Buddha Ji @Commonwealth Games

An economist view- How India will outpace China in GDP Growth rate?

Today I found this very good column published by Indian Express, Lets look the authors arguments "Why & How India will outpace China in GDP Growth rate? a big question....-

India is doing  well. Its economy is expected to expand by 8.5 per cent this year. It has a long way to go before it is as rich as China — the Chinese economy is four times bigger — but its growth rate could overtake China’s by 2013, if not before. Some economists think India will grow faster than any other large country over the next 25 years. Rapid growth in a country of 1.2 billion people is exciting, to put it mildly.

There are two reasons why India will soon start to outpace China. One is demography. China’s workforce will shortly start ageing; in a few years’ time, it will start shrinking. That’s because of its one-child policy — an oppressive measure that no Indian government would get away with. Indira Gandhi tried something similar in the 1970s, when she called a state of emergency and introduced a forced-sterilisation programme. There was an uproar of protest. Democracy was restored and coercive population policies were abandoned. India is now blessed with a young and growing workforce. Its dependency ratio — the proportion of children and old people to working-age adults — is one of the best in the world and will remain so for a generation. India’s economy will benefit from this “demographic dividend”, which has powered many of Asia’s economic miracles.

The second reason for optimism is India’s much-derided democracy. The notion that democracy retards development in poor countries has gained currency in recent years. Certainly, it has its disadvantages. Elected governments bow to the demands of selfish factions and interest groups. Even the most urgent decisions are endlessly debated and delayed.

China does not have this problem. When its technocrats decide to dam a river, build a road or move a village, the dam goes up, the road goes down and the village disappears. The displaced villagers may be compensated, but they are not allowed to stand in the way of progress. China’s leaders make rational decisions that balance the needs of all citizens over the long term. This has led to rapid, sustained growth that has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. Small wonder that authoritarians everywhere cite China as their best excuse not to allow democracy just yet.

No doubt a strong central government would have given India a less chaotic Commonwealth games, but there is more to life than badminton and rhythmic gymnastics. India’s state may be weak, but its private companies are strong. Indian capitalism is driven by millions of entrepreneurs all furiously doing their own thing. Since the early 1990s, when India dismantled the “licence raj” and opened up to foreign trade, Indian business has boomed. The country now boasts legions of thriving small businesses and a fair number of world-class ones whose English-speaking bosses network confidently with the global elite. They are less dependent on state patronage than Chinese firms, and often more innovative: they have pioneered the $2,000 car, the ultra-cheap heart operation and some novel ways to make management more responsive to customers. Ideas flow easily around India, since it lacks China’s culture of secrecy and censorship.

India’s individualistic brand of capitalism may also be more robust than China’s state-directed sort. Chinese firms prosper under wise government, but bad rulers can cause far more damage in China than in India, because their powers are so much greater. If, God forbid, another Mao were to seize the reins, there would be no mechanism for getting rid of him.

The Indian government recognises the need to tackle the infrastructure crisis, and is getting better at persuading private firms to stump up the capital. But the process is slow and infected with corruption. It is hard to measure these things, but many observers think China has done a better job than India of curbing corruption, with its usual brutal methods, such as shooting people.


Prakash Chandra Trivedi
Bhojpur, Raebareli

A big worry for India- Quick steps are needed

As today I read this news- "Half of IAF’s equipment is obsolete: Air Chief" is a big worry-point for India. Lets read the report published by Indian Express (05.10.2010)-

About half of IAF’s equipment is obsolete, Air Chief Marshal P V Naik said Monday. The startling revelation came at a time when the IAF has put an elaborate defence plan in place to protect the ongoing Commonwealth Games from possible aerial attacks.Though Naik emphasised that the Air Force was capable of defending the country from any threat, he admitted that the ‘obsolescence percentage’ would come down to 20 percent only by 2014-15.

The IAF has ordered several new weapons systems like the indigenous Akash Air Defence System and the Israeli Spyder Medium Range Surface to Air Missile (MR-SAM) system for its armoury, it currently relies heavily on ageing Russian-made Pechora and OSA AK Air Defence Missiles and Shoulder-fired Igla Surface to Air Missiles (SAM).

Prakash Trivedi
BHEL

FINALLY, DELHI DAZZLES: A spectacular show

In the end,it turned out like a perfect Indian wedding. Shrugging off all the heartburns,last-minute snafus and accompanying chaos,everything fell into place;and it left both the baraatis and the dulhanwaalahs,with huge smiles on their faces.

The next few days will tell us if the honeymoon too,if not the marriage itself,will be as successful.

A festive crowd of almost 60,000 packed the stadium and lustily cheered through the ceremony.They applauded former President A P J Abdul Kalam (who got the biggest hand),UPA chief Sonia Gandhi,Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit and other luminaries.They gave the performers a rousing reception.They stood up spontaneously and clapped and whistled for the Indian team.And,in a truly moving moment that warmed the hearts of even the most cynical,they reserved the second-biggest round of applause for the Pakistani contingent.

Courtesy- TOI, 04.10.2010

Prakash Chandra Trivedi

Engineer, BHEL

Images of TRUE INDIA

TOI Report: 01.10.2010

For them,bonds of friendship are stronger than religion

 On tense Thursday afternoon,when the entire nation was glued to the television waiting for the news on high courts verdict on the Ayodhya dispute,65-year-old Izhar Siddiqui was busy talking to Mohan Swarup Sharma.Unfazed as to what the verdict would be,the two elderly residents of Dugawan,a small mohalla,in Lucknows Naka Hindola area,were into a serious discussion planning how Ram Barat would to be taken out this year.

Izhar and Mohan are best buddies since childhood and hold key positions in Sri Ramleela Raniganj Samiti,established by their ancestors in 1875,10 years before the first petition on Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhoomi dispute was filed in Faizabad by a mahant.For the last 135 years,the samiti has been taking out Ram Barat (marriage procession of lord Ram) and conducing Ram Leela every year.Izhar is associated with the samiti for over 20 years now.He has served the samiti with utmost dedication and we never felt that he is a Muslim, said Samitis general secretary,Mohan.Izhar laughed when asked how come he is associated with Ram Leela samiti.Go into the spiritual content of every religion and you will find nothing but love and peace,hence whatever may be the Ayodhya judgment,its not going to affect us.The Ram Barat as usual will be taken out in the city on the sixth day of Navratris which fall in winters, he said.

Similarly,Muslims at Bakshi-Ka-Talab are planning to organise Ramlila before Dussehra.Masood Ahmad is the manager of the Ramlila Samiti.His father,Muzaffar Hussain,started the tradition along with his best friend,Maikulaal Yadav,in 1972.

Ive read Ram Charitmanas several times and particularly like Rams character, says Khan.The tradition continues even if Ramzan or Moharram coincides with it.The cast takes time out to offer namaz and break roza.

Lucknow is full of such examples.Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb cemented here during the period of Nawabs in the 19th century.Hindu and Muslims of Lucknow led the 1857 revolt.Wajid Ali Shah,the last Nawab of Awadh,used to perform the Krishna leela with Kathak dancers and celebrate Hindu festivals.Once Holi fell during Moharram and Hindus decided to drop the celebrations.Knowing this,the nawab organised Holi at his palace in the afternoon and mourned in the evening.

Prakash Chandra Trivedi
Engineer, BHEL

Who is real Geelani?

Who is real Geelani? What is the reality of Hurriyat leader Mr Geelani?

From last couple of months, I am hearing statements of Hurriyat leader Mr Geelani. In his each & every interview he reiterates that KASHMIR wants freedom?

Till now I couldn’t understand what type of freedom they want? Have they any idea about Kashmir's  existence for a minute without any economical support from India? Does Kashmir have enough resources to  to feed KASHMIRI PEOPLE? Do they have enough industries to provide jobs to educated people? Do they have enough security to counter terrorist infiltration? Are hurriyat leaders representative of Kashmiris?

I expect that each & every intellectual from all over the world will be answering negative to all these bunch of question.

And now the biggest question- Does Mr Geelani want a free KASHMIR to merge it with Pakistan? Minimum his speeches & his thinking shows the same.

I want to discuss this very question thoroughly. Geelani has said Kashmiris want freedom and then he gives a strange logic India, Pakistan, China and Russia will accept an independent Kashmir, so it is better Kashmir should join Pakistan. This is a subtle attempt to fulfil the Pakistani and not the Kashmiri agenda of annexation. Geelani may have a problem with "Hindu, Muslim secular India" (as he often says) and his own reasons (financial and ideological) to conspire to merge the whole of Kashmir with Pakistan, but what can Kashmiris expect from Pakistan Pakistan, a failed state. Sindh and Baluchistan are seething with discontent and what about Kashmiris in Pakistani?

If Bengali Muslims, being the demographic majority in undivided Pakistan, got nothing but blood and bullets, what can Kashmiri Muslims expect from Pakistan? There is a serious problem if this is the way the world's largest democracy deals with its own people. Indian crowd-control methods were equally harsh in Assam during the 1979-85 agitation when 130 people died in police firings in January-February 1983 in the rundown to state assembly elections. It should not be thought that India is handling differently to Kashmir. What behaviour you can expect to stone pelters? How can a mob of such kind be controlled? The whole blame should not be given to military.

There are two other things Kashmiris will have to give India credit for,much as they have every right to complain that they have usually been denied democracy.India has not tried to change the demography of the Kashmir valley as China did in Tibet and Chinese Turkestan.Bangladesh did this in the Chittagong Hill Tracts under a military dispensation by sending Muslim settlers to the tribal homeland.Indonesia did this in Aceh.The list goes on.India is perhaps the only postcolonial Third World state which did not seek a "demographic answer" to separatist challenges.

Secondly,Indian intelligence,regardless of its endless conspiracies to divide the movements,has fought shy of physically attacking leaders;it has never driven the local Kashmiri leaders to a stage they have to seek exile.Contrast this to Pakistan.Altaf Hussain and his MQM leaders are in London,as are many of the Baloch and Sindhi nationalists.The ISI has perhaps used its Taliban surrogates to hit at MQM leader Imran Farooq outside his house in the heart of London.

As a Bengali who has seen the 1971 Bangladesh liberation struggle at close quarters,i can appreciate the spirit of azadi in the Kashmir valley.It is the Bengalis who buried Jinnah's two-nation theory in the lowlying marshes and river islands of East Bengal.But Jinnah's ghost will return to haunt Kashmiris in the midst of their tehreek.Bengal and Punjab were partitioned,Kashmir was not.Now,at the peak of the tehreek,two of its non-Muslim regions,Jammu and Ladakh, will surely demand their own right of self-determination and exercise it to stay with India.And unless Pakistan accepts Azad Kashmir, how can Geelani ever expect India to do so?

The ironic truth is that many of Indian states ie. Bihar, Uttarpradesh, Orissa and north eastern states don’t have sufficient power but India in contrast trying its hard to start lot of new hydro projects to give proper power supply to the Kashmir state. India is trying hard to make Kashmir a stable and peaceful state but because of terrorist infiltration through Kasmir route to Indian state it makes very essential for the army to stay there as a watch dog for the security of the whole nation. Kashmiris should understand the real motto of Indian army and some special powers given to them.

Geelani & other Hurriyat are not working for the common interest of Kashmir but they are fighting for their own politics, name & fame and extending an illogical support to Pakistan. The real truth should be understood by young leaders.

Reference-

1. Kashmirs Difficult Choice editorial article in TIMES OF INDIA Dated- 27.09.2010 by SUBIR BHAUMIK.

2. Wikipedia- History of Kashmir.



PRAKASH CHANDRA TRIVEDI

ENGINEER, BHEL

China encircling India: Another China’s move

China encircling India: Another China’s move, New Delhi should take appropriate actions to counter China's increasing influence in S Asia

Chinas influence in Nepal, much to the chagrin of India, received a fillip on Sunday with Beijing extending its railway from Lhasa to Xigaze or Shigatse,a city in Tibet which borders Nepal,India and Bhutan.This is the first step taken by China to extend its rail link till-Nepal border.

As per Indian officials,this rail link till the Nepal border reduces Kathmandus dependence on India as it will enable them to import petroleum products from Beijing.Pictures posted on the internet by tourists show work on this railroad may already have begun.

Strategic affairs expert Chellaney believes the extension of railway and the highaltitude airports in Tibet is to be seen in context of PLA Dailys report that the railroad to Tibet is used to supply combat readiness material to their air force.China is now in a position to move additional forces to the border to potentially strike India.The way for India to respond is to shore up its conventional and nuclear deterrent capabilities, he said.

Nepal PM Madhav Kumar Nepal had urged China in October to extend the Beijing-Lhasa rail saying that it would take economic ties between Nepal and China to a new height. In return, Nepal assured China that they would not allow anti-China activity.

Courtesy- Times of India (27.09.10)



Prakash Chandra Trivedi

Engineer, BHEL

GUESS WHO HOLDS THE INDIA’S HAND AT TROUBLE TIME

GUESS WHO HOLDS THE INDIA’S HAND AT TROUBLE TIME, THANKS PAK!!

The Malaysian and Botswanian teams today joined the ranks of those complaining against the state of affairs in the Commonwealth Games Village, while the South African envoy cried “a threat to the lives of athletes” after a snake was found in one of the rooms allotted to the country’s sportspersons.

However, there was good news on at least one front for the beleaguered Commonwealth Games officials: Pakistan. Not only have officials from the country given a thumbs-up to the arrangements and security preparedness for the Games, but also accused “Westerners” of being overly critical.

“We have been given complete assurance by the organisers and our security liaison officer is in India at the moment. We trust the Indian government to provide full protection, and we have no security concerns. Hopefully our entire 75-member contingent will be in India on the 29th as planned,” Pakistan Olympic Association president Syed Arif Hasan told The Indian Express on Sunday.

Courtesy- Indian Express
(27.09.10)


Prakash Chandra Trivedi
Engineer, BHEL