Guerrilla gardener movement takes root in L.A. area - Los Angeles Times

Guerrilla gardener movement takes root in L.A. area - Los Angeles Times:

Part beautification, part eco-activism, part social outlet, the activity has been fueled by Internet gardening blogs and sites such as GuerrillaGardening.org, where before-and-after photos of the latest "troop digs" inspire 45,000 visitors a month to make derelict soil bloom.

IndianExpress.com :: Sonia’s choice

IndianExpress.com :: Sonia’s choice

The president of the Congress, Sonia Gandhi, is facing a lonely decision as she did in the summer of 2004 when she decided to step aside in favour of Manmohan Singh as prime minister. At that stage, she was under tremendous pressure from almost all her partymen to assume the office of the prime minister. She asserted that she was listening to her “inner voice” and therefore not accepting their near-unanimous pleas. Once again, she faces the lonely decision whether to focus on the Indian national interest and Rajiv’s legacy or be influenced by her party veterans who tend to put what they consider, often mistakenly, party interests ahead of other vital considerations.

Rajiv Gandhi presented his action plan for disarmament to the UN General Assembly on June 9, 1988, in which he fervently pleaded for global disarmament. He offered that India would not go nuclear if the world were to accept his phased disarmament plan. He asked them to negotiate a new non-discriminatory NPT. He also issued a veiled warning. He said, “Left to ourselves we would not want to touch nuclear weapons. But when tactical considerations, in the play of great power rivalry, are allowed to take precedence over the imperative of non-proliferation, with what leeway are we left?”

Rajiv Gandhi’s pleas were totally ignored. After another eight or nine months of agonising, he put India’s security and interests ahead of all other considerations and directed the weaponisation of the Indian nuclear programme. It could not have been an easy decision for him. But Indian security came first. Today, senior US statesmen like George Schultz, Henry Kissinger, William Perry and Sam Nunn invoke the words of Rajiv Gandhi to derive support for their campaign for a nuclear-weapon free world, some 19 years after Rajiv Gandhi vainly pleaded for nuclear disarmament.

India works to end Myanmar's isolation-India-The Times of India

India works to end Myanmar's isolation-India-The Times of India

Indian officials worked with the mandarins in Naypyidaw to deliver home the simple message — Myanmar needed the international aid and its refusal could end up creating a bigger human tragedy, and more importantly, it could have political consequences that the generals would not care for at all. It wasn’t easy — this is the closest to a hermetically sealed N Korea — and these decades of isolation haven’t helped.

India even offered to ferry the international aid to Myanmar from other countries if it made them feel more comfortable. Over many discussions and conversations, the Myanmar government relented.

Through the discussions India worked quietly, careful not to upset the sensitivities of the generals, believing that quiet diplomacy would be more effective.

IndianExpress.com :: Junta versus Janata

IndianExpress.com :: Junta versus Janata

The Indian politician bumbles, the Pakistani general strides purposefully in his natty suits. Guess who keeps his country stable.

There are many interesting, and important conclusions to be drawn from this complex argument. But the most significant is this: a modern nation needs democracy and so it needs its politicians, however clumsy, corrupt, effete and power-crazed they may be. Because a military dictator can also be all of these things. The difference is, the political leader draws his power from the democratic process, so he has a stake in preserving that system, howsoever cynical he may be. The general draws his power by throttling the democratic system and its institutions and you can see the results of that in Pakistan. So, in a democracy, howsoever powerful a Lalu or Mayawati, they have to shut up and listen when the Supreme Court speaks. The election commission can publicly upbraid both Sonia Gandhi and Narendra Modi. We, the media, can question and curse who we want. It happens because the political class has the biggest stake in the democratic process, howsoever much it may wish to manipulate it. In contrast, a military dictator owes his power to the absence of institutions, of checks and balances. That is exactly what Musharraf has done to his judiciary, the election commission and even the media. That is why he has to summon the Scotland Yard to investigate Benazir’s assassination.

IndianExpress.com :: In a subatomic spin

IndianExpress.com :: In a subatomic spin:

"There is no other way of explaining the BJP’s decision to dismiss the arguments of two individuals who helped Vajpayee put India on a bold nuclear path. One is Brajesh Mishra, Vajpayee’s national security adviser, who planned Pokharan II and managed its consequences. The other is former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, who as head of DRDO organised the nuclear tests along with the Department of Atomic Energy.

Neither of these gentlemen was quick to endorse the Indo-US nuclear deal. Both had reservations on the ability of President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to fully realise the historic agreement they signed on July 18, 2005. It is only after asking very difficult questions and satisfying themselves of its merits that Mishra and Kalam have come out in defence of the civil nuclear initiative. But the BJP, it seems, is in no mood to let either facts or India’s national interest come in the way."

Call Your Mother - New York Times

Call Your Mother - New York Times

I almost clicked on it, forgetting for a moment that those services would not be needed this year. My mother, Margaret Friedman, died last month at the age of 89, and so this is my first Mother’s Day without a mom.

Nalanda to move from ruins to riches-USA-World-The Times of India

Nalanda to move from ruins to riches-USA-World-The Times of India
We are talking here of Nalanda, the famous Indian seat of learning and one of the world's first residential universities founded some 1500 years ago that in its heyday boasted of over 10,000 students and 2,000 teachers coming from Korea, Japan, China, Tibet, Indonesia, Persia and Turkey.

Nuclear Winter Ahead : outlookindia.com

Nuclear Winter Ahead : outlookindia.com: "The Left has opposed the deal on the ground that it will enslave India to the US. The truth is that this deal has been 17 years in the making. The groundwork for it was started not even by the Vajpayee government but by Narasimha Rao in the immediate aftermath of the first Gulf War. It is losing the deal now that will enslave India for the foreseeable future."

IndianExpress.com :: ‘Even PM didn’t intervene... I hope the Minister learns a lesson after the verdict’

IndianExpress.com :: ‘Even PM didn’t intervene... I hope the Minister learns a lesson after the verdict’

For the last five months, Dr P Venugopal could not visit the operation theatre in the first floor of C T centre at AIIMS. But he continued to see patients who lined up outside his quarters in the campus. And now that he is back as director, he feels sad that his 40-year association with the premier medical institute is set to end soon. He retires after two months, on July 2.

“Not much time is left. What will I be able to achieve? On an individual level, I would have never joined back, but even this one-and-a-half months will boost the morale of the people who stood by me,” said Dr Venugopal. “There was nothing clandestine or wrong about my extension. Today’s judgement showed that the institution is bigger than an individual,” he added.

“I have faith in the Parliament, judiciary and all the institutions in the country, but we should ensure that no individual is allowed to mislead any of these institutions,” he said, in an apparent reference to the Parliament passing the amendment to the AIIMS Act which prescribed the age limit of its director at 65 years. Venugopal was sacked after President Pratibha Patil gave assent to the law.

"For four years, the minister was concentrating on me, now he has others to concentrate on like Amitabh Bachchan and Shahrukh Khan. He should instead work on better things like health of the people. There are so many issues that the country is crippled with, why doesn’t he concentrate on these?” said Venugopal.

“My sorrow is how could people question my integrity and commitment to poor. While 40 of my classmates are earning a lot of money outside, I preferred to serve my country,” he said. “I want to tell the people who opposed me that I was doing surgery even before they were born,” he added."

IndianExpress.com :: Pokharan-III

IndianExpress.com :: Pokharan-III
Pokharan-II had opened up diplomatic options for India at a time the strategic space was shrinking rapidly. National politics, as the 10th anniversary approaches, is threatening to close those options.

Turkish Schools Offer Pakistan a Gentler Vision of Islam - New York Times

Turkish Schools Offer Pakistan a Gentler Vision of Islam - New York Times

The Turkish schools, which have expanded to seven cities in Pakistan since the first one opened a decade ago, cannot transform the country on their own. But they offer an alternative approach that could help reduce the influence of Islamic extremists.

They prescribe a strong Western curriculum, with courses, taught in English, from math and science to English literature and Shakespeare. They do not teach religion beyond the one class in Islamic studies that is required by the state. Unlike British-style private schools, however, they encourage Islam in their dormitories, where teachers set examples in lifestyle and prayer.

Who Will Tell the People? - New York Times

Who Will Tell the People? - New York Times: Thomas L Friedman

Who will tell the people? We are not who we think we are. We are living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes. We still have all the potential for greatness, but only if we get back to work on our country.

I don’t know if Barack Obama can lead that, but the notion that the idealism he has inspired in so many young people doesn’t matter is dead wrong. “Of course, hope alone is not enough,” says Tim Shriver, chairman of Special Olympics, “but it’s not trivial. It’s not trivial to inspire people to want to get up and do something with someone else.”

It is especially not trivial now, because millions of Americans are dying to be enlisted — enlisted to fix education, enlisted to research renewable energy, enlisted to repair our infrastructure, enlisted to help others. Look at the kids lining up to join Teach for America. They want our country to matter again. They want it to be about building wealth and dignity — big profits and big purposes. When we just do one, we are less than the sum of our parts. When we do both, said Shriver, “no one can touch us.”

IndianExpress.com :: Break in the logjam?

IndianExpress.com :: Break in the logjam?

For the NDA, and the BJP in particular, who maintain that national security is at the core of their approach to international relations, the views of two National Security Advisers should surely count for something. Even those in the US who oppose the deal recognise what Mishra said, that the Indian negotiators were able to extract concessions from the US side that would have been unthinkable even a few years ago. It is these concessions that arouse their ire. Surely it is time to set aside any petulance that might exist, and adopt an approach which would be in the national security interests of the country. As one of the Democratic senators who had serious reservations about the deal himself said “I do not like the agreement but will support it in the interests of better Indo-US relations.” That’s statesmanship. It should not be beyond the abilities of our politicians too to find a political solution out of the present logjam.