well said Shenoy starting from Neheru's Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai to Man's "pak also victim of terrorism" (irrespective of the party in center)we have failed in our foreign policy.we also lost the battle to highlight our cause to the world, what can be the best example that everytime there is an indo-pak meet pak seem to always hijack the media and the indian side are just mere spectator.
Dear Writer, Some people always have habit of finding faults and looking at negatives..i think you belong to that community.. neverthless you can try one thing listen Mr Shashi Tharoor's speeches at least once..anyways i don't expect you to eat your words publicly but may be personally...
RE:crap...........
by prashant on Oct 06, 2006 11:41 PM Permalink
Mr Ganesh, TVRS gave an account of the possibilities Mr Tharoor had at winning the UN Secretary General race. Infact, reading his article one has an impression that Mr Tharoor's candidature was a non-starter on the minimum. What was negative in that? Infact, not countering any of his arguements even once, your mail looks out of place and negative.
RE:crap...........
by Jocky on Oct 10, 2006 12:57 PM Permalink
do it really matter, how good is Mr. Sashi if he don't do any good to indian interest...
it was a waste of time and reputation by putting a lost candidate.
I completely agree with you. It was a classic case of our Indian obsession with sensationalism.These days if a new born baby kicks a little harder, the media declares him as the next Maradona. Why just the United Nations - take any stream of activity - anything that India touches is supposed to reap rsults - fact remains that we are still coolies who have just been given a slight makeover. All that talk about India shining, rising, climbing or Pole Vaulting - well, it definitely has compared to the License Raj days and I am a proud Indian - but if we do a rain check - we are at best second class and a long way away from first class.Yes, the sun is beginning to rise above the horizon for us and we are seeing some light but that doesnt mean we call the shots yet.
Coming back to Shashi Tharoor winning the post, well - it was clear that he was as sure of winning as the Indian Hockey team of winning the World Cup. Period.
I fully agree with the views expressed by Mr. Shenoy in this article. Our foreign policy is absolute junk. The basic problem is: we are always obsessed with what other countries think about us. Instead of sticking to what is right and what is in our national interest, we always try to look good in the eyes of other countries. We extended our hand of friendship yet again to Pakistan and Pakistan returned it by raising Kashmir issue at the UN just a day or two back! United States does not care a damn about us! We must adopt a strictly no-nonsense approach and do only that which is in our national interest irrespective of whether other countries approve of our thinking and actions or not. We must be self-confident, but I am sure our stupid politicians and idiotic bureaucracy will never allow foreign policy and everything else to work properly.
Bungling and India go hand in hand. Failures are countless in our FP area and we refuse to even understand the lesson it teaches. Another dinasour in the making is the news channels in India which are just emoticons rather than any appropriate objective analysis of the news coming out from them. They just go ga-ga and blah-blah just fantasizing that anything they report is consumable! What a idiocracy?
The article is logical and well tuned to the ground reality. In my college days there was a certain type of person whose trait was to participate in any event whether he was skilled in it or not. He claimed that he upheld the true spirit of the Olympics:it is most important to participate rather than win. Amongst the wags, he was called an EB( Ego Booster).The main achievement of the typical EB was to boost the ego of his worst competitor and this he achieved without any great effort.He would proudly parade his achievement. He was game for any contest and was often pushed into it by the others. Finally to cap it all, he would even mention his achievements in his CV for job applications and no one contested this claim. From the point of view of our country's foreign policy, we are succeeding eminently in our EB role, every country praises us for it. It does not matter whether we achieve our goals or not;at least we participate and make anyone win in the contest. We dutifully discharge our duty by the UN,the NAM, the SAARC, the WTO, the IMF etc and are justifiably proud of it. Long Live our diplomacy! Jai Hind
I agree with your assessment that an India backed UN Secretary General would not have provided any visible benefit to India.I also agree that China and America are what they are today not because of the UN.
To put it simply,a vacany arose in the UN, for which an eminently eligible candidate in the form of Shashi Tharoor joined the fray. India rather than openly declaring support for him should have expressed its approval in the form of a vote for him and nothing more.
