India Whips Up Anti-Pakistan Hysteria on 67th Independence Day

[RiazHaq]

http://www.riazhaq.com/2013/08/border-skirmishes-mar-67th-independence.html

India and Pakistan are preparing to observe their 67th Independence Anniversary amid growing tensions at the Line of Control (LoC) in the disputed Kashmir region. The current dangerous escalation between two nuclear-armed South Asian neighbors is a reminder of the conflict rooted in continuing denial of basic rights to the people of people of Indian-held Kashmir.

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Indian occupied Kashmir is described by the Guardian newspaper as "the biggest, bloodiest and also the most obscure military occupation in the world." The paper adds: "With more than 80,000 people dead in an anti-India insurgency backed by Pakistan, the killings fields of Kashmir dwarf those of Palestine and Tibet. In addition to the everyday regime of arbitrary arrests, curfews, raids, and checkpoints enforced by nearly 700,000 Indian soldiers, the valley's 4 million Muslims are exposed to extra-judicial execution, rape and torture, with such barbaric variations as live electric wires inserted into penises".

Instead of acknowledging the reality of the world's most brutal occupation, the Indian government and media are engaging in whipping up anti-Pakistan hysteria to divert attention from it by periodically sparking border incidents with Pakistan. There have also been violent protests orchestrated by Indian politicians outside Pakistani High Commission building in New Delhi.Such tactics raise the fears of escalation and obscure the core issue of Kashmir which underlies the tensions.

The rising Kashmir tensions and Pakistan-bashing help Indian politicians take the focus away from the daily indignities suffered by the ordinary Indians:

1. India as home to the world's largest population of poor hungry and illiterate people.

2. Multiple fierce insurgencies in North East, North West and Central India.

3. India's growing twin deficits, falling rupee and shrinking GDP in USD terms. At current exchange rate, India's GDP is down to $1.66 trillion, more than $200 billion less than it was in Fiscal 2011-12.

4. India leading the world in open defecation.

5. Over 200,000 Indian farmers' suicides in the last ten years.

6. Tens of millions of missing daughters in India.

7. India's high disease burdens high rates of premature deaths.

Tensions initiated by India to divert attention from its problems also take Pakistan's focus away from its most pressing issues of domestic terrorism, economic crisis and energy shortages.

The result of it is that the ordinary people of the South Asian twins bear the brunt of the long festering problems which get in the way of improving their daily lives. As the two nations celebrate their Independence Day, it's time for their leaders to assess how much damage the continuing confrontation has done to both and resolve to end this conflict through sincere and sustained dialogue.

http://www.riazhaq.com/2013/08/border-skirmishes-mar-67th-independence.html

 

[RiazHaq]

When you have a small region of the world as heavily militarized as Kashmir is with 700,000 Indian troops, border incidents are inevitable.

When such incidents happen, it is India which uses these border incidents to whip up anti-Pak hysteria with orchestrated Indian news coverage and attacks on Pakistani embassy.

Earlier in January this year, there was an alleged incident of beheading that got played up by the Indians. Barkha Dutt, a hawkish TV anchor at NDTV, led the Indian media charge against Pakistan by accusing Pakistani military of "savagery" and "barbarism". Indian prime minister talked of "no business as usual", and Indian Army chief told his "commanders to be aggressive and offensive" and the Indian Air Force chief threatened to use "other options". Pakistan's offer to have the incidents independently investigated by the United Nations was rejected.

All the talk of "Aman Ki Asha" went out the window when Pakistani hockey players were unceremoniously ejected from India as the right-wing Hindu organizations were aided and abetted by the hawkish anti-Pakistan Indian media. Hindu Nationalist BJP leader Sushma Swaraj demanded "ten Pakistani heads for one Indian head".

Soon, Barkha Dutt's phony outrage and Sushma Swaraj's bloodthirsty rhetoric about "beheading" were exposed by a quick Google search by Najam Sethi. Sethi found an article in a Nepalese publication Himal in which Barkha described how she was shown a severed head of a Pakistani as war trophy by an Indian Army officer in Kargil in 1999. Here's what she wrote in the article titled "Confessions of a war reporter":

"I had to look three times to make sure I was seeing right. Balanced on one knee, in a tiny alley behind the army’s administrative offices, I was peering through a hole in a corrugated tin sheet. At first glance, all I could see were some leaves. I looked harder and amidst all the green, there was a hint of black – it looked like a moustache. “Look again,” said the army colonel, in a tone that betrayed suppressed excitement. This time, I finally saw.

It was a head, the disembodied face of a slain soldier nailed onto a tree. “The boys got it as a gift for the brigade,” said the colonel, softly, but proudly. Before I could react, the show was over. A faded gunny bag appeared from nowhere, shrouded the soldier’s face, the brown of the bag now merging indistinguishably with the green of the leaves. Minutes later, we walked past the same tree where the three soldiers who had earlier unveiled the victory trophy were standing. From the corner of his eye, the colonel exchanged a look of shard achievement, and we moved on. We were firmly in the war zone."

http://www.riazhaq.com/2013/01/indian-security-hawks-and-media-whip-up.html

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[Imranpak]

Bharat will never dare start a war. I feel that in the next few months after Kayani is replaced we may have such intentions.

 

[RiazHaq]

Here's Wall Street Journal quoting BRIC coiner Jim O'Neill as saying “If I were to change it, I would just leave the ‘C’:


SAO PAULO–Former Goldman Sachs Asset Management Chairman Jim O’Neill, who coined the BRIC acronym describing four burgeoning emerging market countries, stands by the term he invented more than a decade ago, but admits that three of the countries have disappointed him in recent years.

The acronym created in 2001 groups Brazil, Russia, India and China, and has become a reference for a perceived shift in economic power toward developing economies.

“If I were to change it, I would just leave the ‘C,’” Mr. O’Neill said in an interview. “But then, I don’t think it would be much of an acronym.”

Economic growth in other BRIC countries has been disappointing, and the economic outlook for developing economies in general has changed in the last few years amid the end of a commodities boom and a slowdown in Chinese growth–which nevertheless remains high compared with that of its counterparts.

Meanwhile, signs of a recovery in the U.S and expectations the Federal Reserve will soon reduce its bond-buying program have helped strengthen the U.S. dollar, sucking money out of emerging markets and putting even more pressure on their less developed economies.

It has become “fashionable” to say the developed world is recovering while emerging markets are all slowing down, Mr. O’Neill said. “But what people don’t understand is the size of China,” he added.

The economist said that if China’s economy grows 7.5% this year, as he expects, that would create an additional $1 trillion in wealth, in U.S. dollar terms. “For the U.S. to contribute at the same level, it would have to grow around 3.75%,” Mr. O’Neill said.

Economists currently expect the U.S. economy to expand 1.5% in 2013, down from 2% projected in May, according to a recent survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

From 2011 to 2020, Mr. O’Neill said he has assumed average growth for the BRIC countries of 6.6% a year, less than the 8.5% average in the previous decade. Most of it up to now has come from China.

India has been the biggest disappointment among the BRIC countries, while Brazil has been the most volatile in terms of investor perceptions, the economist said.

“Between 2001 and 2004, many people told me I should never have included Brazil. Then, from 2008 to 2010, people told me I was a genius for including Brazil and now, again, people say Brazil doesn’t deserve to be there,” he said.

Brazil’s economic growth, which reached 7.5% in 2010, has been weak since then in spite of multiple government stimulus measures. The country seems doomed to growth of 2% or so in both 2013 and 2014, according to economists’ forecasts.

Brazil’s rapid growth in 2010 raised expectations, but many people forgot that the country is vulnerable to big moves in commodities prices, Mr. O’Neill said.

Another problem, he said, is that private investment remains a small share of the country’s gross domestic product. Brazil’s investment rate has been stuck at around 18% of GDP, the lowest level of any BRIC country, for a decade.

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“They should only worry if there’s a pickup in inflation expectations; otherwise, they should relax,” he said, before the central bank late Thursday unveiled a massive intervention program to provide relief for the currency.

Brazilian inflation is currently 6.15%, close to the 6.5% ceiling of the central bank’s target range for 2013.

Even in the face of weak growth, Mr. O’Neill says he doesn’t plan to add or subtract letters from his famous acronym.

“If, by the end of 2015, there is persistent weak growth in Brazil, India or Russia, then I might,” he said, noting, however, that he expects Brazil to surprise positively in 2015, possibly even in 2014.

http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2013...country-currently-worthy-of-the-title-oneill/