Recently in India/Pakistan Category

Antara points out here that both the Prime-Minister and President of India are 'academicians'.

"both Kalam and Manmohan are teachers, the teaching profession is now ruling the country. From my own personal experience, as the daughter of two teachers, that's hardly the case."

Thats interesting. Of course, it merely means that the facade is a little more presentable -- underneath, the system remains as brutal and murderous as ever. Reminds me of what Sinan Antoon said last week. If John Kerry were elected, the US would have a president 'who could speak English'.

Second, I wonder what these two people have really done in academics. Mr. Kalam -- as far as I know -- has made no significant contributions to physics though he may have been a good administrator. (he put his managerial skills to place in the military helping develop missiles). I doubt if Mr. Manmohan Singh has done anything in economics either though, at least he has a Ph.D(unlike Kalam).

So, here we have two quintessential 'academics'. One who sells out to the military and helps it develop weapons to kill people, the other who sells out to the IMF and helps it open up the Indian economy. Hardly surprising.

India is ruled by a large coalition of parties centred around the Hindu nationalist party BJP(Bhartiya Janata Party). Even using 'unbiased' liberal terminology, one can safely state that large sections of this coalition are fascist.

National elections are slated for next year, and a common progressive strategy has been to support the Congress party. Elections in a five states were held recently. In a major setback for progressive forces, the BJP emerged triumphant in three of them. Some detailed analysis may be found on Outlook India in this article.

What is the saving grace? As Mark Tully points out, in this BBC article, the BJP fought these elections on a 'development' platform in contrast to their standard ultra-nationalist anti-Muslim position. Also, three of the five new Chief ministers are women. This New York Times article has some discussion on the role of women in Indian politics.