'When you are in the bottom of a hole, you can't fight back': said, Maj. Gen. Raymond relating the capture of Saddam Hussein.

Pakistan is also in the bottom of a hole.

This about summarises the geopolitical situation with USA as the only super power calling the shots. The French, German, and Russian leaders have to sing the tune of praise and can only express their impotent rage about US high-handedness.

Tough luck, guys. The big bully is around. Uncle Sam can choose his dancing partner. But, in the case of Pakistan, the Uncle will have to think deeply again before he starts repenting in not denuking, in good time, the only islamic nuke in town. Remember, how USA justified dancing with the devil that is Pakistan after 9-11 stating that Pakistan is the only game in town.

Kalyanaraman

Chamber Beneath Mud Hut Leads to Hussein
1 hour, 5 minutes ago

By MARIAM FAM and ALEKSANDAR VASOVIC, Associated Press Writers

ADWAR, Iraq - When darkness fell, the Americans moved into position, 600 of them, from infantrymen to elite special forces. Their target: two houses in this rural village of orange, lemon and palm groves. Someone big was inside, they were told.

But when they struck, they found nothing.

Then they spotted two men running away from a small walled compound in the trees. Inside, in front of a mud-brick hut, the troops pulled back a carpet on the ground, cleared away the dirt and revealed a Styrofoam panel. Underneath, a hole led to a tiny chamber, just big enough for a single person to squeeze into.

At first they didn't recognize the man hiding inside, with his ratty hair, wild beard and a pistol cradled in his lap. But when they asked who he was, the bewildered-looking man gave a shocking answer.

He said he was Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).

"He was just caught like a rat," said Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno, commander of 4th Infantry Division, which led the hunt in the area for one of the world's most wanted men and conducted the raid that caught him. "When you're in the bottom of a hole, you can't fight back."

The farm is near the town of Adwar, nestled among palm trees along the Tigris River just a few miles from Saddam's birthplace of Uja. One of the many palaces built by the dictator is just across the Tigris, and Saddam used to come here to swim. Adwar is the hometown of one of his most trusted aides, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri.

Saddam took refuge in the area in the 1960s before he came to power, conducting operations as an opposition party member against the Iraqi government that he later overthrew.

People in the area are fierce in their support for Saddam. "Saddam Hussein raised us. He's our father," neighbor Sohayb Abdul-Rahman said Sunday.

So U.S. forces had been watching the area for months. Odierno said forces had patrolled the dirt road running alongside the shack, and searched the area repeatedly.

Over the past few weeks, as U.S. intelligence agencies began to focus in on Saddam's extended family, prisoners captured in raids and intelligence tips began to lead to increasingly precise information, said a U.S. official said in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Gradually, CIA (news - web sites) and military analysts narrowed their list of potential sites where Saddam could be hiding, the official said. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq (news - web sites), said U.S. forces questioned "five to 10 members" of a branch of the extended family.

On Saturday, "we got the ultimate information from one of these individuals," Odierno said.

The soldiers waited for darkness Saturday, and at about 6 p.m., the forces launched what they called Operation Red Dawn, Sanchez said.

Commanders knew their target — "We thought it was Saddam," Odierno said — but the soldiers didn't.

"We were told that we would be looking for some really big fish — nothing more," said one soldier who participated in the raid and spoke only on condition of anonymity.

At 8 p.m., the soldiers attacked their two objectives but came up empty. Troops spotted two men fleeing from another house nearby, the soldier said, about 200 yards from the original target. The men were arrested.

The troops cordoned off a 1 1/2-square-mile area around the house and began a careful search, Odierno said.

What they found was a small walled compound with a metal lean-to and a mud hut, Sanchez said. Pulling back a rug, they dug down, finding a Styrofoam panel that covered a tiny tunnel, Odierno said. Sanchez called it a "spider-hole."

"The spider-hole is about 6 to 8 feet deep and allows enough space for a person to lie down inside of it," Sanchez said. He showed video images of an air duct and a ventilation fan.

Inside lay Saddam, wearing a long, salt-and-pepper beard and disheveled hair. He had a pistol on his lap, Odierno said, but didn't move to use it. When asked about his identity, the former dictator confirmed he was Saddam, Odierno said.

Soldiers searched the hut, made up of two rooms — a bedroom and a kitchen. No one else was found. The soldier who participated in the raid described it as "just two rooms and a sink, there was one bed and one chair and some clothes and that's about it." Soldiers seized two rifles, a pistol, a taxi and $750,000 in U.S. currency in a suitcase. They also found new clothes in unopened wrappers, which Odierno suggested meant Saddam had not been there long.

"We didn't stay there long. It smelled really bad," the soldier said. "It looked more like a garage than a proper house."

Within an hour — at about 9:15 p.m. — a helicopter whisked Saddam away, heading south toward Baghdad, Odierno said. There, former deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz was one of the former regime officials who identified Saddam in custody, a U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Safa Saber al-Douri, a grocery store owner in Adwar, said he had heard that U.S. troops also arrested Qais al-Douri, the owner of the house where Saddam was captured, as well as Qais' family. It was not clear if those detentions were before or after the raid.

Sanchez, who saw Saddam in detention, described him as talkative and cooperative, but also as "a tired man, and also I think a man resigned to his fate."

Members of the Iraqi Governing Council visited as well, finding Saddam sitting on a bed in a white gown and dark jacket.

"He was subservient and broken," council member Mouwafak al-Rabii said. "He was speaking as if he did not know what was going on around him."

The council members peppered Saddam with questions about assassinations and massacres, asking him why he killed so many people. But al-Rabii said Saddam was unrepentant.

"Saddam appeared in his true face, using bad language and insults," he said. "Saddam looked like a thug or the leader of a mafia."

___

Aleksandar Vasovic reported from Tikrit. Niko Price, the AP's correspondent-at-large, contributed to this report from Baghdad. AP correspondent Scheherezade Faramarzi in Adwar also contributed to this story.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...id=540&ncid=716

So India too has learnt to flirt with everyone ? <!--emo&:cool--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/specool.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='specool.gif' /><!--endemo-->


<b>India, China to cooperate in peaceful use of outer space </b>

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnu...123070.htm

Beijing, Dec. 4. (PTI): India and China have for the first time decided to share their expertise in the peaceful use of the outer space by exploring ways to cooperate in remote sensing applications, a senior Indian space official said here today.

The first meeting of the India-China Joint Working Group (JWG) on Space has just concluded here with a high-level Indian delegation, led by the Director of National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) R R Navalgund, describing it as "excellent".

"The first round of the JWG was held under two bilateral agreements for the peaceful use of the outer space signed in 1991 and 2001," Navalgund said here.

During former Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji's visit to India in January, 2001, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the China National Space Administration (CNSA) on cooperation in the peaceful use of outer space.

"Some of the broad areas in which we (would) like to have cooperation relates to the applications of remote sensing in the areas of crop production forecasting, land and water resources management and natural resources," Navalgund said.

He noted that India has emerged as a world leader in using remote sensing data and this fact has been well appreciated world-wide, also in China.

This is a thread that will explore the various ways Indian governance can improve so as to provide better value to the people.

In this regard, I propose the following

1. More courts, faster justice
2. Higher pay for Police and Administrative services to discourage corruption. The (initial ) reduction in man-power will have to be supported by more people's involvement in such services.
3. Extremely high pay for the elected politicians.
4. Decentralizing governance, a Zilla/district as a fundamental unit of the Indian federation
5. Central government only handles External security, foriegn policy, common law.

Administration is no different from industry, an efficient administrator must be paid as much as a Industry CEO with similiar responsibility gets paid. The police and judges should be elected by the people. The people should be able to recall them easily if they do not deliver.

As representatives of the people, the elected politicians should be paid by the people who elect them. Obviously the richer the district the more competition for getting elected from there. The poorer the district -> there is an incentive to develop the district and make it richer.

States should not be doled out money on the basis of their populations, instead all money should go to a confederation of central banks of India and should be disbursed as a loan to various entities (state govt., private companies etc etc). The idea is that money put into a state must be returned with interest. obviously then only projects that good return on investment shall pass. The Entities that borrow ,money shall be a state govt. who will be responsible. Inshort there should be no Political parties but political companies.

Of course some of these ideas are not feasible and may create problems. But there is convincing evidence that the current political system of India cannot deliver peace and prosperity to its people.

Valuable Link

The Report of the Commission of Inquiry - 1971 War as Declassified by The Government of Pakistan. - Hamoodur Rehman

Stopping xtian missionaries
--------------------------

The total evangelical budget is $150 bil a year of which we can assume that
$75 bil is allotted for India

Next I make the reasonable assumption, that it takes 100 X the money to make
a convert as it is to retain a convert

So a carefully targeted hindu charity of $1 bil / year will fully stop this

This rests on a triad
1. Mobile medical van with paramedic
2. Primary school
3. Small temple

Suggested charities

http://www.ekal.org

http://www.idrf.org

Bharat Sevashram Sangha

Aim for Seva

----

If you understand that xtianity is a parasitical implant on the western Indo-european cultural group, you can see the decay of its hold
Church attendance is 5 % in western europe and 30% in US
So how much longer will the western public be funding conversion drives
now that their homeland is under attack from islamic immigrants

Next the increasing economic prosperity in India decreases the scope for rice xtians

Major martyred, his family doesn’t flinch

Friday November 21 2003 10:16 IST

PANCHKULA: "Ufff..." That one word brings home the agony 19-year-old Namish is going through. It was a moan that started early on Thursday morning, much before the Vats learnt that their elder son Major Navneet Vats was no more.



‘‘It’s like our younger son had a telepathic connection with Navneet,’’ says the Major’s mother, Vichitra Veena, displaying amazing composure while relatives stream in with condolences at their house in Sector 4, Panchkula.



‘‘He would get excited a day before Navneet was to come home and cry bhaiya, bhaiya. On Thursday, all that he’s been saying is ‘uffff’,’’ she says. Namish is mentally-challenged.



Maj Vats died in Srinagar on Thursday after six bullets ripped through his body, piercing the point where the plates of his bullet proof vest joined. ‘‘What has happened has happened. It could have happened anywhere. He has served the nation, done his bit and gone forever. It cannot be undone,’’ sighs the brave mother.



Equally brave, the young Major’s wife Shivani, married to him in 1999, keeps her composure holding her three-year-old daughter Inayat.



Niraj Vats, the Major’s father, swallows as he says: ‘‘We had always thought that after we are gone, our elder son will take care of the younger one. Now, we don’t know what will happen to him after us.’’



Around 6.15 in the morning, Major Vats and a soldier of the 32 Rashtriya Rifles lost his life in the 48-hour encounter with militants in Srinagar.



Navneet’s brother-in-law Major Alok Dutt of the Armoured Corps, who had rushed in from Nabha, said Navneet was known for leading soldiers into battle from the front.

Please use this thread for collecting news and for all discussions on Bangladesh.



The main idea of this thread is to focus on Bangladeshi actions and how it impacts us, & vice versa. No economic discussions, at this point.

I know this is a sensitive subject given our current reality - but let us try and discuss this without rancour or abusivenes .



Here is what Praful Goradia wrote in the Pioneer :





Go 'home', Geelani & friends' (Nov 2), by Mr Chandan Mitra contains what many Indians strongly feel. However, their's is an after-thought. Qaid-e-Azam MA Jinnah and some of his Muslim League colleagues had considered the need for an exchange of populations. All the Muslims were to emigrate to Pakistan and the non-Muslims were to come to Hindustan. Their demands came out in Dawn which was then published from Delhi. A few relevant extracts from these reports were reproduced in a recently published book called the Muslim League's Unfinished Agenda. Dr BR Ambedkar had considered a transfer of population an absolute necessity way back in 1940. "The only way to make Hindustan homogeneous is to arrange for exchange of population,"according to Volume 8 of his Speeches and Writings.









The neglect of the question of population transfer by Hindu leaders in 1947 was yet another link in the chain of our civilisation's failure. The root of the failure could lie in the Hindu disinterest in history, political theory, strategic thinking and national or civilisational unity. Muhammad bin Qasim might not have conquered Sind in 712 AD if only the kings of India had realised the long-term danger that an Islamic invasion posed. Had they done so, they might have combined their strength to ensure Raja Dhir's survival. In many ways, history was repeated in 1192 when Prithviraj Chauhan was let down by Jaichand and his allies, duly defeated and killed by Muhammad Ghauri at the Second Battle of Terain.







The Slave Dynasty established by Qutbuddin Aibak was not permanent. It was succeeded by one dynasty after another, whether Khilji or Tughlak or Lodhi, eventually ending with the Mughal emperors. Many an opportunity must have arisen in the five centuries when the Hindus could have overturned the Muslim rulers. Yet nothing happened. It is estimated that during the greater part of this period the Muslim population did not exceed 10 per cent. Yet, 90 per cent took the foreign oppression lying down most of the time.







Arnold Toynbee, the British historian, spent a lifetime arriving at a theory which he called, "Challenge and Response". The thrust of his thesis was that a civilisation flourished only when it could rise and respond to a challenge. To carry Mr Toynbee to his logical conclusion might have been to fear the end of the Hindu civilisation. Had the British not intervened to defeat what was largely Muslim rule, the fate of the Hindu ethos could have been sad. It is not widely recognised that the service Lord Clive and his successors performed was to reduce the Muslims from rulers to subjects thus giving the Hindus a level-playing field.







The Hindu Renaissance beginning with Raja Ram Mohun Roy was unlikely to have taken place had the British not intervened. Contrast Indian history with what happened in Europe. Only a year before Qasim conquered Sind, the Moors had captured Spain. Although it took several centuries before the Europeans could extinguish Muslim rule, nevertheless western Europe was cleared.







In the second millennium the Ottoman Empire, which proved to be as powerful as the Mughal empire, was established. It left few stones unturned in order to conquer large tracts of Europe. They laid siege to Vienna twice: In 1523 and 1683. Yet, they could not break through. The only areas where the Muslim influence survived were Bosnia Herzegovina, Albania and Bulgaria. The way Europe could deal with Islam, Hindustan could also have done the same.

I have come across multiple sources which speculate that Patalaloka in Hindu mythology has been mistranslated as being the underground, whereas the correct translation should be "the land under our feet" ie the Americas.



If this viewpoint is correct, doesn't it mean that ancient Indians were aware of the existance of Americas?

If the big-wigs are againt posting the images, please delete.



Please post historical maps of India and Indian provices/kingdoms.





British India: