“As I was saying before”:https://varnam.org/archives/000072.html, the monsoons are the most important weather phenomena affecting everything in India. General elections are due in 2004 and political parties are gearing up to face the fact their prospects maybe affected by a less than normal rainfall this year.
“How Ballot Hopes Rest On Good Monsoon”:http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=32684
bq. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is drawing up a contingency plan to boost its electoral prospects in case the monsoon fails for the second year in a row. The plan includes involvement of non-government organisations (NGOs) to augment food distribution network. The plan is aimed at neutralising the impact of drought.A bad monsoon is not good news for the ruling party which is gearing up to face elections.
Around this time, the most important person in the country is the head of the India Meteorological Department (IMD), who makes the weather prediction. In his book, Chasing The Monsoon, Alexander Frater mentions that the Prime Minister’s Office makes regular calls to the IMD to keep track of the arrival of the rains.
Update: “Salomon says Indian monsoon a source for worry “:http://reuters.com/financeArticle.jhtml?storyID=2684164&newsType=usGoldRpt&menuType=markets
bq. “Some of the long-term global circulation models are indicating a dry bias across much of India during the time frame of June through September — the Indian monsoon season,” Russo and Davis said. This does not mean there will be a replay of last year’s poor monsoon, but the “guidance…raises the possibility for a dry bias this season,” the two concluded.

Every year some parts of India are flooded while some parts experience severe drought. This happens every year. So this year the Supreme Court of India directed the Central Govt. to look into linking the major rivers of India.
Continue reading “River Linking” →

The south-west monsoon which hits India in June is the most important weather phenomena affecting everything in India. The monsoon hits the coast of Kerala in the first week of June and “moves up north”:http://www.mapsofindia.com/maps/india/southwestmonsoon.htm, bringing rains all over India.
Continue reading “Below Normal Monsoon Predicted” →

Even after failing twice, the Indian Prime Minister offers talks again to stop violence by Pakistan in India.
“Reconciliation is PM’s message, dialogue his mantra”:http://www.newindpress.com/Newsitems.asp?ID=IEH20030418135243&Title=Top+Stories&rLink=0
bq. We want to settle all issues through negotiations. I visited Lahore for the same purpose. As prime minister, I went there for peace. I failed. They attacked us in Kargil. I invited General Sahib to Agra thinking that things will work out but it again failed. I don’ want to go into the details as to how it (these initiatives) failed or who was responsible,” Vajpayee said. “We want to extend the hand of friendship again but it should be reciprocated. It should come from both the sides”.
Continue reading “How Peace is "Created"” →

The “Unclassified Report to Congress”:http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/bian/bian_apr_2003.htm on the Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced Conventional Munitions published by the CIA is written in a very interesting way.
Continue reading “Turning a blind eye” →

Shanti has this on Praful Bidwai’s latest column which is aptly titled “Of Lies, Trickery & Deception”
bq. It is unfortunate that people like Praful Bidwai are disseminating lies and a news organization like Rediff is giving them the forum to do it. The allegation that the toppling of the statue in Baghdad was stage-managed has been debunked at least two weeks ago, as soon as it surfaced. It is a great disservice to the readers to publish such columns without any mention of the other point-of-view or at least a note at the end of the column pointing to the debunking.
I would like to see how Rediff responds to this. “Ajit Balakrishnan”:http://ajit_balakrishnan.rediffblogs.com/, the CEO of Rediff has a blog. But he does not have comments enabled.
Update: Got a mail from Ajit Balakrishnan. He has asked his editorial collegues to look into it.

“A welcoming friend to many a terrorist”:http://www.sulekha.com/redirectnh.asp?cid=307813
bq. The orchestrated campaign against Syria mounted by the United States is more proof of what this writer has been saying for weeks, namely, that neutralization of jihadi terrorism directed against Israel and the US and not oil is the priBook Review: Pakistanmotivating factor of US actions in the Middle East.
This comment is particularly interesting as the person writing this is the former head of the counter-terrorism division of the Research & Analysis Wing, India’s external intelligence agency.
Continue reading “B Raman on Syria, India, USA” →

” First stealth warship launched”:http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/stories/2003041905530100.htm
bq. The “Shivalik” and its sisters are 143 metre long and 16.9 metre wide (at beam). Their stealth character diminishes physical signatures ? radar, infra red and sound ? making it difficult for an enemy to detect and attack them.
” India develops ‘silent’ intercept radar”:http://www.irna.com/en/head/030416235131.ehe.shtml
bq. India has developed a low probability intercept radar that cannot be detected by incoming aircraft and can escape from anti-radiation missile attack, local media reported on Wednesday.

“Infosys mentor against caste-based reservations”:http://www.sulekha.com/redirectnh.asp?cid=307585
bq. It [the reservations] cannot be based on a certain caste. It doesn’t matter to what caste an individual belongs, as long as such a person or his/her family is handicapped because of resources…I think they alone deserve to be considered for reservation, be it in education or employment, Murthy said.
Only a politician who does not want to be elected again will remove caste based reservations for Govt. posts. If you read Krishna’s statements in the same article, you can see that he wants caste based reservations even in private sector.

“We have no moral right to condemn US”:http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=21999
bq. What were we doing when the NATO forces were bombing Serbia? If we are concerned with the primacy of the UN, did Parliament condemn Iraq for thwarting UN resolutions for 12 years? If morality were to be the guiding force, one can apply it only if one has been always following it. We lost the moral authority to condemn US action when we decided to ignore all that Saddam has been doing.
There are people near the Marina Beach area who are not holding candles!