Saturday, January 29, 2011
The world’s current economic model is an environmental “global suicide pact” that will result in disaster if it isn’t reformed, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon warned on Friday.
Mr. Ban said that political and business leaders need to embrace economic innovation in order to save the planet.
“We need a revolution,” the secretary-general of the U.N. told a panel at the World Economic Forum on how best to make the global economy sustainable. “Climate change is also showing us that the old model is more than obsolete.”
He called the current economic model a recipe for “national disaster” and said, “We are running out of time. Time to tackle climate change, time to ensure sustainable ... growth
Honesty is indivisible
The Hindu Those who have been exposed shamelessly feel that they can cover up and deny wrongdoing till the last — as in the case of the Commonwealth Games scam or the 2G scam, argues the author. In this Jan. 7, 2011 file photo, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal described the CAG report on 2G spectrum scam as “utterly erroneous and without any basis” . File photo
Illegality in India today touches almost every economic activity. It is both systemic and systematic.
The Indian ruling class faced its severest crisis of credibility in 2010. Its past caught up with it and skeletons and scams were spilling out of its closets. The scams have a symbiotic relationship with the black economy. The number of scams is growing and so is the size of the black economy, which has reached a mind-boggling level of 50 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product, that is, it annually generates Rs.33 lakh crore in black income. While the 1980s saw eight major scams, in the period between 1991 and 1996 there were 26 and during 2005-08, there were around 150.
There has been an exponential growth in the average amount of money involved in each scam. Bofors was the biggest scam of the 1980s, estimated at Rs.64 crores. It was dwarfed by the Harshad Mehta scam in 1992 involving a loss of about Rs.3,000 crores (Janakiraman Committee Report). Many felt this was a gross underestimation. In the period between 1991 and 1999, about 2,500 new companies floated in the stock markets disappeared with public money, much like the robber-barons of the United States in the period between 1870 and 1890. The loss to the public ran into thousands of crores of rupees but the governments of the day did not prosecute the promoters of the companies that disappeared. This emboldened the corporates to indulge in even greater manipulations in the just concluded decade. In 1991, when Harshad Mehta was fixing the market and the issue was raised in Parliament, the then Finance Minister said he would not lose sleep over it. This signalled to the speculators that they could manipulate with impunity. One of the biggest scams followed, which impacted the Reserve Bank of India and the entire financial system. The Unit Trust of India crashed in late-1990s due to manipulations by sharp operators.
The Satyam scam in 2009 is estimated to involve upwards of Rs.7,500 crore. The losses due to the mining operations in Bellary and elsewhere are reported to run into thousands of crores of rupees. Finally, the mother of all scams, the allotment of 2G spectrum in 2008, is estimated by the Comptroller and Auditor General to involve a loss of Rs.1,76,000 crore. Even if that is a notional figure, in 2008 itself various analysts had estimated the loss to be upwards of Rs.50,000 crore. Cases of irregularities in land allotment and diversion of food materials from the public distribution system are pouring in and these involve the loss of thousands of crores of rupees.
Clearly, not only is the number of scams growing but the money lost by the public per scam is increasing exponentially. Minor scams hardly draw public attention even though they affect the citizen's daily life, such as examination paper leaks, rotting foodgrain, police recruitment irregularities, and so on.
The other major recent scams pertain to the Adarsh Society, the Commonwealth Games and Madhu Koda. Then there are the Citibank-related fraud, charges against certain former Chief Justices of India, impeachment proceedings against two High Court judges, provident fund scam investigations against High Court judges in Uttar Pradesh, the Medical Council of India fraud, the deemed universities imbroglio, Indian Premier League manipulations, the Sukna land scam involving some of the seniormost Army officers, and so on. The list is endless.
The Bofors case and the Quattrocchi affair were on the verge of closure for obvious reasons, but have erupted in a big way with the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal order implying that bribes had been paid. The cases against Lalu Prasad, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mayawati and other former Chief Ministers and Ministers are on the back-burner, leading to charges of political misuse of the Central Bureau of Investigation. There is hardly an agency of the government that retains its credibility in the public eye. So, eight agencies are investigating the 2G scam but there is demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee. Not that the four JPCs that were constituted earlier had achieved much, but the hope is that a determined Opposition would be able to ferret out the truth under public pressure.
Reports that the Emergency-related papers are not traceable, the admission by the Union Home Minister that the Bhopal papers in the Warren Anderson fiasco are missing, the indictment of Vedanta by the Saxena Committee report investigating illegal mining in the Niyamagiri hills, all point to a system that has been so manipulated by the crooked businessmen and pliant politicians and the executive that it is collapsing under its own weight.
Today, policy failure is writ large and governance is failing all around. This is due to the growth in size of the black economy from about 4 per cent of GDP in 1955-56 to the present 50 per cent. The implication is that illegality in the country has grown and touches almost every economic activity. This is only possible if it is both systemic and systematic. The public sector and the private sector, that encompass every section of society, are now suspect. It is suspected that many have their hands in the till. Included here are Prime Ministers, Chief Ministers, Ministers, top industrialists, military personnel, judges, bureaucrats, policemen, professionals and so on.
For illegality to flourish on such a vast scale, those involved in overseeing the functioning of society have to be systematically complicit. It cannot be that one day rules are broken but not the next day. Systems have been set in place to routinely commit illegality and make payoffs to the functionaries of the state. For instance, police collect hafta and posts of Station House Officers are sold. Industry plans evasion of output much in advance of production. Thus, tax rates and controls remain immaterial.
Underlying this vast illegality is a ‘Triad' involving the corrupt business class, the political class and the executive. Since the mid-1980s, the criminal has also entered this Triad, leading to growing criminalisation. Many businessmen, legislators and so on have criminal cases pending against them. Policemen commit criminality in a routine way, and so on. For such a system, a Binayak Sen who points fingers at them becomes an anti-national. What a shame!
The growing rot over the last six decades has been exposed by the Niraa Radia tapes. They reveal how illegality has become a routine matter for the ruling elite. Glib talk of “15 per cent man” or of fixing Cabinet appointments is not just idle gossip. Those manipulating the system have known this and much more, but the value of the Radia tapes is that there is confirmation of what the public could only guess till now. The tapes confirm the functioning of the Triad.
The lack of independence of some of the media biggies who are now like businessmen, stood exposed with the expose of paid news: but is out in the open more clearly. Their link with the manipulative system and cosy relations with favourite businessmen and politicians are in the open. Those who have not yet been exposed feign surprise and try to cover up for their colleagues by suggesting that the media are not powerful enough to fix things. That is just another fix.
Rivalries amongst politicians, businessmen and media groups have helped lift the veil just a bit, and even that is hugely damaging to the state. Those who have been exposed shamelessly deny wrongdoing, hoping that they would be eventually bailed out since those in glass houses cannot afford to throw stones. They feel that they can cover up and deny wrongdoing till the last — as in the case of the Commonwealth Games scam or the 2G scam. Legal delays, threats and political and money power come into play to keep truth under the wraps. (The Bofors case remains shrouded in mystery since 1987.)
The ruling class knows how to manipulate the system (as in the S.P.S. Rathore case). This is feasible since most of the investigation mechanism and some wings of the judiciary are pliable. Cases can be spoiled deliberately, as the courts have themselves often lamented. Further, the Radia tapes reveal that the intelligence and investigative agencies know a lot about the wheeling and dealing by the Triad; but this information is not made public.
The moot point is whether these agencies have been reporting what they dig out to the higher authorities who should be keeping the Prime Minister briefed. If that is not happening, there is a failure of the system. Alternatively, if the Prime Minister knew but did not act, is he also complicit? Either way, one can infer that scams are allowed to take place. It is also known that information is used politically vis-a-vis opponents and friends. Further, how many more scams are currently taking place, about which the Prime Minister may know but about which he may be keeping his own counsel?
Is honesty divisible among financial, social and political matters? Can one be financially honest but dishonest in other spheres? Is it honesty when scams are allowed to take place but one personally does not take any money? Honesty is not just individual but systemic, and if the number of scams grow in size and numbers, can the head of government escape responsibility given the huge social and political consequences? The scams do not just lead to financial losses but to policy failure (like the current high food inflation) whose cost is a multiple of the direct financial loss. Honesty has to be indivisible.
(The author is Chairperson of the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is the author of The Black Economy in India (Penguin India). He could be reached at arunkumar1000@hotmail.com)
India And The Chinese Threat
By Rajeev Sharma
India’s China policy is going nowhere. The Chinese have bluntly declared that they will continue with their policy of issuing stapled visas as usual. Now the ball is in the Indian court. It is the Indian pride which is at stake – and it is not the India of 1962 when the Indian troops fought the Chinese without rudimentary battle uniform and were mauled.
It is time India conveys to the Chinese that it will be forced to review its One China policy if the Chinese pinpricks on Jammu and Kashmir continue. China must be made to understand the Indian sensitivities on Kashmir and that Kashmir is to India what Tibet is to China.
India did not sing the One China hymn in the joint communiqué that was signed at the conclusion of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s recent visit to New Delhi. That may be pragmatic but not bold enough. India has to convey the ‘enough is enough’ message to the Chinese in concrete terms, in its back-channel as well as official contacts. India has to tell the Chinese that if they continue to give stapled visas to the people from the Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh (no matter if in the case of the latter it is understood to be a ‘concession’ from the Chinese side) then India will retaliate in kind.
China may respond by using the Sikkim card and going back on its pledge to the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee that Sikkim is an integral part of India. But that should not deter India which is the third largest economy in Asia where China is number one. Let China go back on its commitment to India on Sikkim as it would only further expose the Chinese before the international community. In any case, the Chinese official media and Chinese tourist kits have several times portrayed Sikkim as an independent country even after the Chinese commitment. In June 2008 the PLA troops had intruded more than a kilometer into the “Finger Area” of Sikkim.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh came up with unusually candid remarks on China during his meeting with editors in September 2010, though apparently he did not want to go on record. Nonetheless his remarks were widely quoted by mainstream print media. Singh said that China wanted to keep India bogged down in South Asia by playing on Indo-Pak tensions.
Sample a couple of quotes of Manmohan Singh on the subject:
•“India had to take adequate precautions but not give up hope of peaceful resolution of issues with China…in reaction to ‘pinpricks’ by Beijing on Jammu and Kashmir and other issues.”
•“China would like to have a foothold in South Asia and we have to reflect on this reality. We have to be aware of this.”
This is the first time when Indian assessment of China was articulated at the highest level in the public domain. Significantly, Singh’s remarks on China came close on the heels of reports of some eleven thousand Chinese troops in Gilgit-Baltistan area of Jammu and Kashmir which India considers as its own territory. India has not come up with any counter to the presence of PLA troops in Gilgit-Baltistan and it remains to be seen whether the UPA II would take any step at all.
Upgrading India’s relations with Taiwan is another diplomatic option that is open to India but the Manmohan Singh government seems too timid to embark on such a bold move. Thus far, the position is that India does not engage with Taiwan officially. Taiwan does not even have a full fledged embassy in India. Indian officials — leave aside the ministers and the Prime Minister– ever engage with their Taiwanese counterparts officially. This paradigm has to change.
The Indian Prime Minister’s take on China has been corroborated by a recent opinion poll by Pew Global Attitudes Project which said that only 34 percent of Indians view China favourably—the second lowest number in Asia after Japan. This compared with 58 percent in Indonesia and 85 percent in Pakistan.
The Chinese pinpricks to the Indians are swelling by the day. They are flexing their military and diplomatic muscle with impunity and expect India to take it all in its stride. That is precisely what India has been doing so far. Take a military example.
China’s highest military planning body, Central Military Commission (CMC), recently approved building two new aircraft carriers. One aircraft carrier – Varyag of Kuznetsov class — is already under construction. All the three aircraft carriers will be available to China by 2017 and each one will patrol South China Sea, Western Pacific and Indian Ocean and will make the People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN) a formidable power. The Chinese naval buildup has rung alarm bells in Japan and the US as China is trying to project to the world South and East China Seas as its areas of exclusive domain while it is of immense strategic interest to the international community that it has unfettered access to South China Sea, Western Pacific and Indian Ocean.
On the issue of sharing of water of rivers that are flowing from China to India, the situation is no different. The Chinese are going hammer and tongs against Indian national interests and following what they perceive to be best in their national interest. The series of dams that the Chinese are building on the Brahmaputra – 32 by British media account – is a case in point.
It is not just India that is facing problems from the Chinese dam-construction activities on international rivers. Myanmar too is feeling the heat. A new controversy has erupted between China and Myanmar over a multi-billion dollar dam construction project on the Longjiang River on the China-Myanmar border. The river, known as Shweli in Myanmar, flows through Shan state in Myanmar and eventually joins the Irrawaddy River in the Saigaing region. China has already built three dams on the Longjiang River that have substantially depleted the water levels of the river in Myanmar. The new dam will inevitably exacerbate this crisis further which will pinch the Myanmarese traders even harder as they depend on water transport for carrying merchandise. Besides, the new dam will trigger new social, environmental and ecological problems for the Myanmar government which already has its plate full. Large number of local people will be displaced in Myanmar which will heighten ethnic tensions.
This is what the Chinese are doing to their time-tested allies like Myanmar. It is any body’s guess what the Chinese will do to India which they want to see divided into thirty parts as has been so eloquently and publicly projected in the state-controlled Chinese media some time ago. The question is: when will the Indians ever learn and when will the Indian elephant finally muster the courage to respond?
(The writer is a New Delhi-based journalist-author and a strategic analyst. He can be reached at bhootnath004@yahoo.com)
source;eurasiareview
By Rajeev Sharma
India’s China policy is going nowhere. The Chinese have bluntly declared that they will continue with their policy of issuing stapled visas as usual. Now the ball is in the Indian court. It is the Indian pride which is at stake – and it is not the India of 1962 when the Indian troops fought the Chinese without rudimentary battle uniform and were mauled.
It is time India conveys to the Chinese that it will be forced to review its One China policy if the Chinese pinpricks on Jammu and Kashmir continue. China must be made to understand the Indian sensitivities on Kashmir and that Kashmir is to India what Tibet is to China.
India did not sing the One China hymn in the joint communiqué that was signed at the conclusion of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s recent visit to New Delhi. That may be pragmatic but not bold enough. India has to convey the ‘enough is enough’ message to the Chinese in concrete terms, in its back-channel as well as official contacts. India has to tell the Chinese that if they continue to give stapled visas to the people from the Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh (no matter if in the case of the latter it is understood to be a ‘concession’ from the Chinese side) then India will retaliate in kind.
China may respond by using the Sikkim card and going back on its pledge to the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee that Sikkim is an integral part of India. But that should not deter India which is the third largest economy in Asia where China is number one. Let China go back on its commitment to India on Sikkim as it would only further expose the Chinese before the international community. In any case, the Chinese official media and Chinese tourist kits have several times portrayed Sikkim as an independent country even after the Chinese commitment. In June 2008 the PLA troops had intruded more than a kilometer into the “Finger Area” of Sikkim.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh came up with unusually candid remarks on China during his meeting with editors in September 2010, though apparently he did not want to go on record. Nonetheless his remarks were widely quoted by mainstream print media. Singh said that China wanted to keep India bogged down in South Asia by playing on Indo-Pak tensions.
Sample a couple of quotes of Manmohan Singh on the subject:
•“India had to take adequate precautions but not give up hope of peaceful resolution of issues with China…in reaction to ‘pinpricks’ by Beijing on Jammu and Kashmir and other issues.”
•“China would like to have a foothold in South Asia and we have to reflect on this reality. We have to be aware of this.”
This is the first time when Indian assessment of China was articulated at the highest level in the public domain. Significantly, Singh’s remarks on China came close on the heels of reports of some eleven thousand Chinese troops in Gilgit-Baltistan area of Jammu and Kashmir which India considers as its own territory. India has not come up with any counter to the presence of PLA troops in Gilgit-Baltistan and it remains to be seen whether the UPA II would take any step at all.
Upgrading India’s relations with Taiwan is another diplomatic option that is open to India but the Manmohan Singh government seems too timid to embark on such a bold move. Thus far, the position is that India does not engage with Taiwan officially. Taiwan does not even have a full fledged embassy in India. Indian officials — leave aside the ministers and the Prime Minister– ever engage with their Taiwanese counterparts officially. This paradigm has to change.
The Indian Prime Minister’s take on China has been corroborated by a recent opinion poll by Pew Global Attitudes Project which said that only 34 percent of Indians view China favourably—the second lowest number in Asia after Japan. This compared with 58 percent in Indonesia and 85 percent in Pakistan.
The Chinese pinpricks to the Indians are swelling by the day. They are flexing their military and diplomatic muscle with impunity and expect India to take it all in its stride. That is precisely what India has been doing so far. Take a military example.
China’s highest military planning body, Central Military Commission (CMC), recently approved building two new aircraft carriers. One aircraft carrier – Varyag of Kuznetsov class — is already under construction. All the three aircraft carriers will be available to China by 2017 and each one will patrol South China Sea, Western Pacific and Indian Ocean and will make the People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN) a formidable power. The Chinese naval buildup has rung alarm bells in Japan and the US as China is trying to project to the world South and East China Seas as its areas of exclusive domain while it is of immense strategic interest to the international community that it has unfettered access to South China Sea, Western Pacific and Indian Ocean.
On the issue of sharing of water of rivers that are flowing from China to India, the situation is no different. The Chinese are going hammer and tongs against Indian national interests and following what they perceive to be best in their national interest. The series of dams that the Chinese are building on the Brahmaputra – 32 by British media account – is a case in point.
It is not just India that is facing problems from the Chinese dam-construction activities on international rivers. Myanmar too is feeling the heat. A new controversy has erupted between China and Myanmar over a multi-billion dollar dam construction project on the Longjiang River on the China-Myanmar border. The river, known as Shweli in Myanmar, flows through Shan state in Myanmar and eventually joins the Irrawaddy River in the Saigaing region. China has already built three dams on the Longjiang River that have substantially depleted the water levels of the river in Myanmar. The new dam will inevitably exacerbate this crisis further which will pinch the Myanmarese traders even harder as they depend on water transport for carrying merchandise. Besides, the new dam will trigger new social, environmental and ecological problems for the Myanmar government which already has its plate full. Large number of local people will be displaced in Myanmar which will heighten ethnic tensions.
This is what the Chinese are doing to their time-tested allies like Myanmar. It is any body’s guess what the Chinese will do to India which they want to see divided into thirty parts as has been so eloquently and publicly projected in the state-controlled Chinese media some time ago. The question is: when will the Indians ever learn and when will the Indian elephant finally muster the courage to respond?
(The writer is a New Delhi-based journalist-author and a strategic analyst. He can be reached at bhootnath004@yahoo.com)
source;eurasiareview
Friday, January 28, 2011
Mr. Hu in America
Mr. Hu in America
by Salman Haidar
THE relationship between China and the USA has never been easy. They have looked at the world differently and tended to be on opposite sides of a major divide. Yet while ideological differences pulled them apart, strategic convergence had the opposite effect, making for an up-and-down relationship. It was only when China changed tack and opened up its economy that matters took a different turn, and partnership with the USA became the cornerstone of Chinese economic strategy. China was prepared for some years to defer to this partner, for the great imperative was to keep open the doors to the world, to which the keys were in US hands. There were limits, of course ~ China was never less than zealous in defence of what it regarded as its core interests. But still, it was prepared to keep a low profile and not insist on what were considered to be secondary goals, in order to concentrate on its central task of economic and social progress.
With the huge success of the last 30 years, China has begun to move on and has adapted its ways. Today, it is less ready to defer, more willing to assert. More frequently, it follows its own course and promotes its own views. This has had a measurable effect on the China-US relationship. The partnership is still very important to both but the change in the balance between them has often bred misunderstanding, and their differences on major issues have lately become more marked. To complicate matters further, there is a perception in some quarters that this is a time when China is rising and the USA is beginning to go into decline, though there are many to contest such a judgment.
President Hu Jintao’s recent visit to Washington thus came at a time when many questions are in the air and several divisive issues that strain bilateral China-US ties have become prominent. Among these is that of human rights, which has once more been on the boil. China’s incarceration of Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo has been condemned in most parts of the world, especially in the USA, though China has indignantly rejected all criticism on this score. Urged on by public opinion, President Obama took up the matter with his guest, as did some US legislators when they received a visit from the Chinese President. To an extent, President Hu disarmed the critics by acknowledging that China had some way to go to assure its people’s human rights, though differences remain on what is implied by this term which has very different connotations in the two countries. At all events, the issue was not permitted to overshadow the visit.
There was also a small advance on how to respond to North Korea where the two sides have not seen eye-to-eye. This time, they were able to agree on calling for dialogue between North and South, something that China had earlier refrained from doing in order to back up the North, which prefers multilateral discussions. China was also prepared to join the USA in expressing concern about the recent revelation of a newly established uranium enrichment plant in North Korea. But that is as far convergence went, and there is little sign of China being prepared to bear down more strongly on North Korea, as the USA desires. Indeed, it was revealed that during the visit the USA had indicated readiness to step up its military capacity in the Pacific to counter a perceived threat from nuclear developments in the North, even though such a military build-up on its doorstep would be a matter of concern to China.
There have also been other developments in the military field to create tremors, like the unveiling of a sophisticated, indigenously developed Stealth fighter by China, which took place when the US Defence Secretary was on a visit to that country. This was interpreted as a deliberately challenging gesture. However, it seems that neither side wishes to escalate the misunderstanding and it was agreed during Mr Hu’s visit that China’s top general would shortly pay a formal visit to the USA. The Chinese President was also careful to disclaim any intention of seeking military domination or to become a threat to anyone.
During previous state visits, matters relating to Tibet or Taiwan have caused friction, whether it is the status of the one or arms supplies to the other, but not this time. These are prime among China’s core interests and did not seem to have been much discussed. The US side reiterated its position that Tibet was part of China, and there seemed to have been no hostile demonstrations by interested groups to contest this position. It is worth recollecting that not long ago President Obama had a meeting with the Dalai Lama, which provoked great indignation in Beijing ~ there were no echoes of that event during the Hu Jintao visit.
The most tangible achievements of the visit were in the economic area. For quite some time now, the USA has been pressing China, with little effect, to revalue its currency, but this call seems to have been set aside during the Hu visit in favour of demands for better US access to the Chinese market. Here, there was much to record.
Sales worth $45 billion by American companies were announced, including 200 Boeing aircraft. Some of the announced deals are in fact still in a preliminary stage but nevertheless the visit yielded a substantial economic outcome. Among the agreed measures was a Chinese promise to curb theft of intellectual property, a long-standing US grievance. Another Chinese concession to US demands was to permit US firms to bid for official contracts from which they and other foreign suppliers had been excluded.
Such measures underlined the fact that this was a visit with useful results and served to control or curb some of the recent negative trends in Sino-US relations. Both sides showing regard for the sensitivities of the other, and Chinese commentaries after the event expressed particular satisfaction at the fact that the two sides met as equals, something that China especially values. All in all, no great change in the basic trajectory of the relationship was to be discerned, or any overarching convergence with global consequences; it was more a matter of smoothening the path for the future on what is expected to be Mr Hu Jintao’s last visit to the USA before he hands over to his successor next year.
India will take mild satisfaction from the fact that the joint statement makes no reference to South Asia, unlike the previous one, which had not been appreciated in New Delhi. Like the rest of the world, India has kept a watchful eye on the visit and will doubtless remain alert, for the ties between these two potent countries inevitably have a global fallout.
(The Statesman/ANN)
by Salman Haidar
THE relationship between China and the USA has never been easy. They have looked at the world differently and tended to be on opposite sides of a major divide. Yet while ideological differences pulled them apart, strategic convergence had the opposite effect, making for an up-and-down relationship. It was only when China changed tack and opened up its economy that matters took a different turn, and partnership with the USA became the cornerstone of Chinese economic strategy. China was prepared for some years to defer to this partner, for the great imperative was to keep open the doors to the world, to which the keys were in US hands. There were limits, of course ~ China was never less than zealous in defence of what it regarded as its core interests. But still, it was prepared to keep a low profile and not insist on what were considered to be secondary goals, in order to concentrate on its central task of economic and social progress.
With the huge success of the last 30 years, China has begun to move on and has adapted its ways. Today, it is less ready to defer, more willing to assert. More frequently, it follows its own course and promotes its own views. This has had a measurable effect on the China-US relationship. The partnership is still very important to both but the change in the balance between them has often bred misunderstanding, and their differences on major issues have lately become more marked. To complicate matters further, there is a perception in some quarters that this is a time when China is rising and the USA is beginning to go into decline, though there are many to contest such a judgment.
President Hu Jintao’s recent visit to Washington thus came at a time when many questions are in the air and several divisive issues that strain bilateral China-US ties have become prominent. Among these is that of human rights, which has once more been on the boil. China’s incarceration of Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo has been condemned in most parts of the world, especially in the USA, though China has indignantly rejected all criticism on this score. Urged on by public opinion, President Obama took up the matter with his guest, as did some US legislators when they received a visit from the Chinese President. To an extent, President Hu disarmed the critics by acknowledging that China had some way to go to assure its people’s human rights, though differences remain on what is implied by this term which has very different connotations in the two countries. At all events, the issue was not permitted to overshadow the visit.
There was also a small advance on how to respond to North Korea where the two sides have not seen eye-to-eye. This time, they were able to agree on calling for dialogue between North and South, something that China had earlier refrained from doing in order to back up the North, which prefers multilateral discussions. China was also prepared to join the USA in expressing concern about the recent revelation of a newly established uranium enrichment plant in North Korea. But that is as far convergence went, and there is little sign of China being prepared to bear down more strongly on North Korea, as the USA desires. Indeed, it was revealed that during the visit the USA had indicated readiness to step up its military capacity in the Pacific to counter a perceived threat from nuclear developments in the North, even though such a military build-up on its doorstep would be a matter of concern to China.
There have also been other developments in the military field to create tremors, like the unveiling of a sophisticated, indigenously developed Stealth fighter by China, which took place when the US Defence Secretary was on a visit to that country. This was interpreted as a deliberately challenging gesture. However, it seems that neither side wishes to escalate the misunderstanding and it was agreed during Mr Hu’s visit that China’s top general would shortly pay a formal visit to the USA. The Chinese President was also careful to disclaim any intention of seeking military domination or to become a threat to anyone.
During previous state visits, matters relating to Tibet or Taiwan have caused friction, whether it is the status of the one or arms supplies to the other, but not this time. These are prime among China’s core interests and did not seem to have been much discussed. The US side reiterated its position that Tibet was part of China, and there seemed to have been no hostile demonstrations by interested groups to contest this position. It is worth recollecting that not long ago President Obama had a meeting with the Dalai Lama, which provoked great indignation in Beijing ~ there were no echoes of that event during the Hu Jintao visit.
The most tangible achievements of the visit were in the economic area. For quite some time now, the USA has been pressing China, with little effect, to revalue its currency, but this call seems to have been set aside during the Hu visit in favour of demands for better US access to the Chinese market. Here, there was much to record.
Sales worth $45 billion by American companies were announced, including 200 Boeing aircraft. Some of the announced deals are in fact still in a preliminary stage but nevertheless the visit yielded a substantial economic outcome. Among the agreed measures was a Chinese promise to curb theft of intellectual property, a long-standing US grievance. Another Chinese concession to US demands was to permit US firms to bid for official contracts from which they and other foreign suppliers had been excluded.
Such measures underlined the fact that this was a visit with useful results and served to control or curb some of the recent negative trends in Sino-US relations. Both sides showing regard for the sensitivities of the other, and Chinese commentaries after the event expressed particular satisfaction at the fact that the two sides met as equals, something that China especially values. All in all, no great change in the basic trajectory of the relationship was to be discerned, or any overarching convergence with global consequences; it was more a matter of smoothening the path for the future on what is expected to be Mr Hu Jintao’s last visit to the USA before he hands over to his successor next year.
India will take mild satisfaction from the fact that the joint statement makes no reference to South Asia, unlike the previous one, which had not been appreciated in New Delhi. Like the rest of the world, India has kept a watchful eye on the visit and will doubtless remain alert, for the ties between these two potent countries inevitably have a global fallout.
(The Statesman/ANN)
Asia in wonderland
Some of the weirdest, ultra-futuristic urban space ideas are being tried out in Asia for the first time.
by Barun Roy / New Delhi January 27, 2011, 0:45 IST
Having lost Taipei 101 to Burj Dubai as the tallest building in the world, Taiwan has another boggling idea, a 390-metre observation tower in the central city of Taichung that will look like a twisted tree of free-hanging elevators. Sounds crazy? But anything is possible in the quirky world of today’s architecture, where buildings rotate, float, bend, or flow at the designer’s will; and some of the weirdest, ultra-futuristic new ideas are being tried out in Asia for the first time.
Take Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, for example. Architect Moshe Safdie has hitched an entire ship deck of a park 650 feet up in the sky and slung it across three cascading, 55-storey hotel towers that resemble a deck of cards. At that height, the visionary architect has created 12,400 square metre of space, longer than four-and-a-half A380 Jumbo jets lined on end, where up to 3,900 people can gather at any one time, surrounded by 250 types of trees and 650 types of plants. There are restaurants and entertainment areas, as well as an infinity swimming pool three times the size of an Olympic one.
Or consider Iraqi-born British architect Zaha Hadid’s Innovation Tower at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, to open this year. Hadid, known for her “fluid” style that mixes interior space with outer landscape, has designed a slightly tilted pile of irregularly stacked and shaped plates, giving it the look of a massive, tide-sculpted, but uncannily weightless, pebble. The podium, the tower, and internal and external courtyards merge into one another, while, inside, the building becomes one continuous upward, interactive cascade of showcases and events.
The proposed Taiwan Tower, designed by DSBA of Romania, will have photovoltaic cells covering its entire façade and vertical axis wind turbines built into it, making it the world’s first-ever alternative-energy skyscraper. Eight propeller-powered and helium-filled observation “pods” will branch off and move up and down its stem, like floating bubbles, each able to carry up to 80 people at a time, giving the entire structure, and 1 hectare of parkland around it, a fairy-tale look.
But this time the Taiwanese authorities have more than just another isolated monument in mind. They are looking at the tower as the focal point of a major architectural redevelopment of 254 hectare of land around the former Taichung airport, which they believe will convert Taiwan’s third largest city into a liveable international metropolis. Liveability is the driving force behind a growing worldwide movement known as new urbanism, of which Asia is becoming increasingly aware, where the goal is not simply to create totems of individual architectural excellence, but uplift entire urban environments around them to give residents a wholesome living experience.
New urbanism is also the inspiration behind a new port and cruise service centre in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, where US-based architects Reiser and Umemoto will be converting a dull, staid port area into a vibrant, 24-hour arts, shopping, dining, recreation, and leisure district. And up in a country town called Au-Di, 50 km from Taipei, Zaha Hadid’s Next-Gen Architectural Museum, due to be completed some time this year, is going to redefine an entire hilltop with its seamless interface between architecture, landscape, and geology.
Hadid is the acknowledged high priestess of new urbanism and lyrical architecture. When the Dongdaemun Design Paza in Seoul opens as Korea’s fashion hub later this year, turning a dense neighbourhood into a green oasis, she will have set another benchmark for Asia and the world. In her design, buildings curve and flow, the ground rises and dips to lend drama and wonder, and parkland folds unobtrusively into shopping/dining areas underground. It’s architecture that inspires and reduces tensions, forming a “natural” habitat for residents within “hostile” urban surroundings.
Hadid follows the same concept of seamless fluidity at the newly opened Opera House in Guangzhou, China, which looks from outside as twin mounds on the ground overlooking the river and the dock area, engaged, so to say, in a whispered conversation with the surrounding landscape. The idea will be further amplified at another Hadid project in China, the 3.5 million square feet. Galaxy Soho office, retail and entertainment complex in Beijing, work on which has just begun. It’s anchored around five continuous, flowing volumes that adapt to each other in all directions, creating a panoramic architecture without corners or abrupt transitions. Once it’s completed by 2012, downtown Beijing won’t be the same again.
“Our clients are increasingly calling for innovation,” Hadid recently said of her Chinese projects. Asia is clearly ready, like never before, to embrace the new; and this passion for bold, futuristic architecture, combined with complex, fluid, organic geometries now possible to achieve through modern technologies, puts it – at least parts of it – on the verge of a magical transformation of its urban landscape.
source;BusinessStandard
Some of the weirdest, ultra-futuristic urban space ideas are being tried out in Asia for the first time.
by Barun Roy / New Delhi January 27, 2011, 0:45 IST
Having lost Taipei 101 to Burj Dubai as the tallest building in the world, Taiwan has another boggling idea, a 390-metre observation tower in the central city of Taichung that will look like a twisted tree of free-hanging elevators. Sounds crazy? But anything is possible in the quirky world of today’s architecture, where buildings rotate, float, bend, or flow at the designer’s will; and some of the weirdest, ultra-futuristic new ideas are being tried out in Asia for the first time.
Take Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, for example. Architect Moshe Safdie has hitched an entire ship deck of a park 650 feet up in the sky and slung it across three cascading, 55-storey hotel towers that resemble a deck of cards. At that height, the visionary architect has created 12,400 square metre of space, longer than four-and-a-half A380 Jumbo jets lined on end, where up to 3,900 people can gather at any one time, surrounded by 250 types of trees and 650 types of plants. There are restaurants and entertainment areas, as well as an infinity swimming pool three times the size of an Olympic one.
Or consider Iraqi-born British architect Zaha Hadid’s Innovation Tower at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, to open this year. Hadid, known for her “fluid” style that mixes interior space with outer landscape, has designed a slightly tilted pile of irregularly stacked and shaped plates, giving it the look of a massive, tide-sculpted, but uncannily weightless, pebble. The podium, the tower, and internal and external courtyards merge into one another, while, inside, the building becomes one continuous upward, interactive cascade of showcases and events.
The proposed Taiwan Tower, designed by DSBA of Romania, will have photovoltaic cells covering its entire façade and vertical axis wind turbines built into it, making it the world’s first-ever alternative-energy skyscraper. Eight propeller-powered and helium-filled observation “pods” will branch off and move up and down its stem, like floating bubbles, each able to carry up to 80 people at a time, giving the entire structure, and 1 hectare of parkland around it, a fairy-tale look.
But this time the Taiwanese authorities have more than just another isolated monument in mind. They are looking at the tower as the focal point of a major architectural redevelopment of 254 hectare of land around the former Taichung airport, which they believe will convert Taiwan’s third largest city into a liveable international metropolis. Liveability is the driving force behind a growing worldwide movement known as new urbanism, of which Asia is becoming increasingly aware, where the goal is not simply to create totems of individual architectural excellence, but uplift entire urban environments around them to give residents a wholesome living experience.
New urbanism is also the inspiration behind a new port and cruise service centre in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, where US-based architects Reiser and Umemoto will be converting a dull, staid port area into a vibrant, 24-hour arts, shopping, dining, recreation, and leisure district. And up in a country town called Au-Di, 50 km from Taipei, Zaha Hadid’s Next-Gen Architectural Museum, due to be completed some time this year, is going to redefine an entire hilltop with its seamless interface between architecture, landscape, and geology.
Hadid is the acknowledged high priestess of new urbanism and lyrical architecture. When the Dongdaemun Design Paza in Seoul opens as Korea’s fashion hub later this year, turning a dense neighbourhood into a green oasis, she will have set another benchmark for Asia and the world. In her design, buildings curve and flow, the ground rises and dips to lend drama and wonder, and parkland folds unobtrusively into shopping/dining areas underground. It’s architecture that inspires and reduces tensions, forming a “natural” habitat for residents within “hostile” urban surroundings.
Hadid follows the same concept of seamless fluidity at the newly opened Opera House in Guangzhou, China, which looks from outside as twin mounds on the ground overlooking the river and the dock area, engaged, so to say, in a whispered conversation with the surrounding landscape. The idea will be further amplified at another Hadid project in China, the 3.5 million square feet. Galaxy Soho office, retail and entertainment complex in Beijing, work on which has just begun. It’s anchored around five continuous, flowing volumes that adapt to each other in all directions, creating a panoramic architecture without corners or abrupt transitions. Once it’s completed by 2012, downtown Beijing won’t be the same again.
“Our clients are increasingly calling for innovation,” Hadid recently said of her Chinese projects. Asia is clearly ready, like never before, to embrace the new; and this passion for bold, futuristic architecture, combined with complex, fluid, organic geometries now possible to achieve through modern technologies, puts it – at least parts of it – on the verge of a magical transformation of its urban landscape.
source;BusinessStandard
China’s power play
China’s power play
India need not be indifferent to dams
by M.S.Menon
Reports in the state-run People’s Daily of China have confirmed that our neighbour has started damming the Yarlung-Tsangpo (Brahmaputra river) at Zangmu for a 510 MW hydro-electric project sited in the Gyaca county of Lhoka prefecture (Tibet). The project comprises a dam which is 116 m. high, 390 m.long across the river with a power plant having six generating units and will cost US$1.18 billion.
On India’s concerns, China has given the assurance that the project is not designed to divert the Brahmaputra waters and hence will not have any impact on the river flows in the downstream reaches.
The major problems haunting China today are water and power shortages. China knows that if these two issues are not addressed adequately, the consequences would be grave and its ambition to become a super power would be in the doldrums. Hence, it has focussed its attention to exploit the huge potential available in the water-rich Tibet region to overcome the looming crisis. The Zangmu project is to be followed by five other new dams at Jiexu, Jiacha, Lengda, Zhongda and Langzhen to meet the energy needs.
The uneven spatial distribution of water and land resources is the main reason for China to be concerned about water shortage, particularly in the northern and north-western provinces, for many decades. The humid South with 700 million people has one-third of the nation’s crop land and four-fifth of its water, while the arid north with 550 million people has two-third of the crop land and one-fifth of the water.
During the seventies a Chinese General, Guo Kai, is reported to have even proposed to hammer the Himalayas with 200 nuclear warheads to blast a 2-km wide air tunnel to divert the Indian monsoon to meet the water needs. Subsequently, he had also speculated to use Tibet’s waters, particularly of the Brahmaputra, by diverting its waters at the ‘great bend’ of the river. The great western diversion proposed by Guo Kai involves the construction of a mega structure there and a tunnel through the Himalayas to divert the water and generate power, which could be used to pump water.
The burgeoning population, increased industrial development, higher demand from agriculture and pollution in the rivers have further contributed to the water woes now, forcing the Chinese to plan for diverting water from the South to the North under the South-North Diversion Project through three links: the central, eastern and western routes. China has already started the construction of the central and eastern links. The western link is the modified version of Guo Kai’s dream project and is reported to be under study.
According to experts of the China Society for Hydropower Engineering, only research has been carried out about the huge potential available at the ‘great bend’ and no plan has been prepared so far. However, Chinese official news agency, Xinhua, had in 2003 confirmed the plans for the Tsangpo Water Diversion Project with two components, viz, a power plant with an installed capacity of more than 40,000 MW in the Metok area to utilise the potential of the river falling through 3,000 m and diversion of water by pumping to the provinces of Xingjiang and Gansu.
China has been discreet about the project, but according to recent reports, the construction of a117-km Metok highway with a tunnel to the Metok site linking the Indian border to National Highway 318 from Shanghai is in full swing to negotiate the difficult terrain of the Yarlung-Tsangpo gorge, presumably to facilitate the movement of materials and machinery for the project. Also, in the map of the Grid Corporation of China for 2020 the great bend area is shown as connected to the rest of the Chinese power supply, thereby indicating Chinese plans for the project in the area.
Environmental activists, both in China and abroad, have warned against building such a huge project in a seismically active and ecologically fragile area, but the authorities are emphatic that Tibet’s resources have to be used for economic advantage. Similarly, many experts have raised doubts about the engineering possibility of constructing such a project, considering the topographical and geological conditions of the rugged, high-altitude area. But China has proved its capability to overcome such difficulties with the construction of the rail track to Tibet and the gigantic Water Diversion Project to transfer 1.8 billion water annually to the Dehuofang reservoir across the Hun river through a 85.3-km tunnel in the equally formidable mountain ranges of North-East China.
China has every right to build dams in its part of the Brahmaputra and is not answerable to India since it is not bound by any treaty on water sharing with India. The joint declaration made in 2006 between the two enables only sharing hydrological data, which is not adequate to address our concerns.
True, we have been assured that these dams are meant only for power generation, but the disturbing fact is that China maintains a strategic silence on its river diversion plans. For example, in the past they were denying any plan for the Zangmu project in spite of satellite images showing activities in the project area. Only now they have confirmed it.
India has to be concerned about the Chinese projects because the reservoir operations could cause wide water-level fluctuations in the river downstream to upset the operations of the hydel schemes in Arunachal Pradesh. The experience of the co-basin states in the Mekong basin will be an eye-opener in this regard. The operations of the Chinese projects on the Mekong affected their agriculture, fisheries and tourism projects downstream and, when these governments protested, China denied the allegations.
Also, if the Chinese divert lean-season flows outside the basin for their projects, the schemes in Arunachal Pradesh would have to be shut down for want of minimum river flows, and if they release heavy discharges into a flooded Brahmaputra downstream, vast areas would be submerged in Arunachal Pradesh as was experienced in the year 2000. Unfortunately, at present there is no international law for trans-boundary rivers to control such unilateral actions.
India has also to remain prepared to face situations during possible conflicts since China always plans its infrastructure projects for dual use to meet the requirements of peace time and war as has been enunciated by Chairman Mao.
The moot question, therefore, is: Are we to remain satisfied with China’s assurances, or are we to take action to face such eventualities? Experience has taught us to remain prepared to deal with such situations. Hence, instead of remaining complacent with the Chinese assurances, let us get ready with plans to address these issues.
Indian experts had earlier identified and proposed a project with a large storage potential on the Siang (Brahmaputra) in Arunachal Pradesh which had adequate capacity to absorb the flood flows and also to even out water-level fluctuations caused by upstream projects. But the Indian government does not seem to be keen on this project, citing environmental objections.
Considering the strategic importance of the project, let us be ready with the project by implementing it expeditiously instead of waiting for the catastrophe to occur. Happenings in the Mekong basin and even our experience with floods in the past have already warned us. India cannot afford to ignore the likely threats from the liquid bombs ticking away in Tibet, having enough potential to become weapons of mass destruction.
source:The Tribune
India need not be indifferent to dams
by M.S.Menon
Reports in the state-run People’s Daily of China have confirmed that our neighbour has started damming the Yarlung-Tsangpo (Brahmaputra river) at Zangmu for a 510 MW hydro-electric project sited in the Gyaca county of Lhoka prefecture (Tibet). The project comprises a dam which is 116 m. high, 390 m.long across the river with a power plant having six generating units and will cost US$1.18 billion.
On India’s concerns, China has given the assurance that the project is not designed to divert the Brahmaputra waters and hence will not have any impact on the river flows in the downstream reaches.
The major problems haunting China today are water and power shortages. China knows that if these two issues are not addressed adequately, the consequences would be grave and its ambition to become a super power would be in the doldrums. Hence, it has focussed its attention to exploit the huge potential available in the water-rich Tibet region to overcome the looming crisis. The Zangmu project is to be followed by five other new dams at Jiexu, Jiacha, Lengda, Zhongda and Langzhen to meet the energy needs.
The uneven spatial distribution of water and land resources is the main reason for China to be concerned about water shortage, particularly in the northern and north-western provinces, for many decades. The humid South with 700 million people has one-third of the nation’s crop land and four-fifth of its water, while the arid north with 550 million people has two-third of the crop land and one-fifth of the water.
During the seventies a Chinese General, Guo Kai, is reported to have even proposed to hammer the Himalayas with 200 nuclear warheads to blast a 2-km wide air tunnel to divert the Indian monsoon to meet the water needs. Subsequently, he had also speculated to use Tibet’s waters, particularly of the Brahmaputra, by diverting its waters at the ‘great bend’ of the river. The great western diversion proposed by Guo Kai involves the construction of a mega structure there and a tunnel through the Himalayas to divert the water and generate power, which could be used to pump water.
The burgeoning population, increased industrial development, higher demand from agriculture and pollution in the rivers have further contributed to the water woes now, forcing the Chinese to plan for diverting water from the South to the North under the South-North Diversion Project through three links: the central, eastern and western routes. China has already started the construction of the central and eastern links. The western link is the modified version of Guo Kai’s dream project and is reported to be under study.
According to experts of the China Society for Hydropower Engineering, only research has been carried out about the huge potential available at the ‘great bend’ and no plan has been prepared so far. However, Chinese official news agency, Xinhua, had in 2003 confirmed the plans for the Tsangpo Water Diversion Project with two components, viz, a power plant with an installed capacity of more than 40,000 MW in the Metok area to utilise the potential of the river falling through 3,000 m and diversion of water by pumping to the provinces of Xingjiang and Gansu.
China has been discreet about the project, but according to recent reports, the construction of a117-km Metok highway with a tunnel to the Metok site linking the Indian border to National Highway 318 from Shanghai is in full swing to negotiate the difficult terrain of the Yarlung-Tsangpo gorge, presumably to facilitate the movement of materials and machinery for the project. Also, in the map of the Grid Corporation of China for 2020 the great bend area is shown as connected to the rest of the Chinese power supply, thereby indicating Chinese plans for the project in the area.
Environmental activists, both in China and abroad, have warned against building such a huge project in a seismically active and ecologically fragile area, but the authorities are emphatic that Tibet’s resources have to be used for economic advantage. Similarly, many experts have raised doubts about the engineering possibility of constructing such a project, considering the topographical and geological conditions of the rugged, high-altitude area. But China has proved its capability to overcome such difficulties with the construction of the rail track to Tibet and the gigantic Water Diversion Project to transfer 1.8 billion water annually to the Dehuofang reservoir across the Hun river through a 85.3-km tunnel in the equally formidable mountain ranges of North-East China.
China has every right to build dams in its part of the Brahmaputra and is not answerable to India since it is not bound by any treaty on water sharing with India. The joint declaration made in 2006 between the two enables only sharing hydrological data, which is not adequate to address our concerns.
True, we have been assured that these dams are meant only for power generation, but the disturbing fact is that China maintains a strategic silence on its river diversion plans. For example, in the past they were denying any plan for the Zangmu project in spite of satellite images showing activities in the project area. Only now they have confirmed it.
India has to be concerned about the Chinese projects because the reservoir operations could cause wide water-level fluctuations in the river downstream to upset the operations of the hydel schemes in Arunachal Pradesh. The experience of the co-basin states in the Mekong basin will be an eye-opener in this regard. The operations of the Chinese projects on the Mekong affected their agriculture, fisheries and tourism projects downstream and, when these governments protested, China denied the allegations.
Also, if the Chinese divert lean-season flows outside the basin for their projects, the schemes in Arunachal Pradesh would have to be shut down for want of minimum river flows, and if they release heavy discharges into a flooded Brahmaputra downstream, vast areas would be submerged in Arunachal Pradesh as was experienced in the year 2000. Unfortunately, at present there is no international law for trans-boundary rivers to control such unilateral actions.
India has also to remain prepared to face situations during possible conflicts since China always plans its infrastructure projects for dual use to meet the requirements of peace time and war as has been enunciated by Chairman Mao.
The moot question, therefore, is: Are we to remain satisfied with China’s assurances, or are we to take action to face such eventualities? Experience has taught us to remain prepared to deal with such situations. Hence, instead of remaining complacent with the Chinese assurances, let us get ready with plans to address these issues.
Indian experts had earlier identified and proposed a project with a large storage potential on the Siang (Brahmaputra) in Arunachal Pradesh which had adequate capacity to absorb the flood flows and also to even out water-level fluctuations caused by upstream projects. But the Indian government does not seem to be keen on this project, citing environmental objections.
Considering the strategic importance of the project, let us be ready with the project by implementing it expeditiously instead of waiting for the catastrophe to occur. Happenings in the Mekong basin and even our experience with floods in the past have already warned us. India cannot afford to ignore the likely threats from the liquid bombs ticking away in Tibet, having enough potential to become weapons of mass destruction.
source:The Tribune
The US gauntlet for India and China
Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA
This much is clear from US president Barack Obama’s state of the union speech delivered on November 25: India and China better watch out.
In his attempt to rejuvenate the US’s flailing economy, create jobs and improve morale, Obama has pointed out that the US needs to understand how the world has changed and move appropriately.
He said, “In a single generation, revolutions in technology have transformed the way we live, work and do business… Meanwhile, nations like China and India realised that with some changes of their own, they could compete in this new world. And so they started educating their children earlier and longer, with greater emphasis on math and science. They’re investing in research and new technologies”.
Obama’s answer to this is not just inspiring words about the greatness of America or its strength and resilience but a concerted effort to boost education and invest money in research and development. The goal is for this generation of Americans to have their “Sputnik” moment — as the Soviets did with the first space exploration. He did not fail to point out that America is already at the forefront of invention and innovation and just has to take it further. And, it must be said, faster than the rest of the world.
There is no doubt that America is still the most powerful nation in the world and has the biggest economy. But it is also true that new and potent threats are coming from the developed world. India and China, both have shaken the old powers systems with their growth and their demand for a share of the pie. The challenge for India and China is now to understand that the US has thrown down the gauntlet and work even harder to improve their positions.
Obama plans to use tax cuts to big companies to fund his education and research plans. If he manages to implement even some of his ideas, the results will be evident and the threat to the rest of the world’s emerging powers, very real. It is true that Obama is no longer in the dominant position that he used to be in and that the US economy is suffering. But having taken a page out of former president Bill Clinton’s book and concentrated on the economy, Obama has re-focused his government and the Republicans on the issues that can make a difference.
Whether he can or not is another matter, what is evident is that if he does it, India and China must be prepared.
Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA
This much is clear from US president Barack Obama’s state of the union speech delivered on November 25: India and China better watch out.
In his attempt to rejuvenate the US’s flailing economy, create jobs and improve morale, Obama has pointed out that the US needs to understand how the world has changed and move appropriately.
He said, “In a single generation, revolutions in technology have transformed the way we live, work and do business… Meanwhile, nations like China and India realised that with some changes of their own, they could compete in this new world. And so they started educating their children earlier and longer, with greater emphasis on math and science. They’re investing in research and new technologies”.
Obama’s answer to this is not just inspiring words about the greatness of America or its strength and resilience but a concerted effort to boost education and invest money in research and development. The goal is for this generation of Americans to have their “Sputnik” moment — as the Soviets did with the first space exploration. He did not fail to point out that America is already at the forefront of invention and innovation and just has to take it further. And, it must be said, faster than the rest of the world.
There is no doubt that America is still the most powerful nation in the world and has the biggest economy. But it is also true that new and potent threats are coming from the developed world. India and China, both have shaken the old powers systems with their growth and their demand for a share of the pie. The challenge for India and China is now to understand that the US has thrown down the gauntlet and work even harder to improve their positions.
Obama plans to use tax cuts to big companies to fund his education and research plans. If he manages to implement even some of his ideas, the results will be evident and the threat to the rest of the world’s emerging powers, very real. It is true that Obama is no longer in the dominant position that he used to be in and that the US economy is suffering. But having taken a page out of former president Bill Clinton’s book and concentrated on the economy, Obama has re-focused his government and the Republicans on the issues that can make a difference.
Whether he can or not is another matter, what is evident is that if he does it, India and China must be prepared.
Ignore pinpricks by Beijing
Ignore pinpricks by Beijing
The Pioneer[Friday, January 28, 2011 16:57]
by Sunanda K Datta-Ray
The real challenge lies in China undermining Indian industry, winning over our neighbours, obstructing us in global forums and thwarting our nuclear growth.
Thanks to our Indocentric focus, some speakers at Tuesday’s day-long discussion titled “Relevance of Tibet in the Emerging Regional Situation” seemed to miss the wood for the trees. Tibet’s sufferings deserve the world’s attention for their own sake. India’s security concerns are another matter, and arguing that China’s stranglehold of Tibet merits attention because it threatens India might do a disservice to both.
This line of reasoning is not very different from the American policy of ignoring the Dalai Lama until the US needs to cock a snook at the Chinese over trade, Taiwan, human rights or some other matter that bears on American national interest. That, in turn, is rooted in 19th century Britain’s practice of treating Tibet as sovereign only when it wanted to snub the Manchu Empire. China’s shadow loomed even over the seminar in Delhi’s India International Centre, possibly explaining the absence of some luminaries who had accepted the invitation from the Foundation for Non-violent Alternatives, the hosts, but may have had second thoughts about incurring Chinese displeasure. A speaker with an Intelligence background who castigated “pseudo-intellectuals” in the English-language media for placating China should have included the servile authors of coinages like ‘Chindia’.
The emphasis on Tibet’s Sino-Indian dimension was understandable since several of the panellists were military men and strategic thinkers for whom Tibet’s significance lies in being a wedge or link between India and China. Five of them figure in the volume, Threat from China, a compendium of articles from the Indian Defence Review. The other aspect of the Tibet situation — the plight of six million Tibetans who remain under Chinese control or the brave efforts of nearly 200,000 members of the diaspora to create a novel global entity for themselves — received nothing like the same detailed attention even though the conference room was packed with Tibetans, including members of the administration-in-exile in Dharamsala.
The information gap about conditions inside China’s borders was an obvious reason for the imbalance. Uncertainty about the exiled community’s organisational future at a time when the leadership question is being discussed in muted whispers may have been another factor. Also, a latter-day version of Kipling’s Great Game presents an exciting alternative to the discourse on Tibet by easily capturing the imagination. It may even have led some Tibetans into believing that they are paying a high price for rivalry between Asia’s two giants.
This concept distracts attention from both the worldwide non-military aspects of Sino-Indian competition and from the dynamics of the Sino-Tibetan situation which do not directly involve India. Every Han Chinese, no matter where he lives, believes in his bones that Tibet has always been China’s. Chinese Singaporeans are as convinced of this as the Taiwanese. I once asked a Taiwanese Minister if in a notional situation his Government would extend the ‘one country two systems’ concept to Tibet and the immediate answer was a blunt “No!” There was no need to, he added, because Tibet was already part of China.
Second, the main difference between Beijing and Lhasa over the analogy of Ladakh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim and Tawang as the five fingers of the Tibetan palm (which a Tibetan official mentioned) was over who the palm belonged to. Mao Tse-tung spoke of China’s Tibetan palm. But independent of this and long before the Communist takeover, the Dalai Lama’s Government cabled India in August 1947, asserting its claim to these territories.
Undoubtedly, China presents a clear and present challenge to India in spite of rhetoric about there being enough space for the two countries to grow together. But the militarisation of Tibet — of which retired Generals, former Ambassadors and strategists gave the meeting graphic details — is only one part of a much more comprehensive exercise. War games have changed since Kipling, and Indian strategists ought to concentrate on the more subtle economic and diplomatic ways of undermining India in the Asian leadership stakes that China has perfected.
Simplistic threat perceptions like viewing Tibet as a launching pad against India are not new. There was a time when our politicians cried themselves hoarse over a Washington-Islamabad-Beijing axis to throttle India. Then came fears of invasion by sea, which justified India’s own naval expansion. Now, the talk is of encirclement by China. Several speakers at the FNA programme dwelt on the communications system that is being developed in Tibet, especially unending miles of high quality roads right down to the borders of Nepal and Arunachal Pradesh, and on weapons systems that target India from Tibet.
Of course, China will use all its assets if hostilities break out again. The border garrison of Tibet, like the Great Wall of China and its watchtowers, is one such asset. But despite the stapled visas and propaganda about Tawang’s links with Drepung monastery, it is most unlikely that the Chinese will risk a nuclear conflagration by making a grab at Arunachal Pradesh.
Open confrontation has never been the Chinese style. They may say retrospectively they invaded India and Vietnam because both countries had to be taught a lesson, but the need for such instruction arises only when the adversary tries to resist insidious encroachment with overt force, as Jawaharlal Nehru’s forward policy did. It may be recalled that until they could present India with a fait accompli, Mao and Zhou Enlai tried to blame the previous Guomindang regime for cartographical aggression. The Aksai Chin road was a clandestine construction. So were China’s occupations of the Paracel Islands and Mischief Reef farther abroad. New Delhi might wake up one day, therefore, to find it has lost another chunk of territory as a result of the quiet changes the Chinese are making, according to one speaker, to the Line of Actual Control.
The real challenge lies in China undermining Indian manufacturing, winning over India’s neighbours, obstructing India in global forums and thwarting India’s nuclear growth. That calls for a multi-dimensional response. As several speakers recommended, a more positive attitude towards the Dalai Lama and his administration, and promoting the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, as a future leader, would send the message that India will not ever abandon Tibet or the Tibetans. Nothing is served by playing into China’s hands by becoming exercised over psychological pinpricks like stapled visas whose purpose is to keep this country in a state of nervous apprehension.
-- sunandadr@yahoo.co.in
The Pioneer[Friday, January 28, 2011 16:57]
by Sunanda K Datta-Ray
The real challenge lies in China undermining Indian industry, winning over our neighbours, obstructing us in global forums and thwarting our nuclear growth.
Thanks to our Indocentric focus, some speakers at Tuesday’s day-long discussion titled “Relevance of Tibet in the Emerging Regional Situation” seemed to miss the wood for the trees. Tibet’s sufferings deserve the world’s attention for their own sake. India’s security concerns are another matter, and arguing that China’s stranglehold of Tibet merits attention because it threatens India might do a disservice to both.
This line of reasoning is not very different from the American policy of ignoring the Dalai Lama until the US needs to cock a snook at the Chinese over trade, Taiwan, human rights or some other matter that bears on American national interest. That, in turn, is rooted in 19th century Britain’s practice of treating Tibet as sovereign only when it wanted to snub the Manchu Empire. China’s shadow loomed even over the seminar in Delhi’s India International Centre, possibly explaining the absence of some luminaries who had accepted the invitation from the Foundation for Non-violent Alternatives, the hosts, but may have had second thoughts about incurring Chinese displeasure. A speaker with an Intelligence background who castigated “pseudo-intellectuals” in the English-language media for placating China should have included the servile authors of coinages like ‘Chindia’.
The emphasis on Tibet’s Sino-Indian dimension was understandable since several of the panellists were military men and strategic thinkers for whom Tibet’s significance lies in being a wedge or link between India and China. Five of them figure in the volume, Threat from China, a compendium of articles from the Indian Defence Review. The other aspect of the Tibet situation — the plight of six million Tibetans who remain under Chinese control or the brave efforts of nearly 200,000 members of the diaspora to create a novel global entity for themselves — received nothing like the same detailed attention even though the conference room was packed with Tibetans, including members of the administration-in-exile in Dharamsala.
The information gap about conditions inside China’s borders was an obvious reason for the imbalance. Uncertainty about the exiled community’s organisational future at a time when the leadership question is being discussed in muted whispers may have been another factor. Also, a latter-day version of Kipling’s Great Game presents an exciting alternative to the discourse on Tibet by easily capturing the imagination. It may even have led some Tibetans into believing that they are paying a high price for rivalry between Asia’s two giants.
This concept distracts attention from both the worldwide non-military aspects of Sino-Indian competition and from the dynamics of the Sino-Tibetan situation which do not directly involve India. Every Han Chinese, no matter where he lives, believes in his bones that Tibet has always been China’s. Chinese Singaporeans are as convinced of this as the Taiwanese. I once asked a Taiwanese Minister if in a notional situation his Government would extend the ‘one country two systems’ concept to Tibet and the immediate answer was a blunt “No!” There was no need to, he added, because Tibet was already part of China.
Second, the main difference between Beijing and Lhasa over the analogy of Ladakh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim and Tawang as the five fingers of the Tibetan palm (which a Tibetan official mentioned) was over who the palm belonged to. Mao Tse-tung spoke of China’s Tibetan palm. But independent of this and long before the Communist takeover, the Dalai Lama’s Government cabled India in August 1947, asserting its claim to these territories.
Undoubtedly, China presents a clear and present challenge to India in spite of rhetoric about there being enough space for the two countries to grow together. But the militarisation of Tibet — of which retired Generals, former Ambassadors and strategists gave the meeting graphic details — is only one part of a much more comprehensive exercise. War games have changed since Kipling, and Indian strategists ought to concentrate on the more subtle economic and diplomatic ways of undermining India in the Asian leadership stakes that China has perfected.
Simplistic threat perceptions like viewing Tibet as a launching pad against India are not new. There was a time when our politicians cried themselves hoarse over a Washington-Islamabad-Beijing axis to throttle India. Then came fears of invasion by sea, which justified India’s own naval expansion. Now, the talk is of encirclement by China. Several speakers at the FNA programme dwelt on the communications system that is being developed in Tibet, especially unending miles of high quality roads right down to the borders of Nepal and Arunachal Pradesh, and on weapons systems that target India from Tibet.
Of course, China will use all its assets if hostilities break out again. The border garrison of Tibet, like the Great Wall of China and its watchtowers, is one such asset. But despite the stapled visas and propaganda about Tawang’s links with Drepung monastery, it is most unlikely that the Chinese will risk a nuclear conflagration by making a grab at Arunachal Pradesh.
Open confrontation has never been the Chinese style. They may say retrospectively they invaded India and Vietnam because both countries had to be taught a lesson, but the need for such instruction arises only when the adversary tries to resist insidious encroachment with overt force, as Jawaharlal Nehru’s forward policy did. It may be recalled that until they could present India with a fait accompli, Mao and Zhou Enlai tried to blame the previous Guomindang regime for cartographical aggression. The Aksai Chin road was a clandestine construction. So were China’s occupations of the Paracel Islands and Mischief Reef farther abroad. New Delhi might wake up one day, therefore, to find it has lost another chunk of territory as a result of the quiet changes the Chinese are making, according to one speaker, to the Line of Actual Control.
The real challenge lies in China undermining Indian manufacturing, winning over India’s neighbours, obstructing India in global forums and thwarting India’s nuclear growth. That calls for a multi-dimensional response. As several speakers recommended, a more positive attitude towards the Dalai Lama and his administration, and promoting the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, as a future leader, would send the message that India will not ever abandon Tibet or the Tibetans. Nothing is served by playing into China’s hands by becoming exercised over psychological pinpricks like stapled visas whose purpose is to keep this country in a state of nervous apprehension.
-- sunandadr@yahoo.co.in
Preservation of Indigenous Culture
The major ongoing schemes of Ministry of Culture to uplift and preserve various indigenous culture in the country including Assam and other North-Eastern States are given at Annexure. The assistance under the schemes is given to deserving persons and organizations from all over India, including North-Eastern States on the basis of scheme-specific criteria, without examining them from a State-wise angle.
Annexure
1. Scheme of Financial Assistance for Professional Groups and Individuals for Specified Performing Arts Projects. The Scheme has two parts:
a. Production Grants to be given for approved projects and programmes in these areas.
b. Salary Grants assistance for performing arts groups, to help them establish themselves in their field.
2. Scheme of Financial Assistance for Seminars, Festivals and Exhibitions on cultural subject by Not for Profit Organizations (Cultural Functions Grant Scheme).
3. Scheme for Building Grants to Cultural Organizations.
4. Financial Assistance for Preservation and Development of Cultural Heritage of Himalayas.
5. Financial Assistance for Promotion and Strengthening of Regional and Local Museums.
6. Financial Assistance for Development of Buddhist/Tibetan Culture and Art.
7. Grant in aid to Voluntary Organizations/ Societies for Development and Maintenance of National Memorials.
8. Financial Assistance for Celebration of Centenaries/Anniversaries of important Personalities.
9. Scheme for Scholarship to Young Artists in different Cultural Fields.
10. Scheme for Award of Fellowships to Outstanding persons in the field of Culture.
The major ongoing schemes of Ministry of Culture to uplift and preserve various indigenous culture in the country including Assam and other North-Eastern States are given at Annexure. The assistance under the schemes is given to deserving persons and organizations from all over India, including North-Eastern States on the basis of scheme-specific criteria, without examining them from a State-wise angle.
Annexure
1. Scheme of Financial Assistance for Professional Groups and Individuals for Specified Performing Arts Projects. The Scheme has two parts:
a. Production Grants to be given for approved projects and programmes in these areas.
b. Salary Grants assistance for performing arts groups, to help them establish themselves in their field.
2. Scheme of Financial Assistance for Seminars, Festivals and Exhibitions on cultural subject by Not for Profit Organizations (Cultural Functions Grant Scheme).
3. Scheme for Building Grants to Cultural Organizations.
4. Financial Assistance for Preservation and Development of Cultural Heritage of Himalayas.
5. Financial Assistance for Promotion and Strengthening of Regional and Local Museums.
6. Financial Assistance for Development of Buddhist/Tibetan Culture and Art.
7. Grant in aid to Voluntary Organizations/ Societies for Development and Maintenance of National Memorials.
8. Financial Assistance for Celebration of Centenaries/Anniversaries of important Personalities.
9. Scheme for Scholarship to Young Artists in different Cultural Fields.
10. Scheme for Award of Fellowships to Outstanding persons in the field of Culture.
Depression itself may be a cause of diabetes, says study
A paper published in Diabetes Technology and Therapeutics, 2010, from Chennai showed higher levels of depression among those newly detected with diabetes and those with impaired glucose tolerance, as against those who had normal blood sugar levels.
Authored by S. Poongothai of Madras Diabetes Research Foundation, as part of a series of articles she worked on for her Ph.D, the paper is significant in that the tests were done in the community and the depression noted before blood sugar tests were done.
Co-author V. Mohan, who heads Dr. Mohan's Diabetes Specialities Centre, says, “What this article flags off is the idea that depression itself may be a likely cause of diabetes.”
The subjects for the study were recruited from the Chennai Urban Rural Epidemiological Study. Of the total of over 23,000 persons tested, there were 1218 people with newly- detected Diabetes (NDD), 7,657 with impaired fasting glucose (IFG); and 14, 912 with normal fasting glucose (NFG).
While the overall prevalence of depression was 14.3 per cent, an increasing prevalence was seen with increasing grades of glucose tolerance: NFG (13.1 per cent), IFG (15.7 per cent) and NDD (19.7 per cent), being higher among women at all grades.
Depression can increase the risk of diabetes due to increased levels of counter-regulatory hormones, which can lead to obesity, insulin resistance and glucose intolerance, Dr. Poonothai says in the paper. “The lesson in this is that not only should we treat diabetics for depression, but that by treating depression, the person may actually be able to side-step diabetes,” Dr. Mohan explains.
His recommendation is also that everyone with depression must be screened for diabetes as well.source;Hindu
India-China trade surpasses target
source:the Hindu
Indian exports, mainly driven by cotton and iron ore to China amounted to USD 20.8 billion while Chinese exports to India totalled to USD 40.8 billion, virtually double that of Indi
Bilateral trade between India and China exceeded the two countries' $60 billion target last year, driven largely by rising Indian imports of Chinese machinery that have left a record trade imbalance of $20 billion in China's favour.
Figures released for last year showed that bilateral trade in 2010 reached $61.7 billion, with Chinese exports to India touching $40.8 billion.
This marked a 43 per cent jump in trade volume from last year, when the recession reduced two-way trade to $43 billion. In 2008, China became India's largest trade partner with $51.8 billion in bilateral trade.
Despite the growth, the figures underscore rising Indian concerns over the fast-widening trade deficit, with Indian exports, largely made up of iron ore, other raw materials and cotton, contributing a little over $20 billion — equalling the size of the deficit.
Indian officials have pressed China, most recently during Premier Wen Jiabao's December visit to New Delhi, to address the growing deficit by providing better market access for Indian pharmaceutical and Information Technology companies here which have struggled to penetrate the Chinese market.
Officials say the deficit is otherwise likely to widen even further in the coming year, with iron ore sales, which have driven Indian exports, expected to fall with the recent ban in Karnataka. India is China's third biggest supplier of iron ore, behind Brazil and Australia. But following the ban, Chinese importers have increasingly diversified their imports, seeking out new markets such as South Africa and Ukraine.
China, in contrast, exports finished goods to India, mainly machinery. Growing demand for Chinese telecom and power equipment has fuelled the growth in trade.
Indian officials say the one bright spot in the coming year could come from Indian pharmaceutical companies, with China set to accelerate a $2-billion reform in its healthcare sector in coming months. Officials from China's State Food and Drug Administration made a recent visit to India, with a delegation of Indian pharmaceutical companies scheduled to visit China in March.
China's Health Minister Chen Zhu said last year the country welcomed Indian pharmaceutical companies, known here for their cost- competitiveness, to help address the growing demands of the China market.
“We know India's pharmaceutical sector, including non-generic and creative medicine, is leading the developing world,” he said, adding that “China has a huge market potential for healthcare services and medicine. We more than welcome pharmaceutical companies from countries like India to China.”
India, Russia move closer on defence ties by Ilya Kramnik
From Admiral Gorshkov to T-50 and now the fifth-generation FGFA, India-Russia military-technical cooperation has reached a new high. In future Russia and India might align to fill orders from third-party nations through joint production and export
Russia and India have now signed an agreement on the preliminary design of the fifth-generation FGFA fighter for the Indian Air Force. The fighter will be based on the Russian T-50, which is currently undergoing flight tests.
The history of the FGFA spans more than a year -the preliminary agreement on its design was signed in 2008, when the Future Airborne Complex -Frontline Aviation (PAK-FA) programme entered the final phase of its development. At the time, the basic requirements for the Indian fighter, which slightly differed from the Russian version, were identified. These main differences were in crew capacity (the Indian Air Force prefers a two-man vehicle), equipment, and weapons (for obvious reasons, the Indian fighter will not exclusively use Russian combat systems).
It took almost 10 years for the Russian fighter to see its first flight. The plane currently being developed for India should get off the ground sooner because the bulk of its design has already been applied under the PAK-FA programme. If all goes well, the first FGFA flight could occur in the next five to six years, and mass production could start in 2018-19.
The development of the FGFA proceeds from a long history of military-technical cooperation between Russia and India that has persisted for nearly 50 years and gone through several phases of change and evolution.
A history of cooperation The first phase of Russian-Indian military-technical cooperation began in 1962, when the Soviet Union delivered readymade weapons to India during its conflict with neighbouring China. The second phase began in the late 1960s, when India undertook the licensed production of Soviet systems -aircraft, small arms, and a number of other weapons systems.
By 1980, 75 per cent of India's military needs were being met by arms deliveries from the USSR and the licensed production of Soviet weapons, and by the 1990s, the same percentage of Indian forces were still armed with Soviet weapons. Simultaneously, Indian industry reached a level that enabled it to develop its own weapons models. The Indian defence industry has since begun work on several independent projects, including ballistic and anti-aircraft missiles, warships, tanks and various aircraft.
However, experience has shown that India is not always capable of completing such projects under its own auspices,
which can lead to significant delays and inferior equipment as compared to systems in Russia and the West. The Akash anti-aircraft missile system is a prime example. The system was developed over almost 25 years -from 1984 to 2009 -but its military-technological level is approximately the same as the Buk anti-aircraft missile sys tem developed in the USSR in the early 1980s. The Indian tank project, Arjun, has also thus far been lackluster and took almost 30 years to be developed.
As a result, the Indian leadership has decided that joint development is the most promising form of military-technical cooperation because it enables India to develop its scientific and technical expertise while obtaining the results guaranteed by its partner’s more significant advancement.
The Air Force and the Navy — the backbone of cooperative partnership The role of Russian developers in creating new ships for the Indian Navy is considerable; these include destroyers, frigates, new generation Project ATV nuclear submarines, as well as a long-term project for an aircraft carrier. At the same, India continues to buy fully manufactured ships from Russia. The most important of these is the upgraded Vikramaditya aircraft carrier (formerly the Admiral Gorshkov).
Meanwhile, the construction of Project 11356 frigates for the Indian Navy continues. India intends to order three more ships
in addition to the three already built and the three currently under construction.
In spring 2011, India is also planning to lease a Project 971I Russian nuclear submarine. The Indian Navy will use it to train Indian crews for its own nuclear submarine programme.
In terms of the prospects for militarytechnical cooperation with India, it should be noted that Russia will likely continue to supply the bulk of aircraft and warships. As for the supply of ground vehicles, India is gradually reorienting towards its own industry along with other international suppliers.
For Russia, however, the aviation and shipbuilding markets are more than worth it -the Indian Air Force and Navy are among the strongest in the world and require large supplies of modern technology to maintain their current force and underwrite their future development. Moreover, it is possible that in the future Russia and India will align to fill orders from third-party nations through joint production and export.source;dailypioneer
(The writer is Moscow-based military affairs columnist.)
Russia and India have now signed an agreement on the preliminary design of the fifth-generation FGFA fighter for the Indian Air Force. The fighter will be based on the Russian T-50, which is currently undergoing flight tests.
The history of the FGFA spans more than a year -the preliminary agreement on its design was signed in 2008, when the Future Airborne Complex -Frontline Aviation (PAK-FA) programme entered the final phase of its development. At the time, the basic requirements for the Indian fighter, which slightly differed from the Russian version, were identified. These main differences were in crew capacity (the Indian Air Force prefers a two-man vehicle), equipment, and weapons (for obvious reasons, the Indian fighter will not exclusively use Russian combat systems).
It took almost 10 years for the Russian fighter to see its first flight. The plane currently being developed for India should get off the ground sooner because the bulk of its design has already been applied under the PAK-FA programme. If all goes well, the first FGFA flight could occur in the next five to six years, and mass production could start in 2018-19.
The development of the FGFA proceeds from a long history of military-technical cooperation between Russia and India that has persisted for nearly 50 years and gone through several phases of change and evolution.
A history of cooperation The first phase of Russian-Indian military-technical cooperation began in 1962, when the Soviet Union delivered readymade weapons to India during its conflict with neighbouring China. The second phase began in the late 1960s, when India undertook the licensed production of Soviet systems -aircraft, small arms, and a number of other weapons systems.
By 1980, 75 per cent of India's military needs were being met by arms deliveries from the USSR and the licensed production of Soviet weapons, and by the 1990s, the same percentage of Indian forces were still armed with Soviet weapons. Simultaneously, Indian industry reached a level that enabled it to develop its own weapons models. The Indian defence industry has since begun work on several independent projects, including ballistic and anti-aircraft missiles, warships, tanks and various aircraft.
However, experience has shown that India is not always capable of completing such projects under its own auspices,
which can lead to significant delays and inferior equipment as compared to systems in Russia and the West. The Akash anti-aircraft missile system is a prime example. The system was developed over almost 25 years -from 1984 to 2009 -but its military-technological level is approximately the same as the Buk anti-aircraft missile sys tem developed in the USSR in the early 1980s. The Indian tank project, Arjun, has also thus far been lackluster and took almost 30 years to be developed.
As a result, the Indian leadership has decided that joint development is the most promising form of military-technical cooperation because it enables India to develop its scientific and technical expertise while obtaining the results guaranteed by its partner’s more significant advancement.
The Air Force and the Navy — the backbone of cooperative partnership The role of Russian developers in creating new ships for the Indian Navy is considerable; these include destroyers, frigates, new generation Project ATV nuclear submarines, as well as a long-term project for an aircraft carrier. At the same, India continues to buy fully manufactured ships from Russia. The most important of these is the upgraded Vikramaditya aircraft carrier (formerly the Admiral Gorshkov).
Meanwhile, the construction of Project 11356 frigates for the Indian Navy continues. India intends to order three more ships
in addition to the three already built and the three currently under construction.
In spring 2011, India is also planning to lease a Project 971I Russian nuclear submarine. The Indian Navy will use it to train Indian crews for its own nuclear submarine programme.
In terms of the prospects for militarytechnical cooperation with India, it should be noted that Russia will likely continue to supply the bulk of aircraft and warships. As for the supply of ground vehicles, India is gradually reorienting towards its own industry along with other international suppliers.
For Russia, however, the aviation and shipbuilding markets are more than worth it -the Indian Air Force and Navy are among the strongest in the world and require large supplies of modern technology to maintain their current force and underwrite their future development. Moreover, it is possible that in the future Russia and India will align to fill orders from third-party nations through joint production and export.source;dailypioneer
(The writer is Moscow-based military affairs columnist.)
Don't underestimate Chinese party model
by Ajay Vaishnav, Jan 27, 2011, 12.00am IST
BJP chief Nitin Gadkari, who led the first-ever delegation of the saffron party to China, has rightly emphasised the need to learn and emulate the Communist Party of China's (CPC) cadre training modules. The immediate objective of the party is to build a modern headquarters in New Delhi with a dedicated training and research wing. As usual, the BJP president is being needlessly criticised for his suggestion to learn the tricks of cadre- and organisation-building from a party that shuns multiparty democracy.
To start with, implicit in Gadkari's statement is his long-term vision for the party's revival, which has suffered two successive electoral defeats at the hands of the Congress-led UPA in the general elections. Also, critics fail to appreciate the fundamental role of a political party in any regime whether parliamentary or communist. Political parties in all regimes depend upon a dedicated and skilled cadre to articulate and build public opinion about their manifesto and programmes. As such, parties spend a lot of time and resources in building and training their cadre. For a cadre-based party like the BJP with an eye on winning elections, it is imperative to look at successful examples like the CPC to rebuild and strengthen its grassroots organisation. In China's case, a state apparatus deriving its organisational strength from the CPC, any underestimation of the party's role would be a huge mistake.
It's untenable to delink Chinese successes in the economic arena and in the removal of poverty from the CPC. We cannot dispute the fact that the country has emerged as an economic powerhouse with dramatic success in poverty reduction. And in the Chinese model, party and government are close. A close look at what makes China tick also requires a closer examination of the Chinese party model.
by Ajay Vaishnav, Jan 27, 2011, 12.00am IST
BJP chief Nitin Gadkari, who led the first-ever delegation of the saffron party to China, has rightly emphasised the need to learn and emulate the Communist Party of China's (CPC) cadre training modules. The immediate objective of the party is to build a modern headquarters in New Delhi with a dedicated training and research wing. As usual, the BJP president is being needlessly criticised for his suggestion to learn the tricks of cadre- and organisation-building from a party that shuns multiparty democracy.
To start with, implicit in Gadkari's statement is his long-term vision for the party's revival, which has suffered two successive electoral defeats at the hands of the Congress-led UPA in the general elections. Also, critics fail to appreciate the fundamental role of a political party in any regime whether parliamentary or communist. Political parties in all regimes depend upon a dedicated and skilled cadre to articulate and build public opinion about their manifesto and programmes. As such, parties spend a lot of time and resources in building and training their cadre. For a cadre-based party like the BJP with an eye on winning elections, it is imperative to look at successful examples like the CPC to rebuild and strengthen its grassroots organisation. In China's case, a state apparatus deriving its organisational strength from the CPC, any underestimation of the party's role would be a huge mistake.
It's untenable to delink Chinese successes in the economic arena and in the removal of poverty from the CPC. We cannot dispute the fact that the country has emerged as an economic powerhouse with dramatic success in poverty reduction. And in the Chinese model, party and government are close. A close look at what makes China tick also requires a closer examination of the Chinese party model.
Four from Sikkim selected in India's Taekwondo team
Gangtok (PTI)
Four Taekwondo players of Sikkim Amateur Taekwondo Association have been selected to represent India at the Commonwealth Taekwondo Championship to be held in Chennai.
The four - Trilok Subba, Sabitri Pradhan, Ugen Gurung and Naksum Bhutia will participate in the tournament which is scheduled to begin on January 31, a SATA release said here today.
Gangtok (PTI)
Four Taekwondo players of Sikkim Amateur Taekwondo Association have been selected to represent India at the Commonwealth Taekwondo Championship to be held in Chennai.
The four - Trilok Subba, Sabitri Pradhan, Ugen Gurung and Naksum Bhutia will participate in the tournament which is scheduled to begin on January 31, a SATA release said here today.
The relationship between speed cameras and road deaths
TRAFFIC cameras are always controversial. Proponents maintain that an increase in their number results in fewer deaths on the roads. Opponents grumble that they are merely money spinners for local governments at the motorist’s expense. Drivers in Edmonton, Canada, will be refunded for speeding fines issued since November 2009 because of a technical glitch with a particular camera. In Britain, the government’s claims over improved safety were rebuffed by the British Medical Journal, and local councils have begun to turn off cameras. Research carried out recently in Australia by Queensland University points the other way, showing cameras do reduce accidents. The arguments will continue. Our chart shows that the effectiveness of traffic cameras is inconclusive, perhaps because many other factors contribute to road safety, such as population density, the condition of vehicles and roads, and other pedestrian-protection measures.
source:The Economist
TRAFFIC cameras are always controversial. Proponents maintain that an increase in their number results in fewer deaths on the roads. Opponents grumble that they are merely money spinners for local governments at the motorist’s expense. Drivers in Edmonton, Canada, will be refunded for speeding fines issued since November 2009 because of a technical glitch with a particular camera. In Britain, the government’s claims over improved safety were rebuffed by the British Medical Journal, and local councils have begun to turn off cameras. Research carried out recently in Australia by Queensland University points the other way, showing cameras do reduce accidents. The arguments will continue. Our chart shows that the effectiveness of traffic cameras is inconclusive, perhaps because many other factors contribute to road safety, such as population density, the condition of vehicles and roads, and other pedestrian-protection measures.
source:The Economist
Does the World Economic Forum represent the world?
THE World Economic Forum’s annual shindig begins on January 26th in the Swiss ski resort of Davos-Klosters. Now in its 30th year, the invitation-only event is a forum for around 2,000 delegates to discuss and even remedy the world’s ills, twice as many as came in 2001. The ostentatious location of the gathering is enough to earn it accusations of elitism, and indeed it has faced much criticism for appearing to act only in the interests of the rich world. But in recent years China and India have begun to take more seats at the proverbial table, advances that finally reflect their increasing economic prowess. The chart ascribes nationality according to place of work, so Switzerland's representation at the forum—disproportionate to its contribution to world GDP—owes much to the presence there of many non-governmental organisations.
source:The Economist
THE World Economic Forum’s annual shindig begins on January 26th in the Swiss ski resort of Davos-Klosters. Now in its 30th year, the invitation-only event is a forum for around 2,000 delegates to discuss and even remedy the world’s ills, twice as many as came in 2001. The ostentatious location of the gathering is enough to earn it accusations of elitism, and indeed it has faced much criticism for appearing to act only in the interests of the rich world. But in recent years China and India have begun to take more seats at the proverbial table, advances that finally reflect their increasing economic prowess. The chart ascribes nationality according to place of work, so Switzerland's representation at the forum—disproportionate to its contribution to world GDP—owes much to the presence there of many non-governmental organisations.
source:The Economist
The world's Muslim population is growing older
SIXTY per cent of the population of Muslim-majority countries is under 30 years old. But they are ageing, according to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. The percentage of 15-29 year-olds crept up from 28% in 1990 to 29% in 2000, but has since started to drop. The median age, which stood at 19 in 1990, will be 30 in 2030. And over the next two decades people above 60 will form the fastest-growing age group, rising from 7% to 12% of the population, as fertility rates fall and life expectancies rise
.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Long shadow of Hu’s visit reaches Delhi
By Sumit Ganguly
Chinese President Hu Jintao’s carefully scripted state visit to the United States has come to a close. Despite careful preparation on the part of the Obama administration little tangible progress has been made on the issues of greatest concern to itself. For example, Mr Hu made no commitment to change the value of China’s currency, to ensure greater access to his country’s burgeoning market, to address serious international and American concerns about the state of human rights and about tightening international sanctions on Iran. He did, however, without specifying a timeframe, claim that China had helped create as many as 14 million jobs across Asia thanks to its rapid economic growth. Simultaneously, he committed himself to buying as many as 200 Boeing aircraft for $19 billion as part of a larger $45 billion export deal with the US. Also, in the security realm, the joint communiqué did emphasise a shared concern about North Korea’s uranium enrichment.
It may be of more than passing interest in New Delhi that the Indo-US relationship was not the subject of any remarks on the part of US policymakers or even political commentators. Instead the entire focus of the visit was on how the United States and the People’s Republic of China would tackle a host of bilateral and global issues from America’s yawning trade gap to climate change. Bluntly put, despite that fact that the US President, Mr Barack Obama, referred to Indo-US relationship as one of the “defining partnerships of the 21st century” for the foreseeable future, it is the Sino-American relationship that will occupy centrestage in global affairs. Indeed such an argument can be made without necessarily buying into what the former US national security adviser, Mr Zbigniew Brzezinski, referred to as G2, a Sino-American condominium to help manage key global issues.
That said, there is no question that thanks to the costs of the financial crisis within the US, the continuing trade gap and the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the US must necessarily tread with care when dealing with an economically robust and increasingly militarily-able China. On the other hand, it is equally important to underscore that China has a vital interest in access to the American market, to address growing American concerns about intellectual property rights in China and to avoid military behaviour that could seriously endanger the security of American allies in East Asia.
What does this new, emergent Sino-American relationship mean for the traditional allies of the United States such as the states of western Europe, Japan and Australia? Also, what are the implications for its new friends, such as India? This attempt at some form of rapprochement in Sino-American relations does not necessarily signify that the US is about to abandon its traditional partnerships with western Europe, Japan and Australia. These relationships, though not as momentous as the emerging US-China nexus, will remain significant. Nevertheless, it is possible to argue that a tectonic shift is underway in global politics and the implications for India are significant. Though China is a very long way from becoming an equal of the United States, the first Sino-US summit in 13 years has made clear that it has emerged as the single most important player in global politics after the US. In this environment, India’s policymakers, face a demanding set of tasks. Categorically stated, unless India wishes to see itself consigned to playing the role of a regional power with only limited reach beyond the confines of South Asia it will have to move with both vigour and dispatch. To that end it will need to set aside internal policy bickering and focus single-mindedly on sustaining economic growth while reducing poverty. It will also need to devote much energy to dampening a range of domestic fires from Kashmir to its “red belt”. Finally, it will have to embark seriously on a long-term strategy of military modernisation to ensure a robust military capability to meet a range of contingencies. Most of these goals are entirely within its ken.
However, addressing these issues alone, without carefully thinking through, and working toward what role it aspires to play in the emergent global order, will not guarantee it success. To that end it needs to go beyond the rhetoric of national autonomy and enlightened self-interest.
These principles, though sound, do not constitute an adequate guide to the conduct of the foreign policy of an emergent power. Instead policymakers will need to give careful thought of how India might find a way to manoeuvre in a global arena where the co-dependence of two dominant states will cast a long shadow on a host of global issues.
As India’s leadership celebrates its 62nd year as an independent republic it may well be critical to think of where it hopes to find itself in the global order in the decade ahead.
By Sumit Ganguly
Chinese President Hu Jintao’s carefully scripted state visit to the United States has come to a close. Despite careful preparation on the part of the Obama administration little tangible progress has been made on the issues of greatest concern to itself. For example, Mr Hu made no commitment to change the value of China’s currency, to ensure greater access to his country’s burgeoning market, to address serious international and American concerns about the state of human rights and about tightening international sanctions on Iran. He did, however, without specifying a timeframe, claim that China had helped create as many as 14 million jobs across Asia thanks to its rapid economic growth. Simultaneously, he committed himself to buying as many as 200 Boeing aircraft for $19 billion as part of a larger $45 billion export deal with the US. Also, in the security realm, the joint communiqué did emphasise a shared concern about North Korea’s uranium enrichment.
It may be of more than passing interest in New Delhi that the Indo-US relationship was not the subject of any remarks on the part of US policymakers or even political commentators. Instead the entire focus of the visit was on how the United States and the People’s Republic of China would tackle a host of bilateral and global issues from America’s yawning trade gap to climate change. Bluntly put, despite that fact that the US President, Mr Barack Obama, referred to Indo-US relationship as one of the “defining partnerships of the 21st century” for the foreseeable future, it is the Sino-American relationship that will occupy centrestage in global affairs. Indeed such an argument can be made without necessarily buying into what the former US national security adviser, Mr Zbigniew Brzezinski, referred to as G2, a Sino-American condominium to help manage key global issues.
That said, there is no question that thanks to the costs of the financial crisis within the US, the continuing trade gap and the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the US must necessarily tread with care when dealing with an economically robust and increasingly militarily-able China. On the other hand, it is equally important to underscore that China has a vital interest in access to the American market, to address growing American concerns about intellectual property rights in China and to avoid military behaviour that could seriously endanger the security of American allies in East Asia.
What does this new, emergent Sino-American relationship mean for the traditional allies of the United States such as the states of western Europe, Japan and Australia? Also, what are the implications for its new friends, such as India? This attempt at some form of rapprochement in Sino-American relations does not necessarily signify that the US is about to abandon its traditional partnerships with western Europe, Japan and Australia. These relationships, though not as momentous as the emerging US-China nexus, will remain significant. Nevertheless, it is possible to argue that a tectonic shift is underway in global politics and the implications for India are significant. Though China is a very long way from becoming an equal of the United States, the first Sino-US summit in 13 years has made clear that it has emerged as the single most important player in global politics after the US. In this environment, India’s policymakers, face a demanding set of tasks. Categorically stated, unless India wishes to see itself consigned to playing the role of a regional power with only limited reach beyond the confines of South Asia it will have to move with both vigour and dispatch. To that end it will need to set aside internal policy bickering and focus single-mindedly on sustaining economic growth while reducing poverty. It will also need to devote much energy to dampening a range of domestic fires from Kashmir to its “red belt”. Finally, it will have to embark seriously on a long-term strategy of military modernisation to ensure a robust military capability to meet a range of contingencies. Most of these goals are entirely within its ken.
However, addressing these issues alone, without carefully thinking through, and working toward what role it aspires to play in the emergent global order, will not guarantee it success. To that end it needs to go beyond the rhetoric of national autonomy and enlightened self-interest.
These principles, though sound, do not constitute an adequate guide to the conduct of the foreign policy of an emergent power. Instead policymakers will need to give careful thought of how India might find a way to manoeuvre in a global arena where the co-dependence of two dominant states will cast a long shadow on a host of global issues.
As India’s leadership celebrates its 62nd year as an independent republic it may well be critical to think of where it hopes to find itself in the global order in the decade ahead.
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