Invasion of Goa - 50 years

December 18th 1961, the armed forces of the self described "pacifist" Nehru, attack Portuguese India, the first and last bastion of European civilization in the subcontinent.

Portuguese India - Coat of Arms

Map of Portuguese territories in India

A few lines by the poet M.Daedalus (www.mdaedalus.com), to honour the day:

Goa 1961

A taciturn rain envelops the morning,
Tears drop from the cross of a white basilica,
India wears a Mediterranean nostalgia.

Man-made thunders agitate the palm-trees
The birds ebb in the ungrateful firmament
Afonso de Albuquerque is invoked in Konkani
"Nehru is coming" a soldier shouts
"Bandit, not pundit!" somebody retorts.

Pathetically the radio plays patriotic songs
Gagged by jet aircraft gutting the clouds
Shiva avenges the kingdom of Cambay
Kalashnikovs echo the screams of Bijapur
Salazar flies away in yesterday's newspaper
The Queen of the Orient drowns in the Mandovi.

Elephants loose their composure
Austins and Peugeots lie abandoned on the harbour road
Oranges and panic are spread over the pier
A man in white suit wraps a fist full of earth
Panjim dies for the sake of a life to be invented.

The empire sheds European and Asian blood
Dadra and Nagar Aveli, were the first perfidious blows
Goa, Daman and Diu completed the five wounds.

M.Daedalus

India doubles its Uranium reserves

Uranium ore

India's Atomic Energy Commission disclosed a new uranium discovery in Tummalapalle in Kadapa district, state of Andhra Pradesh, with reserves of 150.000 tonnes effectively doubles India's Uranium reserves.

India's nuclear energy programme is under-supplied and the new source is most welcome to keep it viable and limit its dependence from foreign suppliers. On the nuclear weapons front, India's pursuit of a nuclear triad is also increasing demand: soon the first of its Arihant class of nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed submarines will be operational, more will follow.

Clearly good news for India, but may yet prove to be a factor in global instability. India first nuclear weapon was designated PNE, for 'peaceful nuclear explosive', such irony may fail to make its neighbours smile.

Pakistan, although lacking indigenous uranium, may feel compelled to compete. With the country on an uncontrolled downward spiral, some in Islamabad may take less than reasonable decisions, and more seriously we are all wondering when will a Pakistani nuclear warhead reach the wrong hands. China too, may see this as a threat, specially in terms of projected power and rivalry in the oceans, though we shouldn't expect any actions from the People's Republic that defy either prudence or intelligence.

INS Arihant - Indian nuclear submarine under construction (based on the Soviet Akula class)

Rudyard Kipling, The White Man's Burden (1899)

Take up the White Man's burden--

Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proferred laurel.
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!

'Pear's Soap' advertisement - the White Man's Burden

Rudyard Kipling - the poet's portrait for the cover of Time

Feb 3, 1509: the Indian Ocean becomes a Portuguese Lake

Portuguese fort of Diu

We celebrate 500 years of the battle of Diu (Gujarat, India). On February 3rd 1509, a Portuguese fleet under Dom Francisco de Almeida routs a large armada of Ottoman, Gujarati, Mamluk, Kozhikodi, Venitian and Ragusan forces.

This was a game changing event, the Ottomans were contained. For the next 100 years the Indian Ocean would becomes a Portuguese Lake and for 350 longer an European pond. Diu was eventually lost to the Indians in 1961.

World trade was transformed for ever: the old land routes controlled by the Turks and continuing into the Mediterranean became irrelevant, intercontinental sea trade was born, a true revolution in transportation.

Flor de la Mar - Portuguese Carrack - flagship of D. Francisco de Almeida in the battle of Diu

Dom Francisco de Almeida - Viceroy of India