William Kern, my colleague at TMV, quoted a Spanish paper’s headline: “WikiLeaks: The Assault on ‘Big Brother’ Begins (El Pais, Spain). He also mentions another article headlined “Thanks to WikiLeaks’ Disclosure, Classical Diplomacy is Dead.” To the world at large America now, post-United States diplomatic cables leak, appears as a large wild elephant caught in the quagmire of its own making. And a very very confused nation. Earlier, poor George W. Bush was blamed...

As the US establishment, and many in the American media, have begun to build up hysteria against WikiLeaks and virtually calling for the assassination of Julian Assange, I am reminded of the warning by President John F. Kennedy which is so relevant even today (See You Tube). Kennedy warned that there was a “danger to the survival of our nation if our traditions don’t survive.” Kennedy said: “The very word secrecy is repugnant in a free and open society. Inherently and historically,...

After writing my earlier post, I came across an article in Bloomberg offering more clarity on this complex issue of US Federal Reserve disclosures that affects the security and economy not only of the USA but the global community. “The Federal Reserve withheld details on individual securities pledged as collateral by recipients of $885 billion in central bank loans, denying taxpayers a measure of the risks they faced from its emergency aid.” More here… The data from the Federal...

The real security threat, internal or external, to the USA may not come from Osama bin Laden or WikiLeaks. The Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says banks are undermining the rule of law in America and bad mortgages still fester. In 2009 Stiglitz had advocated nationalization of US banks. Yesterday, under the compromise contained in the Dodd-Frank Act, the US Federal Reserve Board released details of who borrowed what from its various emergency programmes from December 1st 2007 to July...

Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, 65, described as Burma’s Mandela, is no longer under house arrest. The Burmese military junta set her free on Saturday and she was greeted by thousands of her supporters. “I’m very happy to see you all again,” she told the crowd gathered near her lakeside home in Yangon, the capital of Myanmar. (See video here…) U.S. President Barack Obama said: “I admire Suu Kyi’s courage. She is a hero of mine and a source of inspiration for all who...

Burmese leader Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, 65, who has spent 15 of the past 21 years under house arrest, could be released tomorrow (Saturday) by Myanmar’s military junta. The Burmese junta says it is preparing for the release of Nobel laureate Suu Kyi after international condemnation (including president Barack Obama’s recent strong remarks) of last weekend’s election and fears that a delay could spark demonstrations, reports The Australian. ” ‘We haven’t got any instructions...

Members of Indian Parliament listened mesmerized as US president Barack Obama today transformed himself from being a mere salesman-in-chief of America to a visionary world leader who aspired to live up to the great ideals that had inspired Indian and US founding fathers in laying the foundations of the two democratic republics. (Of course, he did also make major policy commitments, such as US support for India’s permanent seat in United Nations Security Council, that should please Indian leaders.) Will...

One of the highlights of President Barack Obama’s visit to Mumbai was a visit to St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, founded by German Jesuits in 1869. Obama seemed so much at ease with the students, and so communicative, that one wonders whether he should have been a professor or a diplomat instead of being a politician/president, a task some say he should have perhaps left to Ms Hillary Clinton!!! India’s leading TV channel, NDTV, is ready with the full transcript of Obama’s...

Kanchan Gupta, a well-known Indian journalist & writer, begins an article in his blog by quoting a friend: “There was a time when Indian Prime Ministers used to visit the US looking for food to feed hungry Indians. Now US Presidents visit India looking for jobs for Americans. “To Mr Obama’s credit, as also to his advisers’, no false claims of furthering ‘strategic relations’ have been made; hence, expectations should not soar in Lutyens’s Delhi or elsewhere in India. “An...

On reaching India, while US president Barack Obama virtually played salesman-in-chief for American companies/business, his wife Michelle Obama let her hair down and kicked off her shoes to play hopscotch, and sang and danced with children in Mumbai. The Indian media gave her as much publicity as her famous husband. The Indian Express reported: “It’s not everyday that a First Lady takes off her shoes and starts dancing. But hours after she landed in Mumbai, Michelle Obama did just that. At...

It is ironic that US President Barack Obama will today stay in the same hotel in Mumbai which was one of the targets scouted by American spy David Headley for the bloody Mumbai terror attacks in 2008, better known as India’s 26/11. According to Reuters: “Access to David Headley, who is in custody in the United States, and intelligence linked to his visits to India have emerged as thorny security issues between the two countries.” “[Extradition] is an option, and as I said...

Is Barack Obama and his entourage visiting India to taste its curry and the famous non-vegetarian cuisine at the Maurya Sheraton in New Delhi? Or, to visit the sites connected with Mahatma Gandhi? Or, market the US arms? Or, help US business and trade make further inroads into Indian market? A recent article, and the comments that follow, in Wall Street Journal provides some intersting insights. What strategic value can OBAMA bring to the negotiating table? asks a reader of WSJ. “His party...

Remember there was a storm in India when the former President of India, Abdul Kalam, was body searched while boarding an American airline? Now the security-obsessed US officials have again kicked up a storm by asking the Chief Minister and other senior officials of the state of Maharashtra (whose capital city is Mumbai) to present their identity cards before attending any Obama-related events in the city. Obama is scheduled to reach Mumbai early morning tomorrow (November 6) and will stay at the...

In the coming weeks the pundits will pontificate why Barack Obama and the Democrats were rudely jolted by the American voters in the mid-term polls. I found Peter Baker’s piece “Elitism: The Charge Obama Can’t Shake” (in the NYT last week) interesting. “…a perception promoted by his critics that he is a Harvard-educated millionaire elitist who is sure that he knows best and thinks that those who disagree just aren’t in their right minds. Never mind that Mr. Obama...

Nimrata (Nikki) Randhawa (Haley), born January 20, 1972, who represents Lexington County in the US House of Representatives, has been elected as the Governor of South Carolina. Her parents, Dr. Ajit and Raj Randhawa, are Sikh immigrants from Amritsar, India. Haley, who was born and raised as a Sikh, is married to Michael Haley (an officer in the US Army National Guard) and they have two children – Rena and Nalin. “Indian-American Nikki Haley created history on Wednesday by becoming...

As the American mid-term elections begin today with a rather bleak prediction about Barack Obama’s future, the President of the USA and his team must have begun their preparations for their three-day visit to India that begins Saturday (November 6). Although India will roll out the customary red carpet, and there would be visible cordiality and warmth extended to Obama that the diplomatic niceties demand, both India and Pakistan are perplexed at the recent signals being sent by the US administration....

Ever since I stopped watching TV (maybe my loyalty is still with print media), I have become an avid radio fan. I now surf merrily from the BBC and the VOA to local/national FM Indian radio stations. Yesterday a song titled “Ibn Battuta” (from Bollywood film Ishqiya) caught my attention. Wow! Even a Bollywood film/song can revive our interest in forgotten history!!! So I looked up “Ibn Battuta” on Google and began wondering: Was this the golden period of Islam. One site tells...

Bull has enjoyed a central place in mythology cutting across many civilizations. In agrarian India it enjoyed a special place but is now in decline owing to widespread artificial insemination of cows. The photo above of a bull in an Indian town is symbolic of the waning power and majesty of the bull. I am reminded of the following poem… “I am monarch of all I survey; My right there is none to dispute;… I am out of humanity’s reach; I must finish my journey alone;…” (With...

Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, said the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had been “pursued across three continents” by Western intelligence services. Ellsberg compared the Obama administration’s threat to prosecute Mr. Assange to his own treatment under President Richard M. Nixon, reports The New York Times. (Julian Paul Assange, born 1971, is an Australian internet activist best known for his involvement with Wikileaks, a whistleblower website. Assange was a physics and...

Myanmar’s (Burma) ruling military junta made a sudden decision Thursday to change the country’s flag, national anthem and official name. Burma will have general elections in two weeks, country’s first election in 20 years. There was also an order that the old flags must be burnt, giving rise to a speculation that the ruling junta has done all this at the behest of astrologers. The Reuters reports: “The country’s new name is the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, instead...

United States President Barack Obama’s visit to India is just a few weeks away but New Delhi and Washington DC are caught up in an ugly sparring over the US government’s withholding of information about David Coleman Headley, an American intelligence operative, who played a key role in the run-up to the Mumbai terrorist attacks in 2008 (better known as India’s 26/11). Add to this the fresh WikiLeaks that virtually designate the USA as an unparalleled “war criminal” in recent...

I love honey. I used to gift honey, especially from Germany, to my close relations on my return from my travels abroad. Now I have stopped gifting honey and even stopped eating it. My friend Sunita Narain, an indefatigable public-spirited person, tells us that even health-conscious companies, in this case from Australia and Switzerland, “do not check antibiotics in products they export to our world.” If you are a honey connoisseur then I am afraid the following would appear as a horror...

The Economist pays a grand tribute to Bärbel Bohley, artist and toppler of the Berlin Wall, who died on September 11th, aged 65. “Born in the ruins of Berlin in 1945, her early life was shaped by the post-war division of her country into western (soon West) Germany, and a Soviet-occupied zone that claimed to be the ‘German Democratic Republic’. But in the end it was not the bullying communists who shaped the wiry little painter. It was she who shaped them—and their downfall....

Today is an important day for Gypsies, also known as Romani (estimated population 6-11 million worldwide). A group of academics, government advisers and gypsy representatives are meeting in Strasbourg to discuss the next steps in a pan-European project entitled “The Decade of Roma Inclusion, 2005 to 2015″. The Independent describes Gypsies/Roma as “Europe’s most persecuted minority that has become the subject of increasingly draconian laws.” (Photo above shows Romanies...

Nepal provides an important buffer zone between two giant countries – India and China – in the mighty Himalayas. So far this cushion has worked well. But now an intercepted telephone call between a senior Nepalese Maoist leader and an unknown Chinese discussing the use of $6.75m to bribe members of Nepalese parliament to elect a Maoist prime minister, has created a serious controversy, and concerns about China’s motives. The intrigue comes at a sensitive time for Nepal’s ailing...