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EDITORIALS

Isolate militants
Punjab can’t afford to relive the past
A
N alarming aspect of the ugly goings-on in Punjab vis-à-vis Dera Sacha Sauda and the Sikhs is the rise of the militant voice. In fact, there is every reason to suspect that the hardliners on both sides are trying hard to hijack the agitation. It is they who are baying for blood and are making resolution of the problem increasingly difficult. 

End of Blair
Britannia waives the rules
T
ONY BLAIR has made sure that his leaving of office will be no less talked about than his long years as the longest-serving British Prime Minister. In a country with a tradition for swift electoral transitions, the non-electoral transfer of power to Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown — who has won a landslide endorsement in the Labour Party — is, perhaps, the most protracted in recent British history. 



EARLIER STORIES

Peace must prevail
May 18, 2007
No Maya this
May 17, 2007
Attack on liberalism
May 16, 2007
Wheat imports again
May 15, 2007
Killings in Karachi
May 14, 2007
Polity under strain
May 13, 2007
Maya wave
May 12, 2007
Father and sons
May 11, 2007
Beginning of end
May 10, 2007
General unrest
May 9, 2007
Sheer patronage
May 8, 2007


Visa power
HI-B input enriches US economy
T
HE US gives 65,000 H1-B visas every year and this enables highly skilled international workers, around half of them Indian, to legally live and work there. Now, two US Senators, Charles Grassley and Richard Durbin, have asked nine prominent IT companies, including Infosys Technologies, Wipro Ltd, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, and Satyam Computer Services Ltd to give details of their employees who have been granted the H1-B visa.

ARTICLE

Examples of realpolitik
Lesson N-deal opponents need to learn
by K. Subrahmanyam
Last
week two events of significance attracted the attention of the whole country. First, the BSP leader Mayawati organised a multi-caste and multi-community coalition and won the UP elections with an absolute majority. That move involved her being able to win the support of Brahmins, other so-called upper castes and the Muslims. She was able to assess the current situation correctly and was not swayed by the traditional wisdom of political pundits.

 
MIDDLE

UPA campaign
by Vikramdeep Johal
M
or no more, kabootar will soar” — This is the slogan coined by the United Pigeon Aficionados. The organisation’s mission is to secure for the pigeon the status of India’s national bird. Its members claim that their feathered favourite is present virtually everywhere in the country, while the peacock is rarely sighted nowadays (thanks to rampant poaching).

 
OPED

India’s n-powered submarine project moves ahead
by Rahul Bedi
India’s
decades-old super secret nuclear-powered submarine (SSN) programme, known as the advanced technology vessel (ATV), is expected to get a new head over the next few months.Vice Admiral A.K. Singh, who retired recently as the Eastern Fleet Commander, is likely to succeed former Vice Admiral P.C. Bhasin as director general (DG) of the classified ATV project, said highly placed officials who did not want to be named.

Second gunman in Kennedy assassination?
by Andrew Buncombe
Washington
— MORE THAN forty years after he was fatally shot in Dallas, researchers have added fresh fuel to the speculation over who was involved in the assassination of President John F Kennedy by claiming the original bullet analysis was flawed and cannot rule out that a second gunman was involved.

Inside Pakistan
Dance of death in Karachi
by Syed Nooruzzaman
Most
Pakistanis are dazed after having seen on their television screens the dance of death in Karachi on May 12. They could not believe the total breakdown of the law and order machinery on that black Saturday. A vigilant administration should have made elaborate security arrangements in view of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) having announced a rally to counter the one organised by lawyers and others, which was to be addressed by suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

  • Fascists run amok

  • Cornered Musharraf

 
 REFLECTIONS

 

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Isolate militants
Punjab can’t afford to relive the past

AN alarming aspect of the ugly goings-on in Punjab vis-à-vis Dera Sacha Sauda and the Sikhs is the rise of the militant voice. In fact, there is every reason to suspect that the hardliners on both sides are trying hard to hijack the agitation. It is they who are baying for blood and are making resolution of the problem increasingly difficult. Even in the high-pitched war cry from both sides could be discerned the voice of the militant, be it in eulogising the fallen icons of militancy or questioning the authority of the established leaders of the community, one of whom was manhandled at Talwandi Sabo on Thursday. They find the vitiated atmosphere so congenial that they make bold to garland the statue of a leader, who helped contain militancy in the state, with pictures of his assassin. The manner in which they are emerging out of the woodworks to cash in on the unrest is indeed a matter of grave concern.

Those who experienced the rigours of militancy in Punjab, from which the state is yet to come out fully, know only too well that it all began with a fight between the Sikhs and the Nirankaris. Small wonder that the militants, who at one time called the shots in Punjab and who have subsequently been discarded by the people because of their self-serving nature, find in the fight between the Dera and the Sikhs an opportunity to fish in troubled water. To allow them to succeed in the nefarious game is to allow the return of the gun-wielders who made life a nightmarish experience for the ordinary people. They can be expected to do everything possible to fan the fires of conflict and thereby subserve their vested interests.

All political parties, social organisations and religious groups have to be conscious of the dangers of allowing the hardliners to exploit the situation to their advantage. They need to be isolated and dealt with so severely that they are unable to cause any damage to the social, political and religious fabric of Punjab. Militancy is a hydra-headed monster that can strike anywhere when it finds the situation favourable to it. The government cannot shy away from its responsibility of crushing it with all the might at its command. This also means that the government will make an earnest attempt to find an immediate settlement of the quasi-religious, quasi-political dispute in the best interest of peace in Punjab.
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End of Blair
Britannia waives the rules

TONY BLAIR has made sure that his leaving of office will be no less talked about than his long years as the longest-serving British Prime Minister. In a country with a tradition for swift electoral transitions, the non-electoral transfer of power to Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown — who has won a landslide endorsement in the Labour Party — is, perhaps, the most protracted in recent British history. Mr Blair may have won three elections in his time, but between his going and Mr Brown’s moving in, for all practical purposes, Britain has to make do with what is akin to a caretaker government.

This is not the only distinction, dubious or otherwise, that marks Mr Blair’s career, who was the first one in office to become a father. And, true to form, he governed with stern, paternal messianism, convinced that he is answerable only to his conscience and to God for his conduct of earthly affairs of state — as he said, in 2003, on Britain’s role in the Iraq war. This was his way of defending the indefensible, and disastrous, “foreign” policy he pursued: alienating Europe, soldiering on in Iraq and Afghanistan, winning enemies in West Asia and pursuing a policy that was truly “foreign” for its being crafted in Washington.

Though ‘New Labour’ ably served the global neoconservative agenda and Mr Blair is seen as Margaret Thatcher’s heir, he was not the milk-snatcher in domestic affairs. On the contrary, his social, education and health policies embraced the poor. He introduced the minimum wage and, at the same time, succeeded in boosting the British economy, though these did not add to his political support at home. In fact, Mr Blair lost the trust of the British people, which Mr Brown will have to make a great effort to win back for Labour. One other first in office, which Mr Blair may not want to remember, is being questioned by the police in the loans-for-peerages scandal. In New Britain this is par for the course, for when Britannia stopped ruling the waves, it started waiving the rules.
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Visa power
HI-B input enriches US economy

THE US gives 65,000 H1-B visas every year and this enables highly skilled international workers, around half of them Indian, to legally live and work there. Now, two US Senators, Charles Grassley and Richard Durbin, have asked nine prominent IT companies, including Infosys Technologies, Wipro Ltd, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, and Satyam Computer Services Ltd to give details of their employees who have been granted the H1-B visa.

The Senators have acted on the basis of a study that maintains that Indians working in the US temporarily get nearly $13,000 a year less than their American counterparts, whereas legally, H1-B visa holders should be paid the same salaries as American workers. The companies have angrily refuted charges and NASSCOM maintains that work permits are only a tool to facilitate trade and they are not related to immigration, a stand echoed by Minister for Commerce and Industry Kamal Nath, who also said that he would bring up the issue at a forthcoming WTO meeting.

There is broad agreement in the US Senate on a comprehensive immigration reform legislation that not only deals with an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in America but also seeks to increase the H1-B visa allocation from the current 65,000 to 115,000 annually. However, this is just the beginning of a complicated and lengthy process. The American industry needs to import skilled foreign workers and the US Administration realises this. However, foreign workers in the US are an emotional issue for many Americans. Prompted by concerns of their voters, who protest against immigration, both legal and illegal, and a certain degree of jingoism, some US lawmakers have thwarted efforts aimed at reforming the immigration laws. This letter by the US Senators has to be seen in the context of US domestic politics. In the new globalised world, skilled foreign workers are an asset which even developed economies can ill afford to lose.
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Thought for the day

What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies. — Aristotle
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Examples of realpolitik
Lesson N-deal opponents need to learn
by K. Subrahmanyam

Last week two events of significance attracted the attention of the whole country. First, the BSP leader Mayawati organised a multi-caste and multi-community coalition and won the UP elections with an absolute majority. That move involved her being able to win the support of Brahmins, other so-called upper castes and the Muslims. She was able to assess the current situation correctly and was not swayed by the traditional wisdom of political pundits. She took note of increasing urbanisation and the consequent decline in the caste and communal factors.

Better enforcement of law and order by the Election Commission and the consequent absence of rigging and intimidation also helped. Empowerment of the so-called other backward classes and its impact on underprivileged classes and upper castes were there. Mutuality of interests among various caste and communal groupings brought them together in a rainbow coalition under Ms Mayawati’s leadership. All other major parties continued to go by traditional wisdom and took no note of these factors.

Many pundits asserted that there would be great impact on the Muslim votes on account of the developments in Iraq and Iran and enhancement of Indo-US relations. Ms Mayawati did not at all worry about this factor.

Apart from assessing the situation correctly, Ms Mayawati also reached out to other sections of society which were hitherto considered adversaries of dalits. She accommodated the leaderships of Brahmins and Muslims under her overall leadership and permitted them visible roles. She did not allow her past prejudices and quarrels to come in the way of building an election-winning coalition. This is realpolitik at its best. Now she is talking of reaching Delhi. If she continues to be smart as she has been in this election and others continue to be traditionally conservative and inflexible, there is no predicting whether she will not succeed in her ambition.

Mr Karunanidhi’s is the second case in outstanding success in realpolitik. In 1976 his government in Tamil Nadu was dismissed and President’s rule was imposed. One of the charges against him was that he was hailed as Sheikh Mujibur Rahman of Tamil Nadu at a DMK conference in Coimbatore. criminal cases were launched against him. In 1998, the United Front government was pulled down on the ground that the Jain Commission recorded some allegations like the DMK government’s support to LTTE activities during the time of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination.

Mr Karunanidhi and the DMK did not declare war on the Congress. They were part of the NDA under Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee. They, however, responded positively to the overtures of the Congress to join a coalition with them to fight the NDA and particularly Ms Jayalalithaa’s ADMK.

Today Dr Manmohan Singh and Ms Sonia Gandhi praise Mr Karunanidhi’s services to India and hail him as an architect of the UPA. They acknowledge that they have shared values. There was a time when the DMK was a secessionist party, burnt the Indian Constitution and denounced North Indian domination over the South. E V Ramaswami Naicker, the Periyar and the ideologue of the Dravidian movement used to talk of the North flourishing and the South declining, and of mega projects like Bhakra- Nangal being built in the North and the South being mollified with only Sakkarapongal (sweet rice dish). In Tamil that rhymed with Bhakra-Nangal). Today Mr Karunanidhi acknowledges that Tamils have done very well as part of the Indian Union.

These successful examples of realpolitik have valuable lessons for Indian foreign policy and particularly India’s relationship with the US and development of nuclear and technology policy with the international nuclear and technological regime. India can adopt a policy of confrontation with the rest of the world, reject the moves of the international community to co-opt India into the international regime both for their own benefit and India’s and continue to wallow in nuclear and high technology untouchability.

In the alternative, India can assess carefully the radical changes taking place in the globalising international economy and exploit that environment to its maximum advantage. Traditionalists advocate the confrontationist path as the so-called revolutionaries used to do rejecting Gandhian strategy . Ambedkar and many Dalit leaders cooperated with the mainstream communities to advance the interests of their community. That in turn produced a Mayawati who is able to mobilise even the upper castes under her leadership, all due to her own efforts.

Those who denounce India initiating nuclear cooperation with the international community have no alternatives to propose to advance Indian interests and capabilities. The nuclear hardliners have offered no strategy for advancing Indian nuclear programme without international cooperation. There is no assessment of an Indian nuclear strategy if India does not join the international community in a world which will start a massive programme of nuclear reactor building under the global nuclear energy programme. What are the plans to deal with carbon emissions when India continues to be subjected to technological untouchability?

Those who are today writing the epitaph of the Indo-US nuclear deal are like the political pundits and psephologists who were absolutely sure of a hung UP Assembly. They just have not got their facts on the changing international situation right. Those who talk of lessons of Tarapur are like those who talked of the millennia-old strained relations between upper castes and Dalits. It would also be useful to bear in mind that one of the valuable lessons of Tarapur was our inability to find local technological solutions to fuel the Tarapur reactor with mixed oxide fuel as it was earlier expected.

Those who are in favour of a confrontational approach to India joining the international community on technology globalisation have an exaggerated view of US power and a very poor opinion of India’s status, role and bargaining power in the world. They do not have an adequate appreciation that a poor developing country has to advance to the frontline status in the comity of powers in stages and through advantageous partnerships with other nations.

Patience, skilful diplomatic manoeuvres, recognising and exploiting opportunities, not alienating other powers unnecessarily and enhancing continuously one’s own bargaining leverage constitute successful realpolitik as demonstrated by Ms Mayawati and Mr Karunanidhi.

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UPA campaign
by Vikramdeep Johal

Mor no more, kabootar will soar” — This is the slogan coined by the United Pigeon Aficionados. The organisation’s mission is to secure for the pigeon the status of India’s national bird. Its members claim that their feathered favourite is present virtually everywhere in the country, while the peacock is rarely sighted nowadays (thanks to rampant poaching).

The UPA further argues that the bird should get its due since the selfless service of some MPs has turned kabootarbaazi into an honourable and charitable venture. Hats off to these do-gooders, who don’t even mind becoming jailbirds to ensure a hassle-free passage for aspiring emigrants. For the latter, it’s a dream come true to fly away — like the pigeon, obviously — in search of greener pastures (the journey often turns out to be a hell of a nightmare, but that’s quite another matter).

The NGO’s trump card is the white dove, well known worldwide as a symbol of peace. Apparently, there is no greater peace-loving nation than India, the land of Mahatma Gandhi. Indians are so obsessed with shanti that they resort to anything for its sake — murder, riots, terrorism, nuclear armament. Their ultimate objective is to make sure that their enemy — real or imaginary — rests in peace.

This might be the Net age, yet the UPA is communicating entirely through a flock of experienced carrier pigeons. Incidentally, these birds served the Orissa Police with distinction during natural calamities, only to be unceremoniously sacked a few years ago to make way for hi-tech equipment. Of late, they have shown their resentment by conducting air raids and bombarding cops with their droppings.

Shirtless wonder Salman Khan, who took the bird’s help to send love messages in “Maine Pyar Kiya”, has been roped in as a star campaigner. It’s rumoured that in an upcoming multi-crore ad, Sallu will shed all his clothes and cover himself up only with kabootar feathers. Don’t be surprised if this ad sets Kat(rina) among the pigeons!

An added attraction is cricket legend Glenn “Pigeon” McGrath, who toured India to do his bit for the campaign. Inspired by the Brett Lee-Asha Bhosle duet, the fiery Aussie will team up with comedian Gurpreet Ghuggi to sing a Punjabi number in praise of the bird. Let’s hope that McGrath’s Punjabi would be better than Lee’s Hindi.

In case all its efforts prove futile, the UPA will request the ruling United Progressive Alliance led by Sonia Gandhi to fulfil its demand as a special favour. After all, isn’t it a wonderful coincidence that both bodies have the same acronym?
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India’s n-powered submarine project moves ahead
by Rahul Bedi 

India may lease Russian Akula class nuclear submarines – Pic: www.fas.org
India may lease Russian Akula class nuclear submarines – Pic: www.fas.org

India’s decades-old super secret nuclear-powered submarine (SSN) programme, known as the advanced technology vessel (ATV), is expected to get a new head over the next few months.

Vice Admiral A.K. Singh, who retired recently as the Eastern Fleet Commander, is likely to succeed former Vice Admiral P.C. Bhasin as director general (DG) of the classified ATV project, said highly placed officials who did not want to be named.

For many years the ATV project, which is directly under the prime minister’s oversight, has been headed by retired naval officers, making it easier for the Indian Navy to deny all knowledge of it.

Singh, a submariner who also headed India’s only tri-service Andaman and Nicobar command and the Coast Guard, will in all likelihood oversee the ATV’s projected commissioning that is expected around 2011-12 following sea trials projected to begin some two years earlier, sources said.

The retired admiral also commanded INS Chakra, the former Soviet Charlie-I class SSN that the navy leased for three years till 1991 to gain operational experience with nuclear powered submarines.

Around three years ago Admiral Bhasin, former chief of materials, succeeded Vice Adm R.N. Ganesh as the ATV’s DG. Admiral Ganesh like Adm Singh also commanded INS Chakra.

More recently, however, senior officials, including military officers have tacitly acknowledged the ATV’s existence.

Periodically the officials have made oblique references to the secret programme that is being undertaken at Visakhapatnam under the joint supervision of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) since 1976, two years after the country conducted its first underground atomic test. Indian defence and atomic scientists, meanwhile, claim to have successfully developed the ATV’s reactor.

Official sources said the 100 MW reactor developed jointly by the DAE, DRDO and the navy that went critical in October 2004 at Kalpakkam near Chennai, was now ‘fully operational’. A miniaturised version is under construction for integration into the ATV at Visakhapatnam.

In July 2006, former defence minister Pranab Mukherjee inspected the ATV’s reactor project while participating in the 20th anniversary celebrations of the commissioning of the Fast Breeder Test Reactor at Kalpakkam. Earlier, in October 2004, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had visited the ATV facility when he launched the construction of the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor.

The Proto-type Testing Centre at Kalpakkam will be used to test the submarine’s turbines and propellers whilst a similar facility at Visakhapatnam will run trials on its main turbines and gearbox, defence sources said.

Officials familiar with the ATV project said the highly enriched uranium fuel for the reactor had been supplied by the Rare Materials Project (RMP), Ratnahalli near Mysore in the south. The four to five years’ delay in the reactor reaching criticality was due to the extended time taken by RMP to produce an adequate quantity of uranium, they claimed.

While many components of the reactor like the steam-generator and the control rod mechanism had been fabricated in the country, senior naval sources said Moscow had reportedly helped Indian scientists overcome technical hurdles.

This included ‘assistance’ not only in designing the ATV’s reactor but also ‘guidelines’ in eventually mating it with the SSN’s hull. Officials from both sides deny all such collaboration.

Based on the Soviet SSN of the 670A Skat series (NATO classification: Charlie I class)- the 124 m long 4000 ton ATV is expected to be launched by next year and be ready for sea trials by 2009-10 over a decade behind schedule. Commissioning will follow thereafter.

The involvement of Mumbai-based private defence contractor Larsen & Toubro (L&T) that began in 2001 helped kick-start the stalled ATV project.

L&T was awarded the contract to build the SSN’s hull (code named P 4102) at its Hazira dockyard facility in Gujarat and had already floated sections of it on a barge to Visakhapatnam giving fillip to the hitherto moribund programme.

In a related development the navy also plans on leasing – and eventually purchasing – two Russian Project 971 Akula-class (Bars) SSN’s for an unspecified period for around $ 700 million each with the option of acquiring a third similar boat.

And though Delhi and Moscow deny the lease arrangement, recent reports from Moscow quoting senior Russian Navy officers state that SSN Nerpa, which is being readied for sea trials, is one of the two nuclear submarines that will eventually be leased to India. Official sources said an Indian Navy crew is presently in Russia ‘familiarising’ itself with the SSN prior to its arrival in India sometime next year.

By arrangement with Indo-Asian News Service
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Second gunman in Kennedy assassination?
by Andrew Buncombe

Washington — MORE THAN forty years after he was fatally shot in Dallas, researchers have added fresh fuel to the speculation over who was involved in the assassination of President John F Kennedy by claiming the original bullet analysis was flawed and cannot rule out that a second gunman was involved.

Using new scientific techniques not available to previous researchers and analysing bullets from the same batch purportedly used by gunman Lee Harvey Oswald, the team has argued it cannot be assumed that Oswald was the only assassin involved. While they do not claim evidence to prove a second gunman participated, they say the original fragments of the bullets recovered from the scene of the shooting should be reexamined.

“Given the significance and impact of the JFK assassination, it is scientifically desirable for the evidentiary fragments to be reanalysed,” the researchers write in a scientific journal, the Annals of Applied Statistics.

Kennedy, the 35th US president, was fatally shot as his motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in Dallas on November 22, 1963. The official Warren Commission that investigated the killing concluded the following year the president had been killed by two of three shots fired by Oswald – his first shot having missed – from the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository.

The second shot – the so-called magic bullet – struck Kennedy in the back and exited through his neck before striking Texas Governor John Connally, who was travelling in the same limousine. The third shot hit Kennedy in the head and killed him.

Despite the official conclusion that Oswald acted alone there has been endless speculation other gunmen participated in the killing and that the authorities sought to cover up their participation. Grainy photographs taken that day and footage from the famous Zapruder film are examined for other possible assassins standing on the grassy knoll or else behind the white picket fence – locations surrounding Dealey Plaza that have entered conspiratorial lore. The team of researchers arguing that five fragments of bullet recovered from Dealey Plaza be reexamined include William Tobin, the FBI’s former chief metallurgy analyst who examined evidence from cases such as the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 1996 bombing of TWA Flight 800.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that after he retired, Mr Tobin drew national attention by questioning the FBI’s methods of matching bullets to suspects based on their lead content. As a result of his questions, the bureau switched its methods.

The original analysis, based on lead content, concluded the five fragments came from just two bullets, traced to the same batch that Oswald bought. Mr Tobin and his colleagues purchased bullets from the same batch owned by Oswald -- available on the internet as collectors’ items -- and used new techniques to analyse them. They found the science and statistical assumptions used by the original examination to conclude the fragments were from just two bullets was wrong.

“This finding means that the bullet fragments from the assassination that match could have come from three or more separate bullets,” the researchers write. “If the assassination fragments are derived from three or more separate bullets than a second assassin is likely.”

Conspiracists have received support from many areas, not least Oswald’s background as a visitor to the Soviet Union and his interest in Cuba. The fact that he himself was shot just days after the assassination by a man with low-level links to the mafia - and who himself died soon afterwards from cancer – have only added to speculation. A 1979 report by the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded it was likely Oswald acted as part of a conspiracy and that a second gunman likely fired at Kennedy but missed.

But for each point raised by the conspiracists, others have been able to offer a rebuttal. Just last month, former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi published an exhaustive 2,792 page book, Reclaiming History, that also concludes Oswald acted alone and seeks to knock down most, if not all, the surviving conspiracies.

The Theories:

1. Kennedy was killed by Cuban agents in retaliation for the Bay of Pigs invasion.

2. Four gunmen killed Kennedy but Oswald was not among them and knew nothing of the plot – a theory expounded Ron Rice, a member of staff at Dallas’s Conspiracy Museum.

3. Vice President Lyndon Johnson, who then became president, arranged for the assassination – a theory outlined in a book by Barr McClellan, father of President Bush’s former spokesman Scott McClellan 4. A second gunman was involved in the killing, a popular theory given even more oxygen by Oliver Stone’s 1991 movie JFK which shows a puff of gunsmoke on the plaza’s grassy knoll. [Norman Mailer has also posited this theory.] 5. Kennedy’s killing was organised by the Mafia because of the increasing pressure put on them by his brother, the Attorney General, Robert Kennedy.

6. Israel organised the killing to retaliate against Kennedy’s opposition to their nuclear weapons ambitions.

By arrangement with The Independent
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Inside Pakistan
Dance of death in Karachi
by Syed Nooruzzaman

Most Pakistanis are dazed after having seen on their television screens the dance of death in Karachi on May 12. They could not believe the total breakdown of the law and order machinery on that black Saturday. A vigilant administration should have made elaborate security arrangements in view of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) having announced a rally to counter the one organised by lawyers and others, which was to be addressed by suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

The 15,000 security personnel deployed to control the situation proved to be no match to the armed activists of the ruling MQM and opposition parties. It was, therefore, not surprising that the mayhem continued for another day.

Business Recorder of May 15 says: “Who killed whom is for the investigators to determine, but what the television footage showed to the world was a real-life drama depicting a jungle of lawlessness.

“A classic case of indifference to the plight of the people was the attack on the Business Recorder-Aaj Television complex in the Guru Mandar area. For six hours, when the building was caught in crossfire between two rival groups, frantic calls were made to almost everybody and anybody who could alleviate the situation, but nothing happened and some two hundred staffers of the two organisations took cover by crawling on floors.”

Fascists run amok

In the opinion of Shireen M. Mazari, Director-General of the Islamabad-based Institute of Strategic Studies (The News, May 16), “What happened in Karachi on May 12 was the state allowing a fascist party to run amok in the country’s commercial and financial heart. For those who have seen films relating to the rise of the Nazis and read the history of that time, the similarity with the events of May 12 was frightening. The same pattern of attacks against all opponents, the media and so on. Even the tone and incantation of the MQM leader’s address from London had an eerie ring of familiarity with Hitler’s rabble-rousing speeches.”

According to Zubeida Mustafa (Dawn, May 16), “since the mid-eighties, when the MQM emerged on the scene with the army’s backing, the nature of politics in the city has radically changed. To gain supremacy here, a party must muster substantial muscle power. This phenomenon has destroyed the peace of Karachi.”

Zubeida believes that the MQM rally “was also intended to warn the other parties that they were encroaching on what the Muttahida perceives to be its own turf. No chances were to be taken. Hence the overkill in the form of blocking of routes, intimidation of the public and preventing the Chief Justice from proceeding towards the High Court.”

Cornered Musharraf

If General Pervez Musharraf appears to be bent on getting himself re-elected as President by the existing National and Provincial Assemblies before their term ends this year, he is faced with a situation which can ultimately upset his game-plan. Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad has challenged in the Supreme Court the General’s continuance as Chief of Army Staff after his attaining superannuation.

According to The Daily Times, “Qazi Hussain Ahmad has filed the petition under Article 184(3) of the Constitution, maintaining that General Musharraf attained the age of superannuation in August 2003 and should not have continued in his army job thereafter. He holds that the President has been violating the law and service rules by addressing public rallies and has sought the court to issue an order against General Musharraf’s tenure as Army Chief. One key issue relates to the oath laid down in the Constitution for military personnel, which disallows them to take part in politics.”

It is true that in May 2000, the court had justified his assumption of power on the basis of the doctrine of necessity. If the court delivers an adverse verdict, will the General accept it? If he finds an alibi to reject what the Supreme Court says, the judicial crisis, getting transformed into a “Musharraf hatao” movement, may become worse.

The court, which is in the process of disposing of the case relating to the reference of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry’s suspension to the Supreme Judicial Council, cannot be expected to oblige the ruling General under the prevailing circumstances. General Musharraf’s plan to use the current assemblies for the perpetuation of his rule should be viewed against this backdrop.

Besides taking the matter to the court, the MMA has also hinted at forcing early dissolution of the Provincial Assemblies in the NWFP and Balochistan, where it is in a position to get it done. It is, therefore, not as easy as it appears for the General to ensure his re-election as President of Pakistan.
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The fragrance of the sandal-wood provides incense, the wind the chowrise-fan; All vegetation are the flower-offerings and the uncaused celestial music becomes the temple-drums. What a wonderful form of worship this is (performed with all Nature participating in it) Of him who is the King of Light and the Destroyer
of Fear!

— Guru Nanak


Admirers praise him, but do not know the extent of his greatness; As streams and rivulets flowing into the sea do not know its depth or vastness.

— Guru Nanak
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