The 'poor' Neighbour

Unless and until India controls population in urban areas and soem states like Bihar,UP,West Bengal and Kerala, India will be 1/2 or 1/3 success all the time. To get land for infrastructure is the latest problem dogging all Indian states. I don't feel money is the problem for infrastructure development.

Unless and until India controls population in urban areas and soem states like Bihar,UP,West Bengal and Kerala, India will be 1/2 or 1/3 success all the time. To get land for infrastructure is the latest problem dogging all Indian states. I don't feel money is the problem for infrastructure development.

Unless and until India controls population in urban areas and soem states like Bihar,UP,West Bengal and Kerala, India will be 1/2 or 1/3 success all the time. To get land for infrastructure is the latest problem dogging all Indian states. I don't feel money is the problem for infrastructure development.

Re: # 284
First let these corrupt business tycoons fund the Govt. programs by paying proper tax.

Re: # 203
My God....2 WWs. France,Germany, Rome, Greece, Russia etc...they have enough history of blood shed. Indian history is full of wars. After advent of Jainism and Budhdism, the violence in the society reduced to minimal. That was the starting point of diluting military power of Indian kings.

Caste system was not to create group,rather it was a division based on profession. Why caste group will fight with each other? Now, we need different set skills.So, the old caste system is not of any significance now.

As per human belongings are concerned, India may be poorer than Pakistan. Most of this problem is created in 1980s. Pakistani people are benefitting from the closeness of West. They get huge financial assistance from USA and Saudi Arabia for long time. India, an old USSR ally, was very poor still 1990s. So, the rapid change in India is visible to West. If India would have controlled population growth in 80s, India would have been in better state now.

Re: # 268
Indians never liked moslems. When British came, moslems were kicked by Indians with the help of British.
Before islamic invastion in India, Indian Kshatriyas paid more attention to administration than defence/military matters. So, most of the states were well governed, though they were militarily weak. The basic problem of Islamic rule is nicely visible in the administrative chaos created in Pakistan, Bangladesh, UP, Bihar etc... These places were under prolonged islamic rule and fully barbarised. The southern states ( AP, Tamilnadu, Karnataka and Kerala) is devoid of such problem.

After 60 years, difference between two neighbours could not be more stark. One heading north lorea way and the other south korea -way:

"Commonwealth leaders unanimously appointed an Indian as secretary-general on Saturday, two days after the 53-nation federation suspended Pakistan.... "

Full read at-

http://dawn.com/2007/11/25/index.htm

It is so interesting to have a read that Mukesh Ambani's networth is more than twice the fiscal budget of Pakistan:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Pakistan

For Mukesh Ambani's networth, just google, internet is full of results.

A few such individuals can truly run national budgets of other states in south asia...truly amazing!!

Indian wealthies can fund paki generals for not sending jihadis to India rather than begging their american and chinese masters.

Why this obsession with comparing one country to another?Some writers latch onto a topic like this just to stir things up and Dalrymple appears to be squeezing the last drop out of this.
It is like comparing two individuals even though each has his or her own strengths and weaknesses.
Leave them be; let each develop at his/her/its own pace.But then Dalrymple would have to find something else to write about and he probably won't let go this very juicy Raj/India/Pakistan topic that he has decided to focus on very soon and will probably continue to keep writing about his phirang take on us all....

Mentally Challenged Masadi,

Your mail below only proves that you go around insulting just about everybody you bump into. Whether American or Pakistani or Indian, they are all peons of the West. It is Masadi who is always right. The rest of the world is always wrong.

Foolish mindsets like yours continue to harm this country.

This is for one of the interactors on the other now lost article, who wanted Mead to hand him my head on a silver platter. Unfortunately for him, it didn't turn out that way..

------------------------------- From the ilog for today----

Attended the seminar with Walter Russell Mead and his entourage today (8/27). As I had mentioned earlier, as part of the cultural technician of the US empire (at the Council on Foreign Relations) he is in the business of cloaking US barbarism abroad in the finest silk, draped with the best available perfume of charity, human rights or alternatively the “city on the hill”. I remained silent during most of the Q&A session. There were a few relevant questions asked about Afghanistan, one person mentioned the “War on Terror” being a US search for “Mega Enemies” after the collapse of the SU, to feed the “Military Industrial Complex”, impressive I thought to myself. During the course of that question, that questioner suggested that more people get killed in automobile accidents in the US than get killed by Terrorism to which Walter Russell Mead condescendingly said “I don’t see the relevance of that to anything at all”. Asadi Sahib saw the opportunity and jumped in ; ) ha ha, fine moment, “Can I show the relevance of that please, I asked”. On being allowed by the moderator, I said, “The relevance of that is quite apparent in that the US has placed as priority #1 on its foreign and domestic policy list something that is less harmful than even automobile accidents. Why not have poverty elimination, health care, auto accident prevention much higher on the priority list, than the so-called “war on terror”.

To this Mr. Mead (the fat a$$ sob) replies, “ Automobile accidents cannot be on the foreign policy list, ha ha even though country x……..”

To which I replied, “Auto mobile accidents was just an example to show that the US is giving priority to things that are not as big or harmful as they are made out to be. How about poverty reduction, things that cause greater harm to humanity if the US is as benevolent as you suggest.”

Then he went to a long diatribe about how fitting into the “world system” (something the damn fool didn’t even understand) has caused a lot of poverty reduction around the world and the US has given Pakistan very favorable trade deals, letting them sell whatever they want and that will result in poverty reduction, and the US is the most generous nation on earth, that gives more than any other country, we outsource our jobs, make our people suffer to give you jobs…..yada yada”

I asked the moderator if I could respond to that and was cut off and told that the time was over . The guy was sweating, he didn’t expect a grilling, he expected gracious bows and man-worship the kind the Indians do with the Americans these days or Manto does with Jinnah.

If I was given the opportunity to respond to his BS, I would have pointed to him that more than 50% of the earth’s population lives below $2 a day thanks to the “world system”, that has historically produced a few winners (nearly all European) and most losers (the colored world). Poverty in the US has gone up during the tenure of GWB, and you cannot convince people of the benevolence of the US, when its own house is in disarray with over 40 million people facing food insecurity, and a health care system that sends millions to an early grave due to delayed or unavailable care, all for the profit motive. I would also have told him that foreign reparations of the TNCs that are doing Pakistan a “favor”, have gone up 900% in the past year but not the paltry wages they pay to the workers or the few they employ that are not even a drop in the Pakistan’s labor force. Next, I would have reminded him that US firms relocate not because the US is benevolent and sacrifices the jobs of its own to get rid of “poverty” but because they want to exploit cheap labor in foreign lands, part of a similar resource theft that took place during colonization and they relocate because unions are weak and wages are low, not because the US is handing out its “coat and cloak” as charity.

Well, I was cut off but I conveyed my point. The look on his face was all I wanted to see. We are not damn fools that you rape us, perpetuate poverty among us, use us and discard us and then want us to worship you like tahmed and hand out chicken tikkas and kulfis. Take your fat a$$ back to the corridors of power in Washington, soon that whore- house will crumble, because all structures built on injustice have shaky foundations….

Re: # 274
'As for women being out in the open... true that Pakistani women don't drive scooters... but often enough I stop at a light and every other driver in every other car is a woman..'
Where? Where is this relative freedom? In the poshest areas of Pakistan. In Karachi it used to be so from 1990s to 2004. Now not so. In fact women are in Niqab, Burkha and they do not drive. Saw one or two women in the Defense Clifton posh areas who were driving. Most were in Burkas. Chadars and NiqAabs through out Karachi.

re: 278

Is Biden just dumb or is he like, Indian liberals, totally incapable of learning?

All of us have our own personal preferences but that sob wants AMERICANS to prevent Pakistani moderates from going underground! Who the heck are the Americans to keep Pakistani moderates from going anywhere they choose to, so long as they stay within Pakistan? Will Americans "help" moderates by interfering in Pakistani political matters again?

If anybody thinks this "Pakistan policy" will be any different from "Musharraf policy" then they have never understood a thing about this part of the world.

'Pakistan is world's most dangerous country'
20 Aug 2007, 0813 hrs IST,PTI

WASHINGTON: Terming Pakistan as "the most dangerous country in the world", the US' Senate Committee on Foreign Relations has slammed Bush administration for having a "Musharraf policy" instead of a policy for Pakistan.

"The fact of the matter is, Pakistan is the most dangerous, potentially the most dangerous country in the world. A significant minority of jihadists with nuclear weapons. We have no Pakistan policy; we have a Musharraf policy," chairman of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Senator Joseph R Biden said at a debate featuring the Democratic candidates sponsored by ABC News at the Drake University in Iowa.

"That's a bad policy. The policy should be based upon a long-term relationship with Pakistan and stability," the Senator, who is also seeking Democratic Party nomination for 2008 US Presidential elections, said.

Biden stressed on the need to conduct a free and fair elections in Pakistan to prevent the moderates, who are in "overwhelming majority", from going underground.

"We should be encouraging free elections. There is an overwhelming majority of moderates in that country. They should have their day. Otherwise, they are going to go underground," the powerful Chair of the Senate Committee said.

During the debate, former Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards terming Musharraf as "not a wonderful leader" said, "He provides some stability in Pakistan. And there is a great risk, if he's overthrown, about a radical government taking over."

"They have a nuclear weapon. They are in constant tension with India, which also has nuclear weapons, over Kashmir. I mean, it's a dangerous, volatile situation," Edwards added.

And it has done infinitely better evidently when it comes to the ground reality...

So what does that tell you?