This Blog is About INDIA.

Liberalization Process

2006-11-20T07:15:00.000-08:00

India's Liberalization process which started in 1991 is quite a success but there is a big scope for improvement like privatizing more PSU companies & I think that government should not hesitate in privatizing even those companies which are said to be India's 'Navratans'.I read the other day that India can raise additional 100 - 150 Billion US dollars after bringing it's stake down to 51 % in some PSU's even if they are little profit making ones or are in core sector 'cause the best 'ism for a state in this Century is going to be CAPITAL'ISM.

Bye
A Concerned INDIAN

America's 2020 Vision.

2005-01-27T09:46:00.000-08:00

Who will be the first politician brave enough to declare publicly that the United States is a declining power and that America's leaders must urgently discuss what to do about it? This prognosis of decline comes not (or not only) from leftist scribes rooting for imperialism's downfall, but from the National Intelligence Council—the "center of strategic thinking" inside the U.S. intelligence community.

The NIC's conclusions are starkly presented in a new 119-page document, "Mapping the Global Future: Report of the National Intelligence Council's 2020 Project." It is unclassified and available on the CIA's Web site. The report has received modest press attention the past couple weeks, mainly for its prediction that, in the year 2020, "political Islam" will still be "a potent force." Only a few stories or columns have taken note of its central conclusion:

The likely emergence of China and India ... as new major global players—similar to the advent of a united Germany in the 19^th century and a powerful United States in the early 20^th century—will transform the geopolitical landscape with impacts potentially as dramatic as those in the previous two centuries.

In this new world, a mere 15 years away, the United States will remain "an important shaper of the international order"—probably the single most powerful country—but its "relative power position" will have "eroded." The new "arriviste powers"—not only China and India, but also Brazil, Indonesia, and perhaps others—will accelerate this erosion by pursuing "strategies designed to exclude or isolate the United States" in order to "force or cajole" us into playing by their rules.

America's current foreign policy is encouraging this trend, the NIC concluded. "U.S. preoccupation with the war on terrorism is largely irrelevant to the security concerns of most Asians," the report states. The authors don't dismiss the importance of the terror war—far from it. But they do write that a "key question" for the future of America's power and influence is whether U.S. policy-makers "can offer Asian states an appealing vision of regional security and order that will rival and perhaps exceed that offered by China." If not, "U.S. disengagement from what matters to U.S. Asian allies would increase the likelihood that they will climb on Beijing's bandwagon and allow China to create its own regional security that excludes the United States."

To the extent that these new powers seek others to emulate, they may look to the European Union, not the United States, as "a model of global and regional governance."

This shift to a multipolar world "will not be painless," the report goes on, "and will hit the middle classes of the developed world in particular" with further outsourcing of jobs and outflow of capital investment. In short, the NIC's forecast involves not merely a recalibration in the balance of world power, but also—as these things do—a loss of wealth, income, and, in every sense of the word, security.

The trends should already be apparent to anyone who reads a newspaper. Not a day goes by without another story about how we're mortgaging our future to the central banks of China and Japan. The U.S. budget deficit, approaching a half-trillion dollars, is financed by their purchase of Treasury notes. The U.S. trade deficit—much of it amassed by the purchase of Chinese-made goods—now exceeds $3 trillion. Meanwhile, China is displacing the United States all across Asia—in trade, investment, education, culture, and tourism. It's also cutting into the trade markets of Latin America. (China is now Chile's No. 1 export market and Brazil's No. 2 trade partner.) Asian engineering students who might once have gone to MIT or Cal Tech are now going to universities in Beijing.

Meanwhile, as the European Union becomes a coherent entity, the dollar's value against the euro has fallen by one-third in the past two years (one-eighth just since September). As the dollar's rate of return declines, currency investors—including those who have been financing our deficit—begin to diversify their holdings. In China, Japan, Russia, and the Middle East, central bankers have been unloading dollars in favor of euros. The Bush policies that have deepened our debt have endangered the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency.

What is the Bush administration doing to alter course or at least cushion the blow? It's hard to say. During Condoleezza Rice's confirmation hearings last week, Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D–Md., raised some questions about the nexus between international economics and political power. Rice referred him to the secretary of the treasury.

The NIC issued the report a few weeks before Bush’s inaugural address, but it serves to dump still more cold water on the lofty fantasy of America delivering freedom to oppressed people everywhere. In Asia, the report states, "present and future leaders are agnostic on the issue of democracy and are more interested in developing what they perceive to be the most effective model of governance." If the president really wanted to spread freedom and democracy around the planet, he would (among other things) need to present America as that "model of governance"—to show the world, by its example, that free democracies are successful and worth emulating. Yet the NIC report paints a world where fewer and fewer people look to America as a model of anything. We can't sell freedom if we can't sell ourselves.

India as Worldpower - Reality Check

2005-01-24T09:52:00.000-08:00

But let us not lose sight of reality

THE latest Central Intelligence Agency report mentioning that India will be a super power by 2020 is more amusing than true. Nevertheless, it should prompt introspection. The CIA’s aim is to prepare the US for future economic challenges from China and India. The spurt in growth in the two countries is credited to the IMF-World Bank’s reform agenda, which aims to push privatization, deregulate trade and open up markets. The growth story, commendable no doubt, has to be seen in perspective. As is now admitted openly by the Prime Minister, the reforms have not benefited rural India. Hence, his government’s thrust on agriculture and the rural poor. The urban middle class, aided by easy availability of loans, is expanding and lapping up Western-style consumerism, buying whatever is available, with all the attendant consequences.

Here is a reality check: one bad monsoon can destabilize the whole economy. Here is an emerging super power dependent on the rain god! Pressure on land, water and energy resources is growing to dangerous levels. Drinking water is either inadequately available or polluted. Fifty lakh Indians are HIV positive today — progressing from one case in 1986. A vast majority is still illiterate. The government is heavily debt-ridden, burdened with a ballooning fiscal deficit. Institutions required to support a growing state are weakening. Criminals in politics use the administration for personal benefits with a bureaucracy either indifferent to or conniving in the misuse of state power. There is no scam-free financial system. Also, there is not a single global-level financial institution to boast of.

The CIA report recognizes some of these weaknesses. The need is to understand and tackle them as also to build on strengths, which are also well known. China is much ahead of India in sustaining a higher growth rate and attracting foreign investment but it lacks democratic institutions, a reliable political power structure, transparency in economic data and a developed capital market. Both can join hands and, along with other Asian countries, promote common interests to ensure peace and prosperity in the region.

Bye
A Concerned INDIAN

Beat China.

2005-01-23T01:06:00.000-08:00

India can beat china on every front provided these politicians do what they should do. India's share in the global GDP is steadily improving day by day and hovers around at 5 % which is poised to go upto 10 % at the end of this decade. And Exports are increasing at 20 % YOY, and at 75 Billion US$ which can go to 200 Billion US$ at the end of this decade. But we can not do this only with the help of Services sector, we have to improve our manufacturing sector so that it can compete with that of china's. OK, on a positive note BFN (Bye For Now).

This is the first entry.

2004-10-12T09:21:00.000-07:00

INDIA is going to be the world power.Bye