La Dolce Vita-Indian style

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  1. #1

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    La Dolce Vita-Indian style

    Victory for Congress overwhelms Indian sites

    Sonia Gandhi's Congress claims surprise win in India polls

    http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stori.../84745/1/.html

    Sonia to Carry on Gandhi Dynasty in India


    http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2918635

  2. #2

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    Sad...I'd vote for the BJP anyday.


  3. #3

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    heartbroken, shanxx? how about a drink this evening to drown sorrow/celebrate/sit on the fence, whatever?


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    Heartbroken / disappointed / angry..! Cant believe what happened! Just goes to show that when elections are fought on an economic agenda.....

    The pace of reforms will definitely slow down now...with the left parties having a major say in the policy making! Back to square one! Listen to them leaders talk on TV....

    Just when you thought things were going good for India........


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    just wait for four more years

    anytime there are elections, there is a prospect for change, that is why we have elections,right?

    The Chinese press here has been bemoaning the fact that corruption will now rule again, apparently they thought that Vajpayee's kurta colour meant he was one of the pure as the pristine snow type.

    anytime there are peaceful elections, its time for a chianti.


  6. #6

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    West salutes Italian in a sari

    http://babyurl.com/frIUss

    RASHMEE Z. AHMED

    TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ SATURDAY, MAY 15, 2004 12:05:00 AM ]


    LONDON : An Italian in a sari, screams France 's Liberation . Born in Italy , ready to rule India , The Vancouver Sun tells the Canadian province of British Columbia , which became the first to have a premier of Indian extraction. From Italian housewife to reluctant Prime Minister, says Britain 's Daily Telegraph .



    Across the West, the press is deeply unsure if Gandhi's win is a simple return to dynasty or a sign of India 's unique political inclusiveness. So it has largely plumped for the dynastic connotations of Gandhi's win while highlighting her foreign origin as an oddity.


    The reference to Gandhi poised to become the fourth PM from her family is every where. It's there in The Times , The Guardian , The Independent and even in the The Scotsman . France 's Le Figaro , Switzerland 's Le Temps , Germany 's Die Welt , Dublin 's Irish Times , The Boston Globe , The Baltimore Sun , Seattle Times and Montreal Gazette all recall the dynasty's grip on India .



    And in a front-page piece by Salman Rushdie , Italy 's La Republica describes the win as a victory of hope.



    But it is Le Figaro that offers the most interesting twist. "It was the Italian woman's revenge," says the paper, referring to unceasing attacks from Hindu nationalists over her origins.



    And it commends her for accomplishing what seemed an impossible feat. For good measure, it adds that even Gandhi's "closest associates doubted the ability of ‘Sonia the Italian' to defeat the nationalist camp".



    And Le Temps , published out of Geneva , contrasts Sonia's confident win with the days after Rajiv's assassination, when she was walled in by dumbness and sorrow. Praising her as methodical and untiring, it records her journey across far-flung parts of India , beating the drum of uneven economic development. And it salutes her shrewdness in playing the dynastic chart by launching into the political arena her two popular children near the very end of the campaign period. The Vancouver Sun — with its huge, mainly Punjabi population — offers five stories on the elections, adding in one of them that the Congress party has support in the British Columbia community.

    Britain 's sage and relatively better-informed press, meanwhile, took upon itself the task of advising Gandhi and the new coalition. With three of four leading broadsheets running first editorials on the shock win, the consensus was Gandhi deserved it. The Guardian saluted her doggedness, suggesting it wasn't a bad place to start the process of governing India . And the Daily Telegraph wondered, along with more than a billion Indians, how does the Catholic daughter of an Italian contractor find herself on the threshold of becoming their PM.

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    Whats up in Romepur?

    With Sonia as PM...

    National Dish : Italy Vada? Pizza & Pasta?
    National Insect: Titaly?
    National Gaan: Vande Matrome?

    Che altro?

    -rini


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    to add to the indecipherable messages on this thread

    this is an actual reply I got in reply to a simple question


    -----Original Message-----
    did you know that eurovision is on this saturday?

    I DONOT KNOW AND COULD NOT FIND THIS WORD AND CONGRATULATIONS (K.T) FAMILY RETURNED.
    S EE YOU TONIGHT

    Yes people there poor sods here who have not heard of EUROVISION. but the relevant part of the msg is the congrats- it apprently refers to the Gandhi family [K.T] so yes there are people here who are doubly clueless

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    Musings by Balakrishnan-[a HK based businessman]

    from the SCMP on Friday.

    Bharat Muje Liya Rona Mutt!

    With tearful pleas to the masses and sycophants around her, Sonia Gandhi has nobly declined the chance to be Indian prime minister. But why did she not do so as soon as the result was known, and before billions were wiped off the Indian stock market?
    The answer is that such melodramas are necessary to prime the political landscape for the behind-the-scenes manipulation that has been the hallmark of Mrs Gandhi's style since she was "reluctantly" recruited into party politics a decade ago.

    The only thing that remains to be seen with the "Eva Peron-isation" of Indian politics is whether the economy will also follow Argentina's path, with the Congress party and its communist allies forging an unholy alliance to follow ruinous nationalistic economic policies.
    The reality is that the rise of Mrs Gandhi, who even her supporters cannot accuse of possessing any intellectual or leadership qualities, proves that India is still a feudal monarchy where someone married to the right family can be chosen to be prime minister.
    V.S. Naipaul, the Nobel prize-winning Indian author, wrote that Indians have been oppressed for so many centuries by foreign dynasties that they have lost any sense of racial memory; a sense of being separate people with the right to rule themselves.
    That is why they could have let Mrs Gandhi, who lived in India for 15 years before bothering to apply for citizenship, rule. Born in Italy, she studied English in the city of Cambridge, and while working there as a waitress in a Greek restaurant, met Rajiv Gandhi, who was trying to get a degree from the university.
    However, the election of Congress is not going to liberate the Indian masses. The party has not held internal elections for more than 10 years (which makes it worse than the Chinese Communist Party) and is run along the lines of a feudal family business.
    China's communists openly court foreign technology and capital, while jealously guarding the country's sovereignty. Yet India's communists were effectively willing to outsource the position of prime minister to Italy, while opposing foreign capital and technology.
    Mrs Gandhi nominated Manmohan Singh for the post of prime minister; a clever man who is also a loyal family servant. Previously, Congress ruled India for 50 years and led the nation into stagnation and international marginalisation. The Nehru family, which has come back to haunt India, led the party for most of those years. The family witnessed India's worst riots and the biggest corruption case, the Bofors arms scandal. As Karl Marx said, history repeats itself twice, once as tragedy and the second time as farce. We are now seeing the second phase unfold. What has happened in India is not a revolution. It is a counter-revolution, led by the feudalistic and bureaucratic elite, who are afraid of losing their privileges through modernisation and capitalism.
    Many of the public sector companies that are supposed to serve the poor make huge losses and exist only to serve the managers and workers with links to corrupt politicians. It is the poor who pay the price for India's "socialism". While naive citizens may take pleasure in being patted on the back by equally naive foreign journalists over the vibrancy of the country's democracy, the more knowledgeable are shedding a tear for India's poor.

    N. Balakrishnan is a Hong Kong-based businessman.


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