Archive for ‘India alert’

14/01/2014

Ready for whatever Congress wants me to do: Rahul Gandhi – The Hindu

Ahead of the AICC meeting on Friday when he is expected to be named the Congress Prime Ministerial candidate, Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday appeared ready to take up the responsibility.

“None of my family members ever worked for the sake of power. Neither my father nor my grandmother,

“I am a sepoy of Congress. I will obey whatever order is given to me. I will do whatever Congress wants me to do… Decisions are taken in our party by senior leaders,” he told Hindi daily ‘Dainik Bhaskar’ in an interview.

“Earlier also some decisions were taken…Power is poison ….does not mean that I am not keen to take responsibility. There is no word of reluctance in my life…Congress has never been specific. Whatever task the Congress wanted me to accomplish, I have done that,” Mr. Gandhi said when asked whether he was ready to take up the post of Prime Minister and about perceptions of him being reluctant.

Mr. Gandhi’s remarks at the party’s Chintan Shivir in Jaipur in January 2013, that his mother Sonia Gandhi had told him that power is poison had led to speculation as well Opposition attack that the Congress vice-president was not willing to take up responsibility.

Explaining his remarks, he said, “Power is poison is an observation that when power comes, one should know how to deal with the associated dangers that come with it. This is it. Power is poison means use power for the welfare of people and do not use it to make oneself bigger or more powerful.”

To a direct question on whether he will accept any such responsibility, Mr. Gandhi said, “None of my family members ever worked for the sake of power. Neither my father nor my grandmother.”

Mr. Gandhi’s father Rajiv Gandhi and grandmother Indira Gandhi were both Prime Ministers of the country.

via Ready for whatever Congress wants me to do: Rahul Gandhi – The Hindu.

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14/01/2014

Kejriwal’s Foreign Shop Ban is Bad for Delhi – India Real Time – WSJ

Delhi’s decision to block foreign supermarkets in the capital–one of the few markets that matter in India–is bad for the city and for the country, some analysts said Tuesday.

As India looks to attract more foreign investment, New Delhi’s flip flop on accepting foreign investment in multi-brand retail in the capital sends the wrong signal, the analysts said.

“Delhi is one of the key metro markets, keeping it out of reach of retailers may significantly reduce the attractiveness of an India investment for any major retailer,” said Deep Mukherjee, a director at ratings agency Fitch. “This uncertainty with respect to change of guard at the state level will always be a problem for any long-term investor in the retail space.”

The new Aam Aadmi Party-led government in New Delhi this week asked the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion to remove Delhi’s name from the list of cities which allow multi-brand retail stores. Multi-brand retail is Indian bureaucratic speak for retail stores that carry more than one brand, such as supermarkets.

Big global brands used to only be able enter India through franchises, wholesale stores or single-brand stores, such as clothing shops. That kept out big supermarkets such as those run by Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

Last year India opened the retail sector to allow foreign retailers to own up to 51% in local supermarkets. It asked the state governments to make the final decisions on allowing multi-brand stores.

Since then, eleven of the country’s 22 states–including Delhi–decided to allow multi-brand retail outlets.

Last month, however, the Aam Aadmi, or common man, Party, took control of Delhi in state elections after promising it would block foreign investment in retail, concerned it would hurt the mom and pop stores that dominate the sector.

Keeping foreign funds and expertise out of the sector will hurt consumers and delay the modernization of India’s outdated supply chains, said some industry groups.

via Kejriwal’s Foreign Shop Ban is Bad for Delhi – India Real Time – WSJ.

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13/01/2014

* The Year Lokpal Comes of Age – India Real Time – WSJ

This post is a commentary.

In 1965, L.M. Singhvi addressed India’s lower house of parliament and told parliamentarians that the need for an anticorruption ombudsman was overdue.

“It is for the sake of securing justice and for cleansing the public life of the Augean stable of corruption, real and imaginary, that such an institution must be brought into existence,” he told lawmakers at the time.

Almost half a century later, on Jan. 1, the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, to create a corruption watchdog, became the first law made in 2014.

It gives Lokpal, or the “caretaker of the people”, jurisdiction to investigate allegations of corruption made against government officials up to the rank of prime minister. Even nongovernmental organizations with foreign donations above one million rupees ($16,252)  annually will fall within its purview.

The new anti-corruption machinery involves the services of federal investigators — the Central Bureau of Investigation — and the Central Vigilance Commission, which have both been made more robust and independent for the purpose.

via Inside Law: The Year Lokpal Comes of Age – India Real Time – WSJ.

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12/01/2014

Indian Slowdown Chains Millions to the Farm – India Real Time – WSJ

India’s economic slowdown is changing the future of millions of unskilled workers, chaining them to low-wage farm work.

After a sharp decline during India’s boom years, the number of people working on farms is rising again according to a report this week by Crisil Research.

Between March 2005 and March 2012, the agricultural workforce fell by a whopping 37 million people as faster growth and better paying jobs in industrial and service sectors sucked workers out of the countryside.

While there isn’t a rising need for farmers–India’s farming industry is notoriously inefficient and could produce just as much with fewer people–there aren’t enough new productive jobs for them to move to in India’s cities and small towns.

With the economy slowing over the past two years, the need for former agricultural laborers has tapered. Crisil estimates that the agricultural workforce will grow by 12 million people in the period between fiscal 2012 and fiscal 2019.

That’s more people than live in India’s technology capital of Bangalore stuck in their villages in unproductive jobs.

India’s industry and services sectors added 52 million jobs between fiscal 2005 and 2012. In the next seven years, around 25% fewer jobs will be created by the industrial and services sectors, Crisil said, leaving millions unable to find work outside the farm.

Until recently, India was among the world’s fastest-growing economies, with gross domestic product expansion peaking at more than 10%  one quarter. However, rising inflation, a prolonged period of high interest rates and a slow pace of reform have slowed expansion.

via Indian Slowdown Chains Millions to the Farm – India Real Time – WSJ.

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11/01/2014

Posco plant in India gets environment clearance – Businessweek

India\’s environment ministry has cleared South Korean steel giant Posco\’s planned $13 billion steel plant in eastern India but has asked the company to spend more on social welfare, an official said Friday.

The clearance was given a few days ago and will allow Posco to go ahead with the massive plant in Odisha state, the official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. He did not give further details.

The clearance comes days before South Korean President Park Geun-hye is to begin a four-day visit to India on Jan. 15.

The Odisha steel plant would be the largest-ever foreign investment in India. The country has been embroiled in fierce debates over how to protect its environment while lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty through investment and infrastructure development.

via Posco plant in India gets environment clearance – Businessweek.

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11/01/2014

Seeing India by Luxury Train – India Real Time – WSJ

WHEN WE STEPPED off the train at the small station of Pachora, 250 miles northeast of Mumbai, Lord Ganesha was waiting.

A man costumed as the Hindu god was carried by turbaned attendants and accompanied by folk dancers who whirled to ancient stringed instruments, reedy horns and hand drums. Ganesha sported a pinkish elephant head, complete with trunk and oversize ears, but he blessed us with a very human hand. Locals must have felt like the circus had arrived in town, for despite the early hour, they had come to watch the welcome arranged specially for us.

It was appropriate to be greeted by the god of good fortune: We were a lucky group—passengers taking a 2,000-mile journey from Mumbai to New Delhi on the Maharajas’ Express, one of the most luxurious trains in the world.

Roger Toll

Guests playing elephant polo in the private garden of the Maharaja of Jaipur.

The train’s name conjures images of hilltop forts, bejeweled scimitars and armies on camels and elephants— for good reason. The maharajas (“great kings”) ruled India’s hundreds of princely states from as early as the 1600s to the mid-20th century. In Rajasthan, in particular, the warrior-kings built impressive cities they named for themselves: Udaipur, Jodhpur, Jaipur. Their heirs, allying themselves with the British Raj, continued a sumptuous style of living until Indian independence in 1947. (While the princely families lost their power post-Raj, they kept most of their palaces and forts.)

The Maharajas’ Express pays tribute to that regal lifestyle. Nearly half a mile long, the train is a glossy burgundy on the outside. Inside, guests sleep in cabins that feel like upscale hotel rooms, with silk window treatments, carved wood paneling and marble-tiled floors. Travelers feast off fine china and crisp linens in the two dining cars. The staff seems almost to outnumber the guests, which total 88 at full capacity. In the morning, valets brought tea to our rooms. When we trundled through the long line of cars to dinner, staffers folded down our beds, delivered clean laundry and left behind chocolates or a flower. Upon our return from outings, they greeted us with fresh juice or cocktails and cool, damp cloths for wiping the dust from our faces.

via Seeing India by Luxury Train – India Real Time – WSJ.

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11/01/2014

Softer Landings at Mumbai’s New Airport Terminal – India Real Time – WSJ

Travelers arriving at Mumbai’s international airport can soon expect to be rid of the long immigration lines, chaotic baggage claim experience, and hopefully, the stench.

On Friday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh inaugurated a new terminal at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, which will be operational starting February 12.

The new T2  international terminal will be able to accommodate 40 million passengers per year — nearly a third more than the old terminal, according to a spokesman for GVK Power and Infrastructure Ltd., which has been operating the Mumbai airport in partnership with the Airport Authority of India since 2006. The new terminal cost around 55 billion rupees ($890 million) to build, the spokesman added.

The last time a new airport terminal created such a buzz in India was when the T3 terminal was launched at New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, with its automatic walkways, aerobridges and a sports bar. The terminal boasted an Indian look partly thanks to its installation of a series of giant hands showing “mudras” or hand gestures that are typical of classical Indian dance forms.

Photo courtesy GVK

The art wall at the new airport terminal, Mumbai.

The new Mumbai terminal may well outdo that, with a 1.9 mile art wall displaying around 7,000 works of contemporary Indian art and lotus-shaped chandeliers at the boarding gates.

The terminal’s design draws inspiration from the peacock, India’s national bird.

via Softer Landings at Mumbai’s New Airport Terminal – India Real Time – WSJ.

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10/01/2014

AAP kicks off nationwide membership drive – The Hindu

“Main bhi aam aadmi” campaign aims to enroll at least 1 crore members by January 26, 2014

Delhi Chief Minister and AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal and party leader Gopal Rai launch the party's nationwide membership drive in New Delhi on Friday. Photo Rajeev Bhatt

Buoyed by its spectacular success in the Delhi Assembly polls, the Aam Aadmi Party on Friday kicked off a nationwide membership drive with an aim to enroll at least 1 crore members by January 26, 2014 to strengthen the party ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

AAP leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said under the Main bhi aam aadmi campaign, any citizen can enroll as member of the party without paying any fee.

“Our target is to include 1 crore members in the party by January 26. But the membership drive will continue after that as well,” he said addressing a press conference.

He said the party had decided to waive the Rs. 10 membership fee as it was found out that many people could not afford it. “The decision to waive off the membership fee was taken at the national executive meeting last week,” he said.

Party leader Gopal Rai, who has been tasked to oversee the special membership drive, said over 3 lakh people have registered online as party members after the Delhi elections.

“This is perhaps the first time in the history of India that membership to a party is being opened to public like this. This is our biggest country—wide drive to connect with people before the Lok Sabha polls,” Mr. Rai told PTI.

“Success of this campaign is one of our major strategies before the Lok Sabha polls,” he said.

Mr. Rai said the whole campaign will check the “ground reality” of the party’s prospects in the Lok Sabha polls to a certain level.

“A lot will depend on this campaign. We will get to know how much response is coming and from which areas,” he said.

Mr. Kejriwal said any citizen can give a missed call on mobile number 07798220033 to enrol as a party member. They can also send SMS of their name, STD code and Vidhan Sabha name after which they will get their membership number.

The citizens will also have an option of filling an online form on the Aam Aadmi Party website aamaadmiparty.org to become a member.

“Those who do not have mobile phones have to use their voter identification number and register at our website after January 17,” Mr. Rai said.

He said one mobile number holder can only have one membership.

Mr. Rai said all AAP members are being urged to bring in as many people as possible into the party fold.

via AAP kicks off nationwide membership drive – The Hindu.

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10/01/2014

Firms Give Big Backing to Indian Politics – India Real Time – WSJ

Note that unlike Western businesses that tend to make doantions to one of the main parites, Indian businesses hedge theor bets and donate to both the main parties.

“Which Indian businessman has previously claimed not to be a big fan of Indian politics? Answer: Ratan Tata, the former chairman of one of the world’s best-known Indian companies.

Still, his firm is among dozens of Indian conglomerates pumping millions of dollars into political campaigns across India each year. And unlike billion-dollar American companies who either lean left or right, big firms here extend support – at least monetarily – to both the secular Congress and the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, the two largest parties in India.

That was one of the several findings by Association for Democratic Reforms, a New Delhi-based think-tank, which recently analyzed documents detailing donations in the run-up to federal polls this year.

ADR, through analysis of documents submitted to the Election Commission of India, estimated that the two parties had collectively raised about 4.13 billion rupees ($66 million) from the start of 2004 through 2012, the vast majority of which, 3.64 billion rupees ($58 million) or about 87%, came from Indian corporations.

India is expected to go to polls in May and parties likely to rely heavily on donations for funding. Although much is widely known to be off the books, according to ADR, a breakdown of public donations shows that business is one of the largest funding sources for both parties.

The country’s bureaucracy has often been dubbed a nightmare for businesses, with “widespread corruption and fickle regulations” making business a “frustrating and expensive” affair, as this Hong Kong-based consultancy notes. But that hasn’t deterred corporate houses from donating to political parties who, when in office, implement and introduce legislative red tape.

“Companies obviously want to be in the good books of both parties,” Anurag Mittal, who headed research for the ADR report, said about the corporates’ decision to fund parties with opposing ideologies. “They’re playing it safe; they want their businesses to remain intact irrespective of whoever comes to power,” he added.

The Congress, which swept national polls in 2004 and 2009, received 1.87 billion rupees ($30 million) in donations between 2004 to 2012. About 1.72 billion rupees ($27 million), or 92% of these funds, came from business houses.

Meanwhile, the BJP generated marginally more, raising 2.26 billion rupees ($36 million) in the same period. But the conservative Hindu party, which boycotted recent proposals to attract foreign investors, wasn’t quite as popular in the business world. Around 85% or 1.92 billion ($31 million) of donations to the party came from corporations.

via Firms Give Big Backing to Indian Politics – India Real Time – WSJ.

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09/01/2014

Modi mocks PM at NRI meet, says ‘good days ahead’ after LS polls – The Times of India

BJP leader Narendra Modi on Thursday chose a global NRI meet to hit out at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who had said that \”we are set for better times\”.

English: Image of Narendra Modi at the World E...

English: Image of Narendra Modi at the World Economic Forum in India (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

\”I agree with the Prime Minister. Good days are ahead for India. I don\’t want to say anything more. We should wait for four to six months. But good days are coming,\” the BJP\’s prime ministerial candidate said, indicating that his party would form the next government at the Centre after the Lok Sabha polls.

Modi\’s jibe at Singh came a day after the Prime Minister sought to dispel apprehensions among the Indian diaspora on the state of the economy, saying that the country was heading towards \”better times\” and there was no reason to despair about its present or worry about the future.

Addressing a press conference last week, the Prime Minister had said that \”we are set for better times\” as the cycle of global economic growth is turning for the better.

This is the first verbal attack on the Prime Minister by Modi after Singh said that \”it will be disastrous for the country to have Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister.\”

via Modi mocks PM at NRI meet, says ‘good days ahead’ after LS polls – The Times of India.

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