NEW DELHI: India on Sunday welcomed President Asif Ali Zardari’s remarks that India is not a threat to Islamabad, saying it is a positive step towards the peace process between the two neighbors. “It is a positive step. It looks to be a positive step towards the peace process. Pakistan should now concentrate only on Taliban militants who are a threat to the world security,” an Indian External Affairs official told Chinese news agency on condition of anonymity.

For the first time, a top Pakistani leader like Zardari has said that India is not a threat to Pakistan and terrorists inside the country is the worst threat for Pakistan. “Well, I am already on record. I have never considered India a threat,” Zardari told an interview on the PBS news channel’s popular show “News hour With Jim Lehrer” in Washington DC Saturday.

“I have always considered India a neighbor, which we want to improve our relationship with. We have had some cold times and we have had some hard times with them. We have gone to war thrice, but democracies are always trying to improve relationships,” he said.-SANA

GUJRANWALA: Leader of PML-Q, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi has said that India and Afghanistan are involved in the unrest in Balochistan. Talking to media men here on Sunday, he said the government needs to call All Parties Conference (APC) to discuss situation in Balochistan. Pervez Elahi said Sufi Muhammad should have to take all the religious scholars on board.

About Punjab government, he said Punjab government had no vision and Sharif brothers were standing on that position which was 9 years ago. He said doctors, farmers, teachers and students are protesting on roads due their wrong policies. He alleged that the government neither buy wheat from the farmers nor provide them empty sacs but only facilitate their own people. NNI

In the recent process of vote that is going on in India every political group is trying to convince people in its own way. Congress is blaming BJP and Vice versa and the third front (NON BJP or NON Congress) is playing foul in this chaotic environment hoping to get the hold of New Delhi. Recently a Non-Congress party has given credit of ‘Slum Dog Millionaire’ to Congress. It said

“Because of Congress there are so many Slums in India….and that has given the great idea to make this movie…Jay Ho….”

UPA chief Sonia Gandhi is criticized by the BJP by quoting her a “Nehruvian-Edwina Mountbatten Congress (I)TALIAN” alternative. BJP also criticizes in its journal (mockfully) “it is just Benedict Brother Rahul and the Holy Mother Sonia who rule the sanctum sanctorum of the Congress (I)TALIAN. ” BJP takes advantage by saying Bank interest rates declined for the first time in history of India during NDA rule. BJP says in its rule price for the commodities are maintained throughout and which has totally failed in the regime of UPA government. It also mentions that foreign exchange rose to an unprecedented height. Kargil war “vijay”, Conspiracy by Nehru to border PoK and Aksai Chin and surrendering everything to Mr. Bhutto by Indira Gandhi are some of the important arms for BJP against Congress. Some Hindutva Dal also gives credit to BJP by pulling down Babri Masjid from the face of Bharat Mata. BJP says “BJP is free from the ruling family syndrome”. APJ Abdul kalam was given respect to the highest position during BJP regime.Though, controversial i would like to place some BJP thoughts against congress as follows :

> According to some, It was a local Congress member of legislative council who instigated burning of train at Godhra station. So it was Congress which was responsible for beginning of riots in Gujrat. What happened afterward was only a reaction.

> It was Mr. Nehru’s gaffe to go to United nations for a resolution of Kashmir issue in 1947.

However, Sudheendra Kulkarni, a key BJP strategists and a close ally to L.K Advani; the Prime-Ministerial says to NDTV “We don’t believe in political untouchability. If the country’s interest demands that BJP and Congress have to work together, we will certainly work together with Congress”. He also says Congress is not an ‘untouchable’ for BJP. Noting that India needs a stable government he adds “We can have a lot of ‘Tu Tu, Mein Mein’ (criticizing each other here) but now that we have entered the last stage of the election process, what the people want is not ‘Tu Tu, Mein Mein’ but ‘Tu’ and ‘Mein’ (you and me). We all have to work together, the political parties have to work together to form a stable government.”

Slamming the Rivals dialogues, UPA chief Sonia Gandhi says Congress and only Congress can provide a stable government under the leadership of Dr. Manmohan Singh. In her own language she says “The Congress party is the only party that can provide a stable government under the leadership of Manmohan Singh”. She added “The country needs the Congress..a strong government is the need of the hour and the Congress is the only party that can give a strong, secular government”, addressing their inputs against terrorism. She also attacked BJP regarding the Kandahar Issue. “It’s the BJP government which had released the terrorists as guests,” she adds.

Attacking the other third party fronts she added “Tarah tarah ke morche ban rahe hain desh me, par inka lakshya sirf PM ki kursi hai (there are many kind of political fronts being formed in the country, but their only aim is to become the prime minister),”

Pointing out, she says unlike the BJP, UPA is not creating any differences for the state of Himachal Pradesh, which run by BJP, and the state is getting all sorts of Aid from the central government.

Thrashing both BJP and Congress, Communist Party Of India (Marxist) leader Brinda Karat ruled out any possibility to join hands with the ruling Congress or Opponent BJP. She said “We have made it already clear that we are not going to do so (align with the Congress” . Prakash Karat said “There are a number of issues both with the BJP and the Congress. The issue of secularism is not safe in its (BJP’s) hands”.

According to Brinda karat, the Third front will bring up the next government. Senior Communist Leader like A.B Bardhan, Sitaram Yechury, Md. Saleem, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya (CM of West Bengal) are bringing up their policies to form a Third front, a Front without the flavour of BJP or Congress.

Whatever government comes up, India needs a secular policy, Equal rights for all and minority development aids, Power to fight with terrorism, Jobs for all, Food for all and strength to fight against the enemies. People are enough educated and intelligent to choose the right government.Till then let us watch the game!

WASHINGTON: President Asif Ali Zardari has said that an appropriate number of army has been deployed at the western borders of the country. At a meeting with the members of Editorial Board of Washington Post, he said if required, government will consider sending of more troops there.

He said army at the western border is capable to meet any eventuality. He said there is no need to withdraw troops from eastern borders as India has deployed four time more troops. To a question, the President said Pakistan wants to have good relations with its neighbours particularly India and hoped that after the elections, an elected government in India will respect our gesture.

The President said the drone attacks are against our sovereignty and US should transfer this technology to Pakistan. NNI

Pakistan in the past 5 decades has greatly benefited from the astronomical rise of China’s re-entry in the corridors of world power. China has proven to be Pakistan’s time-tested friend and the two countries’ enjoy time-tested brotherly relations. Pakistan and China must focus on developing their relations to the next logical level. Currently, Sino-Pakistani coordination is mostly limited to national security issues such as development of military applications at cost-effective prices and a sprinkle of Chinese investment in Pakistan’s private sector for the development Pakistani industry. Both countries have time and time again identified the need to make their close relations be reflected by increased commerce and trade however this has been limited due to several structural and stability issues on the Pakistani front. Pakistan should focus on ways to fasten regulation and increase incentives for enhanced Chinese investment in Pakistan’s national economy. Cooperation between China and our country – and the ability of Pakistan to take not just from China’s tangible wealth but also to learn how they produced this wealth and regained their greatness can serve the interests of the rising aspirations of the Pakistani people.

Deng Xiaopeng, chairman of the Communist Party of China remarked that it is ‘glorious to get wealthy’. His remark set in motion the events of 1978, when China took steps to de-regulate its command-style economy and the restructuring that resulted in the conversion of the sleepy town of Shenzhen with a population of 5000 people in 1978 to a major world city with a per capita gross domestic product within the city that would compete with Western standards. Shenzhen was the first site of the Chinese experiment with a new form of Chinese communism – one which took some of the tenets of Marxist-Lennism, blended it with Chairman Mao’s desire for self-efficiency, self-reliance and ‘collectivization’, recognized the basic attributes of 5000 years of Chinese culture and psychology, and gave birth to ‘Communism with Chinese characteristics’.

From 1978 onwards, China has liberated over a three hundred million people out of poverty in mainland China. A Chinese middle class has emerged which makes Western multinationals envy the depth of the Chinese consumer’s pocket. While China may have abandoned collective industrial units of Mao or the collective farming societies, China has created a new form of collectivization. Whether this is inadvertent or not is simply not known, but the Chinese Nation thinks with one heart beat when it comes to perceive dangers to Chinese national interest. For example, the typically holier-than-thou patronizing behaviour of the French towards China annoyed the people of China to such an extent that they collectively used the depth and strength of their pockets to ignore French products. This resulted in a downward spiral of profits which were previously being enjoyed by French multinationals in China. At one point, France used to be the #1 destination for Chinese tourists. After the debacle in Paris when the French hosted that imposter the Dalai Lama and dared to intervene in Chinese internal affairs, France’s popularity dropped dramatically amongst the Chinese. The Chinese stood up for their country. France this summer was holding the rotating presidency of the European Union. The Chinese premier rightfully snubbed Sarkozy by calling the E.U-China summit off. President Zardari was able to ‘snub’ Gordon Brown over the illegal Pakistani student arrest issue by refusing to have a joint press conference only to honour Brown’s presence in Islamabad by having our Prime Minister shake hands appear with Gordon Brown in the press conference and Mr.Brown showed neither remorse nor pain for the emotional horror he caused to the families of those ten innocent Pakistani students – a national disgrace for our pride.

Pakistan is not as weak as her civilian leaders make it seem. In the 1970’s, China was surrounded by hostile states. The U.S was considering the possibility of diplomatic relations with the Revolutionary Republic but it remained hostile to China. The Soviet Union and China were increasingly in an estranged relationship and there was a massive military mobilization on their mutual borders and as a consequence there was a genuine split between both countries. China and its neighbour Vietnam were having tensions, while China’s friction with Japan and South Korea remained hot due to both countries hosting American military bases and the conflict in the two Koreas. In between all of this, there was a recalcitrant India under the leadership of Indira Gandhi who had just defeated China’s principal ally Pakistan and she showed signs of wanting to pick a fight with China to avenge the 1962 national humiliation the Chinese delivered to their largest South Asian neighbour in a brief but bitter war. Yet no one could challenge China. China focused on internal development and decided to make itself internally strong.

What began in 1978 transformed the imagination of the Chinese people. In little over a decade, China marched straight to economic progress and technical recovery. By the turn of the millennium, China’s share in global trade took an increasingly upward trend. China averted a South East Asian recession in 2000 when the tech bubble burst in America caused American demand of products from Japan, South Korea, Philippines and Malaysia to decrease significantly. China however in less than 30 years had managed to build up the required capacity to consume those products and hence cushioned the effects of the tech bubble crisis spilling over to South East Asia. Trade and commerce are not just activities for generating employment but should also be used as instruments of foreign policy.

China’s grand stock of over $1.5 trillion in foreign reserves makes it one of the most powerful countries in the world today. While on news we read about Obama announcing stimulus packages, the Chinese are out there too announcing $600billion stimulus packages for their own national economy. While the principal pillar of growth in China since 1978 has been foreign direct investment, in the year 2008 domestic consumption overtook foreign direct investment in size and its totality.

Pakistan needs to learn from China. We cannot just go with a beggars bowl and ask for $500 million every now and then from Beijing. They are our friends and they care for us because they realize the importance Pakistan can play in the emerging world order. But we cannot be part of the new world order that is coming if we remain addicted to peanuts and crumbs because this is making our decadent political elite even more decadent while Pakistanis are unable to realize the Pakistan Ideal.

Pakistan must learn from China. We must focus on developing a holistic trade policy with China. Chinese investment in Pakistan is critical. The technicalities of what China should or should not invest in are a totally different topic, but the main areas need to be mentioned. The need for

• a fibre optic cable connecting Pakistan and China,
• building consumer and cargo railways along the Karakoram Highway,
• enhanced technical partnership,
• enhanced educational partnership,
• and enhanced energy,
• water security, and
• crop production coordination are the areas
• besides defence where China can play an instrumental role.

This will bold well for our national security and help connect Islamabad into a closer orbit with Beijing. The need to promote Mandarin in Pakistan is also needed. While China has instructed many of its institutions to dedicate a certain portion of their staff to learn Urdu (or any other language that would help China), Pakistan has failed to do this. Pakistani officials can sometimes be so insensitive to China that while the Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan was gifting medals and presents to special Pakistani participants in the Special Peoples’ Olympics, Pakistani officials were busy asking Chinese journalists to sit in the back so that foreign (read European and American journalists) could sit in the front while Zardari would unleash the inimitable light he withholds within and which no one can sense or feel at a press conference few months ago. This is not just comical but it is also painful. Get over the hangover that the white man is the master. He is not. We are the masters of our own destiny, as China has demonstrated.

Pakistan is today surrounded by hostile states with the exception of China and the on-again, off-again double-mindedness of Iran. Even though most of us believe the current rounds of tensions with India began after the Mumbai tensions and allegations, this is not true – they merely came to the surface.

• Indo-Pak tensions have been building since 2004 when India unilaterally began constructing dams in Indian-occupied Kashmir, unilaterally violating the Indus Water Treaty and as a consequence severely cutting the water flow of Pakistani rivers and effecting our food security, energy security, and water security.
• Our tensions have also been rising because of Pakistani support to Sri Lanka’s War Agaisnt Terrorism. Our neighbour has been very unhappy of Pakistani assistance in training the Sri Lankan Air Force in precision guided aerial-bombing which has in fact been instrumental in the current success of Sri Lanka in stamping out the Tamil Tiger Threat.

We must not waiver in our conviction that we have the sovereign right to manage our relations bilaterally with who ever we chose to do so and however we choose to do so. We also must have the conviction in ourselves that we have the right to choose how we wish to perceive any 2nd country and for that matter President Obama should kindly focus on the appalling failure of the U.S in Afghanistan and not focus in Pakistan bashing.

However, the emerging dente in America is to de-hyphenate the Western World’s relationship with India and disregard Pakistani and Kashmiri sensitivity with regard to the ongoing occupation in Indian-occupied Kashmir. This emerging dente is the most dramatic change in the South Asia power equation since decades. The only other changes which occurred were the dismemberment of East Pakistan in 1971 and the creation of a Pakistani atomic weapon which had such a profound implication on the regional security of Pakistan. Who does Washington think it is to firstly decide for the entire Western World and also to stab Pakistan in the back once again? Washington is strong in international affairs, but not as strong as it used to be. This creates a creative dynamic in the corridors of world power and Pakistan can manoeuvre smartly if we took the right steps.

What does Pakistan do in the face of a rising pro-India sentiment in Washington? When in doubt, look to Beijing. While we look to Beijing, we should not expect that the Chinese will always be there. Hence we must introspect. While we introspect, we should take Chinese ideas on the sort of actionable change they were able to bring and then we would make the defence of Pakistan impregnable. For now, Pakistan must deeply search its soul and we must all collectively ask ourselves why our parliamentary democracy has failed in living up to the expectations and zeal of the Pakistan Movement. The answer to this is the ‘FM’ word, and feudalism is bad. But the feudal mentality of Pakistan’s decadent political elite reeks of backwardness and is not going anywhere soon. They would rather meet foreign politicians, foreign leaders, and foreign envoys while compete against other feudal-minded personalities’ on how much they are willing to sell our dignity and our sovereignty for a wink (read chance) to sit in the seat of power in Islamabad and the four provinces. Pakistan is in need of a Pakistani Deng Xiaopeng. A man or woman who will display the courage, the audacity, the credentials, and the eloquence needed to march Pakistan to the path of technical capacity, economic prosperity, and intellectual wealth. This will also ensure that a strong sovereign Pakistan emerges which is capable of standing up for its strategic interests externally in this region and beyond. If Pakistan could banish forever the corruption of the feudal mentality, provide some semblance of stability, and adopt ‘Deng Xiaopeng Thought’, then we could really ensure that rooti, kapra, makan would be more than just rhetoric and make it a reality. We could then also aspire for Gari, tahleem, and an avaaz. This voice would be strong and would reflect the imagination of the Pakistani people. Even the moon would be within our reach – as China has demonstrated.

Now that the electoral dust seems to have settled in Maharashtra with the end of phase III, it’s time we turn our attention to some serious issues plaguing politics, voting and democracy.

The average Indian still does not understand the power of voting. He thinks that a single vote is not going to make much difference because rarely does in India a single vote decide the fate of aspiring politicians. Not many Indians would have heard of Saifuddin Soz whose single vote toppled Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government in 1999. The average Indian voter interprets national politics through the narrow prism of his individual problem. He forgets that his micro problem is part and parcel of India’s macro problem. He is fed of the same old politicians making same old promises. He thinks the only way out is to skip voting. In some areas including Sonia Gandhi’s Amethi constituency, people have boycotted polls. Boycott is a legitimate tool of protest in a democracy but poll boycott is not driven by mere hopelessness alone; it is fuelled by illiteracy. The Indian voter has started believing in the saying ‘If voting changed anything, they would make it illegal’. The only way to remove this erroneous perception is by mass awareness regarding the power of just one vote.

A careful reading of history reveals that one vote has changed fate of many nations across the world. Indians have forgotten that Adolf Hitler became president of Nazi party of Germany in 1934 just because of one vote. Indian Muslims seem to have forgotten this but Jews still remember it. It was the power of just one vote that caused the execution of Charles I, King of England, in 1649. It was just because of one vote that France became a republic from monarchy in 1875. It was because of a single vote that Texas became part of United States in 1845. It was one vote that saved Andrew Johnson, 17th President of America from impeachment in 1868. One vote per precinct would have elected Richard Nixon, rather than John Kennedy, President of America in 1960. And finally it was the power of one vote that brought down Atal Bihari government in 1999. Indian Muslims must remember these historical instances because those who don’t learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

Given the importance of just one vote, should voting be made mandatory?

Making it mandatory may have some merits; like people would be compelled to vote out of no choice. But it has some demerits as well. Indian democracy would edge towards authoritarianism. Only on two conditions voting must be made mandatory.

• Firstly there must be inclusion of the concept of negative voting like negative marking in competitive exams.
• Secondly, there should be an option where a voter can press the button ‘none of the above’. In simple words, he can register his protest that he does not find any of the candidates suitable for the job of representation. If this option gets the maximum number of votes, there should be a reelection in the concerned constituency.

This provision will certainly empower an ordinary voter who feels let down by politicians all the time.

Now to balance our argument we must ask this question: how should we deal with political parties and politicians who go on making lengthy promises which read like a scroll of honour?

Political manifestos are inaugurated with much fanfare; but once the parties form government, it goes in the dustbin of history. Can we apply some provision of Indian Contract Act, 1872? Can political manifestos be accorded the status of a civil contract? In simple words, the contents of a manifesto should be treated like an offer; a proposal made with the intention to fulfill it. Anybody who votes for a particular party would be accepting the proposal laid down in the manifesto. Once such a ‘contract’ takes place, it should be enforceable in a court of law! Voters will have the right to implement the contents of political manifestos!

Some might term this as impractical political romanticism; but something urgently needs to be done in this regard because politicians take voters for granted. The current voting system does not encourage voters because he can’t do anything after pressing the voting button. Arundhati Roy had raised this issue in an interview once. She had said,

“The stupid thing about democracy is that you go into the voting booth and push the button and you have fulfilled your duty. Now for the next five years you can sit back and allow your candidate whatever he wants.”

These matters are of serious nature and in the interests of the voters. Whoever comes to power at Centre, these issues must be raised, discussed and debated in Indian parliament because essence of democracy lies in welfare of the people. The mood of the voter in the ongoing election can be summed up thus: Don’t vote for the best candidate, vote for the candidate who will do the least harm!

KISHANGANJ — While religious and communal lines usually mark election battles across Hindu-majority India, development is the key word in the northernmost district of Kishanganj, India’s largest Muslim constituency.

“What we need here is an educational movement,” Mohamed Mudassir Alam, one of the residents, told IslamOnline.net on Thursday, April 30.

“Education is directly linked to development,” noted the 27-year-old Muslim.

Voting in the third of five stages of the India’s marathon general elections got underway on Thursday in many regions, including the Muslim-dominant constituency of Kishanganj in the northern state of Bihar.

Kishanganj has about 1.2 million eligible voters, among some 144 million voters in the Asian giant nation.

There are 16 candidates contesting the polls in the constituency, with two front runners from the ruling Congress party and the National People’s Party (RJD).

Many of Kishanganj residents will be giving their votes to the candidate who gives more priority to development programs.

Realizing that, competing candidates have shunned religious and ethnic rhetoric, largely employed by candidates across the country, and promised to implement social and economic projects if elected.

“Each one of the candidates is playing the development card to woo the voters,” a government official told IOL.

“The people of Kishanganj are not communal. This election is fought on the issue of development.”

The election results are due on May 16, and no party is expected to win a clear majority with the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) going head-to-head in many areas.

Ignored

Like his main contenders, Maulana Asrar ul Haque, the Congress candidate, pledges swift development reforms if elected.

“By not connecting adjoining villages to Kishanganj through roads and bridges, Public representatives have thrown Kishanganj into an abyss of darkness,” he told IOL.

Lush-green Kishanganj, where Muslims constitute almost 80 percent of the population, is known as the most backward district in the country.

Many residents have migrated lately because of the lack of employment opportunities and the large scale poverty and malnutrition.

Kishanganj is also known as the region with the least female literacy in the country.

“Only 30% of the total population is literate here.”

Many Muslims believe that Kishanganj has been a victim of institutionalized bias like many other Muslim-dominant areas.

“The area has its special place on the country’s map due to its closeness to international borders with Bangladesh and Nepal,” notes Alam.

“But sadly, despite its important position… the area never got proper attention from the state or the central government.”

He has stopped believing in politician’s promises.

“Only Muslims have been elected from this constituency but still it lags behind in almost all walks of life,” he fumes.

“They have connived with the government in order to continue their lavish lifestyle.”

But Imran Aslam, another resident, has not lost all hope in politicians to give attention to their much ignored district.

He supports the Congress candidate and hopes this time promises would not end up as empty words.

“We need change. At least Kishanganj desperately needs change.”
Courtesy : Islam Online

MUMBAI — Fed up of the alienating politics of the Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the ruling Congress, Muslims are seeing a glimmer of hope in the more reconciliatory regional parties, seen by experts as a potential threat to the traditional powers.

“Congress and BJP are two sides of the same coin. We need a new coin,”

Ravish Zaidi, a political activist from the financial hub Mumbai said.

“For a change anything different would do.” Coalitions of small regional parties have emerged on the political landscape lately, with the aim of ending the monopoly of the BJP and Congress.

The Third Front, a coalition of ten regional parties from various ideological backgrounds united under the banner of offering a new political alternative, was launched in March at a massive rally in the southern state of Karnataka. The Fourth Front, another coalition of three regional parties, also came to surface earlier.

For many Muslims, the rise of regional parties offers a chance to challenge the reign of the Congress and the ultra-Hindu BJP, whose politics have long alienated India’s some 140 million Muslims. “I am fed of Congress and BJP,” says Zaidi.

Muslims also credit the pro-poor, pro-women and pro-minorities regional parties for reaching out to them, something they complain the main political parties never did.

In Mumbai alone, the Third Front is fielding two Muslim candidates in the ongoing, month-long general elections, while the ruling Congress has none. “For sixty years, the Congress has exploited Muslim sentiments,” Maulana Hameed Azhari, a Muslim scholar who campaigns for the Fourth Front, told IOL.

“In this election, a major chunk of Muslim vote will move away from Congress and vote for smaller regional parties.”

A five-stage polling to elect a new Lok Sabha, the lower house of the parliament, began on April 16 and ends in mid-May.

Threat
Analysts believe the new regional alliances are the result of the national parties’ arrogant policies.

“Third Front and Fourth Front are a phenomenon because of the Congress arrogance,

M.J. Akbar, a veteran journalist and former lawmaker, told IOL.

He explained that a few months ago the Congress, the main faction of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA), refused to make any pre-poll fronts. “[This] paved the way for the formation of Third and Fourth Front.”

Analysts believe the new regional alliances pose a serious threat to both the Congress and the BJP in the parliamentary election. “Regional and potential Third Front partners are increasingly going independent,” notes Ghulam Muhammed, a political analyst.

“[They] are loath to give space for the two national parties to attain their high count of seats, to be able to lead any coalition.”

Akbar, once a spokesman for late premier Rajiv Gandhi, agrees. “The Third Front and the Fourth Front may not agree on much,” he noted. “But… if they get together to patch a post-poll alliance, they will not accept a Congress Prime Minister.”
Courtesy: Islam Online

WASHINGTON: Pakistan is beginning to recognize the severity of the threat posed by an extremist insurgency that is encroaching on major urban areas, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday. Clinton told a House of Representatives Appropriations subcommittee that the Obama administration is working to convince the Pakistani government that its traditional focus on India as a threat has to shift to the Islamic extremists.

“Changing paradigms and mindsets is not easy, but I do believe there is an increasing awareness of not just the Pakistani government but the Pakistani people that this insurgency coming closer and closer to major cities does pose such a threat.”

On Wednesday, Clinton told another House committee that in her view the Pakistani government is “basically abdicating to the Taliban and the extremists.” She said Thursday that the administration’s special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, has had “painful, specific” conversations with a wide range of Pakistanis about the need to act more effectively against the insurgents.

“There is a significant opportunity here for us working in collaboration with the Pakistani government to help them get the support they need to make that mindset change and act more vigorously against this threat.There are no promises. They have to do it,”

One measure of progress in Pakistan, she said, is the extent to which the Pakistani military is shifting its troops from the Indian border to the Afghan border, where the Taliban threat has been expanding.

Clinton was appearing before the appropriations panel that is reviewing the administration’s request for $7.1 billion in additional money for the State Department this budget year. Clinton said that local job creation is a key purpose of the $980million in extra funds the State Department is requesting for its work in Afghanistan.

She told the panel that a main goal is to improve security at the local level in Afghanistan by putting more people to work. And she said the Obama administration believes that many in the Taliban insurgency who are fighting against American and Afghan forces are motivated more by money than by ideology.

According to US media, some committee members voiced doubt about succeeding in Pakistan. Democrat David Obey of Wisconsin told Clinton he has “absolutely no confidence” in Pakistan’s government. And he said he’s worried that the administration’s domestic and foreign agenda could be “devoured” by the problems in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
input from Agency

Is the Congress only party which works on the basis of master-servant relationship? Sonia Maino Gandhi has challenged that assumption by breaking the sound of silence. All these years, her long and stoic silence was being considered as a sign of acquiescence. Sonia has proved that she is indeed the daughter-in-law of Indira Gandhi, who dealt her opponents with an iron fist.

So, is Lal Krishna Advani, a slave of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), as Sonia Gandhi has termed at a poll rally in Margao? Anybody who is aware of India’s political history will bear witness that L.K. Advani has indeed been a ‘slave’ of the RSS. There is nothing new in this utterance but yet it will find a unique place in the political history. Sonia’s lips have given it Congress affiliation. The vacuum left behind by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru has finally found an echo in the voice of his grand daughter-in-law!

If Congress is a budiya (old lady) then RSS is by no means a gudiya (doll). Congress was born in 1885, an old political party indeed. RSS breathed life in 1925. If one applies Narendra Modi logic, RSS too will fall under the category of budiya! What more, this ‘budiya’ has given birth to ‘gudiyas’ legitimate as well as illegitimate. BJP, VHP and Bajrang Dal can claim to be legitimate while Abhinav Bharat, Ram Sene will be ‘branded’ as illegitimate although both have been begotten by RSS, the gudiya-in-chief of Sangh Parivar!

RSS was founded in September 1925 at Nagpur on Dussehra day by Dr. Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, a medical doctor. Hedgewar was a disciple of Balkrishna Moonje who had sent him to Calcutta in 1910 to pursue medical studies. His unofficial mission was to learn terrorist techniques from the Bengal secret societies. He joined Congress after returning to Nagpur, following in his mentor’s footsteps. Both the master and servant were “disenchanted” with the Congress soon.

In their book The Brotherhood in Saffron, Walter K. Anderson and Shridhar D. Damle record how Hedgewar began to lay intellectual foundations of RSS at a time of escalating Hind-Muslim animosity in Nagpur. They write, “Hedgewar began to develop the intellectual foundations of the RSS. A major influence on his thinking was a handwritten manuscript Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s Hindutva, which advanced the thesis that the Hindus were a nation. The central propositions of Savarkar’s manuscript are that Hindus are the indigenous people of the continent and that they form a single national group.”

RSS was succeeded by Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar after the death of Hedgewar on June 21, 1940. RSS did grow under his leadership but yet remained on the margins of Indian politics. It was known as a militant Hindu group notorious for its role in communal riots.

An understanding was reached between Golwalkar and the Hindu Mahasabha leader S.P. Mookerjee which led to the formation of the political arm of RSS, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh on October 21, 1951. Jana Sangh merged into Janata Party in 1977. After the fall of the government in 1979, Jana Sangh broke away with Janata Party and renamed it as The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on April 5, 1980.

After the shameful defeat of BJP in 1984 general election, BJP was given a new lease of life by Rajiv Gandhi government when it opened the locks at the gates of Babri Masjid in February 1986. BJP adopted a resolution on Ayodhya on June 11, 1989 at Palampur which demanded that “the sentiments of the overwhelming majority in this country – the Hindus be respected and the site in dispute must be handed over to the Hindus and a mosque built at some other place.” The resolution did not specify what will happen to the Babri Masjid; it was demonstrated only on December 6, 1992.

Construction of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya is one of the first demands of a ‘cultural’ and ‘fascist’ RSS ‘budiya’. BJP is the 29-year old ‘gudiya’ of the same ‘budiya’!

RSS, as it claims, is apolitical cultural organisation but it has floated its political arm in the form of BJP! The BJP policy has always been dominated and influenced by RSS agenda. Immediately after Palampur resolution, L.K. Advani said, “I am sure it will translate into votes.” After the November 1989 election, he expressed satisfaction that the issue had contributed to the success of BJP. In 1991 election, Advani was confident that Ram Temple movement will influence voters. On June 18, 1991 he proudly said, “Had I not played the Ram factor effectively, I would have definitely lost from the New Delhi constituency.” And immediately after the demolition of the Babri Masjid and subsequent riots that followed, he wrote that if the Muslims were to identify themselves with the concept of Hindutva there would not be any reasons for riots to take place. In July 1992, he argued in Lok Sabha speaker’s chamber: “You must recognise the fact that from two seats in Parliament in 1985 we have come to 117 seats in 1991. This has happened primarily because we took up this issue (Ayodhya).”

From 1999 to 2004, BJP had convened many meetings just to convince the RSS top brass their helplessness over Ram temple because numbers in parliament didn’t add up to pass legislation for the same. Anderson and Damle put it thus, “It is questionable if the BJP could survive politically without the RSS cadre, and the cadre will not stay unless the leadership of the party stays firmly in the hands of the ‘brotherhood’.”

The Italian scholar Marzia Casolari has documented, on the basis of archival evidence, the RSS’s links with and admiration for Mussolini’s fascist regime.

Doesn’t this brief Advani pattern resemble that of a slave of the master? The sole job of a slave is to serve the interests of his master no matter how despicable and abominable the assigned job is. All through his life Advani has tried his best to please the RSS top brass.

Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who once proudly said – the Sangh is my soul – had worked hard to woo Sanghis. On his visit to Nagpur on August 27, 2000, he had literally surrendered the post of prime minister to a swayamsevak. He had said, “The post of (prime minister) may go tomorrow, but I will always remain a humble swayamsevak.”

Sonia Gandhi, the queen of Congress, has highlighted the BJP-RSS relationship though there are RSS-sympathisers within the Congress as revealed by RSS general secretary Ram Madhav recently.

Slavery was officially abolished in Britain in 1833 but it is still prevalent in Indian politics.