Loud Thinking

Archive for March, 2014

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962);
U.S. First Lady, diplomat, human rights activist

Get Tough Subjects Out in the Open

It’s easy to be critical of leaders who can’t face the facts, but in truth, most of us engage in denial at one time or another, usually without knowing it. To encourage better examination of tough topics, find ways to encourage dialogue when complex issues are on the table. Denial is less likely to occur when teams look at the situation from multiple angles, challenge underlying assumptions, and construct a better picture of what’s really going on. Also, don’t assume that everyone sees the world through the same lens as you. Facts and data are usually open to interpretation, and people have different underlying criteria for how they analyze them. We all emphasize some things and discount others, based on past experiences, personality, and tolerance for discomfort.

Adapted by HBR from “The Dangers of Denial” by Ron Ashkenas.

Let India and Pakistan always play cricket and forever shun the idea of hostilities and enmity against each other..!

Let us live in peace forever..!

Happy New Year 2014 – to all the Indians – from Pakistan with love

Posted by Syed Nayyar Uddin on January 1, 2014 in India Peace and Pakistan, International Affairs, My Views, Pakistan |

New Year Resolution – From Pakistan With Love to All the Indians

While wishing all the Indians a very happy and prosperous new year 2104, we would like to inform everyone in India that if at all we have to be friends, then that friendship must be in true sense; and we must not act and behave with each other in a hypocritical manner.

We would also like to assure the Indians that even if we wanted we can’t conquer India. At the same time even if India wanted, it can’t pull down Pakistan, without India being destroyed as well.

So, why to waste our time and energies in an imaginary hatred policies. Why to waste our precious resources, in being the prisoners of our foolish past.

From the first day of the new year 2014, let us bury our bitter past and be friends in true sense, like all the European countries.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Let us have a genuine peace. Let India remove all its strike forces corp from the border without any fear.

Let us join hands to wage a war against poverty, hunger, disease and illiteracy.

Let us turn this subcontinent a bastion of peace and a heaven on earth.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

India and Pakistan just need a period of single decade of genuine peace to turn around its fortunes to emerge as the most potent economic and cultural power house of this world.

The only condition is the genuine and authentic peace like the one which exists in between the EU countries.

Don’t be afraid of problems between the two countries, because they will remain for ever, but we have to give priority to peace over the problems.

Let us make a new start from the beginning of the new year 2014, with the slogan – Long live the friendship of the teeming millions of India and Pakistan.

Let India and Pakistan always play cricket and forever shun the idea of hostilities and enmity against each other..!

Let us live in peace forever..!

Happy New Year 2014 – to all the Indians – from Pakistan with love

Posted by Syed Nayyar Uddin on January 1, 2014 in India Peace and Pakistan, International Affairs, My Views, Pakistan |

New Year Resolution – From Pakistan With Love to All the Indians

While wishing all the Indians a very happy and prosperous new year 2104, we would like to inform everyone in India that if at all we have to be friends, then that friendship must be in true sense; and we must not act and behave with each other in a hypocritical manner.

We would also like to assure the Indians that even if we wanted we can’t conquer India. At the same time even if India wanted, it can’t pull down Pakistan, without India being destroyed as well.

So, why to waste our time and energies in an imaginary hatred policies. Why to waste our precious resources, in being the prisoners of our foolish past.

From the first day of the new year 2014, let us bury our bitter past and be friends in true sense, like all the European countries.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Let us have a genuine peace. Let India remove all its strike forces corp from the border without any fear.

Let us join hands to wage a war against poverty, hunger, disease and illiteracy.

Let us turn this subcontinent a bastion of peace and a heaven on earth.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

India and Pakistan just need a period of single decade of genuine peace to turn around its fortunes to emerge as the most potent economic and cultural power house of this world.

The only condition is the genuine and authentic peace like the one which exists in between the EU countries.

Don’t be afraid of problems between the two countries, because they will remain for ever, but we have to give priority to peace over the problems.

Let us make a new start from the beginning of the new year 2014, with the slogan – Long live the friendship of the teeming millions of India and Pakistan.

Victory in the Mother of all matches..!

Allah Blessed Pakistan with a miraculous victory at FatehAllah.

Heartiest congratulations to the entire Pakistani nation and all the cricket lovers world over on winning a cliff hanger of a match against India.

Ultimately this match turned into an Afridi Vs India affair.

The last six of Afridi reminds us of Javed Miandad’s last ball six many decades ago at Sharjah Vs India.

Nothing unites our nation like sports.

Sports has the power to change Pakistan…it has the power to inspire.

It has the power to unite Pakistani people in a way that little else does.

It speaks to the Pakistani youth in a language they understand. Sports can create hope for the entire Pakistani nation where once there was only despair, lawlessness, hunger, poverty, drugs, suicide bombings and alarming increase of suicides, due to the economic hardships.

It is more powerful than government in breaking down the menace of terrorism which has blown the country to the smithereens.”

Allah Blessed Pakistan with a miraculous victory at FatehAllah.

Heartiest congratulations to the entire Pakistani nation and all the cricket lovers world over on winning a cliff hanger of a match against India.

Ultimately this match turned into an Afridi Vs India affair.

The last six of Afridi reminds us of Javed Miandad’s last ball six many decades ago at Sharjah Vs India.

Nothing unites our nation like sports.

Sports has the power to change Pakistan…it has the power to inspire.

It has the power to unite Pakistani people in a way that little else does.

It speaks to the Pakistani youth in a language they understand. Sports can create hope for the entire Pakistani nation where once there was only despair, lawlessness, hunger, poverty, drugs, suicide bombings and alarming increase of suicides, due to the economic hardships.

It is more powerful than government in breaking down the menace of terrorism which has blown the country to the smithereens.”

“Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.”

— John Wooden

Look Pakistan..! India is fast planning to get oil and gas of Iran via Oman.. And Pakistan is waiting for permission from America..?

India, Iran and Oman go under sea to build pipelines, change geopolitics

NEW DELHI: India is contemplating energy pipelines from the Gulf again — this time running under the sea, rather than traversing Pakistan. With international sanctions on Iran fading as a result of a nuclear agreement, an energy pipeline may be the most positive regional consequence.

The new plan proposes to transport oil and natural gas through deep sea pipelines via Oman in a process where Iran, and even Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan energy can feed the pipeline for an ever-growing Indian market. Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah, Oman’s foreign minister, raised the possibility with Salman Khurshid during their meeting on Friday.

Oman had invested $90 million on this project over a decade ago, but it got no traction then. But now, the technology has come of age, with pipelines being built under the Mediterranean Sea from Algeria to Itali, and under the Black Sea from Russia to Germany. Abdullah suggested the pipeline could transport gas from Iran, even Qatar, as well as Central Asian states.

Khurshid floated the prospect with Javad Zarif, Iranian foreign minister, who he met later in the day. The Iranians have revived talk of deep-sea pipelines to India after the failure of the IPI pipeline. Iran cancelled a $500 million loan to Pakistan in December. India had pulled out of the IPI several years ago citing price and security issues.

Those issues remain. In fact, as the US withdraws from Afghanistan, the TAPI pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and Pakistan is fast losing its attractiveness.

Iran has reportedly jumped at the idea. Oman is India’s most trusted partner in the Gulf, therefore comfort levels are high between New Delhi and Muscat, more than even with Iran. Zarif added to the Omani proposal __ Iran was negotiating separately with Turkmenistan for an overland pipeline to carry its gas to an Iranian terminal and thence to markets like India. If these negotiations succeed, Iran could be a beachhead for gas not only from its fields but from other Gulf suppliers, even Qatar, which is India’s largest supplier of LNG.

“An undersea pipeline from Iran to India could be completed as quickly as 3-4 years. Our feasibility studies show they would cost in the region of $5 billion,” said Subodh Jain, whose company, Sage is the best known Indian entity to acquire technology for such pipelines. Jain has proposed building an under-sea energy infrastructure corridor, which could be used by major gas suppliers to connect to terminals in India’s west coast. Any such pipeline could transport about 31 million cubic meters of gas a day.

“India relies on LNG, but it’s the equivalent of relying on champagne. If we stick to LNG, we will become addicted to expensive energy imports. Therefore, a gas pipeline particularly for the power sector, makes eminent sense,” said a senior official. “Very soon, almost 20,000MW of gas-fueled power plants will go idle in India due to gas shortage. Pipelines are overdue here.”

If energy trade is to resume between Iran and India, the Chahbahar port acquires greater important. Zarif and Khurshid agreed to get the final agreement on investment. India is putting in an affordable $100 million before the Nauroz holidays. The shipping ministry has already completed its studies and price estimates, so officials working on the project said this should not be a stretch.

The Iranian government has been flipping back and forth on this project, so officials reckon a deadline would focus attention in New Delhi and Tehran.

Once complete, Chahbahar would also be the entry point for Indian goods travelling to Central Asia and beyond through the international north-south transport corridor. In their conversation, Zarif made a determined pitch for the INSTC, though it has been Iranian tardiness that has delayed a project like this. In 2012, Turkey officially offered to join the north-south corridor, though with their recent troubles with Iran, no one is quite sure whether that still holds true.

In a related decision, India will conduct a dry run study in March on the INSTC, through Nhava Sheva (Mumbai)- Bandar Abbas (Iran)- Tehran-Bandar Anzali (Iran)-Astrakhan(Russia). This was agreed between India and Azerbaijan during the recent visit of Huseyngulu Baghirov, natural resources minister. Iran and Azerbaijan have to build Gazvin-Rasht-Astara (Iran)-Astara (Azerbaijan) railway route for connecting the railway lines of the INSTC.

What is clear is that Iran is returning to the geostrategic table in the region. It needs to have a credible nuclear agreement with the west before that happens.

“Life is unpredictable. Love may arrive when it’s least expected. Laughter may occur at any moment and tears may fall without warning. Happiness may be around the corner or sadness over the next hill. Embrace every moment and every emotion. Your life is unique and it’s a journey that only you can travel.”

— Susan Gale