India

Not for a minute did I fail to enjoy watching Michael Clarke and Ricky Ponting make the Indian “attack” look like a very weak defence yesterday afternoon.

And if you think that two double negatives make for a confusing opening line to this story, you’re right. But it’s hard to be positive when there were so many negatives in the big picture of yesterday’s first day of the Adelaide Test.

India are dead. They are last week’s vindaloo. They are a bloated cow carcass floating down the Ganges. And they should go home. They should not even be playing this Test.

Continue reading "A great batting display, but it’s hardly a true Test" »

Articles like this one from the The New York Times explore a facet of life in India that most visitors from the West will surely notice, and anyone that lives here will have to confront to some degree – having servants, or “help”.

I still don’t even like writing or saying the word. A lot of that undoubtedly has to do with some kind of privileged-white-person, colonial-style guilt. Perhaps it is just something I am simply not used to, having grown up in a middle-class household in Australia.

Whatever reason you want to attach to it, generally speaking I feel uncomfortable with someone serving me unless they are working in a restaurant or a hotel for a decent wage.

Continue reading "Are you being served? Would you like to be?" »

Watching a Test match is a great teacher of the virtues that make for success in life: determination, strategy and simply keeping your eye on the ball.

Anyone watching India knows that they are beating Australia hands down at all three. India is set to win while the complacent, lucky country seems sure to waste its natural advantages.

Obviously, after the events at the MCG yesterday, I am talking not of cricket, but of energy security.

Continue reading "Clean bowled in cricket, but they’ll clean us up in energy" »

They’re already spruiking fans’ tours to the 2013 Ashes on the telly, in between ads for priceless mock memorabilia and the odd spot of cricket.

Not interested. Wouldn’t go to see The Ashes if I could. But the next tour to India? Now that’s something worth saving up for, and not just because India is a far more enticing travel destination than dreary, drizzly old England.

Fact is, Australia vs India is cricket’s great new rivalry. The Ashes, great tradition though it is, is second, with South Africa vs Australia third and daylight fourth. Disagree? Here are 10 reasons why India is the new England.

Continue reading "India is the new England" »

You don’t have to oppose uranium mining to oppose exports to nuclear-armed India. All it takes is a strong desire not to have an atomic bomb dropped on your head ... or anyone else’s.

Thus critics of the plan to sell to India include uranium mining advocates Ron Walker, a former Australian diplomat and former Chair of the International Atomic Energy Agency; Paul Barratt, former Secretary of the Defence Department; and Kelvin Thomson, a member of Labor’s Right faction and Chair of Parliament’s treaties committee.

The main concern is that India has not signed, and will not sign, the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Needless to say, that sets an alarming precedent. If the response to the India’s nuclear weapons program is to reward it with sales of uranium and nuclear technology, then others are sure to follow.

Continue reading "Our dangerous hypocrisy on nuclear proliferation" »

The option of using nuclear power to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation has been raised from time to time during the national debate on the carbon tax and climate change.

Although nuclear power it is not currently on the government’s energy agenda, Australia is a major supplier of uranium to the global nuclear industry which produces 14 per cent of the world’s electricity from four hundred and forty reactors in thirty countries. Their combined fifty year experience provides a basis on which to consider the deployment of nuclear power here.

As memories of the 1979 Three Mile Island accident and the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe receded, a global nuclear power renaissance seemed likely as climate change concerns mounted. Then came the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster following a massive earthquake and tsunami.

Continue reading "Australian nuclear power: the facts, the costs, the pitfalls" »

Prime Minister Julia Gillard would do well to consider some bigger issues than the praise of conservative political insiders when it comes to plans to sell uranium to India, a country not bound to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Aptly enough on the same day she announced her position reversal, the Times of India reported on a trial of a nuclear-ready Agni 2 ballistic missile, capable of traveling over 3000 km to reach its target.

We know that the more uranium India can source from foreign exporters, the more its own uranium supplies can be directed toward its rapidly expanded weapons program, fueling already simmering regional tensions in East Asia.

Continue reading "Selling uranium to India will literally blow up in our face" »

The Labor Party is set to backflip on dealing uranium to countries that have not signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. At the upcoming ALP conference, Prime Minister Julia Gillard will push to lift the ban on selling to India - and chances are it will go through.

The Punch spoke to Professor Stephen Lincoln from the University of Adelaide, an expert in uranium, nuclear power and climate change, about what it all means.

Continue reading "Punch Q & A: A fraction too much fission over uranium" »

I have just returned from spending five weeks in India. The purpose of the trip was to deliver a number of papers and lectures, attending various conferences including the Indian Association for the Study of Australia – a three-day conference looking at the cultural interactions between the two nations.

Leading up to the World Cup, there were obviously discussions about cricket, but the history is a lot more complicated than that, as our nations are intertwined in ways that most of us are ignorant of.

For example, Professor Deb Narayan Bandyopadhyay is researching the way our two countries collaborated during the World Fair in the nineteenth century. Researcher Amit Ranjan presented a personal account of his research into the grave of Australian Alice Garden who died of cholera in Calcutta in 1882: Why was she there? What kind of interactions did she represent?

Another issue that is often raised is the experience of Indian students in Australia - not only the attacks of last year, but the more general encounters between Australians and Indians. In the context of a history that includes the mistreatment of indigenous Australians and the infamous ‘White Australia Policy’, I am asked: ‘Is Australia a racist country?’

Continue reading "We’re only as racist as our pollies make us out to be" »

Riots broke out across India today in 1984 in response to the assassination of Indira Gandhi the previous day.

It’s Monday at The Punch. What’s on your mind? Share it here.

Ever since The Beatles took their free-love tour of Rishikesh in 1968 western culture has had a love affair with Indian spirituality; but we’ve never been more confused about the philosophy of its main tenet - to “free” ourselves of inhibitions and let it all hang out.

News reports yesterday announced that the Kama Sutra, the ancient Hindu book on “the art of love” and sexual practice is getting a modern re-write.

And even though it’s author, Indian scholar, A.N.D Haskar claims the new version will be “as close as possible” to the original text, it’s sounds more like a polite, stitched up version of a lifestyle magazine than the guidebook to free love.

Continue reading "The Kama Sutra, now with less raunch" »

If there was a prize for droll understatement in public relations, the man to beat right now would be New Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat who, with 23 construction workers being rushed to hospital after a bridge collapsed at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium early yesterday, had this to say:

“The pictures on TV make it look much worse than it is.”

The indefatigable Mr Bhagat might have graduated with flying colours from the school of “It’s not a turd it’s a chocolate éclair” media management, but nobody else is buying it.

Continue reading "When cowardice is rational, honest and brave" »

The Indian army invaded West Pakistan today in 1965 and while both parties agreed to a UN-initiated ceasefire three weeks later, both countries continue to lay claim to the state of Kashmir.

And it’s Monday at The Punch. What’s on your mind? Share it here.

These days no self-respecting or self-preserving celeb is seen without a malnourished child, developing country or war zone.  Make up removed, with a shawl or ethnic beads for decoration, the ‘saving the world’ photo shoot is a must-have for their portfolio. 

This week Lindsay Lohan joins the fray as she fronts Lindsay Lohan’s Indian Journey, a BBC3 documentary about child trafficking in India. 

It’s heavy stuff.  The country’s economic boom has seen traffickers head to India’s poorest regions in search of children who end up working long hours in inhumane conditions, with some forced into prostitution. 

Continue reading "Lindsay Lohan’s stupid celebrity quest to save India" »

Everyone loves to hate call centres, but it’s time to give them a break because they generally provide a convenient and effective service.

If you’re foaming at the mouth right now thinking that the ten minutes you’ve just spent on hold being told “your call is important” was neither convenient nor effective, consider the alternative.

In many cases it’s a drive down to your local shops, a few minutes spent hunting for a parking spot and then a few more walking past shops before you get to the retail outlet where you want to conduct a transaction.

Continue reading "Don’t take your bad day out on a call centre worker" »

Amid the so-far unfounded speculation over whether the murder of 21-year-old student Nitin Garg in Melbourne was racially motivated, it’s worth remembering what we do know: a brutal killer is at large in Melbourne.

According to his housemates who spoke to a doctor at the hospital hours after their friend was killed last weekend, the young man was slashed from the abdomen up to the heart.

“Whoever did this knows how to kill,” Sandeep Sandeep, who lived with Garg, told The Age.

Continue reading "Crying wolf on racism" »

What really defines these three aspects of our society: Its race or colour? Peace or violence? Street crime or racial crime?

You might have thought that race, peace and street crime are more commonly seen in our society. People generally do. But take a second to think about your answers. 

To my mind, every person who lives in Australia should be given a ‘fair go’, an ideal that many Australians aim to hold. Australia was built by immigrants, and the influence of immigrants stretches broadly throughout society.

Continue reading "We need to face up to the reality of race based crime" »

Victoria might well be the Garden State but the Premier, John Brumby lives is a state of denial and it’s becoming serious.

Not content with flying off to New Delhi to placate furious Indians who fear for the safety of their kids being educated in Melbourne, he managed to anger the Indian Government by cancelling a visit to Mumbai, citing security concerns, which it seems the Indians hadn’t heard about.

That was for starters.

Continue reading "King Brumby’s tin-pot Raj" »

Looking for a great excuse to go for a beer tonight, how about tackling global poverty?

Head to iDrink and join 40K Home Foundation, an organisation run by a bunch of young people who are committed to eradicating poverty without making anyone feel guilty.

The team of fifteen, all between the ages of 21 and 27, form part of a growing trend among Gen Y’ers looking for innovative ways to help people and developing countries in need. 

“iDrink is basically a tribute to the notion that we can often solve the worst of the world’s problems when we’re surrounded by like-minded friends and a few drinks,” said Clary Castrission who co-founded 40KHome Foundation in 2004 while at university.

Continue reading "Fight poverty. Have a drink." »

Violence against Indians in Australia is now so out of control that Indians have started attacking each other.

Not that you would know this from reading the hysterical coverage in the Indian press, because the latest case has been deliberately shorn of one key fact so that the white clique which runs this country can be held to account for an Indian bloke beating up an Indian woman journalist.

The ABC did a very thorough job on its AM program this morning documenting the extent to which sections of the Indian media has gone to maintain this beat-up about being beaten up.

Continue reading "Now even Indians are attacking Indians" »

Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code 1860, although drafted by Lord Macaulay, speaks with the coyness of Queen Victoria.

It states: “Unnatural Offences – Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment for life …”

A law directed against homosexual acts dared not use words like “buggery” or “sodomy”.

The euphemism of “carnal intercourse against the law of nature” was necessary and the Courts were required to fill in the missing spaces.

Over the years, the Courts of India confirmed that any form of sexual penetration other than vaginal intercourse between a man and a woman was “against the order of nature”.

On the second of this month, two judges of the High Court of Delhi declared that s.377 was unconstitutional.

The Chief Justice, Ajit Prakesh Shah, and Justice Muralidhar held that the law would now only apply to non-consensual acts and acts where a party to the act was younger than 18 years of age.

Continue reading "Only now is it legal to be gay in India" »

Update: The Times of India is running this as its second lead story, after the Air France crash, under the headline “Australian police punch, stomp on peaceful protestors”. It also reports local travel agents saying people are cancelling planned holidays to Australia. Screenshots below.

You’d hope that only time you’d see this photo would be in, oh, 2017 when Rudd’s been in power far too long, and half a dozen students who think he doesn’t stand for their generation stage a tired protest ahead of a campus visit where the PM is due to declare victory in the education revolution.

But no. It was New Delhi. Yesterday.

This doesn’t need to be a long recap of the alleged racist attacks on Indians in Melbourne. You can read about it here and here. I’ve included some links to how the Indian press is reporting it.

But I think the comments below might be a good place to voice condemnation of any race-related violence against Indians or anyone else. Over to you…

Continue reading "This race row with India is getting out of hand" »