NOTES ON THE WORLD’S LARGEST DEMOCRACY: IN INDIA, OPRAH WOOS CROWD

[Ms. Winfrey said India had changed her. She visited a shelter for widows who have been shunned by their families and the larger society. She said she was flummoxed that a country that prides itself on its close-knit families and respect for elders could also need shelters to house widows who have been shunned by their families.]

By Prashant Agrawal

European Pressphoto Agency 

Oprah Winfrey gestures as she interacts with television 

journalist Barkha Dutt, during the 

Jaipur Literature Festival on Sunday.

Some foreigners come to India and make observations about the country that many Indians find unbearable. Not Oprah Winfrey.

During her appearance at the Jaipur Literature Festival on Sunday, Ms. Winfrey made some of the same discomfiting comments that many foreigners make but she did it in a way that appeared to enthrall, rather than offend, the audience at the Diggi Palace hotel.

Her arrival was intensely anticipated in Jaipur where long lines formed outside the venue – about an hour before her appearance, police officers and organizers shut the entrance to limit the number of people at the festival. Still, several thousand people managed to cram onto the front lawn of the hotel, sitting on the ground and standing along the perimeter.

Barkha Dutt, the Indian television journalist who is sometimes referred to as the “Oprah of India,” interviewed Ms. Winfrey for a little over an hour covering topics that ranged from her impressions of India to the American elections.

Ms. Winfrey said India had changed her. She visited a shelter for widows who have been shunned by their families and the larger society. She said she was flummoxed that a country that prides itself on its close-knit families and respect for elders could also need shelters to house widows who have been shunned by their families.

In her trademark empathetic style, she went on to say that widows even in the United States faced subtle discrimination. Though the condition of widows in India may be more distressing, it wasn’t unique, she said. She said she called Maria Shriver, a former NBC anchor, after her visit to the shelter and the two women resolved to help fund the organization that runs it.

The audience applauded.

“Women outlive men everywhere in the world,” Ms. Winfrey said, “so this will always be an issue.”

Ms. Dutt later asked Ms. Winfrey why she had never married, drawing chuckles from the audience. Ms. Winfrey, with a smile on her face, replied that marriage just wasn’t for her. She said she was perfectly happy in her long-term relationship with her partner, Stedman Graham. “If we had gotten married, we would be divorced by now,” she said, adding that marriage involved an element of conformity and she prefers to live a very independent life.

“And I am too old for an arranged marriage,” she said prompting more laughter from the audience.

Ms. Winfrey probably already had vast stores of good will among the people who came to hear her speak – she is after all a global phenomenon. Her frank observations appear to have endeared her to her audience. When she said she would come back to India, the massive audience clapped and hooted.

@ The New York Times

IRAN STEPS BACKFROM WARNING ON U.S. SHIPS

[“U.S. warships and military forces have been in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East region for many years, and their decision in relation to the dispatch of a new warship is not a new issue, and it should be interpreted as part of their permanent presence,” a Revolutionary Guards deputy commander, Hossein Salami, told the official IRNA news agency.]

By Reuters

TEHRAN (Reuters) — Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Saturday that it considered the likely return of American warships to the Persian Gulf part of routine activity, backing away from previous warnings to Washington not to re-enter the area.

The statement may be seen as an effort to reduce tensions after Washington said it would respond if Iran made good on a threat to block theStrait of Hormuz, the vital shipping lane for oil exports from the gulf.

“U.S. warships and military forces have been in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East region for many years, and their decision in relation to the dispatch of a new warship is not a new issue, and it should be interpreted as part of their permanent presence,” a Revolutionary Guards deputy commander, Hossein Salami, told the official IRNA news agency.

The comments may be a response to the European Union and Washington’s rejection of Iran’s declaration that it was close to resuming negotiations with world powers, and with the Pentagon’s saying that it did not expect any challenge to its warships.

Crude oil prices have spiked several times this year on fears that diplomatic tensions could escalate to military clashes and uncertainty about the effect of sanctions on the oil market.

Along with the European Union, which is set to agree on an embargo on Iranian oil, the United States hopes the sanctions will force Iran to suspend the nuclear activities that it believes are aimed at making an atomic bomb, a charge Iran denies.

There has been no American aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf since the John C. Stennis left at the end of December at a time when the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps was conducting naval maneuvers.

On Jan. 3, after President Obama signed new sanctions aimed at stopping Iran’s oil exports, the Iranian government ordered the Stennis not to return — an order interpreted by some analysts in Iran and Washington as a blanket threat to any United States carrier.

“I recommend and emphasize to the American carrier not to return to the Persian Gulf,” Iran’s army chief, Maj. Gen. Ataollah Salehi, said at the time. “We are not in the habit of warning more than once.”

Washington says it will return, and Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said any move to block the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a third of the world’s sea-borne traded oil passes, would be seen as a “red line,” requiring a response.

@ The New York Times

ISLAMISTS WIN 70% OF SEATS IN THE EGYPTIAN PARLIAMENT

[But the two groups have described very different visions and appear to be rivals rather than collaborators. The Brotherhood has said it intends to respect personal liberties and will focus on economic and social issues, gradually nudging the culture toward its conservative values. By contrast, the ultraconservatives, known as Salafis, put a higher priority on legislation on Islamic moral issues, like the consumption of alcohol, women’s dress and the contents of popular culture.]

By David D. Kirkpatrick

CAIRO — Egyptian authorities confirmed Saturday that a political coalition dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, the 84-year-old group that virtually invented political Islam, had won about 47 percent of the seats in the first Parliament elected since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak. An alliance of ultraconservative Islamists won the next largest share of seats, about 25 percent.

The military council leading Egypt since Mr. Mubarak lost power last February has said it will keep Parliament in a subordinate role with little real power until the ratification of a constitution and the election of a president, both scheduled for completion by the end of June.

But the council has assigned Parliament the authority to choose the 100 members of a constitutional assembly, so it may shape Egypt for decades to come, although the military council has sometimes tried to influence that process.

The election results were expected because of preliminary tallies after each of the three phases of the vote, but the confirmation comes in time for the seating of Parliament on Monday.

The tally, with the two groups of Islamists together winning about 70 percent of the seats, indicates the deep cultural conservatism of the Egyptian public, which is expressing its will through free and fair elections for the first time in more than six decades.

But the two groups have described very different visions and appear to be rivals rather than collaborators. The Brotherhood has said it intends to respect personal liberties and will focus on economic and social issues, gradually nudging the culture toward its conservative values. By contrast, the ultraconservatives, known as Salafis, put a higher priority on legislation on Islamic moral issues, like the consumption of alcohol, women’s dress and the contents of popular culture.

Among the remaining roughly 30 percent of parliamentary seats, the next largest share was won by the Wafd Party, a liberal party recognized under Mr. Mubarak and with roots dating to Egypt’s colonial period.

It was trailed by a coalition known as the Egyptian Bloc. It included the Free Egyptians, a business-friendly liberal party founded by a Coptic Christian businessman, Naguib Sawiris, and favored by many members of the country’s Coptic Christian minority, about 10 percent of the public. The Egyptian Bloc also included the liberal Social Democratic Party, which leans further to the left on economic issues.

A coalition of parties founded by the young leaders of the revolt that unseated Mr. Mubarak won only a few percent of the seats, as did a handful of offshoots of the former governing party.


@ The New York Times