Andhra politics

PATNA, JUN 30 (PTI)
The Centre has agreed to deploy Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and Border Security Force (BSF) along the porous Indo-Nepal border in Bihar to check the intrusion of Maoist rebels from the Himalayan kingdom, according to Governor Buta Singh.

“I had talks with Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil in New Delhi during my recent visit and he has agreed to my suggestion to deploy the ITBP and BSF personnel along the border to intensify patrol and keep close surveillance on the movement of Maoist rebels,” Singh told reporters here.

The Governor said that the SSB would continue surveillance on the international border.

Singh’s demand comes close on the heels of the growing activities of the naxalites in the areas along the Indo-Nepal border.

The CPI (Maoist) had recently attacked the police station, house of RJD MP and two banks at Madhuban in Bihar’s East Champaran district. 23 persons - 20 naxalites, a CRPF havildar, a police constable and a bank security guard - were killed in the maoist attacks and subsequent police action.

-Colonel Anil Athale (retd)

Imagine the strategic situation today if we could have cut off land/airlinks between China and Pakistan, and had a direct land link to Central Asia and Afghanistan (the Panjsher Valley). Could the Pakistan-China nexus have flourished if the contact between the two was through the long sea route?

Pakistan China to sign fighter jet deal: It is this dismal history of lack of strategic thought in India that sends shivers down the spine of any serious soldier when our politicos enter into ‘peacenik’ competition (the latest entrant into this is L K Advani of Secular Jinnah fame.

http://us.rediff.com/news/2005/jun/16athale.htm

When the India-Pakistan secretary-level talks took place in Islamabad, the demilitarisation of the Siachen glacier was one of the issues on the agenda.

I had predicted there would be no breakthrough on the issue. The reason was Chief of the Army Staff General J J Singh’s categorical statement that any agreement would have to proceed from recognition of the Actual Ground Position Line.

Siachen talks inconclusive:Pakistan is loath to accept this since it would mean admitting it lost the Saltoro ridge and the Quaid Post (named after the founder of Pakistan) now renamed Bana Post after Param Vir Chakra winner Subedar Bana Singh who captured it.

Interestingly, the post was held by the much heralded Pakistani commandos and was captured by the India Army’s ‘ordinary’ infantry.

Having said all this, one must admit the utter futility of the fight over the Siachen Glacier. The area is over 22,000 feet high, offers no military advantage to either side, cannot be either a viable defence line or a launch pad and has no habitation and no economic significance.

Strategically, tactically, it is a useless piece of real estate.

The cost is horrendous, a chapatti delivered to a soldier there cost Rs 500. Even the excreta of soldiers manning these posts has to be lifted by helicopters and brought to base for disposal!

More soldiers have died there due to weather and accidents rather than enemy action.

In Siachen now weather the only enemy:Then why is the Indian Army insisting on recognition of a line on a map, and Pakistan resisting it?

World’s highest battlefield:First and foremost is the lack of trust between the two sides.

A discussion organised by the Observer Research Foundation on May 4 unanimously recommended that unless Pakistan recognised the existing positions, India should not agree to demilitarisation.

The story of Pakistani perfidy on Kashmir goes back to 1947. Then it claimed that tribals had invaded Kashmir, while the truth was that regular Pakistani soldiers and officers were part of the invading force, a fact later admitted.

Make Siachen a peace mountain: PM Singh on Siachen:In 1965, it maintained a fiction that Kashmiri civilians had infiltrated.

In 1999, in Kargil it similarly claimed that ‘mujahids’ had crossed the Line of Control, when even tea shop owners on the Lahore-Islamabad highway knew the Northern Light Infantry was involved.

What is to prevent Pakistan in future from claiming similarly that it has withdrawn the military from Siachen, but ‘mujahids’ or freedom fighters have occupied it?

But the real unsaid reason for the Indian Army’s reluctance lies elsewhere: The lack of trust in our civil leadership on military issues.

This may seem a harsh comment, but what has been the past record?

Kargil and Post Point 13620 offers a classic case study in decision making.

This post overlooks Kargil town and the Srinagar-Leh road, for long the sole lifeline to Ladakh. Artillery observers from this post used to bring down accurate fire on the town and the highway at will.

In May 1965, while the attention of the Pakistanis was focussed on fighting in the Rann of Kutch, a Rajput battalion in a daring daytime attack on May 17, 1965 captured the post and made the highway secure for the first time since 1947.

But under UN pressure, it was handed back to Pakistan.

When infiltration in the Kashmir valley began on August 9, 1965, the Indian Army again attacked Post Point 13620 and captured it. But then came the Tashkent agreement of January 10, 1965, and along with the strategic Haji Pir pass, the Kargil post was again handed back to Pakistan.

Finally in 1971, the Ladakh Scouts under the inspiring leadership of Colonel Rinchan captured not only Point 13620, but the entire ridge during the December war.

It is difficult to find a parallel in world history of an army capturing a mountain post at great human cost and giving it back to the enemy not once, but twice!

The strategic importance of the Kargil heights is self evident even to an amateur but that was never an input in political decision making in India.

In 1971 when Indira Gandhi had all the aces up her sleeves, she still bargained away the advantage and did not secure binding Pakistani commitment on Kashmir. To her credit, like Lal Bahadur Shastri, she at least did not give back territory won in Kashmir.

The errors of Simla

Closer to our times, in the Kargil conflict of 1999, we unilaterally declared that we would not cross the LoC.

The argument that India’s restraint won it global support holds no water. The West (meaning the hyperpower, the United States) changed its stance not because the justice of the Indian case on Kashmir had suddenly dawned on it, but because it was a part of its re-assessment of the world in the post Cold War era.

By our lack of understanding and timidity, we have now established a ‘rule of the game’ that while Pakistan can cross the LoC we will not, even when it is tactically unsound. Thus, the duo of then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and then defence minister George Fernandes forced our soldiers to adopt virtually suicidal tactics to re-capture the Kargil heights.

Lack of geo-political visionIndia never understood the vital strategic importance of the Northern Areas of Kashmir (comprising Gilgit and Hunza). This is an area where India, China and Central Asia meet.

The British, well schooled in the art, engineered a revolt in Gilgit (led by Major Brown and Captain Matheson) and unfurled the Pakistani flag there on November 3, 1947. Lieutenant Colonel Sher Jung Thapa then defended the Skardu fort for nearly eight months. But without ammunition and supplies, he finally surrendered on August 14, 1948.

Major Brown’s action were not in isolation. A year earlier, a freelance explorer, Sir Francis Tillman, had undertaken the arduous trek from Urumachi in Chinese Sinkiang to Chitral. Right from the early days Britain saw Pakistan as an imperial outpost of the West in Asia (V K Krishna Menon in Michael Breacher’s Krishna Menon’s View of the World).

In 1971, we had a golden opportunity to concentrate our military efforts in the direction of Northern Areas, if the military was told in advance about the intention to keep territory captured in Kashmir.

It appears that no such directive was given and retention of land captured in Kashmir was an afterthought at Simla. The success achieved in capturing Turtuk and various peaks in the Partapur sector was a ‘freelance’ operation by the great Colonel Rinchan, almost a solo effort.

A solution for Siachen

Imagine the strategic situation today if we could have cut off land/airlinks between China and Pakistan, and had a direct land link to Central Asia and Afghanistan (the Panjsher Valley). Could the Pakistan-China nexus have flourished if the contact between the two was through the long sea route?

Pakistan China to sign fighter jet deal: It is this dismal history of lack of strategic thought in India that sends shivers down the spine of any serious soldier when our politicos enter into ‘peacenik’ competition (the latest entrant into this is L K Advani of Secular Jinnah fame.

What is the guarantee that some future Pakistani general/president will not re-occupy Siachen with ‘freedom fighters’? And a future Indian government will not ask the armed forces to take back the Soltoro ridge?

This factor is a bigger obstacle in solving the Siachen issue than even Pakistani untrustworthiness.

Colonel Dr Anil Athale (retd) is a former joint director, War History Division, Ministry of Defence.

By supporting the clerics in the Ifrana case, Mulayam Singh Yadav has shown himself to be a worthy successor to Rajiv Gandhi. He has taken the Shah Bano case a sordid step further.

Will Sonia Gandhi denounce it or is she too petrified with fear to open her mouth? After all, soon after 9/11 and Godhra, she went to (or was summoned to) the Bin Laden family founded Oxford Center for Islamic Studies to talk about extremism, without once mentioning the word ‘Jihad’.

She has never once mentioned the word Jihad, at least in public.

Her power as Super PM’ is an illusion. She has accumulated so many IOUs from so many people and collected so many skeletons in the closet, the slightest misstep can cause them to come tumbling out. She is a weak person in a powerful position– the worst of all combinations.

Where are the self-styled secular liberals– the Mahesh Bhats, the Shabna Azmis, the Teesta Setalvads– not to mention the Ramachandra Guhas (the ‘last liberal’), Amulya Gangulys, N. Rams and the like?

Taking one step at a time we have come from Nehru’s Haj bill in 1958 to Ifrana case in 2005. Of course it all began with Gandhi’s surrender of the Congress to the Ali Brothers immediately after Tilak’s death. The Ali Brothers used it to promote the Khilafat and then when it failed, the Moplah Rebellion.

This indeed is progress– secular inhumanism.

Hindu groups should come out announce that they will protect the victims of Muslim barbarism.

Imrana case: Mulayam backs clerics’ decision

Aradhana Sharma

Watch story

Wednesday, June 29, 2005 (Lucknow):

It’s a case which has sparked national outrage, but with no clear-cut answers.

Imrana, a Muslim woman from a small village in Muzaffarnagar, had never thought that her personal tragedy would become a national talking point.

After she was raped by her father-in-law, the panchayat and the clerics decreed that she had to leave her husband’s home and five children.

And now, it’s the turn of the politicians to join the debate over her fate.

Political turn

Today, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav also endorsed the view of the Darul Uloom at Deoband on the issue that she can no longer live with her husband.

“The decision taken by Muslim religious leaders in the Imrana case must have been taken after a lot of thought,” said Yadav.

“The government will not interfere in the case till we have more details. The leaders after all are very learned,” he added.

Question of rights

It’s a decision that has been criticised by progressive Muslim groups, and initially even Imrana and her husband had refused to accept it.

Now other political parties are also coming out in support of Imrana.

CPM leader Prakash Karat who was in Lucknow, disagreed with the Chief Minister, and said the woman’s right should take precedence.

“The act of barbarity that was committed on a woman from Muzaffarnagar is very deplorable,” said Prakash Karat, General Secretary, CPM.

“In our country the guilty should be punished and justice given to the deserving. But this has not happened in the case. We demand that the woman’s rights be protected,” he added.

Playing it safe

The Congress central command has been critical of the clerics’ verdict, but the state Congress chief Salman Khursheed has played it safe and argued that one cannot ignore personal law.

“We don’t have to support Imrana or Deoband. We have to support the law of the land, and what it says about Imrana. The law of the land respects personal law,” said Salman Khursheed, UPCC, President.

The case has also brought up the issue of a Uniform Civil Code, a point the BJP is stressing.

And as the debate rages and most political parties play it safe, the life of one woman and her future seems to recede into the background.

Agreement for Including European Instruments on Chandrayaan-1 Signed
June 27, 2005

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the European Space Agency (ESA) signed an agreement today (June 27, 2005) for including European instruments on board India’s first scientific mission to moon, Chandrayaan-1. This agreement, under the umbrella agreement for cooperation already existing between ISRO and ESA, was signed by Mr G Madhavan Nair, Chairman, ISRO and Mr Jean Jacques Dordain, Director General, ESA, at Bangalore.

The European contribution will be as follows:

A low energy (0.5-10 keV) X-ray spectrometer called Chandrayaan Imaging X-Ray Spectrometer from Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK, to measure elemental abundance distributed over the lunar surface using X-ray fluorescence technique. It will also include X-ray solar monitor to record the incident solar X-ray flux.
Near Infra-Red (IR) Spectrometer from Max Planck Institute of Aeronomie, Germany, to detect and measure lunar mineral abundances.
Sub keV Atom Reflecting Analyser from Swedish Institute of Space Physics, developed in collaboration with India, to measure volatiles generated due to solar wind impacting on lunar surface and determine the surface magnetic field anomalies.
Europe will also contribute to the Indian experiment, namely, High Energy X-ray Spectrometer. The European instruments will complement the following main Indian experiments on Chandrayaan-1:

Terrain Mapping Camera with stereo imaging capability operating in panchromatic band with 5 m spatial resolution and 20 km swath.
A Hyper-Spectral Imager operating in 400-900 nm band with a spectral resolution of 15 nm, a spatial resolution of 80 m and 20 km swath.
A Lunar Laser Ranging Instrument with a vertical resolution of better than 5 m.
A High Energy X-ray (10-250 keV) spectrometer with a footprint of 20 km to detect radio nuclei.
In addition, an Impact Probe has been included in the mission for proving technological elements required for future landing missions.

Chandrayaan-1 is planned for launch by 2007-08 on board India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. The 525 kg satellite will be placed in 100 km polar orbit around the moon and it will have a life time of two years.

Indian and ESA scientists will share the data from the European instruments as per the agreement signed today.

In fact, Christian Evangelists play the role of the “Shabbat Goyim”,or “useful idiots”,unwitting servants of Israel who like the Jews and Mulims eventually admit that they are all “children of the Book” and worshippers of a common Good, the Lord of Israel, as opposed to the pagans and heathens such as Hindus who must be saved through conversion to Monotheism. This is the position of the US Evangelical Christians (including the conservative members of the Bush administration) from the beginning.

As has happened in Latin America, the converts will be mainly from other Christian denominations.In the end the converts will be finished off by the enraged Muslims, unless they join them as the Indian Christians are doing pointing to Hindus as common enemy. Who will the evangelicals project as common enemy of Muslims and Christians in Iraq? Jews of course! Christians, like Communists, need a firendly environment– someone else to protect them while they go on with their nefarious work. — Expert

Other Christians, Muslims see threat
By Caryle Murphy, Washington Post | June 26, 2005

BAGHDAD — With arms outstretched, the congregation at National Evangelical Baptist Church belted out a praise hymn backed up by drums, electric guitar, and keyboard. In the corner, slide images of Jesus filled a large screen. A simple white wooden cross adorned the stage, and worshipers sprinkled the pastor’s Bible-based sermon with approving shouts of ”Amen!”

National Evangelical is Iraq’s first Baptist congregation and one of at least seven new Christian evangelical churches established in Baghdad in the past two years. Its Sunday afternoon service, in a building behind a house on a quiet street, draws a couple of hundred worshipers who like the lively music and the focus on the Bible.

”I’m thirsty for this kind of church,” Suhaila Tawfik, a veterinarian who was raised Catholic, said at one service. ”I want to go deep in understanding the Bible.”

Tawfik is not alone. The US-led toppling of Saddam Hussein, who limited the establishment of new denominations, has altered the religious landscape of predominantly Muslim Iraq. A newly energized Christian evangelical activism here, supported by Western and other foreign evangelicals, is now challenging the dominance of Iraq’s Christian denominations and raising concern from Muslim and Christian religious leaders about a threat to the status quo.

The evangelicals’ numbers are not large — perhaps a few thousand — in the context of Iraq’s estimated 800,000 Christians. But they are emerging at a time that the country’s traditional churches have lost their privileged status and have seen their flocks depleted because of decades-long emigration. Now, traditional church leaders see the new evangelical churches filling up, not so much with Muslim converts but with such Christians as Tawfik seeking a new kind of worship experience.

”The way the preachers arrived here . . . with soldiers . . . was not a good thing,” said Baghdad’s Roman Catholic archbishop, Jean Sleiman. ”I think they had the intention that they could convert Muslims, though Christians didn’t do it here for 2,000 years.”

”In the end,” Sleiman said, ”they are seducing Christians from other churches.”

Iraq’s new churches are part of evangelicalism’s growing presence in several Middle Eastern countries. In neighboring Jordan, for example, ”the indigenous evangelical presence is growing and thriving,” said Todd Johnson, a scholar of global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts.

Nabeeh Abbassi, president of the Jordan Baptist Convention, said in an interview in Amman that there are about 10,000 evangelicals worshiping at 50 churches in Jordan.

While most evangelicals in Jordan come from traditional Christian denominations, Abbassi said, ”we’re seeing more and more Muslim conversions.”

Iraq’s Christian population has been organized for centuries into denominations such as Chaldean Catholicism and Roman Catholicism. While Hussein’s secular regime allowed freedom of worship, it limited new denominations, particularly if backed by Western churches.

During the US-led invasion in 2003, American evangelicals made no secret of their desire to follow the troops. Samaritan’s Purse, the global relief organization led by the Rev. Franklin Graham — who has called Islam an ”evil and wicked” religion — and the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, the country’s largest Protestant denomination, were among those that mobilized missionaries and relief supplies.

Soon after Hussein’s fall, they entered the country, saying their prime task was to provide Iraqis with humanitarian aid. But their strong emphasis on sharing their faith raised concerns among Muslims and some Christians that they would openly proselytize.

Then the security environment deteriorated in Iraq — four Southern Baptist missionaries were killed, Westerners were kidnapped, and at least 21 churches were bombed — forcing most foreign evangelicals to flee. But Iraqi evangelicals remain.

”For Christians, it’s now democratic,” said Nabil Sara, pastor at National Evangelical Baptist. Some church leaders, however, are questioning that premise.

”Evangelicals come here and I would like to ask: Why do you come here? For what reason?” said Patriarch Emmanuel Delly, head of the Eastern rite Chaldean Catholic Church, Iraq’s largest Christian community.

In interviews, Delly and Sleiman were torn between their belief in religious freedom and the threat they see from the new evangelicalism. They also expressed resentment at what they perceive as the evangelicals’ assumption that members of old-line denominations are not true Christians.

”If we are not Christians, you should tell us so we will find the right path,” Delly said sarcastically. ”I’m not against the evangelicals. If they go to an atheist country to promote Christ, we would help them ourselves.”

Sleiman charged that the evangelicals are sowing ”a new division” because ”churches here mean a big community with tradition, language, and culture, not simply a building with some people worshiping. If you want to help Christians here, help through the churches [already] here.”

Low Turnout For Nigeria Conversion Rally Upsets Benny Hinn

http://www.christianaggression.org/item_display.php?id=1119944106&type=news

By Sola Odunfa
BBC Focus On Africa magazine
Monday, 27 June, 2005, 08:28 GMT 09:28 UK

In late April, scores of giant billboards and thousands of wall posters all over Lagos proclaimed the first of three days of divine miracles and healing for at least six million Nigerians - but at the end of the third day, there was more bickering over money than praise to God for mercy received.

The vehicle of the expected wonders of the Holy Spirit was the UNited States-based evangelist Benny Hinn, who flew into Nigeria in a Gulfstream private jet with a large retinue that included his bodyguards.

He was received at Lagos airport in a motorcade of Hummer jeeps and other expensive cars.

The deaf would hear, the blind would see, the lame would jump and walk, barren women would conceive, the jobless would gain employment, and the enemy - both seen and unseen - would be vanquished. Mention any problem - physical, spiritual, economic - Hinn had come with the instant solution.

But things did not go well.

Expenditure

About 300,000 people attended the event each night - a modest congregation by Nigerian crusade standards. It is estimated that about 1 million worshippers attend the monthly Holy Ghost Congress service organised by The Redeemed Christian Church God (RCCG) at the same venue.

Whatever disappointment he felt on the first and second days of the miracle crusade, Hinn kept to himself - but he opened up with anger on the final day.

“Four million dollars down the drain,” he shouted into the microphone from the huge rostrum.

He said that he had been assured by the local organising committee that at least six million people would attend the crusade - but the total turnout was only around one million. As a result, he realised that all the mega public address equipment he had flown in from the US was not needed.

He also complained about some claimed expenditures, the charges imposed on pastors who attended his day-time seminar, and journalists who sought to cover the crusade.

He then announced publicly that he would not provide any more funds, and that the local organisers should pay all outstanding bills from the collections they made on the first two days.

Hinn’s complaints instantly overshadowed the spiritual context of the event. Some people from the congregation came out to declare that they received healing and other miracles after the prayers, but they were hardly audible.

The Nigerian head of the local organising committee, Bishop Joseph Olanrewaju Obembe, accused other Nigerian Pentecostal preachers of sabotaging the crusade and pedalling false information to Hinn and his aides out of envy, and to discredit him.

Soon after the crusade, a committee was set up by the leadership of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) - the umbrella body of Pentecostal churches nationwide - to investigate the funding controversy.

Big spenders

The Pentecostal faith in Nigeria is a veritable goldmine, judging by the opulence of most of its pastors.

It is made even more attractive because incomes of churches are tax-exempt. Nearly all the churches are the private property of their pastors or founders and their immediate families.

In an economic environment in which the majority of Nigeria’s estimated 130 million population has been impoverished by unemployment, lack of basic social infrastructure and rising inflation, the church has become the last refuge for many people.

The favoured churches are the new-generation Pentecostal assemblies, that are owned and managed solely by fast-talking American-style pastors.

Rich and powerful Nigerians run after the pastors for “spiritual protection” from imaginary ‘enemies’ who, they are convinced, are lurking around the corner to pull them down.

These are the big spenders in the churches.

The attraction, perhaps, lies in the often-quoted biblical injunction that “givers never lack” and the fact that most pastors don’t ask the donors how they make the money they give.

Devoted service

In March 2003, a cashier at a five-star hotel was arrested for allegedly stealing nearly 40 million naira (then about US$400,000) from his employer.

His colleagues were shocked because there was nothing to suggest that he was living above his means - he had no car and he lived in a rented flat in a non-fashionable part of Lagos.

The man confessed that he gave all the money to his Pentecostal church in cash and equipment.

In another case a bank clerk stole 40 million naira from his employer and gave 10 million to his church as ’seed money’ in the belief that the seed would germinate and yield several fold as promised by his pastor.

Many Nigerians believe that a large number of pastors are honest and devoted to the service of God and mankind.

But they readily take umbrage under the Yoruba saying that “only God knows who serves Him truly.”

During the week of June 19, China flexed its muscles in the economic and military spheres, setting off a flurry of reactions in Washington that threaten to complicate Sino-American relations and reveal long term risks for the globalization process.

China’s stepped-up assertiveness on the world stage came in the form of bids by Chinese businesses to acquire U.S. appliance manufacturer Maytag and oil company Unocal, and Beijing’s test firing of its most advanced and longest range intercontinental missile. Those moves spurred protests in the U.S. Congress that, in turn, were met by ambivalent responses from the Bush administration, which is cross pressured by conflicting interests.

Following the acquisition in May of IBM’s personal computer business by China’s Lenovo Group, the bid for Maytag by Haier America Trading — the U.S. arm of appliance giant Haier — and the move to acquire Unocal by China National Offshore Oil Company (C.N.O.O.C.) mark a new stage in Beijing’s export driven strategy of economic development that is geared to make China an “all-round” great power with state-of-the-art industries in all strategic sectors over the next 20 years.

The test of the JL-2 missile, which has a 6,000 mile range, advances toward Beijing’s aim of enhancing China’s military capabilities in order to make the country the dominant power in East and Southeast Asia, gradually eroding U.S. influence.

Both the economic and military moves show that Beijing’s geostrategy is firmly in place and that the Chinese political class is confident that the strategy is working.

A New Stage of Development

Up until Lenovo’s acquisition of IBM, Beijing’s development strategy had been based on attracting foreign investment to China on the basis of its massive pool of cheap labor and its potential market in order to build up its industries and acquire advanced technologies. Having succeeded in creating an industrial base with some powerful and cash-rich companies, the opportunity exists for China to expand its export markets and to secure supplies of the energy and mineral resources that it needs to run its burgeoning industrial machine through the purchase of foreign corporations.

The acquisition of foreign businesses has the added strategic advantage of creating interest groups in the countries in which those businesses are based that are economically dependent on China and, therefore, would tend to be favorable to its interests in political conflicts.

Haier’s $1.28 billion bid for Maytag illustrates the continuation and intensification of Beijing’s export-driven growth strategy. Having already gained a foothold in the U.S. market through its sales of refrigerators and air conditioners to the Wal-Mart and Target discount chains, Haier would like to expand its penetration by buying a company with a name brand and an established distribution and servicing network. Analysts agree that if Haier’s bid is successful, the company would move Maytag’s production to China and utilize the acquired company’s distribution and servicing system to market its own lines in addition to the Maytag brand, which might eventually be eliminated.

C.N.O.O.C.’s $18.5 billion bid for Unocal has greater strategic significance than Haier’s move to acquire Maytag. Already the target of a takeover effort by Chevron, Unocal is especially attractive to Beijing because of the drilling rights that the company has in Thailand and Myanmar, which Beijing includes within its prospective sphere of dominant influence.

In order to achieve its goal of transforming China into a comprehensive world power, Beijing must have secure access to raw materials in markets that have become increasingly competitive and tight, due in great part to China’s growth. The bid for Unocal signals that Beijing is aware that it must act quickly to guarantee its resource supplies, at the expense of competitors, especially the U.S. As part of Beijing’s overall strategy, Chinese enterprises have recently purchased mines in Australia and Canada, and Beijing has pursued trade deals geared to natural resources in South America. Unocal is part of that larger picture.

On the military front, Beijing’s test of the JL-2 missile, first reported in the Washington Times, marked, according to an anonymous U.S. Defense Department official, “an unexpected advance in technological capability.” The JL-2’s range of 6,000 miles is greater than that of any other missile in China’s arsenal and it is designed for the new generation of Chinese nuclear submarines, the first of which was launched in 2004. With its defense spending estimated at $78 billion per year, Beijing’s strategy of creating a technologically advanced military deterrent is bearing fruit.

China’s growing assertiveness awakened a predictable response in both houses of the U.S. Congress, where legislators — especially those from California, where Chevron is based — expressed concern about the Unocal bid. Chairman of the House Resources Committee Richard Pombo, a California Republican, said that a Chinese takeover of Unocal would be contrary to U.S. security interests. Responding to similar criticism in the Senate, U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow promised that the government’s Committee on Foreign Investments would investigate the takeover if a deal was consummated.

The Bush administration’s tepid response to the Chinese bids reflects its conflicting commitments to globalized markets, national security and domestic interests that increasingly appear to be irreconcilable. Protectionist sentiment, aimed mainly at China, is rising in Congress and could ultimately threaten the globalization process. In a pattern that is becoming familiar over a broad range of international issues, the Bush administration is facing increasing difficulties in sorting out its priorities, giving the advantage to states with more coherent strategies.

The Bottom Line

China’s next stage of development brings the incipient conflict between Beijing and Washington into full view. Holding back Chinese expansion — if that is even possible — carries the high probability of derailing globalization; allowing it to occur makes the realization of Beijing’s geostrategic aims far more likely.

Look for Beijing to proceed confidently on its course and for Washington to be incapable of mounting effective resistance.

Report Drafted By:
Dr. Michael A. Weinstein

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR) is an independent organization that utilizes open source intelligence to provide conflict analysis services in the context of international relations. PINR approaches a subject based upon the powers and interests involved, leaving the moral judgments to the reader. This report may not be reproduced, reprinted or broadcast without the written permission of inquiries@pinr.com. All comments should be directed to content@pinr.com.

By Swapan Dasgupta

The country has reason to be extremely indebted to former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for throwing a much-needed spanner in the works of a peace process that has spun out of control.

Even though the timing of his letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is the subject of much low-life speculation, Vajpayee has articulated important nationalist concerns over New Delhi dancing to the tune of the military band in Islamabad.

It was important for someone of consequence to point out to a well-meaning but innocent Manmohan that Pakistan made an absolute monkey of India over the travel bandobast of the Hurriyat delegation.

First, it got India to climb down from its insistence that travel across the Line of Control must be conducted through passports. Secondly, in the case of the Hurriyat delegation, it violated the agreement that any travel outside the boundaries of the undivided Jammu and Kashmir would need passports and visas.

Finally, President Pervez Musharraf had the cheek to brag that the irrelevance of the Indian passport at the LoC confirmed that Jammu and Kashmir is a disputed territory.

It is one thing for Pakistan to gloat over its undoubted diplomatic success. The triumphalism assumes an entirely different meaning when the Indian Prime Minister admits shamefacedly that he digested Pakistan’s trickery without protest.

At the same time his apologists do make it a point to inform everyone that the Leader of the Opposition too endorsed the Hurriyat visit, and that too in Pakistan. Worse, after Pakistan demonstrated that it can’t be trusted with something as minor as the arrangements over border crossing, the Indian Prime Minister responded by proposing Siachen be made a mountain of peace.

Amid clamour from the peace brigade for the demilitarisation of Siachen and a few leaks to the media, Manmohan made his grand gesture despite knowing that Pakistan has consistently refused to authenticate any LoC in the mountains.

Musharraf has no reason to believe Indians are fools. Yet, after this fortnight he must be convinced India is a nation of invertebrates which equates self-destruction with nobility. As India resounds with talk about thinking out of the box and walking the extra mile, Musharraf must be dreaming of winning by diplomacy what he couldn’t secure through war.

No wonder he talks loosely about sorting it all out in just two weeks. The shrewd Musharraf has detected a weakening of the Indian resolve. He has almost smelt a meltdown.

It is curious that tell-tale cracks in the Indian diplomatic edifice are emerging at a time the US has proclaimed its intention of almost forcibly turning India into a great power with, if all goes well, associate permanent membership of the UN Security Council.

Is India, therefore, jettisoning “old” diplomacy and embracing the more exciting global concerns of a new century? The reality, unfortunately, is not so full of nuances. It is a tale of confusion and incompetence.

First, there is an astonishing absence of coherence and coordination at the top. The energies of the National Security Adviser are spent in managing domestic politics and running the intelligence services.

He is not known for his profound grasp of international relations but is admired for his ability to get his own way in committees. The External Affairs Minister has reduced himself to Sonia Gandhi’s stenographer, a role he played with diligence in Moscow last week.

His ministry, which has traditionally played a role in policy making, is openly contemptuous of its own minister and pursues the private agendas of its top officials. The PMO too has compounded the mess because it is handicapped by the absence of a worthwhile successor to the late J.N. Dixit. It is a lightweight body.

Rarely has the top echelons of Indian strategic planning been dominated so completely by amateurs whose prescriptions for the country are so completely influenced by what others think of India, rather than what is good for the country.

However, individuals are not the issue. What Vajpayee, quite understandably, didn’t address in his letter is the growing popular impression that Indian foreign policy has mortgaged its soul to the US.

Now, this may be an over-statement and fuelled by the cacophony of a fringe in the media, but it is important to recognise that such an impression not only exists but is bolstered each time India turns a blind eye to Pakistan’s transgressions.

The US’ open disapproval of the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline may have earned Mani Shankar Aiyar some needless brownie points but it has also driven home the fact that Washington’s desire for Indo-Pak bonhomie isn’t entirely altruistic.

The US has its own agenda for India and for Pakistan. Some of these converge with our national interests but there are facets of the US peace initiative that could involve India conceding too much to Pakistan.

It is time India takes a dispassionate but hard look at where the peace process is heading. You don’t have to be a hardliner or a war-monger to believe that Indian foreign policy has to be governed by enlightened self-interest.

Yet, the public discourse has been completely hijacked to suit the agenda of a sadbhavna lobby that gets its expenses met by do-gooders in the West. It has been suggested that India needs to address its own competitive edge and abandon false symbols of national pride, including the focus on territory where, to use Jawaharlal Nehru’s infamous words, “not a blade of grass grows.”

The Prime Minister’s forthcoming US visit will be dominated by precisely this agenda. India will be wooed with economic sops and the promise of enrichment.

But there will also be a price the country will have to pay to secure the US approval for a place on the high table. Is the country willing to pay this price? It is time we confronted the question frontally, instead of beating around the bush.

The time for a national debate has indeed come. However, the worthwhile subject isn’t Jinnah but where we see ourselves in the next 25 years. India took a major step in becoming a nuclear power in 1998 and is adroitly managing the global opposition to this great leap forward.
Are we ready to offer ourselves for voluntary defanging, just to ensure the Sensex stays well above the 7,000 mark?

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The Bengalis themselves, except for a few decades have never stood up and fought the aggressors. Bhaktiyar Khalji took over Bengal in a single campaign, as also parts of adjacent Bihar.

This happened so easily while the invaders had to fight every inch of the way is Punjab and Rajasthan, was due to the spread of Buddhism. Buddhism turned into an elite monastic religion that could not defend itself– either in India or Central Asia. It had no social order like a warrior class to protect society.

Indian Marxists are no different. They creep into everything except the armed forces where there is some physical risk and labor.

Note what happened to Communists when the Ayatollah came to power in Iran. they were eliminated. There are no Communists in Muslim majority Kashmir either. The same thing happened in Pakistan and Bangladesh, except these East Bengal Communists ran away and came to settle down in West Bengal. A good number of Communist leaders come from refugee families.

We may see in our lifetime, when West Bengal falls prey to Muslims, its Communists will again run away, but come to other parts of India and start pontificating about secularism and liberalism. All this is a cover for failure.

Unless the West Bengal Government, the Bengali people in particular, fight and resist, not only Northeast, the whole of Eastern India will become a colony of Bangladesh. But the goal of the present day Bengali Bhadralok seems to be to keep appeasing the Muslims in the hope they will be allowed to survive and look to migrate– to Bangalore (preferred location), Mumbai, Delhi or wherever. Churchill described the appeaser as one “who keeps feeding a crocodile in the hope it will let him last.”

In his latest book-”WILL THE IRON FENCE SAVE A TREE HOLLOWED BY TERMITES”-Arun Shourie,writing on the ‘ISLAMIZATION OF THE EAST,states:”The consequences are everywhere-from tensions vis-a-vis the local population,to direct acts of violence,to the perversion of electoral outcomes.Successive Election Commisssioners have drawn attention to the way names of these infiltrators have been smuggled on to the electoral lists,and the consequences this is certain to have.In his write-ups,T.V.Rajeswar(former head of the Intelligence Bureau and Governor of West Bengal,at present Governor of Uttar Pradesh) had recalled that as long ago as 1989 a study had shown that in over 52 seats of the West Bengal Assembly,Bangladeshi infiltrators were the ones who decisively determined WHO SHALL WIN.In another 100 constituencies THEY HAD AN APPRECIABLE INFLUENCE.In a word,in over one half of the seats in the State’s Assembly,the Bangladeshi infiltrators played a determining role.” “Do we require any complicated analysis to identify the roots of the ‘SECULARIST’ rhetoric of West Bengal politicians?”

Further still, the Buddhists of Bengal actually welcomed the Islamic invasions. For instance,the Shunya Puran actually celebrates their arrival. It argues that Islam and Islamic invaders arrived in Bengal to “liberate” the local population from the non-Buddhists. So, while individuals like Jaichand invited invaders for “political” reasons, folks in Bengal celebrated their arrival for “religious” reasons.For some reason, we as a civilization have forgotten the advice of Yudhisthira that inviting outsiders to solve internal troubles is a recipe for disaster. We continue to flout that advice even today.

Many of these, like the “scheduled castes and tribes welcoming Muslims as liberators” are modern fabrications by secularists and Communists.

Mr.Rajaram Says ” I have seen at first hand how the so-called Hindu persecution of Jains is a later fabrication. The Jaina ruler Vishnuvardhana (Hoysals emperor) became a follower of Ramanuja because as a Jaina he could perform ashvamedha. But he did not turn against Jainas. The famous pilgrimage center Dharmashtala near Udupi, though sacred for Hindus is under Jain management. There has never been any friction for that reason

The important thing to note is that assimilation and adaptation in our tradition is not the same as conversion to Islam. Chagning one’s affiliation to a particular sect does not make you turn against your former tradition and its followers as “Kaffirs and heathens” as in the case of exclusivist religions like Islam and Christianity.

You can see this in countries like Thailand and Cambodia– nominally Theravada Buddhist but by no means anti-Hindu. A Hindu is not only tolerated but honored.

We should never lose sight of this difference — between assimilation and conversion. “

The Communist refusal to attend the UPA Coordination Committee meet and the threat to withdraw support over disinvestment is a red herring. The real issue is Manmohan Singhs upcoming visit to the U.S. and the possibility greater Indo-U.S. cooperation in defense including massive arms deals.

The Left wants to scuttle this at any cost.

After 15 years in the wilderness following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Communists of various hues are sensing an opportunity get some more out of Russia, especially in the arms deals. This should be seen in conjunction with Sonia Gandhi’s visit to Russia just when India went shopping to Paris in the Paris Air Show.

The U.S. is likely to press India to buy F16s offering highly advantageous deals, but the Russians, who have a hold on Sonia through their former KGB contacts will try to pressure the UPA government thorugh Sonia. The Communists sense an opening for themselves here to position themselves as middle men in the mutli-billion dollar deals.

The KGB didn’t gave Sonia $2 billion in a spirit of charity. If we go by the usual arms deals of 5% to 10% commission, the Russians are looking for $20 billion to $40 billion in arms sales from India.

Manmohan’s response to the Left’s threat is interesting: he has said that Sonia will address the Left’s concerns. Could this be a way of isolating Sonia, by putting her on the spot?