Mulayam ki Daud Maya tak

In the never ending Mulayam-Mayawati mahabharat, this is the one of the latest item

Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh on Tuesday assailed the raid by the Uttar Pradesh police on the Kolkata residence of party general secretary Amar Singh and threatened to expose the “misdeeds” of Chief Minister Mayawati. The former Chief Minister claimed he had enough material at his disposal.

The question any sensible journalist should ask Mr Mulayam singh is - If you have any proof of Maya's wrongdoing why don't you just bring it out rather than only "threatening to expose" it.

and this one takes the cake:

The former Chief Minister referred to the seizure of two and half quintals of explosive material from the Orai railway station during his regime and alleged that two Ministers of the Mayawati regime were involved in it.
He claimed that she (Ms. Mayawati) had requested Mr. Amar Singh in the Rajya Sabha then to get the case dropped as it involved her partymen.

He is suggesting that on request from Mayawati his government had let go of two criminals?

This is preposterous. I guess only in India a top politician like Mr Mulayam can afford to speak his mind as clearly as this. I am wondering if the journalists were sleeping, It was their job to ask some tough questions.

Yes we can -> Can He Stand?

Democratic race is still not over, but republicans have started attacking the presumptive democratic nominee Barack Obama.

The latest one is the launch of the website canweask.com which asks some tough questions from Obama. Nothing new, these issues have already come up at different points in the last one yr of campaigning, but the packaging is true 'election' style....




The video has voice clips of Obama supported chanting "yes we can" in his campaign speeches.... Nice editing...

The question is: Can Obama stand the heat?
So far he has not really handled criticism from the Clinton camp well, the attacks from the republicans during the main election run are going to be much more vicious - Pronouncing the full name of Obama (Barack Hussein Obama) for example, will be enough to drive away Americans in hordes from Obama.

Even though McCain promises not to use such tactics, still who knows? In the last elections for instance the swiftboating was not an official George W Bush's campaign idea, but it lead to defeat of John Kerry.

US Presidential elections 2008

In the past few weeks, There have been a series of controversies related to comments made by Presidential hopeful Barack Obama. In the earlier days of his campaign I liked the guy but his recent comments increasingly shows that even with all the right and honest intentions he lacks maturity to fit into Presidential shoes.

Hillary Clinton on the other hand is presidential, smart, sensible and gives the impression of being far above the pettiness of the issues her democratic rivals are raising against her. She is emerging as the front runner in the race for the white house.

Overall its fascinating to watch the American democratic system unveiled in the form of Democratic and Republican Debates. The candidates might be good at spin but are still made to answer pretty tough questions.

I hope that some day India also adopt this kind of transparent election campaign system in some form. What we have currently is a system which lacks this kind of transparency and honestly.
I think this is due to the Indian electorate, a majority of which remain illiterate or semi-literate and are oblivious of the real issues country faces, they just vote on cast line or some petty issues created by our politicians, and these are perhaps the only people who go to vote, the educated middle and upper class remain away from voting

But that too some extent is due to the arcane system of electoral set up as well, Myself for example have never voted, I don't know where should I vote as my place of residence keeps changing every 2-3 yrs or so and I don't know when the electoral lists are prepared and how to get my name added/deleted to those, Perhaps a ration card will be required or proof of residence at the new place, The point is that the sheer idea of going to a government office to get something done puts me off, and I know I am not alone.

Mush in trouble

Past few months have brought what looks like a heap of troubles for Pak President Musharraf.

It all started in march of this year when in all his wisdom he decided to suspend the CJ of the country and the rest is history. The whole country stood up in CJ Choudhary's support and turned him into a instant hero.

Obviously, Mush didn't expect the kind of uprising across the country against this decision, added to it was the whole case of Lal Masjid terror crisis, uprising in NW frontier province (with the collapse of nearly a year long agreement with tribal elders) and recent strains in the relationship with US with the United States increasingly getting impatient over Pakistan's inability to do "enough" towards its promises - fight against Taliban and Al Qaeda on its soil.

Musharraf game plan was to get elected for another term as president while also retaining his army uniform, few would have called it improbable before march but now the situation has changed entirely, to the extent that even the option of imposing emergency was considered but given up due to US pressure and domestic resistance.

US finds that Musharraf is the only option left for it in Pakistan, and if his regime topples the country might fall in the hands of extremists. This is the prime reason Mushrraf is exploiting to get US backing and remain in power.

This reasoning is nothing new to Pakistan, even Nawaz Sharif used the same reasoning for demanding help from US during the Kargil war.


In his book "Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy, And the Bomb" Strobe Talbott describes the whole sequence of diplomatic exchanges between Sharif and the US administration led by President Clinton.

Talbott points out that whether it was the issue of Nuclear Tests or Kargil war the moment US tried to push Pakistan, Sharif used to come up with this "Suicidal" argument that if his government is pushed too much by US, Pakistan will be in chaos and will collapse.

According to My Talbott, India on other hand tackled US as an "equal".

Coming back to Pakistan, as things stands now options are very limited for President Musharraf; Chances of him getting elected by the present assemblies are remote, even though he has enough votes but any such move will result in a huge uprising against him; he is negotiating with Benezir Bhutto for her return and an electoral arrangement for power sharing but Bhutto insists on Musharraf quitting the army uniform and dilution of presidential powers (particularly the one by which a president on his whims and fancy can fire an elected prime minister and his cabinet)

If the deal with Benezir Bhutto doesn't work out for Musharraf, to remain in power he will have to impose emergency and get elected, or he will have to quit and go into exile, both the options are pretty depressing for Pakistan.

On the other hand if the deal with Bhutto works out, situation seems slightly brighter but Musharraf will have lesser powers and another power center of a new Army chief may emerge.

Even after 60 years of independence Democracy remains a distant dream in Pakistan, I was shocked when I came to know of the fact that no elected government or assembly (either at a state or national level) has ever completed a full five year term in that country.

On a lighter side I find the main headline on Pakistan TV website really amusing. It never changes, it always remain either "President General Pervez Musharraf" or occasionally "Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz" with the story below highlighting what the president/PM said or did that day :-). This is the face of government owned media.

Mercifully India's Doordarshan is still not so bad.

Madam President

Pratibha Patil is the new President of India, As I watched the debate on CNN-IBN I could not help but notice a larger issue we Indians have missed in this whole election drama.

The issue is, in this election we have put an end to an admirable convention of electing a non-partisan,non-political president.

The convention started with Kalam who turned out to be a fantastic "People's president", I think credit for starting this convention should have gone to NDA who made his presidency possible.

Sadly the Congress party and their left allies were in no such mood and decided to elect a political rubber stamp like Ms Patil.

Amit Verma of livemint has written a very humorous sarcastic article, Even though some of the comments seems to be below the belt, Amit Verma represents the desperate feelings of a growing educated class who have been left with very little say in the political system of the country.

Of "Passport Baba" and "VISA Balaji"

Among the day's idiotic stories, there was this story in ET about one "Passport Baba", where hundreds of people come and tie their passports to the old pipal tree in the hopes of hitting foreign shores!

When I told of this to a friend, he told me about "VISA Balaji" where people converge for divine intervention into their VISA approval process... and it is supposed to work!

I guess India doesn't need its own parody newspaper like "The Onion", since the regular stories and events themselves are so much amusing and resemble parody :-)