Let Bharat take the leadership role for constituting an Indian Ocean community -- start with Indian Ocean cultural community, then on to Indian Ocean Economic Community, Indian Ocean Strategic Community. Welcome to the seminar in Chennai on 26 Dec. 2003 at CP Ramaswamy Aiyar Foundation 10 AM to 5 PM. organized by Indian Ocean Studies and Research Group in association with other co-sponsors. IOSRG was inaugurated on 29 October 2003.
Kalyanaraman
PM for open borders, single currency in South Asia
December 12, 2003 16:08 IST
Urging South Asian nations to put aside mistrust and dispel unwarranted suspicions, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Friday said he envisaged mutual security cooperation, open borders and even a single currency in the region in the long run.
He called for promotion of peace in South Asia and cited the increased people-to-people contact between India and Pakistan as a reflection of an "intense desire for amity and goodwill."
Vajpayee was inaugurating a two-day conference on 'Peace Dividend -- Progress for India and South Asia' organised by Hindustan Times newspaper in New Delhi.
He said the demands of globalisation and aspirations of people provided the objective basis for energetic pursuit of a "harmoniously integrated" South Asia. People, businesses and organisations are waiting to interact more closely with each other.
They have waited for over half-a-century for fulfillment of "unexploited potential in their own neighbourhood" and were now impatient to move ahead, Vajpayee told a distinguished audience that included former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto, former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright, union ministers, envoys of several countries and others.
The prime minister said, "We can sense this impatience in the outpouring of popular sentiment after our initiatives. The increased travel between India and Pakistan of parliamentarians, businessmen, artists and sportsmen show the intense desire for amity and goodwill. We have to respond to this desire by seeking every possible way to banish hostility and promote peace."
Welcoming the guests, Hindustan Times Vice-Chairperson and Editorial Director Shobhana Bhartia said the conference was an effort to create greater understanding and to resolve conflicts in the South Asian region.
The prime minister noted that the conference is taking place ahead of the South Asian Association for Regional Conference summit in Islamabad and said it could discuss ideas on economic, strategic and geopolitical future of India and South Asia.
With SAARC members developing greater economic stakes in each other, he said, "We will also develop mutual sensitivity to each others' concerns and promote more of our common interests."
Vajpayee said if the SAARC countries -- India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Maldives --
provide legitimate avenues of free commercial interaction, they could eradicate black market and underground trade.
"We could jointly tackle smuggling, drug trafficking, money laundering and other trans-national crimes, which today flourish in our region because of our mutual rivalries and inadequate coordination," he said.
http://in.rediff.com/news/2003/dec/12sa.htm
PM moots single currency, open border in South Asia
HT Correspondent
New Delhi, December 12
Prime Minister A B Vajpayee on Friday laid the road-map for a harmoniously integrated South Asia, saying open borders and even a single currency for the region were not unrealistic and utopian if "we can put aside mistrust and dispel unwarranted suspicions" and develop "mutual sensitivity to each others' concerns."
Delivering the keynote address at the first Hindustan Times Leadership Initiative on The Peace Dividend: Progress for India and South Asia, Vajpayee said the investment inputs required to reap this dividend were pragmatic politics, rational economics and popular participation.
The PM said: "Our people, businesses and organizations are waiting to interact more closely with each other. This includes producers and consumers, investors and markets, doctors and patients, artists and audiences, students and universities. They are all part of the supply and demand dynamics of a vast sub-continent. They see the unexploited potential in their own neighbourhood. They have waited for over a half-century for its fulfillment and are now impatient to move ahead."
He said, "We can sense this impatience in the outpouring of popular sentiment after our initiatives. We have to respond to this desire by seeking every possible way to banish hostility and promote peace."
Welcoming the HT initiative ahead of the forthcoming SAARC summit, the PM said, "Our search for pragmatism, maturity and wisdom will have to involve both governments and civil society. It will also require a widespread understanding that, in today's context, collective regional interest is an expression of enlightened self-interest."
Vajpayee said as we develop greater economic stakes in each other, "we can put aside mistrust and dispel unwarranted suspicions. We will also develop mutual sensitivity to each others' concerns and promote our common interests."
He said, "If we provide legitimate avenues of free commercial interaction, we can eradicate the black market and underground trade. We could jointly tackle smuggling, drug trafficking, money laundering and other trans-national crimes, which today flourish in our region because of mutual rivalries and inadequate coordination."
The PM said, "Once we reach that stage, we would not be far from mutual security cooperation and open borders and even a single currency. If this seems unrealistic and utopian, perhaps we are being unnecessarily cynical. Let us remember that the world did not anticipate the sudden end to the Cold War or the collapse of the Berlin Wall. No one thought apartheid South Africa could be transformed bloodlessly into Mandela's rainbow country."
Stating that the "our most important common war today is against poverty, disease, hunger and underdevelopment," Vajpayee said if we in South Asia look back objectively at the experiences of our freedom struggles and of our nation-building, the one stark lesson that stands out is the imperative of forging unity based on our commonalities.
"Whenever," said the PM, "we have dissipated our energies in internal squabbling, external forces have come in to sort out our differences and stayed on to exploit our resources. We should never create the possibility of reliving these historical experiences in new forms and on different fronts."
In her welcome address, HT Vice-Chairperson and Editorial Director Shobhana Bhartia said there could be no speaker whose credentials were more appropriate than Vajpayee.
"As Prime Minister, he has constantly and continuously put his reputation and his career on the line in his quest for a peaceful South Asia. He has demonstrated in his actions that he understands the importance of peace and recognizes the dividends that accrue from following that path."
She said HT had launched the Leadership Initiative because "we believe a serious newspaper must do more than just mere reportage or carrying interesting articles. A great newspaper is one that defines its role in terms of contributing to intellectual debate and shaping the future. We hope to gather the best and the brightest and to provide a platform for free and candid exchange of ideas."
She said: "We have called this conference, the Peace Dividend. There's reason for that. We see peace as more than just the absence of conflict. We see it as a necessary precondition for stability and prosperity."
Ms Bhartia said, "I do not think we can achieve global prosperity or world peace unless the issues confronting South Asia are suitably addressed. In many ways, South Asia is a microcosm of the rest of the world."
She said not only South Asia was home to nearly to all of the world's great religions, "in this region, we also find conflicts whose resolution will determine the future of our world. The conflicts between old and new, between religious fundamentalism and modernity, between terrorism and civilization, between military dictatorships and civilian rule, between authoritarianism and liberalism, and between ethnicity and nationhood."
She said if the conflicts that bedevil South Asia were not resolved, the fall-out will shake the whole world. "In today's global environment, events in one part of the world can have consequences that are felt thousands of miles away. For many years, the international community ignored Afghanistan and watched silently as the Taliban destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas, persecuted women and minorities, and unleashed a reign of terror on the people of Afghanistan. That silence and that neglect were to have terrible consequences which the world recognized only when two planes hit the World Trade Centre in faraway New York."
Ms Bhartia said a terrorist movement run by an Arab, headquartered in Afghanistan and targeting the US can strike at will at anywhere in the world. And the victims could be of any nationality. "That is how interlinked the world is today. We can ignore unrest, discontentment or oppression anywhere in the world at our peril. The consequences of such neglect can explode in our own backyards."
HT Editor Vir Sanghvi, who proposed the vote of thanks, said the difference between politicians and statesmen was that while politicians thought of the next election, statesmen thought of the next century. "By that reckoning, the PM has shown his leadership. For the cause of harmonious South Asia, he has often put his career in trouble."
He said, "We will have to think beyond Pakistan, of other countries in the region and how we can all work in harmony."
Ms Bhartia presented a memento and a portrait of Vajpayee drawn by HT cartoonist Sudhir Tailang to the PM.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_493...01300680000.htm
dear sir, is it open for all <!--emo&  --><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Another joke
<b>Sonia for regional parliament to reap peace dividend </b>
HT Correspondent
New Delhi, December 12
Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday mooted the idea of a South Asian parliament that would debate issues of regional concern and importance.
âSuch a body could expand the perspective on South Asia among all our countries,â Sonia said, while delivering the keynote speech on India's roadmap for peace at the second session of the Hindustan Times Leadership Initiative on âPeace Dividend: Progress for India and South Asiaâ meet.
Sonia dealt with the crucial challenges that confront South Asia. In this connection, she said India had to remain an exemplar of an open, liberal, pluralistic democracy, committed to secular values. She said India would have to fight religious fundamentalism of all kinds and preserve its composite heritage.
âWe must fight those forces that seek to use regional tensions to polarise our own society,â Sonia said. âThe fundamental task we face is to create an all-inclusive social architecture in which there is no place for bigotry, for intolerance, for obscurantism of any kind.â
Our social systems, she said, were too fissured, resulting in a growing feeling of alienation. As a result, violence had become endemic in many regions. To address this problem what was needed was âa determined search for the common ground, a serious pursuit of a consensus that allows us to move ahead, even while having differences,â Sonia added.
The Congress chief also said nation-states were far too centralised. âThat had logic at a particular point of time over half a century ago. Today, what we need is a multi-tiered democracy, an empowered and decentralised democracy. There is no other system which is both representative and durable, both accountable and transparent.â
Sonia quoted Jawaharlal Nehruâs answer to Andre Malraux, the renowned French writer, on what his great challenge was. Nehru had said he wanted âto build a just society by just means and to establish a secular state in a religious societyâ. And this, Sonia said, could only come about by building a representative democracy, which would result from development that was both efficient and equitable.
What the region needed was a process of globalisation that was sensitive to the fact that South Asian countries were greatly dependent on agriculture and needed to generate jobs, she said.
In her view, our economy had done well, but not well enough to deal with the problems of poverty, malnutrition, disease and unemployment.
<!--QuoteBegin-Mudy+Dec 12 2003, 04:33 PM-->QUOTE(Mudy @ Dec 12 2003, 04:33 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin--> Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday mooted the idea of a South Asian parliament that would debate issues of regional concern and importance.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I thought they called it SAARC <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Looks like someone wants to up ABVs proposal of single currency <!--emo&  --><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-Mudy+Dec 13 2003, 02:03 AM-->QUOTE(Mudy @ Dec 13 2003, 02:03 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->
In her view, our economy had done well, but not well enough to deal with the problems of poverty, malnutrition, disease and unemployment. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Viren,
A South Asian Parliament would mean another âJob Opportunitiesâ for Failed Politicians who have not been elected to their State or National Assemblies / Parliament.
Also it will create a Huge Bureaucracy ala the European Community.
Sonia said : In her view, our economy had done well, but not well enough to deal with <b>the problems of poverty, malnutrition, disease and unemployment.</b>
The cost of this new South Asian Parliament / Bureaucracy will pay for the uplift of Millions of Indians in terms of economic betterment, food, healthcare and jobs.
<span style='color:red'>SAY NO TO THE SOUTH ASIAN PARLIAMENT AND BUREAUCRACY</span>
Cheers
All these visions are nice and goody-goody but I am not sure why the PM of India is referring to the subcontinent as South Asia. Everything around us is named after India (indian Ocean, Indonesia, Indo China, the east Indies). What is the necessity of inventing a new entity called South Asia ? And if somebody invented this term , why should we give credence to it by referring to it.
(The Pioneer URL is not datestamped, so the URL will not be valid tomorrow, hence i am posting the entire article.
PM outlines S Asia vision
Pioneer News Service/ New Delhi
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has urged South Asian nations to put aside mistrust and work for mutual security cooperation, open borders and even a single currency in the long run. Calling for a joint effort to tackle trans-border crimes to promote peace and harmony in the region, Mr Vajpayee cited the growing people-to-people contact as a reflection of "intense desire for amity and goodwill", and said the demands of globalisation and aspirations of people provided the objective basis for energetic pursuit of a "harmoniously integrated South Asia. The Prime Minister was inaugurating a two-day conference organised by the Hindustan Times on "Peace Dividend - Progress for India and South Asia."
Those attending the two-day meet include Congress president Sonia Gandhi, former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, President, Council on Foreign Relations, New York, Richard Haass, Francis Fukuyama of Johns Hopkins University, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, Reliance Industries Vice-Chairman Anil Ambani, and former RBI Governor Bimal Jalan.
Pointing out that South Asian countries have waited for over half-a-century for fulfilment of "unexploited potential in their own neighbourhood", Mr Vajpayee said they were now impatient to move forward. "We can sense this impatience in the outpouring of popular sentiment after our initiatives. The increased travel between India and Pakistan of parliamentarians, businessmen, artists and sportsmen shows the intense desire for amity and goodwill. We have to respond to this desire by seeking every possible way to banish hostility and promote peace," he said.
Hindustan Times Vice-Chairperson and Editorial Director Shobhana Bhartia said the meet was an effort to create greater understanding and to resolve conflict in the South Asia region. South Asia matters because whatever happens in the region has consequences for the entire world, she said.
Noting that the conference was taking place ahead of the next month's SAARC Summit in Islamabad, the Prime Minister asked the delegates to discuss ideas on economic, strategic and geopolitical future of India and South Asia.
Calling for better understanding between SAARC nations, he said: "We can put aside mistrust and dispel unwarranted suspicions. We'll also develop mutual sensitivity to each others' concerns and promote more of our common interests."
Mr Vajpayee said if the SAARC countries - India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Maldives - provide legitimate avenues of free commercial interaction, they could eradicate black market and underground trade.
"We could jointly tackle smuggling, drug-trafficking, money-laundering and other trans-national crimes, which today flourish in our region because of our mutual rivalries and inadequate coordination. Once we reach that stage, we would not be far from mutual security cooperation, open borders and even a single currency," he said. The Prime Minister recalled that the world did not anticipate the sudden end to the Cold War or the collapse of the Berlin Wall and that no-one thought apartheid tainted South Africa could be transformed bloodlessly into Mandela's 'Rainbow Country'.
Not many political analysts would have predicted that the hostile suspicion between Russia and China could be converted in such a short time into a strategic partnership, the Prime Minister said. "Each one of these developments flows from objective factors in the global environment, but actually occurred because of some enlightened and responsible decisions by people at the helm of affairs," he said.
Looking back objectively at the freedom struggles and nation-building experiences in South Asia, the Prime Minister said, "Whenever we have dissipated our energies in internal squabbling, external forces have come in to sort out our differences and stayed on to exploit our resources. We should never create the possibility of reliving these historical experiences in new forms and on different fronts." Mr Vajpayee outlined eight strong points of South Asia to realise the full potential of the tremendous opportunities to its advantage, including rich and varied human resources, a population younger than the world average, growing knowledge economies and increasing purchasing power of the collective market.
Mr Vajpayee said other complementary strengths of the regions were efficient exploitation of synergies to enhance intra-regional trade, the massive untapped capacities for hydropower and unexploited hydrocarbons, rich diversity of bio-resources and combined political weight and economic strength that could give considerable leverage in pursuing the objective of a cooperative multipolar world order.
Discarding the myth that because of asymmetries in economies, smaller countries did not benefit from closer economic integration within South Asia, the Prime Minister said free trade agreements (FTA) with Nepal and Sri Lanka had resulted in narrowing the trade deficit of both these countries with India.
In fact, the success of the India-Sri Lanka FTA had inspired the two countries to expand their scope to cover services and investment in a comprehensive economic partnership agreement, he said, while giving examples of possibilities of cooperation between India and Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh in the energy sector.
Indo-US joint training in Leh. And now India is sending troops to Afghanistan. Could this be under the table handshake between Uncle and Tiger?
Pakistan needs to be embarrased for a simple fact, it allowed tyranny in Afghanistan for "Strategic Depth" [whatever the hell it means] to contain India[?] Well, India has just walked into Afghanistan.
What do you say Commando CEO President Saviour of Muslims BackStabber Osma Lover? [$5 for person who can identify the person with this title hahahahaha].
Gill <!--emo&:music--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/stereo.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='stereo.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&  leepy--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sleepysmileyanim.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sleepysmileyanim.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<b>Kandahar Hijacking</b>
I urge forum members to paste articles with links and all other info, pictures, views etc. hearsays, you name it, paste it here. I will download all info and back it up. I think there is another angle to this hijacking.
And besides we need to preserve this data for future generations.
Jai Hind
<b>And thank you all!</b> B)
<b>Securing South Asia </b>
By Lakshman Kadirgamar
Given its preponderance and centrality within South Asia, India may justifiably regard any alien presence or influence in the region, without its consent, as a potential threat to its security.
TODAY, ANY serious instability in a country will necessarily affect the stability of neighbouring countries. In the South Asian context, the very essence of regional security and cooperation is, first, the political will to forge a cohesive and concerted association amongst ourselves. If our regional unity is to be preserved and promoted, each regional member-state must address this core issue of political will from the standpoint of its own situation â geographical location, historical experience and chosen national aspirations. If that core issue can be addressed collectively, then the prospects of forging regional cohesion would stand greatly enhanced. Secondly, the measure of such security depends on our understanding of the intrinsic character of our region, where each stands in relation to the others, the impact upon us, severally and collectively, of the prevailing external order, and how best we should respond thereto. Thirdly, it is a shared conviction among all our political parties and throughout our citizenry in Sri Lanka that the only way to such agreement, if indeed it can ever be achieved, is to talk freely and frankly to one another, in order to minimise, hopefully eliminate, misunderstanding and develop mutual trust and confidence.
There are certain unchangeable and inescapable regional realities. The first is India's preponderance over all others in South Asia, based on size, resources, development and power, allied to influence. A second is India's unique centrality. No two others among ourselves can interact directly with each other without touching or crossing Indian land, sea or air space. Also, with each of its neighbours, India has special ties â whether of ethnicity, language, culture, kinship, common historical experience or shared access to and dependence upon vital natural resources â of a character and to a degree of intensity not shared by any two others. A third reality is the coterminality of the national borders of regional member-states with those great natural physical barriers which encompass South Asia â the Himalayas and the Indian Ocean. Probably no other region in the world presents such an integral security zone. Consider the analogy of a wheel. At its hub lies regionally preponderant India. Radiating as spokes are India's neighbours with each of whom India shares land or maritime boundaries, but no two others are thus joined without at the same time touching India also. Binding those spokes to that hub are the physical barriers that I mentioned. Recognition of this characteristic, of the security of the region being an integer, a thing complete in itself, was central to the administration of the British Raj. Given its preponderance and centrality within the region it would not be surprising, indeed it would be wholly logical, if India regards its security along similar lines. In my view, India may justifiably regard any alien presence or influence within those natural security borders, without its consent, as a potential threat to its national security.
For Sri Lanka the proximity of India, a mere short dash away by fibre glass boat with outboard motors, the "India factor", if one may so describe it, is a cardinal factor in our lives, as a nation. There is of course much more to that India factor than the proximity of neighbourliness. To begin with, there is no other neighbour equally powerful and proximal to countervail India. Then, there is India's huge advantage in the disparity of resources and global influences to which I have alluded. We have with it the widest interaction between peoples and governments. It is within its power to help or hinder us to the greatest extent. Realities may be unpleasant. But they can be faced with dignity. The old cliché remains apt; foreign policy is driven by a nation's understanding of where its self-interest lies.
In this context there are three elements of the "India factor" which vitally affect governance in Sri Lanka. First, when our domestic political and military problems descend into crisis, we would be well advised to avail ourselves of that factor: namely, of India's help in resolving any of our internal crises, as indeed major world powers have advised us publicly to do, India being indisputably the pre-eminent regional power. The second element is the Tamil connection between ourselves and Indian Tamils, principally in Tamil Nadu State. The third is what I may call the "backyard concept", that is to say Sri Lanka is India's exposed southern flank.
With regard to the second element, while the large Tamil population in south India gives India a special concern with the Sri Lanka Tamil question, let me emphasise my view, however, that to concede such a special concern is by no means to acquiesce in unwarranted Indian interference in our affairs, as such. It must, nonetheless, be recognised that, if the situation of Sri Lankan Tamils becomes seriously disadvantaged, no Indian government of the day can shut its eyes to that situation and those consequences because the "spill over" effect of those consequences on Tamil Nadu would inevitably and compulsively engage the attention of the government of that State and the Central government of the day. Hence, it is an obvious conclusion that ideally the Tamil question within our polity should be so managed as to preclude the need for Indian concern, far less involvement. However, it would be wholly unrealistic for anyone to claim that under no circumstances could India have a legitimate concern with the management of certain aspects of our internal affairs.
The third element stems from our own geographical location vis-Ã -vis India. As I said Sri Lanka is India's exposed southern flank. It thereby becomes a matter of vital concern for India as to who comes and goes, and what happens, in Sri Lanka. Given the unique character of the region which makes it an integer, in terms of security, India is likely to worry legitimately about any alien presence in Sri Lanka, worse still involvement, which precludes her. The point of interconnection is this: should, for instance, a Sri Lankan government of the day, facing an internal crisis concerning the Tamils there, be seen by India to engage the involvement, especially the military involvement, of any other regional member, far worse an outside power altogether, in its resolution, then it would be only fair to surmise that the Indian government of that day will be hard put, whatever moral underpinning is cited to the contrary, to keep its gaze firmly averted in an attitude of studied nonchalance.
If we are able to forge an effective regionalism, built upon and around the strengths of our region, and present to the demanding world beyond a cohesive and concerted collectivity, I believe the rewards would be significant for each and all of us. If we fail in that endeavour, undoubtedly some amongst us would be able to survive and even to prosper. Others, though, will stand deeply disadvantaged. For the small and weak amongst us, there can be no question but that regionalism is our future. The question which the bigger and stronger amongst us must surely address is whether or not their own future would also stand enhanced or retarded by joining with the others in that regional exercise. I believe strongly that it would be enhanced.
In 1996, the Minister of External Affairs of India, I.K. Gujral, delivered a speech at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London on the "Foreign Policy Objectives of India's United Front Government". It was a speech of majestic sweep and elegance and, above all, of almost startling candour. In a passage of enormous significance for the whole region, Mr. Gujral made exactly that commitment of political will on the part of India to mitigate the impact of the asymmetries I referred to earlier. He said that the United Front Government's neighbourhood policy stands on five basic principles: First, with the neighbours such as Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka, India does not ask for reciprocity but gives all that it can in good faith and trust. Secondly, no South Asian country should allow its territory to be used against the interest of another country of the region. Thirdly, none should interfere in the internal affairs of another. Fourthly, all South Asians must respect one another's territorial integrity and sovereignty. And finally, they should settle all their disputes through peaceful, bilateral negotiations. He felt that these five principles, scrupulously observed, would recast South Asia's regional relationships, including the tormented relationship between India and Pakistan, in a friendly, cooperative mould.
Early this year, Yashwant Sinha, India's Minister of External Affairs, had endorsed the foregoing principles, thus giving them extended bipartisan validity. In my opinion, each of those five propositions is intrinsically sound. Each is capable of implementation. Taken collectively, they constitute a practical and principled foundation for regional cooperation and security. In the Krishna Menon Memorial Centenary lecture of 1996, delivered when I was the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sri Lanka, I endorsed those propositions without reservation, and I added that if India is generous there should be amongst the rest of us matching appreciation and abiding concern for India's security. Seven years later, I wish to endorse those propositions.
(The writer is Sri Lanka's former Minister of Foreign Affairs.)
Wasn't this 'Buger' fellow killed or captured during the 12/13 Parliment attack?
Al<b>-Qaeda hails '99 hijack of Indian Airlines plane </b>
New Delhi: An document reported to be from al-Qaeda has hailed the 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane by Kashmiri militants as a "successful operation" from which other guerrillas can learn lessons.
The plane was hijacked after it left the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu, en route to New Delhi on December 24, 1999, and later landed in the Afghan city of Kandahar.
After a week of tough negotiations, the government met the hijackers' demands and released three militants from a prison in Kashmir in exchange for the passengers and crew.
"The hijackers were clearly able to to lend greater prominence to their cause," the document, translated from a pro-Qaeda Arabic website Al-Palsam said.
"The whole world began to deal with the Kashmir issue anew and according to a new perspective."
One of the militants freed was Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who in 2002 was sentenced to death by a Pakistani court for kidnapping and murdering Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
One passenger was stabbed to death by the hijackers. The document added that the Indian authorities were "afflicted with broken spiritedness, submissiveness and grovelling as they carried out the demands of the Mujahideen in front of the whole world."
It said the operation should be studied "in order to derive lessons and insights from which Mujahideen can benefit."
The document said the "greatest success in the matter was the speed of decision-making and resoluteness in the event when the Indian forces delayed in supplying fuel."
After leaving Kathmandu, the aircraft landed in Amritsar for refuelling. But even before the fuel truck could reach the plane, the hijackers forced the pilot to take off, fearing a rescue operation by Indian commandos.
did anybody see the movie Zameen !
Talk about innovative ideas !
http://www.sulekha.com/redirectnh.asp?cid=327892
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodna...e=manipur&sid=1
A Million Mutinies Now
Manipur - the only state in India's insurgency-wracked Northeast where a state police force had mutinied in recent years - is virtually under siege, as heavily armed rebels escalate their campaigns of intimidation and violence.
WASBIR HUSSAIN
Manipur is virtually under siege, as heavily armed rebels escalate their campaigns of intimidation and violence. During the past fortnight, rebels have announced the award of 'capital punishment' to a Lok Sabha Member of Parliament (MP) from the state; bombed the residence of a minister; ambushed a Superintendent of Police who was on patrol on a road over which the state Chief Minister was to pass; and accused a minister and his brother of swindling government development funds to the tune of Rs. 1.5 million.
The rebels' sway in this frontier state of 2.3 million people can be gauged from the fact that as many as five insurgent groups active in the Imphal Valley, dominated by the majority Meitei community, are in the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs' (MHA) list of proscribed organizations under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA): the Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP), Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL), People's Liberation Army (PLA), People's Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK), and the United National Liberation Front (UNLF). Besides, at least nine other rebel groups are active in Manipur, making the state Northeast India's rebel heartland.
The turn of events in the past few weeks has reinforced the near total collapse of state authority in Manipur. Thounaojam Chaoba Singh, Lok Sabha MP and the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Manipur unit president, was awarded the 'death sentence' by the KYKL for his alleged 'activities' against the rebel group during the 1999 parliamentary election campaign. On January 29, 2004, the KYKL asked the state BJP to expel Singh by February 15 or be prepared to 'face action.'
Singh's response to the rebel move was both surprising and representative of the general state of insecurity in the state. He went public to seek 'pardon' from the KYKL and urged the rebel group to 'reconsider its decision' on the award of 'capital punishment.' According to media reports, he urged the KYKL 'to excuse him for any incident that had taken place before the 1999 Lok Sabha elections, which might have caused harm or hurt the sentiments of the KYKL.' While seeking pardon, Singh, however, made it clear that other party leaders in the state had no powers to remove him from the post of the state BJP president, and that they were all 'innocent.'
The very fact that Singh, despite being an MP from the BJP that heads Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's ruling coalition at Delhi, had chosen to assuage the 'hurt feelings' of a rebel group by seeking forgiveness, goes to indicate that a vast section of people who matter in Manipur have no faith in the capabilities of the state government to protect their lives.
On its part, the beleaguered state Police hurriedly put in place some additional security cover around Singh and advised him against avoidable public appearances. The MHA, according to the state's acting police chief, C. Peter, had sent in express instructions to the Manipur government to provide Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) cover to the BJP MP, a directive that has been complied with. Bhorot Singh and three other BJP MLAs in the state have also been provided extra security guards. Such steps are, of course, routine precautionary measures that the authorities draw up from time to time, and would be normal under circumstances of an enhanced threat perception.
That the rebels increasingly call the shots in the state is illustrated further in an unprecedented event in August 2003, when a top Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, I. S. Laishram, then the state's Revenue Commissioner, surrendered himself to the KYKL. The outfit had asked Laishram to surrender by September 10, 2003, and face 'trial' for alleged corruption during his tenure as Education Commissioner. Earlier, in March 2003, suspected Kuki rebels waylaid the two-vehicle convoy of Chandel Deputy Commissioner T.K. Singh and kidnapped him after disarming his eight security guards without any resistance.
On February 15, 2004, suspected UNLF rebels attacked the residence of Food and Civil Supplies Minister Ph Parijat Singh in Imphal, the state capital. No one was injured as the grenade failed to explode. Parijat Singh later claimed that the UNLF had demanded Rs. three million from him. Manipur's acting police chief Peter told this writer that the UNLF has sought between Rs. Two and Three million from some ministers in the state. Rebels making extortion demands on ministers and the ministers themselves admitting to having received such demands are unheard of in the rest of India.
Groups like the KYKL, formed in 1994 with an aim, among other things, of purging Manipuri society of its evils, including the drug menace, have succeeded in securing the confidence of sections within the state's civilian population largely because of the prevailing corruption in the government machinery and the lack of direction in the state due to political instability. The PLA has similarly embarked on moves to clamp down on corruption and other social ills. The masses appear to be fed up with the absence of good governance and lend tacit support to the rebels' action against those accused of corruption.
The government too takes the rebel charges seriously. On February 18, 2004, the outlawed PLA charged state Family Welfare Minister Bijoy Koijam and his younger brother of swindling Rs. 1.5 million out of funds allocated by the federal government for some population control schemes. Within less than 24 hours, Manipur Chief Minister O. Ibobi Singh convened an emergency meeting of his Cabinet and directed the Chief Secretary, the highest-ranking bureaucrat in the state administration, to conduct a probe to ascertain the truth.
A weak and seemingly apathetic police force, crippled by political interference, is another reason for this state of affairs. The inability of the state Police to nab the culprit behind the killing of eight-year-old Elizabeth Lungnila, daughter of Francis Ngazokpa, a minister in the Ibobi Cabinet, in November 2003, is a case in point. Ultimately, it were the rebels of the Isak-Muivah faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN-IM), another rebel group operating in the Naga-inhabited hill areas of Manipur, who captured the main accused and is currently threatening to announce a verdict on him in accordance with the Naga customary laws!
In fact, Manipur is the only state in India's insurgency-wracked Northeast where a state police force had mutinied in recent years. In December 2000, an estimated 1,000 personnel belonging to the Manipur Rifles staged a 'guns down' stir to press the state government to clear their arrears in their salaries. Manipur's then Police Chief, S. Grewal, is on record stating that the agitation by the Manipur Rifles had affected anti-insurgency operations in the state. The Manipur Rifles personnel, the backbone of the state's law and order machinery, have been demanding outstanding arrears of salary, due to them since 1996, leading to the unprecedented 'guns down' protest in 2000.
It is not surprising that Chief Minister Ibobi Singh cannot easily leave his base in Imphal these days. For instance, he did not attend a crucial meeting of the North Eastern Council (NEC), the regional planning body, at Shillong, capital of Meghalaya, last week. His government was engaged in putting fire-fighting measures in place to get some respite from the rampaging insurgents, who, unlike many of their counterparts in the Northeast, are far from ready to talk peace.
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Wasbir Hussain is Associate Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management, New Delhi; Consulting Editor, The Sentinel, Guwahati. Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the South Asia Terrorism Portal
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