23/10/2013

We won’t interfere in China’s sea disputes, says Indian minister | South China Morning Post

The territorial dispute between Manila and Beijing is a bilateral issue in which New Delhi will not interfere, Indian external affairs minister Salman Khurshid told the South China Morning Post.

india_dispute_net.jpg

His comments come as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh embarks on three-day visit to China to discuss reducing border tensions, boosting trade and easing visa requirements.

Singh has faced attacks from the opposition for being too soft in trade and border disputes with China, just months before India‘s general election.

But Beijing will no doubt be watching closely the visit by Khurshid to Manila, where he has agreed with his Philippines counterpart to embark on a strategic partnership, and increase military exchanges.

Beijing and Manila are engaged in an acrimonious stand-off over disputed territory in the South China Sea.

The apparent tag-team diplomacy by Singh and Khurshid appears to show India’s intent to play both sides – while staying neutral in China’s disputes with other countries. India has grown more reliant on China over the past decade, with two-way trade growing to US$66 billion last year. It also wants to boost its influence in Southeast Asia, where China is making greater inroads.

“It is a coincidence that [Singh] is in China and I’m here,” Khurshid told the Post.

During an open forum yesterday following his lecture on India\’s foreign policy where he emphasised India’s “look east policy,” Khurshid said there had never been an occasion where China told India to stay out of the South China Sea. “Because we don’t interfere,” he said.

India’s state-owned Oil and Natural Gas is in joint venture with Vietnam in an offshore gas field area which China claims.

“We do believe that anything that is a bilateral issue between two nations must be settled by those two nations,” he said.

“But if someone seeks advice, if someone seeks comfort, of course we will give it.”

via We won’t interfere in China’s sea disputes, says Indian minister | South China Morning Post.

Posted in China alert, Chindia Alert, Economics, India alert, Neighbour conflict, Politics, Territorial dispute | Leave a Comment »

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23/10/2013

Swelling lakes in Hol Xil pose railway threat – Xinhua

Swelling lakes on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, a notable sign of global warming, are threatening the safety of the world\’s highest railway, according to climate and ecological experts.

One flooded lake is now only 8 km away from a section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway in the depopulated area of Hol Xil Nature Reserve, according to the latest satellite monitoring by the Qinghai Provincial Academy of Meteorological Sciences.

Liu Baokang, engineer with the academy\’s remote-sensing and ecological evaluation center, said several lakes in the nature reserve have been overflowing since 2011 after receiving an increasing volume of melted snow from glaciers on the plateau, known as the \”roof of the world.\”

Liu said the center\’s research shows that the lakes have become a threat to the railway\’s roadbed and roads on the Qinghai-Tibet Highway as well as important oil pipelines, cables and power facilities that run through the region.

Sitting 4,600 meters above sea level, the 45,000 square km Hol Xil nature reserve is China\’s largest unpopulated area and is home to wild yaks and endangered Tibetan antelope.

Major lakes in the reserve, namely Zhuonai Lake, Qusay Lake and a salt lake, are all holding water at historically high levels.

Following a dyke breach in 2011, water has flowed from Zhuonai Lake and fed into Qusay Lake. The latter\’s overflow has resulted in swelling of the salt lake downstream, which has more than tripled its 2011 size, endangering the rail line.

Wang Xinwen, a spokesman with the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Co., said the company has \”prepared a comprehensive set of contingency plans to cope with an emergency.\” But he declined to give details of measures to be taken if the rail track were to become submerged in lake water.

Wang affirmed that, so far, no harm to the railway\’s foundation from the flooding lake has been monitored.

The railway boasts a length of 1,956 km at an altitude of over 4,000 meters, connecting northwest China\’s Qinghai Province and Lhasa, capital of southwest China\’s Tibet Autonomous Region.

Data from the provincial weather bureau showed that temperatures in the Hol Xil region rose by an average of 0.38 degrees Celsius every ten years.

\”Rising temperatures have accelerated the melting of glaciers. Increased precipitation in the region has also contributed to the expanding lakes,\” said Liu.

He said lake flooding has also triggered changes in the landscape.

Rangers patrolling the region this year discovered that a gorge, which appeared after the 2011 dyke breach on Zhuonai Lake, is blocking the migration route of a herd of about 3,000 Tibetan antelope. The animal has lately grown accustomed to giving birth by the lakeside instead of travelling to its traditional pasture for breeding, which has affected vegetation in the area as the antelopes graze on nearby plants.

\”This has accelerated desertification by the lakeside,\” said Zhao Xinlu, director of the Zhuonai Lake Conservation Station.

The provincial government has organized meteorological, hydrological and environmental protection experts to closely monitor flooding on the lakes.

via Swelling lakes in Hol Xil pose railway threat – Xinhua | English.news.cn.

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23/10/2013

China paper in detained journalist plea – BBC News

A Chinese newspaper has published a rare front-page plea for the release of one of its journalists held by police.

A screen shot of New Express front page

The New Express, based in Guangzhou, called for Chen Yongzhou, who was detained last week, to be freed.

The paper said Mr Chen\’s detention was linked to reports he wrote about a part state-owned construction equipment company based in Hunan.

Police in Hunan have confirmed the journalist has been detained for \”damage to business reputation\’\’.

Earlier this year, Mr Chen wrote several reports about Zoomlion, which is partly owned by the Hunan provincial government.

Zoomlion issued a statement after one New Express article, which alleged it had improperly accounted for sales, caused its share price to drop.

In a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange in late May, the company called the claims \”false, groundless and misleading\”.

via BBC News – China paper in detained journalist plea.

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22/10/2013

Nasa reverses conference’s ban on Chinese scientists – BBC News

The US space agency has said it will allow Chinese scientists to attend an astronomy conference in California next month, reversing an earlier ban.

Undated artist rendering of Kepler-62e and Kepler-62f, discovered using Nasa's Kepler telescope

Nasa put the earlier ban down to a misinterpretation of its policy on foreign nationals.

Chinese officials had called the rejection of Chinese scientists\’ applications a form of discrimination.

The event for scientists who research planets beyond the solar system will be held at Ames Research Center.

The bar on Chinese scientists, revealed earlier this month, was prompted by new counter-espionage legislation restricting foreign nationals\’ access to Nasa facilities, Nasa spokesman Allard Beutel told the BBC.

The conference will be attended by US and international researchers who work on Nasa\’s Kepler space telescope programme.

via BBC News – Nasa reverses conference’s ban on Chinese scientists.

Posted in Aerospace, China alert, innovation, Politics, Technology | Leave a Comment »

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21/10/2013

China’s Arms Industry Makes Global Inroads – NYTimes.com

From the moment Turkey announced plans two years ago to acquire a long-range missile defense system, the multibillion-dollar contract from a key NATO member appeared to be an American company’s to lose.

For years, Turkey’s military had relied on NATO-supplied Patriot missiles, built by the American companies Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, to defend its skies, and the system was fully compatible with the air-defense platforms operated by other members of the alliance.

There were other contenders for the deal, of course. Rival manufacturers in Russia and Europe made bids. Turkey rejected those — but not in favor of the American companies. Its selection last month of a little-known Chinese defense company, China Precision Machinery Export-Import Corp oration, stunned the military-industrial establishment in Washington and Brussels.

The sale was especially unusual because the Chinese missile defense system, known as the HQ-9, would be difficult to integrate with existing NATO equipment. China Precision is also subject to sanctions from the United States for selling technologies that the United States says could help Iran, Syria and North Korea develop unconventional weapons. A State Department spokeswoman said this month that American officials had expressed to the Turkish government “serious concerns” about the deal, which has not yet been signed.

Industry executives and arms-sales analysts say the Chinese probably beat out their more established rivals by significantly undercutting them on price, offering their system at $3 billion. Nonetheless, Turkey’s selection of a Chinese state-owned manufacturer is a breakthrough for China, a nation that has set its sights on moving up the value chain in arms technology and establishing itself as a credible competitor in the global weapons market.

“This is a remarkable win for the Chinese arms industry,” said Pieter Wezeman, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which tracks arms sales and transfers.

In the past, Chinese companies have been known mainly as suppliers of small arms, but that is changing quickly. From drones to frigates to fighter jets, the companies are aggressively pushing foreign sales of high-tech hardware, mostly in the developing world. Russian companies are feeling the greatest pressure, but American and other Western companies are also increasingly running into the Chinese.

via China’s Arms Industry Makes Global Inroads – NYTimes.com.

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21/10/2013

Photo gallery: A walk through Mayawati’s Dalit park | India Insight

On a hot Tuesday afternoon, I walked into the recently reopened Dalit park in Noida, outside New Delhi. This is the park built by Mayawati, the 57-year-old former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, as a memorial to the class of people long known in India as “untouchables.” A Dalit herself, Mayawati is a symbol of what traditionally oppressed classes and castes in India can do with their lives.

Of course, Mayawati has been accused by her political opponents of wasting money — lots of it. She seems like an easy target, especially when she has commissioned statues of herself. For a senior Congress politician, erecting one’s own statue was an act of ‘megalomania’. But the symbolism that this structure seeks to attach itself with — asserting Dalit identity and acknowledging “sacrifices” made by people of backward classes — is hard to miss.

The high central chamber of the Dalit park, which is a short drive into Uttar Pradesh from Delhi, draws heavily on Buddhist architecture. It houses statues of B. R. Ambedkar, who helped draft India’s Constitution; Kanshi Ram, founder of the Bahujan Samaj Party that Mayawati now heads; and the former chief minister herself with her ubiquitous handbag, an uncommon thing for a living politician to do.

The 40-metre-high structure is surrounded by 20 sculptures of elephants, 10 on either side. The remaining complex, built at a cost of nearly 7 billion rupees ($113 million), includes bronze statues of Ambedkar and other “pioneers of social transformation,” and replicas of the Ashoka Chakra.

“The Dalits fought like anybody else in the struggle against the British. She is underscoring it that it is this part of history that you have not talked about for the last 65 years,” said Sohail Hashmi, a Delhi-based historian.

The park was inaugurated by Mayawati two years ago. But when the Samajwadi Party came to power last year, led by Akhilesh Yadav, a probe was ordered into alleged irregularities in its construction. The investigation is still on but Yadav threw open the park on Oct. 2, Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday, a decision that caused controversy of its own.

Spread over some 80 acres, the “Rashtriya Dalit Prerna Sthal” (or the national Dalit memorial)  is located on the banks of the Yamuna river.

One of the 4,000 visitors to visit the park in the week since it was reopened was Rajiv Prasad.

“I wanted to witness the history and achievements of our people. The history of the oppressed people that has been written gives us self-confidence. If money has been spent on this, it’s good,” said the college principal from Bihar, born in Azamgarh district of Uttar Pradesh.

Neeraja Choudhury, a political analyst, said there probably are better ways to assert the identity of India’s so-called backward classes.“If I were to do it, I would certainly go in for Dalit education because the largest group of illiterates in the world is Dalit girls. Seven hundred crores would have gone a long way in building those high quality institutions to bring about educational revolution for Dalits.”

via Photo gallery: A walk through Mayawati’s Dalit park | India Insight.

See also: https://chindia-alert.org/prognosis/indian-challenges/

Posted in Caste, Dalit, Economics, India alert, Politics, Social & cultural | 1 Comment »

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21/10/2013

Movie Review: Shahid | India Insight

(Any opinions expressed here are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters)

The best thing about Hansal Mehta’s “Shahid” is that the filmmaker tries to tell a fascinating story. In a way, it is the story of the city of Mumbai — beginning with the riots that followed the 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, and leading up to the attack on Mumbai that killed 166 people in 2008.

These events are depicted through the real-life story of Shahid Azmi, a teenager who gets caught up in the Mumbai riots, and a few months later, finds himself in Pakistan at a training camp for militants. A disillusioned Azmi returns to India but is tortured and imprisoned under the country’s anti-terror laws.

Azmi completes his schooling in jail, and after his release, studies law to help defend those he believes were wrongly accused and jailed on charges of terrorism.

Azmi, who was from a poor family that lived in a slum for a while, got as many as 17 people acquitted before he was shot dead in his office in the suburbs in 2010, while he was handling the case of a defendant in the Mumbai attacks.

Given the source material Mehta has, this is a film that promises to be gripping, and thankfully, the director doesn’t over-dramatize events. He uses a restrained, subtle narrative to tell the audiences Shahid’s story, rarely judging his motives or intentions. Mehta touches all aspects of Shahid’s life — his strained marriage, his relationship with his mother and brothers — never lingering for longer than necessary, and giving us a glimpse into a world not many of us are exposed to.

Even the drudgery of daily court proceedings is made fascinating, thanks to its lead actor. As Shahid, Raj Kumar injects the right amount of earnestness, anger and vulnerability into his role, to make this one of the best performances we have seen this year. The other actors, including Baljinder Kaur as Shahid’s mother, and Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub as his elder brother are excellent. None of the performances feel like acting — right from the locations to the people who live there, they all seem completely real, and this is a huge strength of the film.

The one grouse with “Shahid” is perhaps it doesn’t tell the whole story, especially at the beginning. I wish Mehta had answered questions of how and why Shahid went to Pakistan, what caused his disillusionment, and made him return. Nevertheless, this is a small grouse with a film that is otherwise uplifting.

via Movie Review: Shahid | India Insight.

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21/10/2013

Documentary ‘Katiyabaaz’ shines spotlight on India’s power shortage | India Insight

A documentary about a power thief, the government official who tries to stop him, and the larger story about the lack of power and infrastructure in India’s small towns is making news at the Mumbai Film Festival.

“Katiyabaaz” (Powerless) chronicles the clash between Loha Singh, a Robin Hood-style power thief who claims to be the best in the business, and Ritu Maheshwari, a government official who is determined to stop power theft in the industrial town of Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh.

The film will screen at the Mumbai Film Festival, which begins Friday.

Directed by documentary filmmakers Fahad Mustafa and Deepti Kakkar, the 84-minute movie screened at the Berlin and Tribeca film festivals before appearing in Mumbai.

“The film is as much about the energy crisis in India and globally as it is about the ingenuity and tenacity of the people in Kanpur. It is also a film about the challenges of governance, the numbers and scale that our policymakers must contend with,” Kakkar told Reuters in an email interview.

Mustafa, who is from Kanpur, and Kakkar spent more than two years following Loha Singh as he climbed electricity poles, strung together wires and brought power to several small workshops and businesses that need uninterrupted power to function.

“It’s all because of him – it is his blessing that this workshop is running,” one worker says as the lights flicker on.

The Indian government estimates that almost 20 percent of power generated in the country is stolen. The country has never overcome its chronic power crisis, and some analysts say it is a key reason why it might fall behind in its quest to compete with China and other developing nations. Peak demand shortage is pegged at 10 percent, according to government estimates.

In an industrial town like Kanpur, known for its leather and textile industries, lack of power can be crippling, and lives and livelihoods are at stake, Mustafa said.

“It is ostensibly a story about a lack of infrastructure, but I like to think that it also touches upon many other aspects of life in cities in India, the inequalities and struggles therein. For me, the city of Kanpur itself is a character to be reckoned with on film,”  he said.

The protagonist of the film, he said was a “discovery’, and symbolic of the travails that his city had to face.

“We met a lot of electricity thieves in Kanpur (indeed, it seems half the city steals electricity), but no one like Loha, a person who owned himself, a legend in his neighborhood, foul-mouthed, fiercely independent, a true working class hero, and a product of the travails of the city,” said Mustafa.

In the trailer of the film, Singh is shown biting off wires, attaching them to electricity poles, and laughing off threats from Maheshwari’s people, who are determined to stop power theft. Often, he is supported by citizens, who blame the government for not providing them with uninterrupted power.

“The electricity people force even an honest man to become a thief,” an irate man tells the  camera.

It is this inequality and dichotomy that both film-makers said stood out starkly during their film-making process.

“The scale of energy paucity in India is staggering. Of the 1.5 billion people worldwide who live without power, 400 million live in India. We want to put this crisis into perspective and bring it home to people,” Kakkar said.

via Documentary ‘Katiyabaaz’ shines spotlight on India’s power shortage | India Insight.

Posted in Economics, Electricity, energy, India alert | Leave a Comment »

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20/10/2013

# Apologies to my regular followers

Apologies to my regular followers for inundating you with so many posts on my blog today. I’ve been away in Cyprus for a fortnight ….

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

20/10/2013

China’s State Press Calls for ‘Building a de-Americanized World’ – Businessweek

“It is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanized world.” As nations around the world fret over the U.S. budget impasse, that is the conclusion of a not-so-subtle commentary published by China’s official Xinhua News Agency on Oct. 14.

Key among its proposals: the creation of a new international reserve currency to replace the present reliance on U.S. dollars, a necessary step to prevent American bumbling from further afflicting the world, the commentary suggests.

“The cyclical stagnation in Washington for a viable bipartisan solution over a federal budget and an approval for raising the debt ceiling has again left many nations’ tremendous dollar assets in jeopardy and the international community highly agonized,” says Xinhua. “The world is still crawling its way out of an economic disaster thanks to the voracious Wall Street elites,” it adds.

It’s not a new refrain: Back in March 2009, China’s central bank governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, also called for the creation of a new reserve currency, albeit in less heated language. The world needs a new “super-sovereign reserve currency” to replace the current reliance on the dollar, Zhou wrote in a paper published on the People’s Bank of China’s website (Zhou still heads the bank). The goal, he wrote, is to “create an international reserve currency that is disconnected from individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run.”

Toppling the dollar isn’t enough today, however: “Several cornerstones should be laid to underpin a de-Americanized world,” explains the Xinhua piece. Along with a greater role for developing-market economies in both the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, “the authority of the United Nations in handling global hot-spot issues has to be recognized. That means no one has the right to wage any form of military action against others without a UN mandate” (all quite reasonable propositions, it must be said).

“A self-serving Washington has abused its superpower status and introduced even more chaos into the world by shifting financial risks overseas, instigating regional tensions amid territorial disputes, and fighting unwarranted wars under the cover of outright lies,” the commentary continues.

“Such alarming days when the destinies of others are in the hands of a hypocritical nation have to be terminated, and a new world order should be put in place, according to which all nations, big or small, poor or rich, can have their key interests respected and protected on an equal footing.”

via China’s State Press Calls for ‘Building a de-Americanized World’ – Businessweek.

Posted in China alert, Economics, GeoPolitics, Politics, Reserve currency | Leave a Comment »

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