Complete Rediff.Com article here

United States President Barack Obama  has ended years of 'veto power' wielded by Pakistan in Afghanistan over India's active involvement in the country post-Taliban, a US expert on South Asia has said.

Because of Pakistan's stiff resistance and opposition to involve India in any way in Afghanistan that the Bush administration was literally prevented to take any move to include New Delhi as part of its regional strategy on Afghanistan, Deepa Ollapally, Associate Director of George Washington University's Sigur Center for Asian Studies, said in a Congressional testimony on Afghanistan.

"So far, the US government has refrained from including India in regional political efforts in Afghanistan, basically bending to Pakistan's sentiments. India has obviously not been happy with this state of affairs, but it has pushed ahead with development assistance instead," she said in her testimony before the National Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

"The new plan that was announced (by Obama) on Friday, which will include an international contact group which will involve India I think is a step in the right direction," she said.

Read Complete Rediff.com Article Here

Excerpts from the article below..

'But for me, Kerala would have become a Kashmir'

It was the disputed Ponnani seat that made Madani the most-sought-after man again in Kerala. Though some of the constituents of the Left Front were against having a tie-up with the PDP in Ponnani, CPI-M state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan had the final say.

In New Delhi, CPI national general secretary A B Bardhan went to the extent of saying that Madani is a terrorist. But the Big Brother CPI-M did not agree with the view and the Madani is having the last laugh.

Since then, it is Madani who gets the biggest political space in the media. The firebrand leader spoke to Arun Lakshman in an exclusive interview at his Kochi residence.

The Kerala election scene is now revolving around the "unholy" alliance made by the Left Parties, more specifically the CPI-M made with you. What do you say?

The campaign on the PDP having an unholy alliance with the Left is intended to divert major serious issues in the state, including the United Progressive Alliance government's failures. I feel there is a concerted effort on the part of certain groups from the (Congress-led) United Democratic Front side to unleash such a malicious campaign.

The PDP is considered as a communal party and there are allegations that you created a communal atmosphere in the state?

The PDP has never been a communal political party. In fact the PDP is always a political party for the people and is actively involved in grassroot activities, not bothering about vote banks. The party and its cadres have been doing tremendous social activities, which helped all communities and the PDP cadres are drawn from all the communities including Hindus, Muslims and Christians. PDP vice-chairman Varkala Raj is a Brahmin and is in the party for the last 15 years. He has climbed the ladder of the party hierarchy starting off as the Varkala block president. The charges against me are as baseless.

Can you mention some of the social activities your organisation?

The PDP was actively involved in bringing solace to the people of Pathanamthitta when the deadly chickungunya epidemic broke out in the area. Our 200 full-time workers of the party were actively working in the area to help the people reeling from the epidemic and the Pathanamthitta district committee of the party bought an ambulance which was put into service. Since then the PDP has been concentrating more on the deprived and oppressed classes and now has 40 ambulances. These are brought not from the contributions from the public, but from the contributions of the party cadres and workers. We have not collected a single paisa from the Gulf countries or other places but have always been supported by the party workers.

You have alleged that the Indian Union Muslim League was targeting you and your party. Is there any truth or is it just a political allegation?

The Indian Union Muslim League is a political party which has direct involvement in the partition of the country. The present Muslim League has not transformed much from the party of 1946 which was directly demanding for the partition of the country. Even the flag of the IUML and that of Pakistan are similar. The League is a political party which does not have any non-Muslim in its ranks, even at the lower-most party office-bearers in Malappuram. Then how can the party claim that it is a secular one. The Muslim League is attacking me because it feels that the oppressed and the suppressed including the Muslim community would flock to the PDP.

 Read Complete Rediff.com Article Here

Read the complete Article here

The London gathering of supercars is going to be a rich affair, with seven supercars scheduled for their UK debut, while the Veritas RS III will get its World Premiere at the event. The Veritas RS III is powered by engines sourced from BMW M-series lineup, with options of 480hp V8 or 600hp V10. It goes from zero to 60 mph in nearly three seconds, all the way to a top speed that is in excess of 200mph, without any engine or electronic aids. The $375,000 car will rarely be seen on the streets, as only 50 units will be produced.

Cars getting a UK debut at the show include Maserati Quattroporte GT S, Maybach Zepplin, Morgan Aero Super Sport and the Aston Martin One-77. Needless to say, a number of exotic and rare cars will also mark their presence at the event.

Read the complete Article here

Read the complete Rediff.com Article here

In the past few days, while giving the impression that they have lost faith in the civilian government of Pakistani President Asif Zardari, who meets with President Barack Obama on Wednesday at the White House, senior Pentagon officials have gone to bat for the Pakistani military defending even its slow counter-insurgency mobilization efforts against the Taliban and its entrenched threat perception vis-�-vis India.

These officials have also made clear that the Pentagon has complete confidence that the nuclear arsenal of Pakistan is secure thanks to the Pakistani Army and seemingly revealed that the US has been working with it in making sure that these weapons don't fall into the hands of the terrorists whether it be the Taliban extremists or the Al Qaeda.

Over the weekend, Defense Secretary Robert Gates appearing on CNN's Fareed Zakaria  GPS program said, he believed the Pakistani Army had begun to regain the initiative from the Taliban following the Army onslaught against the extremists in the Buner region.

'I think the movement of the Taliban into Buner really got their attention,' he said, but when confronted with the contention that the Pakistani Army has been in denial about the existential threat from within and has continued to perceive India as its moral enemy argued, 'What you have to do is look at it in some historical context.'

Gates said, 'For 60 years, Pakistan has regarded India as its existential threat -- as the main enemy. And, its forces are trained to deal with that threat. That's where it has the bulk of its Army and the bulk of its military capability.'

Read the complete Rediff.com Article here 

read complete rediff.com article 'Next generation of dreaded terrorists will come from Pak' here

 Exceprt given below.

"If rapid Talibanisation of Pakistan continues, the next generation of the world's most sophisticated terrorists will be born, indoctrinated, and trained in the nuclear-armed Pakistan, an American think tank on Tuesday said in a report.

"Today, Al-Qaeda's  top leadership is most likely based in Pakistan, along with top Taliban  leaders, both Afghan and Pakistani," said the report 'From AfPak to PakAf: A Response to the New US Strategy for South Asia' prepared by the Council on Foreign Relations.

The "Talibanisation" of Pakistan's Pashtun belt is gradually moving eastward into settled districts, creating new terrorist safe havens in once-tranquil locales such as the Swat valley, said the report authored by Daniel Markey.

"Pakistan's non-Pashtun extremist and sectarian groups, some of which were historically nurtured by the state as a means to project influence into India and Afghanistan, also have the potential to prove deeply destabilising," it added.

Further groups like the banned Jaish-e-Mohammed or Jamaat-ud-Dawah are well resourced and globally interconnected. Some appear to retain significant influence within state institutions and enjoy public sympathy, in certain cases because of the social services they provide, the report said.

It said over the past two years, the security environment in Afghanistan and Pakistan has taken a significant turn for the worse. The spread of militancy, whether by terrorists connected with the Al-Qaeda, the Taliban of Mullah Omar  or Baitullah Mehsud, criminal gangs, narco-traffickers, or sectarian extremists, among others, has destabilised the Pashtun belt in southern and eastern Afghanistan as well as western Pakistan.

"At the same time, a range of other violent actors from Punjabi anti-Indian extremists to Central Asian warlords-operate in the non-Pashtun areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan," the report said, adding Pakistan and Afghanistan offer these groups an unusually hospitable environment, one that complicates and magnifies the danger."

Read Complete Rediff.com Article here

'There's no need for jihad in Kashmir'

Contrary to what he had been told in Pakistan, Kashmiris were not facing any oppression, he said.

Syed Moinullah Shah, cadre of the Pakistan-based Hizbul Mujahideen -- part of the group of 31 terrorists who crossed over the LOC recently -- said that after seeing the conditions of Kashmiri Muslims he wanted to go back rather than carry on with jihad.

Read Complete Rediff.com Article here 

Read complete Rediff.com Article here along with pics

Terror training schools, teaching hundreds of new and young recruits in suicide missions and the use of sophisticated weapons, have been active in many parts of Pakistan, including Punjab, the North West Frontier Province, Waziristan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir.

Different terrorist groups, including the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, often with the help of former Pakistan army soldiers, run these schools or camps. The syllabus, the training and indoctrination are far more sophisticated than the pre-9/11 training camps.

The terrorists who attacked Mumbai on November 26, 2008, and killed over 160 people were trained in one or two of these schools where several hundred others have been undergoing training for more than two years.

Wilson John, a Senior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, reveals how Pakistan's duplicitous policy on terrorism threatens, and will continue to threaten, not only India but also the western world in the years to come.

Read complete Rediff.com Article here along with pics 

Read the complete TheHindu Article here

NEW DELHI: India has renewed the formal request to Sri Lanka for the extradition of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) leader V. Prabakaran in case he is captured alive from the narrow strip of land where is widely believed to be hiding, according to reliable sources.

India has been renewing the request for extradition of Prabakaran, a proclaimed offender in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, at every available opportunity and this was done during a recent visit of Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon to Sri Lanka.

Read the complete TheHindu Article here