As compared with the Brits, few Americans have made India their home. Among those Americans who became well-known, I wrote about the legendary Samuel Evans Stokes Jr who fought along with Mahatma Gandhi to free the country from the colonial rule, and also brought horticulture revolution in the hills. The other well-known figure is an Indian actor of American origin – Tom Alter – who is now a household name. Born to an American Christian missionary couple, Tom Alter acted in several Bollywood...

At a time when President Barack Obama seems to have handled relatively well diverse foreign policy challenges, many inherited from his predecessor, his handling of the economic policy and the Wall Street have remained a big question mark. Obama’s continuing reliance on U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, and kowtowing to the bankers, makes one wonder whether the President has learned his lessons. All eyes are now on Noam Scheiber’s blockbuster book on the Obama economic team. Here’s...

A Sikh ready for the holy bath at Golden Temple in Amritsar in northern India. Ever heard of a place where you can enjoy live Western classical music round-the-clock? Perhaps there is none. However, if you are interested in attending a non-stop Indian classical music concert round the year, then the place to visit is the Golden Temple (or Harmandir Sahib) at Amritsar in northern India. This place is the rallying point of the followers of Sikh religion worldwide. Music wafts across with different...

At a time when America appears lost, and its leadership continues its reckless bid for global supremacy, it is interesting to recall the story of the only American who participated in India’s freedom struggle and was imprisoned by the British-Indian government. He gave up Western clothes and donned home-spun Khadi dress. A highly impressed Mahatma Gandhi wrote in his Young India: “No Indian is giving such battle to the (British-Indian) Government as Mr. Samuel Evans Stokes Jr. He has veritably...

Anna Hazare, 73, is no ordinary social activist. Hazare has emerged as a sort of national hero battling against the government that has been reeling under mind-boggling corruption scandals. An Indian government attempt to head off a political crisis by arresting him appeared to backfire Tuesday when parliament’s opposition members walked out and demonstrations broke out across the country. See here… (UPDATE: In view of the mass protests, the government has buckled under and ordered the...

The shooting down of an American helicopter carrying the elite Navy SEALs in Afghanistan has been described as the deadliest single loss for U.S. forces in the decade-long war in Afghanistan. See here… A Pakistani newspaper says that the Abbottabad raid by US Navy Seals was not the first venture into Pakistan. The team had surreptitiously entered the country on ten to twelve previous occasions, the influential investigative magazine New Yorker said in an over 8,000-word story on the Abbottabad...

Was this tragedy waiting to happen? Are Anders Behring Breivik’s murders another brutal manifestation of the hysteria that started building up post 9/11? George W. Bush and his team in the White House began an era of hatred and revenge, and have added enough fuel to create confusion and fire to last a few decades. We can still see widespread smoke, if not flames, in the West and elsewhere. Was the fire of rage that came from the gun of Anders Behring Breivik a result of dangerous propaganda...

Damning evidence has been surfacing during the past decades revealing how different US administrations have been looking the other way despite Pakistan military establishment’s open role in supplying nuclear know-how to rogue regimes. Now A.Q. Khan, the founder of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb program, asserts that the government of North Korea bribed top military officials in Islamabad to obtain access to sensitive nuclear technology in the late 1990s. Abdul Qadeer Khan has made available documents...

The New Yorker sums up the murky media Mughal Murdoch scandal thus: “Rupert Murdoch and his people have claimed that the newspaper scandal in London was caused by a few rotten apples. Now that a very large apple, Rebekah Brooks, has been arrested, it is clear that it is the entire barrel that is rotten.” Brooks is a former News International chief. Meanwhile London’s police chief resigned last night, putting more pressure on prime minister David Cameron over his personal links...

More trouble for the Australian-American media mughal Rupert Murdoch and his family. It is likely that Andy Coulson, a former News Of The World editor who most recently worked as the chief spokesman for British Prime Minister David Cameron’s government, would be arrested Friday on suspicion of illegally paying the police for information during his editorship of Murdoch-owned tabloid. [UPDATE: He has been arrested. The Washington Post reports: The former editor of the British tabloid at the heart...

The Obama administration had at least the guts to justify the continued squandering of public money on the so-called war-on-terror in Afghanistan by formally handing over the foreign policy to the CIA and the Pentagon with a seemingly “limitless budget”.(see here). But why is the American media quiet on the cost of war that is crippling US economy — such as the U.S. military’s expenditure of $ 20.2 billion on air conditioning in Iraq and Afghanistan every year? “That’s...

I get to see Ezekiel Isaac Malekar at least twice a year. A pleasant person wearing a kippah, Malekar is a permanent invitee at many Indian government’s national functions, including the birth and death anniversaries of Mahatma Gandhi at the Gandhi Smriti, in the heart of New Delhi, where Gandhi was assassinated in 1948. Sitting next to a Maulvi, a Muslim teacher/scholar, Malekar recites passages from Torah and translates them into English as the President, Prime Minister and other people...

As David Headley gets ready to spill the beans at a Chicago court about Pakistan ISI’s direct involvement in Mumbai 26/11 attacks, the White House in Washington is nervous. Headley’s statements during Chicago trial “will be explosive,” said one senior Obama administration official, who confirmed that White House officials are well aware and closely watching, says MSNBC. But that’s not the main reason why Obama administration is chewing its nails. Headley may also reveal...

American media, by and large, seems to be doing a great injustice to the American people by keeping them in the dark about the looming crisis in Afghanistan. The US administration is refusing to admit major reversals although there has been a daring jail break by 500 Taliban militants, and now the killing of 8 NATO soldiers (see here). Barack Obama seems to have finally abandoned the slogan for “CHANGE” and has formally handed over American foreign policy to the US war machine. President...

If Pakistan and the US were a married couple, instead of being strategic players, counselors would recommend at least a long trial separation, if not a total divorce. This conclusion appeared after a marathon brain-storming session organised at Washington DC on Pakistan’s future and the US role that lasted for nearly five hours. One wishes that these think-tanks and specialists also put their ears to the ground instead of merely enjoying a clever argument and a repartee followed by a heavy...

Yes, that’s exactly what the British celebrity woman Jemima Khan, former wife of the world’s legendary cricketer Imran Khan, has to say. All governments lie at some time or the other. But when the web of lies becomes untenable and threaten world peace and financial security, then the alarm bells are set off. Jemima Khan in this video (http://bit.ly/dTDFaV) states: “Corruption, war crimes and torture have become a part and parcel of the US policy.” Jemima Khan, a British...

In this age when Internet has extensively intruded our public and private space, a literary event last evening held at the Alliance Française, New Delhi, marked a wonderful start to a new forum “Written Word, Etc.” A packed auditorium comprising young students as well as elderly folks, were in for a memorable treat. They listened with rapt attention the celebrated Indian author Vikram Seth in conversation with Sam Miller, journalist and author of “Delhi: Adventures in a Megacity....

Tibetan religious leader in-exile “Karmapa” Ogyen Trinley Dorje, who is likely to replace the Dalai Lama as the world symbol of Tibetan Buddhism and icon of Tibetan aspirations, is now surrounded with a serious controversy. Police in India have raided his monastery near Dharamsala, and allegedly recovered foreign and Indian currency worth nearly Rs 70 million. Dorje, now 25, is the spiritual head of the Karma Kagyu sect of Tibetan Buddhism and has been in Dharamsala since his headline-making...

After the dramatic Tunisian uprising in the Middle East, violent unrest has broken out in Cairo and other Egyptian cities. Nowhere is the U.S. dilemma more urgent than in Egypt, writes Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center and a fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. “The January 14 popular revolt in Tunisia, the first ever to topple an Arab dictator, has called into question a basic premise of U.S. policy in the Middle East...

Sargent Shriver, who died at age 95, was among those well-known Americans who pursued social causes with great enthusiasm. He highlighted the positive aspects of the American society. Unlike the present mindless “War on Terrorism”, Shriver ran the “War on Poverty” and founded, or was an early advocate of groups, including Peace Corps, “Special Olympics”, Head Start, VISTA, Job Corps, Community Action, Legal Services, Upward Bound, and Foster Grandparents…...

My friend Vlasta Molak informs me that the world’s oldest Jewish woman is Alice Herz-Sommer, who celebrated her 107th birthday recently on November 26, 2010. In my recent article I had mentioned that this honour goes to India’s Fori Nehru, 102. Thank you Vlasta. I had given the heading based on the information in The Week magazine. The author had stated: “While researching for this story, THE WEEK contacted the Israel embassy in New Delhi, and Galit Hoffman, former spokesperson...

I am sure this remarkable 102-year-old woman would never approve of the heading I have given to this story. Not long ago, I took a British friend to meet her at her house in Kasauli, an old quaint Indian town in the lower Himalayas. Fori smiled when she was told by my friend that his mother was “old” and in her early eighties. “You know at that age I was quite frisky,” she said, and we all had a hearty laugh. Born Magdolna Friedmann on December 5, 1908, in Budapest (Hungary),...

I have been a great admirer of Hollywood’s great war classics. Who can forget “All Quiet On The Western Front (1930)”, “The Longest Day’, “The Bridge on The River Kwai”, “Lawrence of Arabia”, and so on. But in the present times some see an unholy nexus between the war machine and the Hollywood. Al Jazeera has an interesting article and panel discussion on the subject. “War is hell, but for Hollywood it has been a Godsend, providing the...

The US administration’s clumsy handling of the WikiLeaks affair is endangering America’s traditionally strong ties with Australia, its trusted comrade-in-arms. In fact Australia’s prime minister Ms Julia Gillard and the Aussie foreign minister Kevin Rudd have begun to sing different tunes. (Kevin Rudd was removed from his post as prime minister owing to an internal coup and Ms Gillard became the prime minister). While prime minister Ms Gillard said the latest WikiLeaks information...

It seems my last post on TMV (WikiLeaks: Educating Americans About Open Society) has touched a raw nerve in some. Well that was the exact purpose. My journalistic mission has been to get people out of their comfort zone and provoke them to participate in a spirited no-holds-barred discussion. I try to irritate those who have a habit of trivializing issues I have been writing for more than two decades that Pakistan’s government/army/ISI has become a mere puppet in the hands of the US government....