Bura na mano, Holi hai!

One of the phrases you'll hear in India (were you to be there today) is "it's all right it's Holi".

I must admit the festival of Holi is one of my favourites as it celebrates good harvests and fertility of the land.
Folk go around in high spirits and basically use it as an excuse to shed their inhibitions and caste differences for a day of spring fever.
Teenagers go around flirting and misbehaving in the streets, adults extend the hand of peace, and everyone chases everyone else around, throwing brightly coloured gulal and water over each other.
Then promptly at noon, the fever subsides and everyone heads to home to have a wash and feast on sweets and other goodies, and an exhausted and contented hush falls over the land.

To all my Indian friends, Happy Holi.

Never in the field of Climate Chaos has so little been achieved by so many

From Hope-nhagen to Nope-nhagen in one short week.
What a shabby affair last week in Copenhagen has proved to be.
A once in a lifetime chance to grasp the opportunity of seriously tackling the problems in store for the whole planet has been let slip.

True, it did agree that we should work together to keep the global temperature from rising more than 2ºC above the levels before the industrial revolution, but who should do what, how this would be enforced, and what the timescale would be... er...!

It is hypocritical of the industrialised Western states to blame China, and to lesser extent India, after all much of what China produces is exported to the West and is in fact substitute production for the West.

We must continue to put pressure on our own government, as well as our European and Atlantic allies to take the problem seriously and get round the negotiating table as soon as possible.

Jai Hind

I mentioned Pakistan's formation yesterday, and of course today is the day that modern India came into being.
As I quoted the Pakistani National Poet Muhammad Iqbal yesterday, I suppose I can only match it by some of the finest and most stirring words ever written in English.
Jawaharlal Nehru leader of the Indian National Congress and the first Prime Minister of India gave a speech on the eve of independence which beautifully captures the exultation of the end of the century-long struggle against the Raj in India.

With your indulgence, I'd like to quote the first paragraph:
"Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity".

It was Nehru's passion for democracy, secularism, and liberalism that made him a champion for the poor and underprivileged not only in India, but across the Third World.