To assist the corporate bottom line, the Obama Administration is peddling the worst sort of wares abroad.
BHOPAL - Unable to steer safely in the mud, the driver of our rickshaw pulls into the side of the road to allow us to take shelter from torrential rain. There, under a shop's awning, a small crowd of people are standing together waiting for the weather to break. They include Sapna Sharma and her brother-in-law, Sanjay. Sanjay is holding his 18-month-old nephew, Anshul, who has kohl-rimmed eyes and silver bracelets on his ankles. As we stand talking, some of the people start pointing to the child's hands and feet while speaking animatedly to us in Hindi.
YAVATMAL, India - Eleven-year-old Digambar Rathod looks older than his age. Shy and uncertain, he stares disconcertedly at the garlanded photograph of his father Jaideep, a 42-year-old cotton farmer who committed suicide on Jan. 1, 2009 in Tiwsala village, in eastern Maharashtra state's suicide-torn Yavatmal district.
As the new head of the household, the boy-turned-farmer has adult responsibilities like the repayment of a bank loan of 190,000 rupees (roughly 3,960 dollars) that was the cause of his father's death.
"How is India?" asked an
erudite friend of mine from North America soon after I reached India
last December.
Over 1,500 farmers in an Indian state committed suicide after being driven to debt by crop failure, it was reported today.
The agricultural state of Chattisgarh was hit by falling water levels.
"The water level has gone down below 250 feet here. It used to be at 40 feet a few years ago," Shatrughan Sahu, a villager in one of the districts, told Down To Earth magazine
"Most of the farmers here are indebted and only God can save the ones who do not have a bore well."
NEW DELHI - One recent morning, as she'd done most days over the past 20 years, Fatima Begum left her hovel in a slum tucked in the corner of this city's diplomatic enclave and shuffled to a nearby dumpster to begin her work day.
As Begum began to root through refuse, searching for bottles, old light bulbs, and anything else that might be recyclable, someone punched the 65-year-old in the back of the head. She collapsed. Her attacker continued to punch and kick her.
NEW DELHI - India successfully tested a supersonic cruise missile Tuesday in a remote desert close to the Pakistan border, officials said, amid continuing tensions with its nuclear-armed rival over the November attacks in Mumbai.
Indian officials say the launch of the Brahmos was only part of ongoing reliability tests, but some analysts say the timing was sensitive and could alarm Pakistan.
"The test was successful," a defense ministry spokesman said, without giving details.
There
is a deep affinity between the United States and Israel. I'm not
talking about the Israel Lobby, which concentrates its influence in
Washington. Or the connections between neoconservatives and the Israeli
right wing. Or the rhapsodizing of fundamentalist Christians, who
embrace Israel as part of their scenario for the Apocalypse.
ISLAMABAD - Pakistan has redeployed thousands of troops to the border with India, officials said Friday, in a dramatic escalation of tensions with New Delhi in the wake of the Mumbai attacks.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh summoned his military chiefs to review New Delhi's "defence preparedness" while his foreign ministry advised Indians not to travel to Pakistan, saying it was unsafe for them to be in the country.
Peace activists in Pakistan and India are
attempting desperately to be heard above the din raised by warmongers -
elitist by all counts and claiming to be patriotic as well - in the
wake of the Mumbai carnage. Jingoism is in the air - be it from
so-called nationalists (posing as analysts on television) advocating a
nuclear attack for the defense of their country, or the man on the
street. Be they from Pakistan or India, they speak of war with great
abandon as if it is child's play. For the electronic media it is a race
for sensationalism.
