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• India Digs In Its Heels as China Flexes Its Muscles
  By JIM YARDLEY Published: December 29, 2010 NEW DELHI — It has been the season of geopolitical hugs in India — with one noticeable exception. One after the other, the leaders of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council have descended on India, accompanied by delegations of business leaders, seeking closer ties with this rising South Asian giant. The Indian media, basking in the high-level attention, have nicknamed them the “P-5.” Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain got a warm reception last summer. Then President Obama wowed a skeptical Indian establishment during his November visit. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France signed nuclear deals in early December, while President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia departed last week with a fistful of defense contracts after winning praise for Moscow as a “special partner.” The exception to the cheery mood was the mid-December visit of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China. Mr. Wen did secure business deals, announce new trade goals and offer reassurances of friendly Chinese intentions. But the trip also underscored that many points of tension between the Asian giants — trade imbalances, their disputed border and the status of Kashmir — are growing worse. And the Indian foreign policy establishment, once reluctant to challenge China, is taking a harder line. [China confrontation]
• Rocket with Indian satellite explodes after launch
  By ASHOK SHARMA The Associated Press Saturday, December 25, 2010; 11:34 AM NEW DELHI -- A rocket carrying an Indian communication satellite exploded just after liftoff Saturday in the second launch failure for India's space agency this year. Television images showed the rocket exploding in smoke and fire just after it launched from the Sriharikota space center in Andhra Pradesh state. It was carrying a GSAT-5P communication satellite into orbit. The vehicle developed an error 47 seconds after liftoff and lost command, leading to a higher angle in the flight, said K. Radhakrishnan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization. [Satellite]
• 60-Year-Old Indian Rights Activist Jailed for Life
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: December 25, 2010 NEW DELHI (AP) — An Indian court has convicted a human rights activist of aiding communist rebels in eastern India and sentenced him to life in prison, his attorney said Saturday. Dr. Binayak Sen, a 60-year-old physician and outspoken government critic, has worked in tribal villages and repeatedly tried to rally people to fight for their rights, often invoking the ire of authorities. On Friday, Judge B.P. Verma found Sen and two others guilty of sedition and sentenced them to life, according to attorney Amit Banerjee. However, he acquitted the three of the charge of waging war against the state, which is punishable by death, Banerjee said. "I will appeal the verdict in a higher court next week," Banerjee told The Associated Press. Amnesty International said Sen's conviction violated international fair trial standards and would intimidate other human rights activists who provide a peaceful outlet for people's grievances. [Human rights] [Naxalites]
• WikiLeaks cables: India accused of systematic use of torture in Kashmir
  Beatings and electric shocks inflicted on hundreds of civilians detained in Kashmir, US diplomats in Delhi told by ICRC Share1791 Comments (289) Jason Burke in Delhi guardian.co.uk, Thursday 16 December 2010 21.30 GMT Article history Unrest in Kashmir, where a leaked cable said the Indian government 'condoned torture'. Photograph: Tauseef Mustafa/AFP/Getty Images US officials had evidence of widespread torture by Indian police and security forces and were secretly briefed by Red Cross staff about the systematic abuse of detainees in Kashmir, according to leaked diplomatic cables released tonight. The dispatches, obtained by website WikiLeaks, reveal that US diplomats in Delhi were briefed in 2005 by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) about the use of electrocution, beatings and sexual humiliation against hundreds of detainees. Other cables show that as recently as 2007 American diplomats were concerned about widespread human rights abuses by Indian security forces, who they said relied on torture for confessions. [Separatism] [Torture] [WikiLeaks]
• Trade to top Wen's India trip
  Source: Global Times [08:06 December 15 2010] Comments By Yu Miao and Liu Linlin Premier Wen Jiabao begins his three-day visit to India Wednesday, a trip that will revolve around the inking of multi-billion-dollar deals in several important sectors. On his first trip to India since 2005, Wen is accompanied by a 400-strong business delegation - China's largest ever to India - as deals worth over $20 billion are set to be signed, Asia Times reported. Among the big names in the delegation are the CEOs of Shanghai Electric, metals refiner SinoSteel and telecom companies ZTE and Huawei.
• Telecom Scandal Plunges India Into Political Crisis
  By JIM YARDLEY and HEATHER TIMMONS Published: December 13, 2010 NEW DELHI — Tycoons with friends in high places. Public tenders conducted by irregular rules. Tens of billions of dollars in potential losses for the national treasury. Allegations of government ministers on the take, and of a respected prime minister too aloof to notice. Opponents have called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to create a parliamentary commission to investigate the telecommunications scandal. Those are some of the ingredients of a telecommunications scandal that is growing into India’s equivalent of Teapot Dome. It has produced almost daily revelations about bribery, abuse of power, and privatization of public wealth that paralyzed Parliament for more than three weeks before its winter session ended Monday and have plunged the governing Congress Party into its worst political crisis in years. [Corruption]
• Tata’s Nano, the Car That Few Want to Buy
  By VIKAS BAJAJ Published: December 9, 2010 MUMBAI, India — When it was introduced in early 2009, the egg-shaped Tata Nano was billed as a modern-day people’s car, an ultracheap vehicle that would bring greater mobility to the masses of India and, eventually, the world. But those ambitions have stalled — for now, at least. Though car sales have shot up across India, because of an economy that is growing at nearly 9 percent annually, sales of the Nano have been falling for the last four months. Its maker, Tata Motors, sold only 509 Nanos to its dealers in November — a stark contrast to the 9,000 it delivered in July. Last year, when media coverage and auto writers’ praise were stoking demand, Tata had orders for more than 200,000 Nanos, which has a list price starting at about $2,900. But as Tata has struggled with problems like production delays and fires in some of the cars, rival cars like the Maruti Suzuki Alto have overtaken the Nano. The Alto, which starts at $6,200 here, had sales of more than 30,000 in November, making it India’s best-selling car last month.

• Heat, laws, and tea confuse Chinese managers in India
  Source: Global Times [08:33 November 22 2010] Comments By Stacey Chen Before I became an interpreter for a Chinese company in India, I had no idea of the dramatic differences between work culture in the two countries. This can be a big headache for Chinese businessmen who don't familiarize themselves with local customs. Recently, I accompanied a subcontractor from a Chinese construction company in India to the work site. By the end of the day, he gave out a cash bonus to a local laborer who had worked especially hard. This is a common measure in China, and more laborers would work harder the next day in order to get the bonus. However, to the subcontractor's surprise, the bonus he offered caused indignation among other Indian workers, because they felt they were being treated unfairly. The subcontractor was forced to give the bonus to all the other workers that day. However, the next day, he had to give that same bonus to every worker, whatever their performance was like. Otherwise, they all threatened to strike. Maybe they were just exploiting an opportunity to bully a boss out of his depth, but there were also fundamental differences in play. In China, many businessmen prioritize efficiency, and use carrot-and-stick measures to encourage it. However, in India, workers care more about equality, which is ensured through fixed mechanisms. As the subcontractor later found out, the only solution is to inform workers of the standards and methods of performance evaluation in advance. Otherwise, they wouldn't work extra time even if a double bonus will be offered [China India comparison]
• Unlikely Person at the Heart of India’s Scandal
  By LYDIA POLGREEN Published: November 21, 2010 NEW DELHI — He was a small-town lawyer from a regional political party in a southern Indian state. By almost any measure, Andimuthu Raja, who had no background in telecommunications or in business, seemed an unlikely candidate to be the government minister presiding over the fastest-growing cellphone market in the world. But he had the only qualification that mattered: the ironclad backing of the political chieftain of his party, a crucial ally of the governing Congress Party. Without his party’s 16 members of the lower house of Parliament, the government cobbled together from squabbling allies would collapse. Mr. Raja is now at the center of what may turn out to be the biggest political corruption scandal in Indian history. He is accused of using his post to sell off valuable mobile telephone spectrum licenses in 2008 at rock-bottom prices. His decisions may have cost the Indian treasury as much as $40 billion, according to a government investigative report released last week. The widening scandal, coming on the heels of two major political scandals involving senior Congress Party officials, has eroded faith in India’s government. Last week, India’s prime minister, Manmohan Singh, widely regarded as a figure of unimpeachable integrity, was rapped by the Supreme Court for failing to investigate quickly. The scandal also threatens to undermine one of the cornerstones of India’s rapidly growing, technology-driven economy. The story of how Mr. Raja rose from small-time regional politician to telecommunications minister is emblematic of how politics in India, the world’s largest democracy, really work. Small, regional parties, often formed along family or caste lines, hold outsize sway here, taking command of crucial and potentially lucrative parts of the government to fill their pockets and party coffers. [Corruption]
• Pakistan and the Naxalite Movement in India
  November 18, 2010 | 0857 GMT By Ben West Indian Maoist militants, known as Naxalites, have been meeting with members of the outlawed Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), according to the director-general of police for India’s Chhattisgarh state. [Separatism]
• India’s Microcredit Sector Faces Collapse From Defaults
  By LYDIA POLGREEN and VIKAS BAJAJ MADOOR, India — India’s rapidly growing private microcredit industry faces imminent collapse as almost all borrowers in one of India’s largest states have stopped repaying their loans, egged on by politicians who accuse the industry of earning outsize profits on the backs of the poor. The crisis has been building for weeks, but has now reached a critical stage. Indian banks, which put up about 80 percent of the money that the companies lent to poor consumers, are increasingly worried that after surviving the global financial crisis mostly unscathed, they could now face serious losses. Indian banks have about $4 billion tied up in the industry, banking officials say. [Finance]
• India and China meet to resolve differences
  By James Lamont in New Delhi and Geoff Dyer in Beijing Published: October 29 2010 16:13 | Last updated: October 29 2010 16:13 Manmohan Singh, India’s prime minister, has raised "difficult questions" over border disputes and trade imbalances with his Chinese counterpart on the sidelines of the Association of East Asian Nations summit in Hanoi. In a sign of greater stridency towards neighbouring China, Mr Singh aired his concerns with Wen Jiabao over a hefty trade surplus in China's favour and the sovereignty of India’s Himalayan region. He appealed to the Chinese leader for both sides to show more sensitivity to each other’s “core issues” while inviting him to Delhi at a time of feverish misgivings among senior politicians and India's security community about China's role in south Asia [China confrontation]

• Obama: Blowing It on India?
  By Saif Shahin, October 22, 2010 President Barack Obama’s upcoming visit to India will come just after the mid-term elections in the United States. Whether this timing is coincidental or deliberate, it will decide where Obama stands on several contentious issues between the two countries. One of these issues is the outsourcing of U.S. jobs to India. Obama has been waging a long-running battle against offshoring in general, and to India in particular. Last year, he urged U.S. companies to “say no to Bangalore, yes to Buffalo.” Two months ago, he signed into law a steep hike in the fees of some visa categories preferred by professionals working for Indian companies where information technology (IT) jobs are outsourced. The extra money will go into building a better border fence with Mexico. [Offshoring] [US India]
• I Pity The Nation That Needs To Jail Those Who Ask For Justice
  By Arundhati Roy
  Source: Times of India Wednesday, October 27, 2010 For her talk on Kashmir (videos to the right), writer Arundhati Roy has come under the threat of “sedition” charges in India. These speeches are currently being analyzed by Delhi police. Her response to the threat is below and was issued from Srinagar: [Democracy] [Separatism]
• India–Israel Relations Strategic Interests, Politics and Diplomatic Pragmatism
  
• Sovereignty and separatism in China and India: The myth of difference
  October 20th, 2010 Author: Dibyesh Anand, University of Westminster When it comes to dealing with dissent within the country, the contrast between the two rising powers in Asia — China and India — is distinct. The Chinese government believes in total co-option or complete marginalisation of intellectuals; the foreign ministry’s strong response to the Nobel Peace Prize for Liu Xiaobo is an interesting case study in this regard. In contrast, the response of the Indian government to international recognition of critics — such as Binayak Sen of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, known for his campaigns against state-sponsored armed vigilantes in Naxal-affected Chhattisgarh in central India — is usually muted. An active civil society, competing media sources, multi-party electoral system, and effective judiciary — all with their own flaws, no doubt — cannot ensure an accountable government in India, but it does mean that dissenting voices aren’t suppressed as easily. This different attitude toward intolerance of dissent is to be expected as India is a multiparty democracy and China is a Party state (where no redressal mechanisms exist against the ruling party).
  But it would be misleading to buy fully into a democratic India versus authoritarian China narrative and assume that more plurality, openness and fairness flows automatically out of the former. [Separatism] [China India comparison] [Manipulation]
• India eyes $11bn US fighter jets
  ByLionel Barber and James Lamont in New Delhi Published: October 24 2010 21:22 | Last updated: October 24 2010 21:22 A carrier-based F-18 Hornet. A decision could be made in favour of US weaponry as India rebuilds its aerial strike force India will turn increasingly to US defence products to secure its borders and wider interests, top Indian officials have said ahead of a visit by Barack Obama, US president, next month. The desire for a closer defence partnership comes as New Delhi considers an $11bn deal to buy 126 multi-role combat fighter jets to rearm India’s out-of-date air force and boost defence capabilities against Pakistan and China. [Arms sales] [China confrontation]
• Kashmir a Himalayan test of US diplomacy
  By Amy Kazmin Published: October 24 2010 19:07 | Last updated: October 24 2010 19:07 Barack Obama raised hackles in New Delhi two years ago when, still a presidential candidate, he talked of the need to resolve the dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir as part of a wider effort to stabilise South Asia. India reinforced its message with scathing treatment of David Miliband, then UK foreign secretary, who suggested Kashmiri discontent fuelled Islamist terror. Mr Obama has kept mum ever since. .But on his first presidential visit to India next month, Mr Obama must find a way to return to the issue in what will be a test of the deepening Indo-American friendship. [Separatism] [US global policy] [Client] [Double standards]
• Russian, Indian troops complete military exercises in Himalayas
  12:03 23/10/2010© RIA Novosti. Evgeniy BezekaRelated News Russian and Indian troops completed a drill to kill a fictional terrorist leader in the Indian Himalayas as part of the Indra-2010 joint military exercises, which finished on Saturday. "The experience we gained from the exercises is useful. We learned a lot from our Russian colleagues," Commander of the Indian contingent Brigadier-General Gopal said. The commander of the Russian contingent, Major-General Vladimir Glinin said he was satisfied with the results of the military exercises. The INDRA-2010 exercises were launched on October 16 at Chaubattia, in Uttarakhand, a mountainous area near India's border with China and Nepal. Russia sent more than 200 troops from its 34th mountain brigade, based in the North Caucasus, to join the Indian troops in the drills. The Indian and Russian military have conducted joint INDRA exercises since 2003, including biannual peacekeeping drills. India's military cooperation with Russia goes back nearly half a century, and the Asian country accounts for about 40 percent of Russian arms exports. [Separatism] [Global insurgency]
• Stalled US-India ties require 'bold leap forward': Experts
  2010-10-21 11:50:00 Ahead of US President Barack Obama's visit to India in the first week of November, a new report has acknowledged fears of many prominent Indians and Americans that a rapid expansion of the US-India relationship has "stalled" and has recommended a "bold leap forward." "Past projects remain incomplete, few new ideas have been embraced by both sides, and the forward momentum that characterized recent cooperation has subsided," says the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) in its report "Natural Allies: A Blueprint for the Future of US-India Relations." The report, whose authors include R Nicholas Burns, a former undersecretary who played a key role in shepherding the US-India civilian nuclear deal during the George W. Bush administration, is critical of legislation recently passed by the Indian Parliament that holds suppliers liable in the event of a nuclear accident. [US India] [Client] [Nuclear deal]
• Scout in Mumbai attacks was DEA informant while in terror camp, authorities say
  By Sebastian Rotella ProPublica Sunday, October 17, 2010; 12:31 AM Federal officials acknowledged Saturday that David Coleman Headley, the U.S. businessman who confessed to being a terrorist scout in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, was working as a Drug Enforcement Administration informant while training with terrorists in Pakistan. Federal officials, who spoke only on background because of the sensitivity of the Headley case, also said they suspect a link between Headley and the al-Qaeda figures whose activities have sparked recent terror threats against Europe. The revelations came after a report Friday by ProPublica and The Washington Post that the FBI had been warned about Headley's terrorist ties three years before the Mumbai attacks. Headley was arrested 11 months after those attacks. [Terrorism]
• India Adds Economic Power to UN Bloc Skeptical Over U.S. Pressure on Iran
  By Bill Varner - Oct 12, 2010 5:01 PM GMT+1300 India will be elected today to the United Nations Security Council for the first time in 20 years, joining Brazil and South Africa in a bloc of emerging economic powers that may resist U.S. pressure on Iran. India and South Africa are unopposed candidates for Security Council seats designated for Asian and African nations. Along with Brazil, which was elected to the Security Council last year, they formed a coalition in 2003 to act as a voice for developing nations. [US India] [Iran] [Client]
• Indian Farmers Fight Billionaire Mittal, Posco for Water Rights
  October 04, 2010, 4:07 PM EDT By Abhishek Shanker Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) -- ArcelorMittal and Posco are leading $80 billion in planned spending in India that would vault the country ahead of Japan as the second-biggest steelmaker. Standing in the way are farmers and their water supply. The farmers refuse to move from irrigated land in three states that hold more than half of India’s reserves of iron ore, a key material to make steel. That’s stymied Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s ambitions to more than triple India’s steel capacity to 232 million metric tons. “We’re not going to allow the government to take the land and water and give them to Posco,” said Prasanth Paikare, a spokesman for opposition group Posco Prathirodh Sangram Samiti that says it represents 25,000 farmers. “The government has promised us land at a new location but there is no good land available in the state now and there won’t be enough water for agriculture,” he said in Bhubaneswar, the capital of Orissa state. The farmers’ concern about water for crops has delayed plans by ArcelorMittal, Posco and at least five rivals to benefit from a steel market that has expanded more than 55 percent since 2005 as Indian imports of the metal tripled in the same period. Posco’s proposal to build a $12 billion steel plant in Orissa has stalled for five years as the South Korean company failed to persuade farmers to move.
• Delhi 2010: Where did it all go wrong?
  Satbir Singh, 6 October 2010 With the Commonwealth Games underway, Satbir Singh traces the psychology underpinning India's celebration of and embarrassment at the event. With athletes and delegates pouring into the capital, the Games Village has been deemed ‘uninhabitable’, an entirely avoidable epidemic of dengue fever has swept over the city, two gunmen have opened fire on a tourist bus and a giant footbridge leading to the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium has collapsed, injuring 28 workers. Nobody, it seems, could have predicted the number of dominoes which would fall these last couple of days. And yet – none of it feels terribly surprising. For the last six months or so, watching the preparations for the games unfold has felt a bit like watching a train crashing in slow motion. Glaring signs of impending failure are visible it seems to all but the organising committee.
  Let me say this first: India should never have bid for the games in the first place. In a country where 44% of children are malnourished, 40% of adults are illiterate and maternal mortality is higher than in East Timor, I can think of better ways to spend our scarce fiscal resources than parading around for a fortnight with the world’s athletes. I am not alone in this opinion – I can’t count the number of journalists and politicians, autowallahs and bricklayers who have told me quite candidly that the whole affair is a bit of a farce.
  But where did it all go wrong? There is naturally no single answer. Instead there is a string of failures and maladies which represent far deeper problems, present at the very heart of the Indian psyche. Ours is the politics of self-esteem. Our day-to-day relations with one another are built on an endless cycle of competition and self-assertion, to be expected in such a stratified, inegalitarian society. When one has been denied the minimum basis for social self-respect, by the British, by men, by the upper castes or classes, one lives in a constant search for self-acknowledgement, and this manifests itself in our obsession with status. This theme runs deeper still in our foreign relations, where our history is one of repeated conquest and repression. In this century, we are fearfully aware of how far we lag behind comparable nations, especially China.
  “The Games were never about sports,” writes MJ Akbar, editor of India’s Sunday Guardian. “They were a fortuitous opportunity for Delhi’s ruling class to divert a vast fortune from the national exchequer in the name of ‘national prestige’ and spend it on just those few parts of India’s capital where the elite live.” If that’s what we were going for, we could have just built the roads without the Games and saved ourselves the humiliation of being delivered ultimatums by Wales and New Zealand. [China India comparison]
• India, China lead robust Asian recovery: IMF
  WASHINGTON: Asia's emerging economies, powered by China and India , are leading the global recovery after faring well during crisis, but need to allow currency appreciation and undergo structural reforms to ensure long-term growth, the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday. The IMF's World Economic Outlook said developing Asia is projected to grow by about 9.4 percent in 2010 and 8.4 percent in 2011. IMF projections for those countries in July were 9.2 percent this year and 8.5 percent in 2011.

• Hopes Fade for Success of Commonwealth Games in India
  NEW DELHI — Skepticism about India’s preparedness for the Commonwealth Games deepened Tuesday after a partly constructed footbridge collapsed outside the main arena for competition, injuring dozens. Security guards at the stadium on Tuesday. The police said that 27 people were injured, 4 seriously. Athletes are scheduled to start arriving Thursday. The collapse coincided with angry words from visiting officials who described the accommodations for athletes as uninhabitable. One visitor, the head of the New Zealand delegation, even raised the possibility that the games might be delayed or canceled. India’s failure to complete the work for the games, which are to begin Oct. 3 and last for two weeks, has become a major embarrassment for the country instead of a showcase for its rising economic might. The unspoken comparison to India’s rival China, which won widespread acclaim from its preparations for the 2008 Summer Olympics, are a further source of humiliation.
• India Struggles to End Kashmir Unrest
  By JIM YARDLEY September 21, 2010 SRINAGAR, Kashmir — The Indian members of Parliament left their shoes on the floor beneath a wall covered in photographs of slain Kashmiris. The five men sat cross-legged on the floor of the headquarters of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, staring into a scrum of television cameras as they delivered a carefully scripted message of reconciliation. “We have come to get your counsel,” said Ram Vilas Paswan, a member of Parliament, turning to the leader of the Liberation Front, a former guerrilla fighter named Yasim Malik. “What is the way out? What is the way to stop the bloodshed?” For more than 100 days, in which Indian security officers have killed more than 100 Kashmiri civilians, the Indian government has seemed paralyzed, or even indifferent, as this disputed Himalayan region has plunged into one of the gravest crises of its tortured history. [Separatism]
• Gunmen Fire at Tourist Bus in Delhi, Wounding 2
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: September 19, 2010 NEW DELHI (AP) -- Two gunmen on a motorcycle shot and injured two Taiwanese tourists Sunday near one of India's biggest mosques, police said. The gunmen randomly opened fire near the Jama Masjid, hitting the tourists as they were about to board a bus parked near the mosque, police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said. The 17th century mosque is a popular tourist destination in the heart of the city.
• As India overhauls homeland security, U.S. firms vie for its business
  By Rama Lakshmi Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, September 18, 2010; 8:16 PM NEW DELHI - At a sprawling exhibition hall in the capital, Indian military officers browsed displays of modern surveillance systems, sophisticated mine detectors, anti-hacking software and guns. They asked questions, took notes and scheduled meetings with company officials, setting in motion a major shopping spree. In recent years, India has secured billion-dollar defense deals with U.S. companies to modernize its military. Now the country is overhauling its homeland security, and U.S. companies are again hoping to be first in line. "As far as internal security goes, its strengthening and augmentation, there is going to be no dearth of money or resources," Ajay Maken, India's deputy home minister, said at the security conference this month. After the terrorist attacks in Mumbai two years ago, authorities demanded better weapons and more sophisticated technology for police forces. Today, surveillance cameras, metal detectors, X-ray machines and bomb squads proliferate in airports, the Metro, malls, multiplexes and high-rises. But analysts say the country's arsenal of domestic security weapons remains woefully inadequate in the battle against terrorism, separatist violence and Maoist guerrillas. To upgrade its arsenal, India should turn to a "country which is strategically a friend of India," Maken said. [Arms sales] [Pacification] [Nuclear deal]
• U.S. Koran Tensions Erupt in Kashmir
  By JIM YARDLEY and HARI KUMAR Published: September 13, 2010 Recommend NEW DELHI — Kashmir erupted on Monday in the worst violence since separatist protests began sweeping through the disputed Himalayan region three months ago, with the authorities partly blaming reports of Koran desecration in the United States for the inflamed tensions. The bloodshed, which came as Indian leaders were searching for a way out of the Kashmir crisis, left at least 14 civilians and two security officers dead and at least 60 people injured in clashes, the authorities said. In one town, Tangmarg, the authorities said officers opened fire after protesters set a school and other government buildings ablaze. Kashmir has had almost daily Muslim demonstrations since June, with angry crowds defying strict government curfews to throw stones or voice their anger [Tribute] [Separatism] [Islam] [Global insurgency]
• India-Japan Ties Poised for Advance as Both Nations Eye China
  Rajeev Sharma India and Japan are poised for a rapid advance in their bilateral relations with rich economic and strategic overtones. Straws in the wind suggest that India-Japan ties could reach a historic high by the year’s end, well before Tokyo and New Delhi celebrate 60 years of their diplomatic relations. Though Japan and India have been in touch with each other for the last 1500 years, modern diplomatic relations were established on April 28, 1952. [China confrontation]
• Engagement with India gathers momentum
  Private talks on a national New Zealand strategy for India are shifting into the public arena. The news mirrors discussions in past months around the need for New Zealand to develop a national strategy for China. At the recent Business Leaders’ India Forum in Auckland, Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade John Allen told delegates of New Zealand’s plans for engaging with the huge Indian market.
• India Passes Nuclear Deal
  By JIM YARDLEY Published: August 30, 2010 NEW DELHI — India’s Parliament approved a final, critical piece of a long-delayed landmark civil nuclear agreement on Monday, a pact regarded as a cornerstone of a Bush-era effort to transform the relationship between the United States and the world’s largest democracy. But even as supporters praised a historic victory, the end result is probably not what the United States had hoped for, nor does it seem likely to signal a new era in relations between the United States and India. Indeed, some analysts say the compromises needed to move Monday’s legislation through India’s contentious Parliament could undermine the practical impact of a political, diplomatic and economic accord that took years to negotiate. [Nuclear deal] [Proliferation] [Double standards]

• What's Next for India's Tech Entrepreneurs
  The success of outsourcing companies such as Infosys has helped young Indians who hope to launch startups, writes columnist Rob Salkowitz By Rob Salkowitz Suhas Gopinath is in demand these days. He takes time from his schedule as chief executive officer of the Bangalore-based IT services firm Globals, which he founded in 2000, to speak several days a week at youth entrepreneur events, business schools, and industry conferences. He was in Davos in February for the World Economic Forum and was one of the organizers of the Young Business Leaders conference held in May in Tanzania. After 10 years at the helm of his company, he's looking ahead to new challenges and new ventures. [Offshoring]
• India’s unwise military moves
  Source: Global Times [00:09 June 11 2009] Comments In the last few days, India has dispatched roughly 60,000 troops to its border with China, the scene of enduring territorial disputes between the two countries. J.J. Singh, the Indian governor of the controversial area, said the move was intended to “meet future security challenges” from China. Meanwhile, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh claimed, despite cooperative India-China relations, his government would make no concessions to China on territorial disputes. The tough posture Singh’s new government has taken may win some applause among India’s domestic nationalists. But it is dangerous if it is based on a false anticipation that China will cave in.
  India has long held contradictory views on China. Another big Asian country, India is frustrated that China’s rise has captured much of the world’s attention. Proud of its “advanced political system,” India feels superior to China. However, it faces a disappointing domestic situation which is unstable compared with China’s. India likes to brag about its sustainable development, but worries that it is being left behind by China. China is seen in India as both a potential threat and a competitor to surpass. But India can’t actually compete with China in a number of areas, like international influence, overall national power and economic scale. India apparently has not yet realized this. Indian politicians these days seem to think their country would be doing China a huge favor simply by not joining the “ring around China” established by the US and Japan. India’s growing power would have a significant impact on the balance of this equation, which has led India to think that fear and gratitude for its restraint will cause China to defer to it on territorial disputes. But this is wishful thinking, as China won’t make any compromises in its border disputes with India. And while China wishes to coexist peacefully with India, this desire isn’t born out of fear. [China confrontation] [China competition]
• India Criticizes New U.S. Outsourcing Fee
  Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on August 10, 2010 In the latest battle over outsourcing, the Indian government has fired back at the U.S. Last week, U.S. senators unanimously passed a proposal to nearly double the fees on work visas for Indian IT companies sending workers to the U.S. Indian Trade Minister Anand Sharma has called the move “highly discriminatory” in a letter to his counterpart, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk. As Bloomberg News reports, Sharma writes that “it is inexplicable to our companies to bear the cost of such a highly discriminatory law.” [Offshoring]

• A Closer Look at India's Naxalite Threat
  July 8, 2010 | 0856 GMT By Fred Burton and Ben West On July 6, the Indian government issued a warning to railroad operators and users after Maoist rebels — known as Naxalites — declared a “bandh,” a Hindi word meaning stoppage of work, in eastern India. When a bandh is declared by the Naxalites, it carries with it an implied threat of violence to enforce the work stoppage, in this case against the public transportation system over a two-day period. It is widely understood that trains and buses in eastern India during this time would be subject to Naxalite attack if they do not obey the call for a shutdown. [Naxalites]
• Top Maoist killed in A.P.
  S. Harpal SIngh K. Srinivas Reddy The Andhra Pradesh police on Friday said it had shot dead top naxalite Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad, along with an unidentified cohort, in an exchange of fire in Adilabad district, close to the State's border with Maharashtra. The death of Azad, a member and spokesman of the Central Committee of the CPI (Maoist) and a member of the Polit Bureau, has dealt a big blow to the Maoist movement in India. He was an ideologue who had specialised in field-craft as well. [Naxalites]

• Legitimising violence: India's red scare
  Gautam Das, 17 June 2010 Subjects:Conflict Democracy and government India Naxalite insurgency in India India's exaltation of progress has led it to disregard violence perpetrated against its own people, argues Gautam Das About the author Gautam Das is a post-graduate student at EFL University, HyderbadA few weeks back, the home ministry of the government of India issued a press release that threatened individuals and groups who were found to “provide support” to the Maoist ideology with imprisonment of up to ten years. Tehelka carried a report about an Intelligence Bureau communiqué which listed organisations, several of them human and civil rights-groups, as being under watch. There have been protests from many quarters that this impinges on the fundamental right to expression. While this is undoubtedly true, a look at some justifications of the home ministry’s statement reveals that it is not a threat just to the freedom of expression. The state’s attempt at intimidation is in keeping with how its narrative on the Naxalite ‘menace’ is developing. [Naxalites]
• Why Bollywood's film about Hitler is profoundly misguided
  Indian directors have as much right to make movies about Hitler as anyone else, but a forthcoming film about the Nazi dictator's 'love' for the country displays a shocking ignorance of history (206)Tweet this (52)Comments (282) No dear friend of India ... Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Photograph: Bob Thomas/Popperfoto/Getty A first-time Indian director, Rakesh Ranjan Kumar, has announced that he will make a movie about Adolf Hitler. Dear Friend Hitler stars Indian actors Anupam Kher and Neha Dhupia as Hitler and Eva Braun, and will focus on what the director claims was "Hitler's love for India and how he indirectly contributed to Indian independence".
• India recognizes degrees of all Taiwan universities
  2010/06/08 20:14:22 New Delhi, June 8 (CNA) India has officially recognized the degrees issued by Taiwan's 167 universities and colleges, said Taiwan's representative to India
  India's 497 universities and colleges enrolled about 3 million students annually, and about 500,000 of their graduates pursued higher education in the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and other countries. [Services] [Education]
• India’s Young and Poor Rally to Another Gandhi
  Keith Bedford for The New York Times A poster of Rahul Gandhi at a rally in Ahraura, India. By JIM YARDLEY Published: June 4, 2010 AHRAURA, India — Rahul Gandhi’s helicopter descends out of the boiling afternoon sky and a restless, sweat-soaked crowd of 100,000 people suddenly surges to life. Men rush forward in the staggering heat. Teenage boys wave a white bedsheet bearing a faintly cheeky request: We Want to Meet the Prince of India. Mr. Gandhi climbs onto a special viewing stand in this isolated corner of India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, and offers a boyish wave. Not yet 40, Mr. Gandhi is the great-grandson of India’s first prime minister, the grandson of India’s fourth prime minister and the son of India’s seventh prime minister. His audience includes some of the poorest people in India.

• Trains Collide After Blast in India
  Bikas Das/Associated Press By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: May 28, 2010 SARDIHA, India (AP) -- A bomb planted by suspected Maoist rebels derailed an overnight passenger train which was then hit by a cargo train in eastern India on Friday, killing at least 65 people and injuring an additional 200, officials said. Survivors described a night of screaming and chaos after the blast and said it took rescuers more than three hours to reach the scene. The blue passenger train and the red cargo train were knotted together in mangled metal along a rural stretch of track near the small town of Sardiha, about 90 miles (150 kilometers) west of Calcutta.
  Earlier this month, the rebels ambushed a bus in central India, killing 31 police officers and civilians. The rebels, who have tapped into the rural poor's growing anger at being left out of the country's economic gains, are now present in 20 of the country's 28 states and have an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 fighters, according to the Home Ministry. [Naxalites]
• India's course correction on Iran
  By M K Bhadrakumar The agreement between Iran, Turkey and Brazil for a swap deal on the stockpile of Tehran's nuclear fuel sets the stage for a diplomatic pirouette of high significance for regional security. The paradigm shift affects Indian interests.
  The statements and innuendos - and, more importantly, the unspoken words - from Moscow and Beijing suggest the two capitals are quietly chuckling with pleasure over America's discomfort over Iran outsmarting the Obama administration's own best instrument of diplomacy in present-day world politics - "smart power".
  India should openly join hands with Turkey and Brazil in opposing the need for a continued push for UN sanctions against Iran. No doubt, the diplomatic initiative by Turkey and Brazil creates an altogether new situation and Indian diplomacy should grasp its importance and seize its potentials.
• Vodafone struggles in Indian market
  By Andrew Parker in London Published: May 16 2010 19:38 | Last updated: May 16 2010 19:38 India is turning into an expensive and hostile place for Vodafone. Vittorio Colao, chief executive, is braced for searching questions about the group’s Indian business at its 2009-10 results on Tuesday, as expenses mount and profitability falls. [Mobile] [ICT]
• India Rises in Asian University Rankings
  In further signs that India is rapidly emerging as a powerful global player, the country put 11 universities in the top 100 list compiled by the Chosun Ilbo and global ranking firm Quacquarelli Symonds. India ranks fourth after Japan (30), China and Korea (both 17). [Services] [Education]
• My Book Is Red
  The word is Revolution. Maoists give a leg up to tribal languages. Debarshi Dasgupta It’s not just guns that keep the engine of the Maoist rebellion revving. Away from the battlefield, in the quiet of the camp schools, textbooks developed by the “people’s government” are becoming crucial tools in the next war, the one for young minds. The books may be focusing more on the Maoist worldview, but to children in the tribal regions of Chhattisgarh they are often the only means of education. Outlook met with a few outsiders who had a chance to look through the texts, and asked them about the greater role it plays in the Maoist heartland. Gautam Navlakha, consultant editor of the Economic and Political Weekly, spent about a fortnight deep in the Dandakaranya jungles in January this year and got a close-up look at the way the Maoists function. He says the “people’s government” in the Dandakaranya division already uses four textbooks for mathematics, social science, politics and Hindi for classes I to V. The books are written in Gondi, which is the language of instruction (also referred to as the “lingua franca” of the Naxal movement). There are about 2.7 million speakers of Gondi, according to the 2001 census, and it is a “non-scheduled” language. Published by the Janathana Sarkar from an undisclosed location in Dandakaranya, the books are mostly in black-and-white with sparse use of colour illustrations. Besides textbooks, the Maoists also use DVDs to screen films on science and history and draw inspiration from the Hoshangabad Science Teaching Programme, a now-folded, highly popular science-teaching approach that stresses on learning by doing. Another four textbooks are in the works which will cover the history of Dandakaranya, culture, biology and general science. Of course, the Maoists are likely to tint the forthcoming history textbook with “their version” of it. “It’ll obviously comprise their understanding of who they are as a people and what they have experienced at the hands of the Indian state. I would be surprised if it’s treated any other way,” says Navlakha.
• India's Nilekani on 'The Mother of All Projects'
  A chat with Nandan Nilekani, former CEO of outsourcing powerhouse Infosys who now heads India's program to address poverty through technology Nandan Nilekani is the de facto chief information officer for India. Last July, he left Indian outsourcing company Infosys (INFY), where he was serving as chairman after spending five years as CEO, to become chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India, an ambitious government project to create IDs and supporting biometric data, such as fingerprints, for more than 1.1 billion Indians. Nilekani, 54, and his team of several dozen engineers hope to launch next year and provide 600 million IDs within the first five years. Meantime, he has also started advising other parts of the government—including the Finance Ministry and Transportation Ministry—on how to use information technology to improve their operations
  Well, some people could figure out a way. What made the offer attractive? It's a humongous project, the mother of all projects. The purpose is to give a number to everyone, [including] the large number of Indians who don't have an acknowledged existence by the state. There are 75 million homeless, without birth certificates; many of them don't have the badges of identity that the rest of us have. If you are going to have all this [economic] growth, all these people who are marginalized should be given a chance. Unless you have an identity, you can't get a phone, a bank account, or public services. You don't get a ration card. This needs to be set right. [Offshoring] [Surveillance]
• India bans Chinese telecoms imports
  By Joe Leahy in Mumbai and Kathrin Hille in Beijing Published: April 29 2010 19:20 | Last updated: April 29 2010 19:20 The Indian government is blocking purchases of telecoms equipment from Chinese vendors on national security grounds, ratcheting up trade tensions between Asia’s fastest-growing large economies. The practice has prompted complaints from Beijing and is causing havoc for mobile operators in India, which need enormous amounts of equipment to sustain an industry that is adding 20m new users a month. “Proposals for procurement of equipment from Chinese original equipment manufacturing vendors have not been recommended due to security concerns,” the Department of Telecommunications wrote this week in correspondence to the prime minister’s Office, seen by the Financial Times. “Therefore, the proposals from the service providers for purchase of Chinese equipment is turned down.” India’s mobile market has become an important source of revenue for Chinese companies, accounting for about 11 per cent of 2008 turnover at Shenzhen-based Huawei Technologies, one of the world’s leading telecoms equipment makers. But China’s growing trade surplus with India – about $16bn last year – is leading to tensions, with Indian companies complaining that the market is being flooded with cheaper Chinese goods. [China confrontation] [China competition]
• Pakistan and India resume talks halted by Mumbai attacks
  Prime ministers meet in Bhutan and agree to send foreign ministers back into wide-ranging discussions including Kashmir (2)Tweet this (18)Ashok Sharma in Bhutan guardian.co.uk, Thursday 29 April 2010 19.46 BST Article history A commando takes up position during the Mumbai terror attacks. Photograph: Arko Datta The prime ministers of India and Pakistan agreed today to resume peace talks between their top diplomats and work toward rebuilding trust shattered by the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks that New Delhi blamed on Pakistani militants. Officials said India's Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart, Yousuf Raza Gilani, agreed on the need to normalise relations dogged by more than six decades of hostility since both gained independence from Britain. They deputed their foreign ministers to meet at a later date to discuss the resumption of a wide-ranging formal dialogue that began in 2004, but was suspended after the Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people. The two prime ministers met for more than an hour in the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, on the sidelines of a summit of south Asian leaders. It was their first meeting in eight months.

• Korea-India trade goes through roof
  Bilateral trade pact will further boost business April 29, 2010 The economy of the world’s second most populous country, India, has opened up in the past decade, and Korean manufacturers and traders have made the most of it. According to a report by the Korea International Trade Association yesterday, the total volume of Korea’s exports to India increased six times from 2000 to 2009, from $1.32 billion to $8.01 billion. Imports from India to Korea rose from $980 million to $4.1 billion over the same period. Korea’s trade surplus with India jumped 11 times from $340 million to $3.87 billion, and India was Korea’s ninth-largest export market last year, up from 25th a decade ago.
• IPL chairman Lalit Modi suspended by Indian cricket board
  Dileep Premachandran in Mumbai guardian.co.uk, Sunday 25 April 2010 22.28 BST Lalit Modi, the chairman and commissioner of the Indian Premier League, has been stripped of all his posts in Indian cricket and suspended by the Board of Control for Cricket in India after a fortnight of controversy. Modi has been accused of a wide range of financial impropriety, from rigging bidding deals related to the IPL, offering bribes, betting and money laundering. [Corruption]
• Indian Justice Inches Closer to Chapters of Violence
  By Lydia Polgreen Published: April 25, 2010 NEW DELHI — On Oct. 31, 1984, two Sikh bodyguards gunned down Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in her garden. In the three harrowing days that followed, more than 3,000 Sikhs were killed by enraged mobs seeking to avenge her death. 2010 Sikhs rallied earlier this month in New York to call for justice after the 1984 massacre. A former government minister is currently facing trial in India on charges that he led mobs that slaughtered Sikhs. Eighteen years later, 58 people, most of them Hindu pilgrims, died in an inferno on a train in Gujarat, in western India. The fire was blamed on Muslims, and within days 1,000 died in widespread riots. These two spasms of horrific sectarian bloodletting have stood as direct challenges to India’s status as a democratic, secular state governed by the rule of law. In both instances, senior officials of the party in power were accused of looking the other way or, in some cases, even orchestrating the bloodshed. In both cases, a mere handful of the killers were ever convicted. In both cases, the political fortunes of politicians accused of fomenting the violence flourished in the aftermath. But that pattern of official impunity may be changing. In the past month, two senior politicians have found themselves in the cross hairs of legal action that could, after all these years, force them to face accusations that they egged on killers in the two mass killings. [Communalism]
• Taiwan-Singapore team up to tackle India market
  Publication Date:04/15/2010 Source: United Daily News The governments of Taiwan and Singapore will team up to develop the Indian market, according to sources familiar with the issue. To explore business opportunities in India, the Singapore Trade Office in Taipei and the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) held the first “Forum on Singapore-Taiwan Collaboration in India” in Taipei April 14. The two countries hope to capitalize on each other’s complementary advantages to make joint inroads into one of the most promising emerging markets in the world, sources said.
• New Zealand and South Asia Diasporas
  The latest in Asia:NZ’s flagship Outlook research series New Zealand and South Asia Diasporas: Future Potential and Invisible Diasporas (download PDF) was launched at the Wellington Club in the capital on 21 April. In the presence of Melissa Lee MP, Dr Rajen Prasad MP, Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi MP and Ministry of Foreign Affairs Secretary John Allen, Asia:NZ executive director Dr Richard Grant introduced the report. “India is now one of the great economic powers of the world and is becoming increasingly important to New Zealand.” [Diaspora]
• Opposites attract in trade talks
  A free trade agreement with a small economy such as New Zealand will produce some benefits for India but it is unlikely overall to lead to major economic gains, say experts. India’s main aim is to use its talks with New Zealand to test the waters for future agreements with developed countries without unduly threatening domestic economic interests [FTA]
• India’s high-stakes urban challenge
  The country’s cities are expanding explosively. A new report from the McKinsey Global Institute considers how policy makers might respond. APRIL 2010 • Richard Dobbs, Shirish Sankhe, and Ireena Vittal India’s cities are expanding on a larger scale and at a faster pace than ever before. To date, though, the country has avoided dealing with the hard questions about how best to manage its massive urbanization. The policy vacuum may lead to worsening urban decay, poor quality of life for citizens, and a reluctance among investors to commit funds to projects in India’s urban centers. A new report from the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI)—India’s urban awakening: Building inclusive cities, sustaining economic growth—finds that a lack of effective policies to manage urbanization could jeopardize India’s GDP growth rate. But international experience shows that India could turn its cities around in a decade. [Urbanisation] [Development strategy]
• Maoists kill 50-60 police in central India attack
  Reuters Tuesday, April 6, 2010; 3:38 AM RAIPUR, India (Reuters) - Maoist rebels killed between 50 and 60 police after an ambush in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh on Tuesday, the state's home minister said. It was one of the worst attacks by the insurgents in recent years. "(The toll) can be more also. Right now it is around 50 to 60." Nanki Ram Kanwar told local television. The latest attack highlights the strong Maoist presence in large swathes of India, especially remote rural areas, underscoring how many parts of the country have been left out of India's booming economy. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the Maoists as a grave threat to India's internal security. On Sunday, rebels triggered a land mine blast that killed ten policemen in the mineral-rich eastern state of Orissa. Maoists have stepped up attacks in response to a police offensive that began late last year in several states, which Indian officials say has for the first time weakened the decades-old movement. Maoists, who say they are fighting for the rights of poor farmers and landless laborers, are expanding their influence in east, central and southern India. Thousands have been killed in the insurgency which began in the late 1960s. [Naxalites]
• The US opens India’s nuclear door for Russia.
  April 3rd, 2010 Author: Ron Huisken, ANU Both Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have been prominently associated with an agreement to build an additional 16 nuclear power reactors in India together with proposals that address fabricating nuclear fuel rods and re-processing plutonium from irradiated fuel rods. This is despite, in recent times, both men finding it rather hard to stay on the same page. [Nuclear deal] [Russia India] [Client]
• China offer on free-trade talks with India
  By James Lamont in New Delhi and Kathrin Hille in Beijing Published: April 2 2010 15:49 | Last updated: April 2 2010 16:58 China has offered to accelerate free trade agreement talks with India in a bid to balance a burgeoning trade relationship between two of Asia’s largest economies that is heavily skewed in Beijing’s favour. Chinese officials expect trade between the two to rise to $60bn (€44.5bn, £39.5bn) this year, as the world’s two fast-growing large economies recover from the global financial crisis. Yet Indian officials describe a trade deficit that last year was about $16bn in Beijing’s favour as “politically unsustainable”, and identify it as a point of friction in a relationship key to Asia’s peace and stability. [FTA] [China India]

• Head of Indian steelmaker visits Pyongyang: KCNA
  SEOUL, March 29 (Yonhap) -- A delegation from an Indian steelmaker arrived in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang on Monday, the North's official media reported. "A delegation of the Global Steel Holdings Limited of India led by Chairman Pramod Mittal arrived here (Pyongyang)," the North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in a one-paragraph English-language report.
• U.S., India reach agreement on nuclear fuel reprocessing
  By Rama Lakshmi and Steven Mufson Washington Post Staff Writers Tuesday, March 30, 2010 NEW DELHI -- India and the United States announced Monday the successful conclusion of negotiations granting rights to India to reprocess spent nuclear fuel, a new step toward opening nuclear commerce between the two countries, potentially worth billions of dollars. [Nuclear deal]
• The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill 2010
  Some Preliminary Observations Sukla Sen The Run Up The draft Bill which had been approved by the Union Cabinet on November 20 20091 was eventually listed for tabling in the Lok Sabha on March 15 20102, the penultimate day of the first half of the Budget Session of the Parliament, after a lapse of almost 4 months. In fact, the Bill was in the offing for quite some time by then, since the successful clinching of the Indo-US Nuclear Deal, on October 10 20083. [Nuclear deal]
• DPRK, India Sign Plan for Cultural Exchange
  Pyongyang, March 24 (KCNA) -- A 2010-2012 inter-governmental plan for cultural exchange was signed between the DPRK and India at the People's Palace of Culture on Wednesday. Present at the signing ceremony from the DPRK side were Jon Yong Jin, vice-chairman of the Korean Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, and officials concerned and from the opposite side were members of a government cultural delegation of India headed by Secretary of the Ministry of Culture Jawhar Sircar and Indian Ambassador to the DPRK Pratap Singh
• Indian Students Wield Tests for College Spots
  By JIM YARDLEY Published: March 23, 2010 NEW DELHI — Sadhvi Konchada took her fifth and final high school board exam this week. She was nervous, if not inexperienced, having already taken 11 board exams, pre-board exams or pre-pre-board exams since January, with more tests to come. By the time she enters college, Sadhvi will have taken 22 board or college entrance exams. [Education]
• Spring Thunder Anew: Neo-Robber Baron Capitalism vs. ‘New Democracy’ in India
  Bernard D’Mello
  It has been a long and tortuous route. Forty-three years ago, a group of Maoist revolutionaries conceived of and embarked upon a revolutionary road that still inspires their political descendants, alarms the dominant classes, and provokes slander and denigration on the part of the establishment left, post-modernists and well-funded NGO bosses. This is the path of protracted people’s war (PPW). It relies on an alliance of the Indian proletariat with the poor and landless peasantry and the semi-proletariat to establish ‘base areas’ in the countryside, run them democratically as miniature, self-reliant states, carry out ‘land to the tiller’ and other social policies there, thereby building a political mass base to finally encircle and ‘capture’ the cities. [Naxalites]
• Hillary Clinton says US willing to consider nuke cooperation with Pak
  Tuesday, March 23, 2010 19: ISLAMABAD: In the clearest sign yet from Washington, secretary of state Hillary Clinton today said the US would "consider" Pakistan's request for a civilian nuclear deal as Islamabad sought atomic cooperation and military hardware to bring itself on a par with India. Ahead of the crucial US-Pak strategic dialogue, Pakistan submitted a 56-page document to the Obama administration seeking, among other things, a civilian nuclear deal and drone technology. Notwithstanding India's reservations, Clinton made it clear that the issue of energy would be one of the subjects of discussion but refused to pre-judge the outcome of the talks. She said the US would "consider" Pakistan's request for a civilian nuclear deal as it wanted to help the country meet its immediate and long-term energy needs. "I am sure that's going to be raised and we are going to be considering it, but I can't pre-judge or pre-empt what the outcome of our discussions will be," Clinton said when asked whether Pakistan could have a civilian nuclear deal with the US similar to the one Washington has with India. [Nuclear deal] [AfPak] [US India Pakistan]
• Nuke deal: India reminds US of Pak track record
  23 Mar 2010, 0356 hrs IST, ET Bureau NEW DELHI: A day after the US unveiled yet another element of its Pakistan appeasement policy, New Delhi reminded Washington about Islamabad’s dismal proliferation record. The turnaround in the US position is causing deep concern within India and is being seen as yet another example of a continuing appeasement policy adopted by the Obama administration towards Pakistan, which it considers crucial in the fight against the Taliban and the al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. [Nuclear deal] [AfPak] [US India Pakistan]
• A spy unsettles US-India ties
  By M K Bhadrakumar News that the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had reached a plea bargain with David Coleman Headley, who played a key role in the planning of the terrorist strike in Mumbai in November 2008 in which 166 people were killed, has caused an uproar in India. The deal enables the US government to hold back from formally producing any evidence against Headley in a court of law that might have included details of his links with US intelligence or oblige any cross-examination of Headley by the prosecution.
  Today, the heart of the matter is how much did the CIA know in advance about the Mumbai terrorist strike and whether the Obama administration shared all "actionable intelligence" with Delhi?
  For the first time in recent years, the Indian public has closed ranks with prevalent opinion in Pakistan that sees the US as a diabolic, self-centered power, which double- crosses its partners, friends and allies in single-minded pursuit of its interests. [US India] [AfPak] [Espionage] [Intelligence]
• India tests new, more maneuverable version of cruise missile jointly developed with Russia
  latimes.com NIRMALA GEORGE Associated Press Writer 6:24 AM PDT, March 21, 2010 NEW DELHI (AP) — India successfully tested on Sunday a new, more maneuverable version of its BrahMos supersonic cruise missile that was jointly developed with Russia, an official said. The missile was fired from a moving warship in the Bay of Bengal, off India's eastern coast, and successfully hit its target, said a defense research official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
• Delhi plans ban on autorickshaws
  Indian capital looks to phase out famous green and yellow motorised three-wheelers, citing pollution and rude drivers Jason Burke in Delhi guardian.co.uk, Thursday 18 March 2010 17.46 GMT Article history Most drivers of Delhi's 55,000 registered and 25,000 illegal autorickshaws are poor and live in the city's slums. Photograph: Arko Datta/EPA The Indian capital's streets are notorious for the swarms of green and yellow autorickshaws – and for their surly, betel nut-chewing and overcharging drivers. But their days may be numbered after Delhi's chief minister, Sheila Dikshit, said she wanted to see the three-wheelers phased out within five years.  
• Credentials of Indian Ambassador Accepted
  Pyongyang, March 15 (KCNA) -- Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the DPRK Supreme People's Assembly, received credentials from Pratap Singh, Indian ambassador to the DPRK, at the Mansudae Assembly Hall Monday. Present on the occasion were Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Pak Kil Yon and staff members of the Indian embassy.
• India's Next Outsourcing Wave
  To modernize after its crisis, the U.S. financial industry needs help from India's IT outsourcers more than ever, says Sudhakar It's understandable that many in the U.S. are angry that workers lose jobs to offshore programmers. Despite the unpopularity of outsourcing in the wake of the financial meltdown, I am convinced that "Third Wave" Indian IT players—those outsourcing specialists that U.S. companies can rely on as strategic partners for high-end work—can help prevent future disasters. IT companies around the world have a huge opportunity to collaborate and join forces in the next few years. [Offshoring]
• It's Love! India and Saudi Arabia Embrace
  By Vijay Prashad
  Manmohan of Arabia Construction projects on Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai have come to a virtual standstill. Financial agents in the region can't wait to offload the real estate deals that burden the books of the Emirates and its banks, not to mention the international banks whose chambers in London and New York shudder with any mention of more real estate failures. A fire sale has begun, with construction firms like Arabtec now being offered for a song, and as Dubai's own sheikhs bend their knees to Abu Dhabi to help with the $150 billion debt (the IMF says $109 billion, EFG-Hermes pushes it upward). The Sultans of Arabia are displeased. Oil profits sail in, but these are magically converted into petro-dollars that then boomerang to Wall Street, where they are welcomed by Goldman Sachs and its élèves who, these days, lock them up in their vaults, afraid to lend to anyone despite the blandishments of Obama and Bernanke. Petro-dollars are no salve to Dubai's ailments.
  What is clear from this new partnership is that India has now given itself over to the political status quo in West Asia. India's reticence from Saudi Arabia was founded on India's fealty to Arab nationalism, whose standard-bearer in the 1950s and 1960s was Gamel Abdul Nasser, the great enemy of the Saudi royal family. Now with the demise of Arab nationalism and the transformation of Indian nationalism, the stage has been set for these two powers of the Indian Ocean to join hands. Abdullah looks east to the two emergent Asian giants, wanting their technological expertise, and to link his kingdom to the Asian Century. Manmohan of Arabia goes home with a trunk full of oil, and the shattered dreams of Arab republicanism that once felt that India was its ally
• India tests war readiness close to Pakistan border
  By Bappa Majumdar Reuters Sunday, February 28, 2010; 7:40 AM POKHRAN, India (Reuters) - Indian fighter jets pounded mock enemy bunkers close to the Pakistan border on Sunday in a symbolic show of air power at a time when the two nuclear-armed rivals are trying to improve relations. The exercise was watched by military attaches from about 30 countries but not Pakistan and China, neighbors who would be keen to take a look at India's military firepower. It follows the first official talks between India and Pakistan since the militant attacks in Mumbai in 2008. The talks ended with an agreement to keep in touch, signaling relations remain fraught despite a desire to reopen a dialogue that India suspended after the Mumbai killings. "This is not just a firepower demonstration but a clear message about what India's air force is capable of," said Uday Bhaskar, a New Delhi-based strategic affairs expert. "It is a message to the neighbors."

• Kabul attacks apparently aimed at Indians leave 17 dead
  At least nine Indians killed, as well as Italian diplomat and French filmmaker, in Taliban attacks in Afghan capital Tweet this Jason Burke in Delhi and Jon Boone in Kandahar guardian.co.uk, Friday 26 February 2010 17.25 GMT Article history Regional tensions in south Asia were ratcheted up today after 17 people died in a car bomb attack in Kabul apparently aimed at Indians working in the Afghan capital. Reports said at least nine Indians, including two military surgeons working at an eye clinic and several consular officials, were among the dead in a Taliban attack at 6.30am. [AfPak]
• A Tale Of Two Nations
  Gautam Adhikari, Feb 24, 2010, 12.10am IST Washington: Some of us still dream of Chindia, an approaching phase of history when China and India will not only be the biggest powers on earth, they will partner each other in running the world, which will regard them as one glorious Asian entity. Others speak of a coming age of the Brics, a Goldman Sachs branding of Brazil, India, Russia and China, as four emerging economies the world must watch. It's time for Indians to recognise Chindia for what it is a chimera, a Greek mythological creature compounded of incongruous parts and adjust our strategic vision. India and China are unlikely to become cooperative partners, except in a limited opportunistic sense, any time in the foreseeable future. They have historically been commercial and cultural competitors in Asia; Today, they not only champion radically different systems of governance, they have too many points of friction between them in the region for anyone to imagine their melding into an economic and strategic whole in the fashion of, say, Europe, or the larger West. As for the Brics, it is time to take the 'c' out of the acronym. China is no longer an emerging economy. It has arrived. It isn't a superpower; the United States remains the sole claimant to that title. But it is the other great power, more important in the global pecking order than Europe or Japan. Hardly any global decision can be taken or a consensus built on any issue without China's cooperation. In global political power and economic clout, Brazil, Russia and India remain also-rans. [China India comparison]
• Pakistan backs India for a non-permanent UNSC seat
  PTI, Feb 23, 2010, 01.43am IST NEW DELHI: In a coincidence that may augur well for India-Pakistan talks scheduled for later this week, Pakistan joined 52 other Asian states to endorse India’s candidature for non-permanent membership of the UN Security Council. The Asian group’s endorsement of India is virtually the final stamp for India’s election to the seat in October this year.
• Doors Wide Open For Nuclear Technology Exports to India
  Dr Banerjee and Sir Richard shake on the deal. Picture: DAE By Prakash Joshi IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis NEW DELHI (IDN) – The door has finally been thrown open for a free flow of nuclear exports to India. The four nuclear weapons states -- USA, Russia, France and Britain -- have lifted a ban on atomic cooperation with the world’s largest democracy, ending India's nuclear isolation since it tested a nuclear device in 1974. India and Britain signed a joint declaration February 12 in New Delhi on cooperation in civil nuclear energy after two years of negotiations. India had already signed similar civil nuclear cooperation agreements with the U.S., Russia and France. [Nuclear deal] [NPT] [Double standards]
• Is defence cooperation the next step in U.S.-India relations?
  February 11th, 2010 Author: Rajendra Abhyankar, The Asia Foundation Defence Secretary Robert Gates’ three-day visit to New Delhi last month not only bolstered India’s role in promoting security and stability in Afghanistan and the region, but also boosted bilateral defence cooperation and trade. His visit helps pave the way for President Barack Obama, who is expected to visit India this summer, and helps answer an important question the two countries have asked each other since India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Washington last year – Do we take a ‘strategic pause’ to heal some rising negativity brewing in the relationship, or do we look for the ‘next big idea’ to keep up the momentum? [China confrontation] [US India]
• At least 9 dead in blast at India bakery popular with tourists
  By Rama Lakshmi and Emily Wax Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, February 14, 2010 NEW DELHI -- A powerful blast at a popular bakery frequented by tourists killed at least nine people and injured 53 in the western Indian city of Pune on Saturday, the first attack to apparently target foreigners since the deadly 2008 siege of Mumbai. The explosion took place a little after 7 p.m. at the German Bakery in Koregaon Park, an upscale Pune neighborhood near the Osho Ashram. The ashram, a spiritual center with many Western followers, was one of the locations canvassed as a potential target by David Coleman Headley, who is now on trial in Chicago on charges of plotting terrorist acts. [Terrorism] [Separatism]
• Bollywood and Politics Collide in a Red-Carpet Standoff
  Kuni Takahashi for The New York Times An extremist political party is threatening to protest the opening of “My Name Is Khan” because of a comment about cricket by a star of the movie. By JIM YARDLEY Published: February 11, 2010 MUMBAI, India — In this capital of India’s Hindi film industry, Friday’s release of the latest blockbuster by Bollywood’s biggest star, Shah Rukh Khan, is not shaping up as the usual red carpet and starlets affair. Police officers, fearing violent protests, are being stationed at theaters, while nearly 2,000 people have already been arrested as a precaution. [Democracy] [Communalism]
• UNSC expansion: Shot in arm for India
  PranabDhalSamanta Posted: Feb 08, 2010 at 0420 hrs New Delhi A significant breakthrough in New York on negotiations to expand UN Security Council has once again galvanised Indian efforts with 138 countries giving their consent for the first time to produce a single document with clear options for expansion. This document will be the text on the basis of which the next round of negotiations, expected later this month, will take place. Until now, sharp differences among member countries on the format of negotiations had prevented a consensus to even come up with a text. The breakthrough is being seen as a major victory for the G-4 (India, Brazil, Germany and Japan) which led the effort to organise support for a letter requesting for text-based negotiations so that the matter can then move for consideration of the UN General Assembly this year.
• China’s growing presence in India’s neighbourhood
  February 5th, 2010 Author: Pravakar Sahoo, IEG and Nisha Taneja, ICRIER China has been taking an increasingly active interest in South Asian countries over the past few years, seeking to rally friendship and support in order to surpass India’s dominance in the region. When the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was formed in 1985, they expected leadership from India, but India has yet to assume this role. Now China, India’s main political rival, is entering its neighbouring markets more aggressively through both trade and investment. [FTA] [China India competition]
• India successfully tests nuclear-capable missile
  By Muneeza Naqvi The Associated Press Sunday, February 7, 2010; 7:39 AM NEW DELHI -- India again successfully test-fired a nuclear-capable missile Sunday that can hit targets across much of Asia and the Middle East, a defense ministry press release said. It was the fourth test of the Agni III missile, the statement added. The first attempt in 2006 failed, but the last two tests were successful. "The Agni III missile tested for the full range, hit the target with pinpoint accuracy and met all the mission objectives," the press release added. India's current arsenal of missiles is largely intended for confronting archrival Pakistan. The Agni III, in contrast, is India's longest-range missile, designed to reach 3,000 kilometers (1,900 miles) - putting China's major cities well into range, as well as Middle Eastern targets. [China confrontation] [Tribute] [Military balance]
• ABC of Media: Advertising, Bollywood and Corporate Power
  By P. SAINATH Issues today have to be dressed up in ways certified by the corporate media. They have to be justified not by their importance to the public but by their acceptability to the media, their owners and sponsors. That the lethal bomb blast in the bakery in Pune demands serious, sober coverage is a truism. One of the side-effects of the ghastly blast has been unintended, though. The orgy of self-congratulation that marked the media coverage of just about everything since January is now in pause mode. Maybe the flak they copped for their handling of the November 2008 Mumbai terror blasts has something to do with it. But there is, so far, some restraint. At least, relative to the meal they made of the 2008 attacks. Otherwise, through January and early February, the media stood up bravely for freedom of expression and some other constitutional rights you've never heard of. They slew the demons of lingual chauvinism and worse. And they're just spoiling for a fight with any other enemy of our proud democracy. Just so long as they can keep Bollywood in central focus. [Media]
• China and India Battle Over Thin Air
  By Conn Hallinan, January 27, 2010 Of all the world’s potential hotspots, one of the most unlikely is tucked into the folds of the Himalayas. This slice of ground is little more than frozen rock fields and soaring peaks that is decidedly short on people, resources, and oxygen. But for the past year this border area has been a worrisome source of friction between India and China, including incursions by Chinese troops, the wounding of several Indian border police, and a buildup of military forces on both sides. [China India relations] [Border war] [Nuclear deal] [China confrontation]
• The call of Kashmir
  How this troubled corner of the Himalayas has gone from war zone to ultimate ski destination Buzz up! Digg it Tom Robbins The Observer, Sunday 31 January 2010 Article history Skiing off Apharwat mountain in Gulmarg, Kashmir. Photograph: Jon Wyatt Wow, life really can be a bummer. It's 14 January and I'm sitting on the Heathrow Express, reading in the paper that Scotland is buried under snow, its ski resorts rejoicing in the best conditions for a decade. Meanwhile, Scandinavia has epic amounts of powder, the Alps are having a superb month and there's so much of the white stuff in London that people are skiing on Hampstead Heath. And this is the year I choose to go all the way to India, to ski in the Himalayas where, for the first time in 15 years, there's no snow.

• Manipal to control U21Global
  Andrew Trounson From: The Australian January 27, 2010 12:00AM INDIAN education and healthcare giant Manipal will take control of the Singapore-based online business learning joint venture U21Global, after member universities agreed to dilute their equity as part of a new strategy to expand a business that has so far failed to deliver on the high hopes of its founders. The brainchild of former University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Alan Gilbert, U21Global was founded in 2001 to capitalise on an expected fast take-up of global online education, but began breaking even only last year.
• Winner of Google-China feud is – India
  By Peter Lee Google isn't doing well in China, and President Barack Obama isn't doing well in the United States. These twin realities have helped trigger a high-profile confrontation with China. On January 12, Google responded to a sophisticated hack of its Google.cn servers, apparently emanating from within China, with the threat that it would stop filtering its Google.cn search results in compliance with the demands of the Chinese government, even if that meant Google would have to close its China operations. Google's high-profile response will contribute, perhaps inadvertently, to fraught broader US-China relations in the coming year. Inevitably, the attractiveness of China's emerging rival, India, as a market for Google and ally for the United States will enter into the mix.
  Ironically - or, perhaps, hypocritically, given its stalwart anti-censorship position in China - Google censors its search engine results in India to conform to Indian laws (for instance, banning search results for pre-natal sex testing) [1] and cooperates with Indian police to identify political malcontents for arrest in response to their Orkut postings. [2] [Double standards]
• Google and India Test the Limits of Liberty
  By Amol Sharma and jessica E. Vascellaro The rules of political speech on the Internet are usually pretty simple. In America, almost anything goes. In places like China, the censors call the shots. But in India -- a boisterous democracy that's riven by religious and ethnic tension -- the game is far trickier, as Google is discovering. In September, lawyers at Google Inc.'s New Delhi office got a tip from an Internet user about alarming content on the company's social networking site, Orkut. People had posted offensive comments about the chief minister of India's southern state of Andhra Pradesh, who had died just a few days earlier in a helicopter crash. Google's response: It removed not just the material but also the entire user group that contained it, a person familiar with the matter says. The Internet giant feared the comments could heighten tensions at a time when thousands of mourners of the popular politician were emptying into the street. Fighting Cybercrime in India Information Technology Act of 2008 (in effect since Oct. 27, but still being implemented) Grants the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology the power to block sites and remove content to maintain "public order," as well as for national security and to preserve friendly relations with foreign states.Requires companies to have a point of contact to receive government blocking requests.A committee of Indian officials with representatives from ministries such as Law and Home Affairs would review blocking requests.The accused party/company would have 48 hours to present a case.Company officials who don't assist the government when blocking is mandated would face a fine and up to seven years in jail.India's Penal Code, Section 295A "Whoever, with deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of any class of 2 [citizens of India], 3 [by words, either spoken or written, or by signs or by visible representations or otherwise], insults or attempts to insult the religion or the religious beliefs of that class, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to 4[three years], or with fine, or with both.]"The incident shows the treacherous terrain Google must navigate as it expands in India, the world's most-populous nation after China and a major growth market for Web searches, online advertising and mobile phone software. As Google broadens its reach, it must increasingly tweak the way it operates to suit new cultures. While authoritarian countries pose well-known challenges, Google is learning that even democracies such as India can be fraught with legal and cultural complications. Its experience here could serve as a precedent for other Web companies. [Double standards]
• Korea, India Pledge to Establish Strategic Partnership
  President Lee Myung-bak (left) shakes hands with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh before a summit at the prime minister's office in New Delhi on Monday. President Lee Myung-bak met with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi on Monday afternoon and agreed to boost bilateral relations to a strategic partnership. The two leaders agreed to expand bilateral trade from US$12.2 billion last year to $30 billion by 2014, increase investment, and broaden the relationship. After the meeting the two leaders signed a joint statement containing 31 agreements. [FTA]
• Korea, India to Double Trade by 2014
  By Na Jeong-ju Korea Times Correspondent NEW DELHI ? President Lee Myung-bak and India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed Monday to double the bilateral trade between Korea and India to $30 billion by 2014 from 2008 based on the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), the de-facto free trade accord that took effect Jan. 1. [FTA]
• POSCO to expand India business
  With the comprehensive economic partnership agreement between Korea and India taking effect as of Jan. 1, Korea's major conglomerates are rushing to tap the fast-growing Indian market, which boasts world's fourth-largest purchasing power. On the back of President Lee Myung- bak's explicit support for Korean steelmakers, automakers, and electronics companies in India, POSCO's $12 billion project to build an integrated mill in Orissa is expected to gain stronger momentum this year, company officials said yesterday. POSCO has been seeking to build an integrated mill in Orissa, eastern part of India where iron ore is abundant, since 2005. The world's fourth-largest steelmaker established its Indian affiliate POSCO-India in August 2005 and applied for mining rights, also known as "prospecting licenses," in three mines in September that year. For the past three years and six months, the biggest hurdle to start construction of the integrated mill was getting the Indian government's approval to clear forest land for the steel plant.
• U.N. climate panel chief: Error shouldn't derail global warming efforts in India
  By Rama Lakshmi Sunday, January 24, 2010 NEW DELHI -- For many Indians, the most powerful and urgent reason to battle global warming arose from a report warning that the Himalayan glaciers could melt away by 2035. But that prediction was an error, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which authored the report, said Wednesday.
  With its rapid industrialization and population of more than 1 billion, India is the world's fifth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases. The country has long, populous coastlines, and it is in a region that is among the most vulnerable to the impact of climate change, battling lower farm production, droughts and floods [Climate change]
• Lee’s India Visit to Focus on Nuclear, IT Exchange
  By Na Jeong-ju Staff Reporter President Lee Myung-bak's planned visit to India from Jan. 24 to 27 is expected to pave the way for closer bilateral cooperation in the development of nuclear and information technologies, officials here said Wednesday. Lee may focus on ``sales diplomacy'' in India, holding active discussions with policymakers and businesspeople there to lay the groundwork for Korean firms to secure more opportunities. [Nuclear energy] [Double standards]
• A Path for Peace in South Asia
  By Zia Mian, January 7, 2010 It has been a grim start to the New Year and the new decade in South Asia. Vested interests, hardened obsessions, and old habits continue to push India and Pakistan in the direction of ruinous conflict. While military planners in both countries plan and prepare for the next war, politicians and diplomats remain determined not to talk except on their own terms. On this stony ground, civil society in Pakistan and India has been struggling for years to build peace. There are signs the people of the two countries are ready to make peace and seek the benefits of a peace dividend if their governments would only permit. War Plans General Deepak Kapoor, India's army chief and chairman of its chiefs of staff, revealed at the end of December 2009 that the military has been working on a new doctrine and seeks major new capabilities. India's armed forces, he said, want to be able to mobilize and deploy for war very quickly, and to be able to fight a two-front war (against Pakistan and China). India also wants to be able to project military power from the Persian Gulf to the Malacca Strait (which connects the Indian Ocean to the Pacific) and seeks, among other things, to have ballistic missile defenses and space-based capabilities. {Militarisation]
• China, India not competitive opponents: Chinese PM
  STAFF WRITER 20:38 HRS IST Beijing, Jan 19 (PTI) China and India were not "competitive opponents" but "cooperative partners", Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said today, as he assured that Beijing will make efforts to narrow the bilateral trade deficit. "Only if China and India achieve common development and prosperity could we have a real Asia century," Wen told Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma who called on him. Both China and India were large developing nations in Asia, and the total population of the two countries accounted for 40 per cent of the world, Wen noted. "We share broad common interests," he said. China and India were not "competitive opponents" but "cooperative partners", Wen was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua news agency amid reports of Chinese border incursions and attempts to hack sensitive government computers. [China confrontation] [media] [China India competition]
• The Smallest Army Imaginable: Gandhi's Constitutional Proposal for India and Japan's Peace Constitution (1)
  C. Douglas Lummis Prologue In 1931, on his way to the London Round Table Conference, Mahatma Gandhi was asked by a Reuters correspondent what his program was. He responded by writing out a brief, vivid sketch of “the India of my dreams”. Such an India, he said, would be free, would belong to all its people, would have no high and low classes, no discrimination against women, no intoxicants and, “the smallest army imaginable.” (2) The last phrase presents a puzzle: What is the smallest military imaginable? But the fact that it presents a puzzle is also puzzling. For what is so unimaginable about no military at all? The question is not rhetorical, for most people do find the no-military option unimaginable. It is easy enough to pray for peace, to petition and demonstrate for peace, or to imagine oneself as a perfectly pacifist non-killer. It is harder to imagine a state with no military. One of the few places where this option is clearly and forcefully stated is in Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution. [Militarisation]
• Ambani’s Indian tiger eyes wounded MGM lion
  By Joe Leahy in Mumbai and Kenneth Li and Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson in New York Published: January 15 2010 12:45 | Last updated: January 15 2010 19:52 Anil Ambani is preparing to bid for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the film studio behind classics such as Gone with the Wind, in a move that would bring Bollywood deeper into Hollywood. The Indian billionaire’s Reliance Big Entertainment was one of about a dozen groups preparing offers on Friday for the debt-laden MGM, whose assets include the James Bond franchise. Several bidders said they had asked for more time, and offers would trickle in after Friday’s deadline. [Decline]
• India-U.S. and India-East Asia Relations Treading Water
  By Satu Limaye Jan 13, 2010 Comparative Connections v.11 n.4 India-US and India-East Asia relations saw no dramatic developments in 2009. Washington and New Delhi, both with new governments, spent much of the year adjusting to each other. The overall mood of bilateral relations was subdued, not so much because of a specific disagreement or problem, but because Washington was preoccupied with other priorities and New Delhi was coming to terms with the fact that it was not one of them – as it had been during the Bush administration.
• Profit Margins Shrink as Automakers Charge into India
  India January 11, 2010, 11:44AM EST text size: TT With big foreign players introducing models in the fast-growing Indian market, companies face new price pressure, which weighs on margins By Subramaniam Sharma and Vipin Nair As they prepared to launch their first small car designed for the Indian market, Toyota (TM) engineers knew they had to do some things differently. India is one of the world's hottest auto markets—and it's also one of the most competitive. So Toyota needed to design its new India compact, called the Etios, to attract India's increasingly affluent middle-class consumers who have plenty of other options for low-priced cars. "When you have at least 10 to 12 other manufacturers eyeing the same segment," explains Sandeep Singh, a deputy managing director at Toyota in India, "you will be under pressure in terms of pricing." That's where Yoshinori Noritake, chief engineer of the Etios, stepped in. He and his team of Toyota engineers decided to rethink some basic systems to lower prices. For instance, a typical air conditioner in a Toyota car uses six major parts, with 12 workers in the factory needed to put them all together. For the Etios, which Toyota will launch later this year, the air conditioner has just four parts and needs just four factory workers for assembly. "India is a price-sensitive market [so] we made sure we designed the car by reducing the number of components needed," says Noritake. [IM]
• Pakistan warns India against hegemonistic mindset
  By Iftikhar A. Khan Thursday, 14 Jan, 2010 ISLAMABAD: Pakistan warned India on Wednesday against its relentless pursuit of military preponderance and said it would have severe consequences for peace and security in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region. The National Command Authority, which met here under Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, took serious note of recent Indian statements about conducting conventional military strikes under a nuclear umbrella and said such irresponsible statements reflected a hegemonic mindset, oblivious of dangerous implications of adventurism in a nuclearised context. The NCA also took note of the developments detrimental to the objectives of strategic stability in the region. It observed that instead of responding positively to Pakistan’s proposal for a strategic restraint regime in South Asia, India continued to pursue an ambitious militarisation programme and offensive military doctrines. “Massive inductions of advanced weapon systems, including installation of ABMs (anti-ballistic missiles), build-up of nuclear arsenal and delivery systems through ongoing and new programmes, assisted by some external quarters, offensive doctrines like ‘Cold Start’ and similar accumulations in the conventional realm, tend to destabilise the regional balance,” the meeting noted. A statement issued by the PM House said: “Pakistan cannot be oblivious to these developments.” It was the first meeting of the NCA after President Asif Ali Zardari promulgated the National Command Authority Ordinance and divested himself of the powers of its chairman in November last year.
• Channel 4's view of India is a cliché
  Aditya Chakrabortty The Guardian, Wednesday 13 January 2010 It was the pocket-sized Wodehouse fanatic I thought of when Channel 4 started publicising its Indian Winter season, which begins tonight.
  But that might have detracted from the overriding message that runs through the rest of the season, of India as a subordinate culture. The same patronising attitude runs through the Victoria and Albert Museum's blockbuster winter exhibition, Maharaja. A collection of the finery owned by India's royals, it's full of priceless jewels. I say priceless, but each of the Cartier necklaces and Fabergé eggs on display helps explain why the princely states remain among some of the least developed regions of India today – because weak-chinned and soft-headed princes in Udaipur and Jaipur invested in foreign luxuries for themselves rather than roads for their subjects. Yet there is little mention in the exhibition of the human cost, just case upon glittery case.
  In Bengal soon after local-boy economist Amartya Sen won the Nobel prize in 1998, I passed a petrol station defaced by a blob of spray paint that read: "Calcutta is proud of its son Amartya Sen." That's Kolkata for you: even the graffiti artists have postgraduate degrees.
• India: A trading partner of growing importance
  India grew to be Australia’s ninth largest trading partner in 2006-07, reflecting strong export growth over the past five years: India is now Australia’s sixth largest export market. Gold, education services, ores and metals dominate Australia’s exports to India, but other exports are growing in importance. Import growth from India has been steady over the past 10 years but grew faster than imports from the world more recently. Given the growing importance of the bilateral relationship to both countries, Australia and India have agreed to undertake a joint feasibility study on the merits of a free trade agreement.
• Lessons from a New Industry Cluster in India
  The creation by entrepreneurs of a destination for tech companies in Rajasthan's Thar Desert shows it's time to rethink regional development planning By Vivek Wadhwa For government officials and planning consultants looking to create regional economic growth and drive innovation, industry clusters are the Holy Grail. Popularized by Harvard professor Michael Porter in the early 1990s, cluster theory holds that a government or economic development body can create a viable hub of economic activity in a specific industrial sector by bringing in businesses, suppliers, researchers, and additional related people or entities. In other words, a focused governmental effort can create something from nothing, turning, for example, a fallow field into a tech park bursting with highly competitive, innovative companies. Governments all over the world have invested millions—sometimes billions—of dollars to attract industries they consider strategic. [Development strategy]
• Minimising uncertainty for Indian investment
  December 29th, 2009 Author: Rajiv Kumar, ICRIER, India The rapid and sustained growth of manufacturing is a necessary condition for not only generating the required employment for our young workforce, but also for modernizing our society and eliminating the dualism—stark differences between the organized and unorganized sector—that currently characterizes our economy. Too much reliance on financial and information technology-enabled services could actually produce the opposite results by creating enclaves and exacerbating the dualism. [FDI] [Development strategy]
• Don't Overlook India's Consumer Market for China's
  Urban consumers in India will likely drive more global business than their Chinese counterparts while India's rural development far outpaces China's By John Lee The scale of China's potential consumer market has always fascinated Western companies. Back in 19th-century England, spinning-mill owners were convinced they would reap big profits if they could just get everyone in China to wear one coat-tail or buy one handkerchief. More recently, U.S. and Japanese companies have made similar arguments. For multinationals hoping to gain from China's teeming mass of consumers, though, the country continues to disappoint. Since the global fall in exports, Beijing has been building its way out of an economic slump. Roads, ports, railways: Name anything big and China is likely to be building it. Chinese consumers haven't yet played much of a role in driving the economy's recovery. As a percentage of gross domestic product, Chinese consumption is the lowest of any major economy in the world, at less than one third. In fact, almost all of China's impressive economic growth this year has come from infrastructure spending, as well as investment speculation in assets such as property. Instead, it is India that could provide the greater pot of treasure at the end of the rainbow for multinationals targeting Asian consumers [Domestic demand] [China India comparison]