Via rediff
Anti-Bush anger spills onto Delhi streets,
The usual suspects are Amar Singh (who in addition to being a second rate celebrity and third rate politician, is also a first rate telephone conversationist) and China worshippers like A B Bardhan, D Raja, Sitaram Yechury, Prakash Karat and Brinda Karat.
They are leading the usual bunch of gullible and clueless public.
In way they are yang to fawning Indian media.
It is all a circus.
I wonder what would have happened if Indira Gandhi had married a "LokhandWala" instead of "Gandhi", I think India would have been a much better place.
If anyone were reading Indian news papers (or portals for that matter), he would have found it impossible to miss the ecstasy over visit of US President George Bush. In contrast American newspapers (and even the bloggers) have missed this story or at most given a cursory coverage. Similarly visit of Indian Prime Minister to US is hardly any news.
Now I am not questioning this asymmetry, I perfectly understand that India is nowhere near US either economically or military wise.
As much as I would like India to be a superpower, she is not, what is more there is no guarantee that India will be one is near or far future.
However I do object to the revolting fascination of Indian media. I do not understand for example why the fact GWB will be eating mutton biryani is news. The way Indian media is covering the present visit it almost seems that GWB is a monarch and Indians are his subjects.
Why should media blow by blow account of visit, with such embellishments as how he is awed by India or what he wrote at Rajghat is beyond my comprehension.
When the west stereotype India, we are partially responsible for it.
By dissecting such trivialities in such a earnest manner, Indian media is just showing how a particular group of India suffers from low self esteem.
PS. Atanu wrote about inane obsession of Indian media with current visit.
I do not share Atanu's scorn for GWB, while he is not a Thomas Jefferson, I prefer him over
John "Benedict Arnold"Kerry
This is an interesting article relating to the changing demographics (link via Instapundit),
The gist of the article is since the tendency of people with liberal affiliations is to either have no child or a single child; the next generation will be overwhelmingly conservative.
Some points
The article discusses role of patriarchy, since I have not thought much about it, I can not comment about it.
The next generation need not be of western conservatives, it will depend upon the amount and nature of immigration. The concern about Europe transforming into Eurabia may not be that exaggerated.
I think that as much as conceiving next generation is important, one factor often overlooked is the atmosphere for upbringing. Unless provided a protective and nourishing atmosphere the child may have “problems”. That is why I think having child out of wedlock is a bad idea, because it often translates into lack of commitment on part of parents, if I remember correctly researches have shown this tendency of insecurity. Similarly divorces cause a lot of stress.
Similarly child growing up in a family with no social interaction or with a single parent will be more vulnerable compared to another child with more social interaction.
The Indian society is changing. While till previous generation, women were primarily homemakers, now they are increasingly participating in various professions. This calls for a rethink of family structure. May be a return to some form of extended family system and increased participation of fathers will help ensure the stability.
This is the reason I am wary of the people who advocate looser moral norms and permissiveness. My suspicion is that they do not realize the importance of society in continuance and development of civilization.
When people advocate new social values, they do not realize that society is a complicated structure, and without carefully analyzing the reason behind existence of social structures, a case can not be made for any change.
This will explain why I remain wary of libertarians.
Assuming presence of society as a given they argue for practices which unravel the social fabric. And yet it is not so many, if not almost all, civilizations have imploded as a result of withering society.
Amit Varma in a recent post discussed the nature of cross border terrorism in Indian sub continent and indicted Pakistani Army for that, while that is correct to some extent, this is a simplification of historical reality. While terrorism did start during regimen of Zia- Ul – Haq, subsequent Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif did nothing to curtail it. A argument can be made that they were helpless before Army, but that again will not be complete truth.
The islamization of Pakistan started during regime of Former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, he was responsible for declaring Ahmaddiyas as apostates his successor Zia-Ul-Haq built on that. The problem, I fear is much more deep rooted in Pakistani subconscious, it is about identity. Pakistan was declared an Islamic Republic and as per the wishes of her founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah, she was supposed to be an enlightened nation. This did not happen, what is more troubling that at present there is no role model for Pakistan either. Sure Turkey is there but Turkey is a “Secular Republic” (thanks to Kamal Pasha Ata Turk), Malaysia and Indonesia is there, they have been tolerant so far. It was to do more with how Islam spread there as opposed to how it spread in India. However even these two countries have veered towards fundamentalism since past few decades.
Problem with Pakistan is that of identity which is different from India, and except for being a Muslim majority nation there is not anything. Since the only reason Pakistan was created was its “otherness”, and its educated elites are hardly fond of Islamism, it is causing stress.
I would say that Pakistani Society is becoming schizophrenic.
Since India and Pakistan have come so far down the road, I am not even in favor of any sort of reunification
Here I must mention that my interaction with Pakistanis is very limited.
The only one I met was when I went to US, and they were all nice people.
However what I said above is still valid.
http://politicalcompass.org/ has a questionnaire to evaluate political tilt.
I am ,
Economic Left/Right: 2.13
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 0.21
This article by Bibek Debroy is one I agree with.
The gist is,
This budget is status quoist.
Economy is on Auto-Pilot.
As long as private sector does well, India can afford all the foolish "Tax and Spend" schemes.
If it trips, well then it will one bad nightmare.
On the other hand, this editorial by Shekhar Gupta shows how he is a shill of Congress.
