Iran and West Asia

2008

India to make fresh proposals on Iran pipeline (31 October 2008)
Bush report says India complying with Hyde Act on Iran (15 September 2008)
Iran replies to Indian 'non-paper' on gas pipeline (29 July 2008)
Bolton has a way with words (15 July 2008)
The U.N. is escalating the Iran nuclear crisis (05 March 2008)

2007

On Iran, no news is good news for U.S. (17 November 2007)
Why Iran matters to U.S. (31 July 2007)
An Indian campaign for an Iranian scholar (15 June 2007)
Under siege, Iran ups the ante: The 'uncontrolled chain reaction' predicted by the IAEA chief when sanctions were first imposed continues, with no terminal state in view other than conflict. (11 April 2007)
More on Rademaker, India and Iran (13 March 2007)
Spinning its way to conflict again (27 February 2007)
Americans disown Rademaker (17 February 2007)
So now we know for sure... (16 February 2007)
Iranians rally in defence of right to nuclear energy (12 February 2007)
Iran rejects nuclear pressure (12 February 2007)
Iranian Government gears up for political show of strength (11 February 2007)
India sees speedy IAEA verification as the way forward on Iran (08 February 2007)
Peace pipeline: Iran for tripartite summit (07 February 2007)
Military means not a solution to Iran crisis, says India (8 February 2007)
From mega surge to dual rollback (06 February 2007)
Iran, the U.S. and the burden of history (02 January 2007)

2006

Shirin Ebadi interview: "The answer to the Iran nuclear issue is more democracy" (28 November 2006)
No Plan B, only the certainty of defeat (19 November 2006)
Iran: Gas, gas everywhere but not a bit to sell (26 August 2006)
Mehdi Karroubi: Down but not out, leading reformist looks ahead (24 August 2006)
In Iran, democracy wrestles with clerical authority (23 August 2006)
Little chance of nuclear compromise (22 August 2006)
Ahmedinejad interview: "We are still interested in dialogue based on justness and fairness" (10 August 2006)
If pressure continues, Iran can change mind on NPT (10 August 2006)
Ahmadinejad keen on energy ties with India (10 August 2006)
Larijani interview: "For the U.S., the nuclear issue of Iran is just an excuse" (7 August 2006)
Iran wants nuclear talks, but not at gunpoint (6 August 2006)
The Ahmadinejad Letter: An Iranian offer that America must heed (12 May 2006)
The game plan on Iran is becoming clearer (25 March 2006)
Let the IAEA do its work on Iran (7 March 2006)
That Syrian oil deal: Government lies about U.S. pressure (23 February 2006)
The IAEA votes to refer Iran (5 February 2006)
Latest IAEA report paints picture that is far from bleak (3 February 2006)
A messy compromise on Iran (1 February 2006)
What happens next: An idiot's guide to a familiar plot (1 February 2006)
After Iran gas, U.S. tells India to back off Syrian oil (28 January 2006)
India casting a wide net in its hunt for energy, but tactic calls for political dexterity (25 January 2006)
Energy the key in the new Asian architecture (25 January 2006)
India, Iran and the nuclear challenge (16 January 2006)
The Asian axis of oil (24 January 2006)

2005

Iranian nukes: When bullying is not enough, try disinformation (21 November 2005)
The unravelling of India's Persian puzzle (27 September 2005)
The Persian Puzzle III: The world must stand firm on diplomacy (23 September 2005)
The Persian Puzzle II: What the IAEA really found in Iran (22 September 2005)
The Persian Puzzle I: Iran and the invention of a nuclear crisis (21 September 2005)
Take me to the sea (13 September 2005)

tipu mauling

The Sangh is Vajpayee's soul

11 September 2000
The Times of India

The Sangh is Vajpayee's soul

By Siddharth Varadarajan
The Times of India News service

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's declaration that no one
could take away his right to be a swayamsevak (volunteer) might have raised
eyebrows in political circles but he has only stated a point he has never
attempted to hide.

In February, he responded to the controversy over the Gujarat government's
order allowing its employees to join the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh by
saying, ``The RSS is not a political outfit. It is a cultural and social
organisation and I don't think objections should be raised on anybody
joining it.''

In May 1995, he wrote an article in the RSS organ Organiser titled `The
Sangh is my soul'. In it, Vajpayee described how he was drawn towards the
organisation as a student and how he decided, in 1947, to give up his
studies and devote his energies to the RSS.

According to Vajpayee, the RSS has a two-fold task. ``One is to organise the
Hindus...The other is to assimilate the non-Hindus, like Muslims and
Christians, in the mainstream. They can follow the faith of their own
conviction...But they must have a feeling of patriotism for this country''.
The prime minister's description echoed a fundamental tenet of RSS theology:
that all Indian Hindus are, by definition, patriotic, while Indian Muslims
and Christians have to be `assimilated' into loving their country.

Elaborating on the role of Muslims in India, Vajpayee repeated the familiar
RSS charge that Muslims have ``yet to learn the art of existing and
flourishing in a country where (they) are in a minority''. ``The Quran'', he
alleged, ``offers no guidance in this regard. It only talks of killing
kafirs or converting them to Islam. But they cannot do it always and
everywhere. How can they do it where they are in a minority? If they try to
do it, a major clash will take place and only the members of the minority
will be killed''.

Ironically, in August 1979, Vajpayee had written an article in the Indian
Express criticising the RSS for not doing enough to address the genuine
apprehensions of people. ``Its repudiation of the theocratic form of the
state was welcome, yet the question could legitimately be asked - why does
it not open its doors to non-Hindus...(and as a) natural
corollary...clear(ly) enunciate that by Hindu Rashtra it means the Indian
nation, which includes non-Hindus as equal members.'' To this day, the RSS
has never really answered that question, though in all fairness, Vajpayee
has never really bothered to ask it again.

tipu

The government's cult of secrecy

6 September 2000
The Times of India

The government's cult of secrecy

By Siddharth Varadarajan

Times News Network

NEW DELHI: Of the five wars India has fought since Independence, official accounts of only the first - Kashmir, 1948 - and last - Kargil, 1999 - are publicly available. Official military histories of the 1962, 1965 and 1971 wars exist but successive governments obsessed with secrecy have refused to make them public. Secure in the belief that an informed public lies at the heart of democracy, The Times of India is making available today the full text of one of these suppressed documents, the official History of the Indo-Pak War, 1965. `Sensitive' official papers are generally labelled Top Secret, Secret, Classified, Restricted, or Limited Circulation. The 1965 war history is a Restricted document.

Many countries have a 30-year rule for making public even highly sensitive official records; but in India, 35 years is not considered enough time for a rather sanitised account of a war to be released. This, despite the fact that it contains nothing which compromises the way the armed forces operate today. Lt. Gen. Harbakhsh Singh, who died recently, privately published his far more revealing official war despatches in 1991, after waiting in vain for several years for official permission. The 1948 war history was only released in the mid-1980s after the ministry of external affairs tried unsuccessful to block its publication.

Prepared by the history division of the defence ministry and handed over in September 1992, the 1965 war history was considered safe enough to be mooted for general release by N N Vohra, defence secretary at the time. However, the government - or more precisely, the committee of secretaries - thought otherwise. The committee consists of the Cabinet, defence, external affairs, home and finance secretaries. Permission to publish was denied on grounds of national security. The ministry was not even allowed to provide copies to the specialised training institutions for officers run by the armed forces. In investigating the fate of the suppressed history, what emerges is an obsession with secrecy, driven not so much by reasons of state but the trivial concerns and imaginary fears of the babus.

A retired bureaucrat, who was part of the committee of secretaries at the time and one of those who had opposed the release of the history, told The Times of India there were three reasons for the decision:

• "It revealed that the thrust to Lahore was mismanaged, with the Division commander losing contact with his base, and that there were sharp differences between Lt. Gen. Harbakhsh Singh and the Army chief.''
• "It gave information about certain aspects of command and control."
• "It had a number of details of operational decisions taken...which, in the context of tensions with Pakistan, we felt should not be made public.''

When contacted, Gen. S J F Rodrigues, who was the Army chief at the time the official history was prepared, said these objections showed that the committee of secretaries had ``a very naive way of looking at things''. Revealing that even he had not been shown a copy of the history, he said, ``The committee of secretaries is totally soul-less. They take decisions on the basis of incomplete knowledge and no one can then question them''. Pleading for openness, Gen. Rodrigues said, ``Unless you get a fair and impartial account of the past, you cannot deal with future challenges. If you don't know what the problems are, how on earth do you correct them?''.