Re: [Goanet] Asleep at The Wheel?
It appears as though the ONLY deSa on Goanet who is non-partisan and equitable is Tony de Sa. Sadly, the others are just partisan Hacktivists. As far as the referenced article is concerned, I wonder why the former PM's medical details ESP wrt his knees are mentioned (even though they are part of the public record). Did that present a problem for the governance of the country? Wrt his enjoyment of a whiff or two of Scotch . So what? Did that ever endanger the country ? Personally, I am happy that India had Mr. Vajpayee and not his hawkish compadre at the helm. Does any reasonable and sensible individual believe that IF Mr Vajpayee was asleep at the wheel, ... The Hawk would have NOT pulled a fast one on him? jc Pardon any Typos. This IPad does some curious auto- corrections On Jul 10, 2012, at 5:07 PM, roland.fran...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Rajiv, why this article of 2002? Are you obliquely pointing to Manmohan Singh with reference to Time calling him an 'underachiever'. If so you should have given an indication. Roland. Roland Francis 416-453-3371 -Original Message- From: Comma Consulting i...@comma.in Sender: goanet-bounces@lists.goanet.orgDate: Tue, 10 Jul 2012 17:22:18 To: goa...@goanet.org; moderat...@goanet.org; bo...@goanet.org Reply-To: Goa's premiere mailing list, estb. 1994! goanet@lists.goanet.org Cc: 'Manoj Vats'mv...@comma.in; Rajiv Desairde...@comma.in Subject: [Goanet] Asleep at The Wheel? This article is from the blog res gestae (www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com http://www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com/ ) you can reach the person managing the list at i...@comma.in TUESDAY, JULY 10, 2012 http://rajivndesai.blogspot.in/2012/07/asleep-at-wheel.html Asleep at the Wheel? He drank heavily in his prime and still enjoys a nightly whiskey or two at 74. India's leader takes painkillers for his knees (which were replaced due to arthritis) and has trouble with his bladder, liver and his one remaining kidney. A taste for fried food and fatty sweets plays havoc with his cholesterol. He takes a three-hour snooze every afternoon on doctor's orders and is given to interminable silences, indecipherable ramblings and, not infrequently, falling asleep in meetings. Atal Behari Vajpayee, then, would be an unusual candidate to control a nuclear arsenal. But for four years the Indian Prime Minister's grandfatherly hands have held the subcontinent back from tumbling into war. Despite the fact that he heads the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a constituency stuffed with extremists, Vajpayee has ambitiously pursued peace with neighbor and rival Pakistan, even traveling to the Pakistani cultural capital of Lahore in 1999, vainly hoping to bury the bloody animus of the past and start an era of good feelings. With 1 million soldiers facing each other at high alert on the India-Pakistan border, those days seem long ago. At the same dangerous time, Vajpayee's stewardship is looking less and less comforting. The frail bachelor seems shaky and lost, less an aging sage than an ordinary old man. He forgets names, even of longtime colleague and current Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, and during several recent meetings he appeared confused and inattentive. After a meeting with a Western Foreign Minister, his appearance was described by one attending diplomat as half dead. At a rare press conference last month in Srinagar, the Prime Minister tottered to the podium. Indian TV crews are asked to film him from the waist up to avoid showing his shuffling gait to find he had trouble understanding questions, repeatedly relying on whispered prompts from Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani. Even then Vajpayee stumbled over his replies. He is very alert when he is functional, says one BJP worker. But there are very few hours like that. Adds one Western diplomat: We have a lot of conversations about his health. Some of his mannerisms come down to his personal style. But some of it is definitely spacey stuff. While no one questions that key decisions on national security and foreign policy are still made by Vajpayee, the focus is now turning to the two men behind the throne: Vajpayee's low-key National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra, and Vajpayee's hard-line BJP colleague of 50 years, 72-year-old Advani. The consensus among observers and diplomats is that the hawkish Advani is preparing to succeed Vajpayee at the next national elections due by late 2004. There is no doubt he is the Prime Minister in waiting, remarks a diplomat. In the meantime, Vajpayee has undergone a sudden conversion from peacemaker to warmonger primarily in response to political pressures. This year's standoff on the border shows the dovish Prime Minister has accepted the argument that war or the threat of it works. In comments that set off alarm bells around the world, Vajpayee last month spoke twice of an impending decisive battle
[Goanet] Asleep at The Wheel?
This article is from the blog res gestae (www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com http://www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com/ ) you can reach the person managing the list at i...@comma.in TUESDAY, JULY 10, 2012 http://rajivndesai.blogspot.in/2012/07/asleep-at-wheel.html Asleep at the Wheel? He drank heavily in his prime and still enjoys a nightly whiskey or two at 74. India's leader takes painkillers for his knees (which were replaced due to arthritis) and has trouble with his bladder, liver and his one remaining kidney. A taste for fried food and fatty sweets plays havoc with his cholesterol. He takes a three-hour snooze every afternoon on doctor's orders and is given to interminable silences, indecipherable ramblings and, not infrequently, falling asleep in meetings. Atal Behari Vajpayee, then, would be an unusual candidate to control a nuclear arsenal. But for four years the Indian Prime Minister's grandfatherly hands have held the subcontinent back from tumbling into war. Despite the fact that he heads the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a constituency stuffed with extremists, Vajpayee has ambitiously pursued peace with neighbor and rival Pakistan, even traveling to the Pakistani cultural capital of Lahore in 1999, vainly hoping to bury the bloody animus of the past and start an era of good feelings. With 1 million soldiers facing each other at high alert on the India-Pakistan border, those days seem long ago. At the same dangerous time, Vajpayee's stewardship is looking less and less comforting. The frail bachelor seems shaky and lost, less an aging sage than an ordinary old man. He forgets names, even of longtime colleague and current Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, and during several recent meetings he appeared confused and inattentive. After a meeting with a Western Foreign Minister, his appearance was described by one attending diplomat as half dead. At a rare press conference last month in Srinagar, the Prime Minister tottered to the podium. Indian TV crews are asked to film him from the waist up to avoid showing his shuffling gait to find he had trouble understanding questions, repeatedly relying on whispered prompts from Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani. Even then Vajpayee stumbled over his replies. He is very alert when he is functional, says one BJP worker. But there are very few hours like that. Adds one Western diplomat: We have a lot of conversations about his health. Some of his mannerisms come down to his personal style. But some of it is definitely spacey stuff. While no one questions that key decisions on national security and foreign policy are still made by Vajpayee, the focus is now turning to the two men behind the throne: Vajpayee's low-key National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra, and Vajpayee's hard-line BJP colleague of 50 years, 72-year-old Advani. The consensus among observers and diplomats is that the hawkish Advani is preparing to succeed Vajpayee at the next national elections due by late 2004. There is no doubt he is the Prime Minister in waiting, remarks a diplomat. In the meantime, Vajpayee has undergone a sudden conversion from peacemaker to warmonger primarily in response to political pressures. This year's standoff on the border shows the dovish Prime Minister has accepted the argument that war or the threat of it works. In comments that set off alarm bells around the world, Vajpayee last month spoke twice of an impending decisive battle against India's enemy. Although he has repeatedly said that he does not want war, the Prime Minister has sound strategic reasons for ratcheting up the rhetoric. Since Sept. 11, he has found the international community more sympathetic to the idea of India waging its own war on terror against jihadis in the contended state of Jammu and Kashmir, where many of them have been inserted by Pakistan. And it plays well for India to keep the pot boiling: New Delhi can claim a victim's solidarity with the U.S., avoid addressing the awkward issue of its heavy-handed rule in Muslim-dominated Kashmir and just possibly get Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to actually shut down the jihadi industry on his territory, ending what India calls a proxy war. Last week, Musharraf told visiting U.S Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage that he was going to put a permanent end to terrorist incursions into India. Vajpayee's government promised in turn some de-escalation measures, though a withdrawal of troops from the border has been ruled out. The big risk, however, is that no matter what Musharraf does, there are enough jihadis already in Kashmir to keep hammering India with suicide bombs and death squads. Four people were killed by terrorists Friday night in Kashmir, even as heavy shelling continued at the frontier and an unmanned Indian spy plane was shot down by the Pakistani air force. Any small spark can still push Vajpayee to deploy his soldiers in some punitive counterattack on Pakistan, which can lead to full-scale war.
Re: [Goanet] Asleep at The Wheel?
Hi Rajiv, why this article of 2002? Are you obliquely pointing to Manmohan Singh with reference to Time calling him an 'underachiever'. If so you should have given an indication. Roland. Roland Francis 416-453-3371 -Original Message- From: Comma Consulting i...@comma.in Sender: goanet-bounces@lists.goanet.orgDate: Tue, 10 Jul 2012 17:22:18 To: goa...@goanet.org; moderat...@goanet.org; bo...@goanet.org Reply-To: Goa's premiere mailing list, estb. 1994! goanet@lists.goanet.org Cc: 'Manoj Vats'mv...@comma.in; Rajiv Desairde...@comma.in Subject: [Goanet] Asleep at The Wheel? This article is from the blog res gestae (www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com http://www.rajivndesai.blogspot.com/ ) you can reach the person managing the list at i...@comma.in TUESDAY, JULY 10, 2012 http://rajivndesai.blogspot.in/2012/07/asleep-at-wheel.html Asleep at the Wheel? He drank heavily in his prime and still enjoys a nightly whiskey or two at 74. India's leader takes painkillers for his knees (which were replaced due to arthritis) and has trouble with his bladder, liver and his one remaining kidney. A taste for fried food and fatty sweets plays havoc with his cholesterol. He takes a three-hour snooze every afternoon on doctor's orders and is given to interminable silences, indecipherable ramblings and, not infrequently, falling asleep in meetings. Atal Behari Vajpayee, then, would be an unusual candidate to control a nuclear arsenal. But for four years the Indian Prime Minister's grandfatherly hands have held the subcontinent back from tumbling into war. Despite the fact that he heads the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a constituency stuffed with extremists, Vajpayee has ambitiously pursued peace with neighbor and rival Pakistan, even traveling to the Pakistani cultural capital of Lahore in 1999, vainly hoping to bury the bloody animus of the past and start an era of good feelings. With 1 million soldiers facing each other at high alert on the India-Pakistan border, those days seem long ago. At the same dangerous time, Vajpayee's stewardship is looking less and less comforting. The frail bachelor seems shaky and lost, less an aging sage than an ordinary old man. He forgets names, even of longtime colleague and current Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, and during several recent meetings he appeared confused and inattentive. After a meeting with a Western Foreign Minister, his appearance was described by one attending diplomat as half dead. At a rare press conference last month in Srinagar, the Prime Minister tottered to the podium. Indian TV crews are asked to film him from the waist up to avoid showing his shuffling gait to find he had trouble understanding questions, repeatedly relying on whispered prompts from Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani. Even then Vajpayee stumbled over his replies. He is very alert when he is functional, says one BJP worker. But there are very few hours like that. Adds one Western diplomat: We have a lot of conversations about his health. Some of his mannerisms come down to his personal style. But some of it is definitely spacey stuff. While no one questions that key decisions on national security and foreign policy are still made by Vajpayee, the focus is now turning to the two men behind the throne: Vajpayee's low-key National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra, and Vajpayee's hard-line BJP colleague of 50 years, 72-year-old Advani. The consensus among observers and diplomats is that the hawkish Advani is preparing to succeed Vajpayee at the next national elections due by late 2004. There is no doubt he is the Prime Minister in waiting, remarks a diplomat. In the meantime, Vajpayee has undergone a sudden conversion from peacemaker to warmonger primarily in response to political pressures. This year's standoff on the border shows the dovish Prime Minister has accepted the argument that war or the threat of it works. In comments that set off alarm bells around the world, Vajpayee last month spoke twice of an impending decisive battle against India's enemy. Although he has repeatedly said that he does not want war, the Prime Minister has sound strategic reasons for ratcheting up the rhetoric. Since Sept. 11, he has found the international community more sympathetic to the idea of India waging its own war on terror against jihadis in the contended state of Jammu and Kashmir, where many of them have been inserted by Pakistan. And it plays well for India to keep the pot boiling: New Delhi can claim a victim's solidarity with the U.S., avoid addressing the awkward issue of its heavy-handed rule in Muslim-dominated Kashmir and just possibly get Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to actually shut down the jihadi industry on his territory, ending what India calls a proxy war. Last week, Musharraf told visiting U.S Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage that he was going to put a permanent end to terrorist incursions into India. Vajpayee's government promised in turn some
