A load of crap from an idle brain

Saina Nehwal makes it 4 Super Series Wins for the year 2010 apart from the Commonwealth Games gold by beating China’s Wang Shixian in the Hong Kong Super Series finals.

India’s Saina Nehwal won the Hong Kong Open Super Series badminton tournament beating China’s Shixian Wang 2-1 in the women’s singles final here Sunday.

Second seeded Saina won 15-21 21-16 21-17 against third seeded Wang, an Asian Games gold medallist, in a match that lasted one hour and 11 minutes at the Queen Elizabeth Stadium.

For Saina the win was her fifth title of the year, which includes three Super Series and Commonwealth Games gold.

The Hong Kong Open was the fourth Super Series title for Saina, who won her first Super Series at the Indonesian Open last year and retained it this year.

Earlier on Saturday, overcoming mid-match blues, Saina Nehwal waltzed into the final of the Hong Kong Super Series with a 21-19, 17-21, 21-12 victory over Juliane Schenk of Germany in the keenly-contested semifinal at the Queen Elizabeth Stadium.

Above news courtesy:  TOI

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Finally got time to change the look of the blog.  Its been some time since i have been wanting to change the theme.  While going through Matt Mullenweg’s website, found this colourful theme on his blog.  Btw, who is Matt Mullenweg?  He is the founder / developer of WordPress; the open source blog publishing software that powers this and millions of blogs & websites the world over.

Matt, whose blog is  http://ma.tt (can you have a web address cooler than that?) founded the company Automattic which came out with products like Gravatar, Akismet (the spam catching software), WordPress etc.  Visit Matt’s website for more information about technology and to read about himself and his interests in photography.

Managed to find all the previous codes of the Marriage ticker, World Community Grid etc. Also feel that the Equity portfolio and Books Read widgets look much better on this theme than the previous ones.  Not only that, the comments section on all the other pages of this blog which mysteriously went missing in the previous themes have re-appeared with this theme

The 16th Asian Games are to begin today at Guangzhou in China.  Unlike all the mess associated with the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi in October, the Chinese got all the infrastructure ready (along with the stadiums) months in advance.  Now, that is what is called an awesome planning and execution.  Am sure the Chinese would put up an even better display than the mind blowing performance they put up during the Olympics in Beijing in 2008. The opening and closing ceremony would be something to watch out for.

The opening ceremony would be at 2000 hrs Singapore time (+8 hrs GMT).  Expecting the Indian team to repeat the performance of the Commonwealth Games would be simply too much.  Even though the Aussies, English and Canadian teams were around in the Commonwealth Games, the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans are different cup of tea.

China ended with 166 golds in the previous Asian Games at Doha.  They would be certainly gunning for 200 in front of their home crowd.  Also the Chinese are fielding the biggest contingent ever, a younger team which will be put to test before the 2012 London Olympics where they are poised to top the medals tally again.

Also India take on New Zealand at Hyderabad, India for the 2nd test match.  Wish i was back home, and i would have gone to the stadium to see Sachin, Laxman, Dravid etc play for probably the last time in Hyderabad.  The Uppal stadium is just a few kilometers from my home and would have been fun with friends and family.

Anyways, here is wishing the best to both the Indian cricket team and the Indian contingent at the Asian Games.  India won 10 golds, 17 silver and 26 bronze at the Doha games.  Here’s wishing they improve the performance by at least 50% this time.

Asian Games Official Website – http://www.gz2010.cn/en

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For years China has been pursuing its policy of a string of pearls; which meant having naval stations around the Indian subcontinent as a means of encircling India.  The building of a port in the Sri Lankan town of Hambantota, Gwadar in Pakistan, courting the island states of Seychelles, Maldives, Mauritius and not to mention Myanmar.

Unwittingly of course, India had been resorting to its own plan of undoing this pearls by its Look East policy that it put in place a couple of decades ago.  Over these years, India has strengthend not only economic, but also military partnership with some key nations of South East & East Asia like Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand & Singapore.

Its no secret that China is one of the biggest trading partner of ASEAN as well as of Japan & South Korea.  But its also a fact that most of these countries are not comfortable with the flooding their domestic markets with Chinese goods.  Also China’s yuan manipulation keeps the prices of their goods cheaper and affects the local economies of countries like Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia etc.  And many of these countries are already protesting the same.

The increasing economic clout of China has also massaged its military ego and it now has a lot of territorial claims against countries like Japan, Vietnam and other South East Asian countries.

It is in this context that one can see how India’s Look East policy is reaping rich dividends.  Not only has it led to economic benefits, but also robust military exchanges between the countries and India.

In all these hoopla, what is not being missed is the increasing defence collaboration between the militaries of America and India.  During the cold war era, India was fully dependent on the Russians for arms supply.  with the collapse of the USSR, the spares dreid up and defence procurement dipped to a low for India. During the Kargil war, it was the Israelis who came to India’s aid with timely supplies of spares and the required ammunition.

Today Israel and the US are increasingly becoming the biggest arms suppliers to India. Over the last couple of years, India has purchased six C-130J Super Hercules aircraft for almost US$1 billion and eight Boeing P-8I planes for more than US$2 billion (2009) from the US.

Also US is in running to bag the massive $12 billion 126 advanced figher for which the testing is already underway.

Though it would do a world of good for India to have a coherent defence policy instead of buying piecemeal arms and ammunitions.  Not to mention try to have an indegenous arms production industry within the country.  Depending on the DRDO and its allied organisations is a suicidal step for the country.  Privatisation of the defence industry would go a long step in indigenisation of defence technology.   The Mahindras, L&T, Tatas are increasing their participation in defence technology and it would do a lot of good in future.

Some good reads on this topic

How India is undoing China’s string of pearls
Delhi’s obsequious Obamamania
India counters China’s “String of Pearls” through Naval Diplomacy

Above pictures courtesy: Tactical Life & Twenty22

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Indian armed forces have chalked out a stunning round of combat exercises with foreign forces over the coming several months to use “defence diplomacy” as a tool to bolster national security as well as promote strategic cooperation.

Defence ministry officials say the 1.13-million Army alone has planned 14 to 18 exercises with countries ranging from the US, UK and Russia to Bangladesh, Mongolia, Thailand and Tajiskistan, both at home and abroad.

For instance, the armies of Seychelles and Singapore will be in Belgaum and Deolali in January for joint combat exercises . Similar is the case with Navy and IAF. Indian warships will hold combat manoeuvres with French warships, including nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, during the “Varuna” wargames on the high seas in January . “Indian and French navies and air forces have build a high-level of interoperability through such exercises… We have a strategic partnership ,” said visiting French chief of defence staff Admiral Edouard Guillaud.

The US, of course, is leading the charge in this “interoperability” game, with Indian and American armed forces holding a staggering 60 or so wargames over the last decade.

Many more are in the offing. After the ‘Malabar’ naval wargames on the western coast, the “Habu Nag” amphibious exercise at Okinawa (Japan) and the “Vajra Prahar” counterterrorism drills at Belgaum earlier in the year, around 200 Indian soldiers are now leaving for Alaska to take part in the “Balance Iroquois” exercise with American special forces.

Despite defence minister A K Antony always being eager to downplay the expansive Indo-US defence relationship, the armed forces of the two nations have set a scorching pace in their bilateral engagement . Of the 64 exercises conducted by the Army between 2001 and 2009, well over one-third were with the US.

“The US is the only superpower around… We learn a lot from exercising with them. With the vast counter-insurgency experience of our professional forces, we also teach them a lot,” said a senior officer.

Above news source: TimesofIndia

Pictures courtesy: Military photos, Getty

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Even though the country as a whole imports more oil than what is produced locally, India is now the top petroleum products exporting nation in Asia.

India is now the largest petroleum products exporter in Asia, surpassing South Korea. According to the data compiled by oil and metal information provider Platts, India’s gross exports currently average 1 million barrels a day, inching past South Korea which exports 0.9 million barrels a day.

With the commissioning of a new refinery by Reliance Industries at Jamnagar and Essar Oil increasing refinery output at Vadinar, India overtook South Korea by mid-2009 and has since then consistently maintained the lead position.

India’s average petroleum products export grew from 0.77 million barrels a day in January 2009 to one million barrels a day in August 2009. In the current year, the average oil products export from India stands at 1.07 million while South Korea exports average 0.88 million.

In fact, India’s refining capacity at 3.69 million barrels a day is the third largest in Asia after China and Japan, which have a refining capacity of 9.6 million bpd and 4.64 bpd respectively. Platts’ compilation is based on the data from individual countries.

“Both Reliance Industries’ Jamnagar and Essar’s Vadinar refineries contribute more than 90 per cent of the petroleum products exports while the rest is by public sector oil companies,” said Ms Vandana Hari, Asia Editorial Director, Platts.

Read the full article here

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