The LA Times has a rather silly piece, where they interview “body language” experts on yesterday’s Presidential debate. The highlight for me was this little bit about pronunciation:

But Glass, who thought the debate was a draw, said Obama seemed unnatural at times. “Somebody coached him and did not do him a favor,” she said. “When he talks about an issue he’s passionate about, his gestures are fluid and real, but other times, he took his index finger and clasped it to his thumb, and it’s phony, it’s not real.”

She also thought his inflection might be a turn-off to some voters. “He’d say, ‘Pahk-ee-stahn,’ or ‘Tolly-bahn.’ You need to say Pakistan and Taliban like everyone else.” (link)

Um, is it possible he pronounces it correctly because… it’s actually the correct pronunciation?

Some bloggers over at the National Review’s “The Corner” have picked up on this as well (thanks for the tip, Sree):

The National Review’s Mark Stein, for example, said that Obama prefers the “exotic pronunciation.” He added, “[O]ne thing I like about Sarah Palin is the way she says ‘Eye-raq’.”

This came after the National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez posted an email that argued, “[N]o one in flyover country says Pock-i-stahn. It’s annoying.” (link)

Actually, I know plenty of people in certain “flyover countries” — i.e., in the Indian subcontinent — who pronounce it exactly that way.

Welcome to the United States of Stupidistan, folks. Continue reading →

Well, it took three years and it nearly toppled Manmohan Singh’s UPA government, but the India-U.S. nuclear deal was finally ratified in the U.S. Senate last night (along with some other trivial legislation…). On NPR yesterday, I heard snippets of speeches supporting the deal from Republican Senator Richard Lugar and Democratic Senator Chris Dodd (who is almost as ubiquitous as the top 40 M.I.A. these days). I also heard a Democratic Senator, Byron Dorgan, from North Dakota, who opposed it. India’s fourteen civilian nuclear reactors will be under international inspection, but eight military reactors will operate without inspection.

Interestingly, India has also just signed a nuclear deal with France, after getting a general waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group. So clearly the work that went into the main India-U.S. deal is already paying off for India in some surprising ways. There is further talk of a deal with Russia in weeks to come.

Though I’ve supported the deal from the beginning, one of the arguments against it from the American side seems worth considering: if you grant India an exemption for civilian nuclear energy, even though it didn’t play by the rules and sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and even though it engaged in testing ten years ago, you weaken the argument against allowing countries like Iran to develop civilian nuclear energy.

Does that hold water? I tend to think not, since the point is moot if India already has nuclear technology and is committed to not sharing it with nations that want it. But the Times quotes one Michael Krepon who thinks it will be a problem:

Michael Krepon, co-founder of the Henry L. Stimson Center, a research organization in Washington, called the promise of big dollars and American jobs “pure fantasy” and predicted that the United States would regret further opening the nuclear door.

“There will be a reckoning for this agreement,” he said. “You can argue till you’re blue in the face that India is a special case. But what happens in one country affects what happens in others.” (link)

There is a full-length critique of the deal by Michael Krepon here, published in 2006. Continue reading →

For the past 29 days, if I wasn’t working late I would head over to my parents’ local mosque for the nightly taraweeh prayer. Held only during the month of Ramadan and performed after the last of five prescribed prayers, taraweeh takes worshipers through all the suras in the entire Quran from start to finish throughout the holy month. Unfortunately, Muslims in swing states do not have the freedom of praying freely this year.

On Friday, September 26, the end of a week in which thousands of copies of Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West — the fear-mongering, anti-Muslim documentary being distributed by (sic) the millions in swing states via DVDs inserted in major newspapers and through the U.S. mail — were distributed by mail in Ohio, a “chemical irritant” was sprayed through a window of the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, where 300 people were gathered for a Ramadan prayer service. The room that the chemical was sprayed into was the room where babies and children were being kept while their mothers were engaged in prayers.[DailyKos]

This is a cause and effect story. The cause is their cause; promote fear and paranoia of Muslims by mass distribuion of this video (which I am intentionally not linking to).

This week, 28 million copies of a right-wing, terror propaganda DVD are being mailed and bundled in newspaper deliveries to voters in swing states. The 60-minute DVDs, titled Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West, are landing on doorsteps in a campaign coinciding with the 7th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Funding is coming from a New York-based group called the Clarion Fund, a shadowy outfit whose financial backers are unclear…the DVDs were distributed last weekend in national editions of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal within selected swing states. These included Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado, Iowa, Florida, Wisconsin, Nevada, New Hampshire and Virginia.[HuffingtonPost]

The effect of the fear-mongering — and keep this in mind, as you hear what conservatives are bound to say regarding how this DVD is only meant to call out ‘radical’ Islamists and not ‘moderate’ Muslims — has been tragic for Americans here at home. The following is a quote about a woman who was at the mosque, praying.

“She told me that the gas was sprayed into the room where the babies and children were being kept while their mothers prayed together their Ramadan prayers. Panicked mothers ran for their babies, crying for their children so they could flee from the gas that was burning their eyes and throats and lungs. She grabbed her youngest in her arms and grabbed the hand of her other daughter, moving with the others to exit the building and the irritating substance there…The paramedic said the young one was in shock, and gave her oxygen to help her breathe.” [DailyKos]

And of course, to add another layer of absurdity to the story, Dayton Ohio Police decided that the event was NOT a hate crime. Continue reading →

Last week, SM reader “S” emailed us a tip about the October issue of National Geographic:

Just wanted to send a quick link to a story I worked on for ngm.com (National Geographic magazine). It’s a story about India’s highway project and has some amazing photography. The photo map has photos submitted to our site by readers.

The highway project is called the Golden Quadrilateral (GQ), and it is

…the brand-new, 3,633-mile expressway linking the country’s major population centers of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata. [ngm]

Some history behind the project:

Announced in 1998 by then Prime Minister Atal B. Vajpayee, who is credited with giving the project its grandiose name, the Golden Quadrilateral is exceeded in scale only by the national railway system built by the British in the 1850s. For decades after its 1947 independence, India practiced a kind of South Asian socialism in keeping with the idealism of its founders, Gandhi and Nehru, and its economy eventually stalled. In the 1990s the country began opening its markets to foreign investment, led by a pro-growth government and staffed by an army of young go-getters who speak excellent English and work for a fraction of the wages paid in the West. Yet India’s leaders realized their decrepit highways could hobble the country in its race toward modernization. “Our roads don’t have a few potholes,” Prime Minister Vajpayee complained to aides in the mid-1990s. “Our potholes have a few roads.”

Ten years after Vajpayee’s announcement, the GQ is among the most elaborately conceived highway systems in the world, a masterpiece of high-tech ingenuity that is, in many ways, a calling card for India in the 21st century. Seen on a 48-inch flat-screen computer monitor at highway administration headquarters in Delhi, the GQ seems as beautiful as a space capsule. Its designers describe it as an “elegant collection of data points,” or a gleaming, “state-of-the-art machine,” a technologically advanced conveyor belt moving goods and people around India with seamless precision.

Continue reading →

This just in…five bombs went off in New Delhi today, at approximately 6pm.

India’s capital New Delhi was rocked by blasts in three busy market areas, killing at least 18 people, the worst bomb attack in the country since 50 people were killed in the city of Ahmedabad in July.

…Home Minister Shivraj Patil, who said five blasts took place within 45 minutes starting at about 6 p.m., condemned the attacks in a televised statement in the capital.

…As many as 50 were injured in the blasts, Delhi Police chief Y.S. Dadwal told reporters at one of the bomb sites. Some television channels put the toll as high as 20 and the number of those injured at 92. [Bloomberg]

Other media outlets are reporting up to fourteen have died from the blast. I’m sure this number will change throughout the course of the day once the facts are sorted out.

Two of today’s blasts took place in the central Connaught Place area and two at a market in the upscale Greater Kailash area, Dadwal said. One blast took place at Ghaffar Market in the Karol Bagh area, he said. [Bloomberg]

With Diwali right around the corner, and in the midst of Ramadan, I’m sure the markets were crowded with people preparing for festivities. It feels like an overwhelming 24 hours of tragedy – between these bombings, Hurricane Ike, and here in Southern California a tragic head on train collision.

I hope all of our readers and family are safe – whether in New Delhi, Houston or LA. If you are in New Delhi, please keep us posted!

UPDATE: The death toll is up to 30, with at least 90 people injured.

The Indian Mujahideen, regarded by security agencies as a front of the Lashkar-Huji terror machine, has claimed responsibility for the blasts… This group had sent emails before the UP court blasts, the Jaipur and Ahmedabad blasts. This time, too, it sent an email to media groups, however, 10 minutes after the first blast. [TimesofIndia]

To keep following the latest, there’s been a pretty well-linked wiki page set up on the Delhi bombings. Continue reading →