SC moved on caste-based census!3G bounty to help govt cut borrowings: Montek
Shares of leading oil and gas companies surged to nearly 9pc on the BSE, a day after the government more than doubled the prices of natural gas to reduce the losses suffered by these companies.Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams,Chapter 479
Palash Biswas
http://indianholocaustmyfatherslifeandtime.blogspot.com/
Shares of leading oil and gas companies surged to nearly 9pc on the BSE, a day after the government more than doubled the prices of natural gas to reduce the losses suffered by these companies. Selling price of power generated by gas-based plants will go up by up to Rs 1.20 per unit on account of the hike in the price of natural gas, government said on Thursday.
However, how much of it would translate into consumer tariff would depend on state regulatory authorities.
"The increase in administered gas price will certainly increase the electricity rates because the cascading effect is bound to come on such things," Shinde said on the sidelines of a FICCI event here.
He said the cost of generation would go up by 90 paise to Rs 1.20 per unit (Kwh)for gas-based power plants in the country and added the consumer prices are also sure to go up, but the exact quantum would be worked out.
The gas-based power plants account for only about 10 per cent of the total generation capacity.
"This is true that all our units are not run on gas. All those running on gas would be affected by the increase," he said.
Power producers are paid on the basis of fixed cost and variable cost and the increase in the price of natural gas would accordingly have to be taken into account by the Central or state regulatory authorities.
Yesterday, the Union Cabinet decided to more than double the natural gas prices to USD 4.20 per unit (mmBtu).
The cost of gas sold to power firms would increase from Rs 3,200 per thousand cubic metres to Rs 6,818 per thousand cubic metres. After adding royalty, the new price for user industries would be Rs 7,500 per thousand cubic metres.
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Wall St falls on eurozone regulation fears!The Rs 67,700-crore revenue boost from the auction of 3G spectrum licences will help the government reduce its borrowings in the current fiscal, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said here today.
Thai Lessons Teach Us BUBBLE Inflated Economy may Blast any Time leading to Unprecedented Fire to Lit Up Free Market Democracy!Red alert for India seeing Southeast Asian and Latin American, Euro Crisis in Full Bloom!India will observe Anti-Terrorism Day Friday to mark former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's assassination on May 21, 1991. Debates and discussions will be organised in schools, colleges.Stocks fell sharply on Thursday, sending the S&P 500 index into correction territory on growing fears the euro-zone's handling of its sovereign debt crises could put the global economic recovery in jeopardy.
The inability of euro-zone leaders to agree on policy, highlighted by Germany's unilateral decision Tuesday to ban naked short-selling, has triggered worries about additional regulation and pressured the euro, which shed 0.9 percent versus the dollar.
"Let's face it, it's tough to coordinate all those countries, reserve banks, different Feds," said Kevin Kruszenski, head of listed trading at KeyBanc Capital Markets in Cleveland.
"You hear the cliche the markets hate uncertainty, and there is a whole hill of it over there right now."
The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 262.70 points, or 2.52 per cent, to 10,181.67. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index lost 30.93 points, or 2.77 per cent, to 1,084.12. The Nasdaq Composite Index fell 72.64 points, or 3.16 per cent, to 2,225.73.
May individual equity options and some options on stock indexes stop trading at Friday's close and expire on Saturday, which may increase volatility.
Meanwhile,SC moved on caste-based census!Bengali Media in Kolkata is SCREAMING Disaster as OBC communities here are most Brahaminical and shy away from identifying themselves lower than the Ruling Brahamins. Jyoti Basu denied their Existence as Buddha prescribed Seven Percent Quota without parting away Caste Certificate. Later, the Brahamin Front Ruling Marxists opted for Rangnath Mishra Commission inspired Ten Percent Exclusive quota for the Muslims who joined the Change Brigade led by the Human Face of the Economic Ethnic Cleansing suddenly awakened with Sachhar Commission Report!
Maoist Menace Escalated is the Wall Writing for Future.Economic Activities and Corporate Monopolistic Aggression in Aboriginal Landscape in India have proved to be the Best ALCHEMISTS to Flare Up Insurgency leading to Exodus and Eviction amidst State Power involvement in Persecution, Repression and military Option! Latest Trend of Systematic Violence with Professional Accuracy and surgical Precision taking Toll of Innocent Lives lead to us Clues indicating Major Implications of Manipulation which reminds the Experiences of Repression in Punjab as well as Bengal leading to wiping out respectively Peasant Uprisings described in Insurgency Terminology as NAXAL Movement and Khalistani insurgency!Mind you, this is Global Phenomenon of Post Modern Manusmriti Zionist Regime and not related to any Idea or Ideology! Oil Rich Gujarat and Rajsthan are being included in the Maoist Menace map recently make it very clear that Corporate Interests best served in Brahaminical Maoist Insurgency which is Hegemony, the Market dominating Community SPONSORED!
Growing up under the shadow of terrorNDTV.com - 1 hour ago The physical wounds of the deadly Naxal attacks in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada districts in the past few months may heal, but its psychological scars may become very difficult to deal with for the people living here. A whole generation of children in this ... Anti-Naxal ops: PC mandate lament put Centre on backfoot?Times of India - 19 hours ago NEW DELHI: Home minister P Chidambaram's remark on a "limited" mandate in anti-Naxal operations and his upfront media presence has evoked some concern over the Centre placing itself at the receiving end of the flak over a mounting death toll of ... Time to change tactics against Naxals, Chidambaram tells NDTVNDTV.com - May 18, 2010 On a day when over 30 people were killed in a Maoist attack in Dantewada, Home Minister P Chidambaram spoke exclusively to NDTV on a range of issues, including the government's Maoist strategy, Mamata Banerjee's demand for early polls in West Bengal ...
Dantewada bus blast toll 31, PM to review Naxal strategyNDTV.com - May 17, 2010 A day after Naxals blew up a bus with security personnel and civilians on board near Dantewada in Chhattisgarh, fresh details have emerged of how the Maoists were able to carry out the attack. Sources have told NDTV that the local police and CRPF swept ... Chidambaram-Jaitley face-off on Naxal issueNDTV.com - May 18, 2010 The deadly Naxal attack in distant Chhattisgarh seems to be generating political heat here in the capital. The Congress and the BJP are literally involved in a verbal duel. The main Opposition party, the BJP, found no time in attacking the UPA over its ... 'Salwa Judum' activists condemn Dantewada massacreOneindia - 7 hours ago Bijapur/ Raipur, May 20 (ANI): The 'Salwa Judum', a local militia formed to fight Maoists, took out a peace rally in Bijapur on Wednesday to condemn the Maoist attack that killed over 30 people in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada District. ... Dantewada spells trouble for CRPF, heads set to rollIndian Express - 21 hours ago The inability to prevent two major Maoist attacks in Dantewada within a month has set the stage for heads to roll in the CRPF. A lack of coordination between the Central Task Force Commander and the Chhattisgarh police chief, the casual approach of the ... Chidambaram makes fresh offer for talks with NaxalsTimes of India - May 18, 2010 NEW DELHI: A day after Maoists killed at least 26 civilians, including women and children, in an attack on a bus in Dantewada, home minister P Chidambaram threw down the peace gauntlet before the ultras calling on them to cease violence for at least 72 ... Naxal sympathizers will find it toughTimes of India - May 17, 2010 NEW DELHI: The massacre of civilians by Maoists could not have come at a worse time for their champions and sympathisers among civil society and the political class. It exposes their claim about Maoists being "misplaced ideologues" — who are fighting ... The day after, grief replaces confusion in DantewadaThe Hindu - - May 18, 2010 Tell-tale marks of terror: The remains of the bus that was blasted by Maoists in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district on Monday are seen over 40 metres from the crater formed when the landmine went off. Dantewada: A dismembered arm lies adjacent to the ... | Timeline of articles Number of sources covering this story
ImagesNDTV.com  NDTV.com  NDTV.com The Hindu  The Hindu  NDTV.com  Calcutta Telegr... Hindustan Times  The Hindu Videos Prime Minister must clarify Naxal strategy: BJP Asian News International (ANI) - May 19, 2010 Watch video
 PC urges BJP to maintain bipartisan approach in tackling Maoists Asian News International (ANI) - May 19, 2010 Watch video  Jaitley-Chidambaram face-off on Naxal issue NDTV.com - May 19, 2010 Watch video |
We the Democratic Human Right Activists, unfortunately most of us are Individual without any Organisational network to support, may not Physically Present in the Aboriginal Landscape as Ms Arundhati ray had been. But, even Ms ray could not help the Persecuted Masses under attack with Double Edged Swords and CROSS Fire in Salawa Judum environment but she did an excellent work to unearth the Facts we know not!We happen to be in no condition to stop this phenomenon Global and the situation gets ALARMING day bey day with latest killings and Blood bath in which the Killed and the Killers, both belong to the Enslaved indigenous aboriginal minority communities constituting Eighty percent masses on 1300 million Nation. They are the People EXCLUDED since the very moment of transfer of power and have Never been Address except Governance being limited in Anti People Legislation, Taxation, Displacement, Policy making, Policing, repression and Government Expenditure to implement Monetary Policies in absence of Fiscal Policy in a Deficit Prone Foreign capital Inflow dependent FII MNCs run Economy so volatile!
No TV Anchor is going to invite us! No Media space is allotted for! Public address system Hijacked. Mass Movements annihilated. Politics CORPORATISED. Social ACTIVISM Funded. Mind control Game in Full Swing! Spectrum 3 G with massive Video Phone launching seem to kill every Information in Future and generation next being Illiterate or semi literate without any research and development as IT and Outsourcing kills every Genre in Knowledge economy!
I have been warning my friends that we must do something to seek a way out unless everything goes beyond Control as Violence Flared up at this speed, would not spare any one, mind you!
Reuter reports:Thai authorities restored order over most of Bangkok on Thursday but the peace looked fragile, a day after rioting and fires that veered towards anarchy as troops took control of a camp occupied by anti-government protesters.
Thousands of the mostly rural and urban poor "red shirt" protesters had deserted their once-barricaded rally site in central Bangkok, but the tough crackdown and bloodshed raised fears of deepening anger among Thailand's underclasses.
Modern Thailand has never seen such a protracted period of urban violence, deadly riots, clashes and widespread destruction, and has never teetered so close to full civil conflict.
"Thailand has become a nation deeply divided, and although talk of a civil war may still be premature, there is a high risk that civil unrest and political violence will not be contained," said Danny Richards, analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit.
The crackdown that began before dawn on Wednesday morning killed 15 people and wounded nearly 100. About 1,500 protesters took refuge in a temple, where six bodies were found on Thursday. Hundreds who remained inside were coaxed out by police.
Dozens of buildings were torched, including many banks, the stock exchange and Southeast Asia's second-biggest department store. By morning, the worse was over. The protesters were gone. [ID:nSGE64J0DT]
Meanwhile,Shares of leading oil and gas companies surged to nearly 9pc on the BSE, a day after the government more than doubled the prices of natural gas to reduce the losses suffered by these companies.
Shares of ONGC settled up nearly 9 per cent at Rs 1,118.20 after surging more than 11 per cent intra-day while Oil India closed at Rs 1,259.80, up 9.09 per cent on the Bombay Stock Exchange. This massive rally took the BSE Oil& gas index up 1.79 per cent.
"The oil and gas stocks reacted in line with news of the price rise in natural gas. This was much awaited by the oil producing and marketing companies which will help to recover their resources," CNI Research chairman and managing director Kishor P Ostwal said.
Yesterday, the Cabinet hiked the prices of natural gas sold to power, fertiliser projects and city-gas distributors from Rs 3,200 per thousand cubic meters (USD1.79 per million British thermal unit) to Rs 6,818 per thousand cubic meters (USD 3.818 per mmBtu).
Other energy stocks, which settled with gains were IndianOil (4 per cent), Bharat Petroleum Corporation (2.81 per cent) and Gail India (2.37 per cent).
After adding royalty, the price for user industries would be Rs 7,500 or USD 4.2 per mmBtu, at a par with the rate at which Reliance Industries sells its gas now.
ONGC and OIL have been making substantial losses in their gas business. After the Cabinet meeting, information and broadcasting minister Ambika Soni had told newsmen that yesterday the government was prompted to raise gas prices as low rates were discouraging national oil companies from making investment on raising output.
Thailand mops up, but fears of long-term strifeThe Associated Press - - 37 minutes ago BANGKOK — As soldiers mopped up pockets of resistance and the government declared it was back in control, fears grew Thursday that the tentative quiet restored to Thailand's capital after a bloody crackdown on protests may just be a respite from ... Thailand's only hope lies in political compromiseThe Guardian - 23 minutes ago As Thailand picks up the pieces after Bangkok's worst-ever protests and street riots, the country is further away from peace and reconciliation than it was two months ago, when the redshirts under the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship ... Thailand protests: death toll rises as six found dead in temple refugeThe Guardian - 31 minutes ago With an uneasy peace holding in Bangkok , the death toll from the violent army crackdown has reached 14 today when the bodies of six protesters were found inside a temple designated as a refuge for women and children. The military declared that it had ...
Fight not over, say Red Shirts as they are herded out of BangkokTimes Online - - 31 minutes ago Weeping Red Shirt protesters were herded on to buses and sent home today as the Thai authorities began to clean up Bangkok after the spasm of killing and destruction that brought their demonstrations to an end. In a Buddhist temple were laid out the ... Uneasy peace in Thailand, uncertainties lie aheadReuters - - 4 hours ago New US trading curbs, however necessary, create yet another layer of uncertainty barely two weeks after the dramatic "flash crash" badly rattled markets, traders and analysts warned. Full Article | Related Story By Jason Szep and Ambika Ahuja BANGKOK, ... Bangkok Is Tense as Order ReturnsNew York Times - - 1 hour ago The Central World department store burned in Bangkok on Wednesday after antigovernment protesters set fire to it. More Photos » By THOMAS FULLER The Thai military declared Thursday that it had recaptured control of central Bangkok, but Thailand ... Thailand issues three-day curfew as 13000 protesters rally in provincesTelegraph.co.uk - - 1 hour ago Thailand has issued a three-day curfew in an attempt to stop violence spreading from Bangkok to the provinces after 13000 protesters rallied across rural areas setting fire to government halls. 'Red shirt' protesters cry as they surrender to police ... In Bangkok, an uneasy calm, smoldering buildingsLos Angeles Times - - 25 minutes ago After a crackdown ends 10 weeks of violent protests, the government says the situation in the capital is largely under control. But die-hard protesters exchange gunfire with troops early in the day. A nighttime curfew is extended. ... Bangkok mayhem leaves 16 dead, 35 buildings burntThe Hindu - 4 hours ago AP Thai soldiers take up positions across from an anti-government barricade near Lumpini Park in downtown Bangkok on Wednesday. Anti-government protestors set fire to at least 35 buildings in Bangkok in a rampage that followed a government crackdown ... Thai Red shirt stronghold recoups after angry riotsReuters India - - 2 hours ago CHIANG MAI, Thailand (Reuters) - A day after some of the worst rioting in modern Thai history erupted in Bangkok and swept through the "red shirt" northern stronghold of Chiang Mai, anti-government protesters have gone to ground. ... | Timeline of articles Number of sources covering this story
Videos Thai army in fresh mop-up operation against Red Shirt militias France 24 - 49 minutes ago Watch video  Bangkok burns as the Red Shirts' stand-off continues France 24 - 53 minutes ago Watch video
 Video of fresh flames in Bangkok, Thai troops hunt rioters, Central World in ruins after fire RT - 1 hour ago Watch video  Curfew extended in Bangkok ITN NEWS - 8 hours ago Watch video
 Bangkok emerges from curfew to smoke, gunfire AFP - 10 hours ago Watch video |
Political analysts say the next step is up to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who some say will forever be tarnished by overseeing military operations in which 82 people, mostly civilians, have been killed since April 10.
Nearly 1,800 people have been wounded in the period as the government, backed by Thailand's royalist establishment, and the protesters with their support from the rural masses and ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra, failed to find common ground.
"He is more than tarnished," Michael Montesano of Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies said of the British-born, Oxford-educated Abhisit.
"All extenuating circumstances notwithstanding, he will always be recalled as the man whose miscalculated incursion led to a burning Bangkok."
Troops have now established control of Bangkok and the protest encampment occupied since April 3, but at great cost.
Checkpoints of armed troops form a 6 sq-km (2.3 sq-mile) cordon in Bangkok, a city of 15 million known for its raucous nightlife but now reduced to smouldering fires, scarred streets, and 9 p.m. night curfews.
"The question is: how long do troops have to be deployed on this level in the city? The anger is still simmering," said Tanet Charoengmuang, a political scientist at Chiang Mai University.
The red shirts want fresh elections, saying Abhisit lacks a popular mandate after coming to power in a controversial parliamentary vote in 2008 with tacit military support. Abhisit last week withdrew an offer of fresh elections.
Analysts say regardless of the outcome, the violence marked a turning point in a country where the richest 20 percent of the population earn about 55 percent of the income while the poorest fifth get 4 percent, according to the World Bank.
But protest leaders, now detained, called for calm.
"Democracy cannot be built on revenge and anger," Veera Musikapong, chairman of the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, known as the red shirts, said in a televised statement while in custody, calling on protesters to go home.
RURAL UNREST
Thailand's unifying figure, revered 82-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej, has not publicly commented on the current bout of turmoil in the kingdom, after defusing previous crises during his 63 years on the throne -- including the last political riots in Bangkok -- on the same date 18 years ago.
The king has been in hospital since Sept. 19.
The unrest has hammered Thailand's lucrative tourism industry, which supports six percent of Southeast Asia's second-biggest economy and employs 15 percent of Thailand's workforce directly or indirectly. [ID:nSGE64J0F5]
A source at state planning agency National Economic and Social Development Board said the economic impact of nine weeks of political turmoil and rioting would easily cost $3 billion, or about one percentage point of gross domestic product.
A curfew in Bangkok and 23 provinces was extended for another three nights, raising questions about whether authorities feared more unrest in a country where the ranks of the military and the police are split along the same socio-economic fault lines dividing protesters from the government and its affluent backers.
The rioting spread to north and northeast provinces, a red-shirt stronghold and home to just over half of Thailand's 67 million people. But trouble spots were quiet on Thursday and protest leaders urged calm. [ID:nSGE64J0G8]
Army spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd said about 13,000 people were still "actively waiting to riot and perpetrate illegal acts" in provinces under a state of emergency.
In Bangkok, fires at 39 sites still smouldered but most had been extinguished. Central World (CPN.BK), Southeast Asia's second-biggest department store and a symbol of wealth, was destroyed. Many of its supporting steel beams had collapsed.
"WOUNDED HEARTS AND MINDS"
The protesters' tented encampment in the heart of Bangkok's commercial district -- an area lined with luxury hotels and shopping plazas -- was strewn with rubbish, clothing and the smell of refuse and human waste. Troops roamed the area and some were positioned on an overhead subway system.
There were no signs of clashes.
Groups of soldiers sat on a sidewalk near the twisted wreckage of trucks that had been packed with explosives and blown up at barricades overnight. They looked relaxed in contrast to the tension of recent days, smiling at journalists.
Ten journalists have been shot in six days of violence, including an Italian cameraman killed on Wednesday.
The surrender of key protest leaders on Wednesday and a seeming end for now to violence that has killed at least 53 people and wounded more than 400 in six days could put the focus back on early elections and a "reconciliation roadmap" the prime minister had proposed before the latest bout of violence.
"We can immediately fix the roads but we do not know how long it will take to fix the wounded hearts and minds of the people," Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra told local television. (Additional reporting by Damir Sagolj, Nopporn Wong-Anan and Vithoon Amorn; Writing by Jason Szep; Editing by Bill Tarrant)
Mukesh Ambani meets Cabinet minister, top officials in Delhi
Ahead of the his company's formal discussions with Anil Ambani group firm RNRL, Reliance Industries head Mukesh Ambani today met top government officials and a Cabinet minister.His meeting comes within a fortnight of the Supreme Court verdict on the gas row between the two sides.
The elder Ambani met Prime Minister's Principal Secretary T K A Nair and Solicitor General Gopal Subramainum.
An RIL spokesperson declined to give any immediate comment on the purpose and deliberation of the meetings.
Incidentally, Anil Ambani had met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde and other government officials last week.
The Supreme Court had on May 7 rejected Anil Ambani Group firm RNRL's claim for cheap gas from RIL as had been decided in a private family agreement of 2005. The apex court had directed the two companies to rework gas supply pact keeping the government's pricing and utilisation policy in mind.
RIL and RNRL are likely to meet formally next week for renegotiations on the family pact that provided for Anil Ambani firm getting 28 million cubic meters per day of gas for 17 years.
The RIL spokesperson also declined comment on reports that informal discussions between RIL and Anil Ambani group have started. Two sides are also believed to be seeking guidance from the Central officials as the apex court had directed renegotiation within the frame work of government policy.
CorporateSC moved on caste-based census!
A caveat was today filed in the Supreme Court against the Centre which is expected to file a Special Leave Petition challenging the Madras High Court direction for conduct of a caste-based census in the country. A caveat is an application moved by a person pleading that the court shall not pass any order until he/she is heard in the matter.In the present case, petitioners R Krishnamurthy and P Emmanuel Prakasam, both advocates from Tamil Nadu have filed the caveat anticipating that the union government would seek a stay of the Madras High Court order. The Madras High Court had recently directed the union government to conduct caste-wise census on a PIL filed by the advocates who had contented that it was essential to ensure that reservation benefits accrued to deserving beneficiaries on the basis of the latest data.
The PIL submitted the last caste census was conducted in 1931 and despite recommendations by the Mandal and Kalekar Commissions, no such has exercise had been undertaken by the government. According to the PIL, only through a caste-based census, socially and economically backward class citizens and weaker section of the country could be identified to dole out the benefits.
The Madras High Court bench of Acting Chief Justice E Dharma Rao and T S Sivagnanam, while directing the Centre to ensure caste-based census, agreed with the view that there cannot be any dispute about the manifold increase in the population of SC, STs, and other OBCs, which warranted a caste based census.
No corruption in IPL3, says Condon
20 May 2010, 2047 hrs IST,REUTERS
"IPL three from a clean cricket point of view seems to have been a very clean event," Condon told a news conference at Lord's. "There were rumours and vague allegations about match-fixing in IPL three.
"No one has come forward from within the Indian board or the IPL or franchises or journalists, players or team managers, anyone with any specific allegations about match-fixing in the IPL. All there has been is a generic rumour."
The Anti-Corruption and Security Unit (ACSU) did not monitor the first two IPL Twenty20 competitions. Condon, who has been in charge of the unit since it was set up 10 years ago to deal with a match-fixing scandal which resulted in life bans for three international captains, will be succeeded by former senior British police offical Ronnie Flanagan on July 1.
Condon said the ACSU was still investigating the second test between Australia and Pakistan in Sydney this year, which the home side won after the Pakistanis appeared to be clearly in charge.
"It is a match and series that worried us," Condon said. "We spent a lot of time talking to the players, talking to the PCB (Pakistan Cricket Board).
"Certainly we are satisfied that that was a totally dysfunctional tour from the Pakistan point of view and the dysfunctionality in the dressing room led to players not performing well, to maybe players even potentially under-performing deliberately.
"What we are still trying to establish is whether that was because rival camps wanted to do down captains, or potential captains, or whether they were doing something more serious and were doing it for a financial fix."
PESA: Government's sheathed weapon
20 May 2010, 0516 hrs IST,ET BureauIn the least remarked upon move by the government to take on the development challenge in left-wing extremist (LWE) areas, Sudha Pillai was elevated to member-secretary of the Planning Commission on the eve of her retirement from the IAS.
A topper in her batch, Sudha was initially posted to her home state of Punjab and then moved to Kerala after her marriage to her batchmate, present home secretary Gopal Pillai.
Between the two of them, they have the potential to coordinate in their own home, even before going to office, the entire two-pronged strategy the prime minister has called for to tackle the single most serious internal security challenge the country currently faces, far more far-reaching in its dire consequences than any cross-border terrorism from Pakistan.
For, Sudha was the very isolated joint secretary in the ministry of rural development who drafted the provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas ) Act, 1996 (PESA), the only legislation that the Constitution has ever mandated Parliament to pass. She based her draft on the Dilip Singh Bhuria report.
It passed parliamentary muster in December 1996 —and has remained over 13 years the law most observed in the breach by the state governments concerned, that is, those who govern Fifth Schedule areas, including those most affected by LWE.
Fortunately, the founding fathers of our Constitution (I suspect primarily Dr Ambedkar himself) foresaw that governments of composite states incorporating tribal areas would be so indifferent to tribal interests, indeed even hostile to such interests, that a phrase was added on to paragraph 3 of Part A of the Fifth Schedule authorising the "Union government" to give "directions" to state governments for the "administration" of these areas. Never has the need to invoke this 60-year old provision of the Constitution been more required than today.
The state governments of all Fifth Schedule states, whether of the ruling party at the Centre or of the far larger number of parties in Opposition at the Centre, ranging from the communal to the communist, have all been uniformly guilty of denying to their Fifth Schedule tribal populations the full range of PESA rights notwithstanding each one of them having long years ago passed the required conformity legislation.
Thus, their failure to sincerely and faithfully implement PESA is a betrayal of not only their respective tribal populations but also a repudiation of their pledges to their respective legislatures.
Besides, there are numerous political commitments made by these state governments, particularly during the time I served as panchayat minister, in mutually agreed documents signed by chief ministers with me, that enforcing PESA though paragraph 3 of the Fifth Schedule would tantamount to no more than ensuring that the state governments concerned (particularly LWE-infected Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar — all under non-Congress governments — and even Congress-led Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, besides non-Congress Gujarat, Himachal and Uttarakhand and Congress Rajasthan) actually implement on the ground pledges they have themselves made of their own volition on paper.
I listed these in detail in my May 6 speech in the Rajya Sabha.
To avoid making this an issue of Centre-state relations, all the National Development Council (NDC) has to do is take up the unanimous report of the Empowered Sub-Committee on Panchayati Raj submitted all of two years ago to an unbelieving Planning Commission which has refused these last 24 months to even bring the report to the NDC, largely because a sceptical deputy chairman cannot bring himself to believe that state governments would willingly commit themselves to the report's conclusions!
Moreover, PESA had provided that within a year — that is, or was, by December 1997! — all legislation not in conformity with PESA be amended to bring it in line with PESA provisions (in letter, of course, but also in spirit).
This could broadly be interpreted to mean that the two principal colonial causes of tribal disaffection — the failure to recognise community propriety rights over land of tribal communities in the Indian Forests Act, 1927 and the many glaring oppressive features of the 19th century Land Acquisition Act — could and should be amended to bring them in line with the letter and spirit of PESA which stresses the role of the tribal community in matters affecting the land they live on and the duty of gram sabhas in Fifth Schedule areas to ensure that tribal land is not alienated except with their consent.
While "consultation" with gram sabhas is mandatory only with regard to "minor" mineral and forest produce, the right to prevent alienation of tribal land without due consent clearly means that POSCO, NDMC and other corporate predators cannot make free with other people's property and certainly not in collaboration with state agencies, as is clearly happening.
Also, state governments need to be "directed" to faithfully implement more recent legislation in respect of the rights of forest dwellers and to sound rehabilitation and resettlement in the event of their being "displaced" — a disgraceful euphemism to cover up the ghastly consequences of your being deprived of your land to accommodate the commercial interests of those far more powerful than yourself, with almost all the benefits going to the usurper.
What is at stake is Rs 50,000 crore of tribal money, calculated on the basis of a third of the central funds voted by Parliament for Bharat Nirman, MNREGA and other anti-poverty programmes plus a third share of the 13th Finance Commission's recommendations for non-plan revenue grants to panchayats — representing the dues of the districts affected by LWE.
Leaving aside the 19 most seriously affected LWE districts covered by PESA, the full-fledged implementation of PESA will give Rs 50,000 crore to tribal communities to develop themselves.
Nothing would deal a bigger blow to the Maoists than participative development by, for and of the tribal communities.
The home minister has rightly declared that the government's principal duty is to uphold the Constitution and the law in LWE-affected areas. Well, Part IX of the Constitution — 'The Panchayats' — and PESA are also the law of the land.
(Declaration of interest: Sudha Pillai was my first acting secretary, panchayat raj)
(The author is a Rajya Sabha member and former Union minister for panchayati raj)
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/comments--analysis/PESA-Governments-sheathed-weapon/articleshow/5951556.cms
TODAY - 20 May, 2010
'The Queen is not dead'
A BBC radio DJ, who announced the death of Queen Elizabeth II while playing the British anthem, has been suspended. Read more
Before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's much-awaited report card on the performance of his government, opposition BJP and the CPM on Wednesday painted UPA II's first year in office as listless and directionless and labelled it a failure on multiple fronts.
Babri demolition case: Allahabad HC refuses to review case against Advani
Former Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani and 20 other Bharatiya Janata Party and Sangh Pavivar leaders got a reprieve on Thursday with the Allahabad High Court rejecting a plea to revive criminal cases against them in the Babri Mosque demolition case.The Lucknow Bench of the court dismissed a plea of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to revive criminal cases against these accused.
The High Court decision implies that trial in criminal cases related the demolition would now be held against 26 little-known Sangh Parivar workers.
In his judgment, Justice Alok Kumar Singh said nothing has been found against the correctness, legality, propriety or regularity in respect of any of the findings of the lower court.
The CBI had sought the court's intervention to revive criminal cases against Advani and others, against whom the trial court had dropped the charge of criminal conspiracy for the mosque's demolition on December 6, 1992 at Ayodhya.
Besides Advani, those who benefit from the High Court's order include senior leaders Murli Manohar Joshi and Vinay Katiyar, former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh, former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharti, and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Ashok Singhal. (ANI)
MTNL gets $82 mln tax write-back
State-run telecoms operator Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd said on Thursday the income tax department had allowed the company a tax write-back of 3.85 billion rupees ($82.3 million), relating to tax deductions for a previous period.
No further details were immediately available.
BSNL, MTNL say not seeking concessions on 3G payment
State-run telecom firms Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) Thursday said they have not sought any concessions from the government on payments they have to make for third generation (3G) spectrum.BSNL and MTNL have already been issued airwaves for 3G services and they will have to pay the government spectrum fee based on the winner's price for the circles where these companies operate.
'We have not sought any concessions and we are not seeking any. There are pressures on revenues, which we are trying to improve. We know we have to pay winning prices for Mumbai and Delhi. But we are not looking for exemptions. If needed, we will discuss things, but as of now we are looking at improving margins by increasing our customer base,' MTNL chairman and managing director Kuldip Singh told IANS.
While MTNL will have to shell out Rs.6,564 crore for Delhi and Mumbai, BSNL will have to pay the government Rs.10,186.6 crore for the rest of the circles.
BSNL chairman Kuldeep Goyal said: 'We have enough reserves to pay for 3G spectrum. We have not sought any exemption from the Department of Telecommunications (DOT) to pay for 3G licence spectrum fee. We don't need to seek such an exemption.'
Thu, May 20 08:18 PM
Enlarge Photo Traders work at their desks in front of the DAX board at the Frankfurt stock... The euro and global stocks fell on Thursday, with U.S. stocks now down 10 percent from this year's highs on worries over Europe's debt crisis and how it will crimp world economic growth.
Crude oil fell below $69 a barrel to nearly an eight-month low on concerns about weak demand, while safe-haven U.S. government debt prices soared as falling equity markets and an unexpected jump in new U.S. jobless claims drove a flight to safety.
Fears that other euro zone countries will follow Germany's move to ban short selling in some stocks and bonds pushed European shares sharply lower.
Interbank dollar and euro funding costs rose, with a key dollar lending rate rising to a 10-month high, as demand for the U.S. currency remained solid in a jittery market.
"There's still underlying concerns about the European economy and the potential adverse impact on banks going forward," said Nick Stamenkovic, strategist at RIA Capital Markets in Edinburgh. "Everybody is shying away from the euro on concerns about the economy."
The euro was down 0.63 percent at $1.2349.
MSCI's all-country world equity index fell 2.7 percent, while its emerging markets index was off 3.1 percent.
In morning trading, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 204.66 points, or 1.96 percent, at 10,239.71. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 24.85 points, or 2.23 percent, at 1,090.20. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 53.35 points, or 2.32 percent, at 2,245.02.
The S&P 500 slipped into negative territory for the year on Wednesday and marked an intraday correction of more than 10 percent from its 2010 closing high on April 23.
German 10-year government bond yields hit a record low and euro zone government bond futures extended gains to a fresh session high after U.S. labor market data suggested the economic recovery has hit a stumbling block.
The number of U.S. workers filing new applications for unemployment insurance unexpectedly rose last week for the first time since early April, the Labor Department said.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 25,000 to a seasonally adjusted 471,000 in the week ended May 15, the highest level since the week ended April 10.
"Given the reduced confidence people are having in the economic outlook, (the jump in claims) just adds to those fears," said David Sloan, economist at 4Cast Ltd in New York.
The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note was up 34/32 in price to yield at 3.24 percent.
The U.S. dollar rose against a basket of major currencies, with the U.S. Dollar Index up 0.17 percent at 86.543.
Against the yen, the dollar was down 1.79 percent at 89.99.
Oil extended early losses on the U.S. jobless data and slide in global equity markets.
U.S. light sweet crude oil fell $1.17 to $68.70 a barrel.
Spot gold prices rose $1.05 to $1191.80 an ounce.
Worries over the euro zone hammered Asian stocks, driving MSCI's index of Asia-Pacific shares outside of Japan down 2.2 percent to an eight-month low.
Japan's Nikkei average closed at a new three-month low, unable to overcome encouraging data that showed Japan's economy grew 1.2 percent in the first quarter, outpacing its euro zone and U.S. peers.
(Reporting by Nick Olivari and Ellen Freilich in New York and Emma Farge, Ian Chua and William James in London; Writing by Herbert Lash)
World on Fire
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| World on Fire | |
|---|---|
 paperback cover | |
| Author | Amy Chua |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject(s) | international economic relations, globalization, ethnic conflict |
| Genre(s) | current affairs |
| Publisher | Doubleday (hardcover) Anchor Books (paperback) |
| Publication date | 2003 (hardcover) |
| Media type | hardcover, paperback |
| ISBN | 978-0-385-72186-8 (paperback) |
| OCLC Number | 53994907 |
| Dewey Decimal | 303.6 21 |
| LC Classification | HF1359 .C524 2004 |
World On Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability is a 2002 book published by Yale Law School professor Amy Chua. It is an academic study into ethnic and sociological divisions in regard to economic and governmental systems in various societies.
Contents[hide] |
[edit] Summary
In the Philippines, Chua explains, the ethnic-Chinese minority has far greater wealth than the indigenous majority, with the result being envy and bitterness on the part of the majority against the Chinese minority -- in other words, an ethnic conflict. She believes that democratization can increase ethnic conflicts when an ethnic minority is disproportionately wealthy. "When free market democracy is pursued in the presence of a market-dominant minority, the almost invariable result is backlash. This backlash typically takes one of three forms. The first is a backlash against markets, targeting the market-dominant minority's wealth. The second is a backlash against democracy by forces favorable to the market-dominant minority. The third is violence, sometimes genocidal, directed against the market-dominant minority itself."[1]. Also, "overnight democracy will empower the poor, indigenous majority. What happens is that under those circumstances, democracy doesn't do what we expect it to do -- that is, reinforce markets. [Instead,] democracy leads to the emergence of manipulative politicians and demagogues who find that the best way to get votes is by scapegoating the minorities." [1]
According to Chua, other examples of ethnic market-dominant minorities include Chinese people in Southeast Asia; "whites" in Latin America; Jews in Russia; Croats in the former Yugoslavia; and Ibos, Kikuyus, Tutsis, Indians and Lebanese, among others, in Africa [2].
In her book, Chua discusses different reasons for the market dominance of different groups. Some groups achieve market dominance because of colonial oppression or apartheid. In other cases, it may be due to the culture and family networks of these groups. For many groups there is no clear single explanation. [3]
Americans can also be seen as a global market-dominant minority, which particularly when combined with using military might and flaunting political domination, cause resentment. [4]
Chua states that she is a "big fan of trying to promote markets and democracy globally," but that it should be accompanied by attempts to "redistribute the wealth, whether it's property title and giving poor people property, land reform .... Redistributive mechanisms are tough to have if you have so much corruption." [5]
[edit] Accolades
- Selected one of The Economist Best Books of the Year 2003
[edit] Criticism
Amy Chua's thesis and her conclusions have been disputed by George Leef [6] of the John Locke Foundation, who proposes that many other factors may account for ethnic violence, including the most simple motivation of pure racism [7]. Leef concludes his review:
All that World on Fire proves in the end is that governments cannot be depended upon to prevent violence against people who have been, for whatever reason, demonized by others. That's nothing new.
Andreas Wimmer and Brian Min, criticizing the book state:
By contrast, our analysis shows that what has been observed in recent decades may simply be more of the same old story. Although history never repeats itself, the same process patterns may be operating at different times and in different historical contexts (cf. Collier and Mazzuca 2006). The dismemberment of empire and the formation of the nation-state have led to wars since the time of Napoleon. The patterns of warfare in the Caucasus and the Balkans in the 1990s resemble those on the Indian sub-continent in the 1940s, those of Eastern Europe during and after the World War I, and so on. The return of the "Macedonian syndrome," as Myron Weiner (1971) has called the intermingling of ethnic conflict and irredentist wars, explains such recurrent patterns of war much better than any variant of globalization theory. To treat them as a fundamentally new phenomenon, brought about by the end of the Cold War or increased globalization, represents yet another example of the widespread tendency among social scientists to perceive their own times as unique and exceptionally dynamic (on "chrono- centrism," see Fowles 1974).
They also note that several studies support the a variant of the democratic peace theory, which argues that more democracy causes a general decrease in systematic violence, at least for the most democratic nations. However, intermediately democratic nations do have a higher tendency for conflicts such as civil war than autocracies.[2]
[edit] See also
- Dominant minority
- Yuri Slezkine's book The Jewish Century (2004)
- Ethnic elite
- Presentism
[edit] External links
- Salon.com review By Michelle Goldberg
- The Guardian review By Martin Jacques
- Collected reviews
- Review by George Leef
- Booknotes interview with Chua on World on Fire, February 9, 2003.
[edit] References
- ^ Chua, Amy (2002). World on Fire. Doubleday. ISBN 0385503024.
- ^ [http://www.asanet.org/galleries/default-file/Dec06ASRFeature.pdf From Empire to Nation-State: Explaining Wars in the Modern World, 1816–2001] Andreas Wimmer. Brian Min. AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW, 2006, VOL. 71 (December:867–897)
- Columns
The India model
Eye on India | Nirvikar Singh
The China model—or Beijing consensus—is shorthand for a suite of political and economic attributes that appear to have characterized China's success. The essence of the idea is the combination of political authoritarianism with a version of capitalism that combines free market competition and some elements of state control. Perhaps this is not such a new model. Nineteenth century Germany and pre-World War II Japan both followed development models that did not feature the Anglo-Saxon combination of democracy and markets. But China is bigger, and China is the future. Moreover, the historical trajectory of those other two authoritarian capitalist countries does not provide comfort.
China's leaders downplay the idea that they are providing a rival to the American world view, which shares values emphasizing the primacy of democratic structures with more egalitarian countries across the Atlantic. Of course, this is merely superficial: China's actions implicitly bestow blessings on regimes that pay no attention to democracy. One could argue that US actions (from Latin America to West Asia to South-East Asia) have often had the same effect, but at least much of its population has perceived such cases as violating core national values.
The idea of a China model can also be seen as a projection of "soft power"— achieving co-option and attraction based on values, culture and institutions. The 2008 Beijing Olympics and the current Shanghai World Expo are examples of projecting soft power. Interestingly, hard power, based on coercion and payment, requires economic capabilities that increase with economic growth, and these same capabilities underlie the two soft power examples. In 2007, Chinese leader Hu Jintao told his Communist Party Congress that China needed to increase its soft power, and perceptions of the country appear to be improving. Success has many friends, in any case.
In contrast to China, India, the other fast-growing national giant, is a raucous democracy that has projected soft power much more naturally, in areas such as music and film, literature and philosophy. Paradoxically, its national image has not been on par with this cultural and intellectual diffusion. Perhaps soft power is overrated. India's image has also become more positive as its economic success has increased. This success lags substantially behind China's. Yet, in the long run, perhaps it is the India model that will prove to be more robust.
The India model, like the West, emphasizes democracy. But Europe and the US mostly built democracies on common religions and languages. Homogeneity often was imposed or achieved through conflict, making it easier thereafter to be "democratic". In this sense, the Chinese approach to national identity is not dissimilar to Europe's past. In contrast, India embraced a pluralism of language and religion that has remained a key feature of its polity. Europe and the US are only now coming to grips with the kind of pluralism that India has worked with for six decades.
The India model may also have the potential to shape the evolution of the marketplace. China took to factory production, in a repetition of the West's industrial revolution. India has struggled with achieving manufacturing prowess, but things may be about to change. In a recent talk in Silicon Valley, Pankaj Chandra, director of Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, pointed out that Indian firms have been winning a significant number of Deming awards— the international gold standard for manufacturing quality. He also gave examples of Indian firms overcoming constraints of infrastructure and resources by creating networks of producers, suppliers or component designers, for a variety of products. If the China model has been about replicating US-style factory production at huge scales, perhaps India will achieve larger scale for the flexible mass customization of production that has been characteristic of regions such as northern Italy.
In sum, India's combination of pluralistic democracy and decentralized production may be a model that is ultimately more attractive to other developing countries. Hard and soft power will develop together, in a natural co-evolution. The strains of the China model are recognized, both inside the country and by outside observers. India has its own problems of inequality, conflict and poorly functioning institutions. But its democracy seems to have developed some self-correcting mechanisms for these problems, and dynamism and innovation may have taken hold in its private sector, in a manner that will sustain change. Bangalore and Bollywood may ultimately be a powerful combination, and the India model more robust and long-lasting than its Chinese counterpart.
On that optimistic note, I close my final column for Mint. I began by writing on public finances, and ranged over health and education, finance and management, crises and opportunities. My Eye on India has been in the context of a rapidly changing, volatile world, where history matters, and where complexity challenges us daily. The India model is well suited for this world, and can be a humane path for the future.
Nirvikar Singh is a professor of economics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Your comments are welcome at eyeonindia@livemint.com
3G bids set stage for shake-out
Shauvik Ghosh
New Delhi: The auction for high-speed third-generation (3G) mobile spectrum saw bids close on Wednesday at a total Rs70,000 crore, twice the amount the government had expected to get, but without any operator winning a nation-wide licence, setting the stage for industry consolidation.
The unexpectedly high bids mean that companies have to raise a huge amount of cash to pay for licences, after which they will have to find more funds to buy equipment and roll out services.
This is reminiscent of the pre-1999 phase, when companies got into trouble over having to pay for the first round of mobile licences, forcing the government to change the payment method to a revenue-share model.
Operators that have won spectrum will have to pay for it within the next 10 days. Companies will have get rid of some of their assets to pay for 3G.
"To fund the buys, they will look at selling equity in the tower arms as well as debt financing, but a lot depends on their profitability," said a Mumbai-based analyst with a multinational brokerage firm on condition of anonymity. "Taking into account the Zain acquisition, Bharti (Airtel Ltd, the country's biggest phone company) will see its debt-to-equity ratio rise to 2.3 times from far less than the one that they have now. RCom (Reliance Communications Ltd) and Idea (Cellular Ltd) will see their debt-equity ratios rise to 3.5 times."
The same analyst said it was surprising that the market leader didn't get a pan-India licence. "I don't understand why Bharti did not go pan-India and let important circles like Gujarat slip away," he added.
Bharti Airtel said prices were too high to be able to go nation-wide.
"The auction format and severe spectrum shortage along with ensuing policy uncertainty drove the prices beyond reasonable levels. As a result, we could not achieve our objective of pan-India 3G footprint in this round," the company said in a release.
Also See Bidding War (Graphic)
The notional value of a pan-India slot amounted to Rs16,828 crore, almost five times the reserve price of Rs3,500 crore. The auction that began on 9 April ended on Day 34 after 183 rounds of bidding.
Vodafone Essar Ltd expects to launch 3G services before the end of the year, chief executive and managing director Marten Pieters said in a release, adding that "a significant proportion of our customer base in these markets already has a 3G-enabled device".
Operators have won spectrum in a maximum of 13 circles out of the total 22 that India is divided into.
Bharti Airtel will pay almost Rs12,300 crore for spectrum it has won in 13 circles, including Delhi, Mumbai and Karnataka, which earned the highest bids.
The auction money may be used to pay for government expenses not accounted for in the February Budget, according to an official who spoke before the auction ended. This includes a reimbursement of Rs14,000 crore to the oil marketing companies for selling fuel at below cost price between January and March this year.
The government's borrowing programme for the first half of fiscal 2011 is, however, unlikely to change, the official had said.
Nine operators had entered the auction for 3G spectrum for which three slots were available in most states, while four were available in Punjab, Bihar, Orissa, Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh.
3G spectrum is needed by the telecom companies to offer high-speed data services on a mobile phone such as video streaming as well as real-time applications such as mobile share trading.
Operators that have not won any spectrum will have to wait till the next auction, which is expected to take place in 2013, when frequencies from the defence forces becomes available.
"There is no clarity on whether the firms will be allowed to buy spectrum from each other as yet," a senior executive with one of the telecom companies that won spectrum said on condition of anonymity.
The companies will need to work out how to handle inter-circle roaming given that no operator has won spectrum across the country.
"Everyone needs everyone. One such tie-up we could see is Bharti and Idea combining and maybe Vodafone could also be part of this combine, making Indus Towers an important aspect of their strategy going ahead," said Kunal Bajaj, director of consultancy Analysys Mason. "Another interesting combine could be Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices as the circles that they have won are complementary to each other."
Bharti and Vodafone are expected to tie up with Nokia Siemens Networks and Ericsson for equipment because of ongoing relationships.
"The main issue will be pricing. The Chinese vendors acted as a counter-balance, but with the ongoing security issues, the other vendors will probably raise their prices," Bajaj said.
The auction for broadband wireless access spectrum will start in another two days, with 11 firms vying for two slots across the country.
With the reserve price set at Rs1,750 crore, analysts expect intense bidding, but prices won't be as high as in the 3G auction.
The government will get another Rs16,828 crore from state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd, which were given 3G spectrum in early 2009 ahead of the rest on condition that they match the winning price.
The state-run telecom companies have been seeking concessions, but the department of telecommunications is unlikely to allow this.
Graphic by Paras Jain / Mint
http://www.livemint.com/2010/05/19232321/3G-bids-set-stage-for-shakeou.htmlFree-Market Democracy: Our Most Dangerous Export
by Amy ChuaIn May 1998, Indonesian mobs swarmed through the streets of Jakarta, looting and torching more than 5,000 ethnic Chinese shops and homes. A hundred and fifty Chinese women were gang-raped and more than 2,000 people died. In the months that followed, anti-Chinese hate-mongering and violence spread throughout Indonesia's cities. The explosion of rage can be traced to an unlikely source: the unrestrained combination of democracy and free markets - the very prescription wealthy democracies have promoted for healing the ills of underdevelopment. How did things go so wrong?
During the 80s and 90s, Indonesia's aggressive shift to free-market policies allowed the Chinese minority, just 3% of the population, to take control of 70% of the private economy. When Indonesians ousted General Suharto in 1998, the poor majority rose up against the Chinese minority and against markets. The democratic elections that abruptly followed 30 years of autocratic rule were rife with ethnic scapegoating by indigenous politicians and calls for the confiscation of Chinese wealth. Today, the Indonesian government sits on $58bn worth of nationalised assets, almost all formerly owned by Chinese tycoons. These once productive assets lie stagnant, while unemployment and poverty deepen, making Indonesia a breeding ground for extremist movements. . . .
But the most formidable problem the developing world faces is one the west has little experience with. It's the market-dominant minority - ethnic minorities which - for widely varying reasons - tend under market conditions to dominate economically impoverished "indigenous" majorities. They are the Chinese in south-east Asia; Indians in east Africa, Fiji and parts of the Caribbean; Lebanese in west Africa; Jews in post-communist Russia; and whites in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Bolivia and Ecuador, to name just a few. In free-market environments, these minorities, together with foreign investors, tend to accumulate starkly disproportionate wealth, fuelling ethnic envy and resentment among the poor majorities. . . .
Meanwhile, an analogous dynamic is playing out at the worldwide level. In the past 20 years, the US has come to be perceived as a global market-dominant minority, wielding wildly disproportionate economic power. . . .
---
Amy Chua is professor of law at Yale University and author of World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability
[Today's peddlers of "Globalization" would have us believe that inviting foreign investments is the mantra that can deliver the third world from poverty and backwardness. . . . Wasn't the East India Company the ultimate in foreign investments?
To quote what Nehru wrote on February 28, 1933, "In this way, the American capitalists gained effective control of these smaller countries of the south and ran their banks, railways, and mines, and exploited them to their own advantage. Even in the larger countries of Latin America they had great influence because of their investments and money control. That is to say, the United States annexed the wealth, or a great part of it, of these countries. Now, this is worth noting, as it is a new kind of empire, the modern type of empire. It is invisible and economic, and exploits and dominates without any obvious outward signs. The South American republics are politically and internationally free and independent. On the map they are huge countries, and there is nothing to show that they are not free in any way. And yet most of them are dominated completely by the United States."
Most of us think of empires, like the British in India, and we imagine that if the British were not in actual political control of India, India would be free. But this type of empire is already passing away, and giving way to a more advanced and perfected type. This latest kind of empire does not annex even the land; it only annexes the wealth or the wealth producing elements in the country. By doing so it can exploit the country fully to its own advantage and can largely control it, and at the same time has to shoulder no responsibility for governing and repressing that country. In effect both the land and the people living there are dominated and largely controlled with the least amount of trouble.--Review by Anand Nair of Jawaharlal Nehru, "Glimpses of World History," Oxford University Press (January 1, 1990)]
Enver Masud, "Corporate Globalization Threatens World's Poor, Middle Class," The Wisdom Fund, October 10, 2000
Enver Masud, "Deregulation Fiasco, Red Flag for Developing Countries," The Wisdom Fund, February 5, 2001
Enver Masud, "Millions Spent Subverting 'Enemies,' Stifling Dissent," The Wisdom Fund, February 15, 2001
James L. Phelan, " Renowned US Economists Denounce Corporate-Led Globalization," Global Policy Forum, November 18, 2001
Greg Miller, "Democracy Domino Theory 'Not Credible'," Los Angeles Times, March 14, 2003
Joseph E. Stiglitz, "Globalization and Its Discontents," W.W. Norton & Company (April, 2003)
Noreena Hertz, "The Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy," Harper Business (September 16, 2003)
Naomi Klein, "Iraq is Not America's to Sell," The Guardian, November 7, 2003
Rupert Cornwell, "US angers allies with new Middle East plan," The Independent, February 28, 2004
Ian Buruma, "Killing Iraq With Kindness," New York Times, March 17, 2004
[The truth: Free trade is the serial killer of American manufacturing and the trojan horse of world governement. It is the primrose path to the loss of economic independence and national sovereignty. Free trade is a bright, shining lie.--Patrick J. Buchanan, "Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency," Thomas Dunne Books (September 1, 2004), p. 152-174]
[John Perkins should know about economic hit men - he was covertly recruited by the U.S. National Security Agency to be one. For years, he worked for an international consulting firm where his job was to convince underdeveloped countries to accept enormous loans, much larger than what was really needed, for infrastructure development - and to make sure that the development projects were then contracted to U. S. multinationals. Once these countries were saddled with huge debts, the American government and the international aid agencies allied with it were able, by dictating repayment terms, to essentially control their economies. It was not unlike the way a loan shark operates - and Perkins and his colleagues didn't shun this kind of unsavory association. In fact, they even referred to themselves as "economic hit men."--John Perkins, "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: How the U.S. Uses Globalization to Cheat Poor Countries Out of Trillions," Berrett-Koehler Publishers (November 9, 2004)]
Eric Hobsbawm, "The dangers of exporting democracy: Bush's crusade is based on a dangerous illusion and will fail," Guardian, January 22, 2005
Tom Barry, "The Ambassador of Lies Elliott Abrams: The Neocon's Neocon," Antiwar.com, February 9, 2005
[. . . the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and its primary arms, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) and International Republican Institute (IRI), played a central role. The NED was established by the Reagan Administration in 1983, to do overtly, what the CIA had done covertly, in the words of one its legislative drafters, Allen Weinstein.
The Cold War propaganda and operations center, Freedom House , now chaired by former CIA director James Woolsey, has also been involved, as were billionaire George Soros' foundations, whose donations always dovetail those of the NED.--Jonathan Mowat, "Washington's New World Order 'Democratization' Template," Centre for Research on Globalisation, February 9, 2005]
[This takes us back to the essential truth that the problem is capitalism. The only solution, as difficult as this may be to contemplate at the present time, is socialism; socialism, that is, as the socialist movement always meant it to be: revolutionary, democratic, egalitatarian, environmental, necessitating mass participation and mobilization. The difficulties in creating such a society are immense. But "immense," as Daniel Singer once said, "is not synonymous with impossible." If we want a stable, just, egalitarian, sustainable world in which the "free development of each is the condition for the free development of all" there is no alternative but a long march to socialism propelled forward by a growing socialist movement.--John Bellamy Foster, "The End of Rational Capitalism," Monthly Review, March 2005]
[To justify the robber baron culture, America's business educators and economists falsely cite their demigod of laissez-faire market economics, Adam Smith. Little do they know that Adam Smith in fact scathingly castigated Bush's type of government: business collusion and unfair taxes, Wal-Mart's exploitations of labor and communities, and robber barons' hubris. Nowhere in his 900-page book, The Wealth of Nations, does Smith even imply that those who knowingly harm others and society in their pursuit of personal greed also benefit their society. He rejects the notion that a corporation exists to make money without ethical constraints.--Yoshi Tsurumi, "Hail to the Robber Baron?," Harvard Crimson, April 7, 2005]
[On August 5 the White House created the office of the coordinator for reconstruction and stabilisation, headed by Carlos Pascual, the former ambassador to Ukraine. Its mandate is to draw up elaborate "post-conflict" plans for up to 25 countries that are not, as yet, in conflict.--Naomi Klein, "Allure of the blank slate: From Aceh to Haiti, a predatory form of disaster capitalism is reshaping societies to its own design," Guardian, April 18, 2005]
[From 1950 to 1970, for example, for every additional dollar earned by the bottom 90 percent, those in the top 0.01 percent earned an additional $162, according to the Times analysis. From 1990 to 2002, for every extra dollar earned by those in the bottom 90 percent, each taxpayer at the top brought in an extra $18,000.--David Cay Johnston "Richest Are Leaving Even the Rich Far Behind," New York Times, June 5, 2005]
[The west may believe it is building a safer world by opening up markets, imposing sanctions and intervening in conflicts. In reality it is creating a gangsters' paradise . . . once organised crime has begun the process known as "state capture", through which it influences policy, it is very difficult to reverse the process.--Misha Glenny, "Mob rule," The New Statesman, June 6, 2005]
"Are Failed Infrastructure Projects Linked to the Presence of the IMF or World Bank?," Public Policy and Management (Wharton), August, 2005
[Before the US proconsul Paul Bremer left Baghdad, he enacted 100 orders as chief of the occupation authority in Iraq. Perhaps the most infamous was Order 39 which decreed that 200 Iraqi state companies would be privatised, that foreign companies could have complete control of Iraqi banks, factories and mines, and that these companies could transfer all of their profits out of Iraq. The "reconstruction" of the country amounts in effect to wholesale privatisation of the economy and is little short of economic colonisation.--Michael Meacher, "My sadness at the privatisation of Iraq," The Times, August 12, 2005]
[Indeed, the real debate on globalization is, ultimately, not about the efficiency of markets, nor about the importance of modern technology. The debate rather is about severe asymmetries of power, for which there is much less tolerance now than in the world that emerged at the end of the Second World War.--Amartya Sen, "The Argumentative Indian," Farrar, Straus and Giroux, October 12, 2005]
William Easterly, "The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good," Penguin Press HC (March 16, 2006)
Thomas Palley, "Global Imbalances: Is globalization destined to fail?," YaleGlobal Online, April 20, 2006
[Adel Abdel Mahdi . . . is the person who has most aggressively pushed their agenda for a new oil law in Iraq, which would open up Iraq's oil sector, the vast majority of Iraq's oil sector, to private foreign corporate investment.--Antonia Juhasz, "The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time," Regan Books, May 1, 2006]
[All too often, the "free market" is merely organized interests pulling political strings behind ideological cover.--Paul Craig Roberts, "John Kenneth Galbraith, a Great American," counterpunch.org, May 3, 2006]
Guy Dinmore, "Spy agencies analyse role in global drive for democracy," Financial Times, June 16, 2006
Joseph E. Stiglitz, "Making Globalization Work," W. W. Norton (September 18, 2006)
VIDEO and TRANSCRIPT: Joseph E. Stiglitz, "Making Globalization Work," Center for Global Development, September 27, 2006
[Neoclassical idiocies persuaded many economists that market forces would create a robust post-Soviet economy in Russia (corrupt gangster economies do not exist in neoclassical theory). Neoclassical ideas favouring unfettered market forces may determine whether Britain adopts the euro, how we run our schools, hospitals and welfare system. If mainstream economic theory is fundamentally flawed, we are no better than doctors diagnosing with astrology.--Philip Ball, "Baroque fantasies of a peculiar science," Financial Times, October 29, 2006]
[The World Bank's use of questionable evidence to "proselytise" on behalf of its development policies has been sharply criticised by the first big external audit of the bank's use of research.--Eoin Callan, "WB 'uses doubtful evidence to push policies'," Financial Times, December 21, 2006]
[Details behind the strategy I helped engineer - the Saudi Arabian Money-laundering Affair (SAMA) - are provided in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. In summary, as far as the media was concerned, the House of Saud agreed to three important conditions; it would: I) invest a large portIon of its petrodollars in U.S. government securities; 2) allow the U.S. Treasury Department to use the trillions of dollars in interest from these securities to hire U.S. corporations to westernize Saudi Arabia; and 3) maintain the price of oil within limits acceptable to the corporatocracy. For its part, the U.S. government promised to keep the Saud family in power.
There was an additional agreement, one that made few headlines but was crucial to the corporatocracy's need to maintain the dollar as the standard global currency. Saudi Arabia committed to trading oil exclusively in U.S. dollars. With the scratch of a pen the dollar's sovereignty was reestablished. Oil replaced gold as the measure of a currency's value.--John Perkins, "The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth about Global Corruption," Dutton Adult, June 5, 2007]
Naomi Klein, "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism," Metropolitan Books (September 18, 2007)
VIDEO: "The Shock Doctrine," Countdown with Keith Olbermann, November 29, 2007
[Iraqi officials say that, last year, they wanted to diversify their holdings out of the dollar, as it depreciated, into other assets, such as the euro, more likely to hold their value. This was vetoed by the US Treasury because American officials feared it would show lack of confidence in the dollar.--Patrick Cockburn, "US issues threat to Iraq's $50bn foreign reserves in military deal," Independent, June 6, 2008]
[This is the third time in 100 years that support for taken-for-granted economic ideas has crumbled. The Great Depression discredited the radical laissez-faire doctrines of the Coolidge era. Stagflation in the 1970s and early '80s undermined New Deal ideas and called forth a rebirth of radical free-market notions. What's becoming the Panic of 2008 will mean an end to the latest Capital Rules era.--E. J. Dionne, "The Death of Reaganomics," truthdig.com, July 10, 2008]
Dionne, "'I made a mistake,' admits Greenspan," Financial Times, October 3, 2008
[Why were the experts so wrong? They were wrong mostly because economics is an underdeveloped discipline dominated by pure, unabashed ideology. The dominant school of economic thought during the Great Depression was, and remains to this day, the "neoclassical" or marginalist school. But in the "neoclassical" world there is no such thing as a crisis. This is not the real world in which we live. It is a classless world, consisting of "consumers" and "producers." It is a harmonious world modeled mostly after mathematical physics. In such a world there is no history; there is no past, no present and no future. Nothing of consequence ever happens in this world, especially no catastrophic event. This unreal, insipid and a-historical marginalist world should have been abandoned a long time ago, particularly after the Great Depression. Yet, its seemingly mathematical elegance combined with its unadulterated and brazen defense of capitalism, or "free market" as its proponents prefer to call it, has kept it alive. Of course, since the Great Depression the "neoclassical" theory has been somewhat amended by a few ideas from the British aristocrat John Maynard Keynes, ideas that tried to add some elements of reality to the unreal theory. But the result, the so-called "neoclassical synthesis" or "neo-Keynesianism," is no more than a hodgepodge of disjointed, unclear and incoherent ideas that are fed to the students of economic theory under the rubric of "micro" and "macroeconomics."--Sasan Fayazmanesh, "R.I.P.: The Experts, 1929-2008," counterpunch.org, November 14, 2008]
Asif Salahuddin, "The evil of the US dollar," Asia Times, November 21, 2008
[ . . . only 11% of those questioned across 27 countries said that it was working well.--James Robbins, "Free market flawed, says survey," BBC News, November 9, 2009]
Joseph E. Stiglitz, "Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy," W. W. Norton & Company (January 18, 2010)
[Our government is not broken; it's been bought out from under us, and on the right and the left and smack across the vast middle, more and more Americans doubt representative democracy can survive the corruption of money.--Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, "What Are We Bid for American Justice?," huffingtonpost.com, February 20, 2010]
http://www.twf.org/News/Y2004/0228-Impose.html19/05/2010
Thailand clamps night curfew in 23 provinces; Indians safe
Bangkok: Thailand on Wednesday clamped night time curfew in capital Bangkok and 23 other provinces as the Army stormed a barricaded protest camp of the Red Shirts, with the protesters setting fire to around 20 buildings, a TV station and the stock exchange here.
Five people were killed today, including an Italian journalist in the army crackdown, taking the toll to 60 in the recent anti-government protest. Three other foreign journalists and scores of Thais were wounded in the violence.
All Indian nationals in the country are reportedly safe. Bangkok is a favourite destination among Indian tourists and a small group from India continued to enjoy the city's attractions though with caution, an Indian national who did not wish to be named said.
Rioters set fires at the Thai stock exchange, several banks, the headquarters of the Metropolitan Electricity Authority, the high-end Central World shopping mall and a cinema complex that collapsed.
The Thai government declared a curfew in Bangkok from 8 pm until 6 am. An announcement signed by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and broadcast on TV banned anyone from leaving home during those times without permission from authorities. The unrest during the past few weeks has been around central Bangkok forcing some big hotels to shut down.
Bangkok has a vast expatriate Indian population. Susha Stephen Varugis, a former corporate lawyer and daughter of late congress leader C M Stephen, who has been living in bangkok for several years said the situation in Bangkok was very unsettling.
Another expatriate Anna Khendry, who is active in the Bangkok community Theatre, said it was scary to see Bangkok in the present state as it was very uncertain.
Many school children have stayed back in school to enable them to take their ongoing exams. Most of the embassies have closed operations the past few days as the protesters turned violent battling with government soldiers from their encampment base.
Thai security forces began their operation to clear up the protesters early this morning with tanks and foot soldiers moving in smashing through bamboo barricades set up the the Red Shirt protesters who want the government to step down and arresting key protest leaders.
The government has blamed former premier and the hero of the protesters, Thaksin Shinawatra, who is currently on a self imposed exile, for the current situation. Checkpoints have been set up across Bangkok.
Analysts say the government has a tough time ahead to pacify the ordinary Thais. Trade in the stock exchange is to be suspended for the rest of the week.
Source: Agencies
hu, May 20 04:53 PM
Enlarge Photo A man talks on a mobile phone in front of a Bharti Airtel advertisement in... The government's $14.6 billion haul from the 3G mobile spectrum sale could prompt a brief, sharp spike in short-term interest rates as auction winners pay up, draining cash from the banking system.
The windfall also provides the government with some welcome spare cash, which it would use to reduce its stubbornly high budget deficit.
However, economists and traders say first the government would wait to see how other revenue streams pan out and whether there is any upside surprises to growth projections to ease pressure on the budget.
Although the windfall has been welcomed by the deficit-strapped government, the government has not said how it will manage the proceeds.
Indeed, the windfall may grow.
Combined with the proceeds of an upcoming auction of broadband wireless spectrum, the government could raise a combined 921 billion rupees ($19.7 billion) from selling the rights to its airwaves, Morgan Stanley says.
The success of a programme to sell minority stakes in state companies is another variable that could influence the government's fiscal management.
India's fiscal deficit was at a 16-year high of 6.9 percent of GDP in the last fiscal year, and it has set a target to cut that to 5.5 percent this year.
"The government could be able to reduce its fiscal deficit to 5-5.2 percent provided it manages its expenditure and revenues within target," D.K. Joshi, principal economist at CRISIL said.
Graphic comparing govt welfare schemes and subsidies with fiscal deficit:
http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/10/04/IN_SBSDY0410.gif
SUDDEN CASH CRUNCH
The government is most likely to ask winning bidders to make one-time payments for the allotted spectrum and the sudden outflow from the banking system could cause a temporary cash crunch.
Tight conditions may also be exacerbated by corporate advance tax payments due in mid-June.
Short-term rates like one-year overnight indexed swaps (OIS), commercial paper and certificates of deposit may rise 20-50 basis points during the crunch period, while overnight rates could jump 200 basis points to the repo rate of 5.75 percent.
On Thursday, the one-year OIS was quoted at 4.85/88 percent, above 4.80/84 percent at Wednesday's close.
However, any uptick in market rates is likely to be short-lived because the windfall is expected to be pumped back into the financial system via government spending.
The government had high outstanding loans with the central bank for three straight weeks until May 7, which could be spent to ease tight liquidity in the banking system around the time when payments may be made, analysts said.
BONDS SET TO GAIN LONG TERM
Economists suggest the government could use some of the revenue to fund its fiscal deficit, especially at a time when the eurozone crisis has brought fiscal consolidation to the forefront of policy making.
This could reduce the current fiscal year's market borrowing by around 350 billion rupees ($7.5 billion), the Indian government's chief statistician Pronab Sen said.
The government is slated to borrow a record 4.57 trillion rupees in the fiscal year to next March, out of which 2.87 trillion is scheduled by the end of September.
Last week, Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla said he did not expect a change in the borrowing plan for the first half. Indeed, traders say changes, if any, would be made in the second half.
However, offsetting the budget deficit with 3G earnings is an option at this stage. The government is likely to consider it once it can see how advance tax receipts and global growth will impact likely government revenues, economists and traders say.
OIL SUBSIDY
The government will also be cautious about using the 3G earnings to offset the budget in case oil prices rise sharply again.
In that case, the government might channel some of the windfall to state oil companies to compensate them for losses they incur in selling oil at state controlled prices.
The government sets fuel prices below global prices. Higher oil prices and lack of adjustment in domestic prices could result in losses rising from 460 billion rupees in the fiscal year 2009/10 to 1 trillion rupees in the current fiscal year -- which could put pressure on the federal budget, a Citigroup note said.
On Wednesday, the government more than doubled the prices of natural gas produced by state firms, which is seen as a positive sign for government revenues.
However, other economists also said if the global economy continues to remain weak, oil prices could stay subdued and reduce pressure of spending on under-recoveries. (Editing by Tony Munroe and Neil Fullick)
Modi retracts, wants strong action against Naxals
Ahmedabad: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi today said the tendency to destroy the society with arms cannot be accepted and that the government should take strong action against Naxals, hours after he appeared to have favoured talks with them.
"I want to say that government should take strong action against Naxals and killing of innocent people cannot be allowed," he told reporters in New Delhi after meeting Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia.
"Any tendency to destroy the society with arms cannot be accepted. Whether it is the Centre or the states, such things should be eliminated completely," he said.
His comments came just hours after he said at an interaction with students at Mangalayatan University in Aligarh that Naxalite youths "are our own" and that "we have to make them understand that talks are the only way and killing people is not going to solve any problem."
Clarifying the remarks made in Aligarh, Modi said, "The question asked to me was in the context of those youth (who have taken to arms) and this was my advise to the youth.
"I was neither asked what the government should do nor did I reply on the issue," the Gujarat Chief Minister said. Modi said he was asked what was his message to the youth who had taken to the path of violence.
"My answer was that I will request the youth that violence will never change the situation. They should leave arms and within the constitutional framework, they should raise their voice in the right forums to solve their problems," he said.
Modi had said, "These youths are our own. We should make them understand that violence is not a solution to any problem." The remarks made in Aligarh came as a surprise to many as BJP has been advocating strong action against the Naxals.
After the Naxals blew up a passenger bus in Dantewada last week, the BJP made a strong pitch for firm action against them. Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley had said a "half battle against Maoists can never succeed" and rubbished arguments that lack of development was the prime cause of Naxalism.
Source: Indian Express
RBI: Greece crisis may have impact on trade
he Greece crisis may have some impact on India's trade and services exporters, Reserve Bank of India governor Duvvuri Subbarao said on Thursday."We have begun policy exit, we have to traverse down that line," he said speaking after a central bank board meeting in the southern city of Thiruvananthapuram. (Reporting by Suvashree Dey Choudhury)
Raging Laila storms past Andhra, heads to Orissa
Hyderabad/New Delhi: Cyclonic storm Laila late Thursday caused havoc in coastal Andhra Pradesh, killing 14 people, inundating scores of villages and inflicting massive damage to infrastructure, before heading towards the neighbouring Orissa.
Two men take help of an umbrella as they ride during heavy showers in Chennai on Wednesday. PTI Photo
Accompanied by heavy rains, high storm surges and winds with speed of 125 km an hour, the storm hit southern part of Andhra Pradesh snapping mobile links, forcing cancellation of trains and damaging electricity and communication systems.
Officials said huge storm surges were seen in the Bay of Bengal when the cyclone hit the coast about 50 km from Bapatla, a town in southern district of Guntur.
Storm surge of 1.5 to 2 metres inundated the villages along the coast, the officials said.
After the landfall, the cyclone re-emerged in northern Bay of Bengal and headed towards Balasore in neighbouring Orissa.
Weather officials said the course of Laila was not unusual as there were precedents of cyclones re-emerging on sea after landfall.
People move on despite heavy showers in Chennai on Wednesday. Normal life in the city has been disturbed by the heavy rains as cyclone 'Laila' moves the southern coasts. PTI Photo
"We are still assessing the damages caused by the cyclone in coastal Andhra," a top official in the disaster management department said in Hyderabad.
However, massive destruction is not likely as the cyclone had shown signs of weakening before it hit the land.
"The intensity of cyclone Laila has reduced in the last 12 hours and it will further weaken in the next couple of hours. But it will continue to cause heavy rainfall over coastal Andhra Pradesh and Telangana during next 36 hours," Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) director general A.K. Tyagi told reporters in New Delhi.
The rain and accompanying strong winds battered the six coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh where at least 11 towns and 1,500 villages were plunged into darkness as electricity poles and transformers were uprooted, officials said in Hyderabad.
Fishermen taking precautions after a warning for cyclone 'Laila' in Vishakhapatnam on Wednesday. PTI PhotoIt warned that storm surge of 1.5-2 metres above the astronomical tide is likely to inundate the coastal areas of Guntur, Krishna and West and East Godavari districts at the time of landfall.
Officials said high speed winds also uprooted cell phone towers and damaged other communication equipment in Prakasam, Guntur, Nellore, Krishna, and East and West Godavari districts.
Except state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), the networks of all other mobile service providers were not working in the affected districts, causing anxiety to people in other parts of the state and outside.
As electricity supply to 11 towns and nearly 1,500 villages in the six districts was snapped, those having BSNL mobile phone connections also could not be reached after the batteries of their cell-phones ran out as they could not be recharged.
Fishermen carry boats to safer places after a warning for cyclone 'Laila' in Vishakhapatnam on Wednesday. PTI Photo
Anticipating damage to landline and mobile communication, district authorities have arranged ham radio network and satellite phones for effective communication during rescue and relief works.
At several places, bus stations, shops and even hospitals are under two feet of water. Road and rail transport was also paralysed, especially in the worst-hit Prakasam and Guntur districts.
Heavy to very heavy rains inundated several parts of the port town of Machilipatnam in Krishna district. Large parts of Ongole town in Prakasam and Bapatla in Guntur districts are also under water, the officials said.
The rains in Chennai hit traffic in many places.
The storm badly hit train services in coastal Andhra Pradesh with as many as 31 passenger trains being cancelled Thursday and Friday and some others diverted.
Several trains are running four to six hours behind schedule due to incessant rains and gales. In Ongole town of Prakasam district, railway tracks were inundated.
Mango, banana and other horticulture crops over thousands of acres in the coastal districts were damaged.
Authorities had alerted people in 777 villages in coastal districts and evacuated over 50,000 people while thousands of others moved to safe places on their own.
Low lying areas in Chennai were flooded due to heavy rain
Over 500 personnel of the National Disaster Response Force have been deployed with boats and other rescue equipment. Four helicopters have been kept ready for rescue while the state authorities have also sought help from the Indian Navy.
An official statement said army authorities were contacted for deployment of helicopters for rescue and relief operations.
Heavy rain in Chennai brought down the temperature
The state government has also made a request for deployment of 100 army personnel in Krishna, West Godavari and East Godavari districts.
Chief Minister K. Rosaiah told reporters in Hyderabad that nine helicopters were ready for rescue and relief works in the affected districts.
Officials said this was the first time in 20 years that the coastal region is facing a cyclonic storm during May.
"We have taken all preventive measures to minimise the loss of lives and property. The official machinery is prepared to deal with any eventuality," he said.
Source: IANS
Dogged by delay, Navy wants PPP model to build ships 5
The top brass of the Navy will mull over about building future warships in India. The projected estimates plans to increase its force level to 150-160 ships by 2022.
The navy is upset at the long delays in the building of indegenious ships. This is because of high work-load, low production capacities, cumbersome procurement procedures at PSUs, outdated shipbuilding practices, old machineries, ageing manpower, low scope of expansion and modernisation due to site constraints and the fact that no modular shipbuilding facility is available with the government or Defence PSU shipyards. Shivalik itself (seen in the picture) took ten years to be delivered
New Delhi: In a bid to bridge the gap between demand and supply of naval ships, the Indian Navy is now deliberating upon speeding up the process of using Public Private Partnership (PPP) and forming a joint-venture with a modern and well-equipped private shipyard to meet the country's naval requirements. The matter is being discussed in the on-going Naval Commanders Conference that began on May 18.
The Navy, as per projected estimates, plans to increase its force level to 150-160 ships by 2022.
Given its current fleet strength and the likely decommissioning of some older ships, on an average, it will require seven new ships annually.
Shivalik was build by the Mazagon Dock Ltd, but came after a long delay.
However, given the past track record of Defence PSUs, MDL and GRSE, concerns are being raised about the manufacturing capabilities of these units to deliver Destroyers, Stealth Frigates and Submarines in time.
"The only way out to speed up the process will be to use the PPP model and form a JV with a private shipyard, which has modern infrastructure and adequate production capacities to meet the country's requirements," states a note being discussed in the conference.
Another key point which the Navy's top brass will mull over is about building future warships in India, either under foreign collaboration/PSU expertise or the PPP route.
In order to cut delay the top brass of Indian Navy are opting for Public Private Partnership for building ships.
It is also being advocated that the Navy starts the process of manufacturingf our P15B Destroyers through PPP. "Equitable distribution of business opportunities to the private sector would bring in cost efficiencies of a much higher order. Countries like the UK, the US, Germany and other developed nations have almost all the defence companies in the private domain. In India, we could begin with the PPP model," the note states.
The delivery of warships for the Navy has been plagued by delays and cost overruns. While India's first Stealth Ship was delivered after 10 years, the original cost for Stealth Frigates escalated from Rs 2,250 crore to Rs 9,000 crore. Similarly, the cost of Destroyers escalated from Rs 3,580 crore to Rs 11,876 crore. The country's first submarine is expected to delivered by 2015, a delay of more than five years from its original delivery date.
The Indian Navy will need over 150 to 160 ships over the next few years. This cannot be met only through PSUs in India.
Concerns are also being raised that the ongoing Anti Submarine Warfare Corvette (ASWC) project, where four vessels have to be delivered, will not happen before 2015.
Most of these delays have been attributed to high work-load, low production capacities, cumbersome procurement procedures at PSUs, outdated shipbuilding practices, old machineries, ageing manpower, low scope of expansion and modernisation due to site constraints and the fact that no modular shipbuilding facility is available with the government or Defence PSU shipyards.
Source: The Indian Express
Naxals tread a new war-path, civilians are their target
AFTER killing 76 security personnel in Chintalnar, Maoists have struck yet again — at a civilian bus. That may sound a rather hackneyed follow-up of a breaking story. But while the earlier incident was not so much of a breaking story — Maoists baying for police blood being a well-known fact — the latter is.
Why must the Maoists have chosen to take a road they had all along avoided? Clearly, Maoists are fighting with their back to the wall and have, hence, got into the quintessential Maoist no-holds-barred tactical mode. How? More of that later. First about the two main possibilities thrown up by the incident: it was a mistaken attack, or it was a deliberate one.
Sceptics and Naxal romantics love to believe the first possibility, not hesitating to float the theory that Naxals were actually led into believing that the bus they blew up was full of cops, and that there were no civilians in it, and hence they blew it up by mistake. The initial reactions from the Naxals and their sympathisers, however, discount any such possibility. Kosa, a top functionary of the Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee, is reported to have said recently that the people will have to be "ready to make sacrifices".
The same Kosa had profusely apologised for the death of 12 civilians in Gadchiroli when the Naxals mistakenly blew up their vehicle about three years ago. Govindan Kutty, editor of Naxal mouthpiece People's March, not only unabashedly refused to regret the death of the civilians on television, but also went on to make the perverse rationalisation that "40 per cent" of those killed were policemen. These are two telling statements. The Naxals are out to change the rules of the game.
Having realised that a determined state power can, with its vast resources and manpower, stay on in the battlefield many times longer than they (Naxals) possibly can, irrespective of severe reverses, the Naxals have apparently decided that they can't exclude options they have previously ignored. What do they gain from attacks like the one on Monday, and how?
First, one has to understand the problems Naxals have faced in countering state (mainly police) activity. Landmines, ambushes and killing police informers only forced the state to increase its presence in the "liberated zone". One of the obstacles for them is the use of public transport by policemen to move around.
It's a little known fact that police mobility in the area is also largely due to this camouflaging tactic -- something which the Naxals always knew but could do little about for the fear of inviting the wrath of the people they have been claiming to fight for. For the past two years, they have been issuing warnings to people not to travel with the police.
But now, faced with war on this scale, they apparently are worried that their arms and ammunition or supply lines can't remain choked for too long -the more the movement of security forces in the area, the more difficult for them to get arms and ammunition. Monday's incident may be one of the first such in the days to come, heralding their new approach to this war. They are, clearly, desperate to get on an even keel.
The strategy could also be to prompt human rights activists and sympathisers in politics to put more pressure on the government to call off the operation. They may even claim that it is the government offensive that has led to the incident. The private operators have already sounded a warning that they may not ply on the treacherous routes, meaning a lot of problems for the locals.
The government needs to be extra careful. If Naxals continue to pursue the desperate move to block passages of private vehicles into "their" areas by blowing them up, it would lead to many hiccups in anti-Naxalite operations; it is not always possible for the police to conduct road-opening or travel on foot for kilometres. Home Minister P. Chidambaram realises this is the time to mount further assaults and hence has sought more support. Logistical, if not armed, air support is one of the options he seems to be seeking from the PM.
In the past too, Naxals have launched huge attacks on Salwa Judum camps and convoys, killing innocent tribals. This may just be a way of telling them that they will have to pay the price for allowing the cops to travel with them or get along with them in any which way, willingly or unwillingly.
What happened to the poor tribal civilians in the deadly attack is deeply regrettable. Naxals are now fighting a war for the sake of war and not even nominally for the tribals. It's about time the government ends its dither.
Source: Indian Express
Madhuri's inbox had a little romance, lot of bitterness
She was sent out to buy Azhar's book in Karachi; she wanted handler Jamshed to join her in Istanbul
New Delhi: What Madhuri Gupta, the Indian Foreign Service Group-B officer who has been booked under the Official Secrets Act, told her interrogators has now been corroborated by some of the 73 emails retrieved by the Delhi Police.
Her two email accounts (atlastrao@gmail.com and rearao@gmail.com) yielded 19 emails with documents running into 73 pages in her 'inbox' and 54 emails of 285 pages in her 'sent' folder.
The Delhi Police last week formally wrote to the Ministry of External Affairs listing these emails and handed over the 358 pages of data recovered seeking opinion of how the information contained could be categorised.
Significantly, the letter from the Delhi Police states that information contained in the emails "seem to contain sensitive/secret information" and a formal reply has been sought from them on whether the contents of the emails could be categorised as 1) classified 2) prejudicial to safety and security of the State 3) useful to an enemy country and 4) dealing with the defence and security of the country.
The official classification of the information in the emails along with the contents of the hard disk of her computer, which is presently being examined by the Forensic Science Laboratory in New Delhi, will be part of the crucial inputs in the chargesheet to be filed next month in the case.
Her interrogation and mails have thrown up interesting facts: Gupta told her interrogators how her bosses in the High Commission sent her out to get a copy of Jaish-e-Muhammed leader Maulana Masood Azhar's book on jehad to "unsafe localities" of Karachi.
Being an Indian diplomat, she was trailed by Pakistani Intelligence Bureau sleuths who warned her not to enter unsafe localities. However, she got the book and told interrogators that the Pakistani journalist, who had several times been denied an Indian visa and who was the one who introduced her to her handlers Mushabar Raza Rana and Jamshed, also contacted her in her hotel during the Karachi trip.
There is one email which reportedly gives a strong indication of a romantic relationship between the diplomat and Jamshed, who was several years younger than her.
Gupta had evidently even asked him to accompany her on a trip to Istanbul. He had, however, declined the offer since he did not get permission from his bosses.
Gupta's admissions and a scrutiny of the emails show that she was sending weekly, fortnightly and monthly reports to Rana, which he was evidently handing over to his bosses. Part of the reports -- the portions dealing with coverage from the Urdu press -- were a modification of what the Second Secretary prepared routinely for the Indian High Commission and the rest was what is being described as "soft intelligence" containing details of meetings, delegation visits, travel itineraries and telephone numbers of officials of the Indian High Commission.
While most of the emails were allegedly exchanged between Gupta and Rana, Jamshed was reportedly always present in the safe house when she visited it, either in her own car or in a vehicle sent by the handlers.
Source: Indian Express
Govt doubles APM gas prices: How will it impact power cos?
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Its impact on the financials? Well, there will be no impact on the financials because the power that is supplied from this particular generated power is largely regulated in terms of RoE, that is, it's directly linked to the investment that the companies make depending on the efficiency that they have shown in generation of power and any sort of cost increase or reduction is directly passed on to the consumer.
Also the Power Minster recently said that the ministry was looking to raise the prices of power by almost about Rs 1 a unit.
What could be the increase in the power cost? Well, almost a USD 1 change in the price of gas leads to about 31 to 32 paisa of variable cost increase per unit generation for these power companies. So, almost increasing from about 1.8 to about 4 mmBtu signifies that about 76 to 80 paisa that could be the largelyimpact on per basis in terms of generation of power and most of the people are now talking about a Rs 1 hike in the power unit.
So, all in all, positive news coming in for power companies but largely negative news coming in for power consumers.
Govt's bold decision
The Oil Ministry wanted a 44% hike from USD 1.79 mmBtu to USD 2.6 mmBtu. The government has gone ahead more than doubled the price to USD 4.2 mmBtu proving that it can actually move on reforms. In terms of the financialimpact of course it is known that ONGC's FY11 EPS should be impacted by about Rs 14-15, it adds about Rs 3,000 crore to its bottom line. For Oil India it adds about Rs 600-700 crore in revenues, in terms of the bottom line it should be about Rs 350 crore.
However, on the flip side, IGL corrected big time on Thursday and that's because it needs to hike its CNG prices in Delhi by at least 20% to be able to maintain its EBITDA margins which it will not be able to do immediately. It may be able to do somewhere around 10% to 12% which is why the stock is still down and the power and fertilizer companies of course get affected.
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Source: ft.com
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Source: ft.com
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Source: ft.com
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Source: ft.com
At present, about 8,000 MW of power is being generated via most of the gas supplied by APM.
Bharti and Idea's FY12 EPS could be impacted by 12-13% and 40-50% on account of 3G, said Sanjay Chawla of Anand Rathi
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- 07:38 PM Expect PAT of Rs 900 crore in FY11: Allied Digital
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People Power, says Cisco, is key to Success
Amazing post by Cisco`s VP of Enterprise. Go read the full article. Some excerpts For most companies, people represent an untapped asset ? a resource that becomes especially important for companies that must grow their business without adding personn
IndiaWorld Sale: Valuation Question
Even today, I get questions on the valuation. I have a 2-part answer. First, there was another suitor for IndiaWorld, so it was a competitive bidding situation. Second, look at what happened to Sify stock the day the deal took place. It rose about $7
My latest New Yorker piece, Most Likely to Succeed is now up. A couple of additional thoughts. In some of the responses to the piece, I ve seen some resistance to the idea that choosing NFL quarterbacks and choosing public school teachers repr
| SENSEX | 16519.68 | 111.19 |
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Som Mittal
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Sensex ends 111 points up, ONGC gains 9 percentSify - 4 hours ago A benchmark index for Indian equities Thursday ended trade with modest gains, backed by a surge in blue-chip stock ONGC and increased interest in leading ... Nifty ends near 4950; ONGC, SBI, BPCL, Cipla upEconomic Times - 4 hours ago MUMBAI: Equities ended choppy session in the positive terrain on Thursday after a sharp decline in previous session. The upmove was supported from oil&gas ... Sensex ends above 16500; ONGC, Sterlite supportEconomic Times - 5 hours ago MUMBAI: Equities ended a choppy session on a positive note on Thursday, as modest buying was seen in frontline stocks at lower levels after a sharp decline ... Sensex closes 111 points up; ONGC gains 9%Times of India - 5 hours ago MUMBAI: The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex on Thursday closed up by 111 points with PSU and oil and gas sector stocks attracting good buying support ... Sensex ends 100 points up; Oil & gas, pharma gainMoneycontrol.com - 7 hours ago The markets ended a volatile session on a strong note. The BSE oil & gas index outperformed the other sectoral indices; it ended up nearly 2%. ... Sensex rangebound; realty, auto, metal slipMoneycontrol.com - 7 hours ago At 2.52 pm, the Sensex was trading in the range of 16466-16516. The BSE realty, auto, metal indices were trading lower. However, some buying was seen in oil ... Sensex rangebound; ONGC, RCom, SBI upEconomic Times - 7 hours ago MUMBAI: Indian markets bounced back Thursday after the sell-off in previous session. The upmove was led by oil & gas and pharma while realty and capital ... Markets pare gainsBusiness Standard - 8 hours ago The Sensex is quoting at 16457, higher by 48 points and the Nifty is at 4932, up 13 points. The Sensex after touching a high of 16618, has pared some of its ... Sensex volatile Asian mkts down 1 Eurpoe flatMoneycontrol.com - 8 hours ago At 14.06 hrs IST, the benchmark index Nifty was trading with less than 1% gain. It was a volatile session for the markets as Nifty was trading in narrow ... Nifty above 4950; ONGC,Gail, Idea, BPCL, ITC shineMoneycontrol.com - 10 hours ago At 12.38 hrs IST, the Nifty was trading above 4950 with positive bais. The NIfty was trading in a narrow band of 4930-4940 range for quiet sometime before ... | Timeline of articles Number of sources covering this story
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Gas price hike has ONGC, Oil India gaining 9pc
Economic Times - 3 hours agoAfter the Cabinet meeting, information and broadcasting minister Ambika Soni had told newsmen that yesterday the government was prompted to raise gas prices ...Govt doubles APM gas prices: How will it impact power cos? - Moneycontrol.com
Petroleum scrips zoom on govt plan to up gas prices - Hindustan Times
Govt hopes CNG, PNG firms won't pass burden to customers - Business Standard
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Gas generated power to cost more: Power Minister
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Power tariff to rise by Re one a unit: Minister - Press Trust of India
Power Tariff To Be Increased By Re.1/Unit - RTT News
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Sensex ends above 16500; ONGC, Sterlite support
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ONGC, RIL lift Sensex higher - Myiris.com
Indian Market: Stocks On The Move - RTT News
Times of India - Press Trust of India
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Fertiliser-makers fall, energy companies rally on gas price hike
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Press Trust of India - 7 hours agoFuel prices remained flat over the week, but analysts said the Cabinet's decision to hike natural gas prices would jack up rates of gas-based fuels. ...Food price index up 16.49% y/y: Govt - Moneycontrol.com
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India Digest: Gas Prices in Mumbai, Delhi Doubled
Wall Street Journal (blog) - 14 hours agoGas Prices in Mumbai, Delhi Doubled: Taxi, auto and bus fares as well as cost of cooking in households getting piped gas in the National Capital and Mumbai ...Oil Keeps Spilling, Prices Keep Dropping
KATC Lafayette News - Dave Baker - 1 day ago
Oil and gas prices are some of the more noticeable supply and demand ... The economies of China and India were growing at record pace in 2006 and 2007, ...Oil prices fall to lowest point this year - Malaysia Star
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Mkts to react to 3G, APM gas hike today
Moneycontrol.com - 14 hours agoThe Government of India has made a cool USD 14.6 billion from the 3G auctions. ... 3G auction results are out, APM gas prices have gone up and there is a ...
Cyclone builds in south India, oilfield closes
Hindustan Times - 11 hours ago... forcing a southern Indian oilfield to shut and cut its gas output, and the evacuation ... India has been hit by street protests due steep food prices, ...Govt evacuates people as cyclone Laila strengthens - Economic Times
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Gas prices for power generation to go up
Financial Express - 10 May 2010The decks have been cleared for the government to revise APM gas price, ... This will benefit public sector gas producers like ONGC and Oil India Ltd (OIL) ...Mukesh Ambani wins family gas feud - Economic Times
RIL-RNRL gas case: Policy implications - NDTV.com
Business Standard - domain-B
all 1336 news articles »
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Aim: strike fear in troops | |
| SUJAN DUTTA | |
New Delhi, May 19: The wave of Maoist attacks on security forces since February this year has been so brutal and so sweeping in its breadth that the rebels' "Tactical Counter Offensive Campaign" (TCOC) is making the Centre and the states pause and ponder. For nearly a month now, aggressive patrolling and raids by state and central security forces on the ground in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand have become infrequent. In Chhattisgarh, particularly, there have been instances of CRPF troopers refusing to stir out of their camps after the Mukram killings of April 6. Today's attack in Kadashole, the village near Lalgarh where Maoists and the CRPF were engaged in a firefight outside a jungle as the security forces sought to encircle the zone in June last year, also emphasises that the rebels are demonstrating an ability to strike in areas that have apparently been cleared. The Telegraph had reported on February 16 that the Maoists had launched their latest TCOC — with the attack on the Shilda Eastern Frontier Rifles camp — and a spurt in violence was inevitable. Since then the attacks have swung from the north of the Eastern Ghats to the western borders of Chhattisgarh with Maharashtra, cutting a swathe through western Orissa. (See map) The attrition rate among security forces in the last 95 days of the TCOC is more than one per day — unacceptable to any conventional military outfit in any war. Not only that, the victims of the Maoists have included a variety of security personnel — state and central forces plus quasi-official units like the special police of the Koya commandos recruited from the vigilante Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh. In none of these attacks have the security forces, despite the determination shown by leaders at the Centre and in the states, demonstrated the ability to recover and hit back with force, violating a cardinal principle of counter-insurgency operations — never to lose contact with the adversary. "Yes, as of now, the Maoists do indeed have the upper hand. The weak is striking at the strong because the state forces cannot be equally strong in all places," admits Brigadier B.K. Ponwar, who heads the Counter-Terrorism and Jungle Warfare College in Kanker, Chhattisgarh. The level of disruption caused by the Maoists' TCOC is also unmatched by the multiple insurgencies in the Northeast and the militancy in Jammu and Kashmir. For the two-day strike called by the CPI (Maoist), for instance, the railways have had to cancel/reschedule several trains. All this paints a misleading picture of advancing Maoist forces. The reality is quite the opposite. The Maoists' TCOC, security experts believe, is a posture in aggressive defence. In their official documents, too, the Maoists call the current phase in their guerrilla war a period of "strategic defence". "In Andhra Pradesh, it took 10 years for the police to gain the upper hand and 15 years to clear the Maoists from all but Khammam and Visakhapatnam," says P.V. Ramana, researcher at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis. "By targeting security forces, they are trying to strike fear among the troops." Some of that has worked in places like Mukram/Chintalnaar and also after Monday's blasting of a busload of SPOs and civilians near Sukma in Dantewada. Both, the CRPF on April 6 and the SPOs on May 17, were too shell-shocked to chase and inflict substantial casualties on the rebels after being ambushed. In Shilda, the EFR camp was overrun and that attack provoked the chief of the force to blame superior officers, demonstrating a lack of co-ordination in the administration. The wave of attacks by the Maoists will necessarily force the police to organise their own security first, and thereby consume more manpower, before they are able to implement the Centre's mandate to provide security to civilians. In the security establishment, there is a consensus that more attacks are possible — the Maoists have threatened them in repeated media statements — and on the rebel's access to firepower. An exact estimate is well-nigh impossible, but two instances can give an idea of how the Maoist arsenal is stocked. In the April 6 Mukram killings, the Maoists stripped the CRPF of 76 automatic rifles and two 2-inch mortars, enough, says Brigadier Ponwar, "to start an insurgency". Needless to say, there have been armoury raids before and after that incident. Second, the Maoists' weapon of choice has been the improvised explosive device (IED), indicating that they have magazine loads of ammonium nitrate, gelatine sticks and detonators. The devices are also proving to be increasingly lethal. Just to illustrate — 20,000 tonnes of explosives can be used to make 2,000 IEDs of 10kg each. A 10kg IED used effectively can blow up a vehicle capable of carrying up to 10 passengers. | |
 |
3G bounty for govt, burden for winners - Money mountain gives Pranab elbow room | |
| OUR BUREAU | |
May 19: The government appeared to be the only winner after a frenzied, 34-day auction of 3G radiowaves enabled it to rake in Rs 67,719 crore (about $15 billion) — almost twice the amount it had budgeted for. Seven telecom players bid almost Rs 51,000 crore to grab 20-year licences for scarce radio waves and the right to offer 3G services in the country. Under the rules, the soonest that they can offer the service is September 1, though it is unlikely that any player will have the infrastructure in place by then. The state-owned telecom players —Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam — did not participate in the auction but were granted the same 5 Mhz of spectrum in the 2.1 gigahertz band like everyone else. They will have to match the auction bids for the circles where they offer the services. Their combined payout works out to a little over Rs 16,750 crore. The crazy bids for Mumbai and Delhi circles — both circles saw bids well above Rs 3,000 crore — left some telecom players complaining about a "winner's curse". It also stoked concerns that the carriers could try and recoup some of the fees by charging high rates for a service that promises lightning quick video and data downloads. The bid amounts are comparable to the global rates these scarce radiowaves have commanded. In 2008, the US raised $18 billion from spectrum auction. The UK raised more than 36.1 billion euros. Germany raked in 50.1 billion euros. None of the operators could grab licences for all 22 telecom circles in India. However, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications and Aircel won the licences for 13 circles each. Bharti Airtel will have to fork out the maximum amount of Rs 12,295.46 crore as it went for the lucrative circles. It, however, failed to get a licence for Calcutta where it has a robust 2G service – and bemoaned the fact that the high bids in Mumbai and Delhi had scuppered its hopes of getting a pan-India licence. The government sold three slots in 17 circles, and four in the remaining five circles. Delhi saw the highest bid at Rs 3,316.93 crore, followed by Mumbai at Rs 3,247.07 crore. "The revenue earned from 3G auction provides me with some elbow room (in containing the fiscal deficit)," said finance minister Pranab Mukherjee. In the budget, he had estimated a revenue inflow of Rs 35,000 crore from the sale of both 3G and broadband wireless spectrum. Auction for wireless broadband spectrum will start on Friday. |
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100520/jsp/frontpage/story_12468991.jsp
Third World Economy: Is Foreign Aid Destructive?
CategoriesForeign Aid comes with a feel-good factor. We can be satisfied that we are - our countries are - contributing to the economic well-being of starving people in the Third World. Even if only a small percentage of our money goes to that aid, at least we did something positive. Or did we?
Zambian writer Evans Munyemesha does not think so. In an article titled International Aid, published in The Zambian, he charges that development aid, "has financed the creation of monstrous projects that, at vast expense, have devastated the environment and ruined lives". Rather than getting down to "the hard task of wealth creation", Munyemesha says, "easy handouts" have been substituted "for the rigors of self-help", leaving the receiving countries economically crippled and their people worse off than before. If we look at results, African 'aid' has been an unmitigated disaster:
"[Africa] has lost self-sufficiency in food production that it enjoyed before development assistance was invented, and during the past few decades, has become instead a continent-sized beggar hopelessly dependent on the largesse of outsiders---per-capita food production has fallen in every year since the 1960s. Seven out of every ten Africans, are now reckoned to be destitute or on the verge of extreme poverty, with the result that the continent has the highest infant mortality rates in the world, the lowest average life-expectancies in the world, the lowest literacy rates, the fewest doctors per head of population, and the fewest children in school."And the situation in other parts of the world does not seem much better.
You might say, that with all the money we're paying, there must be something wrong with the receivers of our aid. The temptation is to cast around for logical reasons why our good intentions don't bear fruit. Corruption ... lazyness ... hold it for a moment. Apart from the on-the-ground view of our Zambian observer (you can see the whole article further down) we have another witness - John Perkins, a highly paid economist formerly working for an international development consultancy. In his book titled Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, Perkins describes how as a highly paid professional, he helped the U.S. cheat poor countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars by lending them more money than they could possibly repay and then take over their economies.
"Basically what we were trained to do and what our job is to do is to build up the American empire. To bring -- to create situations where as many resources as possible flow into this country, to our corporations, and our government, and in fact we've been very successful. We've built the largest empire in the history of the world. It's been done over the last 50 years since World War II with very little military might, actually. It's only in rare instances like Iraq where the military comes in as a last resort. This empire, unlike any other in the history of the world, has been built primarily through economic manipulation, through cheating, through fraud, through seducing people into our way of life..."said John Perkins when he was interviewed by Amy Godman. You can find a transcription and get the audio on Democracynow.org. Much of the responsibility for the disaster, says Perkins, is the World Bank's and the International Monetary Fund's, but he is also optimistic that the situation can be changed, saying "I believe the World Bank and other institutions can be turned around and do what they were originally intended to do, which is help reconstruct devastated parts of the world. Help -- genuinely help poor people."
Well, we certainly would have to find ways to make the 'aid' actually arrive at the people, and to help them become self-sufficient, not lead them into further dependency.
Thanks to Neal Perochet of Environmental Restoration International, for bringing the article of Evans Munyemesha to my attention. Neal has been working on the ground in Africa and elsewhere, to make communities self-sufficient through environmental restoration.
Here's the article, first published in The Zambian, which does go quite a way in shaking our feel-good factor on foreign aid or, as it's also mistakenly called, "development aid"...
- - -
International Aid
first published 20 October 2003 in The Zambian
With international 'aid' to soon reach $100 billion a year (from $60 billion), it will be the final kick in the teeth of the poor, crippling further their Third World economies. Indeed, (as I have found out after researching through reports and what-not), it's often profoundly dangerous to the poor and inimical to their interests to have 'aid' imposed upon them: It has financed the creation of monstrous projects that, at vast expense, have devastated the environment and ruined lives; it has facilitated the emergence of fantastical and devious bureaucracies staffed by legions of self-serving hypocrites; it has sapped the initiative, and creativity and enterprise of ordinary people and substituted the superficial and irrelevant showiness of imported advice; it has sucked potential entrepreneurs and intellectuals in the developing countries everywhere into non-productive administrative activities; it has created a 'moral tone' in international affairs that denies the hard task of wealth creation and that substitutes easy handouts for the rigors of self-help; in addition, throughout the Third World, it has allowed the dead grip of imposed officialdom to suppress popular choice and individual freedom. Call it what you will---but I will call it for what it is: Noble Colonialism! Ain't that a 'female dog'?
'Aid' [they call it] has its defenders, not least the highly paid public-relations men and women who spend millions of dollars justifying the continued existence of the agencies that employ them. Such professional communicators must reject out of hand the obvious conclusions symbolized by the white elephants of international 'aid' agencies: that 'aid' is a waste of money and time, that its results are fundamentally bad, and that ---far from being increased--- it should be stopped forthwith before more damage is done.
Whenever such suggestions are made the lobbyists throw up their hands in horror and consternation. Despite some regrettable failures, they protest, 'aid' is justified by its successes; despite some glitches and problems, it's essentially something that works; most important of all ---the emotional touch, the appeal to the heartstrings ---they argue with passion that 'aid' must not be stopped because the poor could not survive without it. Such wealthy lunacy! The Brandt Commission provided a classic example of this thought as it loudly screamed and I quote: 'For the poorest countries 'aid' is essential to survival.'
Such statements, however, patronize and undervalue the people of the poor countries concerned. They are, in addition, logically indefensible when uttered by those who also want us to believe that 'aid' works. Throughout history and pre-history all countries everywhere got by perfectly all right without any 'aid' at all. Furthermore, in the 1950s they got by with much less 'aid' than they did, for example, in the 1970s--- and were apparently none the worse for the experience. Now, suddenly, at the tail end of almost sixty years of development assistance, we are told that large numbers of the same countries have lost the ability to survive a moment longer unless they continue to receive ever-larger amounts of 'aid'. If this is indeed the case ---and if the only measurable impact of all these decades of development has been to turn resolute and tenacious survivors into helpless dependents ---then it seems to me to be beyond dispute that 'aid' does not work. Despite the rich, flowing, and seductive language of the Brandt Commission reports, there is a stark lack of concession that prudent management of resources, a willingness to share responsibility and power among nations to fulfill common needs, ensure the right of personal livelihood, improve living standards, and guarantee the well-being of each and every individual in our global village are simply missing in the international 'aid' agendas.
Irredeemably out of touch with the poor, and the tedious day-to-day realities of their lives, it's little wonder that the dignified gangsters in the fraudulent scheme of foreign 'aid' for Third World development so unfailingly come up with bizarre and extraneous projects like donating huge supplies of slimming products and frostbite medicine to starving Somalis in the 80s---projects that are worthless, even harmful, to those they are intended to benefit. All that these projects do is meet the bureaucratic needs of the agencies themselves, the career needs of their staff, and the commercial needs of suppliers from whom equipment and services are procured.
It's not outside our grasp to note that the 'well-intentioned' efforts of our 'well-wishing' guests in the business of international 'aid' have been a sinking ship; a red-faced failure: This is clearly evidenced by the continued existence of the 'aid' agencies. If they were doing a good job of promoting development among the poor [which is what they actually tell us], then, presumably, they should have put themselves out of business by now. Over fifty years they should have dealt systematically with the problems that they were established to solve, closed up shop and stopped spending public funds from developed countries. But, no, they want to discuss malnutrition in Uganda while having steak dinners flown in from London; they want to discuss irrigation in Kenya while scuba-diving along the Kenyan beaches; they want to eradicate tsetse flies in Mpongwe, Zambia while sipping Scotch-over-rocks imported duty-free from Wales.
In fact they have firmly planted their roots among the poor despite the rapid changes that have taken place over time. Most of them have grown from year to year with ever bigger budgets, ever more projects to administer (and then abandon) and ever more staff on their ever-expanding payrolls---all this in the name of helping the poor!
They never cease to seize a moment to plaster their faces in front of any visiting camera in sight while blabbing about the great mission they have embarked on in the interests of the lowly and deprived. The poor would be less poor if their foreign benefactors would not waste generously donated funds by good folks on over-priced Swiss shades, English biscuits, French vacations, Italian shoes, Japanese gizmos and German silk undies.
Still yet, if the statement that 'aid works' is true, then presumably the poor should be in much better shape than they were before they first began to receive it more than half a century ago. If so, then 'aid'sjob should by now be nearly over and it ought to be possible to begin gradual withdrawal without hurting anyone. Right?
Of course, the truth and ugly reality of it all is that most poor people in the most poor countries most of the time never receive or even make contact with 'aid' in any tangible shape or form: whether it's present or absent, increased or decreased, are thus issues that are simply irrelevant to the ways in which they conduct their daily lives. After the multi-billion-dollar 'financial flows' involved have been shaken through the sieve of over-priced and irrelevant goods that must be bought in the donor countries, filtered again in then hundreds of thousands of foreign 'experts', 'professionals' (and whatever else cute foreign title you may call them by!) and 'aid' agency staff, skimmed off by dishonest commission agents, and stolen by glossy-bellied corrupt Ministers and Presidents, there is really very little left to go around. This little, furthermore, is then used thoughtlessly, or maliciously, or irresponsibly by those in power---who have no mandate from the poor, who do not consult with them and who are utterly indifferent to their plight. Small wonder, then, the effects of 'aid' are so often vicious and destructive for the most vulnerable members of the human society.
All this notwithstanding, what is to be said about 'aid's much-vaunted 'successes'?
Of the Third World, Africa contains many lessons for the fraud of 'aid'. It has lost self-sufficiency in food production that it enjoyed before development assistance was invented, and during the past few decades, has become instead a continent-sized beggar hopelessly dependent on the largesse of outsiders---per-capita food production has fallen in every year since the 1960s. Seven out of every ten Africans, are furthermore, now reckoned to be destitute or on the verge of extreme poverty, with the result that the continent has the highest infant mortality rates in the world, the lowest average life-expectancies in the world, the lowest literacy rates, the fewest doctors per head of population, and the fewest children in school. Tellingly, after Africa became the most 'aided' continent in the solar system in the last decade, its Gross Domestic Product per capita shrunk by an average of 3.4 per cent per annum. Sob, sob sob!!!
In the other Third World countries (like Bangladesh, Mexico, etc.), the story is the same: Grim and pathetic! Thanks to 'aid'. Debts have consistently increased, and economic growth consistently decreased. All this spurred on by the one-size-fits-all foreign 'aid' policy. This sick and loathsome policy presumes not only that the 'aid' donors have a fairly good idea what growth-promoting policies are, but that these policies are the same everywhere. Excuse me, but this is a bunch of dung! What 'aid'? With deepening poverty in almost every Third World country where 'aid' had (and still has) its hand fittingly wrapped around the necks of the poor, it would seem official that it [development 'aid'] is neither necessary nor sufficient for 'development': the poor thrive without it in some countries; in others, where it is plentifully available, they suffer the most deplorable miseries. Such suffering furthermore occurs not in spite of 'aid' but because of it.
To continue with the trick of 'aid' seems to me to be generously absurd. Garnered and justified in the name of the destitute and the vulnerable, 'aid's main function in the past half-century has been to create and then entrench a powerful new breed of wealthy, privileged and accountable-to-one gang of foreign parasites. In this camp of screw-the-poor-out-of-existence made up of the World Bank, IMF, United Nations and other worthless behemoths of international mediocrity, 'aid'---and nothing else---has provided 'jobs for the boys' and has permitted record-breaking self-serving behavior, arrogance, paternalism, and fearless cowardice. At the same time, in the Third World, 'aid' has perpetuated the rule of incompetent 'important' fools whose leadership would be more appropriate at raising monkeys at the zoo; it has allowed governments characterized by momentous ignorance and irresponsibility to thrive; last but not least, it has condoned---and in some cases facilitated ---the most consistent and grievous abuses of human rights that have occurred anywhere in the world since the dinosaurs lived.
In these days of enlightened minds, the time is nigh for the 'Masters of Disasters' to depart. Their ouster is achievable only if and when the poor people are willing to rediscover ways to assist one another directly according to the their needs and aspirations as they themselves define them, in line with priorities that they themselves have set, and guided by their own agendas.
Forget 'Aid'! Give them an equal opportunity!
See also these related stories:
GAGGING AFRICA THROUGH PHANTOM DEVELOPMENT AIDReally wicked solutions needed to beat Bush
Far from being the most positive US president towards Africa in 40 years, as Bob Geldof maintains, the incumbent of the White House is the biggest impediment to a fair deal for the world's most impoverished nations...A Program to Fight Malaria in Africa Draws Questions
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. - Published: June 11, 2005
Though its budget for fighting malaria has risen since 1998 to $90 million from $14 million, the United States' foreign aid agency is spending 95 percent of the money on consultants and less than 5 percent on mosquito nets, drugs and insecticide spraying to fight the disease. The spending priorities have touched off an intense debate between the agency, the United States Agency for International Development and its critics, who include two of the Senate's most conservative Republicans.A truckload of nonsense - by George Monbiot
The G8 plan to save Africa comes with conditions that make it little more than an extortion racket...Food and Energy Security: Local Systems Global Solidarity
British Parliamentarian Alan Simpson offers a brilliant analysis of what's wrong with current national and international policies on food and energy and why we must break all the rulesWhen corporations rule the world Science in Society editorial
Africa Needs Freedom, Not "Aid"
by Sheldon Richman, July 18, 2005
Politicians are never more dangerous than when they are thinking, "We've got to do something!"'Vulture funds' threat to developing world
President Bush declared the United States was taking on the challenges of global hunger, poverty and disease, and urged support for debt relief, which he called the best hope for eliminating poverty. But what exactly are wealthy nations doing to reduce the debt of impoverished countries? Today we take a close look at companies known as "vulture funds." Vulture fund companies buy up the debt of poor countries at cheap prices, and then demand payments much higher than the original amount of the debt, often taking poor countries to court when they cannot afford to repay. Greg Palast's BBC report on vulture funds: Today a high court judge in London ruled on the case that a vulture fund can extract more than $20 million from Zambia for a debt which it bought for just $4 million.John Perkins: Jerk, Con-man, Shill
Perkins had switched sides - and, in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man gets his soul back from Satan only a little soiled. In Secret History, the personal confession turns into an illuminating, world-spanning jeremiad. From Latin America to Africa to the Middle East, Perkins leaps from his own story to the widespread caused by the greed armies sent marching from the boardrooms of New York and London. Today, Perkins is my confrere and colleague. He wears his hair longish and I wear mine . . . well, I've stopped wearing hair altogether. And in his writings today, Perkins' heart goes out to the Third World targets of this new empire ruled by shock troops and spread sheets. His empathy extends to those in the occupied territory known as the USA. Because, says Perkins, when the wretchedly ripped-off of the Earth rise in rebellion, the lash of the backlash is felt by the children of the lobstermen of New Hampshire, shivering under Humvees in Falluja, and never the EHM's clients' fortunate sons, frolicking in their Ferraris.Africa to Bono: "Go home!"
We can spend billions importing medication, or you can invest in local farms that grow the Artemisinin, a Chinese herb with potent anti-malarial properties, and the factories that process it. We can continue the endless cycle of need and dependency, or you can create jobs, develop indigenous capacity, and build a sustainable future.Aid can alleviate immediate misery and that is why we love it. Charity is a profoundly human response to all those images that pull on our heartstrings. But all evidence points to the maddening conclusion that, in the long run, aid not only has no positive effect on economic growth, it may even undermine it.
The only way Africa will develop and create wealth is if it can attract foreign capital and trade its goods on the world market like every other economically successful country does.
US food aid is 'wrecking' Africa, claims charity
Now Care, one of the world's biggest charities, has announced that it will boycott the controversial policy of selling tons of heavily subsidised US produced food in African countries. Care wants the US government to send money to buy food locally, rather than unwanted US produced food. The US arm of the charity says America is causing rather than reducing hunger with a decree that US food aid must be sold rather than directly distributed to those facing starvation. In America, the subsidies for corn in particular, help underpin the junk food industry, which uses corn extracts as a sweetener, creating a home-grown a health crisis.
Leading USA-Based Hunger Organization Rejects U.S. Food Aid is a Form of Colonialism--Not Charity
One of the largest international aid organizations in the world turned the food aid industry on its head recently by declaring that they will turn down 46 million dollars in food subsidies from the U.S. government.The United States budgets 2 billion dollars a year in food aid, which buys U.S. crops to feed populations facing starvation amidst crisis or those that endure chronic hunger. But the U.S.-based CARE International has forfeited its substantial slice of the food aid pie that is the U.S. "Food for Peace" program, claiming that the way the U.S. government distributes food hurts small poor farmers in the very communities and countries the program is supposed to help.
Monetary Causes of the Immigration Crisis
The "Washington Consensus" has wrecked their economies
Manufacturing a Food Crisis
The Mexican food crisis cannot be fully understood without taking into account the fact that in the years preceding the tortilla crisis, the homeland of corn had been converted to a corn-importing economy by "free market" policies promoted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and Washington. The process began with the early 1980s debt crisis.That the global food crisis stems mainly from free-market restructuring of agriculture is clearer in the case of rice. Unlike corn, less than 10 percent of world rice production is traded. Moreover, there has been no diversion of rice from food consumption to biofuels. Yet this year alone, prices nearly tripled...
The Food Crisis: Destroying African Agriculture
Biofuel production is certainly one of the culprits in the current global food crisis. But while the diversion of corn from food to biofuel feedstock has been a factor in food prices shooting up, the more primordial problem has been the conversion of economies that are largely food-self-sufficient into chronic food importers. Here the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO) figure as much more important villains.Whether in Latin America, Asia, or Africa, the story has been the same: the destabilization of peasant producers by a one-two punch of IMF-World Bank structural adjustment programs that gutted government investment in the countryside followed by the massive influx of subsidized U.S. and European Union agricultural imports after the WTO's Agreement on Agriculture pried open markets.
posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Saturday June 4 2005
updated on Sunday September 28 2008
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Readers' Comments
A discussion between Michael, myself, and Neal, that's relevant to small scale on-the-ground energy production in developing countries - which I would like to share with you:
From: m.@...
To: Sepp Hasslberger
Cc: Neal
Subject: Wind
Date: Tue, 24 May 2005Dear Sepp,
Saw this article, and particularly that map included, and thought you might like to see it. I'd add that the systems they use are not the most efficient in generating electricity either, as a number of people are independently working on higher voltage systems which create less reactive drag while producing greater output (higher efficiencies). Looking at this, plus the potential of solar power such as the vortex column mentioned in Elliot's book, yield greater possibilities for a distributed network of power less susceptible to power outages, without even bringing in the Bearden MEG, which can be used anywhere, is portable, and requires no conventional external energy source. I don't know of anyone doing research on supercapacitors for local energy storage other than in cars, but they also offer the option of portable on-demand power sources for emergencies.
Kind Regards,
Michael
- - - - - - -
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 19:21:50 +0200
To: m@...
From: Sepp Hasslberger
Subject: Re: Wind
Cc: NealHi Michael,
The wind link - yes, there certainly is enough wind to make all of our electricity if we want to, and I bet there is enough movement of waves and tides in the seas to make that much many times over. It's really only a question of will. Our will is married to oil, it seems, because of overriding economic considerations. It's just better business. You can't charge by the hour of wind, once the generator is installed, and even small wind turbines are possible for energy independence of those who want it:
Wind" target="_blank">Small Wind Turbines Experiencing Strong Growth - Average generator size has doubled from 500 W in 1990 to 1 kW in 2004. Sales growth not as fast as solar PV, which are favored by government incentives.
Kind regards
Sepp
- - - - - - -
From: m.@...
To: Sepp Hasslberger
Cc: Neal
Subject: Re: Wind
Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 12:09:01 +0000Dear Sepp,
Somewhere along the way here a new economic model has to begin to take hold - perhaps spirited on by the right people of fame who are willing to help, such as Bob Geldorf. There are literally a million ways to "skin the energy cat," and just not enough people at this point who are actually paying attention to force the hands of those hwo do control energy. Television, good or bad, has one show after another of people building or using energy and fuel hogging vehicles while not one of those shows mentions the totally irresponsible impact of what they are doing. Perhaps what's needed now is a show which goes from one alternative energy installation to another as they are building them to show people that it can be done and how.
I'm so tired of seeing hypocritical shows like Orange County Choppers, where they build a $150,000 (!) theme motorcycle dedicated to POWs, firemen, or other cause and how much it means to them. Well, if it really meant so much to these people, why didn't they do it for free? How about a free motorcycle dedicated to everyone in the world is starving, accompanied by a check to the U.N. for $100,000, and someone to drive it across the US asking for donations of money and time??
The possibility that we're really a "rogue species" that will self-destruct out of sheer complacancy and stupidity no longer seems untenable, as every day goes by with so much tragedy and so few people even paying attention, and even fewer doing anything about it.
Kind Regards,
Michael
- - - - - - -
From: Neal@...
To: m.@...If you give money to the UN it will be wasted. Right now they are having a big self congradulatory "conference" in one of the most expensive cities in the world, San Francisco, attended by the uber-governer of Calif. his highness Arnold Schwartznegger. Read President Mbeki's comments on UN, he's woken up. Is it merely a military alliance and world police force? The amount of money spent on this conference with its "work shops", all the travel expenses, per diems, nights out on the town, etc. could have been better spent on any number of good projects with real results. It's one thousand times the waste of a hog/chopper dedicated to a war.
But your right on, there is tremendous economic potential from grass roots organizing, it just has not been realized yet and people are rightly distrustful of "charity" and "aid" pyramid schemes.
I sent an interesting piece by a Zambian journalist on the pitfalls of foreign "aid" and the net result of it to Sepp and it is very revealing from the African perspective. I think that journalist was fired from his paper as his e-mail is no longer valid.
But, again, unless people with some expereince and their supporters get alternatives through, nothing grandiose to start, on the ground to challenge the only games in town foreign aid schemes, nothing good will happen. It's just tough to convince anyone after all the scams and skimming and religious oriented carrot and stick schemes to go one more time into their collective pockets after getting collectively burned this last quarter century. People also need to know that what they are doing is in their interest too, not just give aways, and with regard to climate alterations, air pollution, degenerating oxygen content, food and water security risks, desperate migrations of poor people away from environmental destruction and war, it is, as we say, an investment for everyone to support our fellow human beings in restoring this planet to some semblance of its former working self.
But here we are just talking about it. At the risk of sounding like a hypocrite, what about our own conference to take place in a developing country, so that what money is spent is of benefit to people who really need it so much more that San Francisco Conference industry? Meet each other face to face, focus on integrated planning for energy, agriculture and water resources coupled with restoring damaged environments, strenghthen each others organizations, or join forces?
I can suggest with near certainty that places like Africa, Sri Lanka, Melanesia, Latin America would be very open to this. They want competetion, not just one plate on the table.
Or, how about a conference that is co-joined with the start up of an actual project???!!! Now there's something that I think people could get behind.
So many places I've seen need just a little bit of quality power to make a real difference for thier communities, not much, but reliable quality power. Nothing could be more needed in rural health clinics for treating water, running auto-claves, refrigeration. So appreciate Sepp, et al 's interest in energy, very important!
Tired of writing about it, somehow people must challenge the idea of a centralized bureaucratic control structure hogging all the work with poor results. The UN mandates were supposed to acknowledge the need for regional control and self sustaning infrastructure, not permanent employment and "bases" for UN officials. Recently, in response to a somewhat critical grouping of messages to them from me on African Affairs, the local Pacifica official left radio station (controlled by Ford Foundation and CIA) answered with a broadcast announcing the UN conference in SF and the commentators guest, proclaimed that the UN was the only organization capable of taking on environmental projects internationally.
Such a statement is an unmitagated fraud. The people in their own countries are the ones to do the work, not fat cats in suits with cocktail glasses at the ready instead of a pick and shovel. There is a world of experienced people out there ready to work, but unwilling to be cuaght up in some bullshit UN nonsense.
Why should we all be taxed to support the UN so that it can filter money it claims is owed it by us with their terrible nonexistent track record? They just skim the money for their self perpetuating academic dilletante lobby. Contractors, engineers, agriculturalists, farmers, hydrologists, energy specialists, who know about real work just stay out of it becuase they know its a lot of crap. This is what I've found out from our network, they are people who know how to treat a customer properly, like a community or a government ministry looking for partnerships, they just don't want anything to do with some parasite organization like the UN trying to control everything.
On the energy front, i've allready made so many contacts in solar, micro hydro power, bio-fuels , bio-mass, these are decent people at the highest level, but they just shake their head when you mention projects associated with any foreign aid schemes. 90% paper work, 10% work - that's where the money winds up with these poeple. Small organizations in developing countries are howling about this, the time they waste on paper work, to be reviewed by more paper pushers, then their ideas and project plans stolen and siphoned off by corrupt UN officials and other insitutes they beg from. Another colleague in Africa was brutally murdered last fall and he was particularly vocal about this, an engineer with real experience. Just more ugliness in the real world outside the well paid fat cat land of the UN.
Maybe "fair trade" and mutually respectfull partnerships are a better way to go, to compete with Monsanto and the rest.
Not to add ammunition to that j... Bolton, but it doesn't matter what political stripe you are, a simple accounting of the UN "programs" and the net result after 25 years should be enough to convince anyone that it is not working and not becuase of "lack of funding".
So I have made a speech here, it should probably be read at the UN conference in SF. They call questions or comments to their official line "interventions". What does that tell you? "interventions".
They treat their employees and other supplicants like children. Anyone who has even a slightly different view is villified and condemned. Like Pres. Mbeki and the S.A ministry of health.
Hang in there! regds, Neal
- - - - - -
From: m.@...
To: Neal@...Dear Neal,
Just quickly regarding power for areas without, there are millions of alternators worldwide sitting in scrap yards and God knows where else that can be used to generate power locally. I've even talked to people here in Holland about it. Most alternators can output 110vdc with a few changes at reasonable amps (I used to use the one in my pickup to power a 2hp 110vac electric chainsaw) which can be inverted cheaply from the marketplace to ac if necessary. It's all sitting right there to be used where there is a wind, water, wave, thermal currents, an engine source, like a motorbike engine, or even human or animal power into batteries - imagination fitting what's available in the surroundings. Given tools and a little ingenuity, small power generators aren't out of the question, but more out of thought.
Kind Regards,
Michael
- - - - - - -
From: Neal@...
To: m.@...Dear Michael: I wonder if reconditioning alternators might be a cottage industry combined with your suggestion? Physical distribution costs have to be reasoned out when an idea for recycled commodity transfer from north to south countries takes place. The marine industry and small vessel, yacht industry has alot of ideas to look at for power (Holland sure comes to mind when I think of maritime). Some of what we proposed is already taking place in Kenya using solar power. With a twenty five year gaurantee (and most of them last longer with good results) or even 30, the cost/benfefit ratio is good. But, it's expensive, not something for common folks on farms, but for community based power needs at certain locations, like health clinics. Or, water pumping in various forms.
Where there is a farm tractor, there is excellent opportunity for power generation off the pto shaft. You have agriculture producing seed oil (castor tree, hemp seed) with small presses. Now I have just today read an article that methanol is to be produced totally from waste vegetal bio-mass of any kind, thus eliminating the questionable production of same from Corn. This is a big breakthrough (methanol needs to be mixed with vegetal or seed oils to create "bio-diesel"). Also, we have here in Ca. some people running their diesels on pure vegatable oil, not bio-diesel, they have a separate tank to carry diesel fuel to heat the engine up to operating temp. and then switch to pure oil!
In developing countries, wind power should have a place, but caution is warranted where a mechanical operation is subject to continued wear and maintenance, replacement scheduling where fabrication of gearing and metal parts is difficult and expensive. I think a breakthrough for wind power will come with power storage improvements. Of course, in Holland, one expects wind power tech leadership.
I 'm thinking, you almost always need an alternator, right, if it's mechanical power production? So, given some fairly standardized forms of rural power that attach readily to any suitable alternator reconditioned for use could be very sensible. Also, as we have seen in Melanesia, one small generator running on, preferabley, bio-diesel produced locally, or pure oil, can be wired to village community for simple thing such as lights (no TV). Well, so much to consider.
I've been studying and researching micro hydor power a lot these days and have a hydrology engineering firm dedicating some volunteer time to research for me. This is not something, it appears, to be taken lightly in terms of home grown set ups. You just have to have a proper set up of lasting quality for it to be reasonable. But maybe someone knows differently, always open minded on these things. People could, however, set up simple water wheels of home built wood design, come to think of it, and there's a fit for the alternator. So much dependent there on how to store the energy safely. Sometimes, you don't need to store energy for it to be used effectively.
Mostly, at this stage in the field from what I 've observed power is needed in water pumping, water purification and community resource like health clinic. A tractor is good, when you have a pto, becuase you can build a little shed around your generating facility with a shaft sticking out of the shed, tractor backs up to it, pto attached and just let the thing idle. On my Kubota 3300 that would be alot of power just idling and that's a perfect tractor set up for say a village community to share. Lot's of good used tractors too around. Again, it's transport costs that are key there....is it worth it?
We like solar power for rural so much becuase there is no moving parts, extremely low maintenance, long life of unit, same inverter set up as with other set ups, expandable and for many uses, such as water pumping, no need for power storage. Battery technology is a relevant factor in any of this and we have seen many sad scenes of abandoned lead acid batteries (particularly latin america) a toxic nightmare that needs to be avoided in new power schemes for rural areas. Island communities are particularly sensitive to poorly conceived power generating schemes and use of batteries. Nice local people do not always understand dangers of toxics over long term.
Keep communicating. Don't mind my rant on UN. Just hoping for more direct approach.
NP
- - - - - - -
From: m.@...
To: Neal@...
Cc: sepp@...
Subject: Re: giving money to the UN
Date: Sat, 04 Jun 2005Dear Neal,
Re: batteries, for one. Many of the lead acid batteries that are discarded because they won't hold a charge are actually still good, but sulfation has coated the plates, rendering them unchargeable. A number of years ago I found an extremely simple battery rejuvenator/charger comprised basically of a bridge rectifier and motor run capacitor, and one day I tried it on my car battery because it wouldn't hold a charge any longer. I hooked it up and ran it overnight.
The next day, I put the battery in my car and it started immediately, and I used that "bad" battery for over two years before it finally died for good. There are new devices called pulse chargers that will do the same thing, but not for the $5 it cost me to build mine. Another thing to consider.
As far as alternators go, running one steadily at half maximum output (30-50 amps @110vdc) will let it last a long time - if you calculate how many actual hours it takes to drive 150,000 miles, you'll find that it's a good long time, so a redundant system employing spare alternators that can kick in when one fails is a cheap way to get power from basically scrap materials, and all you need is an engine - any engine, as I've described - to power it. A Honda 90 engine taken from a wrecked motorbike, a small car engine, etc. You don't need a tractor to create that kind of power source - all you need is a diesel engine, or gasoline, if you can access that fuel as well (diesel is nothing but unrefined gasoline, by the way - you can distill diesel further into it). There's also the Firestorm sparkplug which no one will build for the inventor (he also invented the famous Splitfire sparkplug), but which can increase economy and power of gasoline engines remarkably.
One of those in a Honda 90 engine (or any other) will yield very high efficiency along with increased power. I have invented an extremely simple fuel reforming device that works best in constant rpm situations such as used to generate electricity. You will recall that engines don't wear out while running - they wear out primarily from starting cold, so a constantly running engine that is well cared for and run at mid-power can run a long time. As I said, there are a million ways to "skin the energy cat" - all one needs is the imagination and the tools and pieces to do it. The "McGyver" TV show was a good example of it. Certainly one would need a reliable source, but for people who have no source, even one that needs attention now and then is better than nothing, until the reliable one can be had.
Kind Regards,
Michael
Posted by: Sepp on June 4, 2005 05:22 PM
RENAME THE UN COMPETITION! (RESTRUCTURE TOO)
So, the point might be here ......united u n d e r what or whom? So here is my message to Sect Gen Kofi Annan and other potential participants in this competition:Dear Sect General Annan: Here is my idea, (does this sound like a Monty Python skit?). Rename the UN and rework the entire foundation of this new international assistance and relief organization. I suggest you work hand in hand with President Mbeki on this.
The old "UN" is so obviously a military alliance of the Anglo-American European powers that squeezed through into being after WWII after it foundered as the "League of Nations" after WWI. The term "united" suggests or even requires a central authority figure UNDER WHICH, the member countries are subservient to. Now, as President Mbeki has rightly complained, this "UN" seems to be degenerating into a world police force acting on the orders of "the security council". (This "world police force" is not to be confused with the rank puppet show recently appearing on the silver screen, thank you).
My goodness, President Mbeki's criticism might be confused with the right wing element in the USA dencunciation of the UN! Well, they want to throw out the baby with the bath water. That's not necessary.
First rename the thing to get some breathing room. My candidate is.....hmmm, this is much harder than I thought........well, something with the term "Sovereign Nations" in it perhaps. It cannot have the term "united" in there anymore. That's scary. That's military talk, police talk, let's have non of that.
How about "Sovereign Nations Cooperative"? (SNC). Oh no, cooperative will excite the republicans again. sounds like evil communism. OK. .....hmmmm. Well you can see the problem. Why do we need a unifying mega bureaucracy to handle what can now be accomplished easily by cooperating national bodies integrating their information over our brand spanking new information super hiway!
Perhaps all we need is an "international clearing house for ideas"?
Received from Neal
Posted by: Sepp on June 4, 2005 11:37 PM
I am an ardent opposer of donor funding to the poor countries.Ask me.This has created a culture of dependence and a vague belief that we Africans especially cannot do without begging.I call it that because there is no substantial reosons to account for the foreign aid.Let our African leaders realise this,no matter how bitter it may be.Use our resources to develop our states.At timmes we are campaigning for debt cancellation,wstern countries are not fair on.and so on. But this is our on liking.African countries are producers of most raw materials but importers of all finished goods.The point is this stop begging and use our available resources to improve the welfare of this continent.
Posted by: emma anne on June 10, 2005 10:08 AM
what are the changes that have taken place in third world countries and what are the sffects on child slavery??? also what are the affects on the children who work long hours in sometimes very dangerous jobs that only pay them little.....
Posted by: Tess on June 29, 2005 04:44 AM
Africans need used tools and Tractors to work.
I need some used tools and used Tractor to work in Bouake,La Cote d'Ivoire, West Africa.
I'm a Secretary General for an Association.
Posted by: Louis Yennon on July 14, 2005 12:54 PM
Your concern for Africans is the right thing you are doing.Please put your concern in actions.We need your representatives in Africa on the field to visite us and see for themselves.We really want to work to feed ourselves.Continue your wonderful work.Thanks.
Posted by: Louis Yennon on July 22, 2005 04:13 PM
Please assist me with organizations that may offer some used tools and used tractors or used tractor parts for us to work.I need their contacts-E-Mail addresses.
Posted by: Louis Yennon on July 22, 2005 04:20 PM
I received this email in response to a recent article by Beldeu Singh on the oxidative AIDS hypothesis, titled: Are AIDS, CFS Caused By Oxidative Damage? but it is inherent in the theme of this article - foreign aid and the international agencies overseeing its use.
Says the commenter:
"I must admit, this has me thinking. Whatever the riddle of HIV = AIDS, etc., the treatment protocols must have a "holistic" component. That seems clear enough.
Our last trip to Fiji was entirely depressing. The government spends money on the strangest t things and refuses to even consider community health support in critical waste water and sanitation. Simple waste water treatment engineering at the most basic level is ignored, in the meantime, ministry of health parades around the rural islands in virtual yachts with big publicity innoculating with vaccines. It's quick, cheap from a human labor standpoint and not requiring any serious attention to detail by public health ministers. That was their embarrassed response to our reports, I suspect, as they did it during our visit. I've even offered to keep everything quiet, not embarrass anyone and make sure that our suggestions and survey data appears to come from ministry. A zero or fear motivated lack of response is evident because money is involved. Even physicians who we reported to in the local area, immediately and supportive at first, are silenced apparently.
It is unbeliebable what is happening, early 20' th century science and public works engineering ignored or even covered up to protect reputations and "funding" from WHO, which apparently, at least in the case of rural fiji, has no position or program for public health based on afore mentioned principles. There is a huge disconnect between verbiage and what is observed in the field. There is zero information from any public agency including UN concerning village waste water disposal options and site planning of any kind. All they have to do is search the internet. I think its the "controllers" of information dispersal in Fiji (UN and various NGO's) that are responsible for the lack of information from which Fijian ministries and communities can draw from.
I don't know if you've seen the Movie, "something or other gardner" about Kenya and Kybera slums in Nairobi. It's all about a brave "saviour" white woman who takes on evil corrupt bad guys in fight against AIDS. I can't be fair to it since I walked out of the film . The main reason of my queesy feeling (literally), was the UN food program commercial proceeding it.
This commercial shows happy, healthy young AFrican children (non over age of 10 years), playing laughing and dancing and in general worshipping a white woman who looks like Angelina Jolie, with some subliminal visual references to the UN. there are no AFrican adults shown. Then, the scene shifts to huge military air transport planes dumping loads of "aid" in form of food packages. In a gloomy, superior sounding, lecturing tone (similar to what one hears at these "conferences") a female voice booms forth to inform the audience in no uncertain terms that the UN food program "feeds people, right now, every day, on the ground".
The whole thing has the air of a military recruitment video we see here before movies show. I call it "farming AFricans".
Posted by: Sepp on October 13, 2005 10:16 PM
This is a message from Neal Perrochet, founder of the Environmental Restoration Institute, to one of the officials that co-ordinate the protection of coral reefs. It shows the problems international 'aid' has arriving where it really should be: on the ground working.
To: Steven Victor Palau International Coral Reef CentreFr: Neal Perrochet - ERI
Steve, I downloaded your report of sedimentation, etc. I appreciate the fine work you've done to bring attention to this matter of shoreside pollution and watershed degradation among other things.
However I must stand by earlier statements to ICRI in the past - this is a known factor for decades, why are more studies needed? Where is the commitment of expertise and money to actually rectify the problem with physical work related projects? You should be helping in the field getting it on with local people to do the work that is needed. I've worked with all kinds of soil scientists, botanists, engineers, hydrologists, etc ..... we say, go for it.
The last "project" I saw the WWF involved in in Fiji was circulating a "population survey" to the rural island communities. Maybe instead of WWF at these parties you might think of engaging and inviting actual people from communities affected into the decision making process or at least hear from them and not just the pre-selected govt officials wined and dined at these affairs.
The remedies are known and available but the people who can make it happen are not invited to the big party conference circuit. We don't want to attend parties and conferences on tropical islands at public expense. Our clients want to work. Our clients are community groups in rural villages. The research has been done to death. This is the message relayed to me by top government officials ifrom African nations, among others.
All the air travel expense, lodgings expense, per diems, conference organization expense should be used to develop a serous "capacity" to do work. Of course this work should be complemented by good research and consulting by scientist such as yourself!
There is no serious native tree and plant propagation program for watershed restoration in the entire of fiji islands and the nation has been ripped off completeley, along with african nations and south american nations, by UN programs introducing non native pest species, mostly from Australia and New Zealand, causing in many cases near irreparable damage.
We have proposed establishing this "capacity" endlessly in Fiji for 3 years, but we don't have bribe money to spend on govt officials like the Japanese govt and EU/USA or their front "NGO's" do in abundance. No one will work with us who has "funding", but we have, or at least had for some time, the most support of any organization on Ono island. All our Google links to Ono island project outlines have suddenly been erased and dated material from WWF appears, complete with photos of dumped over anchors with signs attached from boats onto "preserves", thus "saving" the environment.
That's right, if you googled up Ono island Fiji on google on one day, you would see at least 5 first page links to ERI and ODEO, now nothing and replacing it WWF dated material from years ago. Might I add that the WWF paper solution and posting of a sign has been a complete failure and confused and caused conflict among villages. It's easy to have some paper sent out, have it signed and dump a concrete block over the side of a boat with a sign on it saying your traditional fishing grounds are now subject to oversight by an "international NGO" sponsored by the very countries that are ravaging your natural resources and environment. Hmm. Get real ICRI
Those of us who are professionals in the field of native plant restoration and watershed management have spoken out for at least 3 decades on this fruadulent Int Aid scam for "reforestation". Californians, as usual, led the way in exposing it. As of 1980, it was still being practiced and the island of Ono was "reforested" in this manner after a devestating typhoon in 1979. The consequences have been very bad for reefs and people.
Soon, I imagine the great astrolabe reef will become property of the UN under the "world heritage site" real estate scam. But first they've got to get rid of all those pesky rural islanders, get em bottled up in the cities where they can be controlled. Ahh, tropical paradise with just a few black servants around would be so nice. Suva awaits the refugees.
I 'd like to get funding for an east africa interchange with melanesians over experience in the area of land stealing under guise of "global international protection" and "nature reserves". Especially, you could get the Masai to tell of their experiences and that environmental protection and conservation doesn't mean you give up your land to a bunch of slick linternational lawyers working for the WWF or the IUCN or the UN, SEACOLOGY, etc.
The japanese contingent of ICRI, that now uses restoration and environment in its title and has a circular logo like ours was another japanes govt insitution before. We approached them for support under their old title. They blew us off, then proceeded almost immediately to change their name, to lift work and original concept idea from our web page and partially copied our logo and our introductory statement. This is pretty typical in our experience. People who have spent decades being humiliated and degraded by japanese govt as unrealistic or immature "environmentalists" are now copied by their govt to look good to the public and carry forth an agenda for material resource extraction in Oceania under the guise of environmental policy implementation that more often than not blames indigenous people for damaging the environment while they pay off govt officials to sweep the seas clean of fish around their archipelagos.
If Japan's near shore and coastal environments were not so degraded and destroyed from their manic pursuit of construction projects and industrialization, they wouldn't have to patrol the worlds oceans looking for fish and the same is true of USA, EU, China etc.
If ICRI fail to integrate political economy and honest evaluation of motives behind the supporters of your organization and the net result of their efforts these last 25 years, what good is fine research like yours?
Nothing personal my friend, we appreciate the fine work you have done to bring attention to this matter.
ERI has, I think, the finest network in the world for physical work in native plant propagation, I would say. We want to engage with Oceania botanical experts in this field. But the people with the most experience outside academia to bring forth projects just don't want to get involved because they would rather be working and not wasting their time with e-mails like this and paper burocracies.
I am on the official shit list of the current govt of Japan and my own country on matters having to do with free speech completely unrelated to qualifications and expertise in the work we are trying to assist our clients in performing. Japan is a blood money supporter of the US/British/Australian baby killer machine in Iraq. Anyone vocally committed to exposing this is simply shut out. The UN does not like to be exposed as the world's biggest military alliance, run by Europe and the USA. Anyone who seriously questions any protocols of UNEP, WHO or the UN in gereral is black listed from support.
The Japanese govt, the EU, the USA, Britain and Australia spy on environmental project specialists and researchers to learn if they are "politically incorrrect" and discriminate against people who, aside from their work, denounce criminal genocide agianst people of color who have resources those countries covet. (Japanese govt officials are "honorary whites" similar to their status in South Africa berfore the demise of apharteid).
Big "evil" publically owned corporations are more regulated by ethics and laws relating to financial accountability than the UN grab bag. President Mbeki of South Africa and others in the fast fading "non aligned " countries have criticized the UN on this basis and its military role.
As a former marine claims settling agent, I can spot fraud and criminality a mile away when it comes to international physical distribution of goods, especially "foreign aid". Perhaps that's why the UN is totally averse to even communicating with me on any subject or project suggestion. Where will the money come for drugs, booze and prostitutes if UN is opened up to financial accountability protocols consistent with those employed by "evil" corporate bad guys?
Wait a minute, how did we get from watershed management to "conspiracy theory"? Just making a joke on myself. We've made plenty of mistakes ourselves first getting into this "NGO" thing. We go out and engage and take advice from people that know more than us on a given topic or issue relating to environment. That's how professional people organize and coordinate good projects.
Please feel free to circulate this e-mail to your colleagues (or not). As ERI is discriminated against by the funders and backers of ICRI and blatantly defrauded by the Japanes govt, they are discriminating against our valued clients, who await recognition for their efforts and ours to physically work to regain their self reliance and choice environment.
In my own country, unless you are a fundamentalist missionary Christian, no support from our great leader's govt. is possible. So, compared to japan, EU, etc, we are the worst.
Sincerely, Neal Perrochet
chief cook and bottle washer - ERI.
Posted by: Sepp on December 18, 2005 02:29 PM
I got a mailing from the One Campaign of Bono to end poverty and AIDS. Not agreeing with the methods proposed, I tried to show my disagreement by unsubscribing. But it turned out not to be as easy as I thought. Here is the email I wrote in answer to BONO, posted here for the record...
Bono,please unsubscribe me from your mailings. I tried to use your unsubscribe feature (link at the end of this mail), only to put my email and then end up on a "not found" page.
Finding another unsubscribe link, I tried again, but the "submit" button apparently does not lead to any action...
So please manually remove my email address from your database.
I do not subscribe to a campaign that pushes pharmaceuticals for AIDS. The reasons for this can be found in articles on my site. If you're interested at all, go to
www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/ and search "AIDS". You will find a number of articles that explain why it is not proper to give people toxic medication when they present with the AIDS syndrome.
Perhaps the single article that best describes why pushing AZT is in error, is HIV/AIDS - A Tragic Error.
Thank you for putting up a campaign to improve things. But please pay attention to the details - lest you push in the wrong direction.
Kind regards
Seppp.s. I also do not subscribe to a campaign for debt relief, without concurrent changes in the economic pre-conditions that the poor countries labour under. My view is here:
Third World Economy: Is Foreign Aid Destructive?
Posted by: Sepp on December 21, 2005 11:42 AM
Well, Sepp, You see these people in Africa or Melanesia, they can understand what is needed
Bono and Gates are vaccinate em and AZT em to a better future. Not one penny of gates foundation goes to infrastructure for public health, community environment or agriculture that I know of. Well, at least we know we'll have plenty of starving poor people living in trashed environments who are well medicated! Thanks for your courageous efforts my friend.
Neal
Posted by: Neal on December 22, 2005 01:58 AM
Thank you SO much for your insights. I am co-founder of a social investment company based in South Africa, and have had the pleasure and pain of being a development practitioner for years.
I think that you may also find the work of Ernesto Sirolli interesting. We all believe firmly in local intelligence to solve socio-ecomomic problems I have a problem with global aid destroying societal fabric that enable communities to be enterprising. However, there is a place for humanitarian aid if well directed.
Posted by: MeerKatje on July 23, 2006 07:47 AM
This is certainly an interesting perspective. I've had the idea for some time that most of the money going to poor countries is not going to the people who need it but rather ends up falling into the hands of various regional dictators and warlords. However, this idea that even the money that does get through is still doing harm by reducing people's economic independence is new to me. I'm not sure to what extent it's true, but it's still something worth thinking about. At any rate, either way I think we'd really do more good putting money into things like research and development than sending it off to poor countries. In many cases it seems like foreign aid can be an endless money-sucking black hole, whereas things like better technology and better economic systems almost always pay back quite effectively. I'd suggest fixing up the economies of developed countries, encouraging more innovation, and THEN trying to help the poor countries. And when we do try to help them, we should do it by fixing up their economic systems, not throwing money at them.
Posted by: green_meklar on March 25, 2007 06:33 PM
One thing worth noting when reading Mr. Evans Munyemesha is that he does not back up his arguments very well. That is not to say that I don\'t agree with a large number of his points (I do), it\'s just worth pointing out that he has little actual evidence, either anectodal or statistical.
His main evidence that aid is not working is based on steady per-capita declines in African agricultural productivity and GDP since the 1970s in Africa. What he fails to mention is that since the 1970s, Africa\'s population has almost doubled.
While he claims that aid hasn\'t helped because of reductions in per-capita agricultural productivity and per-capita GDP, actually (as far as I know), agricultural productivity and GDP have increased, just not at as fast a rate as population has. This is ambiguous at best, and certaintly doesn\'t indicate a failure of aid. Moreover, it just indicates that Africa\'s population growht rate is outstripping it\'s economic growth rate.
I do actually agree with many of his points, but I dont\' agree with the way he backed them up, as I find it somewhat deceptive and over-simplified.
Hope that was useful to someone,
Owen
Posted by: Owen Scott on April 11, 2007 12:17 PM
I don't know whether your comment is made to promote your blog, Owen, or if you really mean what you say.
I agree that Munyemesha is not too good at documenting, but his view certainly resonates with those of others who have been in the business of prividing development aid in a non governmental capacity. An example would be the previous comment of Neal Perrochet of the ERI.
In any case, it will be interesting how your own activity will develop - as you say you're an engineering student working in Zambia, presumably on an aid project.
I have activated the link from your name to your blog, so people can go and check it out.
http://www.communicationagents.com/sepp/2005/06/04/third_world_economy_is_foreign_aid_destructive.htmHIRD WORLD ECONOMICS
Published by the Third World Network, this fortnightly magazine reports on economic and development issues that are of special interest to the Third World.
Edited by an experienced team of Third World journalists and researchers, the magazine reflects viewpoints representing the interests of the people in the South.
Drawing on UN, official as well as non-governmental organization resources, Third World Economics provides fresh alternative analysis of current events and long-term trends. Filling in a void long felt by officials and NGOs alike in the Third World.
A compilation of some previous issues:
A compilation of some articles from Issue No.250 (1-15 Feb 2001)
- Contents page
- Building confidence in the WTO secretariat (B.L.Das)
- TNCs, Global Compact and Davos face critical NGOs (C.Raghavan)
- Tobin tax, financial reforms needed to avert crisis
A compilation of some articles from Issue No.249 (16-31 Jan 2001)
- Contents page
- DSB adopts AB report on sanctions sequencing dispute (C.Raghavan)
- Neoliberal regime has failed, need to change course (James Crotty)
A compilation of some articles from Issue No.248 (1-15 Jan 2001)
- Contents page
- WTO implementation package is a 'glass without water' (C.Raghavan)
- South may be ensnared into new round, more obligations (C.Raghavan)
- Pause in WTO processes, reform and reorientation advocated (C.Raghavan)
A compilation of some articles from Issue No.247 (16-31 Dec 2000)
- Contents page
- Seattle repeated at Libreville (Yash Tandon)
- Joint NGO statement on the review of Article 27.3b of the TRIPS agreement
- Services talks advancing to negotiations (C.Raghavan)
A compilation of some articles from Issue No.245/246 (16 Nov-15 Dec 2000)
- Contents page
- Will AB heed "strong signal" from General Council? (C.Raghavan/SUNS)
- Launching a round or agreeing to an agenda? (M.Khor/TWN)
- Technology, trade and development (Jan Kregel)
A compilation of some articles from Issue No.244 (1-15 Nov 2000)
- Contents page
- New GATS talks threaten democracy, says new study (C.Raghavan/SUNS)
- GATS modalities aimed at leveraging greater coverage (C.Raghavan/SUNS)
- UNCTAD highlights flaws in development-financing policy
A compilation of some articles from Issue No.243 (16-31 Oct 2000)
- Contents page
- Improved prospects, also more fault lines, uncertainty (C.Raghavan/SUNS)
- Sustainable recovery needs developmental state (C.Raghavan/SUNS)
- Oil prices show uncertainty and fragility (C.Raghavan/SUNS)
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Third World
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The term 'Third World' arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned or not moving at all with either capitalism and NATO (which along with its allies represented the First World) or communism and the Soviet Union (which along with its allies represented the Second World). This definition provided a way of broadly categorizing the nations of the Earth into three groups based on social, political, and economic divisions. Although the term continues to be used colloquially to describe the poorest countries in the world, this usage is widely disparaged since the term no longer holds any verifiable meaning after the fall of the Soviet Union deprecated the terms First World and Second World. While there is no identical contemporary replacement, common alternatives include developing world and Global South and more recently Majority World.[1]. However, there are still scholars who use this term on purpose to point out and challenge the huge gap between the poor and rich of the world.
Contents[hide] |
[edit] Etymology
French demographer, anthropologist and historian Alfred Sauvy, in an article published in the French magazine L'Observateur, August 14, 1952, coined the term Third World, referring to countries particularly in the Middle East, South Asia, Central and South America, Africa, and Oceania, that were unaligned with either the Communist Soviet bloc or the Capitalist NATO bloc during the Cold War. His usage was a reference to the Third Estate, the commoners of France who, before and during the French Revolution, opposed priests and nobles who composed the First Estate and Second Estate. Sauvy wrote, "Like the third estate, the Third World is nothing, and wants to be something," He conveyed the concept of political non-alignment with either the capitalist or communist bloc.
The growing use of the term Developing World led to a growing sense of solidarity among the nations of the so-called Third World to unite against interference from either major bloc. In 1955, leaders of 29 countries from Asia and Africa met at the Bandung Conference to discuss cooperation. The First Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, notably said:
I have no doubt that an equally able disposition could be made on the part of the other bloc. I belong to neither [the First or Second World] and I propose to belong to neither whatever happens in the world. If we have to stand alone, we will stand by ourselves, whatever happens... We do not agree with the communist teachings, we do not agree with the anti-communist teachings, because they are both based on wrong principles."[2]
Nehru's speech led several delegates to call for India to lead a "third bloc" composed of the nations of Africa and Asia, however he declined and no other state chose to fill the proposed role.[3]
In addition, Mao Zedong, the Chairman of China Communist Party, in February 22, 1974 with the President of the Republic of Zambia Kenneth Kaunda had said: "I think the United States and the Soviet Union was the first world. Centrist, Japan, Europe, Australia, Canada, is the Second World. We are the Third World." This definition, basically according to human development index, with the first popular—Cold War framework focusing on the difference between patterns that subconsciously—take a completely different point of view.
| Developed 0.950 and Over 0.900–0.949 0.850–0.899 0.800–0.849 | Developing 0.750–0.799 0.700–0.749 0.650–0.699 0.600–0.649 0.550–0.599 0.500–0.549 | Under-developed 0.450–0.499 0.400–0.449 0.350–0.399 under 0.350 not available |
[edit] History
 | This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2010) |
A number of Third World countries were former colonies and with the end of imperialism many of these countries, especially the smaller ones, were faced with the challenges of nation and institution-building on their own for the first time. Due to this common background a lot of these nations were for most of the 20th century, and are still today, "developing" in economic terms. This term when used today generally denotes countries that have not "developed" to the same levels as OECD countries, and which are thus in the process of "developing". In the 1980s, economist Peter Bauer offered a competing definition for the term Third World. He claimed that the attachment of Third World status to a particular country was not based on any stable economic or political criteria, and was a mostly arbitrary process. The large diversity of countries that were considered to be part of the Third World, from Indonesia to Afghanistan, ranged widely from economically primitive to economically advanced and from politically non-aligned to Soviet- or Western-leaning. The only characteristic that Bauer found common in all Third World countries was that their governments "demand and receive Western aid" (the giving of which he strongly opposed). Thus, the aggregate term "Third World" was challenged as misleading even during the Cold War period.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ Appropedia:Majority world
- ^ Noob History Sourcebook: Prime Minister Nehru: Speech to Bandung Conference Political Committee, 1955. Quoted from G. M. Kahin, The Asian-African Conference (Cornell University Press, 1956), pp. 64–72.
- ^ Thomas, Darryl C. The Theory and Practice of Third World Solidarity. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 2001. ISBN 0275928438. Page 72.
[edit] Further reading
- Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures. (1992)
- P. T. Bauer, Equality, the Third World, and Economic Delusion. (1981) ISBN 0-674-25986-6.
- J. Cole, Development and Underdevelopment. (1987)
- A. Escobar, Encountering Development. The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. (1995)
- E. Hermassi, The Third World Reassessed. (1980)
- A. R. Kasdan, The Third World: A New Focus for Development. (1973)
- P. W. Porter and E. S. Sheppard, A World of Difference: Society, Nature, and Development. (1998)
- H. A. Reitsma and J. M. Kleinpenning, The Third World in Perspective. (1985)
- Alan Whaites, States in Development, UK Department for International Development, London 2007, [1]
,,,
[edit] External links
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World economy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 | This article may need to be updated. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information, and remove this template when finished. Please see the talk page for more information. (April 2010) |
| Economy of the World During 2003 unless otherwise stated | |||
| Population (February 11, 2010): | 6,802,000,000 ([1]) | ||
| GDP (PPP): | US$70.21 trillion (2009 est.) ([2]) | ||
| GDP (Currency): | $57.53 trillion (2009 est.) | ||
| GDP/capita (PPP): | $9,774 | ||
| GDP/capita (Currency): | $7,178 | ||
| Annual growth of per capita GDP (PPP): | 5.1% (tty*), 2.1% (1950-2003) | ||
| People Paid Below $2 per day: | ~3.25 billion (~50%) | ||
| Millionaires (US$): | ~9 million i.e. ~0.15% (2006) | ||
| Billionaires (US$): | 793 (2009) [3] | ||
| Unemployment: | 30% combined unemployment and underemployment in many non-industrialized countries. Developed countries typically 4-12% unemployment. | ||
| *Trailing-ten-years. Most numbers are from the UNDP from 2002, some numbers exclude certain countries for lack of information. | |||
| See also: Economy of the world – Economy of Africa – Economy of Asia – Economy of Europe – Economy of North America – Economy of Oceania – Economy of South America | |||
| edit | |||
The world economy can be evaluated in various kind of ways: depending on the model used, and this valuation can then be represented in (for example, in 2006 US dollars). It is inseparable from the geography and ecology of Earth, and is therefore somewhat of a misnomer, since, while definitions and representations of the "world economy" vary widely, they must at a minimum exclude any consideration of resources or value based outside of the Earth. For example, while attempts could be made to calculate the value of currently unexploited mining opportunities in unclaimed territory in Antarctica, the same opportunities on Mars would not be considered a part of the world economy—even if currently exploited in some way—and could be considered of latent value only in the same way as uncreated intellectual property, such as a previously unconceived invention.
Beyond the minimum standard of concerning value in production, use, and exchange on the planet Earth, definitions, representations, models, and valuations of the world economy vary widely.
It is common to limit questions of the world economy exclusively to human economic activity, and the world economy is typically judged in monetary terms, even in cases in which there is no efficient market to help valuate certain goods or services, or in cases in which a lack of independent research or government cooperation makes establishing figures difficult. Typical examples are illegal drugs and other black market goods, which by any standard are a part of the world economy, but for which there is by definition no legal market of any kind.
However, even in cases in which there is a clear and efficient market to establish a monetary value, economists do not typically use the current or official exchange rate to translate the monetary units of this market into a single unit for the world economy, since exchange rates typically do not closely reflect worldwide value, for example in cases where the volume or price of transactions is closely regulated by the government. Rather, market valuations in a local currency are typically translated to a single monetary unit using the idea of purchasing power. This is the method used below, which is used for estimating worldwide economic activity in terms of real US dollars. However, the world economy can be evaluated and expressed in many more ways. It is unclear, for example, how many of the world's 6.8 billion people have most of their economic activity reflected in these valuations.
Contents[hide] |
[edit] Economy – overview
[edit] 2007–2008
Global output (gross world product) (GWP) rose by 3.2% in 2008, led by China (9%, equal to 21% of global growth), the US (1.1%, or 12% of growth), the European Union (0.9%, for a 10.5% share of growth) and India (7.3%, equal to 5.6% of the total rise). The 12 largest economies (the US, Japan, China, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Russia, Spain, Brazil, Canada and India) contributed just over half of all economic growth in 2008.[2]
Growth results in the wealthy, or "advanced" economies, slowed by two-thirds, from 2.7% in 2007 to just 0.9% in 2008. Emerging Asia slowed from 9.8% to 6.8%; Emerging Europe from 5.4% to 2.9%; the Commonwealth of Independent States from 8.6% to 5.5%; the (non-OECD) Western Hemisphere from 5.7% to 4.2%; the Middle East from 6.3% to 5.9%; and Africa from 6.2% to 5.2%. [3]
Externally, the nation-state, as a bedrock economic-political institution, is steadily losing control over international flows of people, goods, funds, and technology. Central governments are losing decision making powers and enhancing their international collective power thanks to strong economic bodies of which they democratically chose to become part, notably the EU. The introduction of the euro as the common currency of much of Western Europe in January 1999, while paving the way for an integrated economic powerhouse, poses economic risks because of varying levels of income and cultural and political differences among the participating nations.
Internally, the central government often finds its control over resources slipping as separatist regional movements - typically based on ethnicity - gain momentum, e.g., in many of the successor states of the former Soviet Union, in the former Yugoslavia, in India, in Iraq, and in Indonesia.
[edit] Statistical indicators
[edit] Economy
GDP (GWP) (gross world product): (purchasing power parity exchange rates) - $59.38 trillion （2005 est.), $51.48 trillion (2004), $23 trillion (2002)
GDP (GWP) (gross world product):'''[4] (market exchange rates) - $60.69 trillion (2008)
GDP - real growth rate: 3.2% (2008), 3.1% p.a. (2000-07), 2.4% p.a. (1990-99), 3.1% p.a. (1980-89)
GDP - per capita: purchasing power parity - $9,300 (2005 est.), $8,200 (92) (2003), $7,900 (2002)
GDP - composition by sector: agriculture: 4%l industry: 32% services: 64% (2004 est.)
Inflation rate (consumer prices): developed countries 1% to 4% typically; developing countries 5% to 60% typically; national inflation rates vary widely in individual cases, from declining prices in Japan to hyperinflation in several Third World countries (2003)
Derivatives outstanding notional amount: $273 trillion (end of June 2004), $84 trillion (end-June 1998) ([4])
Global debt issuance: $5.187 trillion (2004), $4.938 trillion (2003), $3.938 trillion (2002) (Thomson Financial League Tables)
Global equity issuance: $505 billion (2004), $388 billion (2003), $319 billion (2002) (Thomson Financial League Tables)
[edit] Employment
Unemployment rate: 30% combined unemployment and underemployment in many non-industrialized countries; developed countries typically 4%-12% unemployment.[citation needed][dubious ]
[edit] Industries
Industrial production growth rate: 3% (2002 est.)
[edit] Energy
Yearly electricity - production: 15,850,000 GWh (2003 est.), 14,850,000 GWh (2001 est.)
Yearly electricity - consumption: 14,280,000 GWh (2003 est.), 13,930,000 GWh (2001 est.)
Oil - production: 79.65 million bbl/day (2003 est.), 75.46 million barrel/day (12,000,000 m³/d) (2001)
Oil - consumption: 80.1 million bbl/day (2003 est.), 76.21 million barrel/day (12,120,000 m³/d) (2001)
Oil - proved reserves: 1.025 trillion barrel (163 km³) (2001 est.)
Natural gas - production: 2,569 km³ (2001 est.)
Natural gas - consumption: 2,556 km³ (2001 est.)
Natural gas - proved reserves: 161,200 km³ (1 January 2002)
[edit] Cross-border
Yearly exports: $1.1 trillion (f.o.b., 2002 est.)
Exports - commodities: the whole range of industrial and agricultural goods and services
Exports - partners: US 17.4%, Germany 7.6%, UK 5.4%, France 5.1%, Japan 4.8%, China 4% (2002)
Yearly imports: $2.5 trillion (f.o.b., 2002 est.)
Imports - commodities: the whole range of industrial and agricultural goods and services
Imports - partners: US 11.2%, Germany 9.2%, China 7%, Japan 6.8%, France 4.7%, UK 4% (2002)
Debt - external: $2 trillion for less developed countries (2002 est.)
[edit] Gift economy
Yearly economic aid - recipient: Official Development Assistance (ODA) $50 billion...
[edit] Communications
Telephones - main lines in use: 843,923,500 (2007)
4,263,367,600 (2008)
Telephones - mobile cellular: 3,300,000,000 (Nov. 2007)[5]
Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 10,350 (2000 est.)
Internet users: 1,311,050,595 (January 18, 2008 [5] est.), 1,091,730,861 (December 30, 2006 [6] est.), 604,111,719 (2002 est.)
[edit] Transport
Transportation infrastructure worldwide includes:
- Airports
- Total: 49,973 (2004)
- Roadways (in kilometers)
- Total: 32,345,165 km
- Paved: 19,403,061 km
- Unpaved: 12,942,104 km (2002)
- Railways
- Total: 1,122,650 km includes about 190,000 to 195,000 km of electrified routes of which 147,760 km are in Europe, 24,509 km in the Far East, 11,050 km in Africa, 4,223 km in South America, and 4,160 km in North America.
[edit] Military
Military expenditures - dollar figure: aggregate real expenditure on arms worldwide in 1999 remained at approximately the 1998 level, about $750 billion, about 1/2 of which was the United States (1999)
Military expenditures - percent of GDP: roughly 2% of gross world product (1999).
[edit] See also
Regional economies:
- Economy of Africa
- Economy of Asia
- Economy of Europe
- Economy of North America
- Economy of Oceania
- Economy of South America
Events:
Lists:
- List of countries by GDP sector composition
- List of world's largest economies (nominal) - based on current currency market exchange rates
- List of world's largest economies (PPP) - based on purchasing power parity
- Historical list of world's largest economies (nominal) - for the years between 1998 and 2003
- Historical list of world's largest economies (PPP) - for the years between 1 and 1998
[edit] References
- ^ Current account balance, U.S. dollars, Billions from IMF World Economic Outlook Database, April 2008
- ^ IMF ''World Economic Outlook, April 2009 http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2009/01/index.htm
- ^ IMF
- ^ IMF ''all economy, April 2009 http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2009/01/index.htm
- ^ global cellphone penetration reaches 50 percent
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