Is anyone following this story ? CNN story

Today's Congress Party victory on the No-Confidence motion in New Dehli got scant coverage in U.S. media, reported more in the business press for its likely trade benefits to the American nuclear industry than for its profound social implications and probable beneficial impact with respect to Global Warming. The Indian decision to greatly expand its use of Carbon-free sources to meet its rapidly growing energy demand is the single greatest victory to date on Climate Change.

Running neck and neck for that title, however, is the epiphany of veteran oilman T. Boone Pickens, now an evangelist for a greatly expanded U.S. Wind Power sector, who recently dug into his very deep pockets to risk $4 Billion of his own cash on the world's largest wind energy project. His plan to convert 20% of American electric generating capacity to Renewable Energy represents greater progress on Climate Change and Energy Independence than all of the policies of the last eight administrations - of both parties - put together.

These are cause for Hope... (more...)

L.K. Advani, of India's BJP party, is better known for fiery, nationalist, partisan rhetoric than he is for unity and change. At 80 years old, he's more McCain than Obama. However, as he makes his bid to be India's Prime Minister, he's trying to poach from the Obama playbook:

This story reports the 41 dead at the Kabul car-bombing of the Indian embassy. What's fascinating is that it's from Reuters and details the growing Afghan suspicion that the Pakistanis might be behind this and supporting the Taliban.

For all you MSM junkies, here's the WaPo story with no mention of the suspects.

That's right, no mention that apparently both our allies, the Afghans and the Pakistanis are almost at each other's throats. Oh, and Karzai is threatening border raids into Pakistan to go after the Taliban.

In which I provide a brief round-up of Global GLBT Human Rights...

I just read Brad Miller's wonderful piece at TPM, "Does McCain Understand The Music?", in which he points out that our diplomacy is built around a very narrow set of interests and perceptions:

...Anne Applebaum observed that we usually place our trust in world leaders for "their excellent English or their preference for Scotch whiskey, their interest in 'doing business with us' (in the Saudi case), or in liberalizing--even democratizing--their countries (as in the case of Bhutto)," when those very "western" qualities "are precisely what some of their countrymen hate most about them."

He goes on:

We've made enormous misjudgments because we acted on our estimation of leaders, not an understanding of the societies over which they presided. Norman Mailer claimed, perhaps obnoxiously, to have asked President Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs, "Don't you understand the enormity of your mistake--you invade a country without understanding its music?"

It's true.  I want to talk about this for several different reasons.  Follow me below the flip...

Monsoon rains covered India the earliest ever in 108 years of official records. India's meteorologists are baffled. The rains have covered all of India in just 12 days when normally it takes 30. Usually it is very hot before early monsoons, but this year was cooler than normal.

However, climatologists studying global warming, have observed that early monsoons correlate with warm Atlantic Ocean temperatures. This year the Atlantic is much warmer than normal.  
By NOAA

A three-month long protest has brought hope to the victims of the 1984 Bhopal chemical disaster.

On May 29th, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed in principle to establish a commission that would carry out the victims' medical, social, economic, and environmental rehabilitation. He also promised that, by this year's end, Bhopali's will finally have safe and clean water...

"It was a day won by sheer single-minded, undaunted, persistence;" says the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal, who's currently blogging the protest. "A day that was the motivation for every painful step over 38 gruelling days; a day that has sustained the tedium, discomfort, personal risk and self sacrifice borne over 62 days of roadside life; a day that vindicated the Bhopalis faith in their own unflagging strength: the day the Prime Minister of India could no longer ignore the tide of approbation heaped upon him these last 100 days."

The protest isn't going to end any time soon, however. Not as long as Justice in Bhopal remains a myth.

Sometimes the entire context seems to hinge on Iraq, sans context of time or space. But is the Iraq situation such an anomaly? Has US foreign policy in the region really never been this messy before?

The following is a reflection crossposted from my blog with some additional content.

(Updated to reflect another boneheaded incident brought to you by the current US administration.)

This was originally posted on my blog. You can see pictures there.

For the second time since my wife and I moved here, the New York Times has profiled a part of India that is also part of our lives. The first time was when they discussed the power and infrastructure issues facing Gurgaon, the tech hub to the southwest of Delhi, illustrating their story with photos of the building in which I worked. Today the Times has done another report on Gurgaon, this time exploring the gap between the rich and the poor by showcasing the high-rise monstrosity in which we lived for our first six nights in the country. They got it right and they got it wrong: Hamilton Court is a symbol of what's wrong with India -- but it's also a symbol of how India is developing in spite of its government.

Monday morning, I read about some squabble between Todd Purdum of Vanity Fair, who published an extensive and fairly brutal critique of former President Bill Clinton, and the former president himself, through his spokesman. A couple of lines from the response that Clinton's office issued came back to me on Monday afternoon when I read another article at CNN.com, titled "Is there a short-term fix for high gas prices?". I'll share both and explain the connection between the two.

http://tromployal.blogspot.com/

All the might and fury of the United States Armed forces have for years been unable to track and bring to justice the dreaded Osama. Chimpy George even looked all around his little oval office and couldn't find the bad one.  Now we come to find out that Osama has been hanging out in India, terrorizing villages and destroying their food supply.

More below the fold...

Bonddad recently wrote about a Bloomberg article on rising beef prices.  My quibble isn't with his technical analysis, but with one of his comments. He thought that demand was increasing for beef because...

...as the world's standard of loving [sic] increases (think India and China making more and more money) people will want better things like steak.

This is collection of pictures taken from 2003 to 2008 in different parts of Indian subcontinent.

I offer more wage suppression, with employers gouging more unions and driving down wages in this country.

For more than two months, 3,600 United Auto Workers (UAW) members have walked picket lines in Detroit, Three Rivers, Mich., and upstate New York. The strike at American Axle & Manufacturing (AAM), a major supplier of truck and sport-utility axles for General Motors (GM), is shaping up as a line-in-the-sand campaign for the embattled union.

Putin, under constitutional obligation, is stepping aside to let his hand-picked colleague take over as caretaker until Putin can legally return to office.  But where is Russia headed in this interregnum?

WASHINGTON: Prosperity in countries like India is "good" but it triggers increased demand for "better nutrition" which in turn leads to higher food prices, US President George W Bush said.  

The comments come close on the heels of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's controversial statement that "apparent improvement" in the diets of people in India and China and consequent food export caps is among the causes of the current global food crisis.

the full story can be found here

*excerpt from Times of India.

While discussing Economy and Trade at World Wide Technology, Inc. Maryland Heights in Missouri US, President George Bush said:

"So, for example, just as an interesting thought for you, there are 350 million people in India who are classified as middle class. That's bigger than America. Their middle class is larger than our entire population. And when you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food. And so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up."

This is after Condolezza Rice said something similar.

These remarks have kicked up a lot of negative reaction in India and produced rare political unanimity. (Go to news.google.com to find links.) A collection of statements is under the fold. In some cases I've omitted the name of the spokesperson.)