Dr Singh, Xiaoping and China

But there’s another Deng phrase called the ‘‘peaceful rise of China’’ (‘‘heping juechi’’ in Mandarin) that is currently in the eye of the storm back in China and under attack from another phrase, ‘‘the peaceful development of China’’ (‘‘heping fanjian’’), which is propagated by another school of thought. Clearly, we haven’t heard the last of the ongoing internal political struggle in Asia’s most powerful nation.

Seeing Red in Nepal

Believing that power cannot be won from the barrel of a gun, India has so far largely ignored the Maoist insurgents in Nepal—except for the time during the peace talks last year when Babu Ram Bhattarai met a senior official in the Indian Embassy. But as the Maoists have been able to prove beyond a shadow of doubt that they are able to bring life to a standstill wherever they choose—such as in the Kathmandu valley in the last week—an alternative view may perhaps be beginning to emerge in New Delhi. According to this school of thought, the Maoists may have a number of progressive ideas, especially on the socio-economic front, that all sides must look at seriously. At the same time, the Maoists must be told that it isn’t possible to overthrow the existing dispensation in Nepal, whether it is the constitutional monarchy or the political parties. And in fact, if they wait much longer to arrive at a reasonable compromise, the international community (read India, the US) could get its act together and seriously apply both military and political pressure.

Meanwhile, a senior UNICEF official, a Nepali citizen called Kul Gautam, who believes the UN should get more seriously involved in Nepal, has been doing the rounds in Delhi, meeting people from key political parties. Problem is, the Foreign Office completely shuns a role for the UN in Nepal.

Maldives: the Islam connection

New Delhi’s continuing relationship with the Abdul Gayoom dispensation in Maldives reveals more and more interesting facts. When former PM A B Vajpayee visited Male in September 2002, he announced that two historic mosques had been given money by the then NDA government for ‘‘renovation’’. One of the mosques, Fenfushi, had been completely renovated at the time of Vajpayee’s visit, while another, the ‘Dharmavantha Raskefanu’, was soon going to be. Perhaps the NDA government was underlining its multi-religious credentials by offering to renovate the mosques. Interestingly, one of the excuses the Gayoom government gives, especially to foreign leaders like US Secretary of State Colin Powell who stopped by in Male last month, for his emergency is that the Opposition he has banned includes ‘‘radical Islamists’’.