27. December 2010 by admin.

Geopolitical Analysis of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to India

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, a massive diplomatic entourage and a business delegation representing 100 firms visited India on December 15th for a three-day visit. Wen began the visit by addressing concerns over the growing Sino-Indian rivalry, proclaiming that there need be no essential conflict between the Dragon and the Elephant and that Asia has room enough for both of them. After meeting with Indian Premier Manmohan Singh, Wen visited Pakistan, a staunch Chinese ally and Indian arch-foe, to emphasize where his deepest commitments lie. Wen’s visit comes at a time of revived mutual suspicion. Two major incidents in particular have aggravated sore spots in the relationship. Riots in Lhasa, Tibet, in 2008 caused Beijing to worry more about breakaway tendencies in its far western province, whose exiled government is supported by New Delhi. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s continued support of various militant proxies has put the Sino-Pakistani alliance into renewed focus for New Delhi, especially in light of the November 2008 Mumbai attacks. But alongside these signal events, Beijing’s growing economic clout has led it to expand infrastructure and military installations across its western regions in an attempt to bolster its territorial claims and secure its far-flung provinces from separatist or militant influences. India has bulked up its border infrastructure and security in response. And, perhaps most novel, Beijing’s growing dependency on overseas oil and raw materials has driven it to seek land and sea pathways to the Indian Ocean through closer relations with South Asian states generally and port agreements with Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Myanmar, leading India to worry it will be encircled and someday threatened by China’s navy. Economic growth is one of the primary reasons world powers have courted India this year, with U.S. President Barack Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy already having visited. Wen’s trip is no different, and already the two sides claim to have signed nearly 50 deals worth an estimated $16 billion if actualized. But deepening economic relations have not eased tensions, especially given the growing Indian trade deficit with China (from a surplus of $832 million in 2005 to a deficit of nearly $16 billion in 2009), which Wen acknowledged on the first day of his visit needed to be improved while simultaneously asking for greater market access for Chinese exporters. While India is keen on displaying its relationship with China as far more cooperative than confrontational, a serious self-critique is developing within New Delhi over its slow reaction to Chinese moves in the Indian periphery. China’s presence may be much more visible now in places like Kashmir, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Sri Lanka, but that presence was built up methodically over several years. India, with no shortage of issues to keep itself occupied at home, is now finding that it is years behind China in countries that New Delhi would like to believe sit firmly within its sphere of influence. In the past, India could rely on its influence in Tibet to send a warning to China. In fact, External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna aired this threat in a meeting with his Chinese counterpart in November when he said that just as India has been sensitive to Chinese concerns over Tibet and Taiwan, Beijing too should be mindful of Indian sensitivities on Jammu and Kashmir. The problem India has now is that this warning simply does not carry as much weight as it did. China has made considerable progress in building up the necessary political, economic and military linkages into Tibet to deny the Indians opportunities to needle Beijing in critical buffer territory. Moreover, India has not been able to invest the necessary time and effort into strengthening competitive relationships in more distant places like Southeast Asia and Taiwan — and has only begun with Japan — that would deeply unsettle Beijing. In fact, a discussion is taking place within some military circles in India over how China may be deliberately playing up issues on its land borders in Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh to divert India’s attention northward while China pursues its objectives in the Indian Ocean basin.   Yet India is not alone in its alarm. The world is increasingly looking at China not only as a source of growth, but as an independent-minded and potentially unpredictable variable in the international system. Beijing’s increasing boldness has become one of the chief talking points in foreign policy circles, extending beyond international hard bargaining over resources and into China’s conduct around its entire periphery and in international organizations. When India openly worries about China’s intentions in exercising its newly found strengths, it is joined by the likes of Japan, South Korea, Australia, a number of China’s Southeast Asian neighbors and, most important, the United States. The problem for Beijing is that it is ultimately outnumbered, and overpowered, but its attempts to prepare against threats make it appear more threatening. Beijing sees the international coalition forming against it, and in particular fears U.S. attention will soon come to rest squarely on it and that a strategic relationship with India is part of American designs. Hence, Wen has reason to play nice with India, if only to make China appear a more benign player and not hasten India’s moves to counteract it. Nevertheless, Beijing has its mind set on gaining control of land and sea routes to the Indian Ocean and needs internal mobility in its far west to prevent separatism and fortify its borders, and these policies are driving the tensions with India higher. Thus, while India senses Chinese encirclement in South Asia, Beijing senses American encirclement, of which India is only one part. Even with modern technology, the Himalayas remain a gigantic divider. Regardless of growing economic cooperation, both sense a growing security threat from the other that cannot be easily allayed. At the same time Chinese are not irresponsible to wage a war with a $16 billion trade partner, it is time for India to shown some assertiveness and garner more international support against Chinese “perceived” threat. In not too far a future Chine will no doubt prove to be a paper tiger.

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9. November 2010 by admin.

Why Obama’s India Trip Matters? President Barack Obama is on a high-profile diplomatic trip to India this week, furthering Obama’s goal of deepening U.S.-India ties and addressing a number of related issues. Since entering office, Obama has continued President George W. Bush’s emphasis on building a special relationship between the two countries, making Indian Prime Minister Manmohan K. Singh the guest of honor at Obama’s first official state dinner. Here’s what’s happening on the visit, why it matters, and what it could mean for the two countries and beyond.

• Why the U.S. and India Want to Be Best Friends  The New York Times’ Jim Yardley writes, “Both countries are eager to build on their improved ties and set up a unique, special relationship, given that together they represent the world’s richest and largest democracies. Faced with a rising authoritarian China, and an economically wounded Europe, a weakened United States is casting about for global partners. India would seem a nice fit.”

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9. November 2010 by admin.

The other elephant

Barack Obama thinks that the rise of India will be good for American jobs. There is another side to the story

ON THE eve of the 2008 New Hampshire primary Bill Clinton finally gave vent to his fury with the Obama campaign. He dismissed Barack Obama’s message as “the biggest fairy tale” he had ever heard. (“Give…me…a…break,” he roared at the startled crowd.) And he denounced underhand tactics, particularly a description of Hillary Clinton as “the senator from Punjab”.

On November 5th Mr Obama, fresh from his humiliation in the mid-term elections, flies to India accompanied by an entourage of almost 250 businesspeople. His message for the folks back home will be that India could be a goldmine for American jobs. And he will clinch a succession of huge business deals with India—not least a $5.8 billion aircraft sale by Boeing.

Mr Obama’s win-win rhetoric is plausible enough. India is growing at about 8% a year at a time when America can barely manage 2%. It is also set to add 240m people to its working population by 2030. And America produces all sorts of things that Indians crave, from iPads to MBAs to fighter planes.

Yet the rise of new economic powers always brings problems as well as opportunities for incumbents. New companies displace old ones. New business models disrupt established ones. Comfortable workers in the rich world are forced to compete with hungrier ones in the poor world.

India is producing a legion of new global giants that are competing head-to-head with established American companies. Look at Arcelor Mittal and Tata Steel in steelmaking; Bharat Forge and Sundram Fasteners in car parts; Hindalco in aluminium rolling; and a host of companies, including Infosys, Tata Consulting Services (TCS), Cognizant and HCL Technologies, in information services. Twenty years ago India had no global companies worth mentioning. Today the Tata group earns 60% of its revenues abroad, and Indian companies ranging from natural-resource firms, such as Reliance Industries, to health-care companies, such as Pirmal Healthcare, have been snapping up American brands.

American companies are also setting up shop in India. Bangalore and Hyderabad have “electronic cities” crowded with America’s leading companies. In Bangalore Cisco spent $1 billion on its Globalisation Centre East and General Electric (GE) opened a swanky research centre. IBM employs more people in India than in the United States.

For American workers the most worrying thing about all this is the flight of brain-intensive jobs to India. Americans reconciled themselves to the loss of manufacturing jobs with the thought that they would keep the smart jobs. But they reckoned without two things: the power of the internet and the hunger of emerging-market companies.

India has long since turned itself into the world’s back-office—subjecting paper-processing hubs such as Kansas City to the same forces of competition that devastated former industrial cities such as Gary, Indiana. Now Indian-based companies are moving into an wider range of services: reading CT-scans and X-rays, processing legal documents and helping with animation. They are also moving into sophisticated niches. TCS and Infosys compete directly with IBM and Accenture in consulting. American companies are adding to the trend by moving more of their important operations to India: John Chambers, Cisco’s boss, has decreed that 20% of the firm’s leadership should be in Bangalore.

Companies in India are challenging American ones in an area that they have long considered their own—innovation. The Boston Consulting Group’s 2010 survey of innovation notes that the number of American companies on its list of top innovators is declining while the number of Indian companies is rising. It also points out that the Indian firms place a higher value on innovation than the American companies.

Most strikingly, Indian companies have produced a new type of innovation, variously dubbed “frugal”, “reverse” and “Gandhian”. The essence is to reduce the price of a product or service by a breathtaking amount—80% rather than 10%—by removing unnecessary bells and whistles. Tata Motors is selling its “people’s car” for $3,000; GE’s Indian arm offers a medical ECG machine for $400; Bharat Biotech sells a single dose of its hepatitis B vaccine for 20 cents and Bharti Airtel provides one of the cheapest wireless telephone services in the world. These frugal products are likely to disrupt established Western companies (including GE itself) by forcing them to engage in a bloody price war.

Luring them back

To add to this general turbulence Indian-based companies are also on a hiring binge. For decades America has gorged itself on a seemingly limitless supply of brilliant Indian PhD students and entrepreneurs. Half of Silicon Valley’s start-ups were either founded or co-founded by Indians. But these paragons are now returning en masse to the mother country (just as America makes life more difficult for immigrants). Why work for a sluggardly American firm when Infosys is growing at double digits? Why live in a flimsy bungalow in the Valley when an Indian company will provide you with a villa in a gated community, membership of a country club and a chauffeur-driven car?

There is an upside to these downsides. Frugal products will be a godsend for America’s pinched consumers. They may even prevent the American economy from being crushed by the health-care Godzilla. But Americans need to get back on the treadmill. In a recent speech Mr Obama told schoolchildren in Philadelphia that: “When students around the world in Bangalore or Beijing are working harder than ever, and doing better than ever, your success in school is not just going to determine your success, it is going to determine America’s success in the 21st century.” That is not a bad theme for the next two years of his presidency.

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6. November 2010 by admin.

U.S. President Barack Obama begins a four-day visit to India today (on Nov. 6), heading a 375-member entourage of security personnel, policymakers, business leaders and journalists to demonstrate to the world that the U.S.-Indian relationship is serious and growing.Obama will begin his visit in the financial hub of Mumbai, where he will make a symbolic show of solidarity with India on the counterterrorism front by staying at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, which came under attack in 2008, and highlight corporate compatibility between the two countries. Obama will spend the rest of the trip in New Delhi, where he will address a joint session of Parliament, a reciprocal gesture following Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s address to Congress in November 2009.Most Indians and Americans think and hope that Indo-US relations could be much better and closer than what it is now. However, regardless of what one may want the relations to be like, the geopolitical needs of both the countries are different and there are and will be numerous issues on which India and America will have to agree to disagree on. How did the biggest and largest democracies of the world drifted apart and failed to build close and deep relationship is a matter of historical and geopolitical analysis and beyond the scope of current article. But in spite of that, there is little doubt that the United States and India are sounding a much deeper and strategic relationship, as illustrated by their bilateral civilian nuclear agreement, growing business links, arms deals and a host of military exercises taking place over the next several months. Still, very real and unavoidable constraints on ties remain in place, constraints that will hamper this already uneasy partnership from developing into a robust alliance. The immediate hindrance lies in the U.S. strategic need to bolster Pakistan to shape a U.S. exit strategy from Afghanistan and try to shore up the balance of power on the subcontinent. In the longer term, however, India could use the threat of Chinese expansion in Beijing’s perceived sphere of influence to enhance its relationship with Washington.Strategic MotivationsIndia does not make friends easily (or has failed to recognize and make friends easily), particularly friends with militaries capable of reaching the subcontinent. India grew closer to the Soviets during the Cold War out of fear of the U.S. relationship with Pakistan, but only because Moscow’s military reach into the subcontinent was limited. After the Soviet Union collapsed, India was left without a meaningful ally, all the while becoming deeply resentful of the blind eye Washington turned toward the rise of Pakistan’s Islamist proxies in Kashmir and Afghanistan.The 9/11 attacks finally created an opportunity for a U.S.-Indian relationship to materialize. Both countries had common cause to cooperate with each other against Pakistan, neutralize the jihadist threat and embark on a real, strategic partnership. For the United States, this was the time to play catch-up in balance-of-power politics in South Asia. The U.S. interest at any given point on the subcontinent is to prevent any one power from becoming strong to the point that it could challenge the United States, while at the same time protecting vital sea lanes running from East Asia to the Persian Gulf via the Indian Ocean basin. The United States has the naval assets to guard these maritime routes directly, but as it extends itself more and more worldwide, its need for regional proxies grows. Though India’s capabilities remain quite limited given its domestic challenge, it is an aspiring naval power with a deep fear of Chinese encroachment and Islamist militancy.India also has a massive consumer market of 1.2 billion people and has the United States at the top of its list of trading partners. A roughly balanced and diversified relationship exists between the two economies, even as protectionist tendencies run heavily on both sides of the trade divide. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the United States exported $16.4 billion worth of goods and services to India, mostly aircraft, fertilizers, computer hardware, scrap metal and medical equipment, while India exported $21 billion worth of goods and services to the United States, mostly information technology services, pharmaceuticals, textiles, machinery, gems and diamonds, iron and steel products, and food products. India thus makes a strong candidate for a regional U.S. proxy.But this is where a fundamental U.S.-Indian disconnect arises. India is far from interested in molding itself into a proxy of the global hegemon. India’s self-enclosed geography and internal strengths permit it to remain fiercely independent in its foreign policy calculations, unlike much weaker Pakistan, which needs an external patron to feel secure.The United States has been caught off guard every time New Delhi takes a stance that runs counter to U.S. interests, something that has happened despite the U.S. charm offensive toward India that revved up in 2005 with a civilian nuclear deal. India has refused to comply with U.S. sanctions on Iran, still has reservations about allowing U.S. firms into the Indian nuclear market after the bilateral nuclear deal, and protests what New Delhi perceives as U.S. interference in the Kashmir dispute. As a former Indian national security adviser put it, India is happy to have its partnership with the United States, but Washington is going to have to get used to hearing “no” from India on numerous issues.The Pakistan ProblemThe much more urgent misalignment of interests hindering the U.S.-India relationship concerns Pakistan and the future of Afghanistan. In 2001, when al Qaeda struck the United States and Pakistan-backed militants attacked the Indian parliament soon after, India sensed an opportunity. The Cold War shackles on ties were broken as the urgency of a broader Islamist militant threat drove New Delhi and Washington together. India hoped the bond would sustain itself, keeping Pakistan isolated over the long term, but it was only a matter of time before U.S. efforts to balance India against Pakistan disappointed New Delhi.The United States has now reached a saturation point in its war in Afghanistan. While short-term military victories have provided Washington useful political cover as they do in all unpopular wars, they obscure the core disadvantage occupiers face against the insurgents when it comes to on-the-ground intelligence, corruption, population control, and the insurgent luxury of choosing the time and place of battle. Washington is thus shaping an exit strategy from Afghanistan. This necessarily will involve some sort of accommodation with the Taliban that only one power in the region has the relationship to orchestrate: Pakistan.Pakistan has every interest in having the United States as its patron and keeping it involved in the region, but not to the extent that U.S. military activity in the Pakistani-Afghan borderland risks severely destabilizing the Pakistani state. For its part, the United States does not want India to become the unchallenged hegemon of the subcontinent at the expense of a much weaker Pakistan. This means that in return for Pakistani cooperation in tying up loose ends in the jihadist war, Pakistan will expect the United States to facilitate a restoration of Pakistani influence in Afghanistan. This would extend Pakistan’s strategic depth, stifling any Indian attempt to develop a foothold in the region that could see Pakistan wind up in a pincer grip.This naturally upsets New Delhi, which maintains that Islamabad will continue to compensate for its military weakness by backing militant proxies to target the Indian state, something Washington is ignoring to achieve its goals in Afghanistan. India sees a Taliban political comeback in Afghanistan as setting the stage for Pakistan-backed militants to regroup. More worryingly for New Delhi, a number of these militants have been drawn into a much more unpredictable, lethal jihadist network that makes it harder for New Delhi to blame Pakistan for terrorist acts in India.India’s strategic interest calls for taking advantage of Islamabad’s sour relationship with the current Afghan government to build a foothold in Afghanistan with which to create an additional lever against Islamabad along Pakistan’s northwestern rim. India has done so primarily through a number of development projects. Besides being one of the top five bilateral donors to the war-torn country, India has thousands of laborers in Afghanistan building schools, hospitals, roads and power plants. One of the most notable projects India has been involved in is the funding and construction of a 218-kilometer (about 135 miles) highway from Zaranj in Afghanistan’s southwestern Nimroz province to Delaram in Farah province.Since Afghanistan forms a land bridge between South Asia and Central Asia, where vast amounts of energy and mineral resources are concentrated, India has a deeper interest in developing the necessary transit links to access the Central Asian energy market, which the Chinese already have tapped into extensively. India cannot rely on its Pakistani rival to allow Indian goods to flow overland. Under a current arrangement, Afghan goods to India must pass through Pakistan. But Pakistan does not allow Indian goods to transit Pakistan overland to Afghan markets. Instead, India relies on its favorable trading terms with Iran to transport Indian goods via the Iranian port of Chabahar to Afghanistan and on to Central Asia. In creating transit infrastructure in Afghanistan, like the Zaranj-Delaram highway, and between Afghanistan and Iran, India is developing alternative trade routes in the region that will allow it to bypass Pakistan.The Question of Indian Troops for AfghanistanWhether India should elevate its support for Afghanistan, to include deploying Indian forces to the country, has been the subject of quiet debate among Indian defense circles. The public rationale given for such a plan is that insurgents have targeted Indian laborers involved in reconstruction projects in Afghanistan, and that the small contingent of Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) in Afghanistan has proven insufficient to protect the laborers. In addition to regular attacks on Indian construction crews, the 2008 and 2009 bombings on the Indian Embassy in Kabul highlighted the threat that Pakistan could use its militant connections in Afghanistan to try and drive India out of the country.Those arguing for an Indian military deployment to Afghanistan believe that placing Indian troops in the country would sufficiently alarm Pakistan to divert forces from its east, where Pakistani forces are concentrated in Punjab along the Indo-Pakistani border, to its northwestern border with Afghanistan. This (they hope) would shift some of the focus of Pakistani-Indian conflict away from Kashmir and the Indian homeland. Those calling for Indian troops are making a dangerous assumption, however, that the United States will remain in Afghanistan for the long haul and will be there to contain attempts by Pakistan to act against Indian military overland expansion in the region.There are a number of reasons why this troop scenario is unlikely to play out. The most obvious constraint is the enormous logistical difficulty India would have in supplying troops in Afghanistan. If India cannot convince Pakistan to allow overland trade to Afghanistan, it can certainly rule out Pakistan agreeing to an Indian military supply line to Afghanistan. India is also extremely risk-averse when it comes to military deployments beyond its borders. It already is struggling with a counterinsurgency campaign in Kashmir and in Naxalite territory along the country’s eastern belt and remembers the deadly fiasco that followed the Indian deployment of forces to Sri Lanka to counter the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the late 1980s. And Indian troops in Afghanistan would make prime targets for hardened jihadists receiving support from Pakistan.At the same time, India is unwilling to bow to Pakistani pressure by downgrading its presence in Afghanistan. An inevitable U.S. drawdown from the region and a Pakistani return to Afghanistan translates into a bigger security threat for India. The more India can dig its heels in Afghanistan, primarily through reconstruction projects, the better the chances it will develop some say in Afghan affairs with which to check Pakistan’s regional ambitions. For its part, Pakistan will continue to demand that the United States use its leverage with New Delhi to minimize the Indian presence in Afghanistan and hand over the task of shaping the future Afghan government to Islamabad.Though little of this discussion will hit the headlines, the disconnect in U.S.-Indian strategic interests — in which India wants the United States to sustain pressure on Islamabad and serve as a check on Pakistan-backed militancy while Washington needs to bolster Pakistan to withdraw from Afghanistan and maintain some balance in the region between the two nuclear rivals — will put a cloud over Obama’s high-profile visit. India might even have to share the spotlight during Obama’s tour, as rumors are circulating that the U.S. president may make a surprise visit to Afghanistan to show his dedication to the war effort. The U.S. administration has debated whether the president could make such a trip without stopping over in Pakistan to reduce the fallout that could emerge from having Air Force One bypass Pakistan in an Afghan-India trip. The delicate nature of these issues illustrates just how high-maintenance the region is for the United States, and how urgent Washington’s need is to keep relations with Pakistan on steady footing.Leveraging a Mutual Concern Over ChinaWhile Pakistan and Afghanistan are pulling India and the United States apart, China could keep the emerging U.S.-India partnership from derailing. China’s insatiable appetite for resources, heavy reliance on export trade and overarching need to protect those vital commercial supply lines has driven Chinese naval expansion into the Indian Ocean Basin, namely through ports in Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan and overland linkages through Pakistan and Myanmar on India’s flanks. Indian fears of Chinese encirclement have prompted New Delhi to modernize and expand the Indian navy. Just as the United States is interested in bolstering Japan’s naval defenses, Washington (along with Japan) views Indian military expansion in the Indian Ocean as a useful hedge against China.India has watched with concern as China has become more aggressive in asserting its territorial claims in Arunachal Pradesh and Kashmir and has broached the suspect of more robust military assistance to Pakistan during its present time of need. Moreover, while India’s Nepal policy has largely been on autopilot, China has quietly built up its clout in the small Himalayan kingdom, threatening to undermine New Delhi’s influence in a key buffer state. China also has attempted to create a closer relationship with the junta and ethnic factions in Myanmar, where Beijing seeks oil and natural gas pipelines that will give some of its energy imports an overland route that will allow it to replace the Strait of Malacca.Meanwhile, the United States is engaged in a standoff with China as it tries to end Beijing’s currency manipulation policies while Beijing is unwilling to comply due to the social and political costs of rapidly reforming its financial system. As bilateral trade tensions continue to simmer, China has sought to take advantage of the U.S. preoccupation with wars in the Islamic world to assert itself in areas of strategic interest, including the South China Sea and East China Sea and in territories it disputes with India. China’s sovereignty claims and military capability in the South China Sea are of particular concern to the United States. This level of assertiveness can be expected to grow as the People’s Liberation Army Navy continues to increase its clout in political affairs, though Beijing knows it must avoid provoking an outright confrontation with the United States.Though U.S. attention is currently absorbed in trying to work out an understanding with Pakistan on Afghanistan (an understanding that will severely undermine the U.S.-Indian relationship in the near term,) it is only a matter of time before U.S. attention turns back toward countries like China whose interests potentially are on a collision course with U.S. interests. As U.S. attention on China increases, India can highlight its own fears of Chinese expansion in South Asia to bolster the Indian relationship with Washington, especially if China is able to maintain its internal stability long enough to sustain a bold foreign policy. The China factor could prove particularly useful for New Delhi to voice its concerns over more pressing threats, like Pakistan, as India and the United States attempt to work out the kinks of their bilateral relationship. Ultimately, India and the United States will have to agree to disagree on a number of issues, relying on high-profile state visits to keep up appearances. But a mutual concern over China may help reduce some of the current tensions between New Delhi and Washington over Pakistan in the future.

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30. October 2010 by admin.

Skilled immigration: Green-card blues

 A backlash against foreign workers dims business hopes for immigration reform.BAD as relations are between business and the Democrats, immigration was supposed to be an exception. On that topic the two have long had a marriage of convenience, with business backing comprehensive reform in order to obtain more skilled foreign workers. That, at least, was what was meant to happen. In March Chuck Schumer, a Democratic senator, and Lindsey Graham, a Republican, proposed a multi-faceted reform that would toughen border controls and create a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants while granting two longstanding goals of business: automatic green cards (that is, permanent residence) for students who earned advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or maths in America, and an elimination of country quotas on green cards. The quotas bear no relationship to demand, leaving backlogs of eight to ten years for applicants from China and India. Barack Obama immediately announced his support. But the proposal never became a bill, much less law. Mr Graham developed cold feet and withdrew his support; he was concerned that the Democrats were moving too quickly, as the economic misery that has turned Americans against foreign trade spread to dislike of foreign workers. Last year Congress made it harder for banks that had received money from the Troubled Asset Relief Programme to hire workers on H-1B visas, the most popular type for skilled foreign workers. In January the Citizenship and Immigration Service barred the use of H-1Bs for workers based on a client’s premises instead of their own company’s, a move aimed at outsourcing companies, many of them based in India. In August even Mr Schumer, needing to look tough on outsourcing, pushed through a bill sharply raising H-1B fees on firms that depend heavily on the visas. Perhaps the most naked election-year hostility to foreigners appeared during the debate in September over a Democratic bill in the Senate that would have rewarded companies for firing foreign-based workers and replacing them with Americans. Charles Grassley, a Republican senator, responded with a proposal to prohibit any company that had laid off Americans from hiring visa workers at all. The bill did not win enough votes to break a filibuster. Tightened restrictions, political aggravation and economic conditions seem to be having an effect. In 2009 the number of employment-based green cards and H-1B visas was the lowest in years (see chart). It took an unusually long time for the quota of H-1Bs for the fiscal year that ended on September 30th to be used up. Several Indian outsourcing companies have made a point of boosting local hiring at American facilities. This is partly the result of the recession, which has hurt demand for all types of workers. But in a recent report the Hamilton Project, a moderately liberal research group, notes that the number of foreign workers in America has been declining for some time. This might reflect America’s diminished appeal to the world’s most sought-after workers, as well as brightening prospects in their own countries. A survey for the pro-immigration Kauffman Foundation in 2007 found that only a tiny proportion of foreign students planned to stay in the United States. This almost certainly extracts an economic toll, since immigrants are more likely than others to start businesses or file patents. America’s immigration policies have long put a higher priority on family reunification than on employment. Legal immigrants to the country are more likely to have failed to finish high school than either native-born Americans or immigrants to other English-speaking countries. Immigrants to Canada are far more likely to have a college degree. Legislators from both parties have at various times advanced proposals that would smooth the way for skilled migrants, but they have usually foundered on the more intractable problem of dealing with illegal immigration. These two issues can and should be separate,” says Michael Greenstone of the Hamilton Project. We are giving up economic growth by putting the two issues together. Democratic Hispanic legislators oppose separating them for fear of losing business support for comprehensive reform. In principle, then, a Republican takeover of the House might increase the likelihood of a stand-alone bill on skilled immigration. That, however, is not the Republicans’ priority. Lamar Smith, the Republican who would probably become chairman of the House judiciary committee, is more focused on deporting illegal immigrants and strengthening the border.Still, it would be premature to write off the odds of immigration reform. If Mr Obama is to accomplish anything in the next Congress, he needs to find common ground with Republicans on something Business-friendly immigration reform might just qualify.

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26. October 2010 by admin.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has just returned from Kashmir. He appealed for peace and requested the “separatists” to return to the negotiating table. He held a series of conferences with the officials and political leaders. And as expected, he announced over Rs. 1000 crore sops to the state. Importantly, to score some misplaced points, he threatened the armed forces to behave properly in Kashmir, forgetting the fact that but for those forces he, or any Indian Prime Minister, would not have been able to land in the Srinagar valley.

But one fails to understand what did the Prime Minister achieve overall from his two-day Kashmir visit in concrete terms? Well, the media, both national and international, went overboard. The press in Pakistan, where our homer minister and foreign secretary are heading later this month, got enough material to comment on. But the separatists have not been impressed. And what is worse, the security forces have been greatly demoralized. It has become now quite routine for the civilian regime and elites in Kashmir to effortlessly raise their fingers at the Indian armed forces for all their troubles, thus providing fuels to the extremists and separatists. And on the flimsiest of pretexts, officials of the military and paramilitary forces are being framed and suspended.

Ironically, the Prime Minister has not deemed it fit to travel to other, and in a sense more turbulent, part of the country – the North East, particularly Manipur and Nagaland. People there have been facing a blockade for more than two months now. The government has totally mishandled the Naga issue, of late. If any part of the country needed the presence of the Prime Minister to assure the affected people and encourage their morale, it is North-East. But, Singh and his advisors do not think so. And that is perhaps due to the fact that a visit to North East will not attract headlines the way a visit to Kashmir will.

I have no problem with the “news-worthiness” of Kashmir. But what is worrying is that the central government and the dominant section within the strategic community in the country find it politically incorrect to reveal the real problem in the Kashmir valley from the viewpoint of India’s national interests. And that real problem is the growing Islamisation of the valley, which, in turn, makes any negotiated settlement of the Kashmir issue almost impossible. An “Islamic Kashmir” will have nothing to do with India. Let me explain this point.

Over the years, Kashmir has been witnessing what Bangladeshi scholar Abu Taher Salahuddin Ahmed says three principal trends – Indianness, Kashmiriness and Muslimness. The Indianness has been propagated by the federal forces of the country, be it the central government or national parties like the Congress and BJP. However, the problem in the state is due to the tussle between those believing in Kashmiriness and those loyal to Muslimness. Kashmiriness is an offshoot of the much talked about Kashmiriyat, which, while coexisting with Indianness, talks of inclusive or composite identity, binding all groups together and not offending any section. No wonder why despite being a Muslim-majority area, beef-eating, until recently, was virtually non-existent in the valley.

Of course, some scholars now point out that there were always differences between Muslims and Hindus (essentially Kashmiri Pundits) in their interpretations of the concept of Kashmiriyat. But those believing in the concept did promote coexistence. Majority of the Kashmiri Muslims, therefore, had no problems with the Hindus or for that matter with the Buddhists. And the important factor key to the success of the Kashmiriyat was the fact that overwhelming majority of the Kashmiri Muslims believed in Sufism or what is said the “Rishi tradition” that believed in saint and shrine worships. Of course, it was greatly facilitated by the fact that as was the case in other parts of the subcontinent, Muslims were essentially converts from the fold of Hinduism.

In contrast, the Muslimness always advocated the exclusive concepts in the valley. Promoted by the Wahhabi and Ahl-i-Hadith sects, this school relies more on the authority of the Quran and Hadith and totally opposed to the concept saints and shrine worships. This tradition or school has always been in minority in Kashmir, but it has been there always. It was behind the oraganisations like Muslim Conference and Kashmir Jamaat (KJ).

Needless to say that almost all the separatists and terrorist, including the so-called moderate separatist elements like Huriyat Conference, belong to the school of Muslimness. They have nothing to do with India. They believe in the theory of “Kashmir for Muslims”. Their essential argument is that they cannot coexist in a Hindu-dominated India.

Interestingly, these elements became active in Kashmir only after the 1979 Iranian revolution. It was after 1979 that one heard more and more of “liberation of Kashmir” and “Islamic revolution”. These elements became more vocal in politics also and formed many small political outfits. In September 1985, twelve such outfits came together to form the Muslim United Front (MUF). Soon the MUF claimed to provide an alternative to the National Conference of Farooq Abdullah on the ground that he “sold out” Kashmiris’ interests in the Accord with the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Since then, the political Islam has made firmer roots in the valley. The Pakistani support and assistance to the cause has greatly facilitated the cause. But what has really helped the Political Islam in the valley is the virtual politics of appeasement on the part of the central and state governments to the separatists. The likes of Atal Behari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh have wrongly believed that by pandering to the demands of the Huriyat and civil right activists, the situation will improve. But appeasement will never work with forces of “Muslimness”; it will rather embolden them and strengthen the cause of “Kashmir for Muslims”. Did not we hear the likes of Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah even saying during the agitation over Amarnath Yatra last year that Kashmir must not compromise its Muslim character?

Fortunately, even today the majority of the people in the state would like to remain part of India, as evident by the recent opinion poll, conducted by Chatham House (UK) on either side of the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir. The poll said that showed that only 2 per cent of the people of J&K want to be part of Pakistan. As many as 58 per cent of the 3,774 polled, in J&K and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), are ready to accept the LoC as a permanent “soft border” — an idea dating back to the famous “Simla Agreement” of 1972 between Indira Gandhi and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

That being the case, it is high time the Indian Prime Minister, whichever party he or she may belong to, stopped inviting the separatist leaders to the negotiating table. Because, any amount of concessions will not satisfy them. They just need to be ignored and their militant supporters need to be disciplined. They do not represent the majority. If they are imposing the so-called bandhs and people are listening to them it is mainly because of the fear they have generated in the people’s hearts and the self-imposed helplessness of our security forces.

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13. September 2010 by admin.

– The Story You Won’t See In the Western Mainstream MediaBy Phyllis Chesler Published September 09, 2010 | FoxNews.com They are crossing the border illegally and violently displacing the indigenous population whose homes and possessions they either destroy or occupy. They are attacking the young, the elderly, and especially the girls and women, whom they kidnap, forcibly convert, or traffic into brothels. The locals are terrified of them. The police rarely come to their aid, nor do the politically correct media or government. Both are terrified by the criminals and terrorists who are riding these immigrant waves.

I am not talking about illegal immigrants to Europe or North America. I am describing Muslims who are penetrating India’s West Bengal region. These Bangladeshi immigrants are becoming conduits for criminal activities (arms, drugs, and sexual slavery) which also fund global jihad.

The author would like to acknowledge the assistance of Nathan Bloom in the preparation of this article.

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11. September 2010 by admin.

Rumors are circulating on the Internet and Indian media over the reported presence of Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops in Pakistani-administered Kashmir, ostensibly to provide “protection for aid and construction workers”. It is not really unusual that the reports/news might be a bit over blown by the media, BUT China’s growing reassertion of territorial claims in the region will not go ignored by India and will give New Delhi and Washington another cause for cooperation. The prospect of greater U.S.-Indian defense cooperation and diminishing U.S. interest in Afghanistan will meanwhile drive Pakistan closer to China, creating a series of self-perpetuating threats on the subcontinent.Let us analyse the geopolitical implications on the subcontinent and relationship of India, Pakistan and China with each other and with United States. U.S. Pacific Command head Adm. Robert F. Willard is on a two-day visit to India to meet with the Indian defense leadership Sept. 9-10. Indian Defense Minister A.K. Antony will follow up his meetings with Willard when he meets with U.S. defense leaders in Washington at the end of September. With an arduous war being fought in Afghanistan and India’s fears growing over Pakistan-based militancy, there is no shortage of issues for the two sides to discuss. But there is one additional topic of discussion that is now elevating in importance: Chinese military moves on the Indian subcontinent.Allegations over a major increase of Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops in northern Kashmir have been circulating over the past several weeks, with an Op-Ed in The New York Times claiming that as many as 7,000 to 11,000 PLA troops have flooded into the northern part of Pakistani-administered Kashmir, known as the Gilgit-Baltistan region. This is an area through which China has been rebuilding the Karakoram Highway, which connects the Chinese region of Xinjiang by road and rail to Pakistan’s Chinese-built and funded ports on the Arabian Sea. Though Chinese engineers have been working on this infrastructure for some time, new reports suggest that several thousand PLA troops are stationed on the Khunjerab Pass on the Xinjiang border to provide security to the Karakoram Highway construction crews. Handfuls of militants have been suspected of transiting this region in the past to travel between Central Asia, Afghanistan and China’s Xinjiang province, and Chinese construction crews in Pakistan have been targeted a number of times by jihadists in Pakistan and Afghanistan. That said, a large Chinese troop presence in the region is likely to serve a larger purpose than simply stand-by protection for Chinese workers.Pakistan responded by describing the reports as fabricated and said a small Chinese presence was in the area to provide humanitarian assistance in the ongoing flood relief effort. Chinese state media also discussed recently how the Chinese government was shipping emergency aid to Pakistan via Kashgar, Xinjiang province, through the Khunjerab Pass to the Sost dry port in northern Pakistan. India expressed its concern over the reports of Chinese troops in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, said it was working to independently verify the claims, and then claimed to confirm at least 1,000 PLA troops had entered the region.Such claims of troop deployments in the region are often exaggerated for various political aims, and these latest reports are no exception. It is still not known for sure the exact number of PLA troops in and around Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (known as Gilgit-Baltistan) and what percentage of those are combat troops. It has been reported that a convoy of approximately 110 Chinese trucks recently delivered some 2,000 metric tons of mostly food aid through the Khunjerab Pass to the Gojal Valley, an area devastated by recent flooding and landslides. Chinese Bridges and Roads Co. (CBRC) has been working on expanding the Karakoram Highway for the past three years and has roughly 700 Chinese laborers and engineers working on the project. The highway expansion is expected to be completed by 2013, but the deadline is likely to be extended as a result of recent flooding.Though, as per various media sources, on-ground reports so far track closest with the Chinese claims of flood relief operations, such relief and construction work can also provide useful cover for a more gradual buildup and sustained military presence in the region. This prospect is on the minds of many U.S. and Indian defense officials who would not be pleased with the idea of China reinforcing military support for Pakistan through overland supply routes.

What can be the intentions behind this build-up?

Though Pakistan, as per its typical characteristic, has reacted defiantly to the rumors, Islamabad has much to gain from merely having the rumor out in the open. Pakistan’s geopolitical vulnerability cannot be overstated. The country already faces a host of internally wrenching issues but must also contend with the fact that the Pakistani heartland in the Indus River Valley sits near the border with Pakistan’s much bigger and more powerful Indian rival, denying Islamabad any meaningful strategic depth to adequately defend itself. Pakistan is thus on an interminable search for a reliable, external power patron for its security, and its preferred choice is the United States, which has the military might and economic heft to buttress Pakistani defenses. However, Washington must maintain a delicate balance on the subcontinent, moving between its deepening partnership with India and keeping Pakistan on life support to avoid having India become the unchallenged South Asian hegemon.

Though Pakistan will do whatever it can to hold U.S. interest in an alliance with Islamabad — and keeping the militant threat alive is very much a part of that calculus — it will more often than not be left feeling betrayed by its allies in Washington. With U.S. patience wearing thin on Afghanistan, talk of a U.S. betrayal is naturally creeping up again among Pakistani policymakers as Pakistan fears that a U.S. withdrawal from the region will leave Pakistan with little to defend against India, a massive militant mess to clean up and a weaker hand in Afghanistan. China, while unwilling to put its neck out for Pakistan and provoke retaliation by India, provides Islamabad with a vital military backup that Pakistan can not only use to elicit more defense support against the Indians, but also to capture Washington’s attention with a reminder that a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan could open the door for Chinese military expansion in South Asia.Chinese motives in the Kashmir affair are more complex. Even before the rumors, India and China were diplomatically sparring over the Chinese government’s recent refusal to issue a visa to a senior Indian army general on grounds that his command includes Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. Such diplomatic flare-ups have become more frequent over the past couple of years, as China has used visa issuances in disputed territory in Kashmir and in Arunachal Pradesh along the northern Indian border to assert its territorial claims while trying to discredit Indian claims. Even beyond Kashmir, China has injected life into its territorial claims throughout the East and South China seas, much to the consternation of the Pacific Rim states.China’s renewed assertiveness in these disputed territories can be explained in large part by the country’s resource acquisition strategy. As China has scaled up its efforts to scour the globe for energy resources to sustain its elephantine economy, it has increasingly sought to develop a military that can safeguard vital supply lines running through the Indian Ocean basin to and from the Persian Gulf. Building the Karakoram Highway through Kashmir, for example, allows China to substantially cut down the time it takes to transit supplies between the Pakistani coast and China’s western front.China’s increasing reliance on the military to secure its supply lines for commercial interests, along with other trends, has thus given the PLA a much more prominent say in Chinese policymaking in recent years. This trend has been reinforced by the Chinese government’s need to modernize the military and meet its growing budgetary needs following a large-scale recentralization effort in the 1990s that stripped the PLA of much of its business interests. Over the past decade, the PLA has taken a more prominent role in maintaining internal stability — including responses to natural disasters, riots and other disturbances — while increasing its participation in international peacekeeping efforts. As the PLA’s clout has grown in recent years, Chinese military officials have gone from remaining virtually silent on political affairs to becoming commentators for the Chinese state press on issues concerning Chinese foreign policy.The PLA’s political influence could also be factoring into the rising political tensions in Kashmir. After all, China’s naval expansion into the Indian Ocean basin for its primarily commercial interests has inevitably driven the modernization and expansion of the Indian navy, a process the United States supports out of its own interest to hedge against China. By both asserting its claims to territory in Arunachal Pradesh and Kashmir and raising the prospect of more robust Chinese military support for Pakistan, the Chinese military can benefit from having India’s military focus on ground forces, which require a great deal of resources to maintain a large troop presence in rough terrain, while reducing the amount of attention and resources the Indian military can give to its naval modernization plans.

The Indian Response

There may be a number of commercial, political and military factors contributing to China’s military extensions into South Asia, but India is not as interested in the multifaceted purposes behind China’s moves as it is in the actual movement of troops along the Indian border. From the Indian point of view, the Chinese military is building up naval assets and fortifying its alliance with Pakistan to hem in India. However remote the possibility may be of another futile ground war with China (recall the Sino-Indian war of 1962) across the world’s roughest mountainous terrain, India is unlikely to downplay any notable shifts in China’s military disposition and infrastructure development in the region. India’s traditional response is to highlight the levers it holds with Tibet, which is crucial buffer territory for the Chinese. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s recent visit with the Dalai Lama was certainly not lost on Beijing. Chinese media have already reported recently that India is reinforcing its troop presence in Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh, which flanks the Tibetan plateau. Singh also recently warned that India would have to “take adequate precautions” against Chinese “pinpricks” in Jammu and Kashmir, while maintaining hope of peaceful dialogue.The Chinese relief work in the area so far does not appear to have reached the level of criticality that would prompt India to reinforce its troop presence in Kashmir. However, tensions are continuing to escalate in the region and any meaningful shift in India’s troop disposition would carry significant military implications for the wider region.India has been attempting at least symbolically to lower its war posture with Pakistan and better manage its territorial claims by reducing its troop presence in select parts of Indian-administered Kashmir. If India is instead compelled to beef up its military presence in the region in reaction to Sino-Pakistani defense cooperation, Pakistan will be tempted to respond in kind, creating another set of issues for the United States to try to manage on the subcontinent. Washington has faced a persistent struggle in trying to convince Pakistan’s military to focus on the counterinsurgency effort in Pakistan and Afghanistan and leave it to the United States to ensure the Indian threat remains in check. Though the Pakistani security establishment is gradually adjusting its threat matrix to acknowledge the war right now is at home and not with India, Pakistan’s troop disposition remains largely unchanged, with 147,000 troops devoted to the counterinsurgency effort in northwestern Pakistan and roughly 150,000 troops in standard deployment formation along the eastern border with India.

The United States, like India, is keeping a watchful eye on China’s military movements on the subcontinent, providing another reason for the two to collaborate more closely on military affairs. Willard was quoted by the Indian state press Sept. 10 as saying that “any change in military relations or military maneuvers by China that raises concerns of India” could fall within U.S. Pacific Command’s area of responsibility, while also maintaining this is an issue for the Indian military to handle on its own. 

Though the United States is being exceedingly cautious in defining its role in this affair, it cannot avoid the fact that every time U.S. and Indian defense officials get together to discuss Pakistan and China, Islamabad’s fears of a U.S.-Indian military partnership are reinforced, drawing the Pakistanis closer to China. This combination of insecurities is creating a self-perpetuating threat matrix on the subcontinent with implications for U.S., Indian, Chinese and Pakistani defense strategy.

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7. September 2010 by admin.

HINDVI SWARAJ

The youth rose in rebellion. Shivaji wrote in 1645 AD to one of his compatriots severely protesting against the allegation of being faithless to the Shah of Vijapur, and appealed to the superior morals by reminding him that the only faith they pledged was not to any Shah, but to God alone. Did he not in the company of Dadaji, his guardian, and his comrades solemnly swear in the presence of God on the summits of Sahyadri to fight to finish and establish “Hindvi Swaraj”, a Hindu-Pad-Padshahi in Hindustan (India)? “GOD IS ON OUR SIDE AND HE SHALL WIN!”

This word, “Hindvi Swaraj”, coming from the pen of Shivaji himself, reveals, as nothing else could have done, the very soul of the great movement that attired the life and the activities of Maharashtra for a hundred years and more. Even in its inception the Maratha rising was neither a parochial nor a personal movement altogether. It was essentially a Hindu movement in the defense of Hindu Dharma to overthrow the alien muslim domination, for the establishment of an independent, powerful Hindu Empire.

It was not only the leader of Marathas who was actuated by this patriotic zeal, but it was more or less shared throughout his camp and his country. The people were as fully conscious of the patriotic spirit that actuated the efforts of Shivaji, as he himself was. He was hailed everywhere as the deliverer of the Hindus.

And even those, who still ranged themselves on the Muslim side were doing so either through their natural failure to conceive that a rebellion against the great Muslim Padshah could ever succeed, or through a natural hesitation to accept the lead of young and raw enthusiast as Shivaji must have appeared, to the more callous and calculating minds,a s well as to those who had vested personal interests in the permanence of the Muslim rule.

But to Hindus in general, not only in Maharashtra, but throughout the Deccan and even in North, he was the one great champion of their cause, the chosen hero of his race, who was destined to win the political independence of his Land and his Race. History, tradition and literature of that period teem with passages and events that give noble expression to his popular regard and appreciation which the mission and work of Shivaji, Ramdas and their generation won throughout Hindudom, district after district, and town after town, longed and pressed for the coming of Marathas under Shivaji and rejoiced to see Muslim flag being torn asunder from its flag-staff and the sacred Geruva of the Marathas rise and wave triumphant in its stead.

to cite only one example to subtantiate this statement, let us refer to the letter which the people of Savnoor sent to Shivaji when the Hindus of that district could no longer tolerate the Muslim rule.

“We are groaning under the tyrannical sway of the aliens and our dharma is trampled under foot. Come! O, Champion of the Hindu faith, come! O, destroyer of the wicked and the unbelieving aliens’ rule! Here we are at mercy of the Muslim General, Yusuf, and his army, who because we sympathize with Thee and conspired to invite our Hindu compatriots under Thee, have made us prisoners in our own house, place guards at our gates, and are trying to starve us by interdicting food and water. So turn thy nights into days and come, O Deliverer of the Hindu Race!”

It is needless to state that Shivaji did not turn a deaf ear to this moving appeal of his co-religionists beyond the borders of Maharashtra. Hambir Rao, the famous Maratha Captain,hastened to the scene, inflicting crushing defeats on the forces of Vijapur in more than one battlefield, delivered the Hindus from Muslim clutches and rid that district of their rule.

Having out in order his little jagir, comprising Poona and Supa, and organizing the 12 mavals (districts) when he was but 14-16 years old, Shivaji, with his chosen band, took Torana and other important forts by tactful surprises and daring raids. After gaining one of his most decisive victories over the forces of Vijapur under Afzal Khan, Shivaji came in open conflict with the Moguls. Having routed several of their captains and generals now surrendering, now surprising, but always outwitting them, he struck such a terror in the hearts of his foes that even Auranzeb thought it prudent to drop opposition for a while and lure him into trap. But Shivaji proved more than a match even for an Auranzeb in his intrigues, and frustrating his treacherous designs at Agra, escaped unscathed from captivity and reached Raigadh safely. The war with Moguls was resumed and Sinhgadh was re-captured by Shivaji. Several other captains distinguished themselves by inflicting crushing defeats on the Muslims wherever they met, till at last Shivaji thought it prudent and safe to have himself formally crowned as the Hindu Chhatrapati - the champion of HIndu Dharma and Hindu Civilization. Since the fall of Vijayanagar, never had a Hindu Prince dared to have himself crowned as an independent ruler, as a Chhatrapati. This coronation broke the spell of Muslim superiority in arms. Never again did they prove a match for the hindus in the battlefield.

The results seems miraculous even to actors themselves, Ramdas, himself the high priest of that war of Hindu Liberation, sings in one of his mystic utterances of the vision he had seen and the triumphantly asserts that much of what he had seen in his vision had already come to pass.

“In utter darkenss I dreamt: behold, the dreams are realized. Hindustan is up, has come by her own and those that hated her and sinned against God are put down with a strong hand. Verily, it is a holy land and happy. For, God has made her cause His own and Auranzeb is down. The dethroned are enthroned and enthroned are dethroned! Actions speaks better than words. Verily, Hindustan is a holy land and happy; now that Dharma is backed up by RajDharma, Right by Might, the waters of Hind, no longer defiled, can enable us once more to perform our ablutions and austerities.”

It was this consciousness of fighting under the banner of God that made Shivaji, when he succeeded in founding an independent Hindu Kingdom, to lay it all at the feet of his consciousness of a great mission that made Ramdas return it all to his illustrious disciple as a trust to be administered for the good of man and to Glory of God.

The stirring appeal and the battle song that the Maratha trumpet sounded from the summits of Sahyaadri in the name of Dharma and Hindu-Pad-Padshahi touched and roused all hinduism far beyond the borders of Maharashtra and made them feel that the cause that was being fought out by the Marathas aimed at nothing short of the deliverance of the Hindus and Hindu Land from the hated alien bondage.

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29. August 2010 by admin.

THE RAPE OF INDIA

David Kostinchuk <dkost@mb.sympatico.ca>

 “THE RAPE OF INDIA”In the article ” The Jungle Of Christ” I discussed the plans of the television evangelists and their assault on India. In this article I will deal with this subject in a more detailed perspective.The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines rape as: 1. take by force. 2. commit rape on. fig. forcible interference with institutions, country, etc.The rape of India is done in a model similar to a military model used to invade, occupy, control, or subjugate a population of a given country. Intelligence is considered essential to invading a country; language, religion, culture, etc. are some of the variables considered. Division among the given population is considered essential to gain political control once inside the country. Religion can be the key variable to accomplish this. Division of wealth, social status, ethnic diversity, etc. are also variables that influence division of the population of a given country.At the present time North India is considered the core target of evangelists in their effort of world evangelism. They justify this to Christians by using derogatory remarks like ” 900 million Hindus are spiritual bondage” (Baptist Press 10/99) or “900 million people lost in the hopeless darkness of Hinduism” (Baptist Press 11/99)North India is a major population and political center. It is also considered the religious hub of India, the most socially deprived, has the lowest literacy rate, having the smallest percentage of Christians in its population as well as having immense research done on the population. The evangelists consider Hindus in North India as being the most accessible target in their plan for world wide evangelism. In addition there is the added incentive of having a Muslim population of 140 million.The AD2000 movement uses terms such as “spy out the land and its inhabitants” to get an accurate complete picture of opportunities and challenges of India. They have coined the terms PLUG, PREM and NICE to describe their goals and methodology. PLUG refers to the target group. People in every language, urban center and geographic division. PREM refers to the techniques to use. Offering prayer, research must be done and utilized effectively on the target group, an evangelist must be the catalyst to provoke change and action and to encourage ministries and their efforts to convert non Christians. NICE refers to how the work is to be done. Networking, taking initiative when the movement is slowing down, using an evangelist to speed action in evangelizing and to encourage existing groups and cohorts in their efforts to convert people to Christianity. ( http://www.ad2000.org/uters3.htm )The Gospel For Christ and The Indian Missionary Association have put together books to help evangelists evangelize India. The evangelists are also using information from The Anthropological Society of India’s work on ethno-graphic studies which has been considered essential in facilitating the evangelism efforts. This has been used to such a degree that the diverse language groups of India have been divided into PIN codes. ( These are similar to ZIP codes in the USA that divide the country into mailing districts.) The ability to send evangelists that are familiar to language, culture, etc. greatly facilitates the speed at which evangelism is able to develop and is cost effective since tactics can be formed at the home base which saves costly mistakes in the field.ad2000 ( http://www.ad2000.org/uters2.htm ) The Christian Broadcasting Network has a splinter group that is called The Joshua Project. Their target is 2.2 billion people in 1685 groups that are divided into Affinity Blocks and Gateway Clusters. Affinity groups are groups of people who have bonding of language, religion, politics and culture. Usually there is one culture that is dominate in the block. People clusters are people that are closely related in name or culture so they are clustered together. These groups usually consist of populations of over one million. There goal is to have at least one hundred Christians or more in every group of over 10,000 people. Joshua Project ( http://www.ad2000.org/ )There are too many evangelist groups in India to cover in this article however; I will discuss a few of them to give a picture of how they proliferate.The Indian Prayer + Fellowship Association has a goal to reach all non Christians to start cell groups. They have contacted over 16,000 houses, made almost 900 home contacts and over 1700 personal contacts. Their goal is to start cell groups than attach a full gospel group or plant a church if needed.They also supply tracts, literature etc. Indian Prayer And Fellowship Association ( http://www.geocities.com/athens/troy )Partners International has the goal of training indigenous people to evangelize others. They are training a Christian who has converted to Christianity every 13 minutes. They claim planting a church every ten hours in Asia and Africa. ( http://www.partnersintl.org/aboutpi/welcome.html )The southern Baptists plan to have 4,700 southern Baptists working with millions of international partners. Their goal is to have 15,000 career missionaries, 50,000 volunteers, and 1,000 southern Baptist college grads every year. The length of service for the college grads is to be two years. ( Baptist Press 11/22/99)The evangelists strategy for North India includes treating Indian missions and Indian evangelists as equal considering that India has a strong GNP and a growing middle class. Due to the large population base the evangelists strategy includes dividing up the population base into smaller target groups such as women estimated to number 487 million or girls under 15 which is estimated to number 158 million. They plan to use literacy programs o target the illiterate which is estimated to be 48% of the population. They also plan to supply the Indian church with tools such as translators, humanitarian relief, etc. so the churches can become self sustaining and would not need outside assistance. ( http://www.gem-werc.org/mmrc9812.htm)The evangelists India outreach teams -hbi ministries international India provide schools, orphanages, medical centers etc. In a six week period outreach teams ministered to 19,000 children and taught Hindu and Muslim students in Christian schools. ( http://www.gospel.net/hbi/iot/ )Dr. Houtsma of World Outreach Ministries stated that he has helped train 160,000 national ministers to continue his work when he leaves. He is targeting Jammu, Vyara, Ludhiana, etc. ( http://www.wo.org/ )One of the variables in training indigenous missionaries is the decreased cost to support missionaries. A foreign missionary cost at least $66,000 a year to support. Native missionaries cost approximately $600 a year. This greatly decreases the cost of evangelizing. Christian Aid. ( http://www.christianaid.org/ )Native missionaries now do 90% of the work in starting churches. These people are more effective in converting people because They understand the language, customs, culture, etc. In addition recent converts are often more zealous in their efforts to convert people to their way of thinking. Hundreds of thousands of zealous converts can also have a sever profound influences on the political system that is in effect.The reader of this article should be aware of the fact that these students could be influenced toward Christianity by their teachers. In addition orphanages can be the breeding ground for future evangelists. In an orphanage children could be brainwashed and conditioned during school and after school. The children in an orphanage can have their social life controlled after school so they only socialize with evangelists. These children have no family or other people outside of the evangelists to look after their welfare so they can easily be programmed.It is interesting though sad to see the results that might occur as the evangelists enter their last stage of evangelism in India. You can see considerable backlash against evangelism as stated in the newspapers. Evangelists cry to the politicians, civil right groups and newspapers in the West.Some questions must be asked though. Do evangelists have the right to disrupt society, culture, religion, and the family of people in other countries? Do people have the right to combat the attack on the culture, etc. of their country?I would welcome any comments or feedback on this article.David KostinchukVISIT MY WEBSITE: PEOPLE UNITED FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOMhttp://www3.mb.sympatico.ca/~dkost/index.htm

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