emphasize public ownership of works of (classical) art.
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Early mornings in Chennai or Hyderabad, along with the azaan call and ringing of temple bells, amidst the aroma of steaming idlis and filter coffee, the strains of a Thyagaraja kirtanai too will waft in the air. But who owns Thyagaraja’s music? Big music labels claim it’s theirs and music channels on YouTube that upload videos of Carnatic music concerts face their wrath and an unequal battle.
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Their Bahu our Beti (we all love her)

.....Sania blamed patriarchy for BJP leader's sexist remark, saying "we live in an extremely male chauvinist society (and) unfortunately have to deal with this as women".....I have an Indian passport and am (still) playing for India''....."I do not know whether it happens in any other country where you have to keep proving that you are from that country. Is it because I am married to someone from another country? Is it because I am a woman?"....
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There are many different layers of stupidity. You question some-one's nationality and patriotism, a person who has made India proud on the global stage. You harm relations between neighbors, working against the goals supposedly set by your own Leader. You insult women in general by implying that a bahu (daughter-in-law) will have to change her identity upon marriage.

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But let us say all is fair in war (politics). You are advertising the fact that Telengana is a muslim-heavy state (historically the kingdom of Nizam) where you plan to capture votes by pitting the sons-of-soil (that magical word) against the invaders. The reason why Sania Mirza is an outsider is not because she was born in Bombay, but because her ancestors (men) came from Middle-East and Central Asia.

Irony of ironies

So it seems that Indians (or Pakistanis or Dravidians of the Indus) got to Australia before the current crop of Brit-Australians (whose descendant now go and attack Indian students for being "foreign"). Reality is so much stranger than fiction.

http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2013/01/aboriginal-genes-suggest-indian-migration/

Proof (Browns are sand-niggers)

"Just as your capital is welcome here to produce good-paying jobs in the U.S., I'd like our capital to be welcome there," he said. "I ask cooperation and commitment and priority from your government in so doing. Can I have that?".....The question prompted a lengthy pause and looks of confusion from State Department and congressional staff......."I think your question is to the Indian government," Biswal said. "We certainly share your sentiment, and we certainly will advocate that on behalf of the U.S.".........
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We recommend an immediate embargo on the appointment of any new Indian-Americans as front-line officials. It is not healthy for the country's (or a section of it) self-image as a Christian, White nation (btw did you know that Jesus was white and had blonde hair and blue eyes?).

That said, we are (easily) impressed. A Tea Party politician claiming to be a fan of Bollywood? Right now people are planning for a special lecture to be delivered to a joint session of the Congress by our Maha-Purush (Great Man). Make sure that you sign the petition, sir-ji!!!

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In an intensely awkward congressional hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday, freshman Rep. Curt Clawson misidentified two senior U.S. government officials as representatives of the Indian government.
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Partition Tales (silent)

I checked the date....only a few months since they had shifted from Mymensingh in Bangladesh to Calcutta....My grandmother was pregnant with my mother....ailing with an infected appendix....She could not make the crossover to India — passing away in Rangpur, on the Indo-Bangladesh border when my mother was just about 10 months old.......That was 1948.....
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Who knows how many such diaries - veritable treasures all of them - may be floating around. The dead tell no tales, it is the job of the new generation to ferret out the stories behind all the (inevitable) dislocations and humanize the events beyond TNT and all the one-upmanship political crap.

The new generation is reputed to be shallow and self-centered. Not really, just the youth are puzzled by us oldie-foggies and our particular fights and resentments. They are also not too impressed by ideology and propaganda dressed up as history. They want to know the truth for themselves. Sometimes they see the truth openly laid out while the (willfully blind) oldies remain content by farting at the general direction of their (imagined) enemies.

This bangal girl sure has lots of initiative and spunk. We are thankful (and grateful), but we still hope that she goes the last mile to see the diary published. It will be a sensation for sure!!! 
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Recently, I went on a whirlwind trip to see my ailing parents. Once there, I heard that my aunt, who lives alone since my uncle passed away, is unwell too. I dropped by to see her with some sundry stuff – and since I cannot keep my brain from working overtime – imagined myself a grown-up Little Red Riding Hood out to do some good.
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No home but Rome

He would start off with - Bandhu! kaimun acchen? After the usual Bhalo and Ami-o Bhalo, there would be the usual bari kothaye and questions about Italy....Some would be arrogant and say their bari is Rome and dont know any other bari (bari = home)....dad would nod his head disappointingly and mutter - arrogant bastard, forgetting his roots.
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We are especially fond of quoting Tariq Ali Sahab but this comment can come from any South Asian (non-Indian, non-Hindu) blogger.

Why they ask - when India has such a brutal record as certified by the Goddess of Aymanam (you just got to love Malayalam word-mixtures - Ay is Tamil for five, Vanam is Sanskrit for forests, Aymanam is the land of five forests- ref. Wiki) - why does India get such nothing to see here just move on press, while other countries in South Asia (mainly Pakistan) get such bad press?

We were curious about this as well. While the international press certainly played up the liberals think Modi/RSS is the devil incarnate theme, they were also (in our opinion) receptive to the Vikaas Purush (god of development) image that Modi was selling (toilets before temples etc). They liked the fact that he comes from a humble back-ground. They really really liked the fact that he is a lower caste Shudra. We may have imagined it but there was tacit appreciation of the fact that India does need a strong leader to make its way in the world....

.....That said we feel there is something more than all the above.....

Semitic Superpower?

My friend Joel Belleson writes this:

Liaquat Ali Khan defies Amrika (and dies)

.....the US demanded Pakistan use its influence in Tehran and persuade it to transfer control of its oil fields to the US....Liaquat Ali Khan declined to accede to the request.....The US then threatened to annul the secret pact on Kashmir. Liaquat replied that Pakistan has annexed half of Kashmir without American support and would be able to take the other half too.....Liaquat also demanded that the US vacate air bases in Pakistan....Liaquat's demand was a bombshell for Washington.....
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It is wonderful what we can learn from declassified documents- incontrovertible proof that American and Pakistan have been frenemies from birth. 

Apart from L.A.K. we also have (Tariq Ali) claims that ZA Bhutto was killed on instructions from the CIA. Osama-ji was definitely killed by the Great Satan (or was he?). And the show goes on......
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Declassified US document discusses the possible reason for the disenchantment of the US and the UK governments with the Pakistan prime minister and his government. Liaquat was not ready to toe the US line, the newspaper pointed out and hence the US wanted him eliminated.
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Homeopathy

"My mom said she didn't want such an expensive treatment"......The family then consulted a homeopathic doctor.....Within a matter of days she caught an infection and passed away.....
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Homeopathy for curing blood cancer? Really??

Yes, really, when a poor-rich middle class family is unable to afford a 10 lakh medical bill, even a shaman can help...at least something was done for Ma, na?

India is a poor country hosting too many people without work. Normally this would be a ripe situation for launching revolutions and that may yet happen. We need further de-centralization of powers and more use of power with a sense of purpose (not just for distributing gifts to supporters).

The main problem in the coming days will be a rapid degradation in environment and the impact on health of the aam admi. The situation in India (also China) is simply alarming, you have reports of rich people ready to move out of their country for safer (healthier) pastures. In the meantime all of us who will be left behind will have to struggle with antibiotic resistance, tuberculosis and of course that familiar malady- cancer. The relatively well-off will also have to deal with obesity- diabetes which is spreading like wildfire and problems in conceiving children.

Punjab has benefited from being at the cutting edge of green revolution and is stereotyped as the home of the prosperous farmer which survives on slave labor imported from the East and North-East (also Bangladesh). Now a counter-revolution is required when the country-side is being swallowed alive by the drug menace. Not to mention that familiar malady- cancer (again).

NGOs are trying to help out in focused areas, especially the high cost of drugs that are driving poor and middle-class people to desperation. But we need much more help in cleaning up of the environment and to improve awareness amongst people about the need to use (and re-use) environmentally friendly goods.

Why not a specific initiative on the use of jute instead of plastic? Yes, previous efforts have not succeeded but perhaps we can do a better job this time. It will help impoverished jute-growers in the East, reduce our oil bill and reduce the rate of poisoning of  the ground-water. Most importantly we need a sense of urgency amongst the ruling class. In the words of Tagore, when the city burns, the temple will not be spared.
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Caliphate orders 4 mil mutilations

While we fret over Christians being exiled for good from their native lands, we forget that life is no less a challenge for the Sunnis who do live under the ever-merciful gaze of the neo-Caliph.
 

Translation of fatwa: “Out of fear for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and our Islamic society, as a result of the spread of immorality and vice between sons and daughters of Allah. For the honor of our lord and for the faithful “A resolution is issued to all states that female circumcision is honorable in itself and for the Caliphate, emir of the believers…”

The UN is claiming that the Caliphate has issued a fatwa ordering all women to be subjected to genital mutilation: A top UN official quoted from a statement saying that Isis wanted all females aged between 11 and 46 in the northern city of Mosul to undergo the procedure. Jacqueline Badcock said the decree was of grave concern.

Yet, some experts are expressing scepticism. They claim that other groups may be using a fake fatwa to discredit the (otherwise highly creditable and credible) Caliphate.

In its own way this experiment (if attempted in earnest) would resemble something that happened in India in 1975 (when Indira Gandhi declared Emergency). Her distinguished younger son Sanjay led a mass castration program in North India (called nash-bandi). 

The idea was that poor people were breeding in huge numbers and destroying the fabric of the nation. Tens of thousands of people terrorized by real-life and fictitious accounts of nash-bandi deserted their homes. It was most unfortunate that  Sanjay was claimed by an accident, else India would have had resembled China in form and in function (with Sanjay in the role of Mao).

Air Algerie plane blows up over Mali

Well folks, the storm is truly landing. This is not global warming, this is global lunacy. We have had already one crash in Europe, one in Asia yesterday (Taiwan) and today in Africa (Mali). If the pattern holds, it may be the turn of the Americas next. Please take care and do not fly if you would rather not.

The Taiwanese plane that went down in the storm yesterday was a turbo-prop ATR 72. Today it was a (fairly ancient) MD-83 (or DC-10, source not clear). Mali is partly islamist territory and they may have the resources to blow up the plane. Else it just collided into mountains. Either way we will know soon enough.
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Air Algerie said it lost contact with one of its passenger aircraft nearly an hour after take-off from Burkina Faso on Thursday bound for Algiers.

A company source told AFP that the missing aircraft was a DC-10 (other reports say MD-83) and that some 110 passengers of various nationalities and six crew members are listed as being on board the flight.
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Palestine and Israel...no end in sight

Slate columnist William Saletan has a piece about a possible solution to the conflict in Gaza (How to Save Gaza). It is worth a read. It will probably seem overly liberal to many Israeli supporters and will seem totally unfair to many Palestinian supporters. And it does sound a little utopian. Well, a lot utopian. It seems unlikely that it could be attempted and very unlikely that it would work if attempted.

Anyway, it reminded me of a comment I wrote on Facebook. I am not optimistic...

This is a Greek tragedy. Both sides have lost many opportunities to compromise and they will surely manage to lose more in the days to come. When those in power in Israel clearly want to keep all or most of the occupied West Bank (building new settlements is hardly a signal they are leaving) and avoid every opportunity to make a deal, then they are not laying the foundation for durable peace. When those in power in Gaza seem to believe ALL Jewish presence in Palestine should be "reversed" ("Palestine will be free; from the river to sea"), they are not laying such a foundation either.

A motorway crash in Wales

Tariq Ali writes on his London Review of Books (LRB) blog:
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On Wednesday I received four calls from the BBC’s Good Morning Wales.
First morning call: was I available to be interviewed about Gaza tomorrow morning? I said yes.
First afternoon call: could I tell them what I would say? I said (a) Israel was a rogue state, pampered and cosseted by the US and its vassals.  
(b) Targeting and killing Palestinian children (especially boys) and blaming the victims was an old Israeli custom. 
(c) The BBC coverage of Palestine was appalling and if they didn’t cut me off I would explain how and why.
Second afternoon call: was I prepared to debate a pro-Israeli? I said yes.
 
Afternoon message left on my phone: terribly sorry. There’s been a motorway crash in Wales, so we’ve decided to drop your item.

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An alert reader takes the hint and responds:
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Seems like Israel is expanding its ground operations while the world’s attentions are diverted elsewhere…
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Link: http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2014/07/18/tariq-ali/motorway-accident-in-wales/

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regards

Mountain polo (by moonlight)

Polo...origin in Central Asia....6th century BC....Persian national game in the 6th century AD......In 1935 UK administrator for Gilgit-Baltistan, A.H. Cobb ordered....make a huge polo ground in Shandur....named “Mas Junali”.....‘Mas’ is Moon and Junali is pologround, as Cobb was found of playing polo in moon night....
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Shandur, Gilgit and Baltistan. The nicest part of it all is the gorgeous night sky.

Beautiful place to play polo no doubt. But it also has a gorgeous lake to go with it. Why not advertise this as the coolest place in the world to play water polo? Just as nice as ice fishing in the Great Lakes.

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[ref. Wiki] Shandur invites visitors to experience a traditional polo tournament which since 1936 has been held annually in the first week of July between the local teams of Chitral and Ghizer. The tournament is held on Shandur Top, the highest polo ground in the world at 3,700 meters (the pass itself is at 3,800 meters). The festival also includes Folk music, dancing and a camping village is set up. The polo tournament is featured in the first episode of Himalaya with Michael Palin.
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Force-feeding: path to hell

.....Rajan Vichare in a fit of rage tried to thrust a roti in the mouth of the employee.....Vichare claimed that he did not do anything....footage was aired on TV channels...."I did not know the person's name, caste or community"......Vichare later said, "I came to know that the employee was a Muslim only after seeing TV footage and I regret it".....
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The moral of the story: you felt insulted, so you feel free to insult others.

We frequently interact with a muslim girl and her (muslim) boyfriend. The girl is fasting but the boy does not. (they also do not have any visible ID marks - hijab, skullcap). Being forgetful, we would often cry out "enough working, what shall we do for lunch?" She would always smilingly point at BF and tell us to go ahead and enjoy the biryani. We feel guilty and we apologize. But then we also have Hindus (both genders) who fast on particular days or have a restricted diet (vegetarian). While they assure us that it is OK for us to have non-veg food in their presence it feels rude and we try to avoid it.

What happened in Maharashtra Sadan was most likely a genuine mistake made in the heat of the moment but the burden of explanation is with the perpetrators. Even if a Hindu had been fasting, it would be a grave violation to force a chapati down his throat. The point is - it will not be enough to say sorry, we did not know he was a Muslim.

Yes, we get that all sorts of people do not like non-violence as a policy (because it signifies weakness). In that case however one should be fully prepared to accept the consequences of violent actions which cause serious harm. Many times it happens that (powerful) people abuse and get away scot-free by sorting out the "mis-understanding". Justice must happen here, must happen in a visible way, and must happen in a timely manner. No excuses.
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A group of around 11 Shiv Sena MPs, apparently angry over not being served Maharashtrian food, allegedly forced a Muslim catering superviser who was fasting for Ramzan to eat a chapati at the new Maharashtra Sadan in Delhi last week.
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Orwell in Burma-2

.....the shooting of the elephant.....The owner was furious, but he was only an Indian and could do nothing....legally I had done the right thing, for a mad elephant has to be killed if its owner fails to control it...
....Among the Europeans opinion was divided. The older men said I was right, the younger men said it was a damn shame to shoot an elephant for killing a coolie, because an elephant was worth more than any damn Coringhee coolie...
....I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool......
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George Orwell has a fascinating account of how imperialism corrupts people, both the ruler and the ruled. It is a good thing to remember while we see imperialism coming back in a big way-  ranging from let us have some clean fun with elegant women (soft- Thailand) to let us stone women to death (harsh- Iraqi Caliphate).

Thoughts on Palesrael

7 for 74

"There are good bowlers, and there are poor bowlers. Then there's 500 feet of crap, and then there's Ishant Sharma"......
...."Behind every successful batsman there is a Kamran Akmal, but in front of them is Ishant Sharma".....

(Turkish Czar) Recep Tayyip Erdogan once noted that - “The minarets are our bayonets, the domes our helmets, the mosques our barracks and the faithful our army.” Of course he was too modest to say this but we suspect some of his followers/fans may have worship-fully cried out - "Erdogan is our Caliph."

India is not blessed with too much military or ideological prowess (thankfully) but there is one indestructible weapon: the short ball from Ishant Sharma. The missile when launched will not be intercepted by any agency, not even the Iron Dome. The only problem is when the missile mis-directs and destroys its own. 

Still when you wait 28 years to win a test match at the Lord's (and 3 years presently without an overseas test victory) you have to give the Ishant Sharma jokes a rest (temporarily).  The next test is at the Rose Bowl (Southampton) in 5 days. May the best side win!!!
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"LOL is Ishant Sharma's middle name."

Bangalore, 2007. India have made 626. Pakistan are 96 overs into their innings and every batsman has made a double-figure score. There have already been three hundreds and a double-hundred. A teen, more like a young boy, with more hair than any human needs and an extremely prominent Adam's apple, comes on to bowl.

Bathuk-Amma (festival of flowers)

"Its been a long hard journey since my comeback to tennis from my third surgery when my career seemed to be over.. It is a very satisfying feeling to have bounced back...and to be ranked top-5..."
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Bathukamma is a celebration of women (see below), a festival of flowers in the honor of Mother Goddess. 

While America awaits a Madam President in 2016, new-born Telengana has just been blessed with a Madam Ambassador, a living Goddess. 

She has rare talent (and beauty), and we feel she will serve her native land just as well as her native game. 
Our request to Sania Amma - kindly consider gifting the 1CR ($160,000) fee for the empowerment of women of Telengana. That would be an answer to so many prayers.
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The Marwaris

....Marwaris..as bankers and financiers to the great Mughal dynasty.....Historically the managers of India’s premodern “bazaar economy” and the book-keepers and funders of kings, the Marwaris were slowly drawn into the world powers’ battles for control of Indian trade.....Between 1718 and 1730, the East India Company took an average credit of Rs. 4 lakh per year from Jagat Seth....

15 Lakhs rupees line of credit from Jagat Seth to the French East India company in 1757!!!! 
Does anybody know how much money that is today?? No doubt we all want to be Marwaris (dream on).
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There are perhaps few international forums which are free from commentary reflecting on the unscrupulous nature of Jews, how they actually "control the world" with 30 (billion) pieces of silver.

It is high time that people got to know the businessmen (baniya) community from India. The hatred that a Jew attracts on a global scale will look and sound familiar to a Marwari in South Asia. Everyone hates them, especially the (pseudo) intellectual super-caste folks from Bengal and the South, who dominate Indian media.

The typical sentiment that we have heard and read about in countless novels, plays, and movies is as follows. Our land was the golden land. Gradually it got tainted with  the arrival of the Marwaris. They sucked the country dry. They preyed on our innocent women. They have no morals and ethics, all they know is the value of money. They are also religious nut-jobs who will deny non-vegetarians a roof over their heads. All the politicians are in bed with  them. The old glory will return only when we finish them all off, when we can make shoes for the poor with the skin of the baniyas.
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As anyone who has ever studied business in India knows, the country does not offer a level playing field for new entrepreneurs. Not only does the large, if slowly crumbling, scaffolding of India’s socialist heyday allow government and encrusted special dispensations of various kinds to inhibit competition, but there also seems to be a deeply ingrained bias among Indians themselves about who is capable of doing business and who is not.

The Lord of the Lord's

.....Jadeja strolls his way to his Test best and his first fifty. Upon reaching there he gets into a sword dance, his bat brandishing like a naked sword. He is the king, the warrior king, Lord's his subjects, watching in awe, standing up to applaud.....
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Everything that you know to be true is false.

a) 26/11/2012 Mumbai: England plays India on a turning wicket (as per "request" from Captain Mahindra Singh "Cool" Dhoni).
b) 21/07/2014 London: India plays England on a green-top full of pace and swing (as per "request" from Captain Alistair Cook).

You know that India wins (a) and England wins (b). Utterly, butterly, completely wrong. 

Humpty Sharma ki Dulhania

My fiancée was in the mood to watch Bollywood and I happily obliged. Even though my brothers are married to desis, both sister in laws are born abroad. Only mine is an Indian (with her mother's relatives spread over Gujarat and her dather's in the South & abroad; the great Sindhi-NRI diaspora at work). 

Anyway back to my point that I watched the film and it was pretty decent; they could have made it better with a subtle (yet effective plot twist). It was reasonably dark (and erotic, welcome to modern India) for a Bollywood film but I remember reading that apparently the more licentious & libertine the society the less libido which makes sense (people won't pay to get an orgasm, they pay for the build up to the said effect).

Alia Bhatt is fast capturing the Kareena Kapoor market of feisty Punjabi heroines (this movie seems like a remake of jab we met) but other than that Bollywoods ongoing sophistication and canny lay testament as to why it's such an effective global counterweight to Hollywood in certain parts of the world (then again Filipino soaps are popular in Kampala). 

Good on India for leading on soft culture.

Kipat Barzel

.....human element in the operation of Iron Dome: Some crews are better than others, and training and experience count.....American missile-defense crews get little live-fire training.....U.S. military should rethink the way it trains its missile-defense troops.....

A valuable overview of missile defense.

To the horror of peace activists everywhere (torture never works!!, missile defense never works!!!) the Iron Dome works. However this is a cautionary tale. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) says that it needs 13-15 Iron Domes for full coverage, only nine are operational. Expense is probably not an issue, we will put on our best "Jews own the world" hat and assume that there will be a fair good number of billionaires willing to pony up for an Iron Dome with their name inscribed on it.

But it may also be the case that Israel does not take the threats too seriously and is using Hamas as a punching bag. Hamas no doubt deserves every bit of the bitter medicine but the problem is that the leaders (and even troops) are hiding in deep tunnels, while the civilians are bearing the brunt of this brutal war.

So..... if Israel has perfected missile defense, Hamas has also perfected missile offense. While Israel has attacked Gaza with tanks, Hamas has a few nifty (30m deep!!!) tunnels which are being used to launch surprise attacks inside Israel. Both sides gain from the ability to keep the water boiling at the right temperature (following what a famous Pakistani general had once said).

Worldwide muslims are living under varying degree of occupations by non-muslim powers in Kashmir, Xinjiang, Palestine and Chechnya (there are less prominent ones as well). Of course many more muslims are living under the domination of muslim dictators and tyrants. It gives us no pleasure to say that the first set seem to be better off than the second one. It is a false choice really, all muslims should be free to pray and fast (and not pray and fast as well) and get on with their lives.
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Between the fall of the Jewish Commonwealth to the Romans in the first century A.D. and the founding of Israel in 1948, Jews were remarkably easy to kill. Not anymore.
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