Rajeev's podcasts on posterous

repository for large objects

livemint: China's expanding core by Yuriko Koike

may 27th, 2012 CE

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: sanjeev 


Just because China says certain issues are core is the World expected to fall in line. That the list of core issues keeps on expanding is relevant only if the world accepts the first part.
 

China is now engaged in bitter disputes with the Philippines over Scarborough Shoal and Japan over the Senkaku Islands, both located far beyond China’s 200-mile-wide territorial waters in the South China Sea. Indeed, so expansive are China’s claims nowadays that many Asians are wondering what will satisfy China’s desire to secure its “core interests”. Are there no limits, or does today’s China conceive of itself as a restored Middle Kingdom, to whom the entire world must kowtow?

So far, China has formally referred to Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang province as “core interests”, a phrase that connotes an assertion of national sovereignty and territorial integrity that will brook no compromise. Now China is attempting to apply the same term to the Senkaku Islands in its dispute with Japan, and is perilously close to making the same claim for the entire South China Sea; indeed, some Chinese military officers already have.

Illustration by Shyamal Banerjee/Mint

The Senkaku Islands, located to the west of Okinawa in the East China Sea and currently uninhabited, were incorporated into Japan by the Meiji government in 1895. At one time, there were regular residents working at a bonito-drying facility. In 1969, the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) completed a seabed survey of the East China Sea and reported the possible presence of vast underground mineral resources, including abundant oil and natural gas reserves near the Senkakus. Two years passed before Taiwan and China claimed sovereignty over the islands, in 1971, but the Japanese government’s stance has always been that Japan’s sovereignty is not in question.

In April, Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara, a famous and articulate patriot, announced that the metropolitan government that he leads plans to acquire four of the Senkaku Islands, which are currently privately owned by Japanese citizens. Donations for the purchase from the people of Japan now exceed 700 million yen.

China reacted to Ishihara’s proposal with its usual sensitivity: it refused to receive the scheduled visit of Ishihara’s son, who is secretary general of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the country’s main opposition party.

... deleted

©2012/Project Syndicate

Yuriko Koike is Japan’s former minister of defence and national security adviser

Finding the deity everywhere and in all [pantheism being used against us?]

praxis, indeed! :-) you forgot 'trope'. i love the po-co-po-mo guys' lingo. almost indistinguishable from english. 

just like the communists' 'bourgeois' and 'revisionist' and other turgidities. these are even better in malayalam: "moorachi" sounds so... so disgusting! "thiruthal-vadi" sounds like something you want to crush under your heel.

and why is it that people can't believe i am subaltern? i am, too, dammit!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: K


Mr. Srinivasan,

As you are aware, the Pagan scriptures exhort adherents to perceive the deity everywhere and in all beings, e.g. Bhagavad-gita 5:18.

However, methinks this is a dangerous thing to do, especially if indulged in before one's notion of deity and powers of discrimination have appropriately matured and crystallized or if you happened to choose the wrong type of Ishtadevata to start with.   

Recently the Congress demonstrated the truth of my assertion by seeing their Ishtadevata - Joseph Goebbels - in others.  As you are aware, inspiration from this Ishtadevata of theirs is the reason why our students are fed the following sutras with their mother's milk, as it were:
1.  India was never a nation until Lord Mountbatten gave diksha to Nehru.
2.  All Indian children need a loving 'chacha' and that happens to be Nehru, who was allegedly immeasurably fond of the urchins.
3.  What Nehru did not discover about India is not worth discovering.
4.  The Republic of India is the 'Gift of Nehru' (with apologies to Herodotus).

After six decades of  devoted tapas and sadhana (not to mention saguNopasana and namajapa) dedicated to the aforementioned Teutonic devata, the Congress has graduated from the purely 'family-centric' stage to the 'vasudhaiva kutumbakam' stage, and the resulting enlightenment is causing it to perceive its Ishtadevata in other beings as well! 

'Incisive analysis of contemporaneous religious praxis in a subaltern mode' - don't you think?

Sincerely,


constitutional democrats (frequently friends of congress) boast about rubbing out political adversaries

may 27th, 2012 CE

a senior communist leader in kerala declared that "they have 'eliminated' political opponents in the past, and will continue to do so."

this is in the context of the murder of a dissident communist leader recently. he was hacked to death. the investigating police have caught a bunch of communists and others.

and one of these fellows was the Speaker! yup, he did uphold their best traditions by murdering democracy -- remember the 'cash-for-votes' scam that he happily swept under the carpet?

communists are honest: they despise constitutional democracy. their motto: "one man, one vote, one time".

weren't these guys the best friends of the kkkangress until recently? 

center of gravity of oil/gas shifts to the americas, away from OPEC via @chellaney

may 26th, 2012 CE

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/center-of-gravity-in-oil-world-shifts-to-americas/2012/05/25/gJQAjeuVqU_print.html

that's one way for the US to defeat the power of OPEC.

but we poor third worlders will still have to suffer from the high price of OPEC oil, whereas the US is home safe and free with shale gas and oil. and oh, US snake-oil salesmen will sell us a nuke reactor or two. (and a bridge in brooklyn too, along with weapons that they keep the keys to).

beware of yanks bearing gifts. didn't cassandra say something like that to the trojans?

nyt: Poor Calcutta [yet to recover from the ghoul-of-calcutta's propaganda]

name for m teresa courtesy christopher hitchens (what a dude he was!)

if this ghoul, in her missionary position (again thanks the hitchens) was a 'saint', then i'm the queen of england.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: sri 
Date: Sat, May 26, 2012 at 1:42 PM
Subject: Poor Calcutta - New York Times
To:


Poor Calcutta


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/opinion/05banerji.html?_r=2&th&emc=th&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

By CHITRITA BANERJI
Published: September 5, 2007
Cambridge, Mass.

ONE morning in January 1997, I walked into my office at a nonprofit group
here after a visit to my hometown, Calcutta. A very senior colleague, whom I
would have, until then, characterized as being the "sensitive" sort, greeted
me: "Welcome back. And how is everyone in Calcutta — still starving and
being looked after by Mother Teresa?"

At first I thought this might be a bad attempt at humor, but I soon realized
that my colleague was seriously inquiring about my city's suffering humanity
and its ministering angel — the only images Calcutta evoked for him and
countless others in the West. When Mother Teresa died eight months later, 10
years ago today, foreign dignitaries and the Western news media descended on
the city. The reports on the funeral portrayed a city filled with starving
orphans, wretched slums and dying people abandoned on the streets, except
for the fortunate ones rescued by Mother Teresa.

They described a city I didn't recognize as the place where I had spent the
first 20 years of my life. There was no mention of Calcutta's beautiful
buildings and educated middle class, or its history of religious tolerance
and its vibrant literary and cultural life. Besides, other Indian cities
also have their share of poverty, slums and destitution, as would be
expected in a country where a third of the population lives on $1 a day —
for example, more than half of Mumbai residents live in slums, far more than
in Calcutta. Why were they not equally damned in the eyes of the world?

... delete

rjagannathan: French vs Taseer: Indians need to reclaim their history

may 26th, 

good stuff. this is why the humanities are important. history can be used to enslave you much more thoroughly than anything else. 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: sri 
Date: Sat, May 26, 2012 at 6:02 PM
Subject: French vs Taseer: Indians need to reclaim their history
To:


A Must read article.. please read the comments as well

French vs Taseer: Indians need to reclaim their history
http://www.firstpost.com/india/french-vs-taseer-indians-need-to-reclaim-their-history-293948.html


Pics of Golden Temple Amritsar by sanjeev nayyar

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: sanjeev 

Namaskar, 
 
Golden Temple or Hari Mandir Amritsar – this collection takes you for a virtual tour of the holy temple. We show every place that devotees worship for reasons for faith and honoring the brave, the Akal Takht and the weapons kept there in, the daily ceremony whereby the Guru Granth Sahib is taken from the Hari Mandir and kept in the Akal Takht at night and taken back in the morning, dress and weapon of warriors plus lots more.
 
Consider myself blessed because in 2012 visited Bodh Gaya, Pavapuri and now Hari Mandir. Ishwar ki kripa hai.
 
 
Warm Regards
sanjeev nayyar
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