ISI certified, but failing to live up to standard?
Go to any market and you will find many products ranging from cosmetics to food and heavy industrial materials sport ISI or ISO certification tags, indicating that they are safe for use and assure a certain level of quality.
Even cheap toys from wholesale markets, which on face value alone look like brittle recycled plastic, can be seen with a ‘quality’ tag, giving one a feeling that the mark is being easily used and abused by unscrupulous manufacturers.
On Friday, Food Minister K.V. Thomas indicated that some Indian companies may be churning out sub-standard products despite displaying the quality tags.
“We are getting a lot of complaints regarding the quality of tyres which have got these ISO markings,” Thomas said.
ISI is a quality tag issued by the national standards body, the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), while ISO tags are standards prescribed by the International Organization for Standardization, of which India is a founding member.
The minister also displayed apprehension about the ability of the BIS to ensure quality in industries like jewellery by issuing the quality mark.
Responding to questions on the bullion industry’s demand for mandatory hallmarking of jewellery for ensuring quality, Thomas said: “I feel there should be some authenticity for this hallmarking”.
from Afghan Journal:
Ahead of Lisbon, soul-searching in Pakistan
For all of former Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf's faults, the one thing you would have to give him credit for is the emergence of a free press. It's every bit as fearless, and questioning as its counterpart across the border in India, sometimes even stepping over the line, as some complain.
Indeed east of the Suez, and perhaps all the way to Japan, it would be hard to find a media that is as unrestrained as in India and Pakistan, which is even more remarkable in the case of Pakistan given the threat posed by a deadly militancy.
And so in the run-up to the Lisbon summit where NATO leaders will decide, among other things, the way forward in Afghanistan, a few Pakistanis have spoken forcefully. They touch upon Pakistan's role as a conflicted ally in the war there and the extreme danger that the state itself faces now because of its refusal, or inability to break ranks with militant organisations. More striking, they challenge some long-held beliefs relating to India and Pakistan, in ways you would think was unthinkable.
One of them is an influential Pakistani newspaper editor, who according to Arnaud de Borchgrave in a piece carried by the Atlantic Council, has just made the rounds of Washington, delivering a stunning indictment of some of the players involved in the Afghan conflict. He can't be named and his comments were off-the-record, but meant for public use, Borchgrave says.
He has listed some of them, and I can do no better than sum them up here, given they speak so directly to the issues at the heart of a troubled region.
- All four wars between India and Pakistan (1947, 1965, 1971 and 1999) were provoked by Pakistan.
PS
And like the joke goes, he should take many others like Musharaf take with him.
Rex Minor
from Afghan Journal:
WikiLeaks: shaking the foundations of U.S. policy toward Pakistan
A Pakistani security official stands near a burning vehicle after it was attacked in Chaman in Pakistan's Balochistan province, along the Afghan border on May 19, 2010.
On the face of it, you could ask what's new about the latest disclosures of Pakistani involvement in the Taliban insurgency while accepting massive U.S. aid to fight Islamic militancy of all hues. Hasn't this been known all along -- something that a succession of top U.S. officials and military leaders have often said, sometimes couched in diplomatic speech and sometimes rather clearly?
It was only last week that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said there must be somebody in the Pakistani government who knew Osama bin Laden's whereabouts. Coming from America's top diplomat, it couldn't be more blunt.
Then why is a trove of over 90,000 classified military documents released by WikiLeaks on the war in Afghanistan causing so much consternation? Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, says it is now much more difficult to deny or dodge the truths that everyone has been aware of:
Government officials can always deflect news stories simply by crossing their fingers and waiting for the story to sink in a haze of oil spills and Lindsay Lohan extravaganzas. Now, however, “proof” is there in the black-and-white of secret U.S. documents, compliments of anti-war WikiLeaks. Even if one does not believe that the information contained in every one of these reports is accurate (some do sound rather bizarre), and even if little in the reports can be corroborated independently, the very volume of the “secret” material is overwhelming and plausible—and yes, seductively “secret.”
The White House condemned the leak, saying it could threaten national security and endanger the lives of Americans. Islamabad said leaking unprocessed reports from the battlefield was irresponsible and added that Pakistan had paid in blood fighting militants.
The biggest threat to the USA security is from the current administration made up of old clintonians and headed by the , yes we can commander in chief. They need to learn that in the holy land of afghan warriors, the foreigners have always lost, the consolation prize being the opportunity to fight the invincibles and survive, The current opponentsof the Pashtoon afghns are not a good match.
from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
Pakistan’s ISI chief attends Indian iftar
Following the slow-moving peace process between India and Pakistan can be a bit like watching paint dry. So the decision by the head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency to attend an iftar hosted by the Indian High Commission in Islamabad this week has generated much excitement.
"Lieutenant-General Shuja Pasha was among the earliest guests to arrive at the maximum-security five-star Serena hotel. He stayed nearly 45 minutes, chit-chatting with guests," wrote Nirupama Subramanian, correspondent for The Hindu in Islamabad. "This was the first time that a serving military official, let alone the head of the country’s most important intelligence agency with a well-known dislike for India, has attended an Indian event here."
Everyone agreed it was a positive development, she wrote. “It’s a huge gesture by him,” she quoted the former ISI Director-General, Lt.-Gen. (retd.) Asad Durrani as saying. “A very positive development.” Another former soldier, Lt.-Gen. (retd.) Talat Masood, said it was an indication that India-Pakistan relations were not as bad they looked. “It is very symbolic. It means things are improving between the two countries, and there are people who want it to improve in spite of all the tough talk going on.”
“A thaw,” said Pakistan People's Party politician Aitzaz Ahsan.
Pakistan's Daily Times called it "a rare gesture of goodwill". The News described it as "a milestone in India-Pakistan relations".
Even B. Raman, formerly from India's Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), welcomed the move. Arguing in favour of a dialogue between Indian intellgence agencies and the ISI, he writes: "Whether Lt.Gen.Pasha responded to an invitation personally addressed to him or whether he represented (Pakistan Army chief General Ashfaq) Kayani, who himself did not want to come, the presence of the ISI chief at the iftar reception is a significant gesture by the government of (Pakistan President Asif Ali) Zardari and has to be recognised as such. "
"Even if a formal liaison relationship between the ISI and an appropriate Indian agency has not yet been established, India should not hesitate to take the initiative in suggesting it. An intelligence liaison relationship between two countries with an adversarial relationship can be a double-edged sword. It can be beneficial sometimes. It can also harm the national interests under certain circumstances. It is a risk well worth taking. Informal discussions between the intelligence chiefs of the two countries could produce better results than discussions between the two foreign secretaries on the issue of terrorism."
dear friends dont forget, everything action has reaction… there is tit for tat… indian authorities are involved in insurgency taking place in Balochistan and to an extent swat ! so do indian makes such claim and might if not all some of them might be true
we shall understand there is an evil on both sides, there is absolute lack of trust and sincerity ! but believe me if we 2 countries live in peace and facilitate trade with each other and spend more on our people rather defense budget this sub-continent region of our will be the most progressive places in country !
i wish we 2 countries live in peace, shall have more respect for each other “its in our mutual interest !”
God bless u all, my country Pakistan and so do yours 
from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
India: should it take a gamble on Pakistan?
Some people in India are calling upon the new coalition government to make a series of bold moves towards Pakistan that will compel the neighbour to put its money where the mouth is.
If Pakistan keeps saying that it cannot fully and single-mindedly go after militants on its northwest frontier and indeed increasingly within the heartland because of the threat it faces from India, then New Delhi must call its bluff, argued authors Nitin Pai and Sushant K. Singh in a recent piece for India's Mint newspaper.
How about Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, back for a second term, giving a categorical public declaration that Pakistan need not fear an Indian military attack so long as the Pakistan army is engaged in fighting with Taliban militants? While a verbal commitment may not convince the military brass in Rawalpindi, it will likely play well in Washington as it rathchets up pressure on the Pakistan army to take the battle to the militants.
Second and to back up its assurance, India could move some of the army strike formations from the international border with Pakistan in Punjab and Rajasthan. "Such a bold, strategic move will not only make India's verbal assurances credible, but it will also immediately result in irresistible pressure on the Pakistani army to commit more of its troops to the western border," the authors wrote in the Mint piece.
Clearly, the aim of such a peace gamble is to expose the contradiction within the Pakistani position, force them to either go full throttle after militant groups, some of whom are suspected to be tied to its intelligence agencies, or face America's wrath.
Moving Indian troops back will compel the Pakistan army to act against the Taliban, and because it is incapable of doing so, will cause the United States to realise that there is no alternative to dismantling the military-jihadi complex, Pai and Singh argue.
Umair,
You would not have asked for moral courage from Sanjiv if you knew the turn of events that went from 1947 through 1971 in East Pakistan, aka Banladesh. It’s a pity that your knowledge is limited to what is written on the blogs and what is printed in irresponsible Pakistan media.
Besides, how is Bangladesh related to solving the border dispute in Kashmir?
Is India playing its hand well over Mumbai?
It has been a tense game of poker between India and Pakistan since the Mumbai attacks. On the face of it, India had the much stronger hand — not least because it captured one of the attackers alive and got him to confess to being trained in Pakistan.
But has it played its cards well?
Some analysts say India overplayed its hand in the initial days after the attack by saying the military option remained open.
That allowed Pakistan to cloud the issue and raise the spectre of an Indian military strike — neatly uniting the country behind the army and against India.
One former foreign secretary told me India had made a mistake on those initial days, by making a threat it was not prepared to carry out and allowing Pakistan the chance to play the victim.
Since then, New Delhi has been much more restrained and cautious in what it has said, admirably so according to diplomats and analysts I have spoken to. On Monday it presented its carefully complied dossier of evidence to Pakistan and other countries.
But Prime Minister Manmohan Singh raised the stakes again this week by suggesting that the Pakistani “agencies” must have known about and supported the plan to attack Mumbai.
The question whether India played its card wisely or foolishly, the fact is that India has been attacked not for the first time , but Mumbai attack is the latest in the series . It is wrong on the part of India to rely much on US for support, without going into the historical background of Indo-US relation, US has never been our friend , US has always stood by Pakistan in case of any Indo-Pak hostility . We can not expect the change in this mindset overnight especially in a given situation of US involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan being its front line ally in war against terror.
Time and again, the international community’s attempt to brand Pakistan as a rogue state for illegal export nuclear technology to Iran, N.Korea, Libya ,Seria etc, and also branding of Pakistan as terrorist state has always met with vehement opposition from Pakistan’s traditional friend , China and US , and yet US expects us to act as counter to China , this is something not acceptable to a large number of Indians .It is our relation with US which is detrimental to our developing relations with China , our next door neighbor.
The Mumbai terror attack and the reaction of the international community as well reaction Pakistan Govt and Pakistani people in general, should work as eye opener to all those propagator of people to people contact, visa free regime etc , that Pakistan and Paksitanis can never be trusted , they can never be our ally . The time has come now where India’s ruling establishment should give up vote bank politics and take some radical steps with regard to Indo-Pak relations are concerned ,and this should start with total seizing of diplomatic relations with Paksitan, stopping of visas to Paksitanis, withdrawal of MFN status, free trade . We must also seal our borders as far as possible. As India being the front line state being the victim of terrorist spilling from Pakistan,India is at war like Israel, we must strenghten our internal security, srengthen our intel network .
from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
India, Pakistan and covert operations. All in the family?
Do read this piece by Gurmeet Kanwal, the head of the Indian Army's Centre for Land Warfare Studies, about how India should respond to the Mumbai attacks with covert operations against Pakistan.
He says that "hard military options will have only a transitory impact unless sustained over a long period. These will also cause inevitable collateral damage, run the risk of escalating into a larger war with attendant nuclear dangers and have adverse international ramifications. To achieve a lasting impact and ensure that the actual perpetrators of terrorism are targeted, it is necessary to employ covert capabilities to neutralise the leadership of terrorist organisations."
But he also argues that India's covert capabilities in Pakistan were wound down on the orders of the Prime Minister in 1997 so as to promote reconciliation. "If that is true, a great deal of effort will be necessary to establish these capabilities from scratch. It will take at least three to five years to put in place basic capabilities for covert operations in Pakistan as both the terrorist organisations and their handlers like the ISI will have to be penetrated. The R&AW must be suitably restructured immediately to undertake sustained covert operations in Pakistan. The time to debate this issue on moral and legal grounds has long passed."
Pakistan has long accused India of supporting militants in its Baluchistan province, among other places, in retaliation for what New Delhi sees as Pakistani support for separatist movements in Punjab, the north-east, and in Kashmir. But for a democratic government, the value of covert operations is limited. India's Congress-led government is under pressure now to show it is standing firm against the Mumbai attacks and (leaving aside ethical questions) you can't achieve electoral popularity with covert operations. That's why it's particularly interesting that someone like Gurmeet Kanwal would suggest them.
B. Raman, a former head of India's Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) made similar points in an article he wrote in May 2002 in response to the attack on an Indian Army camp in Kaluchak.
"The situation we face today is due to the long neglect of the need for a carefully worked out counter proxy war doctrine to be implemented consistently, intelligently and with determination," he wrote. "Now is the time for formulating such a doctrine and implementing it -- more covertly than overtly. A counter proxy war doctrine would provide space for both overt, correct state-to-state relations and simultaneously, covert undermining of the wielder of terrorism."
We need to take some very strict actions against those who think about hurting people around even in their wildest dreams. We need to set some examples.
We need to bring proof in front of the world about the guilty people responsible for all that has happened, and ask some very straight forward questions to Pakistan. I am not in favour of stopping peace talks with Pakistan, but that should not come across as our weakness any more. Pakistan has been taking our efforts to establish peace for Granted, they have always tried to Make Kashmir an agenda, when we wanted to bring their attention towards stopping terrorism in their Land.
To certain extent it does not matter to the civilian community which part of the border they stay in, till the time they are assured of security, and prosperity and get their self respect. The very Idea of developing fear and hatred for each other is frightening.
Now that Coalition forces may draw back their troops from Iraq, there are high chances that Pakistan will join hands with Iraq and AfGanisthan to run antisocial activities.
All countries know about the truth of what happens inside Pakistan. They just want to say it publicly in front of the workd community. United nations needs to run an impartial investigation on this, and come up with a areport before all nations.
Once proved that Pakistan encourages antisocial acitivities, ut should be banned by the world community. If Pakistan changes its heart today, we are open for peace talks.
In any case citizens of either country should not be hurt, and governments of both nations should keep the benfit of their citizens in priority.
Timing of Jaipur blasts will raise suspicion of Pakistani hand
Are militants, or even hawks within the Pakistani establishment, trying to undermine the peace process with India, now that President Pervez Musharraf has removed his uniform and civilians are squabbling for power?
The dust has scarcely settled on another horrific bomb attack in India, and the investigation has only just begun into the synchronised blasts in Jaipur that killed around 60 people .
It is still far too early to be drawing any firm conclusions, but the timing of the blasts is already making some people wonder whether Pakistan was involved.
The explosions came a week before India‘s foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee was due to visit Islamabad to review the peace process, his first visit since a new, civilian government took over in Pakistan.
It also came just a few days after some of the worst violence this year in Kashmir . India was unhappy that its soldiers came under heavy fire from Pakistani last Thursday along the Line of Control as armed militants tried to sneak into Kashmir .
It was also ten years since India conducted five nuclear tests, on May 11 and 13, 1998.
Now that the army is no longer running Pakistan, is the powerful military intelligence agency, the ISI, flexing its muscles again and warning its new civilian “bosses” to abandon the cause of Kashmir at their peril?
How long Indian keep blaming Pak for the problems they have in their society or country,like cast, injustice in ruling other ehnics, unfair class systems, poverty. It is time for Indian to face reality and fix these very difficult problems.
Brand name and quality tag give confidence to buyers, whateber be the commodity. We see brand names widely publicised in print media and vid media too but there have not been adequate checking by certification authorities once the product has been certified by them. These certifications need a limit of time period whereafter the manufacturers/producers go through the certification process with more stringent parametres, since technology is fast changing in every field with state-of-art being available throughout the world.