ind vs pak

Durban, Sept 13: Pakistan have left no stone unturned to break the jinx but every effort to beat arch-rivals India in cricket World Cup has come a cropper. Vice captain Salman Butt feels tomorrow maybe the day.


Butt sniffs a gilt-edged chance in tomorrow's Twenty20 World Cup tie against the Mahendra Singh Dhoni-led squad, which is here without the Big Three Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly.


"As for the World Cup jinx, there is always a first time, so why not tomorrow? We hope tomorrow will be the day and we are working hard towards that," Butt said, oozing confidence.


Butt admits an India-Pakistan tie is always the mother of all battles but feels it would be better if the players view it just as an opportunity rather than a pressure situation.


"Every coin has two sides," Butt said.


"You can either look at it as pressure game, or as an opportunity. I see it as an opportunity, because if you look at it that way, it can bring the best out of you.


"This (India vs Pakistan) is the biggest of all matches. It's always nice to win against India, and I am sure they will also feel that way when they defeat us. If we perform well and defeat India, it changes the entire mood of the nation," he said.


And Butt also took the occasion to point to his impressive track record against the traditional rivals.


have enjoyed playing India, I have three hundreds against them. A match against India is a great chance to make a name for yourself," Butt said. Neither side has played a great deal of Twenty20 cricket, and Butt pointed out that the team that adjusted to the bounce at Kingsmead had more chances of courting success.


"We played a couple of games in Nairobi before coming here, but it was under different conditions, on different pitches. Durban is different in that there is a lot more bounce. It is not so much pace as the amount of bounce. It is like tennis-ball bounce, the ball shoots up from a length. You need to adjust. Whoever adjusts quicker will have a better chance." Butt has had a distinguished international career, and he admitted that it was important for him to be consistent, especially given the added responsibility of vice-captaincy.


"Consistency is the best way forward. My aim is to be consistent in international cricket. If you look at the game at the highest level, very few guys make it right at the start of their careers.


"If you look at India, people like Irfan Pathan and Yuvraj Singh have been in and out of the Test side. It is all about how you carry on and how much you learn, and that comes with time." (Agencies)
4 balls left, 6 runs required for Pak.... Every Indian was praying for wicket.... Misbah who was in good touch tried differently to hit towards deep fine leg...where there is no fielder at boundary...the ball gone top...the prayers continued... I thought only god can save!.... the camera came down .... and Its SreeSanth under the ball and took catch to drive India to World cup victory....

Indian team made it again after a long gap of 24 years. After an early depart in ODI World cup in 2007, it seemed Indian Cricket is in dying stage. The Indian team having great senior players like Sachin, Sourav and Dravid , inspite of high expectations failed cheaply and came back in the first round of ODI World cup. It was an unforgettable moment in Indian Cricket history...Paradise Lost

On the other hand, Twenty 20 team did not have any senior player, they did not have any experience in T20 as well. Inspite of new captain, this coach less team had given a sterling performance. The young team became the World Chapians. In the way of their campaign, they beat hosts,South Africa and mighty Australia... and at last their all time rival Pakistan in a heart stopping match. No doubt its young blood did the job.It was an unforgettable moment again in Indian Cricket history..Paradise Regained
A six-member delegation from the Communist Party of China today called on West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee and discussed various issues on business and civil society. A spokesman of the delegation told reporters here that a business team would shortly come from China to explore the opportunities for investing in the state.On the other hand, West Bengal Environment Minister Sailen Sarkar said Wednesday the state government had not approached his department for an environment impact study at the Nayachar island, the new site for a proposed chemical hub.

'Nayachar has been selected for the proposed chemical hub in West Bengal, but my department has not received any request to carry out an environment impact study at the site,' Sarkar said during a seminar on 'Sustainable Initiative - strategies for business development', organised by the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) here.

Nayachar, a 40 sq km island on the Hooghly riverbed in East Midnapore district, has been selected as the likely place for the chemical hub that was originally to be set up at Nandigram.

Violent protests against the land acquisition plan for the project forced the government to shift it elsewhere.

The state government owns 11,000 hectares of land at Nayachar; a sparsely populated island located about 150 km from Kolkata. Some of the land there is also owned by the Haldia Development Authority (HDA).

A Muslim cleric today demanded, in the presence of Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, that controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen should not be given shelter in West Bengal and be driven out.

"If Taslima Nasreen is allowed to stay in West Bengal, Muslims, who voted for the Left Front government for the last 30 years, should unite and throw her out of the state for her anti-Islamic stand and blasphemous writings against the Prophet," said Pirzada Twaha Siddique, chief of the Phurphura Darbara Sharif.
The cleric's statement was greeted by the crowd attending a madrasa student felicitations programme with shouts for the ouster of Taslima. He said that the Bangladesh government had already pushed Taslima out and she had not found shelter in any European country. The cleric sought to know the TC chief's view on the issue, saying "we have gathered the views of Congress and the CPI(M)."

Meanwhile, Bangladesh denied it arrested a suspect involved in twin bomb attacks in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad that killed at least 40 people last month.

Bangladesh police arrested Mohammad Sharifuddin, a suspected member of the Bangladesh-based Harkatul Jihad Al- Islami group, the Times of India reported yesterday, citing unidentified intelligence officials. Bangladeshi police are questioning him for his alleged role in the Hyderabad blasts, the newspaper said.

``There have been no arrests in this regard,'' Touhid Hossain, foreign secretary in Bangladesh's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in a phone interview from the capital, Dhaka, yesterday. ``The person mentioned has not been arrested.''

On the other hand,The Hyderabad police today said phone calls were made to Pakistan and Bangladesh before and after the twin blasts here on 25 August from a mobile phone of a Bangladeshi, who is now on the run.
Two prime suspects have admitted to being part of the chain that smuggled RDX into Hyderabad this year during their narco-analysis tests in Bangalore. The explosive�� location is not yet known.
Today, Sheik Abdul Khaleel echoed what Syed Imran Khan, a Hyderabad bank employee, said during the tests that RDX was stored at Imran�� residence here before a part of it was used for the Mecca Masjid blasts. Khaleel is in custody in a fake passport case. Both confirmed that they acted at the behest of Shahid alias Bilal, the prime suspect for the terror attacks in Hyderabad in the past three years.)
The calls were first made to Pakistan on 24 August. Soon after the blasts, calls were made to Bangladesh. All calls were from Rizwan Ghazi�� mobile. He is on the run after his sister, Rafsanjani, was caught when suspected of using fake currency. Police found a bus ticket from Ghazi�� rented house in Kishanbagh area. The house was booked on a fictitious name. The second Bangladeshi is referred to by his codename "RR" and stayed with Ghazi.
The bus ticket showed that he travelled two days before the blasts. Several teams are now combing Bangalore, the Andhra Pradesh-Karnataka border areas and Andhra Pradesh-Tamil Nadu border areas.
This confirms the Bangladesh angle and the Bangalore element in the blasts, police said.
The third live bomb, found under a foot overbridge in the congested Dilshukhnagar area, that did not go off and was defused, was found timed to explode at 10-40 pm. The timer device used was a quartz table clock with an alarm, besides minute-and-hour hands. Police said he made a mistake by placing the minute hand near the hour hand and not vice versa. The terrorist intended to time it at 7-50 pm, around the same time when the twin blasts exploded.
Police also clarified that the person detained in Bangladesh is Hamza, a Bangladesh national. He is involved in the Mecca Masjid blast of May and works with Shahid alias Bilal, Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami top functionary, and Andhra Pradesh�� most wanted terrorist.
Hamza�� identity was confused with that of Abdul Bari alias Abu Hamza who was involved in the Saibaba temple blast in 2002 and in the foiled conspiracy to blast the Ganesh temple at Secunderabad in 2004. After that, he became inactive and his whereabouts are not known, they said.
Police picked up one SA Sami early this morning from the Malakpet area for questioning. His brother, Aziz, was killed in an encounter in 2000. Aziz was accused of setting off tiffin box bombs which exploded in Hyderabad in the mid-1990s. Police also picked up Fiaq, on the run since May�� Mecca Masjid blasts. He is proficient in bomb making, a skill he acquired from Bilal.

Northern Bay of Bengal faces tsunami risk


Thursday September 06 2007 15:13:37 PM BDT


PARIS, Sept 5: The northern tip of the Bay of Bengal, home to tens of millions of people, faces a potential double whammy from an earthquake and tsunami, a scientist warned on Wednesday, reports AFP.

He says the peril does not appear to be immediate but says there are many unknowns and further work is needed to quantify the risk.

Quake experts today fret about a stress point just east of where the December 26, 2004 temblor occurred near the Indonesian island of Sumatra, killing some 220,000 people. The risk of another giant event at this spot is high, they fear.

But Phil Cummins of Geoscience Australia says another danger lurks to the north along the coast of Myanmar and Bangladesh, in a so-called subduction zone-where one part of the Earth''s crust is slowly diving under another.

A vicious "locked-thrust" fault, of the kind that unleashes tsunamis, runs parallel to the shore in similar fashion to the Sumatra fault, he believes.

It has been overlooked because the last big quake there was nearly two and a half centuries ago, and the fault lies hidden under seabed sediment up to 20 kilometres (12 miles thick), he contends.

"This is the type of earthquake that could generate a large tsunami which could impact the densely-populated Ganges delta," he said in a phone-in conference with reporters.

http://www.bangladesh-web.com/view.php?hidDate=2007-09-07&hidType=TOP&hidRecord=0000000000000000170426

'The India Doctrine'
Isha Khan
Dhaka, Bangladesh
August 31, 2007


The India Doctrine. Edited by M.B.I. Munshi. 288 pages. Bangladesh Research Forum, Dhaka (July 2006).

Adorned in a saffron red jacket and embellished with a detailed map of South Asia the concept of an India doctrine has been introduced to the readers in Bangladesh recently. The book "The India Doctrine" has been published by the Bangladesh Research Forum and edited by Barrister M.B.I. Munshi. Munshi's contribution to the book constitutes the largest section with several other writers from Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka providing some useful and informative chapters.

The book comes complete with a foreword written by an esteemed scholar, professor Ataur Rahman of Dhaka University, who sets the theme of the book. We are reminded by Rahman that while India might have its own rationale for framing its regional policy compatible with its national interests, the fact remains that constant apprehensions, mistrust, and tensions between India and its smaller neighbors including Bangladesh had its negative effects on any meaningful cooperation and security in the region.

This introduction neatly moves us into the chapters written by Munshi, which are a series of discussions that covers the relations between India and East Pakistan/Bangladesh from 1947 to the present. It attempts a historical and geostrategic appraisal of relations between the two countries but also offers a more wide ranging analysis involving Indian external intelligence operations in Bangladesh and outside. The central idea of the chapters when taken as a whole appears to be that the India doctrine as implemented by successive administrations is not limited to simply harming the economic interests of its neighbors but also has a historical and intellectual underpinning that comes from the thoughts and writings of Jawaharlal Nehru and Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar among others. The idea of a United India (or an "Akhand Bharat"), according to the author, is still a goal of Indian policymaking in South Asia.

Rahman is forced in his foreword to contend that this thesis may seem implausible and "far-fetched" but also points out that Munshi supplements his ideas with an exhaustive and elaborate set of references and notes to back up his argument. However, a defect in this intricate framework of references is that the chapters lack a bibliography, which would have made it easier to verify the arguments advanced by the author. The chapters also seem to be hampered by the fact that they were written originally as a three-part article and the author clearly has had some difficulty in framing his arguments within this constriction. However, Francis Fukuyama and Samuel Huntington both started their seminal works in a similar manner with articles in prominent journals before they were rendered into book form, and this does not seem to have affected the stream of their discussion and thoughts.

As this may be, the principle cause of disquiet will certainly be Munshi's interpretation of significant historical events and his commentary on the motivations of characters such as Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and Ayub Khan who are all now long dead. I was certainly surprised by some of his findings, but it was difficult to find fault here as most of his views are backed-up with thorough research and investigation. His chapters on the 1971 war and the insurgency in the C.H.T. (Chittagong Hill Tracts) are probably the most tantalizing in terms of historical data and comparisons.

Some of Munshi's arguments are further buttressed by a short chapter by Khodeza Begum, who makes reference to events that occurred during the 1990's related to clandestine meetings held in Dhaka concerning the reunification of the subcontinent. In her chapter, there is an extensive discussion on the policies being pursued by the Indian government that according to her is detrimental to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bangladesh. She analyzes the concept of a United Bengal that has featured in some of the Indian political literature in recent years. She has also summarized the tactics and strategies adopted by the Indian government and its intelligence agency to undermine the unity of Bangladesh and to inculcate the population of the country with a perspective adverse to the nation's integrity.

Although solidly written there is a problem with the length of the chapter as well as the dated materials used by the author. A more contemporary approach may have served better but the evidence seems irrefutable and the author should update her research before a second edition is considered.

In a sudden change of location, Brig. Gen. M. Sakhawat Hossain inexplicably takes us all the way to the Indian Ocean and the emerging strategic scenarios being played out in the area. One may legitimately question the relevance to the overall context and theme of the book but the author makes this abundantly clear when he remarks that rivalries in the South Asian region are primarily based on events in 1971 and India's intent on dominating the region has had to appreciate the ground realities that this cannot be achieved alone. Hossain expertly explains the intricate alliances being forged in the region and the importance of the Indian Ocean in the strategic thinking of India, China, the United States, and Pakistan. His comments on the insurgency in Northeast India and the recent uprising in Nepal are highly commendable and very insightful, especially in the case of Nepal, where he had visited prior to writing the chapter.