Maldives: democracy, back in transition mode? May 15, 2012
Posted by southasiamasala in : Future Directions International, Guest authors, Maldives , CommentN. Sathiya Moorthy
With the People’s Majlis, or Parliament, clearing President Mohammed Waheed Hassan’s vice-presidential nominee, Waheed Deen, after the “majority” Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) group stayed away, the Indian Ocean archipelago seems to be back in democratic transition, for the second time in three years. A new element has been added this time, with a National Inquiry Commission (NIC) probing the circumstances surrounding the resignation of then MDP President Mohammed Nasheed and his succession by Vice-President Waheed. The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group has given the Waheed Government four weeks in which to make the probe team credible.
The last time the Maldives went through a similar phase, the nation ushered in multi-party democracy after 30 years of one-person rule under President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. He was elected for six successive terms of five years each, under a constitutional scheme that provided for only a single candidate in national elections. That is firmly in the past, yet, the Nasheed resignation has left a situation of instability. His subsequent charges of a coup-cum-conspiracy, involving some in the uniformed services and “discredited sections” of the polity, and the fact that fresh presidential polls are still a year or so away, in November 2013, have all given rise to the question of whether democracy is really back in transition mode in the Maldives.
The India–US–China–Pakistan strategic quadrilateral May 14, 2012
Posted by southasiamasala in : India, Merrington, Louise, Pakistan , CommentLouise Merrington, ANU
Although the disputed border between China and India is often highlighted as the major sticking point in Sino–Indian relations, in reality it has remained relatively peaceful since the end of the 1962 war, and the potential for overt military conflict in the region remains minimal.
Of much greater concern is the strategic quadrilateral relationship in South Asia involving China, India, the United States and Pakistan. It has both regional and wider implications. At the heart of this matter is the India–Pakistan conflict over Kashmir, and continuing US involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The relationships between these four actors are extremely complex. China’s support for Pakistan in its conflict with India is a serious and ongoing source of tension in the Sino–Indian relationship, while the US relationship with Pakistan is looking increasingly fraught even as its relationship with India improves in the wake of the 2008 civilian nuclear deal. Growing closeness between India and the US has caused some concern in China about the possibility that the US may be establishing a policy of containment or encirclement, and this concern in turn affects China’s relationship with both the US and India. Understanding this complex web of relationships is key to understanding the issues which are at the heart of China–India relations and which affect markedly how these two countries interact in the region.
Pakistan’s 21st Century naval modernisation programme May 11, 2012
Posted by southasiamasala in : DeSilva-Ranasinghe, Serge, Future Directions International, India, Pakistan , CommentSergei DeSilva-Ranasinghe
This article first appeared here on the Future Directions International web site on 9 May 2012.
Background
In spite of progress being made to enhance bilateral ties, geopoltical rivalry between Pakistan and India continues to escalate. The most recent example was demonstrated by the launch of India’s Agni-5 nuclear-capable intermediate-range ballistic missile, which was closely followed by the launch Pakistan’s Hatf-4 Shaheen-1A nuclear-capable intermediate-range ballistic missile. While this strategic rivalry has been notable on land, escalation in the maritime domain has made Pakistan increasing concerned at India’s unprecedented plans to modernise its navy.
Pakistan navy Tariq class frigate
SAM recommends: ‘Reaping gold through cotton, and newsprint’ May 11, 2012
Posted by sandygordon in : Gordon, Sandy, India, South Asia Masala Recommends , CommentSandy Gordon
P. Sainath is a well known journalist whose forte is exposing rural misery. In this detailed and well researched article he deals with a push by Monsanto to have legislation passed to support the introduction of genetically modified cotton seeds, including through good news stories in Sainath’s former paper, The Times of India. Sainath shows the original Times of India story was subsequently ‘cannibalised’ in the form of advertisements. The stories point to the apparent success of GM cotton in two villages in Maharashtra in preventing farmer suicides and debt, two acute and related problems which many commentators, including P. Sainath, have attributed to globalisation.
In this article, Sainath is able to show that suicides and debt are, indeed, acute problems in the two villages and that the profits claimed for GM cotton are simply absurd.
But the article is much more important than that.
India is caught up in a long-running debate about the supposed benefits and woes of globalisation. Recently the battle ground concerned foreign direct investment in retailing, with a move by Congress, which is a minority in the Lok Sabha, to allow 51 per cent FDI in retailing being overturned in the Parliament – a move widely seen as a signal that India’s economic reform process has stalled.
As to agriculture, India continues to have relatively high sets of agricultural tariffs and a range of other government controls. Popular concern about farmer suicides and the role of globalisation have played a significant part in maintaining that position. Many economists, however, argue that more, not less, reform of agriculture would be the best medicine against farmer poverty, debt and suicide.
Read P. Sainath’s article here.
Implications of India’s long-range missile capabilities May 4, 2012
Posted by nishankmotwani in : DeSilva-Ranasinghe, Serge, Future Directions International, India , CommentSergei DeSilva-Ranasinghe
This post first appeared on Future Directions International on 2 May 2012.
Background
As the latest addition to India’s expanding arsenal, the launch of the Agni-5 long-range missile on 19 April is another step forward in the diversification of India’s nuclear strike capabilities. While India celebrates its technological achievement, the development of a nuclear-capable intermediate-range ballistic missile, with an estimated range of 5,000 kilometres or 3,100 miles, is likely to intensify strategic competition between Pakistan and China, which have viewed these developments with reservation.
Comment
Although senior Indian officials publicly say that the Agni-5 is for deterrence purposes only, India has a clear rationale behind the missile’s development, which is to: demonstrate its expanding strategic strike capabilities, impress the world’s major powers that possess intercontinental missiles and deliver a strong message to Pakistan and China. (more…)
Information is explosive at Singareni Collieries May 3, 2012
Posted by nishankmotwani in : Guest authors, India , CommentPatrik Oskarsson
I approached the public sector Singareni Collieries coal mining company in August 2011 at their head office in Kothagudem of Khammam District in Andhra Pradesh, as part of an ActionAid-sponsored study looking at the local livelihood impact of coal mining. The experiences of trying to interact with the company illustrate how, despite a Right To Information Act being in place for more than five years, a change in the organizational culture towards transparency is yet to set in.
Day 1
On the phone my contact made it seem as if it would be easy to just drop into the office without an appointment. Of course this was far from the truth. After some amount of searching we get to the very quiet project and planning building. Once we find somebody to talk to we are immediately directed to the head, the General Manager (GM). But the GM is not authorized to share information with an outside researcher. We are directed to his boss, the Director P&P (Project and Planning), who sits in the main office in the next building down the road. (more…)
Do not let Agni V’s shock and awe endanger Asian stability May 3, 2012
Posted by nishankmotwani in : India, Sullivan, Kate , CommentKate Sullivan
India outed its nuclear bomb and yet remained the land of Gandhi. The same message of peace and power should follow the launch of its first ICBM.
With the successful Agni V test on Thursday, India appears to be aiming for status as much as security. Yet without credible reassurances, the by-product of this quest for prestige could be an increasingly insecure region.
Peaceful intentions
As so often in the past, India faces the challenge of reconciling its quest for military and nuclear status with the need to persuade the international community of its peaceful intentions. That India has the experience, skill and track record to do so is without doubt.
For decades, India’s nuclear policy and discourse have been built on a curious mix of hard power and principle. The 1974 test was dubbed a “Peaceful Nuclear Explosion,” and successive governments opted to refrain from overtly developing a nuclear weapon capability. Following the nuclear tests of 1998, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee stressed that the tests and India’s future nuclear policy would “continue to reflect a commitment to the sensibilities and obligations of an ancient civilization, a sense of responsibility and restraint.”
India’s nuclear tests were a means of establishing India’s international status and prestige. Yet refreshingly, they were not simply an act of conformity to the dominant might-is-right maxim of the international system.
A synthesis was formed with an enduring set of principled foreign policy values. In the wake of the tests, India stressed its peaceful intentions, announced a voluntary moratorium on further testing, limited itself to a minimum credible deterrent, and later pledged a no-first-use policy. (more…)
Reconciling growth with equity in India May 2, 2012
Posted by southasiamasala in : Guest authors, India , CommentSugata Marjit
‘Growth versus equity’ is a theme that continues to occupy most of the policy debates in India, particularly after two decades of experimenting with economic reform.
The outcome of the reform process has been mixed: India’s commendable trend rate of economic growth is unfortunately accompanied by a sustained and increasing degree of inequality. New debates on official poverty estimates have flared up, and so have concerns about uncontrolled inflation, though the intensity has subsided a bit in the recent past.
The coexistence of prosperity, poverty and inequality is not specific to India. Rich countries such as the US have experienced very little growth in recent times because of serious financial crisis-led recession, and inequality in various forms has been on the rise there as well. In a way, growth or no growth, the world has become a more unequal place — a feeling shared by experts and non-experts alike. Equity should be a contentious issue, and far more so than it is usually allowed to be.
FEATURE ARTICLE: Mamata’s khamota or the backlash of the bhadraloks April 27, 2012
Posted by southasiamasala in : Features, India, Lahiri-Dutt, Kuntala , 10commentsKuntala Lahiri-Dutt
In 1990 after Lalu Prasad Yadav, the lower caste charismatic political leader of Bihar, became the Chief Minister of the state, the young, English-speaking, suave journalists flocked from metropolitan cities like New Delhi and Bombay to catch his sound bites on tape and camera. Their interest in Lalu was not only because of the man himself, but also his illiterate wife, his large family and his domesticated cows that apparently enjoyed chewing the grass of the palatial Chief Ministerial Bungalow built during the colonial raj. It has now become almost a myth amongst these journalists how Lalu chewed his paan (betel leaf) and spat the red spit out into a bowl, and how when asked one of those airy-fairy questions by an urbane young man from New Delhi, he raised one of his profuse buttocks to let out a loud fart before responding.
The story has become a journalistic legend because if there is one thing that India definitely respects, it is behavioural polish, whether in its businessmen or its politicians. Lalu’s lack of sophistication was deemed as crude and lower class, and he was made fun of in English-language dailies and weeklies, turning this story into a myth. There is however, an irony in the story; one might see the fart as the ultimate finger-up – bugger off as we say Down Under – to those who matter very little to Lalu. I am saying this in context of the recent rush of allegations against the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Bannerjee, by the regional, national and even international press. The didicule-ing and ‘lampooning’ of Didi, apparently in response to her mercurial temperament and unpredictable outbursts, her dictatorial style, her preference for the colour blue, her summary dismissal of the country’s railway minister for raising ticket prices without consulting her (she herself was the previous railway minister and didn’t get a good report card), and her ultimatum to the Prime Minister for revoking the strict yearly repayment of debt by the state. Even The Economist called her the ‘Mischief Minister of West Bengal’ and made fun of her effort to change the name of West Bengal to Paschim Banga. Within a year of her election, the entire world appears to be against her, projecting her as unfit to run the country as Lalu was presented by the bemused media then.
Indian economic reform from the bottom up April 25, 2012
Posted by southasiamasala in : Guest authors, India , CommentMadhu Purnima Kishwar, CSDS
‘Development’ and ‘underdevelopment’ are politically loaded terms. Most ‘underdeveloped’ societies have a colonial past in which their people and resources were economically exploited and their social, cultural and political institutions were wrecked. These terms are designed to create amnesia about the politics of colonialism and convince people in these societies that their poverty is due to their own ‘backwardness’. Whenever we see people trapped in poverty, instead of seeing them as objects of charity it is best to find out who is using what power to prevent people from earning a dignified living.
An important reason for the continuity of wide-scale poverty despite the growing wealth of the Indian elite is that India’s economic reforms have been confined to the corporate sector, which employs no more than 3 per cent of the country’s working population, compared to the 92 per cent of workers in the unorganised or informal sectors. The vast majority remain poor because they are the victims of bureaucratic controls. They include farmers, who yield enough crops to make the country self-sufficient, and whose produce — wheat, basmati rice, long staple cotton, and a whole range of exotic fruits and spices — has ready buyers in the national and international markets; and traditional craftspeople and artisans, including ironsmiths, goldsmiths, a range of metal workers, and those who make exquisite art objects and icons.