India alert | CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon

29/08/2013

India Rupee Gains 3.5%, Pulls Shares Sharply Higher

WSJ: “India‘s rupee rose 3.5% Thursday, erasing most of the currency’s losses in the previous session when it hit a record low, helped by a central bank step to reduce dollar demand in the spot market.

The sharp rupee recovery also pulled local stocks higher, with the Bombay Stock Exchange‘s S&P BSE Sensex index closing 2.3% up at 18401.04 points. On the National Stock Exchange, the Nifty index gained 2.4% to end at 5409.05 points.

The rupee was at 66.55 to the dollar in late Asian trade Thursday, compared with the record low of 68.80 it hit late in the previous session.

The Reserve Bank of India said late Wednesday that it would sell dollars to the country’s three state-run oil refiners through a designated commercial bank, shifting the bulk of the refiners’ demand for dollars away from the open market. Oil refiners are India’s biggest buyers of dollars, which they use to pay for crude-oil imports.”

via India Rupee Gains 3.5%, Pulls Shares Sharply Higher – WSJ.com.

Posted in Economics, India alert | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Bombay Stock Exchange, bse sensex index, Business, Central bank, crude oil imports, economy, India, Indian rupee, national stock exchange, oil refiners, Reserve Bank of India

29/08/2013

India’s parliament gets its groove back, at least for now

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

India’s notoriously disruptive parliament has been going through a productive phase in the past two days. Bills are getting passed, politicians are discussing the state of the economy and for a change, members are listening to each other as they deliver well-researched speeches.

For a house with one of the poorest records of accomplishments in Indian history, the last two days were downright atypical.

On Monday, parliament debated a $20 billion plan for nine hours to provide cheap food to two thirds of the population. For a change, the government got the main opposition party on board by incorporating some of the changes that its opponents proposed.

A similar script played out on Tuesday. Politicians from all parties discussed the state of the economy, reeling under a widening current account deficit, slowing growth and a falling currency.

The opposition party’s well thought-out arguments moved Finance Minister P. Chidambaram to admit that domestic factors indeed have played a part in creating the dismal economy, a rare statement coming from the man who usually blames the global financial meltdown for India’s woes.

Chidambaram on Tuesday urged parliamentarians to work together.

“If parliament is not able to point to the direction in which the country’s economy will go, parliament is not able to agree on, say 10 steps which the government should take today … what kind of a message will it send to the rest of the world?” Chidambaram asked the house.

“The fact is, polity of this country is divided on economic policies and that is understandable … My plea to everyone, despite our differences, can we agree upon some measures which have to be taken in order to lift the country’s economy from what it is today,” he said.

Politicians are taking note. Derek O’Brien, the famous quizmaster who is now a lawmaker from estranged government ally Trinamool Congress, tweeted: “When #Parliament works we are very,very good.(like today)…but when we are bad we are horrid.”

The Lok Sabha, the lower house of India’s parliament, led by a minority Congress-party coalition government, has a rather dismal track record. Before the ongoing Monsoon session, it passed just 39 percent of tabled bills. In five years, the Lok Sabha has passed just over 150 bills, in contrast to an average 317 bills passed by any other lower house completing over three years.

The last two days have been different. This is what voters expect their representatives to do. If lawmakers keep it up, we might have one of the most successful sessions in recent memory. One would hope that the mood extends itself into the hurly burly of the 2014 campaign season.

What remains unanswered is what changed overnight and why the opposition parties suddenly stopped disrupting the house. It would be good to know. Whatever be the reason, one hopes that the country does not go back to when “Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha adjourned for the day” was probably the most frequent breaking news headline on TV screens.”

via India’s parliament gets its groove back, at least for now | India Insight.

Posted in Economics, Good news, India alert, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Congress, current account deficit, financial meltdown, Government, India, Indian National Congress, Lok Sabha, main opposition party, p chidambaram, Parliament of India, politics, Rajya Sabha

26/08/2013

Sonia says food bill is ‘big message’, Mulayam calls it poll gimmick

Times of India: “Declaring Congress’s goal to “wipe out hunger and malnutrition”, Sonia Gandhi asked all political parties on Monday to set aside differences and support the Food Security Bill so that a “big message” could be sent out about India’s capabilities.

English: Sonia Gandhi, Indian politician, president of the Indian National Congress and the widow of former Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi. Français : Sonia Gandhi, une femme politique indienne, présidente du parti du congrès indien, et veuve de Rajiv Gandhi, ancien premier ministre de l’Inde. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Opening the Congress innings on the debate in Lok Sabha on food bill, she rejected questions over whether the country had resources to implement the landmark measure.

“It is time to send out a big message that India can take responsibility of ensuring food security for all Indians … our goal is to wipe out hunger and malnutrition all over the country,” Gandhi said about her pet agenda.

Making a strong pitch for smooth passage of the landmark legislation, the UPA chairperson said the measure is a historic opportunity to provide food security to tens of millions of people in the country which will end the problem of hunger once for all.

She sought to dismiss questions over whether the ambitious scheme could be implemented. “The question is not whether we have enough resources or not and whether it would benefit the farmers or not. We have to arrange resources for it. We have to do it,” she said in the House where Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was present.

Gandhi said farmers and agriculture have always remained priority of the UPA.

Agreeing that reforming public distribution system (PDS) was a must for the food law, Gandhi noted that there was basic need to remove the leakages to ensure that benefits of the food bill reached the intended beneficiary.

Gandhi said the Congress had made a commitment to the nation in the 2009 election manifesto to bring forward such a legislation. It is one in a series of various rights promised and provided by UPA like Right to Information Act, Right to Education Act, Right to Work Act and Right to Forest Produce Act.

Poll gimmick

Contending that the Food Security Bill was being brought with an eye on elections, UPA’s outside supporter Samajwadi Party on Monday demanded that the measure be kept in abeyance till chief ministers are consulted as it would put additional burden on states.

SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav raised a number of questions over the bill in Lok Sabha and said it would badly hurt farmers as there was no guarantee in the provisions that all the produce would be bought by the government.

“It is clearly being brought for elections … Why didn’t you bring this bill earlier when poor people were dying because of hunger? Every election, you bring up a measure. There is nothing for the poor,” he said participating in the debate on the bill.”

via Sonia says food bill is ‘big message’, Mulayam calls it poll gimmick – The Times of India.

Posted in Economics, India alert, Internal politics, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Food security, Gandhi, Government, India, manmohan singh, politics, prime minister manmohan singh, Samajwadi Party, Sonia Gandhi, United Progressive Alliance

25/08/2013

Police crack down on Ayodhya yatra

The Hindu: “With the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s 84 Kosi Parikrama Yatra set to begin from the banks of the Saryu River on Sunday, the Uttar Pradesh administration on Saturday cracked down on the Hindu rightwing organisation, arresting over 350 of its activists across the State.

Security personnel patrol a street in Ayodhya on Friday.

The administration sealed entry points into the district as the VHP remained defiant, determined to go ahead with its yatra, which is being held in support of a Ram Mandir at the disputed site here. The yatra has been banned by the State.

BJP MLA Savitri Bai Phule, VHP’s provincial coordinator Acharya Kushmuni and Mahant Santosh Das alias Sathu Baba, a VHP office-bearer in Varanasi, were taken into preventive custody or put under house arrest, while prominent VHP leader Mahant Ram Saran Das was held at Ram Sanehi Ghat in Ayodhya.

Scores of VHP activists were arrested in various parts of the State, including Kanpur (100), Allahabad (43) and Basti (18). Arrest warrants have been issued against VHP leaders Ashok Singhal, Praveen Togadia and Ram Vilas Vedanti, Faizabad district magistrate Vipin Kumar Dwivedi said.

The police raided the VHP’s suspected hideouts, forcing many of its leaders and activists to go underground. However, according to local sources, senior leaders could appear with seers.

Lucknow IG Subash Chandra, who conducted a tour of vulnerable spots, said, “This yatra goes against tradition. We are fully prepared not to let it happen. Section 144 Cr.PC has been imposed and action will be taken against those violating it.”

Schools have been converted into temporary jails to keep those booked under Section 144.

The administration expected around 40,000 people to participate. However, the VHP maintained that no common people were invited and that politicians would not get on the dais to address the seers or participants. Around 200-250 seers would participate in the yatra, which the VHP defined as a “padhyatra [march] to awaken the Hindus within the cultural boundary [roughly 250 km] of Ayodhya.”

VHP president Praveen Togadia said that it was “not a large congregation” so the State government should not panic. It was actually a march but since the saints termed it “parikrama” it was being viewed as a traditional parikrama. The State justified the ban, pointing out that the traditional period for staging the parikrama had passed in April-May. Sharad Sharma, VHP spokesperson said, “It is the right of the seers to carry out the yatra. This is religious, not political. The government has ruined the atmosphere for its political gains.”

Amid speculation that the VHP might cancel the yatra at the last moment fearing administrative action and considering the law and order situation, Mr. Sharma said, “This will be decided at the last moment. If the seers decide to carry out rituals at the starting point itself, that will be followed. But there is no possibility of cancellation.”

Mr. Sharma lashed out at the SP government for “working under the grip of Azam Khan [Minister]” to appease Muslims, who are a votebank for the party.”

via Police crack down on Ayodhya yatra – The Hindu.

Tags: Ayodhya, politics, Uttar Pradesh

22/08/2013

China develops revolutionary submarine with high speed of 100 knots

The arm race between China, India and Japan gathers pace. What a shame.

China, Japan, and India’s Asian Arms Race (chindia-alert.org)

Posted in China alert, Chindia Alert, Foreign invasion, GeoPolitics, History, India alert, Military, Neighbour conflict, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: China, India, indian navy, Japan

21/08/2013

China, Japan, and India’s Asian Arms Race

BusinessWeek: “China and Japan managed to get past the Aug. 15 anniversary of the Japanese surrender in World War II without incident. For weeks leading up to the date, the question was, will he or won’t he? Will Shinzo Abe, the conservative prime minister who last year infuriated the Chinese by visiting the Yasukini Shrine in Tokyo, which commemorates Japan’s war dead—including war criminals from World War II—go to the shrine on the anniversary?

Japan's 19,500-ton Izumo helicopter carrier is launched in Yokohama on Aug. 6

Abe has enough on his agenda without provoking another crisis with China, so he decided to stay clear. Three members of his cabinet did go to Yasukini, part of a group of 100 members of Japan’s parliament who prayed at the shrine. While Abe wasn’t one of them, the prime minister did make a gesture to his nationalist supporters, sending a cash offering to the shrine.

Another day, another crisis in the ongoing saga of the dispute between the two Asian powers over uninhabited rocks in the East China Sea. Today, China’s official China Central Television reported the People’s Liberation Army had started 10 days of live-fire military exercises in the waters near the islands, which Japan calls the Senkaku and the Chinese call the Diaoyu. In a highly symbolic move, one ship taking part in the exercises is the Liaoning, China’s first aircraft carrier.

The Liaoning is part of a three-way arms race involving the naval forces of China, Japan, and the other big Asian power, India. With China embroiled in territorial disputes with both Japan and India, all three countries are coming out with bigger and better warships to make sure they hold their own in the region.

For Japan, the big news is a 19,500-ton helicopter carrier called the Izumo, which the government unveiled on Aug. 6. It’s the third such warship in Japan’s self-defense force and the biggest Japanese-made military vessel since the end of World War II. That’s big for Japan but still small compared with U.S. aircraft carriers, which displace 97,000 tons when fully loaded.

Still, the Chinese are not happy about the Izumo’s launch. The helicopter carrier is a “symbol of Japan’s strong wish to return to its time as a military power,” the Global Times wrote the next day.

India, meanwhile, has launched its first aircraft carrier, unveiled on Monday. That’s a challenge to China, the Global Times editorialized. “China should speed up its construction of domestic aircraft carriers,” it said. “The earlier China establishes its own aircraft carrier capabilities, the earlier it will gain the strategic initiative.”

India has tripled military spending over the past 10 years and in February announced more spending, with a 14 percent increase in defense outlays. The border dispute between India and China isn’t as hot as the one between Japan and China, but it involves much more land: India says China is occupying 38,000 square kilometers of Indian territory in Jummu and Kashmir (the much-disputed region in the north of India that is also claimed by Pakistan). China says India is occupying 90,000 square kilometers of Chinese territory in Arunachal Pradesh (a state in northeastern India near Bhutan and Tibet).””

via China, Japan, and India’s Asian Arms Race – Businessweek.

Posted in China alert, Chindia Alert, Diplomacy, Foreign invasion, GeoPolitics, History, India alert, Neighbour conflict, Politics | 2 Comments »

Tags: China, conservative prime minister, East China Sea, helicopter carrier, India, Izumo, Japan, japanese surrender, Liaoning, liaoning china, People's Liberation Army, World War II

21/08/2013

India’s Maharashtra state bans black magic after killing

BBC: “The Indian state of Maharashtra has enacted emergency laws banning black magic and superstition, one day after a prominent campaigner was killed.

Anti-superstition activist Narendra Dabholkar, 71, who campaigned for the law, was shot dead in the city of Pune on Tuesday by unidentified gunmen.

Many businesses closed to protest against his killing and chanting demonstrators marched through the city.

He spent decades campaigning against what he called “fraudulent” practices.

Critics accused him of being anti-religion in a country where mysticism and spirituality is venerated.

But in an interview with the Agence France-Presse news agency two years ago he rejected such charges.

“In the whole of the bill, there’s not a single word about God or religion. Nothing like that. The Indian constitution allows freedom of worship and nobody can take that away,” he said.

“This is about fraudulent and exploitative practices.””

via BBC News – Narendra Dabholkar: India’s Maharashtra state bans black magic after killing.

Posted in Culture, India alert, religion, Social & cultural | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Agence France-Presse, Antireligion, Constitution of India, emergency laws, India, indian constitution, Maharashtra, maharashtra state, Pune, state of maharashtra, Superstition

20/08/2013

Critical similarities and differences in security structures of Asia and Europe

This post – http://www.europesworld.org/NewEnglish/Home_old/CommunityPosts/tabid/809/PostID/3535/CriticalsimilaritiesanddifferencesinsecuritystructuresofAsiaandEurope.aspx

is courtesy of:

Prof. (FH) Dr. Anis Bajrektarevic, Acting Deputy Director of Studies EXPORT EU–ASEAN–NAFTA

Professor and Chairperson

International Law and Global Political Studies

University of Applied Sciences IMC-Krems

Austria, EUROPE

Posted in China alert, Chindia Alert, Economics, India alert, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: ASEAN, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Cairo, Egypt, European Union, International law, North American Free Trade Agreement, research, United States

20/08/2013

Bombay mix: Party pooper’s move takes golden glow off festival of lights

The Times: “Festival season is fast approaching in India, with a feeling in some ways equivalent to the run-up to Christmas in the West, and, right on cue, a would-be Scrooge has stepped forward.

Buying gold is especially popular around Diwali and the Indian wedding season

Palaniappan Chidambaram may have little option, of course. The country’s embattled Finance Minister is struggling to shore up a collapsing rupee and revive a moribund economy, all with less than nine months to go before national elections.

So last week, as the rupee sank to fresh, record lows against the dollar — and with Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights looming in November — a panicking Mr Chidambaram wheeled out his latest package of measures designed to bolster the currency.

In a move that many Indians viewed as being distinctly short on seasonal good cheer, he slapped a ban on imports of gold medallions and coins, extending an attempt to curb the nation’s voracious appetite for the metal. Other measures included a reduction in the amount of cash that Indians and companies may remit overseas from $200,000 to $75,000 a year, a rule that Mr Chidambaram argued unconvincingly did “not amount to capital controls”.

Yet if the latter measure will not endear him to the millions of Indians with friends and relatives studying overseas, it is the gold ban that could prove a bigger issue. India’s lust for gold is undimmed and trying to temper it before the polls next spring — and before the wedding season that peaks around Diwali — could be catastrophic for the ruling Congress party.

The markets, certainly, were unimpressed by the minister’s efforts, sending the rupee crashing to new lows within hours of the announcement. The sell-off continued yesterday.

With the sliding rupee already forcing up the price of goods from petrol to food, Congress is desperately searching for new ways to head off a full-blown financial crisis as Indians prepare to vote. And while there is only so much that can be done to curb the nation’s demand for imported crude oil, the single biggest strain on India’s current account deficit, reining in India’s gold addiction may seem the next best alternative.

If his latest measures don’t work, and with that election due, it looks increasingly as if Mr Chidambaram’s days as Finance Minister may be numbered, one way or another.

As if policymakers didn’t have enough on their plates, India is in the grip of a new crisis. Last week, ministers held emergency talks to address a 36 per cent surge in the wholesale price of onions over a single weekend.

Onions are a key ingredient in virtually every Indian dish, so are viewed as almost as much of a staple crop as rice. Thus a fall in onion production prompted by poor harvests in the nation’s south has proved politically explosive. Shoppers have staged angry protests.

Yet there may be a welcome extra dish to this sorry tale. One option being considered by ministers is a loosening of trade restrictions with Pakistan, arch-foe and nuclear-armed rival, to start emergency onion imports.”

via Bombay mix: Party pooper’s move takes golden glow off festival of lights | The Times.

Posted in Economics, India alert, local tastes, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Chidambaram, Congress, Diwali, finance minister, India, p chidambaram, Pakistan, politics

19/08/2013

The Indosphere: Made outside India

The Economist: “INDIA’S diaspora of 25m people is something to behold. In colonial times Indian labourers and traders spread across the world, from Fiji to the Caribbean. A second wave of Indians left between the 1970s and mid-1990s, when the economy was in a semi-socialist rut. Migrant workers rushed to the Persian Gulf and South-East Asia, then booming. Educated folk and entrepreneurs fled to the rich world. Plenty struck gold, including engineers in Silicon Valley and Lakshmi Mittal, boss of ArcelorMittal, a giant steel firm. Often they now have little to do with India beyond sending cash to relatives and groaning as the once-vaunted economic miracle fades.

Yet alongside this distant diaspora, a network of people and places is more directly engaged with India’s economy. Its most conspicuous element is the plutocrat who owns firms in India, but like his Russian and Chinese peers shops in Paris, educates his children in America and Britain and sometimes has foreign citizenship: Cyrus Mistry, the boss of Tata Sons, India’s biggest firm, has an Irish passport. At the network’s core, however, is not the gilded elite but offshore hubs, including Dubai and Singapore, often with sizeable Indian populations and with their own economic strengths.

The idea that some things are better done abroad is hardly new. Hong Kong was a gateway to imperial and then Red China. In 1985 Yash Chopra, an Indian film-maker, led a trend of shooting Bollywood “dream sequences”—in which the hero and heroine sing amid meadows and snowy crags—in Switzerland. The Alps were easier, cheaper and safer than the more familiar location of Kashmir.

Film buffs now view Swiss dream-sequences as cheesy, but India’s big offshore hubs are more in fashion than ever. They present a mirror image of India’s red tape, weak infrastructure and graft. Dubai is a prime example. For long-haul flights Indians prefer its airline, Emirates, to their own. More than 40% of long-haul journeys from India go via a non-Indian hub, often in the Gulf. Indian airports no longer make grown men cry (Delhi’s is first rate), but few foreign airlines want to make them their base. Indian planes are usually serviced in Dubai, Malaysia and Singapore, reflecting a history of penal taxes in India and high customs duties on imported spare parts.

via The Indosphere: Made outside India | The Economist.

Posted in Economics, India alert | Leave a Comment »

Tags: ArcelorMittal, China, Dubai, Economy of India, India, indian labourers, Lakshmi Mittal, Persian Gulf, Singapore

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