2014

All years and months

India: controlled by (kosher) remote?

Admitting poor political instincts, the poster recalls expecting a BJP win in 2009, argues Congress won partly because voters wanted Pakistan pacified and feared the ISI, and says the Modi…

Brown Pundits Archive23 May 20141 comment
How big is Indian Middle Class? From Laptops to Motorbikes: 10-20%

Answering a reader’s question on how big South Asia’s middle class is by global standards, the poster uses Census 2011 household data on amenities and possessions to estimate that India’s…

Brown Pundits Archive23 May 20144 comments
Modi Government Part III: Foreign Policy

Third in a series on the Modi government, the post sets the BJP manifesto beside RSS views to read foreign policy, with notes on Afghanistan, where more military aid may…

Brown Pundits Archive22 May 20143 comments
Inshallah Kashmir: Living Terror

Recommends Ashvin Kumar’s National Award-winning documentary Inshallah Kashmir, covering militancy, the 1987 election rigging, the Pandit exodus and army abuses, and argues that mainstream Indian media’s self-censorship on Kashmir has…

Brown Pundits Archive22 May 20140 comments
The good old days (human heads as cannonballs)

Introduces a long extract on a siege of Malta, in which a sentry finds crosses bearing headless bodies in the harbour, with the poster remarking that historians spin stories but…

Brown Pundits Archive22 May 20141 comment
Sikh stereotypes

Arguing that small minorities are lionised for high social indicators, the poster says egalitarian creeds fail the caste test and behaviour changes when a minority becomes a local majority, citing…

Brown Pundits Archive22 May 20144 comments
(USA-Indus) man to (Mango-Ganga) man (and back)

Replying point by point to a letter from Amad Shaikh, the poster says nuclear parity stabilises India-Pakistan tensions, insists minority mistreatment cannot be set aside, and argues Godhra and Gujarat…

Brown Pundits Archive22 May 20140 comments
Hello Brown Pundits

Naveen Kumar, an IIT Kharagpur aerospace graduate raised in Haryana, introduces himself as a new contributor who will write on Indian polity, history, geography, technology and statecraft.

Brown Pundits Archive22 May 20146 comments
Dear Naveen, BB (Big Bosses): an appeal

A welcome note to a new contributor, Naveen, with advice on introductions and keeping post titles short.

Brown Pundits Archive21 May 20141 comment
RSS Led by Modi in Charge of India, Part II: Domestic Policy

In a series on the Modi government, the post reads domestic policy from RSS views, the Gujarat model and the BJP manifesto, expecting rewritten school history texts that dilute Congress…

Brown Pundits Archive21 May 20142 comments