I am surprised how Indians are overly exagerating the security situation in the tribal areas of Pakistan (These Tribal areas have always been like this since the Britishers time)….

First that its in India’s favour that it gets cheap gas through the Iranian pipeline…. but I can see that stupid Indian demands of penalities are gonna make this nearly impossible…. why should Pakistan be so nice when you have been violating Indus Water TReaty and Building Dams on the Pakistani Rivers.

I am a Pakistani and live in USA… Honestly, many of you will know how ignorant American people are about the outside world and they believe whatever their Government tells them and we all know that its wrong …….
……now whether you want to believe it or not but the FACT is that Indians are misinformed about Pakistan the same way as the Americans are misinformed about the outside world…. they shout about Kargil but forget about Siachen….. Pakistan’s role in ‘war on terror’ is crticzed but they forget they have been refusing to implement a UN resolution for over 55 years……………. Grow up!!!

you can’t paint everythign as white or black………… Pakistan is what it is not what you believe it to be….

Ofcourse the matter is of grave concern considering terrorism, but the pipeline would not just a set of pipe in series for transporting fluids which any tom, dick and harry can set ablaze. They would definitely be much more than that.

Friday April 01, 2005

Gas pipeline blown up in SW Pakistan
Pakistan Times Balochistan Bureau Report

QUETTA: Suspected tribal insurgents blew up a pipeline supplying natural gas to a major southwest city in Pakistan’s restive Baluchistan province, officials said on Friday.

Police said the Thursday night attack damaged the pipeline but did not disrupt gas supplies to Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan.

“Saboteurs detonated explosives which damaged a three-metre (10-foot) part of the pipeline in Dhadhar,” a town some 90 kilometers (56 miles) southeast of Quetta, local police official Ali Akbar Magsi said.

Recap

Bombs and rockets targeting railway tracks, government installations and natural gas facilities have exploded almost daily since the start of the year in Baluchistan, the biggest and poorest of Pakistan’s four provinces.

Police have blamed the string of attacks on nationalist tribesmen demanding a bigger share of the region’s natural resources and jobs in state projects as well as more political rights.

On March-17 eight paramilitary soldiers and dozens of civilians and tribesmen died in violent clashes at Dera Bugti, near the country’s largest gasfield at Sui.●

“The diesel engine can be fed with vegetable oils and would help considerably in the development of agriculture of the countries which use it”

“The use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today. But such oils may become in course of time as important as petroleum and the coal tar products of the present time.”

————————————————————-
http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/jan/29pak3.htm

Another Pak pipeline blown up

January 29, 2005 19:48 IST

Suspected Baloch rebels in Pakistan damaged a major gas pipeline and triggered bomb blasts near Lahore even as a key member of the ruling coalition threatened to pull out of the government if Army launched full-scale operations against the rebels.
The main gas pipeline passing over the Balloki-Sulemanki Canal in Okara district of Punjab province was blasted by suspected rebels, disrupting supply of gas to Lahore and other places.

This is the second such attack against gas installations and pipelines in the last three weeks by rebels, who are demanding more autonomy for Balochistan province.

In another incident, two bombs exploded at the residence of a Railway official and the Officers Club of Pakistan Railways.in South West Quetta, capital of Balochistan, late last night. No one was injured.

Meanwhile, the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), a key partner in the ruling alliance supporting President Pervez Musharraf, asked the government to desist from using force against Baloch rebels and demanded negotiations to resolve all issues.

An all-party conference organised by the MQM in Quetta adopted a seven-point resolution urging the government to not launch a full-scale military operation against rebels and favoured negotiations.

Addressing the conference over phone from London, self-exiled MQM leader Altaf Hussain said his party would pull out of the pro-Musharraf ruling coalition if Army was deployed in Balochistan to deal with nationalist rebels.

Assuring full support to Baloch parties in their struggle for more autonomy, Hussain said army actions in the past in East Pakistan, which later became Bangladesh, Balochistan, Karachi and Hyderabad have only aggravated the situation.

“Past experiences told us that political and democratic issues should be settled purely through political means and not through guns as these methods would create complications and develop hatred and ill-will towards the federation,” the local daily Dawn quoted him as saying.

The meeting was boycotted by former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto-led Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Islamist Muthahida Majlis Amal (MMA), but was attended by ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q), which, however, abstained when the resolutions were put to vote.

Hussain demanded complete autonomy to all provinces so that they could run their affairs without interferences and usurpation of their resources by the Centre, rejecting the Centre’s strict policy of centralisation of the 70s, which he said had led to the dismemberment of the country.

How can our own far relatives turn against us so violently and harbour so much of vengeance… It’s true that their madrasa universities have been able to depict india as an evil nation. but we need to find a solution for it.

i feel the only way we can make like us is by bringing up their aspirational value. as you said, right now they dont care much if their country goes up in smoke. but they surely would if they are a little more prosperous
is this thought worth pondering…
regards
lawry from bangalore

Nice analysis – agree fully.

Kindly read my post in my blog over the same issue abit diffrently
Correct me if wrong :

You wanted to mention KAFIR(infidel) and not kuffar ( Lie) you used.

Cheer

Amit Chaudhry

It is an old joke in India, that the “People who are intelligent enough to govern the country are too intelligent to enter politics”. But that is all it is – a joke. What is very obvious to us is definitely all the more obvious to the Oil Minister and all the others clamouring for the pipeline – Dhirubhai Ambani, one of the most celebrated business minds in this country was an early exponent of the pipeline, even at around the time of Kargil. Why, one may ask? Do people go mad when they achieve such stratospheric levels of success?

Not really. There are some very simple requirements in such a deal, which are not widely publicised. For example, India has already made it very clear that India will not take gas unless all its security concerns are addressed. How do you address the concerns? Iran with or without Pak, must guarantee us that they will either supply the gas at our border, or else pay us. It is called a supply-or-pay clause, which is signed by every seller in an international pipeline deal. This clause complements the buy-or-pay deal that the buyer signs too.

Of course Iran has refused to sign the supply-or-pay clause (they are offering to supply CNG via ships instead), but India will definitely not go ahead without either that or some other form of equally strong security. I trust there would not be enough people smart enough to have the money and dumb enough to invest on “trust” in Indo-Pak bonhomie.

Pakistan’s ability to ensure the security of the pipeline (against attacks by Baloch insurgents) is at best questionable.

The most worrying thing about the pipeline is that some of its Indian advocates take the view that it will bring peace because it creates ‘mutual dependencies’. Strange is the mentality that likes to feel secure by putting its cojones in the hands of its adversaries. Indeed, simply putting a multi-billion dollar investment within the grasp of an unreliable Pakistan is poor form; putting something that is quite likely to be a vital element of India’s economic security is positively suicidal.

I have always argued that there is a better way of going about the Iran LNG deal; by investing in a state-of-the-art container terminal on India’s Western seaboard. Such an investment will allow India to procure gas from Iran (by way of LNG tankers), and also from any other country that can supply LNG or crude oil.

Given that almost all the investment will go into building domestic infrastructure, jobs, collateral economic benefits and spinoffs will accrue to India.

Of course, simply comparing costs of transportation (ie pipeline vs shipping) may make the pipeline attractive. The problem is that while these costs are quite easy to calculate, estimating the cost of risk is much more difficult. But I’d hazard a guess that if those risks are well quantified, the pipeline will turn out to be not that good an idea after all.

An interesting analysis of the Indian economy can be read here:

http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=107&issue=106

Good luck,

Someone who prefers to be anonymous

muslim terrorist and a country like pakistan, is not to be believed. any sane quy will not invest that much money in such a project..why don’t you think bio-diesel, bio-ethanol, which will give jobs to indian here in the villages and at the same time.. give biomass to do bio-gas plants..?? biogas can be as good as CNG.

i am not sure who is filling mani shankar aiyars pockets or has gone insane..

Pakistan is doing all this CBM(confidene building measures) stuff to get the pipeline project going so that… they have a lever.. incase of a conflict or war.

trade with pakistan..

muslim terrorist and a country like pakistan, is not to be believed. any sane quy will not invest that much money in such a project..why don’t you think bio-diesel, bio-ethanol, which will give jobs to indian here in the villages and at the same time.. give biomass to do bio-gas plants..?? biogas can be as good as CNG.

i am not sure who is filling mani shankar aiyars pockets or has gone insane..

Pakistan is doing all this CBM(confidene building measures) stuff to get the pipeline project going so that… they have a lever.. incase of a conflict or war.

trade with pakistan..