India doesn't deserve a UNSC permanent seat

India's UNSC bid creates noise every time there is a UN session in progress. But sadly, it creates noise only in India. Thats the irony of this bid which needs 2/3rd of 192 countries around the world to vote for India. Nobody is talking about it and nobody cares. It is important to discuss whether India really deserves that seat.

Agreed that 1 out of every 6 people in this world live in India, agreed that India is the largest democracy, agreed that India is a major contributor to UN peace keeping missions, but is that enough to lay claim on permanent membership to UNSC? Just because you have been a loyal employee in a company and have worked honestly and diligently for it doesn't give you the right to lay claim to the Board of Directors. You should be in a strategic role to do that. You should have helped the company at a higher level to grow its business, to see through some crises situations, or to enter new relationships. You should have done something that was impactful to the whole company.

Also getting a UNSC membership is not just about national pride. Politicians, especially in the developing countries, have a habit of painting a Utopian picture for the general public, taking them on fantasy rides, one after the other. And low literacy levels and low awareness levels in these countries do not help the situation.

India has to prove its case to become a permanent member with veto power of such an influential body.

What is India's approach towards other countries, what drives India's global relationships, what are India's ideologies, what principles does India stand for, these are important questions that need to be answered. Nobody knows what is India's stand on important issues such as the situation in Darfur, the Palestine-Israel conflict, the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, and many other such issues. Indian government didn't consider them important enough to be commented upon. There are always more pressing domestic issues. And I haven't heard India's stand being discussed or covered by media for any major international conflict.

India fails to impress even in its neighborhood. It has remained silent on the Myanmar issue. It didn't take a lead in helping to solve important crises such as the Maoist rebellion in Nepal and LTTE issue in Sri Lanka. Even India's neighbors don't consider it their Big Brother, forget about other countries around the world.

India is unpredictable. Change in ruling party changes the way India engages with other countries. Who would have predicted that politics within the ruling party would derail the historic nuclear pact with US and in the process, deny energy-hungry India access to crucial nuclear technology, and send mixed signals to IAEA, France and Australia who were ready to help India build the nuclear plants.

India has inward looking policies that put national interest before anything else. Policies related to other nations are driven by domestic policy makers who don't have an international outlook. One of the reasons why India developed diplomatic relationships with some countries was to serve the interests of Indians in those countries and these relationships haven't evolved beyond fulfilling the requirements of the local Indians.

India is just a big country that has existed in isolation for decades and has recently shown some economic growth and integration with the global society. But largely, India is still not influencing any country's foreign policy.

All is not lost though. Consistency is the mantra India will have to adopt to become a permanent member of UNSC. India has to show consistent behavior in all the things that it does that involves another nation. It has to show consistency in its stand towards foreign conflicts, in its economic policies that impact other countries and in its internal policies that are related to human rights, child labor etc. That is when nobody can oppose India's bid and India can proudly say that it deserves a permanent seat on UNSC!

Can the world afford a China?

America is looking for a China! Or rather the whole world is looking for a China. Economists are predicting that inflation will rise faster in the near future, thanks to mortgage subprime financial crisis for bursting the bubble, resulting into a recession if a China that can manufacture goods at the same costs as today's China, is not found soon. Consumers will cut down on spending, slowing down the economy further and speeding up the arrival of recession, if a China that can sell goods at the same price as today's China, is not found soon. Rising oil prices, sky rocketing raw material costs, and increasing salaries are indicating that Chinese goods will soon become expensive for Americans if a China like today's China is not found soon.

This is a real and immediate threat to America and the world, unlike the chemical weapons threat from Iraq. Ironically, the unreal threat from Iraq cost US couple of trillion dollars (Refer to the article Iraq war costs could top $2trillion); it diverted America's attention and kept it busy while the real threat started to appear closer. In Indian epic Ramayana, a story goes that when Lord Rama went after a golden deer in a forest, his wife Sita was in real danger but Lord Rama's focus was hunting the deer down. The deer was actually Maricha, an obedient subject of Ravana, the King of demons. Maricha took the form of unreal golden deer at Ravana's behest. And Lord Rama fell to mistaken identity; Sita got kidnapped by Ravana when Rama was away. The moral of the story is that in dire situations, real and unreal threats are difficult to differentiate and even kings can fail.

(On second thoughts, maybe Bush saw the real threat of inflation coming, thought of countering it by controlling more oil, found Iraq to be the most legitimate target and ended up attacking it since Saddam wasn't handing over the keys to the oil wells and maybe it wasn't a case of mistaken identity? That probably makes every American smirk; democrats because they don't believe that Bush can think that far and republicans because they think that they weren't wrong after all)

Coming back to the topic of this post, India is touted as the China the world is looking for. According to a global survey done among 340 companies, over 50% of the respondents intend to move part of their manufacturing to India. Refer to the article Manufacturing India to challenge China.

This is great news for a country like India where more than 70% of over a billion people live on less than US$2 per day. Proponents of idea that only job creation can eradicate poverty may see this as a golden opportunity since only manufacturing can create jobs at such a large scale.

But can today's world afford a China? Chinese and people all over the world are paying a very high price in terms of the damage done to the environment by the way China has progressed. Only 1 percent of the country’s 560 million city dwellers breathe air considered safe by the EU. Although China holds fourth-largest freshwater resources in the world (after Brazil, Russia, and Canada), two-thirds of China's approximately 660 cities have less water than they need and 110 of them suffer severe shortages, all this because of overuse, and pollution. China’s cement factories use 45 percent more power than the world average, and its steel makers use about 20 percent more . The country consumed some 2.4 billion tons of coal in 2006 - more than the United States, Japan, and Britain combined and is the world's largest contributor of carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas, to the atmosphere. Can you imagine what will happen if India follows the same path! Knowing all the negative effects, would you still want India to become a China, for the sake of this world? Think again.

Incredible India!

India's silence on Myanmar's current event has left me appalled. "India, the largest democracy in the world." That is the favorite anecdote of any Indian politician. What happened to the largest democracy? Why is it not opposing the anti-democracy junta's use of force on God-fearing, non-violent, unarmed monks? "India, the upcoming super power." Another favorite anecdote of every Indian politician. Don't they know that super powership comes with responsibilities. They cannot just close their eyes at such an event and imagine that nobody is watching. What is amusing is that even the media is not giving it the front headlines that this news deserves.

Are the oil and natural gas reserves in Myanmar the only reasons behind the silence? Then what is the difference between India and other super powers, who judiciously maintain silence when opposition leaders are being packed off into jails in a neighbouring country being run by a whimsical dictator? Or is it that India is shy from using its power since it doesn't know if its real or perceived power? Then I would say that Indian politicians should stop using another favorite anecdote, "India, awakening!".

India is losing a key opportunity to bring a long lasting change in its neighbouring country, which the local people will appreciate always. It will elevate India's image in the Western world. It will help India differentiate itself from China. And it will give the Indian politician another anecdote. "India, the harbinger of democracy."

India - 60th birthday or 16th?

Confident, Empowered, Roaring Tiger were some of the adjectives used for India as it turned 60 on this 15th August. But what if India wouldn't have opened its economy 16 years back? How would this day be? The day would be similar to 15th Augusts before 1991. The day would have passed in the world media without anybody noticing it or at the most, somebody would have written a sorry article about how India is struggling even after 60 years of independence to grow at more than the Hindu rate of 2-3%. Inside the country, government employees would have forcibly shown up for the flag hoisting ceremony, so that they wouldn't have one less leave on their payroll. Students would have no choice but to show up in school and sit through long speeches that would have told them how India was a great country. And everybody would have wondered, "Where is the greatness!" There was no growth in the country, no new jobs, inflation was rising, corruption was rampant...in a nutshell, future had nothing to offer. This was the sorry state of India before 1991. Patriotism came with a sense of guilt. I remember how everybody used to talk that the need of the hour was a dictator or a magician who could solve India's miseries with one sleight of hand. Or maybe it was time for Lord Vishnu to come on earth in His next avatar to get rid of all of India's problems. I was too young to understand what was happening but all I was waiting for was Vishnu's reincarnation.

I guess that happened in 1991. Thats when India dissolved the license raj system, opened its economy, became dependent on global economy but still became independent in the true sense of today. Things are very different today. Every child is looking forward to becoming a youth and every youth is looking at ways to contribute to the growth. And this time they will also get real opportunities to do that. All this in 16 years is a commendable feat. This growth should not be of worry until one sees the rich becoming richer, and poor becoming poorer. Manmohan Singh doesn't miss any opportunity, be it speech at CII or Independence Day speech, to remind the business world of its social obligations. The business community probably realises that social unrest is not in its best interest and is taking needed steps to help the government. Sunil Mittal said that a major difference between India and China of today is that India lacks behind China in hard infrastructure but India is way ahead in terms of soft infrastructure. I think India's growth is being laid on strong foundations and the soft infrastructure will take it a long way.

Those who compare today's India with today's China and fashionably say that India will need decades to catch up with China, should look at the conditions in both the countries before the economies opened up. That would be fair comparison.

It wouldn't be surprising to find that India was worse off than China before the two economies opened up. India's leading foreign affairs expert C Raja Mohan termed the first five decades of closed economy and Non-Aligned approach of India as '50 wasted years'. You cannot disagree to that. Just after attaining freedom, Nehruvian policies started defining India's future. India opted to follow a path of Non-Alignment - an independent foreign policy framework vis-a-vis a bipolar world. India went behind closed doors and built high walls around it. Intentions of Nehru are not doubtful. But he didn't make sure that the governments after him understood his vision. All the sources of information or knowledge - newspapers, TV, Radio, school curriculum were full of rhetoric such as India is great, Indians are great, etc. Indians' brains got hard-wired to think that everything about India and Indians was great. And even if the country was great, they should have let them discover it and not force it down their throat. Anyway, successive governments used this as a means to manipulate the common people, to hide the governments' incapabilities or unwillingness to solve India's growing problems; the governments exploited it to a shameless level giving empty promises which they had no clues on how to deliver. India was in a very bad state before 1991.

That is why it was India's 16th birthday and not 60th.

Super markets in India - boon or bane?

Recently Wal-mart announced its entry into India in partnership with Bharti Enterprises. It was well on the cards for sometime. But still the announcement generated protests in different parts of India by small shop (Mom And Pop - MAP shop) owners. They think that Wal-mart is a big-size, fire-spitting dragon which if let in, will burn all the MAPs. Long term picture may not be very different if these shop owners just hide behind their counters without rekindling their own fire to fight the big guy.

Wal-mart plans to setup 10-15 stores in India by 2015. Each Wal-mart store currently attracts average 4000 visitors per day. If the 15 stores attract 4000 customers from day one, then roughly 60,000 Indians will visit Wal-mart daily or assuming grocery shopping frequency of 2 weeks, around a million customers will visit Wal-mart. Today India has a population of 300 million upper and middle class people or 60-70 million families. By 2015, this number will grow to 100 million if we assume a conservative CAGR of 5%. So even if Wal-mart is building 100% customer base from day one, then it will attract only 1% of India's upper and middle class families.

Entry of super-markets will be good news for those currently working in the retail industry. The current situation for Ramus and Shamus is not very encouraging - 10-12 hours of work every day, no rights, no job securities, no medical insurances or any other perks and all this for meagre salaries of Rs. 2000-3000 per month. In the new super markets, their working conditions will be better, their salaries will be better and their self-esteem will be higher since they will see themselves as part of a big organization. They will have to acquire new skills though to be saleable to these big super markets. There are concerns about those who cannot be retrained because they are illiterate or they are old or they don't have enough money for retraining. The concerns are that they might be left out of the current boom. But the 'complete' transition to super market culture wouldn't happen overnight and may take more than 20-30 years. That is enough time for the current generation of non-saleables to see through their life in the MAPs and not feel any real threats from super markets.

Entry of super-markets will be good news for consumers too who will have more choices, and cheaper goods. There are many products such as processed food which are not available on a large scale in India. Not that they are expensive but the Indian retail industry never provided them, and consumers never demanded them. It might be a chicken and egg problem which we can discuss offline. But the point is that with growing affluence, consumers demand for better brands, for packaged products is increasing and they will see these demands being fulfilled by super markets. It will be super markets that will flourish the retail supply industry in India. So the consumers will not complain the entry of super markets.

It is not necessary that after 20-30 years, there will be no place for MAPs in India. Take Singapore as an example. MAPs coexist in large numbers with super markets such as Carrefours, Giants and Cold Storages. MAPs cater to needs of two types of customers. One type caters to convenience. These MAPs are in the neighbourhood and stock goods that one needs on a more regular basis and saves a trip to the super market in emergency situations. The second type caters to economically lower class of the society, those who are highly price-sensitive and who don't care about shopping experience. MAPs in India can also reposition themselves to better target the evolving customer needs. People like me think that Indian retailers, with their strong business acumen, customer service focus and survival skills, will be rediscovering themselves and will find their own niche.

Even if the recent protests were not against super markets per se but against foreign super markets, giving Wal-mart some tough competition will be Indian super markets such as Reliance, Big Bazaar and numerous local imitations. There is not much to worry. The Wal-marts and Carrefours of the world are not colonising Indian retail industry.

One loser from the super market boom in India will be resource-crunched earth. Natural resources are increasingly becoming rare species and increased demand for consumer goods will quicken the pace. One can just hope and pray that marketers don't entice people into buying aluminium foil, plastic wraps, kitchen towels, etc. and Indians, who are still 'surviving' without such products, find their current practices healthier and don't give in.

I have fond memories of eating ice cream from our local ice cream wala during summer holidays. As the hot summer sun goes down and the evening approaches, ice cream uncle comes on his bicycle. We run to the front door at the sound of his bell, ask him to stop while we convince mom how much we deserve the ice cream. In the meantime, my brother is already waiting for a signal from me to tell the ice cream uncle to put one delicious scoop in each cup. That one scoop of ice cream used to give us so much satisfaction and the experience left so many fond memories. The super markets, with their sophisticated supply chains, get us huge ice cream packs at much lower prices. As a result, one doesn't need to wait for ice cream wala, all you need to do is reach the refrigerator.

But who knows, maybe my ice cream uncle will supply to Wal-mart and I will atleast be able to enjoy the same taste, if not relive the same experience.

I deny!

Not sure if you ever observed an interesting pattern of 'denial' whenever people in responsible positions are asked about any allegations against them. And it is not just a normal denial. It is always accompanied with conniption fits, with a sense of desperation, with a protest that makes them look like victims. They make it sound as if the biased media is cooking up fantasy stories to show the 'helpless them' in bad light. See below a few such news items from recent press. Note the words highlighted in red.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6723263.stm

Families search Pakistan for lost PoWs

For its part, Pakistan denies altogether the presence of Indian military personnel in its jails. But the relatives are not satisfied.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/05/news/pakistan.php

Independent TV channels in Pakistan protest Musharraf decree

Government officials deny the claims of interference. Muhammad Saleem, head of public relations and media at the government agency that regulates the media, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority, claimed that the government had nothing to do with the stopping of transmission of news channels. "There is a dispute between the cable operators and media channels," Saleem said. "We have no hand in this. We ourselves don't know what the issues between them are."

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&article=96655&d=26&m=5&y=2007

Pakistan Denies Troops Traded Gold, Arms With DRC Militia

Chief Pakistani military spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad said the allegations were “preposterous, malicious and baseless.” “

The last one was a BBC investigation report. Probably doesn't matter. Maybe the training of these bureaucrats includes a lesson on "How to deny convincingly" and hence the source of the story, their credibility doesn't really matter. All one has to do is 'deny'. The press and the readers are anyways stupid who will accept what is said and who will completely believe all that is said.

One funny story goes that at a news conference the bureaucrat went on the dias and before the journalist asked a question, he blurted out, "I completely deny!".

One drop in the ocean of global emissions!

There is already a lot of talk about global warming, the importance of curbing emissions etc. But a new post from me would be like a drop in the ocean! (Thats how I convince myself whenever I am using my vaccuum cleaner or washing machine, hair dryer or AC - the impact of my using them on global warming is just like a drop in the ocean. How much does it affect it!)

Anyways, my reference point is the article below.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/2007/05/should_indians_drive_cars.html

Most of the articles I have read till now talk about how developed countries are more responsible than the developing countries or how developing countries cannot act irresponsibly towards global warming . Everybody is blaming each other! But nobody is talking about what are the steps developed and developing countries can take to curb the emissions. What are the 'practical' steps?

One Option:

Do you want China to stop the factories? But how would the developed world survive? China is not manufacturing just for itself. China's major manufacturing is done for the West. And if China takes steps to improve the quality of its manufacturing to curb emissions, is the West prepared to pay for the increase in product prices? Wouldn't they just shift the manufacturing from China to maybe Africa or wherever it is cheaper?

And maybe then West will start blaming Africa then!

Another option:

Do you want Indians to stop buying cars? Can you force the likes of GMs and Toyotas to manufacture low price hybrid cars and sell only those to Indians? People in India don't care whether they are driving petrol cars or hybrid cars. They have just enough money to buy one. So you provide them hybrid cars at the same price and they will go for it. Can you do that?

One more option:

Do you want to teach the people from developed countries to decrease their usage of electricity? Afterall, electricity & heat accounts for 24.6% of worldwide gas emissions. Residential buildings alone account for 9.9% of worldwide gas emissions and commercial buildings account for another 5.4%. Most of this electricity is probably being consumed in developed countries. We haven't talked about transportation here which contributes 13.5% gas emissions worldwide. Also we are not talking about how the consumer demand for goods and products (which is probably highest in the developed countries) makes industries contribute 10% of the worldwide gas emissions. There is a lot that the general public in developed countries can do. Since most of the population is literate and well educated and understands the implications of global warming, it will be a good start to teach them to decrease their usage of electricity, consumer goods and transportation. That will help decrease emissions from sources that account for 50% of total worldwide emissions!

What is needed is to stop the blame game, and think about 'practical' steps for the whole world to follow to curb emissions. And please don't discuss whether Indians should buy cars or not. That is practially unstoppable unless you stop producing, buying and using cars.