Rajdeep Sardesai says, “I thought SM Krishna acted with great dignity. He may not be the ideal foreign minister, but atleast he’s a gentleman”. Sardesai is not alone. All our media personalities including Barkha Dutt and Arnab Goswami are kind of hailing SM Krishna as if he was a great statesman who was in complete control of things in Islamabad and that his not doing some tough talking was an achievement in itself. In my view they’re all mistaken, SM Krishna included. In my view by not retorting SM Krishna and in the bargain Dr Manmohan Singh has made us a laughing stock of the world, particularly in the Muslim world. I too was so very wrong when I wrote this post Indo-Pak talks: A goalless draw wherein I said that results were known to us before the talks started and that this would end in a draw. Sadly, it has not ended in a draw. Its 1-0 in favor of Pakistan. Yes, we lost, once again.

Posted on July 18th, 2010 under India calling. Tags: BJP, Congress, Indo, Left, Pak, Qureshi, talks, Terror. Comments: 2

There is no difference in the way things were before 26/11 and now. Nothing has changed for Pak. America is still giving them money and arms as they were earlier. India is still making those same ridiculous noises that we were making before 26/11. And Pakistan too is giving the same replies to all these disconcerting noises. In manner of speaking, Pakistan has more spunks than us. They can tell Americans to hop. We can’t. We can do only one thing- BEG. And beggars can’t be choosers. So it is Pakistan which chooses what it has to do and America which chooses what kind of attention, if any, they must pay to our begging.

Posted on June 28th, 2010 under India calling. Tags: CNN IBN, Congress, Hafiz, Indo Pak, Rajdeep, Saeed, Sardesai, talks, Terror, tweet. Comments: 13

Well, its over and done with. Salman Bashir came to India, met Nirupama Rao, addressed a press conference and went back. No joint statement but just polite handshakes, some smiles and thats it. Well, the meeting achieved what it was supposed to achieve, nothing. Nothing new came out of the meeting. No fresh ideas, no change from respective pre-stated positions, in fact nothing at all to write home about. What we heard were the same old statements emanating from both sides with India harping that terror must stop and Pakistan saying Kashmir first. To be candid it was expected. No body expects anything anymore to come out of Indo-Pak talks, especially this one coming as it did after Mumbai was attacked fourteen months ago. Nonetheless, aim achieved. Yes, aim achieved.

Posted on February 27th, 2010 under India calling. Tags: attack, Hafiz Saeed, JuD, Manmohan, options, talks, Terror, terrorist. Comments: 3

After the blast in Pune Congress spokesman Manish Tiwari said that once we had made an offer of talks it is quite possible that terrorists are trying to scuttle it away by creating more trouble between the two countries and this has to be factored in in any decision that we may take now. And that decision has indeed been taken- TALKS WILL GO ON AS PLANNED. What Manish Tiwari and the Congress is yet to factor in is that Pakistan continues to allow its territory to be used by terrorists to scuttle these talks away. All this talk of non state actors is nothing but hogwash which is not going down down well either with India or with international community as such. Also, while India says that terror will be the focal point of talks Pakistan says that no talks will be complete without discussing issues of Kashmir and water, water having been added as a major issue just recently. Also, P Chidambaram had recently made a statement that PoK is very much a part of India. As is obvious there is no meeting ground for these talks between the two countries.

Posted on February 17th, 2010 under India calling. Tags: blast, intelligence, LeT, Pak, peace, Pune, support, talks, Terror. Comments: 11

Is there anything called the ‘good Taliban’? The answer to that question will depend upon whom are you asking this question from. If you ask Indians, well, all Taliban is bad. If you ask Pakis, most of them are good. If you ask an Afghan- on second thoughts, don’t. What Afghans think doesn’t really matter, unfortunately. If you happen to ask Americans, their answer will also depend upon when is the question being asked. Till some time back the entire Taliban, possibly along with their kids, women and cattle, was bad for Americans. But times have changed and they now say that some of them are indeed good. But this is not their final position on the matter either. Don’t be surprised if they revert back to their earlier position depending upon where their offer of talks with the so called ‘good Taliban’ leads to.

Posted on February 13th, 2010 under India calling, Track the world. Tags: Af-Pak, Afghanistan, good taliban, India, Kiyani, NATO, offer, talks. Comments: 8

The climate may indeed be changing pretty fast but the environment is not. It’s still the white man’s world like it has been for the past so many centuries gone by, notwithstanding the fact that Barrack Obama has become the president of US. With regard to climate change they might say that they do want to contribute to the world but neither do they want it to be at their expense nor do they want to compensate others for the damage they have done so far and continue to do so. In fact, they want us to develop at a slower rate than we are doing right now. Karl Falkenberg, director general of environment of European Union has said in Copenhagen, “It is important for developing countries to keep on growing but the future growth should not be the same as had happened so far”. He goes on to add, “They should use technology to leap frog to a sustainable and non carbon growth”.

Posted on December 15th, 2009 under India calling, Track the world. Tags: Change, climate, copenhagen, cuts, emission, environment., summit, talks. Comments: 14

To some people this visit was just a means of achieving the freedom of the two journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee from N Korea but it is much more than just that. The official line from Washington may well be that it was a personal visit but I’ll be damned if Obama personally did not endorse if not authorize it. Anyone who feels otherwise is just being naive. Just as well, the visit has achieved what may be called as the ‘turning point’ in the strained relationship which these two countries have shared in the past. I know I’m being premature in my judgement here but be that as it may I feel very strongly about this. And US would be rather foolish not to capitalize on this. Remember the ‘unclench your fist’ remark by Obama?

Posted on August 8th, 2009 under Track the world. Tags: China, Clinton, freedom, Japan, journalist, Korea, north, obama, Russia, talks, US. Comments: 6

Let me say this quite clearly. In my opinion we Indians are still the same old soft people who have no spunks whatsoever. I know we are doing all this talking with Pak because of pressure from America. But why the hell can’t we for once tell the US to lay off? In fact, it’s the Pakis who have more spunks than us on this issue. They just do the bare minimum required to keep US happy. And just in case the Americans still persist, they just tell them to get lost. And Americans have not been able to do much about it, so far.

Posted on July 16th, 2009 under India calling. Tags: issues, member, NAM, Pak, problem, summit, talks, Terror, US. Comments: 2