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.
The POSTs (front webpages) are mainly 'cuttings' from reliable sources, updated continuously.
The PAGEs (see Tabs, above) attempt to make the information more meaningful by putting some structure to the information we have researched and assembled since 2006.
AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump will be shielded from the sight of slums by a newly built wall when he visits the city of Ahmedabad during a visit to India this month.
A senior government said the wall was being built for security reasons, not to conceal the slum district.
But the contractor building it told Reuters the government “did not want the slum to be seen” when Trump passes by on the ride in from Ahmedabad’s airport.
“I’ve been ordered to build a wall as soon as possible, over 150 masons are working round-the-clock to finish the project,” the contractor said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The government official conceded that the wall was part of a “beautification and cleanliness” drive.
Whatever the reason, the 400-meter-long and seven-feet-high wall will prevent the U.S. leader from getting a glimpse of a slum district that houses an estimated 800 families.
Trump, who has made his pledge to build a wall along the United States’ border with Mexico a feature of his presidency, will visit India on Feb. 24-25 to reaffirm strategic ties that have been buffeted by trade disputes.
He is expected to attend an event dubbed “Kem Chho Trump” (“How are you, Trump”) at a stadium in Ahmedabad along the lines of the “Howdy Modi” extravaganza he hosted for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Houston last September.
Speaking at the White House on Tuesday, Trump quoted Modi as saying “millions and millions of people” would attend the rally.
The event provides Trump, who was impeached in December, with the opportunity to woo the support of hundreds of thousands of Indian-American voters ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November.
But some slum dwellers whose homes will be cordoned off by the wall in Ahmedabad – the largest city in Modi’s home state of Gujarat – said the government was wasting tax-payer money to hide the poor.
“Poverty and slums are the reality of our life, but Modi’s government wants to hide the poor,” said Parvatbhai Mafabhai, a day worker who has lived there with his family for more than three decades.
Image copyright FENG VIDEOImage caption Wu Huayan ate only rice and chillies in order to save money to help her ill brother
Well-wishers have donated almost a million yuan to a Chinese student who was hospitalised after living on 2 yuan ($0.30, £0.20) a day for five years.
The case of Wu Huayan shocked Chinese people after it hit the headlines earlier this week.
The 24-year old woman became seriously malnourished while struggling to study and support her sick brother.
Ms Wu’s story also sparked anger at authorities for failing to recognise her plight and help her much earlier.
After the story was reported, donations began pouring in for the college student in the city of Guiyang – reportedly totalling some 800,000 yuan ($114,000, £88,000).
What is Wu Huayan’s story?
Earlier, this month, the young woman went into hospital after having difficulty breathing, according to Chinese media.
She was only 135cm (4ft 5ins) tall, weighing barely more than 20kg (43 pounds; three stones).
The doctors found she was suffering from heart and kidney problems due to five years spent eating minimal amounts of food. She said she needed to save money to support her sick brother.
Wu Huayan lost her mother when she was four and her father died when she was in school.
She and her brother were then supported by their grandmother, and later by an uncle and aunt who could only support them with 300 yuan ($42, £32) each month.
Most of that money went on the medical bills of her younger brother, who had mental health problems.
This meant Ms Wu spent only 2 yuan a day on herself, surviving largely off chillies and rice.
The siblings are from Guizhou, one of the poorest provinces in China.
Media caption China’s uphill struggle fighting extreme poverty
What has the reaction been?
The case sparked an outpouring of concern – and anger at authorities.
Many people on social media said they wanted to help with donations, and many voiced concern about her college not helping her.
One user called her situation “worse than that of refugees in Afghanistan”, while another pointed to the extravagant cost of China’s 70th anniversary celebrations, saying the money could have been better spent.
Others expressed their admiration at her efforts to help her brother, while also persevering with her studies in college.
Aside from the donations on crowd funding platforms, her teachers and classmates donated 40,000 yuan ($5,700; £4,400), while local villagers collected 30,000 yuan to help her.
Officials released a statement saying Ms Wu had been receiving the minimum government subsidy – thought to be between 300 and 700 yuan a month – and was now getting an emergency relief fund of 20,000 yuan.
“We will keep following the case of this strong-minded and kind girl,” the Tongren City Civil Affairs Bureau said.
“We will actively co-operate with other relevant departments to solve the problem according to the minimum living standard and temporary assistance responsibility that the civil affairs department bears.”
Dubbed “Little Wang”, his story also went viral, leading to international donations from people impressed by his resilience, and shocked at his poverty.
Image copyright PEOPLE’S DAILY
While China’s economy has skyrocketed over the past decades, poverty has not disappeared, and inequality has grown.
One major reason cited is the huge divide between rural and urban areas.
As a point of comparison, in rural region of Guizhou where Ms Wu lives, that figure is around 16,703 yuan.
China has moved from being “moderately unequal in 1990 to being one of the world’s most unequal countries,” according to a 2018 report by the International Monetary Fund.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics in 2017, 30.46 million rural people were still living below the national poverty line of $1.90 a day.
China has previously pledged to “eliminate” poverty by 2020.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, visits a revolutionary memorial hall in Xinxian County, central China’s Henan Province, Sept. 16, 2019. Xi went on an inspection tour in Henan Monday. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)
ZHENGZHOU, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) — Chinese President Xi Jinping called for unshakable confidence and hard work with great determination to write a magnificent chapter of the central region in the new era during his inspection tour to Henan Province from Monday to Wednesday.
Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, called for efforts to promote the continuous and healthy development of the economy as well as social harmony and stability to give people a stronger sense of fulfillment, happiness and security.
On Wednesday afternoon, Xi listened to the work reports of the CPC Henan Provincial Committee and the provincial government.
Xi said that China’s development is in good shape, but the international situation is still complicated. China is faced with new risks and challenges and must manage its own affairs well.
Calling on Henan to promote high-quality economic development and seize the opportunities provided by the strategy for the rise of central China, he urged the province to focus on the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry and give priority to innovation in the overall development.
Xi also stressed efforts to actively push forward the supply-side reform in agriculture.
Xi noted that priority should be given to the protection of ecosystems and addressing environmental issues at the source.
On improving people’s living standards, Xi called for particular attention to ensuring employment for key groups such as college graduates, veterans, laid-off and rural migrant workers, as well as those returning to rural areas.He also called for efforts to help culture flourish, and promote the preservation, innovation and development of fine traditional Chinese culture.
Xi stressed that the first stage of the education campaign themed “staying true to our founding mission” had been concluded while the second stage had just begun, and called for efforts focused on dealing with the most urgent problems facing the people.
Education on red traditions should make Party members and officials remain true to the original aspiration and undertake their mission, and strive to advance the great cause that the martyrs fought and sacrificed themselves for, Xi said.
During the three-day inspection, Xi visited a martyrs cemetery and a museum in an old revolutionary base, handicraft shops and a homestay in a township, as well as an oil-seed camellia plantation, a village which had escaped poverty and a coal mining machinery company.
He also inspected the ecological protection of the Yellow River at a museum and a national geopark and met with senior military officers stationed in Henan.
Li Zhanshu (R), chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), meets with Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, May 29, 2019. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei)
BEIJING, May 29 (Xinhua) — China’s top legislator Li Zhanshu met with visiting Nigerien President Mahamadou Issoufou on Wednesday, exchanging views on pushing forward the relationship between the two countries.
Li, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), said China stands ready to work with Niger to implement the important consensus made by the two heads of state to lift the bilateral ties to a higher level.
Both the Chinese and African people experienced anti-imperialist and anti-colonial struggles in the past, and both face the task of getting rid of poverty and backwardness and achieving development and prosperity, Li said.
China and Africa have created a new model of South-South cooperation, Li said.
The NPC is willing to strengthen exchanges with the National Assembly of Niger and promote state-to-state friendly cooperation, he said.
Issoufou said Niger thanks China for its long-term support and assistance, and is willing to learn from China’s development experience, actively participate in jointly building the Belt and Road and strengthen pragmatic cooperation.
XI’AN, May 7 (Xinhua) — Yan’an, a former revolutionary base of the Communist Party of China (CPC), is no longer labeled “poor,” as its last two impoverished counties have shaken off poverty, the Shaanxi provincial government announced Tuesday.
Yan’an hosted the then headquarters of the CPC and the center of the Communist revolution from 1935 to 1948. The city is now home to more than 350 sites related to the Chinese revolution.
The counties of Yanchuan and Yichuan, with a population of 192,000 and 120,000 respectively and both located along the western bank of the Yellow River, have limited fertile valley fields. Villagers there had been plagued by poverty for decades.
American journalist Edgar Snow wrote in his 1937 book “Red Star over China” that the area was “one of the poorest parts of China” he had seen.
According to the provincial poverty relief office, poverty-stricken residents in the two counties now only account for 1.06 and 0.58 percent respectively of their populations, meeting the country’s requirement for an impoverished county to shake off the title.
An investment of 6.25 billion yuan (920 million U.S. dollars) from the central and local governments has been poured into Yan’an over the past four years.
To make sure that every household can get rid of poverty, the city has sent a total of 1,784 Party chiefs, 1,546 working teams and 37,400 cadres to live in the villages to help with poverty alleviation.
A total of 693 impoverished villages in the city have shaken off poverty, with 195,000 people being lifted out of poverty.
The cradle of the revolution has continued to undergo tremendous changes over the past decades. Improved environment and infrastructure, booming agricultural economy, increasingly affordable education, healthcare, and multiple career choices for rural residents have rejuvenated the city.
Yan’an will continue to help the remaining impoverished people shake off poverty, and strive to enter a moderately prosperous society in all respects with the rest of the country by 2020, said Xu Xinrong, Party chief of the city.
Rahul Ganghi at a rally in Sriganganagar, Rajastan, on Tuesday. (Congress/Twitter)
Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said the promise of minimum income guarantee is his party’s “surgical strike on poverty” that will ensure there is no poor in the country after 2019. Gandhi said the Congress’s promise of minimum income guarantee is “an explosion”.
“It will set off a bomb…This is the Congress’s surgical strike on poverty. They (the BJP) tried to eliminate the poor. We will eliminate poverty,” said Gandhi at a public rally in Rajasthan’s Ganganagar.
‘Surgical strike on poverty’: Rahul Gandhi counters BJP on minimum income promise
A day after the Bharatiya Janata Party tried to discredit the Congress’ promise of a minimum income guarantee scheme in case it comes to power, Congress President Rahul Gandhi countered the BJP’s criticism.
Gandhi hit out at the Narendra Modi government in his speech alleging that the current regime has brought back people who were uplifted from the below poverty line by the Congress-led UPA rule. “The fact that 25 crore people are living in poverty in the 21st century India is a shame,” Gandhi said.
The Congress president said nowhere such a scheme has ever been implemented. “There should not be a single poor person in the country,” he said addressing the Congress’s Jan Sankalp Rally at Suratgarh in Ganganagar district.
On Monday, Gandhi promised that his party would, if it comes to power, guarantee an income of at least Rs 12,000 a month for 20 per cent of India’s poorest families by giving them Rs 6,000 a month. He said the minimum income guarantee scheme, named NYAY (standing for Nyuntam Aay Yojana) meaning justice, would cover 5 crore families or 25 crore people, who constitute the poorest 20 per cent of Indian households.
The scheme, if implemented, is expected to cost Rs 3.6 lakh crore, around 2 per cent of India’s GDP. Gandhi has insisted that it is fiscally prudent.
At his Rajasthan rally, Gandhi said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has tried to “create two Indias” in the last five years giving all the benefits of the government to select few rich people while insisting that if voted to power, the Congress will eradicate poverty completely.
“If Narendra Modi can give money to the rich, the Congress will give money to the poor,” said Gandhi, who also took a swipe at the prime minister’s chowkidar campaign. The Congress president said PM Modi is a chowkidar but “serves rich people like Anil Ambani instead of the poor”.
The BJP has rejected the minimum income guarantee promise of Gandhi with Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley calling it a “bluff announcement” in his blog. Jaitley also said that the total promised by the Congress (Rs 72,000 a year) is just around two-thirds of what the NDA gives the poor.
BEIJING, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) — Chinese lawmakers have met at a bimonthly legislative session to discuss a research report on poverty relief, and brainstormed methods to seal the country’s victory against poverty.
The report was based on the investigation led by three National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee vice chairpersons into poverty alleviation efforts in 16 provinces and regions last year.
It was reviewed at the two-day committee session, which ended Wednesday.
Delivered at the session by Wu Weihua, vice chairperson of the NPC Standing Committee, the report said that “decisive progress” had been made in the anti-poverty fight but circumstances remained challenging.
Support for extremely impoverished regions should be continuously strengthened, according to Li Yuefeng, a member of the standing committee, who said that areas in abject poverty still posed the most difficult tasks in the battle against poverty, and called for consistent efforts to make sure they did not lag behind.
Fellow lawmaker Liu Yuankun believes the problems for extremely poor areas are rooted in their economy and society, and suggested poverty relief in such areas be integrated with local economic and social development.
“As soon as transportation works, everything will work,” he said, stressing the construction of infrastructure, which allows funds, talent and industries to flow into impoverished areas.
Another member Zheng Gongcheng said that only by building inner faith and hope could the endogenous power to defeat poverty be long-lasting, and suggested prioritizing efforts in education and employment to enhance the capacity of people in poverty.
In 2018, China lifted 13.86 million people in rural areas out of poverty, with the number of impoverished rural residents dropping from 98.99 million in late 2012 to 16.6 million by the end of last year.
The number is still high, however, and many of the impoverished are long suffering from illnesses, disabled, or elderly people with no family, according to the report.
“A long-term and effective mechanism to prevent people from falling back into poverty due to illness is significant,” said Li Xueyong, a member of the NPC Standing Committee, who asked for more measures to cut major illnesses at the root.
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – A hotel that caught fire in the Indian capital on Tuesday, killing 17 people, passed safety checks 14 months ago, but an investigation has revealed breaches of regulations, such as faulty alarms, prompting a mass reinspection of other hotels.
Poorly enforced regulations lead to thousands of deaths in fires across India every year and officials in New Delhi say an overstretched fire service is hampering safety efforts.
The Hotel Arpit Palace passed a fire safety check in December 2017, but a copy of the initial police investigation seen by Reuters showed several breaches of fire regulations, including a lack of signs to guide guests to exits and fire alarms that did not work.
Delhi’s fire service, which is responsible for safety inspections as well as fighting fires, is now reviewing certificates issued to more than 1,500 hotels in one of India’s tourist hubs, a senior fire official told Reuters.
But stretched resources mean the re-inspection process could take months.
“Fire officers have to do a lot of work,” said Vipin Kental, Delhi’s chief fire officer. “We have to be inspectors and fight fires. We do not have the manpower.”
The city has around 1,700 firefighters, he said, which is less than an eighth of the number in New York, a city with less than half of Delhi’s population.
PREVENTABLE TRAGEDY
The fire is believed to have begun on the hotel’s first floor, spreading quickly through wood-panelled corridors, police say. Among the dead were members of a wedding party from Kerala and a two Buddhist pilgrims from Myanmar.
“From the outside, the building looked intact, but inside everything was completely charred,” a police officer told Reuters.
Two of the 17 died after jumping out of windows in desperation after failing to find emergency exits, added the officer, who declined to be named as he is not authorised to talk to the media.
“Fire preparedness is a matter of shockingly low priority in most parts of the country,” said an editorial in the Indian Express, one of the country’s leading newspapers.
A 2018 study by India’s home ministry that found the country had just 2,000 of more than 8,500 fire stations it needs.
More than 17,000 people died in fires in 2015, according to data from the ministry, the last year for which figures are available, one of the largest causes of accidental death in India.
Fire safety is an issue for shanty towns and some of the country’s most expensive real estate.
A day after the Arpit Palace disaster, more than 250 makeshift homes were destroyed in a slum in Paschim Puri, a poor area of New Delhi, though no one was killed.
In 2017, 14 people were killed during a birthday party at a high-end bar in India’s financial capital Mumbai.
In several upscale neighbourhoods in Delhi, police shut hundreds of shops and restaurants last year for trading on floors meant for residential use, though many continue to operate illegally, residents say.
By the boarded-up Arpit Palace in the Karol Bagh area of New Delhi, wires from adjacent hotels still trail across the street, though staff there told Reuters they were complying with fire regulations.
Adding to the safety problems, poorly paid staff in the hotel and restaurant industries are often unable to help guests when fires break out, Kental said.
“They are not trained. They don’t know what to do in the event of a fire,” he said.
BEIJING, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) — China will continue to work vigorously to reduce poverty and lift no less than ten million people out of poverty in 2019, to lay a solid foundation for winning the battle against poverty, the State Council’s executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang decided on Monday.
The year 2018 saw China launch its three-year actions in fighting the battle against poverty. Premier Li Keqiang vowed to reduce the poor population by ten million each year in all his government work reports over the past five years. He gave specific instructions on ways to push forward this work and to better manage the poverty alleviation funds.
According to the progress update at the Monday meeting, 13.86 million people were lifted out of poverty in 2018, thanks to the dedicated efforts by local authorities and competent departments in implementing the decisions made by the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council.
Figures from the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development show that the new approach of poverty relief by developing emerging industries in poor areas such as e-commerce, photovoltaics and country tourism has paid off. Infrastructure development in poor areas has been accelerated. Some 208,000 kilometers of rural roads were built or renovated in 2018. New progress was made in upgrading the power grid in poor areas. And 94 percent of the poor villages are now covered by broadband internet services.
“We must strive to meet the poverty alleviation target for this year. Making poverty history by 2020 is the solemn commitment our Party and government have made to the people. We must fulfill this commitment by ensuring full delivery of all related policies and consolidating the progress we have made,” Li said.
It was decided at the meeting that efforts will be intensified this year to help the deeply poor areas. Increase in the poverty alleviation fund under the central government budget will be mainly channeled to these areas. Projects under the 13th Five-Year Plan that help enhance the weak links of poor areas will be prioritized.
The meeting urged to stick to current standard, and the cross-regional pairing arrangements for poverty alleviation will be enhanced. The difficulties poor people face in meeting the five essential needs of food, clothing, compulsory education, basic healthcare and a place to live will be tackled down to every household.
Counties that have emerged from poverty and their populations shall remain eligible for related policy incentives by 2020, the final-stage year in fighting poverty. Records of those who fall back into poverty and the newly discovered poor will be promptly established to provide them support. The meeting urged to cut the poor population by another ten million this year to lay a solid foundation for winning the final battle against poverty.
“We must strictly enforce the poverty criteria involving the five essential needs of food, clothing, compulsory education, basic healthcare and a place to live,” Li said, “Every penny of the poverty alleviation funds must be used effectively and transparently.”
HOHHOT, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) — North China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region will help 140,000 people and all its county-level regions escape poverty in 2019, local authorities said Monday.
Governments at all levels invested 10.1 billion yuan (1.5 billion U.S. dollars) of special poverty-relief fund in 2018, up 25 percent year on year, lifting 235,000 people out of poverty, it said.
About 332,000 government officials attended training sessions for poverty alleviation last year.
The regional government said the poverty headcount ratio had dropped to 1.06 percent by the end of last year.
In 2019, the government will strengthen the implementation of poverty relief policies, deepen cooperation with Beijing city on fighting poverty and boost its featured industries to create more jobs and income for local people.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 