Communist China has recently developed a great expertise in 'soul reincarnation', feels Claude Arpi
China is spending billions of dollars to improve infrastructure in Tibet and other parts of its border with India. Claude Arpi explains why New Delhi can't afford to ignore Beijing's plans.
The British administration ignored the mounting evidence of violence between Hindus and Muslims... Military historian Barney White-Spunner traces the countdown to the tragedy in his book, Partition.
'The "Hollandisation" of British policy may not bring the expected gains as the future may show,' says Claude Arpi.
'The US-India relationship is in a different league altogether,' Obama administration officials tell Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com in Washington, DC.
'Make in India' will be central to Mr Modi's visit to Europe and Canada. It is difficult to predict what will happen with the Rafale deal, but if it goes through, it will undoubtedly become the 'Mother' of all 'Make in India' projects,' says Claude Arpi.
'Narendra Modi knows how to calculate and remain pragmatic. Take the unexpected Rafale deal - perhaps the first time a PM has considered the country's defence procurement as a priority, over the considerations of the babus... and over his own pet project 'Make in India',' says Claude Arpi.
'Chinese leaders rarely receive their foreign guests in cities other than Beijing. Such respect for India!' 'Does it mean that Modi could replicate "the warmth and unconventional way" by sending Indian troops into Tibet, as Xi did in Chumur (Ladakh) when he arrived in India? Of course, Indians are far too polite to do so,' says Claude Arpi.
The crisis remains acute with the country's banks already closed.
'Under the present Defence Procurement Procedure, it would have been a nightmare, and a long, long one at that, to build 108 Rafales in India. Modi realised this and took the wise decision, though it is a definitive setback for his Make in India scheme.'
'Tibet remains a prickly issue between the giant Asian nations. China still claims more than 80,000 sq kilometres of Indian territory in the Northeast. Why? Just because Beijing refuses to acknowledge the McMahon line which separates India and Tibet, and this, simply because the 1914 Agreement delineating the border was signed by the then government of independent Tibet with India's then foreign secretary (Sir Henry McMahon),' says Claude Arpi.
Nehru's sentimental attachment to the Mountbattens deeply vitiated the Kashmir issue. It was certainly the most important factor for the failure to find a solution in the first years of the conflict.
On the title page of the Top Secret Report, Henderson-Brooks quotes the Chinese tactician Sun Tzu: 'Know yourself, know your enemy: A hundred battles, a hundred victories', says Claude Arpi, highlighting where the Indian Army and government failed to counter the Chinese attack in 1962.
