Yea! We Are Number 3!

Part of the Palace Complex where the women could lookout the windows at the street life they couldn't go out of the palace.

Indian Fedex delivery

Day 3 of the Jaipur Literary Conference was even more crowded! We have come up with strategies to make sure that we get in and see the panels that we want.

It worked!

Today was very political, a panel on Pakistan was excellent. The women panelist were exceptional in their discussions of Pakistan and how difficult the issues are. The army is the ONLY completely functioning body. The do however have a lively press and judiciary. One of the panelist Fatima Bhutto, the niece of the recently slain candidate gave a powerful indictment of Imran Khan, the cricket playing playboy who is possibly running for president of Khan. She thinks he is a terrible conservative. In the list of who the people of Pakistan sees as the enemy America is number 1, Israel number 2, and India number 3. The Indians were glad to be in 3^rd place.

Another panel was on the emerging world super powers. The consensus was obviously China, with Regional powers like Russia and Brazil.

We also attended a panel on the writing of biography. It was excellent.

There was a panel on Palestine. All of the panelist were Palestinian intellectuals, except David Hare, who also agreed with them about the current dismal prospects for peace talks to be successful. The discussion was not at all balanced, Israel was portrayed as the creator of an apartheid-like occupation against the Palestinian people. The audience agreed.

All of the panelist, on all of the panels are experts in the areas they talk about. They all have written books about these issues we are loading up on books. Luckily I can go back to our hotel and order most of them via the internet on Amazon and have them shipped to our house. I wonder what it was like attending events like this in the pre-internet days. One must have dragged back boxes of books.