More Democracy in the Indian Ocean region

Kudos to Maldives leader President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom for conceding defeat in the first free presidential election held there after his 30 years rule. There was speculation of rigging and violence during the election. I didnt follow it, but by the result it seems that there was no rigging. 

Gayoom was graceful in his agreeing to a peaceful transfer of power especially since there were vocal critics of his rule. India has been consistently siding with Gayoom and infact had once sent in troop to the little island to prevent a coup against Gayoom once.

More democracy in the neighbourhood is good eventhough it has the potential to be chaotic. Nepal, Pakistan now Maldives and with Bhutan too in the process, it is a good thing for the region. These democracies might not always be sympathetic to the Big Brother India but I think in the long run it would be better for all the parties involved.

On Barack Obama

Barrack Obama's campaign appeared to suffer a big setback when apparently racist remarks of his pastor came out in the open recently. For a black person to get elected in America, he would need a broad support from all the communities and not just the whites since it is reported that the black population in US is around 20%. So the anti-white sentiments expressed by any one close to him, has the potential to alienate the general white population.

However Obama reacted to this in a very brave and spectacular way by delivering a rousing speech in Philadelphia. The speech is certainly eloquent and is a must-read for someone interested in the US politics and this election for it has the potential to enter into the history books.
Here is the full transcript.

Obama's campaign is certainly historic and path breaking and he seems to be someone who deserves to get this opportunity. There are many who are sceptical of his candidacy and say that ultimately US would vote along established lines. But I would like to still hope audaciously. And also hope that if he becomes the president, he will be a positive change.

But even if he does not get elected, the candidacy has certainly opened a new way for a more inclusive politics in US.

Gor'e'y future

Watched Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth' today. A slick well made documentary, which has won many awards, it focusses on the problem of Global Warming and its alarming consequences.
Al Gore has certainly taken the right lessons from his failure to become the next US president. He has made use of that outcome to turn the attention of the world to what seems to be his core issue. In this respect, perhaps, we can say that Gore is a politician who is ahead of his times. For he is talking about problems that are not pressing needs of the day but whose solutions can only be succesful if they are started today.
Effective communication is about passion. If you have passion about the subject, then you need nothing else to be a good communicator. And Al Gore certainly has lots of passion about this issue (inspite of his poker face).
Climate Change is the most important problem facing the world today and I would recommend this as a 'must see' to everyone.
The official website

Nuuklear deal

India seems to be getting what it wants in the form of the nuclear deal with the US. While, I am in favor of the deal in general but there are some aspects of the criticism which do makes you want to ponder a bit.
For instance , this is what Ed Markey, Mass(D) said about the deal's recent passing.


"However, strident comments came from Massachussetts Democrat Edward Markey whose consistent opposition to the deal has been well known since the time the initiative was announced in July 2005.

"It is a historic mistake... that will come back to haunt the United States and the world," Markey said, adding the legislation is basically telling India that it did not have to stay with the norms of the Non Proliferation Treaty.

He also touched on one of his themes -- diversion of nuclear fuel by India to build up its nuclear arsenal from an estimate of about seven bombs a year to between 40 and 50 bombs.

"This is comical. The end of the non proliferation regime is debated for an hour... This is a going-away present to the Bush administration," Markey said.

"We are going to come back and rue this day. This is an era of historic hypocrisy," Markey added."

http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/dec/08ndeal7.htm

I guess this is an issue which does need more thoughts and just hope that the powers-be have thought a lot about it.

But at the end of the day, I dont agree with Ed Markey and believe that this deal does do a lot of good to the US-India relationship and should not affect the nuclear proliferation in any ways. For India being nuclear is as much an incentive to would-be nuclear profilerators as US or China or France.