The Great Debate (India)

India v Pakistan: Who will win?

Nothing gets bigger in this part of the globe than a cricket match featuring India and Pakistan. The rivalry would be renewed in Wednesday’s World Cup semi-final in Mohali in Punjab.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yusuf Raza Gilani will watch the match in what is billed as “cricket diplomacy”.

According to a newspaper report, airport authorities have received requests from business tycoons, including Mukesh Ambani and fellow industrialist Vijay Mallya, to allow them to park their private jets in Chandigarh.

While politicians and Bollywood celebrities will also be in tow, there is a growing sense of anger among the ticket-seeking fans who complained of large-scale black-marketing.

How important is this “mother of all cricket contests”? Who do you think will win? Share your views.

Should gambling on cricket be legalised?

The Pakistan spot-fixing scandal has once again shone the spotlight on illegal betting in the sub-continent and reopened the debate on the legalisation of gambling in India.

Media reports suggest the Indian sports ministry is now examining gambling regulations in other countries, particularly the UK, in a possible move towards legalising sports gambling.

Should gambling on cricket be legalised?

Has the Bharatiya Janata Party lost its political plot?

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday expelled former finance minister Jaswant Singh from its primary membership for praising Pakistan founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah in a book.

The decision to expel Singh came after the release of his book “Jinnah – India, Partition, Independence” which the BJP said went against the party ideology.

As a visibly upset Singh, a founding member of the party, questioned the decision, the latest controversy to hit the BJP seems to have brought its internal conflicts out in the open.

Many pressing issues haunt the party as it begins its ‘Chintan Baithak’ – an annual brainstorming session.

The BJP was drubbed at the 2009 general election and faced a leadership crisis. Its elderly leaders are perceived as being out of sync with a young vote base and it has had an ideological falling out with its Hindu right-wing parent.

The BJP may need to take a hard look at these issues if it hopes to reinvent itself.

Singh’s book and its fallout have led some liberal thinkers in politics to question the wisdom of meting out punishment to an individual for expressing a personal opinion especially since larger issues like revamping the organizational structure of the party and its revival need to be addressed.

India, Pakistan reach cautious win-win perch

By C. Uday Bhaskar

(C. Uday Bhaskar is a New Delhi-based strategic analyst. The views expressed in the column are his own)

The joint statement issued by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yusuf Raza Gilani at Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt on the sidelines of the NAM Summit has generated considerable comment in both countries and is being interpreted across a wide bandwidth that ranges from outright condemnation to cautious cheer.

India and Pakistan are now back to formal engagement — albeit in a brittle manner with many caveats after the composite dialogue, that goes back to January 2004, had been put on freeze by India after the Mumbai terrorist attack of November 2008.

It is instructive that this modest breakthrough came on the eve of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit, which marks the first high-level political contact between the Obama administration and the UPA government after it was voted back to power.

The operative part of the statement is contained in a mere 18 words that read as: “Action on terrorism should not be linked to the composite dialogue process and these should not be bracketed.”

Critics in India have flayed Singh for his seeming ‘capitulation’ and invoked the criticism that he is ‘weak’ — a charge leveled against him during the early 2009 campaign phase.

Can Pakistan take on the Lashkar-e-Taiba?

If Pakistan’s battle against the Taliban seems difficult, a much tougher challenge lies ahead: deciding what to do about the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group it once nurtured to fight India in Kashmir.

For security analysts, the two questions are whether the army and ISI can close down the LeT, and if they want to do so — the assumption being that this would have to be done by the country’s powerful military rather than the civilian government.

Analysts say the army may be rethinking its attitude to militants after it lost control of the Pakistani Taliban, which overran the Swat valley and began encroaching on Punjab.

But giving up the LeT, seen as a “force multiplier” in the event of an invasion by India — rather like citizens trained in civil defence — would be another step altogether.

Would Pakistan army turn against the LeT?

Pakistan in a maelstrom?

( C. Uday Bhaskar is a New Delhi-based strategic analyst. The views expressed in the column are his own)

The Ides of March have been linked with deep political intrigue and pre-meditated violence and history notes that Caesar paid a very heavy price for not paying heed to the sage advice rendered unto him.

Pakistan is no Rome but the pattern of recent events that include the ‘conquest’ of the Swat valley by the Taliban, the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore and the blowing up of the shrine of the Sufi-saint Rehman Baba at the foothills of the Khyber Pass by Sunni extremists are cumulatively indicative of a socio-religious tsunami whose tectonic implications go well beyond the political contours of Pakistan.

Concurrently the country is poised on the cusp of an irreparable breakdown between the two major political parties – the PML(N) led by former PM Nawaz Sharif, and the PPP led by the Pakistan President, Asif Ali Zardari.

This tragic paradox is heightened by the reality that while the disparate extremist groups that are broadly classified as the Pakistan Taliban are uniting under a common banner and leader – the political forces that can counter such ideology are splintering.

But then historically Pakistan has been plagued by myriad domestic contradictions and paradoxes and long-time Pakistani watchers see the current turbulence with a sense of déjà vu.

From the first military take over of Pakistan by General Ayub Khan in October 1958 to the more recent coup by General Pervez Musharraf in October 1999, the khaki constituency has always been the central element of power in the national matrix.

Is cricket in South Asia critically injured?

This is not the first time cricket or cricketers were targeted in the subcontinent, especially Pakistan.

Despite the threat to players’ security, something which has led to postponement or cancellations of many tours, the subcontinent has always presented a united front which many will say was instrumental in the centre of gravity of world cricket shifting from England to South Asia.

There was always the fear of violence, the threat was clear and present, but what unfolded outside the Gaddafi Stadium at Lahore took the fear and threat to a new realm. Is cricket in the continent critically injured? Can cricket recover from this body blow?

from Pakistan: Now or Never?:

Mumbai attack and Obama’s plans for Afghanistan

from Pakistan: Now or Never?:

Can India-Pakistan ties withstand Mumbai bombings?