Monthly Archive for January, 2009

A portrait of Kashmir

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on January 31, 2009
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On the blog The Middle Stage, a review of Basharat Peer’s book  Curfewed Night (Random House):

peerThere are many books now in circulation on Kashmir and its discontents, but possibly none as haunting and intimate as this one. Basharat Peer has been a name in Indian journalism for some years now for his reporting on Kashmir for Rediff and Tehelka, but his new book Curfewed Night, a blend of memoir and reportage, is probably the best first-hand account of the region-its beauty, its alienation, and its pain-available to thousands of interested readers more simply and securely Indian than Kashmiris are.

Indeed, Curfewed Night lifts the veil not just from a Kashmir that is no longer a part of mainstream experience and limps along on its own track, but also from an India that many of us are not willing to acknowledge. Here is India as a military power, holding its own citizens-or people that it asserts are its citizens-to ransom in a double bind of ineptitude and brutality.

More here, and here at Pak Tea House:

Sweet home Karachi

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on January 31, 2009
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Raj Thackeray’s latest diktat, that all Mumbai sweet shops with the distinctive name of Karachi Sweets drop the K-word from their names, robs Sindhis of their history writes Jyoti Punwani in The Indian Express

karachi-sweetsFor those who had nothing to do with Partition, Karachi is just another city. For those whose patriotism begins and ends with the geographical boundaries of the state they were born in — and they are many — Karachi is the name of an enemy city, just like Lahore. But ask a Sindhi what Karachi means to her or to him.  

Sindhis have always complained that they got the rawest deal among all those affected by Partition. They had to leave their homeland where Hindu-Muslim conflict was barely known, and take refuge wherever they could in India. Here, they had no state they could call their own, unlike the Punjabis and Bengalis who came over. But they managed not just to survive and indeed prosper, but also to contribute.

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And, if you’re looking for a recipe for Karachi Halwa click here on the Indian Sweets Recipe website.

India’s $10 Laptop

Published
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on January 31, 2009
in Education, India, Innovation, Science and Technology
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On February 3, the Indian government will unveil a $10 educational laptop. It will have 2GB of RAM, Wi-Fi and expandable hardware, and operate on just two watts of power.

From The Times of India:

The $10 laptop has come out of the drawing board stage due to work put in by students of Vellore Institute of Technology, scientists in Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, IIT-Madras and involvement of PSUs like Semiconductor Complex. “At this stage, the price is working out to be $20 but with mass production it is bound to come down,” R P Agarwal, secretary, higher education said. More:

From Fast Company:

The $10 laptop is a direct response to the MIT-developed nonprofit One Laptop Per Child program, that was viewed as grossly expensive in India. The OLPC devices cost about $100 each, but “hidden costs” bring that price up to around $200. OLPC has also been a victim of its own poor strategy, evidenced by recent layoffs and a failure to secure donations and orders in 2008. More:

‘I feel overwhelmed by Pakistan sometimes’

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on January 31, 2009
in Books and Conflict
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Mohammad Hanif, author of the blackly humorous book, A Case of Exploding Mangoes, was in India for the Jaipur LitFest. He talks to Shoma Chaudhury of Tehelka about things despairing and hopeful in India and Pakistan.

hanifYou were part of the clash of civilizations debate. What was your dominant impression from it?

I have been to India only a couple of times for short periods, so I have seen Indian politics only played out on the media. This was my first experience of watching Indian intellectuals and ideologues live. It was quite fascinating. There was Tarun Vijay – the right wing Hindu ideologue who I have only heard of. When he made that rather extreme statement that there is no clash of civilizations in India because on one side there is Hindu civilization and on the other, there is no civilization, only barbarism, I was really heartened by the reaction of the school children sitting in the front row. You would expect audiences in a festival like this to be full of bleeding heart liberals, but going by the way the kids booed him, one can see there are many new liberals in the making.

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And click here for a slideshow from the Jaipur Literature Festival:

An Afghan bride’s struggle for justice in India

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on January 31, 2009
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From The Washington Post:

Twenty-year-old Sabra Ahmadzai finished her final high school test in Afghanistan, took out a bank loan and then flew to India on the last day of November. She came to look for an Indian army doctor who she said had deceived, married and then abandoned her in Kabul, making her an object of shame and ridicule.

In India, Ahmadzai’s journey has become a rallying point for young women across college campuses who find in her a source of inspiration to question powerful hierarchies of traditional societies. The students in three universities in the capital are trying to set up a “Justice Committee for Sabra” by enlisting eminent lawyers, retired judges, professors and independent activists.

The first thing Ahmadzai did in India was confront her husband in front of his first wife and children. But Ahmadzai did not stop there. She also filed a police complaint and challenged the Indian army, meeting with government officials, women’s groups, human rights organizers and student activists.

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Spinning a new yarn

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on January 31, 2009
in Fashion
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A designer takes khadi on a new journey. From Mint Lounge:

khadi_modelThe 5-hour car ride from Kolkata to Chowk village in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district on a bumpy, broken road is sure to leave you with a sore back. This journey is probably why the region has escaped the attention of potential handloom buyers, who flock to more accessible hubs in the state.

But 29-year-old Kolkata-based designer Soumitra Mondal is willing to make the trip once every two months to nurture his camaraderie with the local weavers and reassure them that their craft is still valued.

Silk weaving is the main cottage industry in Murshidabad. Around 16,000 families in Chowk, in the Islampur area, and 30 neighbouring villages are engaged at various points of the process of silk production-from separating silk threads from cocoons and spinning the yarn to weaving them into cloth.

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Why Gandhi still matters

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on January 30, 2009
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On Mahatma Gandhi’s 61st death anniversary, Ramchandra Guha writes for Mint Lounge

This photograph was taken by Ram Rahman in 2002, during an India Day parade in New York. A man dressed as Gandhi walks down Madison Avenue as others follow him, holding the tricolour in their hands. At Saffronart Gallery, Mumbai, till 15 February

This photograph was taken by Ram Rahman in 2002, during an India Day parade in New York. A man dressed as Gandhi walks down Madison Avenue as others follow him, holding the tricolour in their hands. At Saffronart Gallery, Mumbai, till 15 February

Since independence and Partition, no event has so divided the Indian people as the demolition of a mosque in the northern town of Ayodhya in December 1992. Hindu radicals claimed that the mosque, known as the Babri Masjid, was built on the ruins of a temple, and that the site itself was the birthplace of god Ram. Through the late 1980s and early 1990s, bands of volunteers tried to storm the mosque, in the process provoking a series of bloody riots across northern India.

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Partnering with Pakistan

Published
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on January 30, 2009
in Afghanistan, Conflict, India, Leaders, Pakistan and Terrorism
. 1 Comment

Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari in The Washington Post:

Asif Ali Zardari

Asif Ali Zardari

Pakistan looks forward to a new beginning in its bilateral relationship with the United States. First, we congratulate Barack Obama and the country that had the character to elect him, and we welcome his decision to name a special envoy to Southwest Asia. Appointing the seasoned diplomat Richard Holbrooke says much about the president’s worldview and his understanding of the complexities of peace and stability and the threats of extremism and terrorism. Simply put, we must move beyond rhetoric and tackle the hard problems.

Pakistan has repeatedly been identified as the most critical external problem facing the new administration. The situation in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India is indeed critical, but its severity actually presents an opportunity for aggressive and innovative action. Since the end of the Musharraf dictatorship, Pakistan has worked to confront the challenges of a young democracy facing an active insurgency, within the context of an international economic crisis. Ambassador Holbrooke will soon discover that Pakistan is far more than a rhetorical partner in the fight against extremism. Unlike in the 1980s, we are surrogates for no one. With all due respect, we need no lectures on our commitment. This is our war. It is our children and wives who are dying.

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The man behind Gandhi stamps

Published
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on January 30, 2009
in Art, India and Leaders
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Samanth Subramanian in Mint:

India's most prolific Gandhi stamp artist Sankha Samanta, and below, a letter posted with the first ever Indian stamps issued on Gandhi, on 15 August 1948. Photos: Mint

India's most prolific Gandhi stamp artist Sankha Samanta, and below, a letter posted with the first ever Indian stamps issued on Mahatma Gandhi, on 15 August 1948. Photos: Mint

There is no photo of Mahatma Gandhi, Sankha Samanta is reasonably certain, which he would not recognize immediately. “The moment you show me one, I could tell you where it was taken, and when,” he says. “That is how much I have pored over them, to find ideas for stamps.”

Since 1947, the postal department has issued 33 commemorative stamps on Gandhi, in addition to a handful of more standard “definitives”. Of those 33, Samanta has designed 14, making him the most prolific Gandhi stamp artist. “We call him the Gandhi man,” says Suresh Kumar, one of the department’s six empanelled stamp artists. “While some of us may use graphics for our portraits, he does mostly hand-drawn portraits. And he does them very well.”

Samanta, a 44-year-old man with a square, pacific face, is a graduate of the very first master of fine arts batch from the Delhi College of Arts. Although not an employee of the department, the lion’s share of his work involves stamp design, commissioned at Rs9,300 per approved stamp and Rs2,300 per unapproved design. Occasionally, there is another project; when the chain of Barista coffee shops opened, Samanta, as design consultant, conceptualized its textured, streaked orange walls.

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Should Obama give a speech to the Muslim world?

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on January 29, 2009
in Conflict, Faith and Politics
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Heather Hurlburt of the National Security Network and David Frum of NewMajority.com debate whether President Obama should give a speech to the Muslim world. From bloggingheads.tv

Obama sand sculpture

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on January 29, 2009
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A sand sculpture of Barack Obama in Puri, India. From The FirstPost

A sand sculpture of Barack Obama in Puri, India. From The FirstPost

Yoga and Islam

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on January 29, 2009
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yogaIndonesia’s top Islamic body the Ulema Council met this past weekend to issue a ban on Muslims from practicing yoga on the ground that it entails Hindu rituals like chanting. But even as the ban kicks up a storm in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, the Darul Uloom Deoband in India intervenes to say that it sees nothing wrong with Muslims doing yoga. Instead of chanting Om (required in some breathing asanas), they can chant verses from the Koran or say the name of Allah. The Indian Express takes a stand.

The Malaysian ulema’s ban on yoga appears to be a bit of a stretch for India’s Islamic establishment, including the Darul Uloom Deoband. It is perfectly acceptable for Muslims to practice the physical discipline while discarding the Hindu associations of words like ‘Om’ — it is even similar to Sufi practices, claimed a scholar.

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Last man standing

Published
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on January 29, 2009
in Bangladesh and Society
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Bangladesh’s last Armenian prays for an unlikely future. AFP has a report [via The Smart Set]

cps_oyb75_280109065831_photo00_quicklook_default-162x245Michael Joseph Martin is guarded about his exact age and reluctant to accept he will be the last in a long line of Armenians to make a major contribution to the history of Bangladesh.

Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital, was once home to thousands of migrants from the former Soviet republic who grew to dominate the city’s trade and business life.

But Martin, aged in his 70s, is now the only one left.

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The greatest literary show on earth

Published
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on January 28, 2009
in Books
. 1 Comment

The annual Jaipur Literature Festival might have met with lukewarm coverage by the Indian press, but the world press goes ga-ga.  Amulya Gopalakrishnan writes for Tina Brown’s The Daily Beast, calling it with considerable hyperbold the ‘greatest literary show’ on earth.  Brown was also one of the speakers at Jaipur.

gopalakrishnan-jaipurEvery January, the ancient city of Jaipur, India, celebrates the written word in a literary festival co-founded by Indian writer Namita Gokhale and William Dalrymple, the British travel writer and historian, that easily places first in Asia for cultural cachet and star power. It’s hard to believe that the festival is only three years old, given the crackle and buzz around its events and personalities—Salman Rushdie chose the occasion for his first public appearance after the fatwa. And this year too, through five sun-drenched mornings and vivid, musical evenings in the dignified old Diggi Palace, the festival made headlines across India.

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And Jeremy Kahn in the International Herald Tribune  says the fest has grown from a small, regional affair to one of international stature

In India’s headlong rush into modernity, Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, is hardly on the cutting edge. A fixture on the tourist circuit, it is best known for its pink-walled old city, its 18th-century Maharashtra’s forts and havelis, its classic jewelry and its traditional, technicolor patchwork textiles. But for a few days each January, this city lays claim to a place at the heart of the contemporary literary world.

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Dido has a slumdog moment too

Published
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on January 28, 2009
in Movies and Music
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Cutting chai, crazy traffic, BEST buses and a woman taxi driver in Mumbai are all part of the video for Dido’s new song, Let’s do the things we normally do from her album Safe Trip Home. The video is directed by Siddharth Sikand, the man behind the Get Gorgeous promos on Channel [V]. Sikand’s brief was simple: he had to interpret home. So, he picked on a woman cab driver (Shahana Goswami) and all life’s drama that she watches unfolding in the back seat of her cab.

In India, clues unfold to a fraud’s framework

Published
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on January 28, 2009
in Business, India and Technology
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Jeremy Kahn in IHT:

New Delhi: How did B. Ramalinga Raju, the chairman of one of India’s largest information technology companies, carry out the biggest financial fraud in this country’s history? Apparently it does take a village.

And although the billion-dollar fraud at Satyam has been called this country’s Enron, an examination of the company’s accounting suggests the scandal may more closely resemble the fraud cases at HealthSouth and Peregrine Software.

A little over two weeks ago, Raju confessed to padding the company’s balance sheet by $1 billion in cash. But investigators now suspect he was less forthcoming than it first appeared.

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The world’s best passenger complaint letter?

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on January 28, 2009
in Business and Food
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A complaint letter sent to Sir Richard Branson, which is currently being emailed globally and is considered by many to be the world’s funniest passenger complaint letter. The mail also contains seven pictures of items served on board. From The Telegraph, UK:

'Look at this Richard. Just look at it'

'Look at this Richard. Just look at it'

Dear Mr Branson

REF: Mumbai to Heathrow 7th December 2008

I love the Virgin brand, I really do which is why I continue to use it despite a series of unfortunate incidents over the last few years. This latest incident takes the biscuit.

Ironically, by the end of the flight I would have gladly paid over a thousand rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey of hell I was subjected to at thehands of your corporation.

Look at this Richard. Just look at it: [see image 1, above].

I imagine the same questions are racing through your brilliant mind as were racing through mine on that fateful day. What is this? Why have I been given it? What have I done to deserve this? And, which one is the starter, which one is the desert?

'Answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in?'

'Answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in?'

You don’t get to a position like yours Richard with anything less than a generous sprinkling of observational power so I KNOW you will have spotted the tomato next to the two yellow shafts of sponge on the left. Yes, it’s next to the sponge shaft without the green paste. That’s got to be the clue hasn’t it. No sane person would serve a desert with a tomato would they. Well answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in: [see image 2, above].

I know it looks like a baaji but it’s in custard Richard, custard. It must be the pudding. Well you’ll be fascinated to hear that it wasn’t custard. It was a sour gel with a clear oil on top. It’s only redeeming feature was that it managed to be so alien to my palette that it took away the taste of the curry emanating from our miscellaneous central cuboid of beige matter. Perhaps the meal on the left might be the desert after all.

Click here to read the rest of the letter:

‘We were molested in the name of God ‘

Published
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on January 27, 2009
in Culture, India and Society
. 1 Comment

[Updated January 29, 2009]

Ashok Gehlot joins the fray. Now he wants pub and mall culture banned.

Members of a self-styled pro-Hindu moral brigade forced their way into a pub in India’s coastal city of Mangalore on Saturday and assaulted some young girls for “violating traditional Indian norms” and behaving in an “obscene manner.”

The men belonging to the right wing group called Sri Rama Sene (Lord Ram’s army) beat up the boys and the girls who were dancing in the pub, Amnesia -- The Lounge. Mangalore is 350 km from Bangalore.

One of the victims of the attack, a young woman, told PTI that the activists called them “prostitutes”. “We were just having a good time and next you know people pulling your hair, hitting you and calling you names like prostitutes, whores…,” the victim told a news channel. “Those people (attackers) simply came in and started beating the girls. It was a bad scene. Our waiters tried to stop them but they did not listen and kept assaulting the girls,” the pub owner told reporters. The police has arrested ten suspected activists of the group.

From The Hindu:

“The entire scene has been playing out in my mind over and over again,” said a woman who was in the pub. She was sitting at the reception counter when the mob entered the compound and was witness to the incident from beginning to end. She said that before barging into the pub, the mob went into a huddle and prayed silently. They then began raising slogans ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai,’ ‘Jai Sri Ram,’ ‘Bajrang Dal ki Jai’ and ‘Sri Ram Sene ki Jai.’

From NDTV:

Pramod Muthalik is the man who laid the foundation of the right-wing Hindu group called the Sri Ram Sena. “Whoever has done this has done a good job. Girls going to pubs is not acceptable. So, whatever the Sena members did was right. You are highlighting this small incident to malign the BJP government in the state,” said Pramod.

In The Times of India: We’re custodians of Indian culture, says Sri Ram Sena founder

Pramod Mutalik told TOI that women were being misused and misguided. “We oppose this. Women have to be protected as the law has failed. Parents are worried about their wards going astray in materialistic pursuits. We are the custodians of Indian culture,” he said. Mutalik is the national president of the right-wing political group, Rashtriya Hindu Sena. The SRS, founded in late 2007, is its militant outfit. When it was pointed out that several girls had been assaulted by the SRS activists, Mutalik said, “I apologize if such a thing has happened. The mode of execution was wrong. But there is no need to raise such a hue and cry about the incident.”

The Mangalore incident is not a one-off, writes Dhiraj Nayyar in The Indian Express

The self-appointed custodians of Indian culture and values raised their ugly head on Monday, when a bunch of hooligans called the Sri Rama Sene attacked young women in a pub in Mangalore. The women’s alleged wrongdoing: drinking and dancing, which the group sees to be a perversion of Indian culture and tradition.

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Skateboarding in Afghanistan

Published
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on January 26, 2009
in Afghanistan
. 1 Comment

Afghanistan’s first skateboarding school holds promise for children who are unfazed by violence and still bound by strict rules of family and society. Adam B. Ellick in The New York Times:

Kabul: It looked like an ordinary neighborhood playground: six children tumbling off their skateboards to the tune of laughter. But only hours before, just 20 yards away, the body of a suicide car bomber was sprawled beside a glistening pool of blood.

Afghan youth have learned to recover almost instantly from such routine violence. One person determined to inject some normalcy into their lives is Oliver Percovich. A 34-year-old from Melbourne, Australia, he plans to open this country’s first skateboarding school, Skateistan, this spring. He sees sport as a way to woo students into after-school activities like English and computer classes, which are otherwise reserved for the elite.

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Is Afghanistan going to be Obama’s Iraq?

Published
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on January 26, 2009
in Afghanistan
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Kim Sengupta and Raymond Whitaker in The Independent:

President Barack Obama is facing warnings that the US risks repeating some of its errors in Iraq as the new administration turns its focus to Afghanistan, where Nato forces are engaged in a conflict which has already lasted longer than the Second World War.

Having received a briefing on his first day in office from General David Petraeus, the top US commander in the region, Mr Obama is preparing to meet his military chiefs to decide on the size and shape of the Afghanistan reinforcements he promised during his election campaign. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, said just before Christmas that up to 30,000 more troops could be sent by summer, nearly doubling the size of the US force in the country. Britain, the next largest contributor in the 41-nation international force, has fewer than 9,000 troops in Afghanistan, which means American dominance of the campaign against the Taliban is set to increase.

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India Inc. and Narendra Modi

Published
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on January 26, 2009
in Business, India and Politics
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My former colleague Jyotirmaya Sharma’s excellent piece in Mail Today on Indian industry leaders’ love for Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi. I couldn’t trace the link to the site; so here’s the full piece titled “False Hope”:

Why a handful of corporate leaders advocating Narendra Modi’s elevation as prime minister should come as a surprise is itself a surprise. It ought to be dismissed as nothing more than a presumptuous utterance, a bit of wish fulfilment, a naked display of the undemocratic credentials of India Inc. and its ever-increasing hubris. Sections of the Indian middle class, technocrats and corporate leaders love Modi just as the same category of people not too long ago loved Hitler. Remove the blot of the concentration camps from Hitler’s biography, and he becomes the idol for all anti-democratic forces through the ages. His was a model for what is mindlessly called `good governance’ these days. He built the foundations for the industrial infrastructure of modern Germany, built the autobahns, and created the structure for Germany’s military might; he was a vegetarian, loved poetry, painted, liked children, and, in the end, did right by his mistress. The only point of dissonance in this otherwise perfect picture is that good governance without democracy is fascism, and good governance without democracy and devoid of liberal institutions is Stalinism. It is this lack of faith in democracy and liberal institutions that joins a wide array of players in the Indian political spectrum and makes them cohabit merrily in destroying the plural ideas of India.

What India is witnessing is a strange amalgam of the traditional as well as the contemporary re-emergence of corporatism. In the contemporary sense, it reflects an urge to shift the centre of gravity of all politics away from the parliamentary system to the groups that dominate modern industrial and post-industrial societies. Of these, labour increasingly is marginalized as an organized, independent group, and hence leaves corporates, entrepreneurs and the government to stake claims to represent politics. In the older fascist sense, firstly, it means an all-embracing vision of an organic, spiritually unified and morally regenerated society constantly arguing for mutual sacrifice in the national interest. The RSS and the BJP and their model of Hindutva has long represented this sort of ideological vision, conflated in recent times with visions of national regeneration through Hindu consolidation and fighting the enemies of progress. These enemies, according to convenience, could vary from America, Muslims, and Christians to China. Modi, without exception, remains the most eloquent exponent and practitioner of this view. Every blip on the national screen, be it terrorism or a communal riot, adds to the strength of those who seek a leader like Modi who is seen as uncompromising and tough.

Posted by Shekhar Bhatia Continue reading ‘India Inc. and Narendra Modi’

India’s secret war on Holbrooke

Published
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on January 25, 2009
in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan
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Laura Rozen in Foreign Policy on India’s stealth lobbying against Richard Holbrooke’s brief:

When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — flanked by President Obama — introduced Richard Holbrooke as the formidable new U.S. envoy to South Asia at a State Department ceremony on Thursday, India was noticeably absent from his title.

Holbrooke, the veteran negotiator of the Dayton accords and sharp-elbowed foreign policy hand who has long advised Clinton, was officially named “special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan” in what was meant to be one of the signature foreign policy acts of Obama’s first week in office.

But the omission of India from his title, and from Clinton’s official remarks introducing the new diplomatic push in the region was no accident — not to mention a sharp departure from Obama’s own previously stated approach of engaging India, as well as Pakistan and Afghanistan, in a regional dialogue. Multiple sources told The Cable that India vigorously — and successfully — lobbied the Obama transition team to make sure that neither India nor Kashmir was included in Holbrooke’s official brief.

“When the Indian government learned Holbrooke was going to do [Pakistan]-India, they swung into action and lobbied to have India excluded from his purview,” relayed one source. “And they succeeded. Holbrooke’s account officially does not include India.”

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And click here to read The Washington Post story.

Previously in AW:

The Wal-Mart of India

Published
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on January 25, 2009
in Business and India
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Saritha Rai in GlobalPost:

biyaniBangalore:  Kishore Biyani wants to be thought of as frugal.

Biyani, 47, head of India’s largest retail empire Future Group, has a motto for these recession-hit times. Employees across hundreds of Big Bazaar and Food Bazaar stores, the Indian equivalent of Wal-Mart, have adopted his pledge, “Garv se kaho, hum kanjoos hain” (Say with pride, we are stingy).

It is a motto signifying a back-to-the-basics strategy, said Biyani, who wants his $1.5-billion group to be the retailer of choice in cost-conscious India. A culture of frugality and corporate thrift can help trim costs. These savings can be passed on to stretched customers, Biyani tells his staff.

Fittingly, all visitors to Biyani’s fifth-floor offices at Mumbai’s Crossroads Mall are offered glass tumblers only half-filled with tea. Company executives, Biyani included, fly coach class. Nobody is allowed to wear a jacket or tie to work. “In India, a jacket and tie are just corporate hypocrisy,” said the bespectacled, grey-haired Biyani, who is dressed in shirt and trousers, attire well suited to muggy Mumbai.

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Tamil Tigers’ leader Prabakharan vanishes in army assault on last stronghold

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on January 25, 2009
in Conflict and Sri Lanka
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Jeremy Page reports from Colombo in The Sunday Times:

It was 8.35pm on Wednesday when a Sri Lankan navy ship spotted what looked like the lights of a small aircraft flying at high altitude over Mullaitivu – the last outpost of the Tamil Tigers.

When the air force reported the same thing there was a buzz of excitement at military HQ. Commanders knew that after 25 years of conflict Vellupillai Prabakharan, the Tigers’ leader, was facing defeat, with government forces closing in on all sides.

They also knew that they had not found the Tigers’ fleet of at least three Czech-made Zlin 143 single-engine aircraft, although they had captured five of the rebels’ six airstrips. So was Mr Prabakharan trying to escape?

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How radio spreads Taliban’s terror in Pakistani region

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on January 25, 2009
in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Religion and Terrorism
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A Taliban leader daily addresses the residents of Swat on banned activities and names those killed for violations. Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Pir Zubair Shah in The New York Times:

Peshawar, Pakistan: Every night around 8 o’clock, the terrified residents of Swat, a lush and picturesque valley a hundred miles from three of Pakistan’s most important cities, crowd around their radios. They know that failure to listen and learn might lead to a lashing – or a beheading.

Using a portable radio transmitter, a local Taliban leader, Shah Doran, on most nights outlines newly proscribed “un-Islamic” activities in Swat, like selling DVDs, watching cable television, singing and dancing, criticizing the Taliban, shaving beards and allowing girls to attend school. He also reveals names of people the Taliban have recently killed for violating their decrees – and those they plan to kill.

“They control everything through the radio,” said one Swat resident, who declined to give his name for fear the Taliban might kill him. “Everyone waits for the broadcast.”

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The other Lhasa

Published
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on January 25, 2009
in Society, Tibet and Travel
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The old Lhasa is gone. In its place is rapid development, new pubs and the latest mobile technology. Yet, Tibetans see themselves distinctly as Tibetans, not a part of a larger Chinese culture. Vijay Jung Thapa takes a trip [in the Hindustan Times].

In 1976 the Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, tripping on a strong dose of yajé, wrote about the ‘Tibet of his imagination’ — a psychedelic account of a secret, shadowy, white paradise up in the Himalayas. Like Ginsberg, the Tibet of my own imagination, spurred by writers from Hedin to Harrer to Hopkirk, had always conjured up a powerful image of Eastern mysticism set against the great brooding mass of the Potala — a place of pure spirit, unsullied by greed or personal ambition.

Five minutes into Lhasa, that illusion lay shattered.

As our van rolled onto a smooth-as-silk eight-lane-wide boulevard, my Chinese interpreter excitedly gushed: “This is our Lhasa.” Outside, glistening glass-and-chrome buildings, plush hotels and supermarkets with bright neon signage floated by. Bulky Prados purred down the uniform grid of roads that go off in all directions and chic women and strutting businessmen dotted the sidewalks and street corners. It was a new landscape where Lhasa meets Las Vegas — minus the buzz and with an unmistakable touch of Chinese kitsch.

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The general’s guns still blaze

Published
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on January 24, 2009
in Leaders and Pakistan
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What do former presidents do while in retirement? Pakistan’s General Pervez Musharraf has hit the lecture circuit, delivering a talk recently at Stanford University. A report filed by Adam Gorlick for the Stanford News Service.

musharrafPakistan’s former president defended his country’s record on combating terrorism Friday, and said Pakistan hasn’t received enough financial support or international credit in its fight against groups like al-Qaida and the Taliban.

“We have been a victim of terrorism,” Pervez Musharraf told a capacity crowd in Memorial Auditorium. “It is wrong to think of Pakistan as a perpetrator, as a cause of terrorism.”

Musharraf, who resigned his post in August under the threat of impeachment, was defensive about the money Pakistan received under his watch from Western countries in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He said the $10 billion contributed by the United States was a miniscule amount compared to the funds given to Afghanistan and Iraq.

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As can only be expected, not everyone was thrilled with Stanford’s choice of speaker. Friends of South Asia distributed a pamphlet listing reasons while Pakistan’s Pinochet should not have been invited. To read the pamphlet click here [via Teeth Maestro]

Aravind Adiga: The Elephant

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asianwindow
on January 24, 2009
in Books
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A short story by Man Booker prize winner Aravind Adiga, published in The New Yorker

adiga_elephant1All the employees of the furniture shop had gathered in a semicircle around Mr. Ganesh Pai’s table. It was a special day: Mrs. Engineer had come to the shop in person.

She had seen her TV table, and now she was approaching Mr. Pai’s desk to finalize the deal.

His face was smeared with sandalwood, and he wore a loose-fitting silk shirt through which a dark triangle of chest hair stuck out. On the wall behind his chair he had hung gold foil images of Lakshmi, goddess of wealth, and the fat elephant god, Ganapati. An incense stick smoked below the images.

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The year of living dangerously

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asianwindow
on January 24, 2009
in Pakistan and Society
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Novelist Bapsi Sidhwa looks back at last year’s tumultous events in Pakistan and seeks answers to present dilemma. From The Deccan Herald [via 3QuarksDaily]

bapsiOne cannot look in upon events in 2008 without reflecting on the fateful moments that held Pakistan hostage to a horrendous roller-coaster ride through 2007. The turmoil that spilled over from Afghanistan into the lawless maze of mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan intensified, and suicide bombers, not on our radars before, exploded like grotesque fire-crackers in the northern areas and in major cities, including Lahore, killing thousands. The radicalisation of the peaceful Swat Valley by the Taliban and their dire edicts was another development:

“If any ‘nai’ shaves or trims a beard, his shop will be blown up!”

What could the poor barbers do but obey?

A new girl’s school built by DIL, a voluntary organisation for the development of literacy, was burnt down in the Valley.

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Why India Inc loves Narendra Modi

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asianwindow
on January 24, 2009
in Business, Leaders and Politics
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Can India Inc’s emphatic approval of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi extend to the political realm? Saba Naqvi in Outook.

modi_global_summitSome captains of Indian industry recently let the nation know (on the eve of a general election) that in Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi they have spotted a leader of great ability, a man who should be the next prime minister. This is not the first time industrialists have sung paeans to Modi. It’s almost an annual ritual in Modi’s Gujarat. Every January, NRIs and industrialists collect for the Vibrant Gujarat meet and speak of the genius of the Man.

Indeed, the projection of Modi as a national icon is part of an ongoing political project, supported strongly by business that seeks to eventually instal him at the pivot of Indian politics. The transformation of the pracharak to a man who casually strides with the captains of industry is in itself a story. At the superficial level, it is about sartorial change. But it’s also about his mastery of media and image projection. From a hated figure, he has managed to clothe himself in positive hues.

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Also in Outlook, R.K. Misra looks at Modi’s style of governance. Click here for that story.