There was another nuclear standoff recently. The International Nuclear Olympiad, in Kuala Lumpur. No, it was not about nuclear scientists in ill-fitting tweed suits and in need of haircuts showing off the latest hydrogen bombs, but students doing science experiments and answering questions. After all, it was an IAEA event, so the emphasis was on the peaceful uses of nuclear power. And Pakistan did quite well, winning a gold, a silver and a bronze medal.
Singapore did better, winning a whole passel of gold medals, but it was worth noting that India didn’t win any. I’m not sure, but it’s probably because they cheated. By not sending a team.
Wherever there’s an element of competition, you can bet India will cop out.
Look at cricket. India has formally announced that they will not play any bilateral matches with Pakistan. They confirmed that they would only play Pakistan in tournaments, and that too at neutral venues. It’s news to me that they have played any bilateral series since they visited Pakistan in 2013-4. They’re missing a great opportunity, for Shan Masood is captain of Pakistan, and India is guaranteed positive results so long as he’s around.
It’s not just cricket. It’s been staying away from the International Court of Justice where it’s being given the short end of the stick because it’s been staying away. You know what? They’ll get away with it. In 1899, an arbitration award decided that most of Essequibo county was part of the British colony of Guayana. But Venezuela has not got the dispute out of its head, and has revived the claim. The matter went to the ICJ in 2024.
That gives an idea of how claims can be revived. I wonder whether the Modi government, the BJP, and behind it the RSS, might like to revive the old Mauryan Empire, which included Kandahar. Of course, one of the signs of that would be a move to return the capital from Delhi to Patna (which is the nearest you can get to the old Mauryan capital of Pataliputra). I don’t know if the BJP would accept giving up the South, but they probably wouldn’t mind, for all their efforts to penetrate it have fallen flat in the face of their vigorous Sanskritization policies.
Y’know, the Indian policy of not playing and not appearing is a little like the Israeli policy of pretending Palestinians don’t exist, that Palestine didn’t exist.
Israel, though, is remaining in the lead. Now they’re denying that there’s a famine in Gaza. Right, Holocaust denial is a crime, but famine denial is not. There could be more denials coming. Like the BJP denying that there was such a dynasty as the Mughals, or such a party as the Congress. Or maybe it’s habit. After all, the Israelis are used to saying that there is no Palestinian nation, so what’s a famine?
Maybe they’ll say Dutch Foreign Minister Casppar Veldkamp didn’t resign over the lack of support from the Dutch Cabinet for the measures he thought should be taken against Israel. Maybe they’ll say Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelenskyy had a perfectly cordial visit to the White House when he met US President Donald Trump for the first time.
We shouldn’t complain though. We’ve got a Met Office which says that the torrential rains which killed so many people in KP, and then paralyzed Karachi, were not because of cloudbursts. Apparently, there’s a textbook definition of cloudburst, to which the rains in KP, GB, Sind, Punjab and Balochistan didn’t fit entirely. So there was no cloudburst. Which means the Met says there was no cloudburst, at least not according to the definition. Sounds to me like a defence against anyone asking why it didn’t predict the cloudburst. Maybe the Met doesn’t realize this, but sticking to the definition will not bring back those who died. Just as the Israeli denial there is a famine in Gaza won’t revive any of the babies who starved to death.
