Excerpts from a review of Arun Shourie’s “Are we deceiving ourselves again?” by Brahma Chellaney:
…having forsaken the Kautilyan principles, has proven no match to China’s Sun Tzu-style statecraft. From Nehru’s grudging acceptance of Chinese suzerainty to Atal Behari Vajpayee’s blithe acceptance of full Chinese sovereignty, India has incrementally shed its main card — Tibet.
…it wasn’t geography but guns — the sudden occupation of the traditional buffer, Tibet, soon after the communists seized power in Beijing — that made China India’s neighbour.
…Shourie’s well-researched, powerfully written book relies on Nehru’s letters, speeches, …

First, this great post on the N-Deal from BarbarIndian: The mis-argumentative Indian (recommended).
Next, Bhaskar Roy writes on China’s Assasin’s Mace strategy re. the recent N-deal…
and finally, why Sarah palin may not be that different from a Muslim Fundamentalist.
Extracts from all these links below.
Keep smiling, Stay Healthy and Enjoy the weekend.

Some links for weekend reading:
1. From the Telegraph, an excellent article by Ambassador K Sibal on why borders are (still) relevant.
2. A revealing interview with Govindacharya: Jaitley is BJP’s best, Rajnath saboteur
3. Why Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam may not mean what you think it does and finally,
4. Why India..while enjoying all the characteristics of great power, is unlikely to become one (a 2005 article but still relevant, in my view).
Excerpts from all the three articles are below.  Enjoy the weekend.

Some good links for the weekend:
Excerpts from the Pak army and the jihadi’s second coming: Read in the context of recent incidents of ceasefire violation along the LOC and the controversy surrounding Gen Kapoor’s remarks.
Excerpts from [The Islamist-Leftist] Allied Menace
and how California alone uses more gasoline than any other country in the world (including India and China!)
.

Like most of you, I watched and read about the proceedings of the last few days with a sense of sadness and great shame…Amidst all this, these words by Radha Rajan touched a raw nerve… Please read and think…(emphasis added)
*** The Nation as Draupadi ***
Parliament on 22nd July resembled the court of the Kauravas with the Speaker playing Dritharashtra. Every individual in parliament on that day, notwithstanding the party to which he or she belonged, was some character in the shameful court and I was the nation.
When the Prime Minister …

Continuing from Part I of this guest post by Ashutosh on India, Pakistan and geo-strategic issues…
A few days later (after the Tehelka Summit), I attended the book launch of the second edition of� �Natural Gas in Asia – The Challenges of Growth in China, India, Japan and Korea� by Oxford Institute of Energy Studies…
I took with me experiences of the previous week and also the knowledge that at the launch of the previous edition in 2004 (which I had attended too), the popular view�was summed up in a single sentence …

About two weeks ago,�the Royal Society of Arts in UK, together with�Tehelka, organised a Summit on India and Pakistan in London. It had a stellar line up of speakers and panelists (Jaswant Singh, Farooq Abduallh, Arun Jaitley, Mushahid Husain, Imran Khan, Asma Jehangir, Ram Jethmalani…et al) and I am sure it generated a lot of animated discussions…
I am delighted to present a guest post by my dear friend Ashutosh who attended the summit and graciously agreed to pen down his thoughts to share with everyone on this blog…Ashutosh has a …

From a Sify report on a seminar held last Friday at IIC on ’1914 Shimla Convention Agreement and Consequences’ (emphasis mine):
The fact that the Chinese refused to ink the 1914 Shimla Convention agreement between India and Tibet puts question mark over the legality or morality of China’s claim of sovereignty over Tibet, a group of India’s top jurists, scholars and security experts feel.
…The participants – who included senior Supreme Court Advocate Rajeev Dhavan, Arunachal MP Khiren Rijuju, Lt Gen. (Rtd.) F.R. J. Jacob, veteran diplomat Dalip Mehta, and writer Dr …

A: They are both offensive to Muslims (and possibly against Islam)…
Shia cleric Maulana Kalbe Sadiq, vice-president of All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB)…said the nuke deal does not sound good…” “Our contention is national as well as Islamic.”�
Samajwadi Party rebel MP Munnawar Hasan…(said)…�Support to the nuclear deal is tantamount to back-stabbing Muslims. Muslims across the world are opposed to the US,��
as for the “puppy”…
A puppy postcard (with an image of) a black dog sitting in a police officer�s hat…has prompted complaints from members of the Islamic community (in UK).
It …

French philosopher Bernard-Henri L�vy on the�crisis in�Darfur�quoted in�Guernica, June 2008:
…I was there (in Darfur)…just one year ago nearly to the day, smuggling myself across the border with Chad, crossing 500, 600 kilometers of a devastated Darfur. And I must say what I saw then, what I experienced there never left my mind and my heart since. I was deeply shocked in the most intense sense of the word by this experience, even if I lived many others in my life since my youth in Bangladesh, in Pakistan. What I saw …