Mappings

Kissinger and the 'Barrahmundi'

Posted by Jyoti Malhotra at 
The most interesting food on the menu at the Henry Kissinger lunch read ‘Barrahmundi,' and I wondered how the Oberoi hotel would serve up a twelve-headed monster on fine bone china (with oyster sauce and capers on the side?), but it turned out to be alright in the end. The fearsome monster turned out to be a fillet of fish from Australia; the waiter...

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Not trusting your neighbour

Posted by Jyoti Malhotra at 
The huge trust deficit between India and Pakistan is underlined by a Friends of Pakistan forum which met in Abu Dhabi on Monday, to help bridge the massive economic crisis that Paksitan currently faces. The IMF has given it a $7.6 billion loan so far, but Pakistan needs so much more money to stem several rising tides. Who were these friends do you think...

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The states of religion

Posted by Jyoti Malhotra at 
If you chanced to watch, on November 11 on Doordarshan, the oath-taking ceremony of Mohammed Nasheed as the new president of the Maldives, then you might have guessed from the “Bismillah” at the beginning of it all that the Maldives is officially a Muslim country. According to the Maldivian constitution, every Maldivian must be a Muslim. There are only...

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Paradise regained in the Maldives

Posted by Jyoti Malhotra at 
There are so many truths about the Maldives, possibly the world’s smallest democracy – a voting population of 208,000 recently elected Mohammed Nasheed, a former “prisoner of conscience” according to Amnesty International as its newest President a few weeks ago – that I thought I would put down a few I had recently come across. Truth no 1 : Paradise...

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From Iraq to Chattisgarh, a people's war

Posted by Jyoti Malhotra at 
From Iraq to Chattisgarh & Jammu & Kashmir provinces in India, via Afghanistan, a people's referendum on the use of force to settle scores and fix governance issues is underway. In Iraq, the US-led coalition persuaded some Sunni tribes about a year ago to rise up against the Al-Qaeda. These so-called "self-help groups", many of...

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Outsiders, leave Delhi !

Posted by Jyoti Malhotra at 
If you havent had enough of Raj Thackeray's goons throwing out Biharis from Maharashtra, then read on...For the last few days, my newspaper bundle has been leavened with thin yellow sheets of paper, typically used for local city advertisements, which say in bold black letters : Outsiders Should Leave Delhi. Here is what it says : "Delhi belongs...

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United Colours of India

Posted by Jyoti Malhotra at 
Throw out the garbage, empty yesterday's wine bottles, ring out the old...the New World has a new leader and his name is Barack Obama. Okay, so what does that mean for India? Like no other country in the world, India is compellingly similar to the diversity of America. Mayawati became chief minister of Uttar Pradesh -- and therefore began to wield...

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Financing the President

Posted by Jyoti Malhotra at 
Barack Obama refused the $84 million being offered by the state to finance his election, although John McCain took it. The way Obama widened the net, using the Internet to lobby ordinary voters to sign small cheques, to create a mammoth network of election offices (more than 700 compared to 330 of McCain) has transformed the American election. For the...

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India has an Obama dream

Posted by Jyoti Malhotra at 
Tonight’s the night, when the world’s oldest democracy makes history. Democrat or Republican, the new US president is certain to change the world. So even as Mint openly endorsed Barack Obama for President a few days ago, several other Indian newspapers used their front pages to plug John McCain, arguing that a Republican president will be much more...

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Tea-bag tales in China

Posted by Jyoti Malhotra at 
The tea-bag in my room at the Marriott City Wall hotel, built cheek by jowl next to a remnant of the ancient Great Wall that once ringed Beijing so as keep out the foreigner, is a classic example of the spirit of globalisation that China adopted with such determined enthusiasm 30 years ago. That, of course, was in 1978 when then vice-premier Deng Xiaoping...

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The East is red -- and bleeding

Posted by Jyoti Malhotra at 
The East has been red for a while, but these days its also bleeding. The people's anthem during China's Cultural Revolution is taking on new meaning as Asia's markets hit a new low on Thursday even as Alan Greenspan, the former chief of the US Federal Bank admitted that he'd made "a mistake" in allowing the economy to wander...

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The Japanese come in 2X2

Posted by Jyoti Malhotra at 
Prime Minister of Japan, said the gold plaque on the lectern in the media briefing room in the Prime Minister’s residence. Another lectern stood a couple of feet away, and it had an identical plaque on it. Were we seeing right, or were the Japanese still under the Noah Ark spell? The double take didn’t end there : Right behind the lecterns stood four...

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The Japanese gardener

Posted by Jyoti Malhotra at 
The Japanese restaurant in the hotel overlooks, what else, a Japanese garden. As you tuck into your miso soup and your sashimi, the idea is to contemplate the perfectly manicured hedge that gently follows the contour of the land, turning an elongated ‘S’ shape and dividing the picture postcard view into two. An artificial stream nudges the hedge at...

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Renkoji Temple Inc.

Posted by Jyoti Malhotra at 
On board the PM's aircraft to Tokyo, the question, asked by a Bengali journalist, had to come up sooner than later. What was the government doing about Subhas Chandra Bose's ashes, lying in the Renkoji temple in Tokyo? Was the PM going to raise the matter during this visit? The Two Officials Who Cannot be Named, because their briefing was conducted...

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Just like Krugman

Posted by Jyoti Malhotra at 
Trust all the PM’s men to say nice things about him all the time. Just like Paul Krugman, the economist-***-columnist for the New York Times, said one of them this afternoon on board Air India One to Tokyo, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh predicted the downturn in the global financial markets. Oh really? If you did a double-take, you are hereby ordered...

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