Gov India Jobs

Hotel Naukri - Front Office Executive

noreply@blogger.com (Travel Planner) — Sat, 28 Feb 2015 00:01:00 +0000

Hotel Naukri - Front Office Executive

Hotel Naukri - Deputy Housekeeper

noreply@blogger.com (Travel Planner) — Sat, 28 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hotel Naukri - Deputy Housekeeper

Hotel Naukri - Restaurant Manager

noreply@blogger.com (Travel Planner) — Fri, 27 Feb 2015 23:58:00 +0000

Hotel Naukri - Restaurant Manager

Hotel Naukri - F & B Jobs Posted

noreply@blogger.com (Travel Planner) — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 16:39:00 +0000

Hotel Naukri - F & B Jobs Posted

Indian boy mirrors plight of millions of kids

noreply@blogger.com (Travel Planner) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:59:00 +0000

NEW DELHI (AP) – Arun Kumar was born to disabled parents, beaten by his grandparents, ran away from home
, got a job in a garment factory and had all his savings stolen by the police.

He was only 11.

Today, at 13, he shares a cramped, dingy shelter with 63 other runaways and former street kids in New Delhi.

He is one of the lucky ones.

Twenty years after the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child, multitudes of children across the globe are still suffering from poverty, abuse and disease.

Each year, 4 million babies die before they are a month old, 150 million children are engaged in child labor, more than 500 million have been affected by violence and 51 million have fallen so far through the cracks they have not even had their births registered, according to the United Nations.

In China, infant mortality rates are five times higher in rural areas than in the wealthier cities. In Mexico, more than a million children under the age of 14 are working.

The UN convention, adopted Nov. 20, 1989 and ratified by every country except the United States and Somalia, calls on nations to protect children from abuse and sexual exploitation, reduce child mortality and give children access to health care and education.

There have been successes. Fewer young children are dying or underfed, more are attending school and getting vaccinated and dozens of countries have adopted laws recognizing child rights.

In Russia, an epidemic of homeless children in the 1990s was beaten back by a concerted government effort. In South Africa, some children infected with HIV are getting lifesaving medicines that were out of reach only a few years ago.

President Bill Clinton's administration signed the convention but never submitted it to the US Senate for ratification because of claims that it infringed on the rights of parents and was inconsistent with state and local laws. But President Barack Obama says he wants to try again for ratification.

The convention "has had positive impacts across the world, but we need to say it hasn't had as much impact as we'd have hoped," said Jennifer Grant, a child rights specialist with Save the Children in London. "Children are not a political priority for governments."

Some of the worst abuses play out every day on the dusty streets of India, where government and aid groups' efforts to help children are overwhelmed by the staggering poverty and the dislocation of millions of rural villagers who flood the cities in search of jobs.

Two million children under 5 die every year, more than 20 million are not in primary school and child marriage is routine. Children, some as young as 3 and clutching baby siblings, work the traffic-clogged streets begging for money. Others are constantly on the move, living on the construction sites where their parents work, with no access to education.

Arun was born in the northern Indian province of Himachal Pradesh to parents who cannot see or hear, and grew up in his grandparents' crowded house. He was so ignored his family thought he had inherited his parents' disability, until at age 7 his grandfather sat down with Arun and taught him to speak.

As he grew older, Arun, a short, slight boy, began skipping school and fighting with his younger cousins, who teased him about his parents and his own late development.

"I used to make mistakes," he said of his behavior. And the abuse began. His grandmother would hit him with her hands. His grandfather, who had so patiently taught him to speak, used a stick, he said.

"Suddenly he started beating me. All the love was gone," he said.

One Sunday when he was 10, he took the family goats to the pasture and left them to graze while he went off to play with friends. When he returned, one of the goats had disappeared.

His grandmother viciously beat him, he said, looking at the floor, biting his nails and nervously cracking his fingers.

He had finally had enough. He took 2,000 rupees (about $40) he had collected over nearly three years by saving the tiny sums his parents gave him for treats and he fled to Delhi.

"I had no plan. I just got on the bus," Arun said.

Many runaways become street children, picking pockets, begging or scavenging to survive. Others end up in the sex trade. But Arun had the good fortune to befriend an older boy on the bus, who brought Arun to a garment factory in New Delhi, the capital, where they both got jobs.

Arun was trained on a sewing machine and stitched together jeans. He was fed, given a place to stay and wasn't beaten, he said — relatively good conditions for a child factory worker.

After a year, he collected his 13,000 rupees (about $260) in earnings, gave 2,000 ($40) to his friend, and quit. He bought new clothes, shoes, a small radio, and treated himself to a lavish meal of chicken curry and rice, he said.

At the end of the day, a police officer confronted the 11-year-old, frisked him and stole his remaining 9,000 rupees ($180), he said. Arun was then sent to a shelter that he compares to a prison.

Finally, after insisting on going back to school, he was moved to a boys shelter run by the Salaam Baalak Trust in Paharganj, a slum.

Now he lives with 64 other boys in a gray room on the second floor of a dank community center. A world map is painted on one wall. A mural of Batman, Spiderman and Superman is on another. Dozens of thin mattresses are stacked in the corner.

At mealtime, the boys roll out long mats on the floor, sit cross-legged and eat. During the day, they pull out desks and take classes. In the evening it becomes a recreational room and at night, they scatter the mattresses across the floor and sleep.

"This is their home, and we are their family," said Anjani Tiwari, the shelter's director.

The children get supplemental schooling and vocational training at the center, and some have gone on to work as photographers, tailors and cafe workers, he said.

Everything that is Arun's — clothes, books, a karate poster, a broken camera — is jammed into a tiny rusted locker hidden in the corner of a stairwell.

"I'm going to show you one of my favorite things," he said with a smile. He dug through his locker for several minutes, but couldn't find what he was looking for — a small toy elephant.

"Maybe I left it outside the locker last night and someone took it, or maybe I lost it," he said quietly.

Source:http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=525137&publicationSubCategoryId=200

Deadly Labor Wars Hinder India's Rise

noreply@blogger.com (Travel Planner) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:57:00 +0000

COIMBATORE, India -- This ancient city has turned itself in recent years into a manufacturing dynamo emblematic of India's economic rebirth. But a homicide case playing out in an auto-parts factory here is raising concerns about whether the Indian industrial miracle is hitting a wall of industrial unrest.

Pricol Ltd., which makes instrument panels for the likes of Toyota Motor Corp. and General Motors Corp., was rocked in late September when workers burst into the office of Roy George, its 46-year-old human-resources boss. Angry over a wage freeze, they carried iron rods, witnesses say, and left Mr. George in a pool of blood. Police arrested 50 union members in connection with his death, their lawyer says. Charges haven't been filed.

Battle lines are being drawn in labor actions across India. Factory managers, amid the global economic downturn, want to pare labor costs and remove defiant workers. Unions are attempting to stop them, with slowdowns and strikes that have led at times to bloodshed.

The disputes are fueled by the discontent of workers, many of whom say they haven't partaken of the past decade's prosperity. Their passions are being whipped up, companies say, by labor leaders who want to add members to their unions and win votes for left-leaning political parties. Adding to the tensions are the country's decades-old labor codes, which workers and companies alike say require an overhaul.

"We can't be a capitalist country that has socialist labor laws," says Jayant Davar, president of the Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India.

The unrest serves as a reminder that India has far to go before it stands alongside the world's other economic powerhouses. With its widening middle class and growing base of rural consumers, India has averaged more than 8% growth for the last half-decade. It is seen as a country that can help lead a global economic recovery.

But first, it must show it can ride out booms and slowdowns alike. The country's manufacturing sector, after growing about 7% annually for the past 16 years, logged 2.4% growth in the 12 months that ended in March. That has pressed manufacturers to make some unpopular cutbacks -- spurring labor actions that have slowed production further and suppressed growth.

Strikes at India's manufacturing and service companies rose 48% in 2008 from the year before, India's Ministry of Labor says. This year, labor actions have hit manufacturers from Indian automaker Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. to Finland's Nokia Corp. and Swiss food giant Nestle SA.

Workers at a unit of Korea's Hyundai Motor Co. staged sit-ins in April and July, demanding recognition of an outside union and reinstatement of suspended workers.

In September, workers at a unit of Japan's Honda Motor Co. tried to prevent a trial of a new assembly line by threatening engineers and executives with shock-absorbers and motorcycle pieces, according to a court documents.

Some confrontations have turned vicious. Last year, the chief executive of Graziano Trasmissioni India Pvt. Ltd., a manufacturing unit of Swiss high-tech group OC Oerlikon Corp., was beaten to death by workers who had been suspended at a plant outside New Delhi.

The impact has been global. A strike that started in late September at Indian supplier Rico Auto Industries Ltd. left Ford Motor Co. without transmission parts, forcing it to halt production temporarily at an Ontario plant that makes Edge sport-utility vehicles and at a Chicago plant that builds Taurus sedans.

The six-week Rico strike spurred GM to idle an SUV-production facility in Delta Township, Mich., for a week and cut one shift for a second week. GM also cut a shift at a transmission factory in Warren, Mich., said a person familiar with the matter.

At Pricol, the standoff that led to Mr. George's killing continues. The company says its pay is generous for the market. It accuses S. Kumarasami, a labor lawyer who organized the Pricol union, of inciting violence and trying to bring the company to a standstill to advance his broader leftwing political agenda.

Mr. Kumarasami, who wasn't among those arrested and represents 20 Pricol workers who remain in custody in the matter, says he doesn't advocate violence. The company risked workers' lives, he says, by choosing to suppress wages. "Economic violence is also violence," he says.
An Asian Manchester

Coimbatore, a colonial-era textile hub in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, expanded in recent decades into a manufacturing center for machine parts and small motors. Dubbed the Manchester of South India, its streets are lined with shops that sell pumps, coils and bearings.

Pricol was founded here in the 1970s by Vijay Mohan, the son of a textile-factory owner, as a maker of moped speedometers. Now its seven plants around India export 50 products -- from fuel gauges and clocks to cigarette lighters -- to some 40 countries.

As its work force grew, so did its problems.

Pricol, like other Indian manufacturers, is guided by two old labor laws. The country's Industrial Disputes Act of 1947 requires companies to gain government permission before dismissing workers. The Contract Labor Law of 1970, meanwhile, prohibits employers from using temporary workers for long-term jobs. Both aim to encourage companies to protect workers by making them permanent.

Manufacturers have long complained that it can take years to dismiss their permanent employees, leading to bloated work forces and hampering companies' ability to respond quickly to changing business conditions. Executives and industry groups say relaxing the labor laws would allow companies to hire more workers and would attract more manufacturers to India, ultimately underpinning a rise in wages.

"Some of the hardships faced by labor will be lessened if there is greater demand for workers, as would happen in a more flexible market," says Cornell University economics professor Kaushik Basu, who was recently appointed chief economist for India's Ministry of Finance. There are no current efforts to change the laws, officials say.

Union leaders complain that companies are hiring contract workers for longer than the law intends. They say that by using these workers -- who are generally paid less and don't draw company pensions -- employers undercut permanent employees' leverage in wage negotiations.

"Companies are doing well in India, even during a global recession," says D.L. Sachdev, national secretary for the All India Trade Union Congress, which is backed by the Communist Party of India. "The way they keep their margins safe is to increase the exploitation of the workers."

Mr. Mohan, now 62 years old, says Pricol tried to do right by workers from the beginning -- offering employees one cafeteria instead of separate facilities for workers and executives, and adopting equal wages for male and female workers before most other local manufacturers did so. And for 25 years, Mr. Mohan says, it avoided hiring cheaper contract workers.

"People said I was a bloody fool," he says. "I was, in fact, an idealist."

But in 2000, fearful of building a costly permanent work force, Mr. Mohan changed course. Factory contract workers now account for about one-third of the 2,200 people employed at Pricol's three Coimbatore plants, the company says.

By 2007, Pricol's sales had nearly tripled from 2000, to 4.81 billion rupees ($104 million).

Workers grew upset that their wages hadn't seemed to rise along with company sales, says machine operator C. Murali Manoharan. Then a 16-year Pricol veteran, he made about $170 a month at current exchange rates. He says supporting his school-age daughter grew harder as food and education prices rose, and he seethed as executives saved enough from their salaries and bonuses to buy new cars and houses.

"The company's growth was huge," Mr. Manoharan says. "But our wages were still low."

Workers began demanding bigger pay increases. Mr. Mohan resisted, telling workers that raises had already been negotiated by Pricol's existing unions.
Doused With Kerosene

In early 2007, workers turned to Mr. Kumarasami. The head of the All India Central Council of Trade Unions in Tamil Nadu's capital, Chennai, Mr. Kumarasami promised Pricol workers he would help secure higher wages for permanent and contract workers alike.

Mr. Kumarasami immediately led a strike at Pricol's three Coimbatore plants. At one point, striking female factory workers doused themselves with kerosene and threatened to light themselves on fire. Mr. Mohan says the threat was a union stunt to wring concessions from the company, which Mr. Kumarasami denies.

With production slumping, Mr. Mohan replaced the striking contract workers with other contract workers, and braced for a battle with Mr. Kumarasami. "He'd thought we'd buckle in a day," says Mr. Mohan. Permanent employees returned to work in June, after striking for 100 days.

In July -- when Pricol traditionally announced its wage increases -- Mr. Mohan said there would be no raises, citing the work stoppages' impact on production and sales. Soon after, several contract laborers who had been hired during the strike were rounded up by workers and tied to trees outside the factory, say executives and workers.

These disruptions stung. In 2008, as India's automobile market boomed, Pricol's sales remained essentially flat. Net profit fell to half of 2007 levels.

In July 2008, Mr. Mohan again said he couldn't raise wages. The next month, engineers and Pricol executives touring the factory floor were beaten by a group of workers with iron rods, says V. Balaji Chinnappan, a general manager of manufacturing. Several were hospitalized. Mr. Kumarasami said his union discourages violence and blames the flaring tempers on "the intransigence of the management."

Splits developed in Mr. Kumarasami's union. Machinist Mr. Manoharan, then serving as a union leader, said he began to believe a labor settlement wasn't possible with Mr. Kumarasami in the picture. Toward the end of 2008, he says, he started meeting privately with Pricol executives to explore a settlement.

Soon, he recalls, came a telephone call from another worker, who told him: "Join with management and I will beat you."

In March 2009, two men on motorcycles he couldn't identify came to his house and thrashed him with iron rods, breaking his hand. In May, he says, another Pricol worker slashed him from behind with a machete as he waited at a bus station, leaving him unable lift his arm.

"That union achieved nothing," says Mr. Manoharan, who is paid by Pricol though his limp arm has kept him off the job.

Such feelings led some Pricol managers to believe they could work around Mr. Kumarasami. One executive who spearheaded this approach was human-resources manager Mr. George, a native of the southern Kerala state educated at one of India's top management universities.

Hired into a volatile situation in March 2009, the new HR boss tried to bond with workers, executives say, particularly those who had protested wage freezes with work slowdowns, including cardplaying or sleeping during their shifts. He asked to hear grievances and maintained an open-door policy. Attempting to cool tensions among co-workers, the balding father of two organized "bring your kids to work" days.

In the summer, citing flat sales and a rare net loss stemming from the unrest, Mr. Mohan declined to raise pay.

On Saturday, Sept. 19, Pricol handed dismissal notices to more than 40 workers that Mr. Mohan calls "militant" union members.

Pricol calls the dismissals legal and says it warned workers verbally and in writing. Mr. Kumarasami maintains the dismissals are "illegal" and says he is challenging them through the government's Labor Bureau.
Shattering Glass

The next Monday during lunch break, Pricol's Soundarya Rammurthi says she heard shattering glass and screams. The 30-year-old human-resources executive says she saw two workers with iron rods and "burning eyes" heading into Mr. George's office. She fled the building and called security guards.

Pricol executives say two video cameras -- one that would show people entering the building, another near Mr. George's office -- were intentionally disabled. A third camera recorded about eight workers fleeing the human-resources building, says Mr. Chinnappan.

Mr. Kumarasami declined to comment about the 20 workers still detained in the matter before charges have been filed. He calls Mr. George "an unfortunate victim," but accuses Pricol of using the murder to destroy his union. He says more than 1,200 Pricol workers remain members.

Mr. Mohan says he's ready to make peace. He has enlisted outside mediators and agreed to their suggestion to unfreeze factory wages. Mr. Kumarasami said this has helped create "a mood to consult" with management on labor issues.

Pricol's output has rebounded. Between shifts, workers amble around a cordoned-off murder site. In Mr. George's vacant office, gashes remain in the walls.

"I don't say that everything is hunky-dory," says Mr. Mohan. "There's an artificial calm."

Source:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125858061728954325.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsTop

Entrepreneurs: Start. This. Company. Now.

noreply@blogger.com (Travel Planner) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:56:00 +0000

BANGALORE, INDIA ¿ It?s almost as if Russian cell phone carrier MTS has bought the naming rights to Bangalore. I half expected my immigration stamp to read ?BANGALORE! ? BROUGHT TO YOU BY MTS.? The carrier recently launched service in the uber-competitive Indian telecom market and has erected billboards every twenty feet or so. I have never seen so much advertising by one company in one space. They all sport an agro looking dude with his face twisted in some rebel-yell while he does inscrutable things with robots and mechanical arms holding different tech gadgets.

Why have these ads made such an impression on me? Because I?ve spent a week sitting in stopped Bangalore traffic looking at them. Ironically one keeps boasting: CONGESTION-FREE MOBILE NETWORK. Sitting still and listening to the honking of cars, mopeds, bikes and rickshaws all around me, it?s an easy guess that, if true, MTS could be the only thing congestion-free in India.

I used to think I knew bad traffic. After all, I moved to Silicon Valley during the famed Internet bubble when Highway 101 slowed to a crawl during peak commute hours. And I?ve spent time in legendarily congested US cities like Los Angeles and New York.

Now that India has one of the world?s best mobile infrastructures, it needs a decent road infrastructure. And a smart entrepreneur needs to come up with a modern fix. But before we talk solutions, let?s dwell more on the problem.

Simply put: All of you Americans?or Londoners for that matter?who Tweet about sitting in traffic have nothing to complain about compared to the emerging world. And in my experience, so far, India?s traffic is the absolute worst. A drive between cities that should take an hour takes four. A commute across a city can routinely take two hours-plus. We?re not talking about rush hour. I?ve quickly learned to allot at least three hours for each meeting?one hour for the meeting and one each for getting there and back.

Even so, despite my best efforts, I?ve been late for nearly every meeting. In Mumbai one meeting scheduled for late morning took six hours out of my day. (Fortunately, the meeting was well worth it.) And in Bangalore my cab driver tried to take a back-alley short cut, when suddenly, our path was blocked by a cow just munching on some roadside grass. He honked and honked and she just looked up and batted her pretty brown eyes at me as if to say, ?Oh, you?re not making that meeting on time, hon.?

Indians complain about the poor foresight and urban planning of their government, but it?s not all the government's fault. The Chinese government is the master of over-building capacity to anticipate growth, and city traffic in China is becoming unbearable as well. It?ll only get worse as an anticipated 30% more cars per year come on the road.

The problem is the hyper-charged urbanization these countries have experienced. In the West cities grew over centuries allowing city planners to adjust and modernize as industrialization drove higher occupancy. And in the past few decades there?s been a flight out of downtowns to suburbs. Of course that presents its own growing pains?especially in US cities that have experienced massive suburban sprawl like Phoenix and Atlanta. But in the grand scheme of things, the moves have been predictable and manageable, whether individual cities have handled it well or not.

Not so with the rapid urbanization of cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai. The step up in pay from hundreds to thousands of US dollars a year has been swift and far reaching. In China, agricultural classes have moved en masse to staff huge several-thousand-person factories, and for the Olympics, they moved en masse into hospitality jobs in Beijing?s raft of new hotels, malls and restaurants. This is to say nothing of the increase in government jobs and startups. There is simply no way to make remotely the same wage or have the same access to infrastructure and services outside a city. In some parts of India it?s been more pronounced as hundreds of thousands of sophisticated R&D jobs typically pay more than China?s factory jobs.

Here?s my point: All the existing Western solutions, endless government funds, underground subways and top urban planners will not solve this problem. Because simply put: The world has never seen urbanization so extreme by millions?maybe even billions? of people seeking a better life. We need some innovation here. And I know at least one guy who is thinking about it.

At a conference earlier this year, Elon Musk ? the guy who co-founded PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX and laughs like a James Bond villain ? talked about two new businesses he was mulling. One was electric, supersonic planes, which I?ve salivated over since. The other was pre-fabricated freeway overpasses to alleviate traffic by making it go vertical without the costly billion-dollar customized expansion fees.

I have to admit, at the time, I was more excited about the planes. But his freeway idea may be a better business. It would dramatically affect the lives of billions (literally) and create at least millions of revenues in the developing world where quick, cheap options are needed and there is hot-and-heavy government money to pay for it.

Now, clearly Mr. Musk is busy with existing ventures Tesla and SpaceX. So now?s your chance to steal the market out from under him! India and China are waiting.

How Hard Is Obama Trying on Global Warming?

noreply@blogger.com (Travel Planner) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:22:00 +0000

President Barack Obama is lucky that the health care reform endeavor is overwhelming the political system and causing concern among his liberal base, for it's distracting from a key matter where he has fallen short: climate change.

While on his current trip to Asia, Obama has had to acknowledge the obvious -- that a comprehensive treaty that truly restricts global warming emissions will not be negotiated at the international climate change summit scheduled for next month in Copenhagen. This past weekend, he and other world leaders reached an agreement to cobble together a modest interim pact that will supposedly lead to a binding treaty in 2010. But producing a binding treaty was the point of the Copenhagen gathering. A global-sized can is being kicked down the road.
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Sadly, none of this is surprising. Obama entered office, vowing he would do what George W. Bush had not: lead the world to a global climate accord. But the challenges were clear. Though China and India are heading to the top of the carbon-spewing charts, they have insisted that the United States, historically the number-one emitter, cut back first. Meanwhile, recalcitrant Republicans and coal-friendly Democrats in the Senate declared they wouldn't back any accord that didn't include tough limits for China and other emerging economies. A few months ago I described the mission of Todd Stern, Obama's chief climate change negotiator, this way:

It's a task akin to working a Rubik's Cube. To convince the developing nations to accept real cuts, Stern must demonstrate that the U.S. is serious about reducing emissions. To get Congress to go along, Stern has to show that the developing world will also make consequential cuts. But if [senators] don't accept the idea of different cuts for different countries, they may be less inclined to pass the carbon legislation Stern needs to goose the developing countries. Call it a Chinese puzzle. And the planet's future could be riding on his ability to put all the moving pieces in the right spots -- in just a few months.

Well, that Rubik's Cube has not come together. On a narrow vote in June, the House passed climate change legislation that set up a cap-and-trade system that would allow polluters to sell among themselves a decreasing amount of emissions credits. But the Senate has not. It's been subsumed by the health care debate; also, there may not be 60 votes needed to thwart a possible filibuster on a strong bill. Weeks ago, it became evident that even if sea levels rose 10 feet in a month, the Senate would not produce climate change legislation in time for Copenhagen.

Is this the president's fault? His administration has taken unilateral steps to reduce global warming gases produced by vehicles and coal-burning power plants. His stimulus bill reserved tens of billions of dollars for new green technologies. But as environmental writer Bill McKibben notes:

For a year now it's been clear that the president is not particularly focused on applying the political pressure that would have been necessary to reach any kind of pact, much less one that approaches what the science demands. Despite the deadline of the Copenhagen conference, Obama placed energy second on his priority list, guaranteeing that health care would occupy most of the year. He talked very little about climate, tending instead to talk about green jobs and energy security, and in the process left the door open for climate deniers to have a field day. And then -- as with health care -- he left it pretty much entirely up to Congress to write the necessary legislation. That kept him from having to bear the blame for a byzantine bill, but it also meant that the Senate -- the body from which he came, and whose culture he had to know -- could work in its usual style, without White House pressure.

McKibben also accuses Obama's climate negotiators of:

fibbing about the science -- reiterating over and over again that their goal is the "scientific standard" of 450 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere. That's no longer scientifically accurate -- in the last two years, since the rapid Arctic melt in the summer of 2007, scientists have made it clear that a treaty that aimed at 450 ppm would be a treaty that left the planet free of ice, a planet where many current nations would disappear beneath the waves. We're at 390 now -- we're already too high.

The scientific consensus now is that 350 ppm ought to be the limit. That means reversing direction immediately, not increasing the percentage of global warming emissions in the atmosphere.

You thought enacting a public option is a heavy lift? Getting to 350 ppm would be far tougher. It would require Obama to pump up the volume, and for China and India to make serious commitments. Instead of aiming for this target, the Obama administration has focused on what's politically possible -- then failing to deliver on that. And once the exhausting health care debate is done, the White House will focus on jobs, jobs, jobs. And, oh yes, jobs. This is natural and necessary. Politicians must address political realities -- especially those immediate ones, such as joblessness. The problem is, global warming is a scientific reality. It cannot be spun. It cannot be placed on hold until the political circumstances are advantageous. Its most consequential impacts are not right at hand, but they cannot be addressed once they transpire. They must be dealt with before the emergency arrives, before there is no longer any argument or excuse for inaction.

That means climate change is an issue that calls for unprecedented leadership. And this challenge has been thrust upon Obama. At the end of the W. years, I thought that future historians might harshly judge Bush less for his invasion of Iraq than for his dithering on climate change. Obama is indeed trying on this front. But if he doesn't try harder, he could end up, decades from now, being paired with Bush, when the toddlers of today are then wondering, who let the planet burn?

******
I must apologize. I have nothing in this column about Sarah Palin. For those of you in need of a Palin fix, check out this amusing story about right-to-lifers who will be protesting at the Indiana stop of her book tour. Why? Because they claim she is not sufficiently anti-abortion. The infighting on the right is rather bizarre these days

British business is ready for a low-carbon economy. Are our leaders?British business is ready for a low-carbon economy. Are our leaders?

noreply@blogger.com (Travel Planner) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:22:00 +0000

Business people are not scientists or politicians. But they are paid to evaluate risk and to recognise opportunity. That’s why business has a strong interest in a successful conclusion to next month’s climate change conference in Copenhagen.

Either the world moves together in an orderly fashion to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by way of the legally binding obligations of an international treaty, or it risks a disorderly transition, with countries moving at their own pace and making their own arrangements. At the extreme lies the risk of belated — and therefore very costly — reactions to sudden shifts in climate conditions around the world.

Globally co-ordinated actions are important for businesses based in Britain. The EU is committed to ambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, and to making polluters pay. If other regions do not follow, European industry would be at a serious competitive disadvantage, and manufacturers of commodities such as steel or cement would shift production elsewhere, risking many thousands of jobs. We would still need lots of cement in this country: shipping it in from distant ports would not help the planet.

The opportunity for business lies in the immense new markets opening up for low-carbon goods and services. The potential is measured in trillions of dollars, and countries such as China and Korea are now moving aggressively to build capacity in the green economy. UK businesses aspire to be leaders in this new world, and want a clear regulatory framework on which to base investment plans. Sectors where the UK could build a competitive advantage and create jobs include offshore wind, low-carbon vehicles, carbon finance and clean coal.

So the big question for business is: what will success next month look like? We will not get a fully fledged treaty: there is too much unfinished business to complete the job. But the meeting can produce positive results, provided it hits five prime targets.

First, the momentum of negotiations must be maintained. That means presidents and prime ministers must attend in person and deliver a firm political agreement that will be the stepping stone to a treaty as soon as possible next year. Worthy declarations of intent will not be enough to drive investment in research and technology on the enormous scale required to build a new kind of economy.

So Barack Obama must, as a minimum, commit to delivering the provisions of the Waxman-Markey climate change Bill, and leaders from the developed and developing world must guarantee the promises they have already, or will shortly, make to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

The numbers will have to be clear: global emissions should peak around the year 2020, then decline steadily to a point where, by 2050, they are less than half today’s levels. Change on this scale will require carrots and sticks, best achieved by putting a price on emissions that rewards efficiency and punishes profligacy.

So the second big challenge will be to lay the foundations for a global market for carbon, by developing schemes that cap emissions and create a market for trading in carbon permits, suchas the EU’s Emission Trading System. The value of a global carbon market could be well over $2 trillion by 2020.

Next, Copenhagen must reach outline agreement about the scale of the resources that rich countries will pass to the developing economies to ease their transition. China is setting its financial demands too high, and the US has yet to put a realistic offer on the table. They will probably need to converge on about €100 billion a year by 2020, with roughly half of that coming from the proceeds of emissions trading. Negotiating how this bill will be carved up among the rich countries will be one of the trickiest tasks of the conference.

Technology resources will have to be transferred to the poorer countries, as well as cash. But businesses would strongly object if governments from the developed countries agreed simply to hand over intellectual property, which is not theirs to give away.

Establishing a cross-border regime to curb emissions from aviation and shipping is target No 4. A way will have to be found to include them in a global cap and trading scheme to provide incentives for fuel efficiency.

Challenge No 5 is particularly important for businesses in the UK. The EU has undertaken to cut emissions by 20 per cent by 2020, or 30 per cent in the event of a successful global agreement. The higher figure would encourage others to be more ambitious, and would provide powerful incentives to develop new technologies and to drive energy efficiency.

But the big worry is that the higher target — coming on top of the EU’s costly renewable policies — could drive carbon-intensive industries out of Europe. So other countries would have to make strong commitments to contain emissions before British business agreed that this extra step was justified.

All this adds up to a very complex set of negotiations next month, and will call for political leadership of the highest order. Businesses in Britain are clear about the risks of failure and the rewards of success, and are developing products and services that will enable consumers everywhere to make the choices that will lead to a sustainable and rewarding future. Muddling through is not an option.

Richard Lambert is Director-General of the CBI

Applications pour in for post of Air India COO

noreply@blogger.com (Travel Planner) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:21:00 +0000

New Delhi: Air India’s bloated debt and losses in excess of $1 billion (Rs4,630 crore) looming in the current fiscal year haven’t deterred at least 140 top global airline executives from throwing their hat into the ring for the post of chief operating officer, or COO, at the national carrier.

The airline had advertised in September in The Economist magazine and the Financial Times newspaper for a COO to work with chairman and managing director (CMD) Arvind Jadhav to implement a three-year turnaround plan.

“There are NRIs (non-resident Indians) from all over, expats and several others. We have to shortlist the candidates and call them for interviews,” said a senior government official familiar with the process who asked not to be named.

Apart from stemming losses, recasting Rs16,000 crore debt and trying to pay for much-needed planes to bolster an ageing fleet, the COO will need to fight with entrenched unions opposed to plans for cost-cutting. The loss expectation for this year matches the figure for last fiscal.

Several COOs and vice-presidents from European, American, Australian and Caribbean carriers are among those vying for the job, which includes completing the integration of domestic carrier Indian Airlines with Air India.

“It was a fairly good response,” said another official familiar with the process and who too didn’t want to be named. The names of prospective COOs cannot be disclosed because most are employed with various airlines and the process is still underway, the official said.

Air India, with more than 30,000 employees, had sought applications from candidates with a background in aviation or with a record of turning around an organization of at least 10,000 workers.

“We definitely need someone with an airline background. Otherwise, who knows what will happen here?” said another government official who also asked not to be named. The Air India board is aiming to have a new COO in place by January, he said.

The COO will be entitled to performance-linked pay based on targets and will be required to work closely with Booz and Co. and NM Rothschild and Sons Ltd that have been hired for cost-rationalization and debt-restructuring strategies, respectively, said the second official cited above.

Air India has a gross turnover of around $4 billion, with an equal amount of debt and an equity of Rs145 crore. It is expected to be granted a first tranche of equity infusion of Rs400 crore by January to tide over the current crisis that includes payments against an $11 billion aircraft order placed in 2005-06.

The new COO is likely to face a tough challenge from powerful unions.

“I wonder how many of these applicants are truly serious. The COO role is one of the hardest jobs at an airline because this person has to maintain a reliable, safe operation while also ‘serving’ the requirements of the commercial side of the business,” said Vikram Krishnan, associate partner at Oliver Wyman, a San Francisco-based aviation consultancy firm, in emailed comments. “I imagine someone in this role has to be competent enough to deal with the unions while also keeping costs low.”

State-run Air India has been facing stiff resistance from employees who are opposing cuts in salaries. Cost-cutting is a key condition of the government rescue package.

“It appears that all managerial skills are being utilized to enforce a salary cut rather than revenue generation through professional management,” said R.S. Otaal, general secretary of the 800-strong Indian Commercial Pilots Association, or ICPA, in a notice issued to the Air India management calling for a strike from 24 November.

ICPA members will march to Parliament on Thursday, when the winter session is scheduled to begin, demanding a probe into the airline’s mismanagement by the government and seeking parity in pay within the company. The equity infusion is to be debated in the House during the winter session before final clearance by the Union cabinet.

Performance-linked incentives of three dozen top Air India officials have already been put on hold till a final decision is made on them, as Mint reported last week.

For the Air India brass, it will be critical to manage worker unrest, Oliver Wyman’s Krishnan said.

“In other similar situations, I have seen employees take their frustration out on the customer, which leads to a perpetual cycle of mistrust between management/employees and underperformance,” he said. Change cannot come without firm state backing, he said. “It is impossible to undergo a transformation without upsetting someone or the other. However, it is critical that the CMD has a licence for radical change from the government.”

400 Dell Workers Lose Jobs Today

noreply@blogger.com (Travel Planner) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:21:00 +0000

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Today is the last day on the job for about half of the workers at the Dell plant scheduled to close by the end of January.

More than 400 employees will lose their jobs today, leaving approximately 400 more still working.

The plant is scheduled to shut down completely by January 20, according to a Dell spokesman. Approximately 905 employees will be affected by the closure, which is part of a companywide plan to save $4 billion a year by 2011.

Before Dell opened the plant in 2005, the company was promised more than $300 million in state and local incentives. But it was required to invest $100 million, create 1,700 jobs by September 2010 and maintain those jobs for 10 more years. If those terms weren't met, the company would forfeit the incentive package.

Dell has already paid back more than $26 million in incentives it received from the City of Winston-Salem.

Dell has plants in Miami, Nashville, Austin, Texas, Brazil, Ireland, Poland, China, Malaysia and India. It also partners with other manufacturers to make certain products.

Sony Ericsson to Move U.S. Headquarters

noreply@blogger.com (Travel Planner) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:21:00 +0000

Associated Press

Cellphone maker Sony Ericsson is moving its North American headquarters from North Carolina to Atlanta and close a half-dozen sites world-wide as part of a global consolidation that will cut about 2,000 jobs.

The joint venture between Sweden’s LM Ericsson and Japan’s Sony Corp. will consolidate product development operations by closing sites in Research Triangle Park; Seattle; Miami; San Diego; Kista, Sweden; and Chennai, India, spokeswoman Stacy Doster said.

The site closures are new elements of a plan announced in April to cut world-wide staff of 10,000 by 20%. About 400 jobs have been cut since then and about 1,600 remain to meet that goal by the middle of next year, the spokeswoman said.

The company has about 425 workers left in Research Triangle Park after shedding hundreds of jobs in the past year. She said she’s uncertain how many of the employees would be moving to Atlanta.

The company announced last month that its losses worsened to €164 million ($244 million) amid falling sales in the third quarter, up from a €25 million loss in the same period a year ago. Sales during the quarter dropped by more than 40%.

A New Era in U.S.-Indian Partnership

noreply@blogger.com (Travel Planner) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:20:00 +0000

William J. Burns
Under Secretary for Political Affairs
Remarks at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Event
Washington, DC
November 18, 2009

Thank you very much George for that kind introduction. It’s an honor to speak once again at the Carnegie Endowment, an institution for which I have enormous admiration. And it’s a pleasure to speak about a subject, the growing partnership between the United States and India, to which the Obama Administration attaches enormous importance.

Diplomats have a well-deserved reputation for being long-winded. But I’ll try to break that stereotype this morning, and offer just a few brief thoughts to help frame the panel discussion that you’re about to have. I should also mention at the outset that I owe a personal debt of gratitude to three of your panelists, Ashley Tellis, Evan Feigenbaum, and Tezi Schaffer, friends and former colleagues who have made remarkable contributions over the years to U.S.-Indian relations, and to the opportunities emerging before us in this new era. Neither Ashley nor Evan nor Tezi has ever been shy about correcting my mistakes in the past, and I can’t imagine that their departure from government service has made them any more reticent today.

It is no coincidence that the first state visit in the Obama Presidency will come from India, and Prime Minister Singh will arrive in Washington next week at a moment of great opportunity. Few relationships will matter more to the course of human events in the 21st century than the partnership between India and the United States. India, as all of you know very well, is a rising global power, soon to be the world’s most populous country, with a trillion dollar-plus economy. The world’s largest democracy, India is a powerful model for other emerging democracies, a model of tolerance and of strength in diversity.

India has an increasingly significant role to play on virtually all of the major challenges of this new century -- from global economic dislocation to energy security, climate change, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and violent extremism. Its role in Asia, already significant, will only grow in the years ahead, and India will be an increasingly valuable partner in the historic effort to, as President Obama put it, “cultivate spheres of cooperation” throughout Asia. A rising India is an essential part of the peaceful and prosperous world that the United States seeks in the 21st century, and our partnership is an essential ingredient for success.

As we look ahead to the visit of Prime Minister Singh, and to the possibilities for expanded partnership which lie before us, let me first recall quickly how we got to this promising moment.

A Strong Foundation

The truth is that we’ve come a very long way together over the past decade and a half. In a speech last June, Secretary Clinton described three phases in our relations. The first phase – or U.S.-India 1.0 – lasted from India’s founding to the end of the Cold War, and was generally characterized by missed opportunities, the result of mistrust and old conflicts between East and West, North and South.

The 2.0 chapter opened in the Clinton Administration, and included President Clinton’s landmark visit to India in the year 2000. The Bush Administration built very effectively on that foundation, culminating in completion of the civil nuclear initiative last year. That would not have happened without bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress, including from three Senators named Obama, Biden and Clinton. The signing of the civil nuclear deal turned a source of friction between our two countries into opportunities for cooperation in trade and job creation, helping India to meet its growing energy needs, and opening up possibilities to work together to strengthen the global nonproliferation regime.

Meanwhile, ties between our two societies have continued to grow. Today there are close to three million Indian-Americans in the United States, who serve as a critical bridge between our countries. More than 100,000 Indian students attend schools and universities in the United States each year, more than from any other country. Our Embassy and consulates in India issue over 50% of all specialized employee visas in the world. Our private sectors are linked by steadily mounting trade flows, which have doubled since 2004 and now exceed $43 billion each year.

Strengthening our Partnership

All of this gives us a very strong foundation on which to build in the years ahead – U.S.-India 3.0. President Obama captured eloquently our sense of what’s possible when he said recently: “Our rapidly growing and deepening friendship with India offers benefits to all the world's citizens as our scientists solve environmental challenges together, our doctors discover new medicines, our engineers advance our societies, our entrepreneurs generate prosperity, our educators lay the foundation for our future generations, and our governments work together to advance peace, prosperity, and stability around the globe.”

When Secretary Clinton visited India last July, she and Minister Krishna launched a new Strategic Dialogue to develop our cooperation systematically, across a wide range of issues. Let me highlight a few of them, which are likely to figure prominently in Prime Minister Singh’s visit and in our emerging partnership over the next few years.

Global Security

The first pillar of our Strategic Dialogue, and of our expanding partnership, is cooperation on global security challenges. India and the United States share a profound interest in making the world more secure. The tragic attacks of 26/11 were a global event. The violence inflicted on the people of Mumbai, and the loss of six American citizens in those attacks, was a reminder that terrorism represents a common threat to our nations and our people, and we must meet it with a common strategy.

Over the past year our two countries have developed new mechanisms to improve the sharing of information that have helped prevent attacks and protect both our peoples. Home Minister Chidambaram’s visit to Washington last September further strengthened our collaboration in these areas and laid the initial groundwork for what we hope will become an enduring U.S.-India partnership in counter-terrorism.

Afghanistan presents another challenge on which we continue to work together. As our careful assessment of U.S. policy in Afghanistan draws to a conclusion, we will continue to actively consult India as a critical partner in achieving lasting stability there. We welcome India’s significant and positive role in Afghanistan, including the provision of over $1.2 billion in reconstruction assistance.

Of course, we all share an interest in stability and peace between India and Pakistan. We all know the stakes. America has always supported the two countries’ peace process and the resolution of outstanding disputes through dialogue. The pace, scope, and content of the peace process is for Indian and Pakistani leaders to decide. But we have welcomed renewed engagement, including this past summer between Prime Ministers Singh and Gilani, and between Prime Minister Singh and President Zardari.

As India and other nations play an expanded role in resolving international security challenges, the architecture of international institutions will need to adapt to reflect their new responsibilities. India has shown through its moral stature and long tradition of leadership among developing countries that it is well-suited to address the challenges faced by multinational institutions and constructively advance the common good. As Secretary Clinton has said, we look forward to cooperating with New Delhi as it takes on the responsibilities that come with being a global leader.

There is also significant potential in our relationship for expanded defense cooperation. As India modernizes its military, American equipment and technology can and should be a part of that modernization. The recent conclusion of an End-Use Monitoring accord gives us important momentum to enhance our security relationship.

As everyone in this room knows, nuclear nonproliferation is a very high priority for President Obama, and we look to India as a full partner in efforts to strengthen the nonproliferation regime and prevent the further spread of weapons of mass destruction. Prime Minister Singh’s public support for the goals of the President’s Prague agenda was a welcome sign. The Prime Minister’s Special Envoy, Shyam Saran, added not long ago that the Civil Nuclear Initiative has enabled India to look “proactively and not defensively at a new global agenda for nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear disarmament.” True to the spirit of those statements, during the past year India has brought into force its Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and signed its Additional Protocol.

The United States remains firmly committed to implementing fully the Civil Nuclear Initiative; we welcomed the recent naming of two reactor park sites for U.S. nuclear firms, and we look forward to the completion of other steps, on both sides, that will make civil nuclear cooperation a reality between our two countries. U.S. firms stand to benefit a great deal from the implementation of the 123 agreement, a process that should also create thousands of new jobs for Indians and Americans. That leads me to a second pillar of our relationship with significant potential for further expansion, our economic ties.

Economic Growth

Since India’s sweeping liberalization of the early 1990s, whose chief architect is now India’s Prime Minister, economic cooperation has always been a driver of progress between our two countries. Today is no different. India has weathered the global economic downturn better than most, with growth projected at more than 6% this year. Such growth can be a stabilizing force within the global economy when other economies are stagnating. We appreciate the leadership role that India has played in the G20 and look forward to an expanded role for India as the international economic architecture adapts to new challenges and new realities.

India’s growing workforce, with the largest pool of English speakers and ambitious young entrepreneurs in the world, presents another immense opportunity for India and its partners to capitalize on globalization. We’ve been negotiating bilateral trade frameworks with India with the aim of bolstering our commercial activity in areas such as infrastructure, health care services, information, communications technology, and education services. As India continues to enhance its business climate, I’m confident that more American companies will be drawn to its dynamic market.

We’re also trying to leverage the private sector by re-launching a CEO Forum of top American and Indian business leaders during the Prime Minister’s visit. Our hope is that the Forum will inform the choices of government leaders, as it has in the past, and thereby enhance our joint competitiveness and ingenuity. The CEO Forum can also complement our work in industries and disciplines where private sector interests play a prime role in both countries – in education, science and technology, and on the full range of global economic policy issues facing us. We need to harness their creativity to find new solutions for sustained economic growth, which will greatly depend on the move away from old fossil-fuel development to more low carbon, energy efficient alternatives.

Clean Energy and Climate Change

Development of clean energy and the contributions it can make to climate change have been a third area of cooperation that we have pursued intensively over the past several months. Much has been made of differences in Indian and American positions leading up to the Copenhagen Conference. While those differences are real, we are working in the spirit of our partnership toward a successful outcome at Copenhagen.

At the same time that we develop common ground in complicated multilateral negotiations, we are pursuing bilateral and regional cooperation on a range of green initiatives that draw on our joint scientific and technological resources. These initiatives include work in solar and wind energy, second generation biofuels, forestry management, and on a range of energy efficiency initiatives. We are also exploring a joint clean energy research center to foster innovation and accelerate deployment of clean energy technologies.

At a practical level, Indian and American scientists work together on a daily basis to enhance India’s capabilities to generate clean energy. In solar and wind power, our National Renewable Energy Laboratory exchanges data and cutting-edge research with counterpart centers in India. We also want to help India meet its National Solar Mission target of producing 20 gigawatts of solar power by 2020. Given the magnitude of capital investment it takes to reach even the first solar gigawatt, we hope work with the private sector will make investments less risky in the short-run. On the adaptation side, our National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is helping India’s Ministry of Earth Sciences to more accurately forecast monsoons, and thereby reduce risks associated with climate change and to protect people and crops from the adverse effects of extreme weather.

Agriculture, Science and Technology

Just as a new green initiative in clean and renewable energy can benefit both our countries in the years ahead, so too can renewed cooperation in agriculture contribute to a second green revolution in Indian food production. And just as the United States was proud to play a role in the first green revolution, through the good work of the late Norman Borlaug and many committed Indians and Americans, so too are we ready to join our Indian partners to help expand India’s agricultural sector for a new era.

Secretary Vilsack and his counterpart Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia will meet next week to discuss the future launch of a ministerial-level Agriculture Dialogue, which will include a strong private sector component. On a global level, we see India as an important partner in helping to spur agricultural revolutions beyond South Asia to Africa and other parts of the world where food security remains a serious and persistent problem.

Our long-standing scientific collaboration extends beyond agriculture to other areas such as health, where our best scientists, innovators, and labs are coming together to share knowledge and find breakthroughs on some of our toughest challenges. We’re working together in a number of areas, including research in HIV/AIDs, detection of emerging infectious diseases, and maternal and child health. Such initiatives are critical to saving lives and resources, and strengthening human development in India, which brings me to the fifth and final area of cooperation that I’ll highlight today.

Education and Human Development

Education and human development, including women’s empowerment, are important platforms for both our countries to invest in our greatest asset – our people. In the 1960s, educators and institution builders from our two countries collaborated in the establishment of the Indian Institutes of Technology. Today, Indian leaders are once again grappling with how to best position their university system to prepare an ambitious workforce for the demands of a changing global economy. We are hopeful that part of the Indian education system’s evolution will bring about closer collaboration with American universities.

We welcomed Indian Education Minister Kapil Sibal’s visit to a number of top U.S. universities last month. As a reflection of Indian interest in further cooperation between our institutions, over 30 Indian university leaders accompanied the Minister. There is equal, enthusiastic interest among American university leaders in establishing lasting university-to-university partnerships. The U.S. and Indian governments have tried to do their part, too. We nearly doubled the Fulbright-Nehru program of academic exchanges this past year, and hope to expand opportunities in higher education in the near future.

Of course, we’re committed to working with India to improve all levels of education, to boost literacy and expand vocational training. I had the privilege last summer in Mumbai to visit a visionary NGO involved in this work, Teach for India, and I found a spirit of volunteerism that underpins much of the incredible social work that goes on around the country. It was a further reminder that both our relationship and India’s progress are rooted in the dynamism of the Indian people.

Our programs pay particular attention to women. The United States can learn a great deal from India’s examples of a woman president, a woman leader of the nation’s largest political party, and more women in parliament than ever before. Beyond politics, women are making important contributions to all areas of human endeavor, from education to the arts to science and technology. But more work needs to be done to empower the disenfranchised and the marginalized. Our Ambassador-at-large for Global Women’s Issues, Melanne Verveer, was in India last week to launch our dialogue on Women’s Empowerment, and I know she found her engagement with entrepreneurs, activists, educators and policymakers quite productive.

Conclusion

From counterterrorism to nonproliferation, education and agriculture, science and technology and women’s empowerment, our cooperation reflects the depth and breadth of the relationship between the world’s two largest democracies. It also illustrates the deep connections not just between our governments, but more importantly, between our societies and our people.

Let me conclude with a simple observation. Few relationships around the world matter more to our collective future, or hold greater promise for constructive action on the challenges that matter most to all of us, than the partnership between the United States and India. That doesn’t mean that we will always agree, because we won’t. That doesn’t mean that we can always avoid mutual suspicions or misunderstandings, because we can’t. But together we can build, on the solid foundation that already exists, an even stronger partnership that serves not only the interests of our two countries, but of the rest of the international community.

That is the sense of possibility that awaits Prime Minister Singh in Washington next week. And that is the sense of possibility that the Obama Administration is determined to make an enduring reality in the new era unfolding before us.

Thank you very much.

Minority report

noreply@blogger.com (Travel Planner) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:18:00 +0000

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s castigation of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) on October 29 for their audacity in appointing an interlocutor for the India and Pakistan dispute over Kashmir was very timely and appropriate. The OIC does not seem to understand that India is a country with a Muslim population of over 151 million, the third-largest Muslim community in the world after Indonesia and Bangladesh, and that Pakistan, a country with a much smaller Muslim population, does not really have any locus standi as far as Kashmir is concerned.

To project India’s case on the Kashmir issue, one needn’t go into the history of Kashmir. Just citing the previous United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s announcement several years ago that the UN resolutions of 1949-50 on Kashmir are not valid in today’s context, is enough. For some strange, unexplained reason, the Indian foreign office has not made use of this extremely significant statement.

In this connection one has to painfully admit that in the last two decades India has failed to counter Pakistan’s propaganda in some of the orthodox Muslim countries, especially Saudi Arabia, and been unable to project itself as the home of 151 million Muslims. Public opinion about India in most Muslim countries, except maybe Indonesia, Turkey and Bangladesh, has become a victim of Pakistan’s propaganda which day in and day out spreads the canard that Muslims in India are persecuted, and that their rights and privileges are seriously curtailed. Unfortunately, this is also the general belief of a number of Pakistanis. It was not so always, but has unfortunately become so in the past two decades, especially from the time of Zia-ul-Haq and his anti-Indian tirade.

India needs to seriously counter this vicious propaganda and project the truth. Public opinion in orthodox Muslim countries must be won over and Pakistan’s bluff called. How one misses an Arab leader like Saddam Hussein at such a time; he was a strong supporter of India on all issues, including Kashmir.

One also needs to remember that in 1971 a very important geo-political change took place in the subcontinent. Bangladesh, with a large Muslim population, seceded from Pakistan after an armed struggle and became the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Thus, Pakistan lost its moral claim of being the champion of Muslims in the subcontinent under the legacy of the 1947 Partition. So how can Pakistan then claim any moral right to Jammu and Kashmir vis-à-vis India?

Since 1947 there have been four armed clashes between Pakistan and India over Kashmir. In 1971, the Pakistan Army was decisively beaten, both on the western and eastern fronts. But not only did India not press her advantage at the bilateral discussion at Shimla in 1972, it also agreed to return 93,000 prisoners of war and all territory seized from Pakistan without any conditions. This remains a unique event in world history. The correct quid pro quo would have been for Pakistan to give up all claims to Kashmir, or at least agreeing to the ceasefire line or the Line of Control between the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir. But, in its generosity, the Indian government did not press these points and decided to trust Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Thereafter, Pakistan did not raise the Kashmir issue for two decades.

It was during the National Democratic Alliance regime that India allowed Pervez Musharraf, on a visit to India, to raise the Kashmir issue after recognising him as Pakistan’s President. Kashmir returned to the discussion table once again, that too at a time when Pakistan was sending terrorists to India, not only from Pakistan but also from Chechnya, Afghanistan and Sudan.

Kashmir was already in turmoil, 1989 onwards, as a result of political mishandling by successive governments in New Delhi. Terrorism had gained new ground and had a clear-cut agenda of ethnic cleansing, in the course of which the Pandit community was by and large compelled to leave the Valley. Mufti Muhammad Sayeed’s period as Union home minister was particularly bad, and it was complicated further by George Fernandes serving as minister for Kashmir affairs, the two working at cross purposes.

India needs to do a great deal in her external publicity programme, especially to counter Pakistan’s propaganda on the condition of Muslims in India. If some of the utterances by the captured “jihadis” are any guide, it is clear that they genuinely believe that the condition of Muslims in India is pitiable, that they are constantly persecuted, harassed and humiliated. While there are deeply unfortunate and shameful events like the Babri Masjid demolition, followed by the Mumbai riots of 1992 and the riots in Gujarat in 2002, these are exceptions, not the rule. Most Indian Muslims would agree that barring these, they live a life of dignity like all Indians. That they have equal rights and freedoms — political, social and religious. One need not go into the statistically-flawed and politically-prejudiced Sachar Commission report which sought to determine the status of Muslims in India only with reference to the number of jobs they hold in the government vis-à-vis the upper classes among Hindus, excluding the dalits.

The fact is that Muslims have made a remarkable mark in India, especially in businesses and professions. Nothing illustrates this better than Bollywood where they occupy a dominant position, as superstars, technicians and musicians. It is time some of our prominent Indian Muslims take the initiative in counteracting Pakistan’s propaganda, and project the truth. A special responsibility rests on the Bollywood community. If some of them, say like the Khan trio, do some plain speaking, especially directed at Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, one can expect these countries to change their attitudes towards India considerably. One recalls the televised tête-à-tête that the late actor Feroze Khan had with Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan — he criticised Pakistani society, praised India, and said that he was longing to return to India to live an honourable life as a free citizen.

A lot of responsibility rests with progressive Indian Muslims, intellectuals, artists and politicians as well to disseminate the truth: that India has a large Muslim population of 151 million, and that Indian Muslims, therefore, have a natural interest in seeing that Jammu and Kashmir remains in India. It is only by conscious reorientation of India’s PR machinery abroad that we can influence public opinion in some Muslim countries. Once this is done, it will surely be reflected in organisations like the OIC.

Nitish Sengupta, an academic and an author, is a former Member of Parliament and a former secretary to the Government of India

India’s Assam State To Receive $764 Million In Funding To Power Sector And Creating 1,500 New Jobs

noreply@blogger.com (Travel Planner) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:17:00 +0000

India’s Assam state is to expand its electricity transmission and distribution capacity, and increase access in remote communities in a bid to meet growing demand and cut poverty.

To support the state’s goals, the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Board of Directors today approved a multitranche financing facility (MFF) of up to $200 million for the Assam Power Sector Enhancement Investment Program.

It will be used to partially fund Assam’s $764 million power sector investment plan to 2014.

The new facility follows an earlier ADB program loan to reform Assam’s state electricity agency, which was unbundled into new companies to improve service delivery and cut the state’s financial burden.

Assam is one of India’s poorest states with a large rural population, many of whom lack access to power. Demand for electricity in the state has grown rapidly over the past decade but getting it to businesses and households has been hindered by weaknesses in the transmission and distribution networks. A lack of electrification in poor rural areas holds back poverty reduction.

“The lack of sufficient and reliable power is eroding the competitiveness of the manufacturing and agriculture industries, impacting food security and preventing Assam from accessing badly needed investment, so improving power supply at a reasonable cost is essential to boost the state economy and to reduce poverty,” said Naoki Sakai, Senior Climate Change Specialist in ADB’s South Asia Department.

The facility will provide funds to improve transmission and distribution infrastructure, including reducing system losses. A successful distribution franchise scheme, using a public-private partnership model, will be expanded to double consumer coverage.

Technical assistance will be given to lay the groundwork for the development of off-grid renewable power pilot projects, targeted at remote rural communities, and to strengthen the management capacity of the state power companies.

The financing facility is expected to benefit around 1 million households, businesses, hospitals and schools. The expansion of the distribution franchise scheme should result in about 1,500 new jobs, while the renewable energy component will provide off-grid power to around 2,100 villages in the long term.

The loan, from ADB’s ordinary capital resources, is slated for release in three tranches of $60.3 million, $89.7 million and $50 million spread out over five years, with interest determined in accordance with ADB’s LIBOR-based lending facility.

A financing request for the first tranche has been received. Other contributors to the state’s investment program include the World Bank with $360 million, the government of Assam with $154 million, and the private sector with $50 million.

A technical assistance grant of up to $1 million from ADB’s Technical Assistance Special Fund will be provided, with the government supplying an additional $300,000. The government of Assam and Assam State Electricity Board will be the executing agencies for MFF-financed projects, with the funding availability period ending in June 2015.

India to be Strategic Manufacturing Location for Michelin Group

noreply@blogger.com (Travel Planner) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:16:00 +0000

The Michelin Group and the Tamil Nadu Government have finally inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the set up of a tyre plant by Michelin Group in the state.

The plan for Michelin to be more than just a tyre importer and operator in the Indian market has now surpassed its purpose for the company was clear that once India reached a critical volume, it would be necessary for the company to set up a facility in the country to cater to the growing needs. Michelin made it clear that it would be investing in a tyre factory in the near future and recent developments have it that the company has gone ahead and signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Tamil Nadu government in order to build this new facility.

The land allotted to Michelin for the project is located 50 km north of Chennai at Thervoy Kandigai in the Thiruvallur district. The plant will be spread across 290 acres and the Michelin Group has committed an investment of Rs 4,000 crore for the project. The new plant will also open jobs for 1,500 workers locally.

This is a major step forward for the brand and highlighting this occasion, Mr. Prashant Prabhu, President, Michelin Africa-India-Middle East, said, "I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the Tamil Nadu government for offering Michelin a gateway to this state and providing the project with the necessary infrastructure to commence operations here. With the accelerating development of road and highways infrastructure and the number of ongoing road development projects, India is on course to offer customers the opportunity to extract the full value from radial tyres. We believe that India holds tremendous potential for the Michelin Group in terms of establishing a world class manufacturing facility."

Incidentally, the plant which is set to commence production by 2012, will only manufacture truck and bus radials. The company is bullish on this particular segment of the tyre market and wishes to take this segment on with a strong footing. Having said that, the Michelin Group has not ruled out manufacturing passenger car tyres in India instead of importing them from their Thailand facility, but such decisions will only be taken in the future. For now, the focus is on Michelin's first plant in India and the truck/bus radial market, which thanks to the advancements in infrastructure across the country, is touted to be a booming tyre segment.

Jay Bookman China’s ascent traced back to Clinton-era trade deal

noreply@blogger.com (Travel Planner) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:16:00 +0000

Harold Meyerson, at the Washington Post, traces the economic rise of China — and the relative decline of the United States, now deeply indebted to the Chinese — to a trade deal signed by President Clinton and then approved by Congress in 2000:

The U.S. trade deficit with China was roughly $60 billion in 1998, the year before we reached the accord granting China permanent normalized trade relations. Over the following decade, it ballooned to $268 billion, and tens of thousands of U.S. factories closed down. The trade deficit is the major reason China is awash in dollars — about 800 billion of them — and has become our largest creditor. And it is the major reason why boosting consumption in the United States, in an attempt to reverse the recession, has the peculiar effect of boosting production and employment in China just as much as if not more than happens at home….

So as we try to rebalance our relationship with China, let’s not entertain any illusions that our growing dependence on that nation was the result of an unalterable tectonic shift in global power. Our economic elites wanted the higher profits that came with cheaper Chinese labor. They prevailed, and today we are floundering to clean up their mess.

Economic slump no excuse to erode rights-Amnesty

noreply@blogger.com (Travel Planner) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:15:00 +0000

By James Grubel

CANBERRA, Nov 19 (Reuters) - The global economic crisis must not be used as an excuse to unwind human rights for the millions of people now thrown back into poverty, Amnesty International's Secretary General Irene Khan said on Thursday.

Poverty was linked closely to human rights abuses, particularly discrimination against minorities, indigenous people and women, with the economic downturn and food shortages now merging into a potent threat, the global rights group head said.

"What you have is quite a dangerous combination of issues coming up. More than 100 million are back into poverty again," Khan told Reuters in an interview.

A key concern was the plight of migrant workers losing their jobs, and the subsequent fall in pay remittances sent back to their home countries, Khan said, which has had a knock-on effect in spreading poverty.

Amnesty, she said, had major concerns about human rights in China, where civil and political rights were still repressed. Beijing's economic rise was not dependant on continued human rights curbs, she said.

"We're arguing that you need civil and political rights alongside economic development to make that development sustainable," Khan said.

Khan used her trip to Canberra to visit a remote Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory, criticising Australia's handling of indigenous issues and border protection policies, including offshore detention of asylum seekers.

She also demanded Australia close its far-flung Indian Ocean immigration detention centre on Christmas Island, south of Indonesia, now hugely overcrowded due to a surge in asylum boat arrivals following the end of Sri Lanka's bloody civil war.

"Australia is a country that can afford to do that. This is a country which has a core value of a fair go. It needs to be fair to asylum seekers," Khan said.

"We're asking for the closure of Christmas island, we're asking for people to be processed on the mainland."

Australia has about 460,000 Aborigines, with many living in remote communities with poor access to health, housing and education, and with a life expectancy 17 years shorter than other Australians. They also suffer higher rates of unemployment, imprisonment and domestic violence.

Khan said a government intervention in the outback Northern Territory, aimed at protecting women and children from alcohol fuelled violence, had meant 45,000 Aborigines were now subject to state-sponsored racial discrimination.

She described living conditions in some communities as "very grim" and said the government must reinstate racial discrimination laws.

Posey joins Treasure Coast Republicans who say stimulus package jobs numbers incorrect

noreply@blogger.com (Travel Planner) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:15:00 +0000

U.S. Rep. Bill Posey, R-Rockledge, has joined a growing number of Republicans to question the federal government’s attempt to showcase economic recovery efforts.

Posey noted that the Recovery Board, created to oversee money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, has recorded on its Web site, recovery.gov, money and jobs going to Florida congressional districts that do not exist.

“Florida is listed as having 6 extra congressional districts and the last time I checked there was no ‘double zero’ district, or an 88th district,” said Posey. “This has to be examined to make sure the funds are being spent properly.”

There are 25 congressional districts in the state. The Web site reports the stimulus program created 52 jobs in the 34th Congressional District of Florida and five more in the 86th District.

In a district numbered “OO,” 46 jobs have been created. The site also lists the state as having a 35th, 53rd and 88th district.

Jeff Ostermayer, the spokesman for Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, earlier said “The administration spent $16 million on this Web site and they can’t seem to tell anyone where all the jobs are being created.”

Ed Pound, communications director for the recovery board created to track the stimulus spending, told ABC News that the nonexistent congressional districts were caused by human error. So far, they have found 700 mistakenly credited congressional districts out of more than 130,000 stimulus grants.

“Some recipients clearly don’t know what congressional district they live in, so they appear to be just throwing in any number,” Pound told ABC News.

Vice President Joe Biden has already directed the board to correct the mistakes.

According to recovery.gov, in Rooney’s 16th District, which includes portions of Martin and St. Lucie counties, the Web site shows 156.2 jobs have been created, with $174.9 million spent.

In Florida’s 15th District, which includes Indian River County, 198.3 jobs have been created, according to recovery.gov.

In Florida’s 23th District, which includes western portions of Martin and St. Lucie counties, along with most of Fort Pierce, 299.1 jobs have been created, the Web site states.

Singapore Says Economy May Expand 3% to 5% Next Year

noreply@blogger.com (Travel Planner) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:14:00 +0000

Nov. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Singapore said its economy will expand next year after exiting the deepest recession since independence in 1965, adding to evidence of a regional recovery that’s prompted some policy makers to start removing stimulus.

The economy will grow 3 percent to 5 percent in 2010 after shrinking as much as 2.5 percent this year, the trade ministry said in a statement today. Gross domestic product climbed a revised annualized 14.2 percent last quarter from the previous three months, the second consecutive expansion, it said.

Australia and India have started to tighten monetary policy and Singapore said today it will gradually pull back stimulus measures as the world economy revives. The island’s outlook for 2010 is closely linked to global conditions and a “sluggish recovery” in demand for exports by companies such as Stats Chippac Ltd. will moderate growth prospects, the ministry said.

“Singapore’s recovery, like many other Asian economies, will be patchy,” said Vishnu Varathan, an economist at Forecast Singapore Pte. “The policies in place and the actions taken will determine the amount of turbulence we see next year.”

The Straits Times Index rose 0.8 percent to 2,766.21 as of 10:53 a.m. local time after the government released the 2010 growth forecast. The Singapore dollar was little changed at S$1.3863 against the U.S. currency.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore said last month it will maintain a zero appreciation stance in its currency policy, refraining from further monetary easing after opting for a de- facto devaluation of the exchange rate in April to counter collapsing exports. There is no change in policy, it said today.

Inflation Forecast

Consumer prices will gain between 2.5 percent and 3.5 percent in 2010, from an earlier prediction of as much as 2 percent, the government said today, raising its inflation forecast amid higher housing values. The central bank uses its currency, rather than interest rates, to manage inflation.

Growth in Asia’s largest economies including Japan and South Korea is accelerating as companies such as Samsung Electronics Co. report surging profits. Malaysia and Thailand, which are releasing GDP figures in the next few days, are forecast by analysts to post smaller economic declines in the third quarter from a year earlier.

CapitaLand Ltd., Southeast Asia’s largest real-estate developer, said today there is “strong buying interest” in its private residential projects in Singapore while demand for its commercial properties “remains resilient.”

Unwinding Stimulus

Policy makers around the world are moving to unwind some of the emergency steps they took to counter the world recession after cutting interest rates and outlaying more than $2 trillion in government spending.

Singapore plans to gradually scale back its stimulus measures, Ravi Menon, an official at the trade ministry, told reporters today. The government, which extended a wage subsidy program for employers that was set to expire this year to avoid an increase in job losses, isn’t likely to continue the so- called Jobs Credit Scheme when it ends in June, Menon said.

Asia-Pacific leaders said last week fiscal and monetary stimulus measures need separate exit strategies and timing, as countries seek a balance between protecting nascent growth and preventing asset bubbles.

“There’s a bit of inertia among policy makers in removing stimulus, especially monetary tightening,” Varathan said. “They need to be pushed either by inflationary pressures or see convincing growth along with a better job market.”

Asset Price Watch

Policy makers in Singapore and across the region are monitoring asset prices, Ong Chong Tee, a central bank deputy managing director, said today. He said he wouldn’t characterize recent price gains as a “bubble.”

The $182 billion economy grew a revised 0.6 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, compared with the median estimate for a 0.5 percent gain in a Bloomberg News survey of nine economists.

The island’s economy is forecast to contract this quarter from the previous three months, Menon said. The government doesn’t expect a return to recessionary conditions even as the outlook for the second half of 2010 remains uncertain, he said.

The recent rebound “reflected aggressive restocking behavior following the initial fallout of the crisis in late 2008,” he said. “This is not expected to continue. With inventories now back at more sustainable levels, we expect production to adjust to prevailing market conditions.”

Manufacturing, which accounts for about a quarter of the economy, rose 6.6 percent from a year earlier last quarter after sliding 1.1 percent in the three months through June.

Singapore raised its 2009 forecast for exports today, predicting overseas shipments may drop between 10 percent and 11 percent, less than a previous estimate of as much as 12 percent. Trade may expand between 7 percent and 9 percent in 2010, after shrinking as much as 22 percent this year, the government said.

Companies Call Government Incentives the Key to Green

noreply@blogger.com (Travel Planner) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:13:00 +0000

IN less than three weeks, world leaders will gather in Copenhagen to begin hammering out an agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions and combat global warming.

But many clean-energy companies, which make and use the technologies that in theory will help wean the world off polluting fossil fuels, are reacting with a shrug — and not merely because expectations for Copenhagen have plunged.

What matters far more in the near term, the companies say, are national governments’ efforts to provide incentives for developing technologies like wind and solar power or cellulosic ethanol.

Copenhagen “is a very important backdrop,” said Tom Carnahan, the founder and president of Wind Capital Group, a wind developer in St. Louis. “But the real battle for what our energy future is going to be is Washington.”

The reality, experts say, is that the clean-energy industry has already begun to find its footing, both in the United States and abroad, without any recent international action on climate — although concerns about emissions as well as energy security are clearly the driving force. A carbon reduction plan, and hence the creation of markets that put a price on carbon, would have little immediate impact on solar or wind power unless the price on carbon is very high.

“Of course carbon price, whether foreign or domestic, is the critical element in the long-term economics of renewables and efficiency — but is of relatively little consequence now,” Seth Kaplan, a vice president at the Conservation Law Foundation, an environmental group, wrote in an e-mail message.

In this country, wind power has become one of the fastest-growing types of electricity generation, aided by a federal tax credit and state policies that require a certain proportion of electricity to be generated by renewable sources. Solar power, particularly the installation of rooftop panels, is largely thriving, too. Together, though, renewables other than hydropower account for only 3 percent of electricity.

China has also been ramping up its renewable energy, particularly in wind, due partly to concerns about pollution. And it has aggressively pursued manufacturing of wind and solar power, stirring concern in Congress — where “green jobs” has become an almost mandatory talking point — about the competitiveness of American industry. Sales of wind power components to five Chinese state-owned turbine manufacturers are “going gangbusters,” said Gregory J. Yurek, chief executive of American Superconductor, a Devens, Mass., company that makes parts for wind turbines and the electric grid. One of American Superconductor’s customers, Sinovel Wind, was not even making wind turbines four years ago, he said, and the company will soon be the largest turbine maker in China.

Around the world, “You’re going to see growth in the clean-tech industry almost regardless of what happens in Copenhagen,” Mr. Yurek added.

THERE is plenty more that China and the United States can do to encourage renewable energy production, company executives say. Because renewable energy, especially solar power, is expensive, it requires substantial subsidies or other incentives. Adding renewable energy to the grid also needs to be managed carefully because the supplies of sufficient wind and sunshine vary.

“Ultimately what matters is mandates at the national level,” said Tom Amis, who heads up the renewable energy group at Alston & Bird, a law firm.

In the United States, where tight credit markets caused financing for many projects to dry up early this year, renewable energy developers have praised the government stimulus package. The Treasury and the Department of Energy began handing out grants to wind farm developers a few months ago, with a turnaround of three weeks from application to receipt of money, in some cases.

But most developers still have a wish list, and at the top is a federal “renewable electricity standard.” This tool, modeled on policies already in place in about half the states, would require the country to get a certain percentage of its electricity mix from renewables and energy efficiency. The Waxman-Markey climate bill, which passed the House of Representatives in June, contains this requirement (20 percent by 2020); the Senate is currently considering a slightly weaker version.

Gains made by the wind industry are “going to be short-lived if there is not a consistent federal policy,” said Mr. Carnahan of the Wind Capital Group.

Verenium, a company based in Cambridge, Mass., that is gearing up to produce cellulosic ethanol from sugarcane bagasse (the fiber left after juice is squeezed out of the cane) and other feedstocks, is focused on policies in the United States in the near term. “It really is about what happens nationally,” said Carlos A. Riva, the chief executive. Carbon pricing is important over the longer term, he said, but right now, the drivers for his business include policies from the Departments of Energy and Agriculture, and federal cellulosic ethanol mandates.

Even if the responsibility for shaping the immediate future of clean energy falls to national governments, Copenhagen can help from the policy debate, argues Mark R. Pinto, the chief technology officer of Applied Materials, in Santa Clara., Calif., which makes equipment for manufacturing solar products.

By pushing to the fore the quest to reduce emissions and promote clean energy, Copenhagen can spur action by national governments, Mr. Pinto said.

India, for example, is believed to be about to announce policies to encourage large investments in solar power, perhaps timed to arrive with a splash ahead of the Copenhagen meetings.

There are some new industries that do stand to gain more directly from Copenhagen, however. Carbon traders will also be at the meetings, and hungry for the expansion of their business.

Educational route to Australia

noreply@blogger.com (Travel Planner) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 10:29:00 +0000

Rajesh Tandon: Educational route to Australia
Easy residency status to those with Aussie certificates may be luring students
Rajesh Tandon / October 11, 2009, 0:26 IST

Leading political figures of Australia have been travelling to India to allay fears of ‘attacks’ on Indians in their country. The Indian media has been describing these attacks on students and workers as ‘racist’. What is actually going on?
During the past six years, the number of Indian students in Australia is estimated to have grown manifold—there were nearly 20,000 new students in 2008. The annual growth of Indian students has been reported to be 46 per cent during this period.

Why has Australia become such a favourite educational destination suddenly? The country earned nearly $14 billion last year in foreign exchange from international students; it has, in fact, become a large source of employment and revenue, beside increasingly contributing to the country’s GDP. But unfortunately, this growth has not taken place in universities and other reputed Australian academic institutions; most of the enrolments are happening in private providers of vocational skills. So, hundreds of such providers have sprung up in cities like Melbourne and Sydney to cater to this so-called increased demand from Indian students. And, they are teaching them how to be a cook, barber, travel agent, etc. Thousands of Indian students are spending lots of money to secure this ‘foreign’ education from not-so-credible institutions. These institutes have small ‘lecture halls’ in poorer, cheaper and farther suburbs. In order to meet their growing costs of ‘learning’, these students also do some informal, part-time, low-paying jobs which require working during odd and late hours. Perhaps that is why most taxi drivers in Melbourne are Indian students.

Why such a ‘gold rush’ to get educated, and that too from rural areas of Punjab? It transpires that the Australian government, during the time of Hon Philip Ruddick as Immigration Minister, had made a policy that gave preference to those immigrants who had an Australian educational qualification in grant of residency status. Now, in this situation, unscrupulous ‘educational agents’ have mushroomed both in India and Australia. By using this provision and taking advantage of the largely unregulated private vocational education sector of Australia, these agents create the possibility of migration in the minds of unsuspecting Indian youth and lure them into selling land or taking huge loans to pay for Australian education.

These ‘new’ students have no knowledge of life in Australia and hence they don’t know how to conduct themselves there.

Recent media reports suggest that the provincial government in Victoria has begun to review these private vocational education providers and found that many of them don’t have the necessary standards as mandated by their own laws. Recent studies (The Australian, September 30, 2009) have shown that quality control for international students in such educational institutions is much weaker in comparison to those catering to domestic students. It has been reported that some of these vocational courses have been conducted in Punjabi, not in English. Many students admitted to these programmes didn’t even possess the specified minimum English language skills. In fact, systems of quality control in Australia need to be upgraded just as much as they do in India.

The above facts may explain why many Indian students feel frustrated, cheated and duped; or that some Indian students feel happy to have ‘beaten’ the system to secure the necessary ‘qualification’ to get residency status. But, it still does not explain why they have been attacked? It appears that the experience of many recent immigrants in Australia, specially those who are non-white and non-professionally qualified, has been similar; they have faced attacks in shops, taxis and subways. That this points to racism in Australian society cannot be disputed. That this gets accentuated in times of economic hardships, when competition for jobs is intense, is understandable. But, it also points towards the culture, practices and procedures of policing in Australia. It may well be that such ‘minor’ incidents are not seriously pursued in this system, while attacks on public or private property are more seriously investigated.

Finally, it is intriguing to ask why Chinese students, who account for an equally high percentage of foreign students and, together with Indians, make up nearly 40 per cent of all international students, are not the targets of such attacks. My enquiries revealed that the Chinese community in Australia is very cohesively organised, politically powerful and uses its economic muscle for the benefit of its community. The same perhaps cannot be said about the Indian fraternity in Australia. Early Indian immigrants were largely professionals, who are now happy ‘enjoying’ the fruits of the Australian system. There is no collective sense of Indianness, which may include the new ‘students’ from India.

While the Australian government may take various steps to ensure that the ‘golden goose’ of Indian students is not prematurely strangled, it is imperative that the Indian system of post-secondary, vocational and higher education is modernised, restructured and upgraded on an urgent basis. The government’s recently launched Skills Mission has the potential to educate students in and accredit a variety of skills and competencies needed in Indian society and the economy today, provided it is established in an inclusive manner and has systems for third-party certification of prior learning assessments as well. Otherwise, many more Indian students will be rushing to Australia and elsewhere to get certification in such skills as plumbing, masonry, massage and hospitality—skills which have been learnt and practised in India for centuries.

The author is the president of the Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA)

Source:http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/rajesh-tandon-educational-route-to-australia/372870/

Obama’s Nobel win splits world press

noreply@blogger.com (Travel Planner) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 10:28:00 +0000

PARIS, Oct 10, (Agencies): The world’s media were divided Saturday after the shock award of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama, with some calling it a victory for ideals and others condemning it as deeply politicised. The prize-giving committee in Oslo named Obama the winner of the prestigious prize on Friday, hailing his “extraordinary” efforts in international diplomacy and hastening nuclear disarmament. But the announcement proved as controversial as it was surprising. The Washington Post’s Dan Balz said there was amazement all around that the award had gone to “a president still in his first year in office with no major accomplishments internationally”. “The breadth of reaction, from exuberant gratification in some quarters to scorn and dismissal in others, underscored the political divisions over the direction of Obama’s policies and the sharply polarised impressions of his leadership,” wrote Balz.

The New York Times called it a “mixed blessing” for Obama that highlighted “the gap between the ambitious promise of his words and his accomplishments”. It said the award further demonstrated that Obama was still celebrated as the “anti-Bush” while in fact he had not shifted as much as he once implied he would from the previous administration’s national security policies. London’s Daily Telegraph said it was “one of the biggest shocks Nobel judges have ever sprung” and would also be seen as one of the most political, with nominations closing just 12 days after Obama took office. France’s Liberation wrote that the prize was deserved “because he’s Obama, with his life symbolically on three continents (and) because his success has become synonymous with dignity and hope.” But, the editorial said, “Could a Nobel Peace Prize laureate decide to attack Iran?” India’s Tribune declared “Obama is Nobel peacemaker”, while the Times of India hailed a “Lifetime award for debutant Obama”.

In China the unofficial Beijing News called it “an award of encouragement”. The paper said the Nobel jury’s decision was more “symbolic” than anything else, and that it was “very clear that Obama’s ‘feats’ are still purely verbal and it will be very difficult to implement them”. Japanese media said the award would increase global expectations of the Obama administration, with the mass-circulation Yomiuri Shimbun saying it was “an important task for him to achieve fruitful results from now on”. Egypt’s Al-Dustur daily called the award “political hypocrisy.” “What’s he done to get this prize?” the paper asked, recalling that US troops remained in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Middle East peace process was still deadlocked and Obama “hasn’t done anything to oblige Israel to get rid of its nuclear weapons.”
In Iran, reformist daily Etemad headlined its story: “Iran’s share in Obama receiving peace prize.”

Liberty
The Dalai Lama on Friday congratulated President Barack Obama on joining him as a Nobel Peace Prize winner and called for the US leader to champion “freedom and liberty.”
The exiled Tibetan leader, who is in Washington, sent Obama a letter of congratulations even though the president, in an apparent bid not to upset China, avoiding meeting the Buddhist monk during his weeklong visit.
The Dalai Lama, who won the prestigious award in 1989, told Obama that the Nobel committee “recognized your approach towards resolving international conflicts through the wisdom and power of dialogue.”
He praised Obama’s advocacy for ridding the world of nuclear weapons and improving the environment. “I have maintained that the founding fathers of the United States have made this country the greatest democracy and a champion of freedom and liberty,” the Dalai Lama wrote.
“It is, therefore, important for today’s American leaders to adopt principled leadership based on these high ideals. Such an approach will not only enhance the reputation of the United States, but also contribute tremendously to reducing tension in the world.”

Obama basked in new-found glory Saturday, vowing to consider his surprise Nobel Peace Prize as “a call for action” to address the challenges of the new century.
But critics argued the award may have been premature.
A visibly surprised Obama, 48, said Friday he did not feel fit to join the honor roll of revered Nobel peace laureates, but vowed to use the prize as a “call to action” to lead the world in confronting its deepest challenges. As shockwaves from the Nobel committee in Oslo raced around the world, many saw the award as a final swipe at ex-president George W. Bush. Critics complained Obama had few big achievements to justify such an illustrious prize.
Gasps greeted the announcement at the Nobel Institute in Oslo, where the jury hailed Obama’s “extraordinary” efforts in international diplomacy and hastening nuclear disarmament.

“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,” the Nobel jury said.
As criticism of the jury’s unanimous decision swelled, the head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee Thorbjoern Jagland denied the award was premature and said it recognized great deeds to come, as well as Obama’s record so far.
“We want to emphasise that he has already brought significant changes,” Geir Lundestad, the secretary of the Nobel Committee, told AFP.
“We do of course hope that there will be many concrete changes over the years but... we felt it was right to strengthen him as much as we can in his further struggle for his ideals.”

Record
Obama’s conservative foes pounced on his Nobel Prize win on Friday as an opportunity to lambast the US president’s record and his alleged celebrity status overseas.
The prize may have placed Obama alongside Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King, but it did little to stem a flood of acrimonious political debate that courses through Washington.
Republicans and conservatives derided the Nobel committee’s decision to award its venerated peace prize to the 48-year-old president as “unfortunate” and an “embarrassment.”

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele accused Obama of having celebrity status but no “real achievements” that merited the award.
“The real question Americans are asking is, ‘what has President Obama actually accomplished?’” Steele said in a statement.
“It is unfortunate that the president’s star power has outshined tireless advocates who have made real achievements working towards peace and human rights,” Steele said.
“One thing is certain — President Obama won’t be receiving any awards from Americans for job creation, fiscal responsibility, or backing up rhetoric with concrete action,” Steele said.
Republican lawmaker Gresham Barrett was also critical.
“I’m not sure what the international community loved best; his waffling on Afghanistan, pulling defense missiles out of Eastern Europe, turning his back on freedom fighters in Honduras, coddling Castro, siding with Palestinians against Israel, or almost getting tough on Iran,” he said.

“Hopefully, this surprise award will give the President cause to reevaluate his current course.”
The leader of Norway’s main opposition called Saturday for the resignation of the Nobel Committee’s chairman, one day after Obama was awarded the peace prize, a newspaper reported.
Siv Jensen, head of the far-right Progress Party, said committee head Thorbjoern Jagland should step down because his new job as secretary general of the Council of Europe compromised his independence.
“It would be politically intelligent for Jagland, after having studied the situation, to announce his resignation to avoid” trying to do two jobs at once, Jensen told daily paper Bergens Tidende.
Erna Solberg, leader of Conservative party Hoejre, also criticised Jagland’s attempt to do two jobs and questioned his decision to hand Obama the peace prize.

Jagland, who has headed a Labour government in Norway and also served as foreign minister, was elected secretary general of the Council of Europe at the end of September.
This came several months after he became chairman of the Nobel Committee.
Friday’s decision to hand Obama the Nobel Peace Prize came as a shock and has divided world opinion, with some calling the move a victory for ideals while others condemned it as deeply politicised.
While Russia’s president congratulated Obama for winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Republicans see the award as so outrageous that they’re using it to raise campaign money.
Obama won the prize “for awesomeness,” says the mocking Republican fundraising letter. Obama’s honor shows “how meaningless a once honorable and respected award has become,” says the letter, signed by Michael S. Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had a different view. He said the award will encourage further US-Russian cooperation.
“I hope this decision would serve as an additional incentive for our common work to form a new climate in world politics and promote initiatives which are fundamentally important for global security,” Medvedev said in a letter to Obama.
Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro also weighed in. He called the Nobel award a “positive step,” although he said it was more a repudiation of former President George W. Bush than a recognition of anything concrete Obama has done.
Steele said Obama hasn’t accomplished enough to deserve the prize. Numerous Democrats and independents have expressed similar views, although generally in less bombastic terms.
Asking for contributions to the RNC of $25 to $1,000, Steele wrote that “the Democrats and their international leftist allies want America made subservient to the agenda of global redistribution and control. And truly patriotic Americans like you and our Republican Party are the only thing standing in their way.”

Best time for overseas degree?

noreply@blogger.com (Travel Planner) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 10:22:00 +0000

While the last few years had seen a trend of Indian professionals in Western countries returning to India for jobs, now there are mid-career
professionals looking at opportunities to study overseas in the wake of the slowdown and uncertain job market.

However, instead of going to the traditional campus destinations, many mid-level executives are opting to go to Asian countries such as Singapore, whose universities have collaborations with international universities
. “Many professionals are using the slowdown to undertake either executive MBAs or advanced management programmes. The other courses, which have big takers, are the virtual MBAs and the short-term three-month courses, offered by many international universities.

For example, INSEAD, a graduate business school based in France, has a campus in Singapore as well a centre in Abu Dhabi, which seem to be attracting a lot of Indian students,” says E.Balaji, CEO, of HR service provider Ma Foi Management Consultants.

Interestingly, one reason for the trend of more Indian students looking at courses overseas could actually be the stability afforded by the Indian economy. “Immigrant students perceive India as a market of the future and therefore a sure fire job generator compared with almost any other part of the world. Indian employers also find better value in a student educated say, in the US. The number of Indians studying abroad and eventually securing a senior level position in India is about three times that of those staying put in the US,” feels Rajesh AR, vice president of staffing company TeamLease Services.

“Indian students are travelling abroad to study and returning to India to work because they perceive prospects to be much better in India than elsewhere. The biggest loss from this trend is to the US, which, hitherto, has been having a majority of Indian students immigrating to study, finding a job and living in America. The Indian immigrant student talent pool - sized at around 75,000 annually - benefits the US to a great extent,” he adds.

Various IT companies which were forced to put a large number of their junior and mid-level employees on the bench are following a policy of actively promoting the concept of sabbaticals. The IT/BPO industry, did see an increase in the number of junior and mid-level employees who chose to use the slowdown as an opportunity to pursue studies. This was seen particularly in those companies, which had an excessive number of people on the bench.

While some companies, gave their employees the option of taking sabbaticals with a small pay, some of the others gave them the option of staying on the rolls without pay,” says Prameela Kalive, vice-president and global head, talent management at Zensar Technologies.

High hurdles for IMF on road to new world order

noreply@blogger.com (Travel Planner) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 10:21:00 +0000

WASHINGTON — The International Monetary Fund, rising from villain to saviour through the fires of the global economic crisis, faces steep hurdles in trying to transform into the champion of the new world order.

The IMF's annual meetings with the World Bank in Istanbul last week showcased the newfound punching weight of the major emerging economies like China and India.

Only a week earlier the largest emerging countries joined with the seven richest at the Group of 20 Pittsburgh summit in agreeing a framework for sustainable recovery and financial system reform that considerably boosted IMF responsibilities.

The G20 recommended, and IMF policymakers approved, a shift in voting rights of "at least 5.0 percent" from the over-represented to the under-represented that mainly favours emerging countries; China would get the biggest share.

The increased prominence of the emerging nations at the power table marks a pivotal moment for the Washington-based institution, founded 65 years ago and dominated by the United States and Japan, the two largest economies, and European countries.

Before the worst crisis since the Great Depression struck a year ago, the IMF was widely seen as irrelevant and ineffective, and was hated around the world for harsh conditions on its loans.

IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said the Istanbul meetings would usher in a "new IMF," an institution equipped to help create and shepherd a 21st century global economy.

But when the annual meetings closed Wednesday, the IMF was far from filling that tall order.

There was the issue of allocation of quota shares and voting power among the 186 members that currently gives more weight to some European countries, and less to emerging powers like China and Brazil.

Though IMF policymakers approved the G20 quota recommendations, it remains to be seen which countries give up some voting power and which get more, with negotiations set to continue to 2011.

Strauss-Kahn pointed out that "only 36 out of the needed 111 countries have passed the legislation" to bring the 2008 quota and vote reform into force.

The IMF also pledged to reform governance in an institution traditionally headed by a European.

Currently the managing director and chief economist are both French, the deputy managing director is, as always, an American, and the United States, as the biggest stakeholder, wields an effective veto.

"Signs, behind the scenes, from both Europe and the White House are not exactly encouraging in this regard; they just don't want to give up 'jobs for the boys'," said Simon Johnson, a former IMF chief economist.

"In some future crisis, you might want your guy in the managing director job, which comes with great discretion and no constraints under the usual rule of law."

Another important process under way is collecting the more than 500 billion dollars promised by member nations to triple the fund's resources to boost lending capacity to distressed economies.

Germany, a major donor, said at the Istanbul meetings the vast increase in the IMF reserves was only "temporary" to deal with the crisis.

The G20 London summit in April agreed that senior leadership at the international financial institutions should be chosen through an open, transparent, and merit-based selection process.

In light of this, Strauss-Kahn's nomination of a Japanese replacement, former finance ministry official Naoyuki Shinohara, for a departing Japanese deputy, raised eyebrows.

"To replace one Japanese national with another in this fashion is to break a critical symbolic and substantive G20 pledge -- the signal it sends is that the next managing director of the IMF will be European, the next president of the World Bank will be American, etc, as they have always been," said Johnson.

"This further undermines attempts to rebuild the legitimacy of these institutions.... The signal this sends to emerging market leaders is evident and, quite frankly, insulting," he added.

Johnson said that pro-IMF people among emerging countries had hoped for the nomination of a distinguished Chinese bureaucrat, which "would have been a brilliant gesture."