tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34410780161989564652024-03-19T16:11:38.271-07:00geopolitics and current affairscurrent affairs for competitive examinations (CIVIL SERVICES,CAT,P.O,NET)Bhaskarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07427841472271223849noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3441078016198956465.post-89429303415749161052011-09-02T23:48:00.000-07:002011-09-02T23:48:21.122-07:00China's peaceful rise<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
Despite widespread fears about China's growing economic clout and political stature, Beijing remains committed to a "peaceful rise": bringing its people out of poverty by embracing economic globalization and improving relations with the rest of the world. As it emerges as a great power, China knows that its continued development depends on world peace -- a peace that its development will in turn reinforce.<br />
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China's peaceful rise was a phrase that was used by officials and scholars in the People's Republic of China (PRC) to describe the country's foreign policy approach in the early 21st century.The term proved controversial because the word 'rise' could fuel perceptions that China is a threat to the established order, so since 2004 the term China's peaceful development has been used by the Chinese leadership.<br />
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The State Council of the People's Republic of China issued a white paper in 2005 defining the China's peaceful development strategy in theory and in practice. <b>It has five chapters:</b><br />
<br />
-China is the largest developing country, and economic development according to globalization is China's main goal. China seeks a multipolar world rather than hegemony, and seeks relations with other countries based on the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence.<br />
-A peaceful international environment is essential for China's development. China's development is a major part of global development, as China has factored in world gains in poverty reduction, and strives to reduce its energy consumption. China's growth has lessened the effects of the Late-2000s recession.<br />
-China will develop according to science. It will develop its domestic market and pave a new path to industrialization that is cleaner, and makes more use of information technology and innovation by exploiting its human capital through education.<br />
-China will remain open to the outside world for trade. It will promote organizations like the World Trade Organization, and support regional integration through institutions like the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area. It will address trade and exchange rate conflicts on an equal footing with other countries. China will invest abroad and maintain its large labor force and exports for use abroad.<br />
-China will promote "democracy in international relations"; with countries interacting on an equal footing through dialog and multilateralism and not coercion. China will promote the full participation of developing countries in international affairs, and also help them develop themselves. There should be trust and not a "cold war mentality", and arms control and nuclear disarmament should be pursued. China will resolve its remaining border disputes peacefully.<br />
</div>Bhaskarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07427841472271223849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3441078016198956465.post-86613181827115502442011-07-25T13:32:00.000-07:002011-07-25T13:32:49.703-07:00Islamization of Western Europe..!!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red;">Islamization of Western Europe</span></span><br />
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Since 9/11, Western Europe's growing Muslim population has been the focus of debate on issues ranging from immigration policy to cultural identity to security. Several incidents in recent years have increased tensions between Western European states and their Muslim populations: the 2004 Madrid and 2005 London attacks, the 2004 ban of the head scarf coupled with the 2011 ban of the "burqa" in France, the 2005 Paris riots, the 2006 Danish cartoon incident, and several high-profile murders. The July 2011 killing spree in Norway by Anders Behring Breivik, who preached against the“Islamization of Western Europe” (WSJ) and multiculturalism further underscored the deepening tensions on the continent.<br />
Despite signs that Muslims are beginning to succeed in business and academia in countries such as France and Germany, many analysts say most of Western Europe's Muslims are poorly integrated into society. They cite closed ethnic neighborhoods, high crime rates in Muslim communities, calls for use of sharia law in Europe, the wearing of the veil, and other examples as evidence of a conflict with European values. Reacting to the November 2009 vote to constitutionally ban minarets in Switzerland, Oxford University scholar Tariq Ramadan wrote in the Christian Science Monitor: "Over the last two decades Islam has become connected to so many controversial debates ... it is difficult for ordinary citizens to embrace this new Muslim presence as a positive factor." Fears over a possible major demographic shift toward Islam as well as ongoing Muslim assimilation problems highlight the continuing divide between Europe and its Muslim population.<br />
Islamic Populations in Europe<br />
After World War II, Western Europe welcomed a large immigrant labor force to help rebuilding efforts. Later more immigrants were admitted to meet rapid economic growth, allow family reunification, and provide asylum. At first, concerns over the influx of workers from other countries were "largely about race and ethnicity," notes Ceri Peach, a professor of social geography at Oxford University, in a 2007 report (PDF) from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). The rise of Islamic regimes after the Iranian revolution in 1979--and more recently the increase in terrorism--has called attention to the fact that many of these immigrants were not only ethnically different but also Muslim.<br />
Western Europe has experienced an increase in immigration from all around the globe in the last decade. The European Union's June 2009 strategy report on immigration shows a total of 18.5 million registered non-EU nationals and an estimated 8 million illegal immigrants living in the European Union. Since the EU does not track statistical data on religion, it is unclear what percentage of these immigrants are Muslim. According to a 2008 Brookings study, the EU countries with the largest percentages of Muslims are France at an estimated 8 percent, Netherlands estimated at 6 percent, Germany at 4 percent, and the United Kingdom at 3 percent of the population. And Muslim populations exceed 20 percent in some major EU cities.<br />
The total Muslim population, including immigrant and native born, in Western Europe is about 20 million of the EU's 500 million residents. Some experts contend the continuing influx of immigration from Islamic countries, along with higher immigrant birth rates and lower native European birth rates, mean Muslims in Western Europe could significantly increase in coming decades. However, the CSIS report says that past estimates of growth in Muslim populations seem to show inconsistencies and should be "treated with great caution," and argues that the speed of population growth "in countries with good data" is less than estimates had suggested.<br />
The largest demographic change could come from Turkey, currently discussing entry procedures with the European Union. That alone would increase the Muslim population in the EU by some 70 million. But Turkey's EU accession is increasingly in doubt, which Justin Vaisse, a fellow for European Studies at the Brookings Institution, says makes speculation about any impacts difficult.<br />
Integration and Alienation<br />
Overall, Muslims face a number of challenges on integration and assimilation:<br />
•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Poverty and Segregation. Experts say Muslims in Europe are more likely than the EU general population to be poor and live in segregated, crime-prone neighborhoods, according to a 2007 report from the Centre for European Policy Studies. A 2005 Pew report concludes it appears "that segregation is both natural and problematic." Dalia Mogahed, executive director of Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, points out that similar "to minorities in the United States, where one lives is often dictated by socioeconomic realities (Guardian) rather than cultural preferences." Vaisse concurs, noting he doesn't "know anyone living in the ghetto that wants to be there."<br />
However, other analysts find some Muslims also self-segregate for reasons such as language barriers and different cultural norms, such as prohibitions against drinking. Jocelyne Cesari, a Harvard professor and author of 2004 book When Islam and Democracy Meet, argues in order to protect themselves, some Muslims seek closed communities similar to the Amish community in the United States. She says Europeans need to learn to differentiate between religious "conservatives and Jihadis."<br />
High crime rates and dependency on the social welfare system also contribute to European feelings that there is a Muslim problem. Cesari says many Muslims suffer from the "dysfunctional attitudes" and behaviors of Europe's poor. She points out that the more involved Muslims are with their religion the less likely they will be to participate in behaviors such as truancy, drugs, and criminal activity. But this presents another problem: "What we don't want is the kind of Islam that saves the individual but doesn't help them accommodate to society," she says.<br />
Lack of economic opportunity among poor Muslim populations has also contributed to tensions in recent years. Vaisse points out the 2005 Paris riots had nothing to do with religion and everything to do with jobs and economic opportunity. EU Muslims tend to have high unemployment rates, but it is unclear whether they are significantly higher than non-Muslim ethnic minorities. Unemployment statistics in 2004 for Britain show that other than Indians, unemployment rates for all non-white ethnic groups were generally higher than white ethnic groups. The statistics also showed unemployment rates for Pakistani and Bangladeshi women were nearly twice as high as for other minority women. A 2009 report from the Quilliam Foundation, a London-based think tank focused on counter-extremism issues, says polling of South Asian Muslim women found that unemployment was less because of religion and culture than because of poor job and language skills, and a lack of childcare and confidence.<br />
Some experts believe that middle-class Muslims are much more likely to favor assimilation. For example, a 2007 Pew poll showed Muslims in the United States, whose incomes and education are in line with the general public, "are highly assimilated into American society."<br />
•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Religion and Identity. Muslims in Germany, Britain, and France were twice as likely as the general public to consider religion a significant part of their daily lives, according to a 2007 Gallup poll. A Pew 2006 poll shows that Muslims in Europe are much more likely to identify themselves by their religion before their nationality. However, the Gallup poll also shows that religious affinity does not make Muslims less likely to identify with their host countries.<br />
Even some Muslims who aren't particularly religious may be drawn to projecting a strong Islamic identity in response to feelings of isolation and their perceptions of the moral permissiveness of Western culture. Muslim diversity in Europe also means there is no monolithic version of Islam being practiced. Some analysts say since culture plays a large role in how Islam is translated into daily lives, there is hope a stronger Euro-Islam identity will emerge as Muslims continue to grow into European culture. "Muslims in Europe are working hard to try to find ways to educate their own communities and talk about the balance between being Muslim and Western, not Muslim or Western," says Farah Pandith, U.S. envoy to Muslim communities.<br />
•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Culture and Democracy. Some argue that Muslim culture is at odds with Europe on issues such as freedom of expression, the rights of women, and the separation of church and state. Financial Times columnist Christopher Caldwell, in his 2009 book Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West, concludes: "Europe finds itself in a contest with Islam for the allegiance of its newcomers. For now, Islam is the stronger party in that contest, in an obvious demographic way and in less obvious philosophical way."<br />
Caldwell points out the cultural disconnect Islam is causing for Europeans: On the one hand, Europeans expect a strong division between church and state. On the other, Europeans' aspirations for tolerance impede their ability to criticize Islam in the same way they have historically criticized Christianity. There have been numerous cases of Muslims using Europe's hate speech laws to defend against what they consider defamation of Islam. Meanwhile, cases such as the 2004 murder of Theo van Gogh (BBC) for his film "Submission," critical of treatment of women in Islam, are considered evidence of intolerance by Muslims toward freedom of expression.<br />
Cesari and Brookings' Vaisse note understanding the line between criticism and bigotry will take time for all Europeans. Cesari contends Muslims need to learn that criticism is part of the democratic process and that the "inability to hear one another" may be the greatest problem of the Euro-Muslim debate. Following the 2005 Danish cartoon incident, which sparked riots in many Islamic countries, Vaisse points out Muslims in Europe largely used legal means to show their displeasure. This, he argues, is a sign Muslims in Europe believe in democratic institutions.<br />
•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Discrimination and Bias. A 2006 report from the EU Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia found that Muslims face discrimination in all aspects of life , from housing to employment opportunities to education to cultural practices. For many Muslims, being ethnically different and immigrant is often a greater challenge than their religious differences, says Vaisse. "As Muslims in Europe are overwhelmingly non-white, ongoing racial disharmony naturally impedes integration," wrote Tim Winter , a lecturer of Islamic studies at the University of Cambridge, in 2007.<br />
Anti-Mulim rhetoric seems to be gaining in popularity in mainstream European politics, according to June 2011 report from the EU's commission on racism. "Instead of being a notorious neo-Nazi, the previously unknown Behring Breivik [acused of the 2011 Norway attacks] adheres to an ideology represented in parliaments, even governments," wrote Stockholm-based journalist Lisa Bjurwald. So inflammatory were the campaign posters against the minaret in Switzerland in 2009, they were banned as racist in some Swiss cities.<br />
The attention and vehemance the media and some politicians place on symbolic issues like the minaret and the head scarf foster more alienation in Muslim communities, some analysts say. Muslims have also pointed out the media's double standard, which made much of van Gogh's murder, but was largely silent on the2009 murder of a Muslim woman--dubbed "the veil martyr"--and shooting of her husband in a German courtroom.<br />
Though intolerance is not restricted to one group, Muslims have become an easy target because of terrorism, says Akbar Ahmed, chairman of Islamic Studies at the American University. But he notes bias also flows in the other direction, saying Muslim anti-Semitism in Europe is "constantly on the boil."<br />
•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Terrorism and Security. The focus of the debate over Muslim immigration and integration is conjoined with fears of radicalism underscored by terror attacks in London and Madrid and a host of other incidents and arrests. But in some cases, the culprits were European-born and well-assimilated. Julianne Smith, director of the Europe Program at CSIS, argues in the 2007 report that European countries' approach to terrorism and radicalism fall into three broad categories: integrating Muslim minorities, slowing the recruitment of potential extremists, and seizing and arresting terrorist operatives. Robert S. Leiken, director of the Immigration and National Security Program for U.S.-based Nixon Center, says overall European countries have done a relatively good job at monitoring and controlling terrorism.<br />
A 2005 report from the nonpartisan U.S.-funded Congressional Research Service contends diversity among Europe's Muslim population may help impede a "sharply developed tendency toward radicalism," but warns of the dangers of disaffected Muslim youth. Leiken argues that there are differences in how extremist the Muslim communities across Europe are, withBritain's being the most worrisome .<br />
Policy Implications<br />
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Scholars point out that cultural debate over Muslims ignores the profound demographic changes in Europe because of increased immigration from all over the world. "At the very moment Europeans find themselves asking, in a globalizing, migratory world, 'What are our roots?,' 'Who are we?,' 'What will our future look like?,' they see around them new citizens, new skin colors, new symbols to which they are unaccustomed," writes Oxford's Tariq Ramadan. Harvard's Cesari says this "cultural malaise" cannot be blamed on Muslims and instead countries need to "completely rephrase" what European and national identity means. Immigration policy in Europe currently focuses on monitoring illegal immigration and addressing the burden of asylum seekers.<br />
Both Vaisse and Mogahed argue the policy discourse on the best way to integrate Muslims should be shifted from cultural differences to socioeconomic ones. Cesari suggests public schools should teach the Islamic contributions that have led to modern Europe to show that Islam is not as foreign as some perceive. Experts say the media and European politicians need to tone down the rhetoric on Muslims as a group--particularly on terrorists--if there is to be any hope for greater integration and assimilation. Meanwhile, some countries are beginning Imam training programs at universities as a way to promote assimilation. "We have 2,600 mosques in Germany, and I don't know a single imam who has a European education," political scientist Bassam Tibi told Deutsche-Welle. "How can they show the Muslim who live here how to live?"<br />
To monitor radicalism, Leiken says good intelligence within communities is needed and policymakers should learn to make distinctions, not only among Muslims but among Islamist groups, some of which could be helpful in combating terrorism.<br />
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</div>Bhaskarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07427841472271223849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3441078016198956465.post-44231631658541500762011-07-25T13:12:00.000-07:002011-07-25T13:13:39.507-07:00New World Order:China-India-America(CIA)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-size: large;"> New World Order:China-India-America(CIA)</span><br />
There is no faster route to second-tier great power status than for an actual or aspiring superpower to fight a crippling conflict with another country from those same ranks. Moreover, if history is any guide, the glass ceiling that results is a permanent one: This was the fate of imperial Britain, imperial Japan and Germany -- both imperial and Nazi -- in the first half of the 20th century, and the same was true for Soviet Russia in the second half of the century, despite Moscow's conflict with the West being a cold one. The lesson is an important one for Washington, Beijing and New Delhi to keep in mind in the years ahead, given that the two most likely dyads for major war in the 21st century are America-China and China-India.<br />
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Many casual observers will dismiss such concerns as overwrought, even as India bulks up its military with China in mind and China does the same with an eye on America's battle-tested but weary force. If conflict is such a farfetched scenario, then the "CIA" trio -- China, India and America -- is spending a whole lot of money on strategic bluster and posturing at a time when the world at large deserves better from each individually and all collectively. Globalization is still rapidly expanding, unleashing all manner of local instabilities in developing regions that are not yet capable of absorbing its revolutionary embrace. China and India are globalization's lead integrating agents and America its clear policing lead, but actual cooperation among them on running this messy world could be charitably described as embryonic -- and more accurately cast as non-existent.<br />
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As for a grand vision in this regard, the Obama administration has offered nothing more than what we suffered through during the Clinton and Bush years: Washington still sees its only serious allies in Western Europe and industrialized Asia. But as NATO's Libyan intervention makes clear, the Western alliance has outlived its strategic coherence. Outside of America, the West isn't having enough babies, and as a result, both our European allies and Japan are now losing workers and stockpiling elders. Meanwhile, their militaries are shrinking, as is their will to fight. Looking ahead to the post-2030 strategic landscape, when the world will be experiencing all manner of resource and environmental stresses, Europe and Japan cannot be considered serious first-tier candidates for superpower status.<br />
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As for the BRICS' superpower aspirations, you can rule out South Africa due to its widespread poverty, Russia due to its demographics and Brazil because of its gloriously benign security environment, which offers no impetus for creating a superpower-level military.<br />
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That leaves us with the China-India-America trio of million-man militaries and world-leading economies to support them. Yes, that's a crude measure of power at a time when armies are shifting from attrition warfare to system-based strategies, but frankly, drones and precision strikes can only get you so far in settling globalization's vast frontiers. The "boots on the ground" imperative for nation-building won't go away just because America, as a result of its recent myopic applications, has grown tired of the necessary task. Armed with billion-plus national populations, both China and India will instinctively throw bodies at problems, as well they should.<br />
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It may seem inconceivable that the former victims of European colonialism in the developing world will accept such an interventionist approach, but in a post-2030 landscape, push will come to shove on a host of global resourcing issues -- starting with energy and food -- where both China and India will suffer great vulnerabilities and dependencies.<br />
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Nevertheless, it is unlikely that China and India will be able to simply take what they need by force, given their similarly vast needs and their long history of rivalry. Here America will logically act as the offshore balancer across Eurasia and the stabilizing third partner elsewhere.<br />
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But the balance of power between the three behemoths will be significantly impacted by some demographic data points. On the subject of labor, rapidly aging China will lose tens of millions of workers by 2030. By contrast, "younger" America will gain a couple dozen million, and truly young India will add well more than 100 million. America will make up for its lack of overall demographic bulk in its per capita income, expected to stand at around $60,000 in 2030, compared to $20,000 for China and $10,000 for India. Yes, America will remain a greatly indebted country, but both China and India will remain tethered to the "ball and chain" that is their impoverished rural poor, which will still be counted in 100-million increments.<br />
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Come 2030, the CIA trio will constitute the world's three most powerful national economies and militaries, with no other entity even coming close to first-tier status. In a logical world, these three will nations realize their greatly overlapping strategic interests and cooperate in running the global economic and security system.<br />
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But between now and 2030, we will also witness a series of perceived shifts in that trio's rank ordering that will exacerbate the already existing tensions in their bilateral and trilateral relations. Indeed, we are experiencing one right now, with many observers perceiving "rising" China as passing a "declining" America, even if others consider that verdict to be premature. Nevertheless, Washington's eagerness to sell massive amounts of military hardware to anybody in South and East Asia that isn't China is a good example of the dynamic that such shifts in rank-order, whether real or perceived, can create.<br />
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This is likely only the first of a trio of perceived power shifts to come. The second will result from a combination of the next "morning in America" moment here in the States and China hitting a cluster of inevitable developmental walls -- environmental damage, demographic aging, resource constraints and political pluralism, among others. And while there might be little real danger of a U.S.-China military conflict today, imagine the potential for confrontation when China's rising nationalism combines with the popular anger resulting from the realization that the "Chinese century" lasted less than a generation.<br />
<br />
The third power shift is likely to be even harder for China to swallow: India's pronounced demographic dividend means it will inevitably inherit China's current status as globalization's factory floor. Around 2030, India's labor pool will surpass that of China's, and by 2050 it will become larger by half. At some point along the way, most probably crystallized by some debilitating large-scale crisis in China, India will permanently dethrone China as the new "rising power" in the global narrative. In that process, America will lose some relative standing, but it won't create the same kind of fear in the system because of India's longstanding status as a stable democracy.<br />
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There remain two great uncertainties attached to these forthcoming power shifts. First, how will China handle America's resurrection? And second, how will India handle the onset of its recognized "rise" into first-tier superpower status? What is certain, however, is that "hedging" or "containing" China is both a waste of time and likely to backfire over the long term by creating an unnecessary legacy of resentment and suspicion, because demographically speaking, "the fix" is already in.<br />
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Instead, in the coming years, Washington should seek to establish a new "trilateral commission" that swaps out Europe and Japan for India and China. That's your "new world order" for you, waiting for the shaping that only the U.S., as the incumbent world superpower, can bring about.(BY:<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #504e4e; font-family: georgia, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; font-style: italic; line-height: 18px;">Thomas P.M. Barnett</span>)</div>Bhaskarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07427841472271223849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3441078016198956465.post-53618181548275975952011-07-22T23:09:00.000-07:002011-07-22T23:09:53.628-07:00Democracy in Danger...!!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
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Over the past six months, the world has watched as the Middle East, a region that long seemed immune to democratic change, has risen up.<br />
The popular movements in the region have inspired democrats from around the globe. In China, online activists have called for a "Jasmine Revolution" designed to press the Communist Party to open up. While in Africa, reformers have called for their own "African Spring".<br />
But the Arab Spring is, in many ways, a mirage. Several nations in the region may eventually make the transition to democracy - this is hardly assured - but in reality, democracy is faltering throughout the developing world, from Asia to Latin America, from Africa to the former Soviet states.<br />
In its annual survey, the monitoring group Freedom House, which uses a range of data to assess social, political and economic freedoms, found that global freedom plummeted for the fifth year in a row in 2010, the longest continuous decline in nearly 40 years. In fact, there are now fewer elected democracies than there were in 1995.<br />
A mountain of other evidence supported Freedom House's findings. One of the other most comprehensive studies of global democracy, compiled by Germany's Bertelsmann Foundation, uses data examining the ability of democracies to function, manage government and uphold freedoms to produce what it calls the Transformation Index.<br />
The most recent index found "the overall quality of democracy has eroded [throughout the developing world] ... the key components of a functioning democracy, such as political participation and civil liberties, have suffered qualitative erosion ... these developments threaten to hollow out the quality and substance of governance". The index concluded that the number of "highly defective democracies" - democracies with institutions, elections and political culture so flawed that they no longer qualified as real democracies - had roughly doubled between 2006 and 2010.<br />
The Economist Intelligence Unit's Index of Democracy only further confirmed these findings. The unit analyses democracy using categories for electoral process, pluralism, political participation, political culture, functioning of government and civil liberties. It found that democracy was in retreat around the globe. "In all regions, the average democracy score for 2010 is lower than in 2008," it reported.<br />
In 91 of 167 countries it studied, the democracy score had deteriorated in that time period and in many others it had only remained stagnant. Of the 79 nations that it assessed as having some significant democratic qualities, only 26 made the grade as what the EIU calls "full democracies", while the other 53 were ranked only as "flawed democracies" because of serious deficiencies in many of the areas it assessed.<br />
In Latin America, Africa, Asia and even most of Africa, coups, which had been a frequent means of changing governments during the Cold War, had become nearly extinct by the early 2000s. But between 2006 and 2010, the military grabbed power in Mauritania, Niger, Guinea-Bissau, Bangladesh, Fiji and Madagascar, among others.<br />
In many other developing nations, such as Mexico, Pakistan and the Philippines, the military managed to restore its power as the central actor in political life, dominating the civilian governments that clung to power only through the support of the armed forces. "It's almost like we've gone back to the [Ferdinand] Marcos era," prominent Filipino rights activist and lawyer Harry Roque Jr said, as he waited in his office for the security forces to come and interrogate him. "There's the same type of fear, the same abuses, the same attitude by the military that their actions will never face consequences."<br />
Support for democracy has become so tepid in parts of the developing world that many of these coups were cheered: in Niger last year, thousands celebrated the military takeover in Niamey, the capital, in part because the overthrown leader had been destroying the country's democratic institutions.<br />
Overall, an analysis of military coups in developing nations over the past 20 years, conducted by David Silverman, my Council on Foreign Relations research associate, found that in nearly 50 per cent of cases drawn from Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East, middle-class men and women either agitated in advance for the coup, or, in polls or prominent media coverage afterwards, expressed their support for the army takeover.<br />
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</div>Bhaskarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07427841472271223849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3441078016198956465.post-73948849469779940382011-07-22T22:47:00.000-07:002011-07-22T22:47:42.312-07:00Cyber Security And US-china relations...!!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
Author: Adam Segal, CFR<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicKrDW33FKrSr_IHLG5pDwVAS00afsQ4G_iCSNFbk0pUkaFotLMY1Ql12OGzcrKvCdwG_SeS66U0yOpJLxZIUHP08Y7craKblmf-WfTd_c8WTLFuRT386Jbag6zsagOnsICELmM_8Nlzlf/s1600/Cyber-Security-Danger.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicKrDW33FKrSr_IHLG5pDwVAS00afsQ4G_iCSNFbk0pUkaFotLMY1Ql12OGzcrKvCdwG_SeS66U0yOpJLxZIUHP08Y7craKblmf-WfTd_c8WTLFuRT386Jbag6zsagOnsICELmM_8Nlzlf/s1600/Cyber-Security-Danger.jpg" /></a></div><br />
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Less than three weeks after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and three other cabinet members announced the International Strategy for Cyberspace, another incident has occurred between the United States and China.<br />
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In this instance, Google claims that hackers based in Jinan stole the passwords of the email accounts of senior government officials in the United States and Asia, as well as Chinese political activists. The Chinese response followed the standard script: deny the claims, point out illegality of hacking in China, note that China is also a victim, and question the motivations of Google and the United States. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei said, ‘Allegations that the Chinese government supports hacker attacks are completely unfounded and made with ulterior motives’.<br />
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While this flare up is likely to be short lived, the two sides involved hold fundamentally incompatible views on cyberspace, which means it is almost inevitable that there will be another incident sometime in the near future. The International Strategy states that the US will promote a digital infrastructure that is ‘open, interoperable, secure, and reliable’ while supporting international commerce, strengthening security, and fostering free expression. At best, China shares interest in two of these goals — global commerce and security — and even in those cases it has a different conception of how they should be defined.<br />
<br />
The most visible difference is over the use of the internet and other communications technologies to ensure the free flow of information. Like the Russians, the Chinese are more likely to speak of ‘information security’, which includes concerns about content, rather than ‘cyber security’, which is primarily focused on the protection of communication and other critical infrastructure networks. A July 2010 report from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, ‘Development of China’s New Media’, accuses the United States of using Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites to foster instability. As Jack Goldsmith has noted, Washington provides support for ‘hacktivists’ and others to circumvent the content filters and other technologies that make up the Great Firewall of China and it views this behaviour as benign. The Chinese on the other hand, consider all this to be ‘on a par with the Google hack’. In any discussion about norms in cyberspace, Beijing is likely to demand that the United States limit its support for digital activists, a requirement Washington is unlikely to meet.<br />
<br />
As Chinese technology firms expand abroad, they will have a growing stake in a digital infrastructure that is global, interoperable, and secure. But in the near term the Chinese government has used competing national technology and security standards to promote indigenous innovation. The Multi-Level Protection Scheme, for example, requires that banks, government offices, and other critical industries use security technology provided by Chinese firms. If foreign companies want to remain in the market, they must partner with Chinese firms and possibly transfer technology to them.<br />
<br />
The more dependent the Chinese economy becomes on the internet, the more vulnerable China becomes, and thus the more likely it becomes that the United States and China can reach some agreement about limits on the development and use of cyber weapons. But for now, Chinese defence analysts clearly believe that America possesses superior capabilities in conventional weapons and that the American military is more dependent on the internet than the People’s Liberation Army. As a result, open source writings are filled with discussions about how cyber attacks can limit US power projection.<br />
<br />
It is also worth noting that Chinese officials see a high degree of hypocrisy in US positions. While American policy makers talk about maintaining freedom of movement, Chinese policy makers see a strategy focused on dominance, control, and on limiting China’s ability to act. The list of complaints is long: American companies dominate the hardware and software industries, Internet Corporation for Assigned Networks Names (ICANN) is beholden to the US government, nine of the 12 auxiliary root servers are located in the United States, and US Cyber Command was established in order to conduct offensive operations.<br />
<br />
Given these divergent views, US policy makers need to have a realistic sense of what can be accomplished with China in cyberspace. Patience and cool-headedness will be in high demand as the next dispute breaks out. Washington must engage Beijing in discussions about the rules of the road, but more important will be efforts to work with allies and close friends in defining international norms of behaviour.<br />
<br />
Less than three weeks after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and three other cabinet members announced the International Strategy for Cyberspace, another incident has occurred between the United States and China.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
In this instance, Google claims that hackers based in Jinan stole the passwords of the email accounts of senior government officials in the United States and Asia, as well as Chinese political activists. The Chinese response followed the standard script: deny the claims, point out illegality of hacking in China, note that China is also a victim, and question the motivations of Google and the United States. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei said, ‘Allegations that the Chinese government supports hacker attacks are completely unfounded and made with ulterior motives’.<br />
<br />
While this flare up is likely to be short lived, the two sides involved hold fundamentally incompatible views on cyberspace, which means it is almost inevitable that there will be another incident sometime in the near future. The International Strategy states that the US will promote a digital infrastructure that is ‘open, interoperable, secure, and reliable’ while supporting international commerce, strengthening security, and fostering free expression. At best, China shares interest in two of these goals — global commerce and security — and even in those cases it has a different conception of how they should be defined.<br />
<br />
The most visible difference is over the use of the internet and other communications technologies to ensure the free flow of information. Like the Russians, the Chinese are more likely to speak of ‘information security’, which includes concerns about content, rather than ‘cyber security’, which is primarily focused on the protection of communication and other critical infrastructure networks. A July 2010 report from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, ‘Development of China’s New Media’, accuses the United States of using Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites to foster instability. As Jack Goldsmith has noted, Washington provides support for ‘hacktivists’ and others to circumvent the content filters and other technologies that make up the Great Firewall of China and it views this behaviour as benign. The Chinese on the other hand, consider all this to be ‘on a par with the Google hack’. In any discussion about norms in cyberspace, Beijing is likely to demand that the United States limit its support for digital activists, a requirement Washington is unlikely to meet.<br />
<br />
As Chinese technology firms expand abroad, they will have a growing stake in a digital infrastructure that is global, interoperable, and secure. But in the near term the Chinese government has used competing national technology and security standards to promote indigenous innovation. The Multi-Level Protection Scheme, for example, requires that banks, government offices, and other critical industries use security technology provided by Chinese firms. If foreign companies want to remain in the market, they must partner with Chinese firms and possibly transfer technology to them.<br />
<br />
The more dependent the Chinese economy becomes on the internet, the more vulnerable China becomes, and thus the more likely it becomes that the United States and China can reach some agreement about limits on the development and use of cyber weapons. But for now, Chinese defence analysts clearly believe that America possesses superior capabilities in conventional weapons and that the American military is more dependent on the internet than the People’s Liberation Army. As a result, open source writings are filled with discussions about how cyber attacks can limit US power projection.<br />
<br />
It is also worth noting that Chinese officials see a high degree of hypocrisy in US positions. While American policy makers talk about maintaining freedom of movement, Chinese policy makers see a strategy focused on dominance, control, and on limiting China’s ability to act. The list of complaints is long: American companies dominate the hardware and software industries, Internet Corporation for Assigned Networks Names (ICANN) is beholden to the US government, nine of the 12 auxiliary root servers are located in the United States, and US Cyber Command was established in order to conduct offensive operations.<br />
<br />
Given these divergent views, US policy makers need to have a realistic sense of what can be accomplished with China in cyberspace. Patience and cool-headedness will be in high demand as the next dispute breaks out. Washington must engage Beijing in discussions about the rules of the road, but more important will be efforts to work with allies and close friends in defining international norms of behaviour.<br />
</div>Bhaskarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07427841472271223849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3441078016198956465.post-57585383421492253822011-07-22T22:34:00.000-07:002011-07-22T22:43:01.744-07:00Chinies Hacking and scared World..!!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-d4Owuvxrw-I/Tipded1xVZI/AAAAAAAAARo/TucduGWukoA/s1600/610-hackers-chinese.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="196" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-d4Owuvxrw-I/Tipded1xVZI/AAAAAAAAARo/TucduGWukoA/s400/610-hackers-chinese.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
Cyberwarfare in 2011 is an odd beast. Many Western governments reportedly actively monitor rivals and engage in online sabotage, while countries ranging from Israel to Iran to India also engage in cyberwarfare programs of their own. But it's attacks against the American government and commercial websites such as Google that grab headlines.<br />
As foreign governments learn the ease of obtaining intelligence online and foreign corporations continue to get the edge on their competitors through massive online attacks, future hacker efforts will only become more ambitious. One of the countries where many of these civilian and military attacks reportedly originate is China.<br />
Fast Company recently spoke with Adam Segal, the Ira A. Lipman senior fellow for counterterrorism and national security issues at the Council on Foreign Relations, about bored Chinese teenagers, the Chinese way of hacking, India's rush to create a patriotic hacker corps, and much more.<br />
FAST COMPANY: Could you give a short rundown of China's suspected role in cyberespionage of both governments and corporations?<br />
ADAM SEGAL: A number of fairly well-publicized attacks on U.S. governments and corporate interests with codenames like “Titan Rain” have taken place. In many cases, attribution to China is fairly speculative. In the Google case, it was supposedly traced back by IP address but in many cases it's fairly suspect. But they are motivated primarily by espionage reasons--both military and industrial--and also in some cases, by preparing the battlefield. Looking at potential targets that would be used in a military scenario in case there was, in fact, conflict.<br />
As far as preparing the battlefield, do you think it is mostly organized by the government, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and groups like that, or is it just bored kids with some sort of connection to government?<br />
Well, that's the $64,000 question in the Chinese context. The question is who is responsible for these things, even if you trace it back to China, is if they are bored hackers or PLA members or criminals with ties to the PLA or PLA divisions acting criminally? We don't really know. I suspect that the majority of the attacks and espionage on on the criminal side are by patriotic hackers that have some sort of connection, maybe financial, to the PLA or the State Security Ministry. In the cases of power grids and other cases like that, I suspect PLA affiliation, but there is no way to know.<br />
Do you think China, in terms of ideology, differentiates between information security and cybersecurity?<br />
Yes. I think the way that the United States, the United Kingdom, and most other Western countries use it is for defense of computers and communications networks. The Chinese, like the Russians, also use the term “information security,” which includes content. They are not only concerned about attacks on networks, but which information is being carried on them--which could affect national security. The worry is that Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks could be used for political reasons inside China. When you look at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and their statements on information security, they have a big focus on domestic security.<br />
Are many suspected American cyberespionage or cyberwarfare efforts believed to be taking place against China?<br />
I can say that Chinese officials I have spoken to say it's widespread. They basically assume that the National Security Agency (NSA) is in all their networks. They tend to view U.S. companies as instruments of U.S. policy, so they will say we are the political party because they have to rely on Cisco and Microsoft products--and they assume all these products are built with backdoors for the NSA to take advantage of. I suspect that the NSA and U.S. government do conduct some espionage against the Chinese and they have some reason to be apprehensive.<br />
As far as Chinese hackers, is their knowledge mostly homegrown or are they connected to the larger hacker subculture?<br />
I haven't spent much time looking at the hackers, but my sense is that they have some kind of contact with the larger subculture and that they draw on the ethos of it. But, like a lot of things, it has Chinese characteristics. For a long time, we used to speak of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and then “market capitalism with Chinese characteristics.” Now there is “hacking with Chinese characteristics” as well. It draws from the outside but they make it their own.<br />
Do you see any other countries imitating China's cyberwarfare and cyberespionage efforts?<br />
I see a lot of similarities between what is happening in Russia and what is happening in China, with both state and non-state actors among their hackers. Both states find plausible deniability important for strategic and political reasons. In India, there has been a lot of discussion in the press about how the country should have its own patriotic hackers. But with India being a democracy, I think it is harder. However, I think there have been efforts to build those sorts of efforts. But the bigger issue is that many of China's attitudes towards cyberspace more broadly--such as information security vs cybersecurity and being able to control the internet domestically--are all pretty attractive to developing countries. They are offering an attractive ideological model.</div>Bhaskarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07427841472271223849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3441078016198956465.post-80698652518931008562011-07-22T22:29:00.001-07:002011-07-22T22:29:46.411-07:00Cyberconflict:New World's problem..!!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
Cyberconflict--the use of computer power for intelligence gathering or to attack the computer, communication, transportation, and energy networks of states or non-governmental groups--is now a major arena of political, economic, and military contest. Fending off cyberattacks has become a costly preoccupation of governments, corporations, and non-profit organizations. Cyberattacks could ultimately lead to massive financial loss, economic disruptions, or even war.<br />
Despite this potential for harm, little agreement exists on how to respond. One problem is the lack of understanding, especially among policymakers, about how interconnected and vulnerable our increasingly sophisticated computer networks are. Beyond this lies a whole host of thorny analytical questions: What is our ability to track the source of attacks? How susceptible are we to "false flag" attacks where the attackers deliberately seek to "frame" another actor as carrying out an attack? What responsibility should governments bear for attacks carried out by their nationals on foreign governments or entities? How should the responsibility for defending against cyberattacks be apportioned between government and the private sector, between national governments and the international community? Can deterrence work in cyberspace?<br />
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is actively engaged in helping U.S policy makers, business leaders, and the general public better address these and other questions at the nexus of cybersecurity and foreign policy. CFR has hosted some of the most important practioners and thinkers to speak at general meetings and roundtable seminars.<br />
In January 2011, CFR will host a one-day workshop focusing on some of the trade and economic issues involved in cybersecurity including supply chain security and corporate espionage. Future meetings and research will focus on the relationship between cyberwar and the existing laws of war and conflict; how the United States should engage other states and international actors in pursuit of its interests in cyberspace; how the promotion of the free flow of information interacts with the pursuit of cybersecurity; and the private sectors role in defense, deterrence, and resilience.<br />
Five CFR Research Fellows work on cyber issues, and they publish in numerous outlets and comment frequently in the media. And CFR's membership and corporate programs have a unique ability to draw expertise from government, industry, and academia to address an issue that will require greater public-private cooperation, both domestically and internationally.<br />
</div>Bhaskarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07427841472271223849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3441078016198956465.post-46634443704057144132011-07-22T21:57:00.000-07:002011-07-22T21:57:13.731-07:00Geopolitics of India in Afghanistan..!!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
In about a year’s time, a new group of leaders in Beijing will succeed President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao. At the moment, analysts are focused primarily on the make-up of the nine-member Politburo Standing Committee, the supreme policy making body of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Vice President Xi Jinping and Executive Vice Premier Li Keqiang, both members of the standing committee now, are assured of succeeding Hu and Wen, respectively. As a result, the guessing game that has engrossed many China watchers is over who will replace the other seven retiring members.<br />
<br />
<br />
Speculating about top personnel decisions is both risky and not all that interesting. Such decisions are reached through intricate factional bargaining and compromises, and the ultimate outcome is typically not determined until the very end. Worse, handicapping the chances of frontrunners usually distracts us from trying to understand the broader policy implications of leadership transition. We become too preoccupied with the shifting fortunes of factions within the CCP Introduction<br />
<br />
India and Afghanistan historically have shared close cultural and political ties, and the complexity of their diplomatic history reflects this fact. India was among the first non-Communist states to recognize the government installed by the Soviet Union after its 1979* invasion of Afghanistan. New Delhi supported successive governments in Kabul until the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s. But like most countries, India never recognized the Taliban's assumption of power in 1996 (only Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates recognized the Taliban regime). Following the 9/11 attacks and the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan that resulted, ties between India and Afghanistan grew strong once again. India has restored full diplomatic relations, and has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in aid for Afghanistan's reconstruction and development. But Pakistan views India's growing influence in Afghanistan as a threat to its own interests in the region. Experts fear for Afghanistan's stability as India and Pakistan compete for influence in the war-torn country.<br />
<br />
Strengthening Relations<br />
<br />
Afghanistan holds strategic importance for India as New Delhi seeks friendly allies in the neighborhood, and because it is a gateway to energy-rich Central Asian states such as Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. "India is looking to ensure that other countries in the region favor or at least are neutral on its conflict with Pakistan," says J Alexander Thier, an expert on Afghanistan at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). Afghanistan, on the other hand, he says, looks to India as "a potential counterweight in its relationship with Pakistan." India's influence in Afghanistan waned in the 1990s after Pakistan-backed Taliban rose to power. During this period, New Delhi provided assistance to the anti-Taliban resistance, the Northern Alliance, comprised mostly of Tajik and other non-Pashtun ethnic groups, according to a 2003 Council Task Force report. After the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, New Delhi reached out to renew ties with Kabul. India-Afghanistan relations further received a boost from the fact that many current Afghan leaders, including President Hamid Karzai, studied at Indian universities.<br />
<br />
Since 2001, India has offered $1.2 billion for Afghanistan's reconstruction, making it the largest regional donor to the country. By helping rebuild a new Afghanistan, India strives for greater regional stability, but also hopes to counter Pakistan's influence in Kabul, say experts. For India, Afghanistan is also a potential route for access to Central Asian energy. India, an observer in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, has been pursuing better relations with Central Asian states for energy cooperation. It gave a $17 million grant for the modernization of a hydropower plant in Tajikistan, and has signed a memorandum of understanding with Turkmenistan for a natural gas pipeline that will pass through Afghanistan and Pakistan.<br />
<br />
Since 2001, India has offered $1.2 billion for Afghanistan's reconstruction, making it the largest regional donor to the country.<br />
<br />
According to Indian officials, there are currently about four thousand Indian workers and security personnel working on different relief and reconstruction projects in Afghanistan. Since 2006, following increased incidents of kidnappings and attacks, India has sent the country's mountain-trained paramilitary force tasked with guarding its border with China, to guard its workers; there are about five hundred police deployed in Afghanistan currently. India is involved in a wide array of development projects in Afghanistan: In January 2009, India completed construction of the Zaranj-Delaram highway in southwest Afghanistan near the Iranian border; it is building Afghanistan's new parliament building set for completion by 2011; it is constructing the Salma Dam power project in Herat Province; it has trained Afghan police officers, diplomats and civil servants; and it has provided support in the areas of health, education, transportation, power, and telecommunications.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Bilateral trade between India and Afghanistan has been on the rise, reaching $358 million for the fiscal year April 2007 to March 2008. India hopes its investment in the Iranian port at Chabahar will allow it to gain trading access to Afghanistan, bypassing Pakistan. Pakistan currently allows Afghanistan transit rights for its exports to India, but does not allow goods to move from India to Afghanistan.<br />
<br />
But soft power is "India's greatest asset" in Afghanistan, writes Shashi Tharoor, former under-secretary-general at the United Nations. He says Indian television soaps and Indian films are very popular in Afghanistan and their particular strength is that they have "nothing to do with government propaganda." Thier says the positive thing about such influence is that it engages the population in a way that takes into account what they want.<br />
<br />
Pakistan's Suspicions<br />
<br />
"Afghanistan has been a prize that Pakistan and India have fought over directly and indirectly for decades," writes Robert D. Kaplan of the Atlantic Monthly. Pakistan supported the anti-Soviet mujahadeen and then the Taliban "to ensure that in the event of conflict with India, Afghanistan would provide Pakistan with support and use of its land and air space if needed," write Afghanistan experts Barnett R. Rubin and Abubakar Siddique in a 2006 USIP report (PDF). Pakistani military planners, they write, refer to this as the quest for "strategic depth." In this Foreign Affairs essay, Rubin argues that Pakistan's military establishment has always approached the various wars in and around Afghanistan as a function of its main institutional and national security interests: "first and foremost, balancing India."<br />
<br />
"Afghanistan has been a prize that Pakistan and India have fought over directly and indirectly for decades." --Robert Kaplan<br />
<br />
It is no surprise then that Pakistan sees India's growing influence in Afghanistan as a threat. After India opened consulates in Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif, Jalalabad, and Kandahar, Pakistan charged that these consulates provide cover for Indian intelligence agencies to run covert operations against Pakistan, as well as foment separatism in Pakistan's Balochistan province. "Pakistan's fears of encirclement (PDF) by India have been compounded" by the new Indian air base in Farkhor, Tajikistan, write South Asia experts Raja Karthikeya Gundu and Teresita C. Schaffer in an April 2008 Center for Strategic and International Studies newsletter. This is the first Indian military airbase overseas, and is convenient for transportation of men and material to and from Afghanistan. It is also a move toward protecting India's potential energy interests in the region, say experts.<br />
<br />
Pakistan also competes with India for access to consumer markets in Afghanistan. Pakistan sees Iran's Chabahar port, which India hopes to use as its route for trade with Afghanistan, as a rival that would compete with its new port at Gwadar, which was been built with Chinese assistance.<br />
<br />
Endangering Afghanistan's Stability<br />
<br />
Pakistan's concerns that India is trying to encircle it by gaining influence in Afghanistan has in part led to "continued Pakistani ambivalence toward the Taliban," argues a new report by the independent, U.S.-based Pakistan Policy Working Group. The report says Pakistani security officials calculate that the Taliban offers the best chance for countering India's regional influence. Pakistan's support for the Taliban has led to increased instability in Afghanistan, from the growth of terrorism to upped opium cultivation. But Islamabad denies any support for the Taliban and says it is committed to fighting terrorism. U.S. military and intelligence officials have repeatedly warned that Pakistan's tribal areas along the Afghan border continue to serve as safe havens for the Taliban and al-Qaeda to stage attacks against Afghanistan. Experts say Pakistan's cooperation in counterterrorism is vital to winning the war in Afghanistan.<br />
<br />
Controlling this porous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is the central issue for the United States, write Schaffer and Gundu. As this Backgrounder explains, Pakistan and Afghanistan have a long-standing border dispute, in large part due to tribal allegiances that have never recognized the century-old frontier. But a "transformation of Pakistan-Afghanistan ties can only take place in an overall context of improved Pakistani-Indian relations" that enhances Pakistani confidence in its regional position, argues the Pakistan Policy Working Group report.<br />
<br />
Indian officials also blame Pakistan's military intelligence agency, the ISI, and its support of the Taliban, for attacks on Indian personnel and assets in Afghanistan. There have been several attacks on Indian personnel working for reconstruction projects inside Pakistan, particularly those working on road-building projects. The deadliest attack came in July 2008, when a suicide bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul killed more than forty, including the Indian defense attaché. Both the Afghan and Indian officials implied ISI's involvement in the attack. India's National Security Adviser M K Narayanan, in an interview with New Delhi Television, said: "We have no doubt that the ISI is behind this." Pakistan has denied these allegations. However, the country's army chief replaced the head of the ISI in September, which some experts say was aimed at easing accusations against the agency.<br />
<br />
"A transformation of Pakistan-Afghanistan ties can only take place in an overall context of improved Pakistani-Indian relations … that enhances Pakistani confidence in its regional position." - Pakistan Policy Working Group report<br />
<br />
Toward Regional Cooperation<br />
<br />
Most policy experts support India's engagement in Afghanistan but recommend a three-way relationship between India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. USIP's Thier says Afghanistan must reassert a neutral policy of pursuing strong relations with both India and Pakistan. In a 2006 Council Special Report on Afghanistan, Rubin writes: "The United States should strengthen its presence on the Afghan side of the border, and encourage India and Afghanistan not to engage in any provocative activity there." Rubin says Afghanistan should encourage confidence-building measures with Pakistan in the border area.<br />
<br />
Some experts emphasize better regional cooperation on trade. A January 2008 report (PDF) by the Afghanistan Study Group, working under the U.S.-based independent nonprofit Center for the Study of the Presidency, recommended that Pakistan remove restrictions that inhibit the transportation of goods through Pakistan to and from Afghanistan, including from India. "With regard to trade, there should be a more concerted and energetic international effort to enable Afghanistan to take fuller advantage of its geographic position as a crossroads between central, southern and western Asia," the report says.<br />
<br />
The Pakistan Policy Working Group report, penned by several former U.S. State department officials, says Washington will need to step up diplomacy in South Asia, and it needs to consider how to decrease Pakistan's fear of India and "how to improve U.S. ties with New Delhi without alarming Islamabad." It is in India's interest to ensure that its involvement in Afghanistan is transparent to Pakistan, argue these experts.ch harder line.<br />
</div>Bhaskarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07427841472271223849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3441078016198956465.post-40317639244965758982011-07-22T21:52:00.001-07:002011-07-22T21:52:22.279-07:00After HU::China and its forien Policy..!!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
In about a year’s time, a new group of leaders in Beijing will succeed President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao. At the moment, analysts are focused primarily on the make-up of the nine-member Politburo Standing Committee, the supreme policy making body of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Vice President Xi Jinping and Executive Vice Premier Li Keqiang, both members of the standing committee now, are assured of succeeding Hu and Wen, respectively. As a result, the guessing game that has engrossed many China watchers is over who will replace the other seven retiring members.<br />
<br />
<br />
Speculating about top personnel decisions is both risky and not all that interesting. Such decisions are reached through intricate factional bargaining and compromises, and the ultimate outcome is typically not determined until the very end. Worse, handicapping the chances of frontrunners usually distracts us from trying to understand the broader policy implications of leadership transition. We become too preoccupied with the shifting fortunes of factions within the CCP leadership to explore whether leadership change actually affects policy.<br />
<br />
So a more fruitful way of getting ourselves prepared for China’s upcoming leadership transition is to look back at history and examine whether the past top leadership changes resulted in significant foreign policy changes, and what explained such major shifts.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of data points here. The CCP has experienced only four leadership transitions: from Mao Zedong to Hua Guofeng (1976), from Hua to Deng Xiaoping (1979), from Deng to Jiang Zemin (1994-95), and from Jiang to Hu Jintao (2002). Of the four cases, only the last three should count because Hua, a transitional figure, didn’t have a real chance to remake Chinese foreign policy.<br />
<br />
When we look at the three meaningful leadership transitions, the greatest change in foreign policy occurred when Deng took over power in 1979. He normalized relations with the United States, fundamentally reoriented Chinese foreign policy in a pro-Western direction, ended Chinese support for leftist forces around the world, and launched a punitive, albeit costly, war against Vietnam. In addition, he articulated a new strategic principle: Chinese foreign policy is to serve the country’s economic modernization. (His famous dictum on keeping a low profile was prescribed after the collapse of the former Soviet Union, more than a decade later).<br />
<br />
The transition from Deng to Jiang in the mid-1990s didn’t bring about a fundamental shift. (Deng was too ill to influence policy by 1994, even though he didn’t die until 1997). Still, there were minor but important adjustments. Jiang moved China closer to the West and accelerated its integration into the West-dominated international system, culminating in the accession into the World Trade Organization at the end of his tenure, perhaps his most enduring legacy.<br />
<br />
Another notable shift under Jiang was China’s regional diplomacy. He upgraded China’s ties with Moscow, and opened China’s charm offensive toward ASEAN nations. But, at the same time, Jiang adopted a tougher stance toward Japan and was blamed for the rapid deterioration in Sino-Japanese ties under his watch. On Taiwan, Jiang initially tried to reach out to Taiwan’s new leader, Lee Teng-hui, but Lee’s turn toward a more pro-independence stance in the mid-1990s forced Jiang to take a much harder line.<br />
</div>Bhaskarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07427841472271223849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3441078016198956465.post-56047934905791516152011-07-22T21:45:00.000-07:002011-07-22T21:45:30.005-07:00Geopolitics of India with ASEAN countries..!!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
(BY: Ashley J Tellis)<br />
<br />
Some researchers liken China to a rooster, with Korea as its beak and Vietnam its leg. The analogy, while highlighting the strategic importance of Vietnam toward China’s well-being, especially in terms of security, also implies that Vietnam has long been living with the weight of China on its shoulder. The problem is that Vietnam can’t do much about it, even if it wants to.<br />
<br />
<br />
Just like Cuba to the United States or Georgia to Russia, Vietnam is, in Prof. Carlyle Thayer’s words, condemned to a ‘tyranny of geography,’ whereby it has no choice but to learn to share its destiny with neighbouring China through every twist and turn of its history.<br />
<br />
In fact, a stronger China has long been the most serious threat to Vietnam’s security. Vietnam came under Chinese suzerainty for almost a thousand years until 938 A.D. Between then and the French colonization of Vietnam in the latter half of the 19th century, China invaded and occupied Vietnam a couple of times. But the most recent testimony in support of the idea that China is a major source of insecurity has been the brief yet bloody war that China waged along Vietnam’s northern border in 1979, and the naval clash initiated by China in the South China Sea in March 1988.<br />
<br />
The threat posed by China toward Vietnam comes not only from geographical proximity, but also the asymmetry of size and power between the two countries. China is, for example, 29 times larger than Vietnam, while Vietnam’s population, despite being the 14th biggest in the world, is roughly equivalent to that of a mid-sized Chinese province.<br />
<br />
Vietnam’s impressive economic performance since the late 1980s hasn’t allowed it to close the gap in strength. On the contrary, with China’s modernization over the last three decades, the power gap between the two countries is getting ever wider. For example, according to World Bank data, between 1985 and 2009, China’s GDP in current US dollars expanded by more than 16 times, from $307 billion to $4.985 trillion. Over the same period, however, Vietnam’s GDP increased by only 7 times, from $16 billion in 1985 to $97 billion in 2009.<br />
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Thanks to its economic development, China’s military might has also been significantly boosted, posing an even more formidable threat to Vietnam’s security. According to China’s official statements, its military budget for 2011 is $91.5 billion, while Vietnam is said to have allocated only $2.6 billion (about 2.5 percent of its GDP). What’s particularly worrying for Vietnam is that China’s expanded military expense is concentrated on its air force and navy, strengthening China’s capacity to project power into the South China Sea, where China and Vietnam have competing claims.<br />
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To make things worse, Vietnam’s transformation toward an open market economy adds another aspect to this tyranny of geography: increased economic vulnerability.<br />
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Since Vietnam resumed trade with China in the late 1980s, its domestic production has long been threatened by Chinese goods, which flood the country through both formal trade and smuggling. In the early 1990s, for example, Chinese consumer goods smuggled into Vietnam were so overwhelming and detrimental to domestic production that the Vietnamese government had to impose a ban on 17 categories of goods imported from China. In recent years, despite the enhanced competiveness of Vietnamese products and the perceived poor quality of Chinese ones, smuggling from China is still rampant. This not only exerts a negative impact on Vietnamese domestic production, but also puts Vietnamese consumers at risk, especially when many goods smuggled from China are toxic and harmful to people’s health.<br />
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Another vulnerability is Vietnam’s perennial trade deficit with China, which amounted to $5.4 billion out of the country’s total trade deficit of $7.5 billion in the first half of 2011. Moreover, China has emerged as Vietnam’s largest source of imports, accounting for almost a quarter of its import turnover in 2010. Vietnam is heavily dependent on China for input materials for some of its major export industries, such as footwear, garments, textiles or furniture. Meanwhile, Vietnam’s exports to China are just a minuscule portion of China’s total imports. As a result, should China decide to discontinue trade with Vietnam for some reason, the damage to Vietnam’s economy would be immense.<br />
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Another concern raised in Vietnam recently has been the fact that Chinese companies have won up to 90 percent of EPC (Engineering/Procurement/Construction) contracts for Vietnam’s major industrial projects, especially those of coal-fired power plants. Chinese contractors are favoured as they offer cheap technology and promise to help arrange financial funding from Chinese banks. Cheap as it seems, though, Vietnam in fact pays dearly for these contracts.<br />
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I am going to (deal with) the subject of “India in Asian Geopolitics” because I want to spend some time focussing on some structural features of the security environment that faces India across the widest possible canvas. I must give you two warnings, however, before I launch into the substance of my presentation. First, I am not going to speak as an American citizen, but merely as an analyst of international politics. I do this because I want to escape the question of my own political commitments in order to better reflect on what I think is a serious problem that confronts both the United States and India together.<br />
Secondly, I want to make what is fundamentally an academic presentation because it is the best means by which to draw out some important policy consequences. I emphatically do not want to make a conventional “policy” presentation, because that risks proffering essentially a mask that covers my own personal opinions and prejudices. I will end this presentation, certainly, by giving you a flavour of my prejudices. But I will keep that for the end. For the body of my lecture, I want to focus on the substance of what I think is the central challenge of geopolitics today.<br />
I will divide my presentation into four parts:<br />
The first part will reflect on the current geopolitical environment in Asia and how it is evolving. The second part will describe the current American response to this geopolitical environment. The third part is going to explore the contours of a world that we have not seen before. And, the fourth part will ask the question of what all this means for India and for the United States.<br />
Geopolitical Environment<br />
Let me start by briefly saying a few words about the current geopolitical environment in Asia. If you look at the literature on the prospect of geopolitical changes, you will find that it is rife with all manner of predictions about the onset of multipolarity-that somehow the current international system is going to become multipolar shortly and that the world as we know it today will before long evolve into a new universe of multiple poles.<br />
My own view is that this argument is profoundly mistaken. The international political system is likely to stay, quite durably, a unipolar system for a long time to come: that is, for at least another twenty or so years, if the statisticians are to be believed. But this reality is going to manifest itself in a world where the centre of gravity is shifting from where it has traditionally been for the last 500 years-Europe-to Asia. Asia will produce close to half, if not half, of the world’s economic product by 2025-this is the real emergent change in international politics-but, despite this fact-and this is the element of continuity-the United States will remain the dominant power in the international system for the foreseeable future.<br />
There are four virtuously interacting reasons that assure the continuing pre-eminence of the United States.<br />
The first reason is that, despite all the skepticism on this score, the United States has demonstrated a capacity to maintain continuing high rates of capital accumulation through a mixture of internal and, more importantly, external resources. The United States is in the very lucky position where the rest of the world is eager to provide it with the financial resources that enable it to sustain its profligate way of life. This is because the dollar still remains the most important global reserve currency and because, at the end of the day, the rest of the world, no matter what its complaints are about the United States, sees the United States as a very desirable destination to park its resources. Furthermore, America’s most important trading partners seem embarked on externally-driven growth strategies, which make Washington an even greater beneficiary of their desire to invest in the United States. So even though the United States does relatively poorly in terms of internal capital accumulation, it manages to compensate for these deficits through disproportionate access to the resources of others.<br />
There is a second reason which enables the United States to stay at the peak of the international system, and that is its continued ability to sustain labour force growth. For those who have survived the fundamentals of neo-classical economics, you will recognise that I am referring to “capital plus labour,” which is the magic formula for producing growth. If the United States can continue to import capital from abroad and can continue to maintain the growth of its labour force, if necessary through the immigration of high-value labour at very low political cost, it will have succeeded in meeting the minimal requirements for sustained economic growth. The United States has many advantages here, which few others do. It must be remembered that this is a country of immigrants; it is not threatened by immigrants; it welcomes immigrants and continues to welcome immigrants; all of which essentially implies that the United States can tap into the two great reservoirs that continue to assure its productivity and its pre-eminence.<br />
The third reason is that the United States continues to maintain a very highly effective national innovation system. It maintains this innovation system primarily because it relies on a market economy to make efficient allocation decisions. Further, its large pool of skilled and innovative labour continues to generate numerous inventions and a steady stream of innovation. Equally importantly, the large American private sector and the government contribute very large investments in science and technology and research and development, and the country enjoys a very flexible and highly effective venture capitalist system.<br />
And so between a political structure that essentially permits decisions to be made smartly, a private-public partnership that invests heavily in research and development and science and technology, and a venture capitalist system that produces investible resources to sustain a steady stream of technical change, the United States has an innovation system that clearly is second to none anywhere in the world.<br />
The final element is US military capabilities, which are unparalleled and growing. Anyone who has followed the debates in Europe about America’s military capability relative to the capacity of our NATO allies, recognises the fact that the gap in technical sophistication between the United States and Europe is actually widening in terms of conventional precision strike capabilities and the ability to deploy sustainable power projection at long-range. Now, this does not mean that the United States can use its military forces indiscriminately or without blowback. It simply means that the United States has incredible advantages with respect to projecting power and, with it, come greater degrees of political autonomy. Perhaps, the most remarkable element is that the United States maintains these capabilities through a defence budget that is larger than the defence budgets of at least the next fifteen countries in the international system put together, and yet these defence burdens are only about 3% of US GNP.<br />
All these four elements working together – capital accumulation, labour force growth, innovation and military capacity – essentially ensure that in a structural sense, the United States will continue to dominate the international system in the policy-relevant future. This implies that there is no imminent threat to American power, since the most important economic powers in the system are essentially friends or allies of the United States: Japan and South Korea in Asia, and all the NATO/EU countries in Europe.<br />
Despite this being the case, however, there is no way to avoid the other half of the story: the prospect of new rising powers in the international system, which will continue to remain a matter of concern to the United States. It is in this context that the rise of Asia poses special opportunities and special challenges. It offers special opportunities because it allows the United States to grow and profit from Asian prosperity. But it offers specific challenges as well insofar as it harbours the prospect that certain key Asian states, which continue to grow over a long period of time, could one day become challengers of the United States in the global system. There are four candidates for this role: Russia, Japan, China and India. When you separate the wheat from the chaff, however, it all boils down to just two countries, China and India. The following are the reasons why:<br />
Russia has great latent capacity, but poor social organisation. It has a very weak state and it has terribly predatory elites. The Russians have not made the kinds of investments in national capacities that are necessary to sustain a great power role, and though they continue to have significant technological capabilities, these resources are actually diminishing in terms of long-term investment. And so Russia is likely to end up being a major supplier of primary and military goods, but not a serious geopolitical challenger to the United States as the Soviet Union was in the past.<br />
Japan in contrast has great technical, financial and social-organisational capacity, but a very poor resource and demographic base. The situation confronting Japan today is the same that confronted it prior to 1941: its dependence on an international market for raw materials, energy, and revenue generation limits its capacity for autonomous action. And the experience of the Second World War demonstrated to the Japanese that any attempt to dominate the international system on its own-unconnected to the United States-will be an effort that ends in disaster.<br />
And so we end up with essentially two great countries, China and India. Both are large continental-size states that are latent great powers, but both are still developing in terms of their technical and social-organisational capacities. These are certainly rising powers, but it is important to recognise that their ability to challenge the United States must not be exaggerated.<br />
To begin with, all predications about China overtaking the United States, even in the out years, rely greatly on contestable assumptions or favourable measurements. Further, China, like Japan, is excessively dependent on the international market both for resources and revenue generation, thus limiting its ability to play the challenger at least in the prospective future. Finally, the continuing contradictions in China’s effort to create a market economy married to a command polity leaves us with some uncertainty as to whether the Chinese experience of high growth can be sustained over the long term.<br />
When one looks at China and India together, therefore, there is a clear recognition within the United States that there are sharp differences between these two countries. There is a recognition that China, which is growing more rapidly than India, exhibits a more determined “will to power,” and that makes the task of integrating China into the international system a far more difficult challenge than that involving India. Moreover, China and the United States are actually locked into military competition: India and the United States clearly are not. And finally there is that business, the squishy but important business, of values. India and the United States are tied together by a commitment to democratic politics which changes the character of the relationship between our two countries in very dramatic and fundamental ways.<br />
Where does all this leave us? I think it leaves us with three important bottom lines when one thinks about the future geopolitical environment. First, there is no country in Asia at the moment that is close to becoming a consequential geopolitical challenger of the United States, at least where control of the global system is concerned. But such a threat could arise over the long term, and if such a threat does arise, most people would bet that it would emerge from China rather than from Russia, Japan or India. Second, even though there is no true peer competitor that is likely to arise in Asia in the near-term, the United States must be cognizant of the challenges that can be mounted by less-than-comprehensively powerful states. The Soviet Union is the best example in this regard. The Soviet Union was always a unidimensional superpower. And there is no guarantee that, in the future, the United States might not be confronted with another unidimensional superpower. The fact is, whether we like it or not, there is a prospect- not a certainty, but a prospect-of an emerging power transition involving China. And, therefore, dealing with the prospect of a power transition will be the most consequential challenge for the United States in the coming century, even though American dominance is likely to endure for the next two decades.<br />
The American Response<br />
Having said all this by way of a baseline, let me go to the second part of my presentation: How should the United States respond to this challenge? There are three models in international politics that one could imagine as vying for dominance in US policy. The first is the classical realist model associated with Niccolo Machiavelli and his prescriptions in the commentaries on the ten books of Titus Livy. Machiavelli has a very simple solution for dealing with prospective power transitions. He says that when a state is faced with such a challenge, there is only one solution that successful regimes have used historically and that solution is preventive war. And he gives the example of the Romans attacking Greece long before the Greeks were actually strong. Because he says to the Romans who were masters “at seeing inconveniences from afar,” and in recognising that delay only brings more perils, were justified in attacking Greece earlier rather than later. So that is the classical realist prescription: undermine the growth of your rivals by preventive war if necessary.<br />
The second model is the conventional realist model, the model associated with George Kennan and implemented during the Cold War, and that is the strategy of comprehensive containment. This model, in effect, declares: Don’t attack your adversaries; don’t undermine them; don’t try to destroy them, because doing so is costly. Instead, create an iron fence which prevents them from creating trouble for you in any way possible. This is an interesting and attractive ideal, but it has limitations. Its greatest limitation is that it is extremely hard to build a containing coalition when the threat is only prospective and not actual, when the threat is only latent and not imminent.<br />
The third model is the liberal internationalist model, which is associated with Immanuel Kant on the one hand and Norman Angell on the other. The liberal internationalist model essentially asserts that the way to deal with rising powers is either to democratise them, because democracy ensures the creation of pacific union and the absence of war, or Norman Angell would say, increase their economic interdependence because economic interdependence increases the costs of conflict to the point where war becomes impractical.<br />
These three ideas, in various forms, have populated the American debate. And yet none of these three solutions offers self-sufficient strategies for dealing with the challenges we face. And so, what I think the United States has done is to marry both realism and liberalism in another classic example of American exceptionalism, in the process crafting a strategy that has not been followed before. And I’ll say a few words about what makes it so unique. The core of the strategy, fundamentally, is not to push China down but rather to engage it, while simultaneously investing in increasing the power of other states located on its periphery. So unlike the classical realist prescription of undermining China’s growth or the conventional realist prescription of containing it, the core of American strategy has been to engage China, not undermine it, but even as Washington engages Beijing, (it is trying) to build a new set of relationships aimed at increasing the power of various countries located along China’s borders. This is indeed a unique solution. When the Bush administration announced in March 2005 that the United States was now committed to encouraging the growth of India as a great power, there was a good deal of sceptical commentary both in the United States and in India about the novelty of this strategy-because it had never been implemented in this form before. And the critics were right on one count: it has not been the norm historically. But there is a reason why it has not been a favoured strategy in the past-and that is because, in a world that was not tightly interdependent before, containment in various forms was simply cheaper than the current alternative. I will focus more on this issue in the third part of my presentation. But, for the moment, let me just end this second part of my talk by simply laying out for you what the other component parts of the current American strategy are.<br />
The first element, as I mentioned, is to focus on engaging China, not undermining it, while simultaneously strengthening others. The second element is to protect America’s capacity for continued innovation, since it is the capacity to innovate that ultimately makes the United States the most important actor in international politics. The third element is to build and preserve the technological basis for maintaining enduring military superiority, and particularly uninterrupted US access to Asia. And, the fourth and final element is to keep our existing alliances in Asia in good repair, while reaching out to new friends and new partners, of which the single most important exemplar for this administration, and likely for every successive administration, will be India.<br />
The critical question, when one looks at this prospectively, is whether this American strategy will be a transitory strategy that evolves into something else or whether it is likely to become a new permanent equilibrium that exists with some durability.<br />
This concern takes me to the third part of my presentation, which is to ask why the United States has adopted such a peculiar strategy. What are the features of the emerging strategic environment that justify the current US approach to managing potential rivalry? This third part of my presentation is really an effort to convey a sense of how we are moving into a global environment.<br />
Exploring the New Contours<br />
Let me start by pointing out what has not changed in international politics. What has not changed in international politics is the fact that relations between states will always remain competitive. That much has not changed. Both Kautilya in the East and Thucydides and Machiavelli in the West have testified to this invariant quality of international politics. The responses of states to international competition have also not changed. All states, when faced with inter-state competition, have responded through a combination of internal balancing, that is, increasing their own resources from within, and external balancing, that is, creating alliances to deal with the emerging threat. This too is abiding. All history is littered with repeated occurrences of these behaviours. However, these strategies worked effectively in the past because what defined the international system previously was the reality of economic autarky. States were essentially not dependent on others for the production of their own prosperity: their interdependence extended to, at most, integration with their allies. And so, all countries were basically more or less self-sufficient universes. The bulk of their economic capabilities, the bulk of their military capabilities, all derived mainly from their own internal capacities-or, at best, through reliance on their allies. In this kind of a universe, you could afford to have strategies that were essentially or purely competitive. You could afford to have strategies that focused on solely on containment, on even on eliminating threats to yourself-in other words, purely competitive strategies.<br />
What has now changed in international politics is this reality called globalisation. This is a phenomenon, which although it has had some reflections in the past, is for most part substantially new. In fact, most scholars agree that what is currently underway is the third wave of globalisation but there is absolutely no doubt that this wave of globalisation is unlike any other that has gone before. How so? It is unlike any other because for the first time in history, economic integration-that is, the comprehensive vertical integration of production and distribution chains-is occurring across the boundaries of states that are nominally geopolitical competitors. Therefore, for the first time in our collective memory, the success of a country in accumulating national power is now dependent not simply on how well it mobilises national resources to create appropriate defensive capabilities vis-à-vis a competitor, or how well it mobilizes national resources through economic integration within its friends, but how well it can generate national resources from the economic relationship it enjoys with a competitor-even as it prepares to use those very resources generated from economic interdependence to cope with the geopolitical rivalry that exists with that competitor.<br />
This is what makes the geo-political environment so different from anything that has gone before. And the two great iconic models are the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union in the old days, and the prospective relationship between the United States and China in the future. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union were two separate universes that had no economic connections with one another. Nothing could be more different than the case of the United States and China in the future: if there is to be serious rivalry in this dyad, it will be a rivalry that is deeply embedded in the larger matrix of economic interdependence. It is precisely this reality of interdependence, which is unlikely to disappear any time soon, which justifies the American adoption of the novel strategy that I described a few moments ago. Let me give you an example that is closer to home. Think of the relationship between India and China during the Cold War, where both countries existed in separate universes, and the relationship that is likely to emerge between India and China in the future, where even if Sino-Indian relations were to degenerate into active competition in some dimensions, it is most likely that this rivalry will be deeply embedded amidst growing economic ties. This means that a globalised world is going to be a very peculiar world. And, the key distinguishing characteristic of this universe will be that a state’s economic relations with its rivals will have a critical effect on its ability to produce the political, economic, and military power needed to defend its strategic interests against those very adversaries.<br />
There are important consequences flowing from this fact. Among the most important is that globalisation weakens the traditional concept of what it means to be a political rival. And it undermines the traditional solutions that all states have used historically for dealing with their rivals. The reason this is so is because states are trying to maximise two goals simultaneously, “power” and “plenty.” What they need to do to maximise power, however, requires them to jointly pursue with their rivals strategies for securing plenty. And these strategies, in turn, might only deepen the rivalry between these states as each seeks to simultaneously maximise its power. Given that this is the reality we are confronted with, and are likely to be confronted by for at least the next twenty to thirty years, I want to conclude by addressing the fourth part of the outline I had referred to earlier: what does this mean for India (and for the United States)?<br />
India-US Dilemma<br />
The most important point I want to make in this regard is that we are entering a new and complex era. We are confronted prospectively by two open geopolitical futures. The first is a world where security competition grows, but is embedded in economic relationships that become ever tighter. This leads to an attenuation of the threats, but the threats never quite disappear. There is, however, an alternative world where the globalisation of the last fifty years simply collapses because of some event that taxes the adjustment capacity of the international system, as previous episodes of globalisation did-and we end up essentially in a new phase of more or less traditional geopolitical competition or another Cold War. These are the two universes that confront us: a future where what we see as the years go by will be a deeper variation of what we see in the present, or a breakdown in the current trends and their replacement by new forms of acute competitiveness. The problem from the viewpoint of policymaking in India and the United States is that we do not know which of these two futures will eventually win out. And therefore we confront two specific problems: how do we make sound strategic policy when we do not know which future is going to materialise? And second, how do we avoid the problem of self-fulfilling prophecies, where in an effort to protect our security we may end up undermining our economic growth, or in our effort to protect our prosperity we end up increasing our own geopolitical vulnerability?<br />
This is the dilemma that confronts both India and the United States. And I have some bad news for you here. This dilemma is fundamentally insoluble because the simultaneous maximisation of power and plenty is, strictly speaking, impossible in a globalised world. Therefore, when people say that India should maintain its highest rates of economic growth, and acquire the most effective military capabilities possible, and deepen its relationships with friendly states in the international system, this is sound advice-no question about it. But, the challenge will lie in implementing such advice because, in the current international system, all bilateral relations between the great powers (and I include India in my definition of great powers), are going to be in a state of continuous, reflexive, and omni-directional re-equilibration. This dynamic of perpetual motion will obtain because any improvement in the character of the relationships within a given dyad will provoke competitive effort at improving relations by other states with each member of the original dyad because no one wants to be left out of what is an emerging virtuous circle. Since this process, however, will always produce uncertainties about who is gaining and by how much, and to what ends these gains are oriented, the dynamism of this process will always become hostage to competing pulls and to alternating bouts of integration and dissipation.<br />
In this context, how does one pursue sound policies when the differences between friend and competitor are defined not by type but only by degree? And how does India pursue an optimal strategy when the very forces that increase its prosperity could also contribute towards increasing the dangers that confront it? This question is particularly relevant because interdependence not only increases the wealth and welfare of all partners but also increases their material capability to harm one another. Since there is no solution that allows a country to secure all the benefits that accrue to prosperity while simultaneously minimising all the threats that ensue from growth, India is likely to face continuing tension as it works out its national security policies amidst the growing realities of interdependence over the next few decades. I want to flag, in this regard, three particular sets of tensions that are very important for us to appreciate.<br />
First, India, like the United States, will not have the freedom to pursue simple and clear strategic policies, but only complex and ambiguous ones. This is going to drive many people crazy because policies that are characterised by subtlety will leave no single constituency, domestic or foreign, completely satisfied. These policies will invariably be policies of the “second-best,” where the most a country can do is to “satisfy” not “maximise” its objectives. This reality will apply as much to India as it will to the United States.<br />
Second, India, like the United States, has to perform a delicate juggling act which involves developing deep and collaborative ties with a set of friends that are likely to be of the greatest assistance to itself, while at the same time seeking to pursue some minimal levels of interdependence with its competitors. And while interdependence with its competitors is important, because of the need to give one’s competitors a stake in one’s prosperity, developing stronger ties with one’s friends becomes even more important. This hinges, of course, on a very sophisticated judgment of who has the capacity and who has the intention to levy the greatest harm. And when one’s friends and enemies are arrayed by these criteria, it is likely that they will be distinguished not by distinct differences of category but rather by location across a spectrum. And India, like the United States, will have to make its strategic decisions based on where its partners stand along that spectrum. There is a canon of sound geopolitics that still applies in this context: those who are the most powerful and the furthest away can be one’s best friends. The implications of this proposition ought not to be lost sight of in India.<br />
Third, India, like the United States, will need to develop the organisational and the psychological capacity for diplomatic, political and strategic agility because an increasingly globalised world will confront both countries with the need for perpetual flexibility, reflected in continual, albeit incremental, course corrections. Because neither country is going to have the luxury of pursuing policies that are utterly transparent or completely straightforward-as would be the case if a Cold War was inevitable-both New Delhi and Washington will have to develop the institutional and psychological capacity to move deftly. Whether India can develop these traits and domesticate them remains to be seen. But the next two or three decades-while the global system is still in evolution and while the United States continues to dominate it while remaining a friend-will provide ample opportunities for India to put these capacities in place.<br />
Let me say one other thing. Political agility is highly prized by diplomats. It is absolutely detested by democracies, because democracies want certainty, stability, and consistency of policy so as to meet the test of public legitimisation. And both India and the United States thus have a common challenge, of developing the capacity for strategic agility, the ability to move quickly and responsively to changing interests, despite the fact that there will be a wide variety of public constituencies constantly calling the political leadership in both countries to the bar to explain the rationale for these “constant shifts of policy.”<br />
Let me end by putting my personal prejudices on the table as I promised I would at the beginning of this presentation. I did not want to make this lecture yet another invocation for the necessity of a strong US-India relationship because I have done that many times in the past. What I hoped to do was to describe the character of the international environment in such a way that it would leave you with no choice but to draw the conclusion that a tight US-India relationship is very much in both our interests. I hope I have succeeded in that purpose.<br />
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</div>Bhaskarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07427841472271223849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3441078016198956465.post-16267034806663462562011-07-22T21:23:00.000-07:002011-07-22T21:23:51.590-07:00Vietnam and its geostrategic location...!!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
Some researchers liken China to a rooster, with Korea as its beak and Vietnam its leg. The analogy, while highlighting the strategic importance of Vietnam toward China’s well-being, especially in terms of security, also implies that Vietnam has long been living with the weight of China on its shoulder. The problem is that Vietnam can’t do much about it, even if it wants to.<br />
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Just like Cuba to the United States or Georgia to Russia, Vietnam is, in Prof. Carlyle Thayer’s words, condemned to a ‘tyranny of geography,’ whereby it has no choice but to learn to share its destiny with neighbouring China through every twist and turn of its history.<br />
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In fact, a stronger China has long been the most serious threat to Vietnam’s security. Vietnam came under Chinese suzerainty for almost a thousand years until 938 A.D. Between then and the French colonization of Vietnam in the latter half of the 19th century, China invaded and occupied Vietnam a couple of times. But the most recent testimony in support of the idea that China is a major source of insecurity has been the brief yet bloody war that China waged along Vietnam’s northern border in 1979, and the naval clash initiated by China in the South China Sea in March 1988.<br />
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The threat posed by China toward Vietnam comes not only from geographical proximity, but also the asymmetry of size and power between the two countries. China is, for example, 29 times larger than Vietnam, while Vietnam’s population, despite being the 14th biggest in the world, is roughly equivalent to that of a mid-sized Chinese province.<br />
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Vietnam’s impressive economic performance since the late 1980s hasn’t allowed it to close the gap in strength. On the contrary, with China’s modernization over the last three decades, the power gap between the two countries is getting ever wider. For example, according to World Bank data, between 1985 and 2009, China’s GDP in current US dollars expanded by more than 16 times, from $307 billion to $4.985 trillion. Over the same period, however, Vietnam’s GDP increased by only 7 times, from $16 billion in 1985 to $97 billion in 2009.<br />
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Thanks to its economic development, China’s military might has also been significantly boosted, posing an even more formidable threat to Vietnam’s security. According to China’s official statements, its military budget for 2011 is $91.5 billion, while Vietnam is said to have allocated only $2.6 billion (about 2.5 percent of its GDP). What’s particularly worrying for Vietnam is that China’s expanded military expense is concentrated on its air force and navy, strengthening China’s capacity to project power into the South China Sea, where China and Vietnam have competing claims.<br />
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To make things worse, Vietnam’s transformation toward an open market economy adds another aspect to this tyranny of geography: increased economic vulnerability.<br />
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Since Vietnam resumed trade with China in the late 1980s, its domestic production has long been threatened by Chinese goods, which flood the country through both formal trade and smuggling. In the early 1990s, for example, Chinese consumer goods smuggled into Vietnam were so overwhelming and detrimental to domestic production that the Vietnamese government had to impose a ban on 17 categories of goods imported from China. In recent years, despite the enhanced competiveness of Vietnamese products and the perceived poor quality of Chinese ones, smuggling from China is still rampant. This not only exerts a negative impact on Vietnamese domestic production, but also puts Vietnamese consumers at risk, especially when many goods smuggled from China are toxic and harmful to people’s health.<br />
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Another vulnerability is Vietnam’s perennial trade deficit with China, which amounted to $5.4 billion out of the country’s total trade deficit of $7.5 billion in the first half of 2011. Moreover, China has emerged as Vietnam’s largest source of imports, accounting for almost a quarter of its import turnover in 2010. Vietnam is heavily dependent on China for input materials for some of its major export industries, such as footwear, garments, textiles or furniture. Meanwhile, Vietnam’s exports to China are just a minuscule portion of China’s total imports. As a result, should China decide to discontinue trade with Vietnam for some reason, the damage to Vietnam’s economy would be immense.<br />
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Another concern raised in Vietnam recently has been the fact that Chinese companies have won up to 90 percent of EPC (Engineering/Procurement/Construction) contracts for Vietnam’s major industrial projects, especially those of coal-fired power plants. Chinese contractors are favoured as they offer cheap technology and promise to help arrange financial funding from Chinese banks. Cheap as it seems, though, Vietnam in fact pays dearly for these contracts.<br />
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<br />
First, cheap technology brings pollution. Some reports have suggested that some technologies offered by Chinese companies have been discharged or banned by China since 2005. Second, Chinese contractors’ technical capabilities are limited, causing projects to be delayed or, even when the projects are completed on time, leaving project owners with expensive maintenance bills. Third, as Chinese contractors refuse to use locally available products and instead import everything from China, including basics such as washers, Vietnam’s trade deficit with China soars. Chinese contractors even illegally bring in Chinese labourers at the expense of Vietnamese workers, something that has prompted public outrage in Vietnam.<br />
<br />
Another recently exposed economic vulnerability for Vietnam vis-à-vis China is related to Chinese merchants buying massive quantities of Vietnamese agricultural products, ranging from lychee and cassava to aquaculture products and pork. This has caused food prices to surge in Vietnam, and despite the government’s desperate efforts to curb inflation, it climbed to 20.8 percent in June.<br />
<br />
These economic vulnerabilities present Vietnam with another perceived threat in addition to the more visible military one. Should China decide to wage an ‘economic war,’ Vietnam would suffer disastrously.<br />
<br />
Yet Vietnam seems to have few options for dealing with the economic vulnerabilities it faces over China. On the one hand, any possible reaction will likely be constrained by the fact that Vietnam now has to observe international trade and investment rules, such as those set down by the World Trade Organization, to which Vietnam became a member in early 2007. But Vietnam would anyway have to be wary about massive retaliation should it move to counter China.<br />
<br />
Of course there is a possible flipside. Vietnam hopes that growing, though asymmetrical, economic interdependence will help to reduce the possibility of China taking militarily aggressive action against Vietnam, especially in the South China Sea. And, although there are drawbacks to depending on China, Vietnamese businesses still find it much cheaper and more convenient to work with its looming neighbour than with other comparable partners.<br />
<br />
As a result, Vietnam is still keen to do business with China, and will continue to try to reap the most it can from its northern neighbour’s booming economy. But as an old Vietnamese saying goes, honey does kill flies. It’s therefore essential that Vietnam stay fully aware of the potential threat, and work on possible strategies to at least neutralize the economic aspects of the tyranny of geography that the country is increasingly suffering from.<br />
</div>Bhaskarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07427841472271223849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3441078016198956465.post-34610208217530430712011-07-22T07:15:00.000-07:002011-07-22T07:15:26.439-07:00Contemporary South Asia and East Asia:China encircles India subcontinent<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
While US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been visiting India this week, US ties with Pakistan have taken a new, downward twist with the decision by the US Justice Department to charge two men with being in the pay of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence.<br />
<br />
The last few months have been tumultuous for US-Pakistan relations, with the recent halting of $800 million* in military aid marking a new low. And, as Pakistan looks for support elsewhere, it seems inevitable that China will be waiting in the wings to capitalise on the spat. All this raises the question of how Clinton’s hosts will cope with the China-Pakistan alliance at a time when Nepal, Burma, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are all already being slowly drawn into China’s orbit.<br />
<br />
But back to the US decision for a moment – was it a strategic mistake to push Pakistan toward China with the aid suspension announcement? From a domestic political perspective, with the United States embroiled in a partisan budget battle, the Obama administration may have had little choice – US taxpayers are understandably reluctant to keep sending vast sums of money to a government that has proved ineffective at best, and duplicitous at worst. That Osama bin Laden was able to take refuge for so long in Pakistani territory was perhaps the final straw. Still, the rank and file Pakistani military will no doubt see the suspension of aid as an affront at a time when they are fighting bloody battles in Waziristan as part of what many of them perceive as ‘America’s War.’<br />
<br />
<br />
China, without the same domestic pressures (or economic constraints, one might add) that the United States faces at the moment, is able to offer a shoulder for Pakistan to cry on. As the Pakistani prime minister recently noted, China is an 'all-weather friend' – he didn’t add ‘not like those fickle Americans,’ but that was clearly the implication.<br />
<br />
Of course the current tensions between the United States and Pakistan aren’t what first sparked Pakistan into drawing nearer to China. As The Financial Times noted in a fascinating piece recently, there have been numerous ongoing efforts by China to deepen its relationship with Pakistan militarily and politically: dam construction on sensitive river systems, Chinese construction of the Arabian Sea port at Gwadar, increased sales of military hardware to Pakistan and (perhaps most sensitive for India) claims by the Indian military that Chinese troops are stationed along the Kashmiri Line of Control.<br />
<br />
All of this has significant implications for the future of US-Pakistan relations, and a Pakistan less reliant on the United States must make India extremely nervous. China now stands as a clear rival to Indian influence in Nepal, where it has built major cross-border highways from Tibet, and is in the process of extending its rail network to Kathmandu. The same is true of Bangladesh, where China is assisting in the development of a deep-sea port at Chittagong. In Sri Lanka, that other Indian backyard, China is now the country’s largest aid donor, and is helping to build a major new port terminal at Hambantota. And, as the West has put pressure on India to be firmer with the military junta in Burma, China has enjoyed free rein there.<br />
<br />
India may be holding the US ever-closer, but it can’t be pleasant to watch itself slowly, but surely, encircled. And while the United States may seek to improve its relations with India, it faces its own economic and military limitations on the extent to which it can influence events in South Asia.<br />
<br />
India now accounts for 9 percent of global arms purchases, and has increased its defence budget by around 11 per cent year on year. It’s a trend that a wary Delhi is likely to continue.<br />
<br />
*Corrected from $800 billion.<br />
</div>Bhaskarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07427841472271223849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3441078016198956465.post-18108620621958566182011-07-22T06:52:00.000-07:002011-07-22T06:52:33.440-07:00South Asia and NUclear War.....!!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"></span><br />
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has just concluded a visit to China on a trip that attracted particular attention because of Beijing’s contentious plan to sell two nuclear reactors to Pakistan.</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">There’s nothing new about Zardari visiting China—in fact he’s been a regular guest there since taking office, having travelled to Beijing five times since September 2008. The frequency of the visits (on average about once every about three months) is likely largely aimed at reassuring Chinese policymakers who preferred dealing with his authoritarian predecessor, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. But although ostensibly, the latest trip was over whether China will sell the two additional nuclear reactors to Pakistan, the meeting also raises deeper—and in many ways more troubling—questions about the dynamics of Asia’s nuclear proliferation.</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">China is eager to sell Pakistan additional reactors, having already constructed one 325-Megawatt nuclear power reactor at Chasma (sometimes Chashma), in Pakistan’s Punjab Province, while construction on another should be completed in 2011 or 2012. During a visit by Zardari to Beijing in March 2009, Chinese officials reportedly reaffirmed their commitment to provide two more reactors; this May, two Chinese companies signed a contract to join in construction.</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Chinese government has yet to announce a formal decision to proceed with the transaction. But for several years now, its representatives and Chinese nuclear security experts have claimed that they had agreed to build the two reactors before China joined the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in 2004, making the sale exempt from NSG rules excluding the sale of nuclear technologies to countries like Pakistan that haven’t signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. (They’ve offered other public defences of the sale, including that Pakistanis desperately need more electricity).</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Such protestations haven’t stopped the US, UK and Indian governments from objecting to the sale and disputing Chinese assertions that ‘grandfathering’ exempts any nuclear deals agreed to before a country enters the NSG. But their efforts at pressing Chinese representatives attending the annual NSG plenary meeting in Christchurch late last month didn’t bear any fruit.</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">US State Department Spokesman Philip Crowley, speaking last month, indicated that the United States was potentially troubled by the Chinese plan and said it was ‘looking for more information’ from China on what it’s potentially proposing, and stating the deal would need the agreement of the NSG.</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">But such concerns have failed to move China, with Chinese officials perhaps calculating that Washington and others ultimately won’t try to expel China from the NSG or retaliate in other ways if the sale occurs because they need Beijing’s assistance on other nuclear non-proliferation issues, including Iran and North Korea.</div></div>Bhaskarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07427841472271223849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3441078016198956465.post-7733478537101736702011-07-22T06:15:00.000-07:002011-07-22T06:59:52.518-07:00South Asia :New dimensions..!!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 16px;"></span><br />
<div class="snippet" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">Terrorism, religious extremism and nuclear proliferation have given South Asia a depressing image. But there’s growing room for optimism.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">When outsiders think about South Asia, they typically picture a region that’s wracked by violent religious extremism, a place where groups like the Taliban, al-Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba are active and deadly. Then there’s the image of clandestine nuclear proliferation, personified by A.Q. Khan and his network. And of course there’s the enduring hostility between India and Pakistan. Despite occasional peace initiatives, the region’s nuclear-armed rivals find themselves frequently at loggerheads, not least because of concerns in India that terror attacks launched there have the support or encouragement of Pakistan.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">However, while this view of South Asia is still too often reality, there are also some encouraging signs of change, a shift being led by India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and the Maldives.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">Sri Lanka has made rapid progress since the end of the Tamil insurgency. It has signed a free trade agreement with India, and Indo-Sri Lankan bilateral trade is booming. Indian investment firms and multinationals, meanwhile, have played a crucial role in Sri Lanka’s economic growth. It’s true that although the civil war is over, Tamil political demands haven’t yet been resolved. Still, the country’s strong economic performance is cause for genuine hope.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">Even more encouraging for the region, though, has been the progress in relations between India and Bangladesh. Bangladesh had been threatening to emerge as a major trouble spot during the rule of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led regime, which included Islamist parties bent upon boosting religious extremism in the country. Indeed, the sudden upsurge in extremism had even led some to speculate that Bangladesh could become the next Afghanistan.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">But successive Bangladeshi governments have chosen not to tread this path. First, the caretaker government led by Fakharuddin Ahmed moved to try to rein in extremism. Then, Sheikh Hasina and her administration, after being ushered into office with an overwhelming majority, took up the fight against extremism with vigour. For example, her government established a war crimes trial for parties like Jamaat-e-Islami, which committed atrocities against the local population during the Liberation War of Bangladesh. It also took down several cells of Pakistani terror groups operating in Bangladesh. In addition, action was taken against the local Islamist group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh. As a result of the clampdown on anti-India terror groups, India-Bangladesh relations improved significantly, especially after Bangladesh handed over several insurgent group leaders to India who had been hiding in Bangladesh and waging an insurgency in India’s north-east.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">Such cooperation hasn’t gone unnoticed in India, and bilateral ties reached a new high when Hasina visited New Delhi in January 2010. Since then, both sides have taken steps to improve ties further, and they are working to resolve several outstanding issues, such as disputes over land boundaries, sharing of common river waters and addressing the trade deficit, which is currently unfavourable to Bangladesh.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">Importantly, there has also been some understanding reached on the issue of transit. India has long been demanding transit through Bangladesh to its landlocked north-east, something it had actually had until 1965. Bangladeshi regimes since then have denied India this right, but Bangladesh now plans to involve Bhutan and Nepal in the transit issue. For example, it has allowed both Nepal and Bhutan, which are landlocked, to use Chittagong and Mongla Port. Bhutanese vehicles will use Indian territory to reach Bangladesh, and an agreement to this effect was signed during Indian Foreign Minister S. M. Krishna’s recent visit to Bangladesh. While there, he also signed an agreement on the protection of Indian investments in Bangladesh. Indian multi-nationals plan to invest $3.5 billion in Bangladesh in the near future, which is likely to further boost Bangladesh’s economic growth. Further, unilateral, trade concessions are also likely when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visits Bangladesh later this year.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">All this mark a new beginning for a significant part of South Asia. Pakistan and Afghanistan may still continue to be embroiled in religious and ethnic conflict, but the rest of the region appears keen and ready to move beyond such strife by prioritising economic growth and regional integration. Perhaps sometime soon, this characteristic of regional cooperation can also become a model for those parts of South Asia where peace and stability have for too long proven elusive</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><b>.</b></span></span></div></div>Bhaskarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07427841472271223849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3441078016198956465.post-91574663173094498832011-07-20T03:22:00.000-07:002011-07-20T03:22:35.704-07:00India and Africa's affairs....!!Introduction<br />
<br />
India and Africa have a relationship that can be traced back to ancient times.<br />
Contacts and trade between the people of the eastern seaboard of Africa and the<br />
western seaboard of India have been going on for centuries. However, the relationship<br />
has swung from a period of great emotional and political solidarity in the 1950s and<br />
1960s to selective engagement in the 1970s and 1980s. In the post-Cold War era in<br />
Africa there is a growing perception that it was marginalised, both politically and<br />
economically. Politically, Africans felt relieved that Super Power domination in the<br />
continent had ended. On the other hand there is a feeling that they are of little strategic<br />
importance to the major powers. Economically Africa is of little importance to the<br />
major players in the world economy—the Western economies, the multinational<br />
corporations and the banking institutions.This perception was painted mainly by<br />
Afro pessimists, who felt “if Africa is pushed off the world’s surface, none or only<br />
few would miss it.”<br />
<br />
It was pushed by hard facts that around 300 million Africans live on US $ 0.65 or less per day, more<br />
than 250 of every 1,000 children die before the age of five and in more than 20<br />
countries one in ten adults has HIV/AIDS.Nevertheless, on the positive side, the continent has witnessed a trend towards democratisation that is visible in multi-party elections across the continent and the<br />
emergence of a democratic South Africa. It is also visible in the launch of the New<br />
Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) through the joint efforts of South<br />
Africa and Senegal. This action plan promises to remove the tag of the ‘Hopeless<br />
Continent’.<br />
<br />
Against this backdrop the paper examines India’s Africa policy in the post-Cold<br />
War era. The cornerstone of India’s Africa policy in the past has been the support for<br />
the struggles against colonialism and racialism in Africa. The emergence of a<br />
democratic South Africa has brought an end to the apartheid struggle in Africa. In<br />
this changed situation what is the focus of India’s Africa policy? This is the main<br />
question that will be addressed in this paper. The term ‘Africa’ refers to the countries<br />
of Sub-Saharan Africa. Since there are close to fifty countries in Africa, an analysis<br />
of bilateral relations is not undertaken.<br />
<br />
<b>Historical Background</b><br />
<br />
Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister laid the foundation for India’s<br />
Africa policy. The importance of Africa, he felt, arose from the fact that “though<br />
separated by the Indian Ocean from us, it is in a sense our next door neighbour.”<br />
<br />
There were two major strands of his policy towards Africa. The first was the support<br />
for the struggle against colonisation and racial discrimination in South Africa. On<br />
these issues India was very active at the United Nations. The second was related to<br />
the people of Indian origin settled in Africa. He advised the Indians to identify<br />
themselves with the local community, adopt a more positive attitude towards the<br />
political aspirations of the people of their adopted countries. In economic matters, he<br />
advised them not to seek any special privileges at the cost of equal opportunities for<br />
the Africans.<br />
<br />
The Africans acknowledged both Nehru’s and Mahatma Gandhi’s<br />
support for the African struggle. Mazrui, says that Gandhi’s message of non-violence<br />
and passive resistance inspired many black leaders in Africa including Kwame<br />
Nkrumah of Ghana, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania.<br />
Similarly, as the Cold War began, Nehru’s principle of non-alignment appealed to<br />
the Africans.<br />
<br />
However, towards the end of Nehru’s tenure, India’s Africa relation dipped to a<br />
low. Few African nations gave diplomatic support to India bilaterally or at multilateral<br />
fora like the Non-aligned Movement (NAM).<br />
<br />
This was due to a number of factors.<br />
<br />
India’s defeat in the Sino-Indian war in 1962 caused a setback to the image of India<br />
as a leader. Second, India’s hesitation in fixing a date for the end of colonialism (on<br />
the logic that it was unrealistic) in Africa at the Belgrade NAM Summit in 1961<br />
made it look soft towards the colonial powers. Third, its insistence on African liberation<br />
movements to adopt peaceful means as opposed to China’s overt gestures towards<br />
arms assistance was not appreciated. Fourth, immediately after the 1962 war, India<br />
was busy countering China at every multilateral forum.<br />
<br />
However, by the mid-1960s India undertook a serious reassessment of its Africa<br />
policy and adopted some fresh initiatives. Indira Gandhi’s African Safari in 1964<br />
was aimed at measuring the depth of African solidarity with India. Subsequently,<br />
India stopped treating African countries as a bloc and became selective in its friendship.<br />
It also launched a policy of economic diplomacy. This was flagged off by the launch<br />
of the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) Programme in 1964,<br />
primarily to counter China’s aid diplomacy. By the 1970s, India’s stature had risen<br />
in African eyes; the Indo-Soviet Treaty (1971), the 1971 war, the Green Revolution,<br />
and the Peaceful Nuclear Explosion (PNE) in 1974 probably contributed towards<br />
this change. Emphasis on economic diplomacy increased in the early 1970s in tandem<br />
with the realisation among developing countries in Asia and Africa of the need for<br />
economic cooperation among themselves. Adoption of the Lagos Plan of Action by<br />
the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1980 underlined the importance given<br />
by the Africans to regional and South-South cooperation. The impact of these<br />
initiatives was an increase in India’s trade with Africa, with the balance of trade<br />
favouring India.<br />
<br />
In the 1970s and 1980s India continued to support liberation struggles in Africa.<br />
It worked closely with the Africans in the fight against apartheid in South Africa and<br />
Namibia; not just at the UN but also at other multilateral fora such as NAM, and the<br />
Commonwealth. India had accorded diplomatic status to the African National<br />
Congress (ANC) in 1967 and SWAPO (South West African People’s Organisation)<br />
in 1985.<br />
<br />
Apart from diplomatic support, India also provided financial and material<br />
aid to the liberation struggles in Africa, not directly but through multilateral institutions<br />
like the OAU, The UN Fund for Namibia, UN Educational and Training Programme<br />
for South Africa and finally through the Action for Resisting Invasion, Colonialism<br />
and Apartheid (AFRICA) Fund. The AFRICA Fund was established by NAM under<br />
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s leadership in 1986 to assist frontline states and<br />
liberation movements in South Africa and Namibia. According to one estimate India<br />
provided Rs 36 million by 1977-78 while India’s initial contribution to the AFRICA<br />
Fund was Rs 500 million which included private and individual contributions of Rs<br />
25 million.<br />
<br />
As far as India’s policy towards people of Indian origin (PIO) is concerned,<br />
Mrs. Indira Gandhi initially advanced a policy of engagement. During her African<br />
Safari she called them Ambassadors of India. The African states resented the change<br />
<br />
in India’s policy towards the PIOs. When Kenya and Uganda launched the policy of<br />
Africanisation and asked Indians to leave the country, Government of India’s sympathy<br />
and concern towards the PIOs was resented.<br />
<br />
These developments had an impact atthree levels. First, is realisation of the fact that the Indian government’s support to the African liberation movements was not reciprocated by the Africans in giving<br />
protection to the people of Indian origin.<br />
<br />
Second, the Government of India revertedback to the policy of disengagement with the PIOs. Subsequent governments till thelate 1990s continued this policy. Third, the Government of India’s hesitation in<br />
welcoming the expelled Indians back into its fold, in turn, made them realise the<br />
limits of the policy towards them and the fact that they had been left to their own fate<br />
in their adopted countries.<br />
<br />
<br />
Recent Policy:<br />
<br />
In the post-Cold War era, granted that Indians and Africans were allies in the<br />
struggle against colonialism and apartheid, both now need to march together to the<br />
tune of geo-economics. Based on historic friendship, we can still be partners in the<br />
struggle against under-development, poverty and other common problems.<br />
India’s Africa policy in the post-Cold War era, it appears, is composed of five<br />
mantras:<br />
• Promoting economic cooperation<br />
• Engaging the PIOs<br />
• Preventing and combating terrorism<br />
• Preserving peace<br />
• Assisting the African defence forces<br />
These are discussed below.<br />
Promoting Economic Cooperation<br />
In the early 1990s the government stressed that, “ ... in the future, new relationships<br />
based on concrete economic, technological and educational cooperation will assume<br />
enhanced significance.”<br />
<br />
It needs to be pointed out though that India’s objectives<br />
with regard to this policy have remained the same over the years, i.e., “creation and<br />
consolidation of strong economic bonds among countries of the South and the use of<br />
India’s relative economic strength for development of these countries on mutually<br />
beneficial basis.”<br />
<br />
India engaged Africa economically :<br />
<br />
<br />
Technical Assistance<br />
<br />
India has extended technical assistance to African countries under the Indian<br />
Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) programme and the Special<br />
Commonwealth Africa Assistance Plan (SCAAP). This involves the following<br />
aspects: -<br />
• Training (civil and military)<br />
• Projects and project-related assistance such as supply of equipment,<br />
consultancy services and feasibility studies<br />
• Deputation of experts<br />
• Study visits of senior officials/decision makers to India.<br />
The programme covers various fields.<br />
<br />
The fastest growing segment of ITEC is consultancy and project assistance. This involves preparation of feasibility studies,project reports, setting up pilot projects and research centres in the agricultural sector,<br />
etc. A number of African countries have received assistance in this area.<br />
Over the past four decades, India has provided more than US $2 billion in technical<br />
assistance to the countries of the South and most of it has gone to Africa.<br />
<br />
In the 1990s, a number of projects were initiated with Indian help. An Entrepreneurial<br />
Training and Demonstration Centre (ETDC) costing US $ 4.49 million has been<br />
constructed in Dakar (Senegal) by Hindustan Machine Tools (HMT) and handed<br />
over in June 2000.<br />
<br />
In Namibia, India has assisted in setting up a Plastic Technology<br />
Demonstration Centre.<br />
<br />
In 1994, the government launched a programme for<br />
cooperation with select African countries for the development of small-scale industries<br />
(SSI). These countries were Nigeria, Senegal, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya,<br />
Ghana and Ethiopia. The government offered finance for implementation of these<br />
programmes under ITEC. A small-scale industry development project is also under<br />
execution in Zimbabwe. An important training-cum-demonstration project entitled<br />
Indian Farmers Project is to be set up in Burkina Faso.<br />
<br />
In Senegal, Indian officials have been involved in providing feasibility studies for a dairy development project<br />
and an incense stick project.<br />
<br />
Feasibility studies for establishment of a poultry vaccine<br />
laboratory in Mali and for improvements in the education system in South Africa<br />
were also conducted.<br />
<br />
Since 1964, India has also provided civil training to over 14,500 trainees from<br />
various countries, mainly from Africa, under the ITEC programme.The countries<br />
were Nigeria, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe and South<br />
Africa<br />
<br />
<br />
Trade<br />
<br />
In the last decade a number of initiatives were launched to promote trade with<br />
Africa. Apart from the government, the private sector also pitched in to explore the<br />
African markets.<br />
From the mid-1990s, organisations like the Confederation of Indian Industries<br />
(CII), The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (ASSOCHAM), the<br />
Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the Federation<br />
of Indian Exporters’ Organisation (FIEO) identified Africa as a thrust area and<br />
launched programmes to promote economic and business cooperation. This included<br />
exchange of information, conducting one-to-one business meetings and organising<br />
activities like ‘Made in India’ shows across Africa. These chambers have also entered<br />
into joint business agreements with Mauritius, Kenya, Zambia, Uganda, Zimbabwe<br />
Nigeria, South Africa and Ethiopia.<br />
<br />
The Government Initiatives are:<br />
<br />
• US $6 million EXIM line of Credit to PTA countries: In September 1992,<br />
the EXIM Bank signed an agreement with the Preferential Trade Area (PTA)<br />
Bank to extend an US $ 6 million line of credit to members of the PTA only<br />
for import of capital goods from India. The PTA covered 21 countries from<br />
Eastern and Southern Africa.<br />
<br />
In 1994 the PTA was replaced with the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA).<br />
<br />
• Engaging West African Countries: In an effort to strengthen political and<br />
economic ties with West African countries, the then Prime Minister, P.V.<br />
Narasimha Rao visited Burkina Faso and Ghana in November 1995.<br />
• R e v o l v i n g F u n d f o r A f r i c a : I n 1 9 9 6 , P r i m e M i n i s t e r, H . D .<br />
Deve Gowda announced at the G-15 Summit in Harare the creation of a<br />
revolving fund of Rs. 100 crores towards regional cooperation with Africa.<br />
<br />
• MoU with SADC: A Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation between<br />
India and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) was signed<br />
in October 1997 which envisaged both government and private sector<br />
cooperation in the region, similar to the one followed by COMESA and the<br />
Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).<br />
• Meeting of HoMs/Commercial Representatives: Meeting of Heads of<br />
Missions (HoMs) / commercial representatives of Indian missions in Eastern<br />
and Southern Africa under the Chairmanship of the Minister of State for<br />
Commerce Industry was held in June 2000. A similar meeting was convened<br />
in October 2000 in West Africa<br />
<br />
<br />
• Focus Africa: The Focus Africa programme was launched as part of the<br />
EXIM Policy 2002-2003. Encouraged by the Focus initative in Latin<br />
America, the government launched a Focus Africa initiative. Selected Indian<br />
missions will provide business promotion services to visiting Indian exporters/<br />
businessmen at a nominal fee by setting up business centres. The first phase<br />
of Focus Africa will focus on Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Mauritius,<br />
Ethiopia, Tanzania and Ghana. Firms exporting to these markets will be<br />
given ‘Export House’ status subject to a mininum export of Rs 5 crore<br />
<br />
<br />
Overall, the trade between India and Sub-Saharan Africa has grown from US$<br />
893 million in 1991-92 to US$ 3,390 million in 2000-2001, registering as increase<br />
of more than 280 per cent in 9 years<br />
<br />
<br />
Mahatma Gandhi had said, “The commerce between India and Africa will be of<br />
ideas and services, not of manufactured goods against raw materials after the fashion<br />
of western exploiters.”<br />
<br />
But the laws of the marketplace appear to be inexorable!<br />
Most of our imports from Africa consist of minerals, petroleum products and raw<br />
materials, while our exports are textiles, pharmaceuticals, engineering goods, etc.<br />
(See Fig. 2) The composition of Africa’s trade has caused some anxiety among some<br />
Africans too. Adebayo Adedji, former Executive Secretary of the Economic<br />
<br />
<br />
Commission of Africa (ECA) states that, “The traditional scenario that obtained in<br />
our trade with the developed world, whereby our country supplies the former with<br />
commodities and imports there from manufactured products including capital goods,<br />
is being reproduced, deliberately or not, in our intra-third world trade … I feel…such<br />
a situation is completely unacceptable to us.<br />
<br />
This is a reality that the Africans have to face and the composition of trade would be changed only with greater level<br />
of economic development in these countries.<br />
<br />
<br />
Future of Exports<br />
<br />
Despite the number of initiatives launched by the Indian government, Indian<br />
exports are still a miniscule part of total African imports . The Indian<br />
Commerce Minister feels that Indian exports to Africa are sub-optimal. The problems<br />
of trading with Africa are wellknown—large payments to Indian exporters being<br />
stuck due to foreign exchange crunch; language problem; lack of awareness about<br />
the African potential, ongoing conflicts; and lack of direct shipping lines to Africa.<br />
In today’s market-driven economics, the government’s role is limited; it can act as a<br />
facilitator alone. The competition in trading with Africa is indeed hotting up.<br />
<br />
Advent of AGOA<br />
<br />
The good news is that Indian textile exporters need to take advantage of the<br />
opportunity to export goods to the US without restrictions, through the African Growth<br />
and Opportunities Act (AGOA), signed in 2000. Thirty-five countries in Africa are<br />
eligible for AGOA, but only 17 have qualified for exporting to the US through<br />
AGOA.Countries like China and Malaysia have got excited with AGOA and plan to<br />
increase investments in Africa. Malaysia has already invested in a textile unit in<br />
South Africa in 2002.<br />
Pharma Success<br />
In April 2001, the South African government won the case against multinationals<br />
to import generic AIDS drugs.<br />
<br />
This landmark judgement has opened the gates for<br />
pharmaceutical exports from India of generic AIDS drugs to Africa. Around 20<br />
million people living in Africa are infected with the AIDS virus.<br />
<br />
These anti-retroviral drugs, or ARVs, could be supplied by the Indian companies at a fraction of the cost<br />
of Western drugs. Nigeria was the first country to import these from Cipla and<br />
Ranbaxy. India has seven pharmaceutical companies manufacturing ARVs. A fourday Africa-India Health Summit organised by the Government of India brought<br />
together 16 African countries.<br />
Leading pharma companies showcased their<br />
capabilities and products. At the end of the Summit the ground was laid for joint<br />
ventures in African countries. South Africa and Kenya have signed agreements for<br />
joint ventures with Indian firms.<br />
<br />
Cashing the Information Boom:<br />
<br />
India has made a name in Information Technology and there is good scope for IT<br />
exports to Africa. Only half a million Africans have access to the Internet, and therefore<br />
there is a pressing need to narrow the ‘digital divide’.<br />
<br />
The Economic Commission of Africa (ECA) has launched an initiative to accelerate the adoption of information<br />
systems in Africa. There is tremendous scope for joint ventures with India in this<br />
field.<br />
<br />
NEPAD<br />
This new initiative undertakes to promote and protect democracy and human<br />
rights in exchange for sustained levels of aid, investment and economic engagement<br />
with the developed world. A summit with the investors was organised in<br />
Dakar in April 2002. Subsequently, the Africans have engaged the G8 countries, the<br />
European Union and India. The G8 countries have pledged support to NEPAD and<br />
launched an African Action Plan at the G8 Summit in June 2002.<br />
<br />
Among the G8 countries, Japan has been actively supporting the cause of African development. In<br />
1993 the first Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD)<br />
was held. This was followed by TICAD II in 1998 while TICAD III is scheduled to<br />
be held in September 2003.<br />
<br />
African development issues are on the agenda of the<br />
second EU-Africa Summit to be held sometime in the near future.<br />
The Indian government also appears to consider NEPAD as a viable action plan,<br />
and a conference was organised in July 2002 with 30 representatives from industry and the<br />
finance sector of a number of African countries.<br />
<br />
Engaging the PIOs<br />
The government of India has tried to engage people of Indian origin (PIO) in the<br />
post-Cold War era. While the Congress government’s approach was cautious, the<br />
BJP government has turned the policy around. The PIOs are now the focus of the<br />
government’s foreign policy initiatives in different regions of the world. It organised<br />
the first-ever meet of parliamentarians of Indian origin at New Delhi in December<br />
1998.<br />
<br />
It also offered a PIO Card. However, at US$ 1,000 there were very few<br />
takers. The Global Organisation for People of Indian Origin (GOPIO) called for a<br />
reduction to US$ 250.<br />
In September 2000, the government set up a high-level committee on the Indian<br />
diaspora as a major initiative.<br />
The mandate of the committee was to make a<br />
comprehensive study of the global Indian diaspora and to recommend measures for<br />
a constructive relationship. The report was submitted on January 8, 2002. Some of<br />
the prominent recommendations are:<br />
• Offer of Dual citizenship to PIO/NRIs living in select countries (United<br />
States, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Western<br />
Europe, Singapore) under the rubric of the Citizenship Act<br />
• Fee reduction in PIO Card scheme<br />
• Celebration of ‘Pravasi Bhartiya Divas’ on January 9 (the day Mahatma<br />
Gandhi returned from South Africa) every year<br />
• Setting up of a ‘single window’ organisation, a Pravasi Bhartiya Bhawan, to<br />
deal with the PIO/NRI issues.<br />
The government has accepted most of these recommendations. In keeping with<br />
the suggestions, the government organised three-day long celebrations commemorating<br />
the Pravasi Bhartiya Divas in January 2003. A number of conferences were held<br />
involving professionals, intellectuals, businessmen and parliamentarians of Indian<br />
origin.<br />
<br />
The recommendations of the high-level committee has led to a debate and one<br />
view is that they seem to benefit the NRI/PIOs in Europe and America more than<br />
<br />
those in Africa. Organisations like GOPIO have welcomed the dual citizenship move.<br />
In fact, they have been demanding it for a long time.<br />
<br />
It seems to have created three categories of PIO’s—one, people who live either<br />
in Europe or North America whocan claim dual citizenship; two, those who have<br />
Indian nationality only (e.g., thosein the Gulf); and three, people who only have<br />
the citizenship of the countries of residence (e.g. Africa and the Caribbean).<br />
It has led to disappointment amongstpeople of Indian origin in Africa who <br />
feel the Government of India has been discriminatory.<br />
<br />
Some argue that PIOs in Eastern Africa may not be interested in<br />
dual citizenship.<br />
<br />
In the past the people of Indian origin in East Africa suffered due<br />
to the fluctuating policies of the Government of India. After independence, these<br />
PIOs had assumed that the Government of India would come to their rescue when<br />
they were in trouble. However, India overlooked them in its bid to cultivate relations<br />
with the Africans. Indeed, very few Indians took up the Indian government’s offer of<br />
resettlement in India when they were asked to leave Uganda and Kenya.<br />
Preventing and Combating Terrorism<br />
The September 11 terrorist attacks demonstrated the destructive power of<br />
terrorists. India strongly condemned these attacks as did the African countries. Africa<br />
came to the limelight when the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were attacked<br />
in August 1998. Terrorism struck Africa again in November 2002 when a terrorist<br />
bomb exploded at a hotel complex in the coastal town of Mombassa.<br />
<br />
About twelve people lost their lives in the attack. Almost simultaneously, a chartered plane of<br />
Israel’s Arkia Airlines narrowly missed a missile attack while taking off from<br />
Mombassa Airport.<br />
<br />
It is estimated that there are more than a dozen countries in Africa, where terrorist<br />
groups (mainly as part of the Al Qaida network) have established a strong presence.<br />
<br />
Sudan and Somalia figure prominently in that list. Sudan was declared a rogue state<br />
by the US because it provided a safe haven to a number of terrorist organisations,<br />
including the Al Qaida. Osama bin Laden was quite active in Sudan from 1991-96.<br />
Nevertheless, the Sudanese and the Somalian governments joined other African<br />
countries in condemning the terrorist attacks against the US. About 25 Africans<br />
from 13 different African countries had lost their lives in these attacks.<br />
In the war against terrorism, most of the African countries have pledged nonmilitary support to the United States government. Kenya and Djibouti offered access<br />
to sea and airport facilities to the US military, though in Kenya the opposition parties<br />
asked the government to give an explanation on this issue in the parliament.<br />
<br />
South Africa had offered non-military support, including intelligence sharing.<br />
<br />
<br />
The September 11 attacks and the subsequent attacks on the Indian parliament<br />
on December 13, 2001 have led to a greater understanding of the Indian position on<br />
terrorism by the Africans. The African countries supported in the past India’s moves<br />
to deter terrorism, at multilateral fora. At the Durban NAM Summit in September<br />
1998, the African countries including South Africa supported the Indian proposal<br />
for international action against terrorism. Last year, in October, Senegal hosted a<br />
conference on terrorism that was attended by heads of states of 27 African countries.<br />
This meeting enabled the African states to take a common stand against terrorism. It<br />
also sought to devise an African anti-terrorism accord that would allow extradition<br />
of terrorists from one state to another. Such a crucial provision was missing in the<br />
earlier OAU Convention on Terrorism (1999).<br />
Promoting Peace.<br />
Peace is an elusive commodity in Africa which has witnessed scores of conflicts<br />
over the years. It is estimated that 18 Sub-Saharan African countries are directly or<br />
indirectly involved in conflicts; in 12 others, conflict can erupt at any moment.<br />
<br />
In a number of these conflicts, the Blue Helmets were deployed. India has participated in<br />
a number of these peacekeeping operations. It was involved in the United Nations<br />
operations in Mozambique (ONUMOZ); Somalia (UNOSOM I, II); United Nations<br />
Angola Verification Mission (UNAVEM I, II, III) and Observer Mission (MONUA);<br />
and also in the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) and Ethiopia<br />
and Eritrea (UNAMEE).<br />
<br />
India’s role in UN peacekeeping in Africa has been much appreciated by the<br />
local population. In a conference in New Delhi, the Namibian Foreign Minister was<br />
quick to express appreciation of India response to the African hour of need.<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, it has also got its share of brickbats. In Sierra Leone Major-General<br />
V.K. Jetley got caught in controversy, with the Nigerian and other governments of<br />
the West African coalition which demanded his removal.<br />
<br />
General Jetley had accused senior African military commanders of the UN peacekeeping force of colluding with<br />
the rebels to mine diamonds illegally. The West African nations perceived the presence<br />
of Indian UN peacekeeping forces in Sierra Leone as ‘interference’.<br />
<br />
Assisting the African Defence Forces<br />
India has been providing military training to officers and JCOs of the African<br />
defence forces. Most of the African countries lack military training institutions and,<br />
therefore, the officers are often sent abroad either to the military colleges of the<br />
former colonial powers or friendly countries in the developing world. Since the 1960s<br />
India has provided military training to a number of Africans, primarily from<br />
Anglophone Africa. Training is imparted in national institutions under the three wings<br />
of the defence services, including the National Defence College New Delhi and the<br />
Defence Services Staff College, Wellington. The training covers fields such as security<br />
and strategic studies, defence management, artillery, electronics, mechanical, marine<br />
and aeronautical engineering, anti-marine warfare, logistics management and<br />
qualitative assurance services.<br />
<br />
During the period 1990-91 to 2000-2001, around<br />
800 officers and JCOs from 12 African countries (Botswana, Burkina Faso, Ghana,<br />
Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria, Senegal, Madagascar, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania<br />
and Uganda) were provided training by the Indian Army under ITEC.<br />
<br />
India has also sent training teams to various African countries like Botswana, Zambia and<br />
Lesotho. As part of its cooperation in defence, India has supplied a small quantity of<br />
conventional arms to the Africans.<br />
India has supplied patrol crafts (SDB Mk-2 type) to Mauritius and Guinea Bissau<br />
(one each) in 1993, and light helicopters (SA-316 B Aloutte-3 and SA-315B Lama)<br />
to Namibia (two each) in 1994.India has also imported weapons from South Africa.<br />
<br />
Conclusion<br />
<br />
India’s Africa policy indicates both change and continuity in the post-Cold War<br />
era. The people of Africa have acknowledged India’s support in the past and there is<br />
a lot of goodwill towards India. They are attracted towards the new image of India in<br />
the 21st century as the new centre for technology and commerce in Asia.<br />
India should reciprocate and follow the EU and the Japanese examples for<br />
cooperation to mutual benefit. Economically, this partnership with Africa wouldBhaskarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07427841472271223849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3441078016198956465.post-5732388526990937682011-06-23T05:59:00.000-07:002011-06-23T05:59:16.213-07:00Kashmir step by step to next round talk..<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
India-Pakistan foreign secretries will meet at Islamabad in last week of june to concern about peace and stability in kashmir and to cotrol the terrorism activities in India.This meeting will held to strength the ground for peace and stability in kashmir region and also other part of india. these issues like POK and kashmir trade resume, visa issue,siachin border dispute etc.<br />
further , in last few months kasmir has no major violence. last month panchyat election conduct peacefully and 70 to 80 percent voting. chief minister of jammu & kashmir stated that it was first intence after 41 years to election without controling of army.<br />
well ,earlier effort made by both countries has brought peace in LOC .Both side ,in this region ,school has opened and new settlements are taking places.Even we can see glimpse of hope for those people who left kashmir,.<br />
Atlast,both countries government should step forward to anti-terrorism activities in kashmir and also in POK . Both countries should resume the trade accross the border and exchange cultural activities to make it peaceful region. (edited by :Pramod)<br />
</div>Bhaskarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07427841472271223849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3441078016198956465.post-40483007743392071892010-03-01T01:46:00.000-08:002010-03-01T01:46:25.866-08:00Indian prime minister visit to Saudi Arabia.Indian prime minister has said that Saudi Arabia is a "<b>reliable partner</b>" in meeting Indian's energy needs<br />
<br />
.<br />
>Both the countries are lookin for establish new partnership in the area of new and renewable energy through sharing of clean technologies and joint collaborations.<br />
<br />
>India wants saudi arab investment in construction,manufacturing,pharmaceuticals,health,agriculture,energy,telecom,tourism and other service sectors.<br />
>Both the countries paving way for Educational and skill development cooperation.<br />
>S.Arabia wants cooperation in Sc. & Tech. and space technology from India.Bhaskarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07427841472271223849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3441078016198956465.post-38994602797468791522010-02-28T10:38:00.001-08:002010-02-28T11:15:58.791-08:00current issues..1. Who became the first Indian woman to ski to the South Pole?<br />
<br />
Answer: Reena Kaushal.<br />
She made the historic ski-run as part of an eight-woman Commonwealth team that crossed a 900 km Antarctic ice trek to reach the South Pole to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Commonwealth.<br />
<br />
2. Delhi Lt Governor Tejendra Khanna recently gave the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) the go-ahead to prosecute a former Congress M.P in murder and communal rioting cases related to the 1984 anti-Sikh carnage. Name of that Former parliamentarian?<br />
<br />
Answer: Sajjan Kumar<br />
He is accused of instigating mobs that went on the rampage killing Sikhs across Delhi in 1984 in the wake of the assassination of the then prime minister Indira Gandhi.<br />
<br />
3. A 103 feet high Christmas star designed by Kerala based firm has been adjudged the “world’s largest Christmas ornamental star” by the Guinness Book of World Records.<br />
<br />
Answer: Name of that firm?<br />
‘Apple A Day’ properties.<br />
<br />
4. The scientist of Indian origin who has been given Canada’s highest civilian award – the Order of Canada recently?<br />
<br />
Answer: Shrawan Kumar<br />
He was honoured for his three decades of pioneering research on workplace injury and the spine at the University of Alberta.<br />
<br />
5. British hostage who has been released alive after more than two-and-a-half years in captivity in Iraq by Islamic Shia Resistance, a terrorist organization?<br />
<br />
Answer: Peter Moore<br />
He was an IT consultant from Lincoln, who was captured in Baghdad in May 2007. Four bodyguards were seized with Mr. Moore. Three were shot dead; the fourth is also thought to have been killed.<br />
<br />
6. South Korean steel major which has got final clearance from the Ministry of Environment and Forests recently for acquiring forest land in Orissa for its $12 billion steel plant project?<br />
<br />
Answer: POSCO<br />
POSCO signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Orissa in June 2005 for the 12 million-tone-capacity steel plant to be built in three phases by 2016, with production scheduled to begin by the end of 2011 at the completion of the first phase.<br />
<br />
7. The 97th Indian Science Congress is held at?<br />
<br />
Answer: University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram, from January 3 to 7, 2010. This is the first time that the Indian Science Congress is being held at Thiruvananthapuram.<br />
<br />
8. Who was named as the Player of the Decade by Goal.com?<br />
<br />
Answer: Bhaichung Bhutia<br />
<br />
9. Legendary Wildlife conservationist and author who passed away on 1 January 2010, at his home ‘Tiger Haven’ in the vicinity of the famous Dudhwa National Park in Uttar Pradesh at the age of 92.?<br />
<br />
Answer: Billy Arjan Singh<br />
Singh, regarded as the godfather of the “Save the Tiger” campaign in India was instrumental in establishing the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve in 1988.He was decorated with several national and international awards including Padma Shri in 1995 and Padma Bhusan in 2006 and J Paul Getty Wildlife Conservation Award. The Uttar Pradesh government had also conferred the Yash Bharti award on him.<br />
<br />
10. Who has been named as chairman of International Pepper Community (IPC) for 2009 – 2010?<br />
<br />
Answer: V.J. Kurian, Chairman of Spices Board, Ministry of Commerce of the Government of India took over from Mr. Odilson Luiz Ribeiro e Silva as Chairman of IPC at the 37th Session of IPC on 3rd December 2009.<br />
<br />
11. The alleged drug lord who was arrested by Mexican police, two weeks after his even more powerful brother was killed in a shootout with troops?<br />
<br />
Answer: Carlos Beltran Leyva<br />
Two weeks ago, his brother Arturo, reputed chief of the Beltran Leyva cartel, was killed in a shootout with Mexican marines in the central city of Cuernavaca.<br />
<br />
12. Which team won their sixth Federation Cup title with a 3-0 triumph over Lajong via penalties in an evenly contested final?<br />
<br />
Answer: East Bengal.<br />
<br />
13. Name of the tallest man-made structure ever built which officially opened on 4 January 2010?<br />
<br />
Answer: Burj Khalifa.<br />
Burj Khalifa formerly known as Burj Dubai is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Construction began on 21 September 2004, with the exterior of the structure completed on 1 October 2009. Total cost for the Burj Khalifa project was about US$1.5 billion.<br />
Height:<br />
Antenna or spire: 828m (2,717 ft).<br />
Floor Count: 160 habitable floors plus 46 maintenance levels in the spire and 2 parking levels in the basement.<br />
Floor area: 464,511 m2 (5,000,000 sq ft)<br />
<br />
14. Who is appointed as the Vice-Chancellor of the Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT), Kerala?<br />
<br />
Answer: Ramachandran Thekkedath.<br />
He is presently working in the Technology Commercialisation office of the University of Utah at Salt Lake city in the US.<br />
<br />
15. The well known Indian expatriate businessman from Abu Dhabi who has purchased the entire 100th floor of Burj Dubai, the world’s tallest tower?<br />
<br />
Answer: B R Shetty. He is the founder and managing director of the New Medical Centre (NMC) group of hospitals.<br />
<br />
16. The country which officially removed a 22 year old entry ban on foreigners living with HIV/Aids recently?<br />
<br />
Answer: United States of America (USA).<br />
The change came following a US decision in November, removing HIV infection from the definition of communicable disease of public health significance.<br />
<br />
17. Which country recently issued an orange alert for heavy fog and snowstorm?<br />
<br />
Answer: China.<br />
<br />
18. Winners of “Man of the match award” in the Tri nation ODI series (India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh).<br />
<br />
Answer:<br />
<br />
* Ist ODI held at Dhaka between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka on Jan 4, 2010: Tilakaratne Dilshan (104 runs). Lanka beat Bangladesh by 7 wickets.<br />
* 2nd ODI held at Dhaka between India and Sri Lanka on Jan 5, 2010: Thilan Samaraweera, (105 not out off 106 balls). Lanka won the match by 5 wickets.<br />
* 3rd ODI held at Dhaka between India and Bangladesh on Jan 7, 2010: M.S.Dhoni, (101 not out off 107 balls). India won the match by 6 wickets.<br />
* 4th ODI held at Dhaka between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka on Jan 8, 2010: Upul Tharanga, ((118 not out)). Lanka won the match by 9 wickets.<br />
* 5th ODI held at Dhaka between India and Sri Lanka on Jan 10, 2010: Zaheer Khan, (3wickets for 38 runs). India won the match by 8 wickets.<br />
* 6th ODI held at Dhaka between India and Bangladesh on Jan 11, 2010: Virat Kohli, (102 not out off 95 balls). India won the match by 6 wickets.<br />
* 7th ODI(Final of the Tri Nation series) held at Dhaka between India and Sri Lanka on Jan 13, 2010: Nuvan Kulasekhara, (4 wickets for 48 runs). Sri Lanka won the match by 4 wickets.<br />
<br />
19. Who won the man of the series award in the Tri nation Tournament (India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh) held in Dhaka, Bangladesh?<br />
<br />
Answer: Kumar Sangakkara<br />
<br />
20. Name of the new party formed by the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh on his birthday(05-01-2010)?<br />
<br />
Answer: Jan Kranti Party<br />
<br />
21. Who won the man of the match award in the second test between Australia and Pakistan played at the Sidney Cricket Ground?<br />
<br />
Answer: Michael Hussey (Australia). Australia won by 36 runs.<br />
<br />
22. India’s first ‘Eclipse Cruise’ which left from Kochi port, with about 750 ‘astro tourists’ to view the longest annular solar eclipse of the third millennium from Male in Maldives on January 15. Which cruise ship is used for this eclipse cruise?<br />
<br />
Answer: MV Aquamarine.<br />
MV Aquamarine is a cruise ship owned and operated by Louis Cruise Lines is the fifth largest cruise operator in the world and the first international cruise line to operate from India.A cruise ship or cruise liner is a passenger ship used for pleasure voyages, where the voyage itself and the ship’s amenities are part of the experience.<br />
<br />
24. Name of the only official survivor of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings at the end of World War II, died on 6th January in Nagasaki, Japan at the age of 93?<br />
<br />
Answer: Tsutomu Yamaguchi<br />
<br />
25. Who has been appointed as Finance Minister of Japan, replacing Hirohisa Fujii who will step down for health related reasons?<br />
<br />
Answer: Naoto Kan. He is the deputy prime minister of Japan.<br />
<br />
26. A 7.2-magnitude earthquake triggered landslides and a tsunami that struck a country on January 4, 2010, leaving more than 1,000 people homeless. Name of that country?<br />
<br />
Answer: Solomon Islands.<br />
Solomon Islands is a country in Melanesia, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands.<br />
<br />
27. Scientists of which country are developing an electronic device (e-dog) that will sniff out explosives like RDX which remain undetected by existing security equipments?<br />
<br />
Answer: India.<br />
<br />
28. PRAVASI BHARATIYA SAMMAN AWARDEES (PBSA)-2010<br />
<br />
Answer:<br />
<br />
1 Mr. Mohinder Singh Bhullar Brunei( Darussalam)<br />
2 Mr. Yanktesh Permal Reddy (Fiji)<br />
3 Mr. Ryuko Hira (Japan)<br />
4 (Mrs) Dr. Ruby Umesh Pawankar (Japan)<br />
5 Mr. Suresh Kumar Virmani (Oman)<br />
6 Mr. Pravin Jamnadas Gordhan (South Africa)<br />
7 Dr. Tholisiah Perumal Naidoo (South Africa)<br />
8 Dr. Rajni Kanabar (Tanzania)<br />
9 Mr. Deepak Mittal (Thailand)<br />
10 Dr. Lenny Krishendath Saith (Trinidad & Tobago)<br />
11 Dr. Azad Moopen (U.A.E)<br />
12 Mr. Mani Lal Bhaumik (U.S.A)<br />
13.Mr. Ashok Kumar Mago (U.S.A)<br />
14 Mr. Upendra J. Chivukula (U.S.A)<br />
The Pravasi Bharatiya Samman is an award constituted by the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs in conjunction with the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, to honor exceptional and meritorious contribution in their chosen field/profession. The award is given by the President of India.<br />
<br />
29. Who has been nominated as the Chairman from India of Asian Print Congress?<br />
<br />
Answer: R.Suresh. He is the Chief Executive of S.T.Reddiar&Sons.<br />
<br />
30. Which country limited United States military presence in their country recently?<br />
<br />
Answer: Yemen.<br />
Yemen warns US military intervention, however welcomes U.S. and foreign troops for training, intelligence and logistical support.<br />
<br />
31. Which Russian Website suggested a Conspiracy theory for YSR’s Death which involving Ambani brothers?<br />
<br />
Answer: http://exiledonline.com.<br />
The Russian website is a magazine which is run by Mark Ames, a journalist and a writer, Ames published an article titled ‘Enemy of Larry Summers Ex-boss Dies in Mysterious Helicopter Crash’. The article, which was published on December 31, 2009, unveils a conspiracy against YSR engineered by the loyal partners of Ambani brothers.<br />
<br />
32. Which country recently formulated a strict new law under which women who wear full-length veils (burqa) in public places will have to pay a fine of over 750 Euro?<br />
<br />
Answer: France.<br />
Muslim women who wear the full Islamic veil in France will face a possible 750 euros fine, according to a draft bill unveiled by the leader of the parliamentary majority.<br />
<br />
33. Who have been selected for Sarvottam Jeevan Raksha Padak for their “conspicuous courage in saving life under circumstances of very great danger to the life of the rescuer”?<br />
<br />
Answer: Rukhsana Kosser<br />
Narender Kaushik (posthumously)<br />
Rukhsana, a Jammu girl who braved the bullets of Lashkar-e-Taiba militants and killed one of them to save her family.<br />
Narender Kaushik, a resident of Delhi who died while saving people trapped in a fire on March 13 last year.<br />
Jeevan Raksha Padak series of awards are given to a person for meritorious act of human nature in saving the life of a person. The award is given in three categories – Sarvottam Jeevan Raksha Padak, Uttam Jeevan Raksha Padak and Jeevan Raksha Padak.<br />
Names of the seven persons who won the Uttam Jeevan Raksha Padak Award:<br />
Syed Areef Sujauddin (Andhra Pradesh) (posthumously)<br />
Umman Antony (Kerala) (posthumously)<br />
Rajan Kamble (Maharashtra)( posthumously)<br />
Mushtaq Ahmed and Ajaz Ahmed (Jammu and Kashmir)<br />
Karambir Singh Kang (Maharashtra)<br />
Prachi Santosh Sen (Madhya Pradesh)<br />
Jeevan Raksha Padak award is given to 44 persons.<br />
<br />
34. Australia has recently condemned as “deeply offensive” an Indian newspaper cartoon depicting the police as members of the racist Ku Klux Klan over their investigations into the murder of a young Indian man in Australia. Which newspaper published that cartoon?<br />
<br />
Answer: Mail Today, Delhi based news paper.<br />
<br />
cartoon appeared in the 5 January edition of Delhi’s Mail Today<br />
<br />
35. Which country took over the mantle of the world’s top merchandise exporter from Germany in 2009, according to the latest figures, aided by a global economic crisis that has taken a greater toll on other trading powers?<br />
<br />
Answer: China<br />
<br />
36. Which Central Minister’s recent remarks on Pandit Nehru’s foreign policy became controversial?<br />
<br />
Answer: Shashi Tharoor.<br />
He said that while Nehru’s foreign policy had taken India to a new level in the international arena, he agreed with criticism that it amounted to a “moralistic running commentary on other countries’ behaviour. Later he blamed the media for his “misreported” remarks on the former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s foreign policy.<br />
<br />
37. Who won the Brisbane International Tennis title beating Justine Henin in the final?<br />
<br />
Answer: Kim Clijsters<br />
<br />
38. Which country has become the world’s third-largest economy, surpassing Germany and closing rapidly on Japan, according to government and World Bank figures?<br />
<br />
Answer: China<br />
<br />
39. Who has been appointed as the new bowling coach of India?<br />
<br />
Answer: Eric Simons, former South African fast bowler.<br />
<br />
40. Recipients of the 16th Annual Star Screen Awards : The film “3 Idiots won 8 awards and film “Paa” won five awards.<br />
<br />
Answer:<br />
<br />
* Best Actor: Amitabh Bachchan (Paa)<br />
* Best Actress: Vidya Balan (Paa)<br />
* Best Director: Rajkumar Hirani (3 Idiots)<br />
* Best Music Director – A R Rahman ( Delhi 6 )<br />
* Best Film: 3 Idiots<br />
* Lifetime Achievement Award: Javed Akhtar<br />
* Best Screenplay – Abhijat Joshi, Raju Hirani (3 Idiots)<br />
* Best Story – Imtiaz Ali ( Love Aaj Kal)<br />
* Best Dialogues – AbhijatJoshi, Raju hirani (3 Idiots)<br />
* Best Lyricist – Irshad Kamil For Choor Bazari ( Love Aaj Kal)<br />
* Best Playback Singer ( Female ) – Kavita Seth For Ore Manva ( Wake up Sid )<br />
* Best Playback Singer (Male ) Rahat Fateh Ali Khan For Aaj Din Chaya ( Love Aaj Kal)<br />
* Best Cinematographer – Rajiv Ravi ( Dev D)<br />
* Best Choreographer – Bosco Ceaser (3 Idiots)<br />
* Best Entertainer of the year: Katrina Kaif<br />
* Best Editing Results – Raju Hirani (3 Idiots)<br />
* Best Special Effects – Aladin<br />
* Best Action – Vijayan (Wanted )<br />
* Best Child Artist – Pratik Katari ( Paa)<br />
* Best Cast- Luck By Chance<br />
* Best Jodi of the decade: Shahrukh Khan and Kajol<br />
* Ramnath Goenka memorial award: Nandita Das for ‘Firaaq’<br />
* Most Promising Newcomer (Female) Mahi Gill (Dev D)<br />
* Most Promising Newcomer (Male): Omi Vaidya (Aka Silencer) ( 3 Idiots )<br />
* Most Promising Debutante Director: Nandita Das (Firaaq)<br />
* Best Supporting Actress: Arundhati Nag (Paa)<br />
* Best Supporting Actor: Rishi Kapoor (Love Aaj Kal)<br />
* Star plus jodi award: Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan<br />
* Best Actor in a negative role:Boman Irani (3 Idiots)<br />
* Best Actress Most Popular Category- Kareena Kapoor ( 3 Idiots )<br />
* Best Actor for Most Popular Category: Shahid Kapoor (Kaminey)<br />
* Best Actor in a comic role: Omi Vaidya (3 Idiots)<br />
<br />
41. Which player won the ATP Chennai Open titles with his first-ever win over Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland in the final?<br />
<br />
Answer: Marin Cilic of Croatia.<br />
The second-seeded Cilic became the first player after Spanish veteran Carlos Moya’s victories in 2004 and 2005 to win back-to-back crowns in South Asia’s only ATP event.<br />
<br />
42. Who won Qatar Open Tennis title beating Rafael Nadal of Spain in the final held in Doha?<br />
<br />
Answer: Nikolay Davydenko(Russia)<br />
He defeated Rafael Nadal of Spain 0-6, 7-6 (8) and 6-4 to win the Qatar Open tennis tournament.<br />
<br />
43. Who has been selected for this year’s Prof. S. Guptan Nair Puraskaram. an award which is instituted for exceptional teachers who make significant contributions to the cultural scene?<br />
<br />
Answer: B. Hridayakumari<br />
<br />
44. Who won the men’s and women’s title in the 74th Senior National Badminton Championship at Karmavir Nabin Chandra Bordoloi Indoor Complex in Guwahati?<br />
<br />
Answer: Chetan Anand(Men’s title)<br />
Trupti Murgunde(women’s title)<br />
Men’s doubles title was won by Rupesh Kumar and Sanave Thomas while the pair of Ashwini Ponnapa and Jwala Gutta bagged the women’s doubles.<br />
<br />
45. Which High court of India will uphold its bench order that includes the office of the Chief Justice of India within the scope of the Right to Information (RTI) Act and requires judges to declare their assets?<br />
<br />
Answer: The Delhi High Court<br />
<br />
46. Name of the leading Iranian nuclear scientist, who has been killed in a bomb blast in Tehran?<br />
<br />
Answer: Massoud Ali-Mohammadi<br />
<br />
47. The French film maker who was one of the main figures of the post-war New Wave cinema movement passed away recently in Paris at the age of 89?<br />
<br />
Answer: Eric Rohmer<br />
He was the director of the critically acclaimed “Tales of Four Seasons” His main works include the cycle of films Six Moral Tales. The third, My Night at Maud’s, released in 1969, brought him international recognition.<br />
<br />
48. Name of Indian-origin man and his two accomplices who have been given long jail sentences for their involvement in a 33 million pounds drug deal which is considered to be UK’s largest ever heroin seizure.?<br />
<br />
Answer: Harminder Chana, 32, was sentenced to 17 years,<br />
Abdul Rob, 30, was sentenced to 23 years<br />
Atif Khan, 34, was sentenced to 15 and half years.<br />
<br />
49. Which country has successfully intercepted a missile defense system, in a test of its advanced air defense capabilities?<br />
<br />
Answer: China<br />
<br />
50. Which Caribbean country has been hit by a massive 7.0-magnitude earthquake on January 12, 2010, killing about 200,000 people?<br />
<br />
Answer: Haiti.<br />
<br />
51. Only batsman in world cricket who scored 7000 ODI runs with a strike rate of over 100?<br />
<br />
Answer: Virender Sehwag.<br />
Sehwag, the seventh Indian to reach 7000 ODI runs, is the only batsman in world cricket to achieve the milestone with a strike rate of over 100.<br />
<br />
52. Who has been chosen as the “ESPN Cricinfo Player of the Decade for the 2000s” by a 38-strong panel of experts, including current and former players?<br />
<br />
Answer: Ricky Ponting, captain of Australia<br />
<br />
53. Which state has won the Ranji Trophy for a record 39th time by beating Karnataka in a nail-biter of a final at Mysore?<br />
<br />
Answer: Mumbai.<br />
The hosts Karnataka were chasing a target of 338 for a win, but were bowled out for 331 to give Mumbai a six-run victory on the fourth day of the game.<br />
<br />
54. Which country won the seventh World Team Chess Championship held at the Merinos Congress Centre in Bursa, Turkey from January 3rd till 14th, 2010?<br />
<br />
Answer: Russia.<br />
Russia won gold, USA won Silver and India got the Bronze medal.<br />
<br />
55. One of the most successful R&B(Rhythm and Blue) singers of the 1970s and ’80s, passed away recently at the age of 59 after a battle with colon cancer?<br />
<br />
Answer: Teddy Pendergrass<br />
The five-time Grammy-nominated singer had chart-topping hits in three different decades with 1978’s “Close the Door,” 1988’s “Joy” and 1991’s “It Should’ve Been You,” plus well-known songs like “Love TKO,” “Two Hearts” with Stephanie Mills and “Hold Me,” a duet with Whitney Houston that featured on Houston’s 1985 debut album.<br />
<br />
56. Which car has selected as the Car of the Year at ICICI Bank-CNBC-TV18 Overdrive Awards 2010?<br />
<br />
Answer: Tata Nano.<br />
<br />
57. Who has been appointed as one of 13 faith advisers by U.K. Communities Secretary John Denham?<br />
<br />
Answer: Arjan Vekaria, president of the Hindu Forum of Britain.<br />
He has been involved in voluntary work with the Hindu Community in the UK for over 35 years. Born in Uganda, Arjan spent part of his childhood in India before migrating to the UK in the 1970s.<br />
<br />
58. The century’s longest solar eclipse, having totality duration of 11 minutes, 8 seconds (visible in India for 10 minutes, 24 seconds) occurred on which day of January?<br />
<br />
Answer: 15th January, 2010.<br />
A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon comes directly between the Sun and the Earth, producing a shadow on the Earth’s surface where the Sun is completely or partially obscured.<br />
<br />
59. Who was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award 2009 for his outstanding contributions and achievements in Banking Sector during the Bharat Samman – Pravasi Awards?<br />
<br />
Answer: Mr. R. Seetharaman, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Doha Bank.<br />
<br />
60. Who unveiled the Coca-Cola FIFA World Cup Football Trophy 2010 at a glittering function in Kolkata, making Kolkata the only Indian city to showcase the prized trophy?<br />
<br />
Answer: Lothar Matthaus, German football legend.<br />
The trophy made of 18-carat gold- 36.8 cm high tall and weighing 6,175 grams.<br />
<br />
61. Who is appointed as the new Captain of Kings XI Punjab for IPL 2010?<br />
<br />
Answer: Kumar Sangakkara. The Sri Lankan player replaces Yuvraj Singh who had led the team for the last two seasons<br />
<br />
62. Who won the Sydney Medibank International Tennis Women’s Title defeating Serena Williams 6-3, 6-2 in the final?<br />
<br />
Answer: Elena Dementieva<br />
<br />
63. Who won the Sydney Medibank International Tennis men’s Title defeating Richard Gasquet in the final?<br />
<br />
Answer: Marcos Baghdatis<br />
<br />
64. Ex-Soldier of China who was elected as governor of Tibet by the regional parliament recently?<br />
<br />
Answer: Padma Choling<br />
Choling, a Tibetan who served in the People’s Liberation Army from 1969 to 1986 has replaced Qiangba Puncog, whose resignation was endorsed by the regional People’s Congress.<br />
<br />
65. National Security Adviser who has been appointed Governor of West Bengal?<br />
<br />
Answer: M.K. Narayanan<br />
<br />
66. Which playback singer won the Swaralaya-Kairali Yesudas award ?<br />
<br />
Answer: Sujatha. The award includes a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh, a citation and a statuette designed by Kanayi Kunhiraman.<br />
Malayalam Music director M.K Arjunan has been selected for the lifetime achievement award for his contribution in the field of music<br />
<br />
67. Name of the eco-friendly vehicle launched by Maruti Suzuki India Ltd during the auto Expo 2010 held in Delhi?<br />
<br />
Answer: Eeco<br />
<br />
68. Veteran Communist leader whose unbroken 23-year stewardship of West Bengal’s Left Front government made him the longest reigning chief minister of an Indian state died recently after a prolonged illness?<br />
<br />
Answer: Jyoti Basu<br />
<br />
69. Who won the Man of the Match award in the fourth test match between South Africa and England held in Johannesburg?<br />
<br />
Answer: Morne Morkel and Dale Steyn<br />
South Africa won the fourth test by an innings and 74 runs and leveled the series 1-1.<br />
<br />
70. Who won the Man of the series award in the four test match series between South Africa and England held in South Africa?<br />
<br />
Answer: South African wicketkeeper Mark Boucher and England off-spinner Graeme Swann shared the man of the series award.<br />
<br />
71. Who has resigned as president of Hockey India due to the allegations made against him during the recent hockey crisis?<br />
<br />
Answer: A.K. Mattoo<br />
<br />
72. FBI had recently used the photo of a Spanish leader for a digitally-altered image showing how Osama Bin Laden might look. Name of that Spanish leader?<br />
<br />
Answer: Gaspar Llamazares<br />
<br />
A photo of Bin Laden from 1998 (left) was digitally altered using elements from an image of Gaspar Llamazares (right)<br />
He rejected the United States’ apology for the FBI’s using a photo of him to create a poster showing what Osama bin Laden might look like today.<br />
<br />
73. The Turk, who tried to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981, was released from prison recently after more than 29 years behind bars and proclaimed that he was a messenger of God and that the world would end in this century. Name of that Turkish man?<br />
<br />
Answer: Mehmet Ali Agca<br />
<br />
74. The top military chief of al-Qaida in Yemen who was killed by Yemeni warplanes near a desert village bordering Saudi Arabia?<br />
<br />
Answer: Qassim al-Raimi.<br />
He is considered the No. 3 leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.<br />
<br />
75. The Argentina player who reached the 100-goal mark for Barcelona?<br />
<br />
Answer: Lionel Messi. The Argentina ace, who is still only 22, achieved the landmark in just 188 games for the Catalan club.<br />
<br />
76. Who is appointed as the Governor of Maharashtra?<br />
<br />
Answer: K. Sankaranarayanan<br />
<br />
77. India Government has decided to withdraw the “deemed” status of how many universities in the country?<br />
<br />
Answer: 44<br />
Centre told the Supreme Court that it has decided to withdraw the deemed status to 44 universities in the country alleging these were being run as family fiefdoms rather than on academic considerations.<br />
<br />
78. The winners of the 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards,<br />
<br />
Answer: BEST DRAMA: Avatar<br />
DIRECTOR: James Cameron – Avatar<br />
ACTOR (DRAMA): Jeff Bridges – Crazy Heart<br />
ACTRESS (DRAMA): Sandra Bullock – The Blind Side<br />
BEST MUSICAL OR COMEDY: The Hangover<br />
ACTOR (MUSICAL OR COMEDY): Robert Downey, Jr. – Sherlock Holmes<br />
ACTRESS (MUSICAL OR COMEDY): Meryl Streep – Julie & Julia<br />
FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM: The White Ribbon<br />
ANIMATED FILM: Up<br />
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christoph Waltz – Inglourious Basterds<br />
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Mo’Nique – Precious<br />
SCREENPLAY: Up in the Air<br />
ORIGINAL SCORE: Michael Giacchino – Up<br />
ORIGINAL SONG: “The Weary Kind” – Crazy Heart<br />
CECIL B. DEMILLE LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: Martin Scorsese<br />
<br />
79. Who is the new president of Hockey India?<br />
<br />
Answer: Vidya Stokes<br />
<br />
80. Who won the man of the match award in the third test between Australia and Pakistan played at Bellerive Oval, Hobart?<br />
<br />
Answer: Ricky Ponting (Australia). Australia won by 231 runs.<br />
<br />
81. Who won the man of the series award in the three test series between Australia and Pakistan held in Australia?<br />
<br />
Answer: Shane Watson<br />
<br />
Australia won the 3-match series 3-0<br />
<br />
82. Who was elected president of Chile, after a runoff election against former president Eduardo Frei?<br />
<br />
Answer: Sebastian Pinera<br />
<br />
83. Name of the software developed by the students of Indian Institute of Technology-Madras which won a business plan competition in New York?<br />
<br />
Answer: ‘XEstor’<br />
The software uses algorithms to store various battery parameters and interfaces with the grid to control the amount of energy supplied and stored in the network. Midhun Saleem, Kaushik Anand, Ashish Dattani, Sriram Kalyanaraman and Vinay Shankar B.K. shared the $20,000 prize.<br />
<br />
84. Name of the former Chinese Supreme Court judge who was sentenced to life in prison recently following his conviction for embezzlement and receiving more than half a million dollars in bribes?<br />
<br />
Answer: Huang Songyou<br />
<br />
85. Name of Asia’s biggest air carrier, which has filed for bankruptcy protection recently, in one of Japan’s biggest corporate failures?<br />
<br />
Answer: Japan Airlines Corp.<br />
<br />
86. Which players emerged as the most expensive cricketers of the high-profile player’s auction of the third edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL)?<br />
<br />
Answer: Kieron Pollard, West Indies all-rounder<br />
Shane Bond, New Zealand pacer.<br />
<br />
87. Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered a 2,000-year-old temple dedicated to a cat goddess. In which place it is located?<br />
<br />
Answer: Alexandria.<br />
<br />
The temple was filled with statues of Bastet, a once fearsome lion-headed goddess whose image changed over time to a domesticated cat.The temple is the first trace of the royal quarters of the Ptolemaic dynasty to be revealed in Alexandria.<br />
<br />
88. The author of the hugely popular novel “Love Story,” has died of a heart attack at the age of 72. ?<br />
<br />
Answer: Erich Segal.<br />
He was an American author, screenwriter, and educator. His novel The Class (1985), a saga based on the Harvard Class of 1958, was also a bestseller, and won literary honour in France and Italy.<br />
<br />
89. Nearly 300 people have been killed and hundreds more wounded in three days of clashes between Christians and Muslims in a country in West Africa. Which is that country?<br />
<br />
Answer: Nigeria.<br />
<br />
90. Who became the fourth batsman and the first Indian in the world to score five consecutive Test hundreds?<br />
<br />
Answer: Gautham Gambhir<br />
Australian legend Don Bradman leads the pack with six consecutive Tests tons while South African Jacques Kallis and Pakistan’s Mohammad Yousuf have also scored five hundreds in five consecutive matches.<br />
<br />
91. Former Australian women’s cricket captain, who has announced her retirement from international cricket after a 14-year career?<br />
<br />
Answer: Karen Rolton. She played over 141 one-day internationals, scored 4,844 one-day international runs, eight Test centuries.<br />
<br />
92. Which country has the largest number of illiterate adults in the world according to the Education for All-Global Monitoring Report by UNESCO?<br />
<br />
Answer: India<br />
<br />
93. Who has been appointed as India’s new National Security Advisor?<br />
<br />
Answer: Shiv Shankar Menon<br />
<br />
94. The ban on pre-paid phones in an Indian state has been withdrawn recently. Which is that state?<br />
<br />
Answer: Jammu and Kashmir<br />
The ban was imposed last year after the government cited security reasons in the state.<br />
<br />
95. Who won the Man of the match award in the first test between India and Sri Lanka held in Chittagong, Bangladesh?<br />
<br />
Answer: Sachin Tendulkar<br />
India clinched the first Test against Bangladesh with an emphatic 113-run victory. Tendulkar scored 105 runs in the first innings.<br />
<br />
96. Which country will become the biggest economy by 2020 according to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) Report?<br />
<br />
Answer: China<br />
<br />
97. Which country will overtake Japan as the world’s third largest economy by purchasing power Parity (PPP) by 2012 according to a report by global accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC)?<br />
<br />
Answer: India<br />
<br />
98. Which Hollywood film has been banned from cinema theatres in China to “protect” the country’s film industry?<br />
<br />
Answer: Avatar<br />
<br />
99. Name of the Indian Weightlifters who have been given a life ban by the international weightlifting body after a second doping offence last year?<br />
<br />
Answer: Shailaja Pujari and Vicky Butta<br />
Four other lifters, Harbhajan Singh (Delhi), Rajesh Singh (Madhya Pradesh), Sunita Rani (Punjab) and A Vijayadevi (Jharkhand), were banned for four years and fined USD 5,000 each for failing the out-of-competition tests conducted last year.<br />
<br />
100. Who was named as the next Indian Army chief and will take over his new post after incumbent Gen Deepak Kapoor retires on March 31.2010?<br />
<br />
Answer: Lt-General Vijay Kumar Singh<br />
<br />
101. Which Indian Freedom fighter’s Rs 1 lakh promissory note unearthed by an octogenarian (a person whose age is in the eighties) residing in Madhya Pradesh’s Bina town in Sagar district?<br />
<br />
Answer: Subhash Chandra Bose<br />
<br />
102. Winners of “Man of the match award” in the 5 ODI series between Australia and Pakistan held in Australia.<br />
<br />
Answer: Ist ODI held at Brisbane on Jan 22, 2010: Cameron White (105 runs).<br />
Australia won by 5 wickets<br />
2nd ODI held at Sydney on Jan 24, 2010: Shane Watson (scored 69 runs and took 1 wicket). Australia won by 140 runs<br />
3rd ODI held at Adelaide on Jan 26, 2010: Ryan Harris, (5 wickets for 43 runs). Australia won by 40 runs<br />
4th ODI held in Perth on Jan 29, 2010: Ryan Harris (5 wickets for 19 runs) Australia beat Pakistan by 135 runs<br />
5th ODI held in Perth on Jan 31, 2010: Clint McKay (Australia) for his 4 for 35. Australia won by 2 wickets<br />
Australia won the common wealth bank series 5-0.<br />
<br />
103. Who won the Man of the series award in the Commonwealth Bank ODI cricket series between Australia and Pakistan?<br />
<br />
Answer: Ryan Harris (Australia)<br />
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104. Which country’s military forces decided to protect the banks in earth quake-hit Haiti?<br />
<br />
Answer: India<br />
Para-military Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel have been guarding banks and other vital centres in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, to prevent looting, besides providing security to Indians in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake.<br />
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105. Scientist, whose groundbreaking work untangling fundamental genetic processes earned him a Nobel Prize, died at the age of 82?<br />
<br />
Answer: Marshall Nirenberg.<br />
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106. Name of the Indian-origin Australian researcher who has been named western Australia’s Australian of the Year?<br />
<br />
Answer: Professor Ralph Martins. He has been conducting research on Alzheimer’s disease.<br />
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107. Indo-Canadian who was appointed vice president of the University of Toronto, Canada’s biggest university?<br />
<br />
Answer: Hargurdeep Saini<br />
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108. The Afghan government recently banned the key ingredient of roadside bombs that have emerged as the deadliest weapon used by Taliban fighters against NATO troops in Afghanistan. Name of that fertilizer chemical?<br />
<br />
Answer: Ammonium Nitrate<br />
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109. Which countries demanded U.S. A to cross out Cuba from the list of terror-sponsor countries.?<br />
<br />
Answer: Russia and Spain<br />
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110. Who is appointed as the Governor of Andrapradesh?<br />
<br />
Answer: ES Lakshmi Narasimhan<br />
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111. Veteran socialist leader and Samajwadi Party Rajya Sabha member who died of heart attack in Allahabad at the age of 77?<br />
<br />
Answer: Janeshwar Mishra.<br />
He was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time in 1977 from Allahabad and became Petroleum Minister in the Chandra Shekhar government in 1990-91.<br />
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113. Which country has agreed to pay the United Nations around $10m in compensation for damage caused to UN buildings in Gaza during last year’s war?<br />
<br />
Answer: Israel<br />
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114. Who won the International Plato Award by the International Biographical Centre in Cambridge, England?<br />
<br />
Answer: Dr.K.C.Abraham.<br />
He is the managing director of Kunnath Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturer of Musli Power Extra.<br />
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115. Who is appointed as the chairperson of Prasar Bharathi?<br />
<br />
Answer: Mrinal Pande<br />
She is a renowned journalist who is appointed as the Prasar Bharati chairperson, a month after previous chairman Arun Bhatnagar’s resignation was accepted by the I&B ministry.<br />
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116. Who has been presented the prestigious Hotelier of the Century award of the International Hotel and Restaurant Association (IH and RA) at a glittering ceremony held in Belgrade?<br />
<br />
Answer: C.P. Krishnan Nair. Chairman of Leela Palaces, Hotels and Resorts.<br />
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117. Name of India’s largest solid fuel booster for launching heavier satellites using the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-Mk III), successfully tested on January 24, 2010?<br />
<br />
Answer: S200<br />
<br />
The successful test makes S200 the third largest solid booster in the world.<br />
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118. Who has been appointed as the second chief of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), succeeding RV Raju who retired in Janurary,2010?<br />
<br />
Answer: Sharad Chandra Sinha<br />
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120. Which High Court of India recently has ruled that Hindi is not our National Language?<br />
<br />
Answer: Gujarat<br />
<br />
121. Saddam Hussein’s notorious cousin and henchman who was executed on 24-01-10 just days after he was sentenced to death for the 1988 gassing of thousands of Kurds, a crime that shocked the world?<br />
<br />
Answer: Chemical Ali. His real name is Ali Hassan al-Majid and he was better known by his nickname “Chemical Ali”.<br />
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122. Who has won Sri Lanka’s first post-war national presidential election defeating former army chief Sarath Fonseka with 57.9% of the popular vote, according to the country’s elections commissioner?<br />
<br />
Answer: Mahinda Rajapakse<br />
He has won Sri Lanka’s first election since Tamil Tiger rebels were defeated after 25 years of civil war and this is his second term in office.<br />
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123. On January 28 2010, an International Conference on Afghanistan was held where members of the international community discussed the further progress on the Petersburg agreement from 2001 on the democratization of Afghanistan after the ousting of the Taliban regime. Where was that conference held?<br />
<br />
Answer: Lancaster House in London.<br />
The one-day conference, hosted by the United Kingdom, the United Nations, and the Afghan government, meant to chart a new course for the future of Afghanistan and brought together foreign ministers and senior representatives from more than 70 countries and international organizations.<br />
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124. Which company has been named the ‘Technology Pioneer-2010' by the World Economic Forum for developing solar-powered mobile phone base stations, becoming the first Indian telecom infrastructure firm to win the laurel?<br />
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Answer: Vihaan Networks Ltd (VNL), a Shyam Group company.<br />
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125. Which is the fastest wind gust ever recorded on Earth according to a review of climate data by the World Meteorological Organization?<br />
<br />
Answer: Cyclone Olivia.<br />
The World Meteorological Organization says a review of climate data turned up a 253 mph gust recorded in 1996 on Barrow Island in Australia during Cyclone Olivia. That tops the 231 mph record set atop Mount Washington in 1934.<br />
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126. Name of the district in Huston, in Texas State, USA which is named after father of Indian Nation Mahatma Gandhi?<br />
<br />
Answer: Hill Craft district.<br />
The district is officially named as Mahatma Gandhi district. Huston city Mayor Annis Parker has officially announced this on 26-01-2010 in the presence of Indian Consulate General in Huston Sanjay Arora and many Indians.<br />
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127. Which country leads the world in addressing pollution control and natural resource management challenges, according to the latest Environmental Performance Index (EPI)?<br />
<br />
Answer: Iceland.<br />
China and India rank 121 and 123 respectively in Environmental Performance Index.<br />
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128. Who is the new president of Honduras?<br />
<br />
Answer: Porfirio Lobo Sosa.<br />
He is better known as Pepe Lobo.<br />
<br />
129. Name of the five ex-army officers, who were hanged at the central jail in Bangladesh for the assassination of Bangladesh’s founder president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman 35 years ago?<br />
<br />
Answer: Mohiuddin Ahmed (Ex-Lieutenant Colonel)<br />
Bazlul Huda (Former Major)<br />
Syed Faruq Rahman (Ex-Lieutenant Colonel)<br />
Shahriar Rashid Khan(Ex-Lieutenant Colonel)<br />
AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed(Ex-Lieutenant Colonel)<br />
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130. Name of the teenage girl who became the latest miracle story of the Haitian earthquake after she was pulled alive from rubble 15 days after the disaster?<br />
<br />
Answer: Darlene Etienne<br />
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131. The army chief of India recently ordered disciplinary action leading to court martial against his aide and military secretary for his involvement in a land scam in West Bengal’s Sukna cantonment. Name of that senior most three-star officer?<br />
<br />
Answer: Lieutenant General Avadesh Prakash.<br />
He is the first three-star general of Indian army to face such a situation.<br />
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132. The enigmatic, reclusive author of the novel “The Catcher in the Rye”, who has died at the age of 91?<br />
<br />
Answer: J.D. Salinger (Jerome David Salinger). He was an American author , released his novel The Catcher in the Rye in 1951 which remains widely read and controversial, selling around 250,000 copies a year.<br />
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133. Who is reelected for a second four- year term as head of the U.S. central bank” Federal Reserve”?<br />
<br />
Answer: Ben Bernanke.<br />
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134. Who won the Australian Open women’s doubles Tennis title-2010 defeating Cara Black and Liezel Huber 6-4, 6-3 in the final?<br />
<br />
Answer: Serena Williams and Venus Williams.<br />
<br />
135. Who is the new Director General of the CRPF(Central Reserve Police Force), world’s largest para military force ?<br />
<br />
Answer: Vikram Srivastava<br />
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136. Who is the new Director General of Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP)?<br />
<br />
Answer: R. L. Bhatia<br />
<br />
137. Which country has overtaken U.S.A to become the biggest car market in the world as government policy initiatives spur demand?<br />
<br />
Answer: China<br />
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138. Which country stopped Military Exchanges with U.S.A in response to Washington’s plan to sell a package of arms worth about 6.4 billion U.S. dollars to Taiwan?<br />
<br />
Answer: China<br />
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139. Name of the first State-funded Hindu school in Britain which has started its operation in a new building where meditation and yoga will form part of the lessons?<br />
<br />
Answer: The Krishna Avanti Primary School. The school founded in 2008 is the first voluntary aided Hindu faith school in the country and is recognized as the most eco-friendly. It is also Britain’s first vegetarian State school.<br />
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140. Six decades after his death, some of Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes have been scattered off the coast of a country on 31-01-2010. Which is that country?<br />
<br />
Answer: South Africa.<br />
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141. Which country won the under-19 World Cup Cricket held in New Zealand?<br />
<br />
Answer: Australia.<br />
Australia beat Pakistan by 25 runs in the final.<br />
Man of the Match: Josh Hazelwood(Australia). He took 4 wickets for 30 runs.<br />
<br />
142. Who won the Australian Open women’s Tennis title-2010?<br />
<br />
Answer: Serena Williams<br />
She defeated Belgian Justine Henin in the Women’s singles final at Australian Open Championship 2010 at Melbourne<br />
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143. Who won the 2010 Australian Open Men’s title-2010?<br />
<br />
Answer: Roger Federer.<br />
He beat Andy Murray 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (13-11) to win the 2010 Australian Open Men’s title on Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne.<br />
<br />
144. Who won the Australian Open men’s doubles Tennis title-2010?<br />
<br />
Answer: Bob Bryan (USA) and Mike Bryan (USA).<br />
They won their fourth Australian Open doubles title, defeating Daniel Nestor of Canada and Serbian Nenad Zimonjic 6-3, 6-7 (5), 6-3 in the final.<br />
<br />
145. Who won the Australian Open 2010 mixed doubles title?<br />
<br />
Answer: Leander Paes(India) and Cara Black(Zimbabwe)<br />
They beat 10th seeds Ekaterina Makarova of Russia and Jaroslav Levinsky of Czechoslovakia 7-5, 6-3 in the final.<br />
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146. A member of the victorious US 4×400m women’s relay squad at the 2004 Athens Olympics is suspended for four years and all her competitive results since 2001 were disqualified because she used banned anabolic agents and hormones between 2001 and 2004, according to U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA). Name of that American sprinter?<br />
<br />
Answer: Crystal CoxBhaskarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07427841472271223849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3441078016198956465.post-81609172409868520432010-01-14T02:09:00.000-08:002010-01-14T02:09:45.794-08:00vFlashIt is a high-speed internet service ,launched by Virgin Mobile.Bhaskarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07427841472271223849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3441078016198956465.post-17898813438695506832010-01-13T23:59:00.000-08:002010-01-14T00:07:12.658-08:00What is Right to information Act ,2005The Indian Parliament had enacted the <span style="font-weight: bold;">“Freedom of Information Act, 2002”</span> in order to promote, transparency and accountability in administration. The National Common Minimum Program of the Government envisaged that “Freedom of Information Act” will be made more “progressive, participatory and meaningful”, following which, decision was made<br />to repeal the “Freedom of Information Act, 2002” and enact a new legislation in its place. Accordingly, <span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">“Right to Information Bill, 2004”</span> (RTI)</span> was passed by both the Houses of Parliament on May, 2005 which received the assent of the President on 15th June, 2005. “The Right to Information Act” was notified in the Gazette of India on 21st June,<br />2005. The “The Right to Information Act” became fully operational from <span style="font-weight: bold;">12th October, 2005.</span><br /><br />This new law empowers Indian citizens to seek any accessible information from a Public Authority and makes the Government and its functionaries more accountable and responsible.During the period of the implementation of the RTI Act i.e. October 2005 onwards, it has become evident that there are many anticipated and unanticipated consequences of the Act. These have manifested themselves in various forms, while some of the issues pertain to procedural aspects of the Government; others pertain to capacity building, and soon. The most important aspect to be recognized is that there are issues to be addressed at various ends for effective implementation of the Act.<br /><br />First time it was implemented in <span style="font-weight: bold;">Tamil Nadu(1997)</span>,then goa(1997),rajsthan(2000),karnataka(2000),Delhi(2001),maharashtra (2002),Assam (2002),M.P.(2003),J&k (2004)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bihar</span> has become <span style="font-weight: bold;">first state in india</span> that implemented RTI on Telephone.Bhaskarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07427841472271223849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3441078016198956465.post-20449874074791054192010-01-13T23:11:00.000-08:002010-01-13T23:53:48.641-08:00CJI reacts on the Delhi High court decsion.The chief justice of india K.G.Balakrishnan said that the full court of the supreme court would decide on filing an appeal against the three judge bench judgment of the Delhi High court holding that the office of chief justice of India would come within the ambit of the RIGHT TO INFORMATION ACT.Bhaskarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07427841472271223849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3441078016198956465.post-89019499635411525172010-01-13T22:44:00.000-08:002010-02-28T11:15:19.997-08:00Haiti stunned by a quake."Its sounded by like a tornado followed by a bomb dropping,then the noise under the ground started ,consequently all of the earth's surfaces and building walls started shattering and all of sudden capital city of Haiti collapsed"<br />
<br />
Haiti eperienced a powerful 7.0 quake.Death toll top 100000.<br />
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<b><span style="color: #3366ff;">Haiti</span><br />
</b> The Republic of Haiti a Creole- and French-speaking Caribbean country. Along with the Dominican Republic, it occupies the<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">island of Hispaniola</span></span>, in the Greater Antillean archipelago.<br />
ITa capital is PORT-AU-PRINCE..Bhaskarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07427841472271223849noreply@blogger.com0