India - China: Relations And Developments-2

[Guest]

<b>I feel the same helplessness I felt 50 years ago: Dalai Lama</b>
Link
March 23, 2008

New Delhi : Hatred and aggression have no use in finding solutions as they only cause self-destruction, but that does not mean a submission to what the Chinese are doing in his homeland Tibet, the Dalai Lama has said.

Addressing an invited gathering in the Indian capital over the weekend, the Tibetan spiritual leader appeared slightly distracted and spoke sporadically on the instability facing the Himalayan region in the wake of the Chinese crackdown on ethnic Tibetan protesters in Lhasa.

He said though he was now safe in India, he was still "feeling the same sense of helplessness and hopelessness that he faced nearly 50 years ago" when he fled to India from Tibet.

Seated on an ornately carved chair on a podium, the Dalai Lama recalled how nearly 50 years ago the Chinese had organised a similar crackdown in Tibet. In 1959, from March 10 onwards, Chinese convoys had invaded Lhasa. After a week, fearing for his life Tenzin Gyatso, better known as the 14th Dalai Lama, then crossed over into India.

The visit by the Dalai Lama, 72, is the first to the capital after the unrest began in China nearly two weeks ago that also triggered protests in front of the Chinese embassy by exiled Tibetans here as well as growing international condemnation. He is here for a five-day workshop on meditation and Buddhist teachings organised by the Foundation of Universal Responsibility of His Holiness the Dalai Lama at the Ashok Hotel.

During the first day's session before an invited audience of 150 people that included distinguished bureaucrats, diplomats, politicians and artistes, the Dalai Lama reiterated his commitment for a non-violent approach to achieve his goal of autonomy.

He had arrived in New Delhi on Friday evening after a high-profile meeting with the US Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi in Dharamsala, in Himachal Pradesh, where the Tibetan government-in-exile is based.

Using the framework of Buddhist teachings to explain his current position, the Dalai Lama said that hatred and aggression had no use in finding solutions as they only caused self-destruction. But submission to what the Chinese were doing in his homeland was not the way. If counter forces were required then they should be used, but the motivation should be a "concern for the Chinese forces".

If the Chinese did not "heed their negative karma, there would be consequences for them", he said.

Intellectually, the Dalai Lama expounded, there was a lot of turmoil within the Tibetan community but at a deeper emotional level Tibetans were actually quite calm. Laughing, he said, that even in these troubled times it was the Buddhist practice, with its emphasis on compassion and forgiveness that still allowed him to get eight hours of sound sleep over the past 12 to 13 days.

At the same time, the leader revealed his anxiety about the current situation. He candidly admitted before the start of his lecture that normally he knew beforehand what points to highlight in such presentations but this time his mind was empty.

Outside the venue, asked by the media whether he had any message for the protestors, the Dalai Lama only smiled and moved in to Ashok Hotel's Banquet Hall edged with fluttering Tibetan prayer flags, Tankha paintings and sayings from Buddhist scriptures.

Speaking more directly on the issue, Rajiv Mehrotra, trustee secretary of the foundation, in his opening remarks saluted the leader's convictions and courage, criticised the oppressive methods being used by China to quash the Tibetans and urged for an enduring solution.

This is the second such course being by the foundation in Delhi. Some participants feared that given the circumstances the spiritual master would not have had the time to conduct the course but apparently he insisted it be held. The foundation, a non-sectarian, non-denominational organisation was established with the Nobel Peace Prize money awarded to the Dalai Lama in 1989. Its goal is to encourage diversity of beliefs and practices.

[Guest]

<b>Tibet wasn’t ours, says Chinese scholar</b>
Link

<b>HONG KONG: A leading Chinese historian and a veteran of the committee that advises on official Chinese history textbooks has broken step with the official Chinese line on historical sovereignty over Tibet and said that to claim that the ancient Buddhist kingdom “has always been a part of China” would be a “defiance of history”.

In an article in the China Review magazine, Professor Ge Jianxiong, 62, director of the Institute of Chinese Historical Geography and the Research Centre for Historical Geographic Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, states that while considering how big China was during the Tang Dynasty (7th to 10th century), “we cannot include the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, which was ruled by Tubo/Tufan…”

Tubo/Tufan, notes Ge, “was a sovereignty independent of the Tang Dynasty. At least it was not administered by the Tang Dynasty.” If it were not, he argues, there would have been no need for the Tang emperor of the day to offer Princess Wen Cheng in a “marriage of state” to the Tibetan king, Songtsen Gampo.

“It would be a defiance of history,” asserts Ge, “to claim that Tibet has always been a part of China since the Tang Dynasty; the fact that the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau subsequently became a part of the Chinese dynasties does not substantiate such a claim.”</b>

Ge’s article is an exploration of a larger theme of Chinese identity in history — and precisely when it evolved. And his comments on Tibet conform to scholarly accounts that acknowledge that the takeover of Tibet during the Qing Dynasty (17th to early 20th century) was the starting point for “Chinese sovereignty” over the region.

Yet, Ge’s comments are controversial insofar as they deviate from the official Communist Party line that Tibet has always been an inalienable part of China; in the past China has regarded as any weakening of that theory as “anti-national” and “split-ist”. It will be interesting to see how the authorities respond to Ge’s scholarly article.

Ge’s major research fields include historical population geography, population and migration history, and cultural history. He has written and edited numerous books, and over 100 articles on historical population geography, population and migration history, and cultural history.

In his latest article, Ge notes that prior to 1912, when the Republic of China was officially founded, the idea of China (in Chinese, Zhongguo) wasn’t clearly conceptualised. Even during the late Qing period, he writes, the term ‘China’ would on occasion be used to refer to the “Qing State, including all the territory that fell within the boundaries of the Qing empire”; but at other times, it would be taken to refer only to the “18 interior provinces”, excluding Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang. Therefore, he argues, “if we want to understand the extent of ancient China’s territory, we can only speak of how large the actual territory controlled by a particular dynasty was at a particular moment.”

Noting that notions of a ‘Greater China’ were based entirely on the “one-sided views of Qing court records that were… written for the court’s self-aggrandisement”, Ge criticises those who feel that “the more they exaggerate the territory of historical ‘China’ or China’s successive dynasties and kingdoms, the more patriotic they are.”

In fact, he says, the opposite is true. “If China really wishes to rise peacefully and be on a solid footing to face the future, we must understand the sum of our history and learn from our experiences.”

[Guest]

<b>Tibetan revolt has China's empire fraying at the edge</b>
Link
From The Sunday Times
March 23, 2008

For all its overwhelming force in the lonely mountain passes, where military convoys toil towards the clouds, or in the dark alleys of Chengdu’s Tibetan quarter, where soldiers stand watch, the sour tang of a debacle for China is in the air.

Despite 20 years of iron-fisted security, huge investments and mass migration since the last Tibetan uprising, the roof of the world once again looks like a hostile place to most Chinese.

<b>The uneasy sense of psychological defeat emerged from interviews with Chinese citizens and soldiers in Sichuan province, a vast region that includes a swathe of the Tibetan plateau, over the past week.

Almost without exception, people said they had lost faith in government propaganda and feared that Tibetans would turn to violence against China.</b>

“I believe they can never win their independence, because no big country backs them and they have no army,” said a shop owner, “and I believe we cannot win their hearts.”

This might be the most politically damaging result of the Tibetan uprising for the Chinese government. Foreign condemnation is officially scorned as biased. But public opinion at home, although hard to measure, suggests that many Chinese do not believe that Tibet is secure and do not think things can go on as they are.

The violence across Tibetan-inhabited villages and towns poses a threat to normal Chinese traffic along the strategic Chengdu-Lhasa highway.

<b>The map of disorder is extremely telling. It has forced the army to deploy troops out of a key base at Kangding, a mixed Chinese-Tibetan town wedged between soaring mountains and reached by a dramatic new highway. “Our forces have kept things peaceful here, but you could not go further along the road,” said a staff member in a hotel in Kangding.</b>

West of Kangding, the landscape changes to smooth grass-lands dotted by black-and-white Tibetan houses, towards the heights of the plateau where horse-riding nomads roam.

Fiercely resisting a Chinese campaign to force them into new towns, the nomads burst onto television screens around the world last week as they galloped into village after village at the head of protesting Tibetans.

The Chinese have spent millions on a chain of military bases along the highway. Dozens of artillery pieces can be seen lined up as if on parade grounds.

Sophisticated communications vehicles and new olive-green trucks ply the route.

Towards the troubled monastery town of Litang, where monks have secretly kept pictures of the Dalai Lama for many years, a camouflaged radar station scans the heavens.

“All the shops and businesses have been closed for three days,” said a Tibetan clerk, speaking by telephone from Litang on Friday. “It’s very tense.”

Exiles reported that Chinese stores in Litang had been ransacked and government buildings had been seized by crowds who raised the Tibetan national flag. The scenes were similar around monasteries and impoverished villages all over the ancient Tibetan areas of Kham and Amdo, now incorporated into the Chinese provinces of Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai.

<b>The Chinese military has trained for decades precisely for this moment. Its commander in Lhasa, a two-star general named Tong Guishan, has spent his entire career in Tibet since joining the 155nd Brigade of the People’s Liberation Army’s 52nd division in 1964. His predecessor in Tibet, General Zhang Guihua, is the political commissar in the Chengdu military command, which oversees all southwest China. These two men were responsible for ordering units of the 52nd and 55th Divisions out of Lhasa, Chengdu and Kangding last week to quench the protests in Sichuan.</b>

Tibetans in exile reported 15 deaths in Karze, north of Litang, when 500 protesters confronted troops. Clashes were said to have taken place in Markham, a key highway junction. “Tibetans are being told they will be detained until the end of the Olympics; and once the Olympics are over court proceedings will begin,” a local source told Radio Free Asia.

The worst violence was reported by Tibetans from Aba, in Sichuan province, where they alleged that 23 people, including Lhundup Tso, 16, had been shot dead by the security forces.

China has not officially admitted that its forces have killed any Tibetans. The state media have, however, said that one policeman was killed and 241 were injured, 23 of them critically, in the Lhasa protests.

Reporters have been unable to verify independently either Chinese or Tibetan claims. But the violence reached right into the centre of Chengdu, a city of 11m, where nerves were on edge last week. In scenes not witnessed in a Chinese city since 1989, troops in battledress joined black-uniformed special police in clamping a cordon around the Tibetan quarter.

“A Tibetan from Aba killed two Chinese people with a knife on Xiaotiandong Road,” said a taxi driver, repeating a rumour that spread like wildfire via the taxi radio link and text messages. Chengdu’s Public Security Bureau hastily summoned reporters to a press conference at 10.30pm to deny that anyone was dead. Its deputy chief, He Jiansheng, confirmed that the attacker was a Tibetan from Aba.

Within the bustling warren of Tibetan streets, monks in crimson robes hurried past shops selling sacred statues and pictures – none of the Dalai Lama, of course – while students ate supper at open-air restaurants under the watchful eyes of the military.

The fear, it seemed, was mutual. “No, we can’t speak,” gasped a young Tibetan, abandoning his dish of yak ears and noodles to flee with his friends.

Local Chinese feared a terrorist attack. Cars entering the quarter were searched for explosives. “We’ve got orders to stand here as long as the government tells us,” said a young soldier, gripping his assault rifle.

Western military attachés say there is no question that Generals Tong and Zhang can impose what China calls “stability” in short order. Yet the uprising has led some to sense that China’s empire is fraying at the edges. A bank clerk based in Lhasa told how his financial firm had ordered all staff to stay out of Tibet. A Chengdu entrepreneur said the city’s business people went to make money in Tibet but would never buy a home there.

Such insecurity stands in telling contrast to the strident proclamations of national unity that have accompanied a stream of increasingly coarse propaganda from Beijing.

Yesterday the foreign ministry was reduced to issuing a list of nations that had supported the crackdown – Russia, Syria, North Korea, Vietnam, Belarus, Benin and, perhaps for the sake of variety, Fiji.

Last night the people of the self-governing democracy of Taiwan elected Ma Yingjeou of the Nationalist party as their president in a contest that has been so dominated by China’s conduct in Tibet that the new leader has to take a firm line in defence of the island’s freedom.

In Beijing a noted Tibetan writer, Tsering Woeser, and her Chinese husband have been put under house arrest after speaking to reporters.

In Hong Kong, the former British colony enjoying 50 years of “a high degree of autonomy” from China, an editorial in the South China Morning Post pointed to the degree of unease among its senior editors, who have good relations with mainland officials. “The central government’s policy towards Tibet has clearly failed,” it said.

[Guest]

<b>Chinese forces shot Tibet pilgrims dead indiscriminately </b>
http://youtube.com/watch?v=TU29Nb_orHY

<b>Chinese soldiers shot Tibetan Refugees </b>
http://youtube.com/watch?v=veQIdaR0J70

[Guest]

<b>Exiled Tibetans recall the indignities they fled</b>
Link

Mar 24, 2008

DHARAMSALA, India (Reuters) - The dormitories of the Tibetan refugee reception centre in northern India may be drab, but for the recently arrived exiles staying here they offer luxuries unthinkable in their homeland.

They are free to stick up any number of smiling pictures of the Dalai Lama, while a child can run around the main dormitory waving the Tibetan flag as noisily as he wants -- both prohibited activities in Tibet.

And soon enough each of them will get an audience with the Dalai Lama himself.

"If you talk about life in Tibet in one sense it's really improved and you can live a luxurious life," said Tenzin Norbu, who says he sneaked across the Nepal border a month ago disguised as a Nepali labourer.

"But if you go deeper than that every Tibetan has more serious problems not being addressed. Generally Tibetans don't have any rights, any speaking rights," he said.

Almost all of the 2,500 to 3,000 Tibetans who escape from the country each year pass through the centre in Dharamsala, the home of the Tibetan government in exile in northern India.

Many staying here now left Tibet only a few weeks before the recent violent protests flared up.

Few here expected the riots that broke out shortly after the March 10 anniversary of the failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule, but say they understand why they happened.

<b>Tibetans, they say, are tired of being outnumbered and outranked by Chinese, and resent the separation from the Dalai Lama, their spiritual leader.</b>

Sherab Radel, a 28-year-old Buddhist monk, was sick of hiding his many pictures of the Dalai Lama from the Chinese officials who sometimes showed up at his monastery in Amdo province.

Monks caught with such an image were forced to curse the Dalai Lama's name or be jailed, Radel says. And so, a month ago, he and another young monk from the monastery fled.

<b>"The Chinese government always says that all Tibetans have freedom of religion, but in reality it's just nonsense," he said.</b>

The first his parents knew of his decision was when he phoned them from Kathmandu to say he had fled the country. He says they were delighted.

MYSTERIOUS MEDICATION

He brought with him only the robes he was wearing and a small case packed neatly with religious texts, a pouch of mysterious brown pills which he described as a herbal cure for a whole range of ills, and a little photo album.

The album includes pictures of his monk friends, half a dozen identical passport photos of his monastery's portly head monk, and a picture of another monk who Radel said disappeared up into the sky soon after Chinese troops marched into Tibet in 1950.

For now, he spends his days in happy anticipation of an audience with the Dalai Lama, whose hilltop house and temple complex lie a 10-minute stroll away past tourist-filled cafes and souvenir shops stuffed with Indian crafts.

"I don't have anything specific to say to him, but to meet our spiritual leader - that will be the most precious moment," he said.

His face fell a little when told the Dalai Lama had just left town to teach in Delhi, and so their meeting would not be as soon as Radel had hoped.

After that he will shift to a monastery, probably one in the Tibetan enclave established on the humid, subtropical plains in the south Indian state of Karnataka, a region that shares little in common with Himalayan plateaus and valleys.

<b>Sonam, the 16-year-old daughter of farmers in Dotoe in Tibet, says she just wants a good education, and thought India was the best place to find one.</b>

She told this to her sister, who is married and lives in Lhasa. Her sister agreed to help and fund her escape, on the condition Sonam also take along her sister's 8-year-old son into an unknowably long period of exile.

After her meeting with the Dalai Lama she will shift to a school outside Dharamsala which tries to instil both a sense of the Tibetan culture being eroded in the homeland and the English she will need to earn a decent living in India.

Sonam, who was extremely anxious that her surname and hometown not be revealed in case it got her family into trouble, bashfully covered her face with an English textbook and giggled when asked about her ambitions.

She composed herself and said that whatever her dreams might be, they would not come true so easily in Tibet.

<b>"The Chinese have made roads and more industry. Tibetan people go there and work," she said.

"But the heads of those industries are Chinese people."</b>

[Guest]

<b>Chinese companies are resorting to dumping in India</b>

New Delhi, Mar 23: Market leader BHEL has accused the Chinese companies of grabbing the equipment supply contract for mega power projects by resorting to dumping, but the state-owned undertaking declined to move government on this.

"Chinese currency yuan is under-valued. There is a case of dumping," BHEL CMD K Ravi Kumar told reporters when asked as to why his corporation lost out on contracts for the two Ultra Mega Power Projects to Chinese companies.

He, however, said that "I dont want to take up (the issue) in a very aggressive way. I will consider... We need not go and fight with the Chinese. We don't want 100 per cent of the market share. With 60 per cent of the share and having enough profits, it should be okay with us."

At the same time, he said, in terms of performance, <b>BHEL equipment were much better than the competitors and referred to independent studies to establish that the plant load factor of its projects was 90 per cent, while it was 60 per cent in the case of Chinese equipment.</b>

Claiming that BHEL was fully geared up for any competition from the neighbouring country, Ravi Kumar said there was a price difference of up to 20 per cent and the Chiense valuation was also not as per international competition.

<b>"Today, we have matched almost the Chienese price... We are very competitive with the competition," he said, adding that BHEL had an advantage of giving a complete solution for any project as against the product leaders like Siemens and GE and cost leaders like Chienese companies.</b>

[Guest]

Why Indian Government run by so called self proclaimed financial guru is not taking action, either he is moron as I always say or even China had started paying for his pension plan.

[Guest]

<b>China and India: Oh to be different</b>
Link
Mar 19, 2008
By Pallavi Aiyar

China had it all planned out. Or so it seemed. With the Beijing Summer Olympic Games only a few months away, the flashy sports stadiums, the world's biggest airport and kilometers of extended subway lines combined to serve as gleaming testaments to the country's dramatic material progress. Efforts had even been made to transform Beijingers themselves for their Olympic debut, from surly communists suspicious of foreign barbarians into smiling, service-oriented folk welcoming "foreign friends" to their city in English.

But as the events of the past few days have shown with protests against Chinese rule of Tibet spreading from Lhasa to parts of Gansu and Sichuan provinces, Beijing has been caught unprepared in its ability to deal with dissent. It is this inability, moreover, that will prove to be the country's greatest vulnerability


going forward; its Achilles' heel as it strives for great power status.
As Beijing desires the Olympics to demonstrate, much in China has changed in recent years, often at a dizzying pace. The successes in poverty reduction are an awesome achievement. Beijing in 2008, with its slew of vertiginous skyscrapers, flood of fancy cars and array of malls boasting the most luxurious of luxury brands, is a far cry from the capital city of Mao Zedong suits and bicycles in the not so distant past.

However, while much has changed, China's response to the events in Tibet is also indicative of how much remains unchanged. The official response to the protests in Lhasa and elsewhere, the most serious in two decades, do not indicate the discovery by Beijing of "Olympic-new" savvy ways of crisis control. Instead, the Chinese people and the world have only been subjected to the same old tired responses officialdom resorts to given any sign of discontentment among the Tibetan population.

This is a response that essentially amounts to a denial of any fundamental problem. The elements are familiar: a scapegoating and vilification of the Dalai Lama, a refusal to grant any legitimacy to Tibetan disaffection and an insistence on the myth of elemental "harmony" among all "Chinese" people, including Tibetans.

This denial of legitimate differences is ultimately the greatest difference between China and Asia's other major rising power, India.

Indians who visit Chinese cities are invariably awestruck by the infrastructure. They look at the silken-smooth multi-lane highways with barely concealed envy, no doubt comparing them to the pot-holed clumps of tar more familiar as roads back home. They marvel at the relatively orderly flow of traffic on the broad avenues, unobstructed by stray cows. They remark on the absence of slums and beggars on the streets.

China has not only built cities that are almost impossibly modern from an Indian point of view, it has also provided jobs and opportunities for upward mobility for millions of migrant workers from the countryside.

China's economic achievement over the past 30-odd years has in fact been unparalleled historically. However, a point usually unrecognized by Indians impressed by China's glitter is the fact that so is India's political feat.

China's southern neighbor's democracy is almost unique among post-colonial states not simply for its existence but its existence against all odds in a country held together not by geography, language or ethnicity but by an idea. This is an idea that asserts, even celebrates, the possibility of multiple identities. In India, you can and are expected to be both many things and one thing simultaneously.

Your correspondent is thus a Delhite, an English speaker, half a Brahmin, half a Tamilian, a Hindu culturally, an atheist by choice, a Muslim by heritage. But the identity that threads these multiplicities together is at once the most powerful and most amorphous: she is an Indian.

India's great political achievement is thus in its having developed mechanisms for negotiating large-scale diversity along with the inescapable corollary of frequent and aggressive disagreement. The guiding and perhaps lone consensus that forms the bedrock of that mechanism is that in a democracy you don't really need to agree - except on the ground rules of how you will disagree.

In direct contradistinction to China, India's polity has flourished precisely because of its ability to acknowledge difference. The very survival of India as a country, given the scope of its bewildering diversity, has been dependent on the possibility of dissent.

India is a country of 22 official languages and over 200 recorded mother tongues. In this "Hindu" country, there are more Muslims than in all of Pakistan. The country's cultural inheritance includes fire-worshiping Zorastrians and Tohra-reciting Jews. With no single language, ethnicity, religion or food, India is quite simply, implausible; yet marvelously, it isn't. It is a country without a language, without a center, lacking singularity except in being singularly diverse.

In China, regular lip service is also paid to the country's own, considerable diversity. During the National People's Congress' annual session, for example, delegates representing China's multiplicity of minorities swish around the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in their "ethnic" dresses. Beijing regularly talks of the religious freedoms enjoyed by the country's Buddhists, Christians and Muslims.

But in fact, the fundamental tenet of China's political philosophy is not diversity but uniformity. This homogeneity does not only extend itself to the tangible, such as architecture or the system of writing alone, but also to thought.

Even in the modern China of the 21st century where there are more Internet users than even in the United States, those who disagree with mainstream, officially sanctioned views outside of the parameters set by mainstream officially sanctioned debate, more often than not find themselves branded as dissidents - suspect, hunted, under threat.

The insistence on "harmony" as the only reality and inability to admit genuine differences in interest and opinions between the peoples of a country of the size and complexity of China is ultimately the country's greatest weakness.

Talk of political reform in China continues to be bound by the "harmonious" parameters set by Hu Jintao, the president. The idea is that everyone's interests and opinions are to be balanced and resolved without conflict.

Oppositional politics with the clash of argument remain anathema. Consensus for the good of the whole nation is the way forward, we are told.

To imagine that these pious prescriptions will be adequate to address growing tensions within Chinese society as it evolves and changes is foolhardy. The interests of the laid-off worker and multinational executive are divergent, as are those of the real estate developer and the city-dweller about to have her home destroyed to make way for a mall.

These are conflicts that need to be acknowledged so that effective mechanisms for their resolution can then be identified.

As the recent protests have demonstrated, despite over 50 years of suppression and "patriotic education", a strong strain of resentment against Beijing's rule continues to simmer in Tibet. During this time period the region's economy has benefited from Chinese-developed infrastructure, literacy rates are also on the up and health care has improved. Nonetheless, large swathes of dissatisfaction with Beijing's policies persist.

For China's authorities to simply deny the reality of the problem, blame all tension on an exiled leader and insist that the majority of Tibetans couldn't be happier with the Communist Party's harmonious policies, is self-defeating.

Given this stance whether or not the Chinese authorities react with "leniency" towards the protesters, the damage to their reputation internationally is assured.

Looking ahead to the Olympics and beyond, China would in fact do well to look to India, the neighbor it usually scorns as poor and chaotic, to understand the strength that acknowledging differences can provide.

Harmony is a laudable goal, but sometimes a little dissent is the mark of a truly healthy society.

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->China and India: Oh to be different
Link
Mar 19, 2008
By Pallavi Aiyar<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What else one can expect from mani shankar Aiyar's niece. Is he the one who ridiculed Indian Olympic Games, he is the one who want to join Iran pipeline so that Pakis can get money fast from Indians pocket.

[Shambhu]

Sarkozy's France will boycott the games, I heard on NPR. Good job!

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Sarkozy's France will boycott the games,<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Great news. I hope other countries catch with this idea.

It will solve couple of problem and increase many.
1) For short term Tibet will be infront of TV, after games they may see complete ethnic cleansing.
2) Long term China economy may take hit, because they had spent too much on so-called image making games, which will do reverse. Money wasted. For short term it had heated China's economy but later may bring unemployment and restless in country, just my 2 cents
3) Indian commie will try to send everyone in town on their expense just to be look like best lap dog of China.
4) Tiwan etc will make some sound.
5) GOP will be in power for next 4 years atleast as Democrats are planing to give ticket to Obama, so China may get some relief but before leaving office, I still think Bush may take revenge on "Sorry" incidence.

[Shambhu]

French reporter lady was asking State Dept spokesman at press conference:

Will US at least boycott opening ceremony? Or do something like wear a T shirt opposing PRC Tibet policy?

SD guy gave the standard answer: US will respect games, but we will talk to PRC. T shirt etc is personal issue onlee..blah blah..

I felt sorry for the French reporter. She seemed to genuine and US seemed so fake..

[Guest]

<b>India silent as China deploys forces on Nepal soil</b>

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->NEW DELHI: Despite the huge diplomatic snub by China as it summoned India's ambassador at 2am on Saturday to protest against Tibetan activists breaking into the Chinese embassy in Delhi, the <b>government here is silent on the reported deployment of Chinese troops in Nepal</b>.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Husky]

<!--QuoteBegin-k.ram+Mar 26 2008, 06:48 AM-->QUOTE(k.ram @ Mar 26 2008, 06:48 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>India silent as China deploys forces on Nepal soil</b> (timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India_silent_as_China_deploys_forces_on_Nepal_soil/articleshow/2899607.cms)

<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->NEW DELHI: Despite the huge diplomatic snub by China as it summoned India's ambassador at 2am on Saturday to protest against Tibetan activists breaking into the Chinese embassy in Delhi, the <b>government here is silent on the reported deployment of Chinese troops in Nepal</b>.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->[right][snapback]80036[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->When they showed on the news how Free Tibet protestors were protesting during the torch ceremony leaving Athens (the news also stated that all those parts were of course cut off for China's viewers), they thereafter also showed (Maoist) police officers in Nepal beating up Tibetan protestors. With Maoists in charge there, is it any different there from Chinese governance?

Even so, I wonder whether China will try to swallow Nepal without any effort at all.

<b>ADDED:</b> Some seriously spineless turncoats commenting on this TOI news item at timesofindia.indiatimes.com/opinions/2899607.cms#top0
I couldn't have believed what a nasty piece of work some pseculars are until actually reading their disgusting "let us focus on development; this matter is internal to china" routine. Must be the same crowd who comes out after each islamoterrorist attack and says "let us focus on development, show solidarity and that will beat terrorism". Nah, I am certain that we can beat terrorism by feeding these losers to bloodthirsty islam/China's communist goons. Who said making sacrifices to cannibals is a bad idea - it depends on what you sacrifice, IMO...

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Sarkozy's France will boycott the games<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Sarkozy is one of a few country leaders in the present times who showes great promise. So far I like him. But of course, he is Jewish, which explains why he makes a principled stand, whereas the rest of the christo world, or christo-controlled countries like India, don't.

[Bodhi]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Vice-President Ansari calls off meeting with the Dalai Lama</b>
March 25th, 2008 - 3:19 pm ICT

The Indian Express quoted sources as saying that the <b>meeting with Ansari was slotted at least two months in advance</b>, but Chinese queries prompted the government to advise the Vice-President to call off the appointment.

The meeting was eventually cancelled with officials claiming that it was anyhow tentative and that the Vice-President, like any other Constitutional post, goes by the governments advice when it involves meeting foreign dignitaries.

This allowed <b>India to clarify to China that no such meeting was in the offing</b> and neither does the Vice-President have any such plans.

The Dalai Lama has, in the past, also made <b>requests to meet President Pratibha Patil but has never been given an appointment</b>.

Earlier, the Chinese Government had summoned India’s Ambassador to China, Nirupama Rao, to lodge a strong protest over ten Tibetan protestors managing to scale the Chinese embassy walls in Delhi before being caught by security officials.
According to the paper, the Chinese authorities in Beijing summoned Rao at around 2 a.m. that night and formally protested against the incident. They expressed concern over the safety and security of their diplomatic staff and handed over a list of likely Tibetan protests in India ahead of the Olympics.

For its part, India reassured China that its policy was consistent and there was no change in its policy on the Tibet issue and this <b>assurance is learnt to have gone from the Prime Ministers Office.</b> (ANI)

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/lifest...2_10031031.html
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

Here you go, India had to prove everyday that they are China's new lap dog with tail between legs.
Why China need proof, they should know spineless Moron Singh is running country from 10 Janpath toilet.

[dhu]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->UPA's Tibet policy humiliating: BJP
Pioneer

<i>Govt assures rattled China foolproof security for Olympic torch relay</i>

Coming under pressure from different quarters, New Delhi has promised to make "all arrangements to ensure that the Olympic flame passes through India safely".   
Following China's concern over security to the Olympic torch that will go through India from April 17, India's National Security Adviser MK Narayanan said here on Wednesday, "We have taken precaution on that". Narayanan was responding to media queries on the sidelines of a function.

<b>Meanwhile, senior BJP leaders LK Advani, Rajnath Singh and Jaswant Singh have issued a joint statement here accusing the Government of adopting a "nationally-humiliating and pusillanimous" stand on the issue to appease China and asked it to perform India's "dharma" of standing up for the cause of Tibetans. </b>

News agency PTI has quoted sources as saying that "China is not even ruling out bypassing the country if it is not sure of foolproof protection." The Chinese Embassy has taken up the issue of security for the torch with the Indian Government and the matter is under discussion, agency report added.

China's worries are against the backdrop of pro-Tibet movement in India and the last Friday's incident wherein a group of Tibetan protestors stormed its Embassy in New Delhi.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang confirmed to PTI that Indian Ambassador Nirupama Rao had been called past midnight to "express our positions and concerns" after the incident in Delhi. India is tight-lipped on this issue.

Considering that the launch of the Olympic torch relay in Greece on Monday was marred by breach of security by Tibetans, China feels more apprehensive about its security during the Indian leg as the number of Tibetans in this country is manifold than that in Greece.

China is accusing Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama of "masterminding" the latest surge in protests to disrupt the Olympic Games being hosted by Beijing from August 8. The Dalai Lama has, however, rejected the charge and expressed support to the Beijing Olympics.

Amidst the brouhaha, senior BJP leaders said it was "shameful" that instead of expressing concern against use of force by China, the Government is adopting a "degrading policy" of "blatant appeasement" towards Beijing with scant regard to India's national honour and foreign policy independence.

After a meeting of party general secretaries, the BJP leaders condemned the UPA Government's "policy of irrationality" saying India must "give voice to its concerns; correctly, unequivocally and unambiguously" against the "use of indiscriminate violence by the Chinese armed forces to crush the voice" of the people of Tibet.

<b>"This is not interference. It is standing up, by India, for preserving that which is our own and that which is India's contribution to all humanity -- Tibet's Buddhist culture and civilisation. This is our bounden duty and our very 'dharma'," Advani, Rajnath and Jaswant said.</b>

Referring to reports about cancellation of a meeting between Vice-President and the Dalai Lama, the BJP leaders sought to know from the Government the rationale behind adopting "a nationally-humiliating and pusillanimous policy full of indecision at the cost of neglecting the country's prestige".

<b>The BJP leaders invoked Lord Buddha to emphasise India's "spiritual" connection with Tibet, a predominantly Buddhist region.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<b>Lies can't work: Dalai Lama tells China</b>

Thu, Mar 27 04:41 PM

New Delhi, Mar 27 (PTI) Accused by China of "masterminding" the Tibet unrest, the Dalai Lama today asked Beijing to "accept the reality" as "lies cannot work" in the 21st century.

The Tibetan spiritual leader, who is here in connection with a meditation workshop, said he was appealing to his "friends" across the world to express concern over Tibet.

"One thing I want to express is that it is the time for the Chinese Government or the officials concerned to accept the reality. That is more important," he told reporters here.

"In any case, we are in the 21st century.

Our lies cannot work," the Dalai Lama said.

His comments come in the backdrop of persistent accusations by China that he had "masterminded" the recent violence in Tibet despite his denials.

On Saturday, the Dalai Lama will lead a prayer meeting in Rajghat, the memorial of Mahatma Gandhi, in memory of all those who have lost their lives during the recent unrest in Tibet.

[Guest]

Now after getting support from US and botox queen, Dalai Lama came out with strong message.
In place of photos he should seriously force countries to come out and declare independence.

[Bodhi]

<b>The sacrifice of Tibet: Extraordinary delusions and temporary insanity</b>
Rajeev Srinivasan | March 25, 2008 | 16:33 IST

On November 18 every year, I silently salute the brave souls of C Company, 13th Kumaon Regiment, who in 1962 died practically to the last man and the last bullet defending Ladakh against the invading Chinese Army. These brave?114 inflicted heavy casualties and prevented the Chinese from overrunning Leh, much like Spartans at Thermopylae held the line against the invading Persians many moons ago.

But have you ever wondered why these brave men had to sacrifice themselves? One answer seems to be that is because of the extraordinary delusions that affected a number of the dramatis personae on the Indian side: notably Jawaharlal Nehru, KM Panikkar and VK Krishna Menon.

A deadly combination of blind faith, gross megalomania, and groupthink led to the debacle in the war in1962; but its genesis lay in the unbelievable naivete that led these worthies to simply sacrifice a defenseless sister civilisation to brutal barbarians.

Furthermore, they were far more concerned about China's interests than about India's! Generations to come will scarcely believe that such criminal negligence was tolerated in the foreign policy of a major nation.

In a well-researched book, timed for the one hundredth anniversary of the opening of Tibet by the British, Claude Arpi, born in France but a long-term resident of India, and one of India's leading Tibet and China experts, argues that India's acquiescence to the enslavement of Tibet has had disastrous consequences. The book is Born in Sin: The Panchsheel Agreement subtitled The Sacrifice of Tibet, published by Mittal Publications, New Delhi, 2004, pp. 241, Rs. 495, ISBN 81-7099-974-X. Unless otherwise noted, all of the quotations here are from this book.

Arpi also touches upon the difficulty scholars face with piecing together what actually happened in those momentous years leading to the extinction of Tibet and the India-China war of 1962, because the majority of the source materials are held as classified documents in the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund or the Ministry of External Affairs.

The historian is forced to depend on the sanitised Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru and the restricted Official Report of the 1962 War. If the relevant documents were made public at the very least we might learn something from them. Where is Aruna Roy, crusading champion of the people's right to know who has now accepted a sinecure under the UPA? Why are the Nehru Papers controlled by Sonia Gandhi?

The story really begins exactly one hundred years ago, in September 1904, when the British Colonel Francis Younghusband entered Tibet and forced the hitherto insular kingdom open at the point of a gun. The Lhasa Convention of 1904, signed by the British and the Tibetans, put the seal of British overlordship over Tibet. The parallels with Commodore Perry of the US and his black ships opening up Japan are obvious. However, unlike Japan, which under the Meiji Restoration took vigorously to westernisation, Tibet continued to distance itself from the outside world, much to its later disadvantage.

Perhaps we need to look further in history, as Arpi did in his earlier book, The Fate of Tibet: When Big Insects Eat Small Insects. The Tibetans were a feared, martial and warlike race that had always, in its impregnable mountain fastnesses, held the expansionist Han Chinese at bay. However, in the 7th century CE, Buddhism came to Tibet, and they became a pacifist nation. Says Arpi: 'Tibet's conversion had another consequence on its political history: a nonviolent Tibet could no longer defend itself. It had to look outside for military support to safeguard its frontiers and for the protection of its Dharma. This help came first from the Mongol Khans and later the Manchu Emperors when they became themselves followers of the Buddha's doctrine.'

The sum and substance of China's alleged historical claim to Tibet is this: that the Mongol Khans had conquered both China and Tibet at the same time. This is patently absurd, because by the same token India should claim Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong as its own, because India and these territories were under British rule at the same time.

In fact, since the Mongol Khans and the Manchu Emperors accepted the Dalai Lama as their spiritual preceptor, it is clear that it was China that was giving tribute to Tibet, not vice versa: so Tibet could claim Han China as its vassal.

The Lhasa Convention was followed by the Simla Convention in 1914 that laid out the McMahon Line defining both the Indo-Tibetan border, and the division of Tibet into 'Outer Tibet' (which lies along the border with India) and 'Inner Tibet' which includes Amdo Province and part of Kham Province. It is worthwhile to note that the Chinese were not invited to discuss the McMahon line, nor was their acceptance of this line sought. Tibetans signed this treaty as an independent nation. The British government emphasised this in a note to the Chinese as late as 1943: 'Since the Chinese Revolution of 1911,... Tibet has enjoyed de facto independence.'

When India became independent, K M Panikkar wrote: 'A China [organised as a Communist regime annexing Mongol, Muslim and Tibetan areas] will be in an extremely powerful position to claim its historic role of authority over Tibet, Burma, Indo-China and Siam. The historic claims in regard to these are vague and hazy? soon thereafter Panikkar became the principal spokesperson for China's interests, even though his job was Indian Ambassador to China!

As soon as the Communists came to power, in 1950, they started asserting their claims: 'The tasks for the People's Liberation Army for 1950 are to liberate [sic] Taiwan, Hainan and Tibet.' A Scottish missionary in Tibet said the PLA officers told him that once Tibet was in their hands, they would go to India.

On October 7, 1950, Mao Tse-Tung's storm troopers invaded Tibet. But under Panikkar's influence, Nehru felt that the loss of Tibet was worth the price of liberating Asia from 'western dominance'. Panikkar said: 'I do not think there is anything wrong in the troops of Red China moving about in their own country.'

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was one of the few in the Indian government who recognised the menace from China. He wrote:
'We also have to take note of a thoroughly unscrupulous, unreliable and determined power practically at our doors?>It is clear that] we cannot be friendly with China and must think in terms of defense against a determined, calculating, unscrupulous, ruthless, unprincipled and prejudiced combination of powers, of which the Chinese will be the spearhead?>It is obvious to me that] any friendly or appeasing approaches from us would either be mistaken for weakness or would be exploited in furtherance of their ultimate aim.'

How prophetic Patel was! Unfortunately, he died soon after he wrote this. Interestingly, the very same words apply in their entirety to India's dithering over Pakistan today,?54 years later. The Pakistanis are also exploiting India's appeasement and friendliness.

But Nehru, it appears, had decided to sacrifice Tibet, partly in order to appease China, partly because of his distaste for what he considered 'imperialist treaties' (in this case the Lhasa Convention that gave enormous rights in Tibet to the British, and, as their successor, to the Indian government) and partly in order to act as mediator between China and the West over the Korean War.

Observers could see what was going to happen. The American ambassador Henderson noted: 'The UK High Commission would like to be able to argue with Indian officials that if GoI bows to Communist China's blackmail re Tibet, India will eventually be confronted with similar blackmail not only re Burma but re such areas as Assam, Bhutan, Sikkim, Kashmir, Nepal.' Absolutely correct, for this is exactly what is happening today.

Nehru and Panikkar simply did not see the threat from China, so enamoured were they of the great Communist Revolution there. Nehru said: 'The biggest event since the last War is the rise of Communist China'. Part of his admiration arose from his distaste for the Buddhist culture of Tibet: 'We cannot support feudal elements in Tibet, indeed we cannot interfere in Tibet'. Now doesn't that sound exactly like Xinhua propaganda, which Nehru seems to have internalised?

A Canadian high commissioner had a different theory: '[Panikkar] had no illusions about the policies of the Chinese government and he had not been misled by it. He considered, however, that the future, at least in his lifetime, lay with the communists, and he therefore did his best to get on well with them by misleading Nehru'. That might be considered treason in certain circles.

Whatever the reason, we can see why Zhou-en Lai is rumored to have referred to the Indians in general and Nehru in particular as 'useful idiots'. (There is no reference to this in the Arpi book). In every discussion with Panikkar, the Chinese hosts smilingly avoided the question of settling the border, but they made sure that India acknowledged Chinese hegemony over Tibet. The Indians were thoroughly outsmarted, partly because they were willing victims dazzled by the idea of Communism.

When confronted with the question of the undefined border, Nehru said, "All these are high mountains. Nobody lives there. It is not very necessary to define these things." And in the context of whether the Chinese might invade India, here's Nehru again: "What might happen is some petty trouble in the borders and unarmed infiltration. To some extent this can be stopped by checkposts?mately, however, armies do not stop communist infiltration or communist ideas?large expenditure on the army will starve the development of the country and social progress."

The naivete leaves the neutral observer speechless. What might be even more alarming is that there are supposedly serious Old Left analysts today, in 2004, who mouth these same inanities about not spending money on the Indian Army. Why they do not take their cue from China, with its enormous Army, is mysterious, because in all other respects they expect India to emulate China. Except that is, no nukes, no military might for India.

By not asserting India's treaty rights in Tibet, which would have helped Tibet remain as a neutral buffer zone, Nehru has hurt India very badly. For, look at what is happening today. Nepal is under relentless attack by Maoists, almost certainly supported by Chinese money. Large parts of India are infested with violent Maoists. Much of West Bengal is under the iron grip of Marxists, who clearly take orders from Beijing.

It is in this context that the so-called Panchsheel Agreement was written. Given that the Indian side had a priori decided to surrender all its rights to the Chinese, in return for vague promises of brotherhood, it is perhaps the most vacuous treaty ever signed. However, Nehru opined: "in my opinion, we have done no better thing than this since we became independent. I have no doubt about this?nk it is right for our country, for Asia and for the world."

Famous last words.

Nehru believed that the five principles which are referred to as Panchsheel were his personal, and major, contribution to world peace. Based on his impression of his stature in the world, he thought that the Panchsheel model could be used for treaties all over the world, and that it would lead to a tremendous breaking out of peace everywhere.

Nehru was sadly mistaken. There was nothing particularly remarkable about the principles themselves: they were not his invention, but were merely common-sense provisions used widely. And he had a megalomaniac idea of his own influence around the world: he did not realise that he cut a slightly comical figure. In his own mind, and in the minds of his toadies, he was the Emperor Ashoka returned, to bring about World Peace.

Here are the Five Principles:
1. Mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty
2. Mutual non-aggression
3. Mutual non-interference in each other's internal affairs
4. Equality and mutual benefit
5. Peaceful co-existence

The Chinese immediately violated every one of these principles, and have continued to do so happily. For instance, even while the treaty was being negotiated, the Chinese were building a road through Aksai Chin in Jammu and Kashmir, and in perhaps the most unbelievable aspect of this whole sorry mess, India was actually supplying rice to the Chinese troops building the road through Indian territory! This is distinctly surreal!

The problem was that Nehru had no sense of history. He should have read RC Majumdar: "There is, however, one aspect of Chinese culture that is little known outside the circle of professional historians?s characteristic of China that if a region once acknowledged her nominal suzerainty even for a short period, she would regard it as a part of her empire for ever and would automatically revive her claim over it even after a thousand years whenever there was a chance of enforcing it."

And this was the 'ally' Nehru found against the 'imperialists' of the West! He went so far as to decline a seat at the UN Security Council because the China seat was held by Taiwan. He did not want India to be in the Security Council until China was there too!

Since many people are curious about this, here is chapter and verse: it is in the Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Series II, Vol. 29, Minutes of meeting with Soviet Leaders, Moscow, 22 June 1955, pp. 231. Here is the conversation between Nehru and Soviet Premier Marshal Bulganin:

"Bulganin: While we are discussing the general international situation and reducing tension, we propose suggesting at a later stage India's inclusion as the sixth member of the Security Council.

Nehru: Perhaps Bulganin knows that some people in USA have suggested that India should replace China in the Security Council. This is to create trouble between us and China. We are, of course, wholly opposed to it. Further, we are opposed to pushing ourselves forward to occupy certain positions because that may itself create difficulties and India might itself become a subject of controversy. If India is to be admitted to the Security Council it raises the question of the revision of the Charter of the UN. We feel that this should not be done till the question of China's admission and possibly of others is first solved. I feel that we should first concentrate on getting China admitted."

The casual observer might wonder whether Nehru was India's prime minister, or China's. Besides, the Chinese have now repaid all this support. India insisted that India should not be in the Security Council until China was in it, too. Now China insists that India should not be in the Security Council until Pakistan is in it, too. Seems fair, doesn't it?

What is the net result of all this for India? It is a strategic disaster. Forget the fact that the Tibetan civilisation has been decimated, and it is an Indic civilisation with practically no relationship to Han Chinese civilisation. Strictly from India's security perspective, it is an unmitigated catastrophe.

Analyst Ginsburg wrote in the fifties: 'He who holds Tibet dominates the Himalayan piedmont; he who dominates the Himalayan piedmont, threatens the Indian subcontinent; and he who threatens the Indian subcontinent may well have all of Southeast Asia within his reach, and all of Asia.'

Look at the situation in Tibet today.

The Chinese are planning the northward diversion of the Brahmaputra, also known as the Tsangpo. This would make North India a desert
The Chinese have on several occasions used 'lake bombs' to flood Indian territory: as the upper riparian state based on their occupation of Tibet, they are able to do this, for example on the Sutlej
Hu Jintao, who was the Butcher of Tibet, is now a top strongman in Beijing. Under his sponsorship, a railway line will be finished in 2007 linking Lhasa to eastern China. This would be an excellent mechanism for bringing in both large
numbers of Han immigrants to swamp the remaining Tibetan people, and also to deploy mobile nuclear missiles
The Chinese are deploying advanced nuclear missiles in Tibet, aimed at India, Russia and the US. With the railway line, they will be able to move these around and even conceal them quickly in tunnels and other locations
The Chinese dump large amounts of nuclear waste in Tibet, which will eventually make its way down to India via the rivers
The India-Tibet border is still not demarcated.
It is difficult to imagine a more disastrous foreign policy outcome than what happened between India and China. Claude Arpi is owed a debt of gratitude by all of us in India who care about the nation's progress and even its survival.

If the rather well-thought-of founding prime minister of the country was so uncaring about India's interests, one shudders to think what might be going on today with some of the ministers who are accused in criminal cases.

But even more than that, Arpi's detailed analysis and painstaking research on the process through which Tibet was enslaved is an instructive case study in how barbarians are always at the gates, and how, as Will Durant said, 'Civilisation is a precious good, whose delicate complex order and freedom can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without and multiplying from within'.

One of the profound lessons to be taken away is that it is the lack of respect for the spiritual that has led to this cataclysm. As Ministry of External Affairs observer, Apa Pant, pointed out about Tibet and the Han Chinese colonisation: 'With all its shortcomings and discomforts, its inefficiencies and unconquered physical dangers, here was a civilisation with at least the intention of maintaining a pattern of life in which the individual could achieve liberation?one so apparently inefficient, so human and even timid, yet kind and compassionate and aspiring to something more gloriously satisfying in human life; the other determined and effective, ruthless, power-hungry and finally intolerant... In the corridors of power [in official India], Tibet, Buddhism, the Dalai Lama, were all regarded as ridiculous, too funny for words; useless illusions that would logically cease to exist soon, thanks to the Chinese, and good riddance.'

In the final analysis, Tibet was lost because those in power in India were dismissive of matters spiritual. It is the Empire of the Spirit that has made India what she has been all these millennia, and once the rulers start dismissing that, it is clear that we are in the Kali Yuga, the Dark Ages. It is the end of living, and the beginning of survival.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/mar/25rajeev.htm