Category Archives: Politics

Congrats, Aarti!

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The Hill has more beautiful people for us, 40 more, in fact. The first one caught tipster DTK’s attention (thanks!).

Aarti Nayak, scheduler for Rep. Julia Carson (D-Ind.), doesn’t like skiing one bit, but that’s where she met her husband, Dave — on the slopes.
“He had a little blond girlfriend at the time,” she says with a wry smile. But when Nayak came into the picture, well, the blond was history. They have been married since September. She hopes to have kids.

Aarti Hill.PNG Considering today’s hot comment threads/topics, it seems appropriate to wonder what kind of wedding they had?

Was it meant to be? Nayak reads astrological signs, although she’s not a fervent believer.
During college at Virginia Tech, she and a friend wrote blurbs on astrological signs for the Eccentric, a student newspaper — they were called the “psychic sisters.”
At any rate, she doesn’t look one bit “psychic.”

What the H-E-double-toothpicks does a “psychic” look like? Enough with this paranormal profiling!

The first-generation American from an Indian family twirls her dark, curly hair, which her friends have compared to singer-model Toni Braxton’s locks.

Let me channel “chip-on-her-shoulder-Auntie“: “Vy they had to compare her to Toni Braxton? Minnie Driver also has such hair! Harrumph! Racist!” 😉

But makeup is not very important to her.
“I don’t care anymore,” she explains.

Even about lipgloss?? Say it isn’t so, my sweet sister…perhaps you just need some Hindu lips.

When it comes to beauty, Nayak is gently scornful of contests and pageants. She said one of their past interns participated in pageants and waved the Miss America wave.
“Who are these girls anyway?” she asks skeptically.

Oh, and as for her auspicious placement at the top of the list:

Other than the Top 10 , the rest of these beautiful people are not ranked in any specific order.

Suuuuuuuuuure they aren’t. Continue reading →

Behold: Toronto’s Swaminarayan Mandir

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Canada's Swaminarayan Mandir- collage.JPG
Click to enlarge.

Several of you have written to us regarding the grand opening of Canada’s Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha Shri Swaminarayan Mandir (that was fun to type!). The pictures, which you can view in a slideshow here, are gorgeous. Were any Canadian mutineers there on July 22? If so, please let us know, below.

After 18 months of construction and millions in fundraising efforts, a one-of-a-kind Hindu temple opened Sunday in Toronto.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper was on-hand to celebrate the official unveiling of the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir.
Harper said the $40 million architectural marvel represents India’s and Canada’s embracement of spiritual and ethnic pluralism.
“Canada’s accommodation of diversity is not without precedent,” Harper said, addressing a large crowd.
“There have been forerunners — and of these perhaps none is as note-worthy as India.”
Located at Hwy 427 and Finch Avenue in north-west Toronto, the temple is an architectural masterpiece. Built with Turkish limestone and Italian marble, the temple was built by artisans armed with chisels, hammers and ancient Hindu doctrine outlining how a holy place should be constructed. [CTV.ca]

By the numbers:

–24,000: the number of pieces sculpted in India, marked with a barcode and then reassembled to create the mandir.

–July 22, 2007: official opening

–$40 million: cost of construction, majority of which came from the community

–400: the number of volunteers who devoted their time to such an awesome project.

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As giddy as such architectural perfection makes me, my inner %$#@< is wondering if Dubya would have made like Harper, had this mandir been constructed somewhere in this great nation… Continue reading →

On Respect for our Elders

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patti and thatha.jpg

Please. Spare us your liberal Western Judeo-Christian BS. Hinduism is far superior when it comes to questions of individual growth and development. For example, we don’t consider death a chance to go to happy land up in the sky, so that article about the baby is total BS. Life and death are part of the same cycle for us. A wife is subservient to her husband because Sita was subservient to Ram. Yeah, a Westerner may not understand that, but at least in India we don’t need to place condom machines in every university bathroom. We don’t have a whole porn industry devoted to the exploitation of vulnerable women. We don’t put our elders in nursing homes because of an obsession with career promotion. We value our families, and just as importantly, the larger community. And Hindu women have done just fine for 5000+++ years, thank you very much. So cut this feminist BS. Next you’ll be promoting gay rights in India. Liberalism is NOT going to destroy the fabric of our society. [sm]
I volunteered at a nursing home while attending college in the US. Many of the elderly women told me that their children visit only during holidays. Most of the day, these elderly people would be playing cards, or watching television or some such activity. But even though these children had neglected their parents, parents being parents, the parents (even with all the amnesia and what not) would remember their kids and often reminisce, out of the blue.
When I see young Indian kids walking around with their grandparents, I can appreciate the harmony of Indian culture. I know that that venerable revered being will not have to extinguish his/her days, sitting around a table playing cards or wait for the next holiday to see a family member. There is something more important trying to outwit your husband in every aspect (feminism), and I would have to say that this is the image of you that you project onto your children. After all, a parents are a child’s first role models. [sm]
When the desi nursing homes actually materialize, then we can debate it…Have you been in a nursing home? Have you seen the size of one of the cramped rooms they have for occupants? Its disgusting. Desi’s will never go down that path, thankfully. [sm]

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Via an Anonymous Tipster:

Indian granny thrown on garbage dump

An Indian couple found an unwell 75-year-old woman lying on a garbage dump, apparently thrown out of her home by her daughter and grandsons who did not want to take care of her, the Hindustan Times reported.
“She never complained about her family’s behaviour, only rued the fact that she couldn’t move without help,” Mohanasundari, one of the rescuers, said.

Continue reading →

Realpolitik with Burma

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While I do not hold a naive and idealistic view of the Indian government, I was still saddened to recently hear about the extent to which the GOI has gotten into bed with the odious dictators of Burma. Is this really much different from US-Pakistani relations? Both are justified by realpolitik, national interest, and claims that the end justifies the means.

In this case, India is circumventing the EU arms embargo on Burma by selling them attack helicopters made from EU parts:

Last week, India sparked fresh cries of outrage from human rights groups when a report surfaced saying that it plans to sell an unknown number of sophisticated Advanced Light Helicopters (ALH) to Burma (also known as Myanmar).

According to a report by Amnesty International and other international organizations, the helicopters should be covered by the embargo because they are made with components from at least six EU countries and the United States… the Advanced Light Helicopters include rocket launchers from Belgium, engines from France, brake systems from Italy, fuel tanks and gearboxes from Britain. [Link]

Nor is it the first time – India has made several weapons sales to Burma in the last few years. [Note – India has neither confirmed nor denied the helicopter sale] The Burmese government is the kind of government that is perfectly willing to attack and kill its own civilians to maintain its grip on power, so selling weapons to the Burmese junta is serious business.

What does India get from this? Just like the USA, India arms and supports dictators so they can help India with its security problems:

India says it needs Burma’s help. There are at least 20,000 guerrillas from five major militant groups in India’s northeast – all fighting the Indian government for sovereignty or independence – who have training camps in the dense jungles of Sagaing in northern Burma. New Delhi has been deliberating with Yangon over plans for a military offensive against such groups.

Counterinsurgency operations in India’s northeast, says an official from India’s Ministry of Defense under conditions of anonymity, cannot succeed unless neighboring countries refrain from supporting the separatist groups based on their territories. [Link]

And of course, trade in general between India and Burma is increasing, as is Indian investment in Burmese gas even though the Burmese government is notorious for using forced labor when building pipelines and other infrastructure. Continue reading →

The Northwest Frontier is Getting Flatter

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StrategyPage has always had great coverage of all things military in South Asia. With all the ink and pixels being spilled about all the things going wrong on Pakistan’s unruly border with Afghanistan, Stratpage has this report of one of the tactics that’s working relatively well –

Pakistani soliders are faced with suicide attackers who “love death more than you love your 5,000-rupee salary, nude pictures of Indian actresses and liquor.” [link]; But that’s part of the plan.

The army can defeat the tribesmen in battle, but it’s guerilla warfare where the tribes have always had an edge. But that edge as disappeared as the tribes became more dependent on outside goods, moved by truck over a few roads. For thousands of years in the past, the tribes were self-sufficient in their mountain valleys. Now, the tribes suffer when the army sets up checkpoints on those roads, and forces the tribesmen to attack the better armed and disciplined soldiers…

When Thomas Friedman turned the memorable phrase, The World is Flat, he was popularizing trends in globalization that many have observed for decades. First, that in modern capitalism, economic transactions now span a larger and larger portion of the world – Pakistani tribals might not be able to place Finland or Korea on a map but they are probably getting accustomed to the convenience of a cellphone. Second – and to the consternation of the Arundhati Roy’s, Naomi Kleins, et. al., the mutually beneficial, non-violent, uncompelled transaction inherent to economic exchange necessarily impacts the cultures on both sides. Certain shared cultural norms are necessary to support a transaction and it’s nearly impossible in the long run to get the benefits of a transaction without being at least partially infected by the new culture.

Thomas Barnett, in analyzing the 21st century faultlines, placed them not between Civilizations but rather between those successfully Integrating and those Not Integrating into the global rule set – namely economics & globalziation. The activities of the Pakistani military along this faultline thus paint a great picture of what multifaceted war can / should look like. Trade has clearly run through the region for centuries but only recently does it involve such day to day pedestrian and yet inherently global goods like AA batteries, gasoline, and the like…

Continue reading →

Downward Dog, Not Doggie…

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Sisters are doing it for themselves, y'all.JPG In latex, India’s women should trust (thanks, Jeet). So much for treating one’s husband as if they were a deity, hmmm? Via TimesNow.TV:

Women’s welfare minister, Renuka Chowdhury, has asked women to trust condoms more than their husbands.
Chowdhury commented on Monday (July 16) that Indian men can’t be trusted in their sexual behaviour. According to Chowdhury, men also play a pivotal role in fuelling the country’s HIV epidemic – so women, she said, should protect themselves by keeping condoms as straying husbands might bring the virus home.

I’m sure that will go over VERY well.”Honey, I don’t trust you and these business trip-ships you are always having. Please be covering up, thank you, come again”. (Oh, like you could have resisted that last bit…it’s Rahul’s influence, I tell you.)

“Half our problems stem from hypocrisy. We women are too shy to ask our husbands to use a condom. At one time it was considered immoral to even use the word. People still feel reluctant to say it. And this shyness costs women dearly,” she said.

Whenever I read the word “shyness”, I think…

Shyness is nice, and Shyness can stop you From doing all the things in life You’d like to So, if there’s something you’d like to try If there’s something you’d like to try ASK ME – I WON’T SAY “NO” – HOW COULD I ?

Ah, that was lovely. If women in India take Renuka’s advice, here’s hoping that last sentence is what they are met with, in response.

“Men can’t be trusted and everyone knows this,” she said adding “with due apologies and exemptions to the current company – most husbands can’t be trusted at different levels. They stay away from home for work purposes for long periods, often falling prey to temptation and then making their wives also victims. The onus lies on women to stop the deadly disease (AIDS).”

The onus lies on WOMEN? What, like we don’t already have enough to do? Chey! OUR TO-DO LISTS NEVER END!

…a move to introduce sex education at the school level has been net with stiff resistance from many politicians, with several state governments opposing it saying it will go against Indian culture – and this has also been a big headache for Chowdhury.

Wait, what kind of resistance was sex ed met with? 😉

Renuka Chowdhury’s refreshing candour is perhaps more indicative of the emerging Indian woman – and stands at odds with some of the more conservative, regressive views that have been voiced by some of our mass leaders who seem to be out of touch with reality…

Out of touch with reality, indeed. Read on, for what inspired the title, picture and my general silliness…

Madhya Pradesh School Education Minister Narottam Mishra even suggested “Instead of imparting sex education to school students, they will be taught yoga.”

Fantastic. Then everyone will be flexible, in great shape AND in the mood to knock Batas. Perrrfect. Continue reading →

Red-faced Christians Apologize to Zed

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…on behalf of three misguided hecklers (thanks, Anonymous). I guess I wasn’t the only Christian who was saddened by the actions of a few fringe-dwellers. See? Team Jesus isn’t totally teh suck. 🙂

Via Rediff:

Zed told rediff.com from his home in Reno, Nevada, “I’ve received nearly 100 e-mails — and most of them from total strangers and I don’t know how they got my e-mail address — apologising for the disruption of my prayer by some of these Christian fundamentalists.”
He said many of these e-mails had said, “I am also a Christian but I don’t appreciate what happened with those people protesting, and I apologise for their misguided actions.“
“They also congratulated me for my prayer and for being the first Hindu chaplain to open a US Senate session,” he said.
He said that he had also received some e-mails from some Congressional aides who had also apologised for the disruption by these persons purporting to be from a group calling themselves Operation Save America, a Christian right-wing organisation.

What’s more wicked: intolerance or humbly offering a prayer?

The protestors shouted from the gallery, among other things, ‘Lord Jesus, forgive us father for allowing a prayer of the wicked, which is an abomination in your sight.’

They should ask for forgiveness for being obnoxious.

Zed said he had not received a single hate mail “or any kind of nasty mail at all. I have not got any negative mail or correspondence.”

So, goodness prevailed. More goodness? Recognizing that Hindus are just as American as anyone else and deserve to be treated as such. As long as prayers do open the Senate, they should be inclusive, to accurately reflect the various faiths that a Senator’s constituents practice. It’s only polite. And right:

Meanwhile, the Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington, DC, wrote letters to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, who facilitated Zed’s prayer in the Senate, and to the Senate Chaplain Barry C Black congratulating them for facilitating the first Hindu prayer in the Senate and bemoaning the unfortunate incident of the protest by the members of the Christian right-wing outfit…
“We are writing to express how much we deeply appreciate your efforts to insure that the tradition of opening Senate sessions with prayer remains a process that not only accurately reflects the diversity of our great country, but which celebrates that religious diversity as one of our greatest strengths.”

I eagerly await irrational and inapposite comments which ask, “But…where are the apologetic emails to Graham Staines’ loved ones from Hindus, who should be collectively responsible for his brutal murder? Huh??” Oh, wait…I don’t. Such comments are not germane (or logical for that matter).

Similarly, Christians aren’t collectively to blame for the rude, disrespectful outburst which interrupted Zed, but that doesn’t mean we can’t express our sorrow and disagreement with such behavior. All that is necessary for the triumph of fundamentalism is that good people do nothing. Whatsoever we sow, we shall also reap. If we sow intolerance and disrespect, what else are we going to be shown by others? And would we deserve anything else? Continue reading →

What’s up in the UK?

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An interesting set of stats posted on the SM news tab talks about workforce participation amongst South Asians in the UK –

Six million Britons are living in households where nobody works – costing the taxpayer almost £13 billion a year in benefits alone, a spending watchdog report reveals today.

…The problem is concentrated in cities including inner London – where one in four households are workless – Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester, and is worse among some ethnic groups. Pakistani and Bangladeshi households are the most likely to be workless at 22.3 per cent, while Indian households are the least likely, at 6.8 per cent.

Internationally Britain has one of the worst rates of worklessness. Around 13.5 per cent of the UK population live in workless households, compared with compared with 11 per cent in France, five per cent in the United States and less than 3 per cent in Japan.

For next door neighbors to be both the worst and the first on this sort of distribution is pretty interesting. Anyone (Razib?) know what diffs in immigration patterns b/t Pakistani & Bangladeshi’s vs. Indian’s to the UK might be?

Continue reading →

Our "Point Man"

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For years now the Bush Administration has been drubbing it into our impressionable little minds that Iraq is the “Central front in the War on Terror.” Today, the newly released key findings of the latest National Intelligence Estimate disabuses us of any such false impression:

We assess the group has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability, including: a safehaven in the Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), operational lieutenants, and its top leadership. Although we have discovered only a handful of individuals in the United States with ties to al-Qa’ida senior leadership since 9/11, we judge that al-Qa’ida will intensify its efforts to put operatives here.

Got that? Everyone clear? The Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) are now the agreed upon (at least by our intelligence community) central front in this “War on Terror.” That is the reason we are starting to pour money into there. Well, I thought it was clear but there was still some confusion at today’s White House Press briefing:

Q Fran, is it a fair reading of the key judgments that you released today that the federally administered tribal areas you discussed is, in fact, the central front in the war on terrorism, to use the President’s phrase? And, if so, tell us how, if at all, you have renegotiated your own operational arrangements with General Musharraf, President Musharraf, so that we would have greater access in there.

MS. TOWNSEND: Okay. Well, to use the President’s phrase, Iraq is the central front in the war on terror. And —

Q Is that supported by the key judgments, then?

MS. TOWNSEND: There is no question, based on the statements of bin Laden, himself, not to mention others and al-Qa’ida , that they regard Iraq as the central front in the war on terror. [Link]

Well sure, if you conflate the group “al-Qa’ida in Iraq” (a newly formed group that didn’t even exist until recently and only looks for inspiration from the original) with the original al-Qa’ida. It’s not like most of the American public cares about the very important difference (which is what the administration counts on). NPR had a great wrap up on all of this.

And here is a rather pleasant thought from the briefing:

Q Is it shorthanding it too much to say that General Musharraf, through his efforts in the tribal areas there against al Qaeda, is the key person, the point man in protecting the United States, and whether he has success there or not is the whole ball game?… [Link]

Continue reading →

Songs of struggle (updated)

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If I were an intelligence analyst for a top secret government agency, I would be levelling forests writing memos that said one thing — Musharraf is in trouble now. Why is he in trouble, you ask? Because the opposition has an anthem, and it’s a catchy one.

Any good revolution needs a good song. It’s probably not enough to win; I’m sure there have been revolutions with great anthems that were flattened by the state. And it may not be necessary either, but I’ve gotta tell you, it really helps. A good song serves to rally people around. It provides a constant reminder of the cause, of the struggle. It sneakily undermines the authority of the state every time somebody hums a few bars and is overheard, and it gives courage to those who are wavering. In short, it’s a mistake to underestimate the importance of song when making a revolution. I mean this in a painfully earnest way, there are no smileys here.

The title of the song is “Why doesn’t uncle (i.e. Musharraf) take off his uniform and go home.”

Sung a cappella in Punjabi, it was recorded by religious students in the style of a Punjabi folk song, but its tongue-in-cheek refrains are popular from Karachi to Islamabad, whether its listeners are religious or speak Punjabi or not. [Link]

It’s a funny song, at least if you understand Punjabi, and it was stuck in my head all day. [Updated] The lyrics are quite interesting, and troubling in bits. Some of it calls for Musharraf to leave the Army and retire, but it’s hardly a liberal song. Not only is it pro-Islamicist and anti-American, it’s also anti-women in shorts and pro-Kashmiri separatist. That’s the problem with non-democratic countries, opposition movements often encompass a wide variety of different elements who might not otherwise have found common cause in an open society. The song picks up the sentiment on the street and brings together a variety of different anti-Musharraf feelings, all set to a catchy and easy to sing tune.

I’ve put the video below and the translated lyrics below the fold.

UPDATE: I was looking at the comments and reflecting on other examples of similar songs. The defining song for the North in the US Civil War was “John Brown’s Body” which later evolved into the Battle Hymn of the Republic. The US Civil Rights Struggle had We Shall Overcome. The anti-Apartheid struggle had Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika, and there is a great movie about the use of song and dance in the struggle, called Amandla. The 2002 Kenyan elections had Unbwogable (listen here).

Can you guys suggest other great strongs of struggle? And if possible, can you give links to either the music or youtube clips? I’m sure there are lots of great songs I missed.

Continue reading →