Connecticut court allows gay marriage
A sharply divided SC ruled that gay couples have the right to get married, saying legislators did not go far enough when they approved same-sex civil unions. ...
2008-10-11 00:34:48India's nuclear deal - and two worldviews Comment
NAT6National/Diplomacy/Opinion/CommentaryIndia's nuclear deal - and two worldviews CommentBy K. SubrahmanyamNow that India and the US have formally inked the 123 civil nuclear cooperation agreement and sealed another pact with France following the Sep 6 waiver by the Nuclear Suppliers Group NSG, it is time to look at the fierce debate on the issue in this country with some detachment.The debate was not just about the nuclear issue alone. In fact it was about two competing worldviews held by rival groups. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh belongs to the school that argues that after the end of the Cold War, the international system has changed and the bipolar world has yielded place to a balance of power system, comprising six powers - the US, the 27-nation European Union, China, Japan, Russia and India. The centre of gravity of world economy is shifting from the trans-Atlantic area to Asia. China has grown rapidly and India, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa and Mexico are also expected to grow rapidly, thereby reducing the dominance of the US as an economic power in the world. Since bipolarity has come to an end and the US, the EU, China, India and Russia are independent nuclear weapon powers, there is not likely to be any war among them - a situation new to the world. On the other hand, terrorism, organised crime, narcotics, religious extremism, pandemics and failed states are likely to pose international threats which these major powers may have to deal with collectively. This situation has developed along with the globalisation of the economy.While the US will be militarily, economically and technologically pre-eminent it is not in a position to impose its policies on other major countries. The view that the US is trying to attempt to enlist India for military containment of China is totally untenable. The US is China's largest trade partner. China holds hundreds of billions of dollars of US treasury bonds. Their economies are so intertwined that what happens to Dow Jones has an immediate impact on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. It will take many decades for the US to reach with India the level of economic intimacy it has with China. All that the US, the EU, Russia and Japan are interested in promoting is faster growth of India so that there can be greater balance among the powers in Asia and the world.Such a balance of power involves both competition and cooperation. The US and the EU, the US and Japan, China and Japan are all cooperating and competing economically and technologically at the same time. There will be similar competition and cooperation between China and India, though China has advanced far ahead of India and the latter will have to sustain a high economic growth rate to reduce the gap with China. India's rise as an economic power has been hailed all over the world as unique. When a major power rises, it generates a sense of threat among other nations. This is what happened when Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Russia or Communist China rose as major economic powers. But India's emergence is seen as non-threatening by other major powers. India getting an NSG waiver and being allowed to have a nuclear arsenal in spite of not signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty NPT are signs of India being viewed as a non-threatening balancer in the six-power balance of power system.Those who oppose the nuclear deal have a different worldview. They are still conditioned by the historical experience of the Cold War era, are not reconciled to globalisation of the international economy and have fears of possible nuclear wars among the major nuclear weapon powers. Their worldview rejects the economic intimacy of the US and China and regards them as potential adversaries. It considers that with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world has become unipolar with the US in a commanding position to dominate the world. Therefore, they like to believe that when the US makes a move to promote India as a balancer, it amounts to the incorporation of India in the hegemonic US strategic system. Since China is the only non-democratic major power and is likely to rise to close the economic gap with the US, this school regards China as a potential adversary of the US.Second, India has been isolationist from 1947 till 1992 when economic liberalisation started to integrate India with the international economic system. The isolationists have fears about integration with the rest of the world. Fears of the British East India Company coming back and scenarios of multinationals dominating India are being conjured up. Underlying this view is the lack of self-confidence to deal with the world at large economically, technologically, strategically and politically - presumably a colonial legacy.This school ignores the fact that the term used for India developing relationships with other major powers is not alliance but partnership. In an alliance the leader of the alliance has a decisive say. Partnership is different. Neither the US nor India has any previous experience in partnership. Therefore, both the countries will have to try hard to cultivate a partnership - a new experience for both. We have seen that in the WTO World Trade Organisation issues India and China are on one side and the US and the European Union are ranged on the other. The arguments have been pursued fiercely for months. Those who fear that with nuclear agreements India would lose its autonomy should explain why India is leading the opposition to industrial powers on the WTO issues.All these differences in perspectives lead to a major contradiction in approach to international trends. While the Manmohan Singh school argues that there are vast opportunities in the present global trends for India to exploit, the second school fears that some of the global trends may prove hostile to Indian interests and security and, therefore, India has to be cautious. In a sense it is a repeat of the controversy we witnessed in the 1990s when then prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao and then finance minister Manmohan Singh launched the economic liberalisation. Not only did Manmohan Singh and Narasimha Rao demonstrate they were right in launching economic liberalisation but their policy led to the comfortable foreign exchange balance in 1998 which enabled India to conduct the nuclear test without too much worry about external pressure.Such controversies are the pith and substance of the democratic process. If and when the party which loses the argument at present comes to power it will not necessarily give up a successful policy. It will make some marginal changes and appropriate the policy as its own. This happened in the case of economic liberalisation and may very well happen in respect of our nuclear policy. There were critics of the non-alignment policy who asserted that they would work for genuine non-alignment. They discovered on assuming office that our non-alignment was genuine enough. There were critics of our nuclear tests. Again, on coming to office the critics found that the nuclear weapons were developed by their own leaders. The ongoing debates should, therefore, be treated with a certain amount of scepticism and tolerance.K. Subrahmanyam is an eminent strategic expert who writes on foreign policy and national security issues. He can be contacted at ksubrahmanyam51@gmail.com.--Indo-Asian News Servicesubra/jg/tbky1295 Words**11100952
2008-10-11 00:03:10Court makes Conn. 3rd state to allow gay marriage AP
AP - A sharply divided Connecticut Supreme Court ruled Friday that gay couples have the right to get married, saying legislators did not go far enough when they approved same-sex civil unions that wer...
2008-10-10 17:40:07BRUSSELS
INT44International/Rights/TerrorismThreats to civil liberties, rights increasing: UNBrussels, Oct 9 IANS Stringent security measures following the Sep 11, 2001 terror attack in the US are increasingly threatening civil liberties, the UN rights agency has warned and called for effective interventions to guard against rights abuse, EUAsiaNews reported Thursday."There is a great need for intervention by my office, human rights activists and the media to guard against the trampling of fundamental rights," UN Human Rights Commission UNHRC chief Navanetham Pillay said Wednesday. She called for "moderation" in anti-terrorism laws and said the broad definition of terrorism should be more focussed.The UN official was speaking to reporters at the end of a conference here commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.Pillay criticised the lengthy periods of detention of terror suspects, saying "they remind me of the terrible laws we had in apartheid South Africa which allowed a 90-day period of detention". "I am watching out for these kinds of incursions in human freedom that appear to now be prevalent post 9/11," she stated. Pillay served as a judge on the International Criminal Court at the Hague before her present appointment and had earlier served both as a judge and president on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. A South African national of Indian origin, Pillay was appointed as the world body's human rights chief Sep 1. --Indo-Asian News Servicedkg/jg249 Words09101322
2008-10-09 04:00:06Iran won't change nuclear position after UN resolution: Ahmadinejad
INT6International/Diplomacy/DefenceIran won't change nuclear position after UN resolution: AhmadinejadTehran, Oct 8 DPA Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that new resolutions by the UN Security Council would not change his country's position in the nuclear dispute. "They veto powers are just making tough gestures, but Iran will not give in to any language of force," Ahmadinejad told state television in an interview. The UN Security Council last week issued a fourth resolution against Iran, calling on the Islamic state to halt its nuclear activities, but did not seek additional sanctions. Ahmadinejad once again rejected the enrichment suspension demand and said that Iran's nuclear programmes would continue. "Our stance is constant because it is honest," the president said while describing the civil and peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear projects. Ahmadinejad reiterated that Iran was ready to talk to the UN veto powers plus Germany, but without any preconditions, especially with regards to the enrichment suspension demand. Tehran insists that its nuclear projects are peaceful and says that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the country has an internationally acknowledged right to a civilian nuclear programme, including uranium enrichment.--DPAskp/203 Words08100309
2008-10-08 00:00:00Sharpton: Bell verdict protests were peaceful AP
AP - The Rev. Al Sharpton says he convened civil rights leaders after the Sean Bell police-shooting acquittals to come up with a way for all New Yorkers to express their outrage....
2008-10-07 08:15:26Protest veteran reviews history
The civil rights movement would have been more successful if it had been properly structured, according to a leading figure. ...
2008-10-05 09:26:13Racial Divide May Affect Election
How can it be that in 2008 - 143 years after slavery was abolished, decades after the civil rights movement - an AP-Yahoo News poll could find that racial misgivings could cost Sen. Barack Obama the e...
2008-10-05 03:27:26FOR THE PAST TWO WEEKS
NAT19National/Education/Society/TerrorismJamia Millia: living a nightmare with remarkable restraint CommentBy Rumki BasuFor the past two weeks, Jamia Millia Islamia has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Even in my worst nightmare I did not imagine that I would walk up to my political science department one day to face mediapersons waiting to establish the identity of an alleged terrorist killed in the Jamia Nagar police encounter. When we did check the records, it emerged that Atif Amin, the student in question, had taken admission in the human rights course this year as a day scholar, though he was yet to get an identity card made, having barely attended classes for a month.The M.A. degree course in human rights like the M.A. course in public administration are unique courses - they are not offered anywhere in the capital except in our department. While our new student was dead, killed in the police encounter, our department's name was being flashed in the media, as if its only claim to fame was our association with this unknown 'terrorist'. Incidentally, in the Social Science School in Jamia, the political science department is the largest in terms of courses offered, student strength and number of faculty. Our department is an interesting experiment in multiculturalism - our students truly represent a microcosm of the 'idea' of India - coming as they do from almost two-thirds of Indian states and an equal divide in terms of Hindu/Muslim students. The nightmare, I did realise, had just begun. Unfortunately, we had very little information on the alleged 'mastermind' whom some of my colleagues had barely seen for a month before he was declared dead. In the next few days, two students were arrested for their alleged involvement in the Sep 13 Delhi bomb blasts. They were students staying outside the campus, not even one was picked up from the student hostel in Jamia, a central university.Most of my students from the human rights course looked terrified and completely lost in apprehension. More and more reports came in of students being 'picked up' by the police for questioning, leaving behind a trail of fear, mistrust, shock and disbelief on the campus. Many students who lived on rented accommodation in nearby areas of Jamia Nagar were simply asked to vacate rooms by their landlords for fear of police reprisals.These 'homeless' students about 2,500 had no option but to go home with no clue about their future options when they came back. Suddenly their futures seemed uncertain, their careers were at stake for reasons completely beyond their control or comprehension. An 80-year-old institution's secular and nationalist credentials were being virtually dragged in the mud and the future of its 14,000 students being held to ransom by the alleged terror links of a couple of students. Could anything be more unfairMore than anybody, I am aware of the personal sagas of some of our poor and middle class students - their struggle to reach a Central University in Delhi from vernacular medium schools in villages and districts of far-flung states in India, had never been easy. They were students from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and the northeastern states, for whom Jamia seemed a truly 'happening', and therefore a preferred, academic destination in the last few years.Jamia had seen unprecedented expansion in the past four years with the present vice chancellor's untiring efforts for mainstreaming the university and students were being offered core and optional courses in human rights, public administration, social work, education, management and journalism not offered anywhere in Delhi. 'Modernization' was the buzzword and the mood of the students upbeat. Jawaharlal Nehru University and Delhi University were obvious role models to follow and one could sense that our students were now ready for competition and exposure. Debate, dialogue and discuss - this is what universities need to do to change and transform mindsets since all ideas have to be ultimately introduced/defended/fought in the public sphere in all democracies.It was at this point that terror struck. Terror can never be justified since no cause can be greater than the right to life - which is the only inviolable and non-negotiable natural human right. You cannot have any dialogue with terror: it strikes blindly and irrationally with fixed targets at times, at others with random. The Delhi blasts which hit the public at large indiscriminately have perhaps impacted civil society in exactly the same way as the 'post encounter aftermath' in Jamia - break spirits, polarise communities and suffocate chances of dialogue and peace. However, none of this did actually happen in Jamia itself, where the atmosphere on campus remained hurt but peaceful.'Terrorism' was being debated, so were 'police encounters' and I was amazed by the maturity and objectivity of my students on arguments such as these. What emerged most strongly was that we must not communalise or valorise 'terrorism' in any way. There was a complete consensus also to protect the secular image of the institution and the fledging careers of our students - since both were equally at stake. There was continuous resentment however at the fact that the private behaviour of students outside the campus had to be justified/condemned/defended by Jamia Millia Islamia a public institution - the public-private divide somehow got obliterated in all that was happening on the Jamia campus.We, as teachers of Jamia Millia Islamia, can only hope that this will pass and that the darkest hour is indeed before dawn. The fact that our students in the past two weeks have shown remarkable restraint and courage is our only ray of light at the end of this long tunnel - a result perhaps of the legacy of hope, faith and trust in the long standing secular traditions of Jamia - bequeathed to them over the years.Rumki Basu is head of the department of Jamia Millia's political science department. She can be reached at basurumki56@rediffmail.com-Indo-Asian News Servicerum/pg1047 Words**05101246
2008-10-05 03:05:08Rights speeches focus on Stormont
Deputy First Minister uses his 40th Anniversary Civil Rights Commemoration speech to address the current Stormont Executive deadlock....
2008-10-04 17:11:14
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