The Rise Fall and Rise of a Ten Percenter

             

             When he was languishing in the jails for years together, he never thought he would see the broad daylight with dignity any day soon. But daylight he did see and in such a grandeur that everyone would be envy of and the event register in history as a remarkable turnaround in the destiny of a man named Asif Ali Zardari.
            The young Zardari was comfortable in the shadow of his charismatic wife the late Benazir Bhutto and had no inhibitions in being identified as the same. The husband was then made the minister and thus got born the man who was called as Mr. 10 percent. The 10 percent being his alleged share of any government deal that occurred. Zardari is claimed to have bungled tens of millions of dollars of the state fund and was thus arrested on corruption charges so severe that he would have spent his entire life in the jails of karachi.
           There had already occurred a freeze in the relations of Zardari and Benazir and they both maintained separate lives since many years. The thaw in relations was brought about until recently when efforts were taken by America to reinstate a democratic government in Pakistan after having realized the inaction and thus the dispensability of Musharraf. Benazir was propelled by America and was slated to trike a consensus with the dictator. But that was not to happen. The emergence of Nawaz Sharif didnt work well with both the establishments of Musharraf or the plans of Bhutto.
           Pakistan was heading for a political crisis in the form of a hung parliament and with prospects of better bargaining position of Musharraf when the unfortunate yet defining assasination of Benazir Bhutto occurred. Thus emerged the man whom almost everyone had forgotten. The event brought to the forefront Mr. ten percent as the political heir with son Bilawal a know-nothing youngster. With Zardari at the forefront, riding on a massive sympathy wave and an equally strong clout of Sharif, especially in the Punjab province, both parties together gained the necessary numbers to bring sleepless nights to Musharraf.
            However the unlikely marriage was bound to get sour over issues of reinstatement of sacked judges and impeachment of Musharraf. Sharif has been threatening to pull out on the judges issue ever since Zardari failed to provide committment on that. However Pervez Musharraf's resignation created a void which catapulted the most likely yet the most unlikely of candidates Asif Ali Zardari to the powerful post of President of Pakistan. from being a sidekick of influential wife to being called the Mr. 10 percent to serving years of jail term, this has been a remarkable rise of a man who had fallen to depths of darkness.
            Zardari may be the man America would like to have at helm of affairs in Pakistan but such might not be the case with the Pakistan Army and the hardliners. The public too percieves him as a suit wearing foriegner who has amassed millions of dollars of state funds. It will be interesting to see how he manages with the resposibility of being the President of one of the most dangerous places on earth now, balancing the US and the fundamentalists on one hand, engaging the eastern neighbor, India on another, civil wars on another, terrorism on another, turbulent economy on another and so on. Guess quite too much to achieve Mr. Ten Percent. Sorry, correction, Mr. President.

Model United Nations entry essay

This short essay was what i had written for entry to Model United Nations at Manipal, 2007. This got me an entry and i represented the country Uruguay.

Topic: Nuclear Disarmament.

Your first day in the college and a bully comes and asks you to do a few sit-ups. You oblige. What makes you follow his orders? The knuckles in his hands. Read ‘you’ as a small developing country. Read the ‘bully’ as a developed country in your neighborhood (though need not always be in the neighborhood). The knuckles: nuclear weapons. In the skewed geopolitical and socioeconomic setup of the world, the much necessary balance has been shifted by muscle flexing by powerful nations, i.e wielding of the nuclear stick. Lets face it, Nuclear disarmament is myth. Possessing nuclear weapons is just like putting up a house security system and every nation should have a right to it.
The estimated nuclear warheads, given by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, tallies the NPT signatories like U.S of A at close to 10,000, that of UK at 200, non signatories like India at 100 and North Korea at 10 and undeclared nuclear weapon states like Israel at 200. In order to strike a balance and reduce the illegal nuclear material and technology sale, nuclear technology trade should be brought under the regulation of the UN keeping in view the economic and political state of the nation and account kept of every nation’s nuclear arsenal detail.
Nuclear bomb is not just another firecracker and we all understand its implications in full details. At the same time every nation is entitled to safeguard its sovereignty and nuclear deterrence helps in that direction. Disarmament is not the solution.

The Nuclear deal, Politics and the Common man

             

         It was diplomacy at its best at Vienna. hours of astute and awe inspiring diplomacy to give India a room at the NSG hotel paid rich dividends and finally as TOI put it, India became N-abled. it goes as a personal victory for many people. the first and foremost being the prime minister. the DAE chairman, Mr. Kakodkar, Shaym Saran, MK Narayan, the NSA would have all breathed a sigh at the meet which saw not only strong friends going out of their way to support India like France and Russia, but also some backdoor sabotage effort by neighbor China.
However all is well that ends well. Now India can carry nuclear commerce. Projects are already in pipeline with France , the most advanced nuclear energy producer of the world and old ally Russia. The US whose real muscle flexing techniques and die hard diplomacy ensured the NSG waiver will do a major chunk of the multi billion
dollar trade. NSG waiver will solve to a larger extent Indias ever growing energy demand in a few years, will generate many direct and indirect employment opportunities and will open the forum to many other sectors like pharma, IT etc.
           A prelude to this momentous achievement saw some bitter times in indian politics that is unparalleled to anything so lowly in recent times. The opposition parties sadly consider their job to oppose anyhting and everything that is put forth by the government, which saw the BJP oppose the deal whereas it was their own government who laid the foundation stone for the deal. PM - in - waiting Advani is doing no good to his and his party's image by putting his now much experienced hands into lowly mud slinging game. The left are a class apart - thier ideaology, their principles are understood by none other than just themselves which is thecase with China too!
            Now that Mulayam Singh and Amar Singh have emerged as champions of the deal, their real intent of supporting the deal might come to the fore. The left has bitten dust and Karat Inc. might as well be reduced to a minority in the forthcoming elections. The BJP was and still in a fix with the deal as they understand the gravity of the situation but are unable to broaden their mind to support it. The Congress however is seeming to gain brownie points for the clinched deal and may lok forward to make it a poll plank.
               Interestingly the Congress might be making a miscaluculation with regard to the nuclear deal a.k.a India Shining by the BJP five years back.The nuclear deal may be good for the country,but is definitely not a vote winner. this brings me to the common man. what interest is it to the common man the nitty gritty of the deal? he may just be happy if there are fewer hours of power cuts in the scorching summer. however the idea of selling the nuclear deal to gain votes seems to be a daunting task. if it took so much of efforts to convince scientists, politicians (though nothing unexpected about that!), bureaucrats, it can be imagined what it would be for a middle class hard working IT professional or a farmer.
                On one hand where India seems nothing to loose from the deal and have now found a seat among the elite of the nuclear suppliers ensuring nuclear commerce which would be beneficial to the country, the domestic politics looks at all this with a very different spectacle, a spectacle of vote bank politics, with the general elections due next year. The common man has already seen wads of notes in the parliament where earning a single of those notes is a daunting task for the majority of the population. what the common man percieves of the deal, and finally gets out of the deal will be of much importance to the next turn in the road of Indian Politics.