Social & cultural | CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon

01/07/2014

BBC News – English explodes in India – and it’s not just Hinglish

Anyone who travels beyond Delhi and Mumbai to India’s provincial cities will notice English words cropping up increasingly in Hindi conversation. While some of these terms fell out of use in the UK decades ago, others are familiar, but used in bold new ways.

Picture the scene. I’m chatting to a young man named Yuvraj Singh. He’s a college student in the Indian city of Dehra Dun. We’re talking in Hindi. But every so often there’s an English word. It’s Hindi, Hindi, Hindi, and then suddenly an English word or phrase is dropped in: “job”, “love story” or “adjust”.

What should we make of this? It’s not that Hindi lacks equivalent words. He could have said the Hindi “kaam” instead of “job”. Why mention the English words? And what’s Yuvraj speaking? Is it Hindi, English, an amalgam “Hinglish“, or something else?

In 1886 Henry Yule and Arthur Burnell published Hobson-Jobson, a guide to words from Indian languages that had passed into English.

You can search through it for references to the origins of words such as “shampoo” and “bungalow”. But now many Indian citizens are using English words in the course of talking Hindi – or Tamil, or Bengali etcetera.

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Sometimes you hear English swear words where you would least expect them.

There are some good reasons for the explosion of English words. They are sometimes badges of honour in a society intent on becoming modern. Even if you don’t speak English fluently, you might be able to use the odd word to impress your neighbour.

I was travelling on a train out of Delhi once and a young girl dropped her ice cream on the carriage floor. Her mother turned round and reminded her of what she evidently thought was an appropriate English word: “Say ‘shit!’ Say ‘shit’!” she said strictly. You won’t hear that on the 08:15 to Paddington.

via BBC News – English explodes in India – and it’s not just Hinglish.

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

Tags: BBC, Delhi, English words, Henry Yule, Hindi, Hindi conversation, Hinglish, Hobson-Jobson, India, Yuvraj Singh

30/06/2014

China’s Communist Party expels former military chief Xu Caihou in graft probe | South China Morning Post

A former top Chinese military figure was expelled from the Communist Party for suspected corruption and his case handed over to prosecutors for investigation, the Politburo announced after a meeting on Monday.

The party also decided to expel three cadres closely connected to the nation’s former security tsar, Zhou Yongkang, over allegations of corruption and bribery, Xinhua reported.

A report on the investigation into Xu Caihou, a former vice-chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission, was presented at the Politburo meeting presided over by party General Secretary and President Xi Jinping, Xinhua reported. The case was handed over to military prosecutors, it reported.

The 71-year-old Xu, who was until 2012 a member of the Politburo, would be the most senior military figure to go on trial for corruption.

“His case is serious and leaves a vile impact,” Xinhua cited a Politburo statement as saying.

The investigation into Xu, launched on March 15, found he had abused his power and received bribes “personally and through his family members” in exchange for granting promotions in the military.

Xu had also sought profits for other people in exchange for cash and properties, which were routed through his family members, Xinhua reported.

The South China Morning Post reported on March 20 that an escort of dozens of armed police had taken Xu from his bed at the 301 Military Hospital in Beijing.

via China’s Communist Party expels former military chief Xu Caihou in graft probe | South China Morning Post.

Posted in China alert, corruption, PLA, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: 301 Military Hospital, Central Military Commission, China, Communist Party, Politburo, Xi JinPing, Xu Caihou, Zhou Yongkang

26/06/2014

Two major generals detained as graft probes widen in Sichuan | South China Morning Post

Two Chinese major generals that have connections with Sichuan have been detained for a graft investigation, according to two separate sources.

Both People’s Liberation Army officers were taken into custody in May, the sources close to the military said.

One of those held was retired Ye Wanyong, a former commissar of the Sichuan military region. Ye, in his 60s, was removed yesterday from his position as a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the nation’s top political advisory body. But the reason was not specified by the CPPCC.

Ye’s house was searched by the authorities, according to the sources.

The other, Wei Jin, 55, is a vice-commissar of the Tibet military region, a post he was promoted to in 2011. He has held senior military posts in the southwest province of Sichuan, including as senior army propaganda officer in Chengdu, the province’s capital.

The latest investigation into Ye and Wei is also believed to be part of the wider anti-corruption campaign in the PLA. President Xi Jinping, who also leads the military as chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), has repeatedly vowed to clean up the beleaguered military.

Ye left the military in January after reaching the retirement age of 60. He has served in the Sichuan military region since 2006.

His early military career started in Tibet, Sichuan’s neighbour in the west, but most of the time Ye served in liaison offices in Sichuan.

via Two major generals detained as graft probes widen in Sichuan | South China Morning Post.

Posted in China alert, corruption, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Chengdu, China, Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, CPPCC, Sichuan, Tibet, Xi JinPing, Ye Wanyong

24/06/2014

A Neglected Problem in China’s Education System – China Real Time Report – WSJ

China’s top two leaders recently presided over a rare discussion on vocational education where they pushed for major changes to the country’s retrograde technical schools.

Political leaders everywhere are known to pay lip service to the need for improvements in education, but concern over China’s vocational schools is likely more than that just political bluster. That’s because the quality of the country’s lower-level technical schools could have a major impact on the country’s future economic growth.

As China looks to climb into the ranks of developed nations, one of its main goals is to evolve beyond serving as the world’s factory floor. One barrier to achieving that goal, analysts and education officials say, is the country’s lack of highly-skilled workers.

Premier Li Keqiang emphasized that point at Monday’s meeting, saying a “massive skilled labor force” was needed to upgrade the “made in China” label, “from ‘adequate’ to ‘high-quality’ and ‘premium’” (in Chinese).

Mr. Li was talking at an unusual national-level work conference on vocational education – only the 3rd such conference to be held in China since 1978. China’s President Xi Jinping gave the opening remarks, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency, signifying the level of importance China’s leadership places on the topic.

The attention is warranted: China’s vocational programs — which teach practical skills ranging from carpentry to forestry and encompass more than 29 million students, according to Xinhua — have been badly neglected when compared with the country’s rapidly multiplying universities. Often criticized for being poorly equipped, they are also poorly managed and have trouble finding qualified teachers, experts say.

“In the vast majority of vocational education schools in China, kids are not learning anything, especially in rural areas,” said Scott Rozelle, director of Stanford University’s Rural Education Action Program, which studies China’s vocational schools. “In studies in central and northwest China, we found dropout rates of 50% in the first two years of these programs.”

Mr. Rozelle said that China’s vocational schools are the only segment of China’s educational system that lacks an evaluation system, so it is difficult to tell which schools are good and which subpar.

China is currently home to 13,600 vocation schools and colleges, which provide a large chunk of the country’s workers in labor-intensive industries. According to government estimates, they are expected to attract more than 38 million students by 2020.

The government is now pushing a number of changes to the vocational school system, including requiring local government to allocate a standard budget for vocational schools as they do for regular colleges, according to Xinhua. Private investors and non-governmental organizations are also encouraged to sponsor vocational schools, and private vocational schools will enjoy preferential loans from banks.

The state-run China Daily newspaper called the government’s recent attention to vocational schools “unprecedented”. But the devil is in the details. It won’t be clear until later how much money local governments will actually budget to upgrading the vocational school system and what kind of incentives there will be to improve.

via A Neglected Problem in China’s Education System – China Real Time Report – WSJ.

Posted in China alert, Economics, education, employment, graduate, higher education, job shortage, labour shortage, Social & cultural | Leave a Comment »

Tags: China, Education, Li Keqiang, Vocational education, Vocational school, vocational schools, Xi JinPing

23/06/2014

Shenzhen to pump one billion yuan into building new Xinjiang university | South China Morning Post

Shenzhen will pump one billion yuan (HK$1.26 billion) into a new university to be built in Xinjiang’s southern Kashgar city, on top of the region’s own one billion yuan of investment.

Shenzhen was contributing to the university in support of education in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, the Xinjiang Daily reported on Monday.

“Building Kashi University will provide strong human resources to the industrial restructuring in southern Xinjiang and improve the local livelihood,” said Kenjiang Tulahong, a member of the region’s National People’s Congress Standing Committee.

Plans to build the university were announced by the State Council after a Xinjiang working group meeting in May. It was an important strategic approach, the newspaper said.

Xinjiang, in the northwest and home to the Uygur ethnic minority who are mostly Muslims, has been the focus of a security crackdown after recent violent attacks in the region and elsewhere on the mainland that the central government has blamed on terrorists and separatists who want to establish an independent state called East Turkestan.

President Xi Jinping, who chaired the second Central Work Conference on Xinjiang on May 19, stressed the importance of ethnic unity, education and economic development. Officials at the conference pledged to promote bilingual education and interaction between ethnic groups in the region.

On Monday, Xinjiang party chief Zhang Chunxian, speaking at the region’s party committee meeting, vowed to safeguard social stability and the Central Committee’s authority and political discipline on major issues opposing separatism.

The same day, Korla Evening News reported that police in Korla city, western Xinjiang, had busted an underground group that was teaching the Koran to children. Two men were arrested on suspicion of abusing two children and forcing them to study the Koran, on top of running illegal religious activities. The two pupils were then sent to local kindergartens and assigned guardians, the newspaper reported.

Kashi University, when completed, would give Uygur students more opportunities for higher levels of academic training in future, Kashgar officials said.

“Kashi University will have comprehensive departments and disciplined teachers to train a wider range of talents,” Kashgar Normal College dean Aierken Wumaier said.

The university plans to provide curriculums in the liberal arts, science, art, engineering, management, economics and medicine, among others, he said. The institute aimed to recruit 13,000 students by 2015, he added.

via Shenzhen to pump one billion yuan into building new Xinjiang university | South China Morning Post.

Posted in China alert, Economics, education, Ethnic clash, Good news, Politics, Religious clash, Social & cultural | Leave a Comment »

Tags: China, Kashgar, Kashi University, Korla, Shenzhen, Xi JinPing, Xinjiang, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Zhang Chunxian

20/06/2014

Ensure English is Used on Social Media, Jayalalithaa Writes to PM Modi: Full Text of Letter – NDTV

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ensure the urgent amendment of an instruction that asks government departments to use Hindi for tweets and other social media posts.

Following is the full text of her letter:

It has come to my notice that the Ministry of Home Affairs has issued two Office Memoranda, the first by the Official Language Department of the Ministry of Home Affairs (O.M.No.12019/03/2014-OL, dated 10.3.2014) and the second by the Co-ordination Division of the Ministry of Home Affairs (O.M.No.11020/01/2013-Hindi, dated 27.5.2014). These Office Memoranda direct that official accounts on social media like Facebook, Twitter, blogs, Google and You Tube which at present use only English should compulsorily use Hindi, or both Hindi and English, with Hindi being written above or first. This makes the use of Hindi mandatory and English optional.

As you are aware, as per the Official Languages Rules, 1976, communications from a Central Government office to a State or Union Territory in Region “C” or to any office (not being a Central Government office) or person in such State shall be in English. This provision has been introduced following the introduction of a mandatory proviso to Section 3(1) of the Official Languages Act, 1963, by an amendment in 1968 which states as follows:-

“Provided that the English language shall be used for purposes of communication between the Union and a State which has not adopted Hindi as its official language”.

In this context, while the Office Memoranda have been primarily made applicable to Government of India officers and offices located in “Region A”, social media by their very nature are not only accessible to all persons on the internet but meant to be a means of communication to persons living in all parts of India including those in “Region C”. People located in “Region C” with whom the Government of India communication needs to be in English, will not have access to such public information if it is not in English. This move would therefore be against the letter and spirit of the Official Languages Act, 1963. As you are aware, this is a highly sensitive issue and causes disquiet to the people of Tamil Nadu who are very proud of and passionate about their linguistic heritage.

Hence, I request you to kindly ensure that instructions are suitably modified to ensure that English is used on social media.

via Ensure English is Used on Social Media, Jayalalithaa Writes to PM Modi: Full Text of Letter – NDTV.

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

Tags: Government of India, Hindi, India, J. Jayalalithaa, Narendra Modi, Office Memoranda, Official Languages Act, Prime minister, Social media, Tamil Nadu

19/06/2014

New Women’s Helpline Widens Efforts to Stop Sexual Violence in India – India Real Time – WSJ

Some of the first calls to a new women’s crisis center in central India were from six women who said they were being hunted in their villages after being branded as witches.

In response, the center sent an emergency team of social workers to the district of Hoshangabad in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh to investigate the claims and rescue the women, who have gone into hiding, said Sarika Sinha, regional manager of the non-profit Action Aid India, which helps run the center called Gauravi.

Among the minefield of issues that women in India navigate, including abuse, violence and torture, single women in rural India who inherit property are sometimes branded witches so that male members of their community can seize the land, said Ms. Sinha.

If these women agreed to be rescued, the first priority would be to get them out of danger and bring them to the center in Bhopal, Ms. Sinha said.

The Gauravi center, which was inaugurated Monday by India’s Health Minister Harsh Vardhan and Bollywood actor Aamir Khan is the latest in a string of initiatives to protect women that have started to operate since New Delhi created its own 24-hour helpline for women a week after a 23-year-old student was gang-raped and murdered in December 2012.

Sexual violence has since been widely discussed in India, and the law has been changed to protect women.

The Gauravi center shines a spotlight on women’s issues that seems to be filtering from the capital to other parts of the country. The Delhi helpline is being expanded nationally, including most recently to the central state of Chhatisgarh, according to a news report in the Times of India.

via New Women’s Helpline Widens Efforts to Stop Sexual Violence in India – India Real Time – WSJ.

Outrage over India ‘rape’ remarks

Posted in Gender issues, India alert, Social & cultural | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Aamir Khan, Action Aid India, Bhopal, Delhi, Hoshangabad, India, Madhya Pradesh, New Delhi, rural India, Sarika Sinha, Sinha, Women in India

17/06/2014

China’s Gray-Haired Set Could Boost Digital Shopping – China Real Time Report – WSJ

Online shopping in China isn’t just for the young, according to a new survey. That could be good news for an already quickly growing e-commerce industry that largely caters to the young.

While the bulk of online shoppers are still in their 20s and 30s, a survey published Tuesday by data provider Nielsen said the number of online consumers aged 55 or older grew 72% between 2012 and 2013. It cited data from Taobao, one of China’s largest shopping websites, which is owned by Alibaba Group, though it didn’t release the underlying figures.

“China could become the world’s most aged society by 2030,” said Tao Libao, a Nielsen official with responsibility for e-commerce, in a prepared statement. “The elderly online consumers deserve more attention from both current online retailers and brick-and-mortar retailers who are going to venture online.” People aged over 60 could be 30% of China’s population by 2030, Mr. Tao said.

They survey said they tend to be more careful shoppers, attracted by easy price comparisons and special discounts given that they often have less income than younger people.

“It’s cheaper to buy online,” said Zhang Jinnian, a Beijing shopper in her fifties who has been using the internet to shop for the past year. In that time she has bought clothes, shoes and a bicycle online. “It’s always more expensive in a store,” said Ms. Zhang, who declined to give her exact age.

via China’s Gray-Haired Set Could Boost Digital Shopping – China Real Time Report – WSJ.

Glance: China’s Alibaba has deep tentacles in China’s retail and Internet giants

Posted in aging population, China alert, Consumer, eCommerce, Economics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Alibaba, Alibaba Group, Beijing, China, E-commerce, EBAY, Online shopping, Online shopping in China, Tao Libao, Taobao, Zhang Jinnian

14/06/2014

First there was fake Apple stores in China now fake Ikea shop found in Kunming | Mail Online

It seems that Kunming in the southwest corner of China is the world capital of knock-off shops.

Seem familiar? Employees push a shopping cart past the information desk at the lobby of the 11 Furniture Store

Apple recently found five counterfeit versions of its stores there after blogger BirdAbroad posted photos of one online – and now a fake Ikea has surfaced.

It’s called 11 Furniture and is a 10,000 square metre, four-storey replica that’s virtually identical to the Swedish-made version.

It copies Ikea’s blue-and-yellow colour scheme, mock-up rooms, miniature pencils, signage and even its rocking chair designs. Its cafeteria-style restaurant, complete with minimalist wooden tables, has a familiar look, although the menu features Chinese-style braised minced pork and eggs instead of Ikea’s Swedish meatballs and salmon.

This knock-off Ikea store is emblematic of a new wave of piracy sweeping through China. Increasingly sophisticated counterfeiters no longer just pump out fake luxury handbags, DVDs and sports shoes but replicate the look, feel and service of successful Western retail concepts — in essence, pirating the entire brand experience.

‘This is a new phenomenon,’ said Adam Xu, retail analyst with Booz&Co. ‘Typically there are a lot of fake products, now we see more fakes in the service aspect in terms of (faking) the retail formats.’

via First there was fake Apple stores in China now fake Ikea shop found in Kunming | Mail Online.

Counterfeit Apple Stores open for business in China

Posted in China alert, Consumer, fake, Retail | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Apple, Apple Store, Apple stores, Cafeteria, China, DVD, Ikea, Kunming, Meatball

14/06/2014

‘Fake’ government toppled by Chinese police – Telegraph

It will go down as one of the most audacious attempts at Chinese fakery yet: a bid to forge an entire government.

Police in central China say they have brought down a 'counterfeit government'

That is what police claim happened in Dengzhou, a city 480 miles northwest of Shanghai, in Henan province, with more than 1.5 million inhabitants.

Three of the city’s farmers were this week facing charges of forging official documents after allegedly trying to build a parallel and entirely fictitious government for reasons that remain obscure, the local Dahe News Online website reported.

The “counterfeit government” began operating last September when Zhang Haixin, Ma Xianglan and Wang Liangshuang, three villagers, proclaimed themselves the leaders of the self-styled Dengzhou People’s Government.

The trio reportedly accused the incumbent Communist Party administration of “dereliction of duty” and opened their own headquarters just around the corner from those of the city’s real governors.

via ‘Fake’ government toppled by Chinese police – Telegraph.

Posted in China alert, fake | Leave a Comment »

Tags: China, chinese police, Communists, Dengzhou, Dengzhou People's Government, Government, Henan, Henan province, Ma Xianglan, politics, Shanghai, Zhang Haixin

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