Financial Markets, Politics and the New Reality

August 7, 2012
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Financial Markets, Politics and the New Reality

By George Friedman Louis M. Bacon is the head of Moore Capital Management, one of the largest and most influential hedge funds in the world. Last week, he announced that he was returning one quarter of his largest fund, about $2 billion, to his investors. The reason he gave to The New York Times was that he had found it difficult to invest given the impossibility of predicting the European situation. He was quoted as saying, “The political involvement is so extreme — we have not seen this since the postwar era. What they are doing is trying to thwart natural market outcomes. It is amazing how important the decision-making of one person, Angela Merkel, has become to world markets.” The purpose of hedge funds is to make money, and what Bacon essentially said was that it is impossible to make money when there is heavy political involvement, because...

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Searching for God in a World of Probability

August 1, 2012
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The Avatar In A Relaxed Mood

Prof Surendra Bhatnagar Probability prevails. We all live in the universe born out of probability. We live in uncertainties. God is, but he plays through probabilities in the creation-game. All games are probabilistic as their outcome is always un-predictive. Einstein failed, while arguing for determinism at the foundation of universe. Niels Bohr won, arguing for uncertainty at the roots. Einstein conceded his defeat. It was a turning point in the history of science. The discipline of Quantum Physics was born. God was happy that man could clear a great road-block of understanding his nature. We now know that God is source and not the cause of creation. The cause came with the emergence of time-space in Him. The God is, and this is-ness alone was God, when nothing existed other than Him. The is-ness alone was truth- the Vedic sat. The only reality which existed in the form of...

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Name Change Politics in India

July 31, 2012
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Cannaught Place in New Delhi now renamed Rajiv Chowk

By Atul Cowshish & M Rama Rao New Delhi (Syndicate Features): As chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, the Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati had gone on an unprecedented spree to rename towns, cities, public places and institutions and justified it in the name of honouring the ‘forgotten’ Dalit icons of India. She changed names of many districts and built imposing monuments and extravagant parks and named them after her mentor, Kanshi Ram. Life-size stone statutes of elephants surrounded these parks which had giant-size statues of not only Kanshi Ram’s but hers also—quite an unusual thing. The Samajwadi Party government that has taken over the administration of the state from BSP has now decided to restore the original names of the districts. This has been criticised in some quarters because it allegedly amounts to ‘insulting’ the Dalit icons Mayawati had chosen to commemorate and honour. It also suggests that names...

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India Continued Activity in the South China Sea

July 21, 2012
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A STRATFOR ANALYSIS Indian state-owned energy company ONGC Videsh Ltd. announced July 19 that it would continue participating in a joint oil and natural gas exploration project with Vietnam in Block 128, one of several potentially exploitable oil blocks in the South China Sea. The company withdrew from the project in May — purportedly over unfavourable exploration conditions — but it reconsidered its position after Hanoi reportedly pledged to give ONGC Videsh additional data and other incentives. Complicating the project was China, which claims sole domain over the South China Sea and has long opposed joint exploration in its waters unless it includes China. Many observers considered ONGC Videsh’s initial withdrawal to be a bow to China’s demands, despite New Delhi’s claims to the contrary. But with the decision to renew the contract, India has shown its willingness to align with Vietnam amid tensions in the South China Sea,...

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Clutching At The Straws

July 21, 2012
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Clutching At The Straws

By Atul Cowshish New Delhi (Syndicate Features):  Clutching at the straws is a phrase used when someone makes a desperate attempt to save his or her life or avoid a situation from becoming hopeless. Following the publication of an article with a picture of the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the cover in the US magazine Time, dubbing him an ‘underachiever’, there was much uproar in both the ruling party circles and the opposition parties. All that noise appeared to be unnecessary, almost like making a mountain out of molehill. No sooner had the Time issue with the story on the prime minister been released the principal opposition party, Bharatiya Janata Party, lapped it up as a proven certificate to denounce Manmohan Singh while the Congress spokesmen trashed it. Some of the BJP leaders thought the ‘bad certificate’ from the US magazine was a matter serious enough to demand...

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Violence Returns to Pakistan’s Major Cities

July 19, 2012
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distrit of pakistan

BEN WEST & KAMRAN BOKHARI STRATFOR At dawn July 12, militants raided a prison guard residence in Lahore, Pakistan, leaving nine staff members dead and three more wounded. The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan quickly claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the guards had mistreated prisoners who were members of the Pakistani militant group. The raid came just three days after militants ambushed an army camp in the district of Gujrat, killing seven soldiers and one police officer who were searching for a missing helicopter pilot. The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan also claimed that attack. Over the last two years, Pakistan has had something of a respite from dramatic attacks such as those that plagued the country from 2007 to 2010. During those years, a series of high-profile and highly disruptive attacks against police, army and intelligence targets challenged the government’s ability to control the country. The attacks occurred in Pakistan’s most populous province,...

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SRI LANKA: More people boarding boats to Australia

July 12, 2012
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Hundreds of Sri Lankans took to boats to reach Australia in the first half of 2012

COLOMBO, 12 July 2012 (IRIN) – When Arunalan*, 20, decided to go on the dangerous 8,000km journey by boat to Australia, his family wasn’t surprised. “There are no jobs in Sri Lanka,” his mother told IRIN. But instead he has joined a growing number of young men – mostly from the conflict-affected north and east – in jail. Like many others, Arunalan made the attempt and was arrested by the Sri Lankan authorities at the end of June. But sometimes they succeed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this is a record year for Sri Lankans,” said Ian Rintoul, spokesman for the Australian Refugee Action Coalition in Sydney. According to the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship, 1,413 Sri Lankans were apprehended on arrival in the first half of 2012, a 150 percent increase over 2011, when 211 people reached Australia. In 2010 that figure stood at 579, and in...

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Pak Syndrome bedevils Indo-Bangla ties

June 23, 2012
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Pak Syndrome bedevils Indo-Bangla ties

By Surinder K. Sharma Delhi based columnist on South Asian Affairs There is an imperative for India and Bangladesh to work together for mutual benefit and for the good of the region. Scholars from the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) and the Bangladesh Institute for International and Strategic Studies (BIISS) discussed the issue threadbare at a ‘Dialogue’ in New Delhi in May 2011. Result is an interesting volume titled “Four Decades of India-Bangladesh Relations: Historical Imperatives & Future Direction”. Brought out by IDSA, the 276-page book (Gyan Publishing House, Darayaganj, New Delhi; Price Rs. 650/-) provides the perspectives of India and Bangladesh, while making out a strong case for out of the box thinking to move forward. And spells out workable models, addressing each of the issues that have bedeviled the bilateral relations in the most clinical fashion one can ever come across. Smruti S. Pattanaik, Research...

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B’desh: Mir Quasem And His Failed Mission

June 22, 2012
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B’desh: Mir Quasem And His Failed Mission

By Malladi Rama Rao Finally, as the long arm of law is catching up with the largest fundamentalist party of Bangladesh, it is tempting to say, Well, Hubris falls. For forty years, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) managed to survive with impunity, acted as the power centre behind the thrown and even shared power for a long while as a key player in the BNP led coalition. Why JeI was not hauled up either during the first ANP led government or the military mandated ‘independent’ care-taker regime is a question that demands an answer but the unfolding developments in Dhaka have made the question more or less irrelevant. The International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh (ICTB) indicted JeI secretary general, Ali Ashan Mohammad Mojaheed on Thursday, June 21. A bench of three judges held him guilty on seven counts of crime against humanity he had committed during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War....

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Mindsets The Obstacle To Peace In Sri Lanka

June 19, 2012
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Mindsets The Obstacle To Peace In Sri Lanka

-By Malladi Rama Rao One aspect of Sri Lanka – India relations puzzles the layman and expert alike. It relates to firing on Indian fishermen by Sri Lanka Navy in Palk Bay. Firing incidents take place at regular intervals, mostly at early morning hours, and the ‘intruding’ fishermen are nabbed and jailed, and their vessels, which are mostly small wooden boats with no navigation instruments on board, are seized. Every time the Navy opens fire on Indian fishermen, Chennai goes into hyper-tension. Delhi goes into overdrive. Indian Prime Minister telephones the Sri Lanka President and the two foreign offices go into animated discussions. By sunset, tempers cool and Colombo assures Delhi that its fishermen would be sent back after due process of law and without any harm. This ‘protest- promise’ cycle seems to be endless. Understandably, for the Indian government, safety of Indian fishermen is national concern. It cannot...

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