Tariq Ali's analysis of Pakistan

Superb take on pakistan as told by a wonderful pakistani -- Tariq Ali

part 1





part 2

Social Sciences gone for toss in A.P

As an admirer of social studies and enthusiast of political economy and international relations, i wanted to have some basic books for my personal library and that's how i set out for some book shopping , but my experience with book shopping was of utter disappointment, as the main market for books in Hyderabad the Koti area was filled with books pertaining only to computer languages, technical guides and easy read books for dummies. there were hardly any collection of books on humanities except familiar texts of high school.

what does this experience convey me ? it gave a feeling that, India is on a verge of producing more number of software writers/coders , where there is an element of serving the multinationals of the west for most of their backend and clerical Jobs at a cheaper labor price and there is an increasing marginalization or stratification of social sciences and pure sciences in the state of Andhra pradesh where teaching is being merely defined on the basis of serving clients of MNCs and not as a mechanism to bring social development with humane values.

Academic domains such as Political science lest International relations , Economics and perhaps other areas like sociology have considerably suffered due to the lack interest of state machinery and mechanical mindset of people in Andhra pradesh . the Osmania University at a time known for its research scholars in social studies is an example , reeling under the shadow of cheap engineering colleges , who have successfully built an easy way of making pseudo technical professionals , who only teach writing of software codes !!

its time that teachers, academicians take a lead in making people aware of the importance of social studies , while giving equal importance to technical education. creation of technical Jobs must not be at an expense of social development, because learning of social systems embeds an individual to think and act in coherence towards reform and lead a quality life, while techincal Jobs may provide the easy money , but they cannot guarantee a society that is humane and transparent.

Over burdening our children by make them mere rote learners, with ready made technical - semi skills and politicization / Bureaucratization of university system will no doubt harm (still harming ) our society in long run , but it will also make our social systems weak with dangerous consequences to the economy in future.

no doubt we need engineers , doctors and teachers but what if ? the future generation is not given the education, which does not allow them to think of contributing to society ? an emphasis must be laid in universities and colleges to rejuvenate applied social studies like Economics, Political sciences and Law. so that we can shape visionaries for tomorrow .

Live and let others live "but" in Mess please !!

few days ago one of my freind who read my blog posts , called up to me and said that i write the borest of bore stuff filled with mocking, rediculing and often potraying india in negative light. i was quick and rather frank enough to accept his criticism . i told him that for me Indian public life has hardly offered any thing concrete that indians would be proud of and most often be recognized in other parts of the world for their uniqueness. as most of my commentary in my blogs is on indian society and on a nation as a whole , which heavly identifies it self in a world of lacunae , that somewhere drags india into a precolonial , thirdworld mentality marred by negligence in public life , through leaders who are popular because of their wrong doings , a breaucracy that acts merely as a red tape in the name of national interests by further stagnating economic reforms, an education system marred by hyper layered regulatory system , where corruption, mediocrity and politics takes over innovation and good of teaching .

adding further, we have a culture which is predominantly Hindu with out any concrete rule or customs and where a few people are told be high caste and rest of the class as mere followers who practice faith blindly, we have created a political system which gives automatic license to political leaders to install or make their children to succeed them in political fortunes.

security and foreign policy wise also , we have never progressed any where ! our foreign policy has never been dynamic it did not take aspirations of millions of indians rather it took interest of few individuals (Nehru ) . porous borders, illegal immigration and communalisation of internal seculrity is often seen as a problem of India Vs Pakistan problem not as a social problem, what example can better examplify my statement " take the examples of teenaged kids from pakistan who were brainwshed with Jehadi literature virtually created a mayhem in Bombay by taking the Taj palace hotel, and our politicians merely paid a lip service and most often made it look like a two way ball game between ministry of external affairs and illiterate terrorits . these are, some of the examples that our "bureaucrats and politican " nexus presents to our future generations . where mulitplication of a problem outweighs finding a solution !!!!!!!!

that is the reason i will continue to criticise indian society for its own good !!

Criminal negligence of education in India

If you carefully analyse the way speculators, students and some politicians ., it seems they will never become tired of India china comparisions , stories on emerging markets and also the optimism on human capital in India, some of the points are worth appreciating , but when it comes to the core aspect of economy, human capital will always continue to play a dominant role and yet it seems it just remains a mere bogey in academic and political realms of India.

Consider this , about 60% of India's population drops out of school by the time a child reaches an age of 15, worst the functioning of state schools display a pathetic condition of rotten bureaucracy and political corruption, where promotions, strikes on salary increments and poor facilities provided by state schools lead a child's future at cross roads or perhaps to the inroads of unorganized sectors of an economy, where skills and literacy hardly matter. Interstingly there is an improvement in private sector education, where semi skilled teachers and people with interest in money making through education , perform more or less better than those of the state sponsored schools. this can be attributed to a tendency of "loss of hope " of the people on state machinery and casteist and brahmanical mentality of Indian masses , where the feeling of "private Vs public " is still rampant in India .

on the other hand , the government has never initiated a sustainable campaign to draw parents and students under their web , with quality and efficiency as the core values and perhaps as a state's gurantee for a child's future. interetingly , the human resource ministry makes tall claims under the media hype under the auspicious of CBSE vs state schools ! but the fact remains that state schools outweigh in more numbers than the sanskrit model based CBSE schools .

at a higher educational level, the situation is alarmingly pathetic, where India's best move to west in search of quality education as for decades the government has not appointed teachers, proffessors and academicians in universities and colleges ! this can be attributed to the ongoing academic civil war in india about Job reservations or affirmative action versus considering merit as propounded by some brahmanical elites with in india, but which ultimately led our universities in becoming engines of conducting examinations.........


all these things need critical analyses , if we were to compete in 21st century !!!!!!! mere sloganeering and politics won't fetch indian's the quality life required for 21st century

A must watch conversation for understanding contemporary history and politics of Islam

After a long time, i found an important of piece of Ahmed Rashid's views on islam , terrorism and emerging scenario of a contemporary islamic society in central and south asia. to my utter surprise this video is an old 2002 one , but still very valid in present times. i think its a must watch for people who interested to know the cultural , political dimensions of Islam after the collapse of soviet union . I think , India lacks scholars of Mr. Rashid's intellectual capacity to interpret the history as is .

another low level of Indian democracy

Here is another example of How cheap, can a nation's politics can become , now its not about opposition versus ruling party , but about , how politicians begin to place their so called ideology over the much needed attention on public policy issues. needless to say , the main opposition party , the BJP , it seems is in turmoil owing to one of its members, an elected representative being removed from the membership of BJP, as he had written a book on Pakistani founder Jinnah , for all his good ( not to mention , the ethinic cleansing of Punjab during the partition and subsequent communalisation of Indian subcontinent ) .

As a concerned citizen of India , i have three main "concerns "

one:- what will be the fate of indian democracy if pitty issues like Jaswant - Jinnah become so pertinant , that it ultimately over takes important issues concerning the nation.

two :- will such an issue weaken the opposition as a whole and rebuild the congress party to rule for another considerable time as a ruling party ?

three :- How cheap, indian politics has become , that the tax payer's money is now being utilised indirectly by our representatives to make beeline to the offices of clergy (RSS and BJP dilema ) to find the future course of " survival", isn't it naive?

God bless the opposition and ignorant citizens in general ..

Balochistan faux paus !!

Here is an intersting thing, a state (India ) already in a complication, surrounded by nations marred with civil wars and political instability is some how, unable to find a coherent strategy to deal with its immediate neighbhours ! needless to say , we lack absolute clarity of thought on whole of South Asia, SA region is now slowly but surely is turning out to be an experimental ground for Powers such as U.S and China .

Adding to woes , the Prime Minister recently at a summit committed a blunder by including a joint communique on Balochistan , where India's non intereference in Balochistan was the underlying along with Pakistan's interference in Kashmir and terrorism , it has already created a widespread discontent among india's polity and with in the congress party . there is nothing substantial and concrete for such a rediculous commnique to form a basis for future interaction with Pakistan ( a state with a tag of unofficial sponsorer of International terrorism as a state policy ) , this Faux pauss of Manmohan singh will continue to haunt india's regional strategy and further dilute our approach towards pakistan.. GOD Bless Manmohan singh !!!