1 Great pals: Notorious theocracy and biggest democracy (The Wall Street Journal) The world's most notorious theocracy is desperately looking for a friend with deep pockets. It has found an unlikely candidate: the world's biggest democracy. India surpassed China last month to become the Islamic Republic of Iran's biggest customer for crude oil, undermining sanctions by the US and European Union to starve the mullahs of oil revenue. Ties between Delhi and Tehran also came into focus after Israel blamed Iran for a terrorist attack on one of its diplomats in New Delhi Monday. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government promptly began an investigation, but the question is why he hasn't already curtailed dealings with the Islamic Republic.
New Delhi justifies it as necessary commerce. India is heavily dependent on oil imports, 11% of which it gets from Iran. The puzzle is why New Delhi hasn't tried harder to find other energy sources. This isn't impossible: Japan has brought down its dependence on Iran in the last five years and is promising to do more. Mr. Singh doesn't even seem to be pressing Tehran for price discounts—Iranian crude is about to become a distressed asset, if it isn't already — which would at least lower the mullahs' revenue.
No one's accusing India of ideological kinship with the mullahs. Mr. Singh's government has said that it doesn't want a nuclear Iran and has voted against Tehran in the International Atomic Energy Agency. Yet now he's effectively enabling those nuclear ambitions by failing to stand with the coalition of nations trying to force Tehran to change course. While other liberal democracies agree about the Iranian nuclear threat, New Delhi apparently only sees pushy Westerners telling it what to do.
2 India police competency questioned (The Wall Street Journal) The blast that targeted the car of an Israeli diplomat in Delhi earlier this week prompted questions on whether terrorists see the city as a soft target. The attack was carried out with a so-called “sticky bomb,” an explosive device that was attached to the car. According to reports, it was the first time such a device had been used in India. While security officials anywhere in the world would’ve struggled to prevent the drive-by attack, reports on how Delhi Police have handled their research on the sticky bomb raise pretty big questions about their level of competence.
A Times of India report said that Delhi Police Commissioner BK Gupta had spent “hours” carrying out research into sticky bombs, and that printouts were distributed afterwards to explain how they work. But instead of describing the bomb used in Monday’s attack, the printouts looked a lot like the instructions for an online game, even saying how much damage sticky bombs could do “to the player.”
The report noted that the language of the police printout had actually been borrowed from an Internet game called “Terraria.” This is what Terraria says about the sticky bomb:“Sticky Bombs are a type of explosives crafted from one Bomb and 5 Gel. At point blank range, it can cause a total of 100 damage to mobs and 200 to the player.” (This is one of the top results that come up if you search “sticky bomb” on Google.) And this is what the news report quotes the Delhi Police printout as saying: “Sticky bombs are a type of explosives crafted from one Bomb and 5 Gel. At point blank range, it can cause a total of 100 damage to mobs and 200 to the player.”
3 Syrian uprising and the proxy war (Khaleej Times) The uprising in Syria put Ankara and Tehran poles apart. Hardly a day goes by that an Iranian official doesn’t threaten Turkey. This is no surprise. From the Syrian uprising to Iraq’s sectarian convulsions to Iran’s push for nuclear power, Ankara is the main challenger to Tehran’s desire to dominate the region.
The uprising in Syria put Ankara and Tehran at polar opposite ends of the regional and political spectrum. Given its democratic traditions, Turkey supported the revolution and sided with the protesters; authoritarian Iran continued its support for the Assad regime and backed his brutal crackdown on civilians. The Syrian uprising has become a zero-sum game: Either Bashar Al Assad will win, or the demonstrators will triumph. Likewise, it has become a proxy war between Tehran and Ankara, in which there will be only one winner. Both countries are slowly showing their hands in the region’s oldest power game. In the Middle East, there is room for one shah or one sultan, but not both a shah and a sultan.
4 Double standards of Muslims (Murtaza Razvi in Dawn) It’s not only the West, but also Muslims who have double standards, Pakistanis and Arabs more so than others. While the West keeps mum over Israel’s excesses against Palestinians, its Nato ally Turkey’s suppression of Kurds, India’s policy towards Kashmiris, Bahrain’s and Saudi Arabia’s oppression of their Shia citizens, Western leaders cry from the rooftops for the rights of Syrian, Chinese, Iranian and North Korean people living under a tyranny.
And now about us and our double standards. We want our madressahs and hijabs and missionaries preaching in the UK, which readily obliges because it respects your right to practise your faith (France and even Turkey will not allow half as much freedom to their Muslim populations), but here in Pakistan we won’t have the Ahmadis call themselves Muslim even though they recite the same kalema and pray the same prayer; we won’t allow Christian missionaries either. The Gulf is another story altogether. Most our of brotherly oil-rich people — read very honourable men, for women hardly count — have their rules of engagement listed according to your nationalities, rather the race. A white man from the US, say a doctor, draws a much higher salary than his plebian Bangladeshi counterpart even if both are graduates of the same American medical school! But neither can go to church in the holy kingdom, for no such place exists there.
Double standards abound. In the UAE Muslims can drink alcohol in a bar, but taking liquor is a punishable offence for them; in Qatar, it is your nationality, and not your faith, that decides whether you can legally consume alcohol: a Muslim from UAE, Turkey, Indonesia or India can, but a Muslim from Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia or Iran cannot. Yes, Islam emphasises on equality in social justice, as was enshrined in the de facto constitution which the Prophet of Islam hammered out in consultation with all concerned, and which became the basis of running the first Islamic state at Madina. He declared the neighbouring Jews and Christian tribes with whom he entered into a truce as part of the Ummah, in which each individual was bound by the same set of rules, obligations and privileges regardless of his/her faith. This was a true pluralistic aspect of Islam which its Prophet implemented and enforced by consensus in his own lifetime in the 7th century CE. Today the word Ummah has been robbed of its original meaning and popularly connotes Muslims only.
5 Extremism greater threat than terrorism (Dawn) Extremism is a greater threat to Pakistan than terrorism and reporting the incidents that violate norms of peaceful societies is not given due attention in the public discourse too. Speakers at the launch of Jinnah Institute’s report ‘Extremism watch: mapping conflict trends in Pakistan 2010-2011’ expressed concerns over rising intolerance among various groups and sects in society. Ejaz Haider, the executive director of Jinnah Institute, said extremism was a greater menace in terms of the state’s ability to deal with it rather than terrorism, and this fact enhanced the importance of studying extremism in the country. “This is a serious issue. People belonging to all groups and sects have the right to live,” Mr Haider said, adding: “With what is happening, we will ultimately be killing each other and this mindset will not take us anywhere.”
6 Save us from our defenders (Dawn) The Difaa-i-Pakistan Council (DPC) has announced its aim of defending us against the dangers we face today. But given the fact that the biggest threat to Pakistan comes from the extremist ideology of many of those who constitute the DPC, the question arises whether these holy warriors will confront the militants. Don’t hold your breath: during a recent DPC rally in Karachi, speaker after speaker made it clear that their real enemies are India and America. This assembled galaxy clearly failed to notice the uncomfortable fact that over the last decade, well over 30,000 innocent civilians and 5,000 security personnel have been killed in terrorist attacks launched by jihadi militants. Such mundane truths often escape our religious brigade. While focusing on American drone attacks, which while controversial, have been the most effective weapon against the militants in the tribal areas, they have conveniently overlooked the real cause of militancy. The moment these realities are pointed out to them, they go on about how these casualties are the result of the American war in Afghanistan.
7 Gross National Happiness (Dawn) Money makes the world go round. But as the euro debt crisis grinds on and anti-austerity protests gain momentum across the continent, I’ve been thinking: could Europe’s embattled leaders learn a lesson or two from a tiny Himalayan kingdom where happiness, not taxes, are a top priority? Bhutan where the former king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, began talking about gross national happiness in the 1970s, was the first to decree happiness a national policy.
The concept of happiness as a common public good is gaining ground. A United Nations resolution says happiness is critical in advancing economic growth and social progress. The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) now has a ground-breaking ‘How’s Life’ initiative which ranks countries on a happiness index. Europeans may not want to take a page out of tiny Bhutan’s book but those favouring a ‘beyond GDP’ agenda also include economists like Amartya Sen, Joseph Stiglitz and Jean-Paul Fitoussi.
8 Air Australia collapse hits creditors (Sydney Morning Herald) The collapse of the international budget airline, Air Australia is set to result in unsecured creditors losing tens of millions of dollars. Hundreds of creditors - including passengers, airports and refuellers - are unlikely to recover the money owed to them because the airline's assets are minimal. Air Australia's airport terminal and fleet of five Airbus A330 aircraft and one A320 are all leased. The administrator, Mark Korda of KordaMentha, said his best estimate was that between $10 million and $20 million was owed on about 100,000 tickets, while millions of dollars more was likely to be owed to unsecured creditors, which would include airports, caterers, parts suppliers and governments.
9 ‘Linsanity’ leads for word of the year (Straits Times) The sporting world's newest craze has Lin-guists impressed. 'Linsanity,' the word that has encapsulated New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin's rise from bench-warmer to international sensation in less than two weeks, has thrust itself into the American English vocabulary and been translated into Mandarin, making it a strong, early candidate for 2012's Word of the Year, according to the American Dialect Society. Linsanity has been accompanied by puns such as 'lincredible,' 'linvincible,' 'linning' and 'Linderella'.
10 Women as payment in Afghanistan (San Francisco Chronicle) Shakila, 8 at the time, was drifting off to sleep when a group of men carrying AK-47s barged in through the door. She recalls them complaining, as they dragged her off into the darkness, about how their family had been dishonored and about how they had not been paid. It turns out that Shakila, who was abducted along with her cousin as part of a traditional Afghan form of justice known as "baad," was the payment.
Although baad (also known as baadi) is illegal under Afghan and, most religious scholars say, Islamic law, the taking of girls as payment for misdeeds committed by their elders still appears to be flourishing. Shakila, because one of her uncles had run away with the wife of a district strongman, was taken and held for about a year. It was the district leader, furious at the dishonor that had been done to him, who sent his men to abduct her. Despite being denounced by the United Nations as a "harmful traditional practice," baad is pervasive in rural southern and eastern Afghanistan, areas that are heavily Pashtun, according to human rights workers. Baad involves giving a young woman, often a child, into slavery and forced marriage. It is largely hidden because the girls are given to compensate for "shameful" crimes like murder, adultery and elopement, elders and women's rights advocates say.
11 Fake bonds worth trillions (BBC) Italian prosecutors say they have broken up an organised crime ring that was hiding trillions of dollars of fake US bonds. Worth $6 trillion, the bonds were found in three metal boxes in a warehouse in the Swiss city of Zurich. Italian authorities have arrested eight people and are investigating them for fraud and other crimes. Prosecutors are not sure what the gang was planning, but think they intended to sell the counterfeit bonds. Investigators, based in Potenza in southern Italy, say the fraud posed "severe threats" to international financial security.
12 Castrate child sex abusers: India court (The Times of India) A city court caused a stir on Friday when it asked legislators to consider castration as an alternative punishment for child abusers. "Castration is the most befitting sentence which can be imposed on any pedophile or serial offender but the hands of this court are tied as the statute does not provide for it... Indian legislators are yet to explore this as an alternative to conventional sentencing," observed additional sessions judge Kamini Lau. ASJ Lau sentenced a man to imprisonment for his "entire life" for raping his six-year-old niece and directed the prison authorities not to give him any remission.
13 Nomophobia and modern society (Deccan Chronicle editorial) A new study indicates that people in Britain are increasingly suffering from “nomophobia” — the fear of losing their mobile phones. Closer home, our able rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has lamented that women from villages nowadays demand mobile phones first, not toilets. What is it with a personal cellphone that it should be the focus of so much attention in so many modern humans — to the extent of effecting behavioural changes in them? True, the mobile does far more than allow instant person-to-person communication, regardless of geography. The big fear, of course, is that these devices have taken over our lives so much that we fret if they are out of charge for a while. Psychologists even recommend that we should all go on a digital “fast” sometimes — not just with cellphones, but also the Internet, video games and other gizmos of our times.
14 Saving Mumbai (TN Ninan in Business Standard) Mumbai has had its civic elections, but 46% voting suggests that the city’s residents don’t believe the elections will solve their problems. They may be right. The city has stopped growing (its population in 2011, at 12.4 million, was fractionally smaller than in 2001), it has water rationing, and little space for more public or private transport. Half its population lives in slums (the national urban average is less than 20%), so daily life is an aggravation — and expensive. Office rents are 50% higher than in Delhi, and four times Bangalore’; commuting times in trains that pack passengers like sardines are twice as long as anywhere else.
There is only one way for Mumbai to escape long-term decline: either free up the stretches of land occupied by the port and the navy and give the city a fresh lease of life, or escape to the mainland and create new growth centres, set up a new airport, and a different logic from that of an overcrowded island. If not, India’s Maximum City will continue to lose out. What Mumbai needs as a starting point is a city administration that is accountable to the city’s residents, and a directly elected mayor, as in all great cities — London, Paris, Berlin, New York… A newly elected BMC is no substitute.
15 India long on enthusiasm, short on execution (Tudor Brown, president and co-founder of UK-based chip designer ARM Holdings Plc, in Mint) India frustrates me. I see a lot of enthusiasm, but I don’t see much execution, I am sorry to say. Fundamentally, it is under capitalized. It is always trying to do things on the cheap. If I compare India and China, you could argue they both have come from equivalent positions in terms of gross domestic product or whatever. Yet, Chinese companies have raised the capital to buy not just ARM licences, but also the whole ecosystem needed in terms of electronic design automation (EDA) tools to build chips and get products out there. Indian companies are still talking about it.
But whenever we talk to Indian companies, the fundamental assertion is “we have got no money, so we need a cheap licence”. If you want to play on the world stage, you have to play by the world rules. Of course, costs are low in India, so you should be able to do things at lower cost. But you can’t expect companies like us, EDA companies and international suppliers to single India out as a special case. Then what about China and Brazil, which are doing things pretty much at full value?
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