Eideard

It seems to be a national obsession in India: measuring the country’s economic development against China’s yardstick.

At a recent panel discussion to commemorate the 20th anniversary of India’s dismantling parts of its socialist economy, a government minister told business leaders to keep their eye on the big prize: growing faster than China. “That’s not impossible,” said the minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, who oversees national security and previously was finance minister. “People are beginning to talk about outpacing China.”

Indians, in fact, seem to talk endlessly about all things China, a neighbor with whom they have long had a prickly relationship, but which is also one of the few other economies that has had 8 percent or more annual growth in recent years…

“Indians are obsessed with China, but the Chinese are paying too little attention to India,” said Minxin Pei, an economist who was born in China and who writes a monthly column for The Indian Express, a national daily newspaper…

It might be only natural that the Chinese would look up the development ladder to the United States, now that it is the only nation in the world with a larger economy, rather than over their shoulders at India, which ranks ninth. And while China is India’s largest trading partner, the greatest portion of China’s exports go to the United States. China’s largest trading partner is the EU – even if it doesn’t fit the NYT editorial template.…

Evidence of the Indo-Sino interest disparity can be seen in the two countries’ leading newspapers. The People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s house organ, had only 24 articles mentioning India on its English-language Web site in the first seven months of this year, according to the Factiva database. By contrast, The Times of India, the country’s largest circulation English-language newspaper, had 57 articles mentioning China — in July alone.

There are other big gaps. Indian cities, large and small, are filled with Chinese restaurants that serve a distinctly ultraspicy, Indian version of that cuisine. But there are few Indian restaurants in Beijing or Shanghai, let alone in smaller Chinese cities.

RTFA. It rolls on through a chunk of anecdotal information. Useful as far as it goes. And it only goes as far as the NY TIMES habit of continuing the Cold War with China – even though it finally seems to have relented a little over Russia.

Frankly, the significant historic difference lies in handicaps which India retains. Much of the caste system is unrelenting regardless of lip service and law. China’s bureaucratic corruption siphons off a lot less opportunity and value. India’s cachet of wealth and power held by historically “important” families is closer to Japan’s Zaibatsu than anything in China. Ongoing commitments to religion in India – whether as a cultural anchor or dedicated political parties – hinders the growth of the economy as much as you would expect from theocratic ideologues in government.

In case you forgot how insignificant nature can make you feel…

Took six days to film

Hong Kong director Christopher Sun is currently filming his $3.2 million ’3-D Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy’, which is due for release in May, but Italian director Tinto Brass has already announced he will produce a 3D remake of his 1979 erotic film Caligula.

Although mainland Chinese censors are almost certain to block the movie’s screening, it has sparked wide interest in other Asian markets, including Japan and South Korea, as well Europe, and the United States.

Producer Stephen Shiu said: “This is the future of the movie business — it’s human nature to want to see things in 3D.”

Adding to the pressure, the American company Hustler is making a pornographic spoof of 3D science fiction blockbuster Avatar, the highest-grossing movie of all time and the film that heralded the beginning of the mainstream 3D boom.

Are we supposed to be gullible enough to believe it takes more than a week or two to produce, edit and turn out a porn film? 3D or otherwise?

It is to laugh.

The Justice Department is investigating whether hundreds of FBI agents cheated on a test of new rules allowing the bureau to conduct surveillance and open cases without evidence that a crime has been committed.

In some instances, agents took the open-book test together, violating rules that they take it alone. Others finished the lengthy exam unusually quickly, current and former officials said.

In Columbia, S.C., agents printed the test in advance to use as a study guide, according to a letter to the inspector general from the FBI Agents Association that summarized the investigation. The inspector general investigation also was confirmed by current and former officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.

“There are similar stories for practically every office, demonstrating the pervasive confusion and miscommunication that existed,” Konrad Motyka, the association’s president, wrote May 13 in the letter obtained by The Associated Press.

“Confusion and miscommunication” is almost as good an excuse as “the dog ate my homework”.

Depending on the outcome of the investigation, agents could be disciplined or even fired…

Read the rest of this entry »

Photo from GUARDIAN Eyewitness iPad app

Any idea who had the winning ticket?

This month, the Census Bureau will remind Americans that racial classifications remain an integral part of the country’s social and legal fabric while, at the same time, recognizing that racial lines are blurring for a growing number of people… The government will give the nation’s more than 308 million people the opportunity to define their racial makeup as one race or more.

The agency expects the number of people who choose multiple races to be significantly higher than the 2000 Census, when the government first allowed more than one race choice. Responses to this year’s survey will provide for the first time a glimpse at the evolution of racial identification: Those who were children in 2000 and were identified as one race by their parents may respond differently as adults today and select more than one.

“It’s a historic opportunity to see how things have changed or how things have not changed,” says Nicholas Jones, chief of the Census Bureau racial statistics branch. Multiracial Americans are “one of the fastest-growing demographic groups in the country. There’s an increasing number of children born to parents of different races…”

At the same time, growing ethnic and racial diversity fueled by record immigration and rates of interracial marriages have made the USA’s demographics far more complex. By 2050, there will be no racial or ethnic majority as the share of non-Hispanic whites slips below 50%, according to Census projections…

• About three of 10 marriages involving Hispanics or Asians are now mixed-race, and almost one of six involving blacks are mixed race, according to an analysis by demographer Frey.

• About 9% of marriages involving non-Hispanic whites are mixed.

• A 10th or more of all marriages in 13 states — most in the West — were mixed race in 2008.

• Thirty-six states had at least a 20% increase in mixed-race marriages since 2000, including Florida, Virginia and Texas. A fifth of marriages in California and New Mexico were mixed…

“For the younger part of our society, race is going to be less of a factor when they decide partners, whom they’re going to church with, where they’re going to live,” William Frey says. “It won’t be exactly color-blind but much more color-blind.”

Excepting, of course, the larger proportion of decision-makers who own and control the economic and political structure of the United States. They’re stuck firmly into defending the racist analyses, the fears and answers determining foreign and domestic policies offensive to much of the world.

RTFA. Lengthy, lots of detail. Guaranteed to disturb those who still haven’t been able to get past Nixon-era politics.