Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon
aims to alert you to the threats and opportunities that China and India present. China and India require serious attention; case of ‘hidden dragon and crouching tiger’.
Without this attention, governments, businesses and, indeed, individuals may find themselves at a great disadvantage sooner rather than later.
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BEIJING, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) — Chinese President Xi Jinping has appointed eight new ambassadors in accordance with a decision by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, according to a statement by the national legislature Friday.
Zou Xiaoli has been appointed ambassador to Argentina, replacing Yang Wanming.
Yang Wanming has been appointed ambassador to Brazil, replacing Li Jinzhang.
Hou Yanqi has been appointed ambassador to Nepal, replacing Yu Hong.
Li Minggang has been appointed ambassador to Kuwait, replacing Wang Di.
Li Lingbing has been appointed ambassador to Oman, replacing Yu Fulong.
Li Lianhe has been appointed ambassador to Algeria, replacing Yang Guangyu.
Liu Bin has been appointed ambassador to Tajikistan, replacing Yue Bin.
Wang Shunqing has been appointed ambassador to Slovenia, replacing Ye Hao.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), delivers a speech at a CMC meeting held in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 4, 2019. (Xinhua/Li Gang)
BEIJING, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) — President Xi Jinping Friday ordered the Chinese armed forces to enhance their combat readiness from a new starting point and open new ground for developing a strong military.
Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), made the instruction at a CMC meeting held in Beijing.
Hailing the landmark, pioneering and historic military achievements since the 18th CPC National Congress, Xi said the armed forces had resolutely safeguarded national sovereignty, security and development interests and withstood complex situations and severe struggles.
“The world is facing a period of major changes never seen in a century, and China is still in an important period of strategic opportunity for development,” he said, warning that various risks and challenges were on the rise.
The entire armed forces should have a correct understanding of China’s security and development trends, enhance their awareness of danger, crisis and war, and make solid efforts on combat preparations in order to accomplish the tasks assigned by the Party and the people, Xi said.
Regarding combat capability as the only and fundamental criterion, Xi ordered all work, forces and resources to focus on military preparedness and ensure a marked progress in this regard.
Xi stressed the armed forces’ ability to respond quickly and effectively to contingencies, asking them to upgrade commanding capability of joint operations, foster new combat forces, and improve military training under combat conditions.
Party and government departments and agencies at the central and local levels are required to support the defense and military development.
Xu Qiliang, a CMC vice chairman, presided over the meeting, and Zhang Youxia, the other CMC vice chairman, announced the decision to give awards to 10 model units and 20 model individuals. They received awards from leaders, including Xi.
Xi also signed a mobilization order for the training of the armed forces, the CMC’s first order in 2019.
In the world’s largest democracy, politicians are finding that they need to listen to women if they want power.
In northern India, some women had long complained that they were fed up with their husbands being drunk.
An alcohol ban brought in at their request has affected 100 million people in the state of Bihar.
The domestic violence, petty crime and wasted income that had long plagued their region fell soon afterwards, the state government claims.
Women-centric campaigns are playing an even bigger role in India’s upcoming national election, in a country of 1.3bn people.
Politicians offering free girls’ education, money to newlywed brides, and special women’s police stations scored highly in the recent regional polls.
The reason? In India’s male-dominated, conservative society, women voters are rapidly gaining ground.
Women voters
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionWomen queue with their identity cards at the state elections in Rajasthan, December 2018
Ranked in the bottom third of countries for gender equality, India has long struggled to get women to the ballot box.
There are a number of reasons for this.
The gender gap in voting is partly because women traditionally have been less likely to register in the first place.
Even if they are registered, the idea of women leaving the household to vote is sometimes frowned upon, and they can face harassment and intimidation at the polls.
For decades, registered women voters’ turnout in elections lagged behind men’s by an average of 6-10%, reflecting their marginalisation in society and giving them less opportunity to shape policy.
There are also fewer women to start with. Sex-selective abortions, female infanticide and preferential treatment for boys in India, mean that there are only 943 women for every 1,000 men in the population.
However, one study found the police resources needed to enforce the alcohol ban meant there was less capacity to deal with violent crime.
Why are more women voting?
What has caused the sudden political mobilisation of women across India?
Increased female literacy and education have certainly brought more women to the polls.
But while progress on those measures has been slow, female voter turnout has shot up in just a decade.
A combination of personal factors and government intervention is likely to have contributed.
High-profile cases of violence against women have undoubtedly galvanised female voters to fight for rights and safety in their communities.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Protests erupted across the country earlier this year after rape cases in Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, and other states made headlines, while the #MeToo movement took hold from the autumn.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) is trying to tackle the violence and intimidation faced by women going to the polls.
It has tried to improve security at India’s more than 900,000 polling booths, meaning women can now vote in relative safety.
The ECI has also experimented with setting up separate women-only queues on election day, and establishing polling stations run entirely by women.
A groundbreaking general election
In 2019, voter turnout may be higher for women than men for the first time in an Indian national election.
This trend has many implications, not only for how politicians campaign, but also how they govern.
Since coming to power in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made no secret of his desire to appeal to women voters.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
For instance, he has introduced a scheme to provide cooking gas cylinders to millions of Indian households. His party claims this will stop women from breathing in harmful smoke or spending hours collecting fuel.
Another scheme aims to provide every household with a bank account. At least half of newly-opened accounts are registered to women, who have historically lacked access to modern banking.
Looking to the future
The path to female empowerment in India has been slow and prone to setbacks.
In politics, women make up just eight per cent of parliamentary candidates and only 11.5 per cent of eventual winners.
This may change. Women’s activism is putting pressure on political parties to pass the Women’s Reservation Bill, guaranteeing one-third of Parliamentary seats for women.
Similar quotas already exist in local-level politics, creating a “pipeline” of women running for high-level office.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionWomen cast their votes in the state of Jammu and Kashmir
With more women in charge, India’s political establishment would look much more like the population it represents.
Electing more women may benefit the country in unexpected ways as well: recent research links female politicians to higher growth and less corruption.
While gender equality in the world’s largest democracy is a long way off, the influence of women at the ballot box and in the corridors of power is already having a clear impact.
GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) – Indian rescuers trying to reach a group of miners trapped in a remote and illegal “rat-hole” coal mine are struggling to pump out water from the 370-foot-deep pit, further dimming their chances of survival more than three weeks into their ordeal.
The slow progress in the rescue efforts in the northeastern state of Meghalaya has been contrasted with the dramatic rescue of 12 Thai boys and their football coach from a flooded cave in July last year, which drew a massive international audience.
The mine became flooded after at least 15 miners went down the narrow pit on Dec. 13. Rat-hole mines killed thousands of workers in Meghalaya before India’s environmental court banned the practice in early 2014.
Many mines continued operation, despite the ban, requiring workers, often children, to descend hundreds of feet on bamboo ladders and dig coal out of narrow, horizontal seams.
“We are continuously engaged in our efforts but the terrain and conditions out here are extremely difficult,” Santosh Kumar Singh, an assistant commandant with the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), told Reuters from the site.
Navy divers and NDRF personnel had not been able to reach the trapped miners, he said.
Rescuers are now placing their hopes on a huge pump from state miner Coal India Ltd that is being installed on a concrete platform near the mine.
One dead in Thailand as tropical storm uproots trees
India’s Supreme Court on Friday ordered the federal government and Meghalaya to file a report by Monday on the rescue operation. Meghalaya told the court on Thursday that nearly 86 people had been working on the rescue effort.
At its peak, the state produced coal worth $4 billion a year, or about a tenth of India’s total production.
While the Thailand drama got round-the-clock international media coverage, the trapped miners in Meghalaya are getting very little attention, even within India.
“Whole media, government and us, the common people, have completely ignored them,” one Twitter user, Rahul Sribastab, wrote. “The government, opposition and media have failed us.”
The Allahabad High Court had in 2010 trifurcated the disputed site, giving one portion each to Ram Lalla, Nirmohi Akhara and the original Muslim litigant.
SNS Web | New Delhi | January 4, 2019 12:21 pm
The Supreme Court on Friday set the date for hearing on the title suit in the Ayodhya case for 10 January.
A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Sanjay Krishan Kaul said that an appropriate bench will hear a batch of cross petitions challenging the 2010 Allahabad High Court judgment on the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute title case and will decide the future course of the hearing.
The Allahabad High Court had in 2010 trifurcated the disputed site, giving one portion each to Ram Lalla, Nirmohi Akhara and the original Muslim litigant.
“Further orders will be passed by an appropriate bench on 10 January for fixing the date of hearing the matter,” the bench said on Friday.
The apex court also dismissed a PIL filed by an advocate Harinath Ram in November 2018 seeking to hear the Ayodhya matter on urgent and day to day basis.
Reacting to the development National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah said that the case should not have gone to the court and that Lord Ram belongs to the world.
“This(Ayodhya) issue should be discussed and sorted out across the table between people. Why to drag the issue to the Court? I am sure it can be resolved through dialogue. Lord Ram belongs to the whole world, not just Hindus,” he was quoted as saying by ANI.
The top court had on October 29 fixed the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute cases for the first week of January next year before an appropriate bench.
On 12 November, the apex court had declined early hearing of petitions in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title dispute case.
“We have already passed the order. The appeals are coming up in January. Permission declined,” the bench said while rejecting the request of early hearing of lawyer Barun Kumar Sinha, appearing for the Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha.
The Supreme Court in a 2:1 verdict in October, declined to refer to a five-judge Constitution bench the issue of reconsideration of the observations in its 1994 judgement that a mosque was not integral to Islam that arose during the hearing of Ayodhya land dispute.
Clamour for a legislation to pave the way for the construction of the temple has since gained prominence.
But in an interview with ANI on 1 January 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi ruled out bringing an ordinance on the construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya before the judicial process is over.
“We have said in our party manifesto that a solution would be found to this issue under the ambit of the Constitution,” the Prime Minister said about the Ram temple issue in his interview to ANI.
He also suggested that the judicial process was being slowed down because of obstacles being created by the Congress in the Supreme Court – a charge he had levelled during one of the rallies in Rajasthan ahead of the elections in the state.
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s central bank said on Friday it was cutting the amount of cash that banks must hold as reserves for the fifth time in the past year — freeing up $116 billion for new lending as it tries to reduce the risk of a sharper economic slowdown.
The latest support measures come amid mounting worries about the health of the world’s second-largest economy, which is facing both slowing demand at home and punishing U.S. tariffs on its exported goods.
Global stock markets sold off on Thursday after a warning from tech giant Apple Inc about slowing China sales, while data earlier this week showed the country’s manufacturing activity shrank in December for the first time in over two years.
The cut in banks’ reserve requirement ratios (RRR) is the
first in 2019 by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) as the economy faces its weakest growth since the global financial crisis and mounting pressure from U.S. tariffs.
Reserve requirement ratios (RRRs) – currently 14.5 percent for large institutions and 12.5 percent for smaller banks – will be lowered by a total of 100 basis points (bps) in two stages, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said.
The cuts will be effective Jan. 15 and Jan. 25, and come ahead of the long Lunar New Year celebrations when cash conditions often get tight.
The moves will free up a net 800 billion yuan (£91.8 billion) after banks use some of the 1.5 trillion yuan in liquidity released into the financial system to pay back maturing medium-term loans.
“Policy easing will be stepped up further over coming months,” Capital Economics said in a research note.
“With credit growth still slowing and, typically, a six-month lag before any turnaround in credit affects the economy, worries about the outlook for China will persist for several months yet.”
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Further cuts in the RRR had been widely expected this year, especially after a spate of weak data in recent months showed China’s economy was continuing to lose steam. The size of the move was on the upper end of market expectations, and the net funds released would be the largest amount in the five cuts since last January.
The announcement came just hours after Premier Li Keqiang said China would take further action to bolster the economy, including RRR cuts and more cuts in taxes and fees.
The central bank said China’s economic growth is still within a reasonable range and it will continue to implement a prudent monetary policy, without engaging in massive stimulus.
“We will maintain reasonable and sufficient liquidity, maintain reasonable growth in the scale of money and credit and social financing, stabilise macro-leverage, and seek internal and external balances,” it said.
China’s economic growth is expected to have cooled to around 6.5 percent last year, in line with Beijing’s target but down from 6.9 percent in 2017.
A further deceleration is seen this year, with some analysts forecasting growth will cool to nearly 6 percent, which would mark China’s weakest expansion since 1990.
Image copyrightCNSA/AFPImage captionThe first close up pictures of the far side of the Moon
What will China’s Chang’e-4 mission learn about the far side of the Moon? Here are a few things the mission is designed to do.
Learn about the Moon’s history
No space mission has ever explored the far side from the surface. As such, it’s the first chance to explore a mysterious region of Earth’s natural satellite.
The “face” that’s never seen from Earth has some key differences to the more familiar “near side”. The far side has a thicker, older crust that is pocked with more craters. There are also very few of the “maria” (dark basaltic “seas” created by lava flows) that are evident on the near side.
Chang’e-4 has reportedly landed at a site known as Von Kármán crater, a 180km depression located in the far side’s southern hemisphere. But Von Kármán lies within a much bigger hole punched in the Moon – the South Pole-Aitken basin.
It’s the oldest, largest and deepest such basin on the Moon and formed when an asteroid – perhaps 500km across, or more – collided with it billions of years ago.
This event was so powerful that it is thought to have ploughed through the Moon’s outer crust layer and through into the zone known as the mantle.
One of the mission’s objectives is to study any exposed material from the mantle present at the landing site. This would provide insights into the internal structure and history of the Moon.
Image copyrightNASAImage captionThe South Pole-Aitken basin was formed by a giant impact billions of years ago
Indeed, data from orbiting spacecraft show that the composition of the basin is different from the surrounding lunar highlands. But exposed mantle material on the surface is just one possibility among several to explain this observation.
The rover will use its panoramic camera to identify interesting locations and its Visible and Near-Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (VNIS) to study minerals in the floor of the crater (as well as of ejecta – rocks thrown out by nearby space impacts).
Additionally, the Lunar Penetrating Radar (LPR) instrument will be able to look into the shallow subsurface of the Moon, down to a depth of about 100m. It could probe the thickness of the lunar regolith – the broken up rocks and dust that make up the surface – and shed light on the structure of the upper lunar crust.
After the huge impact that created the South Pole-Aitken basin, a large amount of melted rock would have filled the depression. The science team wants to use Chang’e-4 to identify and study variations in its composition.
Filling an astronomy gap
The far side of the Moon has long been regarded as an ideal spot for conducting a particular kind of radio astronomy – in the low-frequency band – because it’s shielded from the radio noise of Earth.
There’s a frequency band (below about 10MHz) where radio astronomy observations can’t be conducted from Earth, because of manmade radio interference and other, natural factors.
Chang’e-4’s lander is carrying an instrument called the Low Frequency Spectrometer (LFS) which can make low frequency radio observations. It will be used in concert with a similar experiment on the Queqiao orbiting satellite.
The objectives include making a map of the radio sky at low frequencies and studying the behaviour of the Sun.
Speaking in 2016, Liu Tongjie, from the Chinese space agency (CNSA), said: “Since the far side of the Moon is shielded from electromagnetic interference from the Earth, it’s an ideal place to research the space environment and solar bursts, and the probe can ‘listen’ to the deeper reaches of the cosmos.”
Thus, the mission will fill a gap in astronomical observation, allowing scientists to study cosmic phenomena in a way that has never been possible from our planet.
Radiation on the Moon
Image copyrightSCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARYImage captionUnderstanding the radiation environment will be vital for future human exploration
Several space agencies want to land humans on the Moon in the not-too-distant future, and might send astronauts there for longer than we’ve ever stayed before. So understanding the potential risks from radiation are vital.
Earth’s thick atmosphere and strong magnetic field provide adequate shielding against galactic cosmic rays and energetic charged particles travelling from the Sun.
But astronauts on the Moon will be outside this protective bubble and exposed to particles travelling through open space at near the speed of light – with potentially damaging consequences for their health.
It will provide dosimetry (measure the ionising radiation dose that could be absorbed by the human body) with a view to future exploration, and contribute to understanding of particles originating from the Sun.
Wang Dingxuan, 54, said his star performer was a pig that he had trained to jump over hurdles and pull wedding carts – in return for a handful of treats.
Over the years, Wang has built up a strong bond with his animals, he said in an interview published on Pearvideo.com.
“I let the pig live in my house,” he said. “We’ve developed a close relationship.”
The farmer, from the city of Yanshi in Henan province, said he had always loved animals and decided to start training them after seeing a dog perform tricks on a Western television show.
After practising for several years, Wang set up the Yanshi City Happy Everyday Pet Performance Group in 2007.
The show features a number of animals, including a pig, dog, goat and pigeon. Footage of a goat walking along a narrow plank became a hit on social media.
“A man from Shandong saw my animals and wanted to buy my pig for more than 10,000 yuan (US$1,450),” Wang said. “I turned him down, but said we were willing to perform for him.”
Although he is now a big hit, Wang said his family was not supportive in the early days.
“They said I should be working in the daytime rather than playing with my animals,” he said. “So I trained my animals at night.”
His persistence worked, and his 75-year-old mother can now often be seen riding the pig on the streets of Yanshi.
Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde (R) meets with Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, Jan. 3, 2019. (Xinhua/Zhang Yu)
ADDIS ABABA, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) — Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde met with Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi here on Thursday, with both sides highlighting the importance of further strengthening bilateral ties.
The Ethiopian government and all sectors of the society are committed to further strengthening cooperation with China, and look forward to a more robust relationship between the two countries, Sahle-Work said during the meeting held at the Ethiopian Presidential Palace in Addis Ababa.
The president also affirmed Ethiopia’s readiness to continue to actively support and participate in cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative.
Ethiopia and China have consensus and common interests in protecting the world order from shocks of unilateralism, Sahle-Work said, expressing her hope that the two countries would continue to strengthen coordination and cooperation in the United Nations and on other international affairs.
For his part, Wang said that the development of China and Ethiopia will strengthen the developing countries as a whole and enhance the capability of preserving world peace and stability.
Wang said he believes that the Ethiopian government and people have the wisdom to explore a development path which is effective and is in line with Ethiopia’s conditions.
China is willing to be a long-term and reliable partner while Ethiopia is developing the country and rejuvenating the nation, Wang said.
Both sides will implement the outcomes of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Beijing Summit held in September 2018, strengthen cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative platform, and take it as an opportunity to push forward mutually beneficial cooperation in various fields, Wang said.
Wang said he hopes that Ethiopia will continue to play the role of promoting the overall China-Africa cooperation.
The two women had tried to enter the temple once before, in December, but were prevented from doing so by protesters.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionThe entry of two women into the Sabarimala temple sparked violent protests in Kerala
As news of their entry into the temple spread, violence broke out in several cities and towns as groups of protesters clashed with police, who fired tear gas to disperse crowds.
Police told news agency AFP that at least 15 people were injured after protesters hurled stones at them.
The Supreme Court decision to let women worship at the Sabarimala shrine came after a petition argued that the custom banning them violated gender equality.
But India’s ruling party, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has argued that the ruling is an attack on Hindu values.
The issue has become increasingly contentious in the run-up to India’s general election, scheduled for April and May. Critics have accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of pursuing a religiously divisive agenda to court the BJP’s mostly-Hindu support base.
Hinduism regards menstruating women as unclean and bars them from participating in religious rituals – but most temples allow women to enter as long as they are not menstruating, rather than banning women in a broad age group from entering at all.
Image copyrightKAVIYOOR SANTOSHImage captionPolice used tear gas to break up protests
Protesters have consistently argued that the court ruling goes against the wishes of the temple’s deity, Lord Ayappa.
They say that the ban on women entering Sabarimala is not about menstruation alone – it is also in keeping with the wish of the deity, who is believed to have laid down clear rules about the pilgrimage to seek his blessings.
According to the temple’s mythology, Lord Ayyappa is an avowed bachelor who has taken an oath of celibacy and hence, women of a certain age are not allowed into the temple.
Two other women had managed to reach the temple’s premises in October, with more than 100 police protecting them from stone-throwing protesters as they walked the last 5km stretch to the shrine. But they were forced to turn around after a stand-off with devotees, just metres from Sabarimala’s sanctum.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 
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