COLUMNIST: HARI SUD
Abroad View
Hari Sud studied chemical engineering at the University of Punjab in Chandigarh and the University of Missouri. He worked for Canadian Industries Ltd. from 1975 to 1995, moving from chemical engineer to capital program manager to vice president. In 1995 he switched to a Canadian bank, rising to vice president of transaction processing. He retired in 2004, though he occasionally serves as a banking consultant. He is married with two sons, both doctors. Writing is his hobby.
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March 02, 2010Toronto, ON, Canada — It is only recently that India is being bracketed with China and not with Pakistan in international circles. Only when the Indian economy crossed the US$1 trillion mark a year or so ago did it begin to win the respect it is due.
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February 19, 2010Toronto, ON, Canada — China's National Bureau of Statistics headed by Ma Jiantang says the country is trying to project itself as a leading economic power with worthless statistics. Ma was complaining during the national statistics works conference on Jan. 28, of provincial officials routinely fudging and inflating numbers to make them look good.
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February 12, 2010Toronto, ON, Canada — U.S. President Barack Obama began his presidency with the promise of good governance, prosperity and equality for all. But his mystic influence over the masses has begun to fizzle out. This is largely because he got his priorities wrong.
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February 05, 2010Toronto, ON, Canada — India has a 1.1 billion population, US$1.2 trillion economy and US$28 billion in annual defense expenditures. Pakistan has a 175 million population, US$445 billion PPP economy and US$8 billion in annual defense expenditures. Yet Pakistan never ceases to seek parity with India in all spheres.
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January 29, 2010Toronto, ON, Canada — An aggressive and arrogant China is entering 2010 with a bit of uncertainty. Although there was no let-up in its exports in 2009, its internal financial position looks uncertain. China watchers are expecting a bubble that will eventually burst.
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January 22, 2010Toronto, ON, Canada — The Indian Army since 1962 has become proficient in mountain, snow and jungle warfare. India’s specially equipped snow warriors are trained at high altitudes and in temperatures as low as minus 40 degrees Celsius. It is these troops that defend India’s high-altitude borders with China and Pakistan.
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January 15, 2010Toronto, ON, Canada — Terror has become a daily affair in Pakistan, which has hit civilians the most due to suicide bombers mingling with them. Thanks to the presence of terrorists on its soil, today Pakistan is in worse shape than it was ten years back. There is no end in sight to its internal fighting.
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January 08, 2010Toronto, ON, Canada — China showcased its economy in 2009 by beating the economic and financial meltdown that overtook the West. Its gross national product managed to grow at around 7 to 9 percent. But the Chinese have suppressed news about factory closures, economic riots and workers being sent home to their provinces.
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December 11, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — India's sugar shortfall, with demand outstripping supply for the season ending in March 2010, is expected to be around 6 to 8 million tons, which will force the country to import sugar. The blame falls squarely on India’s lack of rain, which thwarted an increase in farm acreage for sugarcane cultivation.
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December 04, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — The mini-depression of 2008-2009 will be remembered as the one that felled the mighty West but let China and India prosper. China grew at 9 percent and India at 7 percent this year, while the United States and Europe suffered a crippling 3.5 percent drop in their growth rates.
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November 27, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — With the visit to India last week of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canada-India relations have been given an important boost. In the past, thanks to political obstructions, Canada failed to realize India’s importance. Now the two countries have many reasons to draw closer together.
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November 20, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — Political power in the United States is so well distributed that at times it becomes dysfunctional, as with the current healthcare debate. The executive and legislative branches are at odds thanks to the financial intervention of the healthcare industry. U.S. democracy has to learn to deal with such logjams.
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November 13, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — The United States set China on the course to modernization and military power. Now China’s ambitions, its rapid growth and emergence as a global power have far-reaching consequences for the rest of the world, including the United States. China must be contained to avoid future problems.
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November 06, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — U.S. leaders are more concerned about their prestige, which has nose-dived due to the decline of the U.S. dollar, than the currency decline itself. Although the decline may be a boon for importers of U.S. goods, because they become cheaper, it is a concern for nations who park their earnings in U.S. dollars.
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October 30, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — U.S. President Barack Obama has turned lukewarm to India. Unfortunately, the achievements in Indo-U.S. ties during the presidency of George W. Bush are under review, sidetracked by domestic pressures in the United States. This is good news for China, which can expand its influence in Asia unchecked.
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October 23, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — The U.S. public debt stands at US$11.9 trillion and rising. If the United States is not able to get its financial house in order, its future role as leader of the free world is in jeopardy. No other nation has the muscle to step in except China – which holds US$900 billion in U.S. Treasury bonds.
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October 16, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — Every conflict that the United States fought in the last 50 years has given its soldiers a bad name. This is not good for the morale of the country whose brave soldiers won many battles in the Second World War. Are Americans now afraid to die on the battlefield? Are they afraid that their leaders are misleading them?
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October 09, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — Uranium, the key to nuclear power generation, is in short supply in India. The country’s reserves stand at 75,000 tons of low-grade ore, which requires processing before it becomes fuel for nuclear reactors. Therefore the country must import uranium until it can switch to technologies that use alternate fuel.
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October 02, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — China spent 20 years, from 1950 till 1971, confronting the United States. From 1959 to 1990 it remained at loggerheads with the Soviet Union. Now it finds itself with a 3 million-strong military and no enemy in sight. It is looking to create a new one, preferably in its neighborhood, and India fits the bill.
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September 25, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — Americans often describe governments and officials in Asia as corrupt because gifts change hands or benefits are offered in various business transactions. But what is lobbying in the United States? It is corrupting politicians and civil servants with money and material benefits by private interest groups.
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September 18, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — The controversy over India’s nuclear tests in 1998, started by nuclear scientists who claim the tests failed, is in fact related to controversy over the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal. The real issue is the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; India has not signed, but the United States has not ratified it either.
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September 11, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — In the last five years there has been a paradigm shift in the global investor’s perception of India. Foreign institutional investors are pouring money into India at the rate of roughly US$1 billion a week, while annual foreign direct investment has reached US$47 billion.
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September 04, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — The gap between China’s official words and actual deeds could lead to another conflict with India. China’s recent building of an intercontinental missile base north of Tibet has set alarm bells ringing. But India’s planned military upgrades could neutralize China’s current advantage in five years.
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August 28, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — India’s seasonal southwest monsoon, which began in June, brought about 30 percent less rain than usual by mid-August. Overall grain production will be down this year and exports will decrease, but India has enough reserves to supply domestic demand.
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August 24, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — Two persons, one in India and the other in China, have independently created a ruckus about India’s existence as an independent country. An Indian admiral suggested that India could not match China’s power, while a Chinese writer suggested that India should be broken up into 20 to 30 smaller states.
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August 21, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — Pakistan has moved troops to its North-West Frontier Province to root out the Taliban. This is a strategic blunder, as it has infuriated tribesmen in the region who now want to launch their own jihad against Pakistan. Some politicians there are also talking about a separate homeland for the Pashtun people.
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August 14, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — Ever since India attained independence in 1947 Indians have aimed to master the art of military technology. India’s newly commissioned nuclear submarine, launched on July 26 in the southern port of Vishakhapatnam, is expected to balance China’s growing presence in the Indian Ocean.
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August 07, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — China and the United States held talks on strategic and economic matters in Washington on July 27 and 28, which both sides declared a success. However, such talks are pointless unless the basic issues of balanced trade and the value of the Chinese yuan are on the agenda.
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July 31, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — India is facing a decision that will affect its military and political future for a long time to come: whether to buy Russian or U.S. military hardware. Cost and capability are critical, but history and political realities cannot be ignored.
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July 24, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — Does the United States want India to enlarge its role as a global power, as suggested by comments made by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Mumbai last week? Or is the United States misleading India with mere sycophancy? Several litmus tests will reveal if the United States is sincere.
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July 17, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — China-based hackers have been reading sensitive computer files at India’s Washington Embassy and elsewhere. Also, the United States may have triggered the failure of the first test of India’s Brahmos-II missile by shutting down the GPS feed to the missile for 90 seconds. Welcome to information warfare.
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July 10, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — During a 2004 friendly exercise with the Indian Air Force in Gwalior, India, the U.S. Air Force was humbled when the Indian SU-30 MK1 fighter outscored the best U.S. air domination fighter, the F-16C. U.S. It was a “wake-up call” for the U.S. Air Force to be bested by the relatively unknown air power, India.
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July 03, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — China took advantage of U.S. pique over Pakistan from 1992 to 2001 to strategically and militarily move closer to Pakistan. But to ensure continued economic and military support, Pakistan has chosen to ally with the United States. This has put China-Pakistan relations under considerable strain.
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June 19, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — The much-heralded Indo-U.S. nuclear deal, which was one of the few successes of former U.S. President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, is in danger of being shelved. The Obama administration has delivered one piece of bad news after another, from India’s point of view.
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June 12, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — It is a matter of time before China helps Pakistan to expand its nuclear arsenal and missile capabilities, posing a major threat to India – China’s chief rival and Pakistan’s chief enemy. In this context, it is important for India to build a missile defense and also to have nuclear weapons capability at sea.
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June 05, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — Pakistan has been manipulating U.S. policymakers to get funds for 50 years. In its latest scheme, Pashtun tribesmen were to make sporadic attacks on Pakistani cities so Pakistan, the victim, could request more funds to fight terrorism. But then things started to go wrong.
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May 29, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — India's newest combat aircraft is a fourth-generation dogfighter built of lightweight composite materials, with an avionics suite from Israel, a U.S.-made high-thrust engine to give it Mach 2 capability, a 23-mm rapid-fire gun and an array of Indian and Russian air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles.
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May 22, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — U.S. President Barack Obama need not vacillate between India and China in setting his priorities in Asia, as India’s general elections delivered a verdict for stability.Obama should put the “China first” advice of his foreign policy advisors on the back burner and work on the “India first” policy instead.
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May 15, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — The Obama administration seems to have decided that India is no longer important to the United States; it would rather concentrate on China. The United States has served notice to India that eight years of friendly relations are under review; meanwhile China’s trump card is U.S. dependence on Chinese money.
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May 08, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — Chinese leaders hate bad publicity and thrive on being called the only power in the East. They do that by hiding much of their real economic, political and social data and making it look real through the good offices of their American friends, dependent upon their cash reserves and cheap exports.
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May 01, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — The kind of free market economics of which Great Britain is the proponent have brought misery to the world in the last 20 years. They can be called Anglo-Saxon economics or, in plain English, British free-market greed. Their opponents do not believe that a state should be run like a corporation.
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April 24, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — The United States is hoping for a new scenario in South Asia, in which India and Pakistan withdraw troops from their shared border, so Pakistan can move troops to its own troubled North West Frontier Province to fight the Taliban. Is such cooperation possible between longtime enemies?
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April 17, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — Voting in India’s general elections, which began on April 16, will last for another month. However, leaders of the newly minted “Third Front,” a new alliance of assorted leftists and regional parties, are already expressing irrational exuberance over election results.
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April 10, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — Military spending around the world in the last half of the 20th century was largely the result of U.S. posturing and the Soviet Union responding in kind, and both sides arming their allies. This game was played to the hilt in South Asia, where Pakistan was a major beneficiary.
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April 03, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — In the midst of all the turmoil in Pakistan, who is watching the country’s nuclear weapons? It is a declared intention of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist group to acquire nuclear weapons. Are Pakistan’s nuclear weapons within their reach?
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March 27, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — In the current global slowdown, an interesting geopolitical game is in progress. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Beijing to ensure that China will continue to support U.S. debt. China needs U.S. goodwill – and its import orders – but China also needs its reserves at home.
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March 20, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — The Strait of Malacca is where the Pacific Ocean meets the Indian Ocean. It is the route that China-bound oil shipments take. All India must do to prevent Chinese belligerence is to block this route. With its naval build-up of the last 10 years, India could do this.
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March 13, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — It appears that the headquarters of global jihad has moved from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, where the country’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, has taken over the reins. Religious-minded army officers in the army are the key culprits and should be removed from power immediately.
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March 06, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — Gold prices have risen in the last three months, but are not likely to go much higher. The reason for the sharp spike and the predicted decline in gold prices is hedge funds’ and oil-rich sheikhs’ temporarily parked investments in gold, which are expected to be dumped soon.
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February 27, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — India’s main supplier of advanced military hardware is Israel. In the 1990s India sought arms from Israel after its defense research organization failed to develop high-end weapons systems. The relationship has continued as problems have developed with Russia, once India’s prime military supplier.
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February 25, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — In the United States it appears that Wall Street is more powerful than the government. For the last five months it has held a gun to the U.S. government’s head, asking for a bigger bailout package. The Treasury Department and Federal Reserve, which should manage the economy, are only playing catch-up.
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February 20, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — As the U.S. financial meltdown continues, attention is directed toward the wider and long-range impact of globalization. In theory, globalization increases the mobility of goods, services and capital throughout the world. But it is not sustainable in its present form, and has not benefited everybody.
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February 13, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — Canada has been hostile to Indian efforts to generate nuclear power for the last 34 years. But on Jan. 19 Canadian Trade Minister Stockwell Day concluded a deal to cooperate in building nuclear power plants in India, a deal that will benefit both parties.
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February 06, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — Three weeks ago, an Indian AWACS – airborne warning and control system – plane made its debut over New Delhi. Two more are on order and will arrive in a year’s time. Additional purchases of this top-of-the-line plane in the near future will enhance India’s defensive posture against both China and Pakistan.
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February 02, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — India, which the British left in 1947 is no longer hungry and bankrupt but strong and self-sufficient. However, the British have never accepted this and film director Danny Boyle’s latest flick “Slumdog Millionaire,” a rags-to-riches story of a slum dweller in Mumbai, stereotypes India’s past.
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January 30, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — The U.S. is in deep recession. Rather, it is in depression similar to the one in the 1930s. As consumer demand in the U.S. and Europe dies, countries that built their economies centered on exports will suffer the most. China will be impacted the most as consumer demand for its exports is in sharp decline.
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January 23, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — The U.S. economy has spun out of control. The “band-aid” measures adopted in the past three months are temporary, with no cure for the terminal disease. To recover, the country must cut consumption, explore domestic oil resources, pursue nuclear and renewable energy resources and prevent oil speculation.
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January 16, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — In this fifth part of a hypothetical scenario following the terror attacks in Mumbai, India, Pakistan has incurred heavy losses and considers asking the United States and China to broker a cease-fire. Indians are in no mood to end hostilities unless Pakistan dismantles its entire jihadi infrastructure.
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January 13, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — In this fourth part of a hypothetical scenario following the terror attacks in Mumbai, India, Pakistan has inflicted considerable damage on India. Counting its losses on the fifth day of the conflict, India has lost half of its frontline fighters.
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January 09, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — In this third part of a hypothetical scenario following the terror attacks in Mumbai, India, Pakistan looks to attack India’s nuclear facilities after India destroys its uranium and plutonium production facilities and two nuclear weapons production facilities in Punjab.
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January 02, 2009Toronto, ON, Canada — In this continuation of last week's scenario, outlining a possible response from India to the Mumbai terror attacks, Israel allies with India to root out Pakistan’s weapons of mass destruction, while India is focused on snuffing out Pakistan’s terrorist infrastructure.
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December 30, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — Indian, Interpol, British and U.S. investigating teams have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the attackers of Mumbai on Nov. 26 were Pakistani. There was an immediate call for retribution in India. India has given Pakistan time to act internally, but kept the battle-axe ready.
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December 23, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — China and Pakistan should pay attention to India’s newest anti-ship missile, the BrahMos. Indo-Russian cooperation produced a missile with a 660-pound warhead and Mach-3 speed. It will permanently keep the Chinese navy out of the Indian Ocean and put Pakistan on the defensive.
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December 16, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — India should hang its head in shame for allowing the carnage in Mumbai. Blame goes to all the security agencies and their political masters who never took time to mend the faulty intelligence gathering process in the country.
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December 09, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — Muslims conquered India 600 years ago. The British ended Muslim domination by 1857, but some Muslims still consider India conquered land and wish to regain rule there. This is the point of issues involving Kashmir, terror raids in India and the encouragement of Indian Muslims to revolt.
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December 05, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — Oil, priced at US$147 a barrel three months ago, was predicted to hit US$200 a barrel, strengthening calls for alternative energy sources. Current oil prices are down, but only temporarily. In comparison, nuclear energy is cheaper and looking ever more appealing.
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December 02, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — Signs that link terrorists involved in the Mumbai attacks with elements in Pakistan raises the question of whether the U.S. is soft on terror with Pakistan whom it has supported to fight its own war on terror as the alliance has resulted in a carte blanche for Pakistan to do whatever it wants, in India.
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November 25, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — The United States has failed to understand that in the last 20 years the balance of economic power has shifted in favor of emerging economies. The United States, Europe and Japan are being challenged economically by China, India, Brazil and Russia. The dominance of the U.S. dollar is coming to an end.
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November 18, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — How will U.S. President-elect Barack Obama and his team handle the deteriorating economy, the Iraq War, the Afghanistan-Pakistan situation, China’s rising exports, the trade deficit and the rising power of countries like India, all of which are still dependent upon U.S. largesse?
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November 11, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — Pakistan is in financial trouble, with its foreign reserves nearly depleted for the second time in a decade. Its problems are related to its continuous military buildup in an effort to keep up with India. The IMF can help, but will demand a cut in defense spending.
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November 04, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — Can China risk a major war in Asia or even a military adventure beyond its borders? The answer is no. Why then is China building its military machine at an annual cost of more than US$60 billion? The answer: to intimidate its neighbors.
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October 28, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — The U.S., European and Chinese economies are so interlinked that a significant decline in orders to Chinese factories could send its economy into a depression. As the West falls into recession, its demand for consumer goods will decline. This collapse in demand does not bode well for Chinese exports.
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October 21, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — The media is revealing the names of erring executives of Wall Street responsible for the current financial meltdown, which is almost certain to lead to a recession, or even depression. The Wall Street we have known will soon cease to exist; some of the millionaire executives will become paupers.
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October 14, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — The world’s geopolitical map changed when U.S. President Richard Nixon visited China in 1972. Now China is an economic and military power that can threaten the United States. India is 10 to 15 years behind in obtaining economic, military and nuclear assistance, but is expected to quickly bridge that gap.
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October 09, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — The Indian second-generation community in the United States and Canada has grown to roughly 3 million people. It has prospered through hard work and determination, while at the same time navigating the line between two very different cultural landscapes.
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October 07, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — For its excesses, Wall Street is now in turmoil. People on Main Street argue that Wall Street created this financial crisis and ordinary people should not be the ones to suffer. The truth is that Wall Street operators knew the risks and decided to insulate themselves by making Main Street dependent on them.
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October 02, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — Many countries could run out of groundwater within the next three decades. India's northwest regions are losing groundwater by switching to water-intensive rice cultivation while China's northeast has already run out of water. This will hurt agriculture and have catastrophic effects on life in general.
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September 30, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — Forty years ago, using groundwater for agriculture, or “water mining,” seemed like a good idea. The United States, India and China relied heavily on it to boost their agricultural productivity. Today, however, it is a serious problem, with water tables falling to dangerous levels in many places.
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September 29, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — The collapse of Wall Street investment houses, and the possible collapse of the U.S. banking sector, mean it will cost from US$700 billion to $2 trillion to put the U.S. financial sector back in order. Exporting countries with cash surpluses in the United States could save the country from disaster.
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September 23, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — Did India completely succeed in its 1998 nuclear tests or did it fail? This is a vital question in the light of the recent approval by the International Atomic Energy Agency of India’s nuclear plan, as well as the Nuclear Suppliers Group’s waiver currently waiting for approval in the U.S. Congress.
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September 16, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was a political pressure tool to prevent nations from attaining nuclear power. The Nuclear Suppliers Group is an offshoot of that effort to limit the spread of nuclear technology. Originally initiated by the U.S., the Bush government is now hoping to undo it in a bid to forge ties with India’s nuclear energy program.
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September 09, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — In the past nine years during Musharraf’s rule, Pakistan built a very close relationship with China who provided him with strategic military support when he needed it most. With Musharraf gone, it is time to review China and Pakistan relations in the light of their alliance formed primarily to counter India.
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September 02, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — Russia did nothing wrong in ejecting murderous Georgian troops out of South Ossetia. But a sustained PR job is turning public opinion in favor of Mikheil Saakashvili – the reckless Georgian elected strongman. He is to be blamed for starting the present trouble.
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August 26, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — When the world was watching the Olympics, Georgia made a great miscalculation by attacking the breakaway province of South Ossetia to force it back into Georgia’s fold. The South Ossetia misadventure by Saakashvili will turn out to be a turning point of Russian and U.S. relations.
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August 19, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — While China views its hosting of the Olympics as a great show of shows, for the United States and the West it is a great opportunity to examine China as a nation and verify its claims. The Chinese are masking everyday life, and Western media is hell-bent on uncovering it.
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August 12, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — A generation ago in India marriages were celebrated with great fanfare in middle-class families. Now, in America, new and even more elaborate dream weddings are taking place in Indian immigrant families. They break the bank, but the bride, groom and guests have the time of their lives.
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August 05, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — Oil prices are squeezing the finances of both China and India. With a 133 percent increase in oil prices India, whose financial picture is not so bright, is hard pressed to pay to import oil. China can afford to pay a bit more but cannot sustain payments at US$125-$145 a barrel for a long time.
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July 29, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — The earthquake that hit China in May, the spate of unrest in Tibet and the economic slowdown in the West are all playing havoc with the commercial success of the Beijing Olympics. Commercial television rights, advertising and tickets are all sold, but the tourists from around the world are missing.
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July 23, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — The United States is still in the midst of the sub-prime loan crisis. It is rumored that the total cost of this crisis is close to US$1 trillion. The entire banking sector all over the world unwittingly became the victim of this crisis when it bought what looked like attractive investments.
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July 15, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama’s rhetoric of change and youthful smile are captivating, but he has little experience in administration, domestic politicking, international affairs or the economy. John McCain, the experienced old man of U.S. politics, represents failed Republican policies.
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July 08, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — The era of India’s aging leaders is about to end. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is 76 years old; other leaders are mostly 65 to 75 years old. The children of the leaders aspire to fill the void, but none is capable enough to lead a country as diverse and complex as India.
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July 01, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — The rapid increase in oil prices and the rise in metal and mineral demand worldwide have made the Russians overconfident as their annual cash income has grown fourfold. The Russians have become somewhat politically belligerent and are reneging on earlier deals they feel are not in their best interest.
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June 24, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — Punjab is India’s granary – there is no other granary like it anywhere in the world. A small area in the northwest, it is irrigated by three rivers from the Himalayas. In the crop year 2007-08, Punjab has produced 27 million tons of food grain on less than 1 million hectares of land.
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June 17, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — It is unlikely that the planned massive pipeline from Iran to India will be built in the next ten years. The same is true for the pipeline from Central Asia to India via Afghanistan and Pakistan. But in the last five years, Central Asia has emerged as a new reservoir of oil and gas.
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June 10, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — There is nothing more important for the 300-400 million middle-class people in India than relief from daily power outages. The United States agrees that India should use less coal and more atomic power to generate electricity. Hence the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal was negotiated.
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June 03, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — Democracy has begun to prevail in Pakistan, but politicians in the newly elected government have little in common except the desire to get rid of Musharraf. The United States has been working hard behind the scenes to keep Musharraf in power. It is high time for this to change.
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May 27, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — Politics are forcing India to choose between the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal that would boost nuclear energy production or a pipeline that would carry natural gas from Iran through Pakistan. Both plans have strong political opponents; but India needs power and needs it now.
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May 20, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — It is possible that inflation in India, which has climbed to 7.61 percent, could bring down the existing government. Elections are due at the end of the year, and inflation is the number one election issue. If this government cannot control it in the next three months, it may not survive.
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May 13, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — Is there any end to Chinese ambitions in Asia? China wishes to dominate Asia with blockades, blockages, military diplomacy and political Machiavellism. Its plan to divert the River Brahmaputra from Tibet toward China’s northeast, blocking water to 100 million people in India, could lead to war.
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May 06, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — In recent months, hedge funds, pension funds and other group investment vehicles, which strive for maximum return in minimum time, have turned the commodity market upside down. Recent price rises of all commodities including food grains are a testament to their manipulation.
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April 29, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — Hail the Myanmar junta for finally balancing its relationship with India. Previously it had played favorites with China by giving it oil and gas contracts in the Bay of Bengal. But with the recently finalized Kaladan-Sittwe river transportation project, Myanmar has balanced the odds in India's favor.
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April 22, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — Three billion people in Asia are the rice guzzlers of the world and they are facing a supply shortage. The long-term prognosis is not good. Until the world refocuses on increasing its food grain output and controlling the population, supply shortages, followed by food riots, are going to be the norm.
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April 15, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — With Tibetan and Uighur nationalists on the warpath in China and unending firefights in Pakistan's wild, wild west, India can have a bit of a respite. China may threaten India over disputed land and Pakistan may raise temperatures in Kashmir, but both have headaches at home to worry about.
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April 08, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — Demand for copper, zinc, aluminum, nickel and all other nonferrous metals has scaled new heights in the last four years. Prices have sky-rocketed and traders are turning in huge profits. This demand for 12 years has been driven by China and now also, in the last four years, by India.
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April 01, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — With Tibet and its neighboring Sichuan province in turmoil, India finds itself in a diplomatic logjam regarding China's crackdown on monks and protesters. It would appear that India is afraid of China both diplomatically and economically. But somebody must stand up for the Tibetans in their hour of need.
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March 25, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — The peace along India's northeastern border with China has been disturbed in the last five years by the aggressive buildup of roads and military infrastructure on the China side, as well as the recent completion of a rail line to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.
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March 18, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — Rising wheat prices in the international market have outstripped oil price increases in the past year. Oil prices have increased 80 percent over the year; wheat prices have tripled. Wheat was US$4 a bushel a year ago; it is averaging $14 a bushel now, impacting importing nations like China and India.
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March 11, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — With US$1.4 trillion in cash reserves, 70 percent held by the United States, China has great clout over the United States. The withdrawal of this money would send U.S. financial markets into a tizzy. If nothing is done about the U.S.-China trade imbalance, these reserves will one day rival the U.S. budget.
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March 04, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — China's building of a port in Pakistan, its extra-polite friendship with the rulers of Myanmar and now its offer to Iran to pick up gas from Pakistan if India shows a lack of interest, is all part of the country's quest for energy to feed its export economy.
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February 26, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — Elections in Pakistan with a new man in charge would not make a difference. In a clever move Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban leader in Afghanistan, is arousing the Pashtun tribes in the border areas, in an effort to take these areas away from Pakistan.
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February 19, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — Will the Left Front intransigence on the Indo-U.S. Nuclear Deal force a midterm poll in India? The answer is yes. It has reached that stage. Whereas India needs nuclear power to power itself into prosperity in next 30 years and come out of nuclear isolation, Communists and fellow travelers are hell bent on sabotaging that effort. Their reasons – U.S. is a bigger evil than shortage of electric power.
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February 14, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — The longest election process and probably the most colorful one in recent U.S. history is underway. Republicans look set to lose, and Democrats are by habit protectionists. This may translate into a fresh look at all the country's trade deals and potentially major impact on China and India.
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February 12, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — The world's need for textiles, especially high-end cotton textiles, knitwear and hosiery, is unending. Today China is in the lead in supplying this market, thanks to the U.S. quota system. But India is surging ahead to close the gap, especially in the cotton market.
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February 05, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — The United States is heading toward recession. This is no longer conjecture -- the threat is real. It will impact first Canada then Europe and the rest of the world. Neither India nor China is immune to this worldwide financial crisis.
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January 22, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — In a nutshell, India and China will have to live together in Asia with only two simplified provisions: to drop the unnecessary border row between them and to not step on each other's toes. Without these, there is no future for a strong India-China relationship.
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January 15, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — Benazir Bhutto's teenage son has been appointed to run her political party and ultimately grab power in Pakistan. Sonia Gandhi in India is working overtime to appoint her son as heir apparent. It is back to medieval times in South Asia as power is being transferred within the family.
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January 08, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — Pakistan must be pulled away from its current slide toward fundamentalism, extremism and terrorism. Could India and Pakistan set up an economic partnership, similar to that between the United States and Canada, that would ensure prosperity for both?
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January 03, 2008Toronto, ON, Canada — Whereas the stock exchange is like a deluxe train moving at a regular pace, the commodity exchange is a freight train rushing through at breakneck speed. Commodities are facing a meteoric rise in prices based on demand that will not slow down.
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December 27, 2007Toronto, ON, Canada — China has been the darling of the West, showered with praise for the massive economic strides it has made. Until recently, the West has turned a blind eye to the falsified statistics China has routinely produced to impress the world.
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December 18, 2007Toronto, ON, Canada — The Y2K software problem will go down in history as a world event; it dramatically changed India. This software glitch led to the emergence of India as a future economic powerhouse, and to the country becoming a highly educated talent pool for the world.
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December 12, 2007Toronto, ON, Canada — At $100 a barrel, oil is unaffordable for growing economies like China and India. China imported 44 percent of its oil, worth about $45 billion, in 2005. At that time oil prices hovered around $70 a barrel. At $100 a barrel in 2007 it is expected that China's import bill will surpass $60 billion.
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December 05, 2007Toronto, Canada — The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has opposed the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal, viewing it as part of a U.S.
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November 27, 2007Toronto, ON, Canada — Every mortgage, every loan advanced by a U.S. bank, every International Monetary Fund or World Bank advance to the rest of the world, is related to China.
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November 20, 2007Toronto, Canada — Like it or not, the nuclear technology clandestinely acquired by Pakistan under the very noses of the U.S. Reagan administration has become today's greatest security challenge.If any of its critical components, such as U-235 or plutonium, falls into al-
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November 13, 2007Toronto, ON, Canada — After a lot of internal and external pressure, it appears that Pakistan might hold general elections in January next year. This turnaround came after the United States expressed its disgust at the imposition of emergency/martial law, which was blamed on j
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November 06, 2007Toronto, Canada — A combined 2.4 billion human beings in China and India are close to running out of food supplies and agricultural land to grow food. Water resources, which nurture the land, are becoming a victim of manmade disasters.
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October 30, 2007TORONTO, Canada — That former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto survived the recent attempt on her life is a miracle. But 140 of her supporters were not so lucky on Oct.
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October 24, 2007Toronto, Canada — A successful invasion of India by China is the China watcher's pipedream. They always envision that China could unleash its army of 2.5 million men on India and conquer it.
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October 16, 2007TORONTO, Canada — It is China's greatest dilemma today - the country has $1 trillion dollars in cash reserves collected over the last 20 years, but only one place to store such a huge amount. That is in U.S.
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October 10, 2007Toronto, Canada — July 1, 1991 was a fateful day for India after independence. It was on this day that India reached zero foreign exchange reserves, with mounting debt.
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October 03, 2007Toronto, ON, Canada — It is unbelievable that Benazir Bhutto, champion of democracy and bitter critic of military dictator General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, is now cozying up to him -- not for the welfare of the people, but out of personal ambition to be prime minister for
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September 26, 2007Toronto, ON, Canada — If the flow of Middle East oil to China is squeezed, the Chinese economy will come to a grinding halt. Today China imports 32 percent of its oil needs.
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September 18, 2007Toronto, ON, Canada — The recent visit to India by Japan's prime minister was mainly to set the stage for bigger and better things to come in the next two to five years. Japan has grown weary of China's growth trajectory.
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September 11, 2007TORONTO, Canada — The goal of a permanent seat at the U.N. Security Council has eluded India for the last 60 years.
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September 07, 2007Toronto, Canada — The summer and fall of 2036 marked an all-around calm. In India, the War Cabinet continued to function without a hitch.
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September 05, 2007Toronto, Canada — The winter of 2035-36 was a time of preparation for both the Indian and the Chinese armies in the snowy expanses of the Himalayan Mountains. The Chinese had a longstanding claim in the eastern Himalayan region, where they had staged a lightening strike in
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September 04, 2007Toronto, Canada — As the year 2030 began, trade rivalry in the Indian Ocean was playing out in the form of a cat and a mouse game between China and India. At times, China had the advantage, at other times the same applied to India.
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August 28, 2007Toronto, Canada — Blame it on Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, or his later successors; India's foreign and economic policies have had a distinct communist flavor. Perhaps this was in line with Nehru's beliefs or perhaps he was caught in a Cold War tr
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August 21, 2007Toronto, ON, Canada — It is no surprise to find mega prosperity alongside slums in Indian cities. Cows have not vanished from the roads, although they are far fewer than twenty years ago.
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August 14, 2007Toronto, Canada — As India becomes the third or fourth economic power in the world in the next 20 to 30 years, it will have to turn its attention toward the fractured state of politics in the Indian Ocean states. Today, African nations bordering the Indian Ocean are in a s
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August 07, 2007Toronto, Canada — Between 1988 and 1990, when Benazir Bhutto was in power in Pakistan, the dreaded Inter-Service Intelligence dusted off an earlier plan to snatch Kashmir from India by force. A huge number of religious fanatics that had fought against the Soviets in Afghan
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July 31, 2007Toronto, Canada — There is a paradigm shift underway in the economic order of the world. The two most populous countries in Asia will soon become the second and third economic powers of the world.
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July 25, 2007Toronto, ON, Canada — For the past decade, U.S. leaders have been privately considering China as a rival.
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July 18, 2007Toronto, ON, Canada — When the G-8 powers met in Germany recently, India, Brazil, China and South Africa were invited to watch from the sidelines. They were asked to listen to what the big bosses had decided, as the G-8 Communiqué was issued even before these countries' heads
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June 26, 2007Toronto, Canada — With China's rapid development, militarily as well as economically, it is apparent that the country will come into conflict with the United States, probably sooner rather than later. Economically, China has made tremendous progress in the last 20 years, b
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June 07, 2007Toronto, Canada — Mohajirs in Pakistan are Muslim immigrants from Uttar Pradesh, India, who made Karachi their home. They have been fighting continuously to gain political power, often violently, but never succeeded.
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May 29, 2007Toronto, Canada — The British deserve to be complimented for integrating all the ethnically diverse but culturally similar principalities in the South Asian subcontinent into one nation. Today we call it India.
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May 22, 2007TORONTO, Canada — The winding down of the Kashmir conflict and Pakistan's rising internal political problems are probable signs of the military withdrawing from its political office and marching to their barracks. This also raises the expectations of a civilian government
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May 15, 2007TORONTO, Canada — The reliability of China's economic statistics has repeatedly come into question in light of wild data the country has published -- such as US$65 billion received in foreign direct investment, 11 percent growth, and gross domestic product of US$2.5 trilli
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May 08, 2007Toronto, Canada — U.S. President George W.
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May 08, 2007TORONTO, Canada — U.S. President George W.
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May 01, 2007Toronto, Canada — With the conclusion of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation meeting in Delhi in April, another fruitless round of conferencing is over. Nobody gained anything.
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April 24, 2007Toronto, Canada — Smartly dressed information technology consultants from India, a large community of very prosperous émigré Indians in the United States and Europe, and positive media reports about the Indian economy in recent years are changing Western stereotypes about
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April 18, 2007Toronto, Canada — Muslims are not to be blamed for mismanaging India's economy from 1200 AD onwards. On the contrary, they allowed it to prosper.
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April 18, 2007Toronto, Canada — India was never poor throughout the known history of mankind. It has been lush and green, with adequate administrative skills, technology to provide clothing and land to provide food.
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April 10, 2007Toronto, Canada — If the India-U.S. civilian nuclear cooperation deal fails, that is bad news for Indian industry and agriculture.
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April 04, 2007Toronto, Canada — The unfolding prosperity and growth of disposable income in both urban and rural India will ultimately translate into greater acquisition of material goods. These goods will find their way into people's homes only if adequate steps are taken to position r
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April 03, 2007Toronto, Canada — A tourist of Indian origin arrives in India in late winter. She is here to shop for her forthcoming wedding.
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March 28, 2007Toronto, Canada — There are solid reasons for corporate participation in India's second Green Revolution, which aims to boost agriculture and strengthen the economy. First, it may be difficult to find a triumvirate like Indira Gandhi and the two agriculture experts who gua
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March 27, 2007Toronto, Canada — India has launched its second Green Revolution with the aim of producing 400 million tons of food grain per year, almost double the 214 million tons expected in 2006-2007. It is unlikely to happen tomorrow or next year, but it may be possible by 2020.
