Afghan poll shows India most favoured, Pakistan unpopular

[desiman]

Afghan poll shows India most favoured, Pakistan unpopular

New Delhi, Jan 20 : In a new opinion poll, Afghans have rated India as the most favourable foreign country in Afghanistan and have rejected a role for Pakistan in their country.

The opinion poll, commissioned by by BBC, ABC and German TV ARD, also shows a sharp decline in support for the Taliban.

According to the findings, 71 percent of more than 1,500 Afghans questioned endorsed India's multifarious role in the reconstruction of the strife-torn country.

India was followed by Germany (59 percent), the US (51 percent), Iran (50 percent) and Britain (39 percent). Pakistan was found to be the least popular country, with only two percent of Afghans viewing its role favourably.

India has pledged $1.3 billion for a wide array of reconstruction activities ranging from education to building roads, bridges, power stations to digging tubewells, and grassroot development projects.

This broad sweep of developments projects has earned India enormous goodwill among ordinary Afghans.

The poll decisively rebuffs Pakistan's oft-voiced propaganda pitch that India's growing profile in Afghanistan was part of the problem, and not the solution.

The survey was conducted in all 34 provinces of Afghanistan between Dec 11-23, 2009. It's based on in-person interviews with a random national sample of 1,534 Afghan adults during that period.

The results have a 3-point error margin. The field work has been done by the Afghan Center for Socio-Economic and Opinion Research (ACSOR) in Kabul.

The poll also found Afghans increasingly optimistic about the future of their country.

Months after the second Hamid Karzai government was formed in Kabul following a closely contested election, 70 percent said they believed Afghanistan was going in the right direction - a sharp increase from 40 percent a year ago.

The poll also brought to the fore the growing unpopularity of the Taliban in Afghanistan with only six percent of people polled saying they favoured a Taliban administration. Ninety percent said they wanted their country run by the current government.

 

[desiman]

The price of greater Indian involvement in Afghanistan

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is heading to India, and one of the things Washington is looking at is how can regional players such as India do more in Afghanistan. “As we are doing more, of course we are looking at others to do more,” a U.S. official said, ahead of the trip referring to the troop surge.

But this is easier said than done, and in the case of India, a bit of a minefield. While America may expect more from India, Pakistan has had enough of its bitter rival’s already expanded role in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Indeed, Afghanistan is the new battleground on par with Kashmir, with many in Pakistan saying Indian involvement in Afghanistan was more than altruistic and aimed at destabilising Pakistan from the rear. Many in India, on the other hand, point the finger at Pakistan for two deadly bomb attacks on its embassy in Kabul.

Against such a difficult backdrop, what can New Delhi possibly do without complicating things further?

Several proposals are afoot but the one that the Afghans are pushing for and which is equally likely to stir things up further is an expanded training programme of the Afghan National Army by the Indian army. A small number of Afghan army officers have been coming to Indian defence institutions, such as New Delhi’s National Defence College, for training under a programme that India has been running for years for several countries.

But this is a nation at war at the moment, and as retired Indian major general Ashok Mehta points out in this article for the Wall Street Journal, the Afghan army chief General Bismillah Khan is keen on sending combat units for training in India’s counterinsurgency schools. The Indian army has been battling insurgencies for six decades in terrain as diverse as the hills of Nagaland in the northeast to Kashmir in the north. None of these have been snuffed out, save for the Sikh revolt in the Punjab in the 1980s, and you could argue about the success of their campaign. But they have held firm, developed tactics along the way, and rarely ever seemed to be losing ground against insurgents even at the height of the Kashmir revolt. Their experience is obviously something the Afghans would like to draw on.

But isn’t this going to antagonise Pakistan further? Running courses for a few officers is one thing, but training a whole combat unit is another. A deepening military relationship between Afghanistan and India would be an uncomfortable prospect for any security planner in Pakistan. Imagine, for a moment, the Pakistani army training strike formations of the Bangladesh army.

Perhaps a bit more palatable to Pakistan would be training of the Afghan National Police, also seen as a key element in the fight to restore peace in the country. Again the Indians have amassed a vast degree of experience, inherited from British colonial masters in the area of policing.

“We have the best institution for training the civilian police, and the paramilitary to some extent … if you want a civilian police with a little bit of strength to the elbow,” India’s national Security Adviser M.K.Narayanan told the Times of London, adding that India had spent a quite a lot of time discussing with the Americans in recent weeks an expanded role in Afghanistan.

 

[desiman]

We have no agenda in Afghanistan: India


U.S. Special Envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke (centre), and U.S. Ambassador Timothy J. Roemer (left) with External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna in New Delhi on Monday.

NEW DELHI: India on Monday told the United States that it had no agenda in Afghanistan except seeing it emerge as a stable and peaceful country.

To this end, India would continue to work in Afghanistan on development projects but with no geo-political ambitions, External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna told the visiting U.S. Special Envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, here.

Mr. Holbrooke was also told about India’s involvement in infrastructure building in Afghanistan.

The U.S. Special Envoy said he was looking forward to the international conference on Afghanistan, scheduled for January 28 in London, and expected a positive contribution from India.

He also informed Mr. Krishna of two preparatory meets scheduled in Turkey with India participating in one of them. Mr. Krishna is scheduled to attend the London meeting.

Mr. Holbrooke briefed the Minister on the steps taken by the U.S. in Afghanistan and the content of his talks in Islamabad and Kabul.

Sources in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said Mr. Krishna indicated India’s keenness to see the situation stabilise in Afghanistan but professed disinterestedness on other issues of tactical military importance.

Emerging from the talks, Mr. Holbrooke said India was a “tremendously important participant in the search for peace and stability not only in south Asia but throughout the vast region that stretches from the Mediterranean to the Pacific.”

He reiterated the U.S.’ expectation of “more action” from Pakistan in routing the Taliban from its bases on the Afghan-Pakistan border despite being encouraged by its battle with the militants in the Swat Valley.

The main subject of his talks with the Pakistani leadership during his ongoing three-nation visit was the spread of the Taliban in the North West Frontier Province. Mr. Holbroke did not think Monday’s attack in Kabul was surprising “since they are desperate people.”

He said:

“They are ruthless and the people who are doing this will certainly not survive this attack nor will they succeed, but we can expect this sort of thing on a regular basis.

“That is what Taliban are. They are part of extremist groups operating in the border areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan and they do these desperate things all the time and India knows all this.”

 

[jupiter2007]

Best thing Pakistan can do is to fence the border with Afghanistan.

 

[desiman]

Best thing Pakistan can do is to fence the border with Afghanistan.

lol yup that would be nice for sure

 

[Ahmad]

Afghan poll shows India most favoured, Pakistan unpopular

New Delhi, Jan 20 : In a new opinion poll, Afghans have rated India as the most favourable foreign country in Afghanistan and have rejected a role for Pakistan in their country.

The opinion poll, commissioned by by BBC, ABC and German TV ARD, also shows a sharp decline in support for the Taliban.

According to the findings, 71 percent of more than 1,500 Afghans questioned endorsed India's multifarious role in the reconstruction of the strife-torn country.

India was followed by Germany (59 percent), the US (51 percent), Iran (50 percent) and Britain (39 percent). Pakistan was found to be the least popular country, with only two percent of Afghans viewing its role favourably.

India has pledged $1.3 billion for a wide array of reconstruction activities ranging from education to building roads, bridges, power stations to digging tubewells, and grassroot development projects.

This broad sweep of developments projects has earned India enormous goodwill among ordinary Afghans.

The poll decisively rebuffs Pakistan's oft-voiced propaganda pitch that India's growing profile in Afghanistan was part of the problem, and not the solution.

The survey was conducted in all 34 provinces of Afghanistan between Dec 11-23, 2009. It's based on in-person interviews with a random national sample of 1,534 Afghan adults during that period.

The results have a 3-point error margin. The field work has been done by the Afghan Center for Socio-Economic and Opinion Research (ACSOR) in Kabul.

The poll also found Afghans increasingly optimistic about the future of their country.

Months after the second Hamid Karzai government was formed in Kabul following a closely contested election, 70 percent said they believed Afghanistan was going in the right direction - a sharp increase from 40 percent a year ago.

The poll also brought to the fore the growing unpopularity of the Taliban in Afghanistan with only six percent of people polled saying they favoured a Taliban administration. Ninety percent said they wanted their country run by the current government.

2% is alot worse than i thought. can you give us the link?

 

[ssheppard]

Here you go:

Hamid Karzai Story Page - USATODAY.com

 

[desiman]

Here you go:

Hamid Karzai Story Page - USATODAY.com

thx bro

 

[Ahmad]

Here you go:

Hamid Karzai Story Page - USATODAY.com

thanks alot, but i couldnt see the whole content, only couple of lines.

 

[ssheppard]

thanks alot, but i couldnt see the whole content, only couple of lines.

You will have to register for that....or may be you could try for a trial membership. That would allow you to read the whole content.

 

[Nemesis]

Good. Development brings in goodwill, interference does not. A lesson for our western neighbor perhaps.

PS - On a side note, i guess not all nations in our immediate neighbourhood hate us!!

 

[Ahmad]

I can see it now, but could you post the original link from BBC? because in BBC poll it didnt mention anything about Pakistan and India or probably i missed it.

 

[asq]

Six million refugees and this is what Aghanis think of us. India went to war when few refugees landed in India from east Pakistan.

On one hand they detroy the statues on the other hand they want to be the best friends of those who worship them. If one looks at Afghan history one sees Ghaznvi and ghauri as the destroyer of statues, and look at Afghanis now, It is strange,

go figure,

I know some will say they were T.I. I would say not entirely true.

Should I believe in this survay done by an American magazine, I would take it with a grain of salt any survay dome by any paper or magazine, it is their top priority to sell their product by exegeration if that is what it will take.

 

[TechLahore]

Afghan poll shows India most favoured, Pakistan unpopular

The survey was conducted in all 34 provinces of Afghanistan between Dec 11-23, 2009. It's based on in-person interviews with a random national sample of 1,534 Afghan adults during that period.

The results have a 3-point error margin. The field work has been done by the Afghan Center for Socio-Economic and Opinion Research (ACSOR) in Kabul.

I have no faith in this survey. The fact of the matter is that the government of Afghanistan is mostly made up of minority Northern Alliance remnants. ACSOR is government funded and in the context of the indisputably high levels of corruption in the Afghan government, can only be expected to tow the official government line.

When the majority of the people of Afghanistan are not even participating in this government, its polls and opinions on who is popular and unpopular in Afghanistan have no merit. They say this poll was conducted in-person. Massive areas of Afghanistan are no-go areas - in fact the majority of the territory is - for representatives of the Afghan government. In such a situation, how is this poll in any way indicative of the popular Afghan voice?

7 or 8 years are a very short period in the history of a nation. We are here to stay, as we have been for over a thousand years, and so are the Afghans. Let's see who is in power in Afghanistan in a year, five years and ten years. I have a feeling 'opinion polls' conducted a few years hence will have drastically different outcomes.

 

[Adios Amigo]

Six million refugees and this is what Aghanis think of us. India went to war when few refugees landed in India from east Pakistan.

On one hand they detroy the statues on the other hand they want to be the best friends of those who worship them.

go figure,

I know some will say they were T.I. I would say not entirely true.

don't bother, and don't repent, its time to congratulate India for their achievement.
strangely they have superseded even the Americans. nice work, keep it up.


adios