Obamas Host Singhs

President Obama makes a toast in honor of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh

President Obama makes a toast in honor of India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. If you watch the you tube video here, it appears he actually said “Prime Minister Mohammad Singh”.  He welcomed all in hindi, “aapka suagut hai.“

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Year That Was

Recap the madness of last year (from the financial crisis to the Presidential election to Elliot Spitzer and Miley Cyrus) and then thank your lucky stars the year is over.

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JhatPat Bol: Politics

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Mumbai: After The Smoke Has Cleared

Life is trying to return to normal in Mumbai. But will all be the same as before… will this event be forgotten as if nothing had happened.

Mumbai attack has definitely left behind lot of bitterness, lot of unanswered questions, and lot of fear. People are no longer taking politicians on face value. They are not accepting pittance for the untimely death of their loved ones. They are no longer accepting condolences but demanding action and answers. Politicians responsible for Mumbai’s security have resigned. But is that enough for an answer?

“But after these recent attacks, people are saying let’s not pretend everything’s all right. We don’t need to make a show of the Mumbai spirit when what we need now is to make sure this will not be forgotten, all will not be normal again.”

After The Smoke Has Cleared Up- Click on Image for more

India was warned by its own intelligence as well United States. Even before United States Secretary of States, Condoleezza Rice,  reached in India, former candidate for Presidency of US, John Mc Cain, has arrived in Delhi to empathise with India. John McCain along with two other senators, Joe Libermann and Lindsey Graham, will be in Pakistan this weekend.

President-elect Barack Obama along with his family has also sent his clear message of support to India.

Everybody in the world has condemned these attacks.

McCain with Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, Dec 2 2008

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Rare Gandhi Recording in English

Mahatma Gandhi rarely spoke in English. He would address crowds in Hindi, Gujarati and even other Indian languages but never in English. There have been only two instances when he addressed people in English.

A rare recording of his speech in English made 7-8 months before his assassination has been found in Washington DC. This speech was made to a conference of Asian leaders convened by Jawaharlal Nehru.

Hear it.

Journalist Alfred Wagg recorded the speech in New Delhi on April 2, 1947 and produced four 78-rpm LPs that included both Gandhi’s voice as well as Wagg’s own commentary about the man revered as Father of the Indian Nation.

It had been lovingly preserved for 60 years by John Cosgrove, a former president of the National Press Club in the US capital, who discovered the significance of the recording during a chance encounter with Rajmohan Gandhi, Mahatma’s grandson and biographer.

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Obama Favorability Edges Up In India

Indians want Obama as the new President of the United States. In India, Obama leads McCain by 33 to 28 percent, according to the survey by the Pew Global Attitudes Project. The survey covered 24,000 people in 24 countries between March 17 and April 21.

Mc Cain is not the preferred candidate in any country except for three where he matches Obama’s popularity- United States, Jordan, and Pakistan. In countries like France, Germany, and Spain Obama is heading with 88% popularity and confidence to do the right thing vote. Margins are narrower in Great Britain though.

Among the people who have been following the election, large majorities in France (68 percent), Spain (67 percent) and Germany (64 percent) say they believe that US foreign policy will improve after the election. This sentiment is also common in the African countries included in the survey – Nigeria (67 percent), South Africa (66 percent) and Tanzania (65 percent). However, in Jordan and Egypt people disagree.

Five years after the start of the war in Iraq, the image of the US abroad remains far less positive than it was before the war and at the beginning of the century. The survey also finds a widespread belief that U.S. foreign policy “will change for the better” after the inauguration of a new American president.

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Could Jindal be the Vice President of US?

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal along with wife Supriya are spending the Memorial Day weekend at Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s ranch in Arizona. There is speculation that Jindal might be called Mc Cain’s Vice President. Mc Cain may present Jindal with the opportunity to speak at the 2008 Republican National Convention, in a similar fashion to Barack Obama at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, cementing a place for him in the party and opening the gate for a future run for the presidency.

At 36, this first-generation Indian-American Rhodes Scholar is America’s youngest governor in a southern state with a long history of racial discrimination.

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The Shape Of The Beast

Eleven years after she won the Booker Prize for The God of Small Things, 14 conversations (2001-2008 ) with Roy on her social and political activism appear in a new book The Shape of the Beast.

Even before The God of Small Things hit the world of fame, this female Rushdie of India attracted lot of media attention when she criticised Shekhar Kapur’s film Bandit Queen, based on the life of Phoolan Devi, charging Kapur with exploiting Devi and misrepresenting both her life and its meaning. For sometime Roy was involved as film script writer as well. She even tried her hands at acting in films. Not many remember but Arundhati Roy played a village girl in the award-winning movie Massey Sahib.

(Click on the Image for a Video of an Interview with Arundhati Roy on The Shape of the Beast).

The Shape of the Beast finds Roy fulminating against the 2002 Godhra genocide, empathising with the adivasis of Dantewada in Chhattisgarh and venting against the military operations in Nagaland, Kashmir and Manipur.Through this book Roy has revealed both a personal and social journey.

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