The War in Afghanistan and the Central Asia Pipeline Plan

The Washington Post has introduced us to a controversy over Afghanistan war strategy. The Post reports that operations in Delaram (in the southwest) are "far from a strategic priority for senior officers at the international military headquarters in Kabul. One calls Delaram, a day's drive from the nearest city, 'the end of the Earth.' Another deems the area 'unrelated to our core mission' of defeating the Taliban by protecting Afghans in their cities and towns."

Why then are the Marines fighting in this part of the country?

The Post continues, "The Marines are constructing a vast base on the outskirts of town that will have two airstrips, an advanced combat hospital, a post office, a large convenience store and rows of housing trailers stretching as far as the eye can see. By this summer, more than 3,000 Marines -- one-tenth of the additional troops authorized by President Obama in December -- will be based here."


Again the Post adds, "They [some officials] question whether a large operation that began last month to flush the Taliban out of Marja, a poor farming community in central Helmand, is the best use of Marine resources. Although it has unfolded with fewer than expected casualties and helped to generate a perception of momentum in the U.S.-led military campaign, the mission probably will tie up two Marine battalions and hundreds of Afghan security forces until the summer."


And finally the Post reports, "Brig. Gen. Lawrence D. Nicholson, the top Marine commander in Afghanistan now wants Marine units to push through miles of uninhabited desert to establish control of a crossing point for insurgents, drugs and weapons on the border with Pakistan. And he wants to use the new base in Delaram to mount more operations in Nimruz, a part of far southwestern Afghanistan deemed so unimportant that it is one of the only provinces where there is no U.S. or NATO reconstruction team."

When you check the maps above a clearer picture emerges. The bottom map is the proposed pipeline route to move Caspian Sea oil through Turkmenistan into Afghanistan and then finally through Pakistan to ports along the Arabian Sea where U.S. and British tankers would gorge themselves with the black gold.

The whole reason the U.S. is in Afghanistan and Pakistan today is to deny those pipelines from being routed through Russia, China, or Iran.

Then look at the top map where the U.S. Marines are operating inside Afghanistan and causing some controversy within the military. They are building big bases in desolate southwestern Afghanistan and wanting to extend control in that region near the border of Pakistan - all of which are areas that must "be controlled" if pipelines are to be successfully built and maintained.

Govt believes it's best to keep talking with 'plotter' Pakistan

New Delhi: There are many in the Indian establishment who believe the government is wasting its time engaging with Pakistan without Islamabad doing its bit to crack down on terror outfits operating from its soil.

This view is being reinforced by Anti-Terrorism Squad revelations about a planned terror attack on major installations in Mumbai and the fact that one of those arrested spoke about being trained in Pakistan.

But increasingly, the government believes that it is best to keep dialogue between India and Pakistan intact, despite the fact that the last round of preliminary talks between foreign secretaries yielded little.

“If these reports are true, there is even more reason why India and Pakistan must talk,” said a senior official who did not wish to be identified. “Not talking is childish,’’ the official said.

A fact which India does not wish to admit is the international community is keen that the two nuclear-armed countries remain engaged for stability in the region. There is always the fear that war between the two may result in one party pushing the nuclear button. But even more important, the US and Nato now need Pakistan’s help in stabilising Afghanistan.

The idea is not to distract the Pakistan military with concerns about its eastern front.

Pakistan is now interested in the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan meeting to announce the composite talks. Prime minister Manmohan Singh has taken a major risk in deciding to engage with Pakistan after being badly bruised by the Sharm-el-Sheikh joint statement.

But the prime minister is keen that talks should continue, even if it does not result in any major breakthrough. Engagement between the former USSR and the US continued through the Cold War and even during the Cuban missile crisis. The US and China have had many problems but once they began talking, the dialogue has continued even at a time when ties had been strained.

So though the home ministry will continue to snipe and point fingers at Pakistan, the government is likely to keep the door open for negotiations. A meeting at the highest political level is likely when prime minister Manmohan Singh travels to the US for the nuclear summit called by president Obama in April. The Pakistani prime minister is also attending.

Maryam Rajavi: Regime's un-Islamic and anti-Iranian fatwa demonstrates its desperation

Khamenei: Fire Festival has no basis in Islamic Sharia and causes a lot of harm and corruption
Maryam Rajavi: The un-Islamic and anti-Iranian fatwa demonstrates the regime's desperation in face of nationwide uprising
NCRI - On Sunday, two days ahead of the annual Fire Festival in Iran, fearing the event would turn into a nationwide uprising against the regime, the mullahs’ Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, in response to a made-up and ridiculous question said that Charshanbe Souri (Fire Festival) “has no basis in Sharia (Islamic religious law) and causes a lot of harm and corruption, therefore, it would be appropriate to avoid it."
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, said that the un-Islamic decree by the clerical regime's Supreme Leader who is the leading enemy of God, Islam and Muslims unveils both his anti-Iranian nature and his helplessness and the regime's inability to deal with the nationwide uprising of the Iranian people. His decree, just as people chanted in their slogans that "Guns, Tanks and Bassij force are no longer effective,” will have no impact on people but to embolden them even further to participate more actively in the Fire Festival uprising.
Mrs. Rajavi added that celebrating Fire Festival, the Iranian New Year (Nowrouz) and the 13th day of the New Year (Sizdah Bedar) as well as other national festivities are of course contrary to the Sharia of the mullahs ruling Iran, which promotes violence, war, corruption, poverty, ignorance and intolerance. That Sharia is not only hated by the Iranian people but also Muslims throughout the world, she said.
Khamenei’s remarks, aimed at preventing the outbreak of uprising during the fire festival, come at a time when threats and intimidations by highest authorities of the regime and officials of the suppressive forces along with the so-called “discovery operations and confiscation of combustible material” in addition to the officials crocodile tears for “adverse consequences of fire festival for young people…” have failed to discourage Iranians, in particular the brave youths, to take part in the national uprising during the festival.
The Iranian people who have revolted against the clerical regime, in reaction to the its hysteric measures, have been preparing themselves for the national festivity with unprecedented intensity since two weeks ago and are getting ready for a major uprising on the day of fire festival. This day has become a symbolic occasion for people to express their anger and hatred against the regime. The sound of fire crackers in streets and alleys in cities across the country has been increasing trepidation within the regime. 

Michael Jackson furniture 'to be auctioned off'

Ornate furniture commissioned by Michael Jackson for his planned British home are to be sold at auction in Las Vegas. 

 

A £17,000 leopard-print chair

The 22 pieces were ordered by the star, who died last year, ahead of his comeback tour in London.

The June sale will be preceded by an exhibition in Ireland that re-creates how Jackson’s Kent residence might have looked.

Why are models still so thin?

Last year was supposed to have been the end of the super-thin supermodel. So why were the collarbones and hollow necks back on the catwalk again at this year's shows?

Riccardo Tisci and Dolce and Gabbana models at this year's shows 

In 2009, as the leaves turned orange, and autumn met winter, it seemed as though a new trend was taking hold in fashion. After year upon year of emaciated young women stalking the catwalks, a new breed was in the spotlight. These weren't the fetishised fat women we'd occasionally seen before – they didn't resemble Beth Ditto, naked, on the cover of Love magazine, her rolls of flesh beautiful, but much more bountiful, than any average woman's. They didn't signal the industry replacing one extreme body shape with another. Instead, they were that unlikely sight, a vision that made people double take. They were women with healthy, normal bodies.
Hayley Morley, a size 12, took to the catwalk for knitwear designer Mark Fast. Lizzie Miller, a size 14, caused a furore when pictured naked with a roll of stomach flesh in US Glamour magazine. And then there was the size 16 supermodel, Crystal Renn, who published her autobiography Hungry, and appeared in Vogue, Glamour and V magazine's Size Issue. Renn said that a new kind of model was emerging, "lush and sparkly with nary a jutting collarbone in sight".
Then came the latest round of autumn/winter ready-to-wear shows, which ended in Paris last week. Jutting collarbones weren't just easy to spot; they were almost ubiquitous. There were the hollowed-out necks striped with taut, rope-like tendons, straining to keep balloon-like heads aloft on childlike shoulders. There were the tiny upper arms, fragile and snappable as a bird wing stripped of feathers. And, perhaps most notably, there were the women's thighs, space gaping between them, often even slimmer at their upper reaches than at the stark, bony knees. In some cases, it was hard to fathom how the women could walk. There were a couple of shows – Louis Vuitton and Prada – where healthier bodies were on display. But they were the exceptions; and anyway they weren't a political statement, they were simply an aesthetic choice. Miucca Prada did put healthy women into that Prada show, but at her other show – her Miu Miu show – some of the models were skeletal.
Even designer from whom you might expect more, such as Stella McCartney – famous for designing trousers that real women can actually wear – put models on the catwalk who looked far too thin for comfort.
No one seems to have said a thing. After years of arguments about the extreme thinness of fashion models, after horror at the 2006 deaths of Luisel Ramos (who had fasted for several days), and Ana Carolina Reston (who died from an infection related to anorexia), after the editor of British Vogue, Alexandra Shulman, voiced her worries last year about models with "jutting bones and no breasts or hips", the debate seems to have gone eerily silent.
It's not clear why. Perhaps it's that the existence of a few healthier women has acted as a diversion, has convinced the outside world that the industry is changing. Or perhaps it's just that we're tired of talking about it. After all, emaciated women have been a fixture in fashion for at least 15 years now, since the amazonian supermodels of the late 80s and early 90s – Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington – made way for heroin chic and hollowed-out eyes, for an ideal of womanhood that has become thinner and thinner and thinner.
But it does seem important to point out that this is still going on, that the images of women that are multiplying around us look not just unhealthy, but in some cases horrifying. It's not that every woman on the catwalk has to be a certain size, not that they all need to be weighed at the door to the venue, but it would be a big leap forward if catwalk photographs didn't seem bound, instantly, for a pro-anorexia website. Surely that's not too much to ask?

Singapore to Launch Asian Fashion Exchange

Several events will be taking place in Singapore next month under the banner of the Asian Fashion Exchange (AFX), a new initiative designed to showcase local designers and boost the city-state's economy.

A joint effort by International Enterprise Singapore, SPRING Singapore and the region's tourism board, the AFX is the product of a four-month consultation based on enhancing the international status of the Singapore fashion industry.

The inaugural AFX programme is made up of events such as Blueprint, the Asia Fashion Summit and the Audi Fashion Festival.

"International fashion professionals see strong opportunities in Asia," said Andrew Phua of the Singapore Tourism Board.

"Singapore, with its strategic location, is ideal as a fashion exchange hub and springboard to the region."

The AFX is due to bring fashion professionals from around the world to hotels in Singapore, with the Blueprint trade show expected to attract over 50 exhibitors and 1,000 buyers when it gets underway at the F1 Pit Building on April 29th.

On May 1st, the show will open to the public as the Blueprint Emporium, allowing exhibitors to reveal their brands to the market.

Meanwhile, the Asia Fashion Summit will run from April 28th to 30th, bringing designers, brand owners and creative directors from across the continent together to network and exchange ideas.

Editor Notes

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NOW AVAILABLE Unlock iPhone 3G&2G 3.1.3 New Tool Released Today

NOW AVAILABLE Unlock iPhone 3G&2G 3.1.3 New Tool Released Today

To Unlock iPhone 3G or to Unlock iPhone 2G visit Unlock-iPhone.org
However, when you unlock iPhone 3G or Unlock iPhone 2G you remove that programming block. It allows you to leave the cell Phone company that is currently providing you with service and seek out other companies with terms and conditions which are more to your liking. This may mean lower monthly fees or more access to applications and other features. Whatever the benefits, being able to pick the best company for you is a great benefit indeed

By using software from Unlock-iPhone.org you can jailbreak and unlock your iPhone 2G or iPhone 3G. With software from this company you can now use your iPhone on any network worldwide. Calls you make to 08 numbers are also free and you can download exclusive wallpapers, screensavers and games as well. When you add the ability to use mobile tethering for no cost, the savings can build faster than you realize.
Unlock iPhone 3G and Unlock iPhone 2G the easy way. The Unlock-iPhone.org company offers software that allows you to unlock your handset in only a few minutes, making it perfect for novice users. You can feel confident knowing that any issues will be resolved by the live support department. CLICK HERE for more information
The newly released iPhone 3.1.3 firmware for iPhone and iPod touch brings bug fixes and more stability for iPhone 3GS, 3G, 2G and iPod touch users. Since Apple has fixed most of the loopholes which were exploited for jailbreaking and unlocking iPhone 3GS, 3G and newer iPod touch 2G and 3G models are currently unjailbreakable until new tools are released. Fortunately for iPhone 2G and iPod touch 2G(older models only) and 1G users, you can use redsn0w 0.9.3 to jailbreak your device on iPhone 3.1.3 firmware.
[UPDATE: Redsn0w 0.9.4 is now available. Please read the update note below.]
Jailbreak iPod touch OS 3.1.3
The following guide is strictly for iPod touch 1G and the older iPod touch 2G only. Newer iPod touch 2G and iPod touch 3G users should wait for the new tools before jailbreaking their devices.
Step 1: Update to original iPhone OS 3.1.3 firmware via iTunes. Downloading and installation instructions for iPhone 3.1.3 firmware can be found here.
Step 2: Start redsn0w 0.9.3 and point it to the original iPhone OS 3.1.2 firmware for iPod touch to proceed. This is required because redsn0w 0.9.3 can not read or validate iPhone OS 3.1.3 firmware.

Mobile computing war: Apple, Google fight getting personal

For one it is a betrayal. For the other a matter of survival. A divide that even friendship could not bridge. Divergent philosophies and, more importantly, differing business visions have now left Apple and Google on the opposite sides of a mobile computing war

It looked like the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Three years ago, Eric E Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, jogged on to a San Francisco stage to shake hands with Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder, to help him unveil a transformational wonder gadget - the iPhone - before throngs of journalists and adoring fans at the annual MacWorld Expo.

Google and Apple had worked together to bring Google’s search and mapping services to the iPhone, the executives told the audience, and Schmidt joked that the collaboration was so close that the two men should simply merge their companies and call them “AppleGoo”.  

“Steve, my congratulations to you,” Schmidt told his corporate ally. “This product is going to be hot.” Jobs acknowledged the compliment with an ear-to-ear smile.

Today, such warmth is in short supply. Jobs, Schmidt and their companies are now engaged in a battle royal over the future and shape of mobile computing and cell phones, with implications that are reverberating across the digital landscape. This month, Apple sued HTC, the Taiwanese maker of mobile phones that run Google’s Android operating system, contending that HTC had violated iPhone patents. The move was widely seen as the beginning of a legal assault by Apple on Google itself, as well as an attempt to slow Google’s plans to extend its dominion to mobile devices. 

Apple believes that devices like smartphones and tablets should have tightly controlled, proprietary standards and that customers should take advantage of services on those gadgets with applications downloaded from Apple’s own App Store.

Google, on the other hand, wants smartphones to have open, non-proprietary platforms so users can freely roam the Web for apps that work on many devices. Google has long feared that rivals like Microsoft or Apple or wireless carriers like Verizon could block access to its services on devices like smartphones, which could soon eclipse computers as the primary gateway to the Web. Google’s promotion of Android is, essentially, an effort to control its destiny in the mobile world.

While the discord between Apple and Google is in part philosophical and involves enormous financial stakes, the battle also has deeply personal overtones and echoes the ego-fuelled fisticuffs that have long characterised technology industry feuds. (Think Intel vs AMD, Microsoft vs everybody, and so on.)

Yet according to interviews with two dozen industry watchers, Silicon Valley investors and current and former employees at both companies - most of whom requested anonymity to protect their jobs or business relationships - the clash between Schmidt and Jobs offers an unusually vivid display of enmity and ambition.

Google is Reportedly Packing Up and Preparing to Leave Chinese Market

I haven’t written much lately about the ongoing game of chicken between Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and the Chinese government over the search company’s announcement in early January that it planned to stop censoring its organic results but it

Google Packing Up and Leaving China?
looks like this story is finally reaching a conclusion. Despite the many opinions on both sides of the issue, it always seemed hard to imagine that Google would actually abandon the Chinese market which is the largest in terms of users — over 384 million at the end of 2009 (CNNIC) — and will undoubtedly represent a substantial share of global online revenues in the not-so-distant future. Well according to an article from the Financial Times, it seems that neither side in this showdown has been willing to back down and now it is “99.9 percent” certain that Google will shutter its Chinese search operations (ie – the Chinese version of its site at www.Google.cn).

In addition to the FT’s sources from inside Google the other indication that things had reached an impasse include the statement this past Friday by the Minister at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) (link in Chinese) that Google’s violation of Chinese content regulations would not be tolerated.

While it is clear that Google would like to remain in China as a matter of good business it seems they are more resolved to abide by their company mandate to “Do No Evil.” Apparently they have concluded that Chinese censorship is an affront to that mandate and they can no longer submit to it. So if this story is true and Google plans to close down its Chinese search operations, it will probably take several months to actually execute on the plan while trying to maintain its non-search business operations that will remain in China.

The company’s non-Google.cn businesses include a research center based in Beijing and a sales force that sells advertising to Chinese companies on Google.com search pages that are made outside of China. Whether the fallout from this incident will cause Chinese advertisers to steer clear of Google even outside of its own borders remains to be seen but executives at the company know that they have to handle their withdrawal as diplomatically as possible — if that can even be done at this point.

Google had been the number two search engine with over 35% share in Q4 2009 behind domestic search darling Baidu, Inc. ((ADR) NASDAQ: BIDU) which accounted for almost 59% of searches. Since China only accounts for around 2% of Google’s revenues it would seem that now is the time it can afford to take the moral high ground. The only question is how will shareholders react to the moral high ground when China’s markets start generating revenues more in line with its user base and Google competitors like Microsoft — which has stated that it has every intention of complying with Chinese content regulations — start seeing an impact on their bottom line.

Even more significant than its online search revenues is the growth of mobile search revenues. Google was much more evenly matched in terms of market share in mobile search but I have to assume that the closure of Google.cn will also eliminate the company’s ability to be a search provider for the over 233 million mobile Internet users who are just beginning to adopt more advanced 3G smartphone devices. That market can become substantial and Google will be ceding its strong position to Baidu and the handful of U.S. competitors that remain.

Drive to tap into China demand spurs partnerships

CNOOC’s tie-up with Bridas of Argentina has an intriguing side-effect – it makes the Chinese group a partner of BP of the UK.

They will both have stakes in Pan American Energy, the Argentinian joint venture owned 60/40 by BP and Bridas.

The deal is the latest to set western companies working alongside China’s state-controlled oil groups.

Royal Dutch Shell has teamed up with PetroChina for a joint bid for Arrow Energy, the Australian gas company; Total of France is expected to work with CNOOC to develop Tullow Oil’s assets in Uganda; and BP has formed a partnership with China National Petroleum Corp to develop the giant Rumaila oil field in Iraq.

The circumstances of each deal are different. In Iraq, for example, where the projects are technically straightforward but have political and security risks, having a Chinese partner provides important benefits to BP. Samuel Ciszuk of IHS Global Insight says CNPC brings political clout because it is state owned, as well as a “skilled, cheap workforce and a willingness to invest in a low-margin project”.

Yet while these partnerships have a variety of motives, there is often a common ambition behind them – western companies hope to build on their respective relationships to secure greater access to the Chinese market.

The big international oil groups such as BP and Shell, Total, and Exxon-Mobil and Chevron of the US, face a fundamental problem: their core markets are in decline.

The International Energy Agency, the think-tank backed by developed countries, estimates that even without any new policy measures to raise fuel efficiency or encourage biofuels, US oil demand will fall by an average of 0.7 per cent per year between now and 2030.

In the rich countries of Europe, the expected decline is 0.4 per cent per year; in Japan it is 1.8 per cent per year.

Meanwhile, the latest IEA figures for monthly oil demand are a sharp reminder of the vigour of the Chinese market, showing an “astonishing” 28 per cent increase in apparent demand in January, pushing the US crude price over $82 per barrel for a time last Friday. The IEA expects China’s oil consumption to grow by an annual average of 3.3 per cent per year, assuming unchanged policies.

Faced by that outlook, western companies have few options. They are building up their businesses producing and delivering natural gas, for which developed country demand is still likely to grow.

They could concentrate on the “upstream” exploration and production side of their operations, already the largest and most profitable, and increasingly operate as suppliers to refiners and distributors in China and other emerging economies. However, their business model has for more than a century been based on integration: controlling the whole of the value chain from finding the oil to delivering the refined fuel to consumers.

Moving away from that risks exposing them to greater volatility in their earnings by making them even more dependent on the prices of oil and gas.

The big problem for western companies is working out what they have that China needs, given that it already has three successful and ambitious large oil groups of its own, in CNPC/PetroChina, Sinopec and CNOOC.

One possibility is technology, such as the skills to exploit China’s reserves of “unconventional” gas, which needs special techniques to be commercially viable. Another is access to oil and gas production.

The Chinese companies, in return, want to build up their oil and gas reserves; assets western companies can still offer. If western companies are to get more access to China, it is likely to be only in return for access to future production for the Chinese.

China Issues Warning to Google’s Partners

BEIJING — Chinese authorities have warned major partners of Google’s China’s based search engine that they must comply with censorship laws even if Google does not, an industry expert with knowledge of the notice said Sunday.

Chinese government information authorities warned some of Google’s biggest Web partners on Friday that they should prepare backup plans in case Google ceases censoring the results of searches on its local Chinese-language search engine, said the expert, who did not want to be identified for fear of retaliation by the government.

The warning was the latest indication that two months of negotiations between Chinese officials and Google over government censorship have reached an impasse. The two sides have been at a standoff since Google announced in January that it planned to stop self-censoring the results of searches on its Chinese site, google.cn, in reaction to what it described as China-based cyber-attacks on its databases and e-mail accounts.

The warning was intended to head off a wave of frustrated users should their internet searches be stymied because of Google’s conflict with the government. Google controls nearly 30 of China’s Internet search market.

China’s most popular Web portal, www.sina.com.cn, features the Google’s search box in the middle of its home page. Ganji.com, another highly popular Web site, displays Google’s search box in its upper-left hand corner.

However Google is unlikely to stop censoring its results, people with knowledge of the situation said. Instead, they said it was more likely that that the company would shut down the search engine and try to reach Chinese customers instead through its search engine based in the United States.

If it did close its Chinese search engine, Google has other operations in China that it hopes to save, including a toehold in the country’s lucrative mobile phone business.

Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive officer, said last week that “something will happen soon” to resolve Google’s fate in China. Reporters have been camped at Google’s Beijing headquarters since then in anticipation of an announcement that the firm would close down some or all of its China operations.

Since Google opened the China-based service about four years ago, it has filtered responses to users’ searches to remove results that the government finds objectionable, from pornography to political topics such as Chinese human-rights issues. Despite the self-censorship, the company has drawn a strong following, especially among educated and wealthier Chinese internet users.

Google has a widespread network of Chinese partners who have set up their Web sites to link to Google’s Chinese-language search engine. The government’s warning was a reminder to Web sites that they are responsible for any content on their sites, even if provided by a third party like Google.

Those companies could switch to more government-friendly services like Baidu, the rival search engine that holds the dominant share of the China market. Should they remain loyal to Google, the companies could satisfy government censors by filtering their customers’ searches themselves, excluding objectionable topics before relaying them to Google.

But that option could prove difficult, especially for smaller companies, who would have to buy or develop new software to do that job. It would be easier for most to simply switch to another search engine.

If Google refused to censor its searches, industry specialists said the government would most likely disrupt the service temporarily, frustrating users and driving them away from the search engine and possibly from its partners’ Web sites.

Users of Google’s worldwide search engine, google.com, would be likely to find their situation unchanged, industry specialists said. The site is accessible within China, but Chinese internet users can only gain access to Web pages that have been approved by Chinese censors, rather than Google’s own employees.

Asked Sunday about the Chinese government’s warning to Google partners, a Google spokeswoman, Courtney Hohne, declined to comment. A company statement last week said that Google had “been very clear that we are no longer going to self-censor our search results.”

“We are in active discussions with the Chinese government but we are not going to engage in a running commentary about those conversations,” the statement said.

China’s position has seemed equally unyielding. On Friday, Li Yizhong, China’s minister of industry and information technology, warned Google, “If you want to do something that disobeys Chinese law and regulations, you are unfriendly, you are irresponsible and you will have to bear the consequences.”

Rediscovering Russia

India's relations with Russia over the two decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union have alternated between indifference and neglect, on the one hand, and active cooperation and intense friendship, on the other. Both states of the relationship have sprung from the kind of situation Indian and Russian policymakers have found themselves in at different times. Broadly speaking, New Delhi and Moscow have both tended to calibrate the bilateral thermostat with an eye on the temperature in Washington. When the U.S. tries to cosy up to either power, India and Russia are quite happy to take for granted, if not forget, each other. But when Washington's mien is frosty and unhelpful, comfort is sought in the warmth of druzhba. However, the U.S. attitude towards the two is not always symmetric. The George W. Bush years, for example, saw a deterioration in America's relations with Russia over issues like missile defence and the expansion of Nato, even as U.S. engagement with India scaled new strategic heights. Although India's relations with Russia remained on an even keel, the Manmohan Singh government did not accord Moscow the kind of priority it deserved. Indeed, with the Bush administration using the nuclear deal to push for gains across a broad spectrum of areas, especially military procurement, India's relations with Russia came under a bit of strain.

The coming to power of Barack Obama in the U.S. has restored some sense of balance to Indian foreign policy, with the government scrambling to revive old friendships in the face of Washington's changed policies towards the region, especially Pakistan and Afghanistan. This is the geopolitical context for India's rediscovery of Russia. Though the Russian side today lacks the same narrow motivation for embracing India more tightly — after all, Mr. Obama has tried to repair relations with Moscow — Vladimir Putin, a strong leader with a clear strategic vision, realises it is important for Russia to expand the ambit of its cooperation with India. On Afghanistan, both share the same anxieties about U.S. indulgence towards the Pakistani military and the proposal to integrate a ‘reformed' Taliban leadership in the power structures at Kabul. On the nuclear energy and defence fronts, Russia has stood the test of time as a valued friend and partner, supplying India with attractively priced advanced equipment without preconditions at a time when other countries have a long list of collateral demands. To be sure, a lot more needs to be done to add ballast to the relationship, especially on the trade and business-to-business fronts. But it is essential that the current period of intense engagement not be allowed to falter once the U.S. makes some fresh overture to India.

Art review

A series of drawings with single male figures and confronting pairs were partly pencilled with a delicate realism but left unfinished or divided into outlined white segments and blackened ones.

Expression of condition The recent Khoj residency at 1, Shanthi Road Studio/Gallery brought a dialogue between two young artists from Pakistan and India centred on the body as a container and expression of the human condition. The resulting display (February 27 to March 2) had a video by Imran Mudassar whose restrained simplicity was gravely effective. A poster-like image of a man’s back was shot in one focus registering the paper gradually tearing and coming off under the impact of small objects, perhaps darts, hitting it. The apparent lightness of the handling and a lack of the literal made this human target hold the helpless situation of people in that country and relate it broadly. The works of Bharathesh D Yadav sustained his dominant preoccupation with the body of flesh and aspirations. A series of drawings with single male figures and confronting pairs were partly pencilled with a delicate realism but left unfinished or divided into outlined white segments and blackened ones. Surrounded by flies, the nude bodies exuded an intuition of contrariness, of simultaneous lofty and physically repulsive sensations entrenched in our existence. His video “Kaya I” in a more complex manner dealt with such state of conflicted existential immersion over a changing sequence of images that suggested global and immediate depletion of organic resources and violence amid evocations of turbulent cosmic processes and their symbolic, spiritual representations, while faces of people crying in horror and despair recurred throughout. Whilst this work may have used digital design somewhat in excess, the other video “Room” was more cogent and quietly forceful. The repetition of slow, horizontal movement, disappearance and reappearance in a line of young men seemingly watching TV and a string of dolls, their limbs, mannequin torsos and fashion or aerobics scenes let one sense the phenomenon of passively accepted and corporeally manifested transformation of live people into likenesses of objects of commercial entertainment. ‘Mapping fragrances’ in the same space was another interesting exhibition by Medha from Mumbai.  The artist studied and recorded the community of zaya jasmine cultivators in rural Goa and Udupi. Adopting this beautiful and fabulously aromatic flower as the embodiment human work, relationships and emotions, in an installation, video and photographic stills, she paid a tribute to the people involved, the sumptuous decorations they make and the blossom itself. Whereas the low, white relief on the floor moulded of compressed yet plastic masses of jasmine blossoms and bearing a gold borderline map presented Medha’s loving gesture, the camera images oscillate between and integrated documentation with the intimacy of aesthetically observed but raw-gentle close-ups of richly garlanded vahanas, halls and ceilings as well as of hands packing, transporting and selling flowers. The whole may not have been spectacular or complex. Nevertheless, the very basic but sensitive approach conjured an effect of material and emotive connectedness between the people, the flowers and the festive ornamentation, the element of enchantment and desire to worshipfully decorate temples, churches and their icons further linking the often conflicted faiths in the rudimentary human plane. Words of (non)violence The installation by Animisha S Naganur (Samuha, March 6 to 8) was one more cathartic effort of an idealistic but disillusioned person to face our far from optimistic reality which, pervaded by extreme political and social violence, generates nonetheless equally potent notions of and appeals for peace, even if those remain largely helpless. The work took off from a quotation from Mahatma Gandhi in which he admits having nothing new to teach the world where truth and non-violence are eternal. Two walls in the gallery created almost a surround filled with multitudes of regularly disposed thin shapes of machine guns and revolvers cut out of newspaper pages with information about current terrorist attacks and other belligerent events of cruelty. Behind Gandhi’s words and the exhibition title “We made it!” could be seen next to a black cube carrying a three-dimensional revolver of newspaper but contained-restrained within a circle. The sheer lightness of the treatment and inclusion of a vast space enhanced the serious issue, while also underscoring the accepted normalcy and hopelessness of the deeply ingrained state, suggested already by the resigned tone of Gandhi’s sentence. The role of the written word could be recognised then as possessing, perhaps not a dormant potential of preventing or healing aggressiveness, but as at least a saving grace of awareness and wish despite of and against the unbridled, destructive force that living manifests itself though. Again, the installation may not have been formally earth-shaking; however, its sheer matter-of-fact directness in the constructing of the metaphor was successful and touched the viewer on a familiar, hence, strong level.