The world's hardest job

That Osama bin Laden was resident in a sprawling compound in Abbotabad, 60 km from Islamabad, 100 km from the Indian border and a much shorter distance away from a Pakistani military training academy, for five years without the knowledge of the local government or the ISI spells egregious news for Pakistan for two reasons:

1. If the government really had no knowledge of the world's most-wanted man living just outside the national capital, running the Al Qaeda while having half the satellites in the sky looking for him, then credit is due the terrorist who managed to dupe a country that, given its borders with India, Afghanistan and Waziristan (although a district inside the country, the tribes in the region nonetheless assert their jurisprudential autonomy), and ties with China, should have been more alert by the proverbial orders of magnitude.


2. The more likely reason is that either sections of the Pakistani government or the ISI (or both together) have been active in providing assistance to a notorious trans-national terrorist and have had a role to play in sheltering him for the last five years.

Either ways, there is only one position that is harder to hold than being a spokesperson of the UPA government in India: being a Pakistani diplomat in the USA.

The world's hardest job

That Osama bin Laden was resident in a sprawling compound in Abbotabad, 60 km from Islamabad, 100 km from the Indian border and a much shorter distance away from a Pakistani military training academy, for five years without the knowledge of the local government or the ISI spells egregious news for Pakistan for two reasons:

1. If the government really had no knowledge of the world's most-wanted man living just outside the national capital, running the Al Qaeda while having half the satellites in the sky looking for him, then credit is due the terrorist who managed to dupe a country that, given its borders with India, Afghanistan and Waziristan (although a district inside the country, the tribes in the region nonetheless assert their jurisprudential autonomy), and ties with China, should have been more alert by the proverbial orders of magnitude.


2. The more likely reason is that either sections of the Pakistani government or the ISI (or both together) have been active in providing assistance to a notorious trans-national terrorist and have had a role to play in sheltering him for the last five years.

Either ways, there is only one position that is harder to hold than being a spokesperson of the UPA government in India: being a Pakistani diplomat in the USA.

The world's hardest job

That Osama bin Laden was resident in a sprawling compound in Abbotabad, 60 km from Islamabad, 100 km from the Indian border and a much shorter distance away from a Pakistani military training academy, for five years without the knowledge of the local government or the ISI spells egregious news for Pakistan for two reasons:

1. If the government really had no knowledge of the world's most-wanted man living just outside the national capital, running the Al Qaeda while having half the satellites in the sky looking for him, then credit is due the terrorist who managed to dupe a country that, given its borders with India, Afghanistan and Waziristan (although a district inside the country, the tribes in the region nonetheless assert their jurisprudential autonomy), and ties with China, should have been more alert by the proverbial orders of magnitude.


2. The more likely reason is that either sections of the Pakistani government or the ISI (or both together) have been active in providing assistance to a notorious trans-national terrorist and have had a role to play in sheltering him for the last five years.

Either ways, there is only one position that is harder to hold than being a spokesperson of the UPA government in India: being a Pakistani diplomat in the USA.

The Regrettable Stupefaction Of Dr. Manmohan Singh

Only after the 2G scam did I learn how many zeroes there are to numbers aptly called "lakh-crores". The impact of the fiasco didn't really drive home until I listened to my grandfather's woes last night. Its one thing to worry about the country's future in the telecommunications sector when frequencies are allotted and licenses sold for such massive, albeit insufficient, amounts are all canceled, but it's another to know that a parliamentarian (of A. Raja's calibre) who is paid Rs. 56,000 per month finds it insufficient. That's the bottom line at the end of the day.

I don't know what Kapil Sibal or Manmohan Singh are doing either. For being a more progressive lot, they seem to be forgetting their basics, only making it easier for the BJP to hem them in. Of course, the Auditor General (AG) and Dr. Subramaniam Swamy are achieving that by themselves, the latter with added political gains. First, the scam: fine, it's happened, now hand over A. Raja to the CBI's custody so the matter can be sorted out. But no, Sibal is instituted as the interim telecom minister - a move that immediately inculpates Raja in the public eye. Next, Sibal announces a press meet and claims that Raja did nothing wrong, that there was no loss to the govt. India. That's mistake #2: defying the comptroller and auditor general of India (CAG) so blatantly without providing any proof in his defense. As if this wasn't enough, Manmohan Singh, who I used to think was smart, appoints P. J. Thomas as the CVC. Was that defiance of the BJP's disapproval in light of his culpability in the Palmolein oil scam? If so, bad move. Or was that a matter of taking the law into his own hands - again a defiance of the Supreme Court's pending judgment on the same case? Again, if so, bad move.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Dr. Manmohan Singh"][/caption]

And now, Dr. Singh releases a statement claiming he and P. Chidambaram (who, together with Sushma Swaraj, constituted the committee that decided to appoint Thomas as the CVC in September, 2010) agreed on the appointment while Ms. Swaraj, from the BJP, disagreed. Agreement or disagreement is not the prerogative of the commonwealth; if there was a case pending judgment against the name of the CVC - of all the people - then its ineffectiveness in influencing the decision of his promotion reflects poorly on the Prime Minister, the ruling party and, ultimately, the state of the nation.