The mindgame of fighting terror Earlier this week posters appeared in Pattan in Jammu & Kashmir’s Baramulla district, threatening to kill 13 persons for assisting security forces. Here is the poster by a group with a grand sounding title of “Al Mashterqa Lashkar-e-Taiba Hizbul Mujahideen”. Here’s the Indian Army’s counter-poster. In the first panel it [...]
What the price negotiations about NATO supply lines remind us of Pakistan wants an additional $5000 for each truck that passes through its its territory carrying non-lethal supplies for NATO troops fighting in Afghanistan. US is hoping to clinch the deal at $1500-1800 a truck of supplies. Pakistan also wants an indemnity waiver in case American [...]
The military establishment seeks more rent Pakistan, the United States and NATO are currently engaged in negotiations over a transit fee for the route from Karachi to the Afghan border. Pakistan has demanded $5000 per container (in either direction) although other reports suggest that it would seek a ‘nominal fee’ of around $1800. It is [...]
This is a slightly modified version of a note I sent to a client institution: In recent weeks, the price of gold in US dollar terms has dropped from around 1660 to around 1560 now. That is a 6% drop. Risk appetite has dropped. Investors have flocked to the dollar and yen. The scent of [...]
Where was the horse domesticated? This is a very important question in history and lot of politics is connected to it. The place where the horse was domesticated has an effect on the Indo-European homeland. A while back Saudi Arabian officials claimed that horse was domesticated there around 9000 years back and as proof of [...]
Just this morning here in Montreal, had a simple breakfast of Bread with Egg and cheese, carrot cake and a small latte. Including taxes, the breakfast cost C$11.00. Without taxes, it cost C$9.60. Let us do our own Purchasing Power Parity calculations based on this menu. I welcome readers to post the prices in different [...]
Good friend Bala in Singapore sent me the link to a HT (Hindustan Times, India) article which covers the outcome of the third Copenhagen Consensus led by Bjoern Lomborg. A panel that included four Nobel Laureates picked ideas that deal with diarrhea, worm and malnutrition as the best ones that delivered the maximum value for the [...]
Of closing NATO supply lines through Pakistan As per Washington Post, it costs the US $100 billion annually to keep 100,000 American troops on Afghan soil. As per Dawn, using the Central Asian route for NATO supplies is costing the US an additional $38 million a month. As per the Express Tribune, Pakistan has budgeted [...]
In 2005, Pakistan said that they would spend $25 million on the restoration of the Katasraj temple. 7 years later, looking at a picture of the temple, it does not look like much has been done. At a time when the Hindu community in the country is crying over ‘conversion and forced-marriages’, they have been [...]
Much has been written about on the recent episode where India Today and the Times of India published alerts from the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) on five Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operatives having infiltrated their way into Mumbai. That same day, Pakistan’s TV channels and news media revealed, with barely-concealed delight, that these individuals were in [...]