Posts Tagged ‘South Asia’
India measures itself against a China that couldn’t care less
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.
Completely lacking from the analysis is where both nations started out. There are many parallels and economics were certainly similar at the end of the 1940′s as both countries stepped out into liberation from a foreign yoke in the case of India and a comprador class intertwined with warlords and bandits in China.
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.
Afghanistan worst place for women — India made the top five!
Targeted violence against female public officials, dismal healthcare and desperate poverty make Afghanistan the world’s most dangerous country in which to be born a woman, according to a global survey…
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Pakistan, India and Somalia feature in descending order after Afghanistan in the list of the five worst states, the poll among gender experts shows.
The appearance of India, a country rapidly developing into an economic super-power, was unexpected. It is ranked as extremely hazardous because of the subcontinent’s high level of female infanticide and sex trafficking.
Others were less surprised to be on the list. Informed about her country’s inclusion, Somalia’s women’s minister, Maryan Qasim, responded: “I thought Somalia would be first on the list, not fifth…”
India is the fourth most dangerous country. “India’s central bureau of investigation estimated that in 2009 about 90% of trafficking took place within the country and that there were some 3 million prostitutes, of which about 40% were children,” the survey found.
Forced marriage and forced labour trafficking add to the dangers for women. “Up to 50 million girls are thought to be ‘missing’ over the past century due to female infanticide and foeticide,”, the UN population fund says, because parents prefer to have young boys rather than girls…
Monique Villa, the chief executive of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, said: “Hidden dangers – like a lack of education or terrible access to healthcare – are as deadly, if not more so, than physical dangers like rape and murder which usually grab the headlines…
“Empowering women tackles the very roots of poverty. In the developing world when a woman works, her children are better fed and better educated because they spend their money for their family…”
Each country was also ranked in terms of six risk factors including: health, discrimination and lack of access to resources, cultural and religious practices, sexual violence, human trafficking and conflict-related violence.
RTFA for details on each. The core study is available here [.pdf].
I’ve only featured the inclusion of India in this post because – as the article noted – it was the only surprise in the group.
Obama’s Shadow War on Terror
Leading progress towards peace in Yemen
At first, the news from Yemen on May 25 sounded like a modest victory in the campaign against terrorists: an airstrike had hit a group suspected of being operatives for Al Qaeda in the remote desert of Marib Province, birthplace of the legendary queen of Sheba.
But the strike, it turned out, had also killed the province’s deputy governor, a respected local leader who Yemeni officials said had been trying to talk Qaeda members into giving up their fight. Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, accepted responsibility for the death and paid blood money to the offended tribes.
The strike, though, was not the work of Mr. Saleh’s decrepit Soviet-era air force. It was a secret mission by the United States military, according to American officials, at least the fourth such assault on Al Qaeda in the arid mountains and deserts of Yemen since December.
The attack offered a glimpse of the Obama administration’s shadow war against Al Qaeda and its allies. In roughly a dozen countries — from the deserts of North Africa, to the mountains of Pakistan, to former Soviet republics crippled by ethnic and religious strife — the United States has significantly increased military and intelligence operations, pursuing the enemy using robotic drones and commando teams, paying contractors to spy and training local operatives to chase terrorists.
RTFA. Long. In depth. Just the beginning of coverage of the war our government wishes to keep secret.
As usual, you can’t tell the players without a scorecard. Agency vs. agency. One group of political hacks with a set of loyalties vs. another group of political hacks with differing loyalties. Decisions made about who should have the power of life and death – determined by which agency has the least oversight from Congress. As if that mattered.
Plus, plausible deniability for the White House.
US Fortress to be built in Pakistan
Holbrooke and Gilani
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission
This Op-Ed piece is typical of Ghori’s rants. Nationalist before democrat, though both interdependent. A retired career diplomat.
‘The Americans are coming, and coming big,’ according to media pundits in Pakistan. And none should blame them for going over the top because the figures being bandied about are, to say the very least, flabbergasting.
What’s on the drawing boards in Washington and Islamabad are the blue prints for vastly increasing the number of American personnel manning one of the most important diplomatic presence in the 21st century for the Americans in Pakistan. Apparently, Washington feels that its battery of 750 men and women stocking the American Embassy in Islamabad is far too inadequate to cope with the job on their hands. They need to be given a big injection to inflate their muscles. The magic potion said to be brewing would add at least another thousand people on what’s being described as a ‘war footing’…
Though he wanders off into hallucinations suitable to a delusional Right – or Left, a useful question is raised about the purpose and goal of the new Pakistan diplomatic fortress.
Cucumber Lassi for a hot summer day
I imagine most folks far away from South Asia never have the satisfaction of lassi – as aperitif, dessert or in the Mediterranean style of cleaning your palate between courses of an extended meal. It’s most often sweet, a little or a lot; but, it can be savory. And that’s my preference in the heart of our high desert summer.
For 2:
* 2 cups/ glasses of fresh yogurt – Trader Joe’s organic whole milk yogurt
* 2 small Persian cucumbers cut into cubes – the peel is thin and edible
* 2 small cloves garlic
* zest of a small lemon
* juice of half of that lemon
* a teaspoon of honey [if you like - I do]
* a couple of ice cubes
* no salt; but, you would add a touch in India
* mint to garnish if you have some handy
Preparation:
* Mix all the ingredients top speed in a blender till smooth. My Kitchenaid takes about a minute.
* Pour into tall, chilled glasses and garnish with mint.
It is delicious, refreshing and relaxing.
