Take those last few steps

It is amazing how just a couple of sentences spoken long long ago stays in your memory.

I was crippled with a herniated disc when I was in my early 20s and was bed ridden. The pain was excruciating and I couldnt even turn around in the bed, forget standing up (We take so many things for granted - like our ability to stand up, walk, run. I appreciated the value of all those when I was bed ridden, unable even to stand up, all those years ago).

My good family doctor refered me to an Orthopaedician in Coimbatore. Dr.M V Daniel had headed the Ortho department in CMC Vellore and since his retirement was doing private practice in Coimbatore. His treatment was part psychological and part physiological, with emphasis on the former. Courteous to a fault, I learned Customer Relationship Management from him (that is for another post).

He admitted me in his clinic, and in a few days I started walking again, but with a list to the left side and in pain. One day, he called me from the Verandah of the Clinic, asked me to come out of the room. He then told me to walk the length of the long verandah. I did so but with difficulty. When I was about 5 steps away from the end of the Verandah, I turned and returned to where the good Doctor was standing.

He looked at me with searching eyes and told "I am unhappy you did not take those last 5 steps, which you could have, but decided to return not attaining your goal. This is a flaw in your character. I hope you will correct yourself"

That statement stuck my heart like a sharp arrow. I was always very good at commencing things, but had a bad habit of not seeing it to logical conclusion. But since that fateful day, I made a conscious effort to change myself, and today I take every single issue, small or big to the logical conclusion.

49 (O)

A simple amendment to The Representation of  the People Act should cure most of the ills plaguing our Electoral system.

First, dispense away with this first past the post principle, where a guy who gets say 28% of the popular vote (which means 72% have rejected him!!!) gets to become the MP or MLA, only because the second best candidate got 27% of the votes. The winning candidate should get at least 51% of the votes to get elected. If this means having two rounds of elections, then so be it. The second round can be held after eliminating all the candidates from the third place down, and as a straight shoot out between the top two. With EVMs, this should not be difficult. The first round can be held at least two months prior to the final round.

Second, educate the electorate on the 49(O) option available to them. This is an interesting option, though not widely known. Instead of staying at home and not voting, a Voter can go to the Polling Station, and then decide not to cast his vote, and decide to record this fact. Though the original purpose of this clause is to prevent someone from misusing the vote. But this can be a powerful tool as it tackles one of the major problems that face the voter - having to choose between two rotten candidates. Imagine a scenario where majority of the voters excercise the 49(O) option!!. This will mean the political parties having to withdraw undesirable candidates and give the electorate clean, acceptable candidates!!!

Worth a try, isn't it?

PMs non-starter peace initiative

It looks like our PM has been on a back door diplomacy with Pakistan Army Chief Kayani for the past 10 months. Manmohan Singh has failed spectacularly as a PM on all fronts, economic, governance, in tackling corruption and overall is being held in contempt by the politicians and the officialdom. Even the middle class that supported him is wary of him. Now during the last one year of his reign (surely he will resign in time to contest in the next Presidential Election in 2012), he sees peace with Pakistan and the ensuing Nobel Prize as his only option to leave a lasting legacy. But knowing Pakistan, and the saner elements in the Indian officialdom, he is doomed to fail. On the issue of making peace with Pakistan, even those senior advisors in the PMO dont see eye to eye with MMS, and the people of the Country whom the PM is supposed to represent dont want peace with Pakistan at any cost, and definitely not at the cost of India's self esteem. We are paying a heavy price for electing a nincompoop as our PM, and I just hope the PM doesnt succeed in his half witted attempts to make an illusionary peace with Pakistan.

The Education Mess

Kapil Sibal started of with a missionaries zeal when he took over as the Cabinet Minister for Human Resource Development which handles Education in India. But two years into the job, nothing has happened and the rotten system remains the same. With Sibal more interested in protecting the corrupt like Raja, and throwing mud on anti-corruption activists, at Sonia Gandhis behest, the status quo is mainitained in the Education sector and last heard the minister was talking about "political parties, civil society and media must reach a consensus for formulation of policies to take forward higher education in the country", which actually means he has no clue as to what is to be done, and he has no intention of doing anything. Some of his comments yesterday(with my thoughts on it in brackets) are given below,

"Our country cannot make progress without providing education to its youths, particularly at the university level and for this political parties, civil society and the media need to rise beyond 'politics' for formulation of the national higher education policy" ( The biggest stumbling block to progress in education is the Congress party itself. It has ruled the country for nearly 80% of the time since independence, and year after year, it has taken care to starve the sector of adequate funds. Also, it has packed the policy making academicia with left leaning pseudo secular 'so called liberals', who have blindly aped the Western Education system without even adapting it to Indian situation and have totally ignored the tremendous wealth of knowledge in our Vedas and upanishads. In fact some  of the modern scientific concepts were in existence centuries ago in India)

"There was a serious need to promote higher education in the country given the fact that the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) in the universities in the country stood at only 14 per cent as against a minimum of 50 per cent GER in the developed countries"  (This malady is known to all decades ago. Our higher education is in shambles with hardly any emphasis on quality. What prevents the Ministry from setting up exclusive higher education oriented quality Universities that concentrates only on PG and Doctoral programs?)

"It was only by ensuring improvement in the GER in the universities that a country can produce intellectual property and generate the real wealth" (Why the GER is low is because of the reasons mentioned above. The higher education scenario in India is not intellectually stimulating and the top Indian students had been migrating to US for decades now, with Government turning a blind eye to this)

The country needs 40,000 to 45,000 colleges in 2020 as against 26,000 colleges at present and 1000 universities by 2020 against 700 universities at present if it wants to treble the GER from the present figure of 15 million to 45 million by that period (What we need is not quantity, but quality. We made a mess of our education system by stressing on quantity over quality in the UG level to such an extend that most Engineers are unemployable, skillwise)

He said it was not possible on the part of the Centre to fund the required infrastructure for higher education given the resources at its disposal, Sibal also advocated public-private partnership in this sector (Government does not have money for Education alone!! Recover some of the loot, repatriate the money stashed in Swiss Banks and you will have enough to fund the infrastructure development ten times over. Also the private sector teachers, lecturers are paid poorly, and the teaching profession do not attract talent. What prevents the Government from linking major projects given to industrialists with a rider to start a world class university as a pre condition for getting the contract?)

He expressed concern at the shortage of teaching staff in the universities and colleges and said the varsities should run post-graduate and doctoral courses to produce teachers (See comment above. Pay pittance and you get trash. Pay well and you get the best. Simple philosophy)

Sibal was also concerned with lack of quality education in certain universities and colleges in the country and said in order to address the issue, the HRD ministry has created a National Knowledge Network (NKN) under which the students of a particular university can attend classes in another university or college on the internet. (Does it exist? What is the % of utilization? I bet it is not even 1%. 99% of our colleges dont even have projectors nor do they use slides. Then where is the question of attending classes on the net?)

Complicating a simple system

Any change to a system should lead to greater efficiency and speedier solutions. But what if the change leads to worsening of the system?

Take the case of Electronic Voting Machines in the elections. The EVMs were supposed to speed up the election process. And one of its major advantage was its ability to announce the result, technically, within a couple of hours of the last vote being polled. As such, with elections in TN and Kerala over on April 13th, one would have expected the result to be announced within a few hours. Heck! The results were being announced within a day in the good old days when the paper ballot was being used.

But our Election Commission wont have anything of it. They have complicated a simple system (a trade mark Indian trait), clubbed elections of 5 states, spread it over 5 months, and announced that counting will start only after all the elections are over. I fail to understand how the results of Kerala will affect the West Bengal Assembly Elections. I can understand it influencing in a Parliament election, but frankly Kerala elections wont even affect the results of the neighbouring TN, leave alone WB. The surprising part is that, no one is raising their voice against the stupidity of the Election Commission.There is another flip side to this. The people have voted one way or other, and in some cases the incumbent party in power would have been shown the door by the voters. But the party and its CM continues to rule for a further period of one month, during which they can do lot of damage. Imagine DMK knowing through its own exit polls that they may lose. They can use the one month period to destroy all evidence of wrong doing and corruption, as they are still in power. The ministers can also take any decisions as they deem fit, as they are not covered by the election commission guidelines as the polls are over!! Imagine how much damage they can do by favouring their cronies!!!

Either Election Commission should conduct the polls within a span of 3-4 days or they should allow separate counting of votes.

P.S : I heard that the political parties in TN have deployed their party cadres to keep a vigil on the EVMs to avoid them being 'tampered'!!! Gosh! which era are they living in!!!! The 'tampering' of EVM can be done by tinkering with the software 'much before' the first vote is cast. How it is done is by writing a program that will ensure all the 3rd, 5th, 7th , 9th vote cast will automatically be logged against a particular party. What can a physical vigil do to prevent this??People are so naive.

Doing things 'Correctly Wrongly'

It is bad enough that we have a Prime Minister who is not elected directly by the people. It is well known that MMS has never won even a Municipal election. He contested only once and got beaten royally in Delhi. He validated his PM post by getting elected to Rajya Sabha from Assam, of all places. The Rajya Sabha was designed to give proportional representation to the people of a State, and in spirit the RS seat should go to a local. MMS has falsified records to show he stays in Assam, when he has never done so, and got elected twice from Assam.

But the PM of our Great Democracy doesn't seem to think much of democracy nor about his responsibility as a citizen of this democracy. He didn't cast his vote in the recently concluded Assam bye election, where he is a registered voter!!!!.

Do we need any more evidence to 'prove' the 'democratic credentials' of the PM of this biggest democracy in the world?

Really, our PM has to have his head examined or change his advisors. That is assuming he can't think for himself.

I used to remark of an acquaintance of mine - "He does everything correctly wrongly"

This is true of MMS.

Invest in Mixie and Grinder Companies!!!

Budhirakshasan looked exhausted after a gruelling day monitoring the polling in Tamil Nadu.

"BR. What news from the ground level?"

"Swamy, do you know that the hottest selling book in Tamil Nadu is 'Das Kapital'?

"What the heck has Dravidian parties got to do with Communism?"

"They are the true communists. They have literally taken to heart the concept of equitable distribution of loot (err...sorry 'wealth')"

"umm"

"Communism calls for taking money from the rich and distributing amongst the poor. DMK took money from the rich industrialists by way of kick backs and during election time distributed as cash to the tune of Rs 5000 per voter. If that is not equitable distribution of wealth, then what is?"

"You have a point BR"

"And they are also ensured of the Minority community votes"

This baffled me "eh?"

"The minority community has more voter per family, thanks to the higher birth rate in the community. Imagine a family of 8 voters getting Rs 40,000, while a small majority community family of 3 gets only Rs 15,000. Now even Arundhati Roy or Teesta Setalvad can't accuse the politicians of discriminating against the minorities"

"That is an interesting angle"

"There is only one hitch"

"???"

"Latest census figures show that Tamil Nadu has one of the best records on population control, second only to Kerala. But now the people have an incentive to be more reproductive"

"Bigger the family, better"

"By the way, if you are into stock market, invest in Mixie or Grinder companies. You will hit a jackpot post elections. These companies might soon be raising more capital to fund their expansion plans!!!!"

Proposed Constitutional Amendment

My friend Budhirakshasan informed me that a Constitutional Amendment of the Third Schedule of the Constitution of India is to be introduced in the Winter Session of the Parliament. It is expected that the Amendment will be passed unanimously. It is also felt that the Amendment is necessary to keep in line with the changes that have taken place in the political and governance scenario.

If you are wondering what it pertains to, then it is about changing the wordings of the oath of office taken by the Ministers of the Union Council of Ministers.

The current clause is as follows,

THIRD SCHEDULE

[Articles 75(4), 99, 124(6), 148(2), 164(3), 188 and 2191

Forms of Oaths or Affirmations

I. Form of oath of office for a Minister for the Union :

I, Mr./Ms....................................., do swear in the name of God that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India as by law established, that I will uphold the sovereignty and integrity of India that I will faithfully and conscientiously discharge my duties as a Minister for the Union and that I will do right to all manner of people in accordance with the Constitution and the law, without fear or favour, affection or ill-will.

The proposed amendment is as follows,

 

I, Mr./Ms....................................., do swear in the name of God that I will bear true faith and allegiance to myself, my family, my friends, my business cronies, people who funded my election/party against the law established, that I will uphold their best interests at all time, that I will unfaithfully and unconscientiously discharge my duties as a Minister for the Union and that I will do wrong to all manner of people in violation of the Constitution and the law, without fear or favour, but with affection or ill-will.

I told you so....................

I am not one of those who say 'I told you so'.

But in the case of Anna Hazare fast, I have to.

I am still skeptical about the whole issue. Read some excepts from the media below,

A senior government functionary conceded that the manner in which the PM handled the issue and the government's ineffectiveness in nipping the entire movement in the bud speaks volumes for the mismanagement within the government.

Till as late as Thursday night, the government was hopeful that the issue would be sidetracked once the Indian Premier League started, according to a senior functionary in the Prime Minister's Office.

 

Since Sonia Gandhi's public appeal to Hazare on Thursday to end his fast, there has been a flurry of political activity, with the Congress president calling a meeting of the core committee on Friday morning before she left for Assam.

So, once again, PM Manmohan Singh has mishandled an issue and the Queen has intervened to do the damage control. How many times have we seen this drama being enacted.

There are many unanswered questions,

The panel contains 50% from the Government and 50% from the Civil Society. Fair enough. But why is it that no one from the Opposition Parties is in the panel? Why did the Government call an all party meeting before announcing the deal? Surely, the Government cannot hope to pass the bill without the Opposition support in both the Houses of Parliament.

There is this funny statement that Government thought an agitation on Corruption will die down once IPL starts. I dont believe it, but I dread to think of the implications if that were to be true. How juveline!

It is also amusing to see Rahul Gandhi going underground when the agitation was on. He was in the forefront during the IPL later stages. Doesnt tell much about the priorities of the PM in waiting.

My other worry is that the Scams like 2G, CWG, Adarsh Housing etc will be pushed under the carpet now, with Government taking the moral high ground that they are enacting an act against corruption.

While 2G Scam is being monitored by Supreme Court, it is noteworthy that the notional loss to exchequer as per the Charge Sheet is around 40,000 crores and not 1.76 lakhs crore. There is a huge discrepency here.  The Government has been dragging its feet on the CWG Scam as it involves only Congressmen. The Shinglu committee report that indicted Delhi CM Sheila Dixit , Lt General and Kalmadi is buried for now. Kalmadi has not even been arrested. No effort has been made to chase the money trail. Only some poor third level bureaucrats have been taken into custody so far. The probe will reach no where. And everyone has already forgotten the Adarsh Scam.

Enacting a Lok Pal bill with teeth is to prevent future scams, but what about the current mega scams?

Will the culprits be brought to justice? Why is there no mass movements against these Scams?

Let us put things in perspective..................

You would have noticed that in my earlier post, I was cautious about the outcome of the Anna Hazare fast. I have been watching a bit skeptically the hyper coverage of the event in the visual media.

Whenever our juveline english visual media takes up a crusade and blows it out of proportion without a balanced judgement, I start smelling a rat. And when I see the usual activist suspects like Medha Patkar, Swami Agnivesh, Mallika Sarabhai, and Anupam Kher in the forefront, my antenna really started tingling. Though initially enthused that someone has finally emerged from the civil society to put a check on the society, I tried to be objective and looked for inconsistency.

First thing I noticed was how the television cameras always never panned the whole crowd, but was showing only people in 3-4 rows at best. I know this trick being a photographer myself. This is a clear indicator that the crowd was nowhere near what is being claimed. Second issue was that the so called agitation in other cities was limited to 3-4 towns and even there we could see only a handful of people, including some poor school kids. The agitation just lacks the popular support. It is limited to a few educated professionals/activists, who anyway do not vote in the elections.

The protesters claimed that they have a groundswell of popular support. But when a reporter asked Anna Hazare why he did not contest the elections, he let it slip that 'he wont even get his deposit back' if he were to do so, thereby admitting his lack of popular base.

Also, it is noteworthy that no major businessman has come forward in support, except a couple.

Then I read this piece in the Open Magazine, and my worst fears were confirmed. Manu Josesph is a respected journalist, and the guy who blew open the nexus between media, government and business using the Nira Radia Tapes.

Of late the media and the activists have been trying to hijack the agenda of the nation without an iota of accountability. I do admit the Government and the Politicians have failed us splendidly. I do admit that corruption levels have touched the stratosphere. But the alternate as suggested by the media and the activists is no way going to solve the issue. It is not as if they are clean themselves. That the media in India is corrupt is no secret. They carry paid news, blatantly support one party to get advertisement revenue and other favours. The activists have been found to be both morally and financially corrupt themselves. The falsification of evidence and witness conducted by Teesta Setalvad in the Gujarat Riot case is well knows, and it is an open fact that most of the NGOs run by these so called activists have unaccounted foreign money. This is almost like the pot calling the kettle black.

Still, I would be happy if this fast leads to a bit more accountability from the Government. But let us not get carried away by the media hype, and view things in proper perspective. We do not want to jump from the frying pan to the fire. We dont want one monster replacing another.

P.S: It is no secret that the National Advisory Council, comprising of activists from civil society, tacitly supports Anna Hazare. Somehow I have a feeling that this whole agitation is stage managed. Government is taking a far too rigid stand, making Manmohan Singh look silly and guilty. When that happens, it only means one thing. The stage will be set for Sonia to enter the fray, 'give directions' to the Government to accept Anna Hazares terms and again don the 'mantle of goody goody lady' without any accountability. If that happens, and I do believe it will in the next 48 hours, then that will be a big let down for the public.

I wish..................

Is Social Activist Anna Hazare's fast for an inclusive dialogue on the proposed Lok Pal bill and the support it has received from the urban educated professionals, the first sign of civil society shedding its passivity?

I wish it were. For long, we, the civil society, has been a passive witness to our country being taken to the cleaners by the corrupt politicians and bureaucrats who are a law unto themselves, and have become more brazen as the years advanced. They are accountable to none and with judiciary taking ages to come out with a verdict, these scums have got away with it time and again.

The attitude of the civil society was muted at best. Though there were animated discussions in the drawing rooms, none came forward to take on the responsibility of airing it in public or taking direct action. In fact, most of the educated did not even bother to excercise their franchise. This 'Let someone else bell the cat, not me' syndrome has taken our country to the brink of anarchy.

We need to see how the movement of Anna Hazare pans out. It is bound to fail if it were confined to the metros and the educated professionals. There is a need to include the simple common rural folk too. If that happens, then this could be the change that India so badly needs.

Jayaprakash Narayan led a movement against the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi in mid 70s.With the political leaders across the parties failing us splendidly over the past decade, it is high time someone from the civil society led us from the front.

But will this fast lead to a better, cleaner, transparent India? Is this the tip of an iceberg? or will this fizzle out? Only time will tell.

But I wish, really wish, this fast is the harbinger of better things to come.

A Victory to Savour

Though we won the World Cup in 1983, that victory was considered a fluke, as West Indies was so dominant those days. In a way it was right, for they thrashed us in the ODI series that followed the World Cup, as if to prove a point.

This time it is different. We went into the tournament as favourites, and lived upto the expectations. We took out the four time winner Australia, a resurgent Pakistan and a solid Srilanka in the knock out stages, no mean achievement. We were the dominant team and we deserved to win.

This World Cup proved that 50 over cricket is not dead and buried under the avalanche of T20. The final was a classic and the intense. This World Cup has given a fresh lease of life to the 50 over cricket. There is space for all the three forms of Cricket and perhaps even for the Day and Night Test Cricket with Pink balls that is on the horizon. Of all the sports, cricket has been reinventing itself periodically, and it is good for the game.

A redeeming feature of this World Cup was the death of bits and pieces cricketers who had helped lower the standards of this game over the past couple of decades. This World Cup was all about pure quality batsman and pure quality bowlers. India, which has been guilty of packing the team with bits and pieces unworthies, for once went back to the basics and chose batsmen who could bat and bowlers who could bowl, and none of the stupid 'guys who can bat and bowl a bit'. Indias 5 batsmen were all pure batsmen, though a couple could turn their arms a bit. Yuvraj and Dhoni were the difference - the all rounders. Yuvraj's form with the ball helped MSD to do away with Yusuf Pathan, who can be called the bits and pieces player. And we had genuine bowlers in Zaheer, Munaf, Nehra, Harbhajan, Sreesanth - none of them had great claims as batsmen. This development of specialists manning key slots augurs well for the future.

This WC  has also silenced the White lobby which seethed at the financial clout of the Asian nations. They had sniggered at BCCI and other Asian Boards that we enjoy far more clout than we deserve purely on financial reasons, and not on cricketing reasons. The fact that 3 of the 4 finalists were from the Sub Continent, and India is the Test and ODI No.1, and holds the WC should shut the naysayers up once for all. The power of world cricket has shifted to the Asia.

While celebrating the WC win, we should remember that while it is tough to reach the top, it is tougher to stay there. We need to plan ahead. A replacement for Gary Kirsten must be found as quickly as possible. We also need a good bowling coach. Sachin has achieved all that he can in the ODI. Surely, he will hang his boots from ODI shortly. This will extend his Test Career also. At any rate, he wont be a permanent fixture in the ODI team in the short term - he might play an odd match here and there. Sehwag, Gambhir, Kohli, Raina, Yuvraj, Dhoni will ensure the batting is not found wanting. But we need to strengthen our bench. It is  time to have a look at Manish Pandey, Ambati Rayudu and Cheteswar Pujara - all technically brilliant players and wonderful fielders to boot. There is no point in going back to Rohit Sharma or Robin Uthappa. Let us look ahead. Bowling is a cause for worry. Despite his poor performance in the WC, Sreesanth is the most technically sound bowler. We are tired of his tantrums but that is something a good mentor and a mental conditioner can take care of. Remember, Zaheer was a hot head once, and look how matured he is now. The medium pace cupboard is bare for now. We have to take a gamble, induct couple of promising ones from those available and groom them. Surely, Ashwin should be given a longer run in ODIs and Pragyan Ojha should be there too. He is the best left arm spinner in the country, though his fielding is below par. Maybe this IPL should throw up some good spinning options.

A very satisfying victory and a World Cup well organized. And thank god it passed off without any major terrorist incidents. And Bombay deserved this victory after the harrowing experience of 26/11.

For a country that has heard nothing but bad news on the economic and politcal front during the past one year, this is a cause for cheer. But let us not allow any politician to gloat in this victory. This was achieved by the Cricketers, and them alone. Also, spare a thought for BCCI. The much maligned Board did provide the right facilities to the team by way of support staff and a bunch of no nonsense selectors.

It is a nice feeling to be on top of the world and for me the victory has still not sunk in.

Let us savour it while it lasts.

Stray thoughts...............................

Stray thoughts.................

One would have thought a 'No-Fly Zone' over Libya by UN (which itself is questionable as the airspace over a country is its sovereign territory) would be just that - not allowing Libyan fighter jets to fly over Libya and bomb rebels, and if they indeed did so, then to take the jets out with firepower. Fair enough - as no country should be using its Air Force to bomb its own countrymen. But when has a 'No Fly Zone' become an authorization to bomb Libyan towns and ground forces indiscreminately? And why is the UN keeping quiet about this blatant violation of its mandate. US and other western power dont seem to learn from the mistakes they made in Iraq. The Iraq invasion was for oil - pure and simple. But 8 years after the act, US is all but kicked out of Iraq, still has not much access to Iraq oil and even teh Iraqi people are not getting the benefit of the oil, as it is siphoned off by a few crooks in the power. Next obvious question is 'what moral or legal right has any country in interfering in the internal affairs of another country?' as is being done in Libya. As despicable as Gaddafi is (I hold no brief for him), overthrowing him has to an internal affair of the Libyan people. They have to find a solution themselves. Dont tell me it is not possible. Popular uprisings changed regimes in Egypt and Tunisia, and seems to be on the verge of doing an encore in Yemen. The Libyan people have to be more organized in their protests to throw out the dictator. Other countries have absolutely no say in this. This is the same UN that kept quiet when Tamil Rebels were massacred by the Srilankan Army or when Bahrain crushed the dissidents with brute force, just to give a couple of recent examples. The bombings in Libya by the Western Countris is wrong and will only help to make the world unstable.

What did MMS - Gilani meeting achieve? Nothing. It has once again made us a laughing stock in front of the world for being soft towards Pakistan. Lame duck Prime Ministers get these urges to leave a legacy which should be curbed at all costs. When will the powers be realize that Pakistan hates us and would do everything in their capacity to cripple India. The very edifice of Pakistan is construcated on an anti India Platform. Only saving grace was that the ordeal ensure poor Gilani had to sit through and watch Pakistan losing. The guy went back humiliated. Dont tell me it was only a cricket match. The problem with Indian political leadership is that most of our top leaders are 75 plus who were born pre independence (and as in the case of MMS and L K Advani in towns which are in Pakistan now) and have nostalgic memories about the country. This is not a sentiment shared by the post independence born people (Pakistan has already made this transition - their current leaders are born post independence), who dont believe that India and Pakistan has the same umbilical cord connection. We need to be tough with Pakistan. We are in a position of strength. We are economically and politically superior. Pakistan needs us more than we need them. Take out the US aid and see where it leaves Pakistan! And one would have expected that in international negotiations it is the superior party that holds all aces. We dont seem to be, and that is because we engage Pakistan to bend over backwards to please US.