It's obvious by what I've written in the past (here and here as well.) that I don't think highly of India's economic prowess, writ large and I don't believe any of the hype when it comes to India's economic miracle. But Quax makes a point about Kerala that deserves further comment.

Quax brings up the point about the matrifocal ethnicity in Southern India, namely the state of Kerala. And he's right: Kerala is different from the rest of India. I'm not sure what makes Kerala different: the prevalence of Christianity, the relative freedom of women in the state, years of Communist rule, and the forward looking and commercial character of Muslims there? Perhaps it's a combination of all four. Needless to say, Kerala was the cleanest, least intimidating and most upwardly mobile of Indian states, even more so than the miracle city of Bangalore. And I found the Muslims in Calicut to be the most forward looking of any Muslims I've ever encountered, outside of pockets in Turkey and those in North Tehran.

Their daughters were educated, free to pursue a love match--not an arranged marriage and not relegated to a very real purdah extant in many places in India. It's the sort of place where a young Indian woman can have lunch with a strange foreign man and no one raises an eyebrow. I'm not sure how much of this is due to the fact that the area around Calicut has been integral to the global economy for two thousand years--ships have plied the monsoons from East Africa to the Malabar Coast since very early Roman times, bringing pepper an other spices to the West in exchange for gold, or how much of it is due to the tolerance between Hindus, Christians and Muslims. There is much more history to this area than meets the eye.

More after the jump.

People love to talk about how India is a rising power in Asia:

Upshot: America is done. Our once-great empire is cooked. Not only is China (and India, fast behind) about to stomp all over everyone in economic power and resource abuse, they already own a huge chunk of our debt, manufacture most of our holidays and build almost everything we like to buy. And that includes the device you are reading this on right now. Oh well. We'll always have football.

I'd submit to any writer who just looks at the raw statistics on Indian growth rates to actually visit the place. Take a look at the crumbling infrastructure. Reality looks a lot different on the ground.

Yes, I realize it is only a throwaway sentence by the writer, but still, it's propagating a meme that doesn't represent reality.

Now, there is a case to be made about China. I've seen a great deal of the country and there is a very real energy to succeed and get ahead there. And while many Chinese are mired in poverty, it isn't the kind of nasty, pervasive, grinding poverty to be found in India. In India if you are born poor there is virtually no chance you can rise in society. Not so in China. (Not to idealize the life of the poor in China, mind you. It's still extremely difficult to find real upward mobility in China. In India on the other? For all intents and purposes, such a concept doesn't even exist.)

Furthermore, culturally speaking the Chinese are much better when it comes to cultural or societal innovations than India is. For example: arranged marriages are still the norm in India. And the place of woman is rotten. In China? Not likely. Especially as the idea of romantic love spreads among young female factory workers with a disposable income. (Again, not to idealize often gruesome working conditions for these young women, and yet.)

India when it comes to culture, is probably the most extremely conservative place I have ever visited. Indians like to think they can compete with the Chinese, but they cannot. And we shouldn't buy the tripe that India is an emerging economic power. The only reason we do business with India is wage-arbitrage. It's cheaper to pay an Indian twenty five cents an hour for something a well-educated American would ask fifteen dollars or more for.

And yes, I realize I am a white, post-Colonial man of European descent making cultural judgments. Having visited both countries multiple times I am quite comfortable doing so.

Jim Yardley | Barsur, India | October 31

NYT - At the edge of the Indravati River, hundreds of miles from the nearest international border, India effectively ends. Indian paramilitary officers point machine guns across the water. The dense jungles and mountains on the other side belong to Maoist rebels dedicated to overthrowing the government.

“That is their liberated zone,” said P. Bhojak, one of the officers stationed at the river’s edge in this town in the eastern state of Chattisgarh.

Omar Waraich | Sherwangai | Oct 30

The Independent - In the mountains of Waziristan, the army claims to have recovered passports of extremists with links to the September 11 and Madrid attackers. Does this mean they are finally closing in on Osama bin Laden himself?

After a sweep of a militant stronghold in the lawless tribal region of South Waziristan, the Pakistani army has recovered passports purportedly belonging to two leading al-Qa'ida figures, including a member of the notorious Hamburg cell that orchestrated September 11.

Among a pile of documents, photographs, weapons and computers seen by The Independent yesterday in Waziristan, is a German passport belonging to Said Bahaji, the logistical expert of the notorious German terror cell that orchestrated the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

Paul Richter | Washington DC | October 30

LA Times - On a fence-mending visit, the secretary of State turns blunt, saying she finds it 'hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to.'

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, visiting Pakistan on a fence-mending tour, turned unusually blunt Thursday, accusing the government of failing to do all it could to track down Al Qaeda.

Clinton told a group of journalists in Lahore that she found it "hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to." Al Qaeda, she said, "has had a safe haven in Pakistan since 2002."

Clinton's three-day visit is her first to Pakistan since she became secretary of State, and its principal goal is to improve strained relations. On the first day of her visit, in Islamabad, she declared that she wanted to "turn a page" in the U.S.-Pakistani relationship.

But on the second day, frustration seemed to surface as Clinton, a former U.S. senator from New York, confronted the long-standing strains between the countries.

Discussing Al Qaeda, she raised the issue of Pakistan's powerful military intelligence arm, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, which has been accused of secretly supporting militant groups in Afghanistan.

"There are issues that, not just the U.S., but others have with your government and with your military security establishment," she said.

Steve Hynd writes on the growing violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, here.

Zahid Hussain/ Islamabad & Nico Hines | Oct 28

Times online - More than 95 people were killed by a car bomb in Pakistan today as Hillary Clinton arrived to offer US support for the Government’s crackdown on militants.

A series of terrorist attacks have shaken the country since Pakistani troops launched an assault against Islamist extremists in the tribal borderlands near Afghanistan.

Eyewitness and police in the north-western city of Peshawar said the bomb struck the area of the Meena market, which is generally visited by woman shoppers. Witnesses said many of the victims were women and children.

The blast set many shops on fire and people were trapped inside a multi-storey building, which collapsed after becoming engulfed by flames. As the wounded tried to flee, they were engulfed in flames and buried alive by falling masonry.

“Most of the bodies are charred beyond recognition,” a doctor told The Times.

”My entire shop fell on me. Smoke filled my face,” said Raza Ali, 30, a grocery store owner whose face was badly burnt.

Shakil Ahmed, another shopkeeper, said: “There was a huge explosion and black smoke covered the area.”

The explosives-packed car was apparently parked outside a shop and was denoted by remote control, police said.

Relief workers said the number of casualties could rise as most of the 200 wounded were in a critical state. Others may still be trapped inside buildings.

Pierre Salignon | Oct 26

Humanitarian Practice Network - In early July 2009, following on from the closing weeks of fighting between the Sri Lankan army and Tamil Tiger rebels (LTTE), a Times journalist raised the alarm on the mortality rate in the internment camps, opened by the Sri Lankan government. The article reported 1,400 deaths a week in Manik Farm camp, which then held around 280,000 people. Presenting no methodology or basis for this figure, and without naming any names, the journalist cited “a humanitarian source” [1]. This was a serious accusation, corresponding to a rate of 7 deaths per 10,000 persons per day. The emergency threshold applied in crises stands at 1 per 10,000 per day. In other words, according to The Times’ survey the internally displaced in Manik Farm were dying en masse, “mainly due to the sanitary conditions", deprivations and a lack of assistance.

Unsurprisingly, the Sri Lankan Ministry of Health’s version of events differed from the British journalist’report. According to a bulletin covering the period 15th June to 15th July 2009, an average of 5 to 6 people died every day in Manik Farm camp - a mortality rate of under 0.25 deaths per 10,000 per day (the official national average in Sri Lanka stands at 0.15 per 10,000 per day)[2]. Despite the ferocity of the fighting during the conflict’s final weeks, the Sri Lankan authorities found no cause for concern in the camps in June and July – when the Times was concluding the opposite.

How can such troubling and contradictory estimates be explained? Given the lack of access to more specific data, we should turn to other sources. What do NGOs and others present in the field have to say?

Kolkata | Oct 27

Reuters - Hundreds of Maoist guerrillas stormed a high-speed train in eastern India on Tuesday and were battling security forces, police said.

The Rajdhani Express, one of the country's most prestigious passenger trains, was stopped by the guerrillas in eastern West Bengal state.

"About 300 Maoists have stopped the Rajdhani Express and have pulled out the driver," Dilip Mitra, a police officer, told Reuters in state capital Kolkata.

The Maoists, who have stepped up violence across eastern and central India, had asked passengers to get off the train, local TV channels said.

"One policemen has been injured and we are currently engaged in a battle with the rebels," Mitra said.

Maoist rebels regularly attack goods trains and have in the past even hijacked a few local passenger trains in remote districts of India before fleeing.

The Maoist rebellion began four decades ago championing the cause of poor peasants in the east, but has now spread to about 20 of India's 29 states, with the rebels targeting police and government property in hit-and-run attacks.

DAWN.Com | Islamabad | Oct 24

DAWN.Com Dawn Media Group -

The figures given by official quarters are impossible to verify, but the army says more than 160 militants and 23 troops have been killed in the week-long South Waziristan offensive. — Photo by AFP

Security officials said the army overran Mehsud’s town of Kotkai overnight after three days of aerial bombardments which had underlined the huge challenge facing the military in taking on the Taliban in their tribal heartland.

And in another part of the northwest tribal belt, a missile fired by an unmanned US drone spy plane killed more than 14 people including three foreign militants, local officials said.

Although figures are impossible to verify, the army says more than 160 militants and 23 troops have been killed in the week-long South Waziristan offensive. Twelve militants and three soldiers died in the final stages of the battle for Kotkai, it added. Snip

The army launched the drive last Saturday, pitting 30,000 troops against estimated 10,000-12,000 Taliban fighters where Al-Qaeda-linked militants are believed to have plotted attacks against the West as well as in Pakistan.

The army had promised to make the Taliban leadership a particular target of their offensive and sealed off the main road into Kotkai last weekend.

More

Hua Hin, Thailand | Oct 24

AFP - Myanmar's prime minister told Asian counterparts on Saturday that the ruling military government could relax the conditions of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi's detention, a Japanese official said.

The Nobel Peace laureate had "softened" her attitude towards the military regime since her house arrest was extended in August for a further 18 months, the official quoted Myanmar premier Thein Sein as saying.

But while Thein Sein announced at a regional summit in Thailand that Myanmar also wants elections next year to be "inclusive", he would not say if Suu Kyi would be allowed to participate, the official said.

"(Myanmar's government) believes that Aung San Suu Kyi seems to have softened her attitude towards the authorities," Japanese delegation spokesman Kazuo Kodama quoted Thein Sein as telling leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China, Japan and South Korea.

Kodama said that the Myanmar regime "thinks if Aung San Suu Kyi maintains a good attitude it is possible that the Myanmar authorities will relax the current measures.

"The Myanmar government is... making preparations to make (next year's) election (an) inclusive election. The Myanmar government would like to ensure all the stakeholders will take part in such a process."

Colum Lynch | New York | October 23

WaPo - The State Department's top war crimes official called on Sri Lanka on Thursday to conduct a "genuine" investigation into alleged war crimes by Sri Lankan troops and Tamil rebels during the bloody final months of the country's 25-year-long civil war.

The appeal by Stephen Rapp, the U.S. ambassador at large for war crimes issues, came hours after his office presented Congress with a detailed account of alleged atrocities during the conflict that suggests both sides may have violated international law and committed crimes against humanity.

While the Pakistani army is fighting the Taliban in Swat the assault on normal life in the larger cities in the country continues:

The provincial governments on Tuesday ordered the closure of government and private educational institutions across the country following an attack on the International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI) in which six people, including three female students, were killed and 29 others injured.

Earlier this year while I was in India trying to get a Pak visa I remember thinking that there was a tremendous amount of violence in the country, an almost daily drumbeat of bad news was reported in India about Pakistan. I chalked part of it up to their mutual animosity. But now?

Lahore | October 21

Daily Times - All schools, colleges closed nationwide

* Three women among six killed in first-ever attack on students as twin suicide bombers hit Islamic University Islamabad
* 25 female students among 29 injured
* Punjab closes educational institutions indefinitely while NWFP, Balochistan and Sindh closed till Sunday

ISLAMABAD/LAHORE: The provincial governments on Tuesday ordered the closure of government and private educational institutions across the country following an attack on the International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI) in which six people, including three female students, were killed and 29 others injured.

Oct 20

Asia Times - China, by issuing residents from Indian-administered Kashmir visas different from those given to Indians from other parts of the country, is treating the disputed area as a sovereign entity. This is a surprising departure from Beijing's traditional policy of leaving the Kashmir issue to India and Pakistan to resolve. Delhi suspects a hidden agenda.

The army has spent weeks cutting off militans’ escape routes and softening up targets in the region, using limited intelligence-led ground and air strikes.
— Photo by AP

Andrew Buncombe | Oct 7/Oct 17

The Independent - The president of the Maldives is desperate for the world to know how seriously his government takes the threat of climate change and rising sea levels to the survival of his country. He wants his ministers to know as well.

To this end, Mohamed Nasheed has organised an underwater cabinet meeting and told all his ministers to get in training for the sub-aqua session. Six metres beneath the surface, the ministers will ratify a treaty calling on other countries to cut greenhouse emissions.

Ahead of the meeting, scheduled for 17 October, cabinet members have been squeezing into wet-suits and practising their underwater skills. The President was not present at the first session, held over the weekend, because he is already a qualified diver.

Mr Nasheed, a former political prisoner who was elected President last year, has made the issue of climate change one of his most pressing priorities. Earlier this year, The Independent revealed his plan to transform the Maldives into the world's first carbon neutral country within 10 years. The leader of a nation made up of 1,200 atolls, 80 per cent of which are no more than a metre above sea level, he has also established a fund to seek an alternative homeland, possibly in Sri Lanka, India or Australia for its 330,000 citizens.

UPDATE Oct 17: Maldives cabinet makes a splash
The government of the Maldives has held a cabinet meeting underwater to highlight the threat of global warming to the low-lying Indian Ocean nation. w/video

Oct 17

BBC -

Fierce fighting has broken out as the Pakistan army battles Taliban militants in their remote strongholds in the South Waziristan province.

Local officials said 30,000 troops, backed by artillery, had moved into the region where Pakistan Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud is based.

Officials said the Taliban were resisting as troops mobilised from the north, east, and west.

** Bloodshed feared as Pakistan moves into Taliban heartland
** Pakistan offensive: troops meet heavy Taliban resistance
** Pakistan targets Taliban in major ground operation
** Pakistan begins offensive against Taliban, al-Qaeda
** Pakistan finally takes on the monster it created

Karin Brulliard | Islamabad | Oct 15

WaPo - Pakistan came under a deadly, staccato series of attacks Thursday that left at least 38 people dead and raised questions about the ability of the nation's security and intelligence agencies to thwart a rising Islamist insurgency.

The attacks began about 9 a.m. in Lahore, the bustling capital of the Punjabi heartland, with what appeared to be coordinated attacks on police installations. The attacks paralyzed the city, Pakistan's cultural hub, and riveted a nation that has been engulfed in deadly attacks over the past 11 days.

The first target was the Federal Investigation Agency, a law enforcement branch. Next, gunmen -- some strapped with explosives -- attacked a police training school. A third group stormed a police commando training center, where some militants fired shots and tossed grenades from a roof and others took trainees' families hostage in a residential area of the vast campus.

The attacks killed 28 people, about half of them security officers, authorities said. Ten were militants involved in staging the attacks. They were followed by a suicide car bombing that killed three police officers and seven civilians at a police station in Kohat, a northwestern city surrounded by insurgent-heavy areas. As dusk fell, a fifth blast rocked government workers' residences in Peshawar, the Northwest's main city.

Two of the Lahore targets, the FIA and the police training school, were previously attacked over the past two years. That fact, combined with last weekend's bold militant siege of the army headquarters in Rawalpindi -- known here as "Pakistan's Pentagon" -- prompted a public flood of doubts about security agencies' preparedness and cooperation with one another.

"One was expecting that there would be better planning and more fortifications," said Faisal Saleh Hayad, a lawmaker with the Pakistan Muslim League-Q. "Unfortunately it has transpired today that none of them are in place."

The top field commander of al-Qaeda, in an exclusive interview with Asia Times Online, proves he is alive and well after repeated drone attacks and delineates in broad strokes al-Qaeda's strategy. The Afghanistan trap, baited on September 11, 2001, has been sprung, says formidable guerrilla leader Ilyas Kashmiri, and events from Gaza to Mumbai should not be seen in isolation but as part of the master plan to bloody the United States and its proxies. - Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Exclusive

Oct 11

AFP -

The United States on Friday called on the Sri Lankan government to allow Tamil refugees displaced by recent fighting to move freely around the country.

Assistant US Secretary of State Robert Blake, who is focussed on US relations with central and southern Asia, "emphasized the importance of the government allowing freedom of movement for IDPs," or internally displaced people, read a State Department statement.

While the Sri Lankan government "has made some progress easing camp congestion, registering IDPs, and expanding access by humanitarian organizations, much remains to be done," Blake said.

Blake also "underscored the importance of political reconciliation" in Sri Lanka, where some 250,000 people who were displaced by fighting between troops and Tamil Tiger separatists have remained in the state-run camps since the rebels were defeated in May.

In order to reach a lasting peace, the Sri Lankan government must "promote justice and political reconciliation for all parties and dialogue with all parties, including Tamils inside and outside Sri Lanka, on new mechanisms for devolving power."

Sri Lanka "must also seek to improve human rights and accountability," he said.

** Sri Lanka military budget raised
** Monsoon threatens Sri Lankan refugees with 'humanitarian disaster', warns UN
** Sri Lanka ruling coalition sweeps regional polls
** No sir, no sir, but give us three bags full

Saeed Shah | Islamabad | Oct 11

McClatchy Newspapers - Pakistani commandos staged a dramatic rescue early Sunday of colleagues held hostage after terrorists had stormed the headquarters of Pakistan's vast military establishment some 18 hours earlier in a bold assault.

The maneuver, carried out around 6am local time, ended a crisis that began when the extremists attacked the military central command in the northern city of Rawalpindi, initially killing six army personnel, then taking hostages in a stand-off that lasted through the night.

The rescue operation freed 25 hostages who were being held in a building inside the headquarters by a suicide bomber, who was shot dead.

"They were in a room with a terrorist who was wearing a suicide jacket, but the commandoes acted promptly and gunned him down before he could pull the trigger," said the army's chief spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas.

Three hostages died in the rescue, while two commandoes also died. Four of the five terrorists were killed, said Abbas.

It was the third major terrorist attack to hit Pakistan in six days, and likely was a warning from Pakistani Taliban of the bloodshed that will ensue from the country's planned Washington-backed military offensive in the Waziristan region, the base of country's extremism and an important refuge for insurgents fighting in neighboring Afghanistan.

While other recent attacks resulted in more bloodshed, the target on Saturday was deeply symbolic for a country dominated by its armed forces.

"It's a very, very serious blow to the Pakistani security forces. The symbol of our military might has been attacked," said Imtiaz Gul, chairman of the Center for Research and Security Studies, an independent think tank in Islamabad. "They 1/8the terrorists3/8 wanted to send a strong message that they can strike at will."

Saeed Shah | Islamabad | Oct 8

McClatchy Newspapers - Pakistan's army said Wednesday that it has "serious concern" over conditions attached to a $1.5 billion a year U.S. aid package that Congress approved last month, marking a serious rupture in relations with Washington just before a planned military operation against the Taliban and al Qaida.

The dispute pits Pakistan's powerful army against the fragile civilian government of the Pakistan Peoples Party, which has championed the U.S. assistance deal. Pakistan's political opposition also opposes the aid legislation, which awaits President Barack Obama's signature.

The aid bill, sponsored in the Senate by Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry and Indiana Republican Richard Lugar, was meant to improve the U.S. image in Pakistan. It requires monitoring and certification of Pakistan's action against terrorism and requires the country to work to prevent nuclear proliferation and show that its military isn't interfering in Pakistani politics.

"Everyone wants aid. The problem is the conditions, which are tantamount to holding Pakistan hostage to U.S. designs," said Marvi Memon, an opposition member of parliament. "This is a complete affront to national sovereignty."

I'm betting the Pakistani military would really like control of the money with no conditions ~ tina

Islamabad | Oct 6

DPA - The United Nations temporarily closed its offices across Pakistan on Monday after a suicide bomber struck a UN World Food Programme (WFP) building in Islamabad, killing five people, including an Iraqi national, officials said.

The bomber disguised as a paramilitary soldier blew himself up inside the WFP offices, located in one of the capital city's upmarket neighbourhoods which also contains the private residence of President Asif Ali Zardari.

Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the attacker wearing the uniform of the Frontier Corps paramilitary force, whose soldiers are also deployed in the street, breached the security cordon when private guards allowed him to use the toilet in the WFP offices.

** CSM Media Round Up

Gethin Chamberlain | Delhi | Oct 4

The Observer - India's growing status as an economic superpower is masking a failure to stem a shocking rate of infant deaths among its poorest people.

Nearly two million children under five die every year in India – one every 15 seconds – the highest number anywhere in the world. More than half die in the month after birth and 400,000 in their first 24 hours.

A devastating report by Save the Children, due out on Monday, reveals that the poor are disproportionately affected and the charity accuses the country of failing to provide adequate healthcare for the impoverished majority of its one billion people. While the World Bank predicts that India's economy will be the fastest-growing by next year and the country is an influential force within the G20, World Health Organisation figures show it ranks 171st out of 175 countries for public health spending.

Malnutrition, neonatal diseases, diarrhoea and pneumonia are the major causes of death. Poor rural states are particularly affected by a dearth of health resources. But even in the capital, Delhi, where an estimated 20% of people live in slums, the infant mortality rate is reported to have doubled in a year, though city authorities dispute this.