NewsTrust - India - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

Can Obama Save the Global Economy (and Globalization) at the G-20?

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Esquire - By Thomas P.M. Barnett - Sep. 25 (Opinion) - What does this "rebalancing" play from Washington amount to? In a nutshell, a near-term future in which America consumes less and China consumes a helluva lot more. But Obama's "framework" also promises diplomatic cover for all sides in this rebalancing process by empowering the International Monetary Fund to monitor G-20 member pledges and flag them for consultations if voluntary targets aren't being met. Since sanctions never work (even if Dmitri Medvedev and the West Wing think they're inevitable), this transparent approach is considered ideal — in effect, a multilateral version of the shaming technique historically employed by the IMF (and by the U.S. against mercantilist Japan in years past).

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Interview: Jaswant Singh

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Aljazeera - Sep. 02 (Interview) - "Theocentricism", where society is centred on Islam - this is in line whether Pakistan, India or Bangladesh, where faith is of paramount importance. Pakistan is not theocratic in the sense it is not the Mullah that is governing Pakistan ... but Pakistan society is governed by Islam.

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A Scrap of Decency

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Bharati Chaturvedi - Aug. 05 (Opinion) - From India to Brazil to the Philippines, recyclers are experiencing a precipitous drop in income. Trash pickers and scrap dealers in Minas Gerais State in Brazil, for example, saw a decline of as much as 80 percent in the price of old magazines and 81 percent for newspapers, and a 77 percent drop in the price of cardboard from October 2007 to last December.

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Engaging Pakistan

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Times of India - Jul. 30 (Editorial) - Under attack from his critics in Parliament, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made a spirited defence of his policy of engaging Pakistan. He has revealed a policy shaped perhaps by short-term tactical considerations, but structured within the framework of an overarching strategic vision. Critics may question his commitment to engaging Pakistan as a show of weakness, but in the long run there is, as Singh pointed out, no other option save war. Even to discuss issues of importance to India such as terror emanating from Pakistan, it requires interlocutors in Islamabad.

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Clinton trip to India can build on Silicon Valley bonds

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Jose Mercury News - Jul. 19 (Opinion) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to India is expected to yield new initiatives in defense and space cooperation. Yet it is important to remember that the foundation for the U.S.-India geopolitical partnership that has emerged in the last decade was forged outside the realm of government policy and the confines of Washington and New Delhi. Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have played as important a role in building ties as any diplomat or national security official. And Clinton's trip provides a good opportunity to renew the important private-sector and societal linkages that help bind the relationship together.

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Election Defines a New India

Wed, 20 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Rahul Singh - May. 20 (Opinion) - India can be a depressing country, with its grinding poverty, festering slums, imploring — often deformed — beggars, and maddening bureaucracy. But there are times when, to the world’s astonishment, the curtain of gloom and despair lifts and the light shines through — and one feels proud to be an Indian.

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Pakistan's Existential Challenge

Tue, 12 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Opinion Journal (WSJ) - By Bret Stephens - May. 12 (Opinion) - About Iran, Henry Kissinger once asked whether the Islamic Republic was a country or a cause. About Pakistan, the question is whether it's a country or merely a space.

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Understanding Indian election politics

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Slate - By Miranda Kennedy - Apr. 30 (Opinion) - India's middle class may set the agenda in the media and in Washington, but the poor dominate Indian elections. That's because voter participation is highest among the rural, poor, and low caste. These voters are even more likely to participate in local elections—upward of 80 percent turn out for village council races—a stark contrast with the United States and other advanced democracies, where many more people vote for president than for city council.

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Dancing to the terrorists tune

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Dawn - By Jawed Naqvi - Apr. 07 (Opinion) - There is something worse than bad chemistry between the two. Their attention span for engaging in global brainstorming to weed out religious extremism appears limited compared to their ability to run each other down with mutual recrimination. Anyone can see that they are both victims of the most diabolical form of terrorism confronting the region. The world can see the pattern — that the bombing of the Serena Hotel in Kabul and the attack on the Indian embassy there, the truck bombing of the Marriott in Islamabad and the Taj Mahal and Oberoi in Mumbai, the close calls that Gen Musharraf and other politicians survived and the looming threats to harm Indian politicians, mostly have roots in the border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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Why we said pants to India's bigots

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Nisha Susan - Feb. 15 (Opinion) - The rules keep changing. Anger is never permitted because friends, on any point of the political spectrum, will say that you are lucky: what about the woman who walks 15 kilometres for water? So it amused us to embrace the worst slurs, to send pretty packages of intimate garments to men who say they hate us.

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Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Canadian Broadcasting - Feb. 15 (Interview) - We started off this part of our show by setting up the scene two weeks ago at the Amnesia Lounge, a pub in the southern Indian city of Mangalore. Men belonging to a group called Sri Ram Sena -- or Army of God -- walked into the pub and attacked a group of young women inside. Sri Ram Sena has been linked to India's growing right-wing Hindu movement. And to the attackers, the women's mere presence in the pub was an affront to what they see as proper Indian culture. Mangalore is a college town and an I.T. and call-centre hub - not the kind of place you'd expect an attack like this to happen. And yet the perpetrators were brazen enough to contact local television stations in advance to invite them to film the attack. But women like Nisha Susan aren't backing down in the face of it. She's a journalist and founding member of the provocatively named group called Consortium of Pub-Going, Loose and Forward Women. She was in Delhi for the show.

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Does community service really change anything?

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Christian Science Monitor - By Raj Mundra - Dec. 29 (Opinion) - What are the crucial social issues? The answers to those questions are complex. And listening was crucial for participants. Dust swirled as we trudged through the littered, stifling streets of Dharavi, in Mumbai, India. Climbing a ladder to the windowless room that a family of six calls home, I thought: What does this impoverished community really get from our school's efforts at community service? What long-term benefit does any underserved community truly derive from Phillips Academy's – or any other organization's – outreach efforts? What differentiates well-intended programs to encourage global citizenship from those that seem more like "cultural tourism," and resume-building for high schoolers? Phillips Academy high school students and faculty were toiling for Niswarth, a program where students go to Mumbai ( Bombay) for three weeks to study urban development and serve in one of Asia's poorest areas. Niswarth is the Hindi translation of Philips' motto non sibi or "not for self." This year, Phillips' students, partnered with Indian high schoolers and two nongovernmental organizations, were challenged to create a one-day project for this specific community. They were invited into shanties to practice the complex skill of observing without judgment. Everyone looks poor – but what is poverty? What are the root causes for almost 10 million people in Mumbai living in these conditions? What are the crucial social issues?

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The drum beating in Kashmir

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

International Herald Tribune - By H.D.S. Greenway - Dec. 17 (Opinion) - Pakistan is not going to bow down before India, and although there have been some arrests, there is not the political will necessary in Pakistan to thoroughly dismantle Lashkar.

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Mumbai was not our 9/11

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Arundhati Roy - Dec. 13 (Opinion) - ...But November isn't September, 2008 isn't 2001, Pakistan isn't Afghanistan and India isn't America. So perhaps we should reclaim our tragedy and pick through the debris with our own brains and our own broken hearts so that we can arrive at our own conclusions

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Mumbai was not our 9/11

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

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Stop pampering Pakistan's military

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Christian Science Monitor - By Brahma Chellaney - Dec. 13 (Opinion) - The recent Mumbai terrorist assaults underscore the imperative for a major change in American policy on Pakistan – a shift that holds the key to the successful outcome of both the war in Afghanistan and the wider international fight against transnational terror.

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India's other dangerous neighbor

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Foreign Policy - By Elizabeth Dickinson - Dec. 12 (Opinion) - Much has been said in recent days of Pakistan's involvement in the Mumbai bombings. But it's not the only neighbor to the north the India might need to worry about. Several reports yesterday indicated the Mumbai militants entered not just from Kashmir, but Nepal and Bangladesh, as well.

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Why the United States got it wrong

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

The Hindu - By P. Sainath - Dec. 11 (Opinion) - It is worth learning this: Al-Qaeda was the biggest beneficiary of the “response” of the United States to 9/11 alongside U.S. corporations. America’s “War on Terror” produced far more terrorism in the world than there had been prior to that response.

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The media's disingenuous failure to state the obvious.