Buddhist TV and Hopes for Peace

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa inaugurated a new satellite tv channel The Buddhist, according to a June 30th report by the Hindustan Times. The channel is meant to celebrate the long-standing religious and cultural ties between Sri Lanka and India that date back to the third century B.C. when Prince Mahinda of India introduced Buddhism to the island. As the Times notes, this should be a welcome development for the Sinhalese Buddhists, who until now did not have a channel to call their own and should also bolster their support for President Rajapaksa. The Sri Lankan constitution charges the government with protecting the Buddhist tradition and The Buddhist will enhance its ability to do so. The channel will begin to broadcast in Sinhalese and English but plans to provide programming in Tamil, French and other international languages.

The Buddhist’s inauguration arises against the backdrop of a worsening armed conflict between the Sri Lankan-Sinhalese controlled government and the Tamil Tigers. After the two sides met in Oslo on June 25th, the Times reported that they agreed to return to the negotiating table although diplomats from Norway and the United States, among others involved in the mediation remain less than optimistic. Confronted with an aggressive Sri Lankan military that has caused more than 20,000 Tamilians to seek refuge in India and an unpredictable party chair of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Velupillai Prabhakaran, there is no indication that the negotiations will even take place, let alone the fruition of an accord.

The Buddhist stands to be an incredibly powerful new element in this ongoing struggle. On the one hand, if the government commandeers the station, thereby fortifying its dominance over the hearts and minds of Sri Lankans, the channel may prove to exacerbate the conflict and elevate its intensity by becoming a mouthpiece for inflammatory rhetoric. On the other hand, if the channel remains relatively independent from the Sri Lankan government and adopts an inclusive, critical and conciliatory philosophy, it will prove a powerful tool for the realization of a heretofore elusive peace. If a recent note submitted by the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) to the International Press Freedom and Freedom of Expression Mission is any indication of what avatar of The Buddhist we can expect to see, then inflammatory rhetoric and suppression of free speech will prevail, at least in the beginning. According to this report, both the Sri Lankan government in the South and the LTTE in the East and North are brazenly infringing upon the freedom of press and human rights in general, leading to a “serious deterioration” in the security of media personnel. Abuses include abductions, murders and use of governmental agencies and the courts to silence, intimidate, and in some cases, shut down news gathering organizations.

Large Corporations Issue Report on How to Help Globalization’s “Losers”

The WSJ reported today that the Financial Services Forum (FSF), a non-profit/non-partisan group made up of CEOs of the world’s largest financial-services corporations, offered suggestions on what to do about workers “on the losing end of globalization”. Although similar concerns were raised by the OECD (and reported by the Wire here), the WSJ notes that the FSF report “marks one of the first times top business leaders have sought to weigh in collectively in the globalization debate”. Many of the companies represented within the FSF are worried that a public backlash against globalization could manifest itself in protectionist legislation and “the banking, investment and other CEOs who belong to the group have consistently cited protectionism as the leading threat to continued U.S. and global economic growth.”

The members of the FSF, including Lloyd Blankfein (CEO of Goldman Sachs) Stan O’Neal (CEO of Merrill Lynch), and Kenneth Lewis (CEO of Bank of America), noted in a statement that:

“Our open-trade and investment policies have significantly enhanced the economic well-being of American citizens, although not everyone has shared equally in the benefits of globalization.”

Along with this, the report offered the following positive statistics:

• Living standards in the US are $1 trillion higher per year because of globalization
  • This translates to a gain of $10,000 a year per US household
• If trade and investment is allowed to continue without restriction, annual US income could be $500 billion higher, with an additional gain of $5,000 a year per household

These developments were contrasted by evidence that:

• From the mid 1970s to late 1990s, the income growth of less-skilled workers in the US lagged behind “economy-wide productivity gains” as well as the income growth of “their more skilled counterparts”
• Since 2000 “the large majority of American workers have seen poor income growth”

In addressing these concerns, the report offered a wide range of policy suggestions. The WSJ noted:

“Its ideas range from the familiar — such as raising taxes on the wealthy to address income disparities — to the novel, such as insuring communities against “sudden economic dislocation” caused by a plant shutdown or other factors.”

Notable among these recommendations are the following:

• Merge all worker assistance (unemployment, wage insurance, and trade-adjustment assistance) into a single program
• Increase the progressivity of the overall tax system and ensure broader sharing of the benefits of America’s participation in the global economy
  • This would include elimination of the payroll tax for those earning less than the national average
• Policymakers should begin knitting individual free trade agreements into the basis for wider agreements
• Congress should significantly expand the resources available for enforcement of U.S. trade agreements
• Congress should limit the scope of inward investment reviews by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

Another area of importance touched upon is “one of the most frequently talked-about prescriptions for success in a global economy — improving workers’ skills through continued education.” Although the three economists who authored the report agree that education can have a role in reducing negative impacts of globalization in the future, greater training is deemed in adequate in its ability to address problems plaguing low-skilled Americans right now. Illustrating this, one of the authors, former Bush Administration economist and current Dartmouth College professor Matthew Slaughter, noted that “it has taken 60 years for the percentage of Americans with college degrees to grow to 30% from 6%.”

Apparently keen to see government consideration of its suggestions, the WSJ reports that the paper’s authors met with legislators this past Friday. However, the article cautions that “many of the paper’s recommendations are likely to be politically difficult to achieve.”

India’s Prized Right, at What Cost?

The U.S.-India civil nuclear partnership is in the throes of what one can characterize as labor pangs. The Hindu reported that officials from the two states are at an impasse regarding India’s right to reprocess spent nuclear fuel. The Hyde Act (discussed below), now being deliberated in Congress, is the enabling legislation for the nuclear partnership. In this bill, the U.S. would prefer to restrict India’s ability to reprocess spent uranium. A byproduct arising from this process is weapons-grade material. India argues that it has a right to reprocess fuel and has offered to place such a facility under “international safeguards”.  It further argues that the July 2005 joint-statement declaring the partnership contemplated such a right and that the U.S. now seeks to dilute it significantly. One way the Hyde Act attempts this is by requiring U.S. presidential certification for reprocessing a plant’s fuel. Not at all bashful, several high-level nuclear scientists in India have dug their heels in the ground and demonstrated a troubling fervor with which they’re willing to defend this right. One scientist quoted in the Hindu expressed his frustration with the Hyde Act and its implications:

“Here is another example that the U.S. remains bound by its terms and intends to invoke them to bludgeon India into agreeing [to the Act's terms]“.

Although India agreed to maintain a moratorium on weapons-testing, officials seem to want a stockpile of weapons-grade material as a safety net.

Pakistan Who?

In related news, the Guardian and several other news agencies reported that Pakistan is building a third plutonium reactor according to satellite images of Khushab, a town 100 miles south of Islamabad. Plutonium weapons pack a greater explosive charge than their uranium counterparts and are delivered in a relatively compact vessel. In a report authored by the Washington-based Institute of Science and International Security, David Albright, a former U.N. inspector, warned that this development should be viewed as an indication of Pakistan’s intent to accelerate its weapons proliferation and usher in a generation of enhanced nuclear strike capability. New Delhi shrugged off the report as another attempt by the partisan non-proliferation camp to stir up more controversey around the Indian nuclear partnership with Washington. A former director of India’s Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA), K. Santhanam, was quoted in the Hindustan Times as saying,

“[The civil nuclear partnership] and suggestions of an arms race is a complete non-sequitur,–There is no connection with this and the Indo-US civil nuclear deal. This is part of the non-proliferation, ayatollah brigade jargon.”

 For its part, Pakistan maintains that it is pursuing this program for peaceful purposes according to an official who spoke to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity. In short, we can expect more of the same from both of these regional rivals who exhibited strikingly similar behavior while on the road to nuclear-weaponhood. Also present for this chapter is the United States and a flabbergasted Western world that can’t seem to squelch its hunger for money even when faced with the most perilious of circumstances. A word of advice to Washington- back away slowly or demand that all of India’s spent fuel, past and present must come under complete IAEA safeguards in order for the deal to go forward.

“Reverse Outsourcing”

Sure there are one-way streets but no one can guarantee they’ll point the same way forever. So it is with outsourcing and in case Obama or any other presidential candidate wants to make a stop at the “trash-foreign-workforces-station” on their campaign trail, it would behoove them to examine job-flow trends past and present to reach a sound conclusion. In a June 19th article, The Hindustan Times quoted analyst John McCarthy of Forrester Research Inc (FORR) as saying, “The Indians are doing to the world’s IT processes what the Japanese did to manufacturing.” Indian companies such as Wipro, Infosys and the largest offshoring firm, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) are increasingly hiring American workers in cities such as Austin, TX and Atlanta, GA where there are significant tech talent pools.

The companies cited several business considerations that justified the recent trend; 1) the need to hire local talent in order to satisfy local customers 2) the relative increased cost in shipping Indian workers to the States on H-1B foreign worker visas and providing temporary housing 3) the recent appreciation of the Rupee made hiring Americans cheaper and prospectively, due to stiff competition in India, tech-sector wages there are projected to increase 12 to 15% a year.

In sum, the Hindustan reports that Indian firms are poised to become “major employers in the U.S. economy.” Consider this in light of Nick’s recent posting on the OECD’s employment outlook report. The report expressed reservations about globalization’s adverse impact on low-wage workers in developed economies. If the idea is to keep low-wage workers at low-wage then globilization is certainly a serious policy concern for the OECD’s 30 members. On the other hand, if the idea is to move human resources to a higher state of utility and raise the low-wage sector’s standard of living, the serious policy concern should be how OECD’s member states can begin to satisfy the growing demand for skilled-labor that companies like Wipro, Infosys and TCS will inevitably present.

Economic Losers: OECD Concerned about Globalization Backlash

In its annual Employment Outlook report issued today, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a group comprised of 30 developed countries maintaining free market economies and democratic politcal processes, indicated that increasing public concern over the negative impacts of globalization could “undermine”, as the WSJ put it, “politicians’ support for cross-border trade and investment”.

While the protectionist trend in American politics is well-documented as of late, people like Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. have been successful in forestalling anti-trade legislation like a bill proposed by Senators Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) that would levy a 27.5% tariff on all imports from China. Despite the efforts of Secretary Paulson, the OECD reports that the Lou Dobbs of the world will no doubt be encouraged by data showing that competition with developing countries like China and India is impacting labor markets in industrialized economies like the US and Europe, particularly for low-wage workers.

Again, the notion that certain segments of industrialized economies are being squeezed by lower-cost foreign labor is both consistent with accepted economic theory and hardly news. However, it is remarkable that the OECD, traditionally a “bastion of economic orthodoxy, which champions open, competitive markets” has expressed reservations about some of globalization’s impacts.

On the whole, the OECD reaffirms its belief that all nations are better off with freer trade, even economies with workers that may be facing depressed wages. Calling the “vulnerability” of these workers a significant concern, the group maintains that other factors, like the spread of computer technology allowing certain jobs to be more easily outsourced, plays a greater role in increasing income inequality than trade alone.

Obama Update: “My Bad”

In the wake of last week’s “not-for-attribution” memo referring to Hillary Clinton as “D-Punjab” and referenced below by Kesav, a large amount of criticism has been directed at Barack Obama, particularly from the Indian-American community. However, in a positive development today, Obama took “responsibility” for the “screw-up”, calling the memo “stupid” and “caustic” at a meeting with Des Moines Register staff.

In explaining the memo, Obama noted the “joke” that his campaign research team came up resulted from hearing accounts of a March appearance before Indian-Americans in which Clinton said “I can certainly run for the Senate seat in Punjab and win easily.”

The original article appears:  here

obama staff

Contraception: The Coy Leading the Blind

Two of the world’s largest democracies, India and the United States share more in common than their form of government. Both societies demonstrate a distinctive recalcitrance to programs that promote sex education and awareness despite being faced with significant populations of high at-risk, sexually active citizens. Today’s NYTimes article, “Pigs With Cellphones, but No Condoms” underscores this disfunction which is even prevalent in America’s top networks. Fox and CBS both rejected a Trojan condom commercial that, according to a written response from Fox, “addressed prevention of pregnancy” instead of stressing health-related issues. While an element of hypocrisy has always persisted in both American and Indian cultures when it comes to sex, those in the contraception business may find this development especially disqueiting if the networks’ reaction is any indication of how more conservative societies will respond to marketing by the prophylactic industry.

In a May 26, 2007 article, “Conservatives obstruct sex education in 6 states“, LiveMint reported that six of India’s twenty-eight states suspended a federally approved “adolescence education” program designed for 15- to 17-year-olds primarily due to conservative uproar that took issue with an illustrated flip-book depicting the changes an adolescent goes through during puberty. Among these states were Karnataka and Maharashtra, home to two of India’s largest sprawling metropolises, Bangalore and Mumbai. In such cities, young adults are leading increasingly independent and Westernized lifestyles free from the physical familial restrictions that historically made casual sex a dangerous and hence, less frequently embarked upon adventure. Condom manufacturers targetting these markets will be forced to strive for exceedingly creative ways to reach their consumers while satisfying the rightist groups (Hindu, Muslim and Christian) that decry the “corruption of their youth” to the high heavens.

Although a recent study suggested that India’s HIV infected population may be significantly less than once estimated, as the Wire noted in “Second Place is Better“, the fact remains that an epidemic is what we have to reckon with.

Barack’s Bite

Up until now I haven’t had many complaints about Barack Obama’s campaign and in fact, I’ve even tuned into most of his speeches being that he’s an incredible orator. Hell, I might even vote for him if he (or whoever is at the helm of his campaign) avoids pulling knucklehead moves like the one that was reported in the NYTimes today. In the article, “To Avoid Conflicts, Clintons Liquidate Holdings “, as the Times noted, so far the Obama camp has held itself out as above the election-season mud-slinging that typifies our democratic process. Well, if there was any doubt that Obama’s camp isn’t just as waist-deep in mud as the rest of them you have your proof here. In a knee-jerk statement analyzing the Clintons’ recent disclosure of their asset holdings, Obama’s campaign attempted to send a “not-for-attribution” shot to Sen. Clinton by characterizing her as a sell-out to Indian interests. This was Obama’s (yes Obama’s, I don’t understand what not-for-attribution means when one’s name is all over the statement), spin on what were investments in Cisco, a few Indian companies and receipts from fundraising by Indian-Americans. Aside from the misplaced contempt for outsourcing which is surprising, Obama titled the piece, “Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab)”. I have a self-deprecating sense of humor just as much as the next Indian but Obama shouldn’t be surprised to find out that most of the target audience for this announcement doesn’t even know what or where Punjab is. He might as well have called her a Syrian democrat for that matter.

Second, I expect more from Obama on an academic level. Sure, it’s election season and we all have to anticipate dumbed down sound-bytes that oversimplify every issue but 1) Obama should know outsourcing is the natural result of this country’s failed education system and the emergence of hungrier people abroad who learn four languages (English being the most emphasized) by the age of 10 and can do long division in their sleep. 2) Outsourcing as a “hot-button” issue is nearing the end of its shelf-life. After Thomas Friedman’s documentary and companion article in the Times magazine, “It’s a Flat World, After All” it’s pretty much acknowledged in most academic circles (the ones that count) that outsourcing, for the most part, opens more opportunities for innovation and progress in economies that are “losing” certain service sector jobs to up-and-coming countries such as India. The upshot of it is that the more developed economies have to invest more in research and development, in science and technology, i.e. invest in the people in order to maintain an edge. It still remains true that some of the best ideas still originate here and spread like wild-fire across the world (think, myspace, youtube, Google). Of course, that’s a longer answer and its much easier to call Sen. Clinton a Punjabi democrat.

The sad thing is I’d still like to pull for him and will, for the time being, assume this was just a miscommunication within his own ranks a-la Gonzalez (“I didn’t approve the title, he did”). But why alienate a whole demographic by resorting to border-line xenophobic attacks? And besides, do would-be-Barack-voters want the jobs going overseas anyway? Working in a call-center for 20 hours a day sound like a good time? Barack, think and edit before you release “not-for-attribution” statements.

In this Case Second Place is Better: India Has Fewer AIDS Victims Than Thought

The NYT reports that a study financed by the Gates Foundation drastically reduces the number of Indians suspected of being infected with HIV. A previous 2006 UN report estimated that there were 5.7 million Indians infected, more than any other nation. However, the new study, yet to be released, puts the number between 2 and 3 million, putting India behind South Africa (5.5 million) and Nigeria (2.9 million) in the overall rankings.

Epidemiologists were quick to note that the findings, although encouraging, were no reason to decrease efforts at preventing the spread of the disease. India’s health minister expressed hope that India could keep its AIDS epidemic from becoming “generalized”, spreading through the main population as opposed to being mainly restricted to subgroups of the population. An epidemic is considered to be generalized more than 1% of the population is infected. The new data reduces India’s infection rate from 0.9% to as low as 0.3%.

Like the US, India’s AIDS cases tend to be restricted to specific socio-economic groups: “prostitutes and their clients, especially truckers; men who have sex with men; and people who inject drugs, especially in the northeastern part of the country near the border with Myanmar.” Moreover, researchers suggest that India has been spared the higher rates of infections seen in Africa due to differing “sexual networks”. As the article noted:

“In southern and southeastern Africa … both men and women often have two or more occasional but regular sexual partners over long periods of time. Also, outside of prostitution, “transactional sex” between teen-age girls and older men in return for money, food or clothes is much less common in Asia than in Africa.”

Indian officials have been criticized by international health organizations for not taking the country’s AIDS epidemic seriously enough. When Bill Gates donated $100 to fighting the disease, former heath minister “Satrugan Sinha, accused him of ‘spreading panic among the general public’ by suggesting that cases could reach 25 million by 2010″.

Even with the welcome decrease in infected Indians, experts stress the need for continued vigilance and government involvement in sexual education. Anjali Gopolan, executive director of the Naz Foundation (India) Trust, noted that despite the new figures, “the infection is here, and we have a huge burden — we are a very sexually active culture, contrary to what the politicians want to project.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/07/world/asia/07cnd-aids.html?hp=&pagewanted=all