The Himalayan Voice

HINDU-MUSLIM FACEBOOK 'HATE WAR' AGAINST EACH OTHER AND DELICACY OF SOCIAL MEDIA

2013-04-29T07:07:00.000-04:00

[The era in which we live is extremely complex in nature. The problems are extraordinary and of varied forms which certainly require extraordinary answers. We did not inherit a peaceful society from the previous generation. The previous generation was also not fortunate enough to inherit a perfect society from their predecessors. It is less likely that we are going hand-down a better society to the future generations. But this does not mean that we all must stop looking for better answers to questions of the present era.]

By Nihal Parashar

A Photo Shared By The Page ‘Karz Apna Chukana Hai, Babri Masjid Wahin Banana Hai’

I wrote a dissertation titled ‘Building of a Communal State in a Virtual World: Hindu-Muslim relation seen through the lens of YouTube and Facebook’. I was trying to interrogate the role of Social Media platforms in the ongoing ‘hate war’ between the fascists of the two world religions. While working on the dissertation I stumbled upon various Facebook pages and YouTube videos which propagated violence. The question which comes to mind is, should we ban these pages? But the bigger question is how socially relevant these pages are? If there is a hate page on a certain social media platform, it simply signifies that there is hate in the society as well. The spill over of societal issues could be seen on these platforms. The Facebook pages, with numerous ‘likes’, justify that they are only tip of the iceberg. The problem lies somewhere else in between. This reminds me of a couplet by renowned Urdu poet Josh Malihabadi which says, ‘Zeb ye deta nahin sarkaar ko, paaliye bimaariyon ko maariye bimaar ko’ (This does not suits government when it kills the people affected with a disease but does nothing to eradicate the disease).

Today I came across another of such pages. The title of the page is ‘Karz apna chukana hai, Babri Masjid wahin banana hai’, loosely translates into English as ‘We need to pay back by building Babri Mosque at the same place’. It is time to revisit my thesis and add few more notes also.

The era in which we live is extremely complex in nature. The problems are extraordinary and of varied forms which certainly require extraordinary answers as well. We did not inherit a peaceful society from the previous generation. The previous generation was also not fortunate enough to inherit a perfect society from their predecessors. It is less likely that we are going to hand-down a better society to the future generations. But this should not mean that we all must stop looking for better answers to questions of the present era.

The Communal aspect of the Social Media platforms is a result of the dissatisfaction in the society. There are few similarities in the pages which claim to represent different religions. The administrator of most of the pages lack sense of humour (they make you laugh at times although for a different reason altogether) and fuel ange and discomfort. The posts are written to stimulate a feeling of hatred against the ‘other’community. They use each and every possible mythological symbol for the purpose. The admin and followers do not hesitate to turn most of the current social and political developments into an occasion to revisit the history and look for reasons to criticize the behaviour of the‘others’. They take solace in the religious past to condemn the act of others.

Screenshot From The Page ‘India Is A Hindu Nation’ Which Is Stereotyping Islamic Countries

Through This Image And Many Others On The Page

Apart from these, the most common similarities for such pages in India is Narendra Modi. You will find posts related to him on all the Hindutva pages as well as Islamic fascists pages, with obvious love and hatred against the respective pages.

The social media gives a sense of pseudo-anonymity to the person on the front end. You are hero for the moment. And fighting is an extremely honourable job, as per our social and religious norms. Are we living in 10,000 B.C? What is the importance of civilization if it is unble to generate the basic understanding that fighting is not going to solve any problem. A soothing soul said that non-violence is older than the mountains and oceans. It seems as if the civilization itself has taken wrong route and a peaceful world seems a distant dream.

The rise of communalism on the advent of different social media platforms is going to shape the worldview of many young individuals, still in early teenage, that may come across certain posts which may plant the seed of prejudice in their fertile minds. The human mind is amazing, especially in the early years. It distinguishes right and wrong in a very young age and for the entire life it only justifies the decision of the tender age. It needs to be extremely elastic to re-evaluate its decision in a later year. If an individual has a certain point of view on a certain issue it is totally related to his personal journey. Social media may act as a tool for the same. But in no circumstance it can be the culprit.

What must be done to take care of the rise of communalism on the social media platforms? Shall we agree with an Indian minister’s idea of asking Facebook and Google to screen the content on the websites? This does not have a very simple answer as well. Like all extraordinary questions it deserves an extraordinary answer.

‘We need an inclusive society’- is this an accepted statement? We need to answer this. If it is an accepted statement then we certainly need to look for a community of peace-builders who believe in the humanitarian values. There will be the fascist forces to ridicule this idea. But an inclusive society will also accommodate them.

No, I am not talking about utopia. I am talking about my society, which rests its hope on you, the reader like yourself.

@ Youthki Awaaz

FLEEING PAKISTAN VIOLENCE, HAZARAS BRAVE UNCERTAIN JOURNEY

2013-04-28T03:32:00.001-04:00

[In Quetta, where most Pakistani Hazaras live, the attacks are led by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a fanatical group that views Shiites as heretics. With their distinctive Central Asian features and historical links to anti-Taliban forces, the Hazaras make an appealing target. After a decade of intermittent attacks, bloodshed is suddenly surging: two Lashkar suicide bombings this year killed almost 200 people, up from 125 in 2012.]

By Declan Walsh

KARACHI, Pakistan — Stranded in a dingy hotel in the heart of this port city, waiting for the smuggler’s call, Hussain felt at once trapped and poised for freedom.

Behind lay his hometown, Quetta, the city in western Pakistan that has become a killing ground for Sunni sectarian death squads that hunt Shiites. So far this year they have killed almost 200 people, and Hussain was nearly one of them. Lifting a pants leg, he displayed an eight-inch scar from a bomb blast in January.

But great danger also lay ahead. Hussain was headed for Australia, where thousands of his fellow ethnic Hazaras, Shiites who have borne the brunt of the recent violence, have sought refuge. The illegal journey — across Southeast Asia by air, ground and sea at the mercy of unscrupulous human traffickers — would be long and perilous. Several hundred Hazaras had died on that route in recent years, most when their rickety boats foundered at sea.

For Hussain, it was worth the risk.

“I’d rather die in the boat than in a bomb blast,” he said, twisting a cup of coffee nervously in a restaurant near the hotel. “At least this way, I get to choose.”

Hussain, 25, is part of a growing exodus of young Hazara men who are fleeing Pakistan as it has become apparent that their government and military cannot, or will not, protect them from violent extremists.

In Quetta, where most Pakistani Hazaras live, the attacks are led by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a fanatical group that views Shiites as heretics. With their distinctive Central Asian features and historical links to anti-Taliban forces, the Hazaras make an appealing target. After a decade of intermittent attacks, bloodshed is suddenly surging: two Lashkar suicide bombings this year killed almost 200 people, up from 125 in 2012.

That toll set off a long-overdue security crackdown, but the attacks resumed last Tuesday with a suicide attack on a Hazara politician that killed six people. To young men like Hussain, whose family runs a clothes shop, the next bomb is only a matter of time.

“We can live without the basics of life — gas, electricity and so on,” said Hussain, who asked to be identified by just part of his name in the hope of avoiding arrest on his journey. “But we can’t live with the fear.”

Hussain’s older brother was shot and killed by militants in 2008. His own brush with death came on Jan. 10, after a powerful blast ripped through a snooker hall near his house. As Hussain rushed to help, he was caught in a second explosion that killed rescue workers, police officers and journalists. He blacked out.

“I don’t remember the sound of the blast,” he said. “Just the feeling, like a sort of sonic pulse.” He awoke in the hospital with 36 stitches in one leg and learned that three of his closest friends were among the 84 dead.

It was becoming clear that the Lashkar killers could operate with impunity. “They take their time. They select. Then they shoot,” he said.

The final straw came on March 7, when the military summoned Hussain and other Hazara traders to a meeting in Haideri bazaar, a popular market. As soldiers stood guard outside, an army colonel offered the merchants some sobering advice: they needed to buy handguns, he said.

Some people reacted angrily, and began berating the military officers, demanding better protection, Hussain recalled. But he went home to make a phone call. Two years earlier, his younger brother had left for Australia, where he had gotten a job in a fast food restaurant. Now Hussain needed to hear his voice.

“Just come,” the brother said.

Three days later, Hussain had agreed to pay $6,000 to a trafficker and was on a flight to Karachi, on the first leg of a journey across Asia that would be as emotionally wrenching as it was sudden.

In the plane, he found himself comforting a weeping 16-year-old boy, also Hazara, who said he had been forced to leave by his parents. In the shabby Karachi hotel, he shared a room with “Master,” a 41-year-old shoe trader from Quetta, also bound for Australia.

With thinning hair and a quick grin, Master, who would give only his nickname, had an avuncular manner. But when conversation turned to the three bewildered daughters, aged 7, 9 and 13, he had left behind in Quetta a day earlier, the smile faded and his eyes welled up.

“I will bring them to Australia,” he said in a cracking voice. “This country is no longer for us Hazaras.”

As with many other Hazaras aiming for Australia — from Afghanistan as well as Pakistan — their starting point was Karachi. From there, the journey is arduous and uncertain. Refugees first fly to Thailand or Malaysia, often via Sri Lanka, after their agents bribe immigration officers and Pakistani border officials. The trek continues by land and sea across Malaysia and Indonesia, in cars and trains, dodging police patrols, overnighting at flophouses.

Some migrants are arrested by police officers and border guards along the way and deported back to Pakistan; others are extorted or abandoned by the traffickers, or robbed on the roadside. In many cases, they end up paying thousands of dollars more — in bribes to crooked border officers or supplemental fees to smugglers — so they can keep pressing toward Australia.

The last leg is the most treacherous. In Indonesia, migrants buy tickets aboard small, overcrowded boats bound for Christmas Island, a small Australian territory about 240 miles off the Indonesian coast, where they apply for political asylum. There, they join other boat people — Sri Lankans, Iranians, Afghans, Iraqis.

Safe arrival is by no means guaranteed. Between late 2001 and last June, 964 asylum seekers and boat crew members from various countries are known to have lost their lives on this passage, said Sandi Logan, a spokesman for the Australian government’s Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

Habibullah, a 22-year-old student from Quetta, was nearly one of them. Last October, he joined 34 Hazara men on a boat bound for Christmas Island. Within 24 hours, the boat had sunk in a storm. Mr. Habibullah, who has only one name, says he was the sole survivor, picked up by an Indonesian fishing boat after three days clinging to floating debris.

In a harrowing written account of those events sent by e-mail, and in a phone interview from Indonesia, Mr. Habibullah described a traumatic ordeal.

He spoke of long hours in the water, whipped by waves and fearing sharks, desperately calling out to distant passing ships. But most anguishing, he said, was the sight of fellow passengers slipping under the waves, some calling out to their wives or parents.

Mr. Habibullah, suffering extreme thirst and sharp kidney pain, sustained himself by thinking of his home in Quetta. “I remembered my past, surrounded by my parents,” he wrote. “And I realized they were with me.”

It is impossible to confirm Mr. Habibullah’s account independently. But Hazara community leaders in Quetta confirmed that several men accompanying Mr. Habibullah had died, and some of their photographs have been published on blogs.

Mr. Habibullah sounded despondent. Conditions at the government detention center in Indonesia were grim, he said, and he was struggling to gain an asylum hearing from the United Nations refugee agency. Nine months after leaving home, and having spent $15,000 on bribes, transportation and smuggler’s fees, he had not reached Australia.

Still, he understood why other Hazaras wanted to make the journey. “It’s worth it,” he said.

The Australian government has tried to deter the boat people. Last year, it began transferring asylum seekers to detention centers on two remote Pacific islands while their cases are heard. Human rights groups and United Nations officials have condemned conditions at the camps, and Australian news media have reported several suicide attempts there in recent months.Responding to the criticism, Australian officials say they have increased their humanitarian refugee quota to 20,000 this year, a 40 percent increase. At the same time, in countries like Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, the Australian government has started an advertising campaign seeking to persuade potential refugees to stay at home.

Yet still they keep coming. In the first weeks of April, according to official figures, the Australian Navy intercepted 10 boats carrying 760 people, most bound for Christmas Island. The majority of cases from Afghanistan and Pakistan were ethnic Hazaras, whose numbers have grown to about 25,000 people in Australia, officials say.

Before leaving Karachi, Hussain and Master took a stroll along the beach, dipping their toes in the Arabian Sea and meandering among the young families on the sand.

Hussain stressed that if not for the extremist threat, he would not be leaving Pakistan. Ten months earlier he had married his sweetheart, a local teacher, whom he had left behind. His family made a good living from its clothes business. And patriotism ran in the family — his grandfather had served in Pakistan’s army.

“This could be the last time I see Pakistan,” he said, staring out at the waves.

His younger brother had warned him of a daunting journey ahead — “Expect it to be hell,” were his words — and so he was relying on the religious items around his neck: a small leather pouch containing two folded Koranic inscriptions, from his father and his wife, and a black pendant inscribed with the words “Y’Allah Madaat” — “Oh God, help me.”

Over the following weeks, he sent several messages: from Bangkok, where he was staying in a cramped room with 16 other refugees (“Waiting, waiting, and so on,” he wrote), then, in late March, from Indonesia.

Master had been arrested in a car headed for a port in Malaysia, Hussain said. But he had managed to escape, and had arrived in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, where he would seek a boat to Australia.

This month, a boat carrying about 90 people, most of them Hazaras, sunk en route to Australia. Hussain was depressed, but undeterred. “I’m looking forward,” he wrote. Then he added: “May God help me.”

@ The New York Times

ILLEGAL DISTRICTS DOT NEW DELHI AS CITY SWELLS

2013-04-27T19:33:00.002-04:00

[This month, government bulldozers flattened a small slum in New Delhi known as Sonia Gandhi Camp, named after the president of the governing Indian National Congress Party. At the edge of a road called Tamil Sangam Marg, not far from one of the city’s wealthiest districts, about 50 migrant families had lived there for two decades. Many had voting cards or government ration cards that listed their address as Sonia Gandhi Camp. One city agency had even built a public toilet, though the encampment remained illegal.]

By Jim Yardley

Kuni Takahashi for The New York Times

New Ashok Nagar, an “unauthorized colony” in New Delhi. More Photos »

NEW DELHI — New Ashok Nagar is a typical crosscut of Indian urban chaos: Dust rises off battered, narrow lanes, tangles of telephone and electricity lines hang between poorly constructed, mismatched brick buildings. Sewage overflows from uncovered channels. And people are in the streets, in the doorways, everywhere.

What is also fairly typical about New Ashok Nagar is that it is not supposed to exist. The district, on the eastern edge of New Delhi, is an “unauthorized colony,” with an estimated 200,000 residents despite its lack of government approvals or full city services. Across New Delhi, as many as 5 million of the city’s 17 million residents live in unauthorized colonies, whether in slums, middle-class areas or even a few illegally constructed enclaves of the rich.

Now Sheila Dixit, the chief minister of Delhi, the state that includes the national capital, New Delhi, has promised what amounts to an election-year urban amnesty program. She has pledged that scores of unauthorized colonies, including New Ashok Nagar, will be granted legal status — which could lead to new or improved sewer lines, electrical and water connections, and better roads — a change that could move residents closer to modern standards of living.

Possibly.

“We are on the list of authorized colonies,” said S. P. Tyagi, who has lived in New Ashok Nagar since 1984 and seen the difference between political promises that are made and those that are delivered. “But it is not clear if it will happen or not. There are some doubts.”

India is often demarcated along lines of caste or class. But many of India’s rapidly growing cities are also delineated by the legal status of where people live. For years, as migrants have poured into Indian cities in search of work and opportunity, illegal settlements, often slums, have sprung up in the absence of available, affordable low-income or even middle-class housing. Many of these settlements have grown into bustling districts more populous than many American cities, yet lacking amenities and legal protections, and residents face the perpetual threat of eviction.

This month, government bulldozers flattened a small slum in New Delhi known as Sonia Gandhi Camp, named after the president of the governing Indian National Congress Party. At the edge of a road called Tamil Sangam Marg, not far from one of the city’s wealthiest districts, about 50 migrant families had lived there for two decades. Many had voting cards or government ration cards that listed their address as Sonia Gandhi Camp. One city agency had even built a public toilet, though the encampment remained illegal.

“They asked us to stand in front of our homes,” said one man, who gave only his given name, Ramesh. He said residents were told the land was needed for a road project. “We showed them our papers and cards. But they did not listen. They started on one side and demolished everything.” An elderly woman, Rama Devi, could not contain her anger as she stood in the rubble. “They have left us on the road,” she said. “I wish they would go to hell.”

This blend of demolition and rampant illegal construction is part of the rough, pell-mell process of an Indian megalopolis coming into being. New Delhi is one of the fastest-growing cities in the country, adding 200,000 new residents every year, according to city officials. Yet much of the land in the city is controlled by the Delhi Development Authority, an agency under the national government that has been criticized for failing to develop enough housing, especially for the poor and the middle class.

“What happens to the people who come?” asked R. K. Srivastava, the secretary of urban development in the Delhi state government, who is critical of the national development agency. “There is no housing stock. These people are forced to live in shanties, unauthorized colonies and, shall I say, subhuman facilities.”

In the 1970s, the Delhi Development Agency took control of New Ashok Nagar, which was then farmland. The agency never took physical possession of the land, even as it doled out compensation to farmers, and residents say that some farmers simply resold the same plots to people looking to live in the capital. “I knew this was an unauthorized colony, but I did not have the money to buy in an authorized colony,” said Mr. Tyagi, the longtime resident. A public school English teacher, he bought a plot of about 1,000 square feet for 8,000 rupees, or $148. “At that time, even 8,000 rupees were too much for me,” he said.

Mr. Tyagi estimates that when he arrived in 1984, perhaps 5,000 people lived in the colony. “We used to live without electricity,” he said. “We made our own arrangements with candles or kerosene lights. For water, we built our own hand pumps.” To fend off the occasional demolition notices, residents began dabbling in politics. As the populations rapidly grew in colonies like New Ashok Nagar, local lawmakers realized that these colonies represented troves of potential voters and found ways to divert funds to provide rudimentary electrical connections, roads and other services.

Tapan Kumar Chowdhury, 62, a retiree now working as an activist in the colony, said legalized status would be likely to improve sanitation and local health standards through installation of a true sewage system. But he remained skeptical about whether the election-year promises would be carried out, noting that politicians preferred to keep colonies vulnerable so that residents remained more beholden to them for even incremental improvements. “They have a vested interest in keeping us illegal and unauthorized,” he said, “so they can use us as a vote bank.”

Or as a real bank. Merchants like Vinod Kaushik, who runs a small pharmacy, said petty officials routinely demanded bribes to allow new construction projects. Others said that the police routinely required payoffs, too.

Mr. Srivastava, the state urban development secretary, agreed that even those colonies like New Ashok Nagar that were listed to become authorized still had to navigate loopholes, like providing layout plans for official approval. Doing this would mean that every lane and building must meet city specifications, though code violations are common. He characterized the requirements as somewhat unrealistic but said the process was established under a 2007 national law. He said state officials were planning to seek the “relaxation” of certain code requirements, which could help illegal colonies like New Ashok Nagar pass muster but would also leave them with substandard housing.

“Where will the poor man go?” he asked. “That is the problem.”

Partha Mukhopadhyay, an urban affairs specialist at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi, said politicians had made promises that were not fulfilled, but that this time the process seemed much farther down the bureaucratic track, a reason for cautious optimism. “Usually, it is promised and not delivered,” he said. “It is possible that this time they might actually go through with the regularization process.”

Hari Kumar contributed reporting.

@ The New York Times

FORMER NEPALESE FOREIGN MINISTER FOR INDIA’S TAKING LEAD ROLE IN REGIONAL ECONOMIC INTEGRATION

2013-04-26T08:14:00.001-04:00

[Dr Lohani said that apart from India, the other economy that has the potential to exert a strong gravitational pull in South Asia specially for the smaller South Asian countries is China. Stating that Chinese do not have to do much to make their presence felt, Dr Lohani said, "The growth in their size means that even if the Chinese do not do anything deliberately they are becoming a factor in all countries around the world more or less like the USA." Being big with a dynamic economy with the general perception of a great future potential has a built in advantage because it means that other countries, especially the neighbours, will feel its presence even if there is no deliberate design. ]

By Akanshya Shah*

Nepal’s former Foreign Minister Dr Prakash Chandra Lohani says India should take the lead in the economic integration of the region and carry the smaller states along with it towards the path of economic prosperity.

Participating in a one-day conference on Indo-Nepal trade and investment at Observer Research Foundation on 22 April, 2013, Dr Lohani pointed out that there is unwillingness among the South Asian countries to form a strategic vision of economic cooperation that allows "the gravitational force of the large and dynamic Indian economy to act as a lever to pull all other member states in the path of collective prosperity."

The conference was organised as part of the joint study ORF has undertaken along with the South Asian Institute of Management (SAIM), Nepal, on Indo-Nepal trade and investment.

Viewed from a gravity model perspective developed by economists and geographers, India is the most important country in the region, Dr Lohani said. The size of the country, the dynamism of its economy and the distance factor involved imply that smaller South Asian countries will find the gravitational pull of the Indian economy a vital element in their quest for prosperity. "In fact this is one important reason to believe that in the years to come economic logic will become increasingly more powerful in India- Pakistan relationship."

Dr Lohani said that apart from India, the other economy that has the potential to exert a strong gravitational pull in South Asia specially for the smaller South Asian countries is China. Stating that Chinese do not have to do much to make their presence felt, Dr Lohani said, "The growth in their size means that even if the Chinese do not do anything deliberately they are becoming a factor in all countries around the world more or less like the USA." Being big with a dynamic economy with the general perception of a great future potential has a built in advantage because it means that other countries, especially the neighbours, will feel its presence even if there is no deliberate design.

Ambassador Shiv Mukherjee, while chairing the first session of the conference, too reiterated the point on the rise of Chinese influence in the region. But he pointed at the need to depoliticise economic issues, especially water projects, in Nepal, which has hindered real progress in bilateral trade and investment. He also said that political unrest has taken a toll on the economic scenario of Nepal.

Four papers were presented during the conference. The first paper entitled India- Nepal Trade and Investment Enhancement: Economic Integration with PPPP (public-private partnership along the fourth P, meaning people) was presented by Professor Madhukar Rana, who is also the former finance minister of Nepal.

The paper focused on economic development, strategic management and trade theory with the theme to foster 4Ps. The emphasis of the paper was on the role of private sector, which, according to Mr Rana, is the key for growth and employment creation. His methodology was more based on the (applied) consultant’s approach rather than (academic) research approach.

The paper examined the vital assumptions needed to move the bilateral economic process forward from mere ’cooperation’ and ’facilitation’ to ’integration’ for mutual benefit. It examined the historical trajectory since 1978 and highlighted main points of the current 2009 Indo-Nepal treaty.

His paper also examined the economics of geography and underscored how value and supply chains may be developed by companies like Dabur, GMR and Surya Tobacco, which have huge presence in Nepal, in partnership with the municipalities and the local people themselves.

Dr Jayshree Sengupta spoke on Indo-Nepal trade and investment from the Indian perspective. Stating that Nepal and India with its economic and cultural ties since ancient times are facing many problems on the economic front, she pointed that a huge trade deficit is an area of deep concern for Nepal.

She said that Nepal’s economy needs to step up its GDP growth, which has never exceeded six per cent in recent times. This will lead to a rise in incomes and also manufacturing and service sector growth, she added. While presenting statistics, Sengupta said that though poverty levels in Nepal are not as bad as in India, the inequality of incomes and corruption levels seem to be higher in Nepal. The main impediments to trade expansion with India seem to be related to infrastructural constraints and problems with border shipment facilities, she said.

Her paper examined the new tariff quota structure that is in place in recent times which according to the Nepalese authorities is unfair and biased against agricultural and other exports. She discussed trade facilitation measures that could be undertaken and how to to expand the range of Nepal’s exports and capacity building.

During the discussion, participants raised queries on what kind of investment guarantees would lead to more investment inflows into Nepal and what kind of private investment ventures are possible from India into Nepal. Sengupta said that making Nepal a more prosperous and stable country would be to India’s and the South Asian region’s advantage. She said focus should be on how to use the surplus labour force in Nepal to India’s investment advantage and how to protect the investment interests.

The third paper was on economic linkages between South Asia and East Asia and its implications for India-Nepal relations. The paper presented by Dr Pradumna Rana, Associate Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) of the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), argued that South Asian countries need to embark on a second round of "Look East" Policies (LEP2) to (i) link themselves to production networks and supply chains in East Asia and (ii) develop production networks in manufacturing and services within their region. Professor Rana said that such policies would allow both regions to benefit mutually and in a shared manner not only from the static complementarities of the Ricardian or the Hecksher-Ohlin trade models but also the dynamic complementarities associated with newer theories of product fragmentation pioneered by Jones and Kierzkowski (1990). Like in East Asia, economic integration between the two regions would increase and so would economic growth and welfare, he stated.

He said that these policies would reinvigorate economic integration in South Asia which has remained among the lowest in the world. LEP2 would also poise South Asia to benefit from the gradual but encouraging opening of Myanmar, a node for South Asia-East Asia relations and connectivity. The key components of LEP2 in South Asia should comprise (i) improving business environment by completing the economic reform process begun in the early 1990s (ii) reducing communication and coordination costs between supply chains by improving ICT (iii) reducing logistic costs including "at the border" through trade facilitation (iv) enhancing regional physical connectivity with East Asia and (v) lobbying and negotiating to participate in various on-going regional trade and financial cooperation efforts in East Asia.

At the request of the East Asia Summit, the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East has come up with two projects for ASEAN-India Connectivity. Professor Rana proposed that for China-ASEAN-South Asia Connectivity an Yunnan-Myanmar-India-Nepal-Tibet-Yunnan Economic Corridor or the Circular Economic Corridor be considered.

Prof. S K Mohanty of the Research and Information System for developing countries (RIS) presented the fourth paper titled ’Chinese Trade Engagement with South Asia: Implications for Nepal and India’.

He said that South Asia is emerging as a vibrant region in the world economy during the past decade, with external sector as the driver of growth for most of the regional economies. This has attracted the global interest for trade with the region, including China. As an immediate neighbouring country, Chinese engagement with South Asia has been more impressive during the last decade than decades before.

China is deeply engaged with the South Asian regional economies, particularly more with exports than imports, leading to widening of trade gap with many economies. With many of them, China is emerging as the most important partner in recent years. It became the largest export partner of India since 2008, replacing the US during the period of recession, though India witnessed unsustainable trade imbalance with China. Such trade imbalances are seen in several sectors, and also in the trade sector as a whole, he said. These trends are also similar with many regional economies in South Asia.

Prof. Mohanty argued that bilateral trade imbalance in the trade literature is not always construed as a negative entity when bilateral trade imbalance contributes to reduction of overall trade deficit of a country. He also argued that empirical evidences suggest that large number of products, exported by China to the regional economies including India is not competitive as compared to many other competitive foreign suppliers in the domestic economy, because of numerous trade strategies adopted by Chinese exporter supported by their state.

Implications of large exports to South Asian economies by China can be seen in two distinct areas, he said. Firstly, Chinese exports are reducing space for exports within the regional economies as these export opportunities are grabbed by China, and this may end up with reduction in IRT. Secondly, Chinese exports to South Asian countries are rising without any commensurate imports from these economies, resulting in widening of trade gaps with them.

On Nepal, he said that it is critically placed between India and China, having large trade deficit with them. While trade deficit with India is narrowing down, it is rather enlarging with China. Nepal’s bilateral export to import ratio is relatively better with India in comparison with China. If the present trend continues, Prof. Mohanty said, the overall trade deficit of Nepal is likely to increase with its further integration with China.

* Akanshya Shah is Associate Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi, India.

@ Observer Research Foundation

NORTH KOREA ISSUES THREAT AT CEREMONY FOR MILITARY

2013-04-26T05:26:00.006-04:00

[Earlier Thursday, South Korea said it was giving the North until Friday to respond to its proposal for dialogue about the two countries’ joint industrial park or face a “grave measure” by the South. The statement by the Unification Ministry stopped short of saying whether South Korea was contemplating withdrawing 176 South Korean managers still remaining in the factory park in North Korea or even terminating the joint economic project, which has survived years of political tensions on the divided Korean Peninsula.]

By Choe Sang-Hun

SEOUL, South Korea — On an anniversary known for military showmanship, North Korean generals on Thursday declared that their forces were ready to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles and kamikazelike nuclear attacks at the United States if threatened.

“Stalwart pilots, once given a sortie order, will load nuclear bombs, instead of fuel for return, and storm enemy strongholds to blow them up,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency quoted its Air and Anti-Air Force commander, Ri Pyong-chol, as saying during a ceremony in observance of the anniversary of the founding of the North Korean People’s Army.

Another general, Kim Rak-gyom, the Strategic Rocket Force commander, reiterated the claim that the North is “one click away from pushing the launch button.”

“If the U.S. imperialists and their followers dare make a pre-emptive attack, they will be made to keenly realize what a real nuclear war and real retaliatory blows are like,” he said.

Threats to launch nuclear strikes and warnings of “nuclear holocaust” have become common since the country’s latest nuclear test, its third, in February. Although North Korea is believed to have a small nuclear weaponsarsenal, most analysts doubt it could follow through on threats to deliver them to the United States by missile.

One American intelligence agency recently said it had “moderate confidence” that the North had mastered the technology of building a weapon that could fit on a missile warhead, but the Obama administration said that was not the consensus among the United States’ 15 other intelligence agencies. Most analysts believe that Kim Jong-un, the North’s leader, is using the nuclear bluster to consolidate the support of his people and bolster his leverage in dealing with Washington and its allies.

The threatening statements come after days of relative quiet that followed weeks of warnings of dire consequences if the United States and South Korea provoked the North. Mr. Kim’s government was already angered by United Nations sanctions punishing it for the nuclear test in February and by particularly robust joint exercises by the American and South Korea militaries.

The timing of the latest threats appeared to be tied to the military anniversary. North Korea’s military, the backbone of Mr. Kim’s dynastic rule, has traditionally used the date to swear its loyalty to the Kim family and vent its anti-American vitriol.

During the military ceremony on Thursday, Mr. Kim saluted columns of soldiers marching past, and airplanes made demonstration flights, the North Korean news agency said.

Earlier Thursday, South Korea said it was giving the North until Friday to respond to its proposal for dialogue about the two countries’ joint industrial park or face a “grave measure” by the South. The statement by the Unification Ministry stopped short of saying whether South Korea was contemplating withdrawing 176 South Korean managers still remaining in the factory park in North Korea or even terminating the joint economic project, which has survived years of political tensions on the divided Korean Peninsula.

The future of the project, the Kaesong Industrial Complex, located in the North Korean border town of the same name, has been in doubt ever since North Korea pulled out its 53,000 workers in early April. It also blocked supplies and South Korean managers who were south of the border from entering the economic zone.

The number of South Korean managers at Kaesong dwindled from the usual 900 to 176 as of Wednesday as supplies were running out. On Thursday, the South Korean government said that those who were still in Kaesong, hoping for the reopening of the complex, would not be able to remain much longer.

A spokesman for the government said that when it had tried Wednesday to send a letter to the North asking permission to send emergency food and medical supplies to the South Koreans in Kaesong, the North had not even accepted the document.

@ The New York Times

NEPAL’S PER-CAPITA DEBT TOUCHED RS 19‚748 IN 2011-12 : GOVT INEFFICIENCY BLAMED

[Had the government been efficient on its spending, half of the debt would have been reduced as the total debt stood at Rs 523.20 billion and the cumulative questionable expenses have increased to Rs 204.26 billion till the last fiscal year since 2002-03,” the report said.]

By Kuvera Chalise

KATHMANDU: How much is too much when it comes to per capita debt? The state’s indebtedness in terms of per capita has increased by over 60 per cent in the last six year, thanks to the government’s inefficiency.

Nepal’s per capita debt touched Rs 19,748 in the last fiscal year 2011-12, according to the Auditor General’s report. The per capita debt in the fiscal year 2005-06 was pegged at Rs 12,000.

“The increasing per capita debt will not only erode fixed income people’s spending capacity but also country’s capacity to spend on human capital,” said senior economist Bishwhambher Pyakuryal. The government’s capacity to spend on social safety net like primary education and health will be hit hard due to rising burden of debt, he said, adding that debt servicing and borrowing capacity will also take a beating.

Had the government been efficient on its spending, half of the debt would have been reduced as the total debt stood at Rs 523.20 billion and the cumulative questionable expenses have increased to Rs 204.26 billion till the last fiscal year since 2002-03,” the report said.

The country’s total loan till the last fiscal year 2011-12 was Rs 523.20 billion — including foreign loan of Rs 309.28 billion and domestic loan of Rs 213.92 billion, according to the 50th report of the Auditor General.

The total loan stood at Rs 443.62 billion — including Rs 259.50 billion external loan and Rs 184.12 billion internal loan — till fiscal year 2010-11, which was Rs 403.9 billion, including Rs 256.24 billion external loan and Rs 147.66 billion domestic loan, in the previous fiscal year 2009-10.

The alarming debt has, however, not shown its impact on either capital formation or productive output that has raised doubts of misuse of resources, as around 23 per cent of the foreign assistance is out of the government’s sight, according to the Development Cooperation Report 2013.

“A lack of information with the government has made it difficult for it to check how much of the loan has been used in capital formation,” the senior economist added.

“Apart from some 20 per cent of the technical assistance that has been spent on donors themselves on average, there is no harmonisation of the systems among the government agencies on exchange rate calculation,” he said, adding that some agencies calculate exchange rate on the basis of the date of borrowing, whereas others calculate on the date of payment.

Likewise, the internal resources are also grossly misused, the Auditor General’s report said, asking the government agencies to take serious action against the responsible employees.

@ The Himalayan Times

DEATH TOLL HITS 194 IN BANGLADESHI BUILDING COLLAPSE

2013-04-25T05:48:00.002-04:00

[The collapse followed a fire in November that killed 112 workers making shorts and sweaters for export and that led importers, including Walmart, to vow to do more to ensure the safety of factories where goods they sell are manufactured. The building collapse on Wednesday quickly revived questions about the commitment of local factory owners, Bangladeshi officials and global brands to provide safe working conditions.]

By Julfikar Ali Manik and Jim Yardley

A.M. Ahad/Associated Press

Inspectors found cracks in the building’s structure the day before

it collapsed, local news reports said. More Photos »

DHAKA, Bangladesh — Search crews on Thursday clawed through the wreckage of a collapsed building that housed several factories making clothing for European and American consumers, with the death toll rising to at least 194 with many others still unaccounted for.

The collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Savar, an industrial suburb of Dhaka, the capital, came only five months after a horrific fire at a similar facility prompted leading multinational brands to pledge to work to improve safety in the country’s booming but poorly regulated garment industry.

By early Thursday, police officials reported that more than 1,000 of the 2,500 workers were injured, with many of them still trapped. Soldiers, paramilitary police officers, firefighters and other citizens were enlisted in the search for survivors and bodies.

Brig. Gen. Ali Ahmed Khan, head of the National Fire Service, said that an initial investigation found that the Rana Plaza building violated codes, with the four upper floors having been constructed illegally without permits.

“There was a structural fault as well,” General Khan added, noting that the building’s foundation was substandard.

The collapse followed a fire in November that killed 112 workers making shorts and sweaters for export and that led importers, including Walmart, to vow to do more to ensure the safety of factories where goods they sell are manufactured. The building collapse on Wednesday quickly revived questions about the commitment of local factory owners, Bangladeshi officials and global brands to provide safe working conditions.

The Bangladeshi news media reported that inspection teams had discovered cracks in the structure of Rana Plaza on Tuesday. Shops and a bank branch on the lower floors immediately closed. But the owners of the garment factories on the upper floors ordered employees to work on Wednesday, despite the safety risks.

Labor activists combed the wreckage on Wednesday afternoon and discovered labels and production records suggesting that the factories were producing garments for major European and American brands. Labels were discovered for the Spanish brand Mango, and for the low-cost British chain Primark.

Activists said the factories also had produced clothing for Walmart, the Dutch retailer C & A, Benetton and Cato Fashions, according to customs records, factory Web sites and documents discovered in the collapsed building.

Survivors described a sensation akin to being in an earthquake: hearing a loud and terrifying cracking sound; feeling the concrete factory floor roll beneath their feet; and watching concrete beams and pillars collapse as the eight-story building suddenly seemed to implode.

“I heard screams,” said Mahmudul Hasan, a quality inspector at Ether Tex, a garment factory, who was hit by a falling ceiling. “My heart started pounding. I lay down near a pillar and started thinking that perhaps I was going to die.”

International attention was focused on labor conditions in Bangladesh five months ago, with the fatal fire at Tazreen Fashions, a garment factory near Dhaka. That fire brought pledges from government officials and many global companies to tighten safety standards.

But on Wednesday, many labor rights advocates said the collapse of Rana Plaza showed a continued failure to take meaningful action.

“The front-line responsibility is the government’s, but the real power lies with Western brands and retailers, beginning with the biggest players: Walmart, H & M, Inditex, Gap and others,” said Scott Nova, executive director of Worker Rights Consortium, a labor rights organization. “The price pressure these buyers put on factories undermines any prospect that factories will undertake the costly repairs and renovations that are necessary to make these buildings safe.”

Bangladesh is the world’s second-leading garment exporter, trailing only China, but the industry has been plagued by concerns over safety and angry protests over rock-bottom wages. The industry has grown rapidly in the past decade, particularly as rising wages in China have pushed many global clothing companies to look for lower costs elsewhere. Bangladesh has the lowest labor costs in the world, with the minimum wage for garment workers set at roughly $37 a month.

Such low labor costs have attracted not just Walmart but almost every major global clothing company, including Sears, Gap, Tommy Hilfiger and many others. Bangladesh now has more than 5,000 garment factories, employing more than 3.2 million workers, many of them women, and advocates credit the industry for lifting people out of poverty, even with such low wages. Exports also provide a critical source of foreign exchange that helps the government offset the high costs of imported oil.

But critics have argued that the outsize importance of the industry has made the government reluctant to take steps that could increase costs or alienate foreign brands. Labor unions are almost nonexistent, and a labor organizer, Aminul Islam, was tortured and murdered last year. The case remains unsolved. Meanwhile, some factory owners say they cannot raise wages or invest in upgrading facilities because of the low prices paid by Western brands.

Poorly constructed buildings have long been a problem in Bangladesh. In 2005, at least 64 workers at Spectrum Garments were killed in a building collapse. Alonzo Suson, who runs an A.F.L.-C.I.O. training center in Dhaka known as the Solidarity Center, said Wednesday’s accident illustrated the repeated failure of government inspectors to ensure that safety standards and building codes are met.

“It is substandard construction, shortcut construction,” Mr. Suson said. “There was already a crack in the building.”

On Wednesday, a spokesman for Walmart expressed sympathy for the victims and said the global retail giant was committed to promoting stronger safety measures. “We are investigating across our global supply chain to see if a factory in this building was currently producing for Walmart,” said Kevin Gardner, the company spokesman.

One problem exposed in the Tazreen Fashions fire was the opacity of the global supply chain for clothing. The Tazreen factory was making apparel for Walmart and Sears, but after the fire both retailers said they had not known that and accused their suppliers of secretly subcontracting the jobs.

Inside Rana Plaza, labor activists discovered a document detailing cutting specifications for an order from Benetton. Yet Luca Biondolillo, a spokesman for the Benetton Group, denied any connection to the factories in the building. “None of the companies involved are currently suppliers of Benetton Group or any of its brands,” Mr. Biondolillo said.

The Bangladeshi prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, announced that Thursday would be a national day of mourning. Ms. Hasina, leader of the governing Awami League, could face political fallout from the accident. Rana Plaza is owned by a political figure affiliated with the Awami League.

Mr. Hasan, the quality inspector who survived the collapse, recalled a chaotic scene in which the dust was so thick that he struggled to breathe.

“I found some other colleagues around me when they were using the light of their mobile phones,” he said. “We were all trapped. So we had to crawl to look for space to escape.

“We were screaming, shouting, saying, ‘Save me! I am here!’ ”

@ The New York Times

INDIA: DEMOCRACY OR PLAY OF NUMBERS?

2013-04-24T07:12:00.001-04:00

[The number of persons with a criminal background has shown an alarming increase in Parliament and State Legislatures in recent years. In 2004, 23.2 per cent of Lok Sabha members had criminal antecedents. During the 2009 election, the number rose to 30 per cent. The number of crorepatis in the Lok Sabha, which was 156, or 29 per cent in 2004, rose to 304, or 58 per cent, in the present Lok Sabha. This shows a close and growing link with the world of crime, among other things.]

By Madhuri Shukla

A majority of those who come to the Lok Sabha or to the State Assemblies are elected by a minority of votes cast in their favour. There have been MPs and MLAs who secured even less than 15 per cent and still won.

India is in urgent need of electoral reforms. But what should it be: A US-style presidential election or two-to-three national party system? This issue is the debate of the hour among constitutional experts, political stalwarts and also the commoner. In the past, BJP patriarch LK Advani had raised the issue of having a two-to-three national party system for the Lok Sabha elections. Without the ventilator support from many regional parties, no Government can survive, let alone implement reforms. But no leader speaks in favour of electoral reforms.

Today, we have more than 3.2 million elected representatives. The 15th General Election to Lok Sabha was the largest and the most stupendous electoral exercise anywhere in the world and was universally acclaimed as free and fair. It cannot, however, be denied that if we look at the state of our democracy today, there is much to hang our heads in shame.

During the recent years, the composition of our Legislatures and the conduct of our Legislators and Ministers has been a matter of disgrace for democracy. Governments have lost their credibility. People have seen democratic Governments surviving through the politics of brinkmanship and blackmail. There is disconnect between the people and the politicians. There can be no greater threat to democracy than a scenario in which the people lose faith in the representatives they elect.

Elections are the foundation of democracy. Unfortunately, our electoral system and processes are afflicted by seven maladies : Money Power, Muscle Power, Mafia Power, Casteism, Communalism, Criminalisation and Corruption.

To win an election, you need votes and notes. To garner votes you need to mount massive election campaigns which require truckloads of money. Money is needed not only for campaigning, but for buying, bribing, cajoling and black-mailing the voters and their leaders. According to a recent study of State Assembly elections, 34 per cent of all the voters were believed to have been paid in cash.

On an average, a Lok Sabha seat election cost between Rs 5 crore to Rs15 crore. It is natural that the winning candidate should try to recover the amount which he has spent, and something more to take care of the next election — and for the rainy day. If that is possible through corruption, so be it.

The question is: Where does this money come from? Nobody pays his hard-earned tax-deducted white money to politicians. But no one parts even with his black money without expecting good returns on the investment. During the licence raj, industrial houses financed political parties and election campaigns. Then, the mining, land and the crime mafia joined in.

After that, the criminals, smugglers, illicit drug and arms dealers and gangsters paid the politicians what they called ‘protection money’. Soon, the criminals realised that, since elections were being conducted with their money and muscle power, they should themselves enter in politics. The result is before us all to see.

The number of persons with a criminal background has shown an alarming increase in Parliament and State Legislatures in recent years. In 2004, 23.2 per cent of Lok Sabha members had criminal antecedents. During the 2009 election, the number rose to 30 per cent. The number of crorepatis in the Lok Sabha, which was 156, or 29 per cent in 2004, rose to 304, or 58 per cent, in the present Lok Sabha. This shows a close and growing link with the world of crime, among other things.

Our founding fathers wanted to build a united nation from a highly segmented feudal society. But today, political leaders play divisive politics to build vote banks that catapult them to power. Politicians in all parties have a vested interest in keeping the people divided, backward, poor and illiterate. For example, as the Sachar Committee showed, precious little has been done during the last 65 years to ameliorate the condition of minorities. Similarly, no serious effort has really been made for the upliftment of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

Today, the representational legitimacy of our elected representatives stands seriously eroded. Available statistics show that, if you have a secured vote-bank of 15 per cent, you can be 90 per cent sure of winning. How to build this 15 per cent vote-bank is the concern of every candidate. Also, if you can be sure of winning with the support of this 15 per cent vote- bank, why should you bother about the other 85 per cent?

Thus, the majority of those who are elected to the Lok Sabha or to State Assemblies are elected by a minority of votes cast in their favour. There have been MPs and MLAs, who secured even less than 15 per cent and yet became Ministers. Can they really be called representatives of the people? Unfortunately, the number of those elected by a minority of the votes cast is increasing. Those winning Lok Sabha seats with a majority of votes was 218 in 1999, and in 2009, it came down to just 120.

@ The Pioneer

WHEN ‘LOVE MARRIAGE’ NEEDS A LITTLE HELP

2013-04-23T08:46:00.004-04:00

[The women the men want are a new breed: smart, sophisticated, financially independent marriage partners. Arranging a match within a community is daunting enough, Ms. Srinivasan and concerned parents like her say, but fixing up a match with the amended specs is confounding even in Bangalore, a friendly city full of ambitious young professionals.]

By Saritha Rai

Courtesy of Floh.inFloh members interacting at an event in Bangalore, Karnataka, on March 31, 2012.

After decades of fixing arranged marriages for their children, Indian parents are taking on a new challenge: trying to orchestrate their kids’ love marriages.

A new generation of young Indian professionals has refused to follow the arranged-marriage route, with its emphasis on caste, family ties, wealth and skin color – with the blessings of their parents.

But as these kids tread toward their 30s, some parents say they fear their offspring’s chances of finding a marriage partner are evaporating entirely. These parents, while trying to respect their children’s wishes, are trying other measures, like pushing their offspring to singles networks and online dating sites.

Take Pramodini Srinivasan, a former trainer in the information technology industry and now a writer for a wellness Web site. Ms. Srinivasan has a Bangalore-based nephew who is nearing 40 and a Bangalore-bred son in London who is hitting 30. Both are indifferent to marrying within their traditional south Indian community.

But neither has made any headway in finding a wife on their own, even though Ms. Srinivasan has declared that she would be happy for them to fall in love and marry.

Having agreed not to tap the network of Ms. Srinivasan’s traditional community for suitable wives, Ms. Srinivasan is now laying out her son’s and nephew’s specs to everyone she knows.

On a large social networking group for women, Ms. Srinivasan recently sought advice from hundreds of strangers on getting her eligible nephew hitched. Somebody suggested she tap into her circle of friends but Ms. Srinivasan confided that her network was limited.

She wanted to register him on a dating site. “But he is not daring enough,” she rued. She urged him to start a trekking ground and take young people out on weekends so he could meet a compatible “outdoors type.”

The women the men want are a new breed: smart, sophisticated, financially independent marriage partners. Arranging a match within a community is daunting enough, Ms. Srinivasan and concerned parents like her say, but fixing up a match with the amended specs is confounding even in Bangalore, a friendly city full of ambitious young professionals.

The alternative for parents like Ms. Srinivasan is to nudge their children to sign up for online singles networks. Two of them, Floh and TwolyMadlyDeeply, are based in Bangalore but have operations in other Indian metropolitan areas too.

Both were created to fill a growing need for urban Indians seeking educated global professionals like themselves, without regards to caste, region, language or any of the other traditional matrimonial requirements, but the two networks are not immune to parental influence.

Floh, which was started by a Bangalore couple, Simran and Siddharth Mangharam, has 500 members, a third referred by parents who even paid the 15,000-rupee ($300) annual subscription on their kids’ behalf. TwolyMadlyDeeply’s founder, Chaitanya Ramalingegowda, said in several of his nearly 500 members’ prescreening interviews, singles said their parents had urged them to register.

It is easy to see in all of this a new shade of “arranged” marriage, a further dimension of the famous Indian parental control, no matter how well-educated and accomplished their children are.

Still, it is a huge leap from a time even a few years ago when marriages were arranged within a network of connections, longstanding business relationships and the extended caste circle after matching astrological horoscopes. Now parents say they are flummoxed with the new parameter of mate-finding: compatibility.

Online matchmaking sites have been around in India for quite some time, like Shaadi.com or Bharatmatrimony.com, but they are long shot in a country of a billion-plus people, where parents who register on behalf of their children are besieged by messages proclaiming that “there are 1,863 singles in your city waiting to meet you!” And many parents disapprove of Indian dating Web sites as they have a highly skewed to males, and can be crammed with unverified identities and obscene content.

In contrast, singles networks like Floh and TwolyMadlyDeeply, with their “verified” memberships, appeal to parents because they promise the exact opposite of digital anonymity. TwolyMadlyDeeply’s members are vetted on the phone before they can join and can only then interact online or through real-time events.

Floh’s members are gainfully employed singles between 25 and 35 who are sussed out personally by the co-founders. “Our operation is so legit that parents feel a comfort level,” said Mr. Mangharam, who had worked at Coca-Cola and McKinsey before teaming up with his wife to create Floh 18 months ago.

The members are then invited to paid events in informal settings such as wine-food pairings, dance workshops and Hollywood-Bollywood movie quizzes — meetups of the type common in the West. A majority of the members are well-heeled professionals and business owners.

“At our events, singles get to know each other at a nuanced level, minus the posturing that is a trademark of parent-arranged meetings,” said Mrs. Mangharam.

There are still many skeptical parents out there who distrust these new-age devices.

Mala Bhandary, a Bangalore homemaker, balks at the thought of registering her two eligible offspring, a United States-educated son who is now based in Bangalore and a Bangalore-raised daughter who works in New York, on matrimonial Web sites or dating networks. “Nobody can tell what kind of riffraff is there,” said the outgoing Mrs. Bhandary.

Instead, she relentlessly taps into her personal networks to find mates not just her own kids but those of her friends and relatives as well. So far, she has met with little success. “It is very stressful,” said Mrs. Bhandary.

Floh’s founders say they expect it to only be a matter of time before more parents come around. At a wedding recently for a couple who met through Floh, the Mangharams were accosted by a parent of the bride. The man effusively thanked them for performing, as he said, a “social service.

Saritha Rai sometimes feels she is the only person living in Bangalore who was actually raised here. There’s never a dull moment in her mercurial metropolis. Reach her on Twitter @SarithaRai.

@ The New York Times

BJP MAY BRING BACK NEPALESE MONARCHY SHOULD IT WIN 2014 ELECTIONS

2013-04-22T05:27:00.001-04:00

[Welcoming the visiting King Mahendra of Nepal into the White House in November 1967 President Lyndon B. Johnson had said, "Nepal has carried its good influence and example into the great forums of the world". But the country does not 'carry any good influence and example into the great forums of the world' at all today . President Carter is hopeful that the Interim Election Council of Ministers will be able to hold Constituent Assembly elections finally. But Palash Biswas, the author of the article below fears that Bharatiya Janata Party may reinstall the monarchy should it win the general elections in 2014. The Maoist Chairman Prachand seems to have received grand reception in Beijing recently. China may not cherish the dethroned King's come back. - Editor ]

मुक्त बाजार भारत की राजनीति, हिंदुत्व और धर्मनिरपेक्षता !

(मसलन नेपाल में राजतंत्र के अवसान के बाद भारतकी हिंदुत्ववादी राजनीति के मात्र एजेन्डा वहां राजतंत्र की बहाली है। इस वक्त नेपाल में बड़े जोर शोर से प्रचार अभियान चल रहा है कि भारत में नरेंद्र मोदी के अमेरिकी समर्थन से प्रधानमंत्री बन जाने से भारत हिंदू राष्ट्र बन जायेगा और इसीके साथ नेपाल में एकबार फिर राजतंत्र की स्थापना हो जायेगी। फिर शांति और संपन्नता का युग वापस आ जायेगा।)

लेखक पलाश विश्वास

मुक्त बाजार भारत की राजनीति अब विश्वबैंक और अन्तर्राष्ट्रिय मुद्राकोष के दिशा निर्देशों से तय होता है। विदेश नीति व्हाइट हाउस और पेंटागन से तय होती है। भारत चीन सीमा विवाद और जल संसाधन के बंटवारे पर पड़ोसी देशों से द्विपक्षीय वार्ता तो होती नहीं है। ईरान में भूकंप के बाद चीन में मची भूकंपीय तबाही से ब्रह्मपुत्र के उत्स पर परमाणु धमाके से पहाड़ तोड़कर बांध बनाने के उपक्रम पर भारत ऐतराज करने की हालत में भी नहीं है क्योंकि भारत चीन जल समझौता जैसी कोई चीज नहीं है। हिमलयी क्षेत्र में उत्तराखंड, हिमाचल , बंगाल का पहाड़ी क्षेत्र, सिक्किम भूगर्भीय दृष्टि से अत्यंत संवेदनशील है। कुमांयूं गढ़वाल में भूकंप के इतिहास की निरंतरता बनी हुई है। भूस्खलन तो रोजमर्रे का जीवन है। फिर भारत सरकार को न तो हिमालय की चिंता है और न जल संसाधनों की सुरक्षा की और न ही वहां रहने वाले आम जनता के जानमाल की। हिमालय के प्राकृतिक संसाधनों का दोहन और हिमालयी जनता का अमानवीय दमन ही राजकाज है।

(President Lyndon B. Johnson welcomes King Mahendra into the White House in 1967)

बांग्लादेश ने भारत के साथ संयुक्त उपक्रम के लिए करार पर दस्तखत किये जिसके तहत कोयले से संचालित 1,320 मेगावाट बिजली के संयंत्र के लिए 1.6 अरब डालर का निवेश किया जाएगा और इस पर अगले पांच साल में काम शुरू होने की संभावना है। यह बांग्लादेश का अब तक का सबसे बड़ा प्रोजेक्ट है। दोनों देशों ने तीन सौदों पर दस्तखत किये हैं जिसके तहत बागेरहाट के रामपाल में संयंत्र को बांग्लादेश-भारत फ्रेंडशिप पावर कंपनी प्राइवेट लिमिटेड संचालित करेगी। सहमति के तहत 70 प्रतिशत निवेश बाजार से कर्ज के तौर पर लिया जाएगा वहीं शेष राशि बराबर-बराबर बांग्लादेश पावर डवलपमेंट बोर्ड और भारत की एनटीपीसी प्रदान करेंगे।खास बात तो यह है कि दक्षिण एशिया समेत भारत के पर्यावरण के लिए बेहद जरूरी सुंदरवन के अस्तित्व के खिलाफ ये बिजली संयंत्र निजी हित के लिए लगाये जा रहे हैं, इसका बांग्लादेश के पर्यवरणकर्मी कड़ा विरोध कर रहे हैं। जब अपने देश में पर्यावरण कानून, समुद्री तट सुर्क्षा कानून, वनाधिकार कानून, संविधान की पांचवी और छठीं अनुसूचियों, धारा ३९ बी , ३९ सी, स्थानीय निकायों की स्वायत्तता, मौलिक अधिकारों,नागरिक और मानव अधिकारों की धज्जियां उड़ाकर विकास के नाम पर मूलनिवासी बहुजनों को कारपोरेट हित में निजी कंपनिोयों के लाभ के लिए नित नये कानून पास करके संशोधन करके जल जंगल जमीन से बेदखल किया जा रहा हो, सेज और परमाणु संयंत्र की बहार हो, बड़े बांध और ऊर्जा प्रदेश बन रहे हैं, जनांदोलनों का सैनिक राष्ट्र निरकुंस दमन कर रहा हो, तो बांग्लादेशमें जनप्रतिरोध की क्या परवाह होगी भारतीय विदेश नीति को? जब हमें बांग्लादेश या नेपाल या भूटान के हितों का ख्याल नहीं रखना है तो हम कैसे अपेक्षा करते है कि चीन हमारे हितों का ख्याल रखेगा ?

चीन के सिचुआन प्रांत में आए शनि‍वार सुबह आए शक्तिशाली भूकंप में मरने वालों की तादाद बढ़कर 203 हो गई है। इसके अलावा 11,000 से अधिक लोग घायल हुए हैं। कल आए भूकंप से सर्वाधिक प्रभावित यान शहर में मरने वालों की संख्या 164 है। लुशान कस्बे में करीब 15 लाख लोग भूकंप से प्रभावित हुए हैं।आज सुबह चीन के पीले सागर में 5.0 तीव्रता का एक भूकंप आया। चाइना अर्थक्वेक नेटवर्क के मुताबि‍क सुबह तकरीबन सात बज कर 21 मिनट पर आए इस भूकंप का केंद्र 10 किलोमीटर की गहराई में था। चीन के सरकारी मीडिया ने जानकारी दी है कि सिचुआन प्रांत के लुशान कस्बे में शनिवार को सात की तीव्रता का भूकंप आया। इस भूकंप के बाद कमोबेश 1165 झटके आए जिनमें से कुछ की तीव्रता रिक्टर पैमाने पर पांच से अधिक थी जिसकी वजह से बचाव अभियान और मुश्किल हो गया।

इसी के मध्य तिब्बत के इलाके में ब्रह्मपुत्र नदी पर बांध और पनबिजली घर बनाने को लेकर चीन ने भारत के एक प्रस्ताव को टाल दिया है। भारत ने चीन की योजना की साझा समीक्षा के लिए संयुक्त टीम बनाने का प्रस्ताव दिया था, लेकिन चीन ने यह कहकर इसे टाल दिया कि वह एक जिम्मेदार देश है और अपने पड़ोसी देशों के साथ किसी तरह का गलत आचरण नहीं करेगा।

जानकारों के मुताबिक, पिछले महीने डरबन में प्रधानमंत्री मनमोहन सिंह ने चीन के राष्ट्रपति शी चिन फिंग से मुलाकात के दौरान यह मसला उठाया था। अब जब विदेश मंत्रालय ने चीनी अधिकारियों का ध्यान इस ओर आकर्षित किया तो चीनी अधिकारियों ने पड़ोसी देशों को किसी तरह का नुकसान नहीं होने देने की बात कही। लेकिन जानकारों का कहना है कि भारत, चीन से यह जोर देकर आग्रह करता रहेगा कि साझा समीक्षा के लिए दोनों देश या तो एक जल आयोग का गठन करें या फिर अंतर सरकारी बातचीत करें या एक संयुक्त टीम बनाने की भारत की सलाह मान लें। गौरतलब है कि चीन ने तिब्बत के इलाके में ब्रह्मपुत्र पर तीन बड़े बांध बनाने का काम शुरू किया है। उत्तर-पूर्व में तिब्बत के इलाके से होकर ब्रह्मपुत्र भारत में प्रवेश करती है। चीन फिलहाल इन नदियों से भारत में जलप्रवाह की जानकारी एक विशेषज्ञ स्तर की व्यवस्था के तहत भारत को देता है। उसका कहना है कि यह व्यवस्था काफी है।

बांग्लादेश के साथ यह समझौता खासकर ऐसे समय हुआ , जब बांग्लादेश में धर्मनिरपेक्षता और लोकतंत्र की लड़ाई तेज है और इसके जवाब में पाक समर्थक इस्लाणी कट्टरपंथी अल्पसख्यकों को निशाना बनाये हुए हैं।तो दूसरी तरफ नये सिरे से भारत में हिंदुत्व और हिंदू राष्ट्रवाद का उन्माद बड़े ही वैज्ञानिक और बाजार प्रबंधन के बतौर राजनीतिक विकल्प और विकास के वैकल्पिकक चामत्कारिक माडल के रुप पेश किया जा रहा है। भारत की अल्पमत सरकार बाबरी विध्वंस, सिख नरसंहार, गुजरात नरसंहार और भोपाल गैस त्रासदी के युद्ध अपराधियों को सजा दिलाने के बजाय केंद्र में साझे तौर पर दुधारी दो दलीय सत्ता में न सिर्फ उनके साझेदार हैं, बल्कि हिंदू राष्ट्र के ध्वजावाहकों के साथ मिलीभगत के तहत विदेशी निवेश ,विनिवेश, अबाध पूंजी प्रवाह, विकासदर, वित्तीय घाटा, निवेशकों की आस्था, बुनियादी ढांचा के नारों के साथ नागरिकता संशोधन कानून पास करके. आधार कार्ड परियोजना के तहत देश की आधी आबादी के नागरिक मानवाधिकार संवैधानिक रक्षाकवच को निलंबित करके जनसंहार अभियान चला रही है। खुदरा कारोबार में विदेशी निवेश का पुरजोर विरोध करने वाले संघ परिवार को विमानन क्षेत्र से लेकर रक्षा क्षेत्र तक में विदेशी पूंजी के अबाध वर्चस्व से कोई आपत्ति नहीं है। रेलवे और राष्ट्रीय राजमार्ग परियोजनाओं को बलात्कार विरोधी स्त्री उत्पीड़नविरोधी कानून के प्रावधानों में जैसे पुलिस और सेना को, सशस्त्र बल विशेषाधिकार कानून , आतंकवाद निरोधक आईन को छूट दी गयी, उसी तरह की छूट देकर जनहित में पुनर्वास और मुआवजा के दिलफरेब वायदों के साथ बिना भूमि सुधार लागू किये भूमि अधिग्रहण संशोधन कानून पास कराने की तैयारी है तो पेंशन और भविष्यनिधि तक को बाजार के हवाले करने के लिए,पूरे बैंकिंग सेक्टर को कारपोरेट के हवाले करके जीवन बीम निगम के साथ साथ भारतीय स्टेट बैंक के विध्वंस के जरिए आम जनता की जमा पूंजी पर डाका डालनेकी तैयारी है।कालेधन की यह अर्थव्यवस्था चिटफंड में तब्दील है औरकोयले की कोठरी में सत्तावर्ग के सभी चेहरे काले है। ऐेसे में नेपाल हो या बांग्लादेश, कहीं भी धर्मनिरपेक्षता व लोकत्ंत्र की लड़ाई हिंदुत्व के लिए बेहद खतरनाक है।

मसलन नेपाल में राजतंत्र के अवसान के बाद भारत की हिंदुत्ववादी राजनय के मात्र एजेन्डा वहां राजतंत्र की बहाली है। इस वक्त नेपाल में बड़े जोर शोर से प्रचार अभियान चल रहा है कि भारत में नरेंद्र मोदी के अमेरिकी समर्थन से प्रधानमंत्री बन जाने से भारत हिंदू राष्ट्र बन जायेगा और इसीके साथ नेपाल में एकबार फिर राजतंत्र की स्थापना हो जायेगी। फिर शांति और संपन्नता का युग वापस आ जायेगा। जाहिर है कि भारत का हिंदुत्ववादी सत्तावर्ग उसी तरह लोकतंत्र के विरुद्ध है जैसे कि जायनवादी कारपोरेट साम्राज्यवाद। भारतीय सत्तावर्ग कमसेकम अपने अड़ोस पड़ोस मे लोकतंत्र और धर्मनिरपेक्षता बर्दाश्त कर ही नहीं सकते और कट्टरपंथ को बढ़ावा देने के लिए हर कार्रवाई करता है। वरना क्या कारण है कि पाकिस्तान से अभी अभी आनेवाले हिंदुओं को नागरिकता दिलाने की मुहिम तो जोरों पर होती है, वहीं विभाजन पीड़त हिंदू शरणार्थियों की नगरिकता छिने जाने पर, उनके विरुद्ध देशव्यापी देशनिकाले अभियान के खिलाफ कोई हिंदू आवाज नहीं उठाता। बांग्लादेश, पाकिस्तान और बाकी दुनिया में बाबरी विध्वंस के बाद क्या हुआ, सबको मालूम है, लेकिन इस वक्त बांग्लादेश में लोकतंत्र और धर्मनिरपेक्षता के जीवन मरण संग्राम के वक्त उनका समर्थन करने के बजाय संघ परिवार की ओर से सुनियोजित तरीके से रामजन्मभूमि आंदोलन ने सिरे से जारी किया जाता है। यहीं नहीं, संघ परिवार की ओर से पेश प्रधानमंत्रित्व के दो मुख्य दावेदारों में से एक बाबरी विध्वंस तो दूसरा गुजरात नरसंहार मामले में मुख्य अभियुक्त है। इसपर मजा यह कि धर्मनिरपेक्षता और समाजवाद का झंडा उठाये लोगों को गुजरात नरसंहार का अभियुक्ततो सांप्रदायिक लगता है, लेकिन बाबरी विध्वंस का अभियुक्त नहीं। वैसे ही जैसे सिखों को हिंदू मानने वाले संघ परिवार ने आपरेशन ब्लू स्टार में न सिर्फ कांग्रेस का साथ दिया,बल्कि सिखों के जनसंहारके वक्त भी कांग्रेस का साथ देते हुए वह हिंदू हितों का राग अलापता रहा और बाद में अकाली दल के साथ पंजाब में सत्ता कासाझेदार हो गया। दंगापीड़ित सिखों को न्याय दिलाने का कोई आंदोलन न संघ परिवार ने छेड़ा और न अकाली सत्ता की राजनीति की इसमें कोई दिलचस्पी रही।

पिछले दिनों राजधानी नयी दिल्ली में बांग्लादेश के धर्मनिरपेक्ष लोकतांत्रिक शहबाग आंदोलन के समर्थन में देशभर के शरणार्थियों ने निखिल भारत शरणार्थी समन्वय समिति के आह्वान पर धरना दिया और प्रदर्शन किया। इस कार्यक्रम में हिदुत्व का कोई सिपाहसालार नजर नहीं आया और न अराजनीति और राजनीति का कोई मसीहा। जबकि बांग्लादेश में अबभी एक करोड़ हिंदू हैं। रोज हिंदुओं पर हमले हो रहे हैं, पर अयोध्या के रथी महारतियो को रोज बांग्लादेश में ध्वस्त किये जा रहे असंख्य हिंदू धर्मस्थलों, रोज हमले के शिकार होते हिंदुओं की कोई परवाह है।बुनियादी सवाल तो यह है कि क्या उन्हें भारतीय हिदुओं की कोई परवाह है? हिंदुत्व के नाम पर जो बहुसंख्य मूलनिवासी बहुजन संघपिरवार की पैदल सेना है, समता और सामाजिक न्याय, समान अवसरों और आर्थिक संपन्नता के उनके अधिकारों की चिंता है? उसके प्रति समर्थन है? देवभूमि और पवित्र तीर्थ स्थलों,चारो धामों, पवित्र नदियों पर कारपोरेट कब्जा के खिलाफ वे कब बोले?वास्तव में वे रामरथी नही, बल्कि जनसंहार और बेदखली के शिकार इस अनंत वधस्थल पर जारी अश्वमेध अभियान के ही वे रथी महाऱथी है। बहुसंख्य आम जनता के हक हकूक के खिलाफ आर्थिक सुधारों का हिंदुत्व राष्ट्रवादियों ने कब विरोध किया, बताइये! विकास का हिंदुत्व माडल पर क्या कारपोरेट वर्चस्व नहीं है और क्या इस माडल की कारपोरेट मार्केटिंग नहीं हो रही है,जिसे विश्व व्यवस्था और कारपोरेट साम्राज्यवाद का बिना शर्त समर्थन हासिल है?

इस कार्यक्रम को संबोधित करते हुए भारत के स्वतंत्रता संग्राम में पूर्वी बंगाल के स्वतंत्रता सेनानियों की मार्मिक याद दिलाते हुए शरणार्थी नेता सुबोध विश्वास नेसवाल खड़े किये कि पाकिस्तान से आये हिंदू शरणार्थियों पर बहस हो सकती है तो क्यों नहीं पूर्वी बंगाल के विभाजन पीड़ित शरणार्थियों को लेकर कोई सुगबुगाहट है।इस आोजन का कारपोरेट मीडिया में क्या कवरेज हु, हमें नहीं मालूम। सभी कोलकातिया अखबारों के दफ्तर नई दिल्ली में मौजूद हैं और इस कार्यक्रम में करीब करीब सभी राज्यों से प्रतिनिथधि मौजूद थे , जो बोले भी,पर कोलकाता में किसी को कानोंकान खबर नहीं है। हम अपनी ओर से अंग्रेजी और हिंदी को छोड़ बांग्ला में भारत में शरणार्थियों काहालत और बांग्लादेस के ताजा से ताजा अपडेट दे रहे हैं, पर यहां के नागरिक समाज में कोई प्रतिक्रिया , कोई सूचना नहीं है। आम जनता तो सूचना ब्लैक आउट के शिकार हैं ही। बहरहाल शहबागग आंदोलन के प्रति समर्थन जताया जा रहा है, वहां अल्पसंख्यक उत्पीड़न रोकने के लिए आवाज उठाये बिना। उधर जमायते है तो इधर भी जमायत है और इसी के साथ वोट बैंक हैं। राजनीति के कारोबारी जाहिर है कि मुंह नहीं खोलने वाले। लेकिन अराजनीति वाले कहां हैं? उनकी हालत तो एक मशहूर पत्रकार नारीवादी धर्मनिरपेक्ष आइकन की जैसी हो गयी है जो गुजरात के नरसंहार के विरुद्ध निरंतर लड़ने वाले लोगों के विरुद्ध नरेंद्र मोदी की हत्या की साजिश का आरोप लगा रही हैं या फिर बहुजन आंदोलन के उन मसीहाओं की तरह जो मोदी केप्रधानमंत्रित्व के लिए यज्ञ महायज्ञ में सामाजिक बदलाव और आजादी के आंदोलन को निष्णात करने में लगे हुए हैं।जिस वैकल्पक मीडिया के लिे हमने और हमारे अग्रज साथियों ने पूरा जीवन लगा दिया , वहां भी हिंदुत्व का वर्चस्व है। `हस्तक्षेप' को छोड़कर सोशल मीडिया में हर कहीं इस मामले में चुप्पी है।

बांग्लादेश में ब्राह्मणवाद विरोधी दो सौ साल पुराना मतुा आंदोलनका दो सौ साल से निरंतर चला आ रहा बारुणि उत्सव बंद हो गया है और मौजूदा हालात में न वहां इस साल कोई तीज त्योहार और न ही दुर्गापूदजा मनाने की हालत में हैं एक करोड़ हिंदू।इसतरह हमले जारी रहे तो वे तसलिमा के लज्जा उपन्यास के नायक की तरह एक न एकदिन भारत आने को मजबूर हो जायेंगे। जिस शरणार्थी समस्या के कारण भारतीय सेना को बांग्लादेस मुक्ति संग्राम में दखलदेना पड़ा, वह फिर मुंह बांए खड़ी है। क्या भारतीय राजनय के लिए यह चिंता की बात नहीं है। और हिंदुत्व के ध्वजावाहकों के लिए लोकतंत्र और धर्मनिरपेक्षता के स्वयंभू रथि महारथियों के लिए!

BOSTON ATTACKS TURN SPOTLIGHT ON TROUBLED REGION OF CHECHNYA

2013-04-21T06:31:00.002-04:00

[Fired by a potent mix of blood codes, separatist yearnings and Islamic militancy, Chechen groups have staged a string of intermittent but spectacular attacks in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia since the 1990s. They have bombed trains, planes and subways, attacked a rock concert and slammed a truck bomb into a hospital. In 2002, they seized a crowded theater in Moscow, an attack that culminated in a commando raid that killed 130 hostages.]

By Peter Baker and C. J. Chivers

Picture Courtesy: Flashpoints

WASHINGTON — The possible motivations of the two brothers linked to the Boston Marathon bombings are as yet publicly unknown. Of Chechen heritage, they lived in the United States for years, according to friends and relatives, and no direct ties have been publicly established with known Chechen terrorist or separatist groups.

Yet, with at least one brother talking of Chechen nationalism on the Internet, their reported involvement in the marathon attack throws a spotlight back on one of the darkest corners of nationalist and Islamic militancy, and to a campaign for separatism and vengeance responsible for some of the most unsparing terrorist acts of recent decades.

Fired by a potent mix of blood codes, separatist yearnings and Islamic militancy, Chechen groups have staged a string of intermittent but spectacular attacks in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia since the 1990s. They have bombed trains, planes and subways, attacked a rock concert and slammed a truck bomb into a hospital. In 2002, they seized a crowded theater in Moscow, an attack that culminated in a commando raid that killed 130 hostages.

In the spring of 2004, a bomb placed in a stadium in Grozny, the regional capital, killed the Kremlin’s handpicked Chechen president. That summer, female suicide bombers with hand grenades brought down two Russian passenger jets nearly simultaneously, killing 90 people.

Days later, a group of terrorists working for Shamil Basayev, the one-legged separatist military commander who was then Russia’s most wanted man, stormed a public school in the small town of Beslan, in a nearby republic, leading to the deaths of more than 300 people, most of them schoolchildren, their parents and their teachers.

Such violence had typically been confined within Russia.

Reports, often based on little more than rumors or Kremlin-sourced leaks, of extensive Chechen involvement in terrorism or insurgencies elsewhere have been a staple of public commentary on such violence since 2001.

These reports — of Chechen snipers and bomb-makers appearing in one conflict after another, and of Chechens filling the ranks of armed groups in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere — often proved to be exaggerated.

Chechnya’s battles with Russia and against Russian rule had been fought in recurring if irregular cycles for centuries; Chechens did not have to travel to find their foes, much less their targets. In interviews many Chechen emigrants and fighters have emphasized that they consider their enemies to be local, not foreign.

But in time outside influences crept into the North Caucasus’s homegrown war, and the moves and countermoves between Russians and Chechens spread beyond Russia’s borders.

Two wars erupted between Russia and Chechen separatists in the 1990s. The first had old roots. Many Chechens, an independent Muslim people of the highlands, have long chafed at what they view as Russia’s imperial rule. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the breakup of the Warsaw Pact, Chechen separatists perceived a fresh chance to claim their own state.

Chechnya’s oil reserves provided an incentive for both sides to refuse to yield their claims, and Islam colored the fight. Arab fighters appeared in Chechnya with the onset of the first war, saying they had come to help fellow Muslims fight oppression.

By the mid- and late-1990s, several training camps operated almost openly in rural Chechnya, led in part by a foreign jihadi, Ibn al-Khattab.

Later, however, many Chechens said the Arab influence had declined amid tensions between the Sufi Chechens and Sunni Arabs, who typically adhere to different Islamic traditions and practices. In addition, the allure of the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, Chechens say, drew many Arab fighters away from Chechnya’s mountains.

And yet the ripple effects of the Chechen wars eventually played out in 2004 in the Arab emirate of Qatar, where Russian agents assassinated an exiled Chechen leader with a car bomb, and on the streets of Vienna in 2009 when Chechens gunned down a fellow Chechen who had broken from the Kremlin-supported leadership in the republic to file a complaint in the European Court of Human Rights. The complaint detailed torture by the Russian-backed security services, and the republic’s current president, Ramzan A. Kadyrov.

Just a week ago, the United States put Mr. Kadyrov, a former rebel turned ally of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and the primary subject of the torture complaint, on a secret list of Russian citizens banned from the United States for human rights abuses, according to people briefed on the list.

Curiously, the most political of the video clips posted on social media by one of the Tsarnaev brothers was not aimed at the West, but at Mr. Kadyrov, who is loathed by many Chechens and regarded as a vicious Kremlin stooge.

Mr. Kadyrov on Friday dismissed the Tsarnaev brothers and any ties between the Boston bombing and Chechnya. “The roots of this evil are to be found in America,” he said in a post on Instagram.

With all its longstanding crosscurrents, and partly because of its seeming remoteness and small scale, the Chechen conflict has long confounded American leaders and policy makers.

Boris Yeltsin, president of Russia immediately after the Soviet breakup, launched a war from 1994 to 1996 to re-establish control of the region. As Mr. Yeltsin’s prime minister, Mr. Putin ordered a second war in 1999, after a brief period of Chechen self-rule that was characterized by criminality and accusations of terrorism.

Mr. Putin waged a relentless campaign that included carpet bombing and the indiscriminate shelling of Grozny, with more ordnance than any European city had endured since World War II.

While the United States has shared intelligence on Chechen militants with the Russian government over the years, American officials have been reluctant to be too associated with Moscow’s Chechnya policies, which resulted in the destruction of Grozny, the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians and the indiscriminate imprisonment of many young men. Then, as open resistance declined, control was maintained by flagrantly rigged elections and collective punishment.

At one point during President George W. Bush’s administration, a debate broke out over a proposal by a National Security Council official to effectively partner with the Russians in fighting Chechen rebels. Other officials from the State Department and Pentagon vociferously opposed it, arguing that the United States should not ally itself with the Kremlin’s tactics.

By then what had started as a separatist revolt had partially assumed a jihadi cast. The Chechen cause had been adopted by the likes of Osama bin Laden and other foreign radicals, who tried to insinuate themselves into the struggle; several Chechen rebel leaders embraced Islam as a rallying cry.

Bin Laden’s top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, had traveled to Russia in 1996 to explore the possibility of relocating operations to Chechnya and was arrested on a visa violation, only to be released several months later. Mohammed Atta, a future Sept. 11 hijacker, and other members of a Qaeda cell initially wanted to join the jihad in Chechnya but were told it was too hard to get in and were advised to go to Afghanistan instead.

With the defection of some rebels like Mr. Kadyrov and his father, Moscow eventually re-established control over most of Chechnya. Much of Grozny was rebuilt.

But the separatist insurgency has never been extinguished. Whether the Boston bombing was tied to it is still unclear, but a generation of young Chechen men have never known a peaceful homeland, coming of age as young Muslims with few prospects at home in the Caucasus, and difficulties finding a place abroad.

Peter Baker reported from Washington, and C.J. Chivers from the United States.

@ The New York Times

REPORTS OF RAPE OF 5-YEAR-OLD SET OFF NEW FUROR IN INDIA

2013-04-20T04:50:00.005-04:00

[The alleged attack comes four months after a woman was gang-raped and tortured and her companion beaten in a case that shocked the nation and led to weeks of spontaneous protests by people demanding better security for women. That case led to a strengthening of in rape laws, but horrific rapes continue to be reported around India with regularity.]

By Gardiner Harris

Adnan Abidi/Reuters

Protesters converged at Swami Dayanand Hospital in New Delhi on Friday as shock

spread in the Indian capital over the alleged rape and abduction of a 5-year-old girl

by a neighbor.The girl, said to be in critical condition, was being taken to a larger

facility.

NEW DELHI — The case of a 5-year-old girl who was kidnapped, repeatedly raped, starved and tortured has provoked a protest, official condemnations and calls for larger demonstrations this weekend in New Delhi.

The police arrested a 25-year-old man early Saturday morning in Bihar, said Rajan Bhagat, a Delhi police spokesman. The man accused in the case, Manoj Kumar, had recently married and was tracked down with the help of cell phone records to the town of his in-laws, according to Indian media reports.

Mr. Kumar had a ground-floor apartment in the same building as the family of the 5-year old, who went missing the night of April 14, according to Indian media reports. Her parents reported her disappearance to the police the next morning.

The girl was found on April 17 by her parents in the ground-floor apartment after they heard her crying, although the accused had already left by then. The girl was taken to a public hospital in New Delhi Friday night, where doctors said her condition was critical, according to Indian media reports.

“We found a 200-millimeter bottle and two, three pieces of candle inserted into her private parts,” R.K. Bansal, the medical superintendent of Swami Dayanand Hospital, said in a televised interview."This is the first time I have seen such barbarism.”

“There were injuries on her lips, cheeks, arms and anus area, her neck had bruise marks suggesting that attempts were made to strangle her,” Mr. Bansal added.

The alleged attack comes four months after a woman was gang-raped and tortured and her companion beaten in a case that shocked the nation and led to weeks of spontaneous protests by people demanding better security for women. That case led to a strengthening of in rape laws, but horrific rapes continue to be reported around India with regularity.

Whether women are less safe in India than in other emerging countries is uncertain, but the issue of rape and police competence in dealing with such crimes has become a burning political issue.

In the most recent case, the parents of the 5-year-old complained that the police failed to take their complaint seriously, failed to search adequately for her attacker and then offered 2,000 rupees — about $37 — if they would keep quiet about the case.

Those complaints prompted a small protest Friday, and rage seemed to build after TV news channels showed a large mustachioed police officer slapping a female protester in the face. A nascent political party in India promised to hold protest rallies on Saturday in New Delhi over the case.

Concern in India’s central government ratcheted up so quickly Friday night that Prime Mininster Manmohan Singh expressed regrets about the case. Two police officers — including the lead investigator on the case and the one seen slapping the protester — were suspended. The lead investigator is himself being investigated for allegedly trying to bribe the child’s family into silence, said Mr. Bhagat, the police spokesman.

Hari Kumar contributed reporting..

@ The New York Times

SIKKIMISATION FEARS IN NEPAL; THEN AND NOW

[“Most sophisticated Nepalese recognise that there is no direct connection between politics in Sikkim and Nepal. Nonetheless, there will be some concern that events in Gangtok represent direct Indian intervention in neighbouring Himalayan principality, and Nepalese are always quick to draw parallels between their own situation and those of other Himalayan states,” it said]

By Utpal Parasar

Picture courtesy: Google

Thirty eight years have elapsed since Sikkim ceased to be a monarchy and became a state of the Indian union. But repercussions of the historic development are still felt in neighbouring Nepal.

Fears of Sikkimisation (yes, it’s a word used frequently in Nepal) of Nepal -meaning takeover of the sovereign nation by the bigger southern neighbour is still part of the discourse in political circles and media.

Political parties who see a grand Indian design in everything bad that happens in Nepal use this term frequently to rouse patriotic fervor. And many common Nepalis do believe in Nepal’s imminent Sikkimisation.

Last month Dev Gurung, secretary of the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist, the faction which split from Pushpa Kamal Dahal led Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), said Sikkimisation has already begun and a violent uprising is the only way to prevent its spread.

This fear is not new. A section in Nepal has been wary of India’s so called Sikkimisation plans for close to four decades now as the recently released Kissinger Cables by whistleblower website WikiLeaks show.

The huge cache of US diplomatic documents circulated between 1973 and 1976 include quite a few cables which indicate how Nepal viewed events unfurling in Sikkim during that period.

A confidential cable sent from the US Embassy in Kathmandu in April 1973 mentions about the Nepal government’s “understandable and predictable” reaction of not making an official statement on disturbances in Sikkim for fear of offending either India or China.

The cable details how four Nepali foreign ministry officials expressed “intense interest” in the position of the great powers including China on the issue during a social gathering and showed feelings of fraternal sympathy for the Nepali majority population in Sikkim.

The officials were also anxious to get Soviet reaction to the developments and asserted that in view of close ties between New Delhi and Moscow, India would not “swallow” Sikkim without a “green light” from the Soviets.

Another cable sent the same month details US Deputy Secretary of State Kenneth Rush’s meeting with King Birendra in Kathmandu in which the monarch opined that there were two points of view in Nepal regarding the events in Sikkim.

“One, that it was initiated by India, in which case it would affect others in area, and, two, that situation arose more or less out of internal problems” (in Sikkim),” the cable states.

The situation mentioned is the riots against his unpopular rule which led Palden Thondup Namgyal, the Chogyal (ruler), to seek protection from India.

Birendra told Rush that he was “inclined to believe that it was 50-50 proposition” and that Nepal was closely watching the outcome of events in Sikkim to determine its meaning.

In another meeting with US diplomats a month later Birendra said Indians held all cards in Sikkim and took advantage of the situation. “He (Birendra) said he did not know how (the) present arrangement will work out, but he thinks there will be future troubles in Sikkim,” said the cable.

A cable sent in July 1974 on ‘Nepali view of Sikkimese Events’ notes the total absence of reporting in Nepali press on developments in Sikkim and mentions it could be due to direct guidance from the palace to local journalists.

But common Nepalis were keen on happenings in Sikkim and avidly read reporting in Indian press on the subject. The cable speaks of Nepal government’s concern on how Sikkim could become a sanctuary for activities of Nepali Congress, which was plotting to usher democracy in Nepal.

“Most sophisticated Nepalese recognise that there is no direct connection between politics in Sikkim and Nepal. Nonetheless, there will be some concern that events in Gangtok represent direct Indian intervention in neighbouring Himalayan principality, and Nepalese are always quick to draw parallels between their own situation and those of other Himalayan states,” it said.

Another cable sent the same month mentions of “unhappiness” among Nepalis at various levels due to India’s 1974 nuclear explosion and intervention in Sikkim. “These events have revived fears of Indian hegemonistic designs raised at time of 1971 Bangladesh crisis”, the cable said.

But after remaining mum for over a year, Nepal gave its first official reaction to events in Sikkim when the country’s foreign minister said in August 1974 that it was Nepal’s “unshakable stand that there should be no outside interference in the internal affairs of any country”.

The cable noted that the minister’s statement after weeks of studied silence “had effect of letting genie out of the bottle”.

A month later reacting to news of Sikkim getting parliamentary representation in India, the same minister made a statement wishing for Sikkim to “continue to make progress through the preservation of its traditional entity,” said a September 1974 cable.

The same cable mentions of unanimous condemnation of Indian action in Nepali media and protests by students outside the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu. The cable noted the Sikkim issue could become a contentious one in Indo-Nepal bilateral relations.

A subsequent cable speaks of a 5000-strong student demonstration against India in Kathmandu where traffic was blocked at several places and shops closed in protest against happenings in Sikkim. The cable notes that the well organised campaign had approval from the Nepal government.

During a meeting with a senior US diplomat in New York in September 1974, Nepal’s foreign minister said Nepalis were worried by Indian absorption of Sikkim, which he described as “cleverly managed and deliberately staged”. He also stressed that “sentiments on Sikkim ran very deep in Nepal”.

But sensing New Delhi growing unhappiness at such statements and anti-India protests in Kathmandu, news on Sikkim slowly started disappearing from Kathmandu’s major dailies and protests by students also came down in subsequent months.

And when King Birendra met Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in New Delhi on September 30, 1975 neither sides raised the issue of Sikkim during the “frank and realistic” deliberations.

@ The Hindustan Times Blog

LEAKED VIDEO SHOWS VLADIMIR PUTIN BERATING CABINET MINISTERS

2013-04-19T07:23:00.002-04:00

[The timing of the video’s release is a bit suspicious. As The Guardian’s Moscow correspondent, Miriam Elder, wrote on Twitter, “Putin slams Medvedev gov’t in ‘secret’ video released hrs before Medvedev due to speak to Duma on year’s work … ” The video makes Medvedev look pretty weak and gives Putin the appearance of cracking down on bad performance.]

By Max Fisher

Russian President Vladimir Putin does not look like an easy boss, based on this video footage, which was allegedly taken in secret during a senior cabinet meeting. The video, leaked to the outlet LifeNews and now making big rounds on the Russian web, shows him relentlessly criticizing Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev’s senior cabinet ministers, threatening to fire all of them.

RussiaSlam, a site that reports on Russian social media, posted a version of the video with English subtitles and a full translation. The Kremlin, they report, says the video is real but that Putin was actually talking to regional officials; LifeNews claims the video refutes this and shows it was actually the cabinet.

The timing of the video’s release is a bit suspicious. As The Guardian’s Moscow correspondent, Miriam Elder, wrote on Twitter, “Putin slams Medvedev gov’t in ‘secret’ video released hrs before Medvedev due to speak to Duma on year’s work … ” The video makes Medvedev look pretty weak and gives Putin the appearance of cracking down on bad performance.

Here’s RussiaSlam’s translation:

In conclusion, I’m going to finish this session. I want to say the following. We all understand that the 2012 directives should be given our particular attention. I was hoping to be able to say this just in terms of the emergency fund, but now, I’m going to say it in terms of the entire package. Of course, it’s complicated. You think I don’t understand that it’s complicated? The problems are complicated, difficult to solve, even, but they’re solvable all the same. But we won’t solve them if we do what we’ve just been talking about. It’s no coincidence that we’re gathered right here right now. It was no coincidence that I asked for this meeting to be organised right now.

I have just said, while the TV cameras were running, ‘how are we going to fulfill these agreements?’ How are we working? The quality of our work is appalling. Everything is being done superficially, you understand me?! And if we’re going to carry on working like this, then not a damn thing will get done. But if we work harder, more professionally, with an understanding of what needs to be done, then we’ll do it. If we don’t do this, then we need to acknowledge that either I am working ineffectively, or all of you are working badly, and you need to go. I would like to point out that today, I’m leaning towards the second option. I think that you understand that we need to be frank with one another so that there are no misunderstandings.

MUSHARRAF, FLEEING ONCE, IS BROUGHT BACK TO COURT TO FACE CHARGES

[Meanwhile, Mr. Musharraf faces criminal charges in three cases dating to his period in office — the one related to firing judges and two others related to the deaths of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, a Baloch tribal leader. Attempts by some critics to charge Mr. Musharraf with treason have not succeeded.]

By Declan Walsh

B.K. Bangash/Associated Press

The convoy carrying Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s former leader, left the court

on Thursday.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — When the former military ruler Pervez Musharraf ended his years of exile last month, it was with a vision of himself as a political savior, returning in the nick of time to save Pakistan from chaos.

Instead, he contributed a new and bizarre chapter to the country’s political turmoil on Thursday, fleeing the halls of the High Court after a judge ordered his arrest. Speeding away in a convoy of black S.U.V.'s as a crowd of lawyers mocked him, he hurried to his fortress compound outside the capital, where he was declared under house arrest.

Early Friday, the police escorted Mr. Musharraf from his house to a court in central Islamabad where a magistrate formally charged him. Television pictures showed him saluting briefly as he entered his S.U.V., before returning once again to his Islamabad home. Television stations reported that Mr. Musarraf was due to appear in anti-terrorism court in two days, but it was not clear if that meant Sunday or Monday.

Less than five years after wielding absolute power, the retired four-star general has become the latest example of the Pakistani judiciary’s increasing willingness to pursue previously untouchable levels of society — even to the top ranks of the powerful military.

Rarely has a retired army chief faced imprisonment in Pakistan, and analysts said the move against Mr. Musharraf could open a new rift between the courts and the military.

All this comes at a delicate moment for Pakistan, with elections near and only a temporary caretaker government at the helm. Though army commanders have sworn to stay on the sidelines in this election, there is fear that any tension over Mr. Musharraf’s fate could make the military more politically aggressive.

It was perhaps with that potential conflict in mind that the country’s Supreme Court was reported by Mr. Musharraf’s spokeswoman to have designated his luxury villa — secured by both retired and serving soldiers — as a “sub-jail” late Thursday night.

The tight security at his home, ringed by guard posts and barbed wire, was at first a reflection of repeated Taliban threats to kill the former general. But for now, the imminent danger to Mr. Musharraf, who ruled Pakistan between 1999 and 2008, stems from the courts.

At Thursday’s hearing, the High Court judge, Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, refused to extend Mr. Musharraf’s bail in a case focusing on his decision to fire and imprison the country’s top judges when he imposed emergency rule in November 2007.

Resentment toward the former army chief and president still runs deep in the judiciary, which was at the center of the 18-month protest movement that led to his ouster in 2008.

Mr. Musharraf’s All Pakistan Muslim League party hit back at the court, describing the order as “seemingly motivated by personal vendettas,” and hinted at the possibility of a looming clash with the military, warning that the order could “result in unnecessary tension among the various pillars of state and possibly destabilize the country.”

Mr. Musharraf’s lawyers immediately lodged an appeal with the Supreme Court, which rejected it..

The court drama represents the low point of a troubled homecoming for the swaggering general, who had vowed to “take the country out of darkness” after returning from four years of self-imposed exile in Dubai, London and the United States.

But instead of the public adulation he was apparently expecting, Mr. Musharraf has been greeted by stiff legal challenges, political hostility and — perhaps most deflating — a widespread sense of public apathy.

Pakistan’s influential television channels have given scant coverage to Mr. Musharraf since his return, and his party has struggled to find strong candidates to field in the general election scheduled for May 11. On Tuesday, the national election commission delivered another blow, disqualifying Mr. Musharraf from the election.

The army, once the source of Mr. Musharraf’s power, has offered little in the way of succor, apart from some armed security.

Meanwhile, Mr. Musharraf faces criminal charges in three cases dating to his period in office — the one related to firing judges and two others related to the deaths of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, a Baloch tribal leader. Attempts by some critics to charge Mr. Musharraf with treason have not succeeded.

At times, the self-described elite soldier seemed bent on shooting himself in the foot. In an interview with CNN last week, he admitted to having authorized American drone strikes in the tribal belt — a statement that contradicted years of denials of complicity in the drone program, and which was considered politically disastrous in a country where the drones are widely despised.

In returning home in such an apparently ill-considered manner, Mr. Musharraf has placed himself at the mercy of some of his most bitter enemies.

The favorite to win the coming election is Nawaz Sharif, the onetime prime minister whom Mr. Musharraf overthrew to seize power in 1999.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is led by his sworn enemy, Chief JusticeIftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, whom Mr. Musharraf fired and placed under house arrest in 2007. Justice Siddiqui, who refused him bail on Thursday, is considered a conservative who has been hostile to the military.

Last week, another judge placed Mr. Musharraf on the Exit Control List, which means that he cannot leave the country without court permission.

In his 2006 memoir,"In the Line of Fire,"Mr. Musharraf wrote: “It is not unusual in Pakistan for the general public and the intelligentsia to approach the army chief and ask him to save the nation.” But as the events of Thursday suggested, it is the former army chief who may need saving this time.

Salman Masood contributed reporting.

@ The New York Times

CONNECTIVITY IN ASIA: REVIVING THE OLD SILK ROAD?

2013-04-18T00:00:00.003-04:00

[A number of regional efforts are also being made to revive the Silk Road. The Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity of 2010 seeks to promote physical, institutional, and people-to-people connectivity among its 10 member countries. The Master Plan also emphasises the importance of ASEAN’s connectivity with neighbouring countries, such as India and China and the other members of the East Asia Summit (EAS). In response to the request of EAS, the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) has come up with two projects for ASEAN-India Connectivity, namely, the Mekong-India Economic Corridor and the Trilateral Highway connecting India and Myanmar with Thailand.]

By Pradumna B Rana*

Synopsis

After enjoying a history of about 1600 years, the Silk Road had lost out to the Southern Ocean Corridor connecting Europe and Asia. But now there are signs that the old Silk Road is being revived.

Commentary

THE SILK ROAD refers to the historical network of trading routes that connected Asia with the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe. Actually there were two major Silk Roads. The Northern Silk Road began from the present day Xian in China, which branched further west into two routes which converged in Kashgar, in what is now the largely Muslim Xinjiang province of China, before continuing on.

There was also the less well-known Southwestern Silk Road (SSR) which began in the Yunnan province of China. Bin Yang, a historian at the National University of Singapore, has noted that the SSR had four sections: the Sichuan-Yunnan-Burma-India Road which began in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, and then proceeded to Kunming and Dali in Yunnan province before entering Burma and India, the Yunnan-Vietnam Road, the Yunnan-Laos-Thailand-Cambodia Road and the Yunnan-Tibet Road. DP Singhal has, in addition, alluded to trade over two overland routes through Nepal and Tibet to China.

Marco Polo’s Silk Road

The Silk Route witnessed its zenith during the Mongol Empire around the middle of the 13th century when political stability allowed more trade in the region. There were significant complementarities in trade: Merchandise that did not seem valuable to the Mongols – such as silk, lacquerware, porcelain - was often seen as valuable by the west and the Mongols in turn received large amounts of luxurious goods from Europe and dates, saffron, and pistachio nuts from Persia. It was during this time that Marco Polo travelled the Silk Road to China.

Trade on the Silk Road started to decline after the collapse of the Mongol Empire in the 14th century. The isolationist foreign policies of the Ming and the subsequent Qing dynasties also did not help. The Europeans, therefore, started to reach the prosperous Chinese Empire through the sea route.

The sharp lowering of shipping costs which began with the invention of the steam engine during the Industrial Revolution also led to further increase in Europe’s maritime trade with Asia on the so-called Southern Ocean Corridor. This Corridor linked the Mediterranean in a trade route which continued through South Asia, the Straits of Malacca which straddled the old regional trading hub of the Malacca Sultanate, and up the East Asian coast to Korea and Japan.

Land connectivity in Asia

Now things are starting to change and the case for reviving land connectivity in Asia or the Silk Road has strengthened. Firstly, Maritime Asia, defined as the dynamic north-south coastal region from Korea to Indonesia, is starting to become more continental with expanding networks of roads, railways, and pipelines. This is most obvious in China where sharp increase in real wages in the coastal regions is leading to the relocation of industries to the interior of the country where labour is cheaper.

Under its “Go West” policy of 2005, China has identified a number of “bridge heads” for sub-regional connectivity such as the Yunnan province for the Greater Mekong Sub-region, and the Xinjiang province for cooperation with Central Asia. The Qinghai-Tibet Railway will reach Xigaste in Tibet this year, and is to be extended soon to reach the border with Nepal. The Beijing-Lhasa expressway has also been completed up to Xining, the halfway point.

Secondly, the encouraging but gradual political and economic reforms in Myanmar – as Burma is now known and is a node between South Asia and East Asia - has also provided a fillip for land connectivity. Both China and India are actively involved. Chinese strategists write about the “Malacca Dilemma” with the Strait being a natural choke point and the need to find an alternative route. In May, an 800 km gas pipeline from Kyauphyu, a port in Myanmar, to Kunming will be operational. Next year, an oil pipeline will open along the same route. Road and railway will also follow. Work on the Kaladan Multimodal Project seeking to connect Kolkota in India with Sittwe in Myanmar by sea and then the North East region of India by river and road transport is on-going.

Newer theories of trade

Thirdly, to realise the potential of dynamic complementarities associated with the newer theories of trade pioneered by some scholars there is a need to develop different types of service links. Under the traditional theory of comparative advantage, developing countries produced labour intensive goods which they then exchanged for relatively capital and skill intensive goods produced by the more advanced countries. All separate tasks involved in producing a good, however, were done entirely in one country.

Under the newer theories, production is sliced and diced into separate fragments and production of parts and components are located in production blocks around the world which are linked by efficient service links. The type of service link required depends on the sector being considered.

While for bulky items, sea freight is still the most cost effective way of moving goods, for less bulky parts and components, road transportation could be quicker especially among neighbouring countries. For perishable items, air transport might be necessary.

Actions needed to revive the SSR

A number of regional efforts are also being made to revive the Silk Road. The Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity of 2010 seeks to promote physical, institutional, and people-to-people connectivity among its 10 member countries. The Master Plan also emphasises the importance of ASEAN’s connectivity with neighbouring countries, such as India and China and the other members of the East Asia Summit (EAS). In response to the request of EAS, the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) has come up with two projects for ASEAN-India Connectivity, namely, the Mekong-India Economic Corridor and the Trilateral Highway connecting India and Myanmar with Thailand.

While the first project focuses on connecting production blocks in Southeast Asia with those in India, specially the automotive industry in Bangkok with those in Chennai (India) by sea, the second project focuses on the development of the North East Region of India.

What has been lacking so far is effort to promote the China-ASEAN-South Asia Connectivity by reviving the Southern Silk Road. The ERIA should consider a Yunnan-Myanmar-India-Nepal-Tibet-Yunnan Economic Corridor or a Circular Economic Corridor in Asia and sensitise the project concept and its feasibility.

Such a project would lead to a win-win situation for the countries concerned especially to Nepal which, as a land-locked country, has the potential to be a “land bridge” between India and China. Other “land bridges” in Asia that have benefited significantly from regional connectivity are Laos and Mongolia.

* The author is Associate Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU). He is also the coordinator of economic multilateralism and regionalism studies at the RSIS’ Centre for Multilateralism Studies.

____________________

COMMENT(S)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Madhav Pokharel <madappokhrel@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 6:34 AM
Subject: Re: CONNECTIVITY IN ASIA: REVIVING THE OLD SILK ROAD?
To: The Himalayan Voice <himalayanvoice@gmail.com>

I met Professor Wang in Chinese University of Minorities in Beijing in 2001. He is an expert on Tibet. During our interaction Professor Wang told me that one of the branches of Silk Road passed through Kathmandu. At that time Kathmandu was called Changbu 'small village'. Professor Wang also noted that some two or three Chinese travelers have used that route according to Chinese history.

I shall propose all to publicize this historical fact. I have Professor Wang's telephone number should anyone in the list would like to keep in touch with him.

Madhav P Pokharel

Professor of Linguistics

Tribhuvan University

FOR TRAUMA SURGEONS, SAVING LIVES, IF NOT LEGS, WITH NO TIME TO FRET

2013-04-17T06:03:00.004-04:00

[Some victims arrived two to an ambulance, some with huge holes in their legs where skin and fat and muscle were ripped away by the bomb and with ball bearings or nails from the bombs embedded in their flesh. Others had severed arteries in their legs or multiple breaks in the bones of their legs and feet. The shock wave from the blast destroyed blood vessels, skin, muscle and fat. And at least nine patients — five at Boston Medical Center, three at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital and one at Brigham and Women’s Hospital — had legs or feet so mangled they would need to be amputated.]

By Gina Kolata, Jeré Longman and Mary Pilon

Eric Thayer for The New York Times

A vigil at the Boston Common, near the site of the bomb blasts

at the Boston Marathon finish. More Photos »

BOSTON — So many patients arrived at once, with variations of the same gruesome leg injuries. Shattered bones, shredded tissue, nails burrowed deep beneath the flesh. The decision had to be made, over and over, with little time to deliberate. Should this leg be amputated? What about this one?

“As an orthopedic surgeon, we see patients like this, with mangled extremities, but we don’t see 16 of them at the same time, and we don’t see patients from blast injuries,” Dr. Peter Burke, the trauma surgery chief at Boston Medical Center, said.

The toll from the bombs Monday at the Boston Marathon, which killed at least three and injured more than 170, will long be felt by anyone involved with the city’s iconic sporting event. For the victims, the physical legacy could be an especially cruel one for a group that was involved in the marathon: severe leg trauma and amputations.

“What we like to do is before we take off someone’s leg — it’s extremely hard to make that decision — is we often get two surgeons to agree,” Dr. Tracey Dechert, a trauma surgeon at Boston Medical, said. “Am I right here? This can’t be saved. So that way you feel better and know that you didn’t take off someone’s leg that you didn’t have to take. All rooms had multiple surgeons so everyone could feel like we’re doing what we need to be doing.”

The widespread leg trauma was a result of bombs that seemed to deliver their most vicious blows within two feet off the ground. In an instant, doctors at hospitals throughout the city who had been preparing for ordinary marathon troubles — dehydration or hypothermia — now faced profound, life-changing decisions for runners and spectators of all ages.

Some victims arrived two to an ambulance, some with huge holes in their legs where skin and fat and muscle were ripped away by the bomb and with ball bearings or nails from the bombs embedded in their flesh. Others had severed arteries in their legs or multiple breaks in the bones of their legs and feet. The shock wave from the blast destroyed blood vessels, skin, muscle and fat. And at least nine patients — five at Boston Medical Center, three at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital and one at Brigham and Women’s Hospital — had legs or feet so mangled they would need to be amputated.

Some of the attendant medical professionals, said Julie Dunbar, a chaplain at Beth Israel, were faced with “more trauma than most ever see in a lifetime, more sadness, more loss.”

There were only three fatalities, which doctors say was because the blast, low to the ground, mostly injured people’s legs and feet instead of their abdomens, chests or heads. And tourniquets stopped what could have been fatal bleeding in many.

Dr. Allan Panter, 57, an emergency-room physician from Gainesville, Ga., was standing 10 yards from the blast near the finish line, waiting for his wife, Theresa, to complete her 16th Boston Marathon. Assisted by others, he said he used gauze wraps to apply tourniquets to several victims, including a man who appeared to be in his late 20s who lost both of his lower legs in the blast. He said he saw another six or seven victims with belts tied around their wounded legs.

Tourniquets, once discouraged because they were thought to cause damage to injuries, have returned to favor and have been used to treat wounds inflicted by explosive devices in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Dr. Panter said.

“With blast injuries to the lower extremities that we’re getting in the Middle East, you bleed out,” he said. Tourniquets “can help save lives. I don’t know if they helped in this situation, but it sure couldn’t hurt.”

While there was some initial chaos in a medical tent near the finish line, and some screaming and moaning by victims, it was generally an orderly scene, Dr. Panter said. He assisted others in wheeling in a female victim who died, he said. He described 20 to 30 cots in the tent with IV bags that had been intended for dehydrated runners.

At least eight doctors and what seemed to be 20 or more nurses were stationed in the tent. A man with a microphone stood in the center of the tent to coordinate medical care. Arriving victims were assessed and categorized as 1 for critical, 2 for intermediate, 3 for “can wait” and “black tag” for anyone who appeared to be dead, Dr. Panter said. An emergency medical technician outside the tent coordinated ambulance service to hospitals.

“All in all, it was a pretty controlled environment,” said Dr. Panter, who has been an emergency-room physician for 30 years. “I’ve seen a lot worse. They were without question ready — not ready for those type of injuries, but they were prepared.”

Once victims were transported to Boston’s hospitals, doctors had to carefully coordinate their response. Each has a story of where they were when the bombs went off and how they rushed to help and how, in some cases, they somehow just missed being victims themselves.

Dr. Alok Gupta, who directed the surgical response at Beth Israel, said he often goes to the finish line of the marathon to watch the race. But this year he was so tired that he took a nap. Then he heard ambulance sirens and helicopters outside his home in Back Bay, near the marathon finish. He was just beginning to wonder why the sirens had not dissipated and why the helicopters were hovering when his cellphone rang.

“The call was broken up,” he said. “All I heard was ‘mass casualty.’ ” And “we need you,” he said.

He was out of the house in less than a minute and at the hospital five minutes later. Then he and his colleagues set to work. They cleared the emergency room, sending home those who could leave and sending others to beds elsewhere in the building. They cleared intensive care, sending patients to other areas of the hospital. Dr. Gupta directed a central command.

“Surgeons were notified, emergency-room physicians were notified, operating-room personnel were notified, everyone was notified,” he said. Cellphone service in Boston had been limited to prevent terrorists from using cellphones to detonate any more bombs, so doctors, nurses and other medical professionals were contacted with text messages.

About 10 minutes later, patients began to arrive. Each was put in a room and assessed. Doctors described the situation as calm and efficient.

Seven patients at Beth Israel went directly to the operating room for emergency surgery to stabilize them, stopping bleeding for example. Five went to intensive care. At Brigham and Women’s Hospital, six patients went to the operating room and nine to intensive care.

“I think a lot of these injuries are so devastating, it was pretty straightforward — they weren’t going to be able to salvage these things,” said Dr. Burke of Boston Medical Center. “We all would like to salvage whatever extremities we can, but one thing we’ve learned in trauma is when you get too much damage, you can create too much hassle, so you may get the amputation but it may be a year down the line. Ten operations, failed operations, addictions to narcotics for the chronic pains, all these kinds of things.” An early amputation, Dr. Burke added, can mean a quicker return to a normal life.

Borrowing a tactic used by the military in Iraq, doctors at Beth Israel used felt markers to write patients’ vital signs and injuries on their chests — safely away from the leg wounds — so that if a patient’s chart was misplaced during a transfer to surgery or intensive care, for example, there would be no question about what was found in the emergency room.

Those who needed surgery would often need more than one operation on subsequent days. Those with huge blast wounds that ripped out skin and muscle would need plastic surgery. Those with severed arteries would need surgery, too.

Most of the injured taken to Beth Israel were no older than 50, said Dr. Michael Yaffe, a trauma surgeon at the hospital. A few were runners, but most were spectators who had prime viewing positions near the finish line.

At about 2 a.m. on Tuesday, the Beth Israel medical team left for home, to return again at 6. They examined each patient before they left and again when they returned. Often, in trauma, the doctors said, patients will not notice some of their injuries until the major injury is taken care of.

The Boston Marathon is so special, a day to celebrate athleticism and the thrill of the sport. For those runners who trained for months and now can be facing months or years or rehabilitation, and the end of their running days, the bombs took away “the thing they loved,” Dr. Yaffe said.

In the moments after the explosions, some patients recalled that they “thought they would die as they saw the blood spilling out,” said Dr. George Velmahos, chief of trauma services at Massachusetts General Hospital. When they awoke Tuesday and realized they were still alive, they said they felt extremely thankful, some even considering themselves lucky, Dr. Velmahos said.

“It’s almost a paradox,” he said, “to see these patients without an extremity to wake up and feel lucky.”

Jess Bidgood and Richard A. Oppel Jr. contributed reporting.

@ The New York Times

INDIA, LONG THE HOME OF OUTSOURCING, NOW WANTS TO MAKE ITS OWN CHIPS

2013-04-16T05:58:00.004-04:00

[“Nobody disputes India’s need to build up manufacturing. Not doing so would be fiscally irresponsible,” said Gaurav Verma, who heads the New York office of the U.S.-India Business Council. But Mr. Verma said that India’s efforts to force international companies to manufacture in the country are futile. “The government needs to not mandate this, but create an ecosystem.”]

By Sean Mclain

Babu/Reuters

Dell computers at a plant in the state of Tamil Nadu. Dell assembles

products in India, but does not make components there.

NEW DELHI — The government of India, home to many of the world’s leading software outsourcing companies, wants to replicate that success by creating a homegrown industry for computer hardware. But unlike software, which requires little infrastructure, building electronics is a far more demanding business. Chip makers need vast quantities of clean water and reliable electricity. Computer and tablet assemblers depend on economies of scale and easy access to cheap parts, which China has spent many years building up.

So the Indian government is trying a new, carrot-and-stick approach.

In October, it quietly began mandating that at least half of all laptops, computers, tablets and dot-matrix printers procured by government agencies come from domestic sources, according to Dr. Ajay Kumar, joint secretary of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, which devised the policy.

At the same time, it is dangling as much as $2.75 billion in incentives in front of chip makers to entice them to build India’s first semiconductor manufacturing plant, an important step in building a domestic hardware industry.

But like so much of India’s economic policy, it’s doubtful that either initiative will have the impact the government is intending.

“Nobody disputes India’s need to build up manufacturing. Not doing so would be fiscally irresponsible,” said Gaurav Verma, who heads the New York office of the U.S.-India Business Council. But Mr. Verma said that India’s efforts to force international companies to manufacture in the country are futile. “The government needs to not mandate this, but create an ecosystem.”

The domestic purchasing mandate, known as the “preferential market access” policy, seeks to address a real problem: imports of electronics are growing so fast that by 2020, they are projected to eclipse oil as the developing country’s largest import expense.

India’s import bill for semiconductors alone was $8.2 billion in 2012, according to Gartner, a research firm. And demand is growing at around 20 percent a year, according to the Department of Electronics and Information Technology.

For all electronics, India’s foreign currency bill is projected to grow from around $70 billion in 2012 to $300 billion by 2020, according to a government task force.

“The problem we are facing is that the demand is growing so much that it is reaching nonsustainable levels,” said Dr. Ajay Kumar, joint secretary of the agency.

Dot-matrix printers, outdated in most of the world, are one of the few electronic products that India manufactures. Around 400,000 dot-matrix printers were sold in India in the year ended March 31, an increase of 2 percent from the year before, according to the Manufacturers’ Association for Information Technology, a computer industry trade group in India.

The government accounts for about 40 percent of the country’s electronics purchases, according to PVG Menon, president of the Indian Electronics and Semiconductor Manufacturing Association.

Officials hope to use that purchasing power to jump-start manufacturing of other computer goods. However, the government has adopted a broad definition of what it considers locally made, since so few electronics are currently manufactured here.

If at least 30 percent of a computer’s components are made in India, then it would qualify. The policy also allows prospective suppliers to show “value addition” in lieu of actually manufacturing the goods in India, said Dr. Kumar. For example, India does not manufacture hard drives, but it assembles and tests them. Under the policy, a hard drive that is assembled in India would be considered to be made there.

Computer makers contacted for this article declined to discuss how the new policy would affect their sales.

The big fish the government would like to land is a factory to produce microprocessors for computers.

A computer processor typically accounts for 25 to 35 percent of the total cost of a PC or laptop. India hopes that such a plant, which could cost as much as $5 billion to build, would help spur a bigger high-tech manufacturing industry, said Dr. Kumar.

According to Indian media reports, two consortiums have been in talks with the government to build microprocessor foundries.

The first is led by the Jaypee Group, one of India’s largest construction companies, which built the country’s Formula One track in Uttar Pradesh. It has partnered with I.B.M., which will provide the technology.

The second bid is from the Hindustan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, an American company that, despite its name, does not manufacture any chips. It has partnered with the Geneva-based chip maker

STMicroelectronics.

But Ron Somers, president of the U.S.-India Business Council, said he doubted that India could provide a new chip-making facility with the basic infrastructure it needed to even keep the lights on. There have been several failed attempts to set up chip plants in the past. The most recent was in 2008 by SemIndia, a United States company run by Indian-American entrepreneurs. It ended acrimoniously when a dispute arose over the terms of the agreement between the company and the state of Andhra Pradesh where the plant was to be housed.

Critics warn that India’s efforts to encourage a high-tech revolution may come to naught once again unless it reduces some of the barriers to doing business in the country.

In the case of some electronics, the import duty on a finished product is cheaper than on the component parts, said Mr. Menon. Costs are also higher because of a lack of reliable power and the extra time it takes to move goods on the country’s poor roads.

Spurred by the new “Buy India” requirements, Dell, the largest PC retailer in India, explored the possibility of setting up manufacturing facilities there. Dell assembles computers in India, but does not manufacture any components.

“They flew in their suppliers from China and Taiwan to see if they could set up facilities. They said no,” said an industry official, who requested anonymity since he was not authorized to speak on behalf of the Texas-based company. “The market is too small, and logistically it is a nightmare.”

Dell declined to comment.

India has a model for success, said Mr. Verma of the business council: its automobile industry. In the 1980s, India opened its automotive industry to foreign companies, and in 1982, Suzuki Motor bought a majority stake in Maruti Udhyog. The joint venture produced the Maruti 800, India’s first affordable car.

However, the real watershed moment came in 1991, when India dropped its local manufacturing requirements. The industry exploded, and there are now about 40 million cars on Indian roads.

“India now has the sixth-largest auto industry in the world because of the ecosystem the government created,” Mr. Verma said.

Pamposh Raina contributed reporting.

@ The New York Times

CELEBRATING A NEW YEAR EVERY YEAR : THE NEW 'VIKRAM SAMVAT' OR OLD 'NEPAL SAMVAT'?

2013-04-15T10:39:00.003-04:00

[The Government of Nepal adopted the Vikram era as the official calendar of Nepal only in 1903 AD. Least emphasis has been given to other calendars. Even the Nepal Samvat, despite its 1132 years long history, has become obscure in the country and unknown to the people of Nepal. It all happened within a century or lesser than that as the state came forward typifying itself how it could alter the culture and traditions of a country when it desired to do so. It is a common practice to name an era after a king, a popular individual or a religion throughout the history, but in case of the Nepal Samvat, it is named after the country itself. In this regard, it is a unique example. However, following the Government's introduction of 'one language and one culture' policy, the Nepal era has lost in status despite its exclusive history. This clearly indicates the disrespect to the culture and tradition of the country by the then Governments. They went as far as importing a foreign calendar to replace already widely used era in the country.]

By Bal Gopal Shrestha PhD

University of Oxford, UK

It is notable that the people of Nepal celebrate New Year’s Day several times in a year. The Government of Nepal celebrates its New Year’s Day during the change of the Vikram calendar on the first day of Vaisakh in mid-April. The people of Tibeto-Burman and Mongol origin in Nepal, such as the Gurung, the Tamang and the Sherpa celebrate their New Year festivals Tola or Tamu Lhosar (December/January), Sonam Lhosar (January/February) and Gyaplo Lhosar (February/March), respectively in three different times of a year. Similarly, people in Tarai celebrate their New Year at different times of a year. Most recently Rai and Limbu people of Nepal also have begun to celebrate New Year of the Kirata or Yela Samvat. Nowadays a small minority in Nepal also celebrate New Year on the first day of January with the change of the Gregorian calendar. However, only the Vikram Samvat is used for official purposes in Nepal while all other calendars do not receive any such recognition. In October 2011 during the celebration of New Year 1132, Prime Minister Dr. Baburam Bhattarai declared Nepal Samvat to be used as an official calendar of Nepal and formed a committee under the chairmanship of Padma Ratna Tuladhar, the ardent campaigner of Nepal Samvat. In the following year, during the celebration of the New Year 1133 in November 2012, the same Prime Minister, Dr. Bhattarai promised implementing the report that Padma Ratna Tuladhar submitted to his Government. He clearly stated the need of removing Vikram Samvat from official use (Bhattarai 2012). However, before taking any action towards this direction his opponents succeeded at dethroning him from his chair. This means the objective of replacing of the Vikarm Samvat with a national calendar will continue to remain in limbo.

Since past several decades, people across Nepal, especially the Newar people have began nationwide campaigns demanding the recognition of the Nepal Samvat as the country's national calendar. Due to the fact that the Vikram era had its origin in ancient India while the Nepal Era was originated in Nepal, and named after the country ‘Nepal’ itself, the pressure for the recognition started to grow after the restoration of democracy in 1990. In 1999, the then Government led by the Nepali Congress Party under the premiership of the late Krishna Prasad Bhattarai recognized Samkhadar Sakhva, the person believed to be founder of the Nepal era as a national hero of Nepal. During the Nepal Era 1128 New Year celebration the then Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala 'proclaimed' that he would use the epoch dates in his letter pads and would direct the Government administration to follow the suit, but that never happened. On 24th October 2008, the Maoists led cabinet meeting of the Government of the Republic of Nepal unanimously declared that the Nepal Samvat as a National era of Nepal. Politicians such as Dirgha Raj Prasain believes “Vikram Samvat is a glory of Nepalese nationalism” and thinks, “Nepal Sambat is becoming like the begging bowl for all party’s Bahun leaders” (Prasain 2010). Despite disbeliefs and doubts, Prime Minister Babu Ram Bhattarai proclaimed he would recognize Nepal Samvat as the official calendar of Nepal during the celebration of New Year 1132 Nepal Samvat on 25 October 2011. He even read out his speech in ‘Nepal Bhasa’ ( Newar language) during the celebration, which was unprecedented as no Nepalese Prime Minister had made his speech other than in Khas–Nepali ever before.

The Government of Nepal adopted the Vikram era as the official calendar of Nepal only in 1903 AD. Least emphasis has been given to other calendars. Even the Nepal Samvat, despite its 1132 years long history, has become obscure in the country and unknown to the people of Nepal. It all happened within a century or lesser than that as the state came forward typifying itself how it could alter the culture and traditions of a country when it desired to do so. It is a common practice to name an era after a king, a popular individual or a religion throughout the history, but in case of the Nepal Samvat, it is named after the country itself. In this regard, it is a unique example. However, following the Government's introduction of 'one language and one culture' policy, the Nepal era has lost in status despite its exclusive history. This clearly indicates the disrespect to the culture and tradition of the country by the then Governments. They went as far as importing a foreign calendar to replace already widely used era in the country.

Facts about the Vikram Era

A most widely believed myth is that the king named Vikramaditya of Ujjain in India initiated the Vikram Samvat. However, many scholars consider Vikramaditya was a legendary ruler, while others stress him as a historical figure and founder of the Vikram Era (Pandey 1951). However, in his book D.C. Sircar states, it was only in the 8th century that the reckoning began to attach with the name of the king Vikramaditya, before that the era was associated with the Malavas of Rajasthan. He further states, the era was at first known as the Krita era and prevalent in Rajasthan among the Malava, hence also began to be known as the Malava era. He asserts the epoch era began to be called the ‘era of Vikram’ ‘the era known as Vikram’ or ‘Vikramaditya’ and ‘the era founded by Vikramaditya’ only in the medieval period. He dismisses the claim that king Vikramaditya of Ujjayani ever defeated the Sakas and founded the Vikram era (Sircar 1996:251-58). Another scholar Basham (1975:495) states ‘the only king who both took the title Vikramaditya and drove the Sakas from Ujjyini was Candra Gupta II, who lived over 400 years later than the beginning of the Vikram era’. Similarly, Kane (1994:653) maintains that the Vikramera is found mentioned not earlier than 8th or 9th century AD.

At its inception, the change of the year in the Vikram era used to be in the month of Kartika, but by the medieval period (twelfth to eighteenth century AD), it had become Caitradi or the ending in the month of Caitra. At many parts of India, still people use it as a lunar calendar. Till the medieval times the years of the epoch counted as beginning from Kartika Sukla 1. Nowadays, in North India, the Vikram era New Year begins on Chaitra Sukla 1 but in the South India from Kartika Sukla 1, in a difference of seven months. In the North, it is counted as Purnamantaka while in the South it is counted as Amanta. In some parts of Rajasthan and Gujarati speaking areas, the beginning of the year is counted from Amanta Asadha while in Udaipur region of Rajasthan it is counted from Purnamantaka. Therefore, depending upon the beginning of the year, the Vikram era is known as Karttikadi, Caitradi, Asadhadi and Sravanadi in India (Sircar 1996:258). In Nepal, it is used as a solar calendar for official purpose. In Nepal, every year on 13 or on 14 April the New Year’s Day of the Vikram era is celebrated.

Some legends also relate Vikramaditya of Ujjayan with Nepal for his mysterious deeds (Paudyal 1963:58-75). Daniel Wright edited History of Nepal tells that during the reign of Amsuvarma, Vikramajit, a powerful monarch of Hindustan who founded a new Era came to Nepal to introduce his era and spent rest of his life (Wright 1972:131-32). The supporters of Vikram Era also claim the bronze head kept at the temple of Vajrayogini temple in Sankhu as the head of Vikramaditya, which iconographically identified as a head of the Buddha (Sharma 1970:3). However, only rare use of the Vikram era is to be found in Nepal to substantiate its authenticity. The oldest inscription found in Nepal with the Vikram era at Patan Sundhara is dated 1404 AD. This inscription mentions the Vikram era 1461 but together with the Kaligata era 4505, the Saka era 1326 and the Nepal era 524 (Pradhan 1998:66). Only in 1903 AD that the Rana Prime Minister Chandra Shamser introduced the Vikram era in Nepal for the Government administration. By replacing the lunar based Saka calendar with the solar calendar the shrewd Rana Prime Minister tricked the Government staff and reduced the burden of paying salaries for thirteenth months every two years (Pradhan 2000:6).

Jaggannatha and Vaijanath Sendhain’s versified panegyrics written in praise of Chandra Shamsher explains his motives for adopting Vikram Samvat and tells how the State benefits from such a measure and how Chandra’s calendar reform of “tithi into miti” had finally rid the country of the confusions of lunar tithi, 13-month year and dark half and bright half of a lunar month (Sendhain 1913:84). However, the solar based Vikram era has no cultural value in Nepal because the Nepalese people use lunar calendar for observing all religious festivals, life cycle and death rituals, birthdays and determining auspicious moment (sait) for any religiously important activities, as well as observing holidays.

Many people also like to relate the celebration of the Bisket festival with the New Year of the Vikram era because this festival falls around the first day (samkranti or salhu) of Vaisakha month. However, analysing a number of inscriptions and historical documents, Nepal’s prominent epigraphist and historian Shyam Sundar Rajvamsi has revealed that Nepal Samvat was used not only as a lunar calendar but also as a solar calendar. He affirms, inscriptions, copper plates and historical documents dated from Licchavi and Malla periods provide names of various important ‘samkranti’ or ‘salhu’, the first day of solar months while there existed no traces of the Vikram era. He asserts that the Nepal Samvat and the older form of the Nepal Samvat served the purpose of both lunar and solar calendars. He confirms the solar calendar of the Nepal Era also consists 365 days, as it is the case with the Vikram Era (Rajvamsi 2012:39). In fact, the Bisket festival carries a distinct history and myths that are entirely different from the celebration of the Vikram era New Year (Prajapati 2006). For the Newars, the original inhabitants of the Kathmandu Valley, the first day of the month of Vaisakh was known only as ‘Khai Salhu’ until recently. However, because of the official status of the Vikram era, its New Year began to receive national attention and gradually people across the country started celebrating its New Year. Hitherto, except at the Government level, hardly general people were aware of its New Year.

In India, the central Government has adopted the Saka era as the national and official era together with the Gregorian calendar since 1957. To give uniformity to a national calendar, the Calendar Reform Committee of India submitted this recommendation despite the fact that people belonging to diverse religions, cultures and nationalities in India practised more than thirty epoch calendars before 1957. Since 1957, India celebrates 1 Caitra (22 March) as the New Year’s Day according to the Saka era and observes it as a national holiday, but in different provinces, regional New Year Day are observed according to their own tradition. The publication dates of the Gazette of India, dates in diaries and correspondences of the Government, and newspapers include the National Calendar in addition to the Gregorian date in India. Similarly, early morning broadcasts of All India Radio in various languages announce National Calendar dates (Bandyopadhyay 1981).

Limitation of the Vikram Era

In fact, the use of the solar-based Vikram calendar in Nepal has its limitation. Even though the Vikram era was introduced in Nepal the Nepal Era, as a lunar-based calendar, remained and continued to be a part of Nepalese culture, especially in the Kathmandu Valley. Astrologers used it for writing horoscopes and determining the dates of all the religious festivals and cultural rituals of Nepal. From the beginning of their publications, the Nepal Almanac Deciding Committee (Nepal Pamcanga Nirnayaka Samiti), previously Royal Almanac Deciding Committee (Nepal Rajakiya Pamcanga Nirnayaka Samiti), a body composed of astrologers, authorized to publish the solar-based Vikram era calendar have been including the Nepal Samvat identifying it as ‘the era of the country Nepal’ (Nepaldesiya Samvat) or ‘the Nepal era created by Samkhadhara’ (Sri Samkhadharakrita Nepaliya Samvat), etc. The Government of Nepal has been using the Christian era for all its official dealings with foreign countries but without pronouncing its official status. Especially, since the 1950s the Christian era has become more prevalent in Nepal. The Government as well as non-governmental organizations, and the private sectors use the Christian calendar very commonly, especially when they deal with their international counterparts. As a solar-based calendar, the Christian era is globally accepted one at present. Governments and general people, not only in American and European countries but also in almost all Asian countries that include India, Japan, China, Korea, Sri Lanka have long been using the Christian calendar. This is the reason why many people in Nepal think the best for Nepal is to replace the Vikram era with the Christian era for the administration of the Government. Recent news is that the Government is taking necessary steps towards this direction. However, people involved in the Nepal Samvat movement oppose such a move, and urge the Government to replace the Vikram calendar with the Nepal Samvat (Shakya 2008:12). Historians such as Professor Tri Ratna Manandhar opine it will be a blunder to replace the Vikram era with the Christian era. He recommends to introduce the Nepal era as an official calendar with necessary arrangement making it simple to use since it has been declared a national era of Nepal. He considers it is all matter of practice, once the Government starts using it people will be accustomed to it (Manandhar 2008:7).

Conclusion

In fact, there is no rational behind the use of the Vikram era as an official calendar of Nepal when we already have a calendar that carries name of the country (Nepal era), which is associated with the religious, cultural and social activities of Nepal. Historically too there is no connection between Nepal and the Vikram era except that the Shah dynasty began to use ‘Vikram’ as one of their titles. There is no logic behind keeping up the Vikram era calendar for official use in Nepal.

Some practical problems are there in using a lunar calendar, as it is an official calendar. However, ritual calendar as such is in practice all over the world including India, China and in all Islamic countries. The findings of historian Shyam Sundar Rajvamsi has made it clear that even if the Government of Nepal needs to use Nepal Samvat as a solar calendar, there should not be any problem. The declaration of the Nepal Era as a national era will be meaningful only when the Government recognizes it in practice. Besides the traditional calendars (Patro/Pamcanga) the two Government dailies: the Gorkhapatra and The Rising Nepal, and many privately run newspapers such as República and Annapurna Post dailies, have been mentioning the Nepal Era together with the Vikram and Christian eras. Other newspapers and electronic media might follow the suit.

The Vikram era was never used for official purposes in India where it had originated. Therefore, it is an insult for a sovereign country Nepal to retain a borrowed calendar from a foreign land when we have a calendar of our own. At a time when the Nepalese people have abandoned their own king and kingship it is totally absurd to keep up using a calendar named after an emperor that lacks historical facts. Nepalese people who feel proud of Nepal will be more than happy to abandon the Vikram Samvat, which has been a symbol of repression of native culture and

tradition. From the viewpoint of Nepal’s distinct national identity too it is very important that the Government of Nepal uses the Nepal Samvat in all her national activities, and makes it mandatory in formal dealings with foreign countries alongside the Christian era. The use of the Nepal Samvat together with the Christian era will

leave no space for any confusion. In addition, it will also help enhancing pride of Nepal and Nepalese people among international communities.

References:

Basham, A. L. 1975 (1954). The Wonder That was India. Fontana, Collins.

Bandyopadhya, Amelendu 1981. “The National Calendar. How to Popularize it.” The Statesman, 29 March.

Bhattarai, Babu Ram 2012. PM Speech New Year 1133Program (Lalitpur). (retrieved on 15 November 2012).

Kane, Pandurang Vaman 1994. History of Dharmasatra (Ancient and Medieval Religious and Civil Law). Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Volume V, Part I.

Manandhar, Triratna 2008. “The Christian Era in Nepal.” Kantipur, a Nepali Daily, 27 December, page 7.

Nepalnews.com. 2011."PM Bhattarai addresses programme marking Nepal Sambat 1132 in Nepal Bhasa". 27 October. Retrieved 24 March 2012.

Pandey, Raj Bali 1951. Vikramaditya of Ujjayini [The founder of the Vikrama Era]. Banaras: Shatadala Prakashana.

Paudyal, Naynath (ed.) 1963. Bhasavamsavali. Kathmandu: Department of Archaeology.

Pradhan, Bhuvanlal 1999/2000. “Historical Evidence on Nepal Sambat.” Newah Vijnana The Journal of Newar Studies Number 3, pp. 1-6.

Prasain, Dirgha Raj 2010. “An Account of History of ‘Nepal Sambat.” The Himalayan Beacon, 1 November.

Rajvansi, Shyam Sundar 2012. “Nepal Samvatyata Dhathen Chyelegu Khahsa” [If we really want to use the Nepal Era]. Jhigu Svanigah, Special issue, pp 38-9 & 49-53.

Sakya, Naresh Vir 2008. “Nepal Samvat Manyata Dune Karmacari Tantra” [Recognition of the Nepal Samvat and the Bureaucracy]. Sandhya Times Daily.7 November. (In Nepalbhasa).

Sendhain, Jaggannatha and Vaijanath 1913. Chandra-Mayukha. Bombay: Nirnayasagar Press.

Sharma, Prayag Raj 1970. “A Note on Some Bronzes at Vajrayogini.” Tribhuvan University Journal 5 (1): 1-5.

Sircar, Dinesh Chandra 1996. Indian Epigraphy. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Wright, Daniel (ed.) 1972 (1877). History of Nepal. Translated by M.S.S. Singh, and Pandit Shri Gunananda from the Parbatiya. Kathmandu: Nepal Antiquated Book Publishers.

Related links:
THE NEW YEAR ONCE A YEAR: HISTORY OF BIKRAM SAMBAT;

ADJUSTING 'NEPAL SAMBAT' AND 'BIKRAM SAMBAT' IN CALENDAR : SOME SUGGESTIONS

CHINA MAKES INROADS IN NEPAL, AND STANCHES TIBETAN INFLUX

2013-04-14T04:02:00.004-04:00

[“Nepal used to be quite easy for Tibetans, to get jobs here and integrate into the community,” Tashi Ganden, a former monk and prominent political prisoner in China, said as he sat on a cafe rooftop in the bustling Tibetan Boudhanath neighborhood of Katmandu. “That was before the Chinese influence.”]

By Edward Wong

Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times

The Boudhanath stupa, a hub for Katmandu’s Tibetan community.A monk committed
suicide by self-immolation near the stupa in February to protest China.

CHOSAR, (Upper Mustang) Nepal — The wind-scoured desert valley here, just south of Tibet, was once a famed transit point for the Tibetan yak caravans laden with salt that lumbered over the icy ramparts of the Himalayas. In the 1960s, it became a base for Tibetan guerrillas trained by the C.I.A. to attack Chinese troops occupying their homeland.

These days, it is the Chinese who are showing up in this far tip of the Buddhist kingdom of Mustang, northwest of Katmandu, Nepal. Chinese officials are seeking to stem the flow of disaffected Tibetans fleeing to Nepal and to enlist the help of the Nepalese authorities in cracking down on the political activities of the 20,000 Tibetans already here.

China is exerting its influence across Nepal in a variety of ways, mostly involving financial incentives. In Mustang, China is providing $50,000 in annual food aid and sending military officials across the border to discuss with local Nepalese what the ceremonial prince of Mustang calls “border security.”

Their efforts across the country have borne fruit. The Nepalese police regularly detain Tibetans during anti-China protests in Katmandu, and they have even curbed celebrations of the birthday of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, according to Tibetans living in Nepal.

In the first eight months of 2012, the number of Tibetan refugees crossing the Himalayas into Nepal was about 400, half as many as during the same period in 2011. Tibetans blame tighter Chinese security in Tibet, as well as Chinese-trained Nepal border guards, for the reduced migration.

The Nepalese government has also refused to allow 5,000 refugees to leave for the United States, even though the American government has said it would grant the refugees asylum.

“Nepal used to be quite easy for Tibetans, to get jobs here and integrate into the community,” Tashi Ganden, a former monk and prominent political prisoner in China, said as he sat on a cafe rooftop in the bustling Tibetan Boudhanath neighborhood of Katmandu. “That was before the Chinese influence.”

Nepal is one of the world’s most impoverished countries, made poorer by a decade-long civil war between Maoist guerrillas and the military that ended in 2006, and by the continuing instability of the government. The nation is bordered by India and China, and Nepalese leaders have sought to use China as a counterbalance to long-running Indian influence.

The courtship between Nepal and China has gained momentum in recent years, as China has poured in aid money, infrastructure expertise and, in Lumbini, believed to be the birthplace of Buddha, investment in Buddhist sites. Meanwhile, it has been assigning ambassadors to Nepal who have backgrounds in security work.

Former President Jimmy Carter told reporters in Katmandu on April 1 that Chinese pressure was making the journey of Tibetans to Nepal more difficult. “My hope is that the Nepali government will not accede,” he said, according to Reuters.

Shankar Prasad Koirala, the joint secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs, said in a telephone interview that Nepal had not turned its back on the refugees. “The government of Nepal is assisting them and treating them on humanitarian grounds,” he said.

Other Nepalese officials have explained that Nepal abides by a “one-China policy” and does not tolerate anti-China separatist activities on its soil.

China’s campaign to block Tibetans from entering Nepal increased in 2008 after a widespread Tibetan uprising. Since then, at least 110 self-immolations by Tibetans living under Chinese rule have further prompted Chinese officials to tighten security in Tibetan towns and along the border with Nepal.

The practice of protest by self-immolation has reached Katmandu, making Nepalese officials even more anxious about the Tibetan issue. In February, a Tibetan monk, Drupchen Tsering, 25, died after setting fire to himself near a revered Buddhist stupa, or dome-shaped shrine, in Boudhanath.

Tibetans in the area asked for the monk’s body, but local officials had it cremated in the middle of the night late last month, saying no family members had claimed it, and later posted notices warning against public ceremonies, according to the International Campaign for Tibet, an advocacy group based in Washington.

There has been a clampdown on open religious celebrations in recent years, with some Tibetans detained for days. Those celebrations include festivities around the birthday of the Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in India and had a representative in Katmandu until the office was shut down by the government in 2005.

One young man, Tsering, said he went to a monastery in Katmandu in April 2012 for a birthday ceremony, only to find the Nepalese police blocking the area. The gathering was moved to an assembly hall. “We can’t even celebrate the Dalai Lama’s birthday,” he said. “Things have changed a lot.”

Mr. Tashi, the former monk, said dozens of Tibetans were pre-emptively detained in January 2012 when Wen Jiabao, the Chinese prime minister at the time, made an unannounced four-hour visit to Katmandu. Mr. Wen had scheduled a visit for the previous month, but it was canceled because of concerns over protests by Tibetans, local residents said. During his visit, Mr. Wen agreed that China would give Nepal $1.18 billion in aid over three years, among other support.

The earliest Tibetan refugees arrived in Nepal in 1959, when the Dalai Lama fled Tibet, and they settled in refugee camps, of which there are still 13. A Tibetan enclave sprang up around Boudhanath. Some Tibetans became rich by making carpets and handicrafts, and prominent Tibetan monasteries amassed wealth and purchased prime real estate in the Katmandu Valley.

The population was bolstered by more recent political refugees, like Mr. Tashi. The Tibetans used to be given refugee cards that guaranteed them some rights, but Nepal ended that practice in 1998.

These days, refugees pay about $5,000 to smugglers to get them to Nepal. They generally stay six to eight weeks at a transit center in the Katmandu Valley run by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, then board a bus for India. There, the Tibetans hope to get an audience with the Dalai Lama.

Some are pilgrims who eventually try to make their way back to Nepal and then Tibet. There is suspicion among longtime refugees that some of the refugees are spies for China.

Before the Tibetan uprising five years ago, 2,000 to 4,000 refugees reached the transit center each year. That dropped to 500 to 600 in 2008, as Chinese security forces locked down Tibetan towns, and crept back up to 850 the next year. It has remained low ever since.

For decades, there had been an understanding that Nepalese border guards would allow refugees they encountered to continue on to sanctuary. But now Tibetans suspect that the low numbers of refugees reaching Katmandu could be in part a result of guards sending back Tibetans they catch, especially since China is now involved in border security training programs.

There is no independent monitoring of the Nepalese security forces on the border. Last year, CNN broadcast video of unknown Chinese men in plain clothes harassing a CNN cameraman on the Nepalese side of the border while a guard stood by.

“We don’t really know what happens in border areas now,” said Kate Saunders, a researcher for the International Campaign for Tibet.

For China, the Mustang region is one of the most delicate border areas, given the history of the Khampa guerrilla resistance there and the flight through the kingdom in 1999 of the Karmapa Lama, who was secretly escaping to India from Tibet. The border only opens now on rare occasions for a market between Tibetans and local residents.

People of Mustang could once cross into Tibet with a letter from the king to make a pilgrimage to Mount Kailas, the holiest mountain in Tibetan Buddhist cosmology. But the Chinese cut that off a dozen years ago.

“We’ve asked our government to try to reopen it,” said Jigme Singi Palbar Bista, the prince of Mustang. “Our people have always looked to the spiritual light of Tibet.”

@ The New York Times

CONTRASTING VIEWS ON NORTH KOREA UNDERSCORE SENSITIVITIES AND LACK OF EVIDENCE

2013-04-13T06:23:00.000-04:00

[But the differences between this case and Iraq are considerable. There is no argument that the North can build a modest bomb — its most recent test is believed to have yielded an explosion of 6 to 10 kilotons, less than what the United States dropped on Hiroshima. But there does not appear to be clear evidence of its work on miniaturizing that bomb.]

By David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt

WASHINGTON — On the hawkish end is the Pentagon’s intelligence arm, the Defense Intelligence Agency, which fears that North Korea could threaten American troops with a nuclear weapon on a crude missile. On the skeptical end is the State Department, which has more doubts about Pyongyang’s capabilities. And somewhere in the middle is the Central Intelligence Agency.

Those contrasting views are vying with one another in the intelligence community, and a hint of those differences came into rare public view on Thursday when an assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency that it has “moderate confidence” that North Korea has the ability to shrink a nuclear weapon and fit it into a missile warhead surfaced at a Congressional hearing. That conclusion was disputed by James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, who issued a statement later in the day saying that it did not reflect “the consensus” of the nation’s intelligence community.

The contradictory statements and sudden round of finger-pointing seemed to underscore once again the difficulty of obtaining reliable information — and making educated guesses — about one of the world’s most closed societies. But it also highlighted the sensitivity surrounding intelligence estimates in the wake of the highly publicized intelligence failures leading up to the Iraq war, and some subsequent failures involving North Korea.

“The situation is that there is so little direct evidence that I don’t think it’s possible to come to a firm conclusion on whether or not they currently have a nuclear warhead that can be delivered by missile,” said Gary Samore, who until early this year served as President Obama’s coordinator for weapons of mass destruction, “or how far away they are from getting there.”

Mr. Samore, now at Harvard’s Belfer Center, added that when it comes to arming the North’s Nodong missiles — which can hit South Korea and American troops there, but not beyond — with a nuclear warhead, “the best you can say is that they might have.”

A decade ago the Defense Intelligence Agency was among the most aggressive in pressing the case that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program. It was famously deceived by information provided by an insider code-named “Curveball.”

But the differences between this case and Iraq are considerable. There is no argument that the North can build a modest bomb — its most recent test is believed to have yielded an explosion of 6 to 10 kilotons, less than what the United States dropped on Hiroshima. But there does not appear to be clear evidence of its work on miniaturizing that bomb.

An administration official said that including an unclassified passage in a largely classified seven-page assessment of North Korean capabilities by the Defense Intelligence Agency was “clearly a human error.” But he would not describe how it happened, nor would Defense Department officials say how that single conclusion ended up in the open, especially if it lacked the context of much more detailed reports.

In his statement, the famously press-shy Mr. Clapper said, “North Korea has not yet demonstrated the full range of capabilities necessary for a nuclear armed missile.”

On Friday morning, a Republican member of Congress said “demonstrated” was the crucial phrase: North Korea has never conducted a test of a warhead, showing that it could be precisely targeted or that it could survive the heat and forces of re-entry into the atmosphere. But he said that there is “a consensus building” among rival intelligence agencies that “If they are not there, they are close to there.” Differences among the assessments, he added, “are not huge.”

The last time the differences among intelligence agencies came into such sharp relief was 10 years ago this spring, when the Bush administration sought to explain why it had dismissed the dissenting opinions of parts of the intelligence community over Iraq’s nonconventional weapons.

The Defense Intelligence Agency’s conclusion was clearly an assessment that the Obama administration was not eager to share with the world. Officials said that at a moment when there were troubles with Iran and Syria, to say nothing of the rest of the Arab world, there was little desire to rekindle the North Korean crisis. That is especially true because North Korea has not demonstrated any capability to place its weapons on a missile, meaning that all the intelligence assessments were based on analysis, not discoveries.

But that effort came undone when a staff member on a House Armed Services subcommittee that oversees nuclear issues read a copy of the agency’s classified report, as part of his regular staff work, according to two people briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the internal communications between Congress and the Pentagon.

The staff member noticed an important one-paragraph conclusion that was labeled “unclassified,” and went to the Defense Intelligence Agency’s legislative affairs liaison, who confirmed it. The staff member then alerted an influential member of the subcommittee, Representative Doug Lamborn, a fourth-term Republican of Colorado and a co-chairman of the House’s missile defense caucus, who decided to ask Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about the report’s conclusion at a budget hearing on Thursday. “It’s important to have all the facts on the table,” Mr. Lamborn said in a telephone interview Friday, adding that he had no misgivings about asking his question in a public hearing.

Republicans in Congress have led efforts to increase money for missile defense, and Mr. Lamborn said that he raised the issue largely because the Obama administration proposed this week in its annual budget submission to reduce financing for missile defenses by more than $500 million.

Given the agency’s responsibility for protecting American forces, it is not surprising that the Defense Intelligence Agency has been the most aggressive in arguing that North Korea is on the verge of marrying the products of its nuclear and missile programs. Two years ago, Lt. Gen. Ronald L. Burgess Jr., then the head of the agency, edged up to a similar conclusion, but with several caveats.

In testimony to Congress, he said, “The North may now have several plutonium-based nuclear warheads that it can deliver by ballistic missiles, and aircraft, as well as by unconventional means.” The last two in his list were important: it would require no new technology to devise a weapon to fit on a plane or a donkey cart.

The hardest task, experts say, would be for North Korea to design a warhead for an intercontinental missile. That warhead would go through the huge heat and stress of leaving, then re-entering the atmosphere. The North would have to design a warhead durable enough to keep from burning up, or breaking up, on re-entry. That is why other agencies are more skeptical.

@ The New York Times

PENTAGON SAYS NUCLEAR MISSILE IS IN REACH FOR NORTH KOREA

2013-04-12T05:08:00.004-04:00

[Nonetheless, outside experts said that the report’s conclusions could explain why Mr. Hagel has announced in recent weeks that the Pentagon was bolstering long-range antimissile defenses in Alaska and California, intended to protect the West Coast, and rushing another antimissile system, originally not set for deployment until 2015, to Guam.]

By Thom Shanker, David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt

Mark Wilson/Getty Images

From left, Robert S. Mueller III of the F.B.I.; James R. Clapper Jr. of national intelligence;

and John O. Brennan of the C.I.A. appeared before a House intelligence committee
on Thursday on Capitol Hill.

WASHINGTON — A new assessment by the Pentagon’s intelligence arm has concluded for the first time, with “moderate confidence,” that North Korea has learned how to make a nuclear weapon small enough to be delivered by a ballistic missile.

The assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency, which has been distributed to senior administration officials and members of Congress, cautions that the weapon’s “reliability will be low,” apparently a reference to the North’s difficulty in developing accurate missiles or, perhaps, to the huge technical challenges of designing a warhead that can survive the rigors of flight and detonate on a specific target.

The assessment’s existence was disclosed Thursday by Representative Doug Lamborn, Republican of Colorado, three hours into a budget hearing of the House Armed Services Committee with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey. General Dempsey declined to comment on the assessment because of classification issues.

But late Thursday, the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., released a statement saying that the assessment did not represent a consensus of the nation’s intelligence community and that “North Korea has not yet demonstrated the full range of capabilities necessary for a nuclear armed missile.”

In another sign of the administration’s deep concern over the release of the assessment, the Pentagon press secretary, George Little, issued a statement that sought to qualify the conclusion from the Defense Intelligence Agency, which has primary responsibility for monitoring the missile capabilities of adversary nations but which a decade ago was among those that argued most vociferously — and incorrectly — that Iraq had nuclear weapons.

“It would be inaccurate to suggest that the North Korean regime has fully tested, developed or demonstrated the kinds of nuclear capabilities referenced in the passage,” Mr. Little said.

A spokesman for the South Korean Defense Ministry, Kim Min-seok, said early Friday that despite various assessments. “we have doubt that North Korea has reached the stage of miniaturization.”

Nonetheless, outside experts said that the report’s conclusions could explain why Mr. Hagel has announced in recent weeks that the Pentagon was bolstering long-range antimissile defenses in Alaska and California, intended to protect the West Coast, and rushing another antimissile system, originally not set for deployment until 2015, to Guam.

Also Thursday, Mr. Clapper sought to tamp down fears that North Korean rhetoric could lead to an armed clash with the United States, South Korea and regional allies, and a high South Korean official called for dialogue with North Korea.

Mr. Clapper told a hearing of the House Intelligence Committee that in his experience, two other confrontations with the North — the seizure of the Navy spy ship Pueblo in 1968 and the death of two military officers in a tree-cutting episode in the demilitarized zone in 1976 — stoked much greater tensions between the two countries. The statement by the South Korean official, Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae, was televised nationally, and it represented a considerable softening in tone by President Park Geun-hye’s government.

Secretary of State John Kerry, meanwhile, was scheduled to arrive in Seoul on Friday and to travel to China and Japan after that. He has two principal goals on the last leg of a six-nation trip: to encourage China to use its influence to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program while reassuring South Korea and Japan that the United States remains committed to their defense.

The report issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency last month was titled “Dynamic Threat Assessment 8099: North Korea Nuclear Weapons Program.” Its executive summary reads: “D.I.A. assesses with moderate confidence the North currently has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles; however the reliability will be low.”

A spokesman for Mr. Lamborn, Catherine Mortensen, said the material he quoted during the hearing was unclassified. Pentagon officials said later that while the report remained classified, the one-paragraph finding had been declassified but not released. Republicans in Congress have led efforts to increase money for missile defense, and Mr. Lamborn has been critical of the Obama administration for failing to finance it adequately.

North Korea has conducted three nuclear tests, including one this year, and shot a ballistic missile as far as the Philippines in December. American and South Korean intelligence agencies believe that another test — perhaps of a midrange missile called the Musudan that can reach Japan, South Korea and almost as far as Guam — may be conducted in the coming days, to celebrate the birth of Kim Il-sung, the country’s founder. At the Pentagon, there is particular concern about another missile, yet untested, called the KN-08, which may have significantly longer range.

“North Korea has already demonstrated capabilities that threaten the United States and the security environment in East Asia,” Mr. Clapper told the House Intelligence Committee.

He added that “we believe Pyongyang has already taken initial steps” toward fielding what he called a “road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile.” He appeared to be referring to the KN-08, provided to North Korea by a Russian company and based on the design of a Russian submarine-launched nuclear missile.

Mr. Clapper referred to “extremely belligerent, aggressive public rhetoric towards the United States and South Korea” by the North’s young president, Kim Jong-un. And he made it clear that getting inside Mr. Kim’s head, and understanding his goals, had been particularly frustrating.

He suggested that while Mr. Kim’s grandfather and father had clear motives — to periodically threaten the world with nuclear crises, then wait to get paid in cash, food or equipment to lower the rhetoric — the younger Mr. Kim apparently intended to demonstrate both to North Koreans and to the international community that North Korea deserves respect as a nuclear power.

“His primary objective is to consolidate, affirm his power,” Mr. Clapper told the House committee, adding that “the belligerent rhetoric of late, I think, is designed for both an internal and an external audience.”

Asked if the North Korean leader had an “endgame,” Mr. Clapper said, “I don’t think, really, he has much of an endgame other than to somehow elicit recognition from the world and specifically, most importantly, the United States, of North Korea as a rival on an international scene, as a nuclear power, and that that entitles him to negotiation and to accommodation, and presumably for aid.”

Other officials have said, in background interviews, that Mr. Kim is trying to get North Korea into the same position as Pakistan: an acknowledged nuclear power that the West has given up hopes of disarming.

Mr. Clapper appeared with the heads of several other intelligence agencies, including Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn of the Defense Intelligence Agency; the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III; and the C.I.A. director, John O. Brennan, to present their annual assessment of the threats facing the nation. The same officials briefed the Senate Intelligence Committee last month.

Even as they sought to explain the North Korean leader’s recent bellicose threats, which have prompted American and South Korean troops to increase alert levels, Mr. Clapper and other top intelligence officials acknowledged that United States spy agencies do not know much about Mr. Kim.

“Kim Jong-un has not been in power all that long, so we don’t have an extended track record for him like we did with his father and grandfather,” Mr. Brennan said. “That’s why we are watching this very closely and to see whether or not what he is doing is consistent with past patterns of North Korean behavior.”

Mr. Clapper added that with such little information on Mr. Kim, “there’s no telling how he’s going to behave.”

“He impresses me as impetuous, not as inhibited as his father became about taking aggressive action,” he added. “The pattern with his father was to be provocative and then to sort of back off. We haven’t seen that yet with Kim Jong-un.”

As for what might change the North’s posture, Mr. Clapper pointed to China’s new leadership. “I think probably if anyone has real leverage over the North Koreans, it is China,” he said.

Michael R. Gordon contributed reporting from Manas, Kyrgyzstan, and Choe Sang-hun from Seoul.

@ The New York Times

SOUTH KOREA MOVES TO DEFUSE TENSIONS WITH THE NORTH

2013-04-11T14:13:00.000-04:00

[Despite an almost daily drumbeat of belligerent statements from the North, including warnings of a nuclear war on the peninsula, people here in Seoul have shown few signs of outward anxiety. They believe that North Korea will not be reckless or suicidal enough to start a full-scale war against the South and its American ally, whose mutual defense treaty with South Korea obligates it to fight for the South in a new Korean war.]

By Choe Sang-Hun

David Guttenfelder/Associated Press

A dance held in Pyongyang on Thursday to mark the anniversary of the first

of many titles of power given to the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un

after the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, in 2011.

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea appeared to ease its stance on North Korea on Thursday by calling for dialogue to help defuse tensions, as its president moved to calm foreign investors whose confidence the North has tried to shake with increasingly belligerent maneuvers.

“We hope the North Korean authorities come out to the dialogue table,” Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae, South Korea’s point man on the North, said in a nationally televised statement that deplored the North’s recent decision to suspend the operation of an industrial park the two Koreas have run together for eight years in the North Korean town of Kaesong. “We strongly urge North Korea not to stoke the crisis on the Korean Peninsula any further.”

Mr. Ryoo stopped short of calling his statement an official proposal for dialogue. But it was a considerable softening in tone by President Park Geun-hye's government.

Until now, South Korea has categorically rejected any early dialogue with the North, believing that doing so amid a torrent of North Korean threats to attack the South would amount to capitulation and would only embolden the North’s brinkmanship. On Monday, Mr. Ryoo said the South had no intention of talking with North Korea anytime soon because it was unlikely to bring about "concrete results." On Tuesday, Ms. Park vowed to end a "vicious cycle" of South Korea's answering North Korea's hostilities with compromise.

“Rather than being an offer for dialogue, this is a public declaration that the problem of the Kaesong industrial complex and the North’s escalating belligerent acts should be resolved through dialogue,” Mr. Ryoo said on Thursday after reading his statement.

Hours earlier, President Park invited a group of foreign investors, including members of the American Chamber of Commerce in South Korea, to a luncheon in her presidential Blue House, assuring them that it was safe to invest in her country.

“Some of you may be worried because North Korea has been escalating tensions,” she said. “But South Korea has achieved a dramatic economic growth and democratization in the past 60 years despite the provocations and threats from North Korea.”

She said a joint South Korean-American military deterrent against the North and international diplomacy involving regional powers, including China, would help prevent the crisis from getting out of control. She said South Koreans “understand the motives behind the North Korean threats and remain calm” despite repeated crises on the peninsula that so often looked “shocking to the outside world.”

In London, foreign ministers from the Group of 8 developed nations issued a toughly worded statement in which they condemned “in the strongest possible terms” North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile technology.

The rising tension in the region featured prominently during the meeting, which concluded with a communiqué condemning North Korea’s “current aggressive rhetoric,” appealing to the country to abandon its nuclear weapons program and calling on it to “refrain from further provocative acts.”

Its rocket launchings last April and December “seriously undermine regional stability, jeopardize the prospects for lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula and threaten international peace and security,” said the declaration from the foreign ministers of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada and Russia.

At a news conference after the meeting, William Hague, Britain’s foreign secretary, who headed the talks, highlighted a pledge by the ministers “to strengthen the current sanctions regime and take further significant measures in the event of a further launch or nuclear test” by the North. He added that the ministers were trying not to stoke tensions or feed the “paranoid rhetoric” from North Korea.

Despite an almost daily drumbeat of belligerent statements from the North, including warnings of a nuclear war on the peninsula, people here in Seoul have shown few signs of outward anxiety. They believe that North Korea will not be reckless or suicidal enough to start a full-scale war against the South and its American ally, whose mutual defense treaty with South Korea obligates it to fight for the South in a new Korean war.

Instead, South Koreans, while expecting their leaders to be firm against North Korean provocations, oppose overreacting to North Korean statements because they believe it would hurt their top priority, economic stability, analysts said.

That delicate challenge for Ms. Park was highlighted by signs that investor confidence in South Korea had been rattled by recent events.

General Motors said last week that further increases in tensions would prompt it to consider eventually relocating its production out of South Korea. The country’s main stock index slipped to its lowest point since November last week, although it has inched up for a third straight day on Thursday.

North Korea on Tuesday tried to add to the tension by warning foreigners in South Korea that they should consider evacuating because the peninsula was moving toward a nuclear war. No foreign embassy in South Korea has followed upon the warning, said Cho Tae-young, spokesman of the South Korean Foreign Ministry, on Thursday.

But jitters remained in South Korea amid concerns about possible North Korean missile tests that South Korean officials said could come as early as this week.

South Korea will try to shoot down North Korean missiles with its Patriot antimissile battery should they threaten to hit its territory, said Kim Min-seok, spokesman of its Defense Ministry, on Thursday. Mr. Kim said that the North could launch missiles around Monday, the anniversary of the birth of Kim Il-sung, the late founder of North Korea and grandfather of the current leader, Kim Jong-un.

North Korea appeared to be moving several missiles repeatedly on its east coast in an apparent effort to confuse South Korean and American intelligence, the South Korean national news agency Yonhap quoted anonymous government sources as saying.

Stephen Castle contributed reporting from London.

@ The New York Times

TROUBLE IN PARADISE: THE DARKER SIDE OF THE MALDIVES

2013-04-11T05:25:00.000-04:00

[Public lashings. Religious extremists seizing power. A gay blogger with his throat slashed. Few of the million annual visitors to the Maldives will recognise the hellish side of these heavenly islands]

By Eric Randolph

Hilath Rasheed, the first openly gay and secular blogger in the Maldives, was about to walk through his front door one afternoon last year when he felt the box-cutter slice through his neck.

It took a moment to notice the blood pouring down his shirt. As his attackers sauntered off, Hilath staggered to the main road, clutching the loose skin over his throat with one hand. He managed to hitch a lift to hospital from a horrified motorcyclist. When a doctor in the emergency room asked him to move his hand away, a policeman and nurse fainted.

Following a miraculous recovery – doctors told him there was less than a 1 per cent chance of surviving such an attack – Hilath, 35, now lives in exile in Sri Lanka. He misses home, but a country where it is illegal to be non-Muslim and violent forms of religious fundamentalism are on the rise is no place for a homosexual secularist, he says.

"Extremism is the biggest threat my country faces," he said at a coffee shop in Colombo. "I was the first person to talk openly about homosexuality and religious freedom. People said I was brave, but often I think I was stupid."

Recent weeks have put a spotlight on Islamic fundamentalism in the Maldives after a 15-year-old girl who had been repeatedly raped by her stepfather was sentenced to 100 lashes for "fornication". A petition by the global advocacy group Avaaz has been signed by more than two million people demanding a tourist boycott until the flogging sentence is annulled.

In a rare interview at his home this week, President Mohammed Waheed told The Independent that he strongly opposes the court ruling. "This case should not have come to the courts at all. We see this girl as a victim," he said, adding that he has set up a committee to "understand what went wrong".

But that sits awkwardly with his recent decision to enter into a coalition with the religious Adhaalath party with elections to be held in September.

In a recent statement, Adhaalath backed the flogging, saying: "The purpose of penalties like these in Islamic shariah is to maintain order in society and to save it from sinful acts. We must turn a deaf ear to the international organisations which are calling to abolish these penalties."

Few of the million visitors to the Maldives each year see this side of the country. Most are whisked off to uninhabited resort islands before even setting foot on the crowded, alcohol-free capital of Malé. But the flogging case was not an isolated incident – Islamic hardliners, many trained in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, have become a shadowy but powerful presence here. They are blamed for a raid on the national museum last year in which a priceless collection of ancient Buddhist artefacts was destroyed. They are also thought to be behind the killing in October of a member of parliament who had spoken out against extremism. The police have made little progress in either case.

Religious conservatives were also the driving force behind weeks-long protests that toppled the country's first Democratic President, Mohamed Nasheed, in February last year.

Mr Nasheed's election in 2008 had ended 30 years of dictatorship, but his liberal, Western style was used by opponents to paint him as un-Islamic – even a secret Christian. Although Mr Nasheed resigned on live television, he later claimed it was done "with a gun to my head" and that he was the victim of a coup.

The new President says the changeover was perfectly legal. But eyebrows were raised when he gave ministerial posts to the son and daughter of the former dictator Maumoon Gayoom, and chose three religious leaders from the Adhaalath party for his cabinet, even though the party holds no seats in parliament.

Dr Waheed defended his choice this week, saying: "They want to ensure Islamic values are protected. We are all working with that in mind."

Out on one of the Maldives' 200 inhabited islands, Mr Nasheed and members of his Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) were back on the campaign trail last week, hoping they can regain through the ballot box what was lost to the mob.

On most islands he receives a hero's welcome, still the man who endured torture and years behind bars to bring democracy to the country. But this day's campaigning brought him to the island of Huraa: as stunning as the rest, with its turquoise waters, palm trees and sands, but a stronghold of conservative forces.

Women greeted Mr Nasheed with a table of whisky bottles to imply his alleged love of alcohol. As he tried to address a small crowd in the town hall, they stood outside shrieking maniacally in an attempt to drown him out. Attempts to approach them for their views almost triggered a riot.

"They are screaming because they are losing and they know it," Mr Nasheed said at his hotel later that evening. "The coup has actually been a blessing in disguise. It exposed the mullahs. When they took jobs in government, it became obvious that they were just using religion for political ends. Hardly anyone is joining their rallies now."

It is not yet clear whether Mr Nasheed will be allowed to stand in September's elections. The current government and judiciary are doing their best to throw him in prison for his attempt to arrest a senior judge during the final days of his presidency. So far, his trial has been delayed by technicalities, but there are fears that more extreme measures are about to be deployed.

"There is no question that they wanted me dead during the coup," Mr Nasheed said. "They have unfinished business with me."

Such fears have put his supporters on edge. The islands have been gripped in recent weeks by news that a pair of alleged Armenian gangsters known as the Artur brothers have been photographed in the company of government ministers. Rumours quickly spread on social media that they were assassins sent to kill Mr Nasheed.

The brothers – who use the names Artur Sargsyan and Artur Margaryan – made international headlines in 2006 after being kicked out of Kenya amid allegations they had built a drug-trafficking empire with links to the highest government offices. They were deported only after pulling guns on customs officials in a Nairobi airport.

The Maldives government says they were in town to set up an investment company, and has hastily cancelled their permits in the wake of the media attention, but the episode showed how tense the political situation has become. "Everyone is worried about [Mr Nasheed's] safety," said Eva Abdulla, an MDP politician. "Things look calm, but if he is jailed or killed, there will be huge amounts of violence on the streets."

Despite their grievances, the MDP had its fair share of controversies during its time in power. The party was accused of bribing opposition MPs, sidelining critics and failing to clean up a deeply corrupt judiciary when it had the chance. Mr Nasheed's decision to arrest the judge was condemned internationally and only fuelled the protests that led to his downfall.

"It's true that we made mistakes," Ms Abdulla said. "We underestimated how much power the old regime still had and they managed to build a lot of anger against Nasheed. But the coup has jolted people out of their apathy. People have realised that their new democratic rights are quite precarious."

Mr Nasheed hopes that his focus on development will ultimately drown out the religious rhetoric.

He is particularly fond of his decision to allow locals to open guest houses on inhabited islands, which were banned. That is starting to break the monopoly enjoyed by millionaire resort owners, and bring tourist dollars into the rural economy for the first time.

He is also touting a financial-support scheme for single mothers – a particular hit because the Maldives happens to have the highest divorce rate in the world. "All the opposition can do is wave alcohol bottles at us," one of Mr Nasheed's campaign organisers said, walking away from the screaming women on Huraa. "We have actual policies, and eventually that will get through to people."

Unwelcome guests: The 'Artur Brothers'

The "Artur brothers" have caused quite a stir since they arrived in the Maldives last year.

Having reportedly registered the company "Artur Brothers World Connections" on the islands in October, it was not long before local media began to pick up on news reports from Kenya dating back to 2006 which alleged that the pair – who go by the names of Artur Sargsyan and Artur Margaryan – were involved in a drug-trafficking ring with links to some of Kenya's highest officials.

Their activities allegedly culminated in a dramatic exit from Kenya, in which they pulled guns on customs officials. Media investigations later said the pair had been so close to senior government officials that they were granted Kenyan citizenship, and even appointed deputy police commissioners. They have also been said to hold Armenian, Czech and French passports. This month, photos of the Arturs appeared online apparently in the company of the country's Defence Minister, Mohamed Nazim, and the Tourism Minister, Ahmed Adheeb.

Their presence coincided with a comment issued by the islands' ousted leader, Mohamed Nasheed, in which he expressed fear for his life. According to reports, in 2011 the former Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga accused the brothers of involvement in a failed assassination plot against leading opposition figures in 2005. The brothers are said to have told a press conference that they were merely businessmen, who had been approached by the opposition to fund a campaign for regime change in Kenya.

In a statement on his website dated 4 April this year, the President of the Maldives, Mohammed Waheed, said he had been told that the brothers were in the country in January but that they "had not broken any laws". It said the brothers "were being monitored by the police" and "the administration later decided to ask them to leave once their visa extension expired".

This week, Mr Adheeb told Minivan News that he had "advised them to leave peacefully and they agreed", adding that the pair "have now left". Police have since recommended that an investment licence issued to the brothers by the islands should be revoked.

@ The Independent

NORTH KOREA WARNS IT IS ON BRINK OF NUCLEAR WAR WITH SOUTH

2013-04-10T05:19:00.005-04:00

[The administration has settled on a strategy of refusing to make concessions to the North and has adopted a new plan to deter any hostilities by promising a proportionate response. In doing so, it hopes to reverse what it considers a long-term pattern in which the West offers aid to calm tensions and then North Korea breaks its promises to halt its nuclear program. But Obama administration officials acknowledge that the new strategy will work only if Mr. Kim either backs down or satisfies himself with a token show of force, like a missile test into the open ocean. The South Koreans have warned such a test could happen as early as this week.]

By Choe Sang-Hun and David E. Sanger

Lee Jae-Won/Reuters

South Korean soldiers drilled near the demilitarized zone on Tuesday.

Seoul warned that the North may test a missile this week.

SEOUL, South Korea — As North Korea warned foreigners on Tuesday that they might want to leave South Korea because the peninsula was on the brink of nuclear war — a statement that analysts dismissed as hyperbole — the American commander in the Pacific expressed worries that the North’s young leader, Kim Jong-un, might not have left himself an easy exit to reduce tensions.

“His father and his grandfather, as far as I can see, always figured into their provocation cycle an ‘off ramp,’ ” the commander, Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III, said during testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. “And it’s not clear to me that he has thought through how to get out of it. And so that’s what makes this scenario, I think, particularly challenging.”

The administration has settled on a strategy of refusing to make concessions to the North and has adopted a new plan to deter any hostilities by promising a proportionate response. In doing so, it hopes to reverse what it considers a long-term pattern in which the West offers aid to calm tensions and then North Korea breaks its promises to halt its nuclear program. But Obama administration officials acknowledge that the new strategy will work only if Mr. Kim either backs down or satisfies himself with a token show of force, like a missile test into the open ocean. The South Koreans have warned such a test could happen as early as this week.

At the core of the concern within the administration and the intelligence agencies is that they do not understand Mr. Kim’s motivations. His father and grandfather suggested, at times, that they might be willing to negotiate to end their nuclear program. But Mr. Kim arrived in power with a small nuclear arsenal — the fuel for about six to a dozen weapons, according to intelligence officials, and a pathway to make more — and he may be calculating that with those potential weapons in hand, he is less vulnerable to attack.

“He may think he has more running room than the rest of the family did,” one administration official said this week, “and that can lead to miscalculation.”

The United States’ harder line has also been adopted by the South’s conservative new president, Park Geun-hye, who parried the North’s latest threat on Tuesday by saying she remained determined not to succumb to what she said were efforts to escalate tensions.

“How long are we going to repeat this vicious cycle where the North Koreans create tensions and we give them compromises and aid?” she said at a cabinet meeting. The North’s latest warning carried the same ominous tone as the flood of threats since the United States led a successful effort to impose sanctions on Pyongyang for conducting its third nuclear test in February.

“The situation on the Korean Peninsula is inching close to a thermonuclear war due to the evermore undisguised hostile actions of the United States and the South Korean puppet warmongers,” the Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, a North Korean state agency, said in a statement. The statement added that the North “does not want to see foreigners in South Korea fall victim to the war.”

Experts saw the new threat as part of what they have begun referring to as “psychological warfare,” meant to force concessions from Washington and Seoul. In recent days, analysts say, those threats have appeared designed specifically to cause jitters among businesses and investors in South Korea, perhaps reflecting a calculation that Ms. Park might be unable to stand as firm if her country’s already weakened economy is seriously threatened.

The North’s warning followed a similar advisory last week in which it told foreign embassies in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, to devise evacuation plans. And it came a day after the North said it was temporarily suspending operations at a joint North and South Korean industrial park; the South had previously assuaged investors’ fears about possible hostilities by saying the operations at the factories were continuing despite the North’s belligerent stance.

In South Korea, where people are somewhat inured to North Korea’s bluster — or have at least learned to ignore a threat that is out of their control — there were no signs of panic on Tuesday. And the American Embassy in Seoul noted that the State Department’s travel notice about South Korea was unchanged and did not recommend any special precautions for United States citizens living in South Korea or planning to visit.

Still there were some signals of unease. Air Charter Service, a global company, said that since last week, it had received “growing interest” from corporations inquiring about evacuation contingency plans for their expatriate staff in South Korea in case the situation escalated further. Last week, General Motors said that further increases in tensions would prompt it to consider eventually moving production elsewhere. South Korea’s main stock index has dropped 65.71 points since a week ago Tuesday, although it crept up 2 points Tuesday to end the day’s trading at 1920.74.

The Korea Tourism Organization said the latest torrent of North Korean threats has so far had little effect on that industry, with the number of Chinese visitors doubling during a vacation period last week, according to Lee Kwang-soo, a spokesman for the group. Still, it was taking precautions, reaching out to foreign tourist agencies to inform them that it was safe to visit South Korea, he said.

But DMZ Tour Corporation, which specializes in taking tourists to the heavily militarized border with North Korea to experience one of the world’s last reminders of cold war tensions, said it had seen its business shrink in recent weeks.

“We have foreign tourists calling us to ask whether it’s safe to go to the border,” said Yoo Jae-sung, a company official who declined to reveal how many tourists his company had lost to the tensions. “Yesterday, a group of Australian tourists had a vote among themselves after agreeing that if any one of them was afraid to go to the border they would cancel the trip. They went.”

In another sign of heightened worries, a prominent member of South Korea’s Parliament argued Tuesday in Washington that the time had come for the South to build its own nuclear weapons.

In an interview and a speech to the Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference, the lawmaker, Chung Mong-joon, a son of the Hyundai industrial group’s founder, said South Korea should withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and “match North Korea’s nuclear progress step by step while committing to stop if North Korea stops.”

“The only thing that kept the cold war cold was the mutual deterrence afforded by nuclear weapons,” Mr. Chung said.

His position is a fairly lonely one: President Park has not endorsed any effort to turn South Korea into a nuclear power.

Choe Sang-hun reported from Seoul, and David E. Sanger from Washington. Thom Shanker contributed reporting from Washington.

@ The New York Times

SIZE DOES MATTER: STUDY SHOWS WOMEN JUDGE MALE ATTRACTIVENESS BY PENIS SIZE

2013-04-10T00:15:00.002-04:00

[The size of a model’s member, for example, had a greater influence on attractiveness if the model were tall, since proportion may have been an important factor in how appealing the men appeared to the women. “A change in penis size has a larger effect for taller men than it does for other heights,” Mautz says. “This result could be because penis size was smaller when assessed relative to the height of a taller man,” the authors note.]

By Maia Szalavitz

Getty Images/Image Source / Getty Images/Image Source

Call it sexist or sensationalist, but now science suggests it’s so: women find men with bigger penises more attractive.

(UPDATED) Reporting in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, researchers led by Brian Mautz, now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Ottawa in Canada, studied how 105 young Australian women rated attractiveness in males.

The researchers, including those from Monash University and Australian National University, asked the women to view life-size video clips of computer-generated images of naked men who varied in height, body shape and flaccid penis size, but not in other qualities like facial attractiveness and hair. The women gave each image a rating from 1 to 7 on total sexual attractiveness, rather than assessing individual characteristics.

“We show that penis size actually is important on some level and, importantly, it interacts with other traits,” says Mautz.

The size of a model’s member, for example, had a greater influence on attractiveness if the model were tall, since proportion may have been an important factor in how appealing the men appeared to the women. “A change in penis size has a larger effect for taller men than it does for other heights,” Mautz says. “This result could be because penis size was smaller when assessed relative to the height of a taller man,” the authors note.

(MORE: The Hazards of Height: Tall People May Be More Prone to Cancers)

But height was equally important. Shorter men with larger penises were ranked as more attractive than shorter men who were not as well endowed, but they still remained on the low end of the scale for overall appeal, says Mautz. “You’d think that if penis size is super attractive, it might help shorter guys more. It does increase attractiveness for short men, but they still are under average in attractiveness scores.”

It turns out there may also be a threshold for the ideal size, which may also work against the vertically challenged; the study found that above about 3 in., additional enlargement in genitalia doesn’t make that much of a difference in attractiveness, regardless of a man’s height.

That’s not to say that there’s an upper limit on penis size, however; Mautz and his team did not find a maximum on desired size, but noted that “the most attractive penis size” appeared to fall outside the range used in the study, which was designed to capture 95% of the variability women would encounter. So although attractiveness beyond the 3 in. continued to increase in a linear fashion, it did so at a slower rate.

The results may not be as superficial as they seem. Based on evolutionary principles, it could be possible that women look to penis size to judge a man’s appropriateness as a mate; the size of a man’s member may indicate an ability to sire and produce healthy and robust children (something that obviously tended to play a greater role before developed societies began wearing clothes). And that, say the researchers, might help to explain why men have evolved relatively large penises in relation to those of other primates.

While size may matter, the findings don’t suggest that only size matters. In fact, body shape seemed to trump both height and genital endowment in determining attractiveness. Based on the women’s answers, the researcher calculated that height was as important as endowment in a male’s attractiveness, while wider shoulders and narrow hips was more important than both combined.

So if appealing to women is the goal, then it’s the gym membership that may make more sense than investing in genital enhancement devices.

MORE: The Link Between Early Baldness and Prostate Cancer

(Note: A previous version of this story was incorrectly edited and did not accurately reflect the data on the relative importance of the three factors studied in the research.)

· The Science of Smooching: Why Men and Women Kiss Differently

· Size indeed matters, suggests male attractiveness study USA Today

· Can Penis Size Sway Women's Choice of Mate? HealthDay via US News & World Report

@ TIME

NORTH KOREA WARNS FOREIGNERS IN SOUTH OF NUCLEAR WAR

2013-04-09T07:48:00.003-04:00

[The Korea Tourism Organization said the latest torrent of North Korean threats has so far had little effect on tourism, with the number of Chinese tourists doubling during a vacation week last week, said Lee Kwang-soo, a spokesman. Still, it was taking precautionary measures reaching out to foreign tourist agencies to inform them that it was safe to visit South Korea, he said.]

By Choe Sang-Hun

SEOUL — North Korea warned on Tuesday that foreigners in South Korea should look for shelter or consider evacuating because the Korean Peninsula was on the brink of nuclear war. But the South Korean president, Park Geun-hye, said she remained determined not to succumb to Pyongyang's attempts to escalate tensions to extract concessions from the South.

The North’s warning followed a similar advisory last week in which it told foreign embassies in Pyongyang to devise evacuation plans.

“The situation on the Korean Peninsula is inching close to a thermonuclear war due to the evermore undisguised hostile actions of the United States and the South Korean puppet warmongers,” the Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, a North Korean state agency, said in a statement on Tuesday. “It does not want to see foreigners in South Korea fall victim to the war.”

In South Korea, where people have long grown used to a North Korean bluster or learned to shut themselves off from a situation out of their control, there was few if any signs of anxiety following the warning. The U.S. Embassy in Seoul said that the State Department’s travel notice on South Korea remained unchanged on Tuesday.

“Despite current political tensions with North Korea there is no specific information to suggest there are imminent threats to U.S. citizens or facilities in the Republic of Korea,” said the travel message, which was last updated on Friday, using the official name of South Korea. “The Embassy has not changed its security posture and we have not recommended that U.S. citizens who reside in, or plan to visit, the Republic of Korea take special security precautions at this time.”

The Korea Tourism Organization said the latest torrent of North Korean threats has so far had little effect on tourism, with the number of Chinese tourists doubling during a vacation week last week, said Lee Kwang-soo, a spokesman. Still, it was taking precautionary measures reaching out to foreign tourist agencies to inform them that it was safe to visit South Korea, he said.

“This is not the first time North Korea acts like this,” said Song Hyun-seok, an official at the South Korean office of the Philippine Department of Tourism. Gloria Lee, a spokeswoman at Lotte Hotel, one of South Korea’s biggest hotel chains, reported a 30 percent drop in Japanese guests this year but assigned the problem not to North Korea but to the weakening Japanese yen and fraying political ties between South Korea and Japan.

But DMZ Tour Corp., a company that specializes in taking tourists to the heavily militarized border with North Korea to experience one of the world’s last reminders of Cold War tensions, has seen its business shrink in recent weeks.

“We have foreign tourists calling us to ask whether it’s safe to go to the border,” Yoo Jae-sung, a company official, said, declining to reveal how many tourists his company lost to the tensions. “Yesterday, a group of Australian tourists had a vote among themselves after agreeing that if any one of them was afraid to go to the border, they would cancel the trip. They went.”

South Korean officials and analysts said North Korea was extremely unlikely to start a war. Rather, they said, its warning was psychological warfare aimed at heightening a sense of crisis to rattle investors’ confidence in the South’s globalized economy and force Washington and its allies to return to the negotiating table. In that vein, the North may launch a medium-range missile this week, they said.

On Tuesday, President Park rebutted North Korea’s escalating pressure tactics by vowing to break the pattern of rewarding North Korea for its bad behavior with compromises and economic assistance.

“How long are we going to repeat this vicious cycle where the North Koreans create tensions and we give them compromises and aid?” she told a Cabinet meeting called a day after the North pulled out all its 54,000 workers from the Kaesong industrial park jointly run with the South.

The North Korean withdrawal of workers from Kaesong on Monday effectively shuttered the last remaining example of inter-Korean cooperation, one that had survived for eight years despite military tensions on the divided Korean Peninsula. North Korea said the Kaesong Industrial Complex, located in the North Korean town of the same name, can reopen only when the South changed its “attitude.”

“North Korea must stop its wrong behavior and make a right choice for the future of the Korean nation,” Ms. Park said, accusing the North of flouting inter-Korean agreements to protect investments. “If the North breaks international norms and promises like this, which country and which business will invest in the North?”

Since it produced its first products in late 2004, the Kaesong factory park, located just north of the western edge of the inter-Korean border, has shown how the two Koreas could use economic cooperation to overcome decades of political hostilities, signaling hope for an eventual reunification. The two Koreas breached their heavily armed border, clearing mine fields and pushing back military encampments, to build a cross-border road and rail line that linked Kaesong and Seoul. Since then, hundreds of South Koreans and trucks had rumbled through a border crossing each day, shipping out textiles and other labor-intensive goods from 123 South Korean factories in Kaesong made with low-cost North Korean labor.

North Korea said it was forced to consider shutting down Kaesong because of tensions heightened by routine U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises and the United Nations sanctions imposed for its Feb. 12 nuclear test.

Analysts and officials here agreed that the young and relatively inexperienced North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, was exploiting the current situation to boost his standing with the military, divert attention from domestic economic failures and make the outside world used to his country’s status as a nuclear weapons state.

North Korea’s ceaseless efforts to ratchet up tensions magnified the challenge faced by the new South Korean leader.

Ms. Park, South Korea’s first female president, who has called the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher her role model, campaigned for her December election with a North Korea policy dubbed “trustpolitik.”

In its essence, it copies Washington’s “strategic patience” approach: if the North wins the trust of Seoul and Washington — by de-escalating tensions and expressing a seriousness to negotiate away its nuclear weapons — it will get the dialogue, respect and economic assistance it desperately needs, but its provocations will be met only with more sanctions and isolation.

As part of a trust-building process, she has offered to de-link humanitarian aid from political tensions. Her approach was seen as more flexible than her predecessor and fellow conservative, Lee Myung-bak. But it fell far short of the North Korean demand for the lifting of the trade embargo South Korea had imposed in 2010 when it blamed the North for the sinking of a South Korean navy ship that killed 46 sailors. The North denied responsibility.

Ms. Park faces a delicate political balancing act in South Korea, where voters remain angry over the North’s recent provocations, including its artillery attack on a South Korean island in 2010, but also have grown weary of a prolonged political deadlock between the two Koreas under Mr. Lee.

On Tuesday, Ms. Park’s spokesman, Yoon Chang-jung, denied local media reports that the government has drawn up plans to shut down Kaesong.

“Our position remains unchanged that the Kaesong complex should remain in operation,” he said.

@ The New York Times

U.S. DESIGNS A KOREA RESPONSE PROPORTIONAL TO THE PROVOCATION

2013-04-08T06:02:00.000-04:00

[American officials described the new “counter provocation” plan as calling for an immediate but proportional “response in kind” — hitting the source of any North Korean attack with similar weapons. For example, if the North Koreans were to shell a South Korean island that had military installations, as has occurred in the past, the plan calls for the South to retaliate quickly with a barrage of artillery of similar intensity.]

By David E. Sanger and Thom Shanker

WASHINGTON — As North Korea hints at new military provocations in the coming days, the United States and South Korea have drawn up plans to respond more forcefully than in the recent past, but in a limited way intended to prevent an escalation to broader war.

Amid the rising tensions, there were still efforts on many fronts on Sunday to limit the possibility of military conflict. In an indirect but clear criticism of China’s longtime ally, North Korea, Xi Jinping, China’s new president, said in a speech on Sunday that no country in Asia “should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gain.”

A senior adviser to President Obama, Dan Pfeiffer, appearing on the ABC program “This Week,” played down the situation as “a pattern of behavior we’ve seen from the North Koreans many times.”

Still, the escalating tensions were underscored Sunday when the commander of American forces on the Korean Peninsula, Gen. James D. Thurman, abruptly canceled a trip to Washington for Congressional testimony and consultations. So did South Korea’s top commander.

American officials described the new “counter provocation” plan as calling for an immediate but proportional “response in kind” — hitting the source of any North Korean attack with similar weapons. For example, if the North Koreans were to shell a South Korean island that had military installations, as has occurred in the past, the plan calls for the South to retaliate quickly with a barrage of artillery of similar intensity.

South Korea’s national security director said Sunday that the North this week might launch one of its new missiles. If so, Pentagon officials said they would be ready to calculate its trajectory within seconds and try to shoot it down if it appeared headed toward impact in South Korea, Japan or Guam, an American territory. But they planned to do nothing if it were headed toward open water, even if it went over Japan, as one previous North Korean test did.

The officials doubted that the North’s new leader, Kim Jong-un, would risk aiming the missile at the United States or its allies.

Mr. Obama, officials say, has ruled out striking at the missiles while they are on their launchers — when they are easiest to destroy — unless there is evidence they are being fitted with nuclear warheads, which intelligence officials doubt North Korea yet possesses.

The key, then, is how to respond to anticipated North Korean hostilities while preventing the crisis from escalating.

“How we carry out a proportional retaliation without triggering a general conflict, or an assault on Seoul, is the hardest part of the problem,” said Gary Samore, who served until recently as Mr. Obama’s top nuclear adviser and is now the executive director of Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. “Everyone is aware there are not big margins for error here.”

Some of the public language from the South Korean government suggests that Seoul and Washington may not agree on how far any retaliation should go, although the agreement between the two countries guarantees consultation. “Overreaction by South Korea is a real risk — and we’re working on that problem,” a senior administration official said.

South Korea’s new president, Park Geun-hye, a daughter of a famed South Korean dictator from the cold war, has indicated that she might also go after the North’s command-and-control centers responsible for the provocation.

In the past, classified addendums to the war plan for the Korean Peninsula have not been publicized. So it is notable that agreement on a new plan was publicly disclosed — both to deter the North and to reassure the population of the South. The nature of the response is critical.

Ordering hostilities short of war in an effort to stage-manage the agenda with Seoul and Washington has been a major part of the playbook used by the past two generations of leaders in the North: rapid escalation of a crisis until the United States and South Korea buy temporary peace with aid or investments.

But some American intelligence officials believe that Mr. Kim may have more to gain from striking out at his enemies — within reason — to bolster his credentials with his military, still deeply suspicious of his youth and inexperience.

The absence of a clear understanding about when and how to use force on the peninsula reflects, in part, the rapid shifts over the past 20 years between hard-line South Korean governments and those advocating a “sunshine policy” of reaching out to the North.

Ms. Park was elected on a platform of reopening the possibility of warmer relations with the government of Mr. Kim, but the rise in tensions has all but eliminated that opportunity, at least for now. Under current agreements, the South Koreans remain in command on the peninsula under normal armistice circumstances, but General Thurman, as the commander of American and United Nations forces, would assume operational control if war broke out. Wartime control is set to transfer to South Korea after 2015.

Ms. Park would be under extraordinary pressure to take action if the North acted out again. When the Cheonan, a South Korean warship, was sunk in March 2010, her predecessor decided not to strike back — and it took months to complete a study that concluded the explosion aboard the ship had been caused by a torpedo shot from a minisubmarine based just over the border in North Korea. Months later, the North shelled a lightly inhabited island in the South — and was met by delayed and ineffective return fire.

“The new agreement defines action down to the tactical level and locks in alliance political consultations at the highest level,” an American official said. The official stressed that the South Korean military would take the lead in any response to hostilities from the North short of war.

“North Korea has gotten away with murder — literally — for decades, and the South Korean and American forces have rarely responded with decisive military action,” said David S. Maxwell, a retired Army colonel who served five tours in South Korea.

“It’s very important to break the cycle of provocation,” said Mr. Maxwell, now the associate director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University. “These responses have to be proportional. They have to be delivered decisively, at the time and at the point of provocation.”

As part of prescheduled military exercises with South Korea, and to prove America’s commitment to regional security, the United States mounted an unusual, highly publicized show of force. It included the decision to use nuclear-capable B-2 bombers, which have a stealthy design to avoid detection, to conduct a mock bombing run in South Korea.

At the same time, the Navy moved two missile defense ships into the area, both of which carry advanced radar and interceptor missiles. A ground-based system with a similar missile defense capability was ordered moved to Guam, two years ahead of schedule, to protect that territory and allow the two ships to patrol waters closer to the Korean Peninsula.

A Pentagon official said Sunday that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had postponed tests of an intercontinental ballistic missile that had been planned for this week, concerned that they might “exacerbate the crisis with North Korea.” The tests will be rescheduled.

The additional American military presence is believed to be highly worrisome to Beijing, and it is intended to be. It is an effort to demonstrate to the Chinese that unless they get their ward under control, they will invite exactly the kind of American military presence in northeast Asia that they are hoping will go away.

“There are some who question our long-term staying power in the Asia-Pacific region, especially in a time of spending constraints,” one American official said. “So it is important to show our allies that we can still project power in a very meaningful and rapid way.”

But seen from a North Korean perspective, the Americans do not stand quite as tall as they once did. After three successive American presidents have said they could not tolerate a nuclear North Korea, they are tolerating it.

Moreover, the South has made North Korean retaliation even easier. New housing developments sprawl north of Seoul, in areas the South Koreans had once planned to keep as a buffer zone — and well within range of more than 10,000 short-range artillery and rocket launchers deployed by the North.

So far, the Obama administration has not tried to interfere with a North Korean long-range missile test, even though the North is prohibited from fielding these weapons by United Nations Security Council resolutions.

But in the days leading up to a 2006 test launching of a North Korean missile, two prominent Democrats, William Perry, a former defense secretary, and Ashton B. Carter, a Harvard professor who is currently the deputy secretary of defense, wrote in The Washington Post that the Bush administration should destroy the missile on the North Korean launching pad.

“Should the United States allow a country openly hostile to it and armed with nuclear weapons to perfect an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering nuclear weapons to U.S. soil?” they wrote. “We believe not.”

In any event, that missile blew up by itself, about 40 seconds after it was launched.

Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting.

@ The New York Times