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| THIS
OUR NORTH AMERICA |
| The empire and the robots |
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Fidel Castro Ruz
A short while ago I dealt with the United States’
plans to impose the absolute superiority of its
air force as an instrument of domination on the
rest of the world. I mentioned the project that
by 2020 they would have more than a thousand latest
generation bombers and F-22 and F-35 fighter planes
in their fleet of 2500 military aircraft. In twenty
more years, every single one of their war planes
will be robot-operated. More
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| Bankruptcy rate shoots
up in Canada |
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Khushwant Toor writes from
Toronto
LATEST reports by the Industry Canada for the month
of June 2009 reveal that the Canadian Insolvencies
increased by 51.1% in Month of June, compared with
the same Month in 2008. More
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| Court reins in
terror finance policy |
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William Fisher
A federal court
this week ruled for the first time that the U.S.
government cannot freeze an organisation's assets
under a terror financing law without a warrant
based upon probable cause and without telling the
organisation the basis for its action and a
meaningful opportunity to defend itself.
More
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| Polluting the debate |
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JUST as "death panels" and "swastikas" poison
the debate over President Obama's health care
reform agenda in town hall meetings across
America, oil and coal interests are polluting
Obama's effort to pass clean energy reform.
More
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| We can do what
governments can’t |
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Gurpreet Singh writes
from Vancouver
WHILE the politicians of Punjab have requested the
central government to issue a commemorative stamp
in the memory of Madan Lal Dhingra, the first
Indian revolutionary to be hanged outside the
country on the centennial of his martyrdom a
private postal stamp has already been printed in
Canada.
More
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| ANALYSIS |
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Mission essential, translators
expendable |
Pratap Chatterjee
BASIR "Steve" Ahmed was returning from a
bomb-clearing mission in Khogyani district in
northeastern Afghanistan when a suicide bomber blew
up an explosive-filled vehicle nearby. The blast
flipped the military armoured truck Ahmed was riding
in three or four times, and filled it with smoke. More |
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| How to apologise without saying sorry |
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Chaitanya Kalbag
 APOLOGISING is never easy. Barack Obama knows
this now. He made a non-apology apology last week
to a Massachusetts police sergeant two days after
saying the officer “acted stupidly” in arresting
Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr because he
was trying to break into his own house. More
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| India should listen to Parchanda’s
advice |
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Dr
Sawraj Singh
DURING a recent visit to England, Parchanda, the
Maoist leader and the former Prime Minister of
Nepal, tried to give some sincere advice to India.
He said that America was trying to increase its
influence in Asia and India should join China to
stop America from expanding its influence there. More
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| The revolutionary combatants
from Canada |
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Gurpreet Singh writes from
Vancouver
A new book on Gadarites by Sohan Singh
Pooni suggests that the movement had its roots
in Canada. Authored in Punjabi, Canada De Gadri
Yodhay (The Gadar combatants of Canada) is the
biographies of 41 freedom fighters of India, who
were mostly associated with the Gadar Party, a
revolutionary group that believed in armed struggle
against the British occupation of India.
More
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Rafi, the prolific
singer and that nondescript village |
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Harjap Singh Aujla
 PUNJAB
must be truly proud of its great son Mohammad
Rafi, who was born in a non-descript hamlet in a
remote rural area of Amritsar district. Starting
from a humble and modest beginning, he rose to
become the most prolific film playback singer of
the movie industry, not only in India, but in
the whole world.
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India, Argentina for probing anti-dumping among
G20 | Musharraf's confession a trouble for Zardari?
| SAD marginalises its youth wing, Majithia bent
to check out Kang | Plan panel sees strong growth
in second half | Tendulkar- Bhajji help India
lift Compaq Cup
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| India, Argentina for probing
anti-dumping among G20 |
| India
was second only to Argentina among the G-20 nations
in initiating anti-dumping investigations during January-July
2009, and tops the list of countries that have launched
safeguard probes, a WTO report says. According to the
report, India had started 15 anti- dumping investigations
in the first seven months of 2009, while Argentina accounted
for 19. More
Updated on September 15, 2009 at 2:00 a.m.
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- Musharraf's confession a trouble
for Zardari? More
- SAD marginalises its youth
wing, Majithia bent to check out Kang More
- Plan panel sees strong growth
in second half More
- Tendulkar- Bhajji help India
lift Compaq Cup More
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| E D I T O R I
A L |
| BJP in turmoil |
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 INDIA’S principal opposition party, the Bharatiya
Janata Party is in a disarray at a time when its
role with diminished status of the left and
socialists, is to strongly challenge the ruling
Congress. The BJP is still the ruling party in four
states although it was badly mauled at the elections
a few months back. It has neither recovered from its
defeat nor has it been able to offer a coherent
policy framework. More |
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| FOCUS |
| Our man-eating roads
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Gobind Thukral
 NOT a day passes when the media do not report tragic
deaths in road accidents.
Last year, in Chandigarh alone 146 people lost their
lives while 440 were injured. Till May 16 year, a
total of 54 persons were killed in road accidents in
the city while another 105 persons were grievously
hurt. How devastating is for the surviving family
and friends. More |
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Economics, the paradigm shift |
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Professor Vinod Anand
THERE always occur occasional shifts in the
conventional wisdom that dominates a given discipline.
Economics is no exception. Conventional wisdom is a part
of our lives. It is set of generally accepted
customs and standards, based on good sense and judgment,
that control both individual and social behaviorist
exhibits both intra and inter-regional differentials, and
passes informally from one generation to another,
providing the guidelines within which families are brought
up according to the given traditions. More |
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Plant based diets avert water
catastrophe
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 IN
view of the impending drought perhaps we all need
to do more. Here is something that may be of
interest. The situation is already dire. The World
Bank reported that 80 countries have water
shortages that threaten health and economies, and
over 2 billion people lack any access to
sanitation or clean water. More
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| FEATURES |
| Folk fair: Mela-of Chhapaar,
mythology & memories
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Bal
Anand
 THE civilization of India has been characterised by
a uniquely vigorous and ingenious celebration of
human life in complete compatibility with all the
attendant elements of nature, more particularly the
cycle of seasons with the most merciful 'Monsoon
Rains' in the prominent focus. The ancient
traditions of religious & spiritual domain; long
linkages of mysteries of history &
mythology; conflicts & co-operation of divides
communities; process of continuity & renewal in
the realm of folk music & dance; More
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The Kumaon enchants |
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 Sonia G
Handa
THE cool puff of air of thick forest of Banbassa was a
welcome change from dry heat of Bareilly. The drive was
striking with both sides of road lined with lush green
trees which took weariness of the city life away from
the eyes. Banbassa, located near the Nepal border, is a
small town of Uttaranchal. It is a gateway to the hills.
The river which divides India and Nepal is known as
Sarda in India and Mahakali in Nepal. More
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Punjabis in Mauritius
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Chaman Lal
THERE is a popular
joke about Punjabis that one would find ‘Sher-e
Punjab’ dhabha in remotest part of the world. Even
Tenzing found it on top of the Everest. Jokes
apart, Punjabis have traveled to the far off
corners of the world. They have gone to African
countries also in large numbers, but not so many
in case of Mauritius. More
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“Category Is Not
Destiny”
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Interview by Sonya Weakley
AMERICA’S youth, lacking memories of racial
segregation and the integration movement, offer unique
perspectives on the concept of a multiracial society.
Indian American author Chandra Prasad, editor and
contributor of Mixed: An Anthology of Short Fiction on
the Multiracial Experience, says her urge to explain her
mixed-race identity and get past superficial
categorizations inspired her to create the book. More
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| LAW & JUSTICE |
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Why consumer forums?
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Vinod Anand
IN the early sixties, W. W. Rostow (also known as
Walt Rostow) an American Economist, had propounded
five stages of economic growth in his Book
entitled “The Stages of Economic Growth: A
Non-Communist Manifesto”, where he fully analysed
the Rostovian take-off model. These stages are:
the traditional society, the preconditions for
take-off, the take-off, the drive to maturity, and
the age of high mass-consumption.
More
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| COMMENT |
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A defeat in Afghanistan can end the
American Empire?
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Dr. Sawraj
Singh
IT was the defeat in Afghanistan which led to the
collapse of the Soviet Union. Is history going to
repeat itself and America is going to face the same fate
in Afghanistan? At this point it looks very likely
that the American fate is not going to be any different
than Russia’s fate. Another question can be asked
is that why Afghanistan is different than Iraq? More
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Water as a human
right |
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Thalif
Deen
 THE growing commercialisation of water - and the
widespread influence of the bottling industry worldwide
- is triggering a rising demand for the legal
classification of one of the basic necessities of life
as a human right. "We definitely need a covenant or [an
international] treaty on the right to water so as to
establish once and for all that no one on earth must be
denied water because of inability to pay," says Maude
Barlow, a senior adviser to the President of the U.N.
General Assembly, on water issues. More
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Agri-products from Punjab
to Arab countries |
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Dr S. S. Chhina
 DEMAND as well as supply of agricultural products
is less elastic and prices have little effect on them.
Sometimes the exports could not be made not because of
lack of demand but lack of supply, as it happened in
case of cotton from India. More
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