from Global Investing:
Retail volte face confirms India as BRIC that disappoints
Jim O'Neill, the Goldman Sachs banker who coined the term BRICs to capture the fast-growing emerging-markets quartet of Brazil, Russia, India and China, has fingered India as the BRIC that has disappointed the most over the past decade in terms of reforms, FDI and productivity. New Delhi's latest decision to put on hold a landmark reform of its retail sector will only confirm this view.
The government's backtracking on plans to allow foreign investment in supermarkets will not surprise those accustomed to New Delhi's record on key economic reforms. But it means India's weak performance on FDI receipts will continue and that's bad news for the worsening balance of payments deficit. Speaking of the retail volte face, O'Neill said: "They shouldn’t raise people's hopes of FDI and then in a week, say, 'we’re only joking'".
Various Indian lobby groups that oppose the reforms contend that foreign giants such as Wal-Mart and Tesco will kill off the livelihoods of millions of small traders.
Not so, according to a study by the Vale Columbia Centre for Sustainable Economic Development, a think-tank that studies FDI trends. The Centre's Nandita Dasgupta notes that many emerging economies that have allowed 100-percent foreign participation in retail since the early 1990s have seen encouraging results. These include Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Russia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. In China, FDI in retail was permitted 20 years ago. But there is no evidence the huge investments have hurt mom-and-pop operations or domestic retail chains, Dasgupta says. In fact, since 2004 the number of small Chinese outlets has increased to around 2.5 million from 1.9 million. Between 1992 and 2001, employment in retail and wholesale almost doubled to 54 million.
In Indonesia, where FDI to retail was liberalised 10 years ago, 90 percent of the business remains with small traders, Dasgupta points out.
At present, insufficient cold storage, poor transportation and distribution infrastructure allows half of India's fresh produce to rot. An organised retail sector can create a proper farm-to-fork infrastructure through direct purchase from farmers. India's 700 million poor are the ones bearing the brunt of double-digit food price inflation -- the status quo is the worst option for them.
Has India squandered its English advantage?
When the British were finally expelled from India in 1947, driven out of a country scarred by decades of imperialist rule, they left at least one parting gift: a linguistic legacy that has formed a crucial ingredient in the country’s economic miracle.
English proficiency is hailed as an invaluable foundation in India’s rise to the top of the world’s information technology and knowledge outsourcing industries, fuelling the country’s rapid growth with billions of dollars of business every year and streams of overseas investments into global IT centres such as Bangalore.
But, as Asian rival China surpasses India’s English proficiency rates for the first time, that advantage over other developing economies looks to have been squandered.
China was ranked one place above India in Education First’s 2011 English Proficiency Index, released last month, the first time India has been beaten by its neighbour and fellow BRIC economy in the international rankings of foreign countries English-speaking abilities.
“It appears that China is poised to surpass India in the number of English speakers in the coming years, if it has not already done so,” the report said.
The implications for India’s future IT and outsourcing prospects aren’t difficult to calculate.
I think most of us here are familar with the views of the TOI having read their opinion just a few days ago. But coming to this study I find it funny that there is hardly anything about India and Chinese comparisions in it and everyone is seeking to blow itup out of all proportions.
Take this example “the British Council estimated in 2010 that India had anywhere between 55 and 350 million English speakers while a report published by Cambridge University Press estimates that China has 250 to 350 million English learners.’
Look at the variation 55 to 350 million Indian speakers! Do you need a study to give such a wide variation?
Also, aren’t they comparing chalk and cheese here and that too manufactured at different establishments. If you indicate how many English ‘speaking; people there are in India and then compare that to how many are ‘learning’ english in China, what conclusion can you possibly draw?
Shouldn’t they be comparing how many curently speak english in both countries and also how many learners there are in both countries? Some meaningful information could then be extracted. This statement as it is seems absurd to me. It is not even a statisic of any value.
Is India really the world’s fifth most powerful country?
India is the world’s fifth most powerful country, according to a New Delhi-authored national security document, the Times of India reported on Wednesday, as Indian analysts placed the emerging nation above major European powers.
Outranking traditional global powers such as the UK, France and Germany, India’s ballooning population, defense capabilities and economic clout were cited as reasons for its position behind only the U.S., China, Japan and Russia in India’s National Security Annual Review 2010, which will be officially released by the country’s foreign ministry next week.
Its statistical foundations in terms of population numbers and GDP aside — in terms of purchasing power parity, it should be noted — India’s experience of wielding power on the global stage of late, boosted by its temporary seat on the United Nations Security Council, has been less encouraging.
India has failed to cultivate a wholly reciprocal relationship with the United States, despite warm rhetoric in recent years between New Delhi and Washington and a number of big-ticket diplomatic and industrial agreements.
New Delhi appears to struggle to assert itself in the face of growing Chinese influence in south Asia, has dithered on formulating a firm approach to states such as Iran, and risked appearing naive and out of its depth during the lead-up to international efforts to protect civilians in Libya.
Indeed, an apparent united front from Beijing, Moscow and New Delhi, representing three of the top five most powerful nations according to the report, against the no-fly zone in the North African country has had no discernible effect on the ongoing military action against Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.
Furthermore, India still appears more concerned and engaged with, and distracted by, its long-standing rival Pakistan than wider geopolitical issues.
Libya? We have three countries meddling in a ex colony of another European great power (Italy) in the name of humanity and all we are doing is creating a bigger unresolved mess.
Where has India’s hawkish stance on China gone?
India’s complex diplomacy with China became further muddled on Friday as the chief of the Indian army categorically denied any troop build-up on either side of the Asian giants’ shared border in response to recent reports of Chinese military incursions into Indian territory.
India’s civil government and army officials strike a delicate balancing act in their position on the country’s powerful neighbour, with a hawkish military stance traditionally tempered by more reserved – but domestically unpopular – rhetoric from New Delhi.
However that appeared to be out of date on Friday as General V.K. Singh, Chief of Army staff said neither side was bolstering its border troops, four days after trashing media reports of potential acts of Chinese aggression on Indian soil last September.
“Force deployment on both the sides of the Sino-Indian border has not increased. The force deployment is exactly the same as has been there for a large number of years,” Singh told reporters.
“In this region, the Chinese patrols go up to their perceived region and our patrols go up to our perceived region.”
“When our patrols go to our perceived region, you do not report because they are our patrols. But, when their patrols come, you report that an incursion or transgression has taken place,” he added.
India may think China has forgotten the issue due to extending the hand of friendship to India and in turn swiftly took the hand and kissed it not knowing that the claws of the dragon is more dangerous than the cyanide poison.
Why because during the recent visit of the china’s President Hu Jintao made it clear to the American that China would request US not to interfere with the internal affairs of China as China considers Twain and Tibet as their internal affairs. This is enough to drive China’s point home that It will retaliate if any one interfere in China’s internal affairs and that also drives home the point directing to India Thus asking US and India both to keep off from it
After US visit of the China’s President when he is back home, things will take shape with Tibet and India and later with Twain. It seems India’s defense pacts with countries may end up in fiasco. It is becoming clear that India sooner or later is going for a big high jump and when it returns to earth its shape and size may have to be redrawn afresh.
It is because of these new developments India may be is in deep tension and thinking hard as what can be done to confront. It is supremacy over Pakistan seems to be taking a dive down to earth.
In addition it is reported that the eastern states and the countries are all anti-INDIA even yesterdays friendly people of Bangladesh is fast turning anti-India today, because of its border Atrocities. BSF killing Bangladeshi’s like birds, and the government is mum to protests by opposition of the country.
In the west is Pakistan, needs no elaboration, so no neighbor to help. This is what happens when people think it can walk alone in this world of uncertainty.
We well wishers of the west pray for India to learn to walk with friends instead of making enemies. It is known that out side enemies can be taken care of but home borne enemies are more ferocious and catastrophic in all respect. Now India is amidst the most ferocious and catastrophic self-created enemies. Only God alone can help it.
Think after having gone through the above why ‘India’s hawkish stance on China is gone with the wind?’
Does the Indian media overplay Indo-Chinese tension?
New Delhi’s flat-out denial of the most recent reports by state authorities of Chinese military incursions across its border with India in Jammu and Kashmir may show a tendency to gloss over such seemingly insignificant events — in favour of bigger strategic and trade interests — that the media appears to ignore.
On Monday afternoon, amidst a lull in the seemingly endless Indian news cycle, all major TV news channels flashed a breaking story of Chinese troops crossing the Indian border in the disputed northern state.
Local news providers in the state declared fears of a “hotting-up of the border”, and former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah was moved to issue fiery rhetoric and even threats of retaliation, which the mainstream media duly published.
Despite the reported incursions taking place in September of last year, the story rapidly found its way to the top of the headline pile, and in the apparent context of a disputed border between unstable bedfellows armed with nuclear weapons, several international newswires even jumped on the reports.
Back in New Delhi, however, India’s ministry of external affairs described the media reports as “baseless”, rubbishing claims from state authorities, and re-printed by news organisations that Indian workers were “threatened” by Chinese troops.
Chief of the Army Staff General V.K. Singh even went as far to defend Chinese troops involved in the alleged border crossings, saying that the local residents on the Indian side of the border were to blame for ignoring government advice over ceasing construction projects. Chinese officials made no remarks on the issue.
Reports of so-called incursions are nothing new, and a high-pitched domestic media debate that routinely raises fears of increased Chinese influence on Indian territory only further muddles a murky and ambiguous history of boots purposefully, or not, crossing borders.
What do you expect when money is involved? Who wants to read headlines like ‘China did NOT cross the border today’?
If I was a journalist and I had to sell stories or starve, I would spend the entire day writing rubbish too.
Permit-free visits for foreigners to India’s Unexplored Paradise?
For the first time in half a century, India plans to let foreigners visit all of its troubled north east without special permits, opening up the picturesque region that New Delhi hopes will be its gateway to Southeast Asia, local media have reported.
If the proposal goes through, it will open up the eight north eastern states that remains a mystery even to many Indian, a region so unexplored that India’s tourism board sells it as “Paradise Unexplored.”
It could also give a fillip to the local economy, which now largely is sustained on federal handouts, creating jobs and boosting incomes in the states where separatist movements have tapped into resentment over lack of development.
Seven of these states are linked to the mainland through a narrow strip of land, called the Chicken’s Neck, that runs between China and Bangladesh. Foreigners need permits to go to every state except Assam, the most developed in the region, and even Indians need passes to go to some places.
For decades, the government has restricted access, worried about the influence of Christian missionaries and other outsiders on the native cultures of the tribespeople of the region and as it tried to keep a lid on rebellions. Foreigners can travel only in groups of at least four and must be accompanied by an approved guide.
New Delhi and Beijing dispute the boundary between them in this region and both claim the Indian-controlled state of Arunachal Pradesh. But there have not been any recent military clashes between the two nations, which fought a short war in 1962.
Many rebel groups are in peace talks with the government and except for Assam and Manipur, the states are largely peaceful. Observers say that popular support for violent groups is fast declining. India has also mooted a “Look East” policy, using the region as a gateway to economically and strategically important countries like Myanmar and Thailand.
Suu Kyi underlines India’s strategic approach to Myanmar
Aung San Suu Kyi, the Myanmarese pro-democracy leader who was released from seven years of continuous house detention on Nov 13, used her first interview with an Indian media organisation to criticise the world’s largest democracy for its foreign policy towards the military junta-ruled nation.
“I am saddened with India. I would like to have thought that India would be standing behind [the pro-democracy movement]. That it would have followed in the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru,” Suu Kyi told the Indian Express on Wednesday.
“I do not oppose relations with the Generals but I hope that the Indian government would talk to us as well. I would like to see talks begin immediately. I would like to see close and friendly relations, like those that have not been seen recently.”
India has developed close ties with Myanmar over the past two decades, largely in reaction to China’s strong presence in the country and New Delhi’s fears that large Chinese investments in the wider region are part of a plan to encircle India in a “string of pearls”.
Suu Kyi’s comments follow similar remarks from U.S. President Barack Obama, who chastened India for shying away from “violations of human rights” during his landmark speech to parliament in New Delhi last month.
“When peaceful democratic movements are suppressed — as in Burma — then the democracies of the world cannot remain silent,” Obama told the assembled lawmakers.
Having initially supported Nobel Laureate Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, New Delhi shifted its strategy in the early 1990s to court the military regime.
I have gone through the synopsis of subject matter under discussion and the two comments on it. It is for the first time that a Lady out of personal practical experience spelled out the bitter truth with sadness, which she would never have if she had had a word of sympathy from India on and for Burmese democracy during her days of detention.
Suu Kyi forgot that India is that country that can lay itself to any country, and can betray a friend in time of danger for money. It is a greedy country, as is reported that India has established a puppet government and through it is running a single party rule in a nascent democratic country in the east. The population of that country is reported to hate India for its interference and helping one party rule openly, opined a number of political Observers of the area.
Over and above it, various disputes like water, border marking, and sea demarcations is pending for decades they said. They further added that as it is a small country the opposition alleges that India gag them not to talk with show of their might.
Foreigners are amazed seeing the surface of Indian beauty but only few know them what monstrous they look like from inside. Chinese know them better as the lived, ate and slept together with Indian for many decades. That is why Chinese have already trapped them through Myanmar in lucrative trade or business deal. Here US are too late to enter.
Say, do and support how much the Indian will not buzz an inch from where they are now because of one fear Chinese may not attack their back when they are at sleep, over and above by the time US to help, the game would be over by then.
So Suu Kyi may have grievances against India but India cares a damn about her feeling and comments.
India is a coward nation. It can boast of its military power in the region, but when it comes to confrontation with equals it is on record it could not do well with its opponent Pakistan. Except in 1971 when India with the help of Russia helped the then East Pakistan to secede. India is very good in conspiratorial, genocide committal and in Human Rights violation activities..
Political Observers opined that Suu Kye should shun Indian help in her fight to establish democracy in Myanmar or else accepting help from India may cost much more that she can estimate in figures.
from Afghan Journal:
India, U.S. build ties, with an eye on China
In the end, Pakistan wasn't the unspoken elephant in the room when U.S. President Barack Obama sat down for talks with Indian leaders. Far from tip-toeing around India's Pakistan problem which complicates America's own troubled war there and in Afghanistan, Obama spoke clearly and squarely.
Safe havens for militants in Pakistan wouldn't be tolerated, he said, in what was music to Indian ears. But he also left nobody in doubt Washington wanted India to improve ties with Pakistan, saying New Delhi had the greatest stake in the troubled neighbour's stability.
But the one elephant that the leaders of India and the United States didn't name but which was written all over the flurry of announcements made during the three-day trip was China. Beginning with the headline-grabbing endorsement of India's bid for a permanent place on the U.N. Security Council to maritime cooperation and a surprise partnership to promote food security in Africa, the United States seems to have gone the extra mile to bolster New Delhi's credentials as a global player.
The one country that would be watching this most closely is China where some would see America's deepening ties with India, a continent-size country with a billion-plus people, as aimed at countering its rise.
B.Raman, a former head of India's Research and Analysis wing, writes that the announcement by India and the United States to work together for stability in the Indian Ocean region as well as the Pacific will draw concern in Beijing, which has its own fears of U.S. encirclement.
"Thus, the partnership will seek to promote peace and security across Asia in general and in East and Central Asia in particular, strengthen maritime security and work for a peaceful settlement of maritime disputes. Though China has not been named, Beijing will have reasons to be concerned over the implications of this formulation."
from Afghan Journal:
Obama in India next month; ripples in the region
U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to India is still a couple of weeks away and there is the huge U.S. election before then, but it has already set off ripples in the region. The Chinese have especially cottoned onto Obama's Indian journey, fretting over what they see as a U.S. attempt to ring fence China by deepening ties with countries around it. And continent-size India with a population of over a billion and an economy growing at a clip just behind China's is seen as a key element of that strategy of containment.
Qui Hao of the National Defense University, writes in the Global Times that while U.S. military alliances with Japan and South Korea form the backbone of the "strategic fence" around China, the "shell" is the partnership that Washington is building with India, Vietnam and other nations that have territorial disputes with China.
India, Qui cautions, would do well not to blindly follow America's policies in the region, especially if it really wanted to be a global player. India, China and the United States were bound up in a triangular relationship, and as the two weaker parts of that relationship, it was important that they maintained stable ties so that Washington didn't exploit their differences, Qui wrote.
Quite remarkable, since for decades and especially so in recent years, the Chinese have hardly seen India as little more than a regional player locked in disputes with its neighbours, much less an equal in a three-way relationship involving the United States.
Qui is not alone. Du Youkang who heads the center for South Asian studies at Fudan University said the rise of India and China was the 21st century's biggest development, and both countries must work to deepen ties. Some Western countries and the media were trying to drive a wedge between the two neighbours , Du said in the China Daily, urging both to be vigilant against elements inside their countries and outside trying to stir trouble and derail a growing relationship. There was much that was common between the two countries, not least their desire to meet the challenges globalisation in a Western-dominated international economic system.
China and India share a lot of common views on many major international issues such as a multi-polar world, reform of the international economic and financial system, South-North relations, democratization of international relations, climate change and World Trade Organization talks. In recent years, the two sides have enhanced coordination and cooperation over these issues to protect their as well as the entire developing world's interests.
China is not the only one watching Obama's passage to India. Arch rival Pakistan will be closely following the trip, beginning from Mumbai and indeed the very hotel which was one of the centres targeted by Pakistan-based militants in deadly attacks in 2008. Pakistan, and by extension Afghanistan, will by themselves be the elephants in the room when Obama sits down for talks with his Indian hosts. Any tilt, or a perceived slight or remarks such as the one made by British Prime Minister David Cameron when he was visiting India, saying Pakistan couldn't look both ways in the fight against terrorism, run the risk of further souring U.S.-Pakistan ties.
Strategic games like this are far more complex and subtle than it may appear at first.
Now the main topic is about “containing” China through an alliance between the United States and India but this is just one possible outcome.
Most people may know that the United States’ influence extends deep into Japan and South Korea as a result of the Cold War (switching to North Korea as of recent) and now is a convenient force against “threats” in the region but what is to say that the United States won’t use the “China Threat” to gain influence into India and surrounding regions in a similar fashion.
In this triangle relationship, let’s say that the US-India grouping wins, then what is stopping the US from turning against India. Is there something inherently special about the US-India relationship that it “works” or is it just a strategic relationship based on function but not substance, in which case there runs a risk of a “fallout” once there is no more need.
Also, many may remember that the United States ran a covert operation to resist Soviet influence in Afghanistan back in the 80′s and at first that was deemed a huge success but as can be witnessed in today’s ongoing war in Afghanistan, that success manifested into unintended conflict. Can the same thing happen here?
Let’s say the US “interferes” in the Indian region against “Chinese influence” then after the operation is deemed a success, can the same unintended conflict inflict the Indian region. Afghanistan came to bite the US in the behind many years after so what is to say that the current agenda won’t come back to haunt the US in another 20 years?
Do people in India see the United States as treating India as an equal or is the US just using India like a pawn in the “Great Game” of the 21st Century? How many actually think the US would empower India because there is very little chance that the US would allow India grow beyond the United States’ own power.Thus this alliance would only be a short term solution since if it were India on top it would be using another country (Pakistan?) to “contain” India.
As a side note I would like to hear some Indian opinion on some issues in reply.
KINGFISHER you said: “India is a divided Sub Continent already many states are waiting for an opportunity to secede like once it was the condition in Russia”
Is there any other sources for this? Can any Indians give an opinion on the truth (or false) of this? KINGFISHER if I were to ask you to give the probability of fracture of the states what would you say and are there sources to back up your claim?
Also, can any Indians comment on the tensions between India and Pakistan? I want to hear some real Indian opinions about what are the causes of conflict and where do they see the relationship in the future. Thanks
from Russell Boyce:
Asia – A Week in Pictures September 12, 2010
As the anniversary of the 9/11 attack coincided with Eid celebrations, Florida based Pastor Terry Jones announced that he would burn the Koran as a protest to plans to site a Muslim cultural centre near Ground Zero , stoking tensions in Asia. Add into the mix millions in Pakistan suffering from lack of water, food and shelter after floods, a parliament election in Afghanistan and a U. S. -led military campaign against the Taliban around Kandahar - photographers in the region had lots of raw material to work with.
Raheb's picture of relief and joy caught in the harsh light of a direct flash seems to explode in a release of tension as news spreads that Pastor Jones had cancelled his plans to burn the Koran. It has to be said that ironically earlier in the day in Pakistan US flags were burned in protest against the planned protest.
Afghan protestors shout anti U.S slogans as they celebrate after learning that U.S. pastor Terry Jones dropped his plans to burn copies of the Koran, in Herat, western Afghanistan September 12, 2010. REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi
Also in Afghanistan Raheb's haunting image of the defaced election poster of an Afghan woman parliamentary candidate and the ghostly image of a US soldier shrouded in a haze of dust by Erik, who is on an embed with US forces, both caught my eye.
A damaged campaign poster for an Afghan woman parliament candidate is seen on a wall in Herat, western Afghanistan September 8, 2010. Taliban threats, shuttered polling centres and warnings of widespread fraud are clouding hopes for Afghanistan's Sept. 18 parliamentary election, a key test of an already fragile democracy, observers have warned. REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi
