nvs' Stream

Web 2.0 Summit 2010: Battle Ground for Facebook and Google

2010-11-15T01:14:00.001-08:00

Article first published as Web 2.0 Summit 2010: Battle Ground for Facebook and Google on Blogcritics.

Two web titans Google and Facebook must be preparing their rank and file to head on with their rivals. Rivalry seems to be increasing between Google and Facebook for the domination in commercial internet. Amassing millions of users on the internet the two giants are going to present their new plans in Web 2.0 summit 2010, to be held at Palace Hotel in San Francisco for three days from November 15 to 17.

Titans’ Rivalry

Rivalry developed between Goggle’s search engine and social networking service giant Facebook, as they pursued to attract more number of users claiming information monopoly. It is actually a natural development when the market is limited. But, monopolies always prevent competition, making users deprive of new inventions at cheap costs.

While Google is famous for its instant search results, Facebook became famous in social networking handing several tools for users to interact among themselves. Google introduced a new phase to its search engine offering previews of the sites on the search results page itself. It looks crazy when it is known that many users of Facebook are clinging to their PCs even during their sleep in a bid of updating their conservations on Facebook whenever they get up from sleep. Facebook became an obsession to many younger users.

Google introduced “Google Wave” to make available all of its services on a single platform, but failed, as several such services already occupied the internet space. Eventually, Google had to withdraw from promoting Google Wave further. Official announce was made by Google a few months ago to that effect. Now, Google and Facebook are planning to cross their conventional platforms to win more space in commercial internet.

Google intends to enter social networking arena while Facebook plans to start its own email service dubbed as Gmail-killer within Facebook ranks, as reported by the Reuters news agency, quoting Techcrunch blog. Facebook may also provide “@facebook.com” email addresses to existing Facebook users. Last week, Google began blocking a Facebook feature that automatically imports Gmail contacts to Facebook site. Google says Facebook is not allowing its users to import and export of their information.

Aggressive Acquisitions

Google aggressively bought several small social networking sites to encroach upon social networking space. It bought online networking application maker ‘Slide’ in August first week as part of a drive to “make Google services socially aware.” San Francisco based Slide was launched in 2005. It was behind applications such as SuperPoke and FunSpace, which became famous on social networking sites Facebook and others. It develops games, widgets, and applications specifically for social media.

Google purchased Jambool, a virtual currency platform, launched in 2006. It allows users and developers to maintain virtual economies and monetize them. Jambool is a competitor to Facebook credits. Jambool is said to collect 6 to 10% of users’ transactions where Facebook is said to retain 30 percent.

Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt said in August that they acquired 17 companies in 2010 alone including Aardvark, reMail, Picnik, DocVerse, Simplify Media, Episodic, PlinkArt, Agnilux, LabPixies, Bump Technologies, Global IP Solutions, Simplify Media, Invite Media, ITA Software, Metaweb, Instantiations along with Slide and Jambool. Analysts say these are supposed to be potential components of “Google Me” a supposed upcoming social networking site of Google. But, strangely Eric says many of Google’s acquisitions are big failures.

After Eric’s announcement, Google went on to buy SocialDeck, a mobile game developing company based in Canada and Angstro that helps derive news and information from social media like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Web 2.0 Summit 2010

As per Web2Summit.com, the summit gathers the intelligence innovation, and leadership of the internet and media industries for a conversation. It says Google founder Sergey Brin may visit the conference. The summit is supposed to receive insights from best internet personalities. Jim Balsillie, CEO of Research in Motion (RIM), makers of controversial BlackBerry mobile phone, will also attend the summit, the site says. Over 50 leaders and global executives are attending the summit including FCC Chairman Genachowski, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and Baidu CEO and Chairman Robin Li.

Technorati Tags: Web 2.0 Summit,Google,Facebook,Google acquisitions

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Why Google is Left Unpunished?

2010-11-15T01:12:00.001-08:00

Article first published as Why Google is Left Unpunished? on Blogcritics.

Google is allowed to simply walk away from the confinement of legal system, though it is repeatedly proved by the European and North American countries that it has infringed upon the privacy laws enacted in their countries. Google’s street view project has come under scrutiny from data protection agencies of several countries since the German data commissioner asked Google last year to audit all the data being collected by Street View cars.

Google’s Revelation

Google then revealed that it had discovered the Street View cars were collecting data of personal details from unsecured networks along with the location of wi-fi hotspots. Google has made an unnamed engineer a scapegoat while accepting the mistake it has done. It simply said a code written by an engineer was mistakenly incorporated into the software of the Street View cars.

The question remains here that how Google thinks it is legal to collect the data pertaining to locations of wi-fi hotspots. Are people having wi-fi connections, which are unsecured, meant to be exploited for having unsecured connections? If a house owner forgets to lock his house, and if a theft occurs, will it mean the thief is not supposed to face punishment? Google is only supposed to map the streets but not wi-fi hotspots.

Purposeful Violation

British conservative MP Robert Halfon rejected this as a mistake and alleged that the Google had done the mistake purposefully and it had collected the data for commercial use. This was denied by Google, without giving details of why the collected data was redirected to be stored on hard disks. It seems Google has a policy of not talking too much. Nobody wants it to talk much but it has to talk when its actions are proved to be detrimental to the privacy and human rights of the internet users.

ICO’s U-Turn

The UK’s information commissioner’s office (ICO) ruled previously that no data breach had occurred. But, after the Canadian government disclosed that if found Google had breached its privacy laws in October, ICO said it would again look into the matter. Now ICO says there was a significant breach of the UK’s Data Protection Act when Google collected personal data via its Street View cars. It added Google would not face fine or punishment but it would audit Google’s data protection practices.

One may wonder how this U-turn occurs. Did it lack technical expertise to find what Google has actually done with its Street View project? Mr. Halfon said while welcoming ICO’s latest ruling that the ICO failed to act when it was supposed to act and asked how ICO can audit Google’s practices when it had already proved that it lacked technical expertise by ruling out any breach of privacy laws by Google, previously. But, ICO says it has sufficient experience to audit Google. Then the question arises why it could not find the breach initially. Halfon said they could not have confidence on ICO and the people felt powerless.

No Punishment

Infringing upon privacy laws is a crime. Otherwise there is no need of the law. As the law is there and Google has committed a crime by infringing upon privacy laws through illegal data collection, Google has to be punished according to the law. When it comes to law it doesn’t matter whether the crime is done purposefully or mistakenly. One cannot believe that Google, the internet giant, did not know what its project was doing, as Halfon said. It knows to write code for data collection, but it doesn’t know the code is not doing what it is supposed to do. Who is innocent here? The UK’s privacy laws, the setup of ICO are a waste of exercise and money if it cannot punish the privacy violators.

Similarly Canadian government said, “This incident was a serious violation of Canadian’s privacy rights.” But, it also said no further action would be taken if Google tightened its privacy policies. What is the mystery here? Google violated privacy rights, which amounts a crime, still it gets no punishment. Google has the same privacy policies then and now. It has very powerful privacy principles. Only thing is it doesn’t follow its own privacy principles, because they are made for others.

Google says it is profoundly sorry. Can a crime be condoned with an apology? Can a petty burglar escape police treatment by offering an apology? In most of the cases of burglary, the property is recovered otherwise of which punishment will be extended. In Google’s case recovery of the data it collected has become doubtful. Robert Halfon says the data must be deleted. But ICO did not say a word on this. Google said, "We are in the process of confirming that there are no outstanding legal obligations upon us to retain the data, and will then ensure that it is quickly and safely deleted." This looks complex. Google has already legal obligations for infringing upon the privacy laws. If the law does not stipulate any punishment, then there is no need of law at all.

As Mr. Halfon said people are left powerless. In democracies, people are supposed to hold highest power through their elected governments. But, it seems the governments have forgotten to represent the interests of the people. People have to think seriously about this.

Technorati Tags: Data Protection Act,Internet privacy,Google,Street View,Data theft

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G20 Seoul Summit Delivers Fake Commitments Once Again

2010-11-14T07:57:00.001-08:00

Article first published as G20 Seoul Summit Delivers Fake Commitments Once Again on Blogcritics.

G20 summit held in Seoul on November 11 and 12 has failed to reach a concrete agreement to address the rising fears of currency war. It has also failed to bring out guidelines for curbing trade imbalances as envisaged by the world countries amid discouraging conditions of multi-speed growths for various economies. Fifth communique issued by the G20 countries since the financial and economic crisis broke out in 2008, has repeated its rhetoric of addressing concerns of the most vulnerable, providing social protection, decent work and also ensuring accelerated growth in low income countries (or Least Developed Countries).

Jobs at Heart of Recovery!

The communique said the G20 countries were determined to put jobs at the heart of the recovery which is just a big lie. The leaders of the developed countries and the emerging market economies (EMEs) are not ashamed even a bit to give this empty commitment, where at least 100 million have been stripped of their jobs and 120 million have been pushed into hunger afresh after the unprecedented, worst global economic crisis since the great depression has been unleashed by the greedy global financial conglomerates.

There have not been serious attempts to create jobs throughout the world, instead the jobs are lost every day by the austerity measures in European Union countries and jobless growth in the US. Number of economists and analysts along with Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, have dubbed the growth that we are witnessing as “jobless growth.”

Crisis Contributors

BBC news has quoted Obama as saying there should be no controversy about fixing imbalances “that helped to contribute to the crisis that we just went through.” Obama must have lost his senses or have suffered from short term dementia, let us say. Otherwise, G20’s first communique after the financial crisis, and even subsequent communiqués have acknowledged that the financial conglomerates and their risky, greedy financial business practices have created the worst crisis. There was not a mention of trade imbalances contributing the crisis in G20 communiqués, yet Mr. Obama dared to spell it. If Obama likes to fix imbalances, that is well and good, but this type of miscalculations only contribute to rising trade tensions.

Trade Imbalances

The US and the EU have been accusing China for unfair undervaluation of its currency, Yuan. The US has been particularly critical of Yuan value. Its argument has been that China is able to amass trade surpluses due to artificially kept low Yuan value. It says Yuan should be allowed to appreciate freely in line with the market movements.

But, Germany has recently accused the US for announcing $600 billion of QE2, which it says is an indirect measure of devaluation of the dollar. The US has come under attack also from Brazil, India, China, Russia and Japan for its QE2 as it would encourage hot money to flow into emerging and even other developed economies putting upward pressure on their currencies there by providing competitive advantage to the US exports. The QE2 move has intensified fears over the supposed currency war.

In this background, currency war and trade imbalances have occupied top place in the main agenda of the G20 Seoul conference. A separate meeting between the two main constituents of the currency war, the US and China, did not produce any solution during G20 conference. Even the European leaders have been called in to help produce a solution to the ongoing heated debate over currency devaluations, but to no avail.

Vague Commitments

They finally have come out with vague statements of framing “indicative guidelines” to tackle trade imbalances. They have said they agreed to avoid “competitive devaluation” without stating any concrete steps to achieve that goal. The leaders have reportedly vowed to follow market determined exchange rates referring China’s Yuan value.

They have pledged not resort to competitive devaluation, perhaps a reference to the recent announcement of the QE2 by the Federal Reserve. In a bid to address the concern of the EMEs over the flow of hot money, they have been allowed to impose “carefully designed” control measures. One must wonder how these measures will look like. Perhaps, the EMEs need to be careful so that they may not disturb the free flow of globalized capital in the name of curbing hot money. And yet, they should curb hot money flow to prevent inflation, price rise and hence popular discontent in their countries. It is a very difficult task, indeed. And, that is the fate of the EMEs resulted from being the members of G20 and leaving G77.

Technorati Tags: QE2,G20 Seoul,Trade imbalance,Currency war,EMEs,LDCs,Hot money,Unemployment

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Manmohan Singh Dances to Obama’s Tune in G20 Conference at Seoul

2010-11-13T12:35:00.001-08:00

Article first published as Manmohan Singh Dances to Obamaâ€™s Tune in G20 Conference at Seoul on Technorati.

The Prime Minister of India has proved that so-called Manmohanamics is nothing but making India subservient to the interests of the western imperialist countries, particularly to those of the US on an international forum, G20. During his speech in G20 conference held at Seoul, South Korea on November 11 and 12, he danced to the tune of the US President Obama on the issue of current account deficits being faced by the US. He gave chorus to the US’ song deviating himself from his colleagues of emerging market economies.

CAD vs. CAS

Manmohan said in the G20 conference, “Major industrialized countries were running unsustainable current account deficits which have to be reduced to manageable levels.” Up to this point, no one needs to object. He then added, “If this is not to have a contractionary impact on the world economy, it must be offset by reducing current account surpluses elsewhere. This rebalancing requires pursuit of appropriately coordinated policies in our countries.” And, there he was, referring to his neighboring developing country, China.

So, Indian prime minister was telling that in order to reduce the trade deficit and hence the current account deficit of the US, China has to reduce its trade surplus and hence of course, its CAD. He is suggesting the China and apparently other surplus countries have to take appropriate measures like coordinated policies, to reduce their surpluses so that deficit countries may be prospered and reduce their trade deficits. That’s what he called rebalancing. Isn’t this the one vigorously being proposed by the US president Obama and its treasury secretary Timothy Geithner? Yes, it is.

Manmohan vs. Montek Singh

Whether Manmohan was aware of it or not, his market economy oriented friend and the Vice Chairman of India’s Planning Commission said on the sidelines of the G20 summit on November 11, "The real issue is given that it is a problem, how do we coordinate policy? I don't think you should be too demanding ... because such policy coordination has never been attempted before."

Montek Singh advocated the G20 nations should not be too demanding on policy coordination while his Prime Minister said the G20 nations should pursue appropriately coordinated policies. Probably Montek was talking out of his conscience and Manmohan out of his desire to appease his imperialist boss, Obama or the US.

Did the US follow the same principle before 1985 when it maintained trade surpluses? Can Manmohan convey Germany, Japan and other surplus countries to narrow their surpluses and help reduce deficits of the deficit-ridden countries? Manmohan should have named the surplus countries and directly tell them to reduce their current account surpluses and have faced the consequences. He was praised as “the world’s most intellectual” during Obama’s tour to India from November 6 to 8. If Manmohan wants to express his gratitude he shall praise Obama picking up his skills like orator, first African president for the US and so on. Instead, he chose to sacrifice CASs of other countries like China and Germany. Should one take it as his naïve or subservience? This author prefers the later.

EMEs’ Growth Prospects

Manmohan added, “Uncertainty about the prospects of industrialized countries affects the investment climate and dampens the medium term growth prospects of emerging market countries.” He must be reminded of what IMF director Dominique Strauss Kahn was telling to EMEs for last six months or so. Strauss Kahn said that the EMEs had to develop their domestic markets and to increase domestic demand rather than relying on export markets, thereby helping the US reduce its trade deficit and current account deficit.

If one looks at the statements of the heads of these G20 countries over at least a year, it will be entertaining to observe full of contradictions among themselves. One may find contradictions in one’s own statements also over a time. It is not to say that they are aimless or clueless. The present economic system itself is the feeding ground for such contradictions in which big businesses hunt for profits depriving the purchasing power of the consumers on whom they depend for more profits. It is the contradiction developed out of disparities in income distribution. Those who produce get minimal or almost nothing sometimes of it, while those handful of the people who do not take part in production, amass major share of the wealth. Unless this fact is accepted, even thousands of Harvard schools may not produce brains that can solve the economic crises in the capitalist system of production and distribution.

Technorati Tags: Manmohan,Montek Singh,EMEs,Trade imbalance,Current Account Deficit,Growth

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Brazil Enters Currency War

2010-11-05T20:52:00.001-07:00

With announcement of second stimulus dubbed as QE2 of $600 billion by the US’ Federal Reserve, Brazil’s entry into the so-called currency war, the term coined by the IMF director Dominique Strauss Khan. Brazil is the first country to criticize the move by the Federal Reserve, which stated that the second stimulus was aimed to stimulate the slowing GDP growth. It said it would implement the package over next eight years through buying government bonds.

Competitive Advantage

But, Brazil sees the Fed’s move as a step to devalue the Dollar to inflate the competitive advantage of the US’ exports over others. Brazil’s concern is that the money injected into the US’ economy would flow to the emerging market economies (EMEs) seeking higher returns, thereby pushing their currency values that would result into reducing the competitive advantage of exports from the EMEs.

China Cautious

China reacted cautiously on November 5 saying that it would not go on record for or against the Fed’s move, but said the debate highlighted the need for reforming the international financial system. It added it can understand the US concern of slow growth. Chinese central bank officials met regularly with their Fed counterparts, and the Americans gave detailed explanations for the monetary changes, the central bank chief Zhou Xiaochuan said on Friday.

Currency War Leads to…

Brazil’s finance minister Guido Mantega said, “It’s no use throwing dollars out of a helicopter. The only result is to devalue the dollar to achieve greater competitiveness on international markets.” The President-elect Dilma Rousseff said in a joint press conference with the outgoing president Lula Da Silva, “The last time there was a series of competitive devaluations… it ended in world war two,” (Emphasis not added). Brazil’s currency the Real rose 39 percent against the dollar since the start of 2009. Brazilian industrial exports are said to be hurt due to strengthening of the Real against dollar.

It is quite interesting that the US, which has been severely critical of Yuan’s pegging to the dollar and rallied international campaign to force China to allow Yuan’s appreciation, has now come under scrutiny for the same reason. It seems the IMF Chief’s expectation of “currency war”, though he denied it saying as explicitly as it sounded, has already begun.

Technorati Tags: QE2,Currency war,Brazil,China,Federal Reserve

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Is Yemeni Girl Student Victim of Terrorist Bomb Plot?

2010-10-31T20:37:00.001-07:00

Article first published as Is Yemeni Girl Student Victim of Terrorist Bomb Plot? on Blogcritics.

Arrest of Yemeni girl student aged in her early twenties sparked outrage among Yemeni student community. They believe the girl student was made a scapegoat in the plot. They protested against the arrest of the student and her mother in Sanaa University campus where the student, identified as Hanan Al-Samawi, is pursuing her 5-year engineering degree.

The accusation of Hanan’s colleagues that the she was made scapegoat seems credible for the following reasons.

Yemeni authorities said the student was a medical student, whereas the student is actually an engineering student in Sanaa University in Yemeni capital Sana’a.
Yemen police arrested the student after tracing through her telephone number left with Cargo Company. It is highly impossible that any bomb plotter would leave his/ her telephone number and ID cart when he/she sending bombs abroad with a view to blow up the aircraft in the air. It is quite illogical.
The neighbors of the students house in a poor area stated that the family is pious but never appeared that they could be a part of a terror plot.
Colleagues of the student say Hanan is not known to be a participant of any religious or political activities.
Though the cargo planes originated from Yemen, they stopped at more than one stops before reaching U.K. and Dubai where the bombs were uncovered.
Investigators are still attempting to retrace the routes of the cargo planes, which mean the originating points of the bomb plot are not credibly established.

Meanwhile, CNN reported on October 31 that the arrested student and her mother Amatilullah Mohammed were released quoting student’s father Mohammed Al-Samawi.

The counsel for the female student and a human rights activist said the arrest of student’s mother was illegal. Yemen has been under scrutiny ever since an attempt to detonate an US-bound plane on last year’s Christmas day. The latest bomb plots were detected with the information passed from Saudi Arabia, which has also been under severe pressure to take on terrorist organisation al-Qaeda since 9/11 attacks as attackers were of Saudi origin.

Technorati Tags: Yemen terror plot,Sanaa University

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Google’s Evil Intentions Become Visible as UK MPs Grill

2010-10-31T06:51:00.001-07:00

Article first published as Googleâ€™s Evil Intentions Become Visible as U.K. MPs Grill on Blogcritics.

Google’s explanation about its wi-fi data collection that it collected erroneously the emails and passwords has been rejected by the UK MPs, during a two-hour parliamentary debate on privacy. Google has always maintained that the personal data in error because of code being mistakenly included in the street view software. This statement itself demonstrates that Google is not ready to accept what it has done.

Privacy Debate

That is why a Conservative MP Robert Halfon has stated, "I find it hard to believe that a company with the creative genius and originality of Google could map the personal wi-fi details, computer passwords and e-mail addresses of millions of people across the world and not know what it was doing." It is impossible to believe that Google did not know what it was doing, given Google’s leadership in cyber technology. It is pretending innocence to escape the consequences of its wrong doing.

Robert added, “My own feeling is that this data was of use to Google for commercial purposes and that is why it was done.” Yes, Robert was true about Google’s intentions. It has everything to with commercial interests. There could be more than that also, given the accusations from some quarters that CIA and Google are secretly related on intelligence issues, though the facts are yet to be established.

Google’s Denial

Google has a long history of denying the facts of its evil intentions. Google accepts its market leadership in communication technology but pretends innocence when it is confronted with the facts of its intentions over cyber dominance, that too through illegal methods.

For example, Google’s PR official told the BBC’s Today programme that a code prepared for other experimental use was incorporated by mistake into street view project which was intended to map wi-fi hotspots in order to improve Google’s location-based services. The official went on to say the data collected was never used in any other Google project and it had no such intentions.

Fooling People Always

Most importantly and probably expecting the people to be foolish always, Google maintained that it did not know the mistakenly incorporated code would collect personal and sensitive information pertaining to unsecured wireless networks. And we have to take Google as granted whatever it tells about computer code. It seems Google has underestimated the people’s logical thinking when it decided to prepare a code to be incorporated into street view project to collect personal information for commercial use.

Ironically, Google did not know even if the personal data was being collected for five years. It did not know the collected personal data was selectively getting stored on hard disks. And it was done without knowledge of the top brass of the Google Company. The Privacy International said the said the other day that the code was a complex one and needed the approval of the top people of the company for the allocation of funds. But, Google shifts entire responsibility to a single engineer whose name is never revealed by the company. If the Google had no evil intentions and if it was a mistake, it should have made someone responsible for the damage it has caused to the privacy interests of the people.

‘Never Used’ Doesn’t Mean ‘Won’t be Used’

Google official said, “This data has never been used in any Google product, was never intended to be used by Google and will never be used.” It may be true that Google never used the data in any of its other products. But, it cannot be believed that the data would not be used. If that is the case why the hell the personal data was systematically stored at a desired location as claimed by the Privacy International? Google won’t answer these questions directly. It has a policy of never addressing questions and queries publicly, an attempt to safeguard its evil privacy.

Responding to Robert Halfon questions, Google simply said, “the allegations are completely untrue.” That’s it, very simple. You need not explain, argue, contend or prove. Just deny it and keep calm, no matter how the questions and doubts are reasonably justified. As Robert himself put it, “The question is whether the company underestimated the reaction of the public, and many governments and the world, once it had been revealed what it had done.”

Naked Truth

As Robert said it is not actually a question but a truth, a naked truth. Google is caught with its hand in the cookie jar. Graham Cluley, a senior consultant at security firm Sophos was surprised that the Google staff did not realize what the street view cars were storing. He was quoted by BBC as saying, “If you were competent then it would be surprising that you wouldn’t know that you were storing far more than you actually needed.”

The BBC News presented a case of a women refugee whose request was not properly looked into by Google. It is understood that refugees would not want their locations pictured and placed on the internet. Another UK MP revealed that requests to Google to remove the refuge from the map had received no response. Again Google’s answer is simple. It said to BBC that it was unaware of this particular case. It is not surprising, indeed. Google could not detect that a code written by one of its employees was collecting personal data. Then how could it come to know about a single request of a refugee wanting her to be removed from the whole lot of vast data that it collected?

Lessons for Governments and People

The governments have to realize that their interest toward making money is compromising the security and privacy laws enacted by them. The firms like Google are exploiting the concerns of the governments for their debts and deficits that are pushing them not to care for where the money is coming from and what the social costs of such money of evil businesses.

The people must be aware of the cost of the free stuff available on the internet. What is supposed to be available at free of cost might cost more than the cost required to pay for the free stuff. That is the cost of our privacy, personal information. We can be manipulated through our social websites internet ads and offerings by compromising our personal information. So netizens, beware!

Technorati Tags: Street-view cars,Wi-fi data,Privacy,Google goes evil

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India Succumbs to US Pressure, Accedes CSC Pact for Nuclear Liability

2010-10-29T00:18:00.001-07:00

This article has appeared first on Technorati.com

As Obama visit to India is approaching, attempts to dilute nuclear damage liability bill passed by the Indian parliament are speeded up from the US side. India signed on October 27 an international treaty on civil nuclear liability under pressure from the US.

Domestic Law

Indian Parliament approved recently in August ‘nuclear damage liability bill’ with both ruling and opposition parties taking a unified stand supporting it. Though initial draft did not envisage any liability on suppliers of nuclear material and equipment, the final bill placed liability on suppliers too. However, there are several intermediary conditions to bring into effect the liability on the supplier countries or firms, while the bill places immediate liability of $320 million on the operator country i.e. India.

Imperial US

The US companies are averse to paying liabilities even though they supply substandard and damaged material and equipment due to which nuclear damages may occur. They fear that they will be forced to pay compensation as the US pressured BP to pay a whopping $32 billion for its oil spill in Gulf of Mexico. During deliberations between the ruling and opposition parties regarding passage of nuclear damage liability bill, the US companies lobbied heavily not to place any liability obligations on supplier countries, particularly the US and Japan. But the pressures did not work, as the Indian people were outraged against Bhopal gas leak judgment.

At the same time, the world witnessed two disastrous accidents on which the whole world has its attention, on what the outcome would be. One was the biggest ever oil spill in American history, in the offshore American west coast in Gulf of Mexico. The other one was that thirteen Chilean miners were not yet rescued from a collapsed mine whose videos and photos were published on every media on daily basis.

In this background, Indian parliamentarians could not deny to obligate supplier countries for the nuclear damage. Initially it was tried to insert a clause requiring the operator country to prove that the accidents if occur, are caused with willful intent of the supplier countries. The proposal was later rejected by the opposition BJP party. Even after the passage of the bill, the US government lobbied to exempt its companies from liability payment, however limited it would be.

CSC, a Tool for the US

Now, the US has pressured India to accede to the multilateral Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage (CSC) so that the liabilities would be in line with the international norms. The international covenant that provides a framework for paving way for the liability and ensuring speedy compensation in the event of a nuclear accident was signed at the International Atomic Energy Agency offices in Vienna by Dinkar Khullar, India’s Ambassador to Austria.

The CSC has so far been signed by 14 countries and ratified by only four including the US. According to the norms, the CSC will enter into force only when at least five countries with a minimum of 400,000 units of installed nuclear capacity ratify the treaty. With India’s signing, 15 countries have become signatories, but India is yet to ratify.

Still Unsatisfied

Now, the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited is set to begin full-fledged commercial negotiations with the US’ nuclear material suppliers General Electric and Westinghouse, a subsidiary of Japan’s Toshiba. The two companies are expected to supply two 1000 MWe reactors to India. The CSC signing was the obligation put forward by the US government in 2008 while signing civil nuclear agreement.

However, the US contends that some sections of the India’s domestic nuclear damage liability bill, which pave the way to initiate legal action in the event of a nuclear accident, are in violation to the CSC norms. India denied this. The US has even suggested that NPCIL be asked contractually to accept the entire liability burden of its suppliers, which is again denied by India. But it is not sure India will stand on its word and will not succumb to further pressures.

The US never treated itself that it had to comply with the international laws. Be it ICC at Hague, Security Council or Climate law. The US regime is the number one enemy to the international working masses.

Technorati Tags: Civil nuclear agreement,Nuclear damage liability,CSC,IAEA,Vienna,US hegemony

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Germany’s Immigration Dilemma

2010-10-28T09:47:00.001-07:00

Germany has been skeptical of its immigration policy recently as per the statement of the Chancellor Angela Merkel. She said, “Germany’s attempts to create multicultural society have failed.” One of her party colleagues said, “Multikulti is dead.” A board member of the German central bank Thilo Sarrazin went too far by saying, “Muslims have become burden to the German society.” He alleged that no immigrant group other than Muslims was so strongly connected with claims on the welfare state and crime. Interestingly, he received widespread support after his statement, and his book on the same subject received good readership.

Germany Chancellor said that her government needed skilled people to keep the German economy’s growth pace faster. At the same time, she cautioned against unskilled people as they come to Germany for social benefits. While Angela’s invitation to skilled people was economically oriented, her rejection of unskilled people was socially oriented. Maybe the Chancellor has to understand that the economic prizes are always associated with social costs in unequally developed societies. Inviting economic fruits but denying social costs is something equal to rejecting that a coin has two sides.

Urgent Need

A leading German demographer Reiner Klinghoiz, director of the Berlin Institute for Population and Development, said Germany desperately needed immigrants and it should ease restrictions on immigration to provide the skilled workers, from engineers to computer experts to ensure the future economic success, as per Reuters. He informed that immigration to German had come to a virtual halt in the last two years.

Though Germany has three million unemployed, Mr Klinghoiz said Germany could not wait ten years for those on unemployment to become trained engineers. Klinghoiz said further that Germany had an annual influx of 200,000 immigrants but in the last two years had seen a net exodus of 15,000. Restrictions like language tests had stopped migrations from Turkey almost completely, he added. German Chamber of Industry and Commerce was quoted as saying Germany lacked about 400,000 skilled workers and it sought more immigration. (Here is a useful link)

Integration of Cultures

Those who oppose immigration complain that the immigrants failed to integrate into German society. They argue immigrants did not learn speaking German. Multiculturalism itself means different cultures living side-by-side keeping their cultures intact. Which means they speak their own languages, they maintain their own cultural habits but without ill-treating other cultures. Main responsibility lies with the home cultures to invite and respect immigrant cultures.

When a country wants skilled people from other cultures to augment its economic prosperity, those people bring their families and parents with them. They help their friends and relatives to immigrate for work, if they receive proper respect. They bring their cultural habits and systems along with them. We cannot expect them to speak the language, which does not belong to them, among themselves. Generally, they speak their own language. Language and religion are the main constituents of any culture.

A country that invited immigrants to work, can only expect work and hence an economic value from them. Integration is not killing or forgetting one’s own culture and start living in others’ cultures. Integration is something to do with tolerance and acceptance of other cultures in their own form. Otherwise, it cannot be called integration or multiculturalism. When multiculturalism is not seen as it is, people tend to believe it as a problem, rather than an asset. It is seen as problem only when economic problems become to surface. Maybe that’s what happened in Germany and other countries that started to believe that the multiculturalism has failed.

Social Costs

Germany prospered with the immigration of cheap labor from Turkey for decades. If Germany trained its people to make them skilled, it might not have reached such a situation where it needed 400,000 skilled immigrants. Those immigrants bring the same number of families with them. The situation leads to regrouping of a culture identity. One cannot deny such consequences.

The unemployed people always see the employed immigrants as encroachers and tend to believe that the immigrants are the immediate reason for their unemployment. Politicians exploit such situations to win over the opponents. Political exploitation further expands hate towards immigrants. That’s where the problem multiplies. Social unrest begins to erupt as a result of political intervention. Instead of addressing the actual problems of unemployment and poverty, the governments incline to bring non-issues as the only issues. That’s how multiculturalism failed, if it really failed.

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Kudos to Arundhati, You are a Ray of Hope!

2010-10-27T08:05:00.000-07:00

Article first published as Kudos to Arundhati, You are a Ray of Hope! on Technorati

Arundhati Roy deserves Kudos. She deserves accolades for her brave statement defying Indian state’s warning that she would face criminal charges, for her support to the national aspirations of the Kashmiri people. Arundhati Roy, a booker prizewinner, had been actively supporting social movements of the poor, ever since she came to limelight after winning booker prize in 1997.

Arundhati Roy and a leader of the Kashmir movement Syed Ali Shah Geelani were threatened with facing a case of sedition by the Delhi Police with support from Union Home Ministry. The legal opinion sought by the Union Home Minister favored registering a case against them under Section 124-A of Indian Penal Code that states, “whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the State” can be sentenced to five year rigorous imprisonment.

Arundhati Roy spoke at a seminar on “Azadi (independence) – The Only Way” along with S A S Geelani and pro-Maoist writer Varavara Rao held on October 21 in Delhi. She said in her speech, “Kashmir has never been part of India.” She was true when her statement was taken in terms of the wishes of the people in Kashmir.

If not, why Shaik Abdullah was kept in jail for 17 years for asking the Nehru Government to implement its promise of ‘plebiscite’? Why the people of Kashmir had continuously been on warpath against Indian Government? Why the police, para-military and military forces had continuously been stationed in Kashmir? Why hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri youth had been killed by the Army since the eruption of freedom struggle in 1989? Why even women including housewives, students and employees are coming to streets to shout “Go India, go back”?

For Indian rulers and the so-called Hindu nationalist organizations, accession of Kashmir into India means mere accession of Kashmir land with India, but not emotional accession of Kashmir people with Indian nation. Kashmir people never accepted that they are part of India. Kashmir nationalism has historical roots of being a separate nation for centuries.

This was what told by Ms Arundhati Roy to her audience at the seminar. What she told was the reality of the Kashmir. Those who do not recognize it for their own interests, automatically depend on military forces to suppress the natural aspirations of the Kashmir people. They also try to suppress voices and writings that support the voices of the people. Hence the case of sedition on Arundhati came to the fore.

But Arundhati defied it. She said, “I write this from Srinagar, Kashmir. I said what millions of people here say every day. I said what I, as well as other commentators have written and said for years.” Arundhati added, “Pity the nation that has to silence its writers for speaking their minds. Pity the nation that needs to jail those who ask for justice, while communal killers, mass murderers, corporate scamsters, looters, rapists, and those who prey on the poorest of the poor, roam free."

Damn right is she. Ironically, those who are supposed to be behind bars have occupied seats in the Parliament and Assemblies and they are dictating the terms who should sit behind bars. Arundhati Roy is becoming a ray of hope for the distressed and oppressed people of India.

However, the Union Government seems to be backed off from its “go-ahead nod” to Delhi Police, sensing the ramifications of proceeding with the case.

Technorati Tags: Arundhati Roy,Kashmir struggle,Azadi,Sedition case

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Defense Ties May Deepen During Obama Visit to India

2010-10-26T14:19:00.001-07:00

Article first published as Currency War to the Fore in G20 Ministerial Meeting on Blogcritics.

The US President Barack Obama is visiting India in second week of November. He is bringing several business people along with him while coming to India. Along with lobbying for contracts of billions of dollars, Mr. Obama has aimed at convincing India to be its strategic military partner in the region to secure its interests.

Relations

The relations between India and the US have only been speeded up since 1990 when USSR, the cold war alley for India, collapsed and India began opening up of its market to foreign MNCs, under the stewardship of the then Finance Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. The improvement of relations acquired faster pace in BJP’s coalition government except a brief period of sanctions regime after India’s 1998 nuclear tests under BJP rule, which was lifted in late 2001, maybe partly as a result of September 11 attacks. And that pace increased further in Congress’ coalition government.

Strategic Partnership

The Strategic Partnership Agreement was reached between India and the US in March 2000 while Bill
This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.

" border="0" alt="President Barack Obama talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the Oval Office during the Prime MinisterÕs state visit to the White House, Nov. 24, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.

" align="right" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2DLhVbNzOyIsUfRD755flgCBiJF2nvtdOZN28Nmpy6Oc9j9XzUb3SnnRy5L-nJKIw4GkUmSPEM7fLGWijV-V0YgiB6yYqamKNVRZ7twBZQyPynKp9_e6cUd6zkOxutpQwhRX1IODwsac/?imgmax=800" width="350" height="233"> Clinton was in office. The raising presence of China militarily as well as economically and somewhat, though not on full scale, economic resurgence of Russia necessitated then for the US to take the relations with India to the top level. The US needs a reliable partner that too a strategic partner, in the region to counterweight the increasingly assertive China.

After two devastating wars of Bush administration, this necessity was multiplied in terms of the interests of the US. America's new relationship with India has come as a broad security, political, technological, and economic arrangement on par with America's relationship with Europe or NATO. The US was even talking about sharing roles in joint space missions. The ex-president of the US, Bush and his first secretary of state, Collin Powel have once talked, back in 2004, of India’s common interests in securing their positions in sea lanes from the Persian Gulf to Malacca Islands. India has already been patrolling with its navy.

Wider Strategy

Apart from defense deals, the US is looking toward India to take part in a wider strategy that would help the US resolve its strategic needs and problems as part of fulfilling its interests in the region. Though the Obama administration is talking of withdrawal of troop from Afghanistan soon, it will not do so as it did not enter Afghanistan to withdraw, in the first place. War on Terrorism and installing democratic regimes were only a rhetorical cover up for the US attacks.

Its main intention could only be the strategic presence of its military in the region, given the past military actions and CIA organized coups throughout the world. While fighting a war and searching ways to counterweigh the surging China, the US would only need a long-term friend in the region. It is seeking to clinch a defense pact Logistics Support Agreement (LSA) that would allow American military to use Indian facilities for certain operations like refueling its warplanes. Though some analysts are skeptical about India’s acceptance of such pacts, their doubts are misplaced given the track record of the Indian rulers in being subservient to the interests of the superpower. The problem is ‘when it takes place,’ but not ‘whether it takes place.’

Nuclear Bills

India also needed the US cooperation with the demise of USSR and rising relations between Pakistan and China including nuclear relations. The Congress coalition government has successfully concluded the strategic partnership agreement during its first stint in power with the passage of “civil nuclear agreement” bill in 2004.

The Indian Parliament has ratified “nuclear damage liability” bill in September bringing down the biggest obstacle for the implementation of the civil nuclear agreement. It paved the way for the US to sell safely the nuclear material and equipment without fear of paying hefty penalties for damages that may occur due to nuclear accidents. It may be recalled that the US made the British Petroleum to set aside $32 billion to compensate the damage caused by its devastating oil spill in Gulf of Mexico.

But, the US’ nuclear supplier companies seem to assume the liability bill unappealing, as it places liability on suppliers in case of nuclear accidents. Reports are appearing that the US is burgeoning for exception of the US suppliers from the liability law.

Technology Transfer

One of the main problems for the partnership to flourish stems from the US’ denial of technology transfer to its so-called friends or partners. Without technology transfer but selling mere the military goods and equipment, the buying countries are expected to depend permanently on the US for servicing. It prevents the buyers to build their own equipment which is what required by the US.

Aircrafts and Fighter Jets

India has long been aspiring for aircraft carriers, but so far not succeeded. Some Indian analysts feel unless the US supply aircraft carriers and transfers technology, the strategic partnership cannot become fruitful. However, Obama will be clinching a deal to supply ten Boeing C-17 transport aircraft worth $5.8 billion. C-17s help transport military personnel in big number in short time. Boeing and Lockheed Martin companies of the US are competing with Europeans and Russians to sell 126 fighter jets worth $11 billion, considered to be the biggest arms deal nowadays. Obama’s visit may help clinch this deal also, with some attractive offers.

According to KPMG (audit, tax and advisory firm in America) report, India is going to procure about $112 billion worth defense equipment by 2016 in a bid to overhaul its military arsenal. India is also looking to buy 24 Harpoon missiles for its Air Force at an estimated cost of $700 million. Apart from these purchases, the two sides are also holding discussions for foundational agreements in areas such as communication interoperability and geo-spacial fields.

If Obama succeeds in his mission, it could be a big prize for the ailing economy of his country.

Technorati Tags: Obama India tour,Strategic partnership,Civil nuclear pact,Defense ties,South Asia,US interests,US hegemony,Business

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India Malaria Deaths Underreported –The Lancet

2010-10-21T03:47:00.000-07:00

Article first published as India Malaria Deaths Underreported on Blogcritics.

British medical journal The Lancet published a report on Thursday, October 21, 2010, that concluded WHO estimates of malaria deaths in India are hugely underestimated. It said WHO numbers are misleadingly low. According to the World Health Organization, about 15,000 die of malaria (5,000 early child hood and 10,000 thereafter) die each year in India. Whereas the survey funded by the US National Institutes of Health, Canadian Institute of Health Research and Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute put the figure at as high as 205,000 each higher, nearly 13 times more estimates than that of ‘WHO.‘

Deaths at Home

The Lancet said most deaths in rural India take place at home rather than at health centers. So, it argues, most cases are undiagnosed due to absence of health personnel. The cases of malarial deaths reported by Indian government are centered primarily in a few states, called high-malaria states; Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and the states in the northeast India.

Malaria deaths in India are prevalent in tribal areas due to unavailability of health care facilities. With no lab test facilities and meager if not nil transport facilities force the tribal people remain at home leaving them untested for malaria fever. They get treatment from uncertified rural medical practitioners who offer general treatment for every fever case.

Andhra Pradesh Case

Andhra Pradesh, one of the four southern states is considered one of the wealth states in India. Five years back, the opposition leader and the leader of regional political party TDP, Mr. Chandrababu Naidu, toured tribal areas in North and Central Andhra regions and brought to light how the tribal people villages were reeling under the wave of malaria fever that left unattended until then. A local vernacular daily “Andhra Jyothi” also published several reports of malaria deaths in interior regions that were left unreported.

In the face of rapid privatization of health services and collection of user charges in Government Hospitals, under the strictures of the World Bank, poor people are deprived of health care even in towns and cities. Mosquitos are uncontrollably high in all areas, which are fed by poor sanitation and unhygienic premises. This situation is common in all regions of India. Political corruption, lack of political motivation and insensitivity of administration and government people towards people’s problems further add further health hardships to the people.

The Lancet Findings

The Lancet study found that malaria caused 205,000 deaths every year before the age of 70, of which 55,000 occurring in early childhood, 30,000 between the age of 5 and 14 and 120,000 at ages 15 to 69. The study was conducted by trained field personnel. They interviewed families or other respondents about each of 122,000 deaths occurred during 2001-2003 in 6,671 randomly selected areas across the country.

“The data was sent to two to 130 ‘trained physicians,’ who independently coded underlying causes of deaths with discrepancies resolved via either anonymous reconciliation or adjudication,” according to The Lancet. Of all coded deaths 2,681 (3.6%) were attributed to malaria, of which 2,419 (90%) were took place in rural areas and 2,311 deaths not in any health care facility. The plausible lower and upper bounds were found to be 125,000 and 277,000. It implies even the lower bound is nowhere near to WHO figure of 15,000. The study comments, “Small studies in specific regions of India or in special subpopulations cannot directly estimate national numbers of malaria deaths.”

WHO Doubts

The director of global health care programme of ‘WHO’, Dr. Robert Newman was quoted as conceding that WHO current methods have their limitations, but expressed serious doubts about the high estimates from The Lancet study. He opined verbal autopsy was not a credible method of counting malaria deaths as the disease shared several of its symptoms with many other common causes of acute fever.

However, WHO has to agree with the general fact that the deaths due to epidemics are severely underreported given the track record of the Indian national and provincial governments in addressing health issues of the people.

Technorati Tags: Malaria deaths,India Malaria,Underestimation

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India's Supreme Court Lashes Out at Government Wastage of Grain

2010-10-19T12:35:00.001-07:00

Article first published as India's Supreme Court Lashes Out at Government Wastage of Grain on Technorati.

Supreme Court once again came heavily upon the attitude of the government towards wastage of grains outside the government warehouses even as millions of people are reeling under hunger and poverty. The court asked the central government to ensure no more waste of food grains and all the targeted beneficiaries are adequately supplied.

Court vs. Govt.

Justice Dalveer Bhandari, hearing the Public Interest Litigation filed by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), asked the Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Prasaran, attending for the government, not to go by percentage regarding wastage of grain when Parasaran said the wastage was only 0.07 lakhs but not 0.7 lakhs. He also said he had figures for two states, Punjab & Haryana, viz. 67,539 tonnes almost ten times to that of national figure projected by the government. Even 7,000 tonnes wastage was huge that cannot be allowed, the other judge in the bench Justice Depak Verma added.

It may be recalled that the Supreme Court had asked the government for distribution of the grain kept outside the warehouses due to lack of space, to the poor as it was getting decayed. The agricultural minister Sharad Powar responded orally it was not possible, but agreed to look into the matter. The Prime Minister Manmohan Singh went further saying the courts couldn’t interfere in the policy decisions of the government, a comment refused by the apex court telling it did not ask their opinion and it only asked them to deal properly with the question of hungry poor and wastage of grain.

PUCL Petition

The PUCL filed a petition stating that huge corruption was taking place in the Public Distribution System (PDS). It pointed out although the grain stock is available in huge quantities, proper allocation to the state governments is not being done. It added that at present the government has 22 million tonnes of buffer stock along with 33 million tonnes of stocks in godowns. Even then, only 2.5 million tonnes had been allocated for the PDS, PUCL informed the court of justice.

No Space for Kharif Grain

The apex court asked the government how the grain produce for Kharif season can be procured when the godowns are full of old stocks that are supposed to be distributed to the people. The matter was extremely serious when people are dying of hunger even as the godowns are full the court warned, adding the government must have done some evaluation by comparing with the percentage of waste world over. It reminded the government that the matter has been pending for a decade.

It remains to be seen whether the growth-concerned Prime Minister will now be more worried about the court’s interference in his business-friendly policies of the government or be inclined to heed at least now the court’s directive in recognizing the need to feed the poor. Maybe he would like to find another pretext to replace the court’s interference in government’s policies in a bid to defend his growth-figure-oriented policies, who was never voted to parliament directly by the people.

Technorati Tags: Grain wastage,PUCL,PDS,Kharif,Hunger deaths

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Welfare State System at Stake in European Austerity Measures

2010-10-16T01:50:00.000-07:00

Article first published as Welfare State System at Stake in European Austerity Measures on Blogcritics.

As a result of austerity measures, proposed as part of the bailout package offered by the IMF and European Union, the workers throughout the European Countries are increasingly joining in strike actions. Ever since the Greece debt crisis surfaced, the European governments as well as financial analysts and economists talked and wrote about the need of maintaining fiscal discipline and reducing deficits and debts. The IMF has been the one that is pressurizing the European nations, particularly the countries under monitory union to implement austerity measures like spending cuts, jobs cuts and tax increases.

Greece to Hungary

When George Papandreou’s new socialist government came to power in Greece and revealed that the Greece’s budget deficit was actually 12.7 (again modified to 13.6 percent by Eurostat in April) percent of GDP, more than twice the previously published figure by the previous government, the market began to panic. Doubts rose whether Greece could meet its debt commitments in time.

The problem was aggravated with the top three credit rating agencies –Fitch, Moody’s and S&P- went on to threaten investors by downgrading sovereign debt ratings of Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland and Hungary. By the end of April 2010, Greece’s government debt was downgraded to junk status. Weather the actual situation led to downgrading or downgrading prepared the ground for the so-called fiscal discipline measures remains a matter of concern.

Meanwhile a sense of urgency of fiscal consolidation was instilled through print, audio and visual media into the minds of the people. The markets and the people were so prepared by the frequent media news and analyses that everyone from common person to top investors began to believe that some drastic measures were inevitable.

Aid (Debt) Package

The run up for the announcement of the joint aid package by the EU and IMF for Greece as well as the Euro Zone was a big fiasco that equaled the stage plays scripted by the great “Bard of Avon.” Greece Prime Minister Papandreou repeatedly requested for a guarantee from the EU to prevent the rising sovereign debt costs. On one hand, Germany hesitated to announce any package; the reason said was that it feared it would have to bear major part of the aid package and that it would have to face severe opposition from its people. On the other hand, bond yields demanded by the investors to invest in Greece debt, peaked to more than 22 percent (on 2-year note) at one point.

At last on May 2, with the pressure from France and the so-called markets, the EU under the leadership of Germany, announced 110 billion Euros of aid package to be disbursed over three years, a third of which was agreed to be shared by the IMF. In fact, it was not an aid package but a debt package. It was a debt trap that added more debt to the debt-ridden Greece in the name of aiding it to come out of fiscal burden. The IMF is already notorious for its deadly strictures to debt-ridden third world countries so as to make their economies subservient to the interests of the United States of America. The same conditions were stipulated to Greece while granting the aid package.

But, markets were not satisfied. Fresh doubts were raised whether Greece could deliver the required austerity measures along with spending cuts and tax increases. Their doubts extended over other euro zone countries. They continued to demand more profits from the sovereigns of the other highly indebted euro zone countries. Again, discussions, meetings, deliberations, conferences, analyses, pressures, statements, promises and warnings followed.

Another stage play reached to its climax on May 10 with the announcement of 750 billion euros (nearly equal to one trillion dollars) of emergency financial safety net for the euro zone to calm financial markets and to avert contagion from the Greek crisis. With this safety net, the ECB is buying sovereign bonds whenever demand for bond yield soars.

Along Came the Spider

Aid package had a big and long tail of austerity measures, cuts and increases. Generally, it is the dog that wags the tail, but in the present case, it is the tail wagging the dog. A country means the people, and production through their labor. Without their labor, there is no wealth. The wealth made markets (of course, markets made wealthy). Therefore, the people and their needs have to decide what the market is and how should it behave.

It was actually the people to be taken into consideration without of whom the markets did not exist. Ironically, their interests were totally ignored for consideration while talking about the steps for fiscal discipline. Even more irony is that they were the ultimate bearers of this fiscal discipline.

Starting from January, Greece has been continuously announcing stability programmes, cutting programmes and tax increasing programmes to convince the markets that it would not default so as to sell the sovereign debt. Setting a target of fiscal deficit to 2.8 percent of GDP by 2012, Greece passed a package of public sector pay cuts and tax increases in March first week to save an extra 4.8 billion euros. It froze state-funded pensions in the same vein. Greece was stipulated to save an extra 30 billion euros over coming three years while getting aid package from the EU and the IMF. So, it continued to pursue more savings and approved another installment of austerity on May 6.

Pay freeze for all public sector workers, some pay cuts, laying-off public sector contract workers, bonus caps and cuts were implemented in Greece from May 2010 onwards. Legal layoffs in private sector allowed per month were increased from 2% to 4%. Pension commutation was reduced from final salary to average working pay. As part of tax reforms, VAT was raised by 2% and indirect taxes by 10%. Privatization of public sector by decreasing public payroll and encouraging private companies was planned for long term.

Greece unveiled additional spending cuts including 9.2 billion euros of deficit reduction measures for 2011 on October 4 triggering a nation-wide strike on Oct. 7. State workers’ union ADEDY representing 700,000 civil servants led the strike paralyzing government services like schools, public hospitals and air traffic. The union said wage and pension cuts have sliced 25 percent of incomes

The Saga Continues

The programme of austerity measures continued with countries one after another falling in line to cut their budget deficits and debts. These measures almost were the same as implemented in Greece. Ireland raised pension age from 65 to 66 years in its December 09 budget and announced savings of 4 billion euros. Spain announced a plan to save a whopping 50 billion euros that envisaged spending cuts equal to 4 percent of GDP and 4 percent public sector pay cut as early as January ending. It proposed in first week of February to raise retirement age from 65 to 67 triggering massive protests.

Portugal’s ruling and opposition parties’ leaders approved steps to slash the budget in second week of May, including public sector pay cuts. They targeted 4.6 percent fiscal deficit for 2011 from 9.4 percent recorded at the end of 2009. The Portugal parliament approved another austerity package in second week of June. Italy approved 24 billion euros worth austerity package aiming reduction of deficit to 2.7 percent of GDP by 2012 from 5.3 percent at the end of 2009. Putting into practice its January plan, Spain won parliamentary approval for 15 billion euros worth austerity package by a single vote on May 27, but the next day, its rating was cut down by Fitch showing its massive debt as the reason.

Giant Germany’s Giant Austerity

Germany’s ruling coalition agreed a package of budget cuts and tax increases on June 7 to bring its deficit within EU’s limit of 3 percent of GDP by 2013 that stood at only 3.3% by then. The package aimed to deliver savings of 80 billion euros ($100 billion) over next four years. Germany’s fiscal deficit was expected to be around 5 percent (3.5 percent in Aug 2010) of GDP in 2010 and its debt was recorded at 77% of GDP at the end of 2009. France announced reform of its pension system on June 16 that included raising retirement age from 60 to 62. This decision caused outrage among French people, provoked workers to observe two strikes in September 2010.

Welfare Concept at Stake

One should wonder why the austerity is implemented in every European country from Greece to Germany. If Greece has the problem of public finances, why should Germany and France go for austerity? The answer is very simple for those who can understand the dynamics of the capitalist economies.

It is an opportunity for ruling classes of European countries, who work for the interests of the big business and finance houses, to withdraw welfare state measures like unemployment benefit, child benefit, pension benefit, health benefits, insurance benefits and so on…, that too, in the name of saving countries’ economies. Operation success, doctor’s pocket fills but the patient dies. So what, several patients are in queue.

Just a week back in October first week, England announced a plan slapping tax on child benefits for high-income earners from 2013. Accountancy firm PwC revealed that almost one million jobs could be lost in the UK because of government cuts in public spending.

One should observe the decreases in the basis amount for pension commutation, decreases in retirement ages in several EU countries and the reduction of scope of job creation in public sector. One should also notice the conspiracy of destroying and erasing the concept of welfare states proposed by WW-II time economist Keynes and successfully implemented by all the matured capitalist economies from west to east. The conspiracy is carefully crafted by the European elite business houses in the name of passionate and convincing terms like fiscal discipline, fiscal consolidation and stabilization, to amass more people’s money into their capitalist coffers.

Welfare States

The above-mentioned are the numbers aimed for achievement documented in the records of the European governments and the IMF. The governments already began the implementation of the approved austerity measures promptly. But, these numbers are proving to be devastating for the European people, from public sector employees and self-employed to unemployed people.

Welfare measures, achieved over decades of struggles by the workers, are being withdrawn one by one under the cover of austerity. The concept of “welfare state” is being liquidated slowly by injecting into the people’s minds that the austerity measures are inevitable to save the countries’ future.

But, the austerity measures are nothing but the measures aimed at withdrawing welfare state principles. Welfare state envisages the welfare of the people with government support, pushing the interests of the greedy private conglomerates to the back burner, at least to some extent.

These principles were not the result of the magnanimity of the ruling classes but brought into being by the hard fought struggles of the workers for decades against the capitalist oppressive and exploiting rule. Now, such welfare measures that fed the working class, that gave birth to new middle class and built a strong consumer market to be exploited by the same rich classes for six decades, are finally coming to an end, thanks to theoretical help extended by the IMF.

Technorati Tags: Keynes,Welfare States,IMF bailout,Pension,Public sector,Austerity,Euro crisis

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Curious Case of Mobile Phones Lifting Poverty

2010-10-15T01:38:00.001-07:00

Article first published as Curious Case of Mobile Phones Lifting Poverty on Technorati.

Last year a cinema was released in Hollywood named, “A curious case of Benjamin Button” that won nomination for Oscar awards. It tells the story of Benjamin Button, who starts aging backward. He takes birth as an old man and dies as an infant. One can understand that such things are only possible in movies. It is quite unnatural. Winning nomination for best picture category is another surprise.

Yesterday, on October 14, a UN study revealed a curious case of Cell phones. It said mobile phone could improve the livelihoods of poorest people in developing countries. UNCTAD, United Nations Conference on Trade And Development said in its information economy report “Mobiles have spawned a wealth of micro-enterprises, offering work to people with little education and few resources.” It advised Governments to monitor how poor people were using mobile phones and design policies to build on that.

This is a curious case of mobile phones lifting poverty instead of policies of the government that enable poor to have honorable employment. The UNCTAD’s suggestion is somewhat like tail wagging the dog. Mobile phones are no doubt a revolutionary invention that enables people to get information faster than before.

But, what information is shared by poor people through mobile phones? Small business people can order products and get them next day. Previously land phone did the same job. Transport facilities in the poorest areas of the least developed countries have not yet been developed as pointed out by the same report. And, the small business people are not poorest people, and they are placed above poverty line in developing and LDC nations.

The report said with the help of mobiles micro-enterprises offered work to people with little education and few resources. It should be noted that offering work is need of the micro-enterprises, and with the mobiles, they are able to gather workers in a bit faster way. Here, the gainers are micro-enterprises but not workers.

Workers will be offered work, as long the institutions have work to offer. Beyond their need, they cannot offer any work. If more working hours are offered with the use of mobiles, such credit can be attributed to mobile phones. But here, the number of working hours or days is not altered. The poorest are offered the same work as before but a bit earlier. That doesn’t increase earnings of the poorest.

Moreover, advising governments to monitor how people are using mobile phones and design policies to build on that is again the case of tail wagging the dog. This advice can be suitable for banks and insurance companies, which can offer mobile banking or mobile paying services. But, the poorest are not allowed into banks’ premises now a days. Minimum balance required is something what they do not earn per even a month. Insurance companies issues cheques that cannot be cashed by the poorest, who doesn’t possess bank accounts.

Mobile phones and internet are only technological tools that help speed up the businesses, exchange of information in shorter periods. They can help passing the information of polices but they cannot decide how the policies are formulated. The study of UNCTAD is something that is deceiving and beyond the facts on the ground.

Technorati Tags: UNCTAD,Mobile phones,Micro-enterprises,Poverty

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Currency War between China and the West

2010-10-10T09:24:00.001-07:00

Article first published as Currency War between China and the West on Blogcritics.

“Currency War” is the term coined by the IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Khan during the annual meetings of IMF and WB in Washington, D.C that began on October 8. The meetings will be concluded on October 10. Mr. Strauss Khan latter backed down from his comment saying “war was probably too strong a word.”

Tensions on Rise

Tensions have been rising over China’s Yuan policy ever since the US President depicted China as “currency manipulator,” during his earlier days in office. Western countries along with some emerging economies are of the view that China is deliberately manipulating Yuan’s value not allowing it to appreciate. They opine, China is following various means to keep Yuan value low, like buying dollars and other forex currencies, pegging it to the dollar etc… IMF managing director also shares this view and called several times on China to allow Yuan to appreciate to correct global economic and trade imbalances.

Not Fair

Lower Yuan value is making Chinese products more competitive in the global trade, due to which China is able to amass trade surplus in hundreds of billions of dollars, according to the developed economies. China disagrees with the west’s contention and says that it is not responsible for the problems faced by the Western countries. China says the developed countries have many problems created by themselves that require immediate attention. It is not fair for the west to attack Chinese Yuan Policy without reforming their financial regulatory laws, due to which the western states are not in a position to control the “too-big-to-fail” (or “too-important-to-fail” according to the IMF) financial conglomerates, China says.

Admission

However, many western analysts including Dominique Strauss-Khan admit that nobody thought a currency reform would be a "silver bullet" that would fix all the problems. The US and others need to take their own steps to save more. The IMF semi-annual “Global Financial Stability Report” released in first week of October 2010 said that the western countries are lagging behind implementing financial regulatory measures, agreed two years back in G20 conference. The US law of financial reforms has been modified several times as a result of lobbying by the financial giants.

The US as well as the IMF admits that the undervalued-Yuan is only a part of the problem faced by the west. It seems the problem is that the west wants to start from the Yuan appreciation, which is not actually in their hands but do not want to start from enactment of financial regulation laws and their strict implementation, which is certainly in their hand. Therefore, the developed economies should first move themselves by enacting financial regulation to curb the risky business practices of financial companies, to prevent producing complex derivatives that are becoming toxic waste during the financial crises. These measures were enshrined in the agreements and communiqués reached in G20 conferences held after the eruption of financial crisis, but no country in the west is bothered to implement them in the same spirit as they were agreed upon.

China Problems

China is basically a developing country or as it is being termed recently, an emerging economy. It’s per-capita income is lower that of the several crisis ridden European countries including Greece. So it has its own reasons while telling that they would follow their own way in forming their monetary policies, and they would decide what is good their country. They are of the fear that the drastic appreciation of Yuan value would mean a shock therapy, which China cannot withstand. They opine that would jeopardise the economic growth of China, which could act as setback to the global economy itself.

In this scenario, the China is firm on its Yuan policy of gradual appreciation of Yuan value instead of in leaps of steps. China also accused the developed nations that the enormous bailout packages paid to failed banks have resulted in multiplication of their national and international debt, which in turn caused debt crisis and losing confidence among market players on their capacity of repayment of debts. China also accused them of keeping their interest values almost near to zero, which again is adding to the economic woes of the developed countries.

Save Less, Spend More -IMF

China is asking the west to reform first their home instead of relying on its Yuan policy. IMF director is asking China to strengthen its domestic market so as to make it less dependent on exports. He opines the emerging economies save more and spend less depriving of market for West’s consumer goods. So he is asking the people of the emerging countries to save less and spend more so that Western countries may find buyers for whatever they produce irrespective of the needs of the people. They produce refrigerators, washing machines, plasma TVs, iPads, and sophisticated furniture and so on. And, the people of emerging countries have to buy them without going for savings for future necessities, even if they don’t need them.

US advice

A former economic advisor to President Obama Christian Romer provides more specific example for emerging countries’ governments to make the West more wealthy. She says, “China should put in place a healthcare system, so that people save less - because they wouldn't have to worry about paying for treatment. They would then buy more products from the rest of the world.” So, Romer is ready to propose developing economies to go against privatization policies, the very policies that were forced upon the third world by the GATT agreement and the WTO. Because, such steps would benefit the US companies.

The bottom line is that the developing economies should strive to provide more opportunities for the US companies to amass profits at the cost of their own economies and people’s needs. The US administration people are advocating such shameless rot for the people of the third world openly.

Starting from trade imbalances and currency war, the US sponsored IMF wants ultimately to place the third world countries, their people and their economies at the altar of the imperialist greed. It is better for the international institutions sponsored by the west not to talk about human rights and the values of humanity.

Technorati Tags: Currency war,Yuan value,Dominique Strauss-Khan,IMF and WB

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Australian Envoy Tries to Downplay Racial Email Scandal

2010-10-09T22:26:00.001-07:00

Article first published as Australian Envoy Tries to Downplay Racial Email Scandal on Blogcritics.

It is another manifestation of racism, rampant in Australia. Racial attacks on Indian students have been recorded high in number in Melbourne, Victoria of Australia for last two to three years. Indian students studying in Melbourne are also high in number as compared with other cities in Australia. So, Victoria police are expected to be more sensitive towards racial issue that has been haunting the state. But, the Victorian police have proved otherwise.

Email Scandal

Top Victorian Police officials are caught in a sting operation conducted by an Australian newspaper “the Herald Sun,” joking about a video that showed an Indian passenger travelling on the roof a train being electrocuted when he was contacted with high-tension wire. The video was circulated by Victorian police officers joking, “It could be a way to fix Melbourne’s Indian student problem.”

The NDTV news web site reported on October 9, 2010 that some of the highest rankings officers had been implicated in the scandal that also involved pornographic material. At least fifteen officers will be dealt with disciplinary hearing in the coming weeks, Herald Sun report was quoted as saying by the NDTV news. The emails probed by Ethical Standards Department’s Operation Barrot contain pornographic, homophobic, racist and violent material.

Downplaying

After the Australian High Commissioner to India, Peter Varghese, was handed a demarche by the Indian foreign ministry on Saturday, he condemned the incident as “offensive and unacceptable.” But, he went on to say that the incident involved two police officers, neither of them were senior police officers. He added that he did not think we should tar the entire Victorian police with the action of two police officers.

This is nothing but trying to downplay the incident. The incident occurred in the very state where high numbers of Indian students are living and in which high number of racial attacks on Indian students had taken place. The Australian envoy pointed as unfortunate that the incident has detracted from the number of positive steps taken by Victorian police, referring the setting up of a round-the-clock help centre of Indian.

The Australia government had downplayed the Indian government’s travel advisory against travelling to Melbourne in view of risk of violence against Indians in first week of January 2010. The advisory was issued when an Indian graduate, Nitin Garg was stabbed to death in the city on January 2. The police denied racial motive but failed to confirm what prompted two 15-year old teenagers to kill Garg walking in the park. His belongings were left untouched proving robbery was not a motive.

Teenagers were arrested in most cases of attacks on Indians in Australia. Generally, teenagers can escape murder charges without severe punishment. Given this, do the Victorian police deserve scrutiny over charging teenagers over Indians’ killings?

Round-the-Clock Help Center

Mr. Peter has to take note that the necessity of setting up of round-the-clock help center itself manifests the rampant racism in Australia. It was further approved when the Australian Prime Minister has toured India earlier this year and asked the Indian students to continue to seek studies in Australia promising severe actions over attacks on Indians. The Melbourne police’s first reaction used to be that it was not racial attack but a random one whenever an attack occurred. The number of Indian students seeking studies in Australia has been halved in 2010 fearing attacks.

The Australian envoy mentioned that only two police officers were involved while the Herald Sun reported at least fifteen officers were involved. He also mentioned there were no senior police officers involved in the incident as if junior police officers could be condoned involving in racial abuse. This type of seeing things only demonstrates how the Australian authorities are casual in responding to such incidents of internationally observed racial discriminations.

UN Report

It would be appropriate here to recall the United Nations special rapporteur on indigenous rights released in August 2009, which said there was entrenched racism in Australia. It criticized the Labor party’s policy of displacing indigenous people from their homelands without even compensating. Labor’s predecessor Howard’s government had also come under sharp criticism for suspending ‘racial discrimination act.’ It implies both parties are pieces of same cloth regarding treatment of racism.

While the indigenous people of Australia are treated that way by the Australian government itself, no wonder, there was not a single person charged with racial abuse and treated sternly, even after the international outcry. The latest racial incident in Australia is a spat on the face of the governments across the world that believes in a myth, that the globalization promotes and glorifies pluralism and multiculturalism.

Technorati Tags: Racial email,Australia police,Electrocution,Indian student problem

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Has Unfair Downgrading by Rating Agencies Exaggerated Europe Debt Crisis?

2010-10-09T08:23:00.001-07:00

Article first published as Has Unfair Downgrading by Rating Agencies Exaggerated Europe Debt Crisis? on Blogcritics.

The IMF expressed concerns over high vulnerability of sovereign balance sheets to growth shocks, releasing its semi-annual “Global Financial Stability Report (GFSR)” today, September 5, 2010. The report said the recent sovereign debt crisis in Europe highlighted increased vulnerabilities of banks and sovereign balance sheets emanating from the Euro crisis. Though mature economies are transitioning from temporary support to self-sustaining private demand, the policy makers must stick with fiscal tightening and regulations unless private demand becomes more self-sustainable.

The IMF is still not ready to advocate the withdrawal of fiscal support, (termed nicely as “temporary support” in the report) unless the “still-impaired financial sector” is proven to be out of risk from its toxic mortgage debt assets. Until then Fiscal tightening measures have to be continued, and of course, without caring for working class people’s protests and agitations, at the cost of budget spending for the people.

Government Role in Recovery

The IMF report acknowledged the role of the governments in recovery from the financial crisis. It said in its report, “To a large extent, the apparently modest capital needs of U.S. banks reflect the large scale of government-sponsored enterprises and other government interventions without which those needs would have been substantially higher. This highlights the extent to which risk has been transferred from private to public balance sheets, as well as the need to address the burden placed on public institutions.”

Even as recognizing this, the IMF looks for self-sustaining private demand where private demand is still based on temporary support from the government. The governments need to interfere where private firms that are “too-important-to-fail,” (referring “too big to fail”) fail to deliver, but private firms do not come to rescue the government from the difficulties of maintaining fiscal discipline and from lacking funds for social welfare measures. Even then, the governments are inclined to resort to spending cuts, withdrawal of welfare measures, wage freezes, benefit cuts and so on.

Setback to Financial Stability

The report majorly pointed out that the setback in progress toward financial stability was precipitated by turmoil in the sovereign debt markets in Europe, where increased vulnerabilities of sovereign and bank balance sheets became the focus of market concern.

This observation is particularly reveling if not confusing. It states that the setback in progress toward financial stability was PRECIPITATED by debt crisis, meaning the setback in progress was already underway that was only precipitated by the sovereign debt crisis. Therefore, even before debt crisis, there was a setback to recovery and it was only augmented by the debt crisis. It seems here, the IMF was admitting the recovery was just a notional or nominal but in forward direction. So the European debt crisis was the continuation of the global financial crisis but not itself a fresh one.

If this was the actual case, the countries like Greece, Portugal and Spain were penalized by the rating agencies by downgrading their sovereign ratings thereby increasing the debt cost for those countries. If the ratings agencies did not resort to downgrading the national debts, the recovery process in the European countries would have proceeded smoothly without interruption of increased debt costs. The move of the rating agencies was quite unfair and irresponsible.

Rating Agencies

The same observation was noted in the IMF report. Though the report acknowledged, in general, the credibility of the credit rating agencies, it issued warning to regulators and ratings followers to avoid risks. The report said the regulators should remove references to ratings in their regulation where they were likely to cause cliff effects. Central Banks were asked to establish their own credit analysis units.

It was advised in the report to check whether the rating agencies were using standards set by Basel II. Rating agencies should be overseen for credit metrics reported; ratings models backtested and ex post accuracy tests performed. The IMF report said the “regulators should restrict ‘rating shopping’ and conflicts of interest arising from the “issuer pay” business model by requiring the provision of more information to investors.”

Greedy Wall Street

The Greece Prime Minister urged the US President in April 2010 to control the Wall Street investment banks from exploiting, speculating and betting on Greece default to extract higher rates of profits. The US President of course, simply ignored the Greece’s request and the Wall Street bankers continued their betting on other European countries’ defaults.

If one can recall, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel hesitated for a long time before announcing special bailout package of €110 billion for Greece. Bond spreads for Greece and Portugal were shot up above 8 percentage points, as Germany dragged on its decision in providing bailout package. At one time, the President of France Nicolas Sarkozy was reported to have threatened Germany that he would withdraw from Eurozone if Germany did not cooperate. Then, France was unwilling to ask for IMF aid, but Angela Merkel finalized aid package that included a part from IMF.

Increasing Contradictions

When all of these factors are gathered at one place it is understood that the economic, particularly the financial contradictions are soaring up between matured market economies. In the wake of global financial crisis, the matured economies are in contradiction among themselves, with the developing economies led by emerging economies. At the same time, the matured economies are compromising among themselves knowing the fact that they are so intertwined with each other that a crisis in a country had every reason to spill over to the other countries.

Unless the basic contradiction between the toiling masses and the exploiting classes is resolved by some means, the crises would be haunting the capitalist states, no matter how many reports and alerts are delivered by the Bretton Woods sisters.

Technorati Tags: IMF report,GFSR-Oct2010,Financial Stability,Recovery,Wall Street

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CWG Village Threatened with Used Condoms

2010-10-07T07:32:00.001-07:00

Until now, the Commonwealth Games organizers have faced criticism for shortcomings in arrangements made at the venues of CWG and Athletes’ village. Now the blame turns to the athletes who complained on quality of arrangements in Athletes’ village for another reason.

Somehow, the Indian authorities could regain the tarnished image with the amazing cultural performance on the inaugural day, but it remains to be seen how they are going to resolve the problem of clogged drains.

Clogged Drains

Now the authorities are facing somewhat a peculiar problem. The village has been provided with at least 8,000 free condoms to prevent unwanted infections. Four thousand condoms are said to be picked up already, within four days of the beginning of the event. The problem is not about scarcity of condoms but with used condoms.

The used condoms are flushed in the toilets into the drains choking the drainage system in the village. The CWG authorities are happy that the condoms are being used, but worried that they are not able to find an easy way to clear the clogged drains.

Accolades

Once the games are begun the organizers won applauds for winning race against time in making quick arrangements. The army built the collapsed foot over bridge within four days. Inaugural session concluded with everyone’s satisfaction. Indian athletes are performing well placing India at the second place in medals tally.

Nearly ten thousand athletes are participating from 71 countries. So far, the athletes are happy with cooking arrangements, as chefs are invited from several countries to make available various types of food items, specific to different countries. Thousands of tonnes of mutton and chicken are being evaporated every day. The Indian organizers should now seek the opinion of the Commonwealth Games Federation President Mike Fennell, who expressed dissatisfaction on the arrangements three days earlier the event began.

Sex Industry

As this author informed earlier on these pages, sex industrialists under the garb of escort services are also actively performing in their own event. It appears the Indian authorities have underestimated the potential of providers and takers of sex industry, otherwise of which they would have provided wider drains so the used condoms as to flow freely in the drainage system without choking it.

The number of free condoms provided, also appear less as compared with the usage of condoms in previous international sports events. Free condoms have their own history regarding international level sports and games events.

History of Free Condoms

Free condoms were introduced first during Barcelona Olympic Games in 1992. From then on, it became an obvious arrangement just like food and accommodation. The Olympic Games organizers at Sydney in 2000 provided 70,000 condoms, which were quickly used up, forcing them to provide another 20,000.

During 2004 Athens Olympics, 130,000 condoms were provided for athletes. At Beijing Olympics in 2008 and Vancouver Winter Olympics in last February, 100,000 condoms each were provided free. Mr. Suresh Kalmadi should have made a call to Beijing for getting a clue on number of condoms to be provided at CWG-2010.

Technorati Tags: Free condoms,CWG-2010

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No Berlusconi Day in Italy

2010-10-03T09:21:00.001-07:00

No Berlusconi day was observed in Italy on 2nd October 2010. The people were angry over the corruption scandals erupted recently. Thousands of protestors marched across Italy to express their denial of the leadership of their Prime Minister Berlusconi.

Italian Prime Minister was accused of subverting justice system in his favor. No-B day was observed once last year on December 5, 2009 protesting against sexual scandals unleashed to an extent that his wife Veronica declared she was giving divorce to her husband.

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Obama’s Comments are Disgusting

2010-09-30T15:18:00.001-07:00

This article first published on Blogcritics.org.

This is not about supporting Ahmadinejad and not about opposing President Barack Obama. This is about how President Barack Obama responded to the comments made by the head of a state. This is about what context the President of the US chose to condemn the comments of the Iranian President Ahmadinejad.

How should he respond?

Mr. Obama should have responded by directly addressing the comments of Mr. Ahmadinejad. Condemning notionally such comments is a way of responding, but it cannot suffice to a head of the state of the United States of America, who repeatedly talks about humanity, reputation of America, support for America, relevance of American supremacy, the pride of the USA and the uniqueness of the USA.

Let us see the remarks of Mr. Ahmadinejad. He said, "Some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining American economy, and its grips on the Middle East, in order to save the Zionist regime." He said most of the people of the world and the US believe this theory. This was the essence of comments of Mr. Ahmadinejad on the UN podium regarding 9/11 attacks. These comments involve the aspects of politics, economics, sociology and culture of the Politics.

It would be perfect if Obama asked Mr. Ahmadinejad to reveal the sections of the US establishment he believed to be behind the 9/11 attacks. He should have said why the American economy was not declining then. He should have rejected that the US was up for grips on the Middle East, and he should have told the people of the US and the world why and how the US regime did not intend to save the Zionist (or Israeli) regime if it was not.

Possibility

Furthermore, Mr. Ahmadinejad linked the interests of the US in the Middle East to the 9/11 attacks. President Obama should have explained how they were not linked. He should have revealed that there was a possibility and it

was the only possibility that there could have been attacks irrespective of the US interests in the Middle East. However, Mr. Obama did not choose to respond in that way. He simply made a counterattack on Ahmadinejad’s remarks terming his comments “hateful,” “outrageous,” and “inexcusable.” He chose to divert the attention of the people of America as well as the world by linking just the places of different incidents.

Disgusting

The most disgusting remarks in Mr. Obama’s response were about the linking of the place where Mr. Ahmadinejad delivered his speech, and the site of twin towers, collapsed in 9/11 attacks. Obama said, "It was offensive. It was hateful. And particularly for him to make the statement here in Manhattan, just a little north of Ground Zero, where families lost their loved ones, people of all faiths, all ethnicities who see this as the seminal tragedy of this generation. For him to make a statement like that was inexcusable."

This is not the way, how to respect those who died in the seminal tragedy of this generation. This is not how, to honor the sentiments of those who lost their beloved in the attack.

Suppose that Ahmadinejad had made his comments in Washington or in California instead of New York, would they have been justified? How much distance must Ahmadinejad had to have maintained to make such comments? Is it one kilometer, 100km or 1000km? This context of distance between the UN General Assembly and the twin towers was raised first by a spokesperson of the President. This author noted that it was only a spokesperson and that Obama would not have raised such context. However, astonishingly, Obama himself repeated the same context to condemn the comments.

Bottom-line

The bottom line is that the Iranian President could make his point straight and the US President could not. Moreover, Mr. Ahmadinejad asked to constitute a fact-finding mission to ascertain what really happened. Even after furor over his comments, the Iranian President did back down. He defended his statement, saying, “I did not pass judgment, but, don't you feel that the time has come to have a fact-finding committee?” He added, “The fact-finding mission can shed light on who the perpetrators were, who al-Qaeda is… where it exists? Who was it backed by and supported? All these should come to light."

What Ahmadinejad demanded is potentially beneficial to the people of America, because their right to know the truth has not been fulfilled. If the people of America have known the truth, the base of American imperialism and the chain of the imperialist soil legged demon spread among the developed world, would be shattered. If the people of the US knew the truth, that truth could be the beginning of the end of the imperialist regimes.

The US imperialism stands on the fake base built with lies. It is not faithful but hateful. Fakeness is strength temporarily, but disastrous for the future. The US kingdom is keeping its people in the darkness of lies. That is why it is not daring to appoint a fact-finding mission. It has no guts to prove why Mr. Ahmadinejad was wrong in his comments.

Inciting Iranian People

Mr. Obama’s machinations did not stop with diverting attention from the comments made by Ahmadinejad, but extended to Inciting Iranian people against their President. He said in his exclusive interview with BBC Persian television, which broadcasts to Iran and Afghanistan, "There were candlelight vigils and I think a natural sense of shared humanity and sympathy was expressed within Iran," Mr Obama told the BBC. "It just shows once again the difference between how the Iranian leadership and this regime operate and how I think the vast majority of the Iranian people, who are respectful and thoughtful, think about these issues."

One should wonder where the natural sense of shared humanity of Mr. Obama was, when he decided to troop rise by 30,000 in Afghanistan throwing them into fire and subjecting Afghanistan people to more killings, attacks, blasts and tragedy.

Humanity and Profanity

Mr. Obama was correct when he was talking about candle light vigils. He was right when he described the Iranian people as respectful and thoughtful in thinking about issues. However, President Obama was pathetic when he tried to draw a negative parallel between the greatness of the Iranian people and the comments of their President in the General Assembly.

The two contexts were different. The Iranians expressed their shared humanity to those who became scapegoats in the machinations of the inhuman vested interests people, no matter whether they were terrorists or certain sections of the US establishment. Mr. Ahmadinejad asked the natural questions “who the perpetrators were, who al-Qaeda is… where it exists? Who was it backed by and supported?” What Iranian people showed was humanity, what the Iranian President asked was responsibility and how Mr. Obama responded was profanity.

Actually, these questions should be asked by the US rulers and their people, but they have not been. If someone asked to reveal the truth, he should be given due respect. Instead, the US President chose the other way, not showing any interest in properly answering the questions and trying to divert attention.

This is how the US and the other imperialist regimes survive.

Technorati Tags: Responsibility,Profanity,9/11,Iran,Ahmadinejad

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Commonwealth Games Likely to Affect India’s Image in Economic Front

2010-09-29T03:13:00.001-07:00

Article first published as Commonwealth Games Likely to Affect Indiaâ€™s Economic Image on Technorati.

Delhi Commonwealth Games, 2010 is going to remain a big fiasco for third largest Asian economy, India after China and Japan. Political and financial corruption could remain a scar on the face of ability of India in conducting such big events.

There have been many reports coming in about corruption scandals surrounding CWG – 2010, well in advance for two months. But the government, especially the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh seemed completely unaware of what was up to regarding CWG arrangements.

Missed Link

The idea of conducting international events stems out from the wishes of the rulers to keep their country at spotlight for improving business, attracting tourists and finally contributing more for the growth of the country. It is surprising that the growth-figures-oriented Prime Minister has missed the link between CWG’s success and his aspirations for surpassing Chinese growth rate.

Many international news networks have expressed doubts whether India could make it. The doubts remained unsolved even as the date is just 3 days away. The government appointed ministerial body of three ministers only five days before the inaugural date, i.e. 3 October.

Image Blurring

Indian rulers are keen for not letting any spats like H-1B visa fee hike, outsourcing ban and restrictions on exports from the US side, to play spoilsport during the visit of the US President Mr. Barack Obama in November second week. However, they seem to forget how a failure or even a partial failure in conducting CWG is going to affect the Indian image on the economic front.

The rating agency Moody’s Analytics has already expressed concerns that the CWG image could deter foreign investment. At the Reuters India Investment Summit, the World Bank’s India head Roberto Zagha expressed his view on similar lines. He said, “I don’t think it matters, but it does show the organizational issue that India has to deal with.” He warned indirectly that the organizational abilities of India were at stake in conducting CWG – 2010 properly.

Missing Targets

India is somewhat notorious in missing its targets several issues. Be it GST (Goods and Services Tax), issuance of unique ID to its citizens, proper response to Kashmir struggle, reducing inflation, dependence on monsoon rains for inflation control and so on.

And, they have continued the similar fashion in conducting an international sports event CWG also. CWG organizers have warned the arriving sports men that the sports village complex would not be ready until Thursday, i.e. just two days before the inaugural event of CWG. One can argue it is just unacceptable to such a big sporting event.

Leaking ACs, Loose Fittings

The BBC News, Scotland has reported that it was invited to the CWG athletes’ village to observe the accommodation problems by the Scotland’s team. It has published photos of water leaking AC machines, balconies without railings and loosely fitted electrical wires online. Thought the team Scotland said it was largely satisfied with its area, it could not prevent the BBC from publishing adverse photos and comments online about CWG preparations.

Indian ruling class people lack minimum concerns about their people by whose vote they come to power. They largely disrespect the people and their rights. They consider them groups of sheep. They only consider commissions in issuing contracts, either domestic or abroad, after coming to power.

The same mindset has encroached upon the CWG. They have limited themselves to issuing contracts of building required infrastructure for the games event and have forgotten to see whether the works were going properly. As the partners in the commissions could be large in number (it generally happens in India), there could be little money left for the contractors to complete the works in time.

One can do nothing but hoping that Indian rulers may learn at least now, some lessons.

Technorati Tags: Corruption,CWG-2010,Foreign investments

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Foreign Investments Invited in Indian Roads

2010-09-27T15:12:00.001-07:00

Foreign investments are invited in building Indian roads according NHAI (National Highway Authority of India) official J N Singh, Reuters reported. Indian infrastructure is thought to be a biggest hassle for the development of India by many foreign and domestic analysts in recent years.

Reuters news agency is one of such firm that has relentlessly been advocating the theory that the Indian infrastructure has become a biggest obstacle for India to equate the double-digit growth rate of neighboring China. It says underdeveloped infrastructure is one of the contributors for the high inflation rate of India.

$18 Billion Roads

India is expecting 30 percent of the total $18 billion cost of Indian road projects in the present fiscal year would be met by the foreign investors. The NHAI official revealed in the ‘Reuters India Investment Summit’ that the government has so far awarded 3000 km road from April to August and looking to award 6000 km road in the remaining part of the present fiscal year up to March 2011.

India is awarding the road building contracts on BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer) model, a type of partnership model formulated for the convenience of private contractors. The BOT system is nothing but a veil to privatization of Indian infrastructure, stitched and embroidered some ten years back.

What is BOT?

“Build” term in BOT implies that the roads will be built by the private contractors. “Operate” implies the built roads will be operated by again the private contractors. It includes mainly the setting up of tollgates at different points of the highways and collecting toll tax from the users.

The users include everyone but 11 number bus passengers. The 11 number bus passengers are none but those who walk on their two legs. The number 11 represent two legs. Toll tax is the only revenue from road building and it is entrusted to the private players.

The final term “Transfer” denotes that the roads will be transferred after expiring an agreed term. The term usually lasts up to 20 years and above. By then the life of the roads built by the private operators will also expire, but private parties will leave the scene, leaving behind the expired roads for the government to operate. Toll tax period also may end by then, so no revenue left for the government firm NHAI.

BOT system was so framed and named because of the agitations and protests from various mass organizations against the privatization of the road sector.

Infrastructure Funding

In order to boost funding the infrastructure the government announced in its budget of issuing infrastructure bonds. It has plans to set up $11 billion debt fund by next year. It has taken a few steps to boost foreign funding. One such step is that it has lifted cap on foreign investments in debt market.

The government has set a target to spend at least $80 billion in next two years on highways only. Of course, India has a consistent practice of missing its own targets. India is currently building 13km road a day instead of targeted 20 km a day. It seems Pension and Insurance funds are eyed for funding though denials are there as usual.

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Strategic Alliance between India and the US Begins to Materialize

2010-09-26T02:44:00.001-07:00

Article first published as Strategic Alliance between India and the US Begins to Materialize on Blogcritics.

India is preparing a gift pack to felicitate the US President Mr. Barack Obama, who is visiting India in November of this year. The strategic alliance agreement reached between India and the US, back in 2005, begins to materialize during president’s visit to India. The Indian government is working to finalize the defense deal worth $5.8 billion (approximately Rs. 2.75 lakh crore) that was signed in July 2009. Another deal of buying 126 fighter jets will also be signed during the visit, defense officials revealed.

For the prosperity of the US

Mr. Obama’s visit to India was announced by himself in the first week of June when Indian External Affairs minister S M Krishna met the President in the US. “When it comes to the sphere of our work, building a future of greater prosperity, opportunity and security for our people, there is no doubt; I have to go India,” Obama said in June in a press meet attended jointly with S M Krishna. The US officials said Mr Obama’s visit to India would be from November 7 to 10.

Therefore, for the prosperity of the US people (read, for helping the US to come out of the financial crisis) the Presidents of the US tour the world to sell their defense goods. They visit India on one side and Pakistan on the other side and sell their arms enabling India and Pakistan to protect themselves from their neighbors. Sometimes, they settle defense contracts with both countries in the same tour and of course on deferent legs.

Big Visit

According to rediff.com news, President Obama did not want his visit to remain merely a symbolic, and wanted to imprint his own signature through the visit. As the nuclear agreement was signed in the era of his Republican predecessor, President Obama wanted at least two big deals that could

remain as his personal landmark in the history of the US-India ties. Indian national newspaper “The Hindu” wrote some 5 days back that the visit would be discussed between Ms. Hillary Clinton and Mr. S M Krishna on the margins of the 65^th United Nations General Assembly sessions beginning this week.

The officials from both sides will be struggling on how to deal with the recent irritants that have cropped up, like fee hike for H-1B and L-1 visas, outsourcing ban in the state of Ohio and the recently approved nuclear liability bill. A strategic affairs analyst Ashley Tellis from the US was quoted by ‘The Hindu’ as saying “if the bill undermines the program of preventing private suppliers -- both Indian and foreign -- from entering the Indian nuclear market, it would eviscerate all the gains that the prime minister secured by signing the deal."

Ashley glossed over some of the details while warning India about nuclear liability bill. Indian Prime Minister achieved ‘good boy’ image from the US state machinery (start from CIA and you can find how lot they are) and their sponsors by signing civil nuclear agreement with the US against the interests of the Indian people. At the same time, he had already undermined the value of lives of millions of Indian people by limiting the liability of the damage caused by nuclear accidents to a mere few million dollars.

Rogue Regime

The American regime (not the American people) is the greatest rogue regime on the planet. The CIA is its worst most weapon that caries the rogue activities of the rogue regime throughout the world. The USSR’s regime used to be the second most rogue regime but it collapsed, thanks to its inability to carry on with a war economy like the US. The US has bombed nations; it has killed the heads of states; it has jailed the other heads of states on the land of the US, based on fake trials and convictions; it has overthrown the democratic regimes; it has supported dictatorship regimes for decades only because they were useful puppets.

The US does not sign international agreements that are aimed for the welfare of future generations, but forces to sign its pet agreements like NPT or CTBT. It forces Iran not to pursue nuclear technology but allows Israel piling up hundreds of warheads. It forces the companies like BP to pay for the oil spill in its seawaters but orders countries like India not to prosecute cold-blooded killers like Anderson, who killed thousands of Indians in Bhopal gas leak disaster.

Good News or Bad News?

The news that the head of such a state is visiting India may be a good one for Indian slavish rulers. However, it is a bad news for Indian people on many counts, as explained above. The money, that would be spent on acquiring 10 Boeing Co.’s C-17 Globemaster III planes is equal to three years’ budget of wealthier provinces (like Andhra Pradesh) in India. Here in Andhra Pradesh, the farmers are committing suicides for not getting fertilizers, for not getting electricity and for not getting the minimum support price (MSP) for their harvest.

C-17s maybe of latest and upgraded technology, but they are going to be used against India’s neighbor and the US’ important ally Pakistan. The Boeing and the US are fooling the Indian and Pakistan people by selling their war tools to both the rivals. At the most, what the Indians are going to benefit from is a percentage commission from the big arms deal, which will go to the Indian rulers and their patrons. Mr. Obama, do not come to India. The Indian people are suffering from many misdeeds of their rulers. Should you come and multiply them?

Technorati Tags: Strategic alliance,Boeing sale,nuclear liability,Rogue regime,NPT,Outsourcing

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9/11, a Hornet’s Nest: It is Ahmadinezad Again on the UN’s Stage

2010-09-24T13:13:00.001-07:00

Yet again, the delegations from the developed countries boycotted UN General Assembly while Iran’s President was delivering his speech. The news agencies reported the United States, 27 countries of the European Union and some others have boycotted the Assembly, when Iranian President began speaking. It has been the consistence and continuous practice of the western countries for years to boycott the speeches of the Iran representatives.

September 11

As usual, the Iranian President used the United Nations to attack the US’ hegemonic policies and Israel’s oppressive regime. He even dared to announce that the most people of the world as well as the US believed that certain sections of the US Government were behind the attacks of September 11, 2001. His contention was that some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining American economy, and its grips on the Middle East, in order to save the Zionist regime i.e. Israel.

We do not know, and perhaps we may never know, who brought down the twin towers of the WTC. It was only an idea that the al-Qaeda under the leadership of Osama-bin-Laden might have planned and executed the attacks. It was not proved at least notionally, to say that the al-Qaeda or a sort of terrorism was behind the attacks. There was not even an attempt to ascertain what the facts were. Within hours, several stories of several accounts were manufactured by the international print, audio and visual media propagating that Osama-bin-Laden and al-Qaeda were the masterminds behind the killings of people working in the twin towers.

Osama-bin-Laden

Until then, Osama-bin-Laden was unknown to the world but well known to the US’ administrative, military, intelligence and executive establishments. He was the man propped up by the US to build Islamist army for fighting against the Russian presence in Afghanistan. Many of the warlords of Afghanistan were funded by the CIA and other intelligence agencies of the developed countries, fighting to dethrone Russian supported regime then.

After the withdrawal of the Russian forces from Afghanistan, the warlords declined to allow the US to take over their country, because, it was not the reason for which they fought for decades. They wanted their own rule, of course, there were several factions willing to rule, and it was their internal problem. Whether Afghanistan wanted to establish dictatorship, parliamentary democracy or presidential democracy, was entirely the problem Afghanistan people but not at all a concern for the US and its puppet coalition states.

Over a time, the people of Afghanistan might have decided already that the Taliban or the warlords were not suitable for ruling them and prepared new leaders to lead their country towards the progress. This was possible, if and only if the people were allowed to do so. Were they allowed to build their own country and to choose their own leaders? No, they were not allowed by the US and its coalition friends.

Hegemony

The US wanted its presence in Afghanistan, in other words it wanted to replace the Russian forces in Afghanistan to ensure that the rise of emerging countries China and India in Asia, and the Islamic country Iran in the West Asia, were properly checked. They could not rely completely on Pakistan because of their thirst for nuclear weapon programme under the direction of Pak’s nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. They wanted their military presence in the region and a puppet government in Afghanistan.

There need not be any contradictions or doubts up to this point of the US intentions. Having said that, there arises a question for the US how to achieve its goal of having control over the Indian sub-content, the rising economic power China and an unbending Iran.

Israel Connection

Starting from the President of the US, foreign officials and diplomats of the US administration said repeatedly, as if one forgets, that the Israel was their greatest, deepest ally. They said they had the obligation of protecting Israel every now and then. They neither hid their intention of protecting Israel, nor stopped to it nakedly. No one should have any objection if the US protected Israel, but it did it at the cost of the security of the neighboring Arab and Islam countries. It had been protecting the Israel at the cost of existence and the ownership of the Palestinian Arabs, as if Israelis were only the god sent people and the Arabs were not, if ever god exists.

If the US could not hide its cruel intentions of hegemonic interests, why should deceased and oppressed people not express their doubts, which are well under propagation already?

If the US could attack independent states and killed their heads under the pretext that some lunatics had brought down its towers and killed its citizens, why should heads of the states that are under continuous economic and psychological attacks, not speak out against the intensions of the oppressors?

Let me doubt it false

Yes, let me doubt what the Iranian President Ahmadinezad told to the United Nations General Assembly was false. Let me not believe that the US is not going to attack Iran to bring out the US economy from the danger of double-dip recession. Let me believe that the US is going to prepare the state of Israel to respect at least the United Nations resolutions regarding the green line that separates the Palestinian state from the Israeli state. Let me believe that the US is preparing the state of Israel to agree to withdraw to the pre-1967 position on the land.

Let me believe that the state of Israel is going to agree to demolish illegal settlements built on the internationally agreed land of Palestinian state. And, let me believe that the US is going to achieve these most contentious and yet genuine objectives within one year as stated two days ago by the US, that could satisfy the entire Arab and Muslim world.

If these things are possible, I believe, there is no conflict of Palestine and Israel on this planet. If there is no conflict, there cannot be hegemony of the US. If there is no hegemony, there is no supremacy of the US. If there is no supremacy, there is no US imperialism at all.

What I want to say is that there are conflicts in the world to serve the interest of the US imperialism. There are several patrons of terrorism to ensure that the US presence is required there.

Demolition Technology

Demolition technology is needed to demolish the old and unwanted buildings and structures, which is developed in the US largely. It is a known fact that the skyscrapers can only be demolished by only placing powerful detonators at the roots of the building. The demolition is a big exercise that needs experts. I hope no one can deny this.

The twin towers are built with strong base, otherwise of which it cannot stand that tall. The supposed al-Qaeda terrorists had hit at the top portions of the buildings. Now I want to quote a comment placed on the MSN news site on the news of Ahmadinezad speech about 9/11 attacks:

“I saw these conspiracy videos, and I bet everyone will agree for this.

One sample proof: There is a “building 7” near WTC along with those two tall towers. NO plane collided with that building but that building also got crashed. Just type in Google or in youtube, you will get hell lot of proofs.

Also there are lots of SHOCKING facts with FIRM proofs, all these revealed by the American engineers, professors and designers of WTC itself..,” (Assertions are not mine).

Unsolved

Let us respect the sentiments of the people who lost their belonged, in the ghastly attacks. Let us find the problems and solve them so that such things cannot be repeated.

However, here, the problem is with imperialism of the United States of America. When there is an imperialist design, the problem can never be solved unless the imperialism is defeated.

Technorati Tags: US imperialism,Hornet’s nest,9/11,Ahmadinezad,Hegemony,Laden,Afghan war

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