Friday, February 29, 2008
Clinton and Obama create space between themselves in Austin
Seated side-by-side at desks on a stage in Austin, Clinton and Obama engaged in discussions of what ultimately were complementary or overlapping policy issues.
But midway through what had been genial interplay, their exchange sharpened as both candidates were asked about their rhetoric toward each other on the campaign trail, including accusations by the Clinton campaign that Obama had plagiarized part of a speech from Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, a key campaign adviser.
"If your candidacy is going to be about words, then they should be your own words," Clinton said, then took a shot at one of Obama's campaign slogans. "Lifting whole passages from someone else's speeches is not change you can believe in; it's change you can Xerox."
But Obama dismissed the contretemps as political distraction.
"The notion that I had plagiarized from somebody who's one of my national co-chairs, who gave me the line and suggested that I use it, I think is silly," Obama said. "This is where we start getting into silly season in politics, and I think people start getting discouraged about it."
They also clashed over health care and over readiness to serve in the Oval Office.
Clinton has proposed universal health care that would require all Americans to be covered, Obama's plan does not carry such a requirement, and Clinton again criticized what she said his proposal to leave 15 million people
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Labels: Barack Obama wins Iowa, Hillary Rodham Clinton.Austin
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
The women priests of Mannarasala temple
The resplendent brightness of the temple's Valia Amma - a symbol of Naga deities through fasting and other austerities - has not dimmed over the years.
Pilgrims cannot leave Mannarasala without personally viewing her. The sight of faithful devotees, who come to seek the blessings of Nagaraja, waiting at length to see the flicker of the eyes of the Great Mother, serene compassionate and filled with benediction, continues.
When the earthly life of a Valia Amma ends, the ceremony of cremation is different from that of other family members.
The body is placed in the four-chambered house of the illam and the samadhi takes place in the southern hall of the building.
The cremation is held in a location between the temple and the illam.
During those days, only milk and fruit are offered in the temple. After offering nivedyam (holy offering) the door of the sanctum sanctorum is shut immediately and opened only
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Labels: Great Mother, illam, Mannarasala, Valia Amma
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
In Washington, much interest in Pakistan vote, but few policy options
Nearly every week since November, the White House has received detailed intelligence briefings - known as "deep dives" - on everything from President Pervez Musharraf's struggle to retain power to the minutiae of the Pakistani army's search for al-Qaida members in the country's western mountains. President Bush has chaired numerous national security meetings and Vice Dick President Cheney sends a stream of queries to his underlings.
Top U.S. military, diplomatic and intelligence officials, including Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, CIA Director Michael Hayden and the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Adm. Michael Mullen, have traveled to Islamabad in recent weeks, seeking to tighten the bilateral embrace.
"If you said there were A, B, C and D leagues of diplomatic and security engagement," one high-ranking official said, "this is A league."
Yet despite intense efforts to anticipate and direct events, the administration has no clear idea of what the immediate post election future will bring, few ways of influencing it and a policy that amounts over the short term to little more than crossing one's fingers and hoping for the best.
When Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher was pressed recently by lawmakers for a "Plan B," beyond advocating electoral fairness and transparency, he had little to offer. Various scenarios had been gamed out, Boucher told a House oversight hearing late last month, "Until you see the actual situation, it's very hard to decide precisely how to deal with it."
He continued, "Exactly what we would do, in the case of widespread violence after the election, would really depend on what it was and where it came from. If it were ignited by the militants, there's a chance that we could work and see the society band together. But if it were the result of electoral fraud, that, obviously, creates a much more complicated situation." It is "a real possibility," he said, but "I don't think I'm really able to give you a clear answer right now as to exactly what we would do."
U.S. inability to influence events has left policy in "suspended animation," said a counter terrorism official. Another official said, "I wouldn't want to call it a glide path, but there's some element of truth in that." They were among a half dozen senior officials interviewed for this article across the government's national security branches - none of whom was authorized to discuss the sensitive issue on the record.
Political upheaval has exacerbated long-standing anxiety
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Labels: Pakistan vote, policy options, President Pervez Musharraf's
The disaffected voter who will decide 2008
The resurrection of John McCain, the Barack Obama insurgency, the fall (and rise) of Hillary Rodham Clinton, the rise (and fall and rise) of Mike Huckabee - pundits, pollsters and other supposedly expert observers have largely missed them all. In fact, there's a simple reason why the chattering classes have so consistently called this election wrong. They're missing the most important dynamic of this race: the appearance of a crucially important new bloc of voters who are clamoring for bold, nonpartisan solutions and are disgusted with today's Washington politics. But the candidates themselves are missing something, too - a bold, simple and overwhelmingly popular idea that would upend the presidential race.
Voters today aren't just fed up with the status quo; they're furious. In a Gallup poll last month, only 24 percent of Americans said they were satisfied with the state of the country - one of the lowest readings ever recorded. And it's not just George W. Bush they're mad at. Public approval ratings for the Democratic-controlled Congress are even lower than the president's. According to a 2006 poll taken by my former firm, Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, 61 percent of voters say the two major parties are failing, and a survey last year by the Republican pollster Frank Luntz showed that 81 percent of voters would consider voting for an independent this year.
We don't know yet whether a credible third party candidate will try to take advantage of these trends. (My former client, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has certainly sometimes seemed tempted.) But either way, this anger with the status quo has already had a profound, if unrecognized, impact on the race. Ultimately, it will determine who the next president will be.
So who are these angry voters? I call them "restless and anxious moderates," or RAMs. Most come from the third of the electorate that identifies itself as independent, but some Democrats and Republicans have also joined this new bloc. These voters tend to be practical, non ideological and unabashedly results-oriented people such as Gary Butler, 60, who lives in Show Low, Ariz. Both parties, he says, "are way too far apart, and nobody is looking out for the good of the people."
"Address my life and the problems I face in my terms," another RAM told me. "Cut political rhetoric, cut political fighting, cut the game-playing, stop the five-point programs; just address my issues in a real-world, straightforward way."
You might think that the emergence of a potentially decisive bloc of disaffected voters would seize the attention of the two major parties. But they've been strangely oblivious to the RAMs' prodding. Consider Washington's response to the publics primary new concern, the stalling economy. While the White House and theTo read the full article, click here...
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Labels: 2008 race, New York Mayor, Republican pollster
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Clinton has defeated Republican attack machine and emerged stronger
Sen. Barack Obama's promise of transformation and an end of partisan politics has its seductive appeal. The Bush-Cheney era, after all, has been punctuated by smear campaigns, character assassinations and ideological fervor.
Nobody dislikes such poisonous partisanship, especially in foreign policy, more than I do. I am one of very few Foreign Service officers to have served as ambassador in the administrations of both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, yet I have spent the past four years fighting a concerted character-assassination campaign orchestrated by the George W. Bush White House.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is one of the few who fully understood the stakes in that battle. Time and again, she reached out to my wife -- outed CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson -- and me to remind us that, as painful as the attacks were, we simply could not allow ourselves to be driven from the public square by bullying. Clinton knew from experience, having spent the better part of the past 20 years fighting theTo read the full article, click here....
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Labels: Barack Obama wins Iowa, CIA officer, Clinton
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Noted Gandhian activist Baba Amte laid to rest
Baba's widow Sadhana, sons Vikas and Prakash and other family members were joined by thousands of his admirers in paying their last respects to the messiah of leprosy patients and green crusader amid chants of his favorite mantra "Bharat Jodo - Bharat Jodo" (Knit India).
The funeral was shorn of rituals and the Gandhian activist was buried instead of being cremated in deference to his wishes. Amte had said he should be buried so that micro-organisms feed on his body and every bit of it gets utilized rather than the ash polluting water sources.
Born Murlidhar Devidas Amte and popularly known as Baba, he was honored for his exemplary work with several national and international awards, including Padma Vibhushan and the Magsaysay award.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh accompanied by his ministerial colleagues Anees Ahmed, Anil Deshmukh and Balasaheb Thorat, and former Bombay High Court chief justice Chandrashekhar Dharmadhikari and Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) leader Medha Patkar placed wreaths on the body before it was laid to rest.
Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Maharashtra unit chief Nitin Gadkari, Shiv Sena legislator Diwakar Raote and former central minister Shantaram Potdukhe were also present along with several other leaders and social activists.
The atmosphere was electric long after the funeral ended, with hundreds of Anandvan inmates, including leprosy patients and physically challenged people, joining NBA workersTo read the full article, click here...
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Labels: Baba Amte
Delhi's Sustainable Development Summit (DSDS) - India's climate change roadmap to be ready in June
Singh's Council on Climate Change will look at setting up a venture capital fund to promote green technologies, increasing energy efficiency and combating the possible impact of climate change on millions of India's poor.
"India is prepared to commit that our percapita carbon emissions will never exceed the average per-capita emissions of developed industrial economies," Singh told a summit on sustainable development in New Delhi.
Those emission levels could be brought down further as and when the worst emitters in the developed world cut back on their emissions, he said.
India, whose economy has grown by 8-9 percent annually in recent years, is one of the world's top polluters and contributes around 4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions as its consumption of fossil fuels gathers pace.
But as a developing nation, India is not yet required to cut emissions -- said to be rising by between 2 and 3 percent a year -- under the Kyoto Protocol, despite mounting pressure from environmental groups and industrialized nations.
In December, world nations including India and top polluters China and the United States agreed to launch two years of talks on a broader global pact to curb greenhouse gas emissions to replace Kyoto once that pact expires at the end of 2012.
Kyoto binds 37 rich nations to curb emissions during the pact's first commitment period of 2008-2012. Developing nations are excluded.
According to U.N. data, India's per-capita emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, were 1.2 tons in 2004, compared with 20.6 tons for the United States for the same year.
Officials said the new national plan will not include any overall emissions targets. India says it must use more energy to lift its population from poverty and that its per-capita emissions are a fraction of those in rich nations, which have burned fossil fuels unhindered since the Industrial Revolution.
"We cannot continue with a global development model in which some countries continue to maintain high carbon emissions," Singh said, calling for "climate justice".
Singh also made a strong pitch for an equitable global regime for transfer of green technology, saying such a measure was in the interest of developed nations.
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Labels: Delhi's Sustainable Development Summit (DSDS), Kyoto Protocol
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Attukal Bhagavathi Temple - The Sabarimala Of Women
Ancient scriptures suggest that when the world was riddled with demonic forces, the angels prayed to Lord Vishnu for help. It was then that the Lord took the incarnation of Devi to annihilate evil and protect the good in the world. Attukal Bhagavathi is believed to be one such incarnation.
Some say that Attukal Bhagavathi was the divinized form of ‘Kannaki', the heroine of ‘Chilappatikaram', written by Tamil poet Elenkovadikal in the 2nd century.
Kovalan and Kannaki are the main characters of ‘Chilappatikaram'.
The epic says that when Kovalan was unjustly accused of stealing the queen's anklets and executed, Kannaki destroyed the ancient city of Madurai. It is said that on her way to Kodungalloor, home to another famous Devi shrine in Kerala, she went to Kanniyakumari first and then stopped at Attukal. The hymns of the ‘Thottampattu' - collectively rendered by the devotees during the annual Attukal Pongala Mahotsavam - are based on the story of Kannaki. The architectural depictions of Kannaki on the gopuram of the temple, too, substantiate the story.
Kannaki is also believed to be the incarnation of Goddess Parvathi, the consort of Lord Shiva. It is said that the goddess revealed herself to a fervent devotee of a notable family called the ‘Mulluveet til'. One fine day, while the head of the family was bathing in the Killi river, a young girl showed up, requesting him to help her cross the river. Moved by her aura, the Mulluveettil family head bowed in reverence, helped her cross the river and invited her to his house.
Believing that the girl is of divine origin,To read the full article, click here....
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Labels: Attukal Bhagavathi, Thiruvananthapuram
Sunday, February 17, 2008
INDIA'S DWINDLING WILDLIFE - Royal Bengal Tiger population in India plunges to 1,411
There are only an estimated 1,411 tigers left in the wild in India today, less than half the num ber found in the 2002 census, according to the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA). The last census in 2001-02 put the figure at 3,642 tigers.
The much-awaited census released here February 12 says the number of India's tigers in the wild ranges between 1,165 and 1,657 - with 1,411 the figure at the middle of the range.
Releasing the highlights of the census, head of NTCA R. Gopal said the government had refined its method for counting tigers through pugmarks and involved a number of independent experts, so there was now a high degree of confidence in the result.
The census found that Madhya Pradesh has the highest number of tigers in the country, an estimated 300, followed by Karnataka at 290, and then Uttarakhand with 178.
Three important tiger habitats were not covered by the census. Work is on in West Bengal's Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest.
But in Jharkhand and in the Indravati forest of Chhattisgarh, the census was not carried out due to fear of Maoist guerrillas.
However, the census figures were extrapolated to cover these areas and thus the entire country, Gopal said.
He compared the tiger habitats in India in the 18th and 19th centuries with those today to make the point that tigers are now in fragmented forest areas, which makes it difficult for them to find mates, and that makes the species more vulnerable to extinction in the wild.
Gopal said: "Though the tiger has suffered due to direct poaching, loss of quality habitat and loss of its prey, there is still hope.
"To ensure the long-term survival of tigers in India it is imperative to offer strict protection to established source populations and manage forests by involving local communities by providing them with a direct stake in conservation."
The 11th Five Year Plan (2007-2012) has increased the moneyTo read the full article, click here...
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Labels: India's Tiger population, Indian wildlife
Monday, February 11, 2008
Kennedy helps Clinton Obama break the ice
Clinton and Obama talked briefly and let out a pair of loud laughs during a close vote on a $157 billion economic stimulus plan pushed by Democrats, trying to set a different tone - at least in public - for a race that their closest advisers now say could last into the summer.
The person who broke the ice was Sen.
Edward Kennedy, (D-MA), whose endorsement of Obama played a key role in an earlier awkward Clinton-Obama encounter in the Capitol. Feb. 6, after Clinton won handily in Kennedy's home state, he approached her while she was talking to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, (D-CA), a prominent Clinton backer.
Kennedy cut in and made jokes at his own expense, prompting Obama to join in on the fun. Kennedy noted before a group of senators that Clinton's New York Giants had just stunned his New England Patriots in the Super Bowl, as well. "It's not been a good month for Ted in terms of contests," said Sen. Claire McCaskill, (D-MO), an Obama supporter.
What a difference nine days makes.
On Jan. 28, fresh off his trouncing of Clinton in South Carolina, Obama was endorsed by Kennedy. During a pair of appearances on the Senate floor, Clinton and Obama studiously avoided each other as his supporters treated Obama like a returning hero. Just before the start of the State of the Union address that night, Clinton reached out to shake hands with Kennedy as Obama turned to talk to McCaskill.
Played repeatedly on political chat shows on cable television, the event was turned into "The Snub."
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Labels: Hillary Clinton, Kennedy, Obama
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Politicians stake out positions because they strike a chord with voters
The question is not whether we agree with these views: Politicians stake out such positions precisely because they strike a chord with many voters. The question is why we like our bromides so simple - especially when the same promises have been offered to us time and again in previous elections.
In an unusual study analyzing State of the Union addresses like the one President Bush gave on January 28 night, psychologists found a curious pattern in the speeches delivered by 41 U.S. presidents. The pattern explains a lot about why politicians like Romney and others talk to voters the way they do.
The study found that in the first three years after a new president takes office, his speeches displayed higher levels of complexity compared with addresses in the fourth year in office. In the first three speeches, presidents were more likely to acknowledge other points of view, potential pitfalls and unintended consequences. In the fourth year, however - as they were about to run for re-election - the complexity of their speeches plunged.
Not only that, but American presidents who showed a sharper decline in complexity were more likely to be re-elected than those who continued to acknowledge that the challenges facing the nation were complex.
"Low complexity wins elections," said psychologist Lucian Gideon Conway III of the University of Montana at Missoula, who published his analysis of the presidential speeches in the journal Political Psychology. "People like simple answers, and someone saying, `I don't have all the answers and here are five possibilities' is a hard sell compared to someone who says, `I have a plan and it is going to work and my opponent is completely wrong.' "
The result is a paradox. Politicians offer simplistic solutions in order to win elections. But to govern, they must quickly ratchet up their complexity because they confront costs, consequences and compromises. But when up for reelection, it's time to dumb things down again.
The principal beneficiaries of this back and forth dance aren't voters, but satirists such as Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show" who never have to search very hard to find glaring examples of hypocrisy and pandering.
Conway acknowledged that there could be alternate explanations for the phenomenon that he and co-author Felix Thoemmes, a graduate student now at Arizona State University in Tempe, observed: One is that State of the Union addresses are not a very good indicator of presidential thinking, especially given the increased role of speechwriters in recent decades. Or, he said, the rise and fall in presidential complexity during a first term could merely reflect the mental strain of being president - after doing a lot of complex thinking for two or three years, they just get tired by the fourth year.
Matthew Scully, who worked on Bush's first four State of the Union addresses, rejected the idea that presidents merely mouth what speechwriters put on paper. These speeches, he said, largely reflect what presidents want to say. Bush, for example, appears to be deeply involved in all stages of speech preparation and editing. Scully offered an alternate explanation for the phenomenon: By the president's fourth year in office, many issues on his agenda may have become law or been shot down. Either way, presidents have a smaller - and simpler - platter of issues at that point.
But this doesn't explain why presidents with more simplistic viewsTo read the full article, click here...
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Labels: State of the Union speeches, US Presidential Elections
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Food for thought on Valentine's Day In modern India, tradition shackles love, marriage
Changing cars to throw off their pursuers, the two travelled hundreds of miles to knock on the doors of a New Delhi court to seek protection.
The love affair of Konedela Srija, the daughter of film star Chiranjeevi, briefly gripped India, where a deeply conservative society is still resisting the social change that economic progress brings.
Srija's story is the latest in a spate of high profile cases of defiance of conservative parents by children trying to become more independent and assertive - sometimes at a terrible price.
In several cases, runaway couples have sought protection from courts and even landed up at television studios, hoping that media coverage would win them a pardon from their families.
But what has sparked a public outcry and a debate on urban India's cultural makeup is the fate of a Muslim man who married a rich Hindu girl against the wishes ofTo read the full article, click here....
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Labels: Love, Marriage in India, Srija, Valentine's Day
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