Monthly Archive for April, 2008

Drugs for guns

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on April 30, 2008
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How the Afghan heroin trade is fuelling the Taliban insurgency. In The Independent, UK, Jerome Starkey reports from Kunduz:

The heroin flooding Britain’s streets is threatening the lives of UK troops in Afghanistan, an Independent investigation can reveal.

Russian gangsters who smuggle drugs into Britain are buying cheap heroin from Afghanistan and paying for it with guns. Smugglers told The Independent how Russian arms dealers meet Taliban drug lords at a bazaar near the old Afghan-Soviet border, deep in Tajikistan’s desert. The bazaar exists solely to trade Afghan drugs for Russian guns – and sometimes a bit of sex on the side.

The drugs are destined for Britain’s streets. The guns go straight to the Taliban front line.

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Cricket entering new golden age with greed its greatest enemy

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on April 30, 2008
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In The Times, UK, Christopher Martin-Jenkins, Chief Cricket Correspondent:

Cricket is in ferment again. It often is, but the first thing to understand about what we had better now call the Twenty20 Revolution is that it will not supersede Test cricket.

I keep reading that “cricket is the new football”. That is odd because that was what was being said in 2005, when the Ashes series was gripping a wider than usual proportion of the British public, just as last year’s ICC World Twenty20 tournament in South Africa captivated much of India’s vast population or the explosive fast bowling of Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson enthused Australians, among them Kerry Packer, in 1974-75.

Cricket’s popularity ebbs and flows, like the game itself, but it keeps flowing. Not because it is the new football, but because it is the old cricket, a series of duels between a batsman and a bowler in a team context and varying conditions, a game demanding as much skill, fitness and courage as most others and greater discipline, technique and intelligence than any.

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Asian vultures declining faster than the dodo

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on April 30, 2008
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From The Guardian:

Asian vultures are declining faster than any bird in history, including the dodo, and could become extinct within a decade, conservationists said yesterday.

A survey shows that the rate of decline is about 50% a year with one species, the white-backed vulture, falling by 99.9% since the early 1990s. Others such as the long-billed and slender-billed vultures have been reduced to around 1,000 in the wild.

Scientists blame the decline on an anti-inflammatory drug used for livestock, which can poison vultures feeding on treated carcasses. Diclofenac causes kidney failure in the birds within a few days of exposure and a single cow carcass can kill a large flock. Researchers counted the vulture population in northern and central India between March and June last year, surveying the birds from vehicles along almost 12,000 miles of road.

More here, and here:

Bhopal: hundreds of new victims are born each year

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on April 30, 2008
in India
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From The Guardian:

Hundreds of children are still being born with birth defects as a result of the world’s worst industrial disaster 23 years ago in the central Indian town of Bhopal, say campaigners. They are demanding that the Indian government provide immediate medical care and research the “hidden” health impacts.

More than two decades ago, white clouds of toxic gas escaped from American multinational Union Carbide’s pesticide plant. The gas killed 5,000 people that night and 15,000 more in the following weeks – and doctors say that a new generation is being affected.

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Salman Rushdie the actor

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on April 30, 2008
in Movies
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Salman Rushdie is playing the role of an obstetrician in Then She Found Me. Helen Hunt stars in, directs, and also helped write and produce the movie. Here’s the New York Times review:

“Then She Found Me,” a serious comedy, is more impressive for what it refuses to do than for its modest accomplishment. The directorial debut of Helen Hunt, who plays April Epner, an anxious 39-year-old kindergarten teacher in New York City, it has all the ingredients of a slick, commercial farce, which it emphatically is not.

In fact, the movie, based on a novel by Elinor Lipman, has enough material for two such farces. In one, a childless mother obsessed with her ticking biological clock becomes pregnant after clumsy breakup sex with her husband of less than a year. (Her obstetrician is played by, of all people, Salman Rushdie.)

[Photo: Salman Rushdie as Dr. Masani, Helen Hunt as April, Colin Firth as Frank and Matthew Broderick as Ben in Then She Found Me]

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Congo spotlight on India and Pakistan

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on April 30, 2008
in Conflict, India and Pakistan
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The reputation of Indian and Pakistani peacekeeping forces could be at stake, reports Martin Plaut of the BBC

A BBC investigation into United Nations peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo has put the spotlight on Indian troops for the first time, and revived questions about Pakistani troops there.

Much of the report is based on confidential UN documents. Concerns were first raised within the UN about Indian troop activities in eastern DR Congo in July, 2007. After discussions between the UN and India, it was agreed that a UN investigation team would “determine whether the allegations are credible and require full investigation by India and the United Nations”.

That team identified five areas involving Indian troops in which a UN report says allegations have been “corroborated”

  • The illegal purchase of gold from rebels of the FDLR – the former Rwandan army that fled to Congo following their involvement in the Rwanda genocide of 1994
  • The use of a UN helicopter to fly into the Virunga national park, to exchange ammunition for ivory with the rebels
  • The exchanging with the rebels of UN rations for gold
  • The buying of drugs from the rebels
  • The failure to support the disarmament of this rebel group.

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A changing war

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on April 30, 2008
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The conflict in Afghanistan may become more like the one in Iraq, says The Economist

THE Mujahideen Day parade in Kabul, at the weekend, was supposed to show Afghanistan’s new, Western-trained, armed forces coming of age. President Hamid Karzai, other Afghan politicians and a jumble of diplomats packed a podium to review the troops. Then, just as a 21-gun salute began, what sounded like celebratory firecrackers crackled from a shabby hotel some 400m away. As six lightly armed Taliban fighters took pot shots the dignitaries and military men panicked, shedding bits of ceremonial uniform as they scrambled for safety.

Casualties were not as serious as they might have been: the gunmen managed to kill three and wound 11 but failed to touch their main target, Mr Karzai. Even so, they scored a significant propaganda victory. Television pictures of the furore broadcast at home and abroad confirmed that Afghanistan’s capital is within reach of the Islamist fighters. “We can attack anywhere we want to”, boasted a Taliban spokesman after the attacks. This was the second big strike in Kabul this year. In January a three-man Taliban suicide squad blasted its way into the lobby and spa of a luxury hotel in the city, killing eight staff and guests.

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Sex and Indians

Published
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on April 30, 2008
in Sexuality
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According to a Durex Sexual Wellbeing survey, Asians are clear losers when compared to rest of the world. Only 46% Indians experience an orgasm almost every time they have sex. Couples from China and Hong Kong are the least likely to reach orgasm during sex, while the Italians and Spanish claim to have no problems climaxing (achieving orgasms 66 percent of the time). Other Asian countries such as Japan (27 percent) and Singapore (36 percent) ranked poorly

However, while 55% of Indian males almost always climax during sex, women get a worse deal with only 26% almost always achieving orgasm.

Click here for Durex survey:

Does going to Mecca make Muslims more moderate?

Published
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on April 30, 2008
in Religion
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Ray Fisman in Slate:

Last December, more than 2 million Muslims from around the world converged on Saudi Arabia to participate in the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to the holy site of Mecca. The Hajjis spent a month performing religious rituals, mingling with Muslims from all walks of life, and, in some cases, taking part in communal chants of “Death to America” led by Islamic extremists. This was understandably unnerving to the 10,000 or so Americans who made the pilgrimage, not to mention those who didn’t. Such behavior raised concerns that the Hajj is a breeding ground for anti-Western sentiment-or worse.

Then again, the spirit of friendship and community that typically prevails during the Hajj has also been known to promote tolerance and understanding across peoples. Malcolm X famously softened his views on black-white relations during his pilgrimage to Mecca, where he witnessed a “spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and non-white.”

[Ray Fisman is the Lambert Family Professor of Social Enterprise and research director of the Social Enterprise Program at the Columbia Business School. His book with Ted Miguel, Economic Gangsters, is forthcoming in October 2008.]

[via 3quarksdaily]
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John Cleese goes to a laughter yoga club in India

Published
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on April 29, 2008
in Health
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Everest Olympic torch diary

Published
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on April 28, 2008
in Tibet
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As the Olympic torch makes its way around the world before arriving in Beijing for the games in August, the BBC’s Jonah Fisher joins it for the high point of its trip – on Mount Everest. In the third of his diary instalments, he arrives at Mount Everest national park.

The first part of our high speed – even more highly managed – tour of Tibet is nearing its end. Everest is at last in sight, and we should reach it sometime on Monday.

The smiles on the faces of the Beijing Olympic Committee representatives say it all.

Despite the best efforts of us international journalists to find someone to express a slightly pro-Tibetan thought, we have not found anybody.

Having been blocked from going to the capital Lhasa, we have been forced into a strict routine of brisk starts in the morning followed by a long day of driving, with pauses for “attractions” en route.

More:

Click here for the second instalment of the diary:

A flashpoint called Tibet

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on April 28, 2008
in Tibet
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What India is passing off as a moderate China policy is actually aberrant behaviour, writes Bharat Karnad, professor at the Centre for Policy Research, in Mint.

The barbed wire barricade outside the Chinese embassy ought to become a permanent fixture of New Delhi’s landscape. It will remind the Indian people and their government about what it is that, at the core, separates India from China: freedom.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, however, has prostrated himself in a kow-tow to the zhung guo (“the central kingdom”) – calling China India’s “greatest neighbour”, deliberately leaving Tawang out of his official visit to Arunachal Pradesh and, as if to confirm this country’s tributary status, preventing anti-China protests in Arunachal Pradesh, hounding and gagging the poor Tibetan community in exile and, after declaring India would not tolerate Chinese minders, allowing Chinese cops to trot alongside the Olympics torch carriers and the contingent of army commandos for the short stretch the “flame” of fair play was exposed to the Indian “public”.

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Bollywood embraces size zero

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on April 28, 2008
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Kareena Kapoor’s weight loss has a global resonance. Rhys Blakely looks at the slimmer picture in the Sunday Times.

For years a fleshy physique was considered a must for an actress aspiring to break into Bollywood. Now its first “size-zero” female star has the sub-continent’s cinematic purists in a tizzy, amid fears that an imported Western fondness for slim women threatens to debase the country’s culture.

The Indian press has of late been preoccupied by the newly svelte body of Kareena Kapoor, one of the country’s biggest – if now skinniest – leading ladies. Kapoor had lost several pounds for Tashan, her latest film, the result, she said, of “power yoga” and a special diet. Critics, a little unkindly, suggested that she resembled a “barely alive cadaver”.

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A Kashmiri Muslim is not the same as just a Muslim

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on April 28, 2008
in India and Religion
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Suhail Akram searches for his identity in Tehelka

Growing up in conflict-ridden Kashmir, I never saw anyone being stopped from worshipping in mosques and I never felt awkward wearing my religion on my sleeve or calling myself a Muslim. But I remember the consternation on my mother’s face when she saw me with those first adolescent strands of hair on my face. She was scared that I might be caught in a ‘crack-down’ by the Army, who believes that everyone with a beard is a terrorist.

As a child, when military boots marched across the street nearby or when militants hurled a grenade, I would tremble in fear. Hiding within the four walls of my room, I would blindfold myself and with clenched fists, I would bow down and prostrate myself. Out of fright, I could not recall the Quranic verses and would instead whisper my school’s assembly prayers: “Lab pay aati hay duwa ban kay tamanna meri. Zindagi shama ki surat ho khudaya meri.” God was my only refuge at this time.

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Banana pancakes: the answer to a hippy’s prayers

Published
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on April 28, 2008
in Food and Travel
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In The Guardian, David Jenkins writes about his food experience — dal, dal, dal was dull, dull, dull — on the hippy trail back in the seventies, and how much things have changed since then with the arrival of apple pie in Varanasi and ‘German bakeries’ and bottled drinking water everywhere

The first one I remember having out East was on Unawatuna Beach, near Galle, in 1981, with Simon Le Bon. Unawatuna was ravishing then: a perfect crescent of golden sand, a few bamboo shacks, a house some rich junkies lived in, two members of Duran Duran seeking inspiration for their next video, and a palm-fringed restaurant, its deck facing the sunset. I was, of course, stoned; I had, of course, the munchies. And Simon… well, Simon was pouring maple syrup over a banana pancake. There it was: glistening, glutinous and the answer to any hippy’s prayers. So I ordered, and I ate, and I was hooked. Ever since – from Sihanoukville to Sikkim, from Vagator to Varanasi – I’ve fallen ravenously on those banana pancakes and wept with joy.

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Doting daddy and jihadi

Published
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on April 28, 2008
in Conflict and Religion
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Rachel Johnson in the Sunday Times argues that the launch of the Quilliam Foundation last week is good news for the world

The crooning voice is soft. “Maryam, my little sweetheart, I love you lots and lots. You are my little baby with big fat little feet.”

The father of the little girl, cradled in the crook of his right arm, caresses her pudgy limbs as she squirms and babbles in his lap. “Remember me in your dua [prayers]. I will certainly remember you, and, inshallah, things will work out for the best,” he says, voice muffled as he buries his face in her downy hair. “Maryam, be strong, learn to fight – fighting is good. Be Mummy’s best friend. Take care of Mummy – you can both do things together, like fighting and stuff.”

As anyone who saw it on the television news last week will confirm, this diary-room-style home video reworking of the WB Yeats poem A Prayer for My Daughter for our modern era of suicide bombers and Al-Qaeda plots is, quite simply, off the scale.

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Biting the bait gets a whole new meaning

Published
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on April 28, 2008
in Trends and Wildlife
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British tourists pay 100 pounds to watch endangered lions kill tethered cattle in India’s Gir National Park. Dean Nelson has the story in the Sunday Times.

British tourists are paying more than £100 to watch endangered Asian lions kill tethered cattle at an Indian wildlife reserve.

According to local officials, some visitors eat lunch at dining tables as they watch cows and buffalo being devoured. Animal welfare groups have expressed outrage, saying such gruesome displays break the law and are not only cruel to cattle but also put the lions in jeopardy by bringing them closer to humans. They blame western tourists for encouraging the practice.

According to conservationists, the shows are being organised by tour guides and farmers in collusion with junior park officials. Only about 360 lions survive in India from a subspecies that once ranged from Greece through the Caucasus and into China. It is now confined to the Gir national park in Gujarat, western India, where the incomes of villagers depend on frequent sightings.

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Lakshmi Mittal is Britain’s richest

Published
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on April 27, 2008
in Lists
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From The Sunday Times, UK:

The wealthiest man in Britain is the steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal whose fortune has rocketed to £27.7 billion, up from £19.25 billion last year, thanks to strong global demand for steel. Mittal is now the sixth richest person in the world and far ahead of any other billionaire in Britain.

He is followed by Roman Abramovich, the Russian owner of Chelsea football club, on £11.7 billion, and the Duke of Westminster on £7 billion.

The Sunday Times Rich List, which includes people born or based in the UK, reveals that the native British are being overtaken by foreign billionaires. Only six of the top 20 were born in Britain.

Click here for the full Sunday Times Rich List:

‘Sixty is the new 40′

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on April 27, 2008
in Books and India
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Author, designer, mother, wife, Shobhaa Dé has a way of challenging stereotypes and reinventing her persona. At 60, having just published her new book, Superstar India: From Incredible to Unstoppable, she says life is still full of possibilities. Suchitra Behal in The HIndu:

She feels women have a chameleon-like quality that allows them to adapt to any situation. It is perhaps this very quality that makes author, designer, mother, wife (not necessarily in that order), Shobhaa Dé change her roles ever so frequently. Like Madonna, Dé too has that something which makes her challenge stereotypes and reinvent her persona to do something that she wants to. “I refuse to be a kindly granny fading into oblivion. I want women to know that it is possible to live life at 60. Sixty, my dear, is the new 40,” says Dé, tossing her mane. Or, as Meryl Streep famously remarked in “The Devil Wears Prada”, ‘Everybody wants to be us’.

Known for her rather provocative style of writing, Dé who has so far written only fiction, much of it based on the glamour of Bollywood, has switched gear and written a book based on India and its 60 years. It is no coincidence that the book is being published in her 60th year too. “India and my journey has been together. I was born in an independent India and I want our young generation to invest in this country. That is my mission,” remarks Dé.

Click here to read excerpts from the interview:

Why India would like McCain as US President

Published
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on April 27, 2008
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Indians would prefer Obama or Clinton, but not the Indian government, says Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar in The Times of India:

Which of the three candidates for the US Presidency – Hilary Clinton, Barak Obama, and John McCain – will be best for India? Most Indians would opt for Obama or Clinton. But from a policy viewpoint, McCain would be best for India.

Indians have followed with fascination the Democratic struggle in primaries between Clinton and Obama. Through history, all presidential candidates of the Republican and Democratic parties have been white males. This time, all white males have been eliminated early in the Democratic primaries, and the race is now between a woman and a black.

Indian feminists would love to see Clinton win. The US constitution in 1787 had a noble vision of equality for all humans, yet women did not get the vote till 1920. For a woman to be elected this year would be a US landmark.

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Scarlett Keeling’s mother turns to British PR guru in fight for justice

Published
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on April 26, 2008
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(Updated on April 28)

Scarlett Keeling’s mother returns to India to find out why her daughter’s internal organs were removed without permission, reports The Guardian 

Scarlett Keeling, 15, was found on Anjuna beach in February and police initially said that she had died from accidental drowning. Her mother, Fiona MacKeown, maintained that her daughter had been attacked and a second autopsy revealed that she had been raped and killed.

Her body was brought back to the UK for a third post mortem examination, which revealed that her uterus, kidneys and stomach were missing. Her lawyer, Vikram Varma, said she would be speaking to the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation, who are to take over the case.

From The Telegraph, UK:

The mother of murdered teenager Scarlett Keeling (Photo right) has enlisted the help of Kate and Gerry McCann’s spokesman Clarence Mitchell.

Fiona MacKeown, a mother of eight, has been vilified in the press for leaving her 15-year-old daughter to fend for herself in the Indian resort of Anjuna in Goa while she went travelling with her other children

Mr and Mrs McCann were similarly criticised for leaving their daughter Madeleine in their holiday apartment in the Algarve on the night she disappeared while they dined with friends nearby.

Scarlett’s body was found on Anjuna beach on February 18 and although police initially claimed the teenager had accidentally drowned, it was then established she had been raped and murdered.

More here, and here in Daily Mail:

Also in Daily Mail:

Scarlett Keeling left a letter asking for a funeral ‘party’ a year before she was murdered in Go

Scarlett Keeling, the British teenager murdered in Goa, wrote a letter a year before she was horrifically raped and murdered saying that she wanted her life to be celebrated when she died.

In a three-page letter the teenager poignantly questioned the meaning of life and said she wanted her short life to be celebrated rather than mourned.

Her mother Fiona MacKeown discovered the letter which had the words “READ ME” written in big letters on it shortly after she returned to the UK.

More:

Previously on AW:

The Internationalilst

Published
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on April 26, 2008
in Leaders
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Newsweek International Editor Fareed Zakaria, who has written a new book, The Post-American World, on the future of the Muslim world, whether American kids are decadent, and what the United States can learn from the Swiss. From 02138 magazine:

Q:You are responsible for covering the entire globe. How do you prioritize?

A: The most important thing is the column. What subject should I choose? Do I have anything value-added to say about it? How do I report on it properly? Who do I call? What should I read?

All these things feed into each other. When we are deciding the cover for Newsweek International, it’s like having meetings with an intelligence agency. There are all these people around the world saying, ‘This is what’s interesting.’ So then we decide what the most interesting is.

But I also step back, every now and then, and consider: If I were to write a book, what are the broad themes here? Is there a big story people are missing?

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Why China needs India’s transparency

Published
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on April 26, 2008
in Economy
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Tarun Khanna, Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor at Harvard Business School and the author of Billions of Entrepreneurs: How China and India are Reshaping their Futures and Yours, in BusinessWeek:

A few months ago the gentleman driving my car between New Delhi and an old fort in Alwar district in Rajasthan had to stop to accommodate a collection of villagers protesting water shortages. It is perhaps a sad commentary on this serious problem-water shortages are endemic to Rajasthan, a desert state bordering Pakistan -that the protest barely registered with me.

But what I found interesting, after being stuck behind a line of bullock carts, buses, trucks, and cycle rickshaws all patiently waiting to move around the protest, was the equanimity with which the protest was received. Everyone was inconvenienced, but there was no “protest” against the protesters. Nor was there any attempt by the political classes against whom the protests were directed to subvert the protesters in any way.

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No cheerleaders, please. We’re Indians

Published
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on April 25, 2008
in Cricket
. 2 Comments

[Updated on May 2]

Namita Bhandare in Mint

Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that the moral grandstanding on the Indian Premier League, or IPL, cheerleader controversy has the elements of a pre-written script with the dramatis personae mouthing predictable lines? First, the cast of characters: Siddharam Mehetre is Maharashtra’s minister of state for home. He finds cheerleaders and their performance “absolutely obscene” and out of place in a country where “womanhood is worshipped”.

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Maharashtra’s moral police wants to ban cheereaders from IPL matches played in the state for their ‘vulgar’ and ‘obscene’ performance. Some conservative politicians would not like these girls to perform at the Indian Premier League’s upcoming matches in the state’s capital city, Bombay (Mumbai).

Many IPL franchisees have brought in foreign cheerleaders to add a bit of US-style glitz to the popular game. While cricket fans are not complaining, these politicians are not amused. They say that in a country where “womanhood is worshipped,” cheerleaders are “an affront” to Indian culture. And they ask: “How can anything obscene like this be allowed?”

Result? The state government gives in to the moral police. The franchisees will have to apply for permits before cheerleaders can be allowed to perform in Mumbai. If the cheerleaders “indulge in obscenity,” the franchisees will be fined.

However, Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan, who owns the IPL team Kolkata Knight Riders, does not find anything vulgar about cheerleaders. “I am also a family person, I do not see anything negative in it,” he said

National Commission for Women Girija Vyas said “we should promote our culture by bringing folk dancers and musicians in these matches.”

More here, here, here and here

And as for the cheerleaders themselves, they have some harrowing stories: “It’s been horrendous,” Tabitha, a cheerleader from Uzbekistan, told the Hindustan Times. “Wherever we go we do expect people to pass lewd, snide remarks but I’m shocked by the nature and magnitude of the comments people pass here.” Another cheerleader, Christy, told The Telegraph, Calcutta, “If they want us to be fully clad, we don’t mind.”

More here:

Body politics: bahu okay, others bawdy

From The Telegraph, Calcutta:

From the Indian Politician’s Dictionary, edited by Amar Singh, Amitabh Bachchan’s “younger brother”:

Single standards: If Mumbai bar girls are banned, so should be the Indian Premier League’s pom-pom girls.

Obscene: What the Washington Redskins wear, but not what “bahu” Aishwarya Rai wore in Dhoom:2

[Photos: Left, a cheerleader at an IPL match in Bangalore; right, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in the movie Dhoom:2]

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‘To lionise former extremists is to feed anti-Muslim prejudice’

Published
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on April 25, 2008
in Religion and Society
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It is a mistake to fete repentent members of Islamist cults, argues Ziauddin Sarkar in The Guardian [via The Hindu]

When one sinner repents, says the biblical adage, there is much joy in heaven. So the angels, along with the government, must be rejoicing at the launch of the U.K.-based Quilliam Foundation. The thinktank has been established by not one but two repentant sinners: Ed Husain and Maajid Nawaz, ex-members of the extremist Islamic cult Hizb ut-Tahrir.

On earth, however, I would suggest a greater degree of caution. In the here and now, it’s not the repentant sinners we should celebrate but “the 99 righteous persons who need no repentance”, those unmentioned Muslims who refused to be seduced by the dark side. I know I am going to upset many of my Muslim friends who are quite ecstatic about the foundation. After all, as its website declares, Quilliam “rejects foreign ideologies of Islamism and jihadism” and upholds “Islam as a pluralistic, diverse tradition that can heal the pathology of Islamist extremism”. What could be wrong with such a message?

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Quilliam Foundation director Maajid Nawaz  response (also in The Guardian) is that his foundation works with all groups to stop Muslim minds from being poisoned 

The Quilliam Foundation was not, as Sardar claims, established by two former members of Hizb ut-Tahrir – a group he rightly identifies as a cult. There are many people involved. Ed Husain and myself were the public face for the launch at the British Museum on Tuesday, but we had more than 20 former members of different Islamist groups attending in support, joining over 400 well-wishers from across British society.

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Finally, check out the Quilliam Foundation’s homepage here.

In the Himalayas, a climate-change calamity builds

Published
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on April 24, 2008
in Bhutan and environment
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Glacial melting threatens disastrous floods in Bhutan, one of the world’s most environmentally vigilant nations. Henry Chu reports in Los Angeles Times:

Punakha, Bhutan: High in the Himalayas, above this peaceful valley where farmers till a patchwork of emerald-green fields, an icy lake fed by melting glaciers waits to become a “tsunami from the sky.”

The lake is swollen dangerously past normal levels, thanks to the global warming that is causing the glaciers to retreat at record speed. But no one knows when the tipping point will come and the lake can take no more, bursting its banks and sending torrents of water crashing into the valley below.

Such floods from above have hit Punakha before, most recently in 1994, a calamity that killed about two dozen people and wiped out livelihoods and homes without warning. But scientists say a new flood could unleash more than twice as much water and be far more catastrophic.

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Final battle for Gurkhas

Published
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on April 24, 2008
in Nepal
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Gurkha captain Kushalsing Gurung, 72, served in the Queen’s Gurkha Engineers (QGE) for 30 years. He was stationed in Malaysia (then Malaya) and Hong Kong, where he built roads and bridges throughout his long career. He is one of thousands of retired Gurkha veterans currently fighting a new battle – to extract from the UK government the same pension that is given to British soldiers. From the Guardian Weekly:

When I joined the Gurkhas in 1952 at the age of 13, I lied to get in. The minimum entry age at that time was 15. I wanted to go to school and there was little prospect of an education in my village. My father was a Gurkha, as was my grandfather, and my brother served in the Indian Army. Being a soldier was considered a well-respected profession.

According to history, the Gurkhas have served in the British Army for almost 200 years. After Indian independence in 1947, under the tripartite agreement some Gurkhas joined the Indian Army and some joined the British Army. My regiment transferred to the British Army and became part of the Brigade of Gurkhas.

I was sent to Malaysia [then Malaya] in 1952 to receive my education. At the time not many Gurkhas had served there. Most soldiers were directly allocated a regiment, but because I was a young recruit I was able to decide for myself. I decided to be in the engineers. I wanted a good skill to bring back to my country.

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How Islamicised is the Pakistan army?

Published
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on April 24, 2008
in Pakistan
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Myra MacDonald on Reuters Blogs:

While living in Delhi after 9/11, and in particular after India and Pakistan nearly went to war over an attack on the Indian parliament on December 13, 2001, one of the questions that cropped up frequently was about how much the Pakistan army had been permeated by hardline Islamists. In other words, how much sympathy did the army feel for al Qaeda and Taliban militants that then General Pervez Musharraf had pledged to fight?

Several years later, while researching a book on the Siachen war, I had occasion to travel with the Pakistan army and assess the Islamist question up close. My impression was that the Pakistan army was not driven by religious fanaticism. Yes, it exhorted its soldiers to embrace “shaheed”, or martyrdom, in the name of Allah. But it was otherwise remarkably similar to the Indian army.

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AB’s baby. It’s a blog.

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Amitabh Bachchan joins a growing legion of bloggers to write about his family, things he feels strongly about and as a platform to reply to his critics (including a swipe at filmstar-politician Shatrughan Sinha).

In one of his posts he talks about the Marathi-non Marathi controversy whipped up by Raj Thackeray, saying that ‘discrimination of any kind is not acceptable to me’.

Hosted by BigAdda (which is owned by good friend Anil Ambani) and just one week old, Big B’s blog is a super-duper hit with comments pouring in from ‘Poland to Pakistan’.

Check out the blog here

Prayer, hope and a family reunion

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Sarabjit, the Indian prisoner on death row in a Pakistani jail, will be meeting his family today after 18 years. Baljinder Bobby, Arshdeep report for NDTV

The family of Sarabjit Singh has crossed over to Pakistan through Wagah Border on Wednesday to meet him. It will be a family reunion after 18 long years.

They will meet Sarabjit at the Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore.

”We have taken all the things we know he loves. I am also carrying 18 rakhis. I have waited all these years to tie them on my brother’s wrist,” says Sarabjit’s sister. This is an anxious moment for Sarabjit’s daughter as well. She was only 23-days-old when her father left for Pakistan and never returned.

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