Obama's post-election healing ... in India

Earlier today, as I was exiting the restroom, a much senior faculty colleague remarked "Obama is going to your country" ...

I have been a citizen for quite a while, and this colleague knows that I vote and participate in the civic affairs of the US, which is my country now. He has even let me know how an op-ed was not the best way to win friends!

But, no point arguing about it, I thought. 

I said, "yes, he is going to India." But, then as I reached for the door, I thought I ought to correct his statement even more.  So, I added, "My country is the US"

Life being a strange drama, a few hours later I am exiting the same restroom when the same colleague comes in.  This time he says, "I am sorry, I was not commenting on you being an American."  Better late than never, I suppose.

But, this is merely yet another episode in a long-running series of how often I feel I am viewed as an "Indian" and not as an American who happens to be from India.  Funnily enough, even my students, to many of whom I am probably the first ever non-white-American instructor when they come to my classes, seem to recognize that I am American--despite my accent!.  Their conversations with me are about a whole lot of Americana--from South Park to football to politics to Hollywood. Yet, there are faculty colleagues who think that the only common conversation topic between me and them is all things India?

Anyway, back to the President heading to India.  It is a big event, of course.  I am not sure if the daughters will accompany their father; I hope they will because it will be one awesome experience for them.

The Indian population, the business and political leaders, are all awaiting the visit.  Here is one of the leading entrepreneurs who is now leading the government effort for a national ID card, talking about the significance of this visit:


And, yes, BTW, Diwali is on November 5th, and Obama will reach Bombay the day after that.  So, when he is India, Obama will be viewed by the nutcases here as a secret Hindu, and later when the President is in Indonesia, his secret Muslim identity will be confirmed.  Why isn't he suspected of being a Buddhist, eh!

The WSJ has a suggestion of five Indian movies for in-flight entertainment as a way to also understand a few issues related to India.  The first two recommendations:

The first movie is India’s nominee for the Oscars this year: “Peepli Live.” If nothing else, this movie will prepare the President for India’s rambunctious press corp. While the U.S. has three cable general news channels, India has more than 20 and they compete fiercely for news stories.
Peepli Live explores how Indian news channels manufacture news to gain ratings. In the movie, a farmer contemplates suicide as the only way out of his family’s crushing debt. Unfortunately, the story is familiar to Indian audiences, as there has been a scourge of farmer suicides because of mountains of debt.
It’s the flip side of emerging India, the India that used to be written about: poor, hungry and destitute. That India still exists. And Mr. Obama will probably miss most of it visiting Mumbai and Delhi. Hundreds of millions of Indians still live on less than $1.25 a day and many have a hand to mouth existence.
For many Indians — and potentially Mr. Obama — Peepli Live was a vivid reminder of how far India still has to go and how important it is that the Indian economic miracle succeed.
The next is “3 Idiots.” Based loosely on a book, 3 Idiots explores the lives of three engineering students at an Indian Institute of Technology-like institution. It puts a human face on the experience of the workers that populate the Bangalore of American myth.

Have a good time, Mr. President.  The best thing to heal from the election bruising.

India responds to Obama's populist attacks on outsourcing

As if his nonstop attacks on outsourcing weren't enough, President Obama advises the Indian government to open up the economy.  Does he not realize the tragic irony himself?  Or is Obama that comfortable with the economic forked tongue?  An Orwellian doublethink from the great leader!

To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again

No surprise that reactions in India have been swift and pissed. 

This op-ed in The Hindu points out the irony:

Mr. Obama’s advice on the need for opening the economy has to be seen in the context of his own statements against outsourcing of jobs to India which is also protectionism. If it is right for the U.S. to stop its corporations from outsourcing jobs to India, which incidentally only increases their efficiencies, it is also right for India to stop a Walmart at the door to protect its own small retailers who will be wiped out if the multinational chain sets up shop.

Of course, Indian consumers and suppliers who might have benefited from the efficient supply chain of organised retail will be the ultimate losers. But that is the futility of protectionism, the price that an economy pays for it. There is enough economic literature available for those interested to read on how protectionist measures adopted by various countries prolonged the Great Depression in the 1930s. So where do these protectionist tit-for-tats stop?

Globalisation, which is all about free movement of products, funds, people and also jobs, is the answer. But for it to be successful, every country has to play the game fairly. 

The BBC reports:

Corporate Minister Veerappa Moily said Mr Obama was "not properly informed" and blamed "international lobbies" for spreading negative information....
MPs from several opposition parties also criticised Mr Obama for his remarks.
"If Mr Obama wants FDI [foreign direct investment] in retail and India does not want, then it won't come just because he is demanding it," Bharatiya Janata Party leader Yashwant Sinha said.

Another minister reminds Obama that these are sovereign decisions:

“Our foreign direct investment (FDI) policy is investor-friendly and, anyway, these are a country’s sovereign right to decide,” was Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma’s response to US President Barack Obama's urging on India's investment climate.

In addition to the hypocrisy, Obama has done another serious disservice--he has provided the best possible distraction away from India's screwed up and dysfunctional government.  

Nice going, Mr. President!

Obama’s meeting with Dalia Lama is off for now

The time and energy wasted on non-issues such as whether the president forged his birth certificate makes us oblivious to flashing signals, some more urgent than others, from around the world.

Case in point: the remarkably under-reported news that President Obama has “quietly postponed an audience with the Dalai Lama until after he visits China in November.”

The Chicago Sun Times — the president’s hometown newspaper — notes that “White House Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrettt, who seemed to vanish at the end of last week, was actually dispatched to India on a delicate diplomatic mission: President Obama tapped her to meet with the exiled Tibetan religious leader, the Dalai Lama.”

Even the vice president’s visits to Iraq appear to be more transparent!

The postponement of the meeting confirms, yet again, the triumph of realpolitik over principles.

When we owe China more than $800 billion, perhaps we have no option other than to make sure that we do not upset our primary foreign lender.

However, the postponement is not without geopolitical complexities involving the United States, China and India.

Sino-Indian relations, which had been improving in the 1990s, have been on a downturn over the past couple of years.

The downturn has even resulted in very brief military incidents. One of the main sore points is over Arunachal Pradesh, a state in northeastern India. China has always claimed Arunachal Pradesh as its territory and considers it a part of Tibet.

The territorial boundary that China disputes — the MacMahon Line — dates back to 1914, before the independence of India and before the founding of the China we know today.

India became independent of Britain in 1947, and the People’s Republic of China came into existence in 1949. It can be argued that neither India nor China was party to the MacMahon Line, but both have been forced to coexist with that boundary in the rugged Himalayan terrain.

So, where does the Dalai Lama fit into this territorial dispute, even when he is in no way directly responsible for the recent tiffs between these two countries?

For one, the Dalai Lama has lived in northern India — in Dharmasala — ever since he fled Lhasa, Tibet, in 1959. The Dalai Lama’s escape path out of Lhasa went through Tawang, which is in Arunachal Pradesh and whose monastery is the second oldest after Lhasa’s.

A few years after his arrival in India, the Dalai Lama was requested by the Tawang Monastery to send a lama who would be qualified to be the abbot, and this further cemented his association with Tawang.

In 2008, when the Dalai Lama planned to visit Tawang, the Indian government prevented him from doing so because it did not want to upset the Chinese government, which considers this trip a political act by the “splittist” Dalai Lama.

This year, however, the Indian government has approved the Dalai Lama’s plans to visit Tawang in November, perhaps sensing that continuing to appease the Chinese government might be interpreted as a sign of weakness and could cloud its sovereignty over Arunachal Pradesh.

Meanwhile, there have been reports of Chinese military incursions into Indian territories.

All of these things have concerned the Indian government so much that the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, was compelled to react, and promptly accused the media of blowing things out of proportion.

It was against such intense geopolitical backdrop that the Dalai Lama was scheduled to meet with Obama during the Dalai Lama’s visit to the United States in October. This meeting is now a no-go.

Of course, the story continues. In mid-November, Obama is scheduled to go to China on his first official visit, which is, ironically, about the same time as the Dalai Lama’s fifth visit to Tawang.

However, unlike the president, the Dalai Lama is not quite in control of his own calendar.

Buddhists — monks and laypeople alike — in India’s northeastern states have begun special prayers hoping that these would ensure the Dalai Lama’s visit.

Let us see if the prayers bear fruit. And, maybe, the Dalai Lama will even get to meet with Obama at the White House.

For The Register-Guard
Appeared in print: Wednesday, Sep 23, 2009

Hillary Clinton’s trip reveals India’s warm regard for U.S.

Hillary Clinton’s first official visit to India as America’s secretary of state was hugely successful, especially from a public relations perspective.

My visit to Mumbai happened to overlap with Clinton’s, and this Indian-American felt quite excited with the fantastic appreciation for his adopted homeland, its president and the visiting secretary.

The hotel where Clinton stayed, the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower, was one of the targets of the terror attacks last November. Therefore, as one can imagine, security personnel seemed to be everywhere and prevented tourists, including me, from visiting one of Mumbai’s famous landmarks — the Gateway of India, which is adjacent to the Taj Mahal.

Yet people seemed to be genuinely happy that Clinton had opted to stay at the Taj to honor those who lost their lives that fateful November, and as a mark of defiance against terrorism.

The press and the public seemed to treat her as a celebrity as much as they recognized her as America’s chief diplomat. Clinton impressed Indians not merely with her tactfulness, but even her handling of spicy Indian foods.

One newspaper reported that, “She likes hot and spicy food. Back home she travels with a bottle of hot sauce to pep up her food wherever she goes; she believes it keeps her healthy.”

I thought the talk about Clinton’s penchant for spicy foods was nothing but polite, diplomatic speak until I read, after her departure, about how Clinton added her own touch by doing something absolutely out of the ordinary.

According to one magazine, “Hillary was given a chili and to her credit she bravely chomped her way through it, and didn’t even wash it down with water.”

Eating a chili without hastily toning it down with sweets or even water earned Clinton all kinds of admiring metaphors; one, for instance, called her a “woman of steel.” (A note: “chili” is not the spicy stew that is consumed at Super Bowl parties all across America, but refers to the green and red peppers.)

America and the current administration are certainly viewed positively. After years of neglecting India and favoring Pakistan, in response to the geopolitical realpolitik of the Cold War years, there has been a distinct favorable tilt in the Indo-American relationships. President George W. Bush largely continued to build on the new foundations that President Bill Clinton had laid, and so far it appears that the Obama administration is keen on further expanding and deepening this relationship between the world’s largest democracies.

There is also a little bit of insecurity in the Indian push for better relations with America, stemming from an underlying concern that America might lean more and more toward China because of the multibillion dollar Sino-American economic ties, which might then make India’s interests less important to America. In addition to the Chinese angle, there is the ever-present worry that America might at any time ditch India in favor of Pakistan.

Of course, Hillary Clinton having a successful India trip was viewed with suspicion across its borders, particularly in Pakistan. Her forceful remarks that “we hope Pakistan will make progress against what is a syndicate of terrorism” were not received well in Pakistan. “A syndicate of terrorism” is a wonderful phrase, indeed, to describe the many outfits operating out of Pakistan, including al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

I sense here in India an immense and almost unconditional support for America. It is, therefore, no surprise that there is a lot of excitement about the possibility of President Obama visiting India, even though it was triggered by what appears to be a polite response from the White House press secretary, who remarked, “I know the president at some point will travel to India.”

Maybe prior to a trip to India, whenever that happens, the athletic Obama should practice playing cricket over a couple of weeks. When in India, Obama could then don the appropriate game gear and play for a few minutes with a bunch of youngsters.

That “cricket diplomacy” might seal forever the admiration for the United States in this cricket-crazy country.

For The Register-Guard
Appeared in print: Sunday, Aug 9, 2009

I am pissed off that Modi's RSS goons killed a Tamil author!

I was in India when the editor/publisher of Ananda Vikatan died.  He was my father's age and belonged to an era that seems ancient whenever I visit India.  An era when Tamil literature was alive, and rich, and entertained and educated the youth and the old alike.

The magazine devoted an issue to the editor's demise.  One contributor was the author Jayakanthan, who reminisced about how the editor boldly published Jayakanthan's stories, even though they were considered troublesome to the establishment.  Jayakanthan went on to write quite a bit, grew in stature, and has been recognized with awards galore.

That era seems even more ancient than ancient history when I read about the recent developments in the land that was once home to me, whose literature and language will always be a part of who I am. Even what I wear sometimes!  What happened for me to lament like this?

"Author Perumal Murugan has died"

Source

The author was the latest victim of the provincial, parochial, ill-informed, goons, also known as as the Hindu right-wing group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) who are making the best use of the opportunity now that one of their favorite and well-known is India's prime minister.

Ok, the RSS didn't kill the person.  The person lives:

"Author Perumal Murugan has died," the Tamil writer and professor posted on Monday. "He is no god, so he is not going to resurrect himself. Nor does he believe in reincarnation. From now on, Perumal Murugan will survive merely as the teacher he has been."

Why kill the author?  For a book he wrote. Not now, but back in 2010!

"Madhorubagan" is set about a century ago near the author's native town of Tiruchengode in southern India. In the book, a childless couple from the land-owning Gounder caste contemplate participating in a local temple festival ritual - during which a childless woman has sex with a man other than her husband in order to conceive a child.
Last month, unexpectedly, local groups led protests about the book - they said the "fictitious" extramarital sex ritual at the centre of the plot insulted the town, its temple and its women. Copies of the novel were burnt, residents shut down shops, and a petition sought the arrest of the author.

Yep, these goons conveniently forget that love and sex, and god, have been a wonderful tradition in the rich literature and arts in Tamil and throughout India.  But then when were goons ever seriously interested in knowledge!

The author is no bloke. Not any pretentious professor like this blogger. No, ma'am:

Perumal Murugan has been a professor of Tamil for the past 17 years, during which time he has developed considerable expertise in three different areas: building a lexicon of words, idioms and phrases special to Kongunadu; researching Kongu folklore, especially the ballads on Annamar Sami, a pair of folk deities; and publishing authoritative editions of classical Tamil texts. Murugan’s output in these areas over the past decade has been substantial. 

His knowledge led him to something that absolutely fascinated him:

It was his continuing interest in Kongu folklore that prompted him to apply for and obtain a grant from the India Foundation of the Arts, Bangalore, to undertake research on folklore surrounding the temple town of Thiruchengodu, a town he knew very well from his childhood but, in another sense, did not know at all.
There are many idols on the Thiruchengodu hill, each one capable of giving a specific boon. One of them is the Ardhanareeswarar, an idol of Shiva who has given the left part of his body to his consort, Parvathi. It is said that this is the only place where Shiva is sacralised in this mythical form. Murugan was intrigued on encountering several men in the region past the age of 50 who were called Ardhanari (Half-woman) or Sami Pillai (God-given child). On digging further he found out that till as recently as 50 years ago, on a particular evening of the annual chariot festival in the temple of Ardhanareeswara, childless women would come alone to the area alive with festival revelries. Each woman was free to couple with a male stranger of her choice, who was considered an incarnation of god. If the woman got pregnant, the child was considered a gift from god and accepted as such by the family, including her husband.

He then worked this into his fictional work. All done. That was in 2010.

In 2014, the RSS darling, Modi, was elected India's prime minister.  Now, the goons got bolder.  Which is why it has taken the idiots this long to go after Perumal Murugan and kill the author--ironically, after the English translation of the novel came out!

The NY Times expresses worries over the trend of silencing authors.  But, you think President Obama will bother to pressure his new friend, Prime Goon Modi, about such issues?  Heck no. After all, the attraction is all because Modi talks the business language and money talks, while everything else takes a walk!  As Shikha Dalmia writes:

Modi will use Obama's visit as the West's vote of confidence in himself, and pooh-pooh growing domestic alarm over his creeping Hindutva agenda.

Yep! :(

Obama can't ignore the political forces he'll be aiding and abetting in India.
India is a young democracy whose commitment to religious liberty is still fragile. On its Republic Day, President Obama should do nothing to undermine it.

Like Obama cares about any of these!

I did something that I did once before when the RSS/Hindutva assholes went after a book and its author.
I have bought myself a copy of Perumal Murugan's novel.

Demographic dividend and poverty: India v. China

Nandan Nilekani is one of the more prominent voices that are all gung-ho about India's demographic dividend and that "it will be the only young country in an aging world."  There is no doubt that India will be one young country in an aging world, but will that deliver the economic dividend?

Consider the population projection first:

There is no doubt about China's population projection, is there?  That is a country where total fertility rate has fallen so much below the replacement level that it is looking at a potential rapid depopulation in the second half of this century.
India, on the other hand, is projected to increase by another half a billion people before its population stabilizes.  Most of this growth will happen in the northern Indian states--Southern India is a completely different demographic and economic story.
But, despite all the difference between the south and the north, the reality is that it will be one single India that will have to deal with the population increase.
Nilekani seems to be confident that this is when India's economic growth will accelerate like crazy--because of all the surplus labor.

I am not anywhere near that level of confidence that Nilekani has because of the sheer magnitude of poverty in India, which has been growing in numbers, though slightly decreasing as a percentage:

[The] number of poor people (defined as those living on less than $1.25 per capita per day at 2005 purchasing power parity) in South Asia increased from 549 million in 1981 to 595 million in 2005, and from 420 million to 455 million in India, where almost three-quarters of the region’s poor reside.
In other words, while South Asia’s economies have not underperformed on poverty reduction, merely matching global trends may not be enough for the region with the world’s largest concentration of poor people.

What ought to be done, then?

The paradox of South Asia is that growth has been instrumental in reducing poverty and improving social outcomes, but poverty rates and social outcomes have not improved fast enough to reduce the total number of people living in misery. As a result, policymakers should begin to consider direct policy interventions to accelerate social progress, with a particular focus on human development and gender inclusiveness.

And this is exactly why I fear that India will have a tough time tackling poverty while another half a billion is added: the politics in the form that is practiced in India precludes the kinds of direct policy interventions that are necessary.  Unless the politics changes, the demographic dividend cannot be realized. But, it doesn't look like politics will change there for the better.

The reality is then this:

India's failure to uplift its poor and improve the economy in rural areas—where two thirds of the country's 1.2 billion people live, mostly untouched by the boom—threatens the country's growth, economists say. India has so far relied on its services industry in cities to fuel growth. But the country is running out of skilled workers and its agricultural dwellers are ill-suited to fill the gap. India's success or failure in boosting the size of its middle class will determine the long-term attractiveness of the market to foreign investors.

I wish the demagogues in America will understand all these and stop bullshitting to Americans that we have to compete against India.  The more they engage in such demagoguery that more the typical American thinks that every other Indian attends one of those IITs and is some super-duper-scientist.  \

It ought to start with Professor Obama, who ought to know better than to convince Indiana workers that India is their competition!

Arguing that that was the reason why the U.S. had to “make sure that we win that competition,” he added, “I do not want the new breakthrough technologies and the new manufacturing taking place in China and India. I want all those new jobs right here in Indiana, right here in the U.S, with American workers, American know-how [and] American ingenuity.”

I suppose politics sucks anywhere!

The ‘other’ India fails to get much attention from the West

During the last presidential primaries, Sen. John Edwards, who has since disappeared from the political radar, constantly referred to “two Americas” — one America that struggles to get by and lacks political clout, and another that has plenty of everything, including the ability to shape government policies. While this duality is subject to debate, such a schism is certainly visible all the way across the planet — the “First World” India of commerce, call centers and high technology, versus the poor and backward millions of “Third World” India.

After being ignored by successive American governments all through the Cold War, India now gets considerable attention. We have now had three successive, and successful, presidential visits by Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama. Of course, the economic and geopolitical angles are what interest the United States, and it is this “First World” India that we are increasingly familiar with. It is also thanks to such a familiarity that NBC now features a sitcom, “Outsourced,” whose context is India and its call centers.

And when the media report about the world’s first billion-dollar house, which will be home to the family of India’s richest individual, Mukesh Ambani, we are certainly impressed — and perhaps made a little insecure, too, by rapidly growing prosperity in a country that for years did not rank that much higher above Ethiopia in our mental impressions of poverty on the planet.

However, poverty has not really gone away; it is, unfortunately, alive and well in “Third World” India.

While it is true that rapid economic growth has lifted quite a few million Indians from poverty, the poor are by no means an insignificant minority. A multidimensional poverty index used by the United Nations Development Program counted 421 million people living in acute poverty in eight Indian states, exceeding in sheer numbers the 410 million in the 26 poorest African countries combined.

This is a staggering number of poor people, a number that does not show up in our calculated economic and geopolitical interests in India. Even those skeptical about the accuracy of the UNDP estimates will not find it difficult to imagine that the number of poor in India will be in the hundreds of millions.

Over the years, this parallel existence of an India that is poor has also resulted in a growing radical and violent movement, whose members are referred to as Maoists. Yes, Mao — as in China’s Mao Zedong, who has been pushed aside ever since Deng Xiaoping opened the Chinese economy in 1979 and declared that “to be rich is glorious.”

It is no surprise that India’s Maoists are active in the same states that are home to the vast numbers of poor tallied in the UNDP study of poverty. Decades ago, in a much poorer India, Maoist “rebels” were present in other states, too.

During my childhood, the adults in the family often spoke in hushed tones about a much older cousin of mine who had suddenly dropped out of college and gone “underground.” As a kid who only knew the literal meaning of the word, I didn’t understand then that “underground” meant that he had joined the radical, and often violent, communist groups.

But now, such groups are almost nonexistent in the southern parts of India that I visit — these states boast of homegrown multinational computer and automobile corporations. Maoists have long exited these regions, which have experienced economic growth and prosperity, and where governments offer considerable support for the economically and socially disadvantaged.

It is also not a mere coincidence that this cousin later on completed his college education, had a successful banking career, and is now a retired grandfather.

It is time for my next trip to India, and it includes spending a couple of days at a conference that will be held in one of those eight states with high poverty — Orissa. The focus of this academic conference is on rural laborers who, without land, property and political weight, find themselves in precarious economic situations.

Through the conference papers and a little bit of traveling, I hope to understand this “other” India, even as I spend most of my time in the successful “First World” India and report as your correspondent.

For The Register-Guard

Published: Monday, Nov 29, 2010 05:01AM

The best GOP candidate is ... already in the White House!

One can easily imagine that the NATO bombing a Pakistani base and killing its soldiers will push the US-Pakistan relations to a new low. 

Keep that development in mind as you read the following sentences from an op-ed by India's former foreign minister:

South Asia is riddled with multiple antagonisms and mutual suspicions. India mistrusts Pakistan and vice versa. Afghanistan and Pakistan are at loggerheads. On the sidelines, China, Iran and Russia look to Afghanistan for opportunities to help themselves and crimp the United States. US officials, meanwhile, are preparing to retreat from a decade of war in the Afghan hills and valleys.
...
On the surface, one would not think so. US-Pakistan relations have turned poisonous, with blunt statements proliferating from both governments. In Istanbul, a recent gathering of Afghanistan's concerned "neighbours" produced only a rather anodyne statement in preparation for a meeting in Bonn later this year.
When confronted by such a diplomatic snarl, there are, in reality, only two options: either allow the disputes to boil in their own cauldrons, or lower the temperature on all of the region's antagonisms before a cataclysmic explosion occurs. Clearly, today's frozen regional diplomacy must end; far too much of global importance is at stake.
India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US form a rectangle of relationships in South Asia, with India, China and the US constituting a triangle that not only contains the South Asia region, but is also a major theatre in an increasingly global struggle. The emerging geopolitical centrality of the Indian Ocean, through which an ever-increasing share of world trade passes, is a third, complicating, factor.
Untangling this web, and imparting to it a co-operative order, should be high on the agenda of all countries involved. Consider India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US. Can these relationships be transformed into anything resembling a co-operative effort?

Good luck on that.

On top of everything else, I wonder why President Obama felt compelled to move into China's sphere of influence, with his decision to locate a military base in Australia.  Really?  Come on!

I am all the more convinced that the best Republican candidate is already in the White House!  It is just that the Republicans have rushed so far to the right extreme that they don't realize that Obama is way to the right of where many Democrats hoped he would be.  No surprise that hawks, like Walter Russell Mead, are happy with all this:

Congratulations should go to President Obama and his national security team.  The State Department, the Department of Defense and the White House have clearly been working effectively together on an intensive and complex strategy.  They avoided leaks, they coordinated effectively with half a dozen countries, they deployed a range of instruments of power.  In the field of foreign policy, this was a coming of age of the Obama administration and it was conceived and executed about as flawlessly as these things ever can be.
...
The US has won the first round, but the game has just begun.  The Obama administration and its successors will now have to deal with a long term contest against the world’s most populous country and the world’s most rapidly developing economy.  The Obama administration may not have fully counted the costs of the new Asian hard line; for one thing, it is hard to see significant cuts coming in defense spending after we have challenged China to a contest over the future of Asia.  It’s possible that less drama now might have made America’s point as effectively while reducing the chance of Chinese push back, but there is not a lot of point in debating that now.

Quote (dream) of the day: on AfPakIndia

I dream of a day, while retaining our respective identities, one can have breakfast in Amritsar, lunch in Lahore, and dinner in Kabul. That is how my forefathers lived. That is how I want our grandchildren to live.

A lovely sentiment, wouldn't you agree?

That was India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, quoted in this talk by Hillary Clinton, when she was at Chennai a while ago. (Hey, I am a tad late to this party!)

Instead, what a colossal destruction of life and property because of the unwillingness to coexist over the years since 1947!

Hillary Clinton has been the best news in the Obama administration.  After their intense primary battles, I wondered how much Clinton would be okay to being the second violinist.  But, boy has she been impressive as a team player, and as a quiet and efficient cabinet official!  Pretty much no gaffes as the Secretary of State.  While we might not agree with her policy perspectives every single time, Clinton has represented the US absolutely as America's diplomat-in-chief.  I might seriously vote for Obama if he ditches Biden and makes Clinton his running mate.

Anyway, back to the Indian context for this entry: the US-India Higher Education Summit here in DC.

This unprecedented event also highlights the importance of education between our two countries. Academic exchange programs provide deep roots for our countries' relationship. Our ties are anchored by the more than 12,000 alumni of U.S. Department of State's public diplomacy programs in India, the 104,897 Indian students studying in the United States in 2010, and the more than 2 million Indian-Americans living in the United States. And the Fulbright Program has laid the foundation for this relationship since its inception in 1950. Today's events are the next step in developing our relationship.

The State Department is actively promoting internships in India for American students:

With more than 100,000 Indian students studying in the United States each year, young people in India tend to know a fair amount about U.S. cities, culture and businesses. But fewer than 3,000 U.S. students study in India annually.

Isn't it a tragic irony that India and the US, two countries literally on the other side of the planet from each other, are able to interact to this level, while even the next door Pakistan and Afghanistan are alien worlds to Indians?  What the fuck is wrong with this world :(

Almost two decades ago, in the dead of the night, the phone at home rang.  Fearing for the worst news from India, I shakily answered it.  It was my old school mate, Srikumar.

The guy had decided to take the land route from the Czech Republic to India, but could not proceed east from Iran because Pakistan would not issue him a visa.  To make things worse, Srikumar was all out of money too.  "Can you get me an air ticket from Tehran to anywhere in India?" was his question in the middle of the night.

I assured him I would.  In the morning, I contacted my friend, Shahab, who was from Iran, who then gave me the phone number of his preferred travel agent.  A day later, Srikumar was out of Iran, over the Pakistani air, and safe in India.

As Robert Kaplan wrote:

Aryans may have infiltrated from the Iranian plateau, and together with the subcontinent’s autochthonous inhabitants were part of a process that consolidated the political organization of the Gangetic Plain in northern India around 1000 B.C. This led to a set of monarchies between the eighth and sixth centuries B.C., culminating with the Nanda Empire which in the fourth century B.C. stretched across northern India and the Gangetic Plain from Punjab to Bengal. In 321 B.C., Chandragupta Maurya dethroned Dhana Nanda and founded the Mauryan Empire, which came to envelop much of the subcontinent except for the deep south, and thus for the first time in history encouraged the idea of India as a political entity conforming with the geography of South Asia.

A long and rich history in this geography.  If only we could soon figure out how to maintain our respective  identities and yet interact in friendly manner--friendly enough to travel the old trading routes and stop at the eateries in Amristar, Lahore, and Kabul.

"First World" India v. "Third World" India

During the last presidential primaries, Senator John Edwards, who has since disappeared from the political radars, constantly referred to “two Americas”—one America that struggles to get by and doesn’t have political clout, and another that has plenty of everything, including the ability to shape government policies.  While this duality is subject to debate, such a schism is certainly visible all the way across the planet—the “First World” India of commerce, call centers and high technology, versus the poor and backward millions of “Third World” India.

After being ignored by successive American governments all through the decades of the Cold War, India now gets considerable attention.  We have now had three successive, and successful, presidential visits by Clinton, Bush, and Obama.  Of course, the economic and geopolitical angles are what interest the US, and it is this “First World” India that we are increasingly familiar with.  It is also thanks to such a familiarity that NBC now features a sitcom, Outsourced, whose context is India and its call centers. 

And when the media reports about the world’s first billion dollar house, which will be home to the family of India’s richest individual, Mukesh Ambani, we are certainly impressed, and perhaps made a little insecure too, by the rapidly growing prosperity in a country that for years did not rank that much higher above Ethiopia in our mental impressions of poverty on the planet.

However, poverty has not really gone away; it is, unfortunately, alive and well in the “Third World” India.

While it is true that rapid economic growth has lifted quite a few million Indians from poverty, the poor are by no means any insignificant minority.  A multidimensional poverty index used by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) showed that the 421 million living in acute poverty in eight Indian states exceed in sheer numbers the 410 million in the 26 poorest African countries combined. 

A staggering number of poor, which does not show up in our calculated economic and geopolitical interests in India!  Even those skeptical about the accuracy of the UNDP estimates will not find it difficult to imagine that number of poor in India will be in hundreds of millions. 

Over the years, this parallel existence of an India that is poor has also resulted in a growing radical and violent movement, who are referred to as Maoists.  Yes, the Mao as in China’s Mao Zedong, who has been pushed aside ever since Deng Xiaoping opened up the Chinese economy in 1979 and declared that “to be rich is glorious.”

It would not be a surprise, therefore, that India’s Maoists are active in the same states that are home to the vast numbers of poor tallied up in the UNDP study of poverty.  Decades ago, in a much poorer India, Maoist “rebels” were present in other states, too.  During my childhood, the adults in the family often spoke in hushed tones about a much older cousin of mine who had suddenly dropped out of college and gone “underground.”  As a kid who only knew the literal meaning of the word, I didn’t understand then that “underground” meant that he had joined the radical, and often violent, Communist groups.

But now, such groups are almost nonexistent in the southern parts of India that I visit—these states boast of homegrown multinational computer and automobile corporations.  Maoists have, hence, long exited these regions, which have experienced economic growth and prosperity, and where governments offer considerable support for the economically and socially disadvantaged.  It is also not a mere coincidence that this cousin later on completed his college education, had a successful banking career, and is now a retired grandfather!

In suddenly mighty India, America is fading

For The Register-Guard

Posted to Web: Wednesday, Jan 26, 2011 05:37PM
Appeared in print: Thursday, Jan 27, 2011, page A9

 

The last couple of months have erased any doubt about how open India is for business with the rest of the world. One after another, the leaders of all five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council came calling on India’s political and business establishments.

British Prime Minister David Cameron was the first to visit. Then came President Obama, whose visit was right after the “shellacking” he and the Democratic Party suffered at the midterm elections. The Americans had barely left the country when French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived with a huge delegation that included seven of his ministers and more than 60 business leaders. Finally, December ended with state visits by China’s Wen Jiabao and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

The visits were intended to strengthen economic ties, in contrast to the Cold War geopolitical calculations that shaped leading nations’ policies toward India in past decades. Prime Minister Wen made this clear when he publicly expressed his displeasure at the Indian media that constantly questioned him about the political differences between the two countries, when he was focused on the rapidly growing trade relationship.

By the way, China runs a trade surplus with India, as it does with America.

The impression is that the French were the big winners. The total of the Indo-French civilian and military deals is estimated to be more than double the value of agreements that America negotiated with India.

Russia and China have another mutual economic relationship with India, and also with Brazil. These countries are collectively referred to as BRIC, and their third summit meeting will be in China this year.

This could soon take on a plural form, BRICS, with the inclusion of South Africa, which has been invited as an observer. As one reporter phrased it, BRIC is “emerging as a symbol of gradual transfer of economic power from the West to emerging economies.”

While visiting India from America, I felt the urgency to stand up and paraphrase Mark Twain’s comment that reports of his death were greatly exaggerated. But there is no point in bemoaning the premature declarations of America’s and the West’s demise because of the enormous sense of economic confidence that is prevalent in India.

The rhetorical “yes, we can” that has become a faded memory in America is fully alive and well in a vibrant India. An analysis in the publication Business India noted that unlike the past when “Indians as a community were low on the confidence quotient,” now things are different — “the overall growth in this decade has increased the confidence of all Indians.”

Such attitudes are reflected even at casual conversations when I am the American representative. By chance I met a retired physician, who wasted no time to ask me “how come America is in so much trouble while India is flourishing.” Her husband, who is now retired after a career as an executive with an Indian multinational company, commented that perhaps only university teaching and the medical professions were safe in America. Even two years ago, I would certainly not have faced those kinds of questions and comments during a visit to India.

Economic collaborations are happening in unexpected areas. The headline of a newspaper item was one such shocker: “China gives green light to first ‘Made in China’ Bollywood film.” China’s official film production company is backing a $10 million movie that will be set in India and China, and will star a few of India’s leading actors.

While not intended as a statement on the current economic climate, the title of this Chinese-Indian Bollywood movie is absolutely appropriate — “Gold Struck.” With a combined population of nearly 2.5 billion, “Chindia” has a large and growing movie market. If “Gold Struck” succeeds and is followed by more, one can imagine the implications for one of America’s famous and valuable brands ever — Hollywood.

It is depressing that we in the United States. seem oblivious to such rapidly transforming economic realities in other parts of the world. Even more worrisome is the appearance that we are fixated on trivialities from “Jersey Shore” to the president’s birth certificate. I suppose I have a tougher job ahead in my classes when I discuss global issues with students!

Kashmir: the word's most dangerous place

Thus writes Pankaj Mishra, and notes that:

In one sense at least, the faltering dialogue between India and Pakistan resembles the ‘peace process’ in the Middle East: by the time any ways to proceed are agreed upon, usually with much acrimony, peace seems even further away.
Last week’s talks in Delhi most likely came about because of pressure from the United States. The Obama administration seems to have decided that it cannot do without Pakistani assistance in fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and that Pakistan has its own strategic interests in Afghanistan. Pakistan has rewarded this overdue acknowledgment of its concerns by arresting senior Taliban leaders who have long been living in its territory. In return, the Obama administration has pressed India to be more conciliatory over Kashmir.

Thanks to honest analysis by a few like Mishra, the world outside (and perhaps within India, too) gets at least a little bit of an understanding of not only issues like Kashmir, but also about the state of democracy in India.  With every visit to India, I grow less confident about the treatment of minorities and the poor there.  Even as a kid I had always wanted to go India's northeast, particularly to Nagaland and Mizoram.  Now, with a foreign passport--and an American one--I understand I will even have to get official clearance before I can go there!

One of my criticisms about Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat" presentation is that to the uninformed American it further presents an absolutely misleading portrayal of India.  It is no wonder then that American politicians are stupid enough to think of America having to compete against India.  Such a narrative misses the troubling aspects of India's socioeconomics, including the following that Mishra notes:

There are, as the political scientist Sunil Khilnani recently warned, grounds to fear the emergence in India of a “military-industrial complex”—especially while the Indian state, as Khilnani points out, is at war with its own people in Central India: the Mao-inspired guerillas who have organized India’s traditionally disadvantaged tribal communities and low-caste peasants into a militant movement spanning 20 of India’s 28 states.
The apparent failure of an ambitious counterinsurgency campaign called “Operation Green Hunt” has recently forced the Indian government to propose ceasefire talks with the “Maoists.” As politicians and columnists frequently point out, “they are our own people.”

Obama opts for ideological blinders on domestic protectionism

I have never been a fan of President Obama's rhetoric on American corporations getting things done outside the US (like here, here, and here.)

These corporations do not go overseas out of any lack of patriotism, which is something only real people can feel. (Despite the law treating corporations as people, I like that old and tested question: when was the last time Texas, which executes real people by the dozens every year, executed a corporation?)  Corporations get things done in China or India or wherever because that works in the best interests of its customers and shareholders.  If a corporation didn't and, thereby, offered lower quality widgets or ran a loss, then customers or shareholders, or both, would flee those corporations and, unlike Texas, kill the business.

The crafty manipulator of words that Obama is, he didn't refer to the outsourcing per se in the State of the Union address, but couched it as a tax code abuse:

a tax code that lowers incentives to move jobs overseas, and lowers tax rates for businesses and manufacturers that create jobs right here in America. That’s what tax reform can deliver.

Could there be corporations finding opportunities in the tax code to their benefit?  Of course there will in plenty.  But, surely that tax code is not the reason why Apple gets the iProducts manufactured in China, or why IBM is the second largest private sector employer in India--even more than its payroll in the US--is it?

I am so tired of Obama's rhetoric on this, which is clearly not meant as a call for action as much as to satisfy his voting base.  The pragmatic and calculating politician that he is, well, there is no way Obama will go after the corporations that are political cash cows, and with which many of his trusted associates have long-running professional associations.  Further, as this WaPo blog notes:

No progress has been made on reforming the tax code. Obama has repeatedly proposed changing tax breaks to reward companies that stay in the United States and punish those that leave, but there has been little enthusiasm in Congress, even when Democrats controlled the House..  

It didn't go anywhere because it is, after all, a game that Democrats put on for their base to applaud.  They don't mean to act on it, and can also blame the GOP for not being able to get this done.  Further, as this rather sarcastic note at Forbes points out:

To hear this administration call for tax reform and simplification is akin to hearing your fat uncles chide you to lay off the Snickers. It’s sound advice, but they’ve got no business being the ones to deliver it.
Keep in mind; this is the same administration that recently did the impossible, and made a 70,000-page Internal Revenue Code infinitely more complicated.
We now have SEVEN ordinary income tax rates, with the top rate of 39.6% kicking in at taxable income of $450,000 for married couples ($400,000 for single).
Starting in 2013, long-term capital gains can conceivably be taxed at 0%, 15%, 18.8%, 20%, 23.8%, 25% and 28% rates depending on various characteristics of your tax return and the nature of your gain.

My head spins from merely reading that piece at Forbes!

Of course, Obama's words immediately echoed on the other side of the world, in India:

With President Barack Obama dropping another major hint that his second term in office will witness the emergence of a strong liberal economic agenda, policymakers in countries competing with the U.S. must be wondering what his State of the Union references to attracting jobs back on-shore implies.

My point is this: will we benefit from a simpler tax code? Yes.  No doubt about it. But, please do not try to fool us by linking the tax code to why US corporations conduct operations overseas.

Obama's pathetic hysteria over outsourcing!

I doubt if there was ever a column by Michael Kinsley that I did not like.  My all time favorite is, of course, his wonderful piece on the brain surgery that he went through for treating the awful Parkinson's disease.  If only he didn't have that early onset of Parkinson's.

In his latest, Kinsley asks what is so wrong about outsourcing. After noting the benefits of trade, which results in outsourcing, he writes about Obama's approach in going after Romney:

He accuses Romney of outsourcing both as governor of Massachusetts (letting a state contractor move its calling center operation to India) and before that as a businessman (as part of Romney's "buy, fillet and throw away the guts" method of corporate acquisition at Bain Capital). Romney replies that nothing he did was illegal (true, as far as we know) and that the Obama campaign misrepresents some of the facts (also true).

Obama apparently intends to skewer Romney as a businessman. His campaign carefully conflates being a businessman with being a crooked businessman, and many other variations on the theme: being a ruthless businessman, a businessman who engages in outsourcing, a businessman who doesn't pay enough taxes and so on.

While it makes political sense for Obama to virulently go after such a representation of Romney, the anti-business harsh rhetoric that Obama employs makes no logic.  It is even more bizarre when one thinks about how Obama spent gazillions bailing out GM and Chrysler, and gazillions to banks that were essentially gambling away somebody else's money.  These were done without the rhetoric of how businesses and corporations were evil, when the reality of highly irresponsible corporate decisions was obvious even to the regular Joe, whom Obama is targeting with his anti-outsourcing attacks.   Where was this anti-business Obama when, for instance, banks were given gazillions with no strings attached?

Kinsley writes:

One of Obama's flaws is that he seems to feel he can't criticize any current arrangement without vilifying the people involved, whether they are responsible for it or not.

Indeed!

Of course, it is not the first time that I have been ticked off by Obama's anti-outsourcing crusade, which I have then blogged about, like in this post, for example.  

Over the years, I have noticed that the more limousine liberals, Obama included, use such stupidly insane arguments supposedly defending the poor, the less I find myself sympathetic to their arguments! As I wrote some time ago on the pathetic American hysteria over outsourcing:

If Republicans can be stupid on some issues, then Democrats ensure that they can be equally moronic, and up the ante!  I wish we could outsource the politicians' jobs!!!

India, Inc. and America's decline

The last couple of months have erased any doubt on how much India is open for business with the rest of the world—one after another, the leaders of all five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council came calling on India’s political and business establishments.

Britain’s Prime Minister, David Cameron’s visit was first.  Then came President Obama, whose visit was right after the “shellacking” that he and the Democratic Party suffered at the midterm elections.  The Americans had barely left the country when the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, arrived with a huge delegation that included seven of his ministers and more than sixty business leaders.  Finally, December ended with state visits by China’s Wen Jiabao and Russia’s President, Dmitry Medvedev. 

As one might imagine, the visits were to strengthen the economic ties, in contrast to the geopolitical calculations of the past decades in the Cold War’s shadow.  Prime Minister Wen made this clear when he publicly expressed his displeasure at the Indian media that constantly questioned him about the political differences between the two countries, when he was focused on the rapidly growing trade relationship.  By the way, yes, China runs a trade surplus with India, as it does with America too.

The impression is that the French were the big winners—the sum total of the Indo-French civil and military deals is estimated to be more than double the agreements that America negotiated with India. 

Russia and China have another mutual economic relationship with India, and Brazil—these countries are collectively referred to as BRIC, and their third summit meeting will be in China next year.  This could soon take on a plural form, BRICS, with the inclusion of South Africa, which has been invited as an observer to the forthcoming meeting.  As one reported phrased it, BRIC is “emerging as a symbol of gradual transfer of economic power from the West to emerging economies.”

As an American expatriate, I feel the urgency to stand up and paraphrase Mark Twain’s comment that reports of his death were greatly exaggerated.  But, there is no point in bemoaning the premature declarations of America’s and the West’s demise because of the enormous sense of economic confidence that is prevalent in India. 

The rhetorical “yes, we can” that has become a distant and faded memory in America is fully alive and well in a vibrant India.  An analysis in “Business India” noted that unlike the past when “Indians as a community were low on the confidence quotient” now things are different—“the overall growth in this decade has increased the confidence of all Indians.”

Such attitudes are reflected even at casual conversations when I am the American representative.  For instance, by chance I met a retired physician, who wasted no time to ask me “how come America is in so much trouble while India is flourishing?”  Her husband, who is now retired after a career as an executive with an Indian multinational company, commented that perhaps only university teaching and the medical professions were safe in America.   These were certainly not the kind of questions and comments I faced even until two years ago!

Economic collaborations are happening even in areas that I normally would not have expected.  The headline of a newspaper item was one such shocker—“China gives green light to first ‘Made in China’ Bollywood film.”  China’s official film production company is backing a $10 million movie that will be set in India and China, and will star a few of India’s leading actors too. 

While not intended as a statement on the current economic climate, the title of this Chinese-Indian Bollywood movie is absolutely appropriate—“Gold Struck.”  With a combined population of nearly two and a half billion people, “Chindia” has a large and growing movie market, and if “Gold Struck” succeeds and is followed by more, one can imagine the implications for one of America’s famous and valuable brands ever—Hollywood!  

It is depressing that we in the US seem to be oblivious to such rapidly transforming economic realities in other parts of the world.  And even more worrisome is the appearance that we are fixated on trivialities from “Jersey Shore” to the President’s birth certificate.  I suppose I have a tougher job ahead in my classes when I discuss global issues with students!

Now that I am getting back to my regular schedule of reading and writing, I find it interesting that there are two cover articles in two different publications, and both are about the American decline.

• At Foreign Policy, the article's headline is that this time the decline is for real, and
• Over at The New Republic, Paul Kennedy questions whether America is really in decline.

The two essays head in two different directions; check them out

Prosecuting terrorists: America and Obama wimp out, and India has the cojones!

So, Obama has backtracked, yet again.  It is getting difficult to keep count anymore!

This time, with the decision not to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in the criminal justice system, as he said he would.  Instead, Obama is going the Bush route of military trials in Guantanamo.  I understand that a "principled politician" is an oxymoron, but still ...

Compare the American situation with the horrendous acts of terrorism in India.  The world was stunned by the events that unfolded in Mumbai on November 26, 2008, and the images of a terrorist methodically killing innocent civilians were simply surreal.  While nothing can be done with the terrorists who died, the survivor is a parallel to 9/11's KSM, right?

So, how was that lone surviving terrorist, Ajmal Kasab, handled?

On 3 May 2010, an Indian court convicted him of murder, waging war on India, possessing explosives, and other charges.^[5] On 6 May 2010, the same trial court sentenced him to death on four counts and to a life sentence on five other counts. Bombay high court has upheld the death sentence on 21 Feb 2011

No special military trials. And, wrapped up in a little over two years.  Despite all the potential for all kinds of fallout, given the high levels of tensions between India and Pakistan.  India's government and politics were confident and secure enough to carry out the trial.

Not so, here in the US.  What a shame!  It is now almost ten years since 9/11, and we are still fumbling around because we are afraid of how to work this through the criminal justice system?  Dahlia Lithwick puts it bluntly: "Cowardly, Stupid, and Tragically Wrong"

Every argument advanced to scuttle the Manhattan trial for KSM was false or feeble: Open trials are too dangerous; major trials are too expensive; too many secrets will be spilled; public trials will radicalize the enemy; the public doesn't want it.

What the heck has happened to the US, eh!

Lithwick writes:

The only lesson learned is that Obama's hand can be forced. That there is no principle he can't be bullied into abandoning. In the future, when seeking to pass laws that treat different people differently for purely political reasons, Congress need only fear-monger and fabricate to get the president to cave. Nobody claims that this was a legal decision. It was a political triumph or loss, depending on your viewpoint. The rule of law is an afterthought, either way.

Isn't it awful, pathetic, and scary too, that the rule of law has become an afterthought?

India's blackout: Obama (and others) should rethink attacks on "outsourcing"

On the topic of two consecutive days of blackouts in India, perhaps the best editorial comment, of all the ones I read, came from The Onion. Yes, that same satirical publication that bills itself as America's Finest News Source said it best.  And it did that by merely presenting the facts (ht):

According to estimates, roughly one-third of a billion Indian citizens were left without power Wednesday after workers successfully repaired the nation's electrical grid and brought all of its systems back online. "Since restoring our infrastructure to 100 percent capacity following Monday and Tuesday's blackouts, vast swaths of India are now completely without access to electricity," said the country's power minister, Veerappa Moily, who confirmed that three out of every four residents lacked access to such basic amenities as lighting, food refrigeration, and the use of simple appliances now that the country's grid had fully recovered. "We are currently not monitoring the situation, as everything appears to be functioning normally again in India." Government officials also stated that the widespread power outage had in no way compromised their ability to provide adequate sanitation to 31 percent of India's citizens.

Because, 300 million Indians without electricity is "normal."  And, a sizable population lacking sanitation facilities is also "normal."

Neither sanitation nor the shortage of electricity in India (and in other countries too) is a new topic in this blog.   It is atrocious that governments in India and elsewhere do not give these issues the highest priority and, instead, divert precious resources to weapons, corruption, and populist schemes. 

Indians are past the critical fork in the road where they ought to have asked themselves an important question: To be poor without electricity, or not to be poor but in a slightly polluted world?  Idealists have, for all the correct reasons, been waging protests against projects to generate electricity from nuclear power, or from coal.  Against the backdrop of corruption and theft and dysfunctional governments, these protests have merely added to the problem without being any part of any solution at all.  But then, these are questions that Indians have to sort out by themselves. 

In trying to figure out how to make the best use of the crisis, India has to keep in mind three very, very inconvenient truths:

• Even "normally" hundreds of millions do not have access to electricity
• High Prices & High Subsidies = Bad Mix
• Coal High = Emissions Higher

Here, in the US, I hope that the massive blackout in India has at least served as a reminder to politicians like President Obama who point to countries like India as "our competitors" who are stealing "our" jobs through outsourcing.  If they continue with that rhetoric even after this blackout, it will be worse than Marie Antoinette's notorious "let them eat cake" comment (though, apparently she didn't really say that!)

The slowly fracturing Indo-US relationship

One of the best things that happened since the Clinton years, and into the Bush presidency as well, was India and the US coming closer than ever before.  Of course, this was a dividend thanks to the end of the Cold War--during the decades of US/USSR rivalry, the US always leaned in favor of Pakistan and against India, despite the fact that India was the democracy and Pakistan was, well, to put it mildly, not a democracy :)

But, yet again we are finding the US getting trapped in crazy geopolitical realpolitik and, therefore, beginning to sideline India.  It is all in the AfPak policy we are pursuing.  The result: even though India is the most popular country in Afrghanistan,

India, the only stable secular democracy in the region, is being actively prevented from helping in Afghanistan in order to appease the Pakistani regime, lest it re-enact the carnage that was visited upon Mumbai in 2008 and the Indian Embassy in Kabul in 2008 and 2009. Which raises the question: Is the U.S. objective in Afghanistan to oust the Taliban, or is it to secure the country for Pakistan? To New Delhi, the answer looks increasingly like the latter.

Washington's critics trace the origins of today's crisis to the United States' abrupt abandonment of Afghanistan in the late 1980s. The trouble with this version of history is that it skips over the 1990s. But contrary to what is now conventional wisdom in the West, the Taliban in its current incarnation is not a remnant of the Cold War. It is a creation of Pakistan. It was during the 1990s that the Taliban -- actively backed by Pakistan -- seized control of Kabul. Since then, New Delhi has witnessed Afghanistan become a launching pad for anti-India terrorism.

Today, the tragic irony of President Barack Obama, who invokes the virtues of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi while simultaneously making overtures to the Taliban in an oxymoronic pursuit for "moderate extremists," has not been lost on India. A tiny but vocal band of skeptics in India is already questioning the wisdom of New Delhi's alignment with the United States over the last ten years. Of course, it is unlikely that New Delhi would directly oppose U.S. policy in the region. But in the first year of the Obama administration, much of the progress achieved over a decade of aggressive diplomacy to bring India closer to the United States has been undone.

Hmmmm .....

Will Obama win a second term?

That is a question I fielded a number of times during these one hundred days in India.  "Or, will the other guy win?" was a typical follow-up question.  The other guy, it always turned out to be Mitt Romney :)

I am all for Obama winning another term, not because I am any fan of his but because there are simply no alternatives: anybody-but-the-other-guy!  John Cassidy reminds me about one of the traits of the then candidate, Senator Obama:

Obama was a moderate young technocrat, whose first instinct was to seek the middle ground. The moment power beckoned, he tilted instinctively toward the establishment, and, in the Democratic Party that Obama had grown up in, the establishment was pro-Wall Street.

I don't care about the pro-Wall Street Democratic Party establishment.  But, in his rhetoric during the primaries, Obama pretended to be against that very establishment that Hillary Clinton represented.  I way preferred Clinton's honest position of being pro-Wall Street, as was Bill Clinton during his presidency.  This was merely one instance of a fakey candidate Obama ...

But, hey, any day Obama was infinitely a better candidate than his GOP rival.  But, this time, the other guy will put up a better fight.  The question remains: will Obama win a second term?  Again, over to Cassidy:

With oil at a hundred and twenty-five dollars a barrel and likely going higher as the sanctions on Iran take hold and the Israelis keep up their bellicose rhetoric, the U.S. economy is effectively facing an election-year tax hike. (The effects of a rise in gas prices and a tax increase are virtually identical.) Although this shock probably won’t be enough to bring about a recession, it could well knock a point or two off G.D.P. growth and cause the unemployment rate to stall above eight per cent, which would give Mitt Romney an opening. (According to some polls, Obama’s approval ratings have already fallen.) But one can’t say for sure. It’s all in the timing.

bin Laden and the Pakistan connection

A high school classmate, who now lives in India after quite a few years here in the US, comments in his Facebook page on the American forces taking out bin Laden well inside Pakistan, this close to its capital and military facilities:

The beginning of recognition for Pakistan's army as a terrorist organization...

The Pakistani military-ISI-terrorism angle will come under intense scrutiny, within that country, in India, in the US and around the world.  The Times of India notes:

top US officials have openly suggested for months that the Pakistani military establishment was hiding bin Laden. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came closest to publicly exposing Pakistan's role last May when she accused some government officials there of harboring Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar.

''I am not saying they are at the highest level...but I believe somewhere in this government are people who know where Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida and where Mullah Omar and the leadership of the Taliban are,'' Clinton said on May 10 last year, adding, ''We expect more cooperation (from Pakistan) to help us bring to justice capture or kill those who brought us 9/11.''

Taken together with President Obama's pointed reference to President Zardari and leaving out any mention of Pakistani forces' involvement, it would seem that Washington believes that Pakistan's military intelligence establishment, including the ISI, was sheltering bin Laden. The ISI was accused as recently as last week by the top US military official Admiral Mike Mullen of having terrorist links, and named as a terrorist support entity by US officials, according to the Guantanamo cables.

Lending credence to the charges is the fact that US forces homed in on bin Laden in Abbottabad, which is a cantonment just 50 kms from Islamabad, where the Pakistani military has a strong presence. The place where bin Laden was killed is only kilometers from the Kakul military academy, where many Pakistani military elites, including some of its ISI cadres, graduate from.

While US officials are tightlipped about precise details, analysts are trying to figure out whether the compound that sheltered bin Laden was an ISI safehouse. There is also speculation as to whether Hillary Clinton was referring to this when she made her pointed remarks last May.

US officials have said for years that they believed bin Laden escaped to Pakistan after the American bombing campaign in Afghanistan. But Pakistani officials, including its former military ruler Pervez Musharraf, insisted that he was in Afghanistan, even as Afghan officials would angrily refute it and say he is in Pakistan. In the end, the Americans and Afghans were right on the money.

A few minutes after President Obama's address to the country, world actually, I called my parents, who live in India. 

It was about 930 in the morning there and, of course, like normal people they were not watching television at the early time of the day.  Mom hoped that it would not be a case of Ravana and his heads :)

India's minister wasted no time in reminding the world about this serious Pakistani nexus:

India today said the killing of global terrorist Osama bin Laden was a matter of grave concern as it proved that terrorists belonging to different groups find sanctuary in Pakistan.

Union Home Minister P Chidambaram said in a statement that perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks, including the controllers and handlers of the terrorists, continue to be sheltered in Pakistan.

He said that earlier today the U.S. government informed New Delhi that Osama bin Laden had been killed by security forces somewhere “deep inside Pakistan.”

“After the September 11, 2001 terror attack, the U.S. had a reason to seek Osama bin Laden and bring him and his accomplices to justice,” the statement said.

“We take note with grave concern that part of the statement in which President (Barack) Obama said that the fire fight in which Osama bin Laden was killed took place in Abbotabad ‘deep inside Pakistan’

“This fact underlines our concern that terrorists belonging to different organisations find sanctuary in Pakistan,” he said.

The Home Minister said in the wake of this incident “we believe that perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks, including the controllers and handlers of the terrorists who actually carried out the attack, continue to be sheltered in Pakistan.

“We once again call upon the Government of Pakistan to arrest the persons whose names have been handed over to the Interior Minister of Pakistan as well as provide voice samples of certain persons who are suspected to be among the controllers and handlers of the terrorists.”

Oh ... I have a class to teach ...