Gujarati Mulakshar!!!

There has been countless discussions and arguments between me and my friends about how well we know Gujarati. I for instance, has always maintained, that I speak better Gujarati than most of my friends and also my Gujarati vocabulary is excellent. This claim has been put forward by me because I have been surrounded by Gujarati graduates since my early childhood. My Dad and my elder Sister has done Masters with Gujarati as a major subject, whereas my Mom has done the same thing at a bachelor level. This means I have been reading Zaverchand Meghani, Premchand, Priyakant Parikh, Raman Maharishi, and many more laureates as reading materials, when most of the kids around me were interested in Tinkles and Archies and other stuff.

But most of the time, the language efficiency and profeciency ended up by the question, do you know gujarati Mulakshar? I pretty much always was able to finish the correct order with couple of tries, but then most of my friends never took off beyond first 5 or 10 letters. So here goes an image which you can print, and stick up your desk, just to keep on revising it until you perfect it. It seems even I would need to do that, in order to get it correct first time, every time.

Why should the Manmohan Singh government be defeated at the Motion of No Confidence...

Lately there has been a string of accusations from and against the current government in place in India. One cannot get into the depth of the situation without knowing the root cause of the issue, and what exactly triggered the events.

If we switch back about 10 months, George Bush has just lost its major ally in the Gulf war. Britain has started partial withdrawl of troops from Afghanistan, and the new Prime minister in chair Gordon Brown has vowed to the public in wake of the elections, to publish a time line for complete withdrawl of the troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. In the absense of major forces of the world backing US in its so called Peace Mission, US has been cornered bye its own foreign policy.

Withdrawing the troops now, will gurantee George Bush junior a place in history next to his father, who also could not get a substantial victory in the last gulf war. Also the extremists- The Talibans and Mujahiddins, in the Iraq and Afghanistan would declare it as their victory, and may even bounce back to the power, which would prove to be a nightmare turn true for the entire west.

Facing these threats, the US administration has three options to consider. One to forget and bury the cold war memories, and seek alliance from Russia, which George Bush tried, but with no results. Second option was to seek alliance from People's Republic of China. This was strategically impossible, as China would never accept American leadership. Chinese are too ambitious, and they do not see any reason why they should join forces with USA. So the third and last option left with USA is to seek alliance from developing giants such as India, Mexico and South African nations.

The only way to lure India into an alliance is through military aids. India has troubled borders on all sides. Starting from Pakistan on North west, to Srilanka in South, Indian borders are expensive to maintain. Also the rapid development of industries, and increasing standard of living of Indian citizens, has created a massive gap between generation and demand of energy supplies.

So here comes the Indo-US nuclear deal, a rescue offer to India, to ease her energy defeceit. But like all the offers from US in the past, these deal also comes with a price tag. And the discussion starts for the price tag amongst all the political parties in India.

The general rule of business, is one of the dealing parties, in this case USA, is always more interested in closing the deal for it's own gains. The other party, in this case India, must use this opportunity as a strong bargaining power, and get the deal to the maximum benefit of it's own. The general public of India, was never explained the vices or virtues of these treaty, by the in-power Congress. The only thing people heard is it would ease the pressure on the energy sector of the country.

Having looked at what is in the base of the issue, let us drill down a bit further for the most disputed points of these treaty, and why the Parliamentary parties are disputed, and the left Parties even considered bringing the Motion of No-confidence in the parliament which would almost certainely force an early general election in India, if passed.

The first disputed point is regarding India's foreign policy. There is a mandatory clause in these treaty for Indian government to abide by the Hyde Act, which states that Indian foreign policy needs to be congruent to that of United States. This necessarily mean, India cannot criticise any of the US foreign policy. In recent times, India has lead the opposition to any sanctions on Iran, based on speculations that Iran is enriching its nuclear armery. India demanded UN inspectors to provide proof of the US accusation. India also has in past criticised the way US dealt the middle east crisis. If the treaty is signed, any of these steps would suffice for US to withdraw the fuel supply.

The next point is Military Arm sale. Under this treaty, India will have the luxury of joint excercise with US military, but the cost of which would be buying expensive arms from US. The major reason why Pakistan could not accelerate its development was, all the foreign aid that it received were wiped out buying arms and ammunition from USA. USA has a past of giving aid, which comes with the condition, that you buy ammunition from US at a premium price. It is just like giving out a voucher in place of cash from departmental store which sells the same product at unreasonably high prices as a token of gratitude. India has maintained its clause of technology transfer instead of just ammunition sale with Russia, which has enabled the Indian Military to maintain and produce cheaper ammunitions at the same standards. Signing this treaty, makes this advancements a part of history, and all the ammunition would have to have "made in usa" tag attached to it.

The treaty does not contain the same clause as the one signed by China, which allows China to prohibit USA to terminate the treaty based on any internal laws. This means, US congress can pass any new law which would make India's life miserable, and India would have to abide by it, or risk running out of the fuel bringing everything back to square one.

The treaty enables Washington to claim all the fuel supply it has provided to New Delhi, in case of termination. Though Washington would have to provide sufficient financial reimbursement for the fuel at the current market prices, it means India would not gain anything. Washington has a month's notice to reimburse, which provides enough time to force the market to collapse, bringing the prices cheaper to what India paid while procuring those fuel.

This is what I have thought reading numerous blogs online about the whole episode. If someone beg to differ, I would be more than happy to learn new facts.

Signing off now, and good luck India.

The US media is at its hypocritical best again.

The title of this post may sound absurd to most of you guys, but I was compelled to write this note after reading the said article online.

Well it all started when some gujarati association decided to invite the Chief Minister of the state who happens to be Narendra Modi. Narendra Modi, did not wanted to be in the news for any wrong reasons, so he asked for a initial confirmation from the ministry of states affairs whether he will be granted a visa. He said, he would confirm his attendance only after receiving a written assurance that his visa application would not be declined, or else he is happy to address the dinner summit via video conferencing.

That is a very good calculated step by a diplomat, to avoid farce situations like in 2005. In response to this, the Human rights activists in US, filed a petition with the Homeland security, to make sure, his visa application is not granted, keeping in mind the Gujarat Riots during early years of this decade.

By no means I condone what happened, because loss of life is always condemned irrespective of caste-creed-religion or region.

The above said petition is in staunch contrast to what happens in US daily. US and UK attacked Iraq in pretext of WMDs which they have failed to find till date. No leaders have been yet brought to charges for any inhumane acts that were carried out in Abu gharib jails in Afghanistan. Millions of people have been displaced, and thousands have lost their lives, during these years of war in Middle East, but no human right association seems to care.

One company which was closely related to Osama bin Laden, was allowed to bid for a contract to build a memorial in place of WTC towers. Many radical muslim leaders have been allowed to move freely between UK and USA, and no one seems to bother. Queen of England, have been in authority, when slavery and apertheid was carried out, but still no one cares when the office decline to issue an apology for all that was done.

There have been clearly no human rights movement when millions of people were killed in Burma, or China. No human rights activists have came forward to file a petition for ban on the olympics in China.

So my question is why target just one man? But then after a bit of thought, I realised these facts.

The annual growth rate of Indian economy has been outstanding, and they have been less and less reliant on the US market every year. Long gone are the days, when India used to survive on the cheap labour market. Indian IT companies have started competing on quality labour with quality output to the foreign companies. Most of the clientele now confirms, the decision to do business with India, is not just cost driven, but the attitude of the Indian staff.

Funneling down this Gujarat has lately seen the onset of IT companies, which historically used to have base only in Hyderabad, Bangalore, Mumbai and other metros. The point to be noted here is that the companies are not shifting base, but are expanding, so Gujarat is essentially capturing new markets for India.

Gujarat has been attracting the largest FIIs in last few years amongst those from USA. Also when Narendra Modi urged the people from Gujarat who have now settled down in US and are doing well, to invest in their mother land back in 2005, people realised their duty, and money started to flow.

This is not just a case of one state in India, but most of the NRIs are financing major schemes throughout the nation. So the opposition of this was bound to happen in the first world. Remember English media cried foul when County league cricketers left England for more lucrative IPL and ICL tournaments.

Coming back to the point, Narendra Modi, has proved himself as an excellent orator, and a public charmer. Even though he was denied a visa in 2005, he managed to succeed in what he called a mission to raise awareness of Gujarat as an investment destination amongst non resident gujaratis.

So when history was bound to repeat itself, the media is already speculating if Narendra Modi draws investment in huge proportions especially when the markets are on the verge of recession. The US media does not want an Indian diplomat to come to their soil, and drive away their investments, so they have started the same thing in whatever pretext they get.

Mind well, Narendra Modi has been elected by the people of Gujarat who the US human rights claim to be the victim. I suggest George Bush or Tony Blair (Should be Gordon Brown now!) stand an election of US president and let people of Iraq and Afghanistan vote for them and decide for themselves, whether they need to deny visa for an indian diplomat!!!