Indian News Roundup

  • Kautilya has an assesment of 100 days of the new Indian Govt, which is ruling with the support of the Communists and he thinks that the early signals have been encouraging and India may be in for good times.
  • Rediff Columnist Rajeev Srinivasan has started a blog. It is mainly for replying to the mails he gets, so has Dilip D’Souza
  • Robi and Nitin have put the subcontinent briefing which has news related to India and its neighbors.

Pashtuns want a homeland

It is not just the oppressed Balochis who are fighting the Pakistani Government. Even the Pashtuns are. They do not want to break away from Pakistan, but thinks that there should be many “nations” under Pakistan, and each “nation” should be given more contol over their resources.

The nationalist leader from Balochistan strongly opposed the role of the army and intelligence agencies in the country

Who listens to anti-globalization folks ?

In 1999, a McDonalds in France was dismantled by protestors just before it was to open. This was the idea of Jose Bove, a farmer, who found this was the ideal way to protest against globalization and became the poster child for the anti-globalization movement. He then turned his attention to genetically modified crops and one day in Brazil, he along with 1500 protestors tore the crops by their root. But then it seems farmers who have learned the benefits of these biotech crops have stopped listening to the anti-globalization crowd.

Despite the naysayers, perhaps the greatest testament to the Green Revolution’s legacy is the growth of biotechnology in the Third World. From South America to Southeast Asia, farmers are discovering that biotech crops are so superior, they are willing to risk breaking existing laws to plant them. During the last year, Brazilian farmers more than doubled cultivation of genetically enhanced soybeans, with more than 150 million acres under production. And when local bureaucrats tried to over-regulate biotech cotton, Brazilian farmers smuggled in seeds from Argentina and Australia.

The same holds true in India, whose farmers have been planting biotech cotton despite overwrought bureaucratic regulations. But earlier this month, Indian Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal said he would drastically cut the red tape. “The seed is the potential tool that can carry state-of-the-art technologies to every farmer,” explained Sibal. “It can once again usher in a green revolution.”

Biotechnology has even found grassroots support in France. When Bove recently showed up to destroy a field of biotech crops, he was met by a group of angry farmers who want an opportunity to plant these modern crops. As they know, unless Bove’s movement meets some resistance, the scaremongers of the future (ironically, still stuck in the past) will continue their efforts to scare away impoverished countries from the very technology that can help feed their people. [Norman Borlaug’s Legacy]

Also, here is why no one takes anti-globalizers seriously.

Arnold and Outsourcing

There are six bills coming up in California State Assembly limiting outsourcing. This includes bill which restrict state jobs from being outsourced to requiring companies in California to mention how many employees work outside the country.
The Public Policy Institute of California had study on the effect of offshore outsourcing on the Californian economy and found that outsourcing actually created jobs in California. Gov. Schwarzenegger proudly told the Republican National Convention that

There is another way you can tell you’re a Republican. You have faith in free enterprise, faith in the resourcefulness of the American people … and faith in the U.S. economy. To those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy, I say: “Don’t be economic girlie men!”[Text of Schwarzenegger’s Speech at RNC]

Since he is not a girly man, I hope he will veto all these anti-outsourcing bills.

The Miracles of Globalization

Foreign Affairs has a review of Martin Wolf’s new book Why Globalization Works

To those who complain that increased openness to trade during the 1980s and 1990s has failed to deliver faster growth, Wolf points to the contrary experiences of China and India. Both countries witnessed significant jumps in their growth rates as they opened up their economies to international trade and foreign investment. As Wolf points out, “Never before have so many people-or so large a proportion of the world’s population-enjoyed such large rises in their standards of living.”

The first charge, commonly made by NGOS and student organizations in the United States, is easiest to dismiss. If multinational jobs are so exploitative, why do workers in Bangalore, and even in predominantly Marxist Kolkata (Calcutta), line up to take them? The answer, as Wolf painstakingly documents, is that multinationals pay their workers more and treat them better than do local companies. Among other data, he cites a study of 20,000 plants in Indonesia showing that the average wage paid to workers in foreign-owned plants in 1996 was 50 percent higher than in private domestic plants. Even after controlling for education levels, plant size, and other relevant variables, wages paid by multinational companies were 12 percent higher for blue-collar workers and 27 percent higher for white-collar workers. According to surveys by the International Labor Organization, moreover, allegations that foreign-owned plants in “sweatshop industries” (such as footwear and apparel) pay lower wages and provide inferior working conditions also turn out to be false.[The Miracles of Globalization]

Daniel Drezner says this one book blows everything else out of the water.

Accusing India

The Jang has an editorial believing a statement by Balochistan’s Chief Minister that Indian Intelligence Agency, RAW is behind all the terrorism in Pakistan’s Balochistan province.

The unequivocal assertion about the involvement of foreign elements in terrorism and activities of saboteurs that the chief minister of Balochistan has spoken about cannot be totally refuted. Many intelligence agencies in their reports in the recent past have spoken of the involvement of some of those neighbouring countries including India who are afraid of the unpleasant impact on their maritime trade as a result of the construction of the harbour at Gwadar. Probably this suspicion and commercial jealousy are prompting them to patronise these terrorists in Balochistan. The Indian consulates being allowed by the present Afghan government which are working in Kandhar, Jalalabad, and other cities of Afghanistan have also been converted into training camps for RAW agents. Many agents of this Indian intelligence organisation involved in acts of terrorism were caught red handed with arms and maps of important defence installations on the Pak-Afghan border. [Causes of terrorism in Balochistan?]

India does not share a border with Balochistan. So apparently Indian agents are now in Afghanistan, working in the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan where Al-Qaeda is conducting dance parties, destabilizing Balochistan. Also lets assume that Indian agents are working there, is it a crime to provide “moral and diplomatic support” to the oppressed Balochis ? Of all the people Pakistanis should understand this as they have been doing this to India for many decades.
But then you should come to the last paragraph in the editorial which tells Balochis that once the Gwadar port and three cantonments come up, there will be lot of jobs and prosperity. Employment situation can be improved if the Balochis are given jobs in the construction of the port, but in turn they have been kept away as their loyalty is suspect and Punjabis and Pashtuns have been bought in. If the Balochis decide to react against the exploitation of their land and treatment as second class citizens in Pakistans, it is their grievance which should be addressed first.
Also as The Acorn writes:

Then again, Pakistan should not complain if India were to provide

The Pakistani show

B.Raman has yet another educational article about the show the Pakistanis are putting up for the Americans.

Act 14: August. Like a magician taking rabbits out of his hat, as the Republican presidential convention and his visit to New York during which he is to meet Bush for another pat in the back approached, Musharraf started finding al-Qaeda dregs all over Pakistan – Arabs, Uzbeks, South Africans and Pakistanis. A plot for simultaneous attacks on Musharraf’s palace and the US Embassy in Islamabad, general headquarters in Rawalpindi and other places discovered and foiled. Many more dregs arrested. Al-Qaeda penetrated. The days of its dregs numbered. Claims galore from the interior and information ministers. Pakistani backers of al-Qaeda identified and under watch. Do you know who is the principal backer, according to these ministers? Musharraf? No. Lieutenant-General Ehsanul-Haq, director general of the ISI? No. He is none other than Javed Ibrahim Paracha , a close associate of Nawaz Sharif and a member of Nawaz’s faction of the Pakistan Muslim League. Yes sir. You now know how al-Qaeda had remained undetected all these years in Pakistan. Because of the support from Nawaz’s Muslim League.

Should one laugh or cry? Don’t do either. Keep watching the show. There are more striptease acts to come as the US presidential elections and the deadline for Musharraf to resign as the chief of the army staff (COAS) approaches. Bush and Tricky Mush need each other. And they both need bin Laden. Bush for winning re-election. Mush for getting US support for his planned violation of the Pakistani constitution in order to be able to continue as the COAS after December 31. [Pakistan: The al-Qaeda striptease ]

Update: Senior Taliban leader trapped in Pakistan

Globalization and Poverty

Can globalization help eliminate poverty ? How can the markets intervene and nudge Governments into making investments for this ? The Asian Development Bank has come up with a plan

Many Asian governments are cash-strapped and shackled by debt, thus not enough is spent on education, health care and other social services people in developed nations take for granted. Making less than $2 a day may put some food on the table, but it won’t go far to pay for school. In other words, large portions of Asia’s future workforces aren’t being adequately trained to compete in the age of globalization. Multinational companies are depending on rising Asian incomes to bolster consumer spending and spur demand for cars, electronics, travel and myriad other goods and services. At the moment, developing Asia’s growth is even helping Japan’s much larger economy shake a 14-year slumber.

The Manila-based ADB is working to put the risks of poverty squarely on investors’ radar screens. It’s an intriguing strategy to nudge governments to make sure economic growth reaches the poor. If investors and companies increasingly voice concerns about poverty, officials in Beijing, Jakarta, Manila, New Delhi and elsewhere will find it harder to ignore it.[Poverty Is a Growing Risk to Asian Markets]

Terrorism creates employment

As an after effect to terrorism striking home, Saudi Arabia took a decision to allow women to get commercial licences. They also started the Saudization program where they would bar foreigners from working in gold and jewellery shops. Now to combat terrorism, the Saudi Arabia Govt. is subsidizing the employment of young Saudis hoping that better economic opportunities would counter terrorism.

Across the Middle East, millions of young Arabs are struggling to break into stagnant job markets. Political analysts say this mismatch is starting to generate destabilizing pressure that could bring governments down if they’re unwilling to reform economies hobbled by cronyism, Byzantine regulation and rigid state control. The problem is particularly acute in this resource-rich country of more than 25 million people, where many have long viewed work as something done by others. The government is struggling to provide economic possibilities for the 60 percent of the population under 18 years old.

After bombings and shootouts this year that have killed about 50 people in the kingdom, the Saudi government has come to view putting more of its people to work as a matter of national security. With oil prices hovering near a two-decade peak, it is putting some of the new income into a languishing campaign to recast the labor market with a Saudi face. [Saudis Fight Militancy With Jobs]

Staying away from IMF

“Our micro economic indicators are stable and through economic reforms the country has achieved economic sovereignty. By the end of this year the country will say goodbye to IMF programme as we are in a position to raise resources on our own from the international market,” Aziz told the National Assembly yesterday after winning the vote of confidence.[Shaukat Aziz promises to say goodbye to IMF loans]

That’s a statement by Pakistan’s third Prime Minister under Gen. Musharraf. But the problem is that if you raising capital from the markets, you should provide stability and an environment for businesses to thrive. If you try to globalize without having the infrastructure in place, the international investors can be much more tough than the IMF
The image of Pakistan for the outside world is not that of a region of stability. With assasination attempts on the current leaders and with terrorists using the land as staging areas for activities against India and Afghanistan, it may not look favourable for international investors. And it not just Pakistan’s enemies who are telling this.

Here is our other dilemma. The world is moving towards integration