Random Thoughts - Pattabhi Sitaraman

India had, in vain, attempted to bring the focus of the world on to terrorism for decades. Most of the times the western countries looked at the cross border terrorism in India as only a border skirmishes between the neighbors and nothing more.  No credence was given to the Indian voice against terrorism.  But the September 11, 2001 attack on the world trade center in New York and later the November 26, 2008 attack on Mumbai shook the world out of its comfortable denial of terrorism.  Despite the USA's actions against terrorism in Afghanistan and supporting Pakistan to combat terrorism, nothing concrete came out of it. Pakistan played its double role very well in the global theater and promised the western world that it was fighting the terrorists as they themselves are a victim of terrorism.   As the new government took over in New Delhi in May 2014, the prime minister Narendra Modi made it a point to visit as many countries as possible in as li...

The elections to the national parliament had been announced by the Election Commission of India.  Once again, after a five year gap, the world is going to witness a large democratic exercise underway from around 1st week of April till third week of May this year.  From a place which cannot be found even in a detailed map of the country to the largest and most populous metropolis in the country every place is going to hum with the din of the election canvassing and the parties trying to woo the electorate.  Some of the parties have already stitched an alliance with local and national parties; but some of the major parties have not yet come to an understanding to form an alliance to fight the election.  Most of the opposition parties' only common denominator seems to be to defeat the incumbent prime minister Modi and his party BJP in the hustings.  Other than that there is no commonality among any of these parties who are aligned against the present government....

While the terror attack on the CRPF convoy at Pulwama raised lot of global condemnation, there was absolutely no voice of protest over the air-strike on the terror camps both in POK and inside Pakistan.   On the other hand, there were voices supporting for a retaliatory strike and saying that India has a right to avenge the terror strike.   This has been one of the best diplomatic victories of the Modi government.  The Pak PM made a grand declaration to the world that the pilot of the ill fated MiG21 was being released as a peace gesture. While the world in general and India in particular were waiting for the actual release of the pilot, there were cross border attacks in Jammu and Kashmir.  Though two terrorists were neutralised, five security personnel were martyred.  The Pak PM's claim of peace gesture fell flat on these developments. In the long wait for the release of the pilot the Pak army as usual tried to use the pilot for its own nefario...