Drones - Virtual War

Recently US decided to use drones for helping(?) Libyan rebels fight against Libyan leader. In another country (Pakistan), there has been huge hue and cry about the use of drones against the militancy. US already uses drones in the border region of AfPak (Afghanistan-Pakistan) against the taliban. These drones have been very successful in their operations. Almost 230 attacks have been made without about 2300 men killed in the attack in drone attacks in Afghanistan.

US had long back Unmanned Arial Vehicles which could fly across pacific non-stop.

Use of drones has taken war to next level. The human intervention is minimised considerably by use of such automated weapons.

US has effectively minimised the human loss (their) in any ongoing wars. Irrespective of their loosening hold on the financial markets, their hold on the military is tightening and quite gripping. Any economy without a strong military support cannot remain powerful.

Use of such automated weapons, US makes sure that, their own human losses are minimised and so the opposition to military intervention by US is brought down.

The opposition to military intervention in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc was due to the human losses in the war. By using such weapons and tools, US will continue interfering in others affairs and at the same time, reducing their risks involved in such operations.

All these operations in various countries act as good ground for live experiments of such weapons/vehicles.

Biggest international heist in Financial History

Consider This


## Sometime back ##




(a) US denies Dubai Port company to takeover Us Ports company citing security reasons.

(b) Similar voices are heard against chinese companies too (though no official comment on the same)




# Still Sometime Back #

(a) sub prime crisis surfaces.

(b) Lot of financial institutions on shaky ground

(c) Spate of write off follow

(d) Bear stearn crisis, bail out done..

(e) US financial institutions need huge capital to bolster balance sheets.

(f) Fed action follows, credit & liquidity infused. lot of US financial institutions take capital infusion from chinese, Japanese & gulf (basically dubai based) companies.

(though could not verify which gulf company has invested in US Financial institution)

(g) Dollar depreciates, oil rises, world crisis looming.




*** Now ***




(a) US institutions crash

(b) Freddie & Fannie (biggest home mortgage companies) bailed out...

(c) Lehman follows same path.. US refuses bail out

(d) same fate announced for meryll & AIG but bail out package made.

(e) Oil prices decreasing despite hurricanes & Opec announcing reduction in production

(f) Dollar continues to strengthen against currencies

(g) One analyst finds out that biggest unsecured creditors of lehman brothers are Asian institutions!!!!!! (read this article in "from all street journal" in financial daily "mint")



Why?



What is the best way rob anybody?



Borrow---> Spend---> declare bankruptcy----> lender is finished.



Who is better off?



The person on whom the money is spent.

The person who borrows has nothing to lose as he is where he was earlier



Lender is punished...



Did same thing not happen with US markets? Did US government pull out biggest heist in financial history? Who lost most money in this turmoil? borrowers from those insitutions (i.e. US public who may not pay now to the lehman bros) or the ones who had faith in these institutions and lent them huge monies( Asian & other financial institutions)?



Why is dollar appreciating in such situation?

Indo US Deal Loses its Sheen

The day the Nuclear Suppliers Group(NSG) granted unique waiver to India to trade in Nuclear related technology & fuel irrespective of its signing of NPT & CTBT, India has made its way to nuclear group through backdoor. India can be termed as only country which is recognised as nuclear weapon state, allowed to trade in nuclear material without signing NPT & CTBT. So technically India while can have all privileges of nuclear weapon state but is not bound by any law as other states are.

There is one more implication of the NSG waiver granted to India. India now does not NEED Indo-US civilian nuclear deal. The main objective of India entering into deal with India was

• Able to trade in nuclear material so that we can import uranium for our power plants and the same time divert own uranium for weapons program. ( I had discussed this earlier also)
• Able to import dual use technology for our own purpose military & civilian prupose.
• Our Military nuclear programme should be legitmised.
• Our chances of getting Permanent membership of security council is increased.

To get that we required two things to happen

1. Recognition of separate programme for civilian & military nuclear programme (approval from IAEA was required for it)
2. Trading in nuclear related material (NSG waiver did that for us)

Now once that is done, the question is does India need Indo-US deal. The answer to that is not so simple but we can live without it also. It was possible to live without all these steps also but after these steps the need of the deal is diminished though not demolished.

We shoulod realise that post NSG waiver, we can trade in nuclear related material with any country so now we are not dependent on US for nuclear supplies. The objective of US in this deal was multipronged:

1. It convinced its own public that they are doing this for non-proliferation.
2. A counter balance to China in Asia.
3. Creating business & jobs in their non-existent nuclear supplies companies in US.

Russia & France are ready to enter into such deal with India at any moment. We can even use our demand potential and NSG waiver as bargaining chip while entering into deals with lesser know countries for perpetual supply of nuke material. these would include counties like poland, angola.

But there lies some risks in not operationalising 123 deal viz.

1. US can exert pressure on smaller countries to not trade with India.
2. India's entry into exclusive security council will be in-ordinately delayed.
3. We can expect US to exert influence on all activities with India.
4. If it can extract waiver from NSG, then it can possibly get it reversed also.

In this situation what is the path that India should undertake.

If India enters into deal with US, the Hyde Act can create problems for us in the later years to come. As we tie up for fuel supplies with US, they can then easily exert influence us on any policy matter as our energy would be dependent on their supplies.

India is in such a situation where it does not need 123 deal but at the same time cannot deny to enter into deal.

The course of action should be as follows:

1. As elections are round the corner, delay the ratification of 123 deal. Let that ratification get spilled over to next coming government.
2. Advance talks with other countries for similar deals (maxim - "Do not put all your eggs in one basket")
3. After ratification, delay making policies for private participation in nuclear sector.
4. Allow immediately imports of dual use technology. (irrespective of any situation , the technology once acquired cannot be taken back, we can always copy it and make claims of being indigenous)
5. Allow dual use tech in renewable energy resources & other high tech areas. ( we should use that to develop technology to do nuclear testing simulations, so that we do not need to test other weapon ever again).

These are some of the steps that India can take.

Now it is upto our leadership to decide the path to undertake.

Crude Consumption.... An Mass Media Mis-Propaganda

Everytime, there is rise in the price of the crude oil, all the media rants about the increasing consumption of Oil by developing nations like India and China and their huge apetite for the hydrocarbons. The responsibility of price rise without any justification is put squarely on these countries without providing any facts or figures supporting for it.

First of all, we need to understand that while comparing between any two entities the parameters need to be selected very carefully. It is rightly said, "Statistics are like mini-skirts, which reveal too much while covering vital things" The parameters of statistics are of utmost importance. As when defining whether a country is developed, developing, under-developed or undeveloped, the criteria used is either PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) per capita GDP or even plain vanilla PCI(Per Capita Income) in a single currency, to get an proper comparative idea, the same technique needs to be used while determining the consumption of crude oil by various states.

The basic argument used by all media is that more than 30% of the increased consumption of oil is cornered by the countries like china and India. But is that info pr0per to confer that the consumption of these countries is very high? Is increase in consumption the only parameter to judge it? Absolutely not... The absolute consumption of the oil is also important as compared to the increased consumption. Then there is a question, the total till date consumption of oil by all the countries? These developed countries have been guzzling oil at an alarming rate for past few decades. Had they not consumed at such an alarming rate, we would not have faced crisis situation today. countries like US would always like to point a finger which is not directed towards them. Who is going question them?

What is the consumption of these so called oil guzzlers? How much oil do developing countries consume as compared to other western countries and US?Now to understand better lets look at some figures:

1. US was consuming 20.5 million barrels of oil per day in 2006. While India was consuming 2.5 million barrels of oil and China was consuming 7.2 million barrels per day.
2. The US consumption is more than 8 times of India. That means 1% increase in oil consumption is equivalent to 8.5% increase in consumption of India.
3. India's total consumption of oil is equal to US's 1 1/2 months oil consumption.
4. India's population is more than One Crore (i.e. one Billion) while US population barely exceeds 300 million that means India has three times more population to support than US while consumption is one-eigth.
5. If we convert those consumption figures to per capita, then we could say that India's per capita consumption is 4% as compared to that of US.
6. The Per Capita consumption of energy by US is 68.81 barrels per person per year while India's consumption is 2.18 barrels per person per year. that is more than 33 times!!!!!

Where are these facts when Fatih Birol, chief economist of the International Energy Agency talks bull shit whilst saying that "The rapidly growing appetite for fossil fuels in China and India is likely to help keep oil prices high for the foreseeable future - threatening a global economic slowdown,"

Have they ever gone through these figures? Do they know how much is one barrel of oil?

One barrel of oil is equivalent to around 160 litres. that means a US citizen consumes about 11,000 litres of oil and oil equivalent per day!!!??????? Consider the mind boggling figures when I say 300 million population of US means 3264,000,000 litres per day i.e. about 3.2 billion litres per day. That is 1,191,360 million litres per year !!!!!!

These figures are completely mind boggling. I personally feel that there is huge mass media mis-prpoganda being done about the oil consumption by countries like India. Completely irrelevant data (no false) is being fed to general public and then completely baseless inference is being drawn.

In this world where in a democracy, Media is considered to be fourth pillar of democracy, I feel the Indian media should vociferously try to present a correct picture to the Indians and the world. Mass Media was used as a weapon even in the days of second world war and later in the Cold War Era...

I warn all of you to not fall victims to this propoganda. Try to question the data and analyse it before drawing any conclusion from it. Even Indian leadership should take effort to present correct picture all the citizens. Complete facts should be presented and then the person should be allowed to draw the conclusion. Do not accept the conclusion drawn by others. (especially western media)

Though concerned about the Global climate change, the developed countries like US have outrightly refused to decrease the emission of GHGs (Green House Gases). They rant about developing countries food consumption has led to increase in food prices. Do they know how much they consume or how much food they waste? (that would be another post to discuss about)

Our Foreign Policy should include mass media propoganda as to increase awarness about the issues and mis-conception. They should take help of this powerful force which could help to change the opinion of the general public and allow to take the right decisions.