Friday, July 31, 2009

History of Religion

  • tags: no_tag

    • How has the geography of religion evolved over the centuries, and where has it sparked wars? Our map gives us a brief history of the world's most well-known religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. Selected periods of inter-religious bloodshed are also highlighted. Want to see 5,000 years of religion in 90 seconds? Ready, Set, Go!

The fallacies behind India's Pakistan policy - Windows Live

  • tags: no_tag

    • Dangerous misconceptions

      Brahma Chellaney

    • Singh’s recent statements in Parliament point to the fallacies on which he has been reconstructing his Pakistan policy. His personal imprint on that policy bears at least eight perilous misconceptions.
    • One, political geography is unalterable.
    • Two, India and Pakistan are locked by a shared destiny
    • Three, the alternative to a policy seeking to placate a terror-exporting adversary is war.
    • Four, India cannot emerge as a world power without making peace with Pakistan.
    • Five, as India has nothing to hide and indeed “our conduct is an open book,” it can let Pakistan include any issue in the bilateral agenda.
    • Six, if Pakistan merely acknowledges what is incontrovertible, that is enough for India to change policy course.
    • Seven, high-level dialogue and “meaningful” dialogue can be optically delinked
    • Eight, diplomacy of hope and prayer makes sense

Two dangerous ideas - It does not stop at 49.5 percent

  • tags: no_tag

    • There are two dangerous ideas floating around and we can't seem to decide which is worse.

      The first relates to the massive diplomatic fiasco committed by the UPA Government. One can tell it is a big blunder from the fact that intellectuals of various hues took more than a week to cook up theories in the Government's defense. The major idea right now is that it is a display of Gandhigiri by Manmohan Singh, albeit at an international level.
    • The second idea is that of global nuclear deterrence. A set of people seem to totally like this idea and coincidentally these were the same set of people who were the leading Nuke cheerleaders.
    • We can already read the headlines on New York Times: President of France invokes Gandhi, pleads Indians to forgive etc. Try putting that scenario to the global Nuke defense setting.

      Using backward induction, once India signs up for this stupid concept, it is a virtual guarantee to the loonies that there is NOT going to be a Nuclear retaliation.

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Anglican Church in India mine row

  • tags: no_tag

    Bianca Jagger
    • Environmental campaigner Bianca Jagger has called on the Church of England to rethink its investment in a company involved in an Indian mining project.

      Ms Jagger says the operation is taking place on a mountain considered sacred by the tribe that lives there.

    • Bianca Jagger is supported by UK-based campaign groups
    • Vedanta insists the mining project in the remote and inaccessible Niyamgiri hills in the eastern Indian state of Orissa is ethically and environmentally sound.
    • The Church has shares in Vedanta worth £2.5m ($4.1m).

      Vedanta is about to start mining bauxite in the Niyamgiri hills, to be processed at a refinery that has already been built in the area.

Shantanu’s Believe It or Not!* - II | || Satyameva Jayate ||

India’s democracy has its flaws but it is still a democracy « A wide angle view of India

  • tags: no_tag

    • India is very proud of her democracy, despite the wheeling and dealing that goes on. But according to The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Index of Democracy* India is not a full democracy. It’s a flawed democracy. That’s difficult to argue with. It’s not just the electoral process, political culture, political participation, and pluralism which is taken into account while taking the democracy score, but also indicators like voter turnout, civil liberties, the functioning of government and political participation.
    • …. but the great thing we have the democracy gene and can hope one day to be a full democracy. The good news is that no dictator will be able to get such a huge geographical and diverse area such as India under his/her thumb. No invader has managed it in India’s history.