Friday, February 27, 2009

"Ram"-en Noodles

Close on the heels of Ms. Clinton's soft pedalling in China, where economic issues overshadowed everything else that should have been discussed, N Ram has suddenly woken up to the "economic growth" of the Tibetan region and has used that to declare that all is well with that part of the world. In this news item in The Hindu, he paints a rather rosy picture of Tibet, its state of affairs and the future. The keen, self appointed brand ambassador for China has noted things that have missed the eyes of, well, the rest of the world.

Ram is quoted as saying “The reality is that Tibet is on the road of rapid economic development and the atmosphere there is relaxed, not tense at all,” and a little later is seen to observe that "the problem facing Tibet was the economic slowdown as the global financial crisis took its toll on the region." Yeah, right! Economy is about the only trouble facing Tibet today.

This whole piece seems to have been put together rather hurriedly and comes across as a bit patchy with vague, disjointed statements. It goes nowhere, contradicts itself and serves no other purpose than to scratch the back of our eastern neighbor.

Based on his three visits to the region, and using what meets his eyes as the sole crietrion, Ram makes some grand statements, sweeping a whole bunch of issues under the carpet including China's distinctively dubious human rights record, occupation of Indian territory and denial of basic rights of its own citizenry. All of a sudden, he appears to be intent on bringing the whole "Hindu"-Cheeni bhai bhai thingie back alive and is in a hurry to give a clean chit to the Chinese government.

Ram may have missed his geography lesson that the eye of the storm is actually a calm spot. May be he was visiting Tibet! Ada Rama!

(Image courtesy: http://www.allposters.com/)

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