India elections: Modi-Sharif handshake 'a shock'

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Source: BBC

India's new Prime Minister Narendra Modi has held talks with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif on his first day in office.

The men shook hands and smiled before a meeting lasting just under an hour.

Mr Sharif attended Mr Modi's swearing-in on Monday, amid hopes of a thaw in relations between the rivals who have fought three wars since independence.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-27586678

[Turbineguy]

1. That explains why

gold is down nearly 2 percent today.

[bemildred]

2. That has the potential to be even more disruptive than the donnybrook in Ukraine. nt

[WhiteTara]

5. How so?

Peace?

[bemildred]

6. Yes, peace.

Some people won't like that, if you see what I mean, both at home and abroad. Somewhat like when the USSR imploded.

And much re-thinking of foreign policy will be required, introducing new errors and debacles.

[WhiteTara]

11. I thought that was what you meant,

but peace is such a foreign concept, I almost ruled that out!

[bemildred]

12. It is disorienting. How long has it been since we were at peace?

How long since all the troops were home. One hundred years?

[WhiteTara]

13. I guess the last time they were all home would have

been in the Civil War. We managed to find lots of other little wars after that...some not so little at that.

[bemildred]

14. Yeah, and always the indigenous residents back then. I was thinking reconstruction.

Busy with the South, not looking abroad much, until the Golden Age got going and McKinley started the Empire overseas.

[WhiteTara]

16. Didn't Monroe start the Manifest Destiny?

My history is a bit foggy on that.

[bemildred]

17. I think that attitude was always there, we got it from the British.

And to be fair, even in Reconstruction we might have been fooling around in Latin America and there were these American free-lancers who would go down there and set up these litte fiefdoms, like Walker in Nicaragua.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_%28filibuster%29

[WhiteTara]

18. So, that would make the Civil War the last time

the troops were all in the US. That's been a long damn time.

[bemildred]

19. Yep. nt

[WhiteTara]

20. And that was just so they could

kill each other. We are a very sad species.

[TRoN33]

3. Wonder why anti-liberals in America are afraid of new Indian neo-liberal Prime Minister???

[bemildred]

4. Which anti-liberals do you mean? nt

[cosmicone]

7. It is the low-information liberals who are afraid

The low-information liberal group still goes by the meme "Hindu nationalist" "Radical Hindu" etc. mainly out of Hinduphobia and repeats the 2002 Gujrat riots ad nauseum. They don'r give credence to three separate inquiries including one by the supreme court that cleared the guy of any culpability nor do they ever state that the riots were started because Pakistan supported muslim extremists burned Hindus alive on a train to trigger a response.

It is almost like Hindus have no right to be proud or assertive in a country where they are over 80% of the population and whatever terrorism radical Muslims do is written off as screams of an "oppressed" minority when, in fact, Muslims are not and have never been second class citizens in India. Two Muslims have even been presidents of India -- Dr. Zakir Hussain and Dr. Abdul Kalam -- the latter revered by all Indians as the father of India's rocket, missile and space programs.

It is also ignored that Modi was neither voted in because he was a Hindu nor because he was a nationalist. An overwhelming majority (most in 40 years) voted for Modi because they were tired of corrupt and nepotistic policies and they wanted economic growth to make their lives better.

For those who have visited India, it is apparent that religion is not even in the top five reasons why a vote is given to a particular candidate.

[Fred Sanders]

9. Given it has 1 billion people India is a model of tolerance and religious diversity.... bad apples

are bad apples everywhere. The low information citizen is made low information by a spoon feeding low information media.

[Fred Sanders]

8. Modi is appeasing Pakistan and showing signs of weakness......see how easy that is say?

Now substitute Obama in the sentence and let the stupid American media unleash another outrage they can yammer on about to fill the 24 hours a day that must be filled.

[bemildred]

10. It shows strength, something fearmongers like Cheney don't understand. nt

[cosmicone]

15. It was actually a clever move by Modi

India is the regional power, both financially and militarily, which Pakistan resists and tries to make itself equal. Modi accomplished the power by inviting Sharif with all the other leaders (from Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Mauritius) who came to pay homage -- which put Sharif in a quandary. Sharif had to choose between Pakistan's ego and economic reality and he was actually the bigger man here by accepting the invitation. It will bode well for the future -- if -- and a big if at that -- the Pakistani military can accept the reality and keep its ego down.

The last time Nawaz Sharif met with an Indian PM was in the 90's and just as peace was about to break out, Pakistan's terrorist-in-chief, Pervaiz Musharraf started the Kargil war. Hope this history is not repeated.

Peace is very much attainable if a) Pakistan accepts that it will always be a smaller country than India and b) it gets over Kashmir. Mexico doesn't try to be equal to the US in terms of power and importance -- why does Pakistan try to be equal to India, a country geographically and population wise 6 times bigger and economically 70 times bigger?

[JI7]

21. Pakistan invited Modi to visit when he won the election

[cosmicone]

22. So did a hundred other countries. That is routine. n/t