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The government in a stinging rebuke has pulled up Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor for using twitter to post his comments on a new Visa guideline issued by his colleague and union Home minister P Chidambaram. In fact, Tharoor's boss Minister for External Affairs S M Krishna has asked him not to comment on government policy on Twitter.The diktat presumably because the government fears it ends up blurring the lines between what's public and what's not. Predictably the govt's action has sparked off a debate with several people coming out on the net in defence of Tharoor citing freedom of expression. While no one can deny Mr Tharoor his freedoms there is cause for concern when a matter of the national interest is blithely 'trivialised'. And when a complex policy issue is discussed on a platform that is not formatted to allow for exhaustive or even reasoned debate. There would have been no problem had Mr Tharoor used a suitable forum to debate or even criticise the government's new visa norms. And as minister he would have had several of those platforms available to him. At the end of the day Mr Tharoor presumably forgot that the medium is not always the message.

THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE, OR IS IT?

The government in a stinging rebuke has pulled up Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor for using twitter to post his comments on a new Visa guideline issued by his colleague and union Home minister P Chidambaram. In fact, Tharoor's boss Minister for External Affairs S M Krishna has asked him not to comment on government policy on Twitter.The diktat presumably because the government fears it ends up blurring the lines between what's public and what's not. Predictably the govt's action has sparked off a debate with several people coming out on the net in defence of Tharoor citing freedom of expression. While no one can deny Mr Tharoor his freedoms there is cause for concern when a matter of the national interest is blithely 'trivialised'. And when a complex policy issue is discussed on a platform that is not formatted to allow for exhaustive or even reasoned debate. There would have been no problem had Mr Tharoor used a suitable forum to debate or even criticise the government's new visa norms. And as minister he would have had several of those platforms available to him. At the end of the day Mr Tharoor presumably forgot that the medium is not always the message.

TALK WITH ARABINDA RAJKHOWA? BUT ABOUT WHAT?

The debate around ULFA supreme commander Arabinda Rajkhowa's 'surrender' has inevitably moved beyond the development's impact on the fortunes of the terrorist organisation to how the Indian govt should deal with him. For instance, should the Centre talk to Rajkhowa? And if so, about what? Sovereignty? Autonomy? With each passing hour the dilemma plays itself out in the Centre's policy circles. But for many outside the government the answer is clear and simple - throw Rajkhowah into jail and charge him with the mass murder of 10,000 Indian citizens. Anything less, is to send out the wrong message, set the wrong precedent and serve as a slap in the face of thousands of patriotic Assamese that have pledged themselves to the service of the nation. It's important to note that there hasn't been a whimper of protest in Assam over the capture of Rajkhowa, no mass outrage, no bandh calls. Is this an indication of the Ulfa's dwindling legitimacy? Perhaps. But in any event it is a point to take into consideration. With a majority of ULFA top leaders (barring commander-in-chief of its military wing Paresh Baruah) behind bars, with several others eliminated or on the run, there's never been a better time to shut the door on the ULFA. Acting out of a misplaced sense of righteousness and engaging Rajkhowa now will only end up glorifying his cause not to mention legitimising his nearly two decade long reign of terror in the North East.

BABRI IS BACK, BUT WHO GAINS?

It has taken the Ghost of Babri to get the fractious BJP to band together. A newspaper report claims that the (till now carefully mothballed) Liberhan Commission report has indicted the BJP top brass including, rather surprisingly, the party's moderate 'mukhota' (mask) Atal Behari Vajpayee for the demolition of the Masjid. Incensed and dismayed by the inclusion of Vajpayee the BJP has suddenly found a cause to rally around. A cause handed on a platter to it by the Cong-led UPA. So complete was the closing of the ranks in the BJP that even L K Advani and Rajanth Singh spoke from the same pulpit, like the good old days, to defend the sullied honour of their patriarch. If the Congress was testing political waters by orchestrating 'the motivated and selective leak' as some claim then it now knows what to expect. But that is not likely to deter the party. Congress strategists calculate that the electoral benefit of polarising the polity; winning back the minorities and finishing off the BJP in the cow belt far outweigh the political cost of uniting the saffron outfit. For the BJP the report presents an opportunity to resurrect its own saffron agenda and breathe life back into its deflated rank and file. But tactics apart isn't it just so tragic that once again our political representatives are picking at one of the country's deepest communal fault lines to profit at the hustings. In a sense it is 1992 once again.

A.Q KHAN DROPS A 'LETTER' BOMB, BUT WHY NOW?

So it took a four page letter written by the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb A Q Khan to his wife and leaked by a British journalist to confirm the world's worst kept secret: That Pakistan the most 'dangerous place on Earth' is a nuclear proliferator. Till the letter, written in a loose scrawl by AQ Khan, wasn't made public the world was made to believe the Pakistani nuclear scientist was a Dr. Strangelove running a basement nuclear Walmart unbeknownst to the ruling establishment. Former Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf even went on record to describe Khan as a nuclear entrepreneur working in complete secrecy to line his own pockets. But that theory now lies in tatters. If anything, the letter blows the lid off a Pakistan government nuclear nexus with a number of countries (Iran, North Korea, China and Libya) that have defied international convention and even law in their pursuit to acquire nuclear weapons technology

As is to be expected Pakistan has quickly dismissed the letter as pure fiction cooked up by A Q Khan to blackmail the country. But that claim doesn't stand to reason. After all, why would Khan want to antagonise Pakistan especially after he's been let-off by the courts and is effectively a free man? And why would he want to risk extradition to the United States? That A Q Khan is equally shaken by the leak is underscored by the fact that he has hurriedly brushed aside questions related to the veracity of the letter.

But the bigger questions persist. Why then has the letter been leaked now, six years after it was written? And who stands to gain from it being made public? The answer could have been provided by British Journalist Simon Henderson who 'leaked' the letter in the Sunday Times. But he isn't talking so questions abound: Has the Obama administration (which is in zealous pursuit of non-proliferation) orchestrated the leak to get a universal treaty to ban all nuclear testing passed in the next 12 months? This remains a not too far fetched possibility. Especially when one considers that on September 23, 2009 Obama spoke at the United Nations warning that "countries that refuse to live up to their obligations must face consequences".

Administration insiders say Obama is particularly keen to act against Iran and North Korea and the Khan 'letter bomb' helps the U.S build a case and approach the United Nations or other multi-lateral forum to act against the so-called rogue states. Aside from the answers one hopes to supply to the questions raised by the ‘letter bomb’ expose there is little doubt that A Q Khan is once again the crucible of a 'fission' reaction that could have far reaching geo-political consequences.