Indians, Indonesians cross cultures (Saturday, January 30, 2010)
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/01/30/letters-indians-indonesians-cross-cultures.html
I refer to your editorial on Jan 26, wherein you (rightly) con¬gratulated the Indian people for India's achievements. Truly, the credit for keeping our country a genuine democracy goes entirely to its people.
However, our post-Independence leadership was mature. They laid the foundations of our democracy. Our representatives en¬acted bills that gave the land to the tillers, the rented houses to tenants. This created a big middle class that is the backbone of our country.
Quite often, we Indians say that when we look at the quality of our leadership vis-a-vis the type of progress we have made, the most ardent of the atheists amongst us start believing that God does exist and He is taking care of India!
Your observations as regards the influence of India's culture on and beyond the Indian subcontinent are absolutely correct. Indian culture, Indian music and Indian food are popular every¬where in the world. Indonesian culture, including the Indonesian language, is also close to Indian culture and Sanskrit. Some 500 years ago, many Indonesian kingdoms were Hindu and most of the Indian epics find a place in Indonesian folklore. As we Indi¬ans go global, we proudly take these three features of our heritage along with us wherever we go.
Bung Karno and Pandit Nehru were very close and founded the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Biju Patnaik is still a household name in Indonesia. Indians are straight forward and don't indulge in double talk. Indians are grateful for the help other countries gave and never bites the hand that feeds. Even today, people of my generation are grateful for US aid.
Without American wheat under the PL-480, most Indians in 50’s and 60’s would have starved. Later, the "green revolution" swept India, so our younger generation doesn't even know the pangs of hunger. If Indians pledge their friendship, they stand by the pledge, they don't double cross.
Our Armed Forces remain in their barracks and don't overthrow elected governments. They do take stern measures in states which are being provoked by external elements to challenge its sovereignty, but our Armed Forces never raped the whole country like others often did! However, one of our failures has been the uncon¬trolled population explosion.
Not only Indonesia, but the whole of the Indian subcontinent should take note of our education system. Its quality is excellent and it's relatively inexpensive. Recently, I came across a book Nuclear Deception. It should be read by everybody belonging to Indian subcontinent; Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, etc. Indonesians should read it too because it is good “homework” for all!
K. B. KALE, JAKARTA
Thursday, 11 February 2010
'Export Surplus'
'Export Surplus'
Sat, 12/Dec/2009 | Reader's Forum
Published on The Jakarta Post (http://www.thejakartapost.com)
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/12/15/letters-export-surplus039.html
In India, any material called "Export Surplus" would mean a product that met stringent export quality norms, though it seems to mean something different in Pakistan!
When Pakistan found that they could never win a war with India, particularly after it lost its Eastern half, they switched to guerrilla war. Pioneered in Zia Ul Haq's regime, the Pakistani government set up "factories" in the mountainous areas of occupied Kashmir and around Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Lahore, etc to "produce" fully outfitted terrorists exclusively for exports to India. Their exports went like clockwork, first in India's Jammu and Kashmir State and then its other areas.
But then some of these terrorists turned around and blew up Zia himself. Musharraf, who replaced Nawaz after Benazir was dismissed, was principal provocateur with the creation of many terrorist outfits to his "credit" during the 1990s.
During Musharraf's presidential regime, the exports to India became more frequent and reached temples, metros like Bangalore, Jaipur, Varanasi and finally the Indian parliament!
But due to his high-handedness at home, terrorist activities picked up sharply domestically. Two unsuccessful attempts to blow up Musharraf's car failed.
Slowly "for export only" production started feeding the whopping domestic market and after the Lal Masjid incident, where after a fierce battle, Musharraf broke the rebellion, but it cost him his job.
In his last days in office, homemade terrorists succeeded in assassinating Benazir!
Now her husband is in the saddle but is he in command? It is not clear as to who in Pakistan runs the government: its democratically elected government, its Army or the ISI?
Looking at the recent events, it would seem that a pattern of knee-jerk reaction on militants, followed by compromise of shari'a law in the Swat area, followed by another knee-jerk reaction against militants when US government shows its displeasure, again followed by another compromise and so on, but the militants get stronger and stronger with such cyclical fights and truces.
In 2009, all Pakistani terrorists were busy with domestic mayhem. During the last month, almost one bomb went off every day in Pakistan in various areas, including garrison cities like Lahore and Rawalpindi, targeting defense personnel who created them, killing more than 200 innocent Pakistanis plus military and paramilitary personnel.
While Pakistan has been a source of eternal nuisance to India, the hearts of all Indians still weep for its wonderful people who have been getting a grossly raw deal.
We pray to God that wiser counsel will prevail bringing harmony between the two essentially similar peoples.
K. B. Kale, Jakarta
Sat, 12/Dec/2009 | Reader's Forum
Published on The Jakarta Post (http://www.thejakartapost.com)
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/12/15/letters-export-surplus039.html
In India, any material called "Export Surplus" would mean a product that met stringent export quality norms, though it seems to mean something different in Pakistan!
When Pakistan found that they could never win a war with India, particularly after it lost its Eastern half, they switched to guerrilla war. Pioneered in Zia Ul Haq's regime, the Pakistani government set up "factories" in the mountainous areas of occupied Kashmir and around Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Lahore, etc to "produce" fully outfitted terrorists exclusively for exports to India. Their exports went like clockwork, first in India's Jammu and Kashmir State and then its other areas.
But then some of these terrorists turned around and blew up Zia himself. Musharraf, who replaced Nawaz after Benazir was dismissed, was principal provocateur with the creation of many terrorist outfits to his "credit" during the 1990s.
During Musharraf's presidential regime, the exports to India became more frequent and reached temples, metros like Bangalore, Jaipur, Varanasi and finally the Indian parliament!
But due to his high-handedness at home, terrorist activities picked up sharply domestically. Two unsuccessful attempts to blow up Musharraf's car failed.
Slowly "for export only" production started feeding the whopping domestic market and after the Lal Masjid incident, where after a fierce battle, Musharraf broke the rebellion, but it cost him his job.
In his last days in office, homemade terrorists succeeded in assassinating Benazir!
Now her husband is in the saddle but is he in command? It is not clear as to who in Pakistan runs the government: its democratically elected government, its Army or the ISI?
Looking at the recent events, it would seem that a pattern of knee-jerk reaction on militants, followed by compromise of shari'a law in the Swat area, followed by another knee-jerk reaction against militants when US government shows its displeasure, again followed by another compromise and so on, but the militants get stronger and stronger with such cyclical fights and truces.
In 2009, all Pakistani terrorists were busy with domestic mayhem. During the last month, almost one bomb went off every day in Pakistan in various areas, including garrison cities like Lahore and Rawalpindi, targeting defense personnel who created them, killing more than 200 innocent Pakistanis plus military and paramilitary personnel.
While Pakistan has been a source of eternal nuisance to India, the hearts of all Indians still weep for its wonderful people who have been getting a grossly raw deal.
We pray to God that wiser counsel will prevail bringing harmony between the two essentially similar peoples.
K. B. Kale, Jakarta
Pakistan-related
Mystery about timing of publication of Dr Khan's old letter now!
October 20, 2009
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/10/10/letter-mystery-khan039s-letter.html
Indian media is agog with the revelations made by Simon Henderson (based on A Q Khan's letters to his Dutch-born wife Henny), which appeared in the Sept. 20, edition of The Sunday Times. (http://tinyurl.com/mm3ll6). However, the coverage of this event by major media is very low key!
It is unbelievable that the Dutch Intelligence Service (AIVD), which reportedly opened Khan's letter in possession of his niece, read its contents and still didn't pass it on to US Intelligence Services!
They must have! If so, did the US Government deliberately keep it under the wraps until now?
One also wonders why a letter dated December 2003, outlining Pakistan's active participation in the proliferation of nuclear weapons technology with China, Iran, North Korea and Libya, which AIVD confiscated in 2004 and Henderson acquired in December 2007, is being published in 2009, when Benazir Bhutto and Gen. Imtiaz (her then Defense Advisor) are both not around to confirm or deny the accusations that they approved proliferation of nuclear weapons technology.
It has almost been nine months since Benazir's assassination. So why now? Would Henderson's revelations in the Sept. 20 issue of The Sunday Times be an attempt to call (what Americans define as) the bluff of Iranian government that they are not building nuclear weapons?
Will the revelations of Simon Henderson embarrass Iran about its real intentions?
Nobody except the top US political and military leaders with high security clearances would know whether the allegations contained in the book Nuclear Deception by Levy and Scott-Clarke - claiming it was the US, a signatory of the original non-proliferation treaty of 1968, that gave the nuclear weapons technology to Pakistan in the Reagan era - are correct or false, but the story of whistleblower Rich Barlow is widely known to many who have read on this subject.
As written in this book, Pakistan cold-tested their A-bomb in 1983 and hot-tested it in 1984 using Chinese designs. Reagan gave/sold sixty F-16 aircraft that were duly modified to carry nuclear warheads to Pakistan though they lied to their Congress about it.
One must admire the cheek of then Congressman Dick Cheney who told the meeting of AEI in May 2009, "This was the world in which al-qaeda was seeking nuclear technology and Khan was selling nuclear technology on the black market."
So, wasn't it the US that first indulged in nuclear proliferation by giving nuclear weapons technology to Pakistan which, in turn, commercialized it and sold it to any nation - US ally or otherwise - that needed it and could pay in cash or kind?
K. B. Kale
Jakarta
Mystery about timing of publication of Dr Khan's old letter now!
October 20, 2009
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/10/10/letter-mystery-khan039s-letter.html
Indian media is agog with the revelations made by Simon Henderson (based on A Q Khan's letters to his Dutch-born wife Henny), which appeared in the Sept. 20, edition of The Sunday Times. (http://tinyurl.com/mm3ll6). However, the coverage of this event by major media is very low key!
It is unbelievable that the Dutch Intelligence Service (AIVD), which reportedly opened Khan's letter in possession of his niece, read its contents and still didn't pass it on to US Intelligence Services!
They must have! If so, did the US Government deliberately keep it under the wraps until now?
One also wonders why a letter dated December 2003, outlining Pakistan's active participation in the proliferation of nuclear weapons technology with China, Iran, North Korea and Libya, which AIVD confiscated in 2004 and Henderson acquired in December 2007, is being published in 2009, when Benazir Bhutto and Gen. Imtiaz (her then Defense Advisor) are both not around to confirm or deny the accusations that they approved proliferation of nuclear weapons technology.
It has almost been nine months since Benazir's assassination. So why now? Would Henderson's revelations in the Sept. 20 issue of The Sunday Times be an attempt to call (what Americans define as) the bluff of Iranian government that they are not building nuclear weapons?
Will the revelations of Simon Henderson embarrass Iran about its real intentions?
Nobody except the top US political and military leaders with high security clearances would know whether the allegations contained in the book Nuclear Deception by Levy and Scott-Clarke - claiming it was the US, a signatory of the original non-proliferation treaty of 1968, that gave the nuclear weapons technology to Pakistan in the Reagan era - are correct or false, but the story of whistleblower Rich Barlow is widely known to many who have read on this subject.
As written in this book, Pakistan cold-tested their A-bomb in 1983 and hot-tested it in 1984 using Chinese designs. Reagan gave/sold sixty F-16 aircraft that were duly modified to carry nuclear warheads to Pakistan though they lied to their Congress about it.
One must admire the cheek of then Congressman Dick Cheney who told the meeting of AEI in May 2009, "This was the world in which al-qaeda was seeking nuclear technology and Khan was selling nuclear technology on the black market."
So, wasn't it the US that first indulged in nuclear proliferation by giving nuclear weapons technology to Pakistan which, in turn, commercialized it and sold it to any nation - US ally or otherwise - that needed it and could pay in cash or kind?
K. B. Kale
Jakarta
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)