Palash Speaks

The Mercenary State?
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashbiswaskl@gmail.com">palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
From: Pal-REFUGEE

Will History Repeat Itself?
Is this the

The Mercenary State? Palash Biswas Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551 Email: palashbiswaskl@gmail.com From: Pal-REFUGEE Will History Repeat Itself? Is this the ?clash of civilizations? that the Neocons had advocated ? and have worked so hard to advance? Over the past century, the nations that initiated the two major wars eventually came to regret them. Is it likely that this history may repeat itself? By M. Shahid Alam Special to PalestineChronicle.com ".....Why, then, did the US not target Pakistan? Six years later, this question is not less pertinent: and for two reasons. After being stalled by the Iraqi resistance, US plans for war against Iran are again gathering steam. If Iran is such a tempting target, why not take a few potshots at Pakistan also?..... Yet, there has been little talk in Washington or Tel Aviv about adding Pakistan to the ?axis of evil.? This is the Pakistani paradox. This paradox has a simple explanation. In Pakistan, the US had effected regime change without a change of regime. Almost overnight, following the attacks of 9-11, the US had drafted the Pakistani military to wage war against Muslim extremists. The US had gained an army: and Pakistan?s military dictators had gained longevity...... This Latin American approach to counter-insurgency is not likely to work in Pakistan. Their military juntas were firmly rooted in the elites and middle classes, set apart from the leftist insurgents ? mostly Amerindians or Mestizos ? by both class and race. The boundary between the adversaries in Latin America was firmly drawn. In Pakistan, the insurgents are Muslim nationalists. They are drawn mainly from Pashtun peasants, but they enjoy broad support among the peasants as well as the middle classes all over Pakistan. On the other side, about a fourth of Pakistan army consists of Pashtuns; and mid- and low-ranking officers are middle-class in their origin and orientation. Only the top military brass identify firmly with the elites......" # posted by Tony : 6:18 PM Human Rights International, msngroups The Myth of al-Qaeda in Iraq Fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq is the last big argument for keeping U.S. troops in the country. But the military's estimation of the threat is alarmingly wrong. By Andrew Tilghman 09/09/07 "Washington Monthly " -- --- In March 2007, a pair of truck bombs tore through the Shiite marketplace in the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar, killing more than 150 people. The blast reduced the ancient city center to rubble, leaving body parts and charred vegetables scattered amid pools of blood. It was among the most lethal attacks to date in the five-year-old Iraq War. Within hours, Iraqi officials in Baghdad had pinned the bombing on al-Qaeda, and news reports from Reuters, the BBC, MSNBC, and others carried those remarks around the world. An Internet posting by the terrorist group known as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) took credit for the destruction. Within a few days, U.S. Army General David Petraeus publicly blamed AQI for the carnage, accusing the group of trying to foment sectarian violence and ignite a civil war. Back in Washington, pundits latched on to the attack with special interest, as President Bush had previously touted a period of calm in Tal Afar as evidence that the military's retooled counterinsurgency doctrine was working. For days, reporters and bloggers debated whether the attacks signaled a "resurgence" of al-Qaeda in the city. Yet there's reason to doubt that AQI had any role in the bombing. In the weeks before the attack, sectarian tensions had been simmering after a local Sunni woman told Al Jazeera television that she had been gang-raped by a group of Shiite Iraqi army soldiers. Multiple insurgent groups called for violence to avenge the woman's honor. Immediately after the blast, some in uniform expressed doubts about al- Qaeda's alleged role and suggested that homegrown sectarian strife was more likely at work. "It's really not al-Qaeda who has infiltrated so much as the fact [of] what happened in 2003," said Ahmed Hashim, a professor at the Naval War College who served as an Army political adviser to the 3rd Cavalry Regiment in Tal Afar until shortly before the bombing. "The formerly dominant Sunni Turkmen majority there," he told PBS's NewsHour With Jim Lehrer soon after the bombing, "suddenly ... felt themselves having been thrown out of power. And this is essentially their revenge." A week later, Iraqi security forces raided a home outside Tal Afar andarrested two men suspected of orchestrating the bombing. Yet when the U.S. military issued a press release about the arrests, there was no mention of an al-Qaeda connection. The suspects were never formally charged, and nearly six months later neither the U.S. military nor Iraqi police are certain of the source of the attacks. In recent public statements, the military has backed off its former allegations that al-Qaeda was responsible, instead asserting, as Lieutenant Colonel Michael Donnelly wrote in response to an inquiry from the Washington Monthly, that "the tactics used in this attack are consistent with al-Qaeda." This scenario has become common. After a strike, the military rushes to point the finger at al-Qaeda, even when the actual evidence remains hazy and an alternative explanation?raw hatred between local Sunnis and Shiites?might fit the circumstances just as well. The press blasts such dubious conclusions back to American citizens and policy makers in Washington, and the incidents get tallied and quantified in official reports, cited by the military in briefings in Baghdad. The White House then takes the reports and crafts sound bites depicting AQI as the number one threat to peace and stability in Iraq. (In July, for instance, at Charleston Air Force Base, the president gave a speech about Iraq that mentioned al-Qaeda ninety-five times.) By now, many in Washington have learned to discount the president's rhetorical excesses when it comes to the war. But even some of his harshest critics take at face value the estimates provided by the military about AQI's presence. Politicians of both parties point to such figures when forming their positions on the war. All of the top three Democratic presidential candidates have argued for keeping some American forces in Iraq or the region, citing among other reasons the continued threat from al-Qaeda. But what if official military estimates about the size and impact of al-Qaeda in Iraq are simply wrong? Indeed, interviews with numerous military and intelligence analysts, both inside and outside of government, suggest that the number of strikes the group has directed represent only a fraction of what official estimates claim. Further, al-Qaeda's presumed role in leading the violence through uniquely devastating attacks that catalyze further unrest may also be overstated. Having been led astray by flawed prewar intelligence about WMDs, official Washington wants to believe it takes a more skeptical view of the administration's information now. Yet Beltway insiders seem to be making almost precisely the same mistakes in sizing up al-Qaeda in Iraq. Despite President Bush's near-singular focus on al-Qaeda in Iraq, most in Washington understand that instability on the ground stems from multiple sources. Numerous attacks on both U.S . troops and Iraqi civilians have been the handiwork of Shiite militants, often connected to, or even part of, the Iraqi government. Opportunistic criminal gangs engage in some of the same heinous tactics. The Sunni resistance is also comprised of multiple groups. The first consists of so-called "former regime elements." These include thousands of ex-officers from Saddam's old intelligence agency, the Mukabarat, and from the elite paramilitary unit Saddam Fedayeen. Their primary goal is to drive out the U.S. occupation and install a Sunni-led government hostile to Iranian influence. Some within this broad group support reconciliation with the current government or negotiations with the United States, under the condition that American forces set a timetable for a troop withdrawal. The second category consists of homegrown Iraqi Sunni religious groups, such as the Mujahadeen Army of Iraq. These are native Iraqis who aim to install a religious-based government in Baghdad, similar to the regime in Tehran. These groups use religious rhetoric and terrorist tactics but are essentially nationalistic in their aims. Al-Qaeda in Iraq comprises the third group. The terrorist network was founded in 2003 by the now-dead Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. (The extent of the group's organizational ties to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda is hotly debated, but the organizations share a worldview and set of objectives.) AQI is believed to have the most non-Iraqis in its ranks, particularly among its leadership. However, most recent assessments say the rank and file are mostly radicalized Iraqis. AQI, which calls itself the "Islamic State of Iraq," espouses the most radical form of Islam and calls for the imposition of strict sharia, or Islamic law. The group has no plans for a future Iraqi government and instead hopes to create a new Islamic caliphate with borders reaching far beyond Mesopotamia. The essential questions are: How large is the presence of AQI, in terms of manpower and attacks instigated, and what role does the group play in catalyzing further violence? For the first question, the military has produced an estimate. In a background briefing this July in Baghdad, military officials said that during the first half of this year AQI accounted for 15 percent of attacks in Iraq. That figure was also cited in the military intelligence report during final preparations for a National Intelligence Estimate in July. This is the number on which many military experts inside the Beltway rely. Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution who attended the Baghdad background briefing, explained that he thought the estimate derived from a comprehensive analysis by teams of local intelligence agents who examine the type and location of daily attacks, and their intended targets, and crosscheck that with reports from Iraqi informants and other data, such as intercepted phone calls. "It's a fairly detailed kind of assessment," O'Hanlon said. "Obviously you can't always know who is behind an attack, but there is a fairly systematic way of looking at the attacks where they can begin to make a pretty informed guess." Yet those who have worked on estimates inside the system take a more circumspect view. Alex Rossmiller, who worked in Iraq as an intelligence officer for the Department of Defense, says that real uncertainties exist in assigning responsibility for attacks. "It was kind of a running joke in our office," he recalls. "We would sarcastically refer to everybody as al-Qaeda." To describe AQI's presence, intelligence experts cite a spectrum of estimates, ranging from 8 percent to 15 percent. The fact that such "a big window" exists, says Vincent Cannistraro, former chief of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, indicates that "[those experts] really don't have a very good perception of what is going on." It's notable that military intelligence reports have opted to cite a figure at the very top of that range. But even the low estimate of 8 percent may be an overstatement, if you consider some of the government's own statistics. The first instructive set of data comes from the U.S.-sponsored Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. In March, the organization analyzed the online postings of eleven prominent Sunni insurgent groups, including AQI, tallying how many attacks each group claimed. AQI took credit for 10 percent of attacks on Iraqi security forces and Shiite militias (forty-three out of 439 attacks), and less than 4 percent of attacks on U.S. troops (seventeen out of 357). Although these Internet postings should not be taken as proof positive of the culprits, it's instructive to remember that PR-conscious al- Qaeda operatives are far more likely to overstate than understate their role. When turning to the question of manpower, military officials told the New York Times in August that of the roughly 24,500 prisoners in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq (nearly all of whom are Sunni), just 1,800?about 7 percent?claim allegiance to al-Qaeda in Iraq. Moreover, the composition of inmates does not support the assumption that large numbers of foreign terrorists, long believed to be the leaders and most hard-core elements of AQI, are operating inside Iraq. In August, American forces held in custody 280 foreign nationals?slightly more than 1 percent of total inmates. The State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), which arguably has the best track record for producing accurate intelligence assessments, last year estimated that AQI's membership was in a range of "more than 1,000." When compared with the military's estimate for the total size of the insurgency?between 20,000 and 30,000 full-time fighters?this figure puts AQI forces at around 5 percent. When compared with Iraqi intelligence's much larger estimates of the insurgency?200,000 fighters?INR's estimate would put AQI forces at less than 1 percent. This year, the State Department dropped even its base-level estimate, because, as an official explained, "the information is too disparate to come up with a consensus number." How big, then, is AQI? The most persuasive estimate I've heard comes from Malcolm Nance, the author of The Terrorists of Iraq and a twenty-year intelligence veteran and Arabic speaker who has worked with military and intelligence units tracking al-Qaeda inside Iraq. He believes AQI includes about 850 full-time fighters, comprising 2 percent to 5 percent of the Sunni insurgency. "Al-Qaeda in Iraq," according to Nance, "is a microscopic terrorist organization." So how did the military come up with an estimate of 15 percent, when government data and many of the intelligence community's own analysts point to estimates a fraction of that size? The problem begins at the top. When the White House singles out al-Qaeda in Iraq for special attention, the bureaucracy responds by creating procedures that hunt down more evidence of the organization. The more manpower assigned to focus on the group, the more evidence is uncovered that points to it lurking in every shadow. "When you have something that is really hot, the leaders start tasking everyone to look into that," explains W. Patrick Lang, a retired U.S. Army colonel and former head of Middle East intelligence analysis for the Department of Defense. "Whoever is at the top of the pyramid says, 'Make me a briefing showing what al-Qaeda in Iraq is doing,' and then the decision maker says, 'Aha, I knew I was right.'" With disproportionate resources dedicated to tracking AQI, the search has become a self-reinforcing loop. The Army has a Special Operations task force solely dedicated to tracking al-Qaeda in Iraq. The Defense Intelligence Agency tracks AQI through its Iraq office and its counterterrorism office. The result is more information culled, more PowerPoint slides created, and, ultimately, more attention drawn to AQI, which amplifies its significance in the minds of military and intelligence officers. "Once people look at everything through that lens, al-Qaeda is all they see," said Larry Johnson, a former CIA officer who also worked at the U.S. State Department's Office of Counterterrorism. "It sort of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy." Ground-level analysts in the field, facing pressures from superiors to document AQI's handiwork, might be able to question such assumptions if they had strong intelligence networks on the ground. Unfortunately, that's rarely the case. The intelligence community's efforts are hobbled by too few Arabic speakers in their ranks and too many unreliable informants in Iraqi communities, rendering a hazy picture that is open to interpretations. Because uncertainty exists, the bar for labeling an attack the work of al-Qaeda can be very low. The fact that a detainee possesses al-Qaeda pamphlets or a laptop computer with cached jihadist Web sites, for example, is at times enough for analysts to link a detainee to al-Qaeda. "Sometimes it's as simple as an anonymous tip that al-Qaeda is active in a certain village, so they will go out on an operation and whoever they roll up, we call them al-Qaeda," says Alex Rossmiller. "People can get labeled al-Qaeda anywhere along in the chain of events, and it's really hard to unlabel them." Even when the military backs off explicit statements that AQI is responsible, as with the Tal Afar truck bombings, the perception that an attack is the work of al-Qaeda is rarely corrected. The result can be baffling for the troops working on the ground, who hear the leadership characterizing the conflict in Iraq in ways that do not necessarily match what they see in the dusty and danger-laden villages. Michael Zacchea, a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Reserves who was deployed to Iraq, said he was sometimes skeptical of upper-level analysis emphasizing al-Qaeda in Iraq rather than the insurgency's local roots. "It's very, very frustrating for everyone involved who is trying to do the right thing," he said. "That's not how anyone learned to play the game when we were officers coming up the ranks, and we were taught to provide clear battlefield analysis." Even if the manpower and number of attacks attributed to AQI have been exaggerated?and they have?many observers maintain that what is uniquely dangerous about the group is not its numbers, but the spectacular nature of its strikes. While homegrown Sunni and Shiite militias engage for the most part in tit-for-tat violence to forward sectarian ends, AQI's methods are presumed to be different?more dramatic, more inflammatory, and having a greater ripple effect on the country's fragile political environment. "The effect of al-Qaeda has been far beyond the numbers that they field," explains Thomas Donnelly, resident fellow for defense and national security at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. "The question is, What attacks are likely to have the most destabilizing political and strategic affects?" He points, as do many inside the administration, to the February 2006 bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samara, a revered Shiite shrine, as a paramount example of AQI's outsize influence. President Bush has laid unqualified blame for the Samara bombing on al-Qaeda, and described the infamous incident?and ensuing sectarian violence?as a fatal tipping point toward the current unrest. But is this view of AQI's vanguard role in destabilizing Iraq really true? There are three reasons to question that belief. First, although spectacular attacks were a distinctive AQI hallmark early in the war, the group has since lost its monopoly on bloody fireworks. After five years of shifting alliances, cross-pollination of tactics, and copycat attacks, other insurgent groups now launch equally dramatic and politically charged attacks. For example, a second explosion at the Samara mosque in June 2007, which destroyed the shrine's minarets and sparked a wave of revenge attacks on Sunni mosques nationwide, may have been an inside job. U.S. military officials said fifteen uniformed men from the Shiite-run Iraqi Security Forces were arrested for suspected involvement in the attack. Second, it remains unclear whether the original Samara bombing was itself the work of AQI. The group never took credit for the attack, as it has many other high-profile incidents. The man who the military believe orchestrated the bombing, an Iraqi named Haitham al-Badri, was both a Samara native and a former high-ranking government official under Saddam Hussein. (His right-hand man, Hamed Jumaa Farid al-Saeedi, was also a former military intelligence officer in Saddam Hussein's army.) Key features of the bombing did not conform to the profile of an AQI attack. For example, the bombers did not target civilians, or even kill the Shiite Iraqi army soldiers guarding the mosque, both of which are trademark tactics of AQI. The planners also employed sophisticated explosive devices, suggesting formal military training common among former regime officers, rather than the more bluntly destructive tactics typical of AQI. Finally, Samara was the heart of Saddam's power base, where former regime fighters keep tight control over the insurgency. Frank "Greg" Ford, a retired counterintelligence agent for the Army Reserves, who worked with the Army in Samara before the 2006 bombing, says that the evidence points away from AQI and toward a different conclusion: "The Baathists directed that attack," says Ford. Third, while some analysts believe that AQI drafts Baathist insurgents to carry out its attacks, other intelligence experts think it is the other way around. In other words, they see evidence of native insurgent forces coopting the steady stream of delusional extremists seeking martyrdom that AQI brings into Iraq. "Al-Qaeda can't operate anywhere in Iraq without kissing the ring of the former regime," says Nance. "They can't move car bombs full of explosives and foreign suicide bombers through a city without everyone knowing who they are. They need to be facilitated." Thus new foreign fighters "come through and some local Iraqis will say, 'Okay, why don't you go down to the Ministry of Defense building downtown.'" AQI recruits often find themselves taking orders from a network of former regime insurgents, who assemble their car bombs and tell them what to blow up. They become, as Nance says, "puppets for the other insurgent groups." The view that AQI is neither as big nor as lethal as commonly believed is widespread among working-level analysts and troops on the ground. A majority of those interviewed for this article believe that the military's AQI estimates are overblown to varying degrees. If such misgivings are common, why haven't doubts pricked the public debate? The reason is that alternate views are running up against an echo chamber of powerful players all with an interest in hyping AQI's role. The first group that profits from an outsize focus on AQI are former regime elements, and the tribal chiefs with whom they are often allied. These forces are able to carry out attacks against Shiites and Americans, but also to shift the blame if it suits their purposes. While the U.S. military has recently touted "news" that Sunni insurgents have turned against the al-Qaeda terrorists in Anbar Province, there is little evidence of actual clashes between these two groups. Sunni insurgents in Anbar have largely ceased attacks on Americans, but some observers suggest that this development has less to do with vanquishing AQI than with the fact that U.S. troops now routinely deliver cash-filled duffle bags to tribal sheiks serving as "lead contractors" on "reconstruction projects." The excuse of fighting AQI comes in handy. "Remember, Iraq is an honor society," explains Juan Cole, an Iraq expert and professor of modern Middle Eastern studies at the University of Michigan. "But if you say it wasn't us?it was al-Qaeda?then you don't lose face." The second benefactor is the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, often the first to blame specific attacks on AQI. Talking about "al-Qaeda" offers the government a politically correct way of talking about Sunni violence without seeming to blame the Sunnis themselves, to whom they are ostensibly trying to reach out in a unity government. On a deeper level, however, the al-Maliki regime has very limited popular support, and the government officials and ruling Islamic Dawa Party feel an imperative to include Iraqi troubles in the broader "global war in terrorism" in order to keep U.S. troops in the country. In June, when faced with increasingly uncomfortable pressure from the Americans for his failure to resolve key political issues, al-Maliki warned that Iraqi intelligence had found evidence of a "widespread and dangerous plan by the terrorist al-Qaeda organization" to mount attacks outside of Iraq. Elsewhere within the Shiite bloc of Iraqi politics, Moqtada al-Sadr has his own reasons for playing up the idea of AQI. "The Sadrists want to overstate the role of al-Qaeda in a way to emphasize on the 'foreignness' of the current problem in Iraq; and this easily fits their anti-occupation ideology, which seems to gain more popularity among Shia Iraqis on a daily basis," said Babak Rahimi, a professor of Islamic Studies and expert in Shiite politics at the University of California at San Diego. Bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, remain eager to take credit for the violence in Iraq, despite the bad blood that existed between bin Laden and AQI's slain founder, al-Zarqawi. They've produced a long series of taped statements in recent years taunting U.S. leaders and attempting to conflate their operations with the Sunni resistance in Iraq. "They want to bring this all together as a motivating tool to encourage recruitment," said Farhana Ali, a terrorism expert at the RAND Corporation. The press has also been complicit in inflating the threat of AQI. Because of the danger on the ground, reporters struggle to do the kind of comprehensive field reporting that's necessary to check facts and question statements from military spokespersons and Iraqi politicians. Today, for example, U.S. reporters rarely travel independently outside central Baghdad. Few, if any, insurgents have ever given interviews to Western reporters. These limitations are understandable, if unfortunate. But news organizations are reluctant to admit their confines in obtaining information. Ambiguities are glossed over; allegations are presented as facts. Besides, it's undeniably in the reporter's own interest to keep "al- Qaeda attacks" in the headline, because it may move their story from A16 to A1. Finally, no one has more incentive to overstate the threat of AQI than President Bush and those in the administration who argue for keeping a substantial military presence in Iraq. Insistent talk about AQI aims to place the Iraq War in the context of the broader war on terrorism. Pointing to al- Qaeda in Iraq helps the administration leverage Americans' fears about terrorism and residual anger over the attacks of September 11. It is perhaps one of the last rhetorical crutches the president has left to lean on. This is not to say that al-Qaeda in Iraq doesn't pose a real danger, both to stability in Iraq and to security in the United States. Today multiple Iraqi insurgent groups target U.S. forces, with the aim of driving out the occupation. But once our troops withdraw, most Sunni resistance fighters will have no impetus to launch strikes on American soil. In that regard, al-Qaeda?and AQI, to the extent it is affiliated with bin Laden's network?is unique. The group's leadership consists largely of foreign fighters, and its ideology and ambitions are global. Al-Qaeda fighters trained in Baghdad may one day use those skills to plot strikes aimed at Boston. Yet it's not clear that the best way to counter this threat is with military action in Iraq. AQI's presence is tolerated by the country's Sunni Arabs, historically among the most secular in the Middle East, because they have a common enemy in the United States. Absent this shared cause, it's not clear that native insurgents would still welcome AQI forces working to impose strict sharia. In Baghdad, any near-term functioning government will likely be an alliance of Shiites and Kurds, two groups unlikely to accept organized radical Sunni Arab militants within their borders. Yet while precisely predicting future political dynamics in Iraq is uncertain, one thing is clear now: the continued American occupation of Iraq is al-Qaeda's best recruitment tool, the lure to hook new recruits. As RAND's Ali said, "What inspires jihadis today is Iraq." Five years ago, the American public was asked to support the invasion of Iraq based on the false claim that Saddam Hussein was somehow linked to al-Qaeda. Today, the erroneous belief that al-Qaeda's franchise in Iraq is a driving force behind the chaos in that country may be setting us up for a similar mistake. Andrew Tilghman was an Iraq correspondent for the Stars and Stripes newspaper in 2005 and 2006. He can be reached at tilghman.andrew@gmail.com . High input cost plays spoil sport in 1 lakh car package 9/6/2007 5:09:15 PM High input cost may spoil the party for those who are waiting eagerly for Rs 1 lakh car as high input cost coupled with rising interest rate is likely to act as a dampner for Tata Motors to keep up the promise of Rs 1 lakh car. Ratan Tata's dream project of offering India's first Rs 1 lakh car may not exactly be possible. High input cost may spoil the party for those who are waiting eagerly for Rs 1 lakh car as high input cost coupled with rising interest rate is likely to act as a dampner for Tata Motors to keep up the promise of Rs 1 lakh car. Tata Motors has indicated that it may have to hike the price of its car as high input cost and fuel cost has made it more challenging to maintain the price at Rs 1 Lakh. Commenting on the issue, Tata Motors, Managing Director, Ravi Kant said, "High input cost and fuel cost have made it more challenging to maintain the price at Rs 1 lakh. To know weather we will offer the car at a higher level or not, we need to wait. The actual price of the car will be evident only closer to the launch," However, the company maintains that there will be no delay in the launch of the car, which is scheduled to be launched by middle of 2008. http://www.timesnow.tv/NewsDtls.aspx?NewsID=2519 MATTHEW LEE reports for Associated Press from Washington: President Bush's top two military and political advisers on Iraq will warn Congress on Monday that making any significant changes to the current war strategy will jeopardize the limited security and political progress made so far, The Associated Press has learned. U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who has been less forthcoming than Gen. David Petraeus in advance of his testimony, will join Petraeus in pushing for maintaining the U.S. troop surge, seeing it as the only viable option to prevent Iraq and the region from plunging into further chaos, U.S. officials said.Crocker and Petraeus planned to meet on Sunday to go over their remarks and responses to expected tough questioning from lawmakers ? including skeptical Republicans. But they will not consult Bush or their immediate bosses before their appearances Monday and Tuesday, in order to preserve the "independence and the integrity of their testimony," said one official. Petraeus and Crocker did have lengthy discussions with the president, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when Bush visited Iraq on Labor Day.Crocker, a career diplomat with extensive experience in the Middle East who opposed the war when it began in 2003, is pushing for political change where progress has been elusive and the administration's options are limited under the fragile Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.Yet the diplomat will say that as poorly as al-Maliki's government has performed, it would not be advisable at the moment for the U.S. to support new leadership or lobby for a different coalition of Iraq's fractious Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, the officials said.Crocker also will discuss the challenges of corruption, reconciliation, de-Baathification and the difficulties of enacting wide-ranging legislation such as an oil law, according to officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing internal deliberations.Both Crocker and Petraeus will say the buildup of 30,000 troops, bringing the current U.S. total to nearly 170,000, has achieved some success and is working better than any previous effort to quell the insurgency and restore stability, according to officials familiar with their thinking.Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, and Crocker were in the Washington area on Saturday working separately on final drafts of opening testimony on Capitol Hill. Later in the week, Bush plans a national address.The assessments by Petraeus and Crocker are intended to be considered equally. But officials expect Congress to focus on military matters, particularly possible troop withdrawals. Unless there are changes, the increase comes to a natural end starting in the spring and continuing through the end of

Terrific Sensex! Pm puts Stakes on Growth rate
Mukesh Ambani became the richest person in the world
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashbiswaskl@gmail.com">palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
German chancellor Merkel on 4-day visit to India
Business Standard - 1 hour ago
India and Germany are likely to sign a slew of agreements on mutual cooperation in the fields of science and technology and defence during the four day visit of German chancellor Angela Merkel to New Delhi and Mumbai beginning tonight.
Merkel visit to focus on Asia policy Hindu
Ahead of India Visit, Merkel Signals Shift in Asia Policy Deutsche Welle
The bulls run the Indian markets have achieved another milestone with Sensex hitting the 20000 mark. It was a solid 700 points rally on the Sensex and Nifty hit 5900 levels scoring over a double century.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said on Monday headline inflation had remained suppressed in the September quarter due to lack of pass-through from higher global oil prices, while consumer prices were firm on costlier food prices.
India to relax overseas borrowing rules for firms
MUMBAI: India plans to relax overseas borrowing rules for local firms to enable them to tap funds at lower cost and will do so first for infrastructure projects, a finance ministry official said on Monday.
"I am not in a position to say when the (external commercial borrowing) norms will be relaxed.
They will certainly be relaxed in the shortest possible time and when they are relaxed infrastructure projects will be the first," D. Subbarao, finance secretary, told an Indo-US business conference.

Chairman of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) Mukesh Ambani on Monday became the richest person in the world, surpassing American software czar Bill Gates, Mexican business tycoon Carlos Slim Helu and investment guru Warren Buffett, courtesy the bull run in the stock market. Following a strong share price rally on Monday in his three group companies

Give us land, give us water
'Zameen do ya jail do'

Palash Biswas

Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashbiswaskl@gmail.com">palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
Tens of thousands of impoverished Indians arrived in the national capital on Sunday ending a monthlong march to draw attention to the plight of those dispossessed of their land by recent economic development. An estimated 27,000 protesters waved flags and chanted "Give us land, give us water," as they marched in long, orderly lines to central New Delhi where they plan to hold a massive protest Monday.The demonstrators, who marched some 185 miles from the central city of Gwalior, say they have not only been left behind in the wake of India's recent economic boom, but have suffered directly from the growth, with many forced from their land to make way for government-backed economic projects.

"We don't have food, land or water. We are going to Delhi to get this," Rasi Ram, one of the marchers in New Delhi, told the CNN-IBN news channel.
India is trying to attract foreign investment to spur its economy and help develop its largely backward infrastructure. To that end, it has set up Special Economic Zones, where companies get tax breaks to set up business and factories.
But critics say farmers are often forced from their land or cheated on its value when an area is designated for these projects.
In West Bengal state,four government supporters died in an explosion, a day after an activist who opposes the land grabs was shot dead by supporters of the governing Communist Party of India (Marxist), said Raj Kanojia, the state's inspector general of police.Farmers in the Nandigram area in West Bengal fiercely resisted efforts by authorities to force land sales at cheap rates to build a shipyard and a petrochemical plant. The government officially abandoned the plan to acquire 22,000 acres of land in Nandigram in March, but the violence has continued.
Those who support the farmers say the communists were killed when a bomb they were building prematurely exploded, while party officials say they were attacked to avenge the death of the activist.It's not only economic developments that have forced the poor from their lands. Some say India's vague property laws and endemic corruption allow them to be strong-armed off their land by powerful local landowners.
"When these landowners see that someone strong is coming up to fight for his land rights they get them murdered," Vishwas Prasad, a marcher told the NDTV news channel.

Raju Thomas to me, palashc
show details 8:34 am (9 hours ago)
Dear Mr. Biswas,
Thank you for your regular messages on Dalits. I read
them with great interest.
Hindu Americans have built nearly a 1000 Hindu temples
in the US, many of them being multi-billion dollar
monstrous-sized temples. Hindu Brahmin priests
routinely come to the US to serve these temples. Are
Dalits allowed to enter these highly visible Hindu
temples in the US? Do you know the situation
regarding Dalit entry? Are there many Dalits in the
US or are they all upper caste Hindus only?
Best wishes.

Raju
Raju George C. Thomas
Visiting US Fulbright Professor
Faculty of the Political Sciences
Jove Ilica 165, Belgrade University
11000 Belgrade, Serbia Montenegro

http://www.lexingtonbooks.com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtml?command=Search&db=^DB/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=0739105175
http://www.marquette.edu/polisci/Thomas.htm
From: KMGuru

It is obvious that stupidity knows no bounds...whether one calls Harijana to a socially and culturally deprived group of people - or not, they are still deprived. All Gandhi did was to acknowledge the issue and try to uplift them.

While doing so, Gandhi, a non-technologist thought Indians can get by going back to the stone age or more accurately the bronze age.

Even today, a lot of Gandhians feel that way, that is why no technology deal was made with USA and hence, India can not get it from any source including Russia! But China can.

And without technology, the masses suffer, not the rich.
The government said on Monday it would set up a special panel on land reforms after thousands of poor and landless people converged on the capital to press for land rights. An estimated 27,000 people from across India gathered in New Delhi after marching 600 kilometres (370 miles) from the central city of Gwalior to demand land reforms. The panel would look into "all land related issues, including land reforms", the government said in a statement. The expert committee would make recommendations on land policies, judicial reforms and speedier disposal of court cases related to land disputes, and submit them to another council headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Organisers of the protest march, who were prevented by police from moving to the Parliament building earlier in the day, welcomed the announcement.
"Our demands have been met. We are fully satisfied, now that the rural development minister came here and made the announcement," said Bharat Bhushan Thakur, a member of protest organising group Ekta Parishad, or Unity Forum.
"These measures will clear the hurdles in giving land to poor people. We are now ready to go back," Thakur said, after thousands of people waving green and white flags spent a day at a dusty ground with no shade from the sun.
Seven people died of fatigue or illness during the trek, which began on October 2 - the day India celebrates Gandhi's birthday.
The protestors had demanded that the government introduce iron-clad legislation on holdings, deeds and tenancy rights - replacing the current system where ownership can easily be taken by the rich and powerful. The march has been the biggest show of anger yet over the problem of land grabbing in India, where poor farmers are being pushed off their land by both government and private developers.
"Many people here have been displaced many times over - first because of mining, then because of dams. They have nowhere to go," march organiser Puthan Vithal Rajgopal said.
A government plan to set up tax-friendly special economic zones across thousands of acres of farmland in a bid to lure overseas corporations has led to sometimes violent protests over displacement in at least two states.
"It is nothing but land grabbing," Rajgopal said. The Indian economy is expanding at around nine percent a year, with services and manufacturing clocking double digit growth.
But the farm sector is being left far behind and activists are increasingly pointing at a widening gap between the rich few and the hundreds of millions of poor.
"Our fight is for land, forests and water. Our slogan is 'give us land, or give us jail,'" said participant Sanjay Kumar.

Minerals can attract big FDI if export is allowed
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/Economy/Policy/Minerals_can_attract_big_FDI_if_export_is_allowed/articleshow/2498003.cms
NEW DELHI: The National Mineral Policy (NMP), to be discussed by the Union Cabinet soon, will have the potential to attract $1.25 billion (about Rs 5,000 crore) as FDI in the next five years, but the government will have to allow export of minerals, including iron ore, to ensure the same.

Will Prefer Death than sit for talks with Bhattacharjee, says Mamata as Buddha Asked for central forces
Centre said there is no proposal to set up a special economic zone at Nandigram
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashbiswaskl@gmail.com">palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
The Trinamool Congress on Monday demanded Central intervention to stop continuing violence at Nandigram, dismissal of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and a CBI inquiry into the alleged firing on her convoy yesterday.
"Nandigram's border with Khejuri from where CPI-M activists are launching attacks should be sealed and if necessary central forces should be deployed," Banerjee told reporters here. She said the CBI should investigate into the firing on her convoy at Nandigram on Sunday.
My convoy was fired at, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee should admit it. He should be dismissed by the Centre. We have lodged an FIR with the police. It is not our claim. From where a cartridge could have come?" Banerjee also alleged that CPI(M) activists have blocked all roads and no one including the press could go to Nandigram. "I have to stay put at Contai," she said.
As tension prevailed in Nandigram, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Monday asked for Central forces to tackle the situation in the troubled areas while the Trinamool Congress demanded the state government's dismissal.On the other hand,The Centre on Monday said there is no proposal to set up a special economic zone at Nandigram in West Bengal, where fresh violence erupted yesterday over the issue of land acquisition for industrial projects. West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee, however, said Banerjee's allegation had no basis.At least five people, including four members of the CPI-M, were killed in renewed clashes and an explosion in Nandigram, located 150 km from here in East Midnapore district, since Saturday.This takes the death toll to 28 since January when the region flared up over a proposed land acquisition for a special economic zone (SEZ), including a chemical hub.In October 2005, the West Bengal government signed an agreement with Indonesia

Islamabad On High Alert though Militants in troubled northwestern Pakistan agreed to a cease-fire
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashchandrabiswas@gmail.com">palashchandrabiswas@gmail.com
Turkey flexes military might amid PKK clashes
Reuters Canada - 1 hour ago
By Emma Ross-Thomas SIRNAK, Turkey (Reuters) - Helicopter gunships bombed Kurdish rebel positions in eastern Turkey on Monday while the government flexed its military muscle with massive national day parades and flypasts in major cities.

Militants in troubled northwestern Pakistan agreed to a cease-fire Monday, a day after security forces backed by helicopter gunships targeted their hide-outs, killing at least 10 suspected insurgents, officials said. Residents said they had not heard any gunshots early Monday in Swat, a mountainous valley in northwestern Pakistan where the government is battling supporters of a militant pro-Taliban cleric.
``This is a good thing that the militants have agreed to the cease-fire, and we welcome it,'' Arshad Majid, the district coordination officer in Swat, said by telephone.
Pakistani troops killed up to 60 Islamist militants during fierce fighting in the Swat valley in the country's northwest, the army said on Monday, and the insurgents called a truce to recover their dead and wounded.Troops firing artillery and backed by helicopter gunships on Sunday battled militants led by a pro-Taliban cleric seeking to impose strict Islamic code in the scenic valley close to Pakistan's lawless tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.
We heard big bangs the whole night. We don't know how many people were killed," one terrified resident of Charbagh, 3 miles west of the valley's main town of Mingora, told Reuters.
Army spokesman Major-General Waheed Arshad said that, based on reports by police and the paramilitary Frontier Corps, up to 60 militants had been killed.
He had no reports of casualties among security forces, although residents saw at least nine dead paramilitaries.
The eruption of violence in Swat comes as the Supreme Court is hearing challenges to the re-election earlier this month of U.S. ally President Pervez Musharraf.
It follows a suicide attack on former prime minister Benazir Bhutto that killed 139 people in the southern city of Karachi when she returned from self-imposed exile on October 18.
Islamist militants seeking to destabilize nuclear-armed Pakistan regard Musharraf and Bhutto as lackeys of the West.
There is speculation the pair, who have vowed to fight militancy and extremism, could share power after national elections due by January, although Bhutto is bitterly opposed to conservatives in the ruling Pakistan Muslim League.
The Pakistan capital is on high alert following intelligence reports that suicide bombers have entered Islamabad in the wake of fierce clashes between security forces and militants in the restive Swat region.Authorities in Islamabad sounded a red alert on Sunday evening after receiving information that two to three suicide bombers have entered the city, administration and police officials said.Policemen in uniform and plainclothes have been deployed across Islamabad and new check-points were set up tomonitor the movement of vehicles.Security agencies are maintaining a strict watch at inter-city bus stations and hotels and motels in the suburbs have been searched, officials said.The officials described the level of the threat as "very high" and said suicide bombers could strike in retaliation for operations being conducted by paramilitary forces against pro-Taliban militants led by Maulana Fazlullah in the Swat valley and tribal rebels in North and South Waziristan.Police officials believe security forces, government buildings and foreign missions could be "prime targets" for the suicide attackers.
"We have taken precautionary measures on such a scale that the entire city can be sealed off within minutes," a senior police official told Dawn newspaper.
Meanwhile,Days after Taliban fighters overran Musa Qala a U.S. commander pledged that Western troops would take it back. Nine months later, the town is still Taliban territory, a symbol of the West's struggles to control the poppy-growing south. But a string of recent battles around Musa Qala, won overwhelmingly by American Special Forces, signal a renewed U.S. focus on the symbolic Taliban stronghold. An Afghan army commander said Sunday that U.S. and Afghan forces have taken over the area around the town and that Afghan commanders are holding talks with Musa Qala's tribal leaders to persuade them to expel the Arab, Chechen and Uzbek foreign fighters who roam its streets alongside the Taliban militants. U.S. Special Forces soldiers accompanied by Afghan troops killed about 80 fighters during a six-hour battle outside Musa Qala on Saturday, the latest in a series of increasingly deadly engagements in Helmand province _ the world's largest poppy-growing region and the front line of Afghanistan's bloodiest fighting this year. There have been at least five major battles in the area since Sept. 1, including Saturday's fighting, and Special Forces troops have killed more than 250 militants, according to coalition statements.
Heavy contingents of security forces, armed with metal detectors and sophisticated weapons, have been deployed at all 72 entry and exit points of Islamabad and 32 other "sensitive" locations.Check posts have also been set up on roads connecting Islamabad to other cities to keep an eye on vehicles entering the capital.Law enforcement agencies in the twin city of Rawalpindi have also been put on alert, officials said.Security forces and government troops backed by helicopters have been engaged in fierce fire fights in the Swat valley.
Pakistan has hired controversial former US Assistant Secretary of state for South Asia, Robin Raphael, to push its case on the Capitol Hill and with the White House. Raphael, who retired from the foreign service a few years ago, had caused an uproar in India in the 1990s for questioning the authenticity of the instrument of accession signed by Maharaja Hari Singh that was instrumental in the state of Jammu and Kashmir becoming part of India.
The Pakistan government has informed former premier Benazir Bhutto that it will not act on her letter naming certain officials as posing a threat to her as the missive has "no legal value", a media report said on Monday.
Bhutto had written the letter to President Pervez Musharraf on October 16, two days before she returned to Pakistan from eight years in self-exile and survived an assassination bid.
In the letter, she identified certain officials who posed a threat to her. However, Bhutto has not publicly named these persons.
Subsequent media reports identified the persons named in the letter as Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, former ISI chief Hamid Gul, Intelligence Bureau chief Ijaz Shah and Hassan Waseem Afzal, the former deputy chairman of the National Accountability Bureau.
Musharraf has "ignored" Bhutto's letter and the leadership of the ruling PML-Q has been told that "no action will be taken on the basis of that letter as it carried no legal value", the influential Dawn newspaper said.
Bhutto's counsel and Senator Farooq Naek had said the suspects named by her should be investigated to satisfy the chairperson of the Pakistan People's Party.
The government has also conveyed to Bhutto that it will "not block" her "return to power or efforts to repeal the legal ban on her becoming prime minister for a third time if her party wins an absolute majority in the general election or emerges as the single largest group in the National Assembly", the report said.

The former top diplomat for South Asia during the Clinton administration is a senior vice president with Cassidy and Associates, which has been hired by Pakistan to lobby its case at a yearly cost of USD 1.2 million. Raphel has stressed Pakistans necessity as an ally for the American counter-terrorism strategy. "We need to recognise it is not easy what Pakistan is trying to do here in assisting us in the fight against the terrorism in the region," Raphel was reported as saying by the Daily Times newspaper on Monday.
She said her job would be to make sure "all relevant parties have the facts". "I think its clear there is a less than perfect understanding of Pakistan here," the daily quoted her as saying in a report from Washington.
Cassidys work will involve lobbying and public relations campaigns promoting Pakistans status as an "important strategic partner of the US", according to The Hill, a small publication devoted to congressional coverage.
"We thought we had some challenging issues and we thought we should add another lobbying firm," said Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, first secretary at the Pakistan embassy. Cassidy is the second firm employed by Pakistan to push its case in Washington. The other group representing the Islamic state is Van Scoyoc Associates, which is paid USD 55,000 a month.
Pak firm on IPI project despite US sanctions on Iran
Pakistan on Monday said it is committed to the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project despite the sanctions imposed by the US to pressure Tehran to stop its nuclear programme.
"We are committed to the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline project and we will be going ahead with it," Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Sadiq told the weekly news briefing.
"We think the sanctions are not a solution," he said in response to a question about Pakistan's stand on the project in the wake of the sanctions slapped on Iran by the US last week.
Asked about media reports that India might drop out of the project, Sadiq said: "This pipeline is a requirement for Pakistan. It will provide us energy security and we remain committed to the project."
India did not participate in the last two rounds of talks between Pakistan and Iran on the project, including parleys held here earlier this month.
Tehran and Islamabad are reportedly close to finalising a gas purchase agreement and officials of both countries have indicated that they will go ahead with the project even without India's participation.

Pakistan Militants Seize Police Post
By RIAZ KHAN

Sonia in Shanghai
Palash Biswas

Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashbiswaskl@gmail.com">palashbiswaskl@gmail.com

Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi has become the first foreign leader to meet with the new Communist Party secretary of Shanghai, China's gleaming commercial hub.Sonia called on Yu Zhengsheng, the new Communist Party secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Committee, who was appointed only on Saturday to the high-ranking post.

"I am only two-days-old in the new post," Yu told Sonia, adding that she was the first foreign dignitary to meet him on the last leg of her five-day China tour.

Significantly, Sonia was also the first foreign political party head to meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao since he was re-elected as the general secretary of the Communist Party of China on October 22 by the 17th Central Committee of the CPC.

Meanwhile, Yu succeeds Xi Jinping, who was elected as a member of the standing committee of the politburo of the CPC central committee last week.

Yu, 62, a member of the new politburo of the CPC central committee, was most recently party secretary of the Hubei provincial committee of the CPC.

The post of the party secretary of Shanghai is very sensitive politically, especially since the "bad influence" cast by a major corruption scandal involving the former party chief Chen Liangyu.

"With concerted efforts, Shanghai shook off the bad influence left by Chen Liangyu's case and moved ahead as a harmonious and stable society with a prosperous economy," Xi was quoted as saying by Shanghai Daily.

Chen was dismissed in September 2006 after it was found that the city's $1.27 billion corporate annuities had been managed via irregular loans without proper collateral and placed in risky investments.

Talks with China "very fruitful": Sonia

Xi'an (China): Congress President Sonia Gandhi today described her talks with the top Chinese leadership as "very fruitful" as she toured this culturally-rich city in the west of the Communist nation.

"I had the opportunity and privilege to meet with the Chinese leadership and had very fruitful talks, exchanging views on a number of important topics of interest to the two countries," Gandhi said during a meeting with the Communist Party of China (CPC) Secretary of Shaanxi Province, Zhao Leji, here in western China after visiting two historical sites.

"You are the first foreign political leader to visit China after the conclusion of 17th National Congress (of ruling CPC on October 22), which is an indication of importance both of us have attached to our relations," Chinese President Hu Jintao, also General Secretary of the CPC, had told Gandhi during their meeting on Friday.

Noting that she was visiting Xi'an after 19 years, the previous time along with her late husband and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in December 1988, Gandhi said the city has changed a lot and praised the visionary provincial leadership for the progress.

Warmly welcoming Gandhi and her Congress delegation, including her son and AICC General Secretary Rahul Gandhi, Zhao said he had noted that the delegation had successful meetings with Hu and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing.

After completing her high-profile political engagements in Beijing, Gandhi arrived here last night.

Though the Beijing-Xi'an flight was delayed by over four hours due to inclement weather here, the Gandhi family attended a must-see Tang Dynasty cultural show last night, appreciating the exquisite and colourful costumes and performances by over 100 artists.

China’s great science leap as India slackens
G.S. MUDUR
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1071028/asp/frontpage/story_8482840.asp
New Delhi, Oct. 27: China has outpaced India in science in two decades and acquired a staggering lead that keeps widening, the most comprehensive analysis yet of Indian and Chinese research has said.

Chinese research output has increased a hundred-fold since 1980 but India’s has only a little more than doubled, shows the analysis published today in Current Science, a journal of the Indian Academy of Sciences.

“In 1980, India was light years ahead of China,” Ronald Kostoff, team leader at the US Office of Naval Research, and his colleagues said in their report. “For two decades, India’s research production stagnated…. China’s increased exponentially.”

The scientists explored patterns of citations of peer-reviewed research papers — an indicator of the significance of research. The higher the number of citations, the more important the work.

China now outperforms India in all ways of measuring citations — whether one counted papers with more than 100 citations, or the top 20 research papers, or the top 1 per cent of papers, the team said.

Yet, in 1980, China had 692 research papers with citations compared with India’s 10,606. By 2005, China had 72,362 papers — nearly three times the Indian figure. (See chart)

“Our universities have largely stopped doing research,” said professor C.N.R. Rao, head of the scientific advisory committee to the Prime Minister, who had warned of these trends about a year ago.

India produces fewer doctorates than China or Brazil, said Rao, who was not connected with the study. Indian universities award about 4,000 PhDs each year, compared with 10,000 in Brazil and 16,000 in China, he said.

An analysis of research publications in 2005 shows the huge Chinese lead in almost every topic of scientific research. Chinese scientists produced over 7,000 indexed research papers in materials sciences compared with just 1,634 from India.

“But we have more research papers today than before... that’s a positive thing,” said Sujit Bhattacharya, visiting professor at the Centre for Study of Science Policy at JNU and the only Indian member of the research team.

“The scale of science is small in India,” said Gangan Prathap, director of the Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation, Bangalore, who had this year calculated that — in terms of scientific human resources — India lags 163 years behind China.

Colombo port adds to India's China woes

Arindam Hazare
http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/oct/29guest.htm
October 29, 2007

The race to build Sri Lanka's [Images] newest and most competitive terminal as part of the South Harbour project in the Colombo port has begun, with five of the best of corporate names locally and in the global shipping arena officially confirming their interest with detailed plans and information.

The bid called for by Sri Lanka's ministry of ports and aviation is for a three-berth terminal to handle around 2.4 million twenty-foot equivalent units, or TEUs, per year. Construction costs have been estimated at more than $500 million.

In the fray are: Current operator of the Queen Elizabeth Quay in Colombo port, John Keells Holdings PLC-South Asia, Gateway Terminals in partnership with Pembinan Ridzai Berhad, the owners of Westports Malaysia Sdn Bhd, financial giants Hayleys Limited and holdings company Carson Cumberbatch & Company Limited in partnership with French shipper CMA CGM Group's port arm Terminal Link, Singapore's PSA International Pte Ltd partnering logistics conglomerate Aitken Spence Shipping Ltd, Hong Kong's Hutchison Port Holdings and Hanjin Shipping with its local agents Navigation Maritime.

One of these five bidders, the Hong Kong-based Chinese company Hutchison Port Holdings, was barred by India last year from participating in a project to build a container port in Mumbai, citing security concerns, states an Associated Press report published in the International Herald Tribune of August 30, 2006.

According to this report, the HPH was the only candidate out of 10 that was barred, with security clearance being denied. It is believed that the presence of an Indian naval base near the Mumbai port was the reason for denial of permission to the HPH, controlled by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, who has strong ties with Beijing [Images].

Reportedly, this is also not the first time Hutchison has faced security concerns related to its port operations overseas.

Conservatives in United States Congress are supposed to have warned against allowing the company to expand its interests in Panama, accusing it of being an agent for China and posing a long-term strategic risk to American interests in the Panama Canal.

Over the years Sino-Indian relations have undergone times of both war and peace, with both competing to be the premier Asian power. The two countries are widely regarded as emerging superpowers in the region.

While world attention is becoming increasingly focused on these two rising Asian powers' phenomenal economic growth and political clout, how Beijing and New Delhi manage their bilateral relationship will be critical for regional and global peace and prosperity in the years to come.

Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to India in November 2006 was the first high-level visit in a decade, a decade that has experienced rapid expansion of ties in political, economic and security spheres.

The bilateral relationship has been marked by regular high-level visits, growing cooperation on a range of international and regional issues and the establishment of a strategic and cooperative partnership for peace and stability.

In July 2006, the two countries reopened the historical Nathu La pass ? which means meaning 'Listening Ear' and standing at 15,000 feet which was closed in 1962 after China's invasion -- to promote border trade further.

Despite progress in bilateral relations over the past few years, mutual suspicions remain, partly due to the dynamics of security dilemma and structural conflicts between the two Asian giants.

India has watched China's phenomenal growth in economic and military areas with alarm. Likewise, China is paying close attention to India's growing military power and its nuclear and missile development, as well as the significance and implications of a warming US-India relationship, marked by growing defence ties and the nuclear deal.

Meanwhile, China is increasingly making its presence in the region felt.

In March 2007, Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf [Images] formally opened the Gwadar port in Pakistan's Balochistan province, the country's third port. It will be completed with financial and technical assistance from China, which has so far provided 80 per cent of the initial development costs.

Once completed, the Gwadar port will rank among the world's largest deep-sea ports.

With this investment, China takes a giant leap forward in gaining a strategic foothold in the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. Its presence in the Indian Ocean will further increase its strategic influence with major South Asian nations, particularly Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

The Gwadar port is said to be part of the Chinese naval expansion along the Asian and African coasts called the 'string of pearls' initiative, according to a US Department of Defence report.

It entails the maintenance of ports and bases at strategic places in the region. A presence in Gwadar provides China with a 'listening post' where it can 'monitor US naval activity in the Persian Gulf, Indian activity in the Arabian Sea and future US-Indian maritime cooperation in the Indian Ocean,' states Zia Haider, an analyst at the Washington-based Stimson Center.

A report titled 'Energy Futures in Asia' produced by defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton for the Pentagon notes that China has already set up electronic eavesdropping posts at Gwadar, which are monitoring maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and Arabian Sea.

China's foothold in the Arabian Sea has understandably set off alarm bells in India. For India, China-Pakistan collaboration at Gwadar and China's presence in the Arabian Sea heightens the feeling of being enveloped by China from all sides.

A foothold in the West Port of Malaysia's Pelaboham Kelang port may also be regarded as yet another strategic move in this regard, adding to India's woes.

China is steadily extending its reach into South Asia with its growing economic and strategic influence in the region. In keeping with its economic expansion, China has invested wisely and has deepened its influence in the region, especially with India's immediate neighbours, by skilfully deploying economic incentives to draw Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka into its orbit.

Both China and India would 'like' Sri Lanka, which conveniently occupies a strategically important heft of the Indian Ocean stretching from the Middle East to Southeast Asia, on 'their side.'

Beijing has longstanding, exclusive, and friendly relations with Colombo, but very much to Beijing's convenience, the prolonged ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka has strained relations between Colombo and New Delhi, with India having a Tamil-majority state of its own, forcing her to tread cautiously in mediating the conflict.

China, however, has no such balancing act to perform, and is only too happy to support Sri Lanka's territorial integrity.

China recently dropped anchor at yet another of its 'pearls' in the Indian Ocean, with its involvement in the Hambantota port development project. Although the Chinese role in this project may not be just about influence in Sri Lanka, the fact remains that it brings China's presence close to Indian shores.

Besides, with Hambantota, China's attempts to envelop India has been further consolidated, by lurking in waters too close home. And now, with the Chinese company Hutchison Port Holdings in the final fray to get a foothold in the strategic Port of Colombo, what of India?

How does China see India?
China’s admission of our relevance in the world will only come from continued growth and trade
Policy Track | S. Narayan
http://www.livemint.com/2007/10/29013046/How-does-China-see-India.html

Late last week, some interesting insights on how India’s rise and its role in Asia is perceived were presented by Prof. Yang Dali, director of the East Asian Institute, the National University of Singapore, at an international conference on South Asia. The presentation was based on a survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs late last year, which had tried to gauge the opinion of the public and scholars in China on issues such as how Beijing looks at India’s economic development model, its competition with China, and its expanding influence in Asia and beyond.
In contrast to Indians’ views on China, Chinese public perceptions of India seem to be generally benign, bordering on neglect. In terms of global influence, the Chinese ranked China second behind the US now, but catching up in 10 years. But they ranked India at the bottom of the top nine countries (US, China, Russia, EU, UK, Germany, France, Japan and India). And Indians ranked India as the second most influential after the US. Further, 56% of the Chinese respondents didn’t consider India as a rival—a far greater proportion in India did. In terms of ability to resolve conflicts in Asia, 69% of Indians feel positive, but only 30% of the Chinese feel that Indian intervention would have any major impact.
Considerable literature comes out of China, with scholars examining India’s growth. At one end, there are analysts who think any rapprochement of China–India relations would be overshadowed by the absence of mutual trust, and by its continued nuclear and missile programmes. There is considerable analysis about India’s military spending. They hold that “India has various strategic suspicions towards China and because of these, is not likely to establish strategic partnership relations with China”. The Indian Navy’s expansion, and its joint military exercises with other countries are matters of comment.
Chinese scholars are conscious of the organic growth of industrialization in India driven largely by domestic companies and indigenous funds. The strength of the financial and capital markets, as well as the centres of excellence in education, has attracted comment and envy. Yet, they also recognize that India’s democratic model has its own weaknesses that may affect growth in the future. They recognize that the Chinese model has been better at providing employment as well as eradicating poverty.
These studies are important as they reveal an active engagement with what is happening in India, on the part of Chinese scholars. What can we learn from all this? First, we consider ourselves more relevant in the world scene than China is prepared to concede, and this recognition will only come from continued growth and trade. As a corollary, the focus on, and contentment with, internal markets alone is likely, in course of time, to make India an insignificant player in merchandise trade: policymakers must take note and change right now.
Second, there is need for a well-articulated strategy towards China—are we friends or rivals, competitors or collaborators? At a recent seminar, a senior Indian diplomat was asked to enumerate the gains to India’s trade and economy from its foreign policy for the last 60 years. There have been slim pickings, but there are lots of opportunities now. Like China, there is need to integrate strategic, economic, trade and military objectives into foreign policy—this calls for dismantling several ministerial silos of decision making, so that there can be a comprehensive strategy.
Next, there is little economy or trade-related work on China from India. Scholars’ concerns here are more with the foreign policy or strategy dimensions of the relationship, but very little analytical work on economic decision-making. For example, what are the successful elements of Chinese strategy in looking for oil overseas, are they relevant for India? Is it possible to earmark an institute for China studies that will go beyond journalistic economics into deeper analysis? There is hardly any international publication on China from scholars in India.
Finally, there is need to ensure that we don’t congratulate ourselves too soon. “India is great up to the quarter finals, and then they lose steam”, is a common international comment. The sustainability of the country’s growth momentum is now dependent less on major policy track changes, and much more on process and implementation efficiency. Yet, very little attention is devoted to these improvements, even though they have very little to do with any politics of coalition.
In short, the time taken for politics is eating into the time required for governance, and there is now ample evidence that it is the failure of processes and governance that is responsible for the slow growth in infrastructure, intellectual property regime tax simplification and the like—not politics or strategy. I would not like to be in anybody’s list of “benign neglect”.
S. Narayan is a former finance secretary and economic adviser to the prime minister. We welcome your comments at olicytrack@livemint.com">policytrack@livemint.com

Kargil war – Pakistan never understood America decided to support India because India like China can bring money to American companies
Tania Sengupta
http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/18618.asp
When Nawaz Sharif, former PM of Pakistan met US Bill Clinton during the Kargil war, Pakistan at heart believed, they cornered India, was ready to take the revenge of East Pakistan debacle of 1971. They miscalculated in one thing. America is run by the interest of American corporate profits. Large American corporations were looking at India like China because India had tremendous potential for providing cheap labor and at the same time buy American goods and services especially in retail and financial services sectors.

US President Bill Clinton told Nawaz Sharif what Sharif did not know? It was made clear to the Pakistani PM that India is a favored country of US and Pakistan must recede from the heights. Before Sharif could announce the formal defeat of Pakistan – the unconditional withdraw from Indian territories, Indian Military had already taken back most of the heights.

Sharif understood that America very well knew he, Musharraf and the ISI was nurturing Taliban, Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. It was interesting what happened after that. Musharraf outright blamed Sharif for the defeat in the Kargil war. The Pakistani

Canada defies China with Dalai Lama meetings
Mon Oct 29, 2007 12:11 PM EDT

By Randall Palmer

GATINEAU, Quebec (Reuters) - The Canadian government defied China on Monday and proceeded with public meetings with the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader.

China has warned of possible damage to bilateral relations ahead of his visit, but the Canadian government went ahead with a meeting between him and junior cabinet member Jason Kenney in a federal building on Monday morning as a prelude to an afternoon meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

In 2004, then-Prime Minister Paul Martin met the Dalai Lama privately at the home of the Roman Catholic archbishop of Ottawa, but these meetings are in public, government buildings with photographers present.

"I don't care. The important (thing) is meeting (in) person. That I consider is the most important," the Dalai Lama told reporters, standing next to Kenney.

"So whether meeting (the) prime minister in the office or private house doesn't matter, so long as (it is) a meeting with people face to face."

He met Kenney, secretary of state for multiculturalism, in the Department of Heritage offices in Gatineau, across the Ottawa River from the Parliament buildings.

Harper is scheduled to meet with him on Monday afternoon at his office in Parliament. The Dalai Lama will also hold a private meeting with Governor General Michaelle Jean, representative of Canada's head of state, Queen Elizabeth.

The 72-year-old Buddhist monk -- who was granted honorary Canadian citizenship in June -- is also meeting leaders of Canada's opposition parties on Tuesday, though this time in a hotel.

The Chinese embassy would not answer phone calls but in a statement to the Globe and Mail newspaper the Chinese Foreign Ministry denounced the Dalai Lama as a separatist who operates under the guise of religion.

"China has on many occasions made solemn representations to the Canadian side on the proposed visit of the Dalai Lama," it said.

"We call on the Canadian side to clearly understand the nature of the Dalai Lama's separatist activities and treat seriously China's serious concerns, and not to allow the Dalai Lama to visit, not allow him to use Canadian territory for activities to split China, and not to do anything to harm Sino-Canadian relations."

U.S. President George W. Bush and leaders of Congress gave the Dalai Lama the Congressional Gold Medal in a packed ceremony in the U.S. Capitol on October 17.

China canceled an annual human rights dialogue with Germany to show its displeasure with German Chancellor Angela Merkel's meeting last month with the Dalai Lama.

Lankan Air Force pounds LTTE intelligence gathering

Sri Lankan Air Force fighter jets on Monday pounded a regular gathering place of LTTE's intelligence wing leaders in the north eastern part of the country, the Defence Ministry said here. The jets took off from the Katunayake airbase near here and engaged the target at Puthukuduiruppu in Mullaitivu which has been under air surveillance for a considerable time, it said quoting sources.

"The air raid has been launched after real-time ground information revealed a gathering of LTTE intelligence heads in the morning at the targeted location."

The targeted location is also a regular visiting place of LTTE's intelligence chief Pottu Amman and it's key agents.

Fighter pilots have confirmed that the target was effectively engaged and casualties to the militants are yet to be known, it added.
Lanka to keep in mind TN factor while resolving ethnic problem

Colombo (PTI): Describing its relations with India as the best in recent times, Sri Lanka has said it will keep in mind the "Tamil Nadu factor" while tackling the ethnic problem and ensure that innocent Tamils were not harmed in the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

"Tamil Nadu is a factor which the Sri Lankan government will consider while tackling the (ethnic) problem. India has helped the government very much. Relations between the two countries are currently at the best in recent times," Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa told the state owned television Rupavahini on Sunday night.

Rajapaksa said his country realises that the Indian government would be able to help Sri Lanka fight LTTE terrorism only if Tamil civilian casualties were minimal, in view of the fact that Tamil Nadu state was home to 60 million Tamils.

The defence secretary, who is the brother of President Mahinda Rajapakse, said the Sri Lankan government is conscious of the Tamil Nadu factor in determining New Delhi's Sri Lanka policy.

He said Colombo strives to ensure that the war waged in the island's North and East is directed against the LTTE militants and not against innocent Tamil civilians.

India had already supplied 2D radars, which, according to the Sri Lankan Air Force chief Air Marshal Roshan Goonetilleke had performed "very well" doing the recent LTTE air attack on the Anuradhpura air base.

Today in Africa & Middle East
Saudi king tries to grow modern ideas in desert

Supporters of what is to be called the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, or Kaust, wonder whether the king is simply building another gated island to be dominated by foreigners, like the compounds for oil industry workers that have existed here for decades, or creating an institution that will have a real impact on Saudi society and the rest of the Arab world.
"There are two Saudi Arabias," said Jamal Khashoggi, the editor of Al Watan, a newspaper. "The question is which Saudi Arabia will take over."
The king has broken taboos, declaring that the Arabs have fallen critically behind much of the modern world in intellectual achievement and that his country depends too much on oil and not enough on creating wealth through innovation.
"There is a deep knowledge gap separating the Arab and Islamic nations from the process and progress of contemporary global civilization, " said Abdallah Jumah, the chief executive of Saudi Aramco. "We are no longer keeping pace with the advances of our era."
Traditional Saudi practice is on display at the biggest public universities, where the Islamic authorities vet the curriculum, medical researchers tread carefully around controversial subjects like evolution, and female and male students enter classrooms through separate doors and follow lectures while separated by partitions.
Old-fashioned values even seeped into the carefully staged groundbreaking ceremony on Sunday for King Abdullah's new university, at which organizers distributed an issue of the magazine The Economist with a special advertisement for the university wrapped around the cover. State censors had physically torn from each copy an article about Saudi legal reform titled "Law of God Versus Law of Man," leaving a jagged edge.
Despite the obstacles, the king intends to make the university a showcase for modernization. The festive groundbreaking and accompanying symposium about the future of the modern university were devised partly as a recruiting tool for international academics.
"Getting the faculty will be the biggest challenge," said Ahmed Ghoniem, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is consulting for the new university. "That will make it or break it." Professor Ghoniem has advised the new university to lure international academics with laboratory facilities and grants they cannot find at home, but he also believes that established professors will be reluctant to leave their universities for a small enclave in the desert.
"You have to create an environment where you can connect to the outside world," said Professor Ghoniem, who is from Egypt. "You cannot work in isolation."
He admitted that even though he admired the idea of the new university, he would be unlikely to abandon his post at MIT to move to Saudi Arabia.
Festivities at the construction site on Sunday for 1,500 dignitaries included a laser light show and a mockup of the planned campus that filled an entire room. The king laid a crystal cornerstone into a stainless steel shaft on wheels.
Cranes tore out mangroves and pounded the swampland with 20-ton blocks into a surface firm enough to build the campus on. Inside a tent, the king, his honor guard wearing flowing robes and curved daggers, and an array of Aramco officials in suits took to a shiny stage lighted with green and blue neon tubing, like an MTV awards show. Mist from dry ice shrouded the stage, music blared in surround sound, and holographic projections served as a backdrop to some of the speeches.
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EC Warning For President Rule in Gujrat is not Enough
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashbiswaskl@gmail.com">palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
SC issues notices to Karunanidhi, Baalu
Sify - 31 minutes ago
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday issued notices to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, Union Minister for Surface Transport and Shipping, TR Baalu and others to explain why contempt of court proceedings should not be initiated against them ...
Unmoved by impeachment talk, SC issues notice to Karunanidhi, Balu Hindu
Contempt notice to Karunanidhi, Baalu for defying court order Khabrein.info
Election Commissioners Navin Chawla and Qureshi have threatened to postpone the Gujarat election process and bring President's Rule in the state if the Bharatiya Janata Party fans communal violence in Gujarat through its new CD, which is to be released in the birth place of Sardar Patel.Both have spoken to the director general of police and the chief secretary to be on alert against a communal CD in which Vishwa Hindu Parishad men being burnt in a train is shown.If this is telecast, there shall be a possiblity of the entire election process being postponed. If that is done, the Centre can easily clamp President Rule.Deputy election commissioners have been put on alert in New Delhi to monitor Gujarat.
Meanwhile,An inquiry commission probing the 2002 communal violence in Gujarat on Monday said it would examine the footage of a sting operation conducted by the Tehelka newsmagazine.The expose, telecast last week, purportedly shows the state's public prosecutor Arvind Pandya casting aspersions on the two-member commission.Pandya is shown telling an undercover reporter that while Justice G.T. Nanavati was after money, Justice K.G. Shah was "our man". The Jan Sangharsh Manch, an NGO representing the violence victims, on Monday submitted an application before the commission to take note of the sting operation and inquire into the allegations made by Pandya.

"We need to know full facts," Justice Nanavati said, adding: "Unless we verify facts, we will not take any action.

"We also have to ascertain how reliable this expose is," he said.
The Gujarat government has submitted a CD of the Tehelka expose to the Nanavati Commission, which is inquiring into the Godhra violence and the following riots.
With the Tehelka tapes showing former government counsel Arvind Pandya casting aspersions on the integrity of the commission itself, Justice G T Nanavati and K G Shah on Monday refused to respond to the allegations.The Tehelka investigation has a number of prominent leaders of the state's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its affiliate organisations describing how they carried out the killings and claiming that the violence had sanction from Chief Minister Narendra Modi.The state's home department submitted a CD of the expose before the commission for appropriate action.

Pandya last week resigned as public prosecutor before the commission after the sting footage was telecast on Thursday.
They said that ''first we will verify the facts of the case before issuing any order. It's a serious matter, we cannot rush in. We have to check the facts before issuing any order.''
While the commission's statement fell along expected lines, what's surprising is that the state government, which was the target of the Tehelka sting, has itself submitted a TV recording of the expose to the commission.
Sources say the state government has asked the commission to put the tapes on record.
While the state Law Minister, Ashok Bhatt refused to comment on the issue, many insiders believe that with elections round the corner, the move was politically loaded.
Chief Minister Narendra Modi is trying to send a signal that he didn't fear any inquiry.
The sting operation had showed Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal workers bragging about the support of the state administration and Narendra Modi as they went about killing Muslims in 2002.
One of them said Modi even thanked them after the carnage in Naroda Patiya and was impressed by their enthusiasm.
If the tapes are admitted as evidence it would give the Nanavati panel's investigations a big boost and incriminate Modi and his party workers in the case.
Meanwhile, the NGO Jan Sangarsh Morcha, which represents the riot victims at the commission, has asked the commission to act against Arvind Pandya.

'Mumbai won't burn if Srikrishna report is implemented'
http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/oct/25inter.htm
October 25, 2007
Yusuf H Muchala, a senior advocate in the Bombay high court, has been fighting for the victims of the 1993 Mumbai riots for many years. He has filed a petition in the Supreme Court that the Maharashtra government should act on the Justice Srikrishna report which probed the December 1992-January 1993 riots following the demolition of the Babri Masjid. The report had been rejected by the then Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena-led government that had come to power soon after.
In a recent interview with Senior Associate Editor Onkar Singh, Muchala rejected the plea that the implementation of the report would set Mumbai on fire.
The BJP-Shiv Sena government had rejected the Srikrishna report outright.
That's right. We have gone to the Supreme Court against the decision.
But the Congress-led state government says it wants to implement the report.
If what they say is right then they should stop associating themselves with the decision of the earlier government. They should categorically say that the decision of the previous government was wrong, but they are not willing to disassociate from the previous decision.
Is it true that the police has harassed the riot victims instead of helping them?
Instances have been brought before the public about the prejudice of the police and the state government to harass the victims. I had cited the case of the Suleman Bakery in which the Special Task Force had said a police officer was guilty of nine cold-blooded murders and to cover that up they filed a case in 1993 implicating innocent people.
The administration is not serious about prosecuting those who have been found to have wrongly implicated innocent people. On the contrary, they are opposing their application for discharge. It is a clear case of victimising the victim.
What is the status of your petition in the Supreme Court?
We have challenged the earlier action taken report in the Supreme Court and we want this to be set aside. We have argued that they (the BJP-Sena government) rejected the Justice Srikrishna report to avoid political embarrassment to their parties.
You say there is prejudice against the victims. Have you been able to establish it?
There are many such cases where the prejudice of the police and the state administration is clearly established. But in the Suleman Bakery case it is very evident. Nine innocent persons were murdered and the Special Task Force which reinvestigated the matter in 2000 said the action was totally unnecessary and called them cold-blooded murders. The action initiated under false FIRs (First Information Reports) is still continuing. In cases where action is being taken against policemen, there is no proper prosecution.
There is an impression that no government in Maharashtra wants to take action on the Srikrishna report as it would set Mumbai on fire.
This is a misplaced fear. I don't think the situation in Mumbai is that dangerous. After the Justice Srikrishna report there have been many bomb blasts in the city. Civil society has had the courage to stand together. Muslims have worked with other communities shoulder to shoulder to provide succour and relief to the victims.
Earlier Interview: 'Don't look at it as a Hindu-Muslim problem'
Are you saying that those who talk of Mumbai burning are in fact trying to get out of a tight corner?
I am not a political analyst. My reading of the situation in Mumbai is that the civil society is fairly strong and would not allow such a thing to occur. The present government lacks the political will to act against people who talk of Mumbai burning.
The Congress-led government has been in power for some time but have they dug up the Srikrishna report now because the Gujarat election is round the corner?
It is wrong to say that the state government has dug up the report. The NGOs who have been working in the field have kept the issue alive. Given a chance they (the government) would have buried the report a long time back.
When the government says it would implement the report in toto, would you say they are making a deceptive statement?
Absolutely deceptive because they say one thing but their actions are totally different. They may have the courage to implement it or they may lack the courage but we as civil society will keep on fighting for justice and for the rule of law to prevail. Our petition before the Supreme Court comes up in the last week of October.
FRONT-PAGE AND EDIT PAGE NEWS AND ANALYSIS FROM URDU NEWSPAPERS – TRANSLATION FROM URDU – FREE SERVICE FOR WORLD MEDIA
Monday, October 29, 2007

Headlines Today from Mumbai's Urdu Newspapers
Inquilab Urdu daily, Mumbai
Secular parties prepare to unite against Modi –
Congress is planning to enter into confederation with left parties and other organiz