NEW DELHI, Aug 17 (Reuters) - An anti-corruption movement led by a feisty 74-year-old social activist is snowballing into one of the biggest challenges in decades for the ruling Congress party and if not contained risks sparking India's own version of an Arab Spring revolt.
While no one is expecting an Egypt-like overthrow in the world's biggest democracy, a galvanised and frustrated middle class and the mushrooming of social networking sites combined with an aggressive private media may be transforming India's political landscape.
Anna Hazare has quickly become a 21st century Mahatma Gandhi inspiration for millions of Indians fed up with rampant corruption, red tape and inadequate services provided by the state despite the country posting near-double digit economic growth for almost a decade.
“Democracy means no voice, however small, must go unheard.
The anti-corruption sentiment is not a whisper-it's a scream. Grave error to ignore it,” Anand Mahindra, one of India's leading businessmen and managing director of conglomerate Mahindra Group, wrote on Twitter.
Hazare's arrest on Tuesday, only hours ahead of a planned fast until death against graft was the last straw and sparked spontaneous protest across the country of 1.2 billion people.
The young and old, rich and poor, without apparent political affiliations, took to the streets in a rare voice of solidarity -- a potential lethal cocktail for any party in power in India.
Politicians are increasingly being judged on governance rather than old caste and regional ties - as has already happened in states like Bihar - and the new social shift will push national parties to be more responsive to voters' needs.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Congress party of the Gandhi-Nehru dynasty and the police stood isolated over the decision to arrest a man for planning a peaceful fast.
The Congress has for the past year reeled from mounting corruption scandals, including allegations of millions of dollars in kickbacks in the sale of mobile phone licences in what is emerging as India's biggest-ever graft.
A former telecoms minister, top corporate executives and senior Congress party officials are in jail awaiting trial.
Indians have routinely voted out governments and in that sense the anti-graft movement is different from those sweeping the Middle East.
The next election is due in 2014 and an opinion poll last week by India Today showed that if elections were held today, Congress would just about lose out to the main opposition party.
WAKE-UP CALL
In a passionate speech in parliament, 58-year-old opposition leader Arun Jaitley said protests witnessed over the past 24 hours, reaching even the remotest villages, were something he had not seen in his lifetime and must be a “wake-up call” for politicians to put their house in order.
Students, lawyers, teachers, and business executives have taken to social networks like Twitter and Facebook to spread the message and vent frustration against corruption.
“These protests are part of a global phenomenon, thanks to technology and a more proactive media,” said N. Bhaskara Rao, social researcher and chairman of independent think-tank Centre for Media Studies.
Most people do not expect India to follow the example of North Africa and the Middle East. But one of five Indians go hungry and almost half the vast population is poor -- causes for potential unrest.
India has been governed for most of the time since Independence in 1947 by the same family dynasty. For decades Indians united under these leaders but this year has seen a seismic gap emerging between the old guard and a vibrant and younger population.
“This has the ingredients of being India's own non-violent Arab uprising,” said Savio Shetty, a stock market analyst in India's financial hub Mumbai.
“But the dish needs to be cooked and looked after! Tahrir square was a rebellion against the government itself ... of a 40-year tyrannical rule ... things are quite different here.”
Singh remained defiant in parliament over the arrest of Hazare, maintaining that anti-graft laws should be discussed and passed in parliament and not by activists in the streets.

“When people exhaust their capacity for tolerance, then you should take it that it is a beginning of some kind of revolution. Now it has gone above people's tolerance level,” Hazare told Reuters in a recent interview in his home village.
India ranked 87 in Transparency International's index on corruption in 2010, behind rival China and polls show corruption vies with the high cost of living as the number one voter issue.
What is also apparent is that the anti-corruption protests have shown the limited influence of opposition parties, largely sidelined. They will need to reform to win over an increasingly disenfranchised population.

PHOTO CAPTION:

Thousands of supporters of Indian social activist Anna Hazare shout anti-United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government slogans as they march from the landmark India Gate monument to Parliament street during a rally in support of Indian social activist Anna Hazare in New Delhi on August 17, 2011. Indian premier Manmohan Singh slammed the 'totally misconceived' fast by an anti-graft activist whose arrest has sparked national protests and a high-stakes standoff with the government. AFP PHOTO

PARIS, Aug 16, 2011 (AFP) - Ten years after the 9/11 attacks triggered a massive operation against Al-Qaeda, the group is battered and its historic leader is dead but offshoots in Yemen and North Africa remain a potent threat.
Some officials and experts were quick to hail the killing of the terror network's iconic supremo Osama bin Laden in May as the beginning of the end for Al-Qaeda but others warned it was too early to claim victory.
“Core Al-Qaeda is in the ropes. They are at a weaker point than they have ever been,” said Michael Leiter, former head of the US National Counterterrorism Centre (NCTC).
“We're within reach of strategically defeating Al-Qaeda,” US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta last month told reporters travelling with him to Afghanistan, where the group developed in the late 1980s.
Bin Laden's death ended one of the most high-profile manhunts in history and struck at the heart of a group which relentless and deadly US drone raids against its Pakistani hideouts had already put on the back foot.
Bin Laden was replaced by his long-time lieutenant and ideologue Ayman al-Zawahiri.
In a string of Internet messages, the Egyptian has insisted Al-Qaeda was undeterred and issued fresh calls for global jihad (holy war), but experts note that he lacks the aura and charisma of his Saudi predecessor.
French Al-Qaeda expert Jean-Pierre Filiu argued that the succession at the helm of the terror network had not been a smooth affair.
“The Yemeni branch, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, has formally declared its allegiance, but the Iraqi branch and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb only welcomed his appointment through their spokespersons,” he said.
“This is evidence that very serious tensions remain within the jihadi movement, pitting notably the Egyptians and possibly the Yemenis against the Iraqis and the North Africans,” Filiu explained.
While Al-Qaeda Central's control over its so-called franchises in the rest of the world appears on the wane, some of these regional offshoots, which had previously proclaimed their allegiance to bin Laden, are fully operational.
In Yemen, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is on the offensive and has taken advantage of the anarchy prevailing in the country to make territorial gains and create sanctuaries.
“Yemen is a vast territory where local tribes have widely coalesced with jihadists,” said Dominique Thomas, an expert on Islamism at Paris's School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences.
“It's fertile ground for them, they can train and prepare foreign operations from there,” he said. “They are expanding. Their leaders are in safe places and the only threat would be a US drone attack.”In Africa's vast Sahel expanse, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is operating under very limited pressure from regional states that have measly firepower and are poorly coordinated.
Its fighters hold foreign hostages, who are sporadically released for huge ransoms, and launch attacks against local forces but they have not yet been able to operate beyond their desert haven.
The Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella for several insurgents groups that is affiliated to Al-Qaeda, has suffered several setbacks but it showed it was still a tangible threat when attacks in more than a dozen cities killed 74 people nationwide on August 15.
Beyond the danger posed by armed groups working for the spread of global jihad, a less predictable threat is growing: that of self-radicalised militants who turn to jihad on the Internet and are often invisible until it's too late.
“It's a different sort of threat. It's not the same size as 9/11, but you don't need another 9/11 to have an enormous impact on a country, or a geopolitical effect,” said Leiter.
The expert argued that the shockwaves Norwegian rightwing extremist Anders Behring Breivik sent across Norway and the entire region with his deadly July 22 “lone wolf” massacre proved the point.
“Look at the tragedy in Norway: look at what it will do to most of Europe. Small events can have strategic impacts,” he said.

PHOTO CAPTION:

This Site Intelligence Group image from video released August 15, 2011 shows Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri as he rallied fighters and supporters for jihad and called upon them to engage in a “battle of intellectual argument” in a speech released on jihadist forums on August 14, 2011.  The speech came in a 12 minute, 11 second video produced by al-Qaeda’s media arm, as-Sahab, and titled, “So Do Not Become Weak, Nor be Sad.”  Zawahiri’s appearance and the background in the video are identical to those in a previously-released video, “Glory of the East Starts in Damascus,” which was also produced in June 2011.  Zawahiri reminded that jihad does not end with the death of its leaders, referring to the death of former al-Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden, and explained that much more remains on the path towards empowerment and victory.  Here, he argued that fighters and supporters should participate in intellectual debate and advocacy of issues relevant to the jihadi movement.

LONDON, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Tripoli might be cut off and Libya's war moving to its endgame, but even if Muammar Gaddafi avoids a bloody finish his departure could usher in a new period of instability and uncertainty.
Libya's rebels said on Tuesday they had completed moves to cut off roads to the capital after rapid advances in the west.
The defection of a senior Gaddafi security official further reinforced the image of crumbling central authority.
But analysts, oil companies and Western governments worry that the opposition, too, remains riven by internal division that could prompt new fighting, jeopardising both post-war recovery and the resumption of oil exports.
While sources say members of the opposition and government have held secret meetings in Tunisia that also involve a U.N. envoy, many doubt Gaddafi and his sons would cede power even with a guarantee of immunity from international prosecution.
Even his death might not end his family's influence.
“Gaddafi will have plenty of tricks up his sleeves until his very last breath,” said Hayat Alvi, lecturer in Middle Eastern politics at the U.S. Naval War College.
“He will have instructed his sons and circle of loyalists -- especially those remaining in the security services -- to plant as many obstacles in the rebels' and transitional government's paths as possible, even in his absence.”
The rebels and NATO may hope an uprising or coup in Tripoli would let them enter the city without the kind of street battle that would challenge the skills of both rebels and Western air forces. But not everyone believes such an outcome is likely.
“Unrest in Tripoli remains limited to small scale bouts of localised unrest and shortages during Ramadan caused by the opposition's militias could fuel resentment against them rather than the regime,” said Henry Smith, Libya analyst for risk consultancy Control Risks.
 
WESTERN PESSIMISM
Having initially hoped a flurry of NATO air strikes would be enough to oust Gaddafi, the mood in many Western capitals darkened the point of outright pessimism as the war dragged on.
Recent rebel military success might make it easier for NATO states to extend their military campaign when they next meet on Aug. 31, but longer term worries are already building.
The killing last month of Abdel Fattah Younes, military chief for the National Transitional Council (NTC), by rival rebels further strengthened views of Gaddafi's opponents in the east as divided among themselves.
Rebels in the west -- who have made most of the recent military gains -- have also openly voiced dissatisfaction with the lack of progress made by the Benghazi-based eastern bloc.
Oil firms in particular worry that even a relatively easy end to the war could simply set the stage for more chaos. At worst, they fear a collapse into a new and more complex civil war. At the very least, bureaucratic and political infighting could make a return to prewar business impossible.
“The place will not necessarily become more peaceful if Gaddafi goes,” said one Western risk consultant advising several major firms on Libya investments.
“You will have ex-Gaddafi people, the NTC and expats from the trading families returning,” he said.
“And they will be at each other's throats.”
A July report from oil specialists Wood Mackenzie estimated that even after a possible overthrow of Gaddafi it could take around 36 months for Libya to resume full oil production of 1.6 million barrels per day, roughly 2% of global output.
Even with the swift lifting of international sanctions, many oil firms look likely to hang back from sending in teams to restart old projects or from investigating new ones.
 
IRAQ COMPARISONS
“Even if Gaddafi does go it will be far from a smooth transition,” said one oil executive and security specialist.
“Remove a dictator and destroy his security apparatus and you are left with a scenario remarkably like Iraq, and look how long that has taken.” Saddam Hussein was overthrown more than eight years ago, but the country remains very troubled.
Western governments too also seem reluctant to plunge deeper into greater involvement in a post-Gaddafi Libya. Sources with knowledge of post-war planning say some has taken place, but it is largely limited to a relatively few civilian officials.
With Western powers exhausted by Iraq and Afghanistan and now dealing with economic crisis and perhaps even a rising risk of civil unrest at home, few believe they have the appetite for large peacekeeping missions that could last years.
While Libya does not have the same Sunni-Shi'ite sectarian division that rendered post-Saddam Iraq such a tinderbox, it does have complex tribal divisions that could fuel conflict.
Some suspect that even after a Gaddafi departure it could remain effectively somewhat divided into east and west along ancient provincial boundaries.

LONDON/AMMAN, Aug 16 (Reuters) - A surprisingly agile and fast-moving Ramadan offensive by the Syrian army has curbed the size of some street protests, but at the cost of stoking popular outrage and further testing President Bashar al-Assad's strained authority.
Under a broadening assault, civilian demonstrations in several cities calling for Assad to quit have tended to grow smaller, but at the same time more numerous, scattering from main squares into alleyways and suburbs, as well as nearby towns hitherto unaffected by unrest, activists and analysts say.
Doubts persist about the capacity of the army constantly to deploy enough troops to several centres simultaneously, after attacks in quick succession this month in the central city of Hama, the eastern city of Deir al-Zor, the southern city of Deraa and the ancient port city of Latakia.
And there are questions about Assad's ability to persuade key players like Turkey that his attacks on majority Sunni Muslim areas in Syria can persist without unacceptable levels of unrest in the strategically sensitive region.
An unprecedented broadside of criticism fired at Damascus by Arab heavyweight Saudi Arabia was echoed by disapproving comments from Jordan and Gulf states Kuwait and Bahrain.
“The government still hopes that through continuous intimidation it can in the end stop the demonstrations. But these loyal troops cannot move indefinitely all over the country,” Nikolaos van Dam, a Dutch scholar of Syrian politics and a former senior foreign ministry official, told Reuters.
“The danger is that at a certain moment, if not already, within the armed forces there will be an increasingly large number of people who will start asking themselves whether they really want to accept this,” the ex-diplomat said, adding:
“People are getting more and more and more angry. These YouTube videos (of killings) are fuelling further demonstrations.” Shashank Joshi, an Associate Fellow at Britain's Royal
United Services Institute, said loyalist units of the army that had been used to spearhead the repression had been extremely efficient at staging attacks on Hama and parts of the east.
“But they would not be able to succeed in containing anything significant, on the level of a Hama or a Deraa, if it occurred in Aleppo or central Damascus. They just don't seem to have the numbers for that.”
An analyst at U.K.-based Exclusive Analysis said the armed forces' onslaught had proved to be extremely well organised, given the limited number of troops available to Assad, but exhaustion would be a factor.
“Eventually they'll burn out and won't be able to contain the uprising,” said the analyst, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the situation.
 
ASSAD POSITION “GETTING WORSE”

“Assad's position is getting steadily worse. The bottom line is that when the tanks leave a given location, protests resume.
All this force is being reduced to a game of 'whack the mole',” he said, referring to a game where targets reappear after being hit.
There are no reliable reports about the exact deployments of Syria's armed forces in the crackdown, which was stepped up on Aug. 1 at the start of the Muslim Ramadan fast, when nightly prayers became the occasion for more protests against Baathist party rule. Most foreign media are barred.
Most assaults appear to be led by the mainly Alawite divisions commanded by Assad's brother Maher, including the Republican Guard and the Fourth Armoured Division. Each of these units has about 10,000 men and often acts in liaison with secret police and pro-Assad Alawite militia called Shabbiha.
The Assads are from the Alawite minority sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, and have ruled over this country of 23 million with a 75% Sunni majority for four decades.
The vast majority of the largely conscript army, mostly Sunni, is not directly involved in the repression.
Diplomatic pressure is mounting on Assad to end his onslaught or endure more painful isolation. A big attack on the second city of Aleppo near the Turkish border could provoke a potentially decisive reaction from Syria's powerful neighbour.
“It's not just a question of how much can they simultaneously repress,” said RUSI's Joshi. “It's a question of how much can they get away with, without inducing Turkish support for some form of diplomatic action.” Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told Assad on
Monday to halt operations now or face unspecified consequences. Joshi said Turkey's concerns included a worry that an attack on Aleppo could swell a flow of refugees north across the border.
Yasser Saad, a dissident Syrian political commentator, said Turkey was also concerned about the fate of Sunni co-religionists in Latakia.
Tighter international isolation might raise questions about the degree of loyalty Assad can count on in the army command, made up principally of minority Alawites.