Winter Patriot: The ‘Liquid Bombers’ Series
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Shutterfly has shown its proposed IPO terms this morning, and the amount that is indicated is slightly less than the 2 million it listed on June 29 in its up to 2 million to be raised. If you used 5.8 million shares at the high-end of the 5.00 range, you would get a total of 7 million. It is one of the leading online photo service that lets consumers share, store, edit and print digital photos. The California-based company plans backed by Netscape founder Jim Clark plans to offer 5.8 million shares at a range of 3.00 to 5.00 per share.The deal has now a proposed market cap for the company of about 90 million and will trade under the ticker SFLY. J.P.Morgan is the lead underwriter and Piper Jaffray and Jefferies are set to co-manage the deal. What is interesting is that Goldman Sachs is no where to be seen, even though they were on an amended S-1 filing last month and on the June 29 original S-1 filing. That cannot be a coincidence, and this may raise a flag. There could have been some conflict of interest for the reason behind it, but that would be overly optimistic thinking.Goldman Sachs is still listed as a 375 share owner of the company, but that is far too small for a conflict to keep them from participating as that is very far under 1% of the company and they could have forfeited the shares. Jim Clark and entities affiliated with him own 7.1 million shares, which is listed as 40.3% of the company. There is also a significant number of preferred class shares that will convert subject to a 2.00 price and 5.0 million raised.We now have the financial results for the year up to June 30, 2006 and that was not available as of June 29.BALANCE SHEET:The company claims 9.4 million in total liabilities (down from 7.1 million at the end of 2005), with 4.8 million of that being regular short-term obligations and normal costs. Its cash and equivalents were 3.9 million and just over million more in other current assets, but its cash and equivalents carried at the end of 2005 was listed as a much higher 9.153 million. It valued its plant and equipment at 2.5 million, which is almost .8 million higher than at the end of 2005. it also lists a deferred tax asset at 4.5 million, which is also up almost .9 million from the end of 2005.INCOME STATEMENT:The only good news here is that the company is still showing revenue growth. For 2005 we noted that the company posted a 8.9 million in net income, but 4 million of that was from a tax benefit and another 42,000 was from an accounting change. For the first half of 2006 the company stillhas a net loss, although while we said earlier the only good news… it does need to be offered in fairness that the company depends heavily on the last quarter for revenues and income like so many other retail-related plays. For the first 6-months of the year the company posted revenues of 6.5 million (up from 7.2 million the first half of 2005). Unfortunately its operating expenses and investments outpaced the revenue growth. It posted a net loss allocated to shareholders of -.658 million for the first half of 2006, compared toa first half loss of -.29 million in 2005.It really appears as though any IPO player here is going to be banking on a solid end of the year. Its top-line growth is so far being offset by an increase in spending and there are some questionable thoughts with Goldman Sachs all of a sudden not appearing in the deal.From June 29, 2006 on the site HERE: Shuddering After Reading Shutterfly’s IPO Prospectus Shutterfly, one of the leading online photo services, has filed to come public via an IPO. This was one of the first online photo sites, and one of its backers is Jim Clark, co-founder of Netscape. It has filed to raise up to 2M from stock sales, although we’ll have to wait to see how many shares actually get sold and at what price.According to the prospectus Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Piper Jaffray, and Jefferies are underwriting the offering. The company was evaluating its alternatives just yesterday, and now we know what avenue they have chosen to reach their liquidity event.The prospectus says that 17.820 Million shares were outstanding as of March 31, 2006; but that exlcudes 3.198 million shares issuable upon options with exercise prices of .41, 1.755 million shares from the 1999 stock option plan, 1.358 million shares exercisable for the 2006 option plan, 0.116 million and 0.0408 million other shares.For 2005, the company posted revenues of 3.9M and net income of 8.9M, but this was inflated from a tax benefit. Its first quarter 2006 revenues were 6.88M (compared to Q1 2005 of 3.15M) with quarterly net income of -.668M (compared to -83K for Q1 2005). That loss would have been wider had it not been for a tax benefit from income taxes, and that was not available in prior quarters. A tax provision was also directly responsible for 4.06M of the company’s 8.9M net income in 2005.Why is it losing more money? Quite simply it is because costs are up in all major areas and the revenue gains are not off-setting these. Also, it is in the same barrel now with all other tech companies as it has to expense these stock options. The company is highly dependent on seasonality, with 49% of 2005 net revenues coming in the fourth quarter.The company also expects to need much larger capacity that has not yet been built to meet 2007 demands and has estimated 0 million to 5 million for capital expenditures in the second half of 2006 and first part of 2007. It also has dozens of competitors to the tune of Hewlett Packard, Eastman Kodak, Wal-Mart, Target, Yahoo!, AOL, CNET, Google, Walgreens and a couple dozen others in the US alone.After looking through the prospectus, it starts to feel like the entire document is a risk factor. The RISK FACTORS section goes from page 8 through page 26. Companies have to list their perceived risks, but this went on and on. The growth rates for the company are slowing at th etime it has said it needs to rapidly increase cap-ex costs. It didn’t list Seeing the dead or Being visited by the Price of Darkness as risks, but it felt like it was going to. This also listed an unspecified number of shares that would be available for additional sales as immediately after this offering, 45 days after the offering, 90 days after the offering, and 180 days afterthe offering
-ne IRIN report 8 Sep 2006 excerpt:Peace talks between Uganda and the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have hit a hitch after rebels objected to the inclusion of war victims in the government delegation, Ugandan government officials said on Friday.Mediators had been trying to make some headway after a landmark truce took effect on 29 August, but rebels broke from talks to consult with their leader, Joseph Kony.We disagreed on the representation of war victims at the talks, Captain Paddy Ankunda, spokesman for the Ugandan government delegation, said.
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-ne (Very cool article, I posted it in all my blogs)Make Your Own Beats, Instrumentals, Tracks, and Demo CDsBy: Matthew Keith Many people are making an excellent living selling thier samples, tracks, and cd’s, on the Internet and off, even if they’re not with a major record label. Whether you dream of Making It Big in the Music Industry, or are just interested in making some extra cash doing what you love, this article is for you. Part I: Make Your Own Beats, Instrumentals, Samples, Loops, Tracks, and Complete Demo CDs… Recording studio software is nothing more than a program that allows you to mix beats, melodies, chords, samples and loops to make your own customized instrumentals and tracks. That’s everything you need to make your own beats, instrumentals, samples, loops, tracks, and complete demo cd’s. So now you know how to make your own beats, instrumentals, samples, loops, tracks, and even complete demo cd’s, and this brings us to our next part… I hope this report has proved useful to you and I wish you all the best as you learn how to make your own beats, tracks, and even complete demo cd’s.Article Source: http://www.articledashboard.comMatthew Keith is the webmaster of UnsignedRappers.bravehost.com and a huge music enthusiast. He has spent the past 3 years searching for the most affordable ways for ordinary people to make their own music and make money doing so.
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Bear with me for a second, ok?Today, James Joyner mentioned a post by Thomas Barnett citing a subscriber-only article in a recent issue of The Economist which notes that “the war in Iraq is surprisingly bad news for America’s defence firms.” Barnett wrote:Surprising to the Economist perhaps, but I made this argument with some force in the first chapter of Blueprint for Action.The Pentagon lives to dream up fabled future opponents and then program against that desired foe. In concert, the defense firms live to build those massive and expensive platforms and weapons and communications systems for that desired scenario.You have some nasty and real like Afghanistan and Iraq intrude on that dreamy future, and guess what? Stuff doesn’t get bought.Not surprising whatsoever. Asymmetrical, fourth-generation warfare doesn’t favor the few and the absurdly expensive, but the many and the cheap. James then built upon that post to say that facts seldom change preconceptions and people will go right on believing that we go to war at the behest of defense contractors.Now…I noticed Barnett didn’t provide a link or any quote from the article. Here it is. The first paragraph only talks about the cancellation of the C-17 transport.So I decided to see what others were saying about the various defense firms. After all - with multi-billion dollar destroyers, subs, stealthfighters etc. and a budget that now is roughly equivalent to the whole of the rest of the world, not to mention all those lucrative new deals in Pakistan, India, Saudia and others that the war on terror has made possible - how can Barnett explain away the public perception of record profits and share prices for every major defense firm?Well, he can’t.Between 2001 and 2005, the profits for the 34 largest defense companies have climbed 189 percent. Profits for U.S. corporations as a whole rose 76 percent.Or are those just pesky facts again? Like the doubling of defense firm average CEO pay while they are supposedly hurting this much? Before 9/11, the gap between CEOs of publicly traded companies and army privates was already a galling 190 to 1. Today, it is 308 to 1. The average army private makes 5,000 a year. The average defense CEO makes .7 million. It gets worse.Jan 26, 2006 Lockheed Martin quarterly profits up 53% Profits topped Wall Street estimates as sales rose 2.6 percent to 0.2 billion. Net income was up 68 million, compared with the fourth quarter of 2004 when earnings were 72 million. The company is raising its earnings forecast for this year from a share to .25 and has declared a quarterly stock dividend of 30 cents a share.April 26, 2006 Boeing 1Q earnings up 29 percent to 92MNet income was 92 million, or 88 cents per share, up from 35 million, or 66 cents per share, a year earlier. Revenue climbed to 4.3 billion from 2.7 billion, up 12 percent although below the 4.5 billion expected by analysts.The defense units operating earnings declined 4 percent and revenues were down 6 percent, leaving it just ahead of the commercial airplane division at $7.2 billion. The company said operating margins for the Integrated Defense Systems division increased by 11 percent, driven by gains in military aircraft programs such as the C-17, F/A-18 and Rotorcraft.Those are the big two and both are reporting making big bucks from big-ticket military items.Northrop Grumman showed an increase 3.6% in profits from 2004 to 2005, Raytheon a 5.8% increase, United Technologies 10% and General Dynamics 7.22%. (All data from Fortune magazine)Accross the pond, BAe are also showing increasing profits.BAE said net profit for the 12 months ended Dec. 31 was 553 million pounds ($969 million), up from 2 million pounds in the previous year. Revenue rose to 11.02 billion pounds ($19 billion) from 8.82 billion pounds.Finance Director George Rose said earnings at the companys programs unit were driven higher by the Eurofighter military jet program as deliveries ramped up to European nations.Last year, 37 Eurofighters were delivered to air forces in Britain, Italy, Spain and Germany. BAE is making the planes along with partners European Aeronautic Defence
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India did not face the war directly though many of its soldiers participated in WWII and won great victories in different parts of the world. Not only do we not relate ourselves to this war, we do not even talk about our soldier’s achievements in this war. During WWII, our nationalist leaders coming from all ideologies (who were fighting for Independence) were not keen on supporting British overtly though many Indian soldiers recruited themselves into the war – Indian soldiers player a pivotal role in WWII, and we do not even talk about it! Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose (who should be pardoned for his naiveté) chose to support this invading Japanese Army, renowned for its war crimes and occupation brutalities (which included rape of Manchuria and Indo-China), while the Indian soldiers were fighting this invading army on the Indian border. As a conscious decision, Indian people and its government chose to highlight the not-so-grand achievements of INA and Subhas Chandra Bose while meticulously ignoring the momentous achievements of Indian soldiers in WWII. Lacking in formal exposure and education to events of WWII, many Indians do not know the exact crimes committed by Nazis, and even if they do, they completely ignore it the way they desensitize themselves to all the miseries of India- roadside begging kids, colossal garbage piling up next to their home, dying people from malnutrion, etc. I have not seen this much fascination and admiration for Adolf Hitler in any other community, culture or society. I believe that there is a great correlation between the groups who admire Adolf Hitler, the groups who hate or think low of Muslims, and those who are against reservations. The prevailing feeling is that devout and typical Muslims are somehow not easy to get along. On the other extreme are people who think that most of the evils of Indian society exist because of Muslims (very synonymous to how Nazis blamed certain sections of people for all evils of their society). Most moderate Hindus may not harbor much ill-will but they are fine as long as they see a Muslim as a grocer, a laborer, or auto-driver, but not in their regular life. The Muslims go to different kind of schools and somehow are not part of the mainstream. If we do not tackle these issues consciously as a society, we will be forced into another surgical procedure or a civil war- far bloodier than any thing we have experienced in our history.Update: (22 Dec 2006)An article, Hitler the trendy tyrant in India, says- In Gujarat, textbooks have praised Hitler’s leadership abilities, fascism and the Nazi movement. The textbooks have been changed slightly this year but still barely mention the Holocaust.Update: (29 Sep 2006)Subhas Bose RevisitedUpdate: (10 Sep 2006) The Return of Hitler As Hero: The World Through Cracked Lenses A recent article in the Times of India, Mumbai reported on a poll of students from India’s premier academic institutions about the country’s political future.
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World Opinion Appears Skeptical5) Wednesday, August 23, 2006:To Mix The Impossible Bomb: Suspects Charged, Arraigned In Alleged Bombing Plot6) Monday, August 28, 2006:Brother of So-Called ‘Ringleader’ Released Without Charges in Alleged British Bombing Plot7) Wednesday, August 30, 2006:NYT Blocks British Readers from Monday’s Article on Alleged Liquid Bombing Plotand The NYT ‘Liquid Bombers’ Article British Readers Were Not Allowed To Read8) Wednesday, November 22, 2006:Tony Blair Makes a Donation — to a Government including an International Terrorist9) Wednesday, November 29, 2006:The Alleged Liquid Bombing Plot Revisited — Maybe It Was Possible After All10) Saturday, December 2, 2006:Double Standards in the Phony War: Small Errors Cost Big Bucks, but Enormous Lies Remain Standing11) Wednesday, December 13, 2006:Terror Charges Against Rashid Rauf Have Been Dropped12) Friday, December 22, 2006:Trial Of Rashid Rauf Set To Begin13) Saturday, January 13, 2007:Rashid Rauf Draws A Line In The Sand14) Friday, February 2, 2007:Pakistan Won’t Extradite ‘Liquid Bombing Mastermind’ To UK Anytime Soon15) Saturday, February 10, 2007:Rashid Rauf In Terror Court Again16) Saturday, May 19, 2007Alleged Liquid Bombers Plead ‘Not Guilty’;
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Shutterfly has shown its proposed IPO terms this morning, and the amount that is indicated is slightly less than the 2 million it listed on June 29 in its up to 2 million to be raised. If you used 5.8 million shares at the high-end of the 5.00 range, you would get a total of 7 million. It is one of the leading online photo service that lets consumers share, store, edit and print digital photos. The California-based company plans backed by Netscape founder Jim Clark plans to offer 5.8 million shares at a range of 3.00 to 5.00 per share.The deal has now a proposed market cap for the company of about 90 million and will trade under the ticker SFLY. J.P.Morgan is the lead underwriter and Piper Jaffray and Jefferies are set to co-manage the deal. What is interesting is that Goldman Sachs is no where to be seen, even though they were on an amended S-1 filing last month and on the June 29 original S-1 filing. That cannot be a coincidence, and this may raise a flag. There could have been some conflict of interest for the reason behind it, but that would be overly optimistic thinking.Goldman Sachs is still listed as a 375 share owner of the company, but that is far too small for a conflict to keep them from participating as that is very far under 1% of the company and they could have forfeited the shares. Jim Clark and entities affiliated with him own 7.1 million shares, which is listed as 40.3% of the company. There is also a significant number of preferred class shares that will convert subject to a 2.00 price and 5.0 million raised.We now have the financial results for the year up to June 30, 2006 and that was not available as of June 29.BALANCE SHEET:The company claims 9.4 million in total liabilities (down from 7.1 million at the end of 2005), with 4.8 million of that being regular short-term obligations and normal costs. Its cash and equivalents were 3.9 million and just over million more in other current assets, but its cash and equivalents carried at the end of 2005 was listed as a much higher 9.153 million. It valued its plant and equipment at 2.5 million, which is almost .8 million higher than at the end of 2005. it also lists a deferred tax asset at 4.5 million, which is also up almost .9 million from the end of 2005.INCOME STATEMENT:The only good news here is that the company is still showing revenue growth. For 2005 we noted that the company posted a 8.9 million in net income, but 4 million of that was from a tax benefit and another 42,000 was from an accounting change. For the first half of 2006 the company stillhas a net loss, although while we said earlier the only good news… it does need to be offered in fairness that the company depends heavily on the last quarter for revenues and income like so many other retail-related plays. For the first 6-months of the year the company posted revenues of 6.5 million (up from 7.2 million the first half of 2005). Unfortunately its operating expenses and investments outpaced the revenue growth. It posted a net loss allocated to shareholders of -.658 million for the first half of 2006, compared toa first half loss of -.29 million in 2005.It really appears as though any IPO player here is going to be banking on a solid end of the year. Its top-line growth is so far being offset by an increase in spending and there are some questionable thoughts with Goldman Sachs all of a sudden not appearing in the deal.From June 29, 2006 on the site HERE: Shuddering After Reading Shutterfly’s IPO Prospectus Shutterfly, one of the leading online photo services, has filed to come public via an IPO. This was one of the first online photo sites, and one of its backers is Jim Clark, co-founder of Netscape. It has filed to raise up to 2M from stock sales, although we’ll have to wait to see how many shares actually get sold and at what price.According to the prospectus Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Piper Jaffray, and Jefferies are underwriting the offering. The company was evaluating its alternatives just yesterday, and now we know what avenue they have chosen to reach their liquidity event.The prospectus says that 17.820 Million shares were outstanding as of March 31, 2006; but that exlcudes 3.198 million shares issuable upon options with exercise prices of .41, 1.755 million shares from the 1999 stock option plan, 1.358 million shares exercisable for the 2006 option plan, 0.116 million and 0.0408 million other shares.For 2005, the company posted revenues of 3.9M and net income of 8.9M, but this was inflated from a tax benefit. Its first quarter 2006 revenues were 6.88M (compared to Q1 2005 of 3.15M) with quarterly net income of -.668M (compared to -83K for Q1 2005). That loss would have been wider had it not been for a tax benefit from income taxes, and that was not available in prior quarters. A tax provision was also directly responsible for 4.06M of the company’s 8.9M net income in 2005.Why is it losing more money? Quite simply it is because costs are up in all major areas and the revenue gains are not off-setting these. Also, it is in the same barrel now with all other tech companies as it has to expense these stock options. The company is highly dependent on seasonality, with 49% of 2005 net revenues coming in the fourth quarter.The company also expects to need much larger capacity that has not yet been built to meet 2007 demands and has estimated 0 million to 5 million for capital expenditures in the second half of 2006 and first part of 2007. It also has dozens of competitors to the tune of Hewlett Packard, Eastman Kodak, Wal-Mart, Target, Yahoo!, AOL, CNET, Google, Walgreens and a couple dozen others in the US alone.After looking through the prospectus, it starts to feel like the entire document is a risk factor. The RISK FACTORS section goes from page 8 through page 26. Companies have to list their perceived risks, but this went on and on. The growth rates for the company are slowing at th etime it has said it needs to rapidly increase cap-ex costs. It didn’t list Seeing the dead or Being visited by the Price of Darkness as risks, but it felt like it was going to. This also listed an unspecified number of shares that would be available for additional sales as immediately after this offering, 45 days after the offering, 90 days after the offering, and 180 days afterthe offering
-ne IRIN report 8 Sep 2006 excerpt:Peace talks between Uganda and the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have hit a hitch after rebels objected to the inclusion of war victims in the government delegation, Ugandan government officials said on Friday.Mediators had been trying to make some headway after a landmark truce took effect on 29 August, but rebels broke from talks to consult with their leader, Joseph Kony.We disagreed on the representation of war victims at the talks, Captain Paddy Ankunda, spokesman for the Ugandan government delegation, said.
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-ne (Very cool article, I posted it in all my blogs)Make Your Own Beats, Instrumentals, Tracks, and Demo CDsBy: Matthew Keith Many people are making an excellent living selling thier samples, tracks, and cd’s, on the Internet and off, even if they’re not with a major record label. Whether you dream of Making It Big in the Music Industry, or are just interested in making some extra cash doing what you love, this article is for you. Part I: Make Your Own Beats, Instrumentals, Samples, Loops, Tracks, and Complete Demo CDs… Recording studio software is nothing more than a program that allows you to mix beats, melodies, chords, samples and loops to make your own customized instrumentals and tracks. That’s everything you need to make your own beats, instrumentals, samples, loops, tracks, and complete demo cd’s. So now you know how to make your own beats, instrumentals, samples, loops, tracks, and even complete demo cd’s, and this brings us to our next part… I hope this report has proved useful to you and I wish you all the best as you learn how to make your own beats, tracks, and even complete demo cd’s.Article Source: http://www.articledashboard.comMatthew Keith is the webmaster of UnsignedRappers.bravehost.com and a huge music enthusiast. He has spent the past 3 years searching for the most affordable ways for ordinary people to make their own music and make money doing so.
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Bear with me for a second, ok?Today, James Joyner mentioned a post by Thomas Barnett citing a subscriber-only article in a recent issue of The Economist which notes that “the war in Iraq is surprisingly bad news for America’s defence firms.” Barnett wrote:Surprising to the Economist perhaps, but I made this argument with some force in the first chapter of Blueprint for Action.The Pentagon lives to dream up fabled future opponents and then program against that desired foe. In concert, the defense firms live to build those massive and expensive platforms and weapons and communications systems for that desired scenario.You have some nasty and real like Afghanistan and Iraq intrude on that dreamy future, and guess what? Stuff doesn’t get bought.Not surprising whatsoever. Asymmetrical, fourth-generation warfare doesn’t favor the few and the absurdly expensive, but the many and the cheap. James then built upon that post to say that facts seldom change preconceptions and people will go right on believing that we go to war at the behest of defense contractors.Now…I noticed Barnett didn’t provide a link or any quote from the article. Here it is. The first paragraph only talks about the cancellation of the C-17 transport.So I decided to see what others were saying about the various defense firms. After all - with multi-billion dollar destroyers, subs, stealthfighters etc. and a budget that now is roughly equivalent to the whole of the rest of the world, not to mention all those lucrative new deals in Pakistan, India, Saudia and others that the war on terror has made possible - how can Barnett explain away the public perception of record profits and share prices for every major defense firm?Well, he can’t.Between 2001 and 2005, the profits for the 34 largest defense companies have climbed 189 percent. Profits for U.S. corporations as a whole rose 76 percent.Or are those just pesky facts again? Like the doubling of defense firm average CEO pay while they are supposedly hurting this much? Before 9/11, the gap between CEOs of publicly traded companies and army privates was already a galling 190 to 1. Today, it is 308 to 1. The average army private makes 5,000 a year. The average defense CEO makes .7 million. It gets worse.Jan 26, 2006 Lockheed Martin quarterly profits up 53% Profits topped Wall Street estimates as sales rose 2.6 percent to 0.2 billion. Net income was up 68 million, compared with the fourth quarter of 2004 when earnings were 72 million. The company is raising its earnings forecast for this year from a share to .25 and has declared a quarterly stock dividend of 30 cents a share.April 26, 2006 Boeing 1Q earnings up 29 percent to 92MNet income was 92 million, or 88 cents per share, up from 35 million, or 66 cents per share, a year earlier. Revenue climbed to 4.3 billion from 2.7 billion, up 12 percent although below the 4.5 billion expected by analysts.The defense units operating earnings declined 4 percent and revenues were down 6 percent, leaving it just ahead of the commercial airplane division at $7.2 billion. The company said operating margins for the Integrated Defense Systems division increased by 11 percent, driven by gains in military aircraft programs such as the C-17, F/A-18 and Rotorcraft.Those are the big two and both are reporting making big bucks from big-ticket military items.Northrop Grumman showed an increase 3.6% in profits from 2004 to 2005, Raytheon a 5.8% increase, United Technologies 10% and General Dynamics 7.22%. (All data from Fortune magazine)Accross the pond, BAe are also showing increasing profits.BAE said net profit for the 12 months ended Dec. 31 was 553 million pounds ($969 million), up from 2 million pounds in the previous year. Revenue rose to 11.02 billion pounds ($19 billion) from 8.82 billion pounds.Finance Director George Rose said earnings at the companys programs unit were driven higher by the Eurofighter military jet program as deliveries ramped up to European nations.Last year, 37 Eurofighters were delivered to air forces in Britain, Italy, Spain and Germany. BAE is making the planes along with partners European Aeronautic Defence
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India did not face the war directly though many of its soldiers participated in WWII and won great victories in different parts of the world. Not only do we not relate ourselves to this war, we do not even talk about our soldier’s achievements in this war. During WWII, our nationalist leaders coming from all ideologies (who were fighting for Independence) were not keen on supporting British overtly though many Indian soldiers recruited themselves into the war – Indian soldiers player a pivotal role in WWII, and we do not even talk about it! Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose (who should be pardoned for his naiveté) chose to support this invading Japanese Army, renowned for its war crimes and occupation brutalities (which included rape of Manchuria and Indo-China), while the Indian soldiers were fighting this invading army on the Indian border. As a conscious decision, Indian people and its government chose to highlight the not-so-grand achievements of INA and Subhas Chandra Bose while meticulously ignoring the momentous achievements of Indian soldiers in WWII. Lacking in formal exposure and education to events of WWII, many Indians do not know the exact crimes committed by Nazis, and even if they do, they completely ignore it the way they desensitize themselves to all the miseries of India- roadside begging kids, colossal garbage piling up next to their home, dying people from malnutrion, etc. I have not seen this much fascination and admiration for Adolf Hitler in any other community, culture or society. I believe that there is a great correlation between the groups who admire Adolf Hitler, the groups who hate or think low of Muslims, and those who are against reservations. The prevailing feeling is that devout and typical Muslims are somehow not easy to get along. On the other extreme are people who think that most of the evils of Indian society exist because of Muslims (very synonymous to how Nazis blamed certain sections of people for all evils of their society). Most moderate Hindus may not harbor much ill-will but they are fine as long as they see a Muslim as a grocer, a laborer, or auto-driver, but not in their regular life. The Muslims go to different kind of schools and somehow are not part of the mainstream. If we do not tackle these issues consciously as a society, we will be forced into another surgical procedure or a civil war- far bloodier than any thing we have experienced in our history.Update: (22 Dec 2006)An article, Hitler the trendy tyrant in India, says- In Gujarat, textbooks have praised Hitler’s leadership abilities, fascism and the Nazi movement. The textbooks have been changed slightly this year but still barely mention the Holocaust.Update: (29 Sep 2006)Subhas Bose RevisitedUpdate: (10 Sep 2006) The Return of Hitler As Hero: The World Through Cracked Lenses A recent article in the Times of India, Mumbai reported on a poll of students from India’s premier academic institutions about the country’s political future.
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World Opinion Appears Skeptical5) Wednesday, August 23, 2006:To Mix The Impossible Bomb: Suspects Charged, Arraigned In Alleged Bombing Plot6) Monday, August 28, 2006:Brother of So-Called ‘Ringleader’ Released Without Charges in Alleged British Bombing Plot7) Wednesday, August 30, 2006:NYT Blocks British Readers from Monday’s Article on Alleged Liquid Bombing Plotand The NYT ‘Liquid Bombers’ Article British Readers Were Not Allowed To Read8) Wednesday, November 22, 2006:Tony Blair Makes a Donation — to a Government including an International Terrorist9) Wednesday, November 29, 2006:The Alleged Liquid Bombing Plot Revisited — Maybe It Was Possible After All10) Saturday, December 2, 2006:Double Standards in the Phony War: Small Errors Cost Big Bucks, but Enormous Lies Remain Standing11) Wednesday, December 13, 2006:Terror Charges Against Rashid Rauf Have Been Dropped12) Friday, December 22, 2006:Trial Of Rashid Rauf Set To Begin13) Saturday, January 13, 2007:Rashid Rauf Draws A Line In The Sand14) Friday, February 2, 2007:Pakistan Won’t Extradite ‘Liquid Bombing Mastermind’ To UK Anytime Soon15) Saturday, February 10, 2007:Rashid Rauf In Terror Court Again16) Saturday, May 19, 2007Alleged Liquid Bombers Plead ‘Not Guilty’;
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