COLUMNIST: M.D. NALAPAT
Future Present
Professor M.D. Nalapat is director of the School of Geopolitics at Manipal University in Manipal, India. A gold medalist in economics from Bombay University, Professor Nalapat's original theories include the India-China-Russia Trilateral Alliance (1983); Wahabbism as the main security threat of the future (1992); "Indutva," or Indians as composites of Muslim, Hindu and Christian civilizations (1995); the concept of the proxy nuclear state (1999); the need in student curricula for a "horizontal" (rather than the traditional "vertical" or graded) view of different societies (2001); and the concept of an "Asian NATO" ( 2002). Dr. Nalapat is also a UNESCO Peace Chair, Senior Associate of the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Board Member of the India-China-America Institute and Associate of the United Services Institution of India.
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February 09, 2010Manipal, India — Quiet surveys conducted through multiple sources indicate that the root of the spasms of "curry bashing" – violent attacks on Indian students – seen in Australia over the past year is the belief of migrants from some European states that only whites ought to be allowed to emigrate to Australia.
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January 25, 2010Manipal, India — U.S. President Barack Obama has apparently decided to abandon his own policy preferences in favor of those of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Therefore the past year has seen the killing-off of the tiny shoots of U.S.-India high-tech cooperation promised by former President George W. Bush.
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December 14, 2009Manipal, India — Those intent on ensuring that the climate change conference in Copenhagen is free of participants from poor countries did well to fix the venue at an expensive city. The Christmas season has ensured that airfares are high and low-cost accommodation has been taken up by visitors from developed countries.
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December 07, 2009Manipal, India — Given current hype, one may well think that carbon generated by manufacturing and transport is causing global warming. Actually it is the so-called "carbon equivalents," primarily methane, that are responsible for much of the diminishing ozone layer. But this will not be discussed at Copenhagen.
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November 30, 2009Manipal, India — The wisdom of awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to U.S. President Barack Obama is likely to be judged by his success or failure in Afghanistan. So far Obama has been unwilling to change his predecessors’ tactics. If Afghanistan therefore falls to the Taliban, Pakistan, China and India may pay a heavy price.
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November 16, 2009Manipal, India — Those familiar with Afghanistan are aware that only 17 percent of the money spent in that country is in the control of President Hamid Karzai’s government. The rest is disbursed under instructions from NATO countries or the United Nations. And it is no secret that NATO elements are involved in the drugs trade.
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November 10, 2009Manipal, India — More than radical Islam, the threat to the primacy of the West will come from Sinic civilization, centered in the People’s Republic of China. Only India, in alliance with the West, can balance China’s expansion. India is more closely aligned to Western values and geopolitical needs.
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October 29, 2009Manipal, India — A week ago, Afghan TV viewers watched a press conference in Kabul chaired by a confident U.S. Senator John Kerry while a woebegone President Hamid Karzai stood to the side, an unwilling participant. Such insensitivity strengthens the perception that Afghanistan is occupied by NATO – and strengthens the Taliban.
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October 15, 2009Manipal, India — NATO's tactics in Afghanistan has been to avoid troop casualties rather than provide an effective response to the Taliban. The strategy is flawed and Afghani President Hamid Karzai has instead been held as the cause for Taliban's progress. This is despite his lack of powers and control over the deployment of resources.
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October 06, 2009Manipal, India — The Muslim World League, an organization funded by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, held its third interreligious dialogue in Geneva from Sept. 30 to Oct. 1. The Saudi organizers ensured that all participants felt welcomed. But global discussions should no longer be confined only to countries within Europe.
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September 28, 2009Manipal, India — Just as U.S. President Barack Obama is trying to "persuade" India that nuclear weapons would make the country less, rather than more, secure, top Indian scientists have stated that India’s 1998 nuclear test was a dud. Nuclear scientists feel more tests are necessary to upgrade India’s weapons capability.
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September 21, 2009Manipal, India — Since India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, introduced Soviet-style central planning in 1953, the private sector has been excluded from defense production. This remains true, as politicians and government bureaucrats prefer their bribes in foreign exchange rather than the lowly rupee.
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September 09, 2009Manipal, India — Former U.S. President Lyndon Johnson was an unpopular president because of an unpopular war in Vietnam, fought the wrong way – through the insertion of greater and greater numbers of troops. Barack Obama should not fall into the same trap in Afghanistan.
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August 27, 2009Manipal, India — From 1998-2004 India expanded links with Taiwan, spurring trade that is now close to US$6 billion, heading for $10 billion next year. But Taiwanese investment in India is only 5 percent what it is in Vietnam, due to India’s unreasonable restrictions on Taiwan and misplaced kowtowing to China.
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August 17, 2009Manipal, India — The greed of financial institutions caused the rise in food prices that killed hundreds of thousands in Asia and Africa from 2003-08. Now speculation has again caused oil prices to double their rational level and food prices are again being driven up by speculation. But U.S. President Barack Obama is silent.
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August 10, 2009Manipal, India — The swap of a visit to North Korea by former U.S. President Bill Clinton for the "pardon" given to two over-confident young American women who tried to report on North Korea has been seen as a triumph of "personal" diplomacy – whereas in fact it is a setback to the cause of a safer world.
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August 03, 2009Beijing, China — Since the end of World War II, U.S. policy has focused on retaining that country's primacy in world affairs. That status is now being challenged by the other threat to the West – besides Islamic radicalism – identified by U.S. political scientist Samuel Huntington. This is China.
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July 27, 2009Manipal, India — Although both of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s victories in the 2004 and 2009 presidential races were courtesy of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the wily Ayatollah may be preparing to remove a head of state that has become an international cartoon and a domestic embarrassment.
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July 13, 2009Manipal, India — The Pakistan army has confirmed that it is in touch with the senior Taliban leadership, including Mullah Omar, Osama bin Laden's protector. The army has also indicated it would be happy to serve as the conduit for negotiations to facilitate a cease-fire in Afghanistan.
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July 07, 2009Manipal, India — U.S. President Barack Obama has decided to “reset” U.S.-Russian relations, banking on the forward-looking vision he shares with Russian President Dimitry Medvedev. This is a high-risk operation, given the suspicion toward Russia within the U.S. strategic community and citizenry. But the benefits are clear.
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June 29, 2009Manipal, India — Given the many allegations that he endured, pop star Michael Jackson may have been surprised by the emotion caused by his death. The legacy of the singer includes the proof that while prejudice may exist on the surface, deeper inside each person is the recognition of a common humanity.
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June 23, 2009Manipal, India — Ali Khamenei was chosen as Iran’s Supreme Leader in 1989 because he was seen as a "consensus" man. But the fierce repression in Iran indicates Khameini has launched a war against loyalists of former Ayatollah Khomeini. If he can extinguish the protests, Khamenei will acquire the same power Khomeini once had.
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June 16, 2009Manipal, India — The landslide election win by Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was most likely gerrymandered by the supreme leadership, who feared challenger Mir-Hossein Moussavi would be less compliant than the incumbent Ahmadinejad. But they may have triggered a significant popular challenge to their authority.
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June 09, 2009Manipal, India — At least 12 Indian students have been attacked in Australia, putting at risk not only the country’s multibillion-dollar education industry, but also Australia's image as a tolerant and inclusive country. Even Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has never concealed his subliminal contempt for India.
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May 04, 2009Manipal, India — Although China was a voluble backer of Nepal’s deposed king, it supported Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal when he came to power in 2008. Due to rising unpopularity, Dahal planned to fire his army chief and grab power by infusing the army with guerilla fighters, a move said to be backed by China.
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April 27, 2009Manipal, India — Nepal would never have come to be led by Maoists were it not for the help that the rebels got from India. Now China has become the main backer of the former rebel forces, and the Maoists are set to replace Nepal's military chief with a stooge of their own. All this is causing increasing disquiet in India.
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April 21, 2009Manipal, India — Wahabbism originated in the 18th century to counter the moderate, syncretic Islam that was the heart of Turkey's culture. Thus far, only Turkey has remained immune to its relentless advance, steeped as that country was in Sufi traditions. But if the EU refuses to admit Turkey, that could change.
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April 13, 2009Manipal, India — U.S. President Joe Biden has said that only 5 percent of the Taliban are "bad" Taliban. Presumably those who recently administered a flogging to 17-year-old Chand Bibi in Pakistan’s Swat Valley were part of the "good" Taliban, who have already been given control over one-third of Pakistan.
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April 06, 2009Manipal, India — Despite 50 years of standing by as money and equipment meant to fight first communism and later the Taliban were diverted toward India-centric purposes, the United States is likely to provide a huge budget boost to Pakistan, under the delusion that the Pakistan army will take on the jihadists.
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March 30, 2009Manipal, India — The U.S. military has begun to admit that the Pakistan military, a major “non-NATO ally,” is the source of much of the capability of the Taliban thugs that are now sending NATO into a panic in Afghanistan. And much of the equipment that ends up in jihadists’ hands is from China.
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March 17, 2009Manipal, India — Recent developments in Pakistan are no surprise; army chief Ashfaq Kayani has enforced the surrender of the PPP-led government to the demands of the PML(N) chief, Nawaz Sharif. Kayani's purpose is to ensure the continued supremacy of Wahabbi Punjabis over all other groups in Pakistan.
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March 11, 2009Manipal, India — Pakistan's chief of army staff, General Parvez Ashfaq Kayani, is a master at the strategy of starting a fire and then volunteering to put it out in exchange for concessions. Yet he was taken aback when President Asif Ali Zardari evaded his trap by refusing to return Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry to office.
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March 05, 2009Manipal, India — Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari's authority is ebbing away, with his top ministers taking orders from Chief of Army Staff Gen. Ashfaq Kayani. Despite Zardari's support for Kayani, the embattled president is likely to be hit by a slew of charges that Kayani hopes will force his resignation.
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February 25, 2009Manipal, India — Attendees at parties held in Lahore, Islamabad or Karachi would find it difficult to accept that Pakistan is heading toward Talibanization. But millions within Pakistan have been indoctrinated with extremist Wahhabist views, and the military is honeycombed with sympathizers of the Taliban.
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February 11, 2009Manipal, India — Shiite Islam is regarded as heresy by Sunni Wahabbists, but this has not prevented the Khomeinists in Iran from uniting with the Wahabbists in Pakistan to promote jihad against the West. Contacts are increasing between the two groups, which view the United States and Israel as an Axis of the Devil.
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February 04, 2009Manipal, India — Someone forgot to tell Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband that the Union Jack no longer flies over New Delhi. During his visit to India last month, his hosts found Miliband’s conduct and views so offensive that a junior official was trotted out to insist that India did not need "unsolicited" advice.
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January 21, 2009Manipal, India — Kuwait has gone much farther along the road to democracy than the other monarchies in the Middle East. Could the country’s pragmatic, moderate “Sabahism" be a possible antidote to the radicalism and violence swirling in the Arab world?
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January 12, 2009Manipal, India — Israel and India are opposites in their response to "asymmetrical" warfare – also known as terrorism. India has adopted a soft – even “soggy” – policy toward Pakistan’s use of jihadis to weaken India, but Israel has responded with force to similar tactics by Hamas, Hezbollah and other jihadist groups.
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January 07, 2009Manipal, India — India is not part of the Greater Middle East, as some in the United States believe it to be. Rather, India is a prospective partner with the West, based on the values of culture and approach to human issues, including a commitment to democracy and secularism.
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December 30, 2008Manipal, India — The principal support base for the Taliban is Pakistan's army. Whether it is training given by soldiers "on leave" or access to funds, safe houses and ammunitions, the Taliban could not have put up a viable front against NATO for more than a few months if such support was denied to them.
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December 17, 2008Manipal, India — Muntazer al-Zaidi, who "shooed" U.S. President George W. Bush in Baghdad, was pummeled to the floor, strip-searched, imprisoned and questioned for 16 hours, indicating the poor commitment to democracy in Iraq. In democratic countries those who throw eggs or tomatoes get little more than a scowl from police.
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December 10, 2008Manipal, India — Pakistan's chief of army staff, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, has seethed as President Asif Ali Zardari admitted publicly that the jihadis fighting India in Kashmir were terrorists. So far, the chief has managed to evade suspicion that he approved the Mumbai terror strike, but his empathy with jihadis is hard to hide.
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December 01, 2008Manipal, India — Since the terror attacks on Mumbai five days ago, key Western intelligence agencies have been shown proof that the operation was carried out by squads trained by the Pakistan army. Field training took place at a farm run by the Inter-Services Intelligence and ordnance training at a safe house near Karachi.
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November 17, 2008Manipal, India — Since the U.S. launch in 2002 of geopolitical steps that led to eight oil-price leaps in five years, Iran's mullahs have been the beneficiaries. They have spent oil riches on conspicuous consumption and investment, the armed services, and a little on sops to keep a restive population from open rebellion.
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November 03, 2008Manipal, India — In 2004, this columnist rooted for George W. Bush for the U.S. presidency. A Bush defeat in the first post- 9/11 election would have given oxygen to al-Qaida fanatics. But if Barack Obama is elected, support will diminish for attacking a country that has elected a president with a Kenyan Muslim father.
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October 30, 2008Manipal, India — Weeks after Western financial institutions cleaned out clients around the world, French President Nicholas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown offered Asia a simple prescription: Trust us and follow our lead. But Asian governments are unlikely to pour their capital into the World Bank and IMF.
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October 20, 2008Moscow, Russia — Chairman Mao Zedong can finally rest easy in his grave. His country has now become the dominant partner in the Sino-Russian relationship, a complete reversal from the past. The Russian propensity to back China has not been reciprocated, even in Russia’s hour of need in the U.N. Security Council.
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October 13, 2008Manipal, India — The Taliban need a year to recoup and replenish in Afghanistan, and the only way they can get this respite is to tempt NATO into a "ceasefire." This would be a huge mistake. NATO must give the Pakistan army an ultimatum – either it takes out the Taliban within its territory, or NATO will.
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October 06, 2008Manipal, India — Pakistan's army chief, Parvez Ashfaq Kiyani, prefers to dial the number of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani rather than that of the newly elected President Asif Ali Zardari, now that Zardari has begun saying it is time to put aside jihad and concentrate on economic growth.
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September 22, 2008Manipal, India — Sunday’s bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad indicates that the primary battleground in the Islamic jihadi war may be shifting to Pakistan. The jihadis’ message is to leave them alone to convert the border areas into a new Taliban state that can serve as their base for global operations.
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September 09, 2008Manipal, India — Officials in New Delhi are uncertain as to who runs China as President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao had assured them that China would back the U.S. move for a waiver on prohibition of nuclear trade with India at the NSG meeting in Vienna. However, China's administrative machinery was active in encouraging some European countries and New Zealand to block the move.
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September 03, 2008Manipal, India — Although Germany shed its "historical guilt" for the 1939-45 war by the 1980s, most Japanese leaders have yet to do so. Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda’s idea of better relations with China was to concede on practically every issue. His substitute, Taro Aso, is unapologetic about his preference for democracies.
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August 27, 2008Manipal, India — Contrary to the expectations of Congress Party boss Sonia Gandhi and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, last week's special meeting in Vienna of the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group, called at U.S. request to approve a “clean waiver” for the resumption of nuclear trade with India, ended in deadlock.
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August 21, 2008Manipal, India — After Pervez Musharraf himself, the individual who will be most nervous at the resignation of Pakistan’s president is the Pakistan People’s Party co-chairman, Asif Ali Zardari. For it was Musharraf who offered Benazir Bhutto's widower amnesty in exchange for PPP support.
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August 12, 2008Manipal, India — Although only a middling economic power, Russia’s nuclear and missile might has made it a military colossus, impossible to challenge except at the cost of a war that would devastate Europe. The authorities in Tbilisi miscalculated U.S. and EU expressions of support -- a bluff that Moscow has now called.
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August 04, 2008Manipal, India — India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is a pacifist, ambivalent about his country's nuclear program, especially its weapons component. Most Indian policymakers share Singh's view that a partnership with the United States is key to India's future prosperity, but want a more nuanced nuclear and security policy.
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July 30, 2008Manipal, India — Although some policymakers in the United States and Europe would like to see an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear installations, this would degrade the security of the Jewish state. It would come as manna for the mullahcracy, unifying a discontented population and winning sympathy in the Islamic world.
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July 16, 2008Manipal, India — On July 22, should India's ruling alliance win its trust vote in Parliament, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will go ahead and work out an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group. India’s two communist parties – out of loyalty to China – will oppose him.
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July 07, 2008Manipal, India — After he and his family and retainers were enabled to escape from Afghanistan’s Tora Bora in 2003, Osama bin Laden has seemed as helpless as a trussed chicken when it comes to another strike against the U.S. homeland. Will he try one more time before he departs this world?
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June 23, 2008Manipal, India — Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe represents the other side of apartheid. Zimbabwean whites have been as marginalized and dispossessed as blacks were in South Africa. But the country’s people realize that reverse apartheid has made their economic situation worse, not better.
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June 11, 2008Manipal, India — If the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) gets signed between Iraq and the U.S., it could elevate the insurgency in Iraq due to concessions made to the U.S. forces stationed there. This could turn Iraq into Gaza where the effects of democracy in a polity suffused with anger at their military have done more harm than good.
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May 19, 2008Manipal, India — The al-Sabah family in Kuwait has promoted a moderate version of Islam, allowing alternative houses of worship and refusing to discriminate against Shiites or women. But in the past four years there has been a perceptible change in the chemistry of the state.
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May 14, 2008Manipal, India — Despite the efforts of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to ensure a majority for his Pakistan Muslim League (Q) and the Pakistan People’s Party in last February’s general election, it failed. Now Nawaz Sharif has pulled out of the coalition government. Pakistan is headed for exciting days.
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May 07, 2008Manipal, India — U.S. policies often affect the globe, and hence the global interest in U.S. politics. The election to the U.S. presidency of Barack Obama would signal the true conclusion of the revolution begun by President Abraham Lincoln -- that human beings are one, no matter what their color.
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April 14, 2008Manipal, India — China's leaders are unlikely to heed the incessant calls of the United States and the European Union, now joined by India, to talk with the Dalai Lama. Fortunately for Beijing, the Dalai Lama has from the start been yoked to non-violence. But will the unrest in Tibet spread within China?
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March 17, 2008Manipal, India — U.S. policies have brought profits to the administration's favored companies but recession for everyone else, thanks to the cost of its wars and the get-rich schemes of U.S. banks. The country has also lost its moral authority by ignoring human rights abuses in places like China, where Tibetan protests are now telling a fuller tale.
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March 10, 2008Manipal, India — Malaysia's Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi made the worst call of his political career by calling a general election a full year before it was due, believing that international economic uncertainty was likely to send the economy southwards and ethnic tensions were at risk of escaping from the band-aid applied to them.
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March 03, 2008Manipal, India — General David Petraeus, top U.S. commander in Iraq, has unintentionally enabled Iraq and Iran to set aside the poisonous legacy of the 1980s Saddam-Khomeini conflict and enter into a potentially robust alliance that may challenge U.S. interests in the region.
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February 21, 2008Manipal, India — After the Feb. 18 "peaceful" general elections in Pakistan, where "moderate" candidates overwhelmingly trounced their "extremist" rivals, most commentators agree that the country's slide into chaos will decelerate and may even be reversed.
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February 08, 2008Manipal, India — Six months ago, when Harvard China-watcher Roderick MacFarquahar spoke to friends in India of the likelihood that Barack Obama would be the next president of the United States, no one took him seriously. After Iowa, such reactions ceased. If Obama breaches the ethnic ceiling, the world will shift.
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January 31, 2008Manipal, India — Manmohan Singh, India's present prime minister, was brought back from Geneva to India as economic advisor to the government in 1990, to help accelerate economic reforms. When Singh took formal power in 2004 the middle class had high expectations. Nearly four years on, these hopes have died, together with the reforms.
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January 16, 2008Manipal, India — Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh returned Wednesday from a four-day visit to Beijing that even his spinmeisters could not categorize as a success. Singh had expected Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to follow through on the promise of "nuclear cooperation" made during a 2005 visit to New Delhi. It didn't happen.
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December 31, 2007Manipal, India — On Nov. 7 this columnist wrote that Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto's election plans were likely to fail "if she survives." The skepticism over her longevity was because of the threat she represented to both the Punjabi component in the Pakistan army and to the continuation of the military's monopoly over state power.
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December 26, 2007Manipal, India — Central policy in India has long discriminated against the Hindu majority within the country. This has led to a Hindu backlash across India, especially in Gujarat state, where the predominantly Hindu BJP Party's Narendra Modi was re-elected this week despite a concerted effort to oust him.
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December 19, 2007Manipal, India — Throughout the European Union, and increasingly in the United States and Australia, immigration is being directed on racial grounds, with preference given to immigrants of European origin. This is despite the reality that an immigrant from Chennai or Hyderabad in India is far more likely to add immediate economic value to a society than migrants from Tirana, Bucharest or Sofia, to take just three examples.
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December 12, 2007Dubai, United Arab Emirates — If gold statues of George W. Bush have yet to sprout up across the Middle East, it is not because his contribution to the region's economy is not recognized. The 2003 occupation of Iraq crippled the already-gasping oil industry in that country, thus more than trebling international oil prices.
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December 06, 2007Manipal, India — Like the Pakistan army, which has jihad as its official motto, the rulers of Malaysia claim to represent the "moderate" face of Islam. However, ever since former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad introduced Wahabbism Lite into Malaysia in 1981, the practic
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November 28, 2007Manipal, India — Thanks largely to India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who shared with his leftwing British friends a dislike of the Yanks, the geopolitically senseless alienation between the United States and India continued for five decades after India's ind
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November 21, 2007Tehran, Iran — Less than 20 percent of Muslims worldwide follow Shiite Islam. It's about the same number as the Wahabbis -- a sect that has always been regarded by mainstream religious scholars as being outside the Muslim faith.
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November 14, 2007Tehran, Iran — While Sonia Gandhi prefers the European Union, Manmohan Singh's favorite country is the United States. Both as India's finance minister from 1992-96 and from 2004 onwards as prime minister, Singh has been open in his belief that a Washington-set agenda is
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November 07, 2007Manipal, India — Since the 1980s, about six years after Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq took control from Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto, the Pakistan army has been less a symbol of national unity than an instrument to ensure the supremacy of the Punjabi element in all reaches of Pakistan soci
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November 01, 2007MANIPAL, India — U.S. diplomats have lorded it over the world's "Untermenschen," or inferior people, for so long that the latter have come to regard even the more obvious and offensive forms of condescension and patronizing behavior as a compliment.
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October 23, 2007Manipal, India — Four years before Chinese President Hu Jintao took over as both head of state and, more importantly in China, head of the Communist Party, this observer of his country had deduced that he was on a steady ascent to full power. Even in 1998 it was clear tha
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October 08, 2007Manipal, India — Over the past weeks, there has been a rising drumbeat of criticism from both sides of the Atlantic about the generals in Myanmar. After considerable behind-the-scenes U.S.-EU pressure, there have been bleats from the two biggest neighbors of that country,
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September 26, 2007Manipal, India — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has this in common with U.S. President George W.
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September 18, 2007Manipal, India — In 1999 this columnist put forward the theory of a "proxy nuclear state," a country that has had nuclear capability grafted onto it by an outside power. Thus far, China has developed two such states -- North Korea (to harry Japan) and Pakistan (to contain
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September 10, 2007Manipal, India — Perhaps as a consequence of having carried out the threat to write his own history -- made in response to Stalin's 1943 retort that "history would be the judge" of the failure of the Allies to challenge the Wehrmacht on European soil -- Winston Churchill
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September 03, 2007Manipal, India — If protecting the homeland is among the primary responsibilities of a government, attempting to change the distribution of power within another country may not always be congruent with such an objective. Given the state of conflict between Israel and th
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August 27, 2007Manipal, India — Military strategists in India raise their blood pressure levels by pointing to China's "encirclement" of the country through an archipelago of military and intelligence assets around the periphery of the world's only billion-plus democracy. The reality, h
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August 20, 2007Manipal, India — If we take away the near-automatic, and usually fallacious, identification of a country with its government, and use the views within an elected Parliament as a better guide to opinion, then there is a majority against the George W. Bush-Manmohan Singh nu
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August 13, 2007Manipal, India — Although it would be a tad unfair to compare him to a confidence trickster, Pakistan's army-appointed President Pervez Musharraf has survived by convincing a series of patrons to back him, only to let them down later. After the dour but straightforward
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August 06, 2007Manipal, India — Not every teacher of the language would find that the numerous versions that pass for English in India have much in common with Shakespeare. For example, Mumbaikars (Bombayites, to the unwary) pronounce "snack" as "snake," terrifying friends from abroad w
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July 23, 2007Manipal, India — Unlike in the West, where couples meet, mate and then decide on marriage, in India it is parents, family and friends that substitute for Cupid. Not accidentally, few such pairings are driven by romantic considerations.
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July 16, 2007Manipal, India — What do you get when you cross Wahabbism and Khomeinism? The "W-K virus" -- a set of mutually reinforcing creeds that promote religious supremacy, the notion that the followers of a particular faith are superior to the rest.
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July 09, 2007Manipal, India — India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has several times publicly complimented his country on "not having a single member of al-Qaida despite having the second largest Muslim population in the world." India, with 156 million Muslims, is beaten only by Indo
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July 02, 2007Manipal, India — In 1971, following the Indian army's defeat of Pakistan in Bangladesh and the capture of 93,000 prisoners of war, an opportunity was given to the Pakistani politicians to roll back the army's control over civilian life by curbing its powers and making it
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June 25, 2007Manipal, India — A year ago, when the government of India invited all major political formations in Nepal to an "offer you can't refuse" conference in New Delhi, a sympathetic New Delhi forced through a "democratic" alliance of eight parties that would take over effective
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June 18, 2007Manipal, India — By granting itself a patent on individual freedom combined with democratic elections, the West has persuaded itself that it is seen as a benign entity in the rest of the world -- almost all of which decades ago was occupied and governed by European countr
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June 11, 2007Manipal, India — The European Union and the United States can be understood, if not excused, for holding the view that a "fair" deal is one that involves the other side making 95 percent of the concessions. For nearly five centuries, the European peoples have first led an
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June 04, 2007Manipal, India — Zimbabwe is a textbook example of how to run a country to the ground. Although the white settlers who took over huge tracts of farmland did not do so with the consent of the original inhabitants, the fact remains that they put it to much better use than i
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May 28, 2007Manipal, India — A millenium ago, when Muslim armies began succeeding in defeating their Hindu rivals, such victories came despite the latter's greater opulence. A contributory factor was caste.
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May 21, 2007MANIPAL, India — Terrorists must be fought on both the military and monetary fronts. As long as funds continue to flow into their hands, terrorists will continue to survive assaults on them, to recruit new zealots and rebuild their infrastructure.
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May 14, 2007MANIPAL, India — Martyrdom comes easily to the Shiites, who have been taught its virtues since childhood. Fortunately for the world, this powerful group within the Muslim faith has thus far not joined the Wahabbis in their ongoing crusade against the West.
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May 07, 2007MANIPAL, India — A smiling U.S. President George W.
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April 30, 2007Tehran, Iran — If we strip away the verbiage, during the 1990s only three countries in the Middle East publicly supported those Palestinians who see violence as the way to win back the land lost since 1948 to Israel. These were Iraq, Syria and Iran.
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April 23, 2007Manipal, India — There are two distinguishing characteristics of U.S. foreign policy.
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April 16, 2007Manipal, India — Conventional wisdom, as expressed by oped pundits, has it that George W. Bush is the first U.S.
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April 09, 2007Manipal, India — Although most international commentators spoke of the Congress Paraty's victory in the 2004 Indian elections as the "revolt of the poor," in reality it was the result of defeating their BJP-led rivals in every major city in India bar Bangalore. Rather tha
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April 02, 2007Manipal, India — If Asia is rising once again, much of the credit goes to the body of knowledge that originated in Western societies. This columnist is himself a beneficiary of the education provided in India by Christian missionaries who set up schools and colleges acros
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March 26, 2007Manipal, India — Although the U.S. State Department considers the Wahabbi sect to be engaged in "purifying" the Muslim faith, in fact what Mohammad ibn Abdul Wahab created three centuries ago was an entirely new faith, used thereafter to uproot the Sufi-suffused Islam tha
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March 12, 2007Manipal, India — India has been at the business end of jihadi-funded insurgency since 1981, the year in which Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) began to organize a "Khalistan" movement that would in a couple of years launch a terror campaign in India's Punjab S
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March 08, 2007Manipal, India — Iran's ongoing effort to master uranium enrichment technology, despite its denials, is likely to lead to a series of surgical U.S. air and missile strikes designed to cripple reprocessing capacity.
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February 14, 2007Manipal, India — The foreign ministers of the three giants of the Asian landmass -- Russia, China and India -- will meet Feb. 14 in New Delhi to advance an old proposal for a Trilateral Global Alliance that would effectively exclude the West from a position of superiority
