Map of Delhi

Kashmir Joins International Aviation Map

Chief Minister of Jammu Kashmir state Omar Abdullah, top right, looks on as India’s ruling United Progressive Alliance Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and others wave from an Air India Express aircraft, the first international flight into Srinagar

Indian administered Kashmir became part of the international aviation map on Saturday with an Air India flight connecting the summer capital Srinagar with Dubai. Kashmir officials hope the flights boost Kashmir's tourism and trade which is struggling amid the continuing conflict involving Kashmiri Muslims who want an independent Kashmir.

India's ruling United Progressive Alliance's chairwoman Sonia Gandhi inaugurated the international airport terminal in Srinagar Saturday.

Gandhi also inaugurated a rail link connecting Kashmir's northern town Baramulla with a southern town Anantnag and called both projects an achievement.

To begin with, Air India will operate a weekly flight between Dubai and Srinagar.

Kashmir officials hope the international link boosts Kashmir's struggling exports and tourism. Mubeen Shah is the Chairman of the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry. "This has been the demand of Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry for a very very long time. With this there is a possibility of getting very high value tourists to Srinagar from Dubai and international destination. Second we can send our goods directly to international destination without routing them through to New Delhi. Our handicrafts, our handmade carpets are high value items normally sent by air and Dubai is a very important destination," he said.

Shah says it also creates possibilities of exporting cut flowers and fresh fruits from Kashmir.

Besides exports, Kashmiri leaders hope that tourism, which suffers because of the region's conflicts, will receive a big boost by the flight.

As Shah explains, Kashmir, sometimes described as the "Venice of the East," receives only a small share of the international visitors who visit India. "In Kashmir our seasons are different than the seasons in India. For example the summer season is very hot in India. Normally no foreign tourist will come to India during that time. But people, let us say, who are in Dubai, who have their vacation, it will be easier for them come directly to Kashmir which has weather similar to Europe and it is a very cheap destination," he said.

Adverse travel advisories of European countries keep many tourists from visiting Kashmir. Shah says flights should be introduced to Singapore and Malaysia to bring in more tourists from Southeast Asian countries which are not affected by the advisories.

Dhumal refuses to apologise for the diary map gaffe

THE HIMACHAL Pradesh chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal today set aside the demand of Congress party and refused to tender an apology to the nation for the gaffe in dairy case. The matter was raised in the state assembly, just after the question hour, by the leader of the opposition Vidya Stokes. After that the opposition, Congress staged a walkout from the assembly to protest the printing of an incorrect map of India in the HP official diary.

It may be mentioned that the map published on the turn page of the diary’s cover does not show areas of Pakistan occupied Kashmir and Akasai Chin as lying within India’s boundaries. Both these areas are printed in different shades and have not been shown as part of India, which has put the Himachal government in embarrassing position.

Immediately after the question hour, leader of the opposition Vidya Stokes asked the CM to tender an apology to the nation for the ‘serious mistake’ of printing a map of the country in the Himachal Pradesh government diary, which did not show Pakistan occupied Kashmir (POK) and Aksai Chin as part of Indian territory. Stokes said the ‘unfortunate’ thing could be ‘exploited’ by any foreign agency. She was supported by state Congress presidents, MLA Kaul Singh Thakur and other party MLAs.

Dhumal said the government has already accepted that it was a mistake and has also ordered a probe. Dhumal said the controller of the printing and stationery department and two other officials will be chargesheeted for the mistake. The diary, which has been distributed, will also be recalled. A map showing national highways of India was downloaded from an internet site and was not sketched by the state government, he said. Dissatisfied with the CM’s comments, the Congress walked out of the house in protest.

Meanwhile, the government suspended controller, printing and stationary department, Vikas Labroo and two other officials with regard to publication of wrong map of India in the official diary of the state government for 2009. Even though the 3,500 diaries were printed at a private press at New Delhi but the government in the preliminary inquiry has prima facie found the three officials from the department of printing and stationary responsible for the blunder. The other two, who have had to face music in this major faux pass, which has caused major embarrassment to the government, are Badri Dutt, reviser and Des Raj Gupta, head reader in the printing and stationery department.

Reacting to the walkout by Congress legislators from the House today, Dhumal said it seemed that the opposition had already made up its mind to stage more such walkouts during the 11-day session. “One cannot expect constructive cooperation from an Opposition whose members have little respect for democratic norms,” he remarked.

Dhumal said it was due to the failure of Congress legislators to raise issues that the House was invariably adjourned after the question hour or at lunch. He assured that the Congress MLAs would be given time to speak on the budget proposals.
He said unlike the Congress, his government would only make those announcements, which it can honour.

“We will promise to give only those things which are within our means and limited resources unlike the Congress that had promised job to one member of each family,” he lashed out. He said the Union minister Oscar Fernandes would lay the foundation stone of the ESI hospital, in Mandi, on February 23. Dhumal also criticised the Congress for giving political colour to the issue of publication of wrong map of India in its official diary.

“We admit that a mistake has been committed and action will be taken against those responsible but the Congress should desist from politicising the issue,” he remarked. He said the map had been downloaded from Internet by private publishers at Delhi and the only intention was to show the national highway network in the state. “If Congress makes it a political issue then they too will have a lot to answer for the blunders committed by it in the past,” he warned.

Royal Rajasthan on Wheels gets easier on the pockets

Binoy Valsan
Jaipur, Feb 14: In an attempt to salvage its tourism sector from the vortex of global recession, the state tourism department has gone ahead and slashed the tour package rate onboard the recently introduced super luxury tourist train Royal Rajasthan on Wheels by twenty per cent. The weekly train service, a joint venture by the Indian Railways and Rajasthan Tourism department, will now cost 640 dollars instead of the initial 800 dollars in the deluxe category since it has failed to attract foreign tourists in the aftermath of the financial crisis and the recent terror carnage in Mumbai.
According to an official of the tourist department, the train with a capacity of around 75 passengers carried only six passengers last week. The super luxury train chugged out from Safdarjung station in New Delhi on 11 January with 52 passengers (including media personnel). The slashed-down rate which comes to around Rs 3.5 lakh will stand till April 2010.
“We had eight passengers two weeks back and last week we had only six passengers onboard the Royal Rajasthan on wheels. The recession is creating a dent in the tourism sector,” said an official of the tourism department.
The Royal Rajasthan on Wheels mainly aimed at foreign tourists has two super deluxe saloons with individual temperature control facilities, 13 deluxe saloons, two restobars and also foreign currency exchange counters. The route map covers Delhi, Jaipur, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Sawai Madhopur, Chittorgarh, Bharatpur, Udaipur and even Agra. Sources said a spa and Wifi facility inside the train will be introduced shortly. The total investment of the train has been estimated to be about Rs 40 crore.
The tourism department is determined to keep the luxury train service running despite the lacklustre earnings especially after the termination of the much publicised meter gauge Heritage on Wheels train service after the railways decision to convert the rail tracks in the Shekawati sector to broad gauge.
Apart from the recession blues, the fear factor created by the recent Mumbai terror attack and the escalating Indo-Pak tensions have acted as deterrents to foreign tourists from holidaying in the country especially in Rajasthan which shares its border with Pakistan. According to the tourism department at least 17 countries have issued travel advisories to citizens against visiting tourist destinations in India.
“There is an alarming dip in the arrival of foreign tourists. This has severely crippled motel, hotel owners, tour operators, craftsmen and others who are dependent on the arrival of the tourists for their livelihood in these districts,” said a highly placed official in the state tourism department.
With the tourist season for the international tourists coming to an end with the expected onset of summer next month, the tourism department is now mulling on introducing various packages to tide over the loss by attracting more domestic tourists to the desert state.

Obama's New Map of the World

Tom Barnett has a look at the geopolitical challenges facing Obama (although he ignores the energy aspect almost entirely) and notes the days of America going it alone are gone - Obama's New Map of the World.

For roughly the past quarter century, America has run the world using the following two levers: its massive consumption rate and its willingness to deploy military forces around the planet. Together these two drivers facilitated the rise of many new great powers by enabling their export-fueled growth and obviating any need for them to engage in distracting military buildups or overseas interventions.

That U. S. grand strategy has essentially run its course, having proven both amazingly successful (the death of great-power war in East Asia) and extremely exhausting (our crippling debt overhang). ...

First, and most obviously, is the second global economic summit in April to deal with the world's ongoing financial crisis. With the EU and Japan accompanying us into recession and our economy unlikely to turn any corner until early 2010, China's Keynesian role as globalization's "spend to save" stimulant is of critical importance, meaning that China today plays the same role vis-à-vis America that we played to imperial Great Britain at the end of World War II: The imperial power needs a bailout, and the rising power has the cash. As a rule, the price for such cooperation is steep — to wit, America got to call most of the shots in the resulting Bretton Woods financial order.

So what does China want? It wants to graduate from the kiddie table that is the expanded G20 crew of emerging economies and gain a seat at the more exclusive G8, where actual heads of state meet. If Obama is serious about his "team of rivals" philosophy, he'd do well to acquiesce, even to the point of permanently expanding the G8 to include the adjunct dozen.

But here's the tough compromise that may hold up this much-needed expansion: The EU seems determined to get some sort of global securities-and-exchange commission to regulate intermarket financial flows in the future — in effect, viewing the current global crash as Washington once did Wall Street's 1929 collapse. As far as emerging markets are concerned, that's going to feel suspiciously constraining; having just achieved some wealth, the rising East and South now face the West's desire to regulate crucial investment flows so as to smooth out an inevitable global business cycle. Which is like wanting to go all the way on the first date — that trust simply does not yet exist in the system.

Obama's balancing act here is difficult. No one wants to derail the emergence of a global middle class, the bulk of which will be found overwhelmingly in emerging markets in coming years, but globalization's periodic panics have clearly grown more frequent and more volatile. Obama must ask China to grow up very fast and assume a lot more leadership (read: exposure to monetary risk), meaning his "fair trade" agenda must inevitably yield to Beijing's definition — and, by extension, New Delhi's and Brasília's — of a fair deal for its still-impoverished masses. ...

Flash point No. 2 will be the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region, which took on more urgency after Pakistani militants tried to trigger a diversionary war with India by launching the frighteningly effective mini-invasion of downtown Mumbai.

Washington's national-security community is wrapping up a comprehensive strategy review, much like it did on Iraq a couple of years ago, and this time the logic of regionalizing the solution damn well better prevail. If the Obama administration displays an inkling of Bush-Cheney's Great Gamesmanship, then say goodbye to the "good war," because the Hindu Kush is where bankrupt empires go for slaughter.

If Obama is smart enough to socialize the problem beyond NATO (because it's truly beyond NATO in every sense of the word), then we're into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's roster of member states and observers. ...

The next two potential flash points are equally intertwined: No. 3, the presidential election in Iran, and No. 4, the question of Obama's follow-through on Bush's August deal to deploy missile-defense facilities in Eastern Europe — ostensibly to protect NATO from Iranian missiles. (Feeling out of the loop on ancient Polish-Persian hatred? You're not alone.) ...

And in the end, everything depends on how many new frenemies Obama is willing to add to his great-power Facebook. If our new president decides that America is still stuck with the same old friends we've always had, then he will quickly find himself as boxed in as George W. Bush was at the end of his second term and as impotent as Jimmy Carter was at the end of his only term.

The worst thing Obama can do coming out of the gate is attempt to demonize any of these rising powers with doofus labels (e.g., axis of evil/diesel, league of autocracies) or to simultaneously "contain" all their regional ambitions. Trust me, if they're not a significant part of the solution, they'll invariably constitute the insoluble heart of the problem.

EDITORIAL: India should appreciate Pakistan’s efforts

The press statement by Rehman Malik, the prime minister’s advisor on interior, on the Mumbai attacks and Pakistan’s investigative follow-up is significant. It proves, without doubt, that Islamabad has been pursuing the case diligently and in line with its promise to do so. It also indicates, if such proof were ever required, that the government was sincere in condemning the Mumbai attack and was not complicit in it, a wild allegation made by India as part of its diplomatic offensive to isolate Pakistan and paint it as a sponsor of terrorism.

Mr Malik told the press Thursday that it was an extensive plan and some part of the conspiracy was hatched in Pakistan. He said that Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the alleged mastermind, is already in custody while six other accused have been arrested. Two other wanted men are still at large. One of those in custody, according to Malik, was “lured back to Pakistan from the Spanish city of Barcelona”. He also revealed that the attackers and their handlers used Austrian SIM cards for communication and there was also a link to Houston, Texas. The bit about the Austrian SIM cards dovetails with some detail in the Indian dossier about the communication mode of the attackers. Meanwhile, Pakistani authorities have still not been able to determine the identities of the nine attackers killed in the 3-day shoot-out, though the one captured alive has been accepted as a Pakistani national.

This is good work and, as we have said earlier in our editorials, concerned agencies in Pakistan have been on this case even before India officially sent in its dossier. Let it also be said that this work did not stop even when Indian officials began to threaten Pakistan with a military response. Pakistan kept its cool in the face of aggression by the Indian media and the government but obviously enhanced its air and ground vigilance against any possible Indian adventurism. Now, with Mr Malik’s statement, it should be obvious that India needed to have shown more patience because putting together the links of such an extensive and sophisticated plan needs time.

There are two other important factors that we have to keep in mind. One, without doubt, Mr Malik has disclosed less than what the investigators know at this stage and for sound reasons too. There are likely to be more strands that need to be identified. Investigators cannot, in most such cases, put everything on the table because it can compromise their work. Even now, Mr Malik has probably had to come on record on these disclosures because India has made this into a political game of blaming Pakistan. Something needed to be revealed to relieve the pressure on Pakistan by India. Two, even at this stage, there may not be enough evidence to stand in a court of law. Pakistan has been rightly pointing to this problem. Whenever this case goes to court, it being a criminal case, the onus of responsibility for proving it will lie on the prosecution, not the defence. Trial lawyers know how difficult that can be. There are innumerable cases where culprits have walked out despite pieces of incriminating but circumstantial evidence against them. Hence the evidence, even if circumstantial, must add up to become conclusive, or at least largely so. This is another aspect that makes the job of putting together a watertight case so tedious and difficult.

At this stage, however, it is evident that Pakistan has covered impressive distance in unearthing the broad strands of this plan. Given its efforts, we should expect more disclosures in the near future. There is also a requirement for India to cooperate with Pakistan, a fact that Islamabad has long stressed. The dossier itself is not enough.

So, the questions we have to ask are: What more does India know? When and how will it share this with Pakistan? Interestingly, an Indian team has gone to the US to share evidence with the FBI. That’s fine, but how about doing the same with Pakistan? Surely, India cannot continue to blame Pakistan and press for results without being fully cooperative. This is where politics comes in. New Delhi has already pressed the pause button on the normalisation process, depriving itself and Pakistan of the one mechanism for cooperation that could have helped matters. It now makes eminent sense that it should press the play button again so things can move forward. That’s what we are hoping for because there is no alternative to a dialogue framework. *

SECOND EDITORIAL: Down with the killjoys!

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. As always, the moral brigade is out to deprive people of the small and normal pleasures of life. Statements from orthodox rightwing circles would make one believe that half of this country will be out indulging in Bacchanal merriment. This is ridiculous. Valentine’s Day is about expressing one’s love for others, and love can take many forms, not just displays of lust and indulgence in forbidden sex. Even on that score, in a country where until recently a woman statistically was giving birth to 6.2 children, we wonder how that would have happened.

Another absurd argument, which we also hear regarding Basant, is that these festivals are un-Islamic. In today’s globalised world, any number of festivals are celebrated by people for enjoyment and letting their hair down. Today, no one collection of peoples can lay claim to any particular festival as their own, even as places like Lahore for instance in relation to Basant, have become legendary. This is why people used to come to the city from all over to celebrate Basant. The festival not only put Lahore, but by extension Pakistan, on the map. What is wrong about that?

This country has had a surfeit of misery and tragedies. If the people are resilient enough to find pleasure even in the middle of that, they should be encouraged. Going by the logic of moral vigilantes, we should all live morose lives because in the end all of us have to die. But man cannot live by bread alone. He needs his small pleasures. So we say, down with the killjoys! *