Desperate to lock up oil supplies and fresh off a smarting Central Asian oil field loss to China, India has signed a deal with Saudi Arabia:
India and Saudi Arabia have signed a deal to develop a strategic energy partnership and have agreed to “fight the menace of terrorism” together… The deal promises to provide India with a “reliable, stable and increased volume” of crude oil supplies…Saudi Arabia currently supplies nearly 175 million barrels of crude oil a year – a quarter of India’s oil needs. India imports 70% of its supplies and is currently exploring fresh supplies from Central Asia to South America. [Link]
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p>Meanwhile, the Saudi government continues to fund madrassas in Pakistan which churn out militants for Al-Qaeda and Kashmir:
Since the1980s, Pakistan’s education ministry has depended solely on the tuition-free madrassa system of religious education, funded by Saudi Arabia and other orthodox Sunnis, to see a large number of poor Pakistani children get to school. The theocratic education of Pakistan’s orthodox madrassas was tailored to produce the leaders of the Taliban movement. The madrassas also produced the Sunni militants and others who protected the anti-American Taliban and al-Qaeda militants… [Asia Times – author also writes for Indian defense publications]Zahidullah, 31, a grad student in Islamic law at the Bahrul Uloom madrassa in Pakistan’s northern mountains, boasts of how many recruits he has gained for the outlawed Kashmiri guerrilla force Harkatul Mujahedin: “Many youths here are anxious to join the jihad when I tell them stories of our heroic Islamic resistance against Indian aggression…”
In recent months, thousands of young Afghan men have swarmed to madrassas just inside Pakistan… On the Afghan side, meanwhile, the influx of madrassa students and graduates has helped to produce Taliban battle units as large as 100 fighters, where a year ago the guerrillas were mustering squads of barely a half-dozen men. [Link]
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p>The madrassas are popular because the military-controlled government spends far more on bombs than brains:
… Pakistan desperately needs its madrassas. Without them, an estimated 1.5 million young Pakistanis would get no formal education at all. According to a recent analysis by the U.S. Agency for International Development, Pakistan spends only 2.2 percent of its GDP on public education, the tiniest share for any country in South or Southeast Asia. [Link]
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p>In comparison, India spends around 4% of its GDP on public education while the U.S. spends just under 7%. Of course, this was all done with U.S. approval to fight the Soviets:
After promoting militant orthodox Islam in the 1980s, with the help of Saudi Arabia, to expedite disintegration of the former Soviet Union and save the “free world”, Washington set about to “fix” Pakistan’s education system… Musharraf had no intention of making any wholesale changes, and, in fact, last week permission was given to open new madrassas in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP)…Pakistan’s Sunni militants… work hand-in-glove with the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia. In fact, the political arm of the Sunni militants in Pakistan, the Jamaat-i-Islami (JII) and its student wing Islamic Jamiat Tulaba (IJT), are financed generously from Saudi Arabia. [Asia Times – author also writes for Indian defense publications]
So now both India and the U.S. are paying for the bullets and bombs which kill their own citizens, until their leaders get serious about non-petrolic transport, and the U.S. gets serious about democracy rather than compliant client states.
In the meantime, the private sector is taking the lead. The same foundation which funded the first private suborbital flight is planning to put a bounty on energy-efficient transport (via Slashdot):
In 2004, a $10 million X Prize purse was won by back-to-back flights of a piloted SpaceShipOne rocket plane from Mojave, California to the edge of space. Now the X Prize Foundation, a nonprofit-education organization based in Santa Monica, California is setting it sights on other frontiers…For the automotive prize, the focus is on breakthroughs in areas like miles per gallon and manufacturing. “Why do we still drive cars that use an internal combustion engine and only get 30 miles per gallon? I think that we’ll see some amazing achievements in this area,” Diamandis predicted. [Link]
60 minutes had a must see segment on Canadian oil sands last week. This is a mostly untapped resource that coutries like the U.S., China, and India will soon be targeting as a way to bypass the Middle East. Unfortunately we will all be competing for this resource. Canada, and not countries in the Middle East, may soon be the world’s oil kingpin.
Hate to be so crude, but particularly in the case of nations awash in poverty like India,
[Lives saved via GNP growth [via cheap oil]] >> [Lives lost from terrorism]
Developing / rapidly industrializing / rapidly growing countries like India in particular have a very high Energy to GDP ratio…
I saw that 60 minutes piece. AMAZING !!! As long as crude oil remains above $40/barrel the sand oil is profitable. As more technology is used, and higher efficiencies in the process is achieved that $40 value will come down.
In the story they mentioned that this was kind of a “new gold rush”. A Dallas based hedge fund manager has invested serious part of his money (as per that 60 minutes piece). That type of thing get my attention, instantly. (as part of my theory of “follow the smart money”)
This is almost a cruel joke !!!
Well-put, VAL. Manish, I think this is a matter of biting the bullet, India needs the oil a whole lot more. The fundamental problem is our dependence on oil, of course. I pray to see the day when we can do away with petroleum and then deal with these countries which support terrorism on our own terms.
To top it all we have a former oil magnate who is now supposedly spearheading the war on terror, which is by the way funded by oil.
Never figured you to be soft on terrorism, V 🙂
Abhi – thanks a lot for the great link. Sometimes sucks not having a telly…
All the more reason why Alberta’s often called the Texas of Canada – although plenty of, er, “connotations” included in that apart from the oil similarity.
Wonder what the long-term political/security implications of this new discovery would be for the US trying to “democratically fix” the Middle East…if it becomes easier for them to satisfy their oil urges from up north, then would they up and go when reserves run out (I’m thinking long-term) in Arabia? Hmm…And what would that mean for India/China who are a lot closer to the ‘hood.
Rumors or reports of Shale oil in India crop up often. I found this article by Anklesaria Aiyar. Some may recall the “famous” Colonel (retd.) S.P. Wahi of ONGC . He caused a commotion when he uttered (to the press) that India has one of the largest untapped oil deposits located in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. He also said that the government (of India) is not interested in exploration and excavation in that part of the country.
It seems that technology has improved and excavation of oil from shale is more economically viable today. As far as India is concerned, even if Col. Wahi and others are right about oil deposits, I doubt government of India will have the political courage (clout) to go to that part of country and start excavation.
Shale oil is covered in the related post link.
Exxon mobile is making record profit for any US company in history
Exxon Mobil Corp. posted record profits for any U.S. company on Monday — $10.71 billion for the fourth quarter and $36.13 billion for the year
Thats fucking insane !!!
The excuse given for this price increase is .. China and India demand. Its completely BOGUS!!! China imported 3.3 percent more Oil in 2005 Then how can we explain the 50% increase in the per barrel price.
California actually has a ton of oil that hasn’t been pumped. Kern County in itself has some serious reserves. The offshore oil reserves are significant, too. But pumping California oil has been pricey, though there was a recent article that talked about how all the dormant ‘Nodding donkeys’ have become active around Cali.
I believe no new wells have been drilled in California for decades as a result of the environmental laws and oil economics. Expensive oil priced would mean local production would kick up, bring more of those dollars right back at home.
Wow– $36B in profits is almost as much as Microsoft made in revenues…
Sorry! I missed it completely. Great! post BTW.
Ha! like the “shooting yourself in the foot” pic you have up there…
Tom, sorry, my mistake– my post was about oil in the igneous Deccan traps, not shale oil.
I’m just not so apt to draw as direct a link b/t oil and terror. At best, there’s a distant secondary effect – sort of like blaming cheap steel for highway congestion. There’s some back and forth contribution BUT, curing the world of oil dependency won’t stop Al Qaeda. And the costs of misguided policies that try to uniquely attack oil could be far worse…..
The excuse given for this price increase is .. China and India demand. Its completely BOGUS!!! China imported 3.3 percent more Oil in 2005 Then how can we explain the 50% increase in the per barrel price. RC- 3.3% can lead to a >50%incr. in per barrel price, if supplies are constrained enough…
So you don’t buy Zakaria’s thesis, that oil-dependent states -> no need for democracy or functioning economy -> terrorism?
Surely you buy repression -> terrorism, considering that Dubya is claiming it?
Your arg has serious limits btw. While I generally agree that econ growth is good and saves lives, we regulate precisely where the market fails, e.g. polluters, gun and cigarette growth and maintaining law and order. Saving your citizens from being blown up is certainly the top priority for any government.
“60 minutes had a must see segment on Canadian oil sands last week.”
Abhi, Canadian oil shales/ sands as world’s largest proven reserves have been around for a while now. In a $60/ barrel world, suddenly they have become economically viable. However, there are still some serious issues to be tackled – recovery and environmental impact.
Some time ago (about 3 years ago), perhaps the best-known South Asian Earth Scientist, Manik Talwani (from Columbia U., and Rice U.) wrote about Canadian tar sands in NYT. If you get a chance read it, it is behind the NYT subscription Times Select wall, and I am feeling lazy.
To Everyone, Please read Daniel Yergin’s Prize first. Oil and gas politics is quite complicated, and has always been.
Hitler’s opening the Eastern front in WW2, formation of Iraq in the first place, Japan attacking Pearl Harbor (so that they can control the seas for Indonesian oil and responding US embargo to Japan at that time), deep rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia, power of National Oil Companies (Saudi Aramco, Pemex, Norsk Hydro et al.)………often connects to the black gold
RC,
The prize of oil has nothing to do with ExxonMobil, very little if it is. Maybe, National Oil companies, maybe.
Prize of Oil today = the inventories right now are very lean as supply and demand margin is very tight. Supply Challenges today = possible disruption in Iraq, tantrums by Venezuela, Iran and Russia. Demand Challenges = A slight increase by China and India.
There is a very little cushion (stocked inventories for next six months) right now, and it makes everyone jittery.
If you understand the futures market – that is how oil and gas is traded. Perception is the king
But most oil that was available before Bush’s stupid war is still available. The war was supposed to increase the Oil input to world markets 🙂 Remember Wolfowitz saying that war cost will be paid off by OiL revenue? Right now, comodities such as OIL are just seeing a lot of speculation, and the speculation is mainly based on the “fear” that supply will be affected. Well the Bushies keep fucking up, the supply will actualy be affected. Its not a bad deal for the Bushes, as Exxon Mobile and KOCH are probably the biggest republican donors.
Sigh.. this is a long thread. Broadly, i agree w/ Zakaria that 3rd world states w/ an “oversupply” of natural resources often have crappy domestic representation. But….
0) zakaria isn’t drawing a direct connection (even your simplified version of his arg still has a more crucial intermediate link that can / should be attacked – representative political / econ systems…. doh, sorry, that might be construed as too supportive of Bush 😉
1) exceptions abound (for ex., Venezuela has oil… many African nations have diamonds… neither have exported their terrorism in quite the same way as the Saudi’s)
2) the contra hypothesis (that eliminating oil dependency = eliminating terrorism) doesn’t hold either. The ideological seed may have been planted due to oil $$$, but removing the oil won’t kill the ideology…. Arguably, in a world minus Oil revenue, the rest of the middle east would sink into something that looked more like the Palestinian terrorities or Egypt before it looked like Switzerland. In that scenario, the wholesale export of their misery would / could get worse before it got better (esp. since current trendlines are already forecasting 35M unemployment rate there….)
3) and, ultimately, I just don’t think there’s any workable alternative plan in the near term (“near term” here roughly corresponding with “the period of time it takes terrorists to get WMD from some supportive regime”). There have been frequent (wishful) calls for a “new manhattan project” to solve oil dependency BUT, they aren’t really economically or scientifically grounded.
RC,
I am not a Bush fan.
I am not ExxonMobil fan. If I was, I would be working for them in a heart-beat, making 4 times, I make right now. Western oil companies have such a tiny share in the global eqaution. Saudi Aramco is five times bigger than ExxonMobil. They are around 8-9 National oil companies that are bigger than ExxonMobils.
I am just trying to say oil and gas politics is one of the most complicated thing going back to the days of WW I. It takes its own life.
Right now, the inventories are very tight. It just happens to be that way.
The new (re-emergent) bully on the block, Russia. Mark my words.
War and instability are two of the many factors that influence the prices. The projected growth in demand by India and China ( and everyone else) is a huge factor. As Kush wrote, crude is traded in futures market ( simply put – paying today for delivery in future) so the crude is being traded based on a projected demands in, say 2020 – 2025. This is the extent of my knowledge on commodities :).
One example of successful player in the futures game is SouthWest airlines. South West Airlines has consistently done well (in last 6-7 years) where others contemporary airlines have suffered. Apart from being frugal and “no frills” (and of course blocking the unionization of the workforce) they had oil-hedges that kept them somewhat immune to the speculative oil market. Now, don’t ask me how “sweet crude” prices are tied with jet fuel prices. 🙂
“One example of successful player in the futures game is SouthWest airlines. “
Exactly, Tom. Southwest airlines is playing game very well, since they were debt-free to begin with.
By democracy I meant representative democracy.
True, you also need a jihadi ideology.
Smothering its funding is almost as good.
Undoubtedly, but it would also force the gov’ts to build real economies instead of buying off their citizens with oil cash.
That’s what they said of SpaceShipOne too. Not sure what you mean though– every week there’s some new hybrid or alternative energy vehicle coming out– fuel cell motorcycles, ultra-high-mileage hybrids and so on. It’s in complete creative ferment even before the new X Prize.
Let’s keep in mind that energy-efficient transport will only solve part of the problem. Gains in fuel efficiency may be offset by increases in the car-using population. Moreover, the resources used and pollution produced in the manufacture of cars are extraordinary, and will not be reduced by increasing car fuel efficiency. Finally, fuel-efficient cars will not save the more than 40,000 people per year who die in automobile accidents in the US alone. (That’s more than a 9/11-sized tragedy per month, every month, for the rest of time.)
For any trip under five miles, simply use a bicycle, if at all possible. Your quality of life will improve dramatically. The world will be a better place. It’s magic.
City planners in the US are starting to get a clue, and make car-free life easier, according to this LA Times article
I was looking at the financial statements of the Exxon Mobile (NYSE: XOM). I was surprised that inspite of the record profits announced by the oil company: 1) There are no insider purchases announced or completed in the last 6 months. In fact, there was a net insider sale of 4.9%. Also, there were no significant purchases by the institutional owners (increase of 1.7% over last 6 months). Surely, both insiders and institutional owners should have known that oil prices are going to increase. 2) Price to earning ratio is still at 11.91. Ratio of Enterprise Value (360.59B) to Free Cash Flow (54.2B) is approx. SIX (6). In other words, investors are not exactly rushing to buy the stock. If people here believe that profits of XOM are really tremendous, why not buy the stock? Or maybe, the profits are just blip on the screen and not permanent or they may be followed by loss later (build up of inventory are record prices and followed by drop in the sale prices and the revenue).
A very relevant and well articulated post, Manish. I would like to point out a couple of things, however.
1 – The Saudi’s have been funding hundreds of madrassas in India for decades, Including in Kashmir.
Another aside is that the Saudi monarch has offered to pay for extensive repairs of Delhi’s Jama Masjid. Not sure whether the GOI has approved his [insidious] offer. I belive the Mosque is a national heritage site. Thus the Govt permission.
2 – “Of course, this was all done with U.S. approval to fight the Soviets:”
Really, Manish? This implication baffles me. Pakistan is not the only country which was wronged by history/America. By that analogy, the Vietnamese should be dispatching suicide bombers by the thousands. Or Indians should be going nuts on the British Or the entire continent of Africa should be one big terror school…. or …you get my drift.
p.s. according to a very recent carnegie paper on Baluchistan – “Reports by geological experts indicate the presence of 19 trillion cubic feet of gas and 6 trillion barrels of oil reserves in Baluchistan” If true, let the ultimate great game/s begin.
The Saudi’s have been funding hundreds of madrassas in India for decades
Since nobody will say it, therefore, I will.
In principle, there is nothing wrong with Madrassas. They have been centers of learning and progress for centuries. It is recently that quite a few of them have taken turn to preaching hate and disdaining modern thought. As of today, there are madrassas in West Bengal, that have around 10 % Hindu students in them. Even today, madrassas are the first line of basic education for a poor muslim in South Asia. Maybe, there should be some oversight on curriculum – funding guidelines, something like that.
The axis of Saudi royals with Wahabasim is the pact with the devil – they are sacred of Wahabasim’s wrath more than anyone else. Regarding oil and gas dependence in Middle East, the game has not begun yet – as rest of the world reserves are depleting as you drive your SUVs, and the middle east sits on some of the giant, pristine reserves, especially for natural gas. Extracting sweet, low sulphur oil and gas from Saudi Arabia is like drinking Pepsi from a straw as opposed to “hellish” strip mining from Canadian shales. Can anyone tell me the sulpur content of these hidden reserves and lifting cost elsewhere
Everywhere in the world there are parochial schools – Jewish, Christian, Hindu, and Muslim. I got educated in a Catholic school – it was as good as it gets, very secular. You cannot selectively condemn one of them – you can condemn preaching hate, no doubt – that is pretty much it.
Spaceship One was primarily an organizational triumph – not a tech / engineering one. The tech in space ship one is DECADES behind a space shuttle (which itself is 1960s/70s tech). What was cool about it was that it rode cost curves and org learning curves to pull off a suborbital flight (a circa 1960s accomplishment) for 10s of Mill’s. don’t get me wrong – that’s very cool.
But it’s far from the “cold fusion / breakthrough in science” type accomplishment necessary to truly find a large scale oil alternative. There’s lots of interesting research / breakthroughs at the margin (for ex., the fuel cell motorcycles you mentioned) but these are far from significant enough to make a dent in global oil consumption… much less reduce oil consumption to the point where the Saudi’s (and terrorist ideology) is truly bankrupt…
Even if / when oil shale takes off, it’s impact on the world economy is not going to be a “replacement” for oil so much as a “alternative source” provided oil stays at a certain pricepoint. A strained analogy might be the emergence of refined Aluminum back when steel was all the rage of the industrial revolution. The cool high tech apps (planes, fast cars, laptop computers, hard disk heads, etc.) are all aluminum but, despite being lighter / stronger than steel (pound for pound) it didn’t really replace steel so much as provide an alternate solution….
Absolutely spot on, Kush. The obsession with the evil of madrassas (which Manish, sadly, subscribes to) is nothing but a scapegoat, reminiscent of the old British Raj obsession with educated babus and troublemakers who were supposedly always stirring up the otherwise inert and happy Indian masses who loved their maa-baap-sarkaar.
Madrassas in Pakistan are religious schools (like Orthodox Jewish ones in Israel). If they were abolished tomorrow, the people who furnish recruits for extremist organisations in Pakistan would gather elsewhere.
Indians generally don’t like to admit that the Indian government’s incredibly repressive tactics (including random house searches, shooting demonstrators on the streets, burning shops, subjecting ordinary people to intrusive stop-and-search, abducting and torturing young men on suspicion, and the murder of innocent people with any possibility of judicial recourse blocked by regulations that prohibit prosecutions of the security forces) furnish a goodly number of recruits for anti-India organisations within Kashmir as well as in Pakistan and other Islamic countries.
Nor do they like to admit that given the choice, Kashmiris want nothing more to do with India than the constraints of their geographic situation necessitate.
Nor do they like to admit that the Indian government has officially promised them that choice, and refused to follow through on it only because they realise which way the vote would go.
The Saudi government is a pretty conservative force within the Islamic world and I can only attribute Manish’s vitriolic denunciation of them to Islamophobia.
At the end of the day you need to shut down terrorism recruiters no matter where they gather, just as London finally did at the Finsbury Park mosque.
Non sequitur. The point is those which actively recruit for terrorism.
Granted, and non sequitur: the point is those who kill civilians, no matter internal or external.
Since Saudis have well-documented links to terrorism financing, I can only attribute your ad hominem attack to being in denial: Saudis are among the leading financiers of terrorism in the world.
Since you seem to enjoy wildly off-topic psychoanalysis while ignoring the issues: you seem to have a major chip on your shoulder about Islam, but you are unwise to assert brotherhood with those who indiscriminately kill civilians.
Couple of reasons why XOM isnt darling of the street as opposed to say AAPL. XOM even after mega profits wont buy back stock. Investors love stock buy backs, as that reduces the number of available shares (reducing float.. reducing supply) and second reason is that people believe that the speculation in OIL futures is about to get over. In other word OIL futures will trade lower than what they have been late part of 2005. That means this is a high point of earnings for companies in this sector.
One thing can change this equation. Stupidity of the administration !! They can do a Iraq like mis-adventure in Iran and then all bets are off. OIL futures will go to $100/barrel and US economy back into the 2002 style recession. (On the other hand that (another recession) will give the Bush administration excuse to give tax cuts :-)… the old pro-growth argument)
Embracing Saudi Arabia type moves, is what one gets with the “secular” government that is in India at present. Mind boggling!!
When will people such as Eurodesi stop generalising Kashmir and Kashmiris?
“Nor do they like to admit that given the choice, Kashmiris want nothing more to do with India than the constraints of their geographic situation necessitate.”
btw, Does anybody ever wonder why there is no strife in the Pakistani occupied parts of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir?
Response to Comment 37:
Expose, you wrote “Does anybody ever wonder why there is no strife in the Pakistani occupied parts of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir?”. I do wonder. Do you have any information?
Indeed I do, Mr.Wodehouse. [Loved your books, btw]
It is because they [Pakistan] controls the militants/boys/freedom fighters/terrorists/jehadi’s. To wit – I quote Mushy : “Let me propose it here that let us take three important towns of the Valley, Srinagar, Kupwara and Baramulla. Let all military move out of these cities to the outskirts and we ensure that there is no militancy inside. Pakistan will be with the Indian government, with the Kashmiris to ensure that there is total peace and tranquility within these three cities. Look at the comfort that will come to the people. It does not need any constitutional amendment. It does not need anything. It just needs an administrative order” CNN-IBN
Kush wrote…
I would be very interested in an analysis of a representative sample of parochial schools. It would be interesting to know what a large sample of 2000+ parochial schools (one of each kind) in the Sub-continent would show. I am betting on Christian schools to come out ahead of others wrt quality of education. I am guessing Madarsas are pretty good at producing high-caliber jehadis. So, it all depends on one’s perception of what is “the best” for ones children.
BTW, did Eurodesi, did you learned english and typing in a Madarsa ?
[ I think its pronounced Ma-Da-Ra-Sa in India rather than Ma-Dra-Sa ]
I think conventional wisdom does support Manish’s hypothesis about the link between Madrassas and Terrorism. Peter Bergen (one of the more brilliant) analysts on Jihadi terrorism does not support the above contention. (The Madrassa Myth)
Here is another article on madrassas by William Dalrymple which is more detailed.
Apparently, investigation into the backgrounds of the 7/7 British suicide bombers revealed that the major players were influenced more by what they saw/heard in “back rooms” of people’s houses (jihadist videos etc) rather than anything to do with mosques etc.
Which, of course, doesn’t necessarily mean that madrasas haven’t had a hand in brainwashing people, but I’m just giving a related, real-life example.
AMFD(BF****D), Thanks for the links.
Peter Bergen (one of the more brilliant) analysts on Jihadi terrorism does not support the above contention… Here is another article on madrassas by William Dalrymple which is more detailed.
Both these essays say Islamic terrorists at the highest echelons are college-educated, such as the 9/11 and 7/7 guys. But Dalrymple confirms that jihadi foot soldiers in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kashmir are often products of radical madrassas:
And it is the radical minority we’re talking about:
By the way, the graphic on the Peter Bergen essay implies that Islam minus violence = Hinduism (that’s a Diwali diya), an odd statement.
Recent India Today (01/23/06) has an article that in Kashmir, they have Hindus fighting for Islamist jihad. The Hindus that have joined the cause are so poor and desperate – details are unimportant to them.
Source: http://www.indiatodaygroup.com/archives/index.php?
PS: All these years, I have never figured how to logon to online India Today subscription in addition to print copy. Does anyone know?
Kush, Hindu militants caught in Kashmir was last reported in November,2005. Here it is in Tribune report
An excerpt from the report
As seen from above its much more complicated situation. Hindus joining the insurgency does not change the fact that this is still Pakistan sponsered, terrorism based on the “proxy war doctrine” of Pakistan military.
“the fact that this is still Pakistan sponsered, terrorism based on the “proxy war doctrine” of Pakistan military”
RC,
Nobody is denying that for a minute. “Proxy War Doctirne” is there very much.
I just wanted to highlight the economic angle too.
Tragic indeed, Kush. On the other hand – The main reason that the Kashmiri Pandits [Hindu], largest minority in Kashmir, whose roots in Kashmir go back more than a couple of millenia were ethnically cleansed from the valley by the Islamic terrosists was because they [the pandits]refused to help Pakistan’s and Pakistani backed groups’ nefarious and illegitimate fight for secession against their motherland – India.
Now the Pandit has become a refugee in his own land. His home, which his ancestors built is occupied by a bearded obscurantist who speaks the language of AK 47 and RPGs. The culture, which gave birth to lal ded , a 14th century woman, whose thought was eons ahead of her time and to the great historian Kalhana is on its way to the dustbins of history.
And since the Arundhati Roys, the Shabana Azmis and the majority of the JNU typeIndian Intellectual refuse to recognise his pain and suffering, lest their “Lefty” priveleges be cancelled, if they are deemed sympathetic towards hindus. The Kashmiri Pandit is forced to consort with the likes of Narendra Modi and Advani, ideologues he abhors and who stand for everything he is against.
The Indian press used up more ink when the Kashmiri Hangul [A native deer species] was threatened by extinction.
Expose,
I know it is very tragic. Kashmiri Hindus are in a very bad situation.
According to http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/in.html
~650,000 IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) are Kashmiri Hindus.
Kush, The link you provided to the CIA publication does not work. Would appreciate a retry. Many Thanks!