The South Asia Politics, News, and Analysis Thread

That is the campest display I have ever seen in my life. Speaking of the Ministry of Silly Walks, Michael Palin's been there:

edited 16th Apr '14 5:31:40 PM by Achaemenid

The first clip I meant to show you was from Palin's show but I decided to use the other one because it had a slightly better quality. (Palin's commentary is better, though.)

It's a local tourist attraction. I intend to see it next time I'm there. If it's on at the time (it's every day, but it changes depending on the political climate. Sometimes they tone it down when things are good and sometimes they're too angry to do it).

EDIT-

Actually, case in point, Nawaz Sharif is gonna keep the border open all day every day for the sake of trade. So the show is probably off for now.

edited 16th Apr '14 5:39:09 PM by FFShinra

Where did you get that?

EDIT: Found something.

Both sides decided January this year that the border would be open 24/7 to facilitate trade. So presumably the border hasn't been closed since.

edited 16th Apr '14 5:48:27 PM by BestOf

That looked a little too choreographed to be real. They even shake hands at the end.

During peacetime border security is a joint operation and an important opportunity for cooperation between the two sides, so if there is a ceremony it will always end in a handshake. It think it's actually beautiful in a way that they leave that in even though they've added all this simulated animosity.

I'm sure the actual border security officials (I looked it up; in this case it's Border Security Forces on the Indian side and Pakistan Rangers on Pakistan's side) respect each other. In any case they have to arrange this ceremony together anyway, and I think they almost certainly practice it together frequently. While there are fans on each side cheering for the country they're in I don't think there are many who genuinely loathe the other side.

That said, the show represents the attitudes that both sides had for each other when they started doing in (in the 1950s), so at least originally there probably was some real, personal hostility.

This.

Like I said, it's a tourist attraction. They wouldn't be campy if they were serious. Desi people are scary when they're actually mad.

edited 17th Apr '14 3:01:33 AM by FFShinra

Someone tried to kill Hamid Mir. Again.

The guy was the first journalist to interview OBL after 9/11 and is sort of a local badass when it comes to reporting. Also has his own news show. His brother is accusing the ISI of trying to off him, but no one can know for sure at the moment.

Does Iran count as South Asian?

No. Iran counts as the Middle East, even though it's not Arab.

What ethnicities do Indians have, then?

edited 23rd Apr '14 2:09:04 AM by Sledgesaul

Most of them are Venezuelan, I hear.

Thousands.

Okay so the Hamid Mir thing is blowing up fast. The channel he worked for, GEO News, has been accusing the ISI of trying to assassinate him. This is kind of a big deal because the media very very rarely tells off the military in Pakistan. Last time it did was when Musharraf had initiated emergency rule back in 07. It's also a whole magnitude bigger deal than if a family member accuses the military, as happened immediately after.

Anyway, the army wants GEO News shut down.

My gut reaction is the Pakistani Army can go directly to fuck: they're essentially a rogue state with a state (the Prussia of the subcontinent!) and they badly need to be put in their place.

Of course, my head tells me that what the Pakistani Army wants, it usually gets, and one suspects that if it gets sufficiently pissed off it might decide that one democratic transition is one too many.

They can only do it for so long though. They only maintain the size they have because they've literally gone into business for themselves, and not just in security-related fields. They use the proceeds from that to handle their veterans affairs so they don't have to do so from their official budget.

Geo is backtracking due to the threat BTW. Or trying to. So you may be right anyway, but eventually the media won't sit down.

They likely inherited that model from the Chinese; the PLA has a similar business empire. One thing that I wish I knew more about is why Pakistan and India took such different paths after independence: India has managed several decades of - relatively - stable democracy, whilst Pakistan has more coups than a chicken farm.

The many many ethnicities prevented anyone from dominating. Pakistan inherited the Raj's frontier and thus was more heavily militarized. One was relatively unaligned in the Cold War (til the 70s) while the other jumped in the Cold War bandwagon very early on. Those are just from the top of my head. There are many reasons across many sectors to take into account.

Hamid Mir himself has released a statement now. Basically he's doubling down on the ISI accusation. That Geo broadcast his brother reading it live means they've not so much as backed down as they are covering their asses by saying they aren't against the military. Which is probably true, but sad that they have to actually say that.

There will be a runoff in Afghanistan, but Abdullah Abdullah led the main count with Ashraf Ghani coming in a close second.

Best of luck to him.

May it be fair and free of violence.

In an effort to crack down on bill defaulters, the Islamabad Electric Supply Company (IESCO) decided to pull the plug on the defaulters within the government...which translated to everyone.

Pakistan just arrested an FBI agent in Karachi.

Nawaz Sharif attended Modi's swearing-in as Prime Minister of India, in a historical first for the subcontinent.

This may be Nixon Goes to China for these guys. Certainly I'm hoping so.

In other news, Geo News apologized to the ISI for the Hamid Mir business. The House always wins...

edited 27th May '14 11:10:05 AM by FFShinra

So Modi's chosen his cabinet. I can't say I'm terribly impressed — lots of lifelong BJP insiders (many with RSS connections). While some of this would happen in any government, and India apparently is hamstrung by a requirement that cabinet ministers are also M Ps, I was hoping for a bit more of a technocratic administration, with people who had experience in business and the non-governmental sectors, foreign education and training, and so on.)