The recent ban on advertisements on “longer lasting sex” is being described as the triumph of public opinion in Australia. And the best part is that the advertiser has accepted the ban in good grace. “Three weeks after billboards advertising ‘longer lasting sex’ were banned in Western Australia, the slogan has been outlawed nationwide,” says a news report. A company representative said “his company would comply with the ruling. He said it was a fair decision,...

The Beijing Olympics is over, and the world seems to have forgotten Tibet and its exiled leader, the Dalai Lama. But not France. It recently witnessed an exotic event — “a mixture of religious service, saffron diplomacy and Woodstock-like happening. The venue: The Lerab Ling sanctuary, home of Europe’s biggest Tibetan temple.” The French president Nicolas Sarkozy sent his supermodel wife, Carla Bruni, to meet the Dalai Lama (photo above) and join the Tibetan spiritual leader...

The aggressive/obscene/trivial performance of the TV channels in India during the past decade created a public disquiet/uproar. Despite government efforts/threats these channels continued to compete in trashing the basic tenets of journalism. Finally, the private television broadcasters have realized the folly inherent in such a strategy and have announced their own code of conduct. India, like elsewhere, has a “toothless” media regulatory authority. India’s leading TV channel...

Pakistan’s democratically-elected government, despite the dire predictions/propaganda in the western world, is functioning no better or worse than under the military dictator Pervez Musharraf’s regime. However, a democratically-elected government has a moral and popular platform to wage a war on terror. “The Election Commission on Friday set September 6 as the date lawmakers will elect a new president, after the resignation earlier this week of President Pervez Musharraf,”...

The Economist pays tribute to Mahmoud Darwish, “the voice of Palestine”, who died on August 9th, aged 67, three days after heart surgery at Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston, Texas. “In his last poem, Mr Darwish described Palestinians and Israelis as two men trapped in a hole: He said: Will you bargain with me now? I said: For what would you bargain In this grave? He said: Over my share and your share of this common grave I said: Of what use is that? Time has passed us by, Our...

Who has been the greatest prime minister of Australia? An academic who undertook this ambitious exercise says the verdict is: Robert Menzies (20 December 1894 – 15 May 1978). “Australia has had four great prime ministers and four failures. The other 18 have been successful (to a lesser or greater extent) without being great. That adds up to 26, the number of prime ministers we have had so far, including Kevin Rudd. “These are the conclusions to which I have come after studying a great...

With the hormone levels peaking at the Beijing Olympics, what would the young participants from the world be up to when they mingle freely for the last time before heading home? Here is the peep show…

Who in the USA decides whether the country should go to war or not? “In the United States, the decision to go to war rests with the elected representatives of those who will do the fighting and dying. It’s one of the defining – and critical – elements of the republic,” says the Christian Science Monitor. “That constitutional assignment of power to Congress has not always been followed in practice. And it’s in jeopardy now. “Our nation’s founders purposely...

Nepal and Pakistan provide good lessons in foreign policy to both Barack Obama and John McCain. The democratically-elected new Prime Minister of Nepal, Prachanda (photo above) who led a 10-year guerrilla war, now professes that his country’s era of “capitalist democracy” has begun. He was sworn in by Nepal’s first president, Ram Baran Yadav. Lesson No. 1: The president or prime minister of any country must not be sponsored/pushed by the USA to remain friendly. Good diplomacy...

War zone security has arrived in the US as cities are shut down at night by police struggling to control a deadly wave of gun crime, reports The Independent. “The police state has not arrived quite yet but it may feel like it to the residents of some American cities, where a handful of embattled mayors and police chiefs are imposing strict and sometimes sweeping curfews as a last resort to quell new waves of gun violence this summer.” More here… Here is my earlier post about schools...

A blog in Wall Street Journal has interesting subheadings: “Take your gun to school” and “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition!” It reports that the trustees of the Harrold Independent School District, a tiny Texas school district, may be the first in the US to allow teachers and staff to pack guns for protection. More here… Some inspiring lessons and trainings for the students and the congregation!!!

The Australian describes Pervez Musharraf as “West’s most disappointing ally in the war on terror. Let’s be clear about this: Musharraf was a catastrophic failure for Pakistan. “He claimed to have turned the country around and to have turned it against the Taliban terrorists it had created and succoured in Afghanistan. In fact, he did nothing of the kind. Or rather, at the same time as he did a bit of that, his military continued to co-operate with the Taliban, which is...

Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf announced his resignation in a live telecast to his countrymen today. He warned that the country was going down the hill. He said would send his formal resignation today itself, thus saving himself from the humiliation of the impeachment proceedings against him. This follows hectic backroom parleys/bargaining between powerful diplomats from US, Britain and Saudi Arabia and the ruling political leaders in Pakistan. Now the question is: Will Musharraf stay...

As the presidential impeachment drama unfolds in Pakistan, the indications are that Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf might resign if he is allowed to stay on in Pakistan and gets immunity from legal action. I recommend three interesting stories as to where Musharraf could find a sanctuary. “The United States and Britain remain top of the list of with Turkey and Saudi Arabia the other options,” says The Times of India. “A wicked idea floated by Musharraf-haters: Send...

The woes of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf seem to be unending. While the Parliament has begun formulating the impeachment proceedings against Musharraf, Al-Qaida’s number two Ayman al-Zawahiri slammed “Pakistan’s embattled President Pervez Musharraf as an enemy of Islam in a first audio message in English posted online on Saturday,” reports NDTV, India’s influential TV channel. “In the message Zawahiri also dismissed the Pakistani army as a ‘band of...

Eight years ago Nawaz Sharif, the then Prime Minister of Pakistan, was thrown into prison and tried by the military regime led by General Pervez Musharraf. Sharif was jailed before being forced into exile in Saudi Arabia. On Friday the Saudi Arabia’s intelligence chief arrived in Pakistan at a time when impeachment stares Musharraf in the face.The question being asked is whether President Musharraf would find a sanctuary in the desert kingdom. (My earlier post here…) The photo above...

This month Madonna and Michael Jackson complete 50 years of age. Both Madonna and Jackson have attracted huge controversy, but with very different outcomes, says The Times. “In sheer numbers, both Jackson and Madonna are phenomenal success stories. His credits include the bestselling album of all time, Thriller (1982), with global sales somewhere close to 100 million. “His royalty rate is notoriously high, his fortune estimated in billions, and his overall record sales of 750 million...

The Economist magazine describes the Russian operation in Georgia as a major triumph for Vladimir Putin. “Just five days later, after pulverising the Georgian armed forces, Russia announced that it was ending its operations. This brutal and efficient move was a victory for Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president-turned-prime-minister, not just over Georgia but also over the West…” More here…

Reports from Pakistan indicate that Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf is losing ground fast. The Guardian states that British and American diplomats are attempting to find an exit for Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf, a staunch western ally, before he is dragged through a humiliating impeachment process. “Musharraf has been one of the Bush administration’s closest allies. While Washington would prefer not to host his exile, as it would look bad politically, it would...

India was split into two countries — Pakistan and India — in August 1947 when the British ended their colonial rule. Pakistan celebrates its independence day today (August 14), while India a day later on August 15. The photograph above shows Muhammad Ali Jinnah and M.K. Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi), both designated as “Father of the Nation” by the newly independent nations respectively. This is a good occasion to remember the two great leaders and their vision of India and Pakistan. Here...

Six months ago I wrote about a brave Pakistani woman who has been relentlessly fighting the two arbiters of her country’s destiny, Pakistan’s army and the US administration. (See here…) When she was virtually hounded out of Pakistan, Dr Ayesha Siddiqa sought refuge in the world of US academia. Here is Ayesha Siddiqua’s fresh salvo from the Stanford University as reported in the Chowk. “Ayesha Siddiqa said that behind the US support for certain elements of the Pakistani...

Among the joys of living in a laid-back and quaint place like Adelaide in South Australia, with its well-stocked council libraries, is the pleasure of reading books. In the past three months, apart from delivering guest lectures at the two universities here, I have been able to go through six books…accompanied with good beer and wine!!! Here I wish to write about two fascinating biographies. First: American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin...

I look back with regret that I could not study Greek, Latin and Sanskrit languages. It is easier to get good translations of the Greek and Latin classics than the Sanskrit literature. The ancient Sanskrit literature remains unparalleled in its metaphysical as well as erotic flight. I thank our co-blogger Hollyrob for sending me a write-up by David Shulman, Professor of Humanistic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, that highlights a major project to translate Sanskrit — the Clay...

The Times of London makes an interesting study of 10 political personalities who were involved in sex scandals. Of these 10 leaders, five got away with it and five couldn’t. Beginning with the Profumo Affair in Britain in 1963 to the latest one concerning John Edwards in the US, the affairs have attracted a lot of public attention. More here…

US presidential candidate Barack Obama returned to the islands of his birth on Friday and began a much-deserved week-long family holiday. His wife, Michelle, said that you ‘can’t really understand Barack until you understand Hawaii’, reports The Times. His half-sister, Maya, whom he will be seeing in Honolulu this week, calls Hawaii “such a generally sweet place… you can come back here from almost anywhere and refresh yourself mentally”. “In his memoir Dreams from My...