It's quite obvious that my previous post needs heavy updating. When I posted it, Musharraf was still the General, lawyers still protested, Choudhury was still the Chief Justice, and there was no bloodless end in sight (there still isn't, actually)

Well, Musharraf shed his army camos for good and got into the seemingly humble suit-and-tie of a civilian president, while the world hushed and gaped at this previously unpredicted event. But, well, after the ceremonies were over and newspapers found different headlines, a thought started lingering in my mind.
Is there ANY difference at all between now, and then?
-Musharraf is not the Chief-of-Staff anymore, but he's now the legally elected Supreme Commander
-The new general (whose name i cant remember now), has been "hand-picked" by Musharraf
-Emergency has been lifted, prime ministerial elections scheduled, and almost every other short-term problem solved.

more after more research :)

A thing or two from good old Pervez

General Pervez Musharraf, Chief of Pakistan Army & President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, has more than one reason to worry. For one thing, the upcoming 2008 Presidential elections may just strip him off either, or both, of his offices. But what’s of bigger concern now is that, the General is cornered in the same country where seven years ago he overthrew the reigning government and set up a rule of his own.

The Chief is cornered, and how. The extremist forces, especially Taliban, take the biggest responsibility in this.

US and NATO intelligence reports say that al Qaeda and Taliban are operating camps and outfits in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan. And predictably, the US has directed Musharraf to ‘compulsorily’ take ‘military actions’ against the extremists, else all development funds will stop. Just as Musharraf tried to abide by this and ordered prompt military action in the Lal Masjid case, the same military action was considered by many Islamists across the country as a war cry. Almost all worshippers and students of madarsas connected to the Lal Masjid declined to pray when the government appointed a new cleric in the masjid (which was also given an off-white colour).

Again, as Musharraf tried to strike a balance between US wants and his countrymen’s changing stances, the lawyers and justices of his country chose the same time to prove their point against the general’s authoritarian and anti-democratic actions against the Judiciary (when he unconditionally removed Chief Justice Mohammed Ifthikhar Choudhary). Again, the judiciary, along with Justice Choudhary, took it up then as a war-cry and made sure office is restored, in a perfectly legal way, to Choudhary.

Then again you have 2008 poll contenders and former Prime Ministers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto. Sharif is still on exile and is burning midnight oil planning ways to enter into his motherland. Bhutto, on the other hand, seems to have tried to strike a secret understanding with Musharraf. If this seemed to be some sort of relief for the General, then the media promptly reported that during the Lal Masjid crisis, both leaders remained mum.

Amid such uncertainties and political disasters, the good old Kashmir issue still exists. Obviously only a robot can think of so many problems at once, but Musharraf (and India) very well knows the fact that the more troubles he has inside his country, the lesser time he can give to the Kashmir dispute. And the lesser time any country gives to the Kashmir dispute, more the number of infiltrations and security lapses.

As I said, Musharraf is cornered. His political, military, diplomatic, and unfortunately even biological life seems to be very uncertain. It is in this situation that I feel somebody should shed a tear for the General, and try to remember what all he did that can be learnt by individuals, and nation states. The list, however, is short.

Firstly, Musharraf’s stance towards the Kashmir issue should be applauded. From the general who once forced his army into the region to the general who came to the same country and gave a diplomatically-approvable 5-point peace program, is an impressive journey. Also, the general gave his nod to the Iran-Pak-India pipeline, a file he could have kept in cold storage for a long long time.

Secondly, the strong attitude shown by him against Islamic extremists in his own country is a brave lesson. Sure he was under tremendous pressure from US and other allies, but taking such an unprecedented strong action should not go unnoticed.

Lastly, I would like to stress on just one small point. As of today, the disputes between India and Pakistan, including the Kashmir dispute, can have horribly negative implications including heavy terrorist actions and/or nuclear war.

It is at that behest that I feel that having a dictator in Pakistan who doesn’t mind striking peace initiatives with us and who takes anti-extremism seriously, is not just necessary but also a matter of extreme importance.

Encountering Reality

We as Indians have grown up hearing about so called "encounter specialists": policemen who are enough cold-blooded to kill innocent people and declare it as an "encounter" thus slipping away from the judiciary. Even movies have portrayed this side of our "free and independent" judiciary. True, the provision of encounter has done good to the society before and one can cite many examples where dangerous criminals have been caught or killed by the police just because they could 'do an encounter'.
Till now, there have been hundreds, even thousands of such cases. Sadly, in almost all of them, the criminal policemen have escaped. This is probably one of the biggest loop-holes in our justice system, and hardly any effort has been made to do anything about it.

If you noticed news headline over the past week, you will find a lot about a certain Sohrabuddin and his wife and how they were allegedly killed by policemen in a conspiracy that reaches high offices of the Indian Police Service.

On November 26, 2005 Sohrabuddin Sheikh, a petty criminal and his wife were abducted by the Gujarat Police from a Belgaum-bound Inter-state bus. The husband was encountered soon. And, according to recent reports, his wife became a victim too.

Almost one and half years later, on 23 April2007, CID named the encounter as fake and arrested three senior IPS officers in connection with the same. Two of them belonged to the Gujarat Police while the third to the Rajasthan Police.

Soon the blame game began and is, in fact, still in progress.

The Gujarat police named the slain as a Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist, and said that he was planning a murder of Gujarat CM Narendra Modi. The Rajasthan Police defended its police officer. The Gujarat Government then blamed the Andhra Pradesh Police for being 'hand-in-gloves'. And on and on, as it always does.

This blog is being written neither in defence of the victim, nor in defence of the police. The blogger neither cares where the supreme court case goes nor does he want to think of the political repurcussions. The sole purpose here is to make the reader aware of the increasing insecurity among citizens, innocent and criminals. This country is a democracy, right? its not an autocracy where no reasons can be given for most of the things that happen.

How come policemen, including the top brass, indulge in something as bad as cold-blooded murder? How come the judiciary remains with absolutely no law with which it can contain such offense? Why is it that most of these offenders move scots-free among us, even today?

I dont know whether this is a case of human rights or municipal law. i dont know if it is worth taking to the court. I dont even know if its worth talking about at all.

All I know is that whats happening is not right, and none of us are very safe with this very dangerous loophole still in place.

Think about it next time you hear of the neighbourhood 'encounter specialist' who will charge just a small sum to get your enemy slained.

New NCERT Textbooks (Phew!)

I just read a report in the Outlook magazine about the new face of NCERT (National Council for Educational Research & Training; the guys in-charge of making textbooks for CBSE students) textbooks of political science and civics for class 12. All I could say after that was: "Phew! About time!"
Finally finally finally and finally, students won't be compelled to read paragraphs over paragraphs about the Indian constitutional and political structure. I remember that when I was reading those books in my 9th standard I actually thought that whats written in the books and what actually happens outside are supposed to be two totally different things. Not any more.
These new books now cover Indian political scenario in the *real* sense. All this limited upto some extent of course.
What I found to be the best was in the field of world politics, the textbook habitually iterated the word "US hegemony". Yes, they used that word in a textbook. Unbelievable, eh?
What can be a more realistic interpretation of the world than that?
If the report on the textbooks is believed to be correct, then these new books are going to present to the students the completely real world scenario: where the US uses its hegemony all over the world for its personal interests.
Yet, the best thing is that at the end of the day (rather at the end of the chapter) there is no bias or personal opinion about anything. Its all given in a balanced manner, and it is upto the student to analyse for himself/herself.

I believe that this is a major landamark in the history of indian education. Accolades to the NCERT for taking such a brave step inspite of growing political opposition against it (another hegemony?).



And.... the show is not over yet!!! What actually shows that the NCERT has come-of-age is a series of cartoons showcasing Unni and Munni, two typically indian characters, who comment on things in the text and beyond it.
My favourite is the one where Unni says "I don't know why they use difficult words like hegemony. In my town, its called dadagiri. Isn't that much better?"

Really, isn't that much better?

israel: the battleground we all know

Jewish tradition holds that the land of israel has been a Jewish holy land and promised land for three thousand years. The land of Israel holds a special place in Jewish religious obligations, encompassing Judaism's most important sites (such as the remains of the 1st and 2nd temples of the Jewish king, Solomon).
Predictably so, Jews from all over the world have always sought to migrate to their "holy land", Israel. Waves of immigration have taken place right from the thirteenth century till 2006.
As we all know, israel is situated in the middle-eastern world. the world of the arabs.
thus it is rather obvious that arabs would have already settled in the israeli land, whether or not it is holy for them. During the first large immigration in 1881, Jews bought land from the ottomans and the arabs. This increased tensions between the resident Arabs and the Jewish communities.
During the holocaust, immigration of jews into israel increased exponentially. Subsequently, there was a revolt in 1936-39 by the resident Arabs who were against their becoming a minority in israel and demanded elections. This compelled the British to issue the White Paper of 1939 which restricted the number of jew immigrants to 75000. The jews were also restricted from buying land. The White Paper was seen as a betrayal by the Jewish community and Zionists, who perceived it as being in conflict with the Balfour Declaration. The Arabs were not satisfied either, as they wanted Jewish immigration to be halted completely.
Many scuffles followed and even though Israel was recognised as a state in 1948, the enmity between the Jews and Arabs was never reduced to zero.
There were numerous wars not just inside the territory of Israel but between Israel and other Arab nations like egypt, jordan, syria etc. like the six-day war, the war of attrition and the yom kippur war.
Even though these wars were of the "conventional" nature involving the four dimensions, the dominance of the fifth dimension cannot be ignored. These wars had occured due to the fundamentalist nature of two different cultures and their quest for dominance in a small territory.
Could this wars have been prevented by facilitating cultural changes? Or can we still do it?
(to be continued)

pope's remarks against islam:

On september 14 2006, pope benedict XVI while delivering a lecture at the university of regensburg quoted a passage from a 14th century book written by the then emperor of byzantine. The passage said, " Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."Naturally, there was immense opposition from Islamic leaders and islamic lobbies from around the world.This is another example of a war in the fifth dimension. A war not fought with guns and explosives, but with words.Why the pope chose to quote such a controversial passage in an unanswered question, although one may safely comment upon it. The rivalry between the religions of islam and christianity is well known. this rivalry has been fuelled by islamic fundamentalism and terrorism that has done much harm to states with a christian majority.Today, in the United states, a lot of people despise muslims. After the september 11 attack, there were many cases of muslims being killed or tortured all across the "christian" world. Why did this happen?Many people in the US don't know enough about islam. for them, a muslim is the man who prays five times a day and wears a skull cap most of the times.In short, there has not been enough cultural assimilation among the muslims and the christians.A cultural change may help us out in this situation. By a cultural change, I mean cultural assimilation between the muslims and the christians. How many christians know about famous muslims?People should be allowed by the society and the religion to mix freely with other religions and be culturally one with them. There should be a number of agencies and events through which muslims and christians can come together and work on similar grounds. One may go even further to say that the scriptures of religions should be modified, so as to increase the tolerance against people of other religions.Just think of the americans who killed muslims post-9/11. would they have resorted to such violence had they been intimately related to a muslim, or visited mosques or tombs? would they have been so lethal if they were taught the positive aspects of the islam religion and its contributin to today's world? would they have killed muslims if in their neigbourhood, there wasn't a single world spoken against muslims?and, would the pope, in full media presence, have chosen to quote just that particular passage, had he been culturally educated and culturally friendly with islam?

"And Then There Were None" ... Agatha Christie

I know this book was published long ago and has been read and adored by thousands, but I stumbled upon it recently and couldn't think of not writing a decent review for it so here goes...

Ten people. Only ten people on a lonely island. No means of communicating with the outer world. All perfect strangers. An unknown invitee.
And an untimely death.
Nine people left, totally astounded when amongst them, another dies.
And the toll continues....

This is probably the most thrilling of all Agatha Christie novels, with a splendidly strong storyline supporting the chilling story of ten strangers who were invited to a mysterious island by an unknown person.
The island mentioned above, called the Soldier Island, was caught in a nation-wide media-hyped controversy about its ownership. Amidst this came an invitation to eight totally different people for different reasons, to come and spend some time at the island.
A butler and his wife are commissioned to attend to the guests.
When these eight people arrive at the island and are introduced to the magnificent bunglow the bulter announces that the person who invited all of them won't be able to come for a few days.
Slowly as the strangers start knowing each other, an untimely incident shakes them all. Just as they are all trying to cope with this, there occurs a sudden death. And the saga continues.

This book speaks of the hard work Christie must have put in , considering the complex-ness of the plot and the need for clear explanations to the deaths occuring. She does the excellent job of not letting the reader settle his conviction on any one character.

Read this if you are interested in reading something mysterious, something that tickles your suspicions. Read this novel if you want to see for yourself how an author can weave webs of suspicion, mystery and thrill... from simple words.

"And Then There Were None" ... Agatha Christie

I know this book was published long ago and has been read and adored by thousands, but I stumbled upon it recently and couldn't think of not writing a decent review for it so here goes...

Ten people. Only ten people on a lonely island. No means of communicating with the outer world. All perfect strangers. An unknown invitee.
And an untimely death.
Nine people left, totally astounded when amongst them, another dies.
And the toll continues....

This is probably the most thrilling of all Agatha Christie novels, with a splendidly strong storyline supporting the chilling story of ten strangers who were invited to a mysterious island by an unknown person.
The island mentioned above, called the Soldier Island, was caught in a nation-wide media-hyped controversy about its ownership. Amidst this came an invitation to eight totally different people for different reasons, to come and spen some time at the island.
A butler and his wife are commissioned to attend to the guests.
When these eight people arrive at the island and are introduced to the magnificent bunglow the bulter announces that the person who invited all of them won't be able to come for a few days.
Slowly as the strangers start knowing each other, an untimely incident shakes them all. Just as they are all trying to cope with this, there occurs a sudden death. And the saga continues.
It shows how much hard work Christie must have put in making this novel, considering the complex-ness of the plot and the need for clear explanations to the deaths occuring. She does the excellent job of not letting the reader have his conviction upon a certain character for long.

Read this if you are interested in reading something mysterious, something that tickles your suspicions. Read this novel if you want to see for yourself how can an author weave a web of suspicion, mystery and thrill from mere words.

MAD II - End of Madness

(by the way, this is the second part of the previous post so i would suggest you to read that first and then this one...)

I was in a really miserable condition when I worte the last post.
Well, more miserable times followed.
I cleared the interview of UoH, dammmit. My parents told me to go for it and forget fergusson. I weighed my options and decided that, keeping in mind my future and my ambitions, I should continue in Fergusson College.



So, well, here i am in pune, enjoying college life to its fullest and savouring the decision that made me go through real MAD times!!!