I still recall that much publicized picture of Boris Yeltsin (the erstwhile President of Russia) in the year 1990-91 when he stood over a tank top and made some so-called historic announcements which paved the way for the disintegration of USSR. Michael Gorbachev, the leader who hasted the reforms, was soon turned into a matter of history and Yeltsin desired to go westward and embraced principles of open economy. As Pundit Nehru said, "The forces in a capitalist society, if left unchecked, tend to make the rich richer and the poor poorer." And Russia (leaving the other 14 sister countries which were under heavy influence of Russia) was moving towards the similar situation. All of a sudden the whole of media backed by the free-economy nations like the USA and Britain declared the death of communism and socialism. Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Bulgaria - the whole block perished and at the same time Michael Gorbachev, sensing some crisis in the economy of USSR planned Glasnost (openness) to overcome the crisis. The countries, which looked at the communist block of Eastern Europe as their savior and the only resistance to the American economic dictatorship, were in total dark. There were many things at stake. World order was tilting towards unipolar world and America was piped as its boss - an undisputed don to implement its ideas.
The emergence of China as a force to reckon with is as recent a phenomenon as 1998-99. Before that China was also looking up to USSR as a natural ally and supporter. What I mean while saying all this is the whole of communist block was under a severe threat of being extinguished. And the forces working towards it were pouring in money, men and all sorts of other help to make it happen. And it happened the way America liked it. The moment Gorbachev decided to withdraw Russian forces from Afghanistan, it was quite evident that American pressure was mounting up and the fall of Eastern European communist block fueled the fire. First, the fall of Berlin wall, then the freedom struggles and internal conflicts in the small communist block nations and finally the disintegration of Russia in favor of openness put a full stop on any practical example on communism in the world with China, Vietnam, Cuba and a few more smaller exception.
The poor of Russia and other countries perished. America was laughing. It was a reason for the USA to be in a celebrative mode. The resistance to its economic dominance was withering away. The weapon-factory of the world was about to become the sole distributors of instruments of destruction. The economic dependence of weaker nations on America was on a steep rise. And all this was good for a nation which always wanted an overall dominating role for itself. The erstwhile comrades, who somehow got convinced about the so-called benefits of open markets, were all looking up to America now. And at the same time, the still existing communist countries were worried about their subjugation.
Now there was no one to ask America about justifying its rationale for controlling the world oil resources - the one and only thing which kept and still keeps American leadership awake at night. The fast diminishing natural resource which is fortunately not found much in America remains its top priority followed by weapon sales and loan disbursements. By way of having control over the gulf and west Asian countries, America as it is rules the roost and then post the disintegration of the USSR it started dominating the rest of the resources cruelly. Another good reason for America to rejoice was the visible end of the cold war between itself and the whole of communist regime. America was waging a (both directly and indirectly) gruesome war on the whole of communist block to arrest the growth of Marxist philosophy and stay ahead in damaging the bipolarity of the world order. People's Republic of China was the only sizable nation who could have put a brave front to American plots and CIA's plans to enslave the vulnerable, fragile and weaker communist nations who were looking out for economic and other kinds of aids to sustain themselves. But it remained true for a large part of the period (1990-2000) that America and its smaller allies didn't find any strong resistance from any other nation. While the smaller states of disintegrated Soviet Union were busy fighting for their survival, the bigger states were making historic blunders by opening up their markets for the capitalist forces and thus becoming natural victims of oppressive American economic game plan.
Similar to an epidemic, this untimely disintegration was proving very nasty to the whole of communist block. Only after the incident occurred that the countries realized they were heading for a big trouble. Be it food requirements, infrastructural needs, capital investments to sustain the public works all started crumbling and as a result conflicting groups got indulged into in-fighting. America, as ever, was enjoying all of these sad incidents.
But as evolution is the name of life, America and its entire allied forces forgot that new forces were taking shape in the world order. These forces were, to some extent, the result of American oppression at some point. If not oppression then at least economic atrocities were the reasons for this new build up. If nothing of the above then dominance of oil resources were becoming the order of the day. And there was certainly a simmer in the whole ecosystem wherein America was creating a laundry list of enemies and forces which could ultimately become fierce and troublesome for it.
Part two of this write up will talk about that new communist block and the changing dynamics of world order and the oil politics.
Thursday 18 September 2008
Sunday 14 September 2008
Waiting for our Angel
These days, after work I am mostly confined to home, looking after Vasudha - my pregnant wife who is in her 8th month now. It's been a long wait for both of us. And why just both of us! For all of our families. This 28 December we'll be celebrating our eleventh marriage anniversary. It sounds magnanimous that we've spent a decade together. It's been very eventful otherwise. It's full of ups and downs. We've literally seen all in these eleven years. I became very serious, docile and concerned man. I grew quite well professionally. Vasudha attained maturity too. We both started saving money. And lots more. But there was this big vacuum, which always haunted both of us - vacuum of a child in the family. Now when that vacuum is about to get filled and the everlasting wait is soon to get over, we're both gearing up for a new life. I am really waiting for that moment when I become a father. I've just seen people bringing up their kids and I've (by nature) always been a severe critique of the immaturity of the parents in dealing with a perfect upbringing.
Being brought up in a family where my father has always been very cautious about the balance of culture, modernity, ethics and respect, I am preparing myself to face this daunting task.
Daunting! But why? Because the time is different. I was born in times when Radio was the popular medium of entertainment. There weren't ant TVs, Computers and Internet around. Today, its different. We are a technologically superior world now. Even classrooms are going virtual today. In my times, it was a low-cost schooling, with little or no peer pressure for luxurious life. Today, the situation is different. I see kids wearing trendy clothes everyday. They want to go abroad for spending their vacations. As a father with a middle-class orientation and upbringing, it would be damn difficult for me to cope up with these changes.
I have seen days where market was just 'once-in-a-month' affair till the time I learnt to ride a bicycle. Today, the kids want to routinely visit malls, eat outside, and celebrate their birthdays in style at McDonalds or Pizza Hut. I don't remember celebrating any of my birthdays after class three. Even before, my mother used to call a lot of family friends (and fortunate me to have their kids) for a home party...mostly Lunch (not so lavish) and that was the party. We had this sweet shop called 'Brijwasi' at Ganga Mandir (a market in Bharatpur) from which we got 'Chocolate Barfi' and 'Gulab Jamun' and that was the pinnacle of this fiesta. Today, ask any kid to settle with anything less than a up market McDonalds or Pizza Hut party and you'll face the ire of your own kids. Amidst these hostile and untoward situations, we're waiting for our child to come into this beautiful world.
Without making it public, I spend time with myself to prepare myself to grapple with this situation and make efforts to keep my child away from these distractions. I am not averse of the children using technology to their advantage but we all know a tender mind can be the easiest target for getting lost.
Anyway, that's still a very futuristic thought. For now we are waiting for our angel to come to us on this earth and hope that time is not too far.
Being brought up in a family where my father has always been very cautious about the balance of culture, modernity, ethics and respect, I am preparing myself to face this daunting task.
Daunting! But why? Because the time is different. I was born in times when Radio was the popular medium of entertainment. There weren't ant TVs, Computers and Internet around. Today, its different. We are a technologically superior world now. Even classrooms are going virtual today. In my times, it was a low-cost schooling, with little or no peer pressure for luxurious life. Today, the situation is different. I see kids wearing trendy clothes everyday. They want to go abroad for spending their vacations. As a father with a middle-class orientation and upbringing, it would be damn difficult for me to cope up with these changes.
I have seen days where market was just 'once-in-a-month' affair till the time I learnt to ride a bicycle. Today, the kids want to routinely visit malls, eat outside, and celebrate their birthdays in style at McDonalds or Pizza Hut. I don't remember celebrating any of my birthdays after class three. Even before, my mother used to call a lot of family friends (and fortunate me to have their kids) for a home party...mostly Lunch (not so lavish) and that was the party. We had this sweet shop called 'Brijwasi' at Ganga Mandir (a market in Bharatpur) from which we got 'Chocolate Barfi' and 'Gulab Jamun' and that was the pinnacle of this fiesta. Today, ask any kid to settle with anything less than a up market McDonalds or Pizza Hut party and you'll face the ire of your own kids. Amidst these hostile and untoward situations, we're waiting for our child to come into this beautiful world.
Without making it public, I spend time with myself to prepare myself to grapple with this situation and make efforts to keep my child away from these distractions. I am not averse of the children using technology to their advantage but we all know a tender mind can be the easiest target for getting lost.
Anyway, that's still a very futuristic thought. For now we are waiting for our angel to come to us on this earth and hope that time is not too far.
Bloodbath in Delhi
On 28th July, precisely a month and a half ago, I wrote about the blasts in Ahmedabad and Bangalore ("Deals, Deaths and Democracy). And yesterday Delhi got bombed. Not one, two...there were five severe explosions in the crowded market places - the pulse of Delhites especially on a weekend. We (I am Vasudha) went out too but for a movie (The Last Lear) but that was in Gurgaon and not in fateful Delhi. It was 7:00 PM. I was in the kitchen preparing food when my father called up and told about the TV reports on serial blasts in Delhi. I was shell shocked and so was Vasudha. We'd got a movie DVD to watch but the terror strike was so intriguing that I got hooked to it and the movie was a passé. But once the gory details and the scary pictures started coming in, it was soon a sad scenario. 15 Dead and still counting...There were over 100 injured. By the time I switched on the TV in the morning at 5AM, the death toll was already double (30) and there were several severely injured waiting to die in the hospitals all over the city. Welcome to New Delhi, the capital of the future Nuclear Power and the world's fastest growing economic super power. Our entire political machinery is busy licking American ass and feet to make the nuclear deal happen forgetting that there is a huge nation to manage.
The whole of police machinery, intelligence agencies and the so-called political faces of various political parties were all in action all of a sudden. There were condemnation notes issued by various political parties. Burkha Dutt, the high profile Editor in Chief of NDTV sparked the political blame game by calling the opposition party leaders and forcing them to comment against the ruling UPA. On the other hand, there were other news channels literally arm twisting the government's ineffectiveness and failure of the entire intelligence machinery. Again, welcome to the country, which is fighting more battles with in the nation than with its external enemies. No sooner did the blasts occur, the TV channels started beaming the copies of emails sent to them about the "Game of Death". The so-called Indian Mujahiddins (a new terror outfit supported by Huji and LeT) took the responsibility of these blasts across the city challenging the cops and intelligence 'Do whatever you can, try if you can catch us'. The defiant terrorists are out on the move - freely roaming across the length and breadth of India creating havoc time and again and the alertness of Indian intelligence is just not bothered to pay any attention to the clear and present danger looming large over us.
Who cares? No one! Is it the people of this country who are responsible for their own security and well-being? This situation calls for a national scrutiny from province to province. Not even one province is doing well!
J&K is burning as ever. The terrorism is still not ready to spare this troubled state and to top it all, there are bloody controversies like the recent 'Amarnath Row'.
Rajasthan, the Gujjars barely withdrew there agitation that the terror struck in Jaipur. The Cycle bombs killed over 70-80 people in the walled city.
Uttar Pradesh is forever reeling under mismanagement whether it is administrative failure or civic amenities.
Orissa just saw a very bad incident of ethnic violence, which erupted, with the murder of a Hindu saint. After that Kandhmal and the whole of Orissa was burning and the points of attack were the churches all over the state. The memories of the heinous murder of the social worker Graham Stewart Stains are revived.
West Bengal is otherwise a peaceful province but the unwanted protagonists and not-so-mass leaders like Mamta Banerjee have created a windfall for the state's industrial growth by her never-ending agitation in Singur - the place where Tata were to set up a car factory for the Rupees One Lakh dream car of India - Nano. The whole agitation took a really bloody shape when it became political and started serving the interests of low-grade politicians like Mamta Banerjee, who has little or no base in the state.
Andhra Pradesh is always under a naxalite threat.
In Maharashtra, there is a new type of terror evolving - the terror outfit is Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), the so called political outfit of Raj Thakre, nephew of Shiv Sena patriarch Balasaheb Thakre. Although Mumbai is called the financial capital of India and also the hub of all cinematic activities but when it comes to dogmatic style of living, it is second to none. This MNS and Raj Thakre have just one agenda - drive non-Marathi speaking population out of the state. But this is purely a gimmick to conceal the effectiveness of this breakaway outfit. As it is Shiv Sena is losing ground in Maharashtra and to top it all Raj Thakre's MNS has no concrete agenda to follow and pursue so the Marathi plank is the makeshift agenda for the party. If nothing else, Raj wants all the signboards on shops and commercial establishments to display names in 'Marathi'...Ask him if this really solves any purpose.
Gujarat, the otherwise peaceful and prosperous state was again a target of terror attacks and Surat, which was nowhere on the terror hit list was chosen to plant uncounted bombs.
So this is our national scenario. And then there's Delhi - the most sensitive place to live in this country. Three year's back the capital was attacked by terrorists killing over 100 people just before the festival of Diwali. Yesterday again, the capital was compromised.
But as ever, Rs. 5 Lakh for the kins of dead and Rs. 50,000 for the injured and a few statements from our thick rhino-skinned politicians - "It's a moment of national grief", "We shall stand united", "The terrorists will not be spared". What does it all mean? The terror gods know its India. A place where the law of the land is taken for ransom and everyone knows that it is not only easy to escape after committing the crime but also easy to escape the judicial system.
Ask those thick-skinned politicians if they are moved at all by such instances. We have a few ministers like Shri Prakash Jaiswal (Minister of State for Home Affairs) who shamelessly accept the defeat of government machinery and say, "I agree the terrorists were able to dodge the intelligence. But we are still just bothered about 'Nuclear Deal'. I am sure you’ll all agree with me that the state of affairs of this country and the problems of the nation are more pertinent and to be looked into rather than just running behind this coveted nuclear deal, which god know will ever be able to do any good to India.
The whole of police machinery, intelligence agencies and the so-called political faces of various political parties were all in action all of a sudden. There were condemnation notes issued by various political parties. Burkha Dutt, the high profile Editor in Chief of NDTV sparked the political blame game by calling the opposition party leaders and forcing them to comment against the ruling UPA. On the other hand, there were other news channels literally arm twisting the government's ineffectiveness and failure of the entire intelligence machinery. Again, welcome to the country, which is fighting more battles with in the nation than with its external enemies. No sooner did the blasts occur, the TV channels started beaming the copies of emails sent to them about the "Game of Death". The so-called Indian Mujahiddins (a new terror outfit supported by Huji and LeT) took the responsibility of these blasts across the city challenging the cops and intelligence 'Do whatever you can, try if you can catch us'. The defiant terrorists are out on the move - freely roaming across the length and breadth of India creating havoc time and again and the alertness of Indian intelligence is just not bothered to pay any attention to the clear and present danger looming large over us.
Who cares? No one! Is it the people of this country who are responsible for their own security and well-being? This situation calls for a national scrutiny from province to province. Not even one province is doing well!
J&K is burning as ever. The terrorism is still not ready to spare this troubled state and to top it all, there are bloody controversies like the recent 'Amarnath Row'.
Rajasthan, the Gujjars barely withdrew there agitation that the terror struck in Jaipur. The Cycle bombs killed over 70-80 people in the walled city.
Uttar Pradesh is forever reeling under mismanagement whether it is administrative failure or civic amenities.
Orissa just saw a very bad incident of ethnic violence, which erupted, with the murder of a Hindu saint. After that Kandhmal and the whole of Orissa was burning and the points of attack were the churches all over the state. The memories of the heinous murder of the social worker Graham Stewart Stains are revived.
West Bengal is otherwise a peaceful province but the unwanted protagonists and not-so-mass leaders like Mamta Banerjee have created a windfall for the state's industrial growth by her never-ending agitation in Singur - the place where Tata were to set up a car factory for the Rupees One Lakh dream car of India - Nano. The whole agitation took a really bloody shape when it became political and started serving the interests of low-grade politicians like Mamta Banerjee, who has little or no base in the state.
Andhra Pradesh is always under a naxalite threat.
In Maharashtra, there is a new type of terror evolving - the terror outfit is Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), the so called political outfit of Raj Thakre, nephew of Shiv Sena patriarch Balasaheb Thakre. Although Mumbai is called the financial capital of India and also the hub of all cinematic activities but when it comes to dogmatic style of living, it is second to none. This MNS and Raj Thakre have just one agenda - drive non-Marathi speaking population out of the state. But this is purely a gimmick to conceal the effectiveness of this breakaway outfit. As it is Shiv Sena is losing ground in Maharashtra and to top it all Raj Thakre's MNS has no concrete agenda to follow and pursue so the Marathi plank is the makeshift agenda for the party. If nothing else, Raj wants all the signboards on shops and commercial establishments to display names in 'Marathi'...Ask him if this really solves any purpose.
Gujarat, the otherwise peaceful and prosperous state was again a target of terror attacks and Surat, which was nowhere on the terror hit list was chosen to plant uncounted bombs.
So this is our national scenario. And then there's Delhi - the most sensitive place to live in this country. Three year's back the capital was attacked by terrorists killing over 100 people just before the festival of Diwali. Yesterday again, the capital was compromised.
But as ever, Rs. 5 Lakh for the kins of dead and Rs. 50,000 for the injured and a few statements from our thick rhino-skinned politicians - "It's a moment of national grief", "We shall stand united", "The terrorists will not be spared". What does it all mean? The terror gods know its India. A place where the law of the land is taken for ransom and everyone knows that it is not only easy to escape after committing the crime but also easy to escape the judicial system.
Ask those thick-skinned politicians if they are moved at all by such instances. We have a few ministers like Shri Prakash Jaiswal (Minister of State for Home Affairs) who shamelessly accept the defeat of government machinery and say, "I agree the terrorists were able to dodge the intelligence. But we are still just bothered about 'Nuclear Deal'. I am sure you’ll all agree with me that the state of affairs of this country and the problems of the nation are more pertinent and to be looked into rather than just running behind this coveted nuclear deal, which god know will ever be able to do any good to India.
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