continuously updated blog about China & India
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Beware the Waking Dragon
Which country poses the biggest threat to world peace? Syria? Iran? North Korea?
Well, according to Gallup International\’s end of year survey of nearly 68,000 people in 65 countries, the US takes the top spot, followed by Pakistan and China.
The Chinese people we spoke to on the streets of Beijing weren\’t so sure China deserved to come in at number three.
via BBC News – View from China on the threats to world peace.
Police in China\’s restive Xinjiang region have shot dead eight people during a violent clash on Monday, a state news portal says.
The clash broke out when men armed with knives and explosives attacked a police station in Yarkand county, officials say. One person has also been arrested.
The violence comes two weeks after a riot in the region, which saw 16 people killed, including two police.
Xinjiang, home to the Muslim Uighur minority group, sees sporadic clashes.
The government traditionally blames extremists for the violence. Uighur activists, on the other hand, point to ethnic tensions and tight Chinese control as triggers for violence.
Verifying reports from the region is difficult because the information flow out of Xinjiang is tightly controlled.
News of the latest clash first emerged on the state-run regional Tianshan news portal.
Officials described the people who attacked the police station in Yarkand, near the old silk road city of Kashgar, as \”thugs carrying knives and throwing explosives\”.
It was not immediately clear if there were any police casualties. The incident is currently under investigation, officials say.
More than 100 people have been killed in Xinjiang this year in this and similar incidents, which Beijing blames on separatist \”terrorists\” from the Uighur group, says the BBC\’s John Sudworth in Shanghai.
Chinese officials are asked to \”take the lead\” in adhering to the smoking ban in public spaces.
The No Smoking sign, designed by one of the members of AIGA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
According to a circular from the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council, officials are not allowed to smoke in schools, hospitals, sports venues, public transport vehicles, or any other venues where smoking is banned.
Government functionaries are prohibited from using public funds to buy cigarettes, nor are they permitted to smoke or offer cigarettes when performing official duties, the circular notes.
\”Smoking remains a relatively universal phenomenon in public venues. Some officials smoke in public places, which does not only jeopardized the environment and public health, but tarnished the image of Party and government offices and leaders and has a negative influence,\” reads the circular.
The sale of tobacco products and advertisements will no longer be allowed in Party and government offices. Prominent notices of smoking bans must be displayed in meeting rooms, reception offices, passageways, cafeterias and rest rooms.
China is the world\’s largest cigarette producer and consumer. The number of smokers exceeds 300 million, with at least 740 million nonsmokers regularly exposed to secondhand smoke.
In 2003, China signed the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) and it became effective in January 2006. The FCTC requires a reduction in tobacco supply as well as consumption. The 12th Five-Year plan (2011-2015) promised to ban smoking in public places.
Experts are widely critical of the current government effort, which lags far behind the FCTC standard, and no national law is yet in place banning smoking in indoor public places.
via Chinese officials banned from smoking in public – Xinhua | English.news.cn.
The probe into coal block allocation scam, which got CBI the sobriquet of “caged parrot” from the Supreme Court and saw the exit of Law Minister Ashwani Kumar over his alleged interference, marked the agency’s functioning during a tumultuous year for it.
The passage of the Lokpal Bill by Parliament this year is likely to bring a major change in the working of CBI since the Supreme Court order in the Vineet Narain case in 1997 which had brought in the supervision of Central Vigilance Commission and gave CBI chief a fixed tenure of two years aimed at freeing the agency from the clutches of bureaucracy.
The angry comments of the apex court not only claimed the ministerial scalp of Mr. Kumar but also set in motion the modalities for the autonomy of the agency, which according to Supreme Court, has become “voice of its political masters”.
The battered government scrambled its best brains in the Cabinet to constitute a group of ministers, which met a number of times, and came up with suggestions to give only “functional autonomy” to the agency.
The financial powers of the CBI Director were given a significant boost but Centre did not agree to give him rank and powers on par with the Secretary of the government of India.
The proposed Lokpal will have powers to refer cases to CBI and keep an eye on the ongoing probe. It will also have powers to transfer officers who will be probing cases referred by it.
via ‘Caged parrot’ hopes to get wings in New Year – The Hindu.
Standing before a crowd estimated in the tens of thousands, Delhi’s unlikely new leader, swept into office on an anticorruption campaign, was sworn in Saturday, and he vowed to arrest anyone in his government, from police officer to bureaucrat, who demanded a bribe.
“Within two days, I will announce a phone number, and if anybody asks for a bribe, please complain by that phone number and that person will be arrested red-handed,” Delhi’s youngest chief minister ever, Arvind Kejriwal, 45, said shortly after taking the oath of office.
Amid growing public anger over India’s widespread corruption, Mr. Kejriwal last year formed the Aam Aadmi, or Common Man, Party, which shocked India’s two largest and most solidly established parties this month by winning 28 of the 70 seats in Delhi’s state assembly. He became the state’s leader after the Indian National Congress Party, which won just eight seats, agreed to support him.
Mr. Kejriwal, a former tax commissioner, traveled to Saturday’s ceremony by subway, eschewing the vast motorcades of his predecessors. He has vowed to do away with Delhi’s culture of privileges for the powerful, which have been in place since the Mughal kings ruled India.
In contrast with past chief ministers whose swearing-in ceremonies were held at the state assembly among small, select audiences of the powerful, Mr. Kejriwal took the oath of office in Ramlila Maidan, an open area where he participated in mass anticorruption protests several years before. A spokesman for his party said the police had estimated the crowd at 100,000. Patriotic songs were played over loudspeakers, and many of those present carried signs reading “Today C.M. Tomorrow P.M.,” suggesting that Mr. Kejriwal would soon lead all of India.
Mr. Kejriwal announced last week that he would not travel in one of the cars with flashing lights that allow high-ranking officials to zip through Delhi’s oppressive traffic. He also said he would not accept a security detail or live in one of the sumptuous houses at New Delhi’s core that India’s elite have occupied since the British abandoned them in 1947.
Mr. Kejriwal was sworn in along with six of his ministers. All of them wore simple, white Gandhian caps bearing slogans like “I am the common man” and “I need self-rule.”
“We are here to serve the people, and we should not forget that,” he said in his remarks.
via Delhi’s New Leader Vows to Halt Corruption – NYTimes.com.
There was no motorcade, and none of the traditional trappings of power: the leader of India\’s upstart \”common man party\” arrived on a crowded metro train on Saturday to be sworn in as chief minister of Delhi, India\’s capital.
Tens of thousands of jubilant supporters watched as Arvind Kejriwal, a mild-mannered former tax official, was anointed after a stunning electoral debut that has jolted the country\’s two main parties just months before a general election.
The emergence of Kejriwal\’s Aam Aadmi (Common Man) Party, or AAP, as a force to be reckoned with barely a year since it was created on the back of an anti-corruption movement could give it a springboard to challenge the mainstream parties in other urban areas in the election due by next May.
That could be a threat to the front-runner for prime minister, Narendra Modi of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who is counting on strong support from urban, middle-class voters.
\”Today, the common man has won,\” Kejriwal said in a triumphant speech at Delhi\’s Ramlila grounds, the very place were huge protests over corruption erupted in 2011, opening the way for the birth of the AAP.
\”This truly feels like a miracle. Two years ago, we couldn\’t have imagined such a revolution would happen in this country.\”
In a December 4 election to the legislative assembly of Delhi, a city of 16 million people, no party won the majority of seats required to rule on its own.
The impasse that ensued was broken after the AAP – in a display of citizenship politics – consulted the people of the city. It then agreed to lead the Delhi government with \”outside support\” from the Congress party, which heads the national ruling coalition.
Opinion polls show that Congress, the party of India\’s celebrated Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, will be punished in the general election because of disgust with a government whose two terms have brought corruption scandals and stubborn inflation.
via Taking power in New Delhi, ‘common man’ leader talks of revolution | Reuters.
More than 500 municipal lawmakers in one Chinese province have stood down following an electoral fraud scandal, according to state media.
The 512 officials resigned after accepting bribes from 56 members of the provincial assembly to elect them to their posts, Xinhua news agency said.
The 56 disgraced lawmakers for central Hunan Province were also dismissed.
President Xi Jinping has vowed to fight corruption – warning it could topple the Communist Party.
\’Vile impact\’
Municipal officials have the power to appoint representatives to the local People\’s Congress, the provincial parliament that rubber-stamps decisions.
Local authorities dismissed 56 representatives of the 763-strong Hunan People\’s Congress for being \”elected by bribery\”, state television channel CCTV said on its Twitter account.
An initial investigation revealed that 110m yuan ($18.1m, £11m) was offered in bribes to lawmakers and staff in the province\’s second city of Hengyang, Xinhua reported, citing a Hunan government statement.
\”The fraud, involving such a huge number of lawmakers and a large amount of money, is serious in nature and has a vile impact,\” Xinhua quoted the statement as saying.
\”This is a challenge to China\’s system of people\’s congresses, socialist democracy, law and Party discipline,\” it said.
It named Tong Mingqian, the former Communist Party chief of Hengyang, as being \”directly responsible\” for the election scandal.
President Xi has launched an anti-corruption campaign, pledging to target both \”tigers and flies\” – high and low ranking officials in the government.
There have been bans on new government buildings and lavish banquets, as Mr Xi demands officials cut down on waste and extravagance.
via BBC News – China: More than 500 resign over election fraud.
continuously updated blog about China & India
continuously updated blog about China & India
continuously updated blog about China & India
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 