Three of Bush's key political allies have met with overwhelming defeat at the polls this year: Spain's Aznar, Indonesia's Megawati and now India's Vajpayee. The Independent reports: "India's ruling Hindu nationalist party conceded electoral defeat today, opening the way for Sonia Gandhi to become India's first foreign-born leader and restoring her family's dynasty to power in a dramatic political upset in the world's largest democracy. Unofficial results indicated that millions of rural poor people abandoned Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, believing they had been left behind by the country's economic boom [which was driven largely by Vajpayees dealings with Bush and US outsourcing] and rejecting his Hindus-first message in favour of the secularism of Gandhi's Congress party. Vajpayee was expected to resign later today. His decision to call the election six months early was a devastating miscalculation."

At present, tens of thousands of US jobs are being shipped to India. Among these jobs are some of the most sensitive services - DHS and Social Security case processing and other government services. Now hundreds of thousands of American tax returns are being outsourced to India. Yet the fact is, for the third straight year, the Global Corruption Report has named India the 2nd MOST CORRUPT nation in Asia - outdoing even China and Vietnam. (Indonesia is number 1) Yet in the name of corporate greed, Americans are supposed to trust their most personal vital statistics with underpaid India workers?! For the full Global Corruption Report, see: http://www.globalcorruptionreport.org/

"Nineteen computers belonging to top-secret establishments of the Defence Research and Development Organisation at Metcalfe House near ISBT have been stolen. What's spooked the defence brass is that the computers - which were installed in the offices of the Scientific Analyses Group and the Institute for System Studies and Analyses - contained strategic data vital to India's security. The SAG is responsible for cryptography. In other words, all codes and cyphers to ensure communication security for the defence forces have an SAG stamp. The ISSA, on the other hand, analyses competing weapons systems for induction into the armed forces. For the moment, the defence establishment has no answers - only red faces. 'We don't even know the extent of loss of strategic data,' said sources at the Ministry of Defence. What's worrying the defence establishment is that the DRDO has provided the encryption back-up for protecting strategic communications in the context of India's nuclear arsenal."

"In plain words, the US permission to Pakistan to buy military goodies worth $9bn in addition to $1.8bn military aid is, in conjunction with what it is going to do for India, is the surest way to intensify the various arms races between these two states. It is optional to regard the American friendliness to Pakistan as a two-in-one strategy: while buying gratitude of Pakistani generals, Pakistan's Monetary Reserves can be recycled to the profit of American arms manufacturers. One can be sure that if Pakistan were to spend $10 to 11bn on arms, India will devote $50bn or more to offset Pakistan's perceived gain - all to the benefit of American arms Bazaar... [Meanwhile,] the Islamic extremists will cry 'sell out' and there will be echoes of these denunciations. Pakistan's greater integration into American schemes is sure to backfire and intensify its many divisive and debilitating trends. The US cannot do a greater disservice than to intensify the arms races between India and Pakistan."

Eric Margolis writes, "India and Pakistan are on the verge of a catastrophic war over Kashmir... Pakistan's and India's nuclear arsenals are on hair-trigger alert, as political leaders and generals on both sides play nuclear chicken over divided Kashmir. The world is now facing the most dangerous nuclear confrontation since the [Cuban missile crisis]. India and Pakistan need to be given a face-saving way out of this confrontation... The Bush Administration is urgently seeking to defuse the crisis, [fearing it is undermining Bush's war on Terror]. However, Washington's clumsy policies have played a key role in the current crisis... By foolishly branding Kashmir separatists as 'Islamic terrorists,' the Bush Administration inadvertently encouraged India to follow the US example... Now, to India's understandable fury, the White House is furiously back-peddling and calling on Delhi for 'restraint,' something it certainly failed to show in Afghanistan."

While the P-resident asks Charlotte Church which state Wales is in ?!? (the 15-year old corrected Bu$h's geographical misstep during their recent visit,) India and Pakistan move closer to the unthinkable: "India and Pakistan imposed tit-for-tat diplomatic and economic sanctions on Thursday as the nuclear rivals continued their biggest military build-up in almost 15 years, stoking fears of war ...Along the volatile frontier which stretches 2,070 mile from Kashmir in the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea, villagers are fleeing as both sides rush extra troops and equipment, including fighter jets, tanks and artillery to forward bases and lay defensive minefields." In just a hair over one year following the stolen election, Bu$h has the world teetering on nuclear war.

"The firing across the ceasefire line in Kashmir erupted last night just before Colin Powell arrived in Pakistan. India and Pakistan have fired across their frontier for decades, and yesterday's exchange would have been considered normal if not for the relative calm through most of this year. The latest exchange was expected to generate some tension in Mr Powell's talks with Indian leaders, scheduled for tonight and tomorrow. His aim was to urge restraint between Pakistan and India and shore up their cooperation with the US campaign to end Afghanistan's protection of Osama bin Laden. Shelling across the frontier continued through last night. India claimed 'widespread damage and destruction' to punish the Pakistani army for aiding Islamic militants in the Himalayan province. An Indian army statement said 11 militants were killed and 11 Pakistani military posts were destroyed."

On October 1, terrorists based in Pakistan killed 38 people in a terrorist attack on the Legislative Assembly in Srinagar, the summer capital of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan denies that it supports this terrorist group, Jaish-e-Muhammad, but India wants Bush to include the group on its terrorist list. If Bush does not, India is threatening to attack terrorist training camps inside Pakistani-controlled sections of Kashmir. Such an attack would further undermine Gen. Musharraf's weak government in Pakistan.

India and Pakistan are at war over Kashmir, and threaten each other with nuclear weapons. As the US cozies up to Pakistan to overthrow the Taliban, India is getting upset. "By helping Musharraf tighten his grip on power, the US is building up a fiendish general whose concrete record of covert and terrorist operations against India parallels the mythologised record of Osama’s terrorist exploits. More than Ahmed, Musharraf is accountable for the murder of 40 people in the attack on J&K's embodiment of democracy. There is no way Vajpayee can reopen talks with a murderous dictator who publicly gloats about the "freedom struggle going on in Kashmir" and then a few hours later calls up to suggest 'peace' negotiations. The Americans should realise Vajpayee has no desire to commit political harakiri." So writes Brahma Chellaney in the Hindustan Times.