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In India you will get 9% growth. Growth brings jobs and yesterday the Chinese Premier with a 400 string business entourage. That's the good news (lets not ignore the 4 gleaming new airports).
Just be prepared to accept a poor quality of life. Urban chaos, crowded public transport, soot and grime covered cities, filthy railway stations, bad roads, beggars at every traffic signal, non existent public conveniences (toilets), water shortages, unhygienic restaurants with slum dwellers working the kitchens, horrific noise pollution in cities....With rapid urbanisation and a lack of any tangible urbanisation plans (to quote Mckinsey) the 1.2 billion population will take a long while to organise itself into a liveable country. Till then it will continue to be a case of applying band aid to mend a gaping wound.
Sarah Palin or Suu Kyi for World President
You know who the world would vote for.
Every great nation must eventually decline and give way to others.
Its a cyclical event and inevitable. Only the pace of decline is debatable.
Yes to Chinese acquisitions
No to acquisitions of natural resources
And of course No to acquisition of sensitive industries including defence and telecom. After all the next world war will most likely be fought by disabling internet communications.
India's eventual success story may come about as much by design as by destiny.
Goldmans Sachs and others have estimated India will join the ranks of developed nations (the good times before the present financial debacle) sometime by 2045.
Anyone reading the numbers is tempted to jump on a plane to grab their share of the pie. A short while after landing and experiencing the poor infrastructure and neglected environment one looks forward to boarding the next flight out.
It is but natural that every hard working, tax paying citizen expects that he be allowed to live in peace and not have squatters in his back or front yard. I expect the police department's records will reveal whether the Romas have a higher share of criminals than the other residents.
Maybe we should leave it to a referendum. The citizens collective will should prevail. Of course the referendum should be preceded by a public debate. In this way the EU will be different from the autocratic and tyrannical regimes where human rights receive scant regard.
In the short term the world needs to ensure a safety net for the public especially food in the belly. For medium to long term sustainable growth we need to soften the impact on the environment. Sustainable is the operative word.
A more equitable distribution of wealth is the need of the hour. The US must re-distribute its wealth among its people through an equitable tax regime like that in Canada and Australia.
The top US tax payers need to be honoured with the equivalent of a peerage or knighthood or whatever other privelge it takes to recognise and encourage their direct contribution to the greater good.
China and India and the US and the rest of the world are heading into uncharted territory.
The short term progress may likely result in very long term pain for the economy. The repercussions are global.
When a Billion Chinese Jump - by Jonathan Watts
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This is about how 1.4 billion Chinese preferring to live better today than trust the promise of a socialist paradise tomorrow. There is a consequential shock to the world economy that will come from massive damage to the atmosphere, soil, water, forests and generally limited natural resources. In the past decade the price has been paid - acute and chronic water shortages, toxic algae blooms, desertification, acid rain, dying grasslands and angry people.
Read about nature reserves where the animals are served up in official banquets, to the tragic province of Henan, once held up as an example of Maoist development, now stricken by poverty, soil exhaustion, corruption and an Aids epidemic.
The Yellow River, the birthplace of Chinese civilisation is all but destroyed. The government has encouraged the people to move west from the overpopulated heartland into the arid and mountainous lands of the Uighurs and the Tibetans, places able to support sparse populations but where ecosystems rapidly collapse under the weight of numbers. The days of the last remaining paradise, the astonishingly biodiverse province of Yunnan, according to Watts, are numbered.
If this is a bleak story it is because the prospects are bleak.
The destinies of India and China and the rest of the world are inter-twined for better, or, realistically, for worse.
Every Communist must grasp the truth, "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."
Chairman Mao -"Problems of War and Strategy" (November 6, 1938), Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 224.
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No empire intoxicated with the red wine of power and the plunder of weaker races has yet lived long in this world. - MK Gandhi
No power on earth can subjugate you when you are armed with the sword of ahimsa. - MK Gandhi
I remember wanting to invest in BHP in 2001. And AA too. I didn't and as a result slept soundly in 2008 while other BHP investors around me were harboring depressive and suicidal tendencies.
Who is this cruel God that inflicts such inhuman pain on this Republic.
The Kashmiri protesters are evidently a misguided lot. Manipulated by devious minds across the border. Do they hope to enjoy the illusory utopia of POK? A liberated Kashmir will not be able to evade the tentacles of Pakistan. And what is Pakistan?
Pakistan's reason for existence is not to be India!!!!
To quote Thomas L. Friedman in the recent NY Times op-ed
"Pakistan, 63 years after its founding, still exists not to be India. The Pakistani Army is obsessed with what it says is the threat from India — and keeping that threat alive is what keeps the Pakistani Army in control of the country and its key resources. The absence of either stable democracy in Pakistan or a decent public education system only swells the ranks of the Taliban and other Islamic resistance forces there. "
Stop paying people to have large families, live in free housing and not do a stroke of work.
Overhaul the dole system and yes the education, health service, education, state pensions...and lets not forget Afghan support.
Do it the Chinese and Indian way. Let people learn to support themselves or depend on their families, not the state.
A vacuum is unnatural. If the Christian religious institutions are allowed to fall by the wayside there is a high likelihood that Islam an organised religion backed by Middle Eastern oil money will come to dominate the religious landscape and fill the vacuum.
The large number of mosques springing up all over are a sign of things to come. What's wrong with this? A religion of peace has been hijacked by bigots and is used to mislead poor misguided souls into committing suicidal mayhem. May God save us from religion.
Can the Economist kindly explain why India should open the door to British legal practioners when there has never been any reciprocity?
While on the subject can any Westerner explain why an experienced Post Grduate Indian medical practitioner is made to undergo the ignominy of starting his western career from the bottom under westerners who are far far junior?
Open up the global job market and encourage a free flow for all professions. Don't be selective.
My employer just spent US$ 2 million on a short & simple arbitration matter in the UK. The opposing party spent a similar amount. What a rip-off.
Let Indian professionals into all western professions so the cost structure will become more rational.
There is a lively and as yet inconclusive debate on whether the Muslim world is allowed by its faith to indulge in a democracy that is not of the Iranian kind. A democracy that is open to dialogue with the West and the Orient and that can be tolerant of dissenting views. That can ignore the multiplicity of fatwas flowing copiously from its imams who claim to speak for an almighty power.
The Middle East with its oil empowered autocracies is not fertile ground.
While that debate continues one fact has been omitted from this essay. Whoever comes to power must ensure that the moneyed elite are encouraged to keep and grow their wealth within Egypt. Previous attempts to promote socialism had scared away the industrialists and entrepreneurs. Fortunately for Egypt they have returned and its economy has stabilised.
The one real remaining challenge is to manage the population growth within its poorest segments. The imams will need to preach and educate the masses about natural birth control methods that are not in conflict with the tenets of Islam.
A global household cleaning products giant has a "Global Category Manager & Global Category Director of Dishwashing"
If at age 40 Rahul is not ready when will he be? Ironically only the fuddy duddy old stalwarts seem to have the political acumen and administrative skills. If Rahul is thrust into the PM job it will be his coterie and mother deciding policy.
India needs a multi-lingual orator. An individual with this gift will bridge the multicultural chasm that exists in the hearts and minds of Indians, especially the illiterate masses who actually vote. Hopefully this individual will be allowed to do what is right for India and not what is popular.
Western free market capitalism has failed spectacularly. Sadly India seems to be believe the Western way of mass consumerism is the only way. M.K. Gandhi will be turning in his grave.
With unpredictable weather patterns impacting food production and growing appetites to feed, the challenge for the world's biggest potential markets (China and India) is obvious.
If world food production continues to keep pace with demand then it does seem that INDIA will be the one to rock since unlike China (or Europe or Japan) the working age group in India will continue to grow for the next four decades. And boy is this group hungry for development (read houses, cars, gadgets, glitz and glamour).
The bigger challenge then will be managing the environmental degradation that a consumer lifestyle inevitably brings.
There is a just, if difficult, manner for Europe to resolve its woes.
The Greeks must accept some form of penance for their financial misdeeds and so also must EU institutions which lent to Greece with inadequate oversight. Partial Greek default (a debt hair cut to lenders) will result in a re-pricing of risk and cost of funds with a consequent return to a moderate rate of sustainable growth. It means a tightening of belts for the borrower (and lender) and living within one's means. The IMF must also move in and impose the required discipline as it has elsewhere in the world.
As another commentator has noted taxpayers money needs to be spent wisely and not on defense preparedness against Turkey. Else taxes will not be paid. Hopefully asset prices and hence costs of living will decline in Greece which will attract more external investment, if the Greeks are prepared to work more for less pay.
The EU has a food surplus mountain so one thing is certain, unlike in India and China, no EU citizen needs to be put at risk of going to bed hungry.