Provocative commentaries on international issues, social development, and people and places by a veteran journalist
PranayGupte's Articles In Current Events » Page 7
January 6, 2005 by Pranay Gupte
I agree that "patience" is required for rebuilding any society, particularly one that was working fine until the US "liberation" happened along. Earle refers to the "insurgents." They flourish not in a vacuum but as an integral part of the very society that we -- the US -- are trying to rebuild after destroying it. They aren't aliens, as we are, but a part of the everyday life of Iraq. I'm afraid the situation in Iraq has gone well past the point where these so-called insurgents can be c...
January 6, 2005 by Pranay Gupte
Why do I have this increasingly weary sense that none of the electioneering, media propaganda, and diplomatic "make nice" is going to work? Look, everyday Iraqis don't want the US around on their soil. It should be pretty clear by now to all that even if they are force-fed these so-called elections, Iraqis are far, far away from establishing responsible institutions of good goverance that would be necessary to implement the promise of genuine democracy. It's just not going to happen. Iraq...
December 30, 2004 by Pranay Gupte
One of journalism's great figures, Seymour Topping, has just come out with a new novel, "Fatal Crossroads: A Novel of Vietnam 1945." It is published by EastBridge Books. Topping has devoted much of his 50 years in journalism to covering Vietnam and China as a correspondent and editor. He became the first American correspondent to be stationed in Vietnam after World War II when in 1950 after reporting the Chinese civil war for three years he opened the Associated Press bureau in Saigon. Fol...
December 30, 2004 by Pranay Gupte
By Helen Abby Becker One tries very hard not to be indignant over the extravagantly festive holiday goings-on reported daily in newspapers across the United States, when other headlined stories regularly feature details of the horrors of the war in Iraq, the genocide in Rwanda, the extraordinary cruelties of jihad extremists, and now the extraordinary cruelty of nature to an unprepared and poverty stricken Asian populace. The massive tidal wave that has sopped the energy of much of coastal...
December 29, 2004 by Pranay Gupte
As an international journalist, I get to meet fascinating people all over the world. "Fascinating" doesn't necessarily mean "nice." But I've always been intrigued by men and women who accumulate power. My central question always is: How do they do it? Single-mindedness is certainly one characteristic that I see in such people. They are very focused on their objectives. Ruthlessness is another quality that I find in some superachievers. They don't let anything, or anyone, stand in their wa...
December 23, 2004 by Pranay Gupte
By Pranay Gupte KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Just the other day, a senior official here was talking about the Indian government's quiet disclosure that it would spend $500 billion over the next five years on strengthening the infrastructure. "That mean roads, power systems, airports, telecommunications, you name it," he said." That's a lot of contracts." Malaysia, like its Southeast Asian neighbour and longstanding rival, Singapore, wants not just a spoonful of the contracts curry, but ...
December 23, 2004 by Pranay Gupte
Rami G. Khouri is a professional commentator on the Middle East. He wrote the following piece on the new, but unpublished Arab Human Development Report, produced by the New York-based United Nations Development Programme. Pranay Gupte's reaction is reproduced after Mr. Khouri's article. A View from the Arab World: Time to bring home Arab human development By Rami G. Khouri, in Beirut, Lebanon For all those activists and reformers in the Arab world who have worked for years to promote d...
December 10, 2004 by Pranay Gupte
By Pranay Gupte The central issue in India today is that of good governance and how it will affect the country's economic prospects. Those prospects would appear to be promising, on the surface at least. With a population of 1.2 billion people, including a growing middle class of 300 million mostly urban residents, India is rapidly becoming the world's fourth biggest consumer market -- after the United States, the European Union, and China. The annual economic growth rate is expected to...
December 8, 2004 by Pranay Gupte
Human Rights Day Statement By Kenneth Roth New York, December 10 — As we commemorate Human Rights Day, we are challenged by how little the world has done to save the people of Darfur, in western Sudan, from the year’s greatest human rights disaster. With the Sudanese government and its ethnic militia well along in their campaign of murder, rape, pillage, and forced displacement, and after several Security Council resolutions on the Darfur crisis, the governments of the world can no longe...