What Pakistan’s Bomb Could Not Buy

With malnutrition rate nearly double that of sub-Saharan Africa, the country(India) struggles to show a progressive face to the world.


Double that of sub Saharan africa... that is what counts...

#118 by HP on May 31, 2006 9:08am PT


The whole purpose from the US side is to somehow curtail Indian nuke weapon making capabilities and not to provide it with the ability to create more weapons.


Ummm...then why is the Paki government begging- unsuccessfully - for the same deal?

This bum is quoting a pakistani newspaper to support his claim. what a pathetic soul. What happened after the REPORTED threat? the Karzai govt is facing the music.

The real show of spine would be if the US can force AQ Khan out of his home. Idiot...

Anyway, no one reads news like this for Pakistan or even bangledesh.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-ft-india29may29,1,2822578.story?ctrack=1&cset=true


See the comparison with the sub saharan africa....

India, High-Tech but Hungry

With malnutrition rate nearly double that of sub-Saharan Africa, the country struggles to show a progressive face to the world.

They all display telltale signs of malnutrition: wasted and stunted frames and discolored patches of unkempt and wiry hair. Nearly 55% of children under 5 in this north Indian state are chronically underweight. They are in the front line of India`s struggle to lower a malnutrition rate that is nearly double that of sub-Saharan Africa.

Malnutrition afflicts 60 million children in India, imposing social and economic costs that are hard to overstate. In a report released this month, the World Bank urged the government to overhaul its flagging child welfare program, Integrated Child Development Services, the largest in the world.

``Progress in reducing the proportion of undernourished children in India has been modest and slower than what has been achieved in other countries with comparable socioeconomic indicators,`` the World Bank said

``If your large population mass in the north is physically and mentally stunted, how is this going to impact your growth in the long run?`` asked Werner Schultink, a UNICEF child development and nutrition expert in India. ``How will it affect India`s ability to compete in the global market?``


Worse than Sub Saharan africa.....WOW..That is apt....

Re: # 122

HP,

It doesn`t need a report or the US source to know that India is a home for many poor people in the world. India is still a poor country but we are coming out of poverty slowly but surely.

Having said that, poverty is not a sin. That was bequeathed to us by the years of slavery and plunder. Being poor is better than being a source of hatred.

Recently I saw a new kind of map (New Scientist Apr `06 issue, week I forgot) of 1500 AD. It showed the GDP sizes of all countries in the world. Only China and India were the largest/richest countries in the world then. Tables turned in these years and India is now looking smaller. Wait for some time. She`s looking up and the future is bright, despite the odd hickups.

If we go back in history, the people of Europe clamoured to reach India and find her riches. They all formed East India Companies- Dutch had it, France had it, English had it and Portuguease and Spaniards had it. They all competed to find sea routes to India and find her riches and buy diverse kinds of goods and sell them for profit in Europe! Though China was equally famous they had no China Companies. So that makes it clear as to how inportant India was in those days, coz it was rich and famous. Every place around India was named after her.You have Indian Ocean, Indonesia, Indo-China (Vietnam), East Indies (Malaysia and the the chain of islands along Malacca Straits) even the far away Caribbean islands are called as West Indies (thinking that they are closer to India ergo, America).

Unfortunately the heart of India - the land of river Indus - was lost to some religious bigots...

Colombus want to go to India and instead went westwards (via Azores) and reached India of his dreams but that came out to be America. That`s how the natives of Americas are still being called Indians. Another Portuguese mariner Vasco De Gama came here and later followed the rest of Europeans. Starting with the Moghul court of Jalabdim Echebar (Jalaluddin Akber or Akber the Great was referred to by the English King like that) these westerners prostrated before us to gain access to Indian markets and goods.

Even in ancient India, there were world famous ports like Karachi, Cambay, Barooch, Surat and famour Malabar/Calicut. India had a fully developed civilisation since 2500 BC. Mohd Bin Qasim had a tiff with local merchants in Sind and he took revenge and did something historic... It`s a lesson how petty things sometimes create history.

Poverty is man made and in the case of India it`s just a passing cloud.

On the other side, India in a way celebrated poverty. One of the Maurya emperors gave up his throne and starved to death in true Jaina fashion. Even now you`ll find some diamond traders in western India throw away their diamonds and become monks and live like paupers seeking alms. Buddha did it and many Buddhist monks still follow that tradition.

May be we need 20-30 years to say with pride that poverty is a matter of past....

Tip for Pakis...If you`re calling your relatives in Pakiland, don`t make a whole bunch of domestic calls once you`re done..

Pre-9/11 records help flag suspicious calling

By John Diamond and Leslie Cauley, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Armed with details of billions of telephone calls, the National Security Agency used phone records linked to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks to create a template of how phone activity among terrorists looks, say current and former intelligence officials who were briefed about the program.

The template, the officials say, was created from a secret database of phone call records collected by the spy agency. It has been used since 9/11 to identify calling patterns that indicate possible terrorist activity. Among the patterns examined: flurries of calls to U.S. numbers placed immediately after the domestic caller received a call from Pakistan or Afghanistan, the sources say.

#119 by HP on May 31, 2006 9:57am PT


especially in the current Iranian crises, Pakistan is showing more spine than was expected.


Saying you are against the bombing if Iran is a show of spine? How about saying no to the bombing and killing of your own civilians on your own soil ,something that`s happened 2 times in the last 4 months or so.

A real show of spine would be letting A.Q. Khan out of house arrest or at the very least let his family meet with him...



it was time for the Pak army to show that to the US that Pakistan is still capable of some punches in Afghanistan.


Reality...meet deluded paki..

How the North-West can be won?

By Behroz Khan

The news is quite disturbing for the people and the governmnet of the NWFP; it has been reported that the United States has warned that it will bomb any part of the province in pursuit of `terrorists`.

The warning, it is said, was conveyed to the NWFP governor, Khalilur Rehman and of course to the chief minister, Akram Khan Durrani, by none other than President General Pervez Musharraf himself at a meeting in Islamabad. The tone of the message, an insider tells TNS, is tantamount to bullying.

``The president told the governor and chief minister that Americans have warned that those who are hiding in the Frontier and elsewhere will be bombed out,`` a source privy to the meeting revealed, requesing anonymity. The warning left the president angry as well as concerned, the source added, saying this could be an epilogue to increased target hitting by umanned Drones on Pakistani territory.

The clergy-led government in the Frontier, already on the defensive over its silence on military operations in tribal areas and US air strikes, is taking the new warning as a declaration of open war. Confirming that President Pervez Musharraf has informed him of the new dangers ahead, Akram Khan Durrani has said that the US has warned to go after the so-called `terrorists` even in the settled areas of NWFP, if the attacks against the Americans and their allies continued in the neighbouring Afghanistan.

“Second, Pakistan’s acquisition of nuclear weapons has made it effectively a less independent state, rather than the other way around. While Pakistan became popular in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries after testing, its inability to stand up for real Muslim interests remains as chronically weak as ever.”

It seems to me that the doctor is invoking some oft repeated but completely subjective arguments to defend his thesis. Actually, he is still trying to justify his stand on nuclear issue. His basic thrust here is to say that nukes have not worked they way that NOBODY has projected them to work. He is creating/doctoring situations that have no relevance to the nuke capabilities and stretching a few more to fit his pov.

It is not nukes that had put pressure on Pakistan in the international affairs but the 9/11 that made Pakistan adjust to the new realities that in Dr. PH’s words means “less independent state”. This I am afraid, is utter non sense. Countries don’t become less or more independent, they adjust to the new realities. In reality, in the last two years or so and especially in the current Iranian crises, Pakistan is showing more spine than was expected. Pakistan’s attitude has forced the US to bring enormous pressure on Pakistan via a major disinformation campaign and Pakistan has responded by pushing the right buttons in Afghanistan.

The US dilemma in Afghanistan cannot be solved without Pakistan’s help and it was time for the Pak army to show that to the US that Pakistan is still capable of some punches in Afghanistan.

The US seems to be rolling back in Iran. This might be a temporary phase and they may come back to it after the midterm elections but one thing is for sure that the US can’t count on Pakistan’s support against Iran which was a given just two years ago.

I think the learned doctor needs to read more about what is going on around in the world instead of remaining stuck in 1998. The clichés like ``the Punjab celebrated and the Balochistan did not`` are cheap tricks for small time political journalists but for our learned doctor to fall for them is really pathetic.

I am beginning to think-as other have mentioned too-that the doctor got reallycaught up in his anti-nuke rhetoric. The dynamics of the nuke politics in the subcontinent adjusts with every new geopolitical movement in the area. The nukes were a source of projecting power when they were first tested then they were deterrent and now both India and Pakistan are under pressure to move away from the nuke based relations. For a political analyst, it is important to understand that divulging too much on an act is counter productive. Dr. PH had opposed the nuke tests in the subcontinent and that was fine but once the tests happened, he needed to look at the politics after the tests. Instead the doctor is still talking abt things that really have no relevance. The nuke tests cannot be undone but there is likelihood that both countries may not have nukes in the next ten or 15 years.

“The US-India nuclear deal, if ratified by Congress, will add fuel to the fire. After India’s breeder reactors come on line, it will be able to produce as many nuclear warheads in just one year as it had in the previous 30.”

This statement makes me think abt the doctor’s judgment about the proposed nuke deal between India and the US. The whole purpose from the US side is to somehow curtail Indian nuke weapon making capabilities and not to provide it with the ability to create more weapons. With the proposed amendments and non enthusiasm shown by the US administration, it is quite evident that India would have to make the concessions that are required for the congress approval. At this point, one more thing is clear that this deal would not move forward until the new congress is sworn in Jan 2007.

The way things are rapidly changing especially in the nuke politics, the deal is already redundant and the US or the International nuke agencies will have to work on a comprehensive agreement with all the nuke-owner or the nuke capable countries to halt the nuke race in the World.

I think India rushed in to signing a deal that was not ready in all respects. The deal only provided Mr. Bush some temporary respectability in the International affairs. As I said things are moving so fast that temporary gains are already overshadowed but some other pressing mishaps. The hits that US has taken recently makes it even more difficult for the US to move forward with this deal sans deal altering concessions from India.

[Pakistani and Indian weapons programs have diverted substantial financial and material resources away from social and scientific needs, they have merely used scientific principles discovered and developed elsewhere. Not surprisingly, there are no worthwhile spin-offs]

Certainly true, and the people who should be engaged in discovering new scientific priciples keep themselves busy with the bomb politics.

#113 by viewer on May 31, 2006 6:43am PT


By using the word ``tolerate`` he quietly accepts the policeman role of America.


Refusal to accept reality doesn`t alter reality..


Mushy is El-Presidente because America wants him to do it`s dirty work like bombing the tribals and making sure the Islamists stay out of power and away from the nuke button..

To all Indians like Nasah, Sanjay, et al who are criticizing India going nuclear. Could you please tell me how in the long run India should be ready to deal with nuclear armed US, Russia and China. Since the end of WW2:

China - Captured Tibet, attacked India, Vietnam and a proxy war thru North Korea against South Korea. Threatens Taiwan regularly.

US - Attacked Vietnam, Iraq, Grenada and Panama unjustifiably. Threatens to attack Iran.

Russia - Invaded Afghanistan, Hungary, Czechoslovakia. Colonised the Eastern Europe for half-a-century.

Ranting and raving against nuclear weapons is easy. Can you give me straight forward answers on how to deal with other nations besides Pakistan. Long-term goals are not just Pakistan hyphenation for India.

That is what Pakisatanis thought when they acquired the Patton tanks.......never learned from mistakes.....History repeats itself.

[For the time being, with General Musharraf in power, the US is willing to tolerate Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal – and may even satisfy some of its needs for advanced conventional weaponry]

This statement from Hoodbhoy seems as if he is a spokesman of the American establishment. By using the word ``tolerate`` he quietly accepts the policeman role of America.

Instead of:
a) enrolling PhD students and getting involved in producing new research
b) putting efforts to successfully run the science departments
c) defining and implementing the strategies to improve the poor state of science in Pakistan

our ``brilliant`` scientists like to enjoy getting involved in the politics of bombs. My point is that this activity is not of better use than presenting papers on the thermodynamics of djinns.