The Peshawar Carnage

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

The Peshawar Carnage.

  The Peshawar school massacre of children by the Taliban is the nadir of depravity to which human mind can fall .  The only other parallel in modern history that could perhaps outdo this devilry is the one by Chechnya Islamist militant separatists on a Beslan school in North Ossetia, Russia in September 1-3, 2004. In all, at least 385 people were killed there,  including 156 children. The youngest was two years old.

   As night fell on Tuesday in Peshawar, a teeming, volatile city near the Afghan border of Pakistan, security forces wrapped up an operation that lasted more than eight hours and involved intense gun battles.

At least 132 students and nine staff members were killed on that day in the bloodiest massacre Pakistan has seen for years when Taliban gunmen broke into the school at about 10 am and opened fire. A teacher was burnt to death in front of the students in a classroom. “One of my teachers was crying,” a student narrated from hospital. “She had been shot in the hand and was crying in pain. One terrorist then walked up to her and started shooting her until she stopped making any sound. All around me my friends were lying injured and dead.” The school is located on the edge of a military cantonment in Peshawar, where the militant gunmen , equipped with suicide vests entered through a graveyard which is adjacent to the school.

The horrific attack, carried out by a relatively small number of militants from the Tehreek-e-Taliban group, a Pakistani militant splinter group  also sent dozens of wounded flooding into local hospitals, as terrified parents searched for their children.  The attack on the military-run high school attended by more than 1,100 people, bulk of them children of army personnel, but many of them civilians too , pierced the heart of Pakistan's military establishment. Pakistan has both created and  lived with terrorist attacks for years, but the scale and savageness of this latest attack reverberated around not only the country but the world. “There is not a belief system in the world that can justify such an act. I think what this shows is the worldwide threat that is posed by this poisonous ideology of extremist Islamist terrorism. said David Cameron, British Prime Minister. Prime Minister Narendra Modi personally spoke to his counterpart Nawaz Sheriff.

Taliban sent a few clear messages here. They attacked a soft target that was very sensitive to the army, - clearly, an attempt to demoralize the military. May be, the second is to do with Malala who herself has been shot earlier by Taliban and who  is now receiving accolades from all over the world and whose views on modern education for all is opposed by Taliban who wants Islamic schooling system. Thirdly the Taliban is showing that in their fight against the state, this part of Pakistan is already ungovernable.

The heinous attack and massacre of children by Taliban, the extent of depravity and savage brutality it exhibits  emphasize the lessons this failed errant state that is  Pakistan, should learn, who terms terrorists as "good terrorists" and "bad terrorists" and employ the former kind to attack India,  The historical unholy covert connections between the Pakistan army, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), security police, and the Taliban itself –abetted by the corruption and avarice of the political elite of the country has been a double-edged sword. As Hilary Clinton remarked, you cannot rear poisonous snakes in your backyard and expect them to bite only the neighbors. For many years, the ISI and the Pakistani army helped to fund and arm the mujahedin and then the Taliban in Afghanistan, first against Russians and  then covertly against Americans and the ineffective Afghan regime, even after America discovered  that Pakistan was a Trojan horse hiding Osama bin Laden. And the Afghans are complaining that Pakistan is assisting the Taliban in its struggle against the pro-American regime in Kabul

Now that the snake in the backyard has bitten them,  the Pakistan security forces regard the Taliban as their principal enemy. When stories  of Pakistani military barbarity  against the Taliban in Pakistan – reports of the execution of Taliban prisoners in Waziristan, whose bodies were left to lie upon the roads to be eaten by animals – came out recently,  the revenge by the Taliban had also become certain..  Now that the all out retaliation by the army is sure to make the battle between the Pak military and the Islamists  more vicious in Waziristan, it also ensures that more brutal could be the response of the Islamists. Pakistani military offensives against the Taliban are now seen by the victims in Waziristan as part of America’s war against Muslims.



Pakistan is on the horns of deadly dilemma: its army has to  hate and fight  the Taliban – but it also needs Taliban - for use against India.

Kem Cho? Obama! Modi's " Aswamedha" (Conquest) in USA.

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup




Kem Cho Obama! Modi's " Aswamedha" (Conquest) in USA.

 The 'Kem cho' moment


 Prime Minister Narendra Modi's historic official visit to USA has gone down in history as an episode when the untouchable and  persona non grata Modi that he was to President Obama and his government made them all stand in line and salute him, pay all the obeisance overtures and ovations and even kowtow to his deft diplomatic moves..A moment of sweet revenge, although he never rubbed the ignominy in to them. Navarathri not only signifies victory of good over evil but also rejuvenation and resurrection, and the greatness of it all was that everyone involved felt the change.

What if Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was on Navarathri fast - to the great wonder and amazement of Americans -  and President Barack Obama couldn’t really break bread together, but they bonded over political banter. For Obama and Modi, the visit was all about the basics: getting to know each other, committing to get the relationship back on track, and promising to push toward even greater cooperation. To others, the visit amounted to an official clearing of the air after Modi's visa issue and India's outrage at the arrest in New York last year of one of its diplomats,.Devyani Khobragaede.



There were uniquely a number of 'firsts' on Modi's trip to USA. An epic arrival for any international delegation and unprecedented Indian-American enthusiasm; Unprecedented business CEO interactions; Joint Vision Statement of a modal-for-world strategic partnership; Modi-Obama joint editorial; Modi's Hollywood tryst; and all these accomplishments on religious fast by any Indian PM or any PM  in the world!



Modi had three clear objectives when he set out for USA. His main aim of the trip appears to have been to send out the message that India was strong, and that India is ready to engage with Indian-Americans and the US . Modi wanted to show the United States that it's a very different India today and to convince his interlocutors that energy was back in India  Apart from that,his most important outreach was to American business. This is part of his "Make in India" drive, and part of the holy triumvirate with "Clean India" and "Clean Ganga". The third aspect of his visit was the outreach to the Indian-American community, which is among the wealthiest, best educated and influential. He wants the Indian "lobby" to evolve into something approaching the Jewish lobby and to influence US policies and approaches towards India.



Modi's meeting with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and the American Jewish Committee touched another important part of this outreach. For the first time in years, Narendra Modi brought the India-Israel ties out of the closet, making the Netanyahu meeting the only one bilateral outside of South Asia. At the same time, with Obama, Modi established two things — that the discomforts of the past were behind him, but he wouldn't be a pushover in tough negotiations, on WTO or elsewhere.



The major gains and accomplishments by Modi in the engagement he had with Obama could now be enumerated: On the trade and economic front, U.S. will help develop 'smart cities' Ajmer,Visahakapatnam and Allahabad. Partnership in Digital India initiative to enhance digital infrastructure, e-governance, and e-services. Set up 'infrastructure collaboration platform' with single point of contact that will identify critical infra needs and ensure greater US industry presence in infra projects.Push an' investment initiative' to help institutional investors and corporate houses to invest in India. Extend an Indo-pacificEconomic corridor to Myanmar and South East Asia,  identifying  critical ports, rail, aviation, and intermodal infra projects.

The United States is promoting a New Silk Road initiative linking Central and South Asia in four key areas: Regional Energy Markets, Trade and Transport, Customs and Border Operations, Businesses and People-to-People. India has endorsed the US-sponsored new Silk Road idea. A few weeks ago, India refrained from joining China's maritime Silk Road initiative put forward by Xi Jinping.

In strategic consultations, an  UN and Multilateral Issues Dialogue dealing with UN's role, development, and UN reforms, and also  an Indian Ocean Region Dialogue will be commenced.

In the matter of mutual ties, close collaboration wth National Defence Universities, visa on arrival for US nationals, increased participation for Indians in US Global Entry Program, supply of advanced defense vehicles, MOU in environmental and occupational health fields, were agreed upon.

In a push for science and tech,  Joint mission on climate change impacts, in space exploration, Indian participation in Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project,and Mars Working Group, creating a clean energy finance forum, and MOU in matters of renewable energy issues were decided on.



The immediate effect of  these whole spectrum of Indo-American forward movements is emerging. According to an assessment done by ASSOCHAM's newly-opened US office in New York, US policy-makers, think tanks, Congressional leaders across bi-partisan line and most significantly CEOs of top Fortune 500 companies believe that PM Narendra Modi and his NDA government can deliver and transform India into a modern nation with democratic values and America Inc would like to engage with this transformation, 

The Great Kashmir deluge.

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup


 The Great Kashmir Deluge.

 Hafiz Saeed, one of South Asia's most dangerous militants, has no doubt who is to blame for devastating Sept., 2014 floods that have submerged swathes of Pakistani countryside and claimed hundreds of lives.

"India irrigates its deserts and dumps extra water on Pakistan without any warning," he accuses doing his very best in exploiting the floods to turn people against India."If we don't stop India now, Pakistan will continue to face this danger." he warns. The fact is that such calumnious views might get currency in Pakistan because many Pakistanis believe that rival India uses its upstream dams to manipulate how much water flows down to Pakistani wheat and cotton fields, with some describing it as a "water bomb" designed to weaken its neighbor.

It is said that the valley of Kashmir was once a lake which in ancient Purana was known as Satisar and the legend goes on to say that Kashyap Maharshi caused it to be drained to dry land for his people to inhabit the valley. This time, torrential rains of unprecedented fury and volume again rendered the valley to a virtual lake

The demon Jalodbhava whom many Kashmiris know in legend, tormented the inhabitants of the valley again in the form of heavy torrential rains unprecedented in the last 60 or even 100 years which hit the Jammu &; Kashmir region as well as Pak Occupied Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan, and Pak Punjab. As a result, an estimated 200 people in India and 280 people in Pakistan died in the floods.  By 5, September, the Jhelum River in Srinagar was reported to be flowing at  4.40 feet (1.34 m) above the danger mark in Srinagar and by 12 feet in Ananthanag district. The discharge rate in the river was recorded as 70000 m3/s against the normal discharge of 25000 m3/s.  2600 villages were reported to be affected in Jammu and Kashmir, out of which 390 villages in Kashmir were completely submerged. 1225 villages were partially affected and 1000 villages were affected in Jammu Division. By September 8, in many parts of Srinagar's neighborhood, the water was about 12 feet (3.7 m) deep, submerging entire house.

 Landslides triggered by heavy rainfall had damaged roads, dozens of bridges, buildings and crops. 50 bridges were reported to have been damaged across the state. The preliminary assessment of damages to property was estimated between Rs. 5000 cr to Rs. 6000 cr . Similarly, the Chenab River was also reported to flow above the danger mark by which hundreds of villages were affected in Pakistan.

India's Defense  forces: the Army, Air force, and Navy mounted massive rescue and aid operations.  82 aircraft and helicopters, 10 battalions of Border Security Force 329 columns of Indian Army and 300 boats were in the rescue operations. Two IL 76, One C-130J and one AN 32 aircraft carried a total of 50 tonnes of supplies including food, water and medicines. 300 boats were dispatched to South Kashmir for excavation of people from submerged areas.[13] Armed Forces including Border Security Force (B.S.F) and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) rescued over 200,000 persons from different regions of Jammu and Kashmir. 10 VSAT systems were air lifted to restore critical telecom towers and a satellite link from Bardula had been provided for crucial communication.

Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi offered an assistance of Rs.1000 crore (US$170 million) to the state government, in addition to Rs.1100 crore (US$180 million) already earmarked for the disaster. Aid poured in from other states too. Chief Minister of Maharashtra and Chief Minister of Telangana announced an aid of Rs.10 crore (US$1.7 million) each from the chief minister's relief fund for the rescue and relief for Jammu and Kashmir flood victims,  Also, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, announced an assistance of Rs.5 crore (US$830,000) each
.
Of course it was a demon of all floods, truly a  Jalodbhava (born of water), but the real demon according to environmentalists is a combination of unprecedented and intense rain, mismanagement, unplanned urbanization and a lack of preparedness. They would ascribe the floods to manifestation of an extreme weather event linked to climate change. In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its fourth assessment report, said extreme rainfall events were set to increase over the Indian subcontinent. In its fifth assessment report, the IPCC said the intensity of rainfall in India would increase. A study by  the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in 2006 had predicted changes in rainfall across India and especially over the Himalayan range, which would have a high impact in the region, apart from the west coast and central India.

The study of data between 1950 and 2000 showed that the incidence of heavy and very heavy rainfall (more than 100 mm and 150 mm/ a day) had increased and moderate rainfall decreased. They point out that  in 2004, a remote sensing data-based study of Jammu and Kashmir had shown that 55 per cent of wetlands, drainage channels and water bodies had been encroached upon. Jammu and Kashmir had an intricate system of water management. The lake areas had diminished, the holding capacity of many water bodies had gone down, and houses were built in places they should never have been.

In Uttarakhand or in Kashmir it may be the enactment of the same story: man's avaricious, thoughtless, assaults on nature and its balancing system, and nature hitting back fiercely. And we never heed or learn. The columnist rightly said"We are a disaster when it comes to disasters”

And amidst all this herculean efforts going on by the Indian Government, its Defence Forces, NDRF, and the rest of India, there are the despicable and discordant elements like separatists who pelt stones at the helicopters and boats of the Army and NDRF, and separatist leaders like the 84-year Sayed Ali Shah Geelani who speaks to Pakistan TV channels that "Indian Army men were moving around in boats with TV crews only to stage an act of rescuing a few locals for the purpose of publicity and propaganda,". Gilani is mortally afraid that if the fact that Indian Defence forces and Agencies rescued over 200000 people including separatists like Yasin malik, while his own followers were not visible anywhere doing any thing good, whatever little appeal he has in the valley will be dead before him. Yasin Malik who was rescued by the Army personnel on 13 Sept. from his downtown Miasuma residence. just bit the hand that saved his life by hijacking an Army boat with its food and aid supplies meant for the flood victims, virtually stealing food from the mouths of his own starving people. .Now have you any doubt why the land of such inhabitants went down under?. It is these people that brought such devastating calamity to the land as a  nature's reprisal for their wrongs.

The U.S. Incursion of Iraq and Creation of ISIS.

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup


 The U.S. Incursion of Iraq and Creation of ISIS.

 

A sign of what was to come: fighters parade a commandeered Iraqi military truck through Mosul.

 In what a slow and steady way the USA bungled and tumbled in Iraq! Eleven years after the U.S. invasion, Iraq remains steeped in violence, with militant extremists gaining ground, civil war hanging in the balance and no clear resolution to the chaos

With staggering pace the invasion proceeded to crumble the Iraqi Army, drove president Saddam Hussein to hide, and and then get caught and put in captivity and rule the streets of Iraq, only to be confronted with the task of securing and governing a complex nation of 30 million people utterly unfathomable to Americans. Not surprisingly the series of bungles started to roll, with almost similar alacrity seen in the invasion. The Iraqi National army was disbanded. Hussein's Ba'ath Party was divested of all professional positions.

 Within hours of disbanding the army insurgency erupted. The de-Ba'thification alienated the skilled Sunnis leaving them disenfranchised, angry and as potential recruits for the nascent insurgency. In a few months the insurgency was in full force.  White House got cold feet driving it to decide to leave Iraq too soon. Authority was handed over to Iraqi Governing Council and American troops withdrew to fortified bases in haste.

This was the situation Sunnis wanted - try and subjugate the Shia majority. Shias patiently bore the brunt of the string of attacks till Iraqi Al Queda, eager to provoke a sectarian war, pushed the Shias over the edge by destroying one of their holiest shrine,(Al-Askari Mosque in Samarra). Fierce reprisal and bloodshed followed cocking a snook at American presence. President Bush responded by hoisting Nouri al-Maliki who it was believed could rally the Shias but also not be perceived ,as too sectarian by the Sunnis and Kurds, as the new Iraqi leader, and on the ground, by what was termed the "surge", - dispatching  an additional 30,000 U.S. troops who moved off the large, fortified bases and into the neighborhoods. The result was that the U.S. forces sustained their heaviest losses during this period as both Sunnis ans Shias turned their ire on the coalition forces. This continued till a truce was arranged with Shias, while the Sunnis were bought out by cash not to attack U.S.troops but only Al Queda. Somehow the Iraqi violence was reduced to a low grade insurgency.

And enter President Obama with his electoral promise of pull out from Iraq and subsequent pull out dateline of Dec.2011. By December 2011, almost all U.S. forces had left Iraq, leaving Maliki to govern on his own. Left to himself, Maliki lost no time to turn against the Sunnis and by a series of actions gave a clear message that  there would be no role for Sunnis in Maliki’s Shia regime.

Disenfranchised Sunnis found an outlet in a militant group that had recently coalesced in the fight against President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. ISIS, which had a reputation for ruthlessness, gained a rapid foothold in Iraq, capturing the towns of Fallujah and Ramadi in January, and Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, in June.

The world was surprised by how quickly the Iraqi army fell to a small force of fighters. Shia militias have stepped in to fill the void, and sectarian killings are on the rise again. The world, not only Iraq, was aghast at the audacious declaration of an Islamic caliphate by ISIS including territories under its control in Iraq and Syria and demanding all Muslims pledge obedience to its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, ISIS is feared as the most noxious outfit of all Muslim terrorist organizations, bloodcurdlingly brutal and savage.“They make bin Laden’s 2011 Al Qaeda look like Boy Scouts.” The throat-cutting ISIS is the fiend that came out of U.S. incursion of Iraq with its professed intention of subjugating the entire Muslim world,  which the U.S is now trying to blast out by aerial bombing.

Kicking Away The Talk.

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

Kicking Away The Talk.

 

 I had earlier in Facebook referred to the foolhardiness that is characteristic of the Islam mind. This trait is a later acquisition as the Qur'an doesn't enjoin its believers to act like that. There is,  however, a streak of violence that is preached in the holy book which I believe is the root cause of Islam's belligerent interactions with the rest of the world. This exhortation to violence to the extent of disregarding the endangering of one's life for perceived causes of defending or promoting the faith and or the followers and the very explicit promise of just and pleasurable rewards in the nether life for the resulting self sacrifice should be held as the prime causative factor for this foolhardiness. While Islam spread with astonishing speed on the wave of sustained crusades or jehads, especially in the then no man's land of Middle-East, and later on, in a good part of the relatively less intellectual or vacuum-lands of the world where at that time the spread met with little resistance, the attempts to further the faith, expanding its credo to an establishment of global Islamic World Order that includes nations  in progressive parts of the world have been resisted and been  the major cause of global strife after the end of world war 2.

The Islamic history is riddled with senseless and mostly self decimating conflicts with the rest of the people   so much so that 95 percent of all world strife is of Muslim origin and or causation,. - whether it is the Middle-East, Bosnia, Cyprus, Afghanistan,Pakistan, Indonesia, Philippines, Nigeria, or the latest Gaza rocketeers, the story is the same. While the non-Muslim nations have progressed to religious liberalism and tolerant democracy, the Muslim nations and people have regressed towards radicalism and theocratic state, spreading in its wake  a scourge of violence in a new form of medieval jehad: the terrorism.

These theocratic states find themselves in continuous conflict, with Jewish Israel, Hindu India, and Christian Europe. Added to their religious bigotry of scriptural origin, they are also the hallucinated sufferers from their history.  They had a hoary history of cultural and scientific advancement as part of the eastern civilizations compared to the rudimentary state of the west in the distant past. But no more so, which they don't realize. The world has gone far ahead of them and reached greater heights while they still wallow in the muddied pit of their decadent medievalism that is now shone of all the assets of the past. Muslims all over the world and specially of the Middle East, their home, want to experience the history as a current reality. In short. their religion teaches them that they are recipients of the final and most perfect revelation of God for which and whose enhancement it is noble to die and reap the reward, while their history tells them that they were able to conquer others.

Muslims of the world are living out this fantasy and chasing the  past chimeras in the present. And Pakistan is just another theocratic medieval Muslim nation living in the illusion of  grandiose Muslim past, and on that account, falling apart refusing to acknowledge reality. They believe that they will emulate the Moguls and pitiably refuse to recognize that in both the wars they fought with India, they came a cropper and with a severed limb that is Bangla Desh. Their nose is still bleeding in Kashmir which only enrages them. So long as the Kashmir bleeds in to their eyes they will be incapable of clear vision and to see what is really happening.

Does any one of them, their govt. their media, the leaders and intelligentsia, halt and ponderfor a moment  what they did achieve in the current episode of their pigheaded  insistence on meeting the separatists and getting the talks bombed. A reluctant Modi govt. finally consented to initiate the resumption of talks due to some bonhomie developed between the two PMs in the immediate wake of swearing-in attendance and the meet that followed, and it took some pleadings by Pakistan to get that consent. Then to to go about and dash all that hope and expectation of better days on  to the hard rock of sheer diplomatic pigheadedness and loose everything gained only to revert to the old state of bleeding and brooding, and finding some consolation in sending more terrorists across the border in to India! Only a Muslim nation can carry it off and bring about its own fiasco.

                                                 Pak High Commissioner Abdul Basit

India's Torpedo at a Smug WTO

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

India's Torpedo at a Smug WTO

 

 Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman at 6th BRICS Summit in Fortaleza, Brazil

Demanding that efforts to promote global trade should be linked to food security, India last Friday at the meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva effectively blocked a Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) that would have clamped restrictions on the freedom of developing countries to subsidize and stockpile food. By and large the Indian media has rather glossed over or muffled the issue.

 India has been pressing for implementation of the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) as a part of a single undertaking that includes a permanent solution on public food stockpile, necessary for its food security programme. It is stockpiling food for its poor, citing the need for food security, which is contrary to the WTO norms. The TFA is scheduled to be implemented in 2015. This agreement, being strongly backed by the US and industrially developed Western countries, is aimed at simplifying customs procedure, increasing transparency and reducing transactions cost. US and other Western countries are craving the revival of their faltering economies through unhindered international trade by way of uniform and easy procedures at customs.

 India pointed out that stockholding as a measure of food security is necessary so that  the millions of farmers and the poor families who depend on domestic food stocks do not have to live in constant fear, and for this purpose, suggested that trade facilitation protocol arrived at the meeting in December last year at the Indonesian resort city of Bali  be postponed till a permanent solution on public stockholding for food security is found. Indian trade officials hastened to assure that India was basically on board with the trade-facilitation measures, but it needed the WTO to go further and start to recognize such  unique issues in India and other developing countries.  India's decision had immediate support of developing countries like Bolivia, Cuba and Venezuela.

India's genuine problems relating to WTO rules on food stockpiling and subsidizing. At the Bali meeting the WTO had proposed a formula that defines how much money a country can spend creating a food stockpile for security and support for farmers. The current WTO norms limit the value of food subsidies at 10 per cent of the total value of food grain production of a country. So the US gives about $120 billion (Rs 7.2 lakh crore) as agricultural subsidy as compared to India’s $12 billion (Rs 72,000 crore).

The subsidy support is measured at prices that are over two decades old, not at current prices and India is asking for a change in the base year (1986) for calculating food subsidies.  India wants the rules changed to allow it to go beyond the limit. India has hundreds of millions of farmers and consumers who are on or just above the poverty line, and  the country needs more freedom to help its citizens. Besides, TFA is replete with conditionalities. For instance, after four years, India can be taken to WTO’s dispute settlement. Moreover, the anti-circumvention/safeguard clause stipulates that counties that use this clause “shall ensure that stocks procured under such programmes do not distort trade”. This is fundamentally against India’s system of minimum support prices and direct procurement that sustain both its PDS as well as farming.

 India agreed to the trade-facilitation package earlier explicitly with the understanding that the WTO members would find some sort of permanent way to address India's demands. While India originally agreed to give the WTO four years to find a permanent solution, it now is not prepared to put the issue on limbo and  wants the solution before it will approve the trade facilitation package. India is of the view that the Trade Facilitation Agreement must be implemented only as part of a single undertaking including the permanent solution on food security. India has the feeling that  the WTO wasn't taking its demands seriously, so it proposed that discussions on how to implement everything agreed to in Bali should be extended until the end of the year. The meet of ministers of the G20  in Sydney on July 19, in which India’s Nirmala Sitharaman also participated, was completely silent over the food security proposal, while it referred specifically to the TFA. This was considered as G20 pushing for its interests while ignoring the critical requirements of the people in developing countries.

Bali meeting was an attempt to jump-start the long-stalled Doha round of WTO talks that began in 2001 in the Qatari capital. The Doha round was an ambitious plan to open up more sectors of the global economy to more trade. But it has been stuck because the WTO depends on consensus for decisions and countries can't agree on many of the controversial changes sought.

 India's tough stand has surprised the west and angered USA, and prompted criticism from a block of 25 WTO members, some of whom said that India's brinkmanship could undermine the international trading system as the country has basically hijacked the trade talks to force a change on one issue. US and other Western countries are craving the revival of their faltering economies through unhindered international trade by way of uniform and easy procedures at customs.  They are also exercised more so because this has  come soon after the announcement of a BRICS bank headquartered in China . One may recall that PM had given the electoral promise to Indian farmers during the elections that the government would ensure a 50% profit margin to them. Top sources in the government said the prime minister was the main moving force behind the tough stand at the WTO by Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

   If the US and EU want the TFA to go through, it will indeed has to give India what it wants. By this India and Modi  send a message to the West which had its doubts over Modi before the elections and, after he became prime minister, whether he had statesman like ability. Some liken this to Atal Bihari Vajpayee seeking to announce India's arrival on the world stage as a global power by testing nuclear weapons in 1998.

"Mowing the Grass". The Israeli Invasion of Gaza

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

"Mowing the Grass". The Israeli Invasion of Gaza

Why did Israel launch an invasion of Gaza unlike in all previous times of precipitate and acute hostilities with Palestinians, Hamas in particular? On the face of it, it can be easily read that the ground offensive was meant for destroying the tunnels used by the Hamas who have fired a steady barrage of rockets into Israel. Hamas use these tunnels to surreptitiously access both Israel and Egypt . But surely, that is not a worthwhile object as Hamas can rebuild the tunnels. Israel has publicly stated that the objectives of the invasion do not include ending Hama's rule in Gaza. Already, Israel has lost more men than they perhaps reckoned with prior to the invasion.    So what was it that prompted them to go into Hamas territory knowing fully well that such aggression will have only temporary impact on Hamas? To answer that, one has to understand the nuances of the security doctrine Israel has been practicing over the years. Ever since its inception until recently, conventional Arab militaries, of countries such as Egypt and Syria, were its greatest threats. Israel fought three wars against its Arab neighbors in 1948, 1967, and 1973. At that time Israel felt that Arab states will not accept its existence and so a peace deal is also impossible. That meant it could only manage the threat and not solve it altogether. It had to live with a certain level of threat and it evolved a strategy of weakening its enemies with occasional military forays before they reach proportions  of existential challenge. It wanted just to ameliorate its security problems until a stable political solution is arrived at, as it was not possible to immediately eliminate the problems. The long confrontation to be punctuated with decisive battle field victories which could force the Arabs to eventually accept Israel's permanence and result in final peace   This was the doctrine that shaped its strategy which it adopted against sovereign nations as well as militant groups since 1948. The strategy worked well for Israel in buying peace with Egypt and later Jordan. Now Israelis see themselves as being under siege by Hamas and like any of those other previous threats, this needs to be managed. You can't defeat Hamas completely. But Israel at the same time realizes that the threat from Hamas is not akin to the Cold War era threats it faced against Arab State's conventional armies. Israel doesn't believe that old strategy will work today with non-state militant groups like Hamas whom it sees as implacable enemies, who want to destroy the Jewish state, and finds little leeway to deal with them politically. So its thinking appears to be in terms of regular military assaults like the present Gaza invasion designed to cripple the military capabilities of Hamas, specially its rocket launching ability. By cropping periodically the Hamas's military capabilities it hopes to lessen their rocket forays, out of fear of retribution. Israel hopes, like Egypt and Jordan, Hamas also will eventually give up on the intent to destroy Israel.   So it has evolved a newer version of its long term strategy of threat management sans elimination which is euphemistically called "mowing the grass", - a creepy term, as it implies periodically killing people. But that's the basic analog, Hamas, like grass, can't disappear, but it can be regularly cut down to size. The Gaza invasion is about 'mowing the grass'.  However, whether the strategy is working well for Israel in the present conflict is yet to become clear. Israel has to realize sooner or later that the world is glaring at it for having only this horrible concept and the resultant dastardly strategy of " mowing the grass', which at best is only a holding pattern. It has no political security strategy of diplomatically resolving the dispute with Palestinians which is essential if it has to survive beyond the occupation of the West Bank and the blockade of Gaza.  The current Gaza invasion, helps Palestinians to put international pressure on Israel to concede to them more favorable terms. And Israel must also recognize that already Hamas has gained in a fashion; it debunked the belief that political stalemate with the Palestinians is cost-free for Israel. It has raised the Palestinian profile and also extracted heavy psychological price from Israel. Empathetic perception of Palestinians as the weak victim confronting a mighty aggressor could be translated into increased international pressure on Israel and isolating it politically and damaging it economically.

The Ukrainian Dire Straits

 Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

 The Ukrainian Dire Straits.

It was Syria for some time, and now Ukraine has been added to the woes of the world. President Obama issued a blunt warning to Moscow on Friday that "there will be costs" if Russia sends its troops into Ukraine, saying he is deeply concerned about reports of Russian military movements in the region. Obama had told a hastily convened White House press gathering that Russian military action would violate international law and "would be deeply destabilizing, which is not in the interests of Ukraine, Russia or Europe. It would represent a profound interference in matters that must be determined by the Ukrainian people."

Obama did not say what the United States will do — or can do — to head off Ukraine's threatened slide toward renewed civil conflict and a possible breakup as pro-Russia militants push for secession in Crimea. But he suggested that there would be some sort of international action if Russia intervened. Americans are worried that what is an unfolding nightmare scenario for them since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, is now manifest in the way Putin tries to establish that Russia is back. Till now, the White House has been cautious regarding Ukraine in part because conflict with Russia could disrupt collaboration on other major problems like U.S. cooperation with Russia on the Syrian civil war, the international effort to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran and other issues.

Dominated by people of Russian origin and affinity Ukaraine's Crimean peninsula is in civil revolt aided and abetted by Russia. Ukraine's acting president accused Russia of trying to seize the territory, a semi-autonomous region of Ukraine that is important to Russia for historical and strategic reasons. Authorities in Ukraine closed airspace over the Crimean peninsula late Friday and reports indicated that multiple Russian transport planes had landed at a military air strip near Simferopol, Crimea's regional capital. Russia leases the Crimean port of Sevastopol, the longtime headquarters of its Black Sea fleet. The region's population is dominated by ethnic Russians.

Acting Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov said Russia was trying to seize territory in Crimea and "provoke us to a military conflict." Although Kiev retains control over Ukrainian military forces in the western and central areas of the country, and even most Russian-leaning areas in the east have refrained from defying the new government, it feels  troops in Crimea may not be reliable in the face of the local population's rejection of Kiev's authority. With pro-Russia gunmen at airports and communications centers, it was unclear whether Kiev could bring in forces to challenge any Russian buildup.

Washington and its European allies have an untested relationship with the fragile new pro-Western government in Kiev, Ukraine's capital. Vice President Joe Biden spoke with Ukraine's prime minister by phone to promise U.S. support, White House advisors said. The president has reportedly directed his aides to coordinate with European allies and to communicate directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin's government. The West's greatest point of leverage, a promised multibillion-dollar bailout to help Ukraine's economy avoid collapse, faces resistance in Congress and in financially strained European capitals.

 It may be that Russia is back, - and back with a bang.

Aam Aadmi Party's Anarchy

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

Aam Aadmi Party's Anarchy.

 It may be some time before Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) realizes the damage wrought to its image by the anarchist dharna they staged in Delhi, thoughtlessly forgetting themselves, forgetting the aam aadmi, and forgetting the constitutional position and responsibilities held by its ministers. But people will not forget the potentially great damage to the rule of law and civic order in the capital city of India that loomed large while it lasted. People have also marked in mind AAP's utter arrogance, the rowdy language, and the insolent contempt they exhibited towards the observance of Republic Day. They have now branded themselves as a third-rate band of morons totally devoid of propriety and civility, not to speak of any governance capability. They are now self-confessed anarchists.

AAP's main plank as a political party was anti-corruption crusade and they were able to instill an impression among people long suffering from corruption that they are obsessed with it , and that only a party singularly obsessed with anti-corruption spirit could combat the menace effectively. But what was the performance they displayed immediately after the elections that catapulted them to the second place in the run? They had declared in pre-election time that they as a political party are holier and purer than mainstream parties and the latter being corrupt are untouchables to them. No truck with any of them. But the moment Congress, the most corrupt of all  and therefore the most untouchable, literally offered its hand in support, they decided to grab it in order to occupy the coveted power chair. That one act itself had made them polluted in their own terms , a betrayer not to be trusted anymore, and as bad as any others, when it comes to breaking own words.

Having climbed to power laterally and on the shoulders of Congress, they found themselves prisoners of their untenable promises made recklessly in the activist mode, while further handicapped by inexperience. Tinkering of the establishment by greenhorns could result only in gimmickry and counterfeits. They thrust their hands deep in to people's pocket( the exchequer) and picked enough money to pay the companies as subsidy, bought some current and water and offered it back to the people as their freebies. This was charlatanism. Companies were happy. If this is the way AAP is going to govern they are more than welcome, said the companies. And people found to their dismay that the so called freebies had gone straight to the rich who were laughing merrily as only the rich can laugh at gimmicks.

If we come to power Sheila Dikshit and coterie and all the  scamsters will find themselves in prison, Kejriwal had thundered pre-election. Instead he found himself a prisoner of Shela Dikshit and coterie and at their mercy in sustaining his life in power.  Having tasted power and already  feeling  distasteful without it , the Congress sins had suddenly become invisible for him. All of a sudden he wanted proof, yes proof for believing Congress is corrupt and 'untouchable'. As many people are saying, Kejriwal is the biggest liar at
present in stock in India.