The #FATFgreylist normalisation, the F16 package, this is just a Dem regime doing what they do best, push for closer ties with Pakistan. A thread.
1/n The pivot towards Pakistan started under LBJ, his administration explicitly wanted a weaker India. R Nixon then continued this policy.
Carter famously threatened to sanction us if we continued our nuclear experiments and even signed a presidential order
2/n banning export of fisile material to us. Carter initiated Op Cyclone that completely deprioritsed India over Pakistan.
Reagan righted this keel, they provided increased aid, military equipment, even high tech gas turbines for our indigenous vessels.
3/n Dubya Sr then took it to the next level (relative to what it was then), he pushed for the DTAA, approved sale of high speed computers for our space program, when a GoI entity took over a US firm operational in India, he purposely stayed away from intervention.
4/n Then came Clinton and his post Pokhran sanctions,
It was a R, Dubya who again thawed it out.
He did ban Modi from entry but Obama continued the policy and used the USCIRF to vehemently attack Modi and India. Dubya also pushed the landmark Nuclear treaty.
5/n Hillary and her pal Huma Abedin were and are virulently anti India. Under her advise Obama pumped in billions of $ into Pakiland as aid while it is Trump who has been cutting it.
Hillary hated India so much that on her first tour to Asia as a secy of state, she skipped India
6/n Obama hyphenated Kashmir with Pakistan unequivocally, restricted H1B visas. The first POTUS to do so.
His choice of Ambassador was Roemer, a strident advocate of the US negotiating a settlement on Kashmir which is against India's bilateral stand since the Shimla agreement.
7/n In the meantime, Obama gave out
• $ 7.5bn in aid to Pakistan in Oct 09,
• $3.5bn in 2010
• $3.5bn in 2011
When the Republicans wanted to block aid to Pakistan in 2016, Obama fought tooth and nail against it.
8/n Bill Clinton was another pro Pakistan, anti India Potus.
Clinton applied the super 301 clause choking many industries.
Reagan approved sale of Cray Super computers, Clinton blocked this.
Al Gore called Punjab, Khalistan
9/n Robin Rapahel a known India hater& Paki lover held a lot of power in the Dept of State. The is when the latest block 52 fighters were offered to Pakiland.
Bush imposed Pressler amendment on Pakiland that Rapahel helped repeal allowing full flow of arms & funds to Jihadland
10/n Bush had blocked monies paid for F16's which Clinton refunded in full.
Robin in her official capacity as Asst Secy of state literally questioned the Instrument of Accession and said India had to hold a plebiscite.
Clinton followed suit and raised this issue in the UN.
11/n Post the 93 Mumbai blasts, Republicans wanted Pakistan declared a state sponsor of terror. Rapahel convinced her boss Clinton to stand down.Clinton totally ignored these blasts then.
Rapahel + the Clinton administration insisted that India had to talk with Kashmiri jihadis
11/n Rapahel and her boss helped overtly and covertly the creation of the Hurriyat conference AND later insisted Delhi include this body in all negotiations.
Clinton's term 2 was no different. His secy of state, Albright hated India, wanted a plebiscite in Kashmir,
12/n supported Pakistan openly and was a turd to Indian interests while supporting Paki ones.
It was Bill Clinton that set up the shitty USCIRF (that had reps from all faiths but Hinduism, not sure if it is any different now) and used it to beat India.
13/n Fun bonus - Joe Biden sponsored a law in 1991 that promised aid to Russia IF it stopped the sale of cryogenic engines to India.
Every Democrat president after Kennedy has been anti India, anti Hindu and pro Pakistan and pro Jihad
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July 1, 2003 1 lakh govt employees including some 15k teachers went on strike. The iron lady of TN (for all her corruption I miss her steady stewardship) Jaya said nothing.
2 all the employees, get back to work and then we will talk.
They, motivated by the DMK unions said no.
2 weeks later she overnight sacked 1.7l, arrested 10,000, invoked ESMA hired 1,000's of temp workers.
3 weeks later the unions collapsed, surrendered (some shamelessly
3 Threw herself at her feet). The SC hearing the case threw it out, supported her stance but asked her to take the employees back in a sign of magnanimity.
But you know the aftermath?
Despite running the best govt in TN history (deficit under control, promoted fdi
@VSJpyper @Akshay_VAK @Me_Predictor While @prathgodbole weighs in on the Maratha aspect. One thing though, you are right in that we would have never been a single polity. Starting the fall of the Mauryans, Hindustan has always gone through a cycle. 3 (very rarely 2) power centres would form. One centred
@VSJpyper @Akshay_VAK @Me_Predictor @prathgodbole Around the Gangetic plains, another in the West around modern day Karnataka (Rashtrakuta, Chalukya, Satavahanas etc though the Satavahanas had their capital in modern day Maharashtra) and one in the South, almost always a Tamil empire.
These would jockey for power
@VSJpyper @Akshay_VAK @Me_Predictor @prathgodbole For a period of some 250-300 odd years, get replaced by a former vassal, period of chaos lasting 1 century and then stability again.
This cycle was broken though with the death of the Vijayanagara. You then had for almost 2 centuries a strong Mughal polity, weaker
2/n a 25 year horizon, Pakistan goes through minor booms and busts.
As I explained yesterday there was no secular dip in Pakistani growth and if anything the period 2014-18 was the second highest average growth Pakistan has had in 25 years!
3/n let's take GDP per capita
Again a cyclical trend becomes visible. 2009-14 saw a dip (but still higher than 1994-98 when there was no trigger) but continued to climb reaching 7% average in the period 2014-18.
Once again GDP per capita income growth was the 2nd fastest
1/n Obama’s murderous track record is fairly widely known, however what is less well known is his outright pandering of the nastiest dictators when he was the POTUS. A short thread.
Leading the list is, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, one of the worst dictators on earth, he
2/n has been in power for decades, has murdered or imprisoned without cause every single political opponent of his, corruption in Equatorial Guinea is legendary and often in the top 5 of most corrupt countries on earth rankings. Yet, under Obama, US oil investments into
3/n this country went up drastically (#3 in Africa), and in turn it exported close to 100,000 barrels of oil a day to the USA. Obama feted Teodoro including a formal state dinner in the whitehouse and has to this day not criticized this “friend of the US” for his gross excesses.
Not a "bhosad piller"and I firmly believe reservations should stay. Infact I believe existing reservations reduced a bit and a full 5-10% given to children of inter caste marriages. Incl maybe full sponsorship of children born to such parents. The numbers are negligible rn
1/n that said. These are very vague and tenuous arguments. Correlation is not equal to causation.
Take a foundational metric, both Kerala and TN (to name the few key South Indian states one associates with higher standards of living) had much higher literacy rates
2/n as opposed to the "backward" states. Kerala was @ 56%, TN @ 36%, Pondy 46%, compare this with the erstwhile "Bimaru" states that ranged from 18-20% in the 61 census. This was much before when the 69% reservations were rolled out. Clearly the social infra in edu
Our first education minister Abul Kalam Azad, had no formal education, was born to an Afghan father and Saudi mother in Saudi Arabia (then Ottoman Turkey)
Indira Gandhi never completed her formal education. She at least was undeniably intelligent.
2/n a senior Mandarin in the MEA wrote to an attache in the Indian embassy in London (who himself was a Cambridge PhD) asking for him to help with Pappu sr's admission into Cambridge.
The attache then spoke to high officials in Trinity Cambridge and got Pappu sr
3/n a conditional admit, subject to his clearing MSQ -entrance exam - imagine the privilege! Getting admission in Cambridge before even taking the admission exam.
Pappu sr predictably aced the exam... actually he flunked.