VIJAY PRASHAD
Prashad just wrote the piece "The Fires in South Asia." He said today:
"Disoriented, the [Indian] state seeks easy solutions: more draconian
legislation, more fiery rhetoric, and more warmongering. The Congress
[Party]-led government is pushed from the right by the [Hindu
nationalist] BJP, which seems to want an instant attack on Pakistan, a
sort of Bush reaction to 9/11.

"Those in the government in charge of intelligence and security have
been sacked. ... In parliamentary India there is a measure of
accountability from the government, in contrast to our system, where
the people are accountable to the highest elected official." Author of The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World, Prashad is chair of South Asian history and director of international studies at Trinity College, in Hartford, Connecticut.
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JACQUELINE CABASSO
Cabasso is executive director of the Western States Legal Foundation,
which monitors nuclear weapons policy, and is a contributor to the book
Nuclear Disorder or Cooperative Security?
She said today: "The situation between India and Pakistan is always
especially crucial because they both have nuclear weapons and because
of the instability of the region. The recent U.S.-India nuclear deal,
which was backed by Obama, Clinton and Biden -- Biden really pushed for
it -- has undermined non-proliferation efforts."

Cabasso recently won the Sean MacBride Peace Prize. For Cabasso's
acceptance address, as well as a recent Q and A "Will Nuclear
Disarmament Be on Obama's Agenda" -- see wslfweb.org.

She notes that the nuclear weapons industry is attempting to prevent any meaningful disarmament efforts and is organizing the First Annual Nuclear Deterrence Summit which begins Tuesday.